[MISS KEEP UR]

Skyrim for the GOTY! :celebration: Great job Beth :tes:

I also want to say that I am very happy with the streamlining of skills and attributes; what others call "dumbing down" I call logical progress in the development of the genre (it's not perfect, see below, but Beth is going in the right direction). Even as a hardcoe RPGer, I don't like spending hours in menus, I like RP-ing.

It is a "towering achievement", as another forumite says, no doubt about that. But there are some serious issues in gameplay that can be addressed in patches, DLC, or at least in the next TES which is no doubt already being discussed by Todd & co. Hit it, violin man! >>> :violin:

Magic

Magic as a weapon
Melee/Archery is OP vs Destruction. No, I'm not one of the "Destruction svcks" folks; it is viable, but it's much much harder and it does get harder, rather than easier, after about 40 which should not be the case. I've played my battlemage to lvl 45 and I'm playing an assassin now about lvl 20, so I know what I'm talking about because my assassin can already dish out more damage in less time with his bow or sword than my mage can with spells. :toughninja:

The major issue is that the magic schools, unlike the melee/archery damage and armor ratings (and heck, even enchanting and alchemy), do not scale their damage/effect/duration (depending on the school) with their level. You can only increase damage through perks (which the other skills can too, considerably more in combo with sneak perks). This is a huge oversight; combined with the fact that they also can't be comboed with other skills like weapons can be smithed/enchanted/sneak perks to even greater damage (unless you count enchanting your clothes/armor to increase magicka and/or decrease spell cost, but this is not nearly as powerful as a damage boost as it only allows you to cast more spells over time, not make them do more damage)

Robes/Clothes v Armor AND Enchanting for mages
Enchanting brings me to my next point about magic: there's no incentive to be a pure mage. only someone who is super-dedicated to roleplaying one will do it. Case in point is robes vs armor. Robes have very little benefit over armor at the beginning, even less so once you can enchant well. Part of the problem is that unlike previous TES games, armor gives no penalty whatsoever to spellcasting, and robes/hoods/circlets/etc give no boost. The hoods at the beginning are the only useful thing for giving magicka bonus, but once you can enchant well you can give that magicka boost to any helmet. The Robes that are available give a reduction in spell cost to a certain school (like I said above, more spells over time, not more damage), and the magicka regen does not count in combat (which is the only time it matters? :shrug: ) There is no incentive to enchant robes, hoods, etc over armors because you can enchant them with the same effects as armor but armor gives protection as well. They attempted to give some boost to this in the Alteration school Mage Armor perks and Restoration wards, however this requires you to use magicka before/during every battle to get your armor on and keep casting to keep it on if the spell runs out during a long fight, unlike armor which is "passive" and requires no action to stay protected (on top of mag. regen boost not working during fight)

My suggestions for Magic: most not my original ideas, no.
- Damage/effect/duration of magic schools should scale with level like every other skill :flame:
- Magicka regen boosts should work during combat
- Combo magic with sneak somehow: Give Destruction a sneak bonus of x2 like every other weapon; a perk on the sneak tree for making spells of any school silent (runes could be useful to a sneak with this perk, to set up "traps" for groups of enemies); a perk to increase the sneak bonus like archery. SOMETHING :sick:
- Make enchantment effects that increase a school's damage/effect, rather than just spell cost :prod: (also non-armor only, see next)
- Extend the logic of restricting certain enchant effects to certain body part slots to restricting armor: some magic-benefitting enchants can only be done on non-armors (i.e. magicka boost, [school] cost, magicka regen if fixed)
- In general, decrease the effectiveness of created enchantments (a bit OP in general IMO)
- Give slight penalties to spellcasting effectiveness for armor usage
- passive Mage Armor perks



Discuss, criticize, praise at your leisure, dear forum community :user:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1286407-i-love-skyrim-but-thread-2-factions-questlines/

[Laura]

Yes I agree something needs to be done about magic. Whether its adding in a fortify magic damage enchant or adding in spell crafting, they do need to do something.

[Chrissie Pillinger]

very good read and you're points are very good

Always felt weird that i can conjure a bow and get sneak damage with it and do more damage than if i use expert level dual cast fireball >.>

[Vivien]

I haven't played a mage yet. Still working a kind of warrior/barbarian character. But your comments seem very consistent with what many others have posted. You summarized the problems well I think.

Unfortunately, mages have seemed difficult to balance in previous games. In Morriwind I found them a bit tedious. In Obliviion a Mage was the most powerful type of character at higher levels, but even there there wasn't a huge incentive to not wear armor - except for the level cap'ed spells (eg command, fenzy, turn).

I'm guessing, and hoping, that for the PC there will be rebalancing mods for mages soon.

[Davorah Katz]

I think the real solution is just have a 0 Magicka spell called "Kill", that is instant cast, and kills any NPC (even unkillable ones) instantly.

That should stop these threads.

[DarkGypsy]

I don't agree with the armour point to be honest. Robes like the archmage robes are actauly very good and the lack of armour rating is a trade off for faster reacharging magicka and other bonuses. Plus the alteration spells such as oakflesh are proving to be invaluable with the right perks, such as making the spell last twice as long and increasing the armour value when wearing no armour.

[victoria johnstone]

Armour shouldn't have anything to do with the potential damage of destruction spells. The issue is that smithing and enchanting can wildly improve physical damage output, but there's no comparable improvements to destruction's damage, only its efficiency.

[Daniel Lozano]

I tried a pure mage and everything was going fine at start, where I can toast people with the first flames spell. But since there is no damage scaling, you really feel obligated to start using the higher tier expensive spells as your main spells, and that's the main issue with magic. IMO, mages should be able to use the initial spells the entire game as their 'main' cheap source of damage, leaving the higher tier spells as expensive powerful nukes for specific situations.

I really would enjoy a patch changing the way spells scale.

[Cheville Thompson]

I think the real solution is just have a 0 Magicka spell called "Kill", that is instant cast, and kills any NPC (even unkillable ones) instantly.

That should stop these threads.

They have it....it's called Bound Bow

[K J S]

Yeah...enchanting all your gear to make your spells cost literally 0 magicka so you can PERMANENTLY stagger dragons from 100 to 0 is tough. Try going alteration + illusion with your destruction for a bit of defense and things get a lot easier too. I'm level 61 now and have been playing a pure mage on master the entire time. Can't compare it to the other play styles though.

[Marine x]

Yeah...enchanting all your gear to make your spells cost literally 0 magicka so you can PERMANENTLY stagger dragons from 100 to 0 is tough. Try going alteration + illusion with your destruction for a bit of defense and things get a lot easier too. I'm level 61 now and have been playing a pure mage on master the entire time. Can't compare it to the other play styles though.

Why is it that the first thing everyone says about going all mage is to "level up enchanting" for an all mage character. That's totally BS IMO. Having to utilize an overpowered skill to make up for a lackluster performance of magic only proves that magic (mostly destruction) needs to be revamped. You shouldn't have to be forced into enchanting (something I find extremely boring) for any skill to be viable.

[LuCY sCoTT]

Personally I miss free enchanting with known spells, because I really miss enchanting robes with a shield enchant (essentially giving you "armor")