Spell Library Upgrade: Filter
Posted: Monday, 23rd April 2018, 14:49As spell libraries grow larger, managing them takes more time. The Hide/Show pages help a fair amount with this, but even so, the burden adds up after a while, especially if players change their minds about which types of spells they're interested in as their circumstances change. So, I suggest adding a "Filter" page, which would resemble the skills management UI. On the left column would be spell levels 1-9, and on the right column would be spell schools (optionally hiding, by default, unknown levels/schools).
Gray "+" would not filter, e.g. current behavior and the default setting.
White "*" would require at least one selection, hiding spells that don't match at least one white "*" in its column. For example, a fresh conjurer who required Hexes or Translocations and level 2 or level 4 would see only Force Lance and Fulminant Prism. This would be most useful to characters focusing on one or two schools.
Dark gray "-" would hide the selected levels/schools from appearing in the other 4 pages. This would be most useful to players with religious restrictions on spell usage or a bias against certain magic schools (due to bad aptitudes, aversion to summon-related XP loss, etc.) and should take precedence over white "*" selections.
Of course, both filtering options would also be useful for one-off searches of temporary interest, e.g., to rig Spellforged Servitor to only have access to high-level conjurations, or to only consider options that fit within current learning capacity or have no hunger cost.
When viewing pages that are hiding spells, a note can indicate how many spells are hidden by filters.
I think players would quickly be able to learn to make effective use of such filters and save quite a bit of time across all future played games.
Gray "+" would not filter, e.g. current behavior and the default setting.
White "*" would require at least one selection, hiding spells that don't match at least one white "*" in its column. For example, a fresh conjurer who required Hexes or Translocations and level 2 or level 4 would see only Force Lance and Fulminant Prism. This would be most useful to characters focusing on one or two schools.
Dark gray "-" would hide the selected levels/schools from appearing in the other 4 pages. This would be most useful to players with religious restrictions on spell usage or a bias against certain magic schools (due to bad aptitudes, aversion to summon-related XP loss, etc.) and should take precedence over white "*" selections.
Of course, both filtering options would also be useful for one-off searches of temporary interest, e.g., to rig Spellforged Servitor to only have access to high-level conjurations, or to only consider options that fit within current learning capacity or have no hunger cost.
When viewing pages that are hiding spells, a note can indicate how many spells are hidden by filters.
I think players would quickly be able to learn to make effective use of such filters and save quite a bit of time across all future played games.