If you know what you're doing (and don't deliberately gimp your character) ANY style is overpowered in a TES game.

I've got a light armor fighter who one-shotted every ogre in Redguard Valley Cave when she went through it. She never came out of sneak the whole time - just snuck up behind each one and laid him out. I've got a claymore fighter who doesn't wear armor because he never gets hit - nothing can even get close enough to him to hit him without him killing it. I've got another claymore fighter (this one in armor) who recently fought and killed a land dreugh, a minotaur lord and a brown bear simultaneously (well - mostly one at a time, by circling so that the one she was fighting was always between her and the rest). I've got a marksman who kills everything he sees with a single shot and some extraordinarily powerful poisons. And yes - I've got a mage who goes through Oblivion gates standing up and just fights whatever comes his way - daedra, dremora, whatever - it doesn't matter. He kills them all.

And for every one of those characters, I've got two or three who just struggle to get by, just because I find uber characters to be boring, so I generally avoid making them, or I stop playing them when they reach that point. That's my preference, so that's what I do, and I really couldn't care less how anybody else plays the game, nor do I understand why anyone else does.

This is a sort of a balance issue. Beth has to make the game so that it's possible to make uber characters because there are so many people who want to play them. If it wasn't possible, then that would frustrate those players. So they make it possible. That's just a sound business decision. And that means that if you don't want to make an uber character, then it's up to you not to.

Did you know that if you enchant a weapon with 1 second each of max level command creature and command humanoid, it makes every fight like the battle with the Grey Prince? Whatever you're fighting just stands there and lets you kill it. That's no fun, so I don't do it. Did you know that if you enchant a bow with 1 second of drain speed 100, whatever you hit with it will lose track of you, so you can take endless sneak shots? That's no fun, so I don't do it. Did you know that if you switch from a bow to a melee weapon while an arrow's in flight you get a x6 sneak bonus instead of x3? That's no fun, so I don't do it. 100% chameleon is no fun, so I don't do it. 100% magicka resistance or reflect or absorb is no fun, so I don't do it. And so on.

The game's not going to change dramatically in that sense. There will always be people who want to play uber characters and if Beth wants to keep selling games, they have no choice but to make it possible for them to do so. And that just means that anyone who doesn't want to play an uber character has to make a few decisions along the way in order to not do it. And really - that's just the way it goes.

Elder Scrolls mages are not Gods above all men. They are one of 3 playstyles that are meant to be EQUALLY beneficial but work in different ways. This isn't the "be a mage or svck" game.

m one of the few who agreed with getting rid of spellmaking.

You've never played a serious mage then, if you want to get rid of the only thing that made them useful and enhanced their gameplay ten fold in past games. Yeah, I totally want to buy Bethesda's badly made pre-fabricated spells. They almost always svcked.

OPEN LOCK (Why should a person train lockpicking?)

this is why i wish they would remove enchanting or at least severely restrict it in game. im one of the few who agreed with getting rid of spellmaking. one less exploit to have to deliberately ignore. it svcks the wind out of the sails of a game when you have to constantly decide to NOT do something because it will overpower your character to much.

most people that played dark messiah or even bioshock agreed that how they handled "magic" was a hell of a lot better than how past TES games handled it. i rarely played mages in TES games because all it was was a different shader on a projectile or touch attack. BORING.

ill gladly get rid of an obvious exploit system in favor of magic that can be used in context like setting oil on fire and slowing enemies down or causing them to slip, zapping multiple enemies in water etc. Dark messiah spanked oblivion in spellcasting. then start talking about the cool spell casting system of arx fatalis which i really wish someone would bring back. once again much better magic system than oblivion and it didnt have spellmaking either.

as for lousy prefabbed spell i agree...........it sounds like they are drawing inspiration from other games like the aforementioned DM and bioshock so im not to worried myself. and there are always mods anyways.

Am I the only guy thinking magic was way underpowered in oblivion ?
Start level 1 as a pure mage don't touch a sword or armor for the full game , then come to the forums and look at your poll .

Sure with 100 alteration,destruction ,etc you ruled but lets see how you get there with your robes only.

The only way to play a mage in oblivion is through mods.

I will never, no matter how long I live, understand the "I don't like it so you shouldn't be allowed to do it" mindset.

Never.

just use drain health spells and a small damage spell and you can kill anything in a couple of shots.

1 second charm spells for any character in game is another insta win spell.

invisie and chameleon were also easy to abuse.

I don't like how Invisibility trivialized most stealth content. Personally, I think any Invisibility spell should require 75 Illusion minimum with a bit more emphasis on Chameleon at lower levels. As a trade off casting Illusion would remove you from combat and put any NPCs that had noticed you previously into the highest state of alert.

I wouldn't go that far. I've played more than one pure mage in Oblivion, and I've never modded magic. Sure - it's tough playing without armor at lower levels (and particularly at the level scaling hump from about 9 to 15), but it can be done. That, to me, is just part of the whole package - mages are the toughest to play at low levels, but they pay off at high levels. If you can keep them alive long enough.

Seems entirely reasonable to me.

In Oblivion its safe to say that with magic, you could do anything that anyone else could.

So do you think that spells that makes the game too easy, such as INVICIBILITY CHAMELEON CHARM (you could charm a guard trying to catch you and he would pay your fines)

FRENZY (oh come on you could murder anyone with this spell, and the guards would help you)

PARALYZE (good bye battles...)

OPEN LOCK (Why should a person train lockpicking?)

I know man I was just trying to get my point across. :wavey:

Yeah, why bother training lockpicking when there's the Skeleton Key?

There might be a case for magic being massively overpowered...if you couldn't do the same thing several others ways too, prompting the question "Overpowered compared to what?" :shrug:

So its overpowered that a mage uses the tools at hand to kill stuff when those tools were specifically made to kill stuff? I guess its overpowered when a warrior three shots any enemy as well.

Skyrim will get rid of that simply because its conversations are in real time. You'd have to make a charm spell that lasts the entire conversation.


Invisibility and chameleon being easy to abuse can be chalked up to crap AI. Fix the AI and you fix invisibility. I've played MANY games where being fully invisible still could not save you from the AI when they found out where you were.

A simple solution to 100% chameleon could simply be, instead of an 80% enchant cap (which was stupid because then all you needed were two items with a combined total of 100%) on chameleon, they could make a TOTAL cap on chameleon. So even if you had 60% and 60%, it would still add up to only 80%.

And, of course, as I mentioned, better AI is the solution to both chameleon and invisibility issues. Better AI is also the solution to levitation issues.

Thieves werent overpowered becose mages could go running with invicibility and do THE EXACT SAME THING ONLY 10000 TIMES EASIER!
Warriors werent overpowered becose mages could go and paralyze their opponents without taking a strike AND KILL THE SAME GUY 1000000000 TIMES EASIER

Elder Scrolls mages are not Gods above all men. They are one of 3 playstyles that are meant to be EQUALLY beneficial but work in different ways. This isn't the "be a mage or svck" game.