Really?

Really. My favorite feature. Been in every TES made. No reason to remove it, every reason to keep it. Totally optional and adds depth, variety, customization etc.

So, you don't like the type of game TES is? TES ain't a turn-based, board game. You have to at least point in the right direction and click/press the trigger. You gotta have skill as much as good stats, else the game would make more sense as a more-turned based game like Final Fantasy (or Fallout)... You're basically asking for the game to do it all for you.

I liked spell creation too, but that's not the only thing I'm looking forward to. If it's in, great! If not, meh, kinda svcks, but there's still other aspects in the game that will be present that wasn't in Oblivion, so that makes me happy either way. Lose 1, gain another, that's how I see it.

The game should pause while going into your menu/favorites for this reason. You keep Ice equipped as your standard "Oh crap" spell, to get you out of trouble. After you hit it with them, you go into your spells to figure out what your next step is. It isn't how fast you are at doing the spells, it is how intelligent you are at putting them together.

The other flexibility that it may give you, depending on how the spell combining works, is that you can tailor your spells on the fly. Have multiple enemies, slow them all, but only cast the weakness to fire and fire spell on the big guy. Fighting a magic user, hit them with a lightning bolt instead to drain their magicka as well. Even with the limited knowledge of spells, there are already a ton of possibilities with them.

spell mkaing really needs to get back in... i really cant imagine playing a mage character without spell making

I think you could implement/balance spell creation in this new system by having created spells take two hands to wield and make it so you cant stack weakness and fortify magicka in the same way. Although the latter part only happened if you did so.

I've played TES games since Daggerfall was new. That's 15 years, and thousands of hours of playing. Please don't presume to tell me what I want or like, or that I don't know what the games have been like.

Thank you.

That gets into a separate issue then though - I've never liked pausing the game. I generally don't bother with poisons, for instance, for just that reason. I'm not entirely inept with key-pressing, so I can get by in real-time combat. Timing really isn't much of an issue (which is why I love playing an unarmored claymore fighter in Oblivion - hitting an opponent with a power swing when they're right at the tip of the sword is one of my favorite things in the game). The issue, more, is finding and pressing multiple keys. I can't count how many times I've reached for a hotkey to switch to a particular spell or something and pressed the wrong one and ended up with the wrong spell. And with the "can't change weapons while attacking" thing, which I would presume is going to be in Skyrim too, that means that I not only end up with the wrong spell, but it takes that much longer before I have the chance to replace it with the right one. If spells involving multiple effects will require pressing multiple keys (and if that's the case, this will be the first TES game to require that), then I'm concerned that it's going to be unsatisfyingly difficult to do it dependably - that it's going to come to rely too much on my key-pressing ability and not enough on my character's magic ability. While there's always been an element of that in TES games, it's been balanced in the past in a way that appeals to me - just enough of a test of my skill to be satisfying, but enough dependent on the character's skill that it's not frustrating. As opposed to, for instance, fighting games, which I've never been able to play well.

Again - we'll see. This is just a thing that concerns me, and since this thread seemed to be a good place to write of things that concern me, I wrote of it.

I'm not presuming. You have very clearly stated what you liked. And I never stated that you didn't know what TES is like, only that it is odd that you don't appreciate that kind of gaming when it's obvious that TES is encorporating action elements in their games, that need the right action at the right time...


And reading your following post, it seems that your troubles would be more due to the GUI and control scheme than the magic system...

All indications are that changes that are being made to the magic system could well make it such that successfully using multiple effect spells in Skyrim is going to depend much more on the GUI and the control scheme than it has in the past. Therefore, any shortcomings of that GUI and control scheme (along with any lack of skill I might have in successfully manipulating that GUI and control scheme) are going to equate to a lessened ability to successfully use multiple effect spells. This concerns me. I only seek to communicate that it concerns me and frankly have absolutely no idea why my concern is so troubling to you that you seek to argue the point.

The only spell effects that I can see Bethesda removing completely are ones that manipulate attributes. So, we'll still have GREAT diversity in terms of spell EFFECTS (open, shield spells, water breathing and walking, bound spells, summon spells, turn undead, disintegrate spells (armor, weapon), fire damage, frost damage, shock damage, "weakness to" spells (disease, fire, frost, magic, normal weapons, poison, shock), calm, chameleon, charm, command spells (creature, humanoid), demoralize, frenzy, invisibility, light, night-eye, paralyze, rally, silence; mysticism spells (which are being shifted to other schools): detect life, dispel, reflect (damage, spell), soul trap, spell absorption, telekinesis; cure spells (disease, paralysis, poison), resist spells (disease, fire, frost, magic, normal weapons, paralysis, poison, shock), etc. We'll still see spells that manipulate fatigue, health, and magicka (obviously). I think the removal of the mysticism school NAME was a logical choice (even if it was after three other ES games), as the term "mysticism" has real-world religious connotations (and it was also the smallest school of magic in Oblivion). As I said, mysticism spells are merely being shifted to the other five schools of magic. And now we get enchanting as a skill again, which I'm happy about. Alchemy is now the stealth (or thief) crafting skill discipline. Overall, I believe that magic combat in Skyrim will be awesome and beautiful (even more so than any previous ES game). I still get goosebumps when I think of that massive fire spell cast against those draugrs in the trailer. That was epic. I can't wait to be a mage in Skyrim!

Loss of stats =/= simplification

You have concerns, concerns which I thought were unfounded therefore I argued. They don't trouble me, as I'm almost certain that your concerns won't affect the development of the game. I don't care that you are concerned, although in the spirit of discussing and debating how Skyrim will be, I though pertinent to point the lack of logic behind such worries.

Basically, for me any expressed sentence is open for debate.

The only stats removed are the 7 attributes (which were redundant). This is how attributes played out in Oblivion. Agility affected total fatigue, Marksman, Security, and Sneak; you now directly increase stamina upon level up. Endurance affected total fatigue, base health, health increase on level up, Block, Armorer, and Heavy Armor; you now directly increase health upon level up and base health will be based on race, as it was in Oblivion, with Argonians and Bretons having the least amount of base health while Orcs and Redguards have the most amount of base health. Intelligence affected base magicka, Conjuration, Mysticism, and Alchemy; base magicka will be based on race, as it was in Oblivion, with Nords and Redguards having the least amount of base magicka while Altmers and Bretons have the most amount of base magicka. Luck was...stupid; it's completely unnecessary. Personality affected Mercantile, Speechcraft, and Illusion; this attribute is completely unnecessary. Speed affected Acrobatics, Athletics, and Light Armor; the first two skills no longer exist (we now have the option of sprinting). Strength affected total encumbrance, total fatigue, Blunt, Blade, and Hand to Hand. Willpower affected magicka regeneration, total fatigue, Alteration, Destruction, and Restoration. My guess is that jump height, encumbrance, and magicka regeneration are affected by invisible stats/variables calculated from the character's health, stamina, and magicka levels. I might be wrong about that, but it seems like a logical idea. NPCs will still have aggression, disposition, and responsibility (or similar attributes, as speechcraft is a confirmed skill in Skyrim). Obviously, skills increase as we use them (just as in Morrowind and Oblivion). The whole point of removing the 8 traditional attributes is to give us greater control over our characters. I think it's actually a more complex system, because we (the players) can be a lot more unique from each other. That's my two cents, anyway.

Umbra is an exception because his attack power and hp made you fight him cautiously. He was basically a boss level character; using said strategies against a normal, everyday enemy would prove overkill and a complete waste of time.

I thought the spell system in both Morrowind and Oblivion were both terrible. The ability to create spells was cool, but the entire system was just a total wash. It was difficult to make anything interesting. Anything is a welcome change. Personally, I liked Daggerfall's system best. Your magic skills would decrease the cost of casting spells as you raised them. This allowed for some seriously cool spells as you gained in power.

"Sweet spell, not too powerful, but it eats half my mana pool to cast it once!"

IMHO, the previous game's magic system were terrible.

Well it depends a great deal on how they make conjurations and such. I expect to make heavy use of fire destruction spells and conjuration magics in my first character.

I expect this time basic magic will be more potent then before specialy with the ability to combine some spells together.

It already works like this in Oblivion and Morrowind, I pressed the wrong hotkey many times in the heat of the battle.

Yes you could include some effects in one spell, but you can't put all of them in one, especially if you don't play a full mage...

I rarely find myself agreeing with you about anything SR related. And at first when you said button mashing I was very confused. Now that you have clarified I must say I am sympathetic with you. I also svck at button combonations, hell I often hit the wrong quick key, or use a strong attack when I wanted a quick attack in OB,etc. Its probably one of the reason I gravitated towards rpgs so many years ago, I svcked at twitch games.

With that said I assume it going to action game light, just like the Fallouts were fps light combat. Here is what I mean: I always svcked at first person shooters(I never bothered playing one for more than a short period of time) after playing FO3, I thought to try Crysis and later I tried Fry Cry 2 also, even with both games on the easiest setting I could get no were. The Fallouts were not legit fps shooter combat nor do I think SR will be legit action/god of war whatever type combat. Will I hit the wrong button here and there, sure will but I still am looking very much forward to it.

And a cool thing about mage characters now is less reliance on hotkeys(one of the reason I never have played a mage). 2 spell types in each hand(key) and quick press or hold down for different effects, I think it a very intuitive and well designed system, even if I will press the wrong button now and then.

I'm hoping that we'll still have these types of spells for absorbing/fortifying/draining skills. But I am worried that perhaps spells will be a bit too well-rounded in Skyrim. Everybody talks about the ability to shoot fireballs and place flame traps with one spell like it's super cool and Bioshock-esque, but to me it just sounds like you're giving the magic-using player some overwhelmingly well-rounded spells that can accommodate a variety of different combat scenarios, reducing the need to be as dynamic as the mage in Morrowind or Oblivion would have to.

Only as "iffy" as the fortify blunt and Marksman spells from OB were.

:unsure:

:stare:

It wouldnt prove overkill if you adjust the difficulty slider and its not a wast of time, for the reason below.


Ive used those with plenty of build in different capacities. Just because somethings may seem more practical than somthing else, doesnt mean thats who my, or anyone's build is.