Is this still in the game? I found it to be a really annoying mechanic in Oblivion because the joy finding some ancient powerful weapon is diminished when you have to go farm for souls after 15 swipes.

I've already opened a topic about that. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1203536-recharging-weapons-mechanic/page__p__17945865#entry17945865

Hope that'll help you. And I agree, the mechanics were awfull...

I never had a problem with it, but I'll take your word for it.

Probally return. Considering I'll be enchanter and will have a bag of soul gems and my trusty Azura's Star, I again have no trouble.

I want that out of the game as well. If its enchanted then it should not need charges.

This is not an FPS.
Magical items have charges for balancing purposes.
It would be terrible, just terrible if you for instance had unlimited uses on a staff of fireball.

The soul gem mechanic is logical, it provides balance and its a great part of TES lore.
Its here to stay, and that is a good thing.

I personally liked the charges, and as Merari stated, it's a good balance mechanism. In Oblivion I was never really hard pressed because I kept the Azura's Star handy and some Varla Stones I found from Ayleid Ruins.

I agree
One of the few good changes that Oblivion made

I think the charges should regen over time. like 24-48 hrs game time. Depending on how many charges it has.

What does FPS games have to do with anything? I can't think of any other RPG that punishes you for hitting things, and they never seemed to have balance issues. In fact, limited charges makes it more like power-up in Contra or some other shooter than an RPG. Maybe if the effects were tied to mana, it would be okay, but constantly having to switch to soul drain, go into you bags, find a soul gem, apply it your weapon, and do it all again several enemies later is pointlessly tedious and takes the fun out of finding powerful weapons. If they must make sure it's balanced, I'd rather have weaker enchantments I can use to my hearts content than constantly worrying over whether I'm wasting charges on weak enemies. As for lore... well if Mass Effect can retcon weaponry so that everyone in the galaxy is suddenly using less effective weapons, Skyrim can do the opposite.

This again? Right, once again, the complaint is "I want the most powerful weapons in the game, and I want loads of charges." If you have 25 points of shock damage, yes it runs out quickly. If you enchant a few points of damage you get loads of charges. It's called a trade off, it fits in any game, especially a rpg, which tends to be more about choices. No one complains when a high powered sniper rifle carries less rounds than a basic smg.

So where would you pick up the energizer... Sword at?

You know... magically speaking ... Paganism and voodoism would use souls to "enchant" or possess a thing ... Voodoism used more of dead body remains though. Witch craft believed in the idea of soul possession.

So instead of making it easy to find a +25 shock damage weapon with limited charges, make a rare one found in high level areas with infinite. Besides maybe Fire Emblem, this is the only RPGs series I've seen that feels the need to do this. In Baldur's Gate, Diablo, and many other RPG series, weapons were more powerful, had more interesting enchantments, and you could smack as many zombies as you wanted. In Oblivion, it felt like you were only renting your weapon.

I can think of plenty FPS games that dont even use ammo, guns are just infinite.
They dont do it this way because there is no way an unlimited shock staff would be a balanced mechanic.
Swords break down, mana runs out and so do potions, spell scrolls and enchantment charges.
This is the way the game works and its a good thing, it adds an element of strategy.
The very last thing we need is even more simplification.

All I ask for is an option to have a weapon that doesn't need charges. I don't care if it is only 1/10th as strong as a weapon that uses charges, I would prefer the weaker but permanent option.

I just had this idea of showing the number of charges and charged soul gems as if displaying ammo in a FPS. This is so I can constantly keep track of the number of uses. Hence this, it would be nice to have a "reload"/recharge animation so you don't have to go into your inventory after the item is used up. However, this may make it too much like a FPS.

I expect now that it has a skill again and thus perks there will be a perk that makes all your items slowly recharge SLOWLY mind you in mw it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fast.

This ^^.

I'm pretty sure even Wolfenstein3D had ammo. Ranged staves have had limited charges most all RPGs. The traditional advantage of melee has always been not being dependent on limited resources. Adding charges to weapons adds no strategy, just tedious menu shuffling and maintenance. It's like identify scrolls on steroids. It's a horrible, monotonous, and unfun game mechanic and it needs to die in a fire. For some reason, some people can't tell the difference between complex and convoluted.

personally i liked the taking of souls and forcing them upon your weapon to do your dastardly deeds...

I agree, when I played Oblivion, I made my own weapon with just a few extra damage and a thousand charges. Any Almighty World Cleavers of Unmitigated Destruction with 15 charges were vendor trash.

The charges help limit the op swords I would make otherwise. If there's no limit then I could make the most game breaking enchantment. The weapons I used to find had more charges then anything I could personally make, but were usually a little weaker then some of the enchantments I'd make.

I think they should keep the charges, but slightly increase the amount the player can put on stronger enchantments.

it would be great if you could merge a soul gem into a weapon so that it'll recharge with souls for each kill (becoming a soul trap weapon when it's "empty" of charges if you will) making enchanted weapons combat more fast-paced without breaking the action flow.

the stronger the enchantment the more kills it would take to recharge.

So use a weapon with no enchantment, and problem solved. Weaker, but permanent. :thumbsup:

And remember, Daedric weapons are permanently enchanted items, effectively ebony which has been infused with Daedric energy, which gives extra damage and ability to harm the non-corporeal. Ebony is the very best 'normal' type in the game.

I totally agree, they should change that, make weapons recharge over time or completely screw the charge based mechanics