Hi, will there be some powerful skills dealing area of effect damage, such as meteors falling from the sky, or things like that? In Oblivion aoe damage didn't exist imo.

I know there will be a fire skill that'll act like a flamethrower, is that the maximum aoe possible?

We′ve had AoE since at least Morrowind as far as I know, it has just always been so that we′ve had to aim it with our hands and it has always originated from our hands. I think that′s good enough.

No area effect in Oblivion? Have you seen the fireball spell? Have you ever used the spellmaker with its area of effect setting? Lots of area effect, however it was expensive for large areas and a small area would rarely hit many enemies except in a few settings like then you got mobbed by goblins, it also damaged friendly npc in battles making them hostile.
Frenzy almost required are of effect to be useful.

I know there is aoe in oblicion but... i can't even call it aoe. It's just a small ball of fire, frost or whatever that tahts deals damage to some enemies, there isn't even a animation of area of effect like the ball explosioning or something. Every destruction spell as always the same.

Note: i'm talking about oblivion not morrowind.

Ok I Have a test for you, go to the Arcane University and make a ranged fire spell with 1 damage, 1 duration and max area. Go walk into the Market District at the middle of the day and try to find a way to shoot the spell without anyone going bat crazy on you without moving your aim higher than in a 90° angle if the ground is the X axis, and you yourself are the Y axis.

Even if you accomplish this I will still consider it a durn big spell.

Edit: Yes the animation is lacking but it′s a small ball of fire that grows into a huge one, and we will see things catch on fire if I am not mistaken in Skyrim.

They promised far better magic effects, probably no meteor storm as it would not work well indoor, more like setting an area on fire with fire, fire dripping from the roof was one description.

That's anybody's guess :shrug: . It's not like we know the entire list of spells right now, only a few.
The way they overhauled the magic system though might introduce such spells.

Ok, I just wantd to know if the animation will be more polished, just that. In Oblivion i didn't get the feeling i was really getting better.

Thanks guys.

This isnt WoW.

You really don't have much of a need for AoE. Most of the time your only going to be facing enemies one on one.

Also, they did have AoE in OB. You could make a spell that affected an area.

from what i heard they only mentioned the fire spells i know you can cast a single fireball (not sure if you can charge the fireball or not) create a stream of fire, and lay down a fire trap ruin on the ground (not sure if it was a GI interview or pod cast from todd)

it would be pretty cool if you could create a hailstorm of fireballs though

I would suggest you read the magic section of this article:
http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_elder_scrolls_v_skyrim/b/xbox360/archive/2011/01/24/skyrim-building-better-combat.aspx

Im much more concerned about Spell graphical effects in Skyrim. Part of the reason why i couldnt get into playing a mage type class was because all my damage spells just looked so lackluster. Cast Blizzard? all did was through a giant blue fireball, there was no harsh artic winds flying around my target or have snow storm in the general area. Cast thunderstorm...oh look a big grey fireball. No Lightning bolts comming down from the heavens to fry my enemies, no sounds of thunder to deafen my attackers. One of reasons why Middas magic was/is so damn popluar is because it gives magic bad ass graphical effects.

I hope so AOE magic is great fun.

AoE=Age of Empires well back to this topic...
I think the Oblivions just exploding fireballs were good enough

Obviously, there will be some form of area effect spells available, and considering that Bethesda seems to be trying to make spells more varied, I expect we'll see other options for area effect spells beyond just the small fireball that explodes unimpressively upon impact we saw in past games, or the flamethrower type spell we've already heard about, which I'm assuming burns everything the stream touches, but obviously, since we haven't been given a complete list of the spells we'll see, we can only speculate as to what options there might be outside of the obvious ones or ones we have heard about.

I do have to agree that spells with a large area of effect seemed a little underwhelming in past games, though, aside from magic effects as a whole being somewhat underwhelming, I think it also might have had something to do with the sacrifice in power for higher area of effect being too high to really be worth it. What's the point in using a fireball that can hit ten different enemies at a time if it barely damages any of them?

It sounds like you want an MMO version of AOE where there is a ruin on the ground and out of nowhere meteors fall from the sky on that area constantly until you stop channeling. The look of the aoes in TES will most likely be jazzed up with the revelation that the magic system is supposed to be more plasmids this time around but the basic mechanic of the aoe of them was fine. It just doesn't make sense for meteors to come out of nowhere and rain down in one spot in the level of mortal magic in the TES mythos. Maybe a group of Psijic mages could do it but not just one person.

You can't call down meteors from the sky inside a dungeon, but the Dragon Shout Adjective Push, pushes back multiple opponents.