Just wondering how people feel about this. On one hand I felt like it was a lot of additional work compared to less spell casting focused characters just to complete your character's arsenal. However finding the more rare effects had some rewarding feel to it.

I think the worst thing though, was getting stuck with an awful starting set so that as any medium-heavy casting character your first task is basically raising money and buying spells, and then making spells out of those effects because the premade ones weren't castable for you yet and/or weren't powerful or cost effective enough for you. If we got to choose or possibly make(if spellmaking makes the cut in some form) a selection of spells at character creation it'd be much more bearable.

Thoughts? (What spell acquisition process would you like to see in Skyrim?)

I think the idea of buying spells is a pretty lacklustre way of going about it especially now when each spell has gotten far more unique, akin to Bioshock. I think acquiring spell books, either uniquely placed in dungeons or hidden away in cities, or found as rare random loot would be far more interesting. Given that the number of spells has been far reduced, getting multiple books of the same type would probably be quite likely so these additional books might improve the effectiveness of the spell, reducing magicka costs or increasing its power. Perhaps there would be some way to help you track down spell-books, like a guild of information mongers that you can pay to dig up rumours on the whereabouts of certain books. Or you might hear rumours that a strange book of magic was seen in some eccentric collector's collection, and you may embark on a mini-quest to either stealthily steal the book, or buy it from it, or take it out of his cold dead hands. In a similar way you might hear rumours of tome of magic that was lost from from some Wizard's Tower when it was sacked by goblins from a nearby mine; and you may deign to recover this lost tome for yourself.

I like collecting spells. Learning spells from books and quests, and buying them from NPCs.

Spells should be kept in books. You can buy them and look for them. You can read them but you can't comprehend or memorize anything until you have the required skill in that school. So, do you carry them around (they should have weight, just like the skillbooks in FONV) or do you store them at your house? Decision time... If system is based on allowed sets of spells per perk, you need that perk before you can comprehend the book. If I picked up a book on advanced physics today, I wouldn't be able to understand any of it without any prerequisite knowledge.

I don't think they need 3 or 4 different levels of the same spell eg: heal minor wound, heal major wounds, heal legendary wounds.
This should just be determined by your skill level in restoration for this example.

I partially agree, but if we assume the magicka costs increase the more powerful the spell, there are going to be times when we wish we had a weaker spell to spam to full after a fight.

I think a combination of the new system of spell casting styles and the old spell making system should be called for. It would create some seriously scary levels of customization that we couldn't quite achieve due to the limitation of the old system (on self/on touch/on target). Adding spell making to that would just make it that much more awesome. I want to shoot flames from my hands that also paralyze in that cone. I want to make a rune that cast's burden and shock on an enemy. I want a rune that heals and shields me when I step on it.

Not being able to do cool stuff like that would be a shame. I don't want to cast one spell at a time, with one effect at a time. I want to mix and match, and not just two at a time in two hands. I want to make all sorts of fun stuff.

I personally think a modular system is much more fun that a restricted system, even if the modular one feels clunky once in a while. A modular system provides for more emergent gameplay chances.

Put 1 second paralyze or 1 second invisibility on every spell so you are pretty much invincible... ya that is great gameplay mechanics!

Instead of just "buying" spells, I would like a description that you "learned" the spell from a tutor.

How does one buy a spell, isn't that experience you pay a tutor for. I just hope the whole gaining a spell through a transaction is a bit more natural. Just a few text lines or something.

I also wonder how will start off with spels since we don't really have any classes. Will we all start out with a basic set of spells for each class.

Or we each at character tutorial pick a fire/ice/frost basic damage spell.

A basic light or calm spell.

A basic shield or telekinesis spell.

etc.

@ Gurkog no one said you had to use paralyze and invisibility together. And they could just tweak it that only high level mages can mix match spells.

No, I'm sure the answer is to get rid of burden, drain strength, invisibility, chameleon, heal spells.

No, lets just get rid of magic.

This is a single player game, bub. Nothing's making you use paralyze or invisibility. Its not like you couldn't just keep paralyze in your off hand ANYWAYS, so your point is moot.

Did I like collecting Spells and/or Spell Effects?
That's just like asking who Ghandi is.

HELLS YES!!!

Your answer to "Who is Ghandi?" is hells yes? :wink_smile:

I think a mixture of finding rare spell effects and buying some is the best bet. Any character should be able to go down to the local mage and learn how to throw a small fireball or cast a quick heal pretty easily, but learning how to summon Dremora Lords and immolate huge areas should be a little more involved than "Go to Mage's Guild, spend 1000 gold, enjoy!"

I enjoy being able to delete spells I don't need anymore.

I always enjoyed the ability to both buy and discover spells/effects. That said the option to delete them was something I appreciated in Morrowind.

BSG do not share this stance. They aim for SP balance as most respected devs do.

My point was that pointing out paralyze as a single instance is foolish and a total fallacy. There are many, many things that can be exploited and things that WILL be exploited, no matter how hard the devs try. To attempt to balance everything by claiming things should be torn out would end up with just about every game feature gone. If player's want a to steam roll enemies in a game, they will figure out how to do it.

but he was right about the whole 1sec invis and paralyze thing, which is why Todd said they are taking a long look at spell-creation.

That only difference between using paralyze as part of a spell and casting it by itself (using your off hand) would be a magicka difference. Its still just as powerful. Since spell failure doesn't exist, its still just as easy to do.

You might as well suggest we remove all spells that could possibly effect the enemy negatively, since they can be stacked or used in unison to totally disable them.

Spell strength/speed/duration increases, spell costs does not. And it seems with the new spell system, if you want a powerful fireball you just charge it up longer. So hopefully we can hold down the heal spell and heal ourselves as much as we want.

If this was AD&D I'd say drop the spell buying, books, trainers entirely, and just make it like a sorcerers / psionics abilities.
However it's not, and over the games has had so many ways to learn spells that I don't know for certain how casters cast or why it works any more.

So a chain like the perks and skill levels would be fine.
As would books, tomes, scrolls.. etc.
Or even buying / tutors.

All this as long as you have a very reasonable chance of getting the blasted lore and spell effect you wish for.

Or you know you could actually balance the game instead of taking out gameplay mechanics

Certain spell effects could be taken out of the spell making system (there were a few spells you did not have access to in the enchanting altar and a few that were not available at either the enchantment altar nor the spell making altar).

Taking out huge chunks of gameplay mechanics is not the solution to balancing the game.

If they did something as simple as diminishing returns on things like Paralyze and Invisibility it would do a lot of fixing as far as gameplay mechanics go. You can cast paralyze on an enemy maybe 2-5 times and then it won't work for 5 minutes or so. Same thing with invisibility. Easy fix. Or a required cooldown or even just boost the mana cost a ton. It all can balance it.

If Spellmaking is out than the gathering idea is kinda shot. You should still be able to get good spells in random loot like in tomes but the whole "Finding something to make a truly great spell" won't work. I like the idea of spells not just being "Bought" though.

id like to see ancient tomes and scrolls that you can find in dungeons or daedric realms (if you can go to any in skyrim)

Invisibility should only be in the game if it is a Dragon Shout, just imagine trying to sneak past some bandits and your character shouting "INVISIBILITY ACTIVATE" or the dragon tounge equivelent, awesome.

On Oblivion it did not really matter as the game was aimed to be simple, and everyone knew what school to learn in what town.

On Morrowind I absolutely loved scouring every trainer I could find in order to get that elusive effect.
In my case, the last one I wanted was weakness to disease as I wanted to be a vampire after the main quest.
The relief, accomplishment and statisfaction I got from finally finding it in Caldera has no equal in any other game.
Morrowind has more of these 'yes!' moments than any other game Ive ever played.