How bout spells just move faster? I'm not entirely against a slight magnetism to targets, but if people don't want it just make spells faster so they are harder to avoid.

I love how every topic on this forum ends up being a Morrowind haters vs. lovers thing. You guys are really special.

Just because a spell has tracking doesn't mean you can't dodge or evade it..

What happens when a jet fires a heat seeking missile at another jet? Game over? Helzz no!

This might be a great or poor example to some

I like the idea in theory but I have a feeling that this would make Skyrim too easy. Oh I can just launch lighting and it'll hit a target, heck I could do it blindfolded. Plus what would happen if your aiming for a bandit but you accidently hit a guard, that's not gonna end well for you or your wallet.

It could distinguish between hostile and non-hostile targets. Todd Howard has already said there will be a "slight magnetism" in the game anyway so I don't see how you'd end up hitting one enemy when you meant to hit another as long as you're aiming closer to the guy you want to hit.

A select FEW high-level magic missile style spells (maybe some that fire multiple projectiles at multiple targets) could be cool.

That adds some diversity, means magic is more than just another type of arrow. A high-level mage could be attacked from behind, and kill the attacker without even turning around

Maybe perks could give the choice between either focusing on raw damage or increasing number of projectiles.

Auto-aim on every spell is unnecessary, though - it would just be hand-holding across the board.

Since perks work like skill trees in Skyrim i think instead of having the perk for 'homing missles' be so high a level that a novice with poor aim would simply become frustrated there should be a VERY LONG perk tree for gradually making missles home in on targets.
i.e.

Perk lvl. 1 --------> Perk lvl. 2
Adds 2% homing effect Adds 5% homing effect etc.

I think this system would allow for growth as a mage and offer a decent amount of help for those who want to play a mage but are frustrated by personal inablity to aim effectively.
I for one would invest at least a few perks in this perk tree if it were present.

Not if it affects more than a few special spells.

No! How am I supposed to go on a killing rampage with that? NPC that are fleeing in terror would not be considered hostile

Also there is a huge difference between auto-target/heat seeking and magnetism. And being that he said slight that means it will probably not even be noticeable.

For the healing spells, the idea is not bad. In combat they are horrible.
An improvement, for level and limited. Exclusive for the restoration spells.

I voted no, though i think a spell that could be cast on an enemy that makes all other spells cast by the player "home in" on that one enemy would be great. at least when fighting fast moving or flying enemies, and because you would ave to cast it on them first you wouldn't go around shooting everyone in the face with it.

I don't see a problem with auto lock spells the spells in oblivion moved to slow to be accurate but it should only exist as long as there are a few things to balance it
1) each spell should have a different attraction to the target. shooting a flame thrower out of your hand should have no target attraction but shooting a fire ball should.
2)not only should each spell have a different attraction force but if you are at level 10 in magic school your spells should have less attraction then if you were at 100
3)instead of having deflect or absorb magika be passive affects they should be active affects if your in a duel you shouldn't be able to just cast a deflect magic spell and be fine. you should have a very short lasting magical "wall" spell that if timed perfectly block the spell completely the longer you hold it the more it wears down and the more magic gets let through.
4) timing the spell wall perfectly should be incredibly difficult, and at low levels, impossible. The wall's strength should also be, dare I say it, level scaled to what ever your skill is in whatever school it falls under. if its in alteration and your level 10 in alteration your shield should be really weak. but instead of having to learn a new spell for a stronger wall when you get to level 25 your wall should have become stronger because you are now a better mage. but there needs to be a limit on how powerful your wall can get. Keep in mind that even a basic wall spell used by a master will be pretty dang powerful but a more complex wall spell will have more adaptiblity.
5)Your skills in the other schools of magic should effect your shield after you rank up in destruction you are more knowledgeable in the destruction aspect of magic and should be able to counter better, this could even be a perk to choose, for example you get to level 30 in destruction and you could choose between +20% Wall spell resistance to destruciton attacks or +10% spell absortion when you block a destruction spell with a wall spell.
6) WOW that turned into more about how wall spells should work rather then how target locating should work. But wall spells should not be the only way to dodge or stop a spell. if you are fast and agile enough you should be able to doge the spell, timing should still be essential because if you roll out of the way as the spell is leaving there hand it will course correct and come at you again. if you a fighter then blocking with your shield should lower the effect depending on what you blocked and what you blocked with, if your wearing glass armor you should have higher shock resistance then if your wearing ebony (ebony is a metal not a wood in TES right?) , blocking spells also should degrade your equipment faster then melee combat.

I'm not a big fan of projectile-based magic.

I loved the way mass effect 2 powers worked. Especially with the fact that you could pause and set up the curve and everything.

But knowing what we know about spells behaving differently (flamethrower, runes, etc) this would only work for some of them. But i would probably enjoy it.

Not sure about Mass Effect, but I liked the auto-targeting in Red Dead Redemption (on PS3.. not sure about PC). They also made an option to turn it off. Basically, if the enemy was in some area around the center of the screen, it auto-targetted them, so that precise targeting was unnecessary. Good for casual, non-FPS guys like me, and the optional mode seemed to please the FPS folks as well. Although in RDR there was a lot of horseback-combat, so I'm not sure it's the same level of difficulty.

I'm also not sure how that would work with spellcasting, or with the mouse (on PC).

Maybe the answer is to have narrow (beam) versus wide-cast (ray) elemental spells. The wider cast would be easier, but have lower damage.

And enemy spy

This. No locking on please.

There should be some auto-tracking attacks, but not all, actually very few should be. Also, the spells should depend on your skill level, not perks, unless of course there are only 1 or 2 perks for it.

I honestly think it's a bit funny there are more NO votes for auto-targeting magic. I mean, after all, it is magic right?? I can see you would need to manually target with a bow, or other no magic weapons. But magic is exactly that, a desired magic effect technically shouldn't have to require precise aiming. A newb mage is going to burn through a lot of magika on missing the target.

NO!

In "Two Worlds 2", all ranged damaging spells by default do not have targeting capability, unless you specifically tell it to do so when you make the spell.

I think this would be a good thing. Magic seems like it should be more about magic skill than aiming skill. I realize not everyone likes that, so it shouldn't be for every spell though.

Maybe to differentiate spell effects. Like shock could be a fast moving bolt of lighting that goes in a straight line, and damage health could be a slower-moving bubble of doom that follows enemies.

They should have some that do that but not all.

I would prefer they ditch player skill on the to hit side. I prefer it be character skill, so I guess I kind of want auto targeting and skill determining its success. To me character skill is what defines a RPG, the move away from that has changed RPGs to action/FPS games with character customization tacked on.

Balance wise its very very hard for the devs to balance the dificulty of the game and the power of magic if alot of thier players will be screwed by a bad targetting system or slow spells or just plain hard to hit critters.

By making some amount of target lock as in target magnetism they are able to pump up the dificulty while still making a game that will sell.

Tho i do hope they have a slider to increase or decrease the power of the target mag effect.

Fact is there are soo many things a slider could make 100000000000x better... nighttime darkness... storms... wind... rain...snow....spawn rates.... day length... night length.... blah blah blah...