That seems logical, but it is saddening.
It would mean they have removed a tried, tested and much loved and lauded feature in favour of a gimmick

My husband loves to play mages. In Oblivion I remember him playing with the craft your own spells for hours, while I was trying to get in to play my character.

He and I started playing Skyrim but I noticed something, he seems to have gone off the path of his normal mage game play and more towards a thief. Sure, he is trying to play a pure mage ,but he simply does not have all the cool tools Oblivion had. He lacks the ability to beef up spells he likes a lot and is some what forced to use spells he dislikes. In Oblivion taking him on as a mage was a death sentence. In Skyrim, he needs to use a sword just to do more damage.

Don't get me wrong, he is having a good time playing the game; but I can tell when he plays his style is completely the opposite. He probably would be having more fun if the magic section was not hacked to bits and given you the scraps.

I get that games don't stay the same from one to the other or the next in line, but taking over half the spells out and not letting people like my husband be a full blown mage svcks.

what do you mean? like having a spell that frenzied level 20 enemies for 20s and do frost damage for 10? dual casting could just increase the level range the frenzy covers and increase the damage of the frost by 20%. or am i missing something?

You call me a troll, but you're the one making baseless assumptions about me because I disagree with you.

1. I am approx. 75 hours into Skyrim. Playing a very magic heavy character (although not a "pure" mage) and enjoying it thoroughly.

2. I have hundreds of hours in both Morrowind and Oblivion, they are my favorite games of all time.

3. Spellmaking was one of my favorite features in Morrowind. I absolutely loved it. In Oblivion, nearly every character I ever created joined the Mage's Guild, just so I could get access to the Arcane University to have access to Spellmaking and Enchanting. I adore both of these skills. One of my biggest disappointments with Oblivion was that Enchant was not available as a regular skill, and that Spellmaking was not as easily accessible as it was in Morrowind.

That said, just because I really enjoyed the feature does not mean I believe it to be a "staple", or "cornerstone" of the series. Quite the opposite in fact. As much as I loved it, it was nothing but the icing on the cake. I don't miss Spellmaking in Skyrim. Not once have I felt like I was missing out on something because Spellmaking wasn't there.

Where I do agree is that the spell effects in Skyrim are limited. I do feel like I would prefer to have more spell effects. But the lack of Spellmaking hasn't bothered me or detracted from my mage experience in the slightest.

And while the argument might be "Well some did, and we should have it, to have the OPTION", ideally, I agree with you, but as I stated earlier, I believe that having Spellmaking, allowing you to combine spell effects into a single spell, and then utilize that with dual casting, and combine together 2 different spells of combined effects, along with having to figure out how those combined effect spells work with Dual Casting, and the perks system, I believe would cause a technical mess that Bethesda could not make work in this game. And that, ultimately, is why I don't think Spellmaking would work, or has a place, in Skyrim, because I don't believe it would work technically.

So stop making assumptions about me, k? And the reason why I'm dual posting (valid excuse or not) is because I respond to the posts as I read through the thread, because I'll forget what I wanted to say by the time I get to the end of the thread. So I make my reply then, while my thoughts are fresh on my mind, and then continue reading the thread.

Hardly.

There's a reason why the spellmaking only offered the generic ball (no, this has nothing to do with graphics, but with forms, how and when you can or shall use it), because otherwise the system would be overcomplicated, if not outright broken without numerous limitations. For example, how about mixing firewall with paralysis. Enemy steps in falls down and takes continuous damage -> instant win with no effort.

In the current system the only way spellmaking would take place is just by tweaking the stats of already existing spells, literally making your spells into just "bigger fireballs".


What magic is missing right now was always missing, but it has taken a step further getting it.

...unless you design dungeons with the existence of Mark/Recall and Levitate did in mind. Like Morrowind did.

Speaking of, I really wish they had kept Morrowind's design philosophy. 95% of Skyrim dungeons could be replaced with a single long corridor with the occasional enemy and treasure chest and then a boss at the end in front of the Thu'um wall, and while it would look different it wouldn't be functionally any different. Even Oblivion, for all its flaws, had dungeons that were way less linear.

On topic, the reason magic feels dull and lifeless in Skyrim is because all the cool new powers got turned into Shouts and magic was left with the boring stuff.

Yea well the assumptions were not baseless because you read posts in the thread and gave an answer in each one with a separate post that was made hours ago (you could multiquote/paste them in one post). Anyway glad you responded properly.

Ok. First. As you say, you do agree that having a feature is better that not having it. And you actually absolutely loved it. Yet now you are arguing against it and say that it you are better of without it? Anyway that's your own personal preference - i don't understand the logc behind it but i'll respect it - but you must realise that for many people it's an important feature that would love to see in the game and would enrich their gaming experience. If you only take that as a granted i don't see any reason to be against it.

About your balance and technical concerns can you elaborate them? - i'm not a professional game developer, yet i have some experience with modding. There is absolutely no reason for it to not work and be balanced if implemented properly. And if you don't take my word for that, the modding community will prove you wrong (if someone bothers to make this).




How hypocritical is that! Like the game does not have instant win mechanics atm! Heh...
Also - overcomplicated? How so? O.o
And if implemented correctly and you care so much about the game's perfect balance it could have some certain limitations or simply adjustable skill/magicka cost/requirement mechanics.

This is where it comes down to personal preference.

I prefer the gameplay style of Skyrim over Morrowind or Oblivion, and feel that of the 2, Spellmaking would be more of the gimmick.

I'd rather give up Spellmaking for the gameplay style that we have, than to give up the gameplay style in favor of Spellmaking.



But what if you have only the Illusion dual casting perk, but not the Destruction dual casting perk? This is where the game would start to become broken, as you could get a Destruction dual cast bonus without ever taking the perk. Do you disallow dual casting of custom spells? But then that defeats the purpose of the dual casting perks with Spellmaking. Do you only give the effects of the school you have the dual casting perks for? Well, I'm no game designer, but that sounds like a coding nightmare. And people are already complaining of bugs enough as it is.

Then you have the case of different cast type spells. For instance, you have constant cast spells, like wards, Detect Life, and DOT spray spells. Then you have insta-cast spells like Shield, Conjure , or Frenzy. How do those spell effects get combined?

Do you say that you can't combine a Detect Life spell with a Shield spell? I.E. you can only combine constant casts with other constant casts, and instant casts with other instant casts? Well that starts to limit what you can even do with Spellmaking to a rather large degree. And again, it's even more coding to get that all to work together.

And another aspect that I never liked about Spellmaking in the first place was, I could buy a spell effect of a school I'm not skilled in (let's say Destruction, for example), and combine it with a spell effect of a school that I am skilled in (let's say Illusion, for example), and combine a big, beefy Destruction effect with a slightly beefier Illusion effect, to be able to cast a mega Destruction spell off my Illusion skill.

Example: Say I am a master of Illusion, but a Novice of Destruction. I can combine a master level Illusion effects (let's say, Frenzy), with an Expert level Destruction effect (damage over time), and cast that off of my 100 Illusion skill, and burn enemies to death with my Expert level Destruction spells, simply because I gamed the system to cast the spell off my Illusion skill.

I know, because I manipulated that system a bit myself, tossing in some Fortify Attribute effects in with some Master Alteration effects to cast off my 100 Alteration, when I'm a Novice of Restoration.

The way Skyrim is set up, I just see a bunch of technical issues stemming from Spellmaking, which is why I don't think Spellmaking would work in Skyrim.

Otherwise, I am completely of the mindset that things shouldn't be -removed-, because, well, if I don't like it, I don't have to use it. It's the same way I was -okay- with the removal of Athletics and Acrobatics in this game - because *everything* counts towards your level in this game, and I don't want to level up because I decided to run from Whiterun to Winterhold instead of taking the carriage, or because I decided to do some rock climbing to get to that dragon shout wall at the top of the mountain instead of looking around for a path.

At least with Morrowind and Oblivion, you could leave those skills as minors if you wanted to not level up by them. In Skyrim, you'd have no choice.

Otherwise, I'd be all for their inclusion in Skyrim as well, even though they were skills I avoided like the plague in Morrowind and Oblivion.

With the things that have been removed in Skyrim from previous installments, I try to look at the "why's" of it, and the reason why I am okay with the removals is because I believe, after trying to look at it objectively, that the features removed either 1.) wouldn't work with Skyrim's overall design [like Athletics, Acrobatics, and Spellmaking - and I've just given my reasons why] or 2.) were improved upon with more depth [such as Armorer being replaced by Smithing - whether Smithing can be easily exploited and broken or not, I will take a full fledged armor and weapons crafting system that requires the gathering of materials and allows for RP and customization over basic equipment repair any day]. The rest of the stuff (such as Mysticism, or Hand to Hand, and even Unarmored to a slight extent) wasn't even removed, but instead was implemented in a different way (Mysticism can now be found merged with Alteration, Hand to Hand is available, and even has a perk for it, even if not a full fledged skill, and Unarmored isn't a skill, but does include perks to benefit Unarmored, which is certainly an improvement over Oblivion in that regard).

who knows. Spell creation offered limitless customization and role playing potential. Strategies and even builds could be based on spell creation alone. An outside the box mechanic that was only limited by your imagination. Had to be hardware and or time restraints. the only reason I could see them getting rid of a cornerstone mechanic.

I only thing Skyrim is better off without it because I don't believe that technically, Spellmaking (as people want it, anyways) could work with the gameplay system Skyrim has in place. And if Spellmaking did make it in, at least as I imagine it working, people would cry about how dumbed down it was.

And I've tried to elaborate, but I'll try to do so again:

1.) Dual casting. Someone earlier used the example of a Frenzy / Frost Damage custom spell, and that dual casting would simply increase those numbers. Okay, on the surface, that sounds good. But beneath the surface, what if someone has only taken the Illusion Dual Casting perk, but not the one for Destruction? Do they get the benefits of the Destruction Dual Casting perk without ever having taken it? If so, that's unbalanced (and I know that people claim Smithing and Enchanting to be unbalanced, but that's not an excuse to add even more unbalance into the game. And it's even more of an unfair unbalance, because at least the Smithing and Enchanting exploits and unbalance would require investment from the player - both in time to level the skills up, as well as perks to get the needed perks to "unbalance" those skills. Being able to unbalance a magic skill without even having to put investment into it ends up being reward without risk). Do you not allow dual casting of custom spells? Well then that negates the purpose of the Dual Casting perks.

Also, as I explained in my last post, the ability to cast high end effects from an untrained school, by combining it with a slightly more powerful effect from a trained school, is an effect of Spellmaking that I never liked.

2.) Spell casting types. We already have different types of casting types in Skyrim. There are constant casts: Wards, Detect Life, DOT stream spells, some healing spells; There are instant casts: Shield spells, Conjure / Reanimate , Frenzy; There are the proximity trigger casts like runes. How do you make those work in a Spellmaking system?

Do you allow differing cast types to be combined into one spell? I'm no programmer, but that sounds like a coding nightmare, asking for all sorts of technical issues. And people are already complaining about bugs. How do you combine a constant cast Heal spell with a proximity trigger rune spell? Or an instant cast Shield spell with a constant cast DOT stream spell? I feel like that's asking for all sorts of issues. Do you restrict the types of spells that can be combined together? Well then you start restricting what makes Spellmaking so special in the first place. I can already hear the cries of "dumbing down".

I acknowledge this is a lot of "theory-hammer", but that's just how I see it. I imagine even if Spellmaking didn't cause technical issues, it would still be clunky as all get out with the mixing of schools, cast types, and circumventing of perks. And for the argument that "well they shouldn't have used this system", I will say that I would much prefer to give up Spellmaking in favor of what I feel to be a far superior combat and casting system, than to give up this combat and casting system just to keep Spellmaking around.

Spellmaking was cool. It wasn't -that- cool.

As far as it being one of my favorite features but I feel better off without it, again, I only feel "better off" because I just don't see it fitting into what Skyrim is as a game. If Skyrim had kept the same Morrowind / Oblivion system, then I'd agree, keep Spellmaking. But I don't think it would work. And that's why I feel we're better off.

If Bethesda proves me wrong, and makes it work, and releases it in a DLC, then I'll be the first to line up to buy it and use it. But I just don't see it working.

What I'd prefer to see, instead of what I imagine to be a clunky Spellmaking system, is to instead amplify the current casting system even further, allowing you to actually "combine" your spells together - I.E. actually combine Frost and Fire spells together, or Frenzy and DOT spells together via the dual casting system.

Spell Creation requires an Alter. Spell Creation requires two or more effects. Spell Creation requires the skill equivalent for any effects of the same school. Unlike in Oblivion, all magic schools and their 'effects to proper skill level' are taken into consideration. (Not just the major effects like Oblivion Spell Creation). All created spells require two hands to cast. The animation is taken from the dominant effect 'effects to proper skill level'. Since there's no fortify magicka and no 'weakness to' spells, there's less exploitation than there was in previous titles. There, its implemented.

If mods can do spell creation, which they will, then so can Beth. Will Beth implement it in Skyrim? Probably not. I doubt we see vanilla Spell Creation until the next ES.

The limit on spellmaking in Oblivion and Morrowind was the magicka cost of the spell created. With 100% reduction on spell costs with enchanted items, there is basically no limit on spellmaking. You'd probably poke your eye out.

i think you mean that we would get arrows in our knees.

A good point. Balance wise, not poke your eye out wise. To balance that, you only allow a certain amount of effects from a certain school. That way, to exploit it, you'd have to either build the ultimate suit, or just think it out, either of which requires more amount of thought than it does to outwit and OP the system as it is now.

Although its less about balance in spell creation, and more about expanding your horizons and builds. To experiment with new effects and new spells. And to truly customize your experience in any way you see fit, since your imagination was the only limit with spell creation.

Ok listen up. I won't go and invent a spell making system on my own since it will go to waste and there would be no point in it. I'll answer to your concerns though.

I believe you worry too much - your mind goes too far - while there can be only a few and simple limitations that would solve almost all of the problems you describe. Some of these limitations were already in the previous TES games spell making.


-Dual cast perks: Applicable only when you cast the same type of spells (as it is now approximately) - for example: 2 same effect "Bolt" type spells would only trigger impact (like it is now). Same with other schools such as illusion which - 2 same effect spells would raise the cap level and duration of the spell depending on their power (like it happens in Skyrim atm).

-About effects spell type - if you remember - there were some limitations on the previous games too. Not every effect and parameter would be applicable for any type of spell - or else it would be total chaos. For example heal would be only applicable to "Bolt", "On touch","Aura" type spells. Simple as that.

Now about certain types of spells:

Bolts - adjustable AOE, damage, velocity (in a certain extend), duration
On touch - adjustable AOE, damage, duration
Rune - adjustable AOE damage, duration if being active, duration of effect
Spray - adjustable angle, damage, range
Wall - adjustable AOE, damage, duration, duration of effect
Summon - adjustable object of summoning, duration
Self-cast spells - adjustable benefit magnitude, duration

I'm sure i forgot a lot of things and something i posted with 3 minutes thought is not flawless but these are just examples.
Now a very simple categorisation:

Fortify/heal spells
Damage spells
Pure effect spells
ETC ETC

Now setting limitations for example: Fortify,heal spells can't be set with the Wall,Summon,Rune types. They can be set with the spray, self-cast, on touch and bolt types.
And so on....

Certain limitations were already there in previous TES games and a very customisable - but not chaotic - system could work in Skyrim and add a lot to gameplay flexibility, rp and playstyles without hurting anyone.

Or this, either way, Spell creation is missed by the fans and the vets. No reason not to have spell creation in one way or another. Dont like it, dont use it.

thats awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hYV-JSjpyU

I guess the way I see it is, if it's gonna be worked out like that, then it's really no different than just the dual wield casting we have going currently.

It was your choice how you decided to power your spells and what you used. I was not a one dimensional mage like I am in Skyrim, yes the effects are pretty but that does not compare to the depth of spell creation.


The roleplaying is the beauty of this game. What if I want to play a wizard who is known for alteration skills, I cannot open a simple lock with a spell, I mean come on Harry Potter can do it I cannot?
Good point we are limited in every way with the lack of spell creation.
Also you could fix and match the effects to create your own combinations and then there are thousands of choices.


I like the duel wielding, holding up your hands for a spell reminds me of Morrowind, it could have been even better and not just a tacked on thing to do with spell creation.


That it did my friend, I hate they removed the spine from spell creation.


Agreed it would not be hard to implement. It makes zero sense to me.

One of the worst design desicision in the whole game. I decided to play a pretty pure mage. Have been trying to do that for 110 hours but it has gotten very very boring. Gonna have to do a new character.

I cant understand how anyone who has even a tiny bit of criticism or objectivity could defend this decision. Perhaps bethesda thought their target audience is too idiotic to figure out spellmaking?

With spell making this game would already be many times better. If only it also had choices, interesting and branching quests and dialogue, a not dumbed down, shallow and boring character creation and a few other things

Wayman's post is spot on!

Yes it is one of the worst decisions they have made. I play pure mage or characters with magic support, the magic system is just very restrictive and restraining. We need the options of the past title to make spells that fit our character more correctly, we had several options and what fir our characters style. Now the magic system is basically just a foundation now thats it.

I do not know how they defend a blatant lack of options. Lets hope that is not the case. :whistling:

It would have opened many possibilities and it would have added much needed depth to the overall system. It would have unlocked several ways to play.

Well said...