I am shocked and amazed.

Not only do I agree with the OP, I agree with every single word.

Literally! There is not a single concept or point he had that I could point to that was not pure brilliance!

what? looks to me like every single player thinks that.

And whats wrong with an RPG like spell selection system? 

+1 to improving the spell system. All of these ideas are great. I miss the random element of the spells you can get in a given game, ala MOM. Spell rarity,  etc. Because shards are rare, they need to improve spells much more than they do, like as a multiplier. Spells need to scale with level. Every spell needs to be useful and scale. Courage, for example, is useless later in the game.

 Replayability will greatly depend on the number of spellcaster builds and variety of spells. Totally agree that only the sovereign should be able to cast overland spells, and that the number that can be cast per turn needs to be limited.

To be fair, at that point, the game was not stable, had boring factions, and horribly unbalanced tactical combat. Magic wasn't the biggest concern at that time. I suspect we might see a different result now that the game is stable, more diverse, and better balanced.

In terms of whether or not the upgrades to the magic system are a "burning need" (and yes, I realize as the OP I'm a bit biased), I would say they are "Significant to the long term enjoyment of this game".

Very little of what I identified months ago has been addressed on any significant level. Spell progression is still erratic in pace, static in improvement, and usefulness of spells is still largely hinged upon the RNG deciding to place the correct type of shards near your spawn point.

For a "Strategy Game", there is far too much randomness and too many holes in the current system to make the "path of magic" anything other than an opportunity taken when available. It cannot be a strategy from the outset of the game because of these holes. I would say the necromancy and subsequent activity of a 4 month old thread speaks to the validity of the claims in the OP.

Somehow I doubt that. My gut feeling is that if we run a poll again, changing the magic system again won't be one of the top 3. My sense is the main people unhappy with the magic system are MOM/AOW fans, but they are outnumbered by those who dont care for it.

But we can't run polls right? 

Yup, at this point, the magic system isn't going to change. Kael and FB are satisfied with it; it will be up to the reviewers and the customers to decide if their design was good or not.  We've told them all this before, and they're not listening to it anymore.  FB has famously said "This isn't the game for you if you don't like it", but I think (I hope) the intent there was "we've put the resources into this section of the game that we intended, you need to decide for yourself if what we offer up is good enough, mated with the other game systems, to overall have a good entertainment experience".  Like all avocations, if you don't feel that you're having fun with the systems they've implemented, there are other games that are coming out soon that may offer you more enjoyment.

We've had numerous threads about how the magic system can be made better.  Each one is different, and each time many people come forward to say how wonderful the changes would be.  Seems to me everyone has their own way of improving magic in FE.  Several of these amount to a complete overhaul of the way magic is conceived and put into practice--which would mean several steps back into early beta for Stardock.

It isn't going to happen.  There's been talk about things being tweaked a bit on several levels, so we may see a few spells added/moved/removed.  That's it.  Stardock is assuming responsibility for making choices according to their own best design, which, when you think about it, is as it should be.  I mean, it's their money.  They reap the rewards, or the losses.  Nobody else's system will be implemented.

For me, the system doesn't lack meaningful or interesting spells, except for quite a few that need rebalancing--either made stronger, or weaker, or more expensive, etc.  But this next beta is all about balancing and bug fixes.

Anybody who does have a new system--and this one, like several others I've seen, is very interesting--should really consider learning how to mod.  Brad's promised both strong mod tools and some tutorials, while experienced modders here (Heavenfall and SeanW) have already done some fantastic things with the beta.  I'm planning to learn how to mod the finished game.  Already have several ideas I'd like to implement in the way of heroes and items.  I'd like to suggest those who are more ambitious consider doing the same.

Like with everything there is a time to make a choice and run with it.  As of now, the magic system will probably not change very much.  With the modding capability and a great chance in continueing the series I think this will evolve into something that will be better.  If you step back and look at WOM and compare the difference between that and this, I can only imagine better things to come.  Also you got to ask yourself, why has it taken this long since MOM for a game like this to come out.  I would have the guess that the risk is much higher for a game of this type.  So I will support Stardock becuase I feel they are heading in the right direction for this type of game.

A very good topic of conversation. I agree with many of the OP's listed problems with the magic system but I don't agree so much with the suggested solutions. That in itself probably reflects the problem Stardock face, there are many ways the magic system could be improved and someone is bound to hate any system.

However there does seem to be general concensus that, despite recent improvements, it could still use more love.

One thing, I don't think strategic spells are unlimited, I think each spellcaster with sufficient schools of magic to cast a strategic spell can cast it exactly one time per turn, mana permitting. I could be wrong though, I haven't tried testing this limit in a while.

Actually, this is a case of "current situation is so bad that so many things would be an improvement" rather then every single person having a different idea of what magic SHOULD be. I applauded other improvement ideas in the past and THIS one seems to be the best yet by a far margin.

The OPs main argument is to make spell selection work like in an RPG... like the sorceress in Diablo2... this actually meshes very very well with FE's design.

FE is not at its heart a strategy like MoM or AoW. It is an RPG/TBS hybrid. At the moment the TBS portion is much more fleshed out, yet due to being far weaker (in terms of game balance) then the RPG portion victory comes from focusing on the RPG. And yet the RPG is where the game is still rather underdeveloped. It CAN be made to work but it needs significant improvement and investment in the RPG aspect of the game. As well as admitting that it is a hybrid game when making balance changes to the TBS portion (which doesn't seem to case, pretending its a pure TBS seems to be the operating modus).

Now, those flaws don't mean that the game is bad. But it is currently mediocre while having the potential to be one of the best games ever made. Moving the majority of magic out of the TBS portion and into the RPG portion of the game would go a long way towards polishing this game.

The problem here with spells you have access to is not randomess vs choice.

The problem is everyone with same spell levels gets the same spells! And it's way too easy to get them by leveling or acquiring champions.

All the suggestions above are attempts to solve this in different ways.

To be clear all Earth apprentices get the same set of spells (quests not withstanding, and these are a small proportion of the game). You also get spells by researching some tech, but again totally bland.. everyone gets the same , a few faction differences not withstanding.

The problem here is that if everyone gets all the spells in their spell level, variety and diversity is down to a minimum.

Say like everyone wants in this thread, SD adds dozens of summons per spell level. Sure you get more choices of summons but it doesn't differentiate you from other players or even yourself playing a second time for replyabaility value cos you get the same summons (assuming you had the same spell skills)!

SD always worried about faction differentiation and wanting every player to play different - increase variety of play etc but for some reason they dont seem to care about magic.

Just coming up with the 5 elements and sticking then into 4 levels isn't sufficient variety.

Why? Because regardless of what you chose for your sovereign.. it doesn't matter, you can easily get champions who will give you access to the other elements and levels. 

And very soon you have access to the same spells again.  

One way to consider diversity in magic is this. How many games do you take before you have access to every single spell in the game?

Notice that this is *not just* a function of the number of spells you have in the game. You could have a 1,000 spells, but divided into just say 2 skills and if you could only pick 1 skill per game, you would have access to all spells in 2 games. Or you could have 100 spells divided into 20 skills, and if you could only pick 1 skill per game, you would take 20 games to exhaust it.

I submit with FE, while there is more variety than the example above, it's still relatively low because you could always get champions to supplement.

There are 5 elements x 4 levels = 20 spell skills and assume each level gives you the same number of spells. (I am keeping the analysis simple by ignoring spells with multiple requirements or the few that need paths)

Say you get on average 3-5 champions (including the sovereign as a champion) a game. Say even if you specialize just 2 champions (including sovereign) as magic users,  Chances are you will probably pick magic skills whenever possible when leveling , you can easily get Level 4 in at least 1 element and level 2s/3s in the other.

But let's assume you got unlucky and managed just 1xlevel 4 in 2 champions. 

That means in *one* game alone you get 8/20 = 40% of spells available to use! And if you like me go crazy on magic using champions it's a lot higher.

Compare this to MOM. Even if you went crazy and did the 11 book strategy, that's just one out of 5 paths = 20%. And that's extremely costly strategy, since 11 book strategy (or 10) is just one possible strategy which you dont do every game as you need the picks to select other traits like warlord , channeler etc. It would take ages before you saw every spell due to the fact that 1) Your initial choices set your spells in stone which you couldn't change further by levelling (though trading was possible) or gaining champions (a few could cast some spells) , unless you did five 11 book strategies in a row. 

And if you didn't do 10/11 book strategies, it would take ages to see all the spells due to randomness. 3 Nature, didn't mean you definitely got access to the same 30% of the nature spells, while in FE, getting Level 3 in Fire, did definitely mean you saw all the spells up to that level.

In FE, you could pick Fire apprentice, and Earth Apprentice, and still use picks for other things.. and still be fairly certain of leveling to reach 100% of all Fire or Earth spells . Heck I think you could pick zero spell skills and still pick up champions that eventually "mastered" everything in a element or by luck your sovereign got it by leveling .

Very lengthy but basically it's too easy to get all the spells.

This is boring! Solutions to make things more varied includes

1) "Pre-selected randomess" - Master of Magic style - You select spellbooks in advance eg 3 nature spellbooks & what spells you had access were fixed at that point. But randomess lies in the fact that even if you picked 3 spellbooks in Nature you couldn't be sure what you would eventually get, but you did get some choice in the order you researched them. (The Actual MOM system gives you some guaranteed options also)

2) "Post-selected randomness" - You level up, and you get offered a small selection of spells to learn. Similar to leveling up now where you select traits.  Randomness is built-in , in that it may offer you 3 spells out of 5 possible, but you do get to pick the ones you want with some degree of control

3) Pre-selected/post selected no randomness - Same as 1) or 2), except there is no randomness, you select whatever spells you want, but pre-selected would mean the choices are set in stone pre-game, post-selected would be as you leveled.

4) Make the initial picks of spell skills more important by preventing champions from having too many magic skills or if they have it.. be limited somehow that they could cast lesser ones - eg only soverigns can cast strategic spells.

Perfectly put, and karma for the eloquence.

FE has done a lot to "heal the damage" done by EWoM, but sadly it's still failing in the aspect that was supposed to matter the most - that is, magic. Currently it's considered by many the worst thing of the game, actually.  

We've done what we could, since we've been stressing and advocating the importance of magic and the need for a better system for 2 years. Time to sit back and see how it plays out. At least the word "magic" was removed from the title of the game...

Anyone here willing to try my Path Progression Mod? It redefines the magic system so that any hero can have an Elemental Spellbook, but only those that level as a mage<arcanist<warlock will be able to use it efficiently and effectively. As you level up, you get many new spells, depending on what kind of mage you specialize as.