it would be very immersion not to see the spells effecting you while you play. and it would be nice for a little randomness in spells

by randomness in spells, i mean that the effects might be stronger or weaker occasionaly, or they may have a shorter or longer duration



imagine the suspense of sneaking into a fortress with powerfull guards, you cannot tell if they see you- so you just have to hope they dont, as you get to a certain point, you must go invisible and walk across the open in the midst of hundreds of guards. you better hope your invisibility doesnt fail on you.

imagine that you get to the end of the open bit, but your invisibility fails. the guards turn and charge at you. you cant hold that many guards and you need to do your job quickly. the best solution would be to summon a pair of powerfull dremora to cover your escape. but your summoning skill is low and other factors mean that you have a 10% chance of the spell failing, and another 10% chance that you wont bound the dremora properly, so that they attack you instead. you need to take the risk.

your target is infront of you after you escape,you are hidden and you draw your dagger. there is a 50% chance that you will kill him instantly, or atleast wound him enough to finish him of with ease. the other 50% means that he will turn around, grab your dagger and do some crazy judo throw with the possibility of executing you whilst you are down.



you get my drift?

A random factor is fine for some things... but a random factor that can often lead to you getting killed? No thanks.

If I have a spell thats suppose to last a certain length of time, or do a certain amount of damage, or heal a certain amount of health then I want it to do just that. It would result in nothing but frustration to constantly have invisibility spells wear off early and result in death, or keep getting shoddy bad luck heals that also result in death. A random factor for spells casting based on skill is fine, but their effects should be pretty much set in stone.

I can understand randomness, so long it's in a range (18-22 damage for 17-23 magicka) but not if it's a set amount.

get on higher resolution and the hud will be just like morrowind.... useless complaining.

I agree a lot more randomness... HOWEVER, it needs to be properly balanced... I don't want to be fumbling as much as a level one mage in a D&D game in a TES game, needless to say when its critical, and the game doesn't play the roll of the DM to keep you immersed, but also account for strokes of bad luck to insure the game goes on, the dying due to bad luck thing can get old fast.

I like what some people are saying here about there being a degree the spell will do, like "Fireball 18-22 damage." Rather than "Fireball 20 damage." But I want to have an idea what it's going to do. After all, I should know what my own spells do with a reasonable degree of accuracy.