why no spell making is a good thing

Post » Thu Feb 03, 2011 2:24 pm

Wait , after skills and attributes now spellmaking is out ?

haha Todd cannot into rpgs
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A Lo RIkIton'ton
 
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Post » Thu Feb 03, 2011 1:58 pm

Point by point counterargument:
You must realize that we know almost nothing about the game as of now.

Then why even bloody have this thread in the first place? My point is that without spellmaking they would have to make a stupidly large number of spells to make magic feel like, well, "magic."

The system of magical combat may be entirely different than what you are describing. What if each spell has a touch, ranged, and area effect option, and it does different levels of damage for each?

Then those are different spells.

How do you know how the damage for each spell will increase with each level?

It's irrelevant. If two spells deal different damage because they are at different levels, then they are different spells and we're back to my original point: you may as well let the player decide how much magicka to spend. "Fire" and "FireA" (from Final Fantasy fame) are not unique spells, but they aren't the same spell. If you remove spellmaking and replace it with "Fire" and "FireA" you remove spellmaking but do not add unique spells... and if you make "Fire", "FireA", and "FireAGA" for each type of damage you can deal in Oblivion or Morrowind, then you're talking about making sixty touch-range single-target burst damage spells. Which ties back to my original point: you either have spell making or you have to make an inordinately large number of spells or you have to have a crappy magic system (see: Fable 2 and 3).

Each spell might not have a set power or damage. Maybe it levels up with you.

That would svck. So at first level I fight a rat and use 20 mana to deal 20 damage killing the rat. I face against the rat later, but I only have the spell option "Burn it with FIRE!" and so I have to spend 200 mana to deal 2000 damage, killing the rat? Yay, magic is now just a sword with particle effects.
Maybe the new perks you get will dictate new powers for each spell,


Making them, gasp, new spells and bringing me back to the original point.

perhaps, as you said, allowing you to combine certain spells and add time durations.

And this would be making new spells, or as some might call it, spellmaking :whistling:


Who knows? You need to take everything into account, especially because we know nothing.

The point of this thread is whether or not removing spell making is a good idea. My answer is "No, because you'd either have boring magic or have to make a number of premade spells that borders on ridiculous." I don't need to take into account anything you've "contributed" because your ideas are either, "Well, removing spellmaking could be ok because they may just have a huge number of premade spells" or "Well, removing spellmaking could be ok because they could just have you make new spells." One of those points has already been covered by me, and the other one is contradictory and stupid.

Oh, and your point on Oblivion? It's dumb, contrived, and stupid. Please don't claim you're using "logic" because you clearly do not understand how sales of a product relates to its quality. I'm waiting for you to claim to be some sort of business major because that would simply make me laugh.
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Ymani Hood
 
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Post » Thu Feb 03, 2011 5:25 pm

It seems the argument for removing spell creation falls into 3 camps:

1. I don't use spell creation so I dont care, remove it.
2. Building a spell creation system would compromise cool graphics.
3. Spells in general were poorly balanced or bland so removing spell creation won't matter.

To these three camps I'd just like you point out 3 points...

1.
That you personaly did not use spell creation does create a logical or reasonable argument to remove it. I'm sure there are some people that never used one of every system in TES, that does not provide a valid case for removing alchemy, melee combat, NPC dialog, stealth, hairstyles, bows, or any other aspect of TES. TES is a series built around freedom of choice to do things in multiple ways.

2.
Rookie mistake. The teams that work on special effects and graphics are rarely the same guys that work on coding game systems. Implementing a spell creation system will not take resources away from cool graphics.

3.a)
In a single player game the equation goes Fun > Balance. Removing something that increases the fun in a singleplayer game is not how you balance a game. You can change the rules so the game is fun AND balanced, but you never remove fun in favor of balance, there is no logical argument to do so.
3.B)
If something in a game is bland and fails to match its potential then the better option is to fix it rather than remove it, especially when the player base has an expectation that it will be there. Removing something is only the better option when it is completely broken and/or the players had no expectation of it being there so there is no percieved loss. In these two situations you can try to fix it and ad it later. If however you remove something that players had come to expect, and it contributed to players enjoyment then you are asking for a bunch of dissatisfied customers. It is better in this day and age to patch something up than to remove something that players enjoy, especially in a single player game.
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KRistina Karlsson
 
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Post » Thu Feb 03, 2011 11:45 am

Y'all spammers filled up this here thread. :kiss:
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Breanna Van Dijk
 
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