I'd say they should also have a way to vary the power of the spell used from more magicka/more damage and less magicka/less damage. A wizard should be tactical!

They do. You can charge spells up.

Agreed. Spell making is a primary role playing activity for the Mage. I once lost the Battle of Bruma because a certain someone died. My solution was to hit him with extended paralyze and invisibility spells so he sat out the fight.


Role playing a Mage means the player using their own ingenuity in the game. Taking out spell making really hurts the Mage.

I think that one form or another of spell making would be good.
Don't know how it should be done since we know very little about the new spell system.
Still, I look forward to this new system since I think that it could be good even without spell making.

Yes, man.

lol archer.

Bumps for Good measure.

I hope so.

The cool thing with this two handed thing is that you can put a long paralyze spell in one hand and an invisibility one in the other, cast it at the same time, and you get the same effect as if you had gone to the silly spreedsheet and made that spell so you could use it in one hand.

Its like no one has an imagination, and all they can see is this possibility of no spellmaking. Get creative dang it!

In no story, game, or otherwise that involved magic have I found something where fire could be combined with ice, and the attack still looked like a fireball. I've never seen a magic system before that could combine two completely random effects into one cockamamy spell. How does one combine restoration magic and destruction magic into one spell? By all rights it should be like trying to get two N super magnets to touch. Or like trying to look right and left at the same time, its just not plausable as far as magic is conserned.

Magic is the general term used for the channeling of raw energy into effects that can be experienced in the physical world. I'll admit that it says nothing about combining magic, so it then falls to the dev's to decide how creating spells should be worked. If spells act more as effects, and how good we are at casting that effect and how powerful that effect is were based on our skill in that specific school of magic, then the need for thousands of spells is greatly reduced. A full blown mage would be able to cast more interesting magic based on him conceding to using both of his hands for just magic. A battle mage, whom holds a sword in their right hand, would only be able to use their left hand for single spell effects. Its not as cool as full bown two handed combination magic, but they still can use one effect for that hand, and wield a blade in the other.

Combining and coming up with spell combinations in real time out in the field would make being a mage so much more funner for me. I could try to different spells by using both my hands at the same time, channeling different effects through each one. I could cast feather on myself for 60 seconds on myself with one press of a button, feather on target by holding the button down, feather an aoe if I wished it by mashing the button down.

That's how spellmaking should be. Getting an effect through a spell, but me myself depending on what I want to do changing what I do with that effect in real time. Not in some menu, in real time right before my eyes. A menu isn't magic. Magic should happen right before my eyes, controled by my fingers, and be able to be changed on the fly. What kind of mage thinks of something they want to cast while fighting, finishes the fight with what they have now, goes to creat a spell in a remote menu that is completely removed from the game, cooks up that effect, and then goes to the next battel to fight with that new idea? If a mage truely is able to channel raw energy into effects, they should be able to change how they channel an effect and what that effect is on the fly, in real time.

i liked spell making because it was incredibly useful... i hope they bring it back it worked before it could work now... the only thing is it maybe difficult because of the new spells and the way spells act in game from what we hear.

*Raises hand* This mage.
It makes perfect sense that you think of something in a fight, and then return to your wizards lair to cook out what selection of arcane syllables and gestures makes that happen.

There is also no way that an on the fly button-pushy technique of tweaking spells can replace the myriad of possibilities spellmaking opens.
That is what makes me feel a mage. Doing the research, doing the work, transribing the sigils of a new spell in my book, and using it from then on.
Magic is about research. It about intelligence, willpower, wearing robes and burning odd candles.
Its not about battle. If anything, a mage avoids battles.

He certainly doesnt charge in blasting power like he is some sort of mystical battery. Why is that even called magic then, if it has no difference at all with mutant powers or psi abilities that other games offer?

Every time I see a reference to button-mashing on this forum, I die a little inside.


As for "What kind of mage thinks of something they want to cast while fighting, finishes the fight with what they have now, goes to creat a spell in a remote menu that is completely removed from the game, cooks up that effect, and then goes to the next battel to fight with that new idea?" Merari already answered that one at least as well as I ever could, so I'll just say, "Me too."

But that doesn't make any sense to me. If a mage knows how to cast a fireball with x amount of magicka...shouldn't that mage also know how to cast a bigger fireball on the fly with just x magicka + y amount of magicka? Why should he go back and do resurch to do that...he all ready knows how to cast the fire effect...all it needs is more juice, not hours of research to figure out how to do it. The mage should have a head on his shoulders and figure that out.

I'd much rather be smart enough to come up with spells on the fly, rather than have to go to some specific item that once clicked pops up a menu. Being a mage shouldn't be about making magic. It should be about using magic, and being creative to come up with spells.

A mage can dive into battle just like everyone else. It depends on how you want to play, just like a swordsman. Some swordsmen hold back, using power attacks when openings are made. Others are quick on their feet slashing wildly. A mage can be the same in that regard. Charging into battle throwing magic around, or being smart about it and waiting for openings.

Besides, coming up with magic on the fly would feel more like your mage is making magic, by thinking and then doing. Using a menu feels more like telling a computer what you want and how you want it, and it spits out that spell for you to use. It doesn't feel like you're making that spell, a computer is. Cominging spells with your two hands, thinking about what would work best together, and then going into battle with that in mind sounds a lot more fun. It feels like I came up with that, like I made that spell.

How couldn't button use equal just as much magic options as a menu can? You didn't really do any research, you did trial and error with spells, going back and forth between a menu and fights. No decoding ancient tomes. You can think and rp that you did, but really all you're doing is changing a slider. If you just did everything in real time, it would actually feel real to me. A mage would cast a spell, see what happens, write down what happened in a book, and then try it again but this time just a little different. There's no menu involved in there. There shouldn't be for us either. Spellmaking for us should work just as spellmaking wouks for everyone else in Skyrim. No menu, but in real time in the real world.


I'm sorry to hear that, didn't mean to kill you a little, but at any rate I'm not taking it back. I'd rather be a mage who can think on his feet and change a spell in the field, rather than one who has to cast something and then run away to tweek a slider so it comes out better. At any rate, I'd much rather have spell combinations handed in the game, instead of a menu. Sorry you don't feel that way...but menu's should have as little as possible to do with the game after our character is made. That includes magic for me. Much rather tweek spells in real time, rather than with a slider in a menu.

You can even tweek spells far away from the battle feield so you feel like youre doing research or something. Just have it in bloody real time and let me see actually do some research, instead of just changing something in a menu.

Not really.
A real life chemist would know how to make all kinds of stuff, but that doesnt help him make a compound if he hasnt done the math or has access to his supplies.

Remember that invisible town quest in Oblivion?
That mage made a mistake and turned not just himself invisible, but other people in the area too.
And he had done research. Shoddy, but still.

Its a science, an art.
You dont do that in the middle of a fight, any more than you sculpt a statue or calculate proof of Fermats theorem.

Do you understand why Silence prevents mages from casting spells?

I'm fine with it being a real time thing. In fact, I welcome it. But I still want to be able to combine spells and make my own for saving. And MORE than just the two from having a spell in each hand. I don't want to have to charge up my fireball spell for a day like a damn Spirit Bomb to get it as strong as I want it.. Judging by your avatar you should get what I mean.

hey man, back off.

with what you're saying, a mage being able to make a spark with magic should enable him to cast a huge spark that can cast a whole town into inferno without learning anything new.

spellmaking is legitimate, and deserves its place in TES. along with mysticism. you have to know spells before you can spell-make, and spread sheeting, or " computing" effects is easy with a computer. you're taking out RPG of RPGs. (it's like taking hit points out of a FPS) holding buttons together takes a lot less thought than carefully planning what kind of wizard you are, (destruction magic has been mostly what has been discussed by BGS, and by grouping all magic with destruction, i can see that you haven't played many TES games.) takes a lot out of the game. if you want to be a warrior with destruction magic skills, so be it, but don't take out a mage's tool bc you think it's more fun to use a gimmick while you play through than using a real skill with mathematical boundaries.

sure, it would be cool to amplify destruction magic, but that is not how magic works in TES. i was disappointed with Oblivion, and i'm sure i will be disappointed in some ways with Skyrim. the mage class in TES was fun bc it took you several games to figure out how to use it effectively.

I feel that BGS is making mages easy to play through, that way if an 8 year old kid randomly chooses a mage, he won't be upset that he doesn't understand how to use the class(these skills since classes aren't apparently in); instead of spell making, they'll have triggers that you can hold, and instead of many skills, and they'll have specific skills that are easy to understand and implement for an 8 year old.

maybe i'm getting too old for this crap, but the way games are going, i don't expect this game to structurally be better than Oblivion, or have any real logic, which wasn't too great imho.

also, i was thinking guild wars 2 would be the greatest game ever, but they simplified it wayy too much. don't expect anything more than eye candy and basic plot/wuest structure.

compare your games to Morrowind and kill yourselves. yes i am drunk mothafunkers

Its not like I don't want to do that either. But it should be a real time, no menu kinda thing. Like you actually have to read, do some research, and play around with it for a while before you can get just right. And the things you can combine should make some form of sense. Like you'd put the two effects you wish for in your two hands, find some paper, and a soul gem to help the process. Use the soul gem energy to get the paper open for spellmaking, and then cast the two effects you want at the paper. Then, you could equip the paper to one hand, and via channeling magicka through the paper, you'd get a duel effect. The paper would in a sense help your body handle channeling two different effects at the same time through the same arm. The paper shouldn't go away after one use either. It should act like a weaker weapon, in that it degrades though use, and eventually goes away. Higher quallity paper, or tomes could allow for longer use and more efficient use along with more power pumped out.

Its not like I hate spellmaking, but i'd much rather see it in the game world instead of a menu. People can hate me for that I guess, my popularity on a forum has never been that important to me. I'd much rather throw my idea's out on the table, and then descuse them against other peoples ideas.

And as for the Spirit Bomb, a newer fresh off the chopping block mage would have to charge up spells longer to get them stronger, and their use of magicka wouldn't be very efficient. An expert could snap his fingers and there'd be a fireball there that would take a novice a while to make. You should feel yourself getting stronger as a mage, not just see yourself be able to use stronger spells. I see what you're saying though. You shouldn't have to charge up every time to get stronger spells. It should be more tactical than just a time/power trade. Powering up should make you extremely visible, and it should give off some sound to give your possition away. It should be more efficient to cast smaller spells that you would have more control over, and the cost of magicka per unit of effect should increase as time goes on. A lot of other things could change it up as well.

One of the marks of a good game is that it is easy to learn, exremely difficult to master.

An 8 year old should be able to figure out how to use magic well enough to survive, but an advlt with prior experience with TES games should still be able to fenangle the spell system both in combat and out of combat to be much more successful.

I agree with you though - removing spell making would definitely constitute dumbing down in my book. The new contextual system sounds very intuitive, and looks like it offers us greater control in combat over our spells - but we still need appropiate preparation out of combat, and that comes through spellmaking.

Spellmaking was one of the funnest features of TES games to mess around with - why take it out in favor of an army of premade spells? Todd Howard has been quoted hundreds of times here saying that line about how it took the magic out of magic - but such a thing is largely unavoidable. Routinely waltzing through oblivion gates took the magic out of oblivion (the place not the game), talking to sheogorath in person was awesome and hilarious but took the magic and mystery out of the character - my point is, being immersed in pretty much anything will take the 'magic' out of it in time. Working at disneyland must be like that, I expect.

Now, thats not to say the system couldn't be improved - with the much-touted interface style Bethesda has been talking about, they could easily whip up a more mystical feeling spellmaking interface/system.

Ya, and I bet that mage created that spell in the real world, instead of in a menu. He probably did all his studying through observation and then wrote down what he saw and what he thought about it. In his mind, and on paper, he probably thought of a lot of things to try in order to get what he wanted. And obviously, at least one of those creations backfired on him. If there was some trial and error, and the spells were actually made by you in real time I would be a happy camper. The spreadsheet takes the magic out of magic. Its oh so true, it really is. The end result may be cool, but my goodness if you could actually make spells the way all the other mages in the world make em the effect would be a lot funner for everyone.

Its magic, not science. Magic I say. It depends on the mage who is wielding it. Many mages can go into the depths of caves to test their spells, we should have to do that too! Not go to the mages guild to fiddle with a slider. Other mages can use two spells, one in each hand, to get the point across. Or channel the magicka to get the effect they want in the way they want. Using spells in different ways isn't grownd breaking, any mage with half a brain should know how to do that. Channel magicka this way to get a fireball, concentrate it more for a bigger fireball, release it in a steady stream to get a flamethrower, use more controle to creat a trap rune. Same can be said for the other spells. If you know the effect, its a simple matter of how you make that effect take...well, effect. Its the combination, or creation of new spells that takes the studying and time to come up with. So in that regard, you should actually have to do a little work or studying, to creat new spells. None of this menu business. Creation of magic should be just as magical as using magic.

Lol...you forget that we CAN'T create spells in the real world, sadly the menu's our only option.

As for going into the depths of caves to test their spells, what do you think we do after we make the spell through spellmaking?
The vast majority of sane mages guild members created their spells at the local chapters or the imperial city location, it's mainly the wacky or dark ones that had to relocate for secrecy or safety reasons.

"You should actually have to do a little work or studying to create new spells" hence the skill requirement for creating spells. Want a 300 damage AOE fireball? You're going to have to be 100 in destuction, which takes a lot of work and experience. Want a paralyze/heal spell? You're going to have to be skilled in both illusion and restoration.


Spellmaking should be spruced up, to look more archaic and arcane.

Here's one way they could implement it: The spellmaking interface is a scroll, you select the rune for the spell effect, add magnitude runes, add area of effect runes, and swap out runes to change the targeting specs.

snip

Ahhh...

I'm trying to figure out whether there's some kind of strategy behind all this.

Todd has already stated - in the most candid way - they are still figuring it out!
You think repackageing the issue under a slightly diferent gift wrap once every 5 minutes will eventually exasperate Bethesda to death , till they finally wave the white flag and implement the darn thing?!

Seriously, most toddlers i know show higher tolerance to frustration.

I mean the real game world, honestly. The menu isn't our ownly option. A few posts ago I sugested one that is completely free of menu's. Magnetued can be removed if its based on skill in the magic school. How the effect is used can be taken care of if it changes depending on how you press the button. Aoe is the only thing I can't really come up with a way to cover in real time.


After I made spells I went to the road, because the nines know I'd run into something around my level eventually. If you want to craft spells in the mages guild that's fine. But you should be able to craft at other places too. No menu means where ever you have the time and the equipment. If your sane go for it, if you're an evil mage...you don't have much business in the mages guild.


Using spells shouldn't be the same as combining them. A little reading along with some trial and error to find out what spells work well with other ones and which ones don't get along would increase the learning curve, and make you feel like you're actually learning something. For instance, putting a shield spell and a feather spell together might work better than putting a shield spell and a silence spell together, and putting a restoration spell and a destruction spell together might result in a rather violent explotion. Later on you could find a book, which in turn unlocks a perk, that allows you to better combine spells, or combine two spells you couldn't before.


Still comes off as to menu-y. I'd much rather experiment in real time, and see my results like my example from a few posts ago. There should be a chance of a spell to not work, or come out as planned. Its magic, not a science, it should mostly be trial and error, and some times you could end up with something that you weren't planning on.

To put it bluntly: Skyrim NEEDS spellmaking. A complete scrapping of the old magic system means it's not a TES game... And certainly won't be getting $50US+ from me. The spellmaker was the whole reason I even bothered to TRY Daggerfall all those years and years ago. Replacing it with a system that just involves on the fly "alternate fire" and "charge-up" modes basically means that the game becomes an FPS. And sorry, no matter how talented gamesas is, they will NOT be able to make a game like Skyrim a good FPS. It can be a good RPG, but not a good FPS. If I want an FPS I'll go pick up Crysis 2 or whatever the latest Call of Duty/Battlefield/Medal of Honor/etc. game is. (Duty Calls?)

As someone who's had experience with coding and spells in an RPG, no magic system is too much of a problem for coding. ESPECIALLY when you're using an object-based language and most of the changing things are variables: then something like the spellmaker becomes as easy as can be as far as coding's concerned.


Ever heard of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Well, as it happens, the INVERSE is true, and it's known as "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niven%27s_laws:" "Any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is indistinguishable from technology."

People call stuff "magic" simply because they don't understand it. Once you think it over, there's obviously rules and laws at work governing how "magic" works in a specific setting. (this is always necessary in order to implement magic as a gameplay mechanic) And once you have people (NPCs OR Players) working and experimenting with the subject in order to learn and discover/make new things, well, that's a very definition of science.

This is backed up with in-game lore and themes: the Mage's Guild is repeatedly termed as a guild of learning, a [ui]scholarly[/u] institution. After all, what was the nexus of the Guild in Oblivion called? It was the Arcane University. And in there, you could watch more experienced mages give lectures to the journeymen there; the same thing has been seen in previous games, too. And we don't see any steampunk-esque "scientists" that are 100% non-magical: instead, they're replaced by the Mages. Mages are a "replacement" for the scientists and scholars we see here. Just like we have zero mages in the real world.

For TES games, Magic = Science, and Science = Magic. Q.E.D.

Ya I get that...but the thing is the people of Nirn don't get the science behind magic yet...so we should feel that as well. They call it magic because they don't understand it, so we should be left with that feeling of not understanding. There's sure to be laws behind it, sure I can agree to that, but we should have to find those laws ourself through trial and error. And even then something completely random should happen, because its magic and we dont' understand everything yet.

They dont' call it science in Tamriel, they call it magic. So it should act like magic, and give off a sense that it is magic. Its not a science yet, so it should give off that mystifying and bloody confusing that magic should. Things should backfire, or not work the way we think it should. Sliders cant do that. Menu's can't do that.

But what is in fact wrong with menus and spreadsheets?

I happen to like them. I like the rest in gives in the game. Same as the books and other things, its not all about the combat.
I like the feeling of being a mage practising the arcane to the fullest that my knowledge and ability give me.

I like elder scrolls games because they are RPG's.
Lots of menu's, lots of stats, lots of customisation etc.
I dont want to focus on only combat, I dont want to practice magic only in action situations.

I have in fact said before that if elder scrolls moves away even more from being an RPG to being an action game, a trend about Oblivion I did not like, Skyrim is the last one Ill buy.

Besides that there is absolutely no way an on the fly magic system can even have 10% of the options traditional spellmaking offers it would also make the game more actiony.

I guess some people like that, but not I.