Will playing a battle-mage be hard? : V - Skyrim

» Fri May 20, 2011 12:20 pm

No.Playing as battle mage is never hard.

Exactly :biggrin:

Fire ball, fire ball, fire ball, conjure lich. "Well I'm out of magic guess I have to beat you with this stick." Hit, hit, hit, hit, "oh you scratched me." Heal, hit, hit, hit. "Well look at that my magic is back" fire ball, fire ball.

The most obnoxious characters in all role playing....

» Fri May 20, 2011 1:16 pm

Something they were saying Radiant Story will do is tailor some quests around a characters specialty (Stealth gets stealthy quests, mages get mage quests... whatever that means etc.)

I don't know how this will work for a fighter-mage or thief-mage or fighter-thief, but i never had a problem with being a cross thief/fighter/mage in past games, so i won't have a problem.

» Fri May 20, 2011 6:26 pm

I fear that playing hyprid characters like battlemages, nightblades etc. might become significantly harder (as in less enjoyable) in Skyrim:

1. When you level up you will have to decide if you want to raise magicka, health or stamina (as far as I understood the attributes are gone) but whereas a warrior might only need to put most points in health and some points in stamina eventually reaching high values in those, a battlemage would need all of these raised and will most likely end up weak in all categories. In previous iterations of TES you just planned a little bit more and could get most if not all attributes to the maximum.

2. I also fear that the perks will mostly be designed for archetype warrior, mage, thief/assassin characters and hyprids might not get perks specially designed for them. I strongly hope to be wrong here put implementing those in addition seems like a lot of work and quiet difficult (concerning balancing).

3. All skillups will count towards a level increase and while the highest skills will be weighted more a hyprid charcter will still need more skills at high levels to be effective (or to just feel like one) than a warrior / mage etc. and therefore might reach higher levels faster without really high skills.

Are there any infos concerning this?

PS: sorry if my english seems a little strange it`s not my first language. ^^

Actually, what that does is that you wont be able to be the uber character like before. Which is fine by me: that has been a common complaint. Morrowind and Oblivion were too imbalanced in that respect.

Being a battlemage now will be interesting. TES is the only RPG that lets you be everything and anything with no real penalties; so its good they are fixing that. This is not a life simulator, its a GAME, and an RPG at that. So there has to be rules, there have to be sacrifices, there have to be careful planning about what to do.

» Fri May 20, 2011 5:45 pm

Battle-mage wont be hard at all. Magicka and strength.

If D&D has taught me anything, its that the Sword-mage (Battle-mage, Spell-sword) class is NOT a tank, so it wont be a tough decision at all.

Though I do request a perk that lets me use my INT instead of STR for calculating 1H sword damage and a +3 to my armor when my offhand is free. XD

» Sat May 21, 2011 12:54 am

Actually, what that does is that you wont be able to be the uber character like before. Which is fine by me: that has been a common complaint. Morrowind and Oblivion were too imbalanced in that respect.

Being a battlemage now will be interesting. TES is the only RPG that lets you be everything and anything with no real penalties; so its good they are fixing that. This is not a life simulator, its a GAME, and an RPG at that. So there has to be rules, there have to be sacrifices, there have to be careful planning about what to do.

One of the reasons I like TES is because if you put in the time and effort you could become master of all skills.(Or have a buttload of cash and pay for training)

I believe this will still be the case except for perks.I am really looking forward to how it is implemented

» Fri May 20, 2011 10:34 am

One of the reasons I like TES is because if you put in the time and effort you could become master of all skills.(Or have a buttload of cash and pay for training)

I believe this will still be the case except for perks.I am really looking forward to how it is implemented

Actually, it has been said a few times by Todd that it will be impossible to get all perks. While you can continue leveling past level 50, perks stop at level 50. Whch is ok: the idea of perks is to streamline a cluttered skill list, and to balance the formula without the need of attributes. Thats what it does, nothing else.

Im sure thats one of the reasoons YOU like TES, to be a jack of all trades if you work hard at it. But the game is not being made for you, so there are practical considerations. The ability to be a jack of all trades, simply, unbalances the game too much for it to be a real challenge (and challenge is not solved by turning up the difficulty; challenging does not mean hard). Im sure you can be a jack of all trades in Skyrim...however, it will be so hard and time consuming, it will not be worth it at all. But, I found it unnecessary in Morrowind too, and people still did it, so...knock yourself out.

» Fri May 20, 2011 12:14 pm

Actually, it has been said a few times by Todd that it will be impossible to get all perks. While you can continue leveling past level 50, perks stop at level 50. Whch is ok: the idea of perks is to streamline a cluttered skill list, and to balance the formula without the need of attributes. Thats what it does, nothing else.

Are you sure that you stop getting perks after 50? I think I've heard that you only de facto stop getting them as you stop lvling very fast.

» Fri May 20, 2011 6:21 pm

So battle-mages won't be as good at magic as pure mages, and won't be as good at weapons as pure fighters?

Well duh...

Exactly. The battle-mages draw their power from flexibility.
I think they might be harder this time around, but rewarding if one can manage too mage one.
I will play a Warrior-mage(instead of a mage trained in combat it is a warrior trained in magic). That type of char will face similar challenges.

» Fri May 20, 2011 4:44 pm

Are you sure that you stop getting perks after 50? I think I've heard that you only de facto stop getting them as you stop lvling very fast.

todd explicitly said you stop getting perks after lvl 50

» Fri May 20, 2011 9:26 pm

Remember, however, that health ALWAYS raises when you level up.

In previous games health raised based on your endurance. Now it may only raise if you invest in it. We don't know because they changed the system.

» Fri May 20, 2011 5:54 pm

In previous games health raised based on your endurance. Now it may only raise if you invest in it. We don't know because they changed the system.

No, they stated health will increase per level.

» Sat May 21, 2011 12:28 am

Hybrid builds in TES games are drastically different than those in more linear rpgs, with their rigid class structures.

The beauty of such freedom is that you decide exactly to what extent you want to hybridize - mostly by your playstyle.

The perks will change things a bit, but I don't see them being to the detriment of hybrids. In such a game as TES, its rare that a player specializes entireliy in one type of playstyle, and Bethesda knows this - thus they know hybrids are probably most of their customers. BattleMage especially is the most popular combo out there.

My personal build for Skyrim will be a hybrid duel wield class - I'll duel-wield fire in either hand, until I run out of mana or they get too close. After either of those happen, I switch to my duel longsword preset (I love the new preset system they've talked about - adds so much more functionality).

I'll also probably frequently use the Longsword in one hand, fire in the other combo...depends which combo I end up liking better.

» Fri May 20, 2011 9:16 am

No, they stated health will increase per level.

If you say so, I remember hearing that you'd choose what was raised. Doesn't mean that you won't be able to break it up.

» Fri May 20, 2011 10:56 am

Well for perks you just have to pick the best of both worlds. So be proficient in blades and destruction magic and only get perks in those two categories

» Fri May 20, 2011 7:18 pm

The class should be a challenge, so you are not so uber super duper. challenge = fun in my opinion.
In classic AD&D, a hybrid character leveled up slower, in order to provide balance.
Just think. Now you can have multiple play throughs spanning many more hours by making characters with different play styles.
but then again, this might piss off the people who want to do everything with one character, and 'beat' the game then shelve it.

» Fri May 20, 2011 1:41 pm

If you say so, I remember hearing that you'd choose what was raised. Doesn't mean that you won't be able to break it up.

You do. Every level you get an increse in health and an increase in health,mana,stamina.

Basicly a pure fighter can have double the health of a pure mage, not 20x more health. If health didn't increase per level dumb players (they're out there) would end up with a glass mage that gets taken down with a single blow.

» Fri May 20, 2011 3:28 pm

You do. Every level you get an increse in health and an increase in health,mana,stamina.

Basicly a pure fighter can have double the health of a pure mage, not 20x more health. If health didn't increase per level dumb players (they're out there) would end up with a glass mage that gets taken down with a single blow.

Well, if this is the system then it seems a little [censored]. It'd be better to just points to attributes for health, mana, and stamina and not make it seem redundant.

» Fri May 20, 2011 7:12 pm

todd explicitly said you stop getting perks after lvl 50

I don't know if he ever said that.

I know that he said that you can generally get up to around lvl 100 by maxing all your skills, and there's like 250 perks you can't choose all.