What background color do you want unknown (or known) spell to have?

Vortaka

I've got 5 type of background and I'm sure others will want some more but it's just for an example...
(It's a pain the poll entries cannot be edited, I'd remove the direct links)

Vortaka

I cannot pick... Either 2 or 5 (Greyscale 2 or Yellow seems good). I'd also vote for unknown spell (instead of know spell to have this background color)

Alkalurops

Why is there no green option? (I know you have "light green" but it's teal)
I think they just need a less toxic green, like http://jsbin.com/APehUfe/1/

Edit: new version: http://jsbin.com/APehUfe/3/
I hope dropbox images can be embedded?

Flashburn

I'm liking the greyscale 2 one, though it looks more like dark green to me. Maybe that's merely the color change it needed, instead of it being a bright green like it is now.

@Sylvus_Moonbow created a few color swaps as well. If others create some, we should vote again so we include everyone.

Vortaka

@Alkalurops: Yeah, this is good too... But, it's more of a personal thing... The best would be to know how to mod it! So that each and every person (with knowledge how this works) could do it!

Mortianna

NONE! What was the problem with looking in one's spellbook to see if your character knows the spell?

If people don't want to be inconvenienced with becoming familiar with their characters' spellbooks, why not just read the notification that's now in the scroll description? The background color looks tacky and seems a little overkill to me.

Alkalurops

@Mortianna Should we remove the "unidentified" color too? You can just look at the item description...
Should we remove the "invalid school" color too? You can just test if you can cast it...

It's called "enhanced" edition for a reason. I think most people will agree this is an enhancement.

Vortaka

Like I said in another post somewhere, this is just a personal preference... The "known" spell color change, for me, is just a little strange... So, red for unusable, blue for unidentified and green (a little less "toxic") for unwritten... (Instead of green for written).

(Or give me the file to mod and I'll WeiDU it (if I can))

Mortianna

@Alkalurops No need for slippery-slope fallacies. I'm sure you can see that "enhancement" is a subjective concept and that not everyone may agree with your preferences.

I don't think it was necessary, but I'm fine with the subtle, slightly shadowed hue on spell scrolls from forbidden schools.

Since mage spells are divided into eight schools, one can read the spell description to find out whether a specialist wizard may learn it. Or is that too much effort?

Vortaka

Well, I'm sorry to tell you, but the main reason I asked for it was because I was tired of having to go in and out of each and every spell I wanted to learn (or to see if I already learned it before). Maybe you have enough memory to remember everything (and I have so MANY game I'm playing, I don't want to remember) but not me...

Always going in and out of each and every spell I call that a waste of time... Even if it's a very few seconds...

Mortianna

I don't see why the game should have be altered to accommodate the lowest common denominator. Perhaps you're burdened by the number of games you're playing?

elminster

I actually like that colour of purple for spells you know.

Flashburn

Now you can just stop right there, criminal scum! Nobody breaks th @Mortianna. There's no reason to antagonize Vortaka or Alkalurops when this could easily be something you can toggle in the options menu, just like the colored circles under your characters' feet. I thought it was a weird change but I'm glad they allowed us to change the circles back to green instead of using their major clothing color at all times.

[Deleted User]

@Sylvus_Moonbow I like the grayed out option; it's probably the least obtrusive of all the options people have come up with so far. My only concern is that it might be mistaken for "You can't use this."

Mortianna

Flashburn said:

Now you can just stop right there, criminal scum! Nobody breaks th @Mortianna. There's no reason to antagonize Vortaka or Alkalurops when this could easily be something you can toggle in the options menu, just like the colored circles under your characters' feet. I thought it was a weird change but I'm glad they allowed us to change the circles back to green instead of using their major clothing color at all times.

Joking and moralizing aside, I was offering a dissenting voice to poll options that didn't allow for one. If that "antagonized" people, then so be it.

I'm actually quite fond of the colored locators, but I don't get upset when someone is critical of the colored ones and expresses their preference for the original, green ones. I just think it's nice to have a choice to turn certain added features on or off.

CutlassJack

Maybe its just me but the colored boxes are a bit too much overall just to show you can scribe it.

Perhaps we're looking at it the wrong way? Maybe its the number, not the box thats a different color. Or maybe just put a green colored dot or asterix next to that number for a scroll you can scribe?

Regardless, I'd rather have scrolls that can be scribed marked, than ones I can't as the new system does.

Flashburn

Any of the previously suggested options - green checkmark, colored background, greying it out; as long as it indicates that the spell hasn't been scribed into your book (to reduce visual clutter) - would be okay with me. I'd go with at least a small green checkmark in the upper-right corner of the scroll, or changing the background to something that isn't a bright, distracting color. Allowing this highlighting to be toggled on/off in the options menu should definitely be considered as well.

At least the team has something to look forward to once they come back from their Canadian Thanksgiving.

Zarakinthish

@Mortianna, while keeping track of spells in BG is within reason, one must keep in mind that this system will carry over to BG2, which has many more spells. I still remember how when I played through BG2 all those years ago, I had sheets printed out of all the spells with check boxes next to them so that I could keep track of what Aerie, Imoen, and Nalia knew.

Messi

Why didn't you include the way it is now in your poll? I like that better than any of the options available. However as someone suggested in the Phase III thread the color indicator should be used for unknown spells instead.

Zarakinthish

Just for a few laughs, I did a little digging and found what I was talking about in some of my old stuff. Who knows why I still have it instead of it being recycled long ago.

Silverstar

I hear the current beta build has some kind of green... which sounds okay to me. Honestly though, I think it should be a toggle option, like so many other things. I understand the bottom UI bar is completely gone now with no toggle for it and I imagine it goes for a lot of other "improvements" too.

Anduin

Yellow or Green. It would go with the red and make a complete traffic light system (Does Faerun have traffic lights?)

I actually think Green is more of a GO GO GO! You have found a spell you don't have, but on the other hand. Yellow gives a more, you have found a spell you can cast, but it is not in your spell book yet, proceed in using it with caution...

...

On the other hand the purple is completely kick ass and reminds me of Mace Windu in star wars...

"This is your fathers lightsaber, when you absolutely, positively need to kill every #@¬#/^#&@#$£¬ in the room..."

killeah

didn't vote for any of them as Sylvus' seems to be the best choice imo.

Leematon

Greyscale 1 for me. Makes the most sense.

FrozenCells

killeah said:

didn't vote for any of them as Sylvus' seems to be the best choice imo.

Agreed.

Jace

I don't like any of them, or the current beta's one for that matter. I'd prefer a small colored dot/star/icon/whatever in the upper left corner of the scroll.

Alkalurops

Sylvus_Moonbow said:

This was my suggestion in the Phase 3 thread.



The greyed out colours are already available in shops when you don't have the gold to purchase an item, or a shop owner doesn't identify certain items. May as well keep things consistent.

This is another example of an "unavailable" color (i.e. unacquirable) which IMO doesn't fit the functionality we're looking for. Admittedly, it looks better than the colors so far but I still don't think it's "consistent" per se.

All the colors in the game so far define some type of prohibition.
Red = unavailable because it's of the wrong school
Blue = unavailable because it's unidentified
Greyed out = unavailable because you don't have enough gold
I think it would be inconsistent if another color is added (or a color is reused) that signals a special kind of usability (memorized vs unmemorized) rather than another type of unavailability.

So maybe we need something different?

Messi

@Alkalurops completely agree. The same graphic shouldn't be used to signal completely different things. Generally the greyed out means something is completely unavailable in this game. Using that graphic on scrolls you already have in your spellbook makes no sense to me at least.

Vortaka

@Alkalurops: It can still be debated... (Not the grey stuff however!). Some people would like it more like "this" or "that"... If we look at the current "version", I have 2 small complaints...

1- Only Items that are unwritten should be "x color" (Green currently). More of a personal taste but I find that difference make it noticeable... So, when NOT in my spellbook, I should notice it!

2- The green, after playing some hours, is a little... someone called it toxic, and I kind of agree... More transparent would be nice... You know, just to make it look good! Still a personal taste I guess...

@Dee: This is more of a modder question but... Could you tell me (or us) what file you have edited to make this work? If it's the exe file, ok, I won't mod it! But, if it's a resource file, modders could make it to their liking! So, everybody should be happy!

Alkalurops

Vortaka said:

1- Only Items that are unwritten should be "x color" (Green currently). More of a personal taste but I find that difference make it noticeable... So, when NOT in my spellbook, I should notice it!

Obviously everything is personal taste, but I think the "default" state of a scroll should simply be the scroll itself. It's only when a scroll is modified (that is: unidentified, prohibited by school, too expensive or memorized in spellbook) that you should get a visual indication of this.

Vortaka said:

2- The green, after playing some hours, is a little... someone called it toxic, and I kind of agree... More transparent would be nice... You know, just to make it look good! Still a personal taste I guess...

I think most of us can agree on that...

Another thing I forgot to mention: the greyed out option isn't really an option. How will you recognize if a spell in a shop is too expensive or simply already memorized?

Vortaka

@Alkalurops: I also think, since greyed out is already in use, that it shouldn't be an option...

For the default state, I see it like this... You should have all the spells in your book as default... A magic user WANTS everything and anything he can have (mortals are greedy lie that it seems!)... So, in my mind, when spell in your book: default state... When NOT in your book: green state (or x color state).

P.S. Before I get scorched at by people who uses vanilla rules (# of max spells in book), I do use BG2 Tweaks mod that gives me infinite # of spells in my list in my magic book... I mean, it's a book, if you can't write all your spells in a book... buy another bigger book? (Just saying...)