The topic of the thread is focused on the visual aesthetic of Magic Missile, and how the recent updates to its pathing mechanic have changed that visual aesthetic. As with any forum thread, and Especially with threads located in the suggestions and feedback section of a forum, discussion and conversation should remain focused on, or at least orbiting, the primary topic of the thread. If another discussion springs up that is tangential but discussion worth enough to derail that topic into something else, then a new thread should be made to discuss it, or an existing thread that discusses that other topic revived.

Discussions about the concentration mechanic are far enough removed from the origin of this thread that they should be discussed elsewhere; there are several other threads that have mulled over the issue and various people's opinions on it, and folks who want to add their thoughts to that topic are most welcome to find the existing relevant threads to do; it's far easier for data collection if topics can reliably stay on topic a much as possible, and important opinions about various elements of the game can be sourced in threads focused on those elements.

Personally, I always felt that the 'default' for magic missile, before personal flare and customisation, falls into the blue-purple spectrum of visuals, so for me, having it be red light bolts is the most off-putting aspect. That said, I've never personally been fond of the spell ,and rarely take or use it with nay of my spell casters in tabletop games - as much as it's reliable to a certain extent, its value for slot output is too low to use regularly. It's more of a utility/flexibility spell, in my eyes.

I'd very much welcome the ability to customise our spell visuals to a small extent though - especially since they're going out of their way to remind players that they can and should feel free to do that, in the pen and paper publications now.

In terms of the pathing changes - It's a major issue in Larian's game engine, and one that we sadly cannot expect them to fix or change at this stage, that spells, AoEs and ranged attacks all have to run through the gauntlet of the actual world physics engine BEFORE they get calculated at all. This is an egregiously stupid design, but it's been in the core of their system since... since Divine Divinity, I think. It should run the actual mechanical calculations first, then run the physics afterwards (this is all done in less than a fraction of a second from our perspective regardless), because the game needs to report accurately to the player, which it currently often doesn't do.

The way it should work is:
- You have a clean shot and can select the target as an appropriate target fro your current position.
- The spell/attack/item/ability has 'these' mechanical effects and works 'this' way.
- Therefore, 'this' is what happens, since it was correctly input and used.
- Visuals simulate this in the visual world engine with physics etc.
- Sometimes something goes wacky with the physics and it doesn't 'look' like everything hit right; but mechanically, the ability had this effect, which you knew and which was accurately reports, so you know that it did
- The combat log reflects the reality of what happened, not the occasionally wacky visual.

The way it works in Larian games, including BG3:
- You have a clean shot and can select the target as an appropriate target from your current position.
- Visuals simulate this in the visual world engine with physics etc.
- Sometimes something goes wacky with the physics and it doesn't 'look' like everything hit right; shots hit obstructions that weren't listed, AoEs don't hit the figures that were highlighted, magic missiles hit the ground near their target and don't connect.
- The spell/attack/item/ability has 'these' mechanical effects and works 'this' way - but it is only calculated for the targets that were actually hit by the visual simulation, meaning that the player often does not receive the effects that the game itself reported to them that they would.
- The combat log reflects only the calculations that happened after the physics simulation, showing nothing at all for the 'packets lost' as a result of that simulation.

This was 'okay' for games like D:OS2 which relied heavily upon the in-world physics engine to simulate gameplay - in those games, abilities referenced the fact, and didn't have set ranges and target counts in any hard way - in those games, if you could find a pixel on an enemy's toe that made their portrait light up, then you could shoot them, and in many cases where distance of shot mattered, finding the 'furthest pixel' on their model from you to make your shot was the really dumb meta for many skills. But the games were silly, and Larian were working freely in their own world space, with their own rule system, so it was fine there.

That way of processing turns is not suitable for D&D video games... but Larian did not decide to make a new game engine suitable for the purpose, when they took on to make a dungeons and dragons game, using someone else's rule set, in someone else's world space. They decide to take their existing game engine and try to hack it into shape to squeeze D&d rules into it, and it's very visible a hack job, at this point.

So, the result is that rather than having a magic missile spell that can streak all over the place as it homes in unerringly on the selected targets, zipping around obstacles and so on as necessary (and occasionally maybe it looks like one of them goes through a wooden beam or something, because the simulation messed up, but you know how the spell mechanically functions, and you can rely on it doing so)... it traces through the world using Larian's bow-shot physics, and if it hits obstacles on the way (which the engine will not path it to avoid), then you just lose those missiles, despite the spells 'unerring' description. Larian's solution was a kludge-fix - as EVERYTHING they do is - they changed the missiles to all follow the same line, to minimise the chances of any obstructions causing missile loss... so it's understandable that some folks will find this unsatisfying.