Well, it is going to be a bit harder to create my customary Altmer Spellsword when I do, but I'm sure that the right perks will be able to mitigate the loss of attributes nicely.

I'll probably go for mostly dodging or speed perks and less emphasis on Health, a bit more emphasis on Stamina than even Health, and then even more on Magicka than the other two. I'll need to be careful in combat, but eventually my magic can power my defense and I'll be able to finish enemies before they can finish me.

So yeah, harder to be a little bit of everything, but not likely impossible. And if I really don't like how it works out, I'll mod the capacity back in or use the console. Simple as that.

Mages in Morrowind were completely gimped.
Mages in Oblivion were overpowered invincible God's if you knew how to utilize chameleon and paralyze effectively.

Hopefully, they've found the sweet spot with Skyrim.

It's a good thing that you have to choose now. I'm a Spellsword player, but I always kept my spells limited to improve my gameplay experience. I'd have a Elemental damage spell, a Healing and Cure Disease spell, then Water Breathing and Unlocking, finally bolstered by a select Summon.

Playing an Orc helped too. I love being unusual in my characters. I'm hoping to continue a similar character. Trying to work out how best to create a magical Orc is going to be fun.

I'm glad most devs balance for SinglePlayer, as they don't want their games to be taken as jokes with poor game design.

Lol, I don't have it backwards though.

Any char could get 100 blade/block/heavyarmor

But only supermages can cast those 400-mana 500-mana imba spells which lag the game to a near-standstill xD [censored] was so broken... but soo funn.

I agree with that 100%,it's called balance,and having a purpose to your style/class.

Where we have strength ,we should have a weakness too.

Well you are not right by chained alchemy and enchant suits in morrowind all can become powerful as gods, as well as using exploits of enchanting spellmaking in Oblivion but does all know such things?
Not all only experienced players who enjoyed finding and EXPLOITING flaws in system, I believe such gamers who didn't have willpower exploit powerleveling and cheating with console and editor.
Even more instead of not do such things or using patches/mods thats fix exploit, they go to forums and start crying about Game Breaking, and then major features become simplified or removed. since devs don't like spent much of their time on balancing and improving of features and more likely remove flawed but interesting feature instead of fixing it.

Does all need to suffer from such players? Does developers need take in account their cries?

I have never understood the term broken, for a superpowerful character in a game where becoming a legendary and uncommonly formidable hero of epic proportions is supposed to be, if not a given, at least an option. Is it really a problem if your mage becomes greater than any other mage in the game? And if he is that powerful a wizard. . . wouldn't he find ways to improve upon both his health and magicka in a way that would give him additional advantages over rivals, foes and competitors alike?

I believe somehow i ended back on World of Warcraft forums, where am i? asking for nerfs on TES ahhh! :mage:

Magic and Health will be my main...

I think if someone wants to build an ubermage, they should be able to build an ubermage.

My pure mages in Oblivion wear no armor and if they carry a weapon, it's a dagger that used only for blocking. They specialize in one or maybe two schools of magic and pump all their increases into intelligence, willpower, agility and speed. They end up the classic physically weak and low HP pure mages, just because I prefer to play them that way.

It sounds as if the new system might limit players to a similar build, so that won't be that much of an issue for me, but with the fact that it's innately limiting, if it doesn't allow the creation of the sort of mage I'd prefer to build, then I'm stuck with whatever the finite range of perks might provide. And anyone who wishes to play another type of mage - and particularly the uber kind - is also stuck with whatever the finite range of perks might provide.

I can't help but think that those players who believe that to be a good thing are living in some pretty serious denial....

Not to mention the Mage by nature is kind of OPed. The Mage can become any other build through restoration, plus has all the abilities of the mage. A glass caster/transformer of sorts.

From what I've read in the preview articles I'm looking forward to playing a pure mage in Skyrim. Spells in two hands + full spec/perked mage sounds like it'll be plenty "uber". I like the fact I can add to Magicka anytime I level instead of relying on intelligence/race/birth sign modifiers. I am going to miss the Atronach/Breton combo though. To me, mages sound like the gods they should be, but we'll just have to wait 'till 11.11.11 to find out.

Wait, I don't get this.

So there should be a way to great an uber-character, one that is good at everything, but you're still worried about the number of possible archetypes? If it is possible to create an uber-character it would decrease the number of meaningful archetypes to that one, because if you can become the best at everything with one character why would you want less.
This was the thing in Fable. There were many possible character builds but guess what kind of character did everybody played at the end? The muscle giant, with the arcane power of Elminster who's also a master thief, the rest of the builts were just for show, and people who want to go against the popular trends.

If you can create a character that can do basically everything, you don't need to create another character ever, because you've already did everything that new character could, except maybe if you're bored or just want to challenge yourself.

And I really don't know how Morrowind/Oblivion added much more archetypes anyway...

Going Spellsword rather than straight up mage...I'm not sure yet about the balance between health/stamina/magicka. But that's not what interests me. Attributes have never been the thing that excite me most, unless they manifest in a real, non-numerical way.

Now, Perks....That's an exciting idea. We've already heard about perks pertaining specifically to archery...I'm excited to find out how we can customize our characters with magic-related Perks (and of course combat related, given my Spellsword plans).

True, making a broken/OP character will be a bit more challenging But at the same time we can customize our characters in much more meaningful ways. I'm pumped man

I'm hardly surprised.


The ubermage is a character build. The elimination of the possibility to build that character means, axiomatically, at least one fewer possible character build. There's simply no two ways around that.


It would only do that for those players so inclined. Those players exist, and that's their choice. I choose not to play that way, and that's my choice. I see no reason why both choices shouldn't be possible.


Some of us play games in order to challenge ourselves. Others of us play games in order to be uber and run around and kill stuff. I see no reason why both can't coexist.

They've already said you can get good at everything just like in the past. They feel (obviously correctly since this is a single player game and not a "I get to tell everyone else how to play" game) that if people want to play that way they can. It will just take longer, and with perks though you can get good at everything you won't be a total master at everything.

...Condescending and grandiloquent to an irritating degree, but you make a good point either way.

I'm still inclined to disagree with your insinuation that we'll have fewer options: numerically, your options will be more limited, if you're basing that statement off of numbers which you put into your character to boost his skills. In terms of *abilities* though, your options are far more vast than they ever were due to perks.

Further, we don't yet know what those perks will do. Some really may be as simple as boosting your magicka, turning you into a tank, etc. If select nothing but perks that will make you a more powerful mage, you could likely build a class akin to an ubermage...but with far more abilities than in previous titles.

It's late and I'm a bit tired, so I apologize if my point wasn't clear...

I don't really see how mages were broken.

You're hungry. You have, in front of you, a phone and menus for two delivery places - one pizza and one Chinese. I come in and take away those two menus. I replace them with three menus - one sandwiches, one Italian, one Thai. You now have "more" choices than you had, yet you no longer get to choose either pizza or Chinese, because I took those away.

Presuming that the perk system actually does lead to more options (something that won't be known until the game is released), the elimination of existing options still - axiomatically - means fewer options than would be possible otherwise. You could've had five choices of things to eat, but because I took two away, you only have three. Yes - three is greater than two, but it's less than five. That shouldn't even need to be pointed out.

Oh yes, absolutely. If we could break skyrim the same way we broke Oblivion, what'd be the fun in that? I am glad they redid the skills in a way to make it more challenging.

Still... /salute ubermage build. "You will be missed!"



Have you ever had a mage character with over 500 base mana?

If you did... you'd see the breaks pretty rapidly hehehe

The smartest,coolest and strongest men fight just by pointing out their palms.

as long as you can call up tough demons to fight for you you will have super mages because no matter what mage I wanted it always came down to a conjurer who called up beings to fight my enemies for me and then a few destruction spells fireball/iceball/electric ball, what have you and toast they became it was actually ridiculous and boring so I quit majica all together because it was too easy to kill everything

I do wish they would add majic missles as all fantasy books always had them and it sounds so cool,.... they are never very strong (individually anyway but as a finisher or as a first blow to take that health down a bit), but they never miss and they shoot from all your fingers at once

There's a lot we don't know about the enchanting system. You may still be able to make an absurdly overpowered character simply by using/abusing the right enchantments.