Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Recasting

Hello there.
First i wish to once aggain remind you that you are doing great job and i love this game ... 6 playthroughs, 223 hours ... and i still didnt try everything. Im in love with this game, honestly.
But, there is still space for improvements, and i would like to mention one of them now.

You probably noticed that many players are criticizing the hotbars, many of us just like to set things to our liking and have them set like that until the judgement day.
But for some reasons, there are certain spells that are working in dirrect oposite from this way ...
So far i noticed this with: Hex, Hunter's Mark, and Speak with Dead ... but im quite sure there is more.

When you use this spell, and manage to hold concentration to the end, you are rewarded by option to recast the same spell once aggain, for free.
And i ask: Why the hells we need second spell that is added to "random" (yes i know that its first aviable place) on hotbar, to be imediatly removed when used?

Wasnt a much smoother way to simply allow us to cast the exactly same spell with the exactly same icon as last time without cost? O_o

Bcs right now we are using our bars to have prepared icon there that we use litteraly once per long rest, if we are sucesfull in keeping concentration, yet the same spell we are using multiple times per combat. :-/


And talking about that i must ask ... The Amulet of Lost Voices ... is there really some reason for this item to have "recharge once per long rest" since we, aggain, simply get recast once the talking is done?
Once again woulnt be better to simply talk with multiple corpses with original spell?
The effect is just the same, it simply saves one spot on hotbar. :-/
And for certain classes, even one spot is quite a lot.

Thanks for reading, i hope its understandable. :-/

Recast should be it's own dedicated button, much like the "actions" are.
I'd personally like to see them move away from a "hotbar only" system, because it's not sustainable at higher levels. I'd like more of a "one button per spell level" with a drop down menu like you sort of have for hex.

The hot bar is nice to have for quick access, but not for all your spells...

I would like for the icons for those spells to inteliigently change to the recast icons on their own when appropriate, and change back to the original spell once you rest.

We all agree the hotbar is a mess for spells at the moment. It's the same issue with spells which you can cast at different levels.

There should be just one icon and then a little popup to choose to recast or to cast it at a certain level, something like what is already done for the choosing of the pet on call familiar spell.

That sounds good, yeah.

If recast will become own dedicated button, then it changes nothing ...
You simply move the special temporary button to left side, where it will be most time useless (read as: Inactive), also you can recast just some spells ... so declare wich can be used in combination with this seem a bit overcombinated. :-/

I had in mind something like:
- Hunter's Mark cast
- NPC with HM died
- You get buff to "not spend spell slot for next Hunter's Mark" (that buff is allready there btw, it just create new icon instead of alterning the old one)
- Hunter's Mark cast aggain, costing bonus action only this time

And for Hex's drop menu ...
Hex's variations are dealing with different problem entirely, and spell levels with another different problem ...

Personaly i dont like drop menu that was created for Hex, and concider it being more anoying than usefull.
I would personaly like to have option to set on my hotbar specific spells ... like Hex(Dexterity) for example ... to cast it directly without searching it in another menu (wich is, to being even more anoying, sorted differently for every character ... when i had Wyll in party with mine Warlock ... i had on most right position Dexterity Hex ... he had on same spot Constitution Hex ... it maid be a little better, if those spells at least sorts alphabeticaly in that drop menu, but still ... meh, for me ofc.).
Yes, i realize that saying this may seem like direct oposite of what i said in OP, since i wanted to reduce number of used slots in hotbar, and now i want to use 6 slots instead of one ... but not exactly! That way i would have exactly the spell i want on exactly the place i want it ... so searching in dropmenu is eliminated, therefore combat runs faster, and smoother in mine opinion ... also, i can allways just not give there those Hex types i simply dont use, maybe i dont understad this system properly, but so far i didnt find much uses for Constitution Hex.

And for spell levels ...
There are multiple different problems with this system, but to just adress this one ...
Conception, that i would need to deal with drop menu for every single spell on every single caster in every single round of every single combat ... sounds to me like good material for nightmares. :-/ That way im affraid that most caster classes would be unplayable for myself ... and since i kinda doubt that Steam would allow me to refund game that i allready played for 200h+, i certainly hope that if Larian decide to implement this hideous abomination ... it would be optional in settings menu. :-/

Personaly i would prefer to either use spell slots that are shown on top of hotbar as interactive buttons to declare wich spell levels you wish to cast ...
Like:
You click on spellslots level 2 ... spellslots level 2 highlights, so you see wich spellslots are you using right now ... and now every spell that have level 2, is casted as level 2 spell until you click on different spellslot ... ofc. spells that dont have level 2 are just gryed out as unaviable.
In fact this option could be also combined with that dropdown menu you like ... either you choose spellslots that are suppose to be used, or your spells will ask you with every cast wich spellslost you wish to use by dropdown menu ... it may even go so far, so if you click on gray spell icon, the game can give you dropdown menu so you dont need to switch spellslots for one cast, if you wish to cast spells level 2 in general, but then situation requires you to cast one spell level 3 (or more).

Or there is second option, much less elegant, yet quite effective ...
And its simply allow players to expand hotbar to more than just two rows ... that way there is more than enough space to stuck there as many spells as player desires to without boring and anoying scrolling between particular hotbars ... there even is icon, that could provide such operation, its those 4 squares on topleft corner on hotbar ...
Like:
You click on those 4squares ... and you hotbar expands on ... dunno, lets say 8 rows, instead of 2 ... that way you have more than enough space to stuck there four time as much spells ... you choose the one you wish to cast, and then you can shrink it back to 2 rows if you wish to see battlefield better, or just leave it as it is if you see all you need to see.
As i said, this is certainly not elegant solution at all ... but it will work.

This is brilliant!
I almost feel ashamed to not thinked about that.

And i love the idea!

Recast needs its own UI action button.

There's also Witch Bolt that hides the recast version in the mess of a hotbar. Now if only Witch Bolt didn't suck horribly and be completely sub par compared to free cast cantrips after level 5...

There will be Spiritual Weapon and Flaming Sphere type spells too which you can operate as a bonus action. Maybe these kind of situational actions should be all grouped together.

I want the spell menu from NWN2

You can open or close it if you want.
You can see all spell you know sorted by level.
You can cast any spell at any level (used to be highten meta magic for sorcerers in NWN2, in 5E it would be like this for everyone).
Adding a recast button to the menu should not be a problem.

There could be a similar menu for class abilities.
Pathfinder kingmaker is a good start, where you have 3 menues to open ( spells, special abilities, usable items.)
The UI could be improved and the spell menu from NWN2 was better, but it is a start.
Putting everything in hotbars only gets confusing fast.

Its unfortunate because the Spells Panel (k) already displays everything perfectly . . . . but you can't cast from it! They really need to add 'right click' to cast from this panel and it would solve a lot of problems. Its odd because you CAN use inventory items from their panel.

I have no choice but to believe the current spell hotbar and interface just is a WIP.
Already when playing a wizard or cleric the bar is bloated to the point where you hardly can contain all of your spells on a single hotbar. It's only going to get worse as you unlock more spells, so I really hope something's done about this sooner rather than later.

Other CRPGs have already created perfectly functional UIs for this. There's no shame in letting yourself be inspired by those; you don't have to reinvent the wheel for everything.

I hope it's WIP.