I agree to this, I admit to making a spell that lowers weakness to all elements by 100% then buying the Apotheosis

So let me get this straight.
You have a choice between weak fire spell, and medium fire spell, and because you can't make something with power just between them, Your entire customization RP experience is ruined?

You just keep saying the same thing.
This > that.
This dumbs everything down.

I've yet to see any point of yours that adds weight to your opinion.

Okay, well, going off the stuff mentioned in the title:

-weapons: it's the same number of weapon types as Oblivion, at least; possibly more, as we don't know yet if non-spear polearms will be showing up.

-armor: not confirmed yet, but the evidence is pointing that way, show I'll give you this one.

-spellmaking: they said they wanted spells to feel more complex and less spreadsheety, and spellmaking does kinda require magic to easily break down into a numbers game to work. More "magical" feeling magic sounds like a good thing to me, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

My two cents, at least.

I give examples for the unimaginative all the time, ask anyone. I will not anymore.
Little effort? Yeah, mastering magical skills is "little effort". Spreadsheety? Yeah just like Enchanting, oh wait that was expanded on. There was nothing spreadsheety about spell creation, apparently people just didnt understand it.



If you think spell creation enthusiast are going to miss the 'make X spell better', then your mistaken, thats not what we are losing, its the ability to make custom spell s for our RP. Ive yet to see anyone against spell creation show that they knew what all you could do with it in the first place. If you think its OP, then dont make OPed spells, I never did. If you didnt understand it, then who's fault is that?

I choose to take this as an "I don't have any."

Just one. Please.

Funny, you just described arena armor




You did not get it. Only because you used spellcrafting using only one or two effects doesn't mean others did the same.
My favorite self-made spells were from "elemental furry" series
(weakness to fire/frost/lightning+ fire/frost/lightning damage+ summon fire/frost/storm atronach)
Or "Divine Favor" (restore health+resist magic+shield)

We had spellmaking and variety, its just that variety had to gained from http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9562 because beth dropped the ball in Oblivion. Besides spellmaking helps provide a sense of accomplishment. A powerful wizard should be able to craft his own spells after all the spells he uses has to come from somewhere...

Edit: I personally didn't think spell making was "speadsheety" at all, it was easy to understand and use to use.

OK...Maomer Serpent Magic, you tell me how I made it and you get a cookie.

Yeah, because more weapon types, armor slots, and customizable spells are definitely useless, pointless, cluttering features that add absolutely zero fun to the game. I think that the only weapon type available to players should be swords, since, you know, axes? Maces? Daggers? God forbid, spears? CLUTTER! And I get sooo confused when I can equip two different pauldrons at the same time or have more than five armor slots. Make armor a body suit, please, so my tiny brain can comprehend it. :rolleyes:

Sarcasm aside, more customization is very rarely a bad thing. I have never had the opportunity to play Daggerfall or Arena, so I can't comment on those, but I loved Morrowind's armor system. When I got Oblivion, I was crushed that I couldn't have two different pauldrons, gloves, or wear clothes under or over my armor. When the ability to mix and match armor and clothes was nerfed, one of my favorite parts of the game was completely destroyed. As a result, I just completely ignored the clothes because I knew I would never wear them, instead favoring the Daedric armor that every generic bandit would be wearing at my level. Oblivion is still a good game, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did Morrowind. Honestly, if you think these types of features (those that allow people to make their characters UNIQUE) just add clutter, why are you even playing TES games?

Edit: Also, I think I will like what they are doing with the magic system, so I'm with you there; however, less customization with armor types and weapons, in my eyes, is not a good thing. I don't know if you were specifically addressing spellmaking or not, but your post implied that you were addressing all of the above.

Spell making was a pain in the ass, and 9/10 times it was weaker then what you already had. You couldnt make direct damage spells in oblivion, only DoT. You also could only make spells that you already had and it was... Redundant. Custom spells were just combination of previously owned spells and almost always weaker for what you could have used otherwise. It was just stupid and broken.

The -only- thing i would possibly enjoy to have seen, that they didnt bring back from morrowind was cross bows. Because theyre just a sweet idea. My rogue would have loved a one handed cross bow. Am i crying? no.

Less armor slots? Maybe. I dont really care myself, but you people still clinging onto morrowind are way too obsessed over this. Its not a big deal... at all. Its just one less hassle you have to deal with. I personally hated trying to get complete armor sets. like "okay, go here, buy this pauldron, go there to buy the other. The chest is in this down at this buy, but the legs and boots are over at that guy" and 9/10 of the time when you were getting new gear, you were so mix and matched it was silly.

Hell, it bothered me in oblivion when i'd find a sweet enchanted glass cuirass, but i'm still wearing my mithral gear. Or i'd finally upgrade from one set, but i'd be stuck with my steel grieves and daedric armor, and just look [censored] as a hole.

About the weapons... You absolutely dont know that. From the way it sounds right now, theres atleast 13 base weapon types. Thats 5 more than oblivion...




Also... I'm not sure you can comprehend this, because obviously you have no idea whats involved in game design or you wouldnt be here...

This new, modern [censored] theyre making? Yeah. Its like 10 times harder to make a new good looking piece of equipment. Thats why your poorly detailed morrowind stuff is so plentiful. Doubt me all day, the truth is that dosens, even hundreds of hours go into each model, making sure the texture is right, the model looks perfect, it animates properly, doesnt clip...

Try it. If you've never seen it before, open up a copy of 3ds Max. I've seen people close it within seconds and just give up before they've even layed down a single prim.

At the risk of being picky, I'd not consider that character creation, more character development. The removal of some of the perhaps trivial starting selections is the difference between starting the game in your chosen character role or starting with a blank slate. Some will prefer one over the other, I'm happy to wait and see what the new system is like. I did quite enjoy spending some time setting up my character to start with, this just doesn't fit with the pick-up and play style that Skyrim is going for.

I don't get it. Please explain what the spell does.

They haven't really "removed" the other weapons skills, they've just converted them into perks. So if you want to be a ba at using a sword, you still can, you just get sword perks for more damage, special moves, etc.

I understand what it adds. I used it to death and RPed tons of characters that depended on spell creation to make the role playing make sense.
However, I think what we got is much better. For the reasons I mentioned in that thread (That you still haven't bothered to read) more gameplay opportunities come out of it. I rather have better gameplay than better RP friendly features.

How about some Inquisition Magic, or Sacrifice/Blood magic? Not available without spell creation. Yeah, no matter how many spells Beth puts in, they are never gong to make the spell I make for my RPs. Like I said, if you dont like it, dont use it. Just like if you dont want to use sneak, then you dont use it.

Mastering magical skills is little effort. All you have to do is hit the "cast spell" button over and over... but anyways you avoided my point, which is that spell creation was broken powerful and made most spells that you didn't craft totally obsolete. I disliked the fact that there was little to no reason to explore spell vendors' stock, when I know perfectly well I could make better spells on my own. Spell creation dumbed down the magic system, it didn't help it any

I can't say I agree with "dumbed down" but I do agree with the idea. Spell vendors, and in the case of Skyrim spell tomes, should be exciting. Not just places to buy the cheapest possible spell with a certain effect so you can make a better one later.

Some graphical gimmicks that cut the limits of possible spells into a fraction of what it was is never 'much better'.





I never made one OPed spell. Therefore if you dont like it, dont use it. If you think its OPed, dont make OPed spells. Level scaling was the bane of vanilla spells, not spell creation.

It depends on the context. Streamlining is not inherently bad, it's just a tool used poorly in almost all circumstances we've seen.


Choice only matters if the choice can be deemed meaningful. A good example of this is the classes in Morrowind. They were not a meaningful choice, they were only an arbitrary shackle that had the unforseen benefit of being able to exploit the system to underlevel your character. Classes as we understood them in Morrowind/Oblivion had to go. They were a vestigial aspect that did nothing but weigh the experience down. Mysticism too, it was nothing but a title in essence. The Spells themselves do not actually need to be tied to the name, but it's also worth pointing out, by removing mysticism, they could make the even 6/6/6 split of the skills. That probably factored into the decision more than anything.


That's the exception though, most of the time, including in The Elder Scrolls games, streamlining is used totally wrong. Some of the countless examples to follow.

Removing Meaningful skills. The whole "Blade and Blunt" thing from Oblivion was a travesty. I can't even begin to explain how many ways it was wrong. Thankfully, Skyrim takes a more meaningful compromise with their One-hand, Two-Hand and Archery, which only works because of the perks associated with each base weapon. Here the lack of choice is augmented with an abundance of meaningful choice. A fair compromise.

Equipment slots can also go either way, but from Morrowind to Oblivion, it was mishandled. I personally feel Morrowind had too many individual equipment slots, which caused two issues. One, the UI was a mess, the Elder Scrolls games have been sorely lacking a dedicated "Equipment Page", where you can equip your character without sorting through each individual item type. Secondly, the balancing issues that arise from enchantment. A little forethought would go a long way, but it seems Bethesda would rather amputate the foot, than attempt to save the toe. It's understandable, as it could be a time and money sink in the long run, and it's easy to see why people who don't understand the less enjoyable aspects of game development would get up-in-arms over it.


The big thing to take away from the choices, is it's not a black and white issue. The developers are always working within some constraints, be it monetary or time related. They start out with a finite canvas if you will. And their job is to cram as many meaningful "Colors" as possible, while maintaining a coherent picture. Modders aren't constrained the same way, so it's pretty ignorant to say "Well, modders do it, why can't Bethesda????????!!!???!?" Everything you add, takes something away, and if it's not taking away from your allotted resources, it's taking away from the quality/depth of what already is on the canvas.

it's not so much an ease-of-use thing, as it is that spell making often felt more like amateur coding than it did magic. I think they're trying to make spells feel more organic, rather than like glowing projectiles with a number value attached, if you'll excuse the simplification.

MAN DID YOU JUST SAY WHAT I WAS TRYIN TA SAY BUT ALL SMART?!

The perk trees are the one trick pony designed to replace all other rpg elements

They have guardian stones are just the same as the oblivion shrines, no real difference

They removed several pieces of armor that existed in morrowind

They removed attributes

They removed birth sign


Its not more complex, not even close

Are you stupid?
I hate to revert to name calling but you're blatantly and purposely ignoring everything I'm saying.
Let me talk a little more simply for you, seeing as you must not be able to understand things I've mentioned before.

If spell making was in, chances are we couldn't have both a fire ball spell and a flame thrower spell.
I rather have 2 different unique fire spells than several glowing yellow balls that do X damage.

I rather have an icicle throwing spell and a frost wind spell than a blue glowing ball that does Y damage.

I smelled FLAME BAIT right from the first sentence in the OP.

I think I get what you mean now, you want to create spells for RP'ing purposes?

Could you tell me what the specifications for those spells are though? Because I assume Inquisition magic is just a +100 charm spell or something, but idk what you mean by Sacrifice or Blood Magic. Is it like you make a spell that summos an undead while taking some of your own life to act like a necromancer?