How long until we get a usable memorized spell list?

loudent

The radial menu and limited function key quickslots were genius back in the day but is a chore to use when playing a spellslinger. Especially in MP where we can' pause. NWN2 had a really great memorized spell system that supported all classes and metamagic.

How long till we get a usable memorized spell system for NWN:EE? Surely it's planned right?

Cerabelus

I doubt that's gonna happen, they are relying on modders to make those changes.
I agree with the NWN 2 implementation of spell usage, I like NWN 2 a lot.

FreshLemonBun

Quickcast was a hack because NWN2's action menu system was horrendous. It works well for when you know your spells and so you can just pick them from the teeny tiny icons quickly. That said the NWN radial menu works great too and you can select spells and queue them up in your action queue before they ever cast. I've seen people that picked it up and in their first year of playing they were rapidly going through the radial menu to queue up their party's buffs. It's near impossible to do that using NWN2 action menu and having tried some custom faked "spellcasters" that rely on the menu I can honestly say that it's useless.

Quickcast as a separate additional system rather than a menu system works well but would probably require them to revamp the GUI system. Something people have asked for since November of 2017, because NWN2's custom GUI scripting is the one thing it does well. Please note modders can't fix it because remaking the GUI system like that is one of the few things only Beamdog can do.

loudent

Whether it was a "hack" or not is really the point: It was an awesome system. I've played *thousands* of hours of both NWN1 and NWN2. SP/MP/PW - I've played it all. Life has been breathed back into NWN1 because of the EE, but I just can't bring myself to play it long with the current GUI. I'm just hoping they are planning on revamping that one day.

loudent

FreshLemonBun wrote: »

rapidly going through the radial menu to queue up their party's buffs. It's near impossible to do that using NWN2 action menu and having tried some custom faked "spellcasters" that rely on the menu I can honestly say that it's useless.

I've never used the action system, because I didn't have to. You can't tell me they could queue up buffs quicker than the quickcast option. Every spell in the radial menu takes like 3 right clicks and a left click (IIRC). Quick cast is just a left click. In addition NWN1 only lets you queue 3 actions while NWN2 lets you queue 4+.

EDIT: Not to mention it had waaaay more quickslots so if there was spell you wanted regularly you could just hotkey it.

Also, I've never tried it but how do you use metamagic with the radial menu?

Cerabelus

@FreshLemonBun anyone who regularly uses the Quickcast menu new each spell just from the icon and for bigger icons the quick slots on the bar served that purpose too.

When I first played NWN 1 back in the day I used the radial until I started using the quick slots now I only open the radial for special abilities because I run out of quick slots, Offensive spells take up 1st row, Buffs on 2nd, Heals Dispels and special item on the last.

FreshLemonBun

I think you're missing the point entirely.

Cerabelus

@FreshLemonBun if your talking about the action queue in NWN 2 compared to the radial, I right click my character than left click all the buffs on the quickcast menu, than I select another character and do it again with thier spells which is much faster.

FreshLemonBun

No, I think most people understand it, but I'll explain it simply anyway.

The question is phrased as a need for quickcast in NWN. It's nice to have but there is no need for it unlike in NWN2.

NWN2 has an atrocious context menu used for simple actions, and there was no future in which that context menu would ever be useful for casting spells. They intentionally made a hack because of that i.e. dumping all your memorized/available spells in a tabbed table. The icons are tiny because otherwise it would take up most of your screen but requires some precision and familiarity with the spells to use.

NWN1 had a radial menu system that was always useful and options accessible as broad directional categories. Sure a quickcast window would be nice to have as well but the radial menu is not useless or broken. You can easily queue up spells quickly i.e. you can click the spells faster than it takes to cast them.

Moreover the change would almost certainly require they first address the GUI overhaul/modding issues. Remember that one of the arguments for NOT adding a 4th class was because they had no space for it in the GUI. That's not something you can currently mod in a useful way for NWNEE so it requires Beamdog to first do a lot of other things to even get community mods for it let alone as an official feature.

Cerabelus

@FreshLemonBun how nice of you to explain it, thank you.

Radial menu for it's time worked but when people started using the function slots it was quickly obsolete.

3 rows of function slots isn't enough for a caster so another system was needed to supplement it.

In NWN 2 we got many rows of function slots but when I started using the Quickcast menu I only put heals and special items on the Function slots, additionally special abilities have thier own quick use in the bottom right negating the reason for the obsolete radial.

Finally I have no doubt it would be a problem for Beamdog to fix certain UI concerns which is why I said "I doubt that's gonna happen".

FreshLemonBun

People still use it and it still works. It is not obsolete or broken, while I appreciate that some people are more familiar with other control schemes there is nothing urgent about replacing the radial menu.

Replacing it with a new control scheme will not allow you to cast more spells, i.e. they queue up with either method. Therefor it's nice to have but not necessary.

Shadooow

What I need is to Beamdog *fix the memory leaking. After hour of gameplay the radial menu gets bugged and cursor is not responding correctly along with fps drop.

Otherwise radial is all I need. Don't know how on android but in PC version you can easily cast full sequence of buffs from radial without losing a single second standing idle. Quickslots for offensive spells only.

And no, NWN1 doesn't have limited action queve as someone above wrote. It is unlimited (or at least so long that there is no known limit).

Cerabelus

Shadooow wrote: »

And no, NWN1 doesn't have limited action queve as someone above wrote. It is unlimited (or at least so long that there is no known limit).

Yeah in my experience I can queue up all the buffs and as long I didn't screw up clicking than the queued up sequence works.

FreshLemonBun

Besides that NWN's system still works other similar games do it their own way too. My personal preference would be to do it like how Pathfinder: Kingmaker does it, but I understand that's just my personal preference. When you try something else you always have to end up adapting to how they set it up.