First of all, thanks for this nice game, it has been a blast (and I still refuse to complete it to keep having fun).

Second, I have read the magic topics and I wish this doesn't turn into a flame war or whatever, most comments on them come from ppl that haven't "seen the world" through the eyes of characters using other skills or they would have realized from long ago terms as "one shots" or OP are already into the game with other skill combos. This is not a MP game, OP is not as important as "perceived difficulty" over the lifetime of a given character.

Third, I have played to L40+ a Thief/Assassin and a Warrior (Playing in parallel all the characters) each of them focused on its own way to play and storyline.

Fourth, I always play in Master difficulty.


So my Mage is my third character and I already have a few anoying issues to bring to attention (Not expecting Devs to even read this, but to the soon-to-flourish mod Community) when possible I will provide a comparison with other types of gameplay:

- Skill/Level Scaling. Conjuration Weapons scale, Summoned mobs scale but Destruction, Illusion, Alteration and Restoration does not.
* Illusion provides level-restricted effects as enchanted weapons do, with the advantage to give the Mage flexibility on which effect to apply without having to carry multiple bows to deal with effect/level combos. Works k but durations are fixed.
* Alteration provides fixed defenses akin to the basic armor levels. The problem is that seems that Devs forgot that most are additive with basic armor so going around with robes AND the double armor perk doesn't do anything for any gameplay chosen. This perk needs to provide offensive bonuses when the Mage is wearing robes (Flat bonus to damage and/or magicka regen). Exactly the same differences that there are between Light Armor and Heavy Armor, that trade off defensive perks for offensive ones (stamina regen principally). This disparity is amplyfied to the roof when the character has smithing and wears any armor (You don't even need to invest any perk on smithing, just basic upgrade at 100 skill, something very easy to achieve).
* Restoration healing effects are more or less k due to the slow scaling of HP bars of the player and NPCs.
* Destruction fails to work as a direct source of DPS. The reasson is simple, it has "basic levels" as weapons do (The different spells along the same damage descriptor) but lacks the basic skill scaling ALL WEAPONS have (Conjured ones included). The other, OFC, is that there aren't gear-based damage increasing bonuses at all for magic. This seems to be the "hot topic" on most threads, if you feel the urgency to try to deny this, please, first play as an Assassin and particularly as a 2H weapon warrior (I advise you to stop using a 2 hand weapon at the very moment you start one-shoting everything you have in front... Without stealth. Makes the game trivial. Switch back to 1h + shield or you will get bored in no time). Dual casting on the other schools works because they add secondary effects to the spells... Not for destruction, sadly, it's basically 2 casts with stagger chance (The damage output is EXACTLY that of 2 spells and the mana cost is also double) that requires the Mage to forfeit the flexibility of having 2 different spells active. On Magicka limited scenarios, this perk is simply not worth it, specially if you practice (and have perked) with your wards as a mana regaining system. If you do a simple comparisson with a bow fully perked, destruction is a straight waste. A mage using a conjured bow with less perks (invested into archery instead of destruction) will be a far deadlier (And far more efficient) ranged combatant (Specially if he gets bow damage boosting gear).

- Mana Freeze. This "detail" is behind most of the problems with Magicka regen. The issue is that while casting a spell the mana regen is suspended, simple but devastating on the long run. Doesn't matter the school you use, you spend time aiming, or waiting for the "right moment" or you have to spam the same spell forever to kill someone. During all those operations Mana Regen is simply 0, this makes the mana costs of spells FAAAAAR higher than expected (Yes, even with 100% cost reduction you are spending mana... That mana you aren't regenerating). In particular this renders all Staves innoperative at the very moment the user has access to the spell the particular staff is imbued with as casting spells from a staff ALSO "freezes" mana.


Proposed Changes to bring Mage gameplay inline with others:

- Spell effect Scaling with skill. Duration, damage, protected ammounts and healed ammounts should see a skill based scaling. Spells are "Mage Gear" as basic weapons/armor "materials" are for Thieves or Warriors, makes no sense the later ALSO have Skill Scaling (Sometimes even with 2 skills affecting output) and the former not. Gear effect scaling SHOULDN'T be included, as Physical fighers DO NOT have stamina cost gear reductions. This scaling should carryover to spells on Staves also, ofc.

- Mana should regen at all times (keep the different in-combat and ooc regen figures so mana pool matters also). The only exception to this is when a ward is been kept up, then and ONLY then, mana regen should be 0. In this way the cost of spells will be the real one and staves will be helpfull as an effective way to "save mana" by scrifying souls.

- Enforce the "robe gameplay" by adding "robe only" perks on each school (or a generical "effect booster" on alteration school, the skill tree with less perks). ATM simply doesn't cut it and do not follow the decissions to take as physical fighter regarding the armor you wear. You are naked but gain nothing but "mage-like" looks .

- Dual Casting for Destruction should yield higher damage than 2 consecutive casts (+25% should be enough). Impact perk should be changed. It should trigger a stagger ONLY 50% of the time and then should boost the secondary effect of the Damage Descriptor: Electricity - 50% extra mana loss, Fire - 25% extra damage received while burnt, Ice - 25% extra stamina loss & 25% slower movement.


I think this set of changes will make the Mage gameplay consistent at all levels, not the actual "weird" mix with abrupt changes on difficulty, perks that make spells obsolete and schools that are redundant.

Ah come there are actually many that doing quite fine with a high level mage (yeah even with destruction) and we don't need another whine thread.

I haven't had any problem this far on my level 26 pure-mage. If Skyrim would support online-mode I swear to god, mages would be seen on as overpowered.

I've been using a Mage character and I don't many problems, sure I get really pissed off with the mana regen but I'm fine with leveling my skills up, it's not as easy as it was in Oblivion though.

I don't mind the dps output of destro even if it can be on the low side and a bit complicated mana regen is fine with me as well.

What I don't like is the dual casting system and impact perk. Players should be encouraged to combine spells, not use one in both hands. Also I find alteration very lacking in the early stages ... 60 armor that you have to recast every minute and with it on frost wolf still 3 shots me. Talk about useless. And the wards ... using them stops mana regen, nerfs your dps and costs butload of magicka, feels like only NPC mages can afford using them. Also the runes ... they seem to be capable of one shotting me when I step on them, but enemy NPCs they just tickle them.

tl;dr Dual cast, runes, alteration and wards.

The only thing, and only thing, I think mages need is to have magicka regen bonuses appled during combat. Everything else is fine, but as it stands all mages default to the base magicka regen speed in combat, even if they had 500% from enchantments not two seconds before.

mana regen is the only thing that realy need fixing if they do that then alot of prombles will be fix right there. ive been playing mage with 100% reduction to destruction magic only so that i can stun lock with impact perk enemys so my conjurations can kill it that realy the only way ive found destruction to be useful.

Sigh... Some ppl do not understand what feedback is, or "looking the world from the other side" means.

Before some of you keep adding "constructive posts" check the following list and compare it with a thief or a warrior character:

- How much time it takes for me to kill something?

- Which difficulty I play with?

- Can I play alone? Or I need ALWAYS an extra NPC with me?


"Gameplay Feedback" is not about what you can and can't do... It's about how restrictive it's for you to do or do not.

That's why mage gameplay (ie someone that has to learn spells) needs a fix... Specially as direct source of DPS (And to some extent to everything... As a combination of gear + smithing + echanting in hands of a physical adventurer usually ends performing far better).

It does work in combat just 3x slower than out of combat and stops when you are casting.

I'll start by saying I love the game, but that doesn't mean I have to like everything about it.

Dual casting seriously adds NOTHING to the power of a spell? Without the stagger, you're seriously doing NOTHING but a cosmetic effect?? I had no idea. That's just bad.


Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's right that they showed off all kinds of neat types of spells but in reality they all become useless for the most part later. The spells SHOULD scale. You should be able to strategize and use runes/flamethrower/bolt/cloak etc type spells depending on your current situation, rather than just "higher level is more damage."

The spell system they showed was far more dynamic than what is in the game. The destruction spells should clearly scale with your level in my opinion. It's quite amazing how many melee enchantments and effects they added that blow away anything destruction can do. It should not be that way. Just because it's still playable doesn't make it right.

Spell casters are typically the biggest damage dealers out there, at the expense of being quite vulnerable. Instead melee fighters are both more durable and higher damage. That makes no sense at all.

Well to be fair lots of people play on higher difficulties, where much of that balance is thrown out the window.

For example the Runes doing as much damage as a light summer breeze to enemies, but killing you in one go. That really only happens on Expert and Master. After playing a Mage on Master difficulty for about 55 hours I feel like I would completely faceroll the game if I went to Adept difficulty, just because the mages are that powerful. And this is without the -100% Magicka cost thing too (can't find any grand souls for it).

Honestly magicka regen isn't THAT bad either. If I NEED to pump out 8 fireballs NOW I down some potions, otherwise I can skirt around for a few seconds and let it restore a bit. Certainly not a horrible restriction, just another fact of life for a mage in a TES game. Hell I remember when you had NO regen in Oblivion with the Atronach sign, and nobody had regen in Morrowind. We made do there too.

magicka works fine for me

So you're saying that runes and short range "spray" spells are still relevant at level 50+ on the default difficulty? It's still broken if they aren't on the higher difficulties though in my opinion.

Yeah ... I was like now I will set a TRAP !!! It will be awesome ... mob comes, trap triggers takes 1/10th of his hp bar if that :celebration:



- It takes longer to kill stuff as mage with destro, I don't have a problem with that.

- You can play on master. Some fights are actually easier with mage than with warrior. Frost Troll at lvl 8 is easy solo kill for mage, not so much for war.

- You can play alone, but you have to kite a lot.

My mage does quite fine, but I'd say its best to use all the schools. conjuration for your creature to keep aggro, if things get tough illusion to fear them away, alteration for ward etc etc

Why is this okay? How is it okay for melee combat to both be safer AND more damage dealing? Magic is, well, magic. It's stronger than melee... or typically is. The price for that is being more vulnerable.

As it stands, it's possible to play a game in which melee are just point blank stronger in every way. That's broken. I don't care about perfect balance, but when it's not even close that's a huge problem, especially when you get a single spell of each type for each element and they don't even scale at all with your skill/level.

55h on Master difficulty... And you don't know how to get a Grand Soul?

Maybe it's because the time it takes for you to do anything as a Mage prevents you to explore the game?

Don't you find... Weird... That a combination of conjuration magic (That also provides the extra NPCs that scale and do far more damage than you) AND Archery beats BY far the direct damage school?

Speaking of weirdness... Don't you find strange that the Impact perk makes irrelevant the kind of damage you do (Electricity is instant hitting, so by speccing just into this you get the max damage possible with the highest accuracy possible) and also keeps an enemy perma CCed. What's the point of the whole illusion school if a single perk provides all CC needed? (The stealth part of Illusion is well... replaced by a perkless stealth skill).

Have you tried Stealth + 1H or a far simpler maxed 2H weapon gameplay?... In particular how much time it takes for a character like this to kill something?

Master Level Mage Destruction deficiency is really noticable in a few places.

1. Mana Regen while casting is 0 and high mana cost make using magic early pretty useless. You might be able to kill one minion but it will be iffy if its a humanoid.

2. Getting a Good mana reduction is very hard ealry game.

3. Destruction levels far slower than all other abilities in the game, except maybe a mage leveling Armor. (Mostly this is due to not being able to cast often)

4. Late game mobs have such incredibly high hitpoints that the lack of scaling and damage modifying enchantments means that you will kill slowly. Even Rats won't die in a few hits from your most powerful abilities.

This is not true. The reason people think this this is because mana regen is always slower in battle. At lv.1, at lv50, with or without extra % mana regen, mana reg. is always going to be slower in battles. Having 200% mana regen still helps, even in battles.

Either way mages are pretty balanced out at adept difficulty, maybe even a bit overpowered. The problem is that destruction etc. doesn't scale, and fortify destruction doesn't raise damage, so when you amp up the difficulty you will have a problem compared to warriors who can raise their damage output a lot through enchanting.

Well I know WHERE to get them. I just won't. I don't kill gentle Mammoths.

As for direct damage, destruction at least has different effects that make it useful. Magicka damage from lightning, stamina damage and slowdown from frost. The biggest thing it has that nobody else has is AoE from most of the higher level spells like Ice Storm, Fireball, and Blizzard: so you can damage many enemies at once instead of just focusing on one at a time.

If you don't just sit there and dual hand lightning bolt the entire fight forever and ever. I mean, sure, I can see how doing that would be boring.

Yeah, lightning is satisfying against mages Frost suffers from the nice feature of melee combat mechanic in Skyrim and that is with 5 stamina you can initiate power attack that cost 50 stamina to use.

Don't want to spoiler... But with enough exploration you will find another way to get them... It will be equally morally challenging, although .



AoE on this game is an illusion... The fact that you have to go around with your Housecarl (or equivalent 100% controllable NPC) at all times, makes your AOE counterproductive. Besides that, my deffinition of AOE on this game as Mage on Master is simple... Cast Fury at max range on the most powerfull mob in the pack (Specially if it uses a 2H weapon). This source of damage is independent of the difficulty level, it's extremely mana efficient and will provide at the end a single mob to beat.



I would like to have more options, the issue is that the stagger Impact provides is the best CC on the game for as long as you can keep casting (using electricity is just because the proyectiles are instant so you don't fail against long range targets or flyers)... The problem is that the rest are slower and I refuse to be a Conjurer Archer or a Conjurer 2Her to say I kill things using magic but what I'm doing is playing like a physical character, something I already have in my other "playthroughs".

This isn't an issue. If you're charging spells at a bad time that's your problem, it isn't an issue with the mechanics. If you charge up a spell and realize you shouldn't have then cancel it.



Dual Casting already deals more damage than two consecutive casts. Infact funnily enough it is around a 25% increase. And I really disagree with the Impact change. Chain stunning enemies is the only way a Destruction mage can keep enemies off him without exploiting the AI.

The real problem with Dual Casting is that damage per Magicka cost plummets. In the long run (or more specifically a long fight) it's much better NOT to Dual Cast destruction spells. The only use Destruction Dual Casting has right now is making use of Impact.



The only thing Mages really need are a 1% increase in base damage on spells per skill point and to have Master spells cast faster.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, Azura's faithful, white star, et cetera et ecetera.

No Khajiit of mine is going to betray Azura on my watch. Fresh out of normal blacks too. It's not so much I can't get them, it's just that I don't feel like trudging through the world and getting gold to buy them or finding blacks. Laziness keeps me from breaking my game.

Mmmm... I think you don't understand the impact this has... Specially as you:



Do you realize that by having to chain cast anything you don't regenerate any mana because of this? Have you seen what happens with a Physical fighter and their stamina bar?

Why an archer can permanently arm his bow waiting for you to appear and do not pay any price? Why NPC mages can hold a spell forever waiting for you to show your face and then keep fighting normally with a full mana bar you have to drain again?

Do you use staves? Why not?

Why you need to "chain stun" when you have an Elemental descriptor that slows down enemies? Maybe because it doesn't slow them enough?


I think you don't get the point of my proposal... OFC you can do things... The issue is that you have to do them using a tiny fraction of the magical repertory offered and, in the process, you make obsolete the rest of your skills/spells/perks. This doesn't happen on a physical adventurer.


Edit:



Sadly my accurate tests on a 0 resistance NPC do not agree with you... In fact, if you are using fire and your enemy can be put to flames and you arm 2 fire spells (can be done even with impact perk, you just need to delay your other hand half a second) and then release both fire proyectiles at the same time, one of them will get the benefit of the flaming effect, resulting in a more damaging combo than if I had used a single DUAL cast (This advantantage, ofc, is lost and both become equal after the 1st hit with fire happens).