If any of you played Doom 3 you will know what i am talking about without me having to say another word, but for those that haven't. In Doom 3 you were effectively right handed and boy did the main character know it. You could chose between either holding your gun or holding your torch. No way was the main character going to use his left hand for any torch holding! Yeah the corridors of this Mars base are dark as [censored] and a portal to Hell has just opened but i'll damned if i'm going to use my left hand for any of this torch holding business.

I'm not sure if iD did this on purpose to try and increase tension in dark areas but either way it ended up feeling weird and quite frustrating. So much so that it is a bit of a running joke now.

Now my concern for Skyrim is that when you are fighting with classic shield, sword scenario and the need arises to use a restoration spell, will you have to put your shield away and pull out your spell hand and then cast heal. I know this isn't a big deal but i have always hated that type of thing. In Oblivion you would be back pedaling your [censored] of casting restoration spells, now they have toned down back pedaling, i wonder what will happen. I kinda imagine it like putting your shield onto your back, soaking up a few blows and casting heal but then pulling the shield back out. Hmmm seems a bit clunky.

Personally i would prefer it if all/most "on-self" style spells didn't need a casting animation and just displayed an effect. Almost like the player just did it in their mind.

What do you guys think?

Never thought of that before...good point that may slow down combat dramatically unless they have already thought of a way to remedy this...maybe the favorites bar lets u quick cast spells like in dragon age. Thats prolly there gonna do SCENARIO: fighting a goblin with sword and shield..u get hurt..pop up faves bar and cast heal then switch to a bigger claymore and then swap to your physical resistance enchanted armor aswell..on the fly..paused in mid combat...just thinkin bout it kinda feels like its more fluid than most would think

I believe they have mentioned that the D-pad will allow you to quickly switch between setups. So, D-up may be fire spell on left and sword in right. D-right may be ice in both hands or something. I could see setting up a D-down where you have shield in left and heal in right. You raise your shield to protect yourself and then use your heal. At least you wouldn't be absorbing many blows and the scenario would make sense.

To be honest, I hope that they maintain this. I quite like the idea that when using a swords & shield you are sacrificing some ease of use in terms of spells and abilities in favour of increased defensive capabilities. So I don't think it's a probelm. If anything it makes combat more balanced as well as tactical and challenging.

You could seath you sword instead. About not back pedalling, I had only play Oblivions with mods and one of them didn't let me run backwards. When my character is about to die, and I need to cast a health spell, I turn up and run forward instead.

haha I remember Doom 3, it was sadistic to play with no flashlight attached to the weapon.
But in Skyrim I rather like this, if you can't switch weapons and spells (or drink potions) so fast it means more strategic thinking before and during battle.

I like how you've thought this through, but personally I think that it's more fun to see a casting animation. Just seeing my character stare blankly at nothing and spell particles start flowing about would feel awkward, like a bug/glitch.

I also think you should be able to cast spells while holding a shield... I mean, come on, this isn't an MMORPG, the devs don't need to go crazy worrying about perfect balance between melee/ranged/magic.

Some things are better for convenience purposes alone.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Light

The difference between your example of doom and this situation is that both hands ARE being used. You have a sword in one and a shield in the other, it makes sense that to cast a spell that requires gestures you'd have to put one or the other away. That being said, it would probably be smarter to sheathe your sword for a moment to heal then put away your shield as the very act of healing assumes that your in trouble defense wise. Personally I hope they keep it that way, spells just being "cast" because you will it doesn't seem very cool to me. I always hated how in oblivion with a sword and shield out I'd just cast spells through my sword, it felt lame and cheesy.

I agree. I was dubious about the restrictions at first, but I actually quite like having to make choices. I've been playing Oblivion without a shield and it's very fun to have to balance quick movement and attacks with my magical use. I'm hoping Skyrim continues this. Being able to do everything at once seems a bit ridiculous to me now.

obviously if you're fighting with a sword and a shield you're in no position to be casting spells. either fiddle with silly workarounds or reevaluate your approach to combat.

sort of on-topic - i kind of hope the idle spells emit some glow of their own. it would be nice to walk around in a pitch black corridor with a fire spell in one hand illuminating the way without having to switch back and forth between torches and magic.

The idea is that if you want to be a big mean muscleman who has sword and shield, then you should be bad at using magic.
I'm glad that they removed spell casting while fully equipped since it made us spellcasters look stupid for not being fully equipped and casting spells at the same time (one word about it being matter of choice and that it should be allowed for anyone to play the way they want and I swear that heads will fall :flame:).
Also, this will actually make you buy potions and worry about them.
Basically, you can't be an uber-gosu-jack-of-all-trades anymore who has all the strengths and none of the weaknesses since it removes all the flavor from the game and makes it so that every idiot with two working hands can beat it.

Am i missing something?




While a lot of what you guys have posted is true. For the record i don't play a uber-gosu-jack-of-all-trades character, i usually play a stealth based nightbladey one, and i tend to be quite underpowered at times. The problem is that you are saying you would rather die than cast a regeneration spell? However i do like the tactics part and i suppose maybe a bit of turning tail and then casting a spell might be called for.

I find it interesting that some people liked the self-spell casting animation in OB as it just seemed to me to be annoying to see this same animation again and again whilst healing. Reach for the sky boy.

No, I would just drink a potion.

If you outright have to put away stuff to cast spells, then this could be problematic: I'm reminded of Morrowind, where you ALSO had to switch to "ready spell" in order to cast... Which left you without anything in your hands. If you were getting beat up, this could result in delayed animations, and you could die before you could heal.

TBH, while I do like the idea of "optionally replace weapon/shield with more spellcasting slots," even better would still be able to cast spells with the sword+shield out: after all, this was done in Arena, Daggerfall, and Oblivion. This was more or less critical for those of us that were taking a combined magic+combat class. And TES has, at least since Daggerfall, been heavily based upon mixing the three disciplines of combat, magic, and stealth, rather than just purely following one.

The easy solution? Similar to what Oblivion did: have three buttons. This'd let a pure caster have THREE potential spells on hand for casting... Or let someone wield a weapon and two spells, or a weapon and shield and one spell, or a shield and two spells, or whatever combo was desired. So essentially the buttons would be for "left hand," "right hand" and "activate power/spell." Remember that since many races get a built-in on-use power, even a zero-magic fighter would have use for this. Alternatively, it could be used as a quick-button for select items, too, like potions.


The irony is that this is EXACTLY what happens for drinking a potion in almost all games, (including TES ones) but often without any particles. UO is about the only game I can think of that requires you have a free hand in order to drink potions... And that was only implemented after it became a massive PvP balance issue.