No, it's not really the same as enchanting restoration to a piece of armor (or whatever else)

There are still limitations to it: I'm still not invincible (the spell does nothing for my health), I still have limits on my magicka (If I have to take on five enemies or so I'm going to have to take a potion or two), you have to hit the enemy within a set period of time or the spell effect wears off.

Even with this spell magic was still fun. It wasn't about being powerful it was about figuring out the mechanics of magic and trying out different effects. There are a bunch of other spells you can combine and entertain yourself with and combat is only one aspect that makes the game fun.

Drain xxxx doesn't restore you anything, it only drains it from the target's pool.

What you probably meant is Absorb Magicka.

There are countless way to go around this to be honest, I've played both Morrowind and Oblivion with pure mages and I've had a lot more fun than with fighter characters, simply because it requires you to show a minimum amount of creativity. You also need to have played the game before and plan your items, enchants and skills properly.

As others have said, I expect this will not be too big of an issue because of the combination of:

? Hotkeys (no need to sift through inventories and spell books)
? Perks (I'm sure there wil be some that help alleviate the need to replenish your Magicka pools as frequently)
? Enchanting (hopefully this will help supplement spellcasting; a prepared/organized enchanter may never need to cast spells)
? A better scaling system than Oblivion's (enemies will hopefully have more reasonable health levels = fewer spells needed to kill)

High elf, sign of mage, destruction as major, magic speciality, get to Master of destruction at level 7, one shot everything for the next 8 levels, without needing a potion ever. If this is impractical, may I respectfully suggest an axe, a shield, a big tin suit, and a spare axe for when having to use repair hammers makes you feel under powered.

I'd rather potions were much more useful ala The Witcher. You consume one before heading into battle, and it lasts for a longer period of time. Being more expensive (or brewing a potion required more ingredients) would be the trade off.

Regenerative magicka destroyed magic. Managing magicka was much more important in Morrowind as there at least was a price to it rather than just spam magicka to health. What is worse, magicka for health spamming or potion spamming? Oddly enough, being a *good* mage still involves a bit of potion spamming (absorb not always an option) to keep up the levels, but it completely took away the need to rest - and thus a means to advance game time.

I'm sorry, but reaching level 40 in 100 days is just plain nuts! If grinding, you'll get there in a few hours. Keep in mind in Morrowind you had to sleep, and if you was under Atronach not even sleeping would help. I loved mages pre TES, be it Role Master (dice) or Realms of Arkania (dice oriented CPRG). I enjoyed playing a mage in Morrowind. In Oblivion he only lasted a few days before I tossed him overboard with a "this is too ridiculous" headshake.

Nice "adjustment to making it more mainstream adjusted for the casual players"! Now there is no thinking anymore. As much as I like the Skyrim idea where fireballs, shock, and frost cause expected damages (health, magicka drain, and slowness/fatigue drain), versus resistances that wasn't always clear, if this is coupled with magicka regen I'll loose faith in BGS. Probably time to get out the old Role Master books and throw some dice again.

Couldn't agree more. The only way I could have fun playing a mage in OB was by choosing the Atronach birthsign and carrying no more than a realistic amount (5-10) of potions. Anything else would just feel like I was using God mode.

My guess is the OP never played other Elderscrolls titles...

As for the suggestion that magicka potions are lame, your alternative would be???

I wonder what makes the new quick select menu better than the oblivion one?

Its a bit clunky on controller using the D-pad but other wise its pretty easy to use.
Just wish we had more than 8 slots.

And it made other spells and disciplines pretty useless or to mana-consuming to make it somewhat balanced.

I loved it in Morrowind how you had a lot of mundane spell-effects like waterwalking that didn't cost too much mana, but that you could cast levitate or some über destruction spell only a limited amount of times.
Made playing a mage require a more calculative approach, as it should be.

Also, I doubt levitation will be obtainable as a spell if regenerating magic stays in the game.
You would either be able to stay in the air forever while throwing fireballs without consuming potions, or it will be like the "Summon Lich" spell in Oblivion: costing a billion magica for 5 seconds.

I did not use potions on hotkeys as you only have 8 and it was no real need you popped one or two potions in the start if it looked like it would be a serious fight.
With weakness combined with damage mages was overpowered, with illusion 75 goblin warlords was fun.
Wonder how the magic system would be in Skyrim, a little afraid we will loose the spellmaker as we know it on the other side they verified 85 magic effects not 85 spells.

I think they should make drinking potions have an animation, and thus take some in-game time where you can't attack, block or run, and balance around that. Voila - potions become something that are preferably used before or after combat, instead of the silliness we have now.

I quite enjoyed the Oblivion mod where going into menus while in combat freezes you for a while, but it was pretty stressful and fiddly... I would prefer that each ACTION taken while in a menu took some time to perform after closing the menu.

Or just find away to keep the game going unpaused while you rummage though your inventory.

Take Alchemy as a skill too. Flax seeds + pure mage = GOD.

The limitations of regeneration and of maximum magicka are an important part of being a mage. Being able to manage your magicka properly is what being a skilled mage is all about. Belting out big spells until you're out of magicka is just as bad practice as using all your fatigue running around in a fight trying to avoid getting hit. You have to play smart. Skyrim is giving you a much greater ability to do this by diversifying the things you can do with spells. Some attacks might be more efficient, such as floor runes. Perhaps you can try to over power an opponent by hitting them with many affects at once (fire a powerful two handed spell just as they get hit by a floor rune. As they have stated, smart elemental use is also important, as using frost will be useful against melee opponents that you want to slow down and prevent then from hitting you, fire might be good against people you need to kill very fast or when you have lots of targets to go through, and shock for mages due to magicka damage. They didn't mention anything about poison which perhaps could be supplementary damage over time, or straight damage health, etc. And of course, wards, which sound like they will be similar to shields for mages. I think because this combat will require a lot of thought and careful use of your resources, they can remove less weight from magicka restrictions and let you win or lose based on your performance and less about your magicka limit. However, I think regeneration should still be a very important part of a mages life and you should never feel like your magicka pool is 'never ending,' at which point being a mage just becomes too easy.

A pure mage could do everything at once, meaning too much. I wouldn't mind a slower magicka regeneration, as a hybrid with the current pace is really powerful. Pure mages should be able to gather magicka from fallen enemies around him, sort of necromancy effect, svcking the life force out of dying creatures. But that wouldn't be a 24/7 effect on, it would be a spell you put on yourself and you get magicka regeneration depending on what creature died near you.

If potions took time to drink (like say 3 seconds) and the costs were rebalanced it would be much better.

Using weakness to gain say 25% or so damage boost makes sense.. getting 1200% is bull.

Perhaps there will be a generic "restore magicka" button/key? If that's the case, you won't have to access your menu at all. Just press the button to auto-consume any restore magicka potion you happen to have in your inventory.

I remember when the auto-regeneration of magicka was announced in Oblivion. A huge number of people complained that it was one of many things "dumbing the game down." Now people are upset that we might have to use potions to maintain mana again. There has to be a lesson about how each successive audience sees games and becomes accustomed to them somewhere in there...

You're damn right it's bull!

It only needs to be at 300-400%

Magicka regeneration was never meant to be useful in combat. If you're in combat and you're out of magicka, use a potion. The regeneration is for when you're exploring afterwards. :shrug:

If OP doesn't like this system, he must not have played or at least didn't enjoy every other Elder Scrolls title...magicka management and potion chugging have always been part of the series. You would've despised Daggerfall...spells cost more and you had less magicka starting off than the later games...at level one you'd be lucking to get three castings of the most basic spells, and magicka restoration potions were MUCH rarer. Come to think of it, most good RPGs have limitations on the use of magic, whether it's mana or spells per day, like how D&D does it. Only RPGs I can think of that allow limitless magic use are MMOs like WoW.

Thing is, though, potion chugging is not really limiting in Oblivion. Restore Magicka potions are common, and there's no penalty for drinking them in combat. So it's more of an irritation than a limit. If they were more scarce (or took some game-time to drink where you couldn't defend) they'd be more of a real penalty. Right now they are just cheesy.

Works very well in any MMO, however they have a somewhat more efficient user interface.

On screen menus with virtually unlimited shortcuts works better than 8 shortcuts and a inventory who only display 8 items at once.