I love playing magic-based characters in elder scrolls games - almost all my characters have been magic-centric, as I find it the most fun and interesting aspect of the games.
However, I'm somewhat worried about how magic combat will turn out in skyrim. Alot of what made the magic system so deep were the fortify, absorb, and drain attribute spells - you could come up with endless strategies for defeating foes with these - from absorbing the strength and endurance of a tank-like mob to take the power out of their punch, to destroying a mages magic capabilities while bolstering your own by casting an absorb intelligence/willpower spell, or even casting a drain speed on area to slow a group of attackers, while you carefully pick them off with a nice fireball or two.
There are of course hundreds of variations of these types of strategies - it allows an almost unbridled level of creative control over your mages playstyle.

So now there are no attributes (or rather, only three), along with no spell-making, I can't help but think magic combat is going to be much simpler,and thus much less fun.

Based on the little information we have so far, I think Skyrim's magic system will be significantly better than Oblivions. Multiple ways of using the same spell, combining spells into greater effects, plus the variation/customisation that perks may allow. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to being a mage in Skyrim.

It would be simpler if you can't do stuff like that, but I don't think those kinds of spells will necessarily be gone even if attributes are. Most RPGs have for example, haste and slow spells, even though it's pretty rare to have an attribute for speed.

It could go either way. The lack of traditional attributes may mean that drain strength spells are gone, but you might have use of drain one-handede/two-handed skill spells, etc. You may need to put even more thought into it.

You might not be able to drain intelligence, but you could drain magicka or destruction, etc. Your spells would just have to be more situational.

The bigger concern for me is the lack of spell crafting. Yes, enchantment will likely fill some of the gaps, but many of the most strategic combat spells were custom crafted.

i agree plus being able to bookmark spells and spell combinations will let us switch out much faster
also alowing us to have two diffrent spells out at the same time sounds good

i believe 81 spells have been confirmed all of them diffrent, i believe there i alot of combos in there.

spell creation wasen't all that amazing anyways most spells in OB had the same effect, you just created how much damage/duration of the spell.

plus im sure there are modders that will create mods for more spells.

The magic combat system is much more versatile and visceral now.

Here's to hoping! Although it would feel a bit weird to me having spells such as 'drain archery', 'fortify axe' etc - it just sounds a bit 'iffy'

They have laready stated that ice/cold spells will do less damage than the fire spells, but will slow the targets down. If I am remembering correctly, the lightning will drain magicka.

If anything, the magic in skyrim will be more complex. With spell creation unlikely, you will have to change between a few spells (or have them on each hand) to get the combination effects that you want. Put a health drain in one hand, and a cold spell in the other, and drain his health while running circles around them. Combine ice with the shockwave spell, and slow down everybody around you. It may be a little harder at first, but once you figure out how to use it, it will be more fun than just equip awesome spell, click mouse.

I have the same concerns.
I liked the scope of the magic system, the way it allowed you to weak any variable in the game.
With attributes and spellcrafting gone its logical that the first reaction is one of dissapointment over losing all that.

But we dont know how the spellsystem exactly works in Skyrim and I have good hope that we will get useful and varied magic.
Ive read about how for instance it is now possible to ignite lamp oil with lightning, causing burning oil to hurt your enemies.
We will just have to wait and see

see that just worries me even more - why do they have to combine non-destructive effects with destructive ones? Wouldn't it allow for a deeper magic combat system if all of those effects were seperate? I would personally much rather have a seperate 'slow' /drain magicka spell, than having lightning that also drains magicka, and ice spells that slow people down.

dragonborn1 - how is it more versatile? Surely the fact there are no attributes + no spell making makes it a much less versatile system by definition (i.e - less variety)?

Each spell has multiple effects now by either pressing the cast button, holding it down longer, or even combining like spells. All that as well as being able to dual wield spells too.

Different strokes for different folks. I think it's silly to have a load of spells to cover little things like that when they could make logical combinations of them. So frost damage + slow as opposed to casting a slow spell and then switching to a frost damage spell. Chances are you would make custom spells that simply combined different effects anyways.

Oblivion's magic system had way too much excess fat to it, and I'm glad that they seem to be removing some of that fat.

Yeah thats different strokes for different folks allright.
I think that in gaming as well as cooking, the fat is where the taste comes from.

But we dont know that much about the magic system in Skyrim yet. I think its too early to say if its simplified or not.
I especially like that spells can influence the environment.

This way elemental spells have more presence other than playing with the elemental strengths and weaknesses, which didn't had much presence anyway.

And what's the difference between an ice spell that slows people down and a simple slow spell?

well the ice spell that slows people down presumably has 'ice' damage attatched to it?


semreth - fair point. I guess I just always prefer more options as opposed to 'streamlining'

I guess, it would be more "focused" - you aren't listing huge ammount of self-crafted and bought spells, you operate with what you've got so far.

Also, I think it would be great to have access to spells via Creation Kit. Just for one good reason: make all spells have negative side-effects!
Think about it:
You cast fire, but it makes some additional damage to you, when enemy hits you (also it increases damage of a person via "adrenaline" factor)
You heal yourself, but got some weakness for a while (coz curing should be done through relaxing, for example)
You make enemy silent? So, since now it has more defense

Just thinking about "good + bad" balance, where you should deside carefully, what to cast and how to combine spells' effects

As do I, even if it is only a temporary influence. I really like the sound of the multi-useage for spells as well. Casting a fire spell as a range attack, flamethrower like effect or a trap rune. I imagine that not every spell will have multiple ways of using it (detect life for example) but to me that adds a level of variety/complexity that Oblivion's magic just did not have.

I have to agree there, now in Skyrim we'll actually have a reason to choose one element over another besides enemy resistences or weaknesses, and that's always good. And the different ways in which spells can be used sounds like it should make spells more interesting, and really, spells needed that in past games. There was absolutely nothing to distinguish two spells with the same effects except numbers, you could have called two seperate ranged fire spells "Fireball" and "Somewhat bigger, stronger fireball" and the names would have been perfectly accurate, and even amongst spells with different effects, while they did different things, you never really felt like you were using some sort of unique spell, this was most noticable in elemental damage spells of course since they all did the exact same thing, just with different visual effects and the kind of resistences or weaknesses that effected them changed, but even say, a charm spell didn't look or feel different from a calm spell, it just did something different.

If anything, Skyrim's magic system could turn out to be more fun than in past games, even if it is simpler, which I'm not yet convinced of, contrary to the incredibly shallow notion that sadly seems common here, more complex is not always better, and simpler is not always worse, sometimes, more complex is just more complex, sometimes, simple is actually better, whether because the supposed "complexity" just adds needless micromanagment to the system which just becomes annoying, or because the added complexity isn't in itself bad but gives the developers more things to work on, thus less time to work on individual things, leading to a reduction in quality of the individual aspects. In any case, I haven't heard of any changes to the magic system I'd object to so far (Yes, not even the removal of spell making. I know, it's unthinkable that maybe some people could actually approve of that decision, isn't it? It almost seems like not everyone here has the same opinion on matters! But that's impossible.)

Yeah, I'd much rather Drain Luck and Agility than have Sprays (flame thrower), pbaeos, and Glyphs (frost rune), and using 2 different spells at once.... :whistling:

I have never play a mage in any non party based rpg. Based on what I know so far about SR magic system I might play one. Being able to have immediate access to multiple spells at once it a big reason for that. A spell type in each hand, then depending on how we press a button a different effect. It sounds very well designed and intuitive.

The fact that fire, frost, and shock did the exact same thing (on the vast majority of enemies) is what you call more variety? Cuz I call that redundancy. having each element do different things, aside just damage, makes destruction in itself a more versatile school of magic. combine that with the different spell effects each spell has, and any way you can combine them together, and you have a more robust system than the spreadsheet magic of old. what do you do when you fight a mage? You want to stunt his magicka and hurt him. Use lightning. fighting a giant? Why not slow him down a bit while you hurt him to gain an advantage? Use frost. fighting a bandit? Well no need to beat around the bush, you wanna blow him apart, use fire for maximum damage. I think what you don't realize is that having these things put together adds depth because it makes each spell unique, while at the same time only taking up one hand so you can be more versatile and wield another spell, perhaps a shield spell, or maybe a summon spell, or even a healing spell. It makes you a more balanced, and versatile mage.

I just hope that we have some way of tweaking the spells even if there is not a full blown customization system. Most of the custom spells I make are to adjust power or cost to something that is useful for my present chareacter. The preset spells are either eat up to much Magicka for the currect character to get much use out of, or they don't do enough damage. You are right that more complex isn's always better, but make things too simple and you will always have a problem. (I also hope we can choose to cast a spell without the benefit of a perk, like not taking advantage of the area of effect perk to avoid cooking an ally)

The real discussion here is are they making it too simple to be fun. Some people want complexity and depth to the magic system and the ability to create spells themselves (They are playing a powerful mage and if powerful mages are not the ones who are developing and perfecting spells then who is, it seems to be a part of the role). Others want a handful of well understood (potentially more complex) spells that they have strategicly switch between to get the job done. Just like some people put a higher importantance on graphics while others don't really care about graphics so long as the gameplay is good.

At this point I don't think that we know enough about how the final magic system is going to work out, and I would not at all be surprised if we hear about a change or two before the game comes out. Hopefully something will come out of E3 that will shed some more light on how exactly things work. I doubt that everyone will be happy with what they finally choose to do, but if they make a mistake I certainly expect them to learn from it in the future. As a result I am more curious than worried (though I am worried a bit), because if they don't get it right this time, they will try again next time (unless the mistake is so large that thier audience bails on them, sales plummet, and they decide to abaondon the series. Not too likely)

Yeah... I'm concerned about the magic system too. The thing that concerns me is that it seems that the manner in which it's being changed is meant to appeal to..... well.... unpopular though it is to make such assertions around here...... more of an FPS crowd. In past games, straight destruction spells were sort of "entry level." They were there for those who prefer just blowin' stuff up, and they were an easy way to get into spellcasting for those who didn't have much experience with it, but the real meat of spellcasting - the things that really paid off for those who put the time into learning how to use them - were commands, frenzy, drains, absorbs, fortifies, weaknesses.... those sorts of things.

Now, this could well be a case of Beth's PR skewing the perception of it, but virtually everything we've heard yet has been about new and exciting ways of blowin' stuff up, and the dual wielding and button-mashing just sounds really FPS'ish to me, and that just concerns me.

Of course, as is the case with everything, we'll see how it really works out, but the news so far hasn't seemed to me to be intended to in any way appeal to the notion of a mage as a scholar who learns how to manipulate energy to not only damage but, as inclined, to control or manipulate his opponents, his surroundings or himself, but to the notion of a mage as a sort of Rambo with a chain gun in one hand and a flamethrower in the other, just runnin' around and blowin' stuff up......

I seem to recall something Todd Howard said about "folding one skill into another". If I understood him correctly, I think that approach may just me the best thing for magic-usage in Skyrim. I'm imagining a situation where although there may seem to be less to do, you actually have more that you're capable of with what's there.

Granted, my methodology on magic systems would probably yield a result much more to most people's liking than what Bethesda's come up with, were I in a position to build a game or take at least part in such. But I'm not, so we're stuck with Skyrim I guess. Or Baldur's Gate if you're into that.

i dont think it would, i like it better this way