it could turn your exterior self into mirrors!

Being Mental is me being Mental...

YOU should take 5 minutes to read the actual skill...in the game. UESPWiki is a FAN site. It is not kept by the game's developers.

However, it is an excellent site that I use several times a day, when playing an Elder Scrolls game. I know it well. If you say UESPWiki reports that books state that, I believe you...and I believe them.

But, understand this...It contradicts what the GAME says. And that is Illogical. A conflict in logic is "illogical". That's what it means. And that's what I said in my original post. It proves that my original post was accurate in, at least, that.

LOL, I'd rather go with nanobots. Anarchy Online had a great premise. But it's magic, I guess. Just not one that is explained very well. DEUS EX MACHINA, but one I accept or why would I be playing this game.

It's only a problem when they TRY to explain, and contradict themselves.

I have to admit, Invisibility seems to do nothing. I've used a couple of invisibility potions I've brewed along with pretty good sneak, and people still notice when an "invisible" person walks into the light.

I tried this, and was slaughtered completely within seconds

What? Maybe the alchemical substance behaves differently. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial_cloaking, and the way I see it, Alchemy is like Alteration.)I've a read a bit of this thread, and while I don't really care for it, this stood out. What the Illusion description describes is contradicting in nature to how the spell works, plain and simple.

Edit: Just from experience, I've only used invisibility a few times, and the one time I did use it, it appeared to work, but I also had a high level sneak, and snuck by the enemy I was attempting to avoid, so I probably wasted the potion anyways.

No... it really doesn't. Let's assume that the description you're giving of the Illusion skill according to the lore is true no matter what. Invisibility would be a spell that alters the minds of those around you to stop seeing you. They don't simply forget about you, it's just that one of their 5 senses is now disabled towards you. They can still hear you, feel you, smell you, taste you (lol). The term you're looking for is "Undetectability", and while the Invisibility may have worked like that in previous games, the AI now has more ways to detect you than simply vision. It is in fact even possible that you don't turn COMPLETELY invisible, and that the enemies can still see a very faint shimmer where you are. No spell is perfect in the game: calm/frenzy spells don't last forever, nor do summoned creatures stick around for eternity. Maybe this is what Bethesda intended all along, and only now with Skyrim they have the tech to make Invisibility behave like they want to. Who are you to judge them?

Yes, I would SERIOUSLY stop attacking someone who vanished before my eyes. I would retreat to a defensible position and defend it. Back into a corner, swinging my blade in front of me or covering my head and face with a shield. I wouldn't chase the person, because he has the advantage. He's INVISIBLE. In hand to hand combat, there is NO WAY that being invisible ISN'T, so great an advantage, that you wouldn't immediately stop attacking and start defending. Or, you would die. If you could hear him running away, you would let him go, and count yourself lucky.

Sure you MIGHT get lucky swinging wildly and hit him, after moving toward the sound of his footsteps...but seriously...you would most likely just die, if you tried. The first wild swing would get blocked or parried or just dodged because you didn't know exactly where to strike, and then you'd be stabbed...because you couldn't see where the counter-attack was coming from. He's INVISIBLE. And you would be aware of this, and NOT chase him. When it's your life, "might" isn't good enough.

These aren't boss mobs I'm talking about...these are common grunt/thugs that you run into everywhere in the game. They would die, to even a really stupid invisible foe. And they would have to be really stupid themselves not to immediately, intuitively, understand that. And if they are that stupid...you should be able to kill them in one hit, because that is logical

But it's not just that, that is illogical. Automatons shouldn't be affected at all if, as the description says, invisibility is mental in nature. They have no brains to control.

I didnt expect to spend 10 posts saying "...yes...no really...it's stupid". I thought it was so obvious, that no one would disagree. I just wanted opinions on Bethesda's motivation, and if anyone thought it was intentional, or unintentional. Not insist that it didn't exist.

Maybe I should have more clearly stated that. I don't know. My bad.

please read the post right below your post. it answers your response.

Invisibility really is broken. I was a bloodthirsty vampire, so I approached a village while invisible and the guards were able to instantly detect me at long distance from the other side of the village. There is no way they could have "heard my footsteps" or "smelt me" or even see a shimmer at that distance, so those arguments don't apply. Seriously, I'm all for making invisibility less overpowered, but this really is ridiculous.

I understand that this is how you would like it to work, but that is not invisibility, and I'm not sure where the notion that it would be comes from. Maybe NPC's detect noise too well if they detect you from far away when you're invisible, that may be an issue by the sound of things. Generally though, if you want to be undetected, go into sneak mode as well to suppress noise.

Invisiblity in Skyrim works more like Chameleon did in Oblivion. It is somewhat reliant on Sneak now but I would rather it be like it is now than the immortality spell it was in Oblivion.

Actually, Derren Brown can do a similar thing in tricking people into not seeing him. He said that on some people it doesn't work entirely; they know he's there their mind just refuses to actually see him. On that basis somebody could still attack you.

Besides, while you have a strong argument in rhetoric, your logic still has holes in it. The magic is called 'invisibility' not 'imperceivable'. It would logically therefore be entirely within the meaning of the spell for you to trick their mind into not seeing you, while not removing their ability to perceive your presence through other senses.

We can also see the enemies that turn themselves invisible. Skyrim's got it right.

This is pretty much the reason its so useless now, only I would describe it as:

Enough people complained about a fully optional feature being overpowered, as if that means anything, so it got destroyed.

Make sure you cast it when not in line of sight, and combine it with muffle.
Still wont do much good, with the amazingly short timers on spells for their cost and the lack of spellmaking but its better than nothing.

Wut.

Funny thing is you say here "BALANCE DOESN'T MATTER" when they nerf something overpowered. But when it comes to something being underpowered, like Destruction in Skyrim, you want it fixing. LOL.

I have to agree with OP here, the invisibility is not so much invisibility anymore, its more like a smoke bomb, how NPCs react. Either that or its so glitchy you cant rely on it, either way, its not an interesting spell anymore. I rather save the magicka for some healing or other means of escape if i need it.

Yeah invisibility blows in this game, no matter what they can always find me.

I don't think I'll bother with invisibility anymore. Talos knows I tried and tried and tried, but enemies seem to have their tinfoil hats on so the Illusion spell won't affect their minds. As it is, simply sneaking appears to be more useful than invisibility...

Yeah they kind of went out of their way to make sure magic pretty much did nothing except combat. Tes 5, Skyrim taking the magic out of magic one step at a time.

I dont understand how invisibily works in this game... I actually think its completely broken. What is the point of invisibilty potions then?

Invisibility is so frustrating in Skyrim.. I picked up a daily spell of it in a quest.. I won't say to prevent spoilers and it never works for me.. Potions work most of the time but I find I have to run away and then do it. This is with 100 sneak and muffle on my boots that the spell version never works too =/

I get what Bethesda was trying to do with invisibility but it seems "off" still. It could be bugged or simply programmed poorly. The basic premise of not being able to see you but still being able to hear you is solid. They just need to fix the mistakes. Even if I go invisible right in front of the enemy, I should be able to run away (with them chasing), go around a corner, sneak, and they should lose sight of me instantly.

I will admit to being disappointed with using invisibility in Skyrim so far. I play mages and a quick invisibility potion was my "Oh crap!" button, if I was getting kicked around too much. It allowed me to get some distance between me and any mobs attacking and maybe far enough out of range to gulp health potions. But now, although visually I go invisible, the mobs continue to attack me anyway, so it's really no help.