Yes. It was just a http://t-shirtguru.com/product-images/ozymandias-was-right-t-shirt-bustedtees-2.jpg though.

Most shouts have unique effects that wouldn't be possible with magic anyway (and cost no mana).
Also could they have taken away the magic effects for the crappy alchemy system?
If these are the reasons they r@ped magic in skyrim... :facepalm:

Spellmaking for sure! Really shouts or the current gimped magic system can in no way replace the versatility of the old spell system in previous games.

I was already with a few less options when I went from Morrowind to Oblivion but it was nothing major and some of it was understandable such as Levitate being gone due to Bethesda not wanting to have to deal with how to implement the separate cell cities with people flying over them.

But from Oblivion to Skyrim I lost over half my character, I needed to completely change my playing style from a more tactical one to a boring *cast one spell and charge in with shield bashing* one which was the closest one to my old one, obviously I ended up changing it even more integrating swinging a weapon too and such, which in turn changed my character from a healer and protector kind of character to a more aggressive one.

I liked it the most the way it worked in Oblivion because in that game I could block at will making my playing style truly effective at all times, and I was hoping to simply see an improvement upon that in Skyrim but I was quite gutted to see how poor magic was, http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1302338-a-small-observation-on-the-amount-of-spells-in-the-game/

Shouts in Skyrim do in no way make up for it, not even with the fancy new graphics and working of spells. I'd throw it all out for how spells worked in Oblivion. Or better yet, an upgraded model of the Oblivion system that could easily be done with some number tweaks without removing any of the spells at all.

I'd flush shouts down the toilet in the blink of an eye if it meant the restoration of proper magick'y magic, though of course I'd rather have both shouts and magic.

And to the people who think that mages shouldn't be able to open locks (that's lockpicking), charm people (speechcraft), make potions (hey, don't put pharmacists out of business with magick!!), levitate (that's cruel against those hard-working acrobats), turn invisible (that's soundly in thief territory) or really do anything that overlaps with a craft, I ask you what exactly you think magic is supposed to do, if not stuff is normally very hard or outright impossible to do?

I further ask you how you think it makes sense that a mage can telekinetically lift stuff but can't telekinetically manipulate the lever in a lock to open? How it makes sense that a mage can mentally dominate a dozen foes to make them freeze in place or attack each other, but can't dominate a single freaking NPC to make said NPC think the mage is his long-lost childhood friend? How it makes sense that mages can lift things relative to themselves but can't lift themselves relative to other things? And so on, and so forth.

Magic is supposed to actually be powerful. Being able to do stuff through supernatural means *is* a mind-bogglingly powerful ability. It makes sense that there's going to be an overlap when you take your supernatural talents and use them to intentionally have a go at something you'd otherwise need a painful amount of expertise to accomplish. Take out the ability to replicate normal crafts through supernatural means and you're effectively removing everything that actually makes magic cool, as well as making the whole concept completely senseless, lore-unfriendly, and by extension immersion-breaking as hell, at least if you spend more than three seconds during your entire playthrough pondering about how the world works.

Whining about magic-haters aside, how could anyone think that customers would rather not have a feature than have a feature? No, I don't believe anyone ever thought as much. Removing spell construction was never about actually improving the game. NEVER. It was a calculated move to give the devs more control, to take away the ability of mages to break various scenarios that the level designers might plan, and perhaps to a lesser extent to make shouts seem more awesome since it's not possible to replicate those effects through magic. "Control" was the official reason why levitation and jumping was banned in Oblivion (and arguably some degree of laziness since this also saved the devs from having to actually work with those impossible-to-reach ledges), and it might as well be the official reason why magic is (pardon my French) utter crap in Skyrim.

Then again, Skyrim doesn't really seem designed for complex magic anyway. There are effectively three types of magic damage and two forms of resistance to all of them, magic resist and spell absorption. And instead of having to worry about how much a monster might have of each, the much easier approach is to status-[censored] the enemies and have your summons slaughter them. Good old Morrowind also had the option for status-[censored] + summons spam too, as well as five types of magic damage. And monsters had a lot of different resistances which made it useful to have damage spells of nearly all varieties so you wouldn't have to try and punch through elemental resistances. What it meant is that there was fun to be had in being a pure mage and having to adapt your spell selection to the opposition you'd run into.

In Skyrim, you'd need a fireball + weakness to fire spell against most of the creatures and a frostball + weakness to frost spell for the rest. Two spells and then you could blast away, because AFAIK there's not a single creature in the game that is both fire immune and frost immune while massively weak to poison or shock or straight-out magic damage or telekinetic shocks / blunt force or whatever you might have added as the "earth element" representation. Which by the way has been missing for much too long. Why is that? Well, I know what I think, but why do you think it's so? Because it makes the game better or because it's easier that way and the vast majority of the target segment are casual gamers who wouldn't notice anyway?

And yes, in retrospect I deeply regret getting my degree in business and administration. It's made me so annoyingly cynical about the motivations of for-profit companies.

Indeed

I don't follow. Where did this happen?



Oh. You're one of those people who thinks that "mage" means "only the six skills that happen to be listed under 'Magic'". Never mind.

I agree with this entire post. I would also love the old system back with all of the old spell types.

The pretty graphics cannot hide a flawed and uninspired system from my eyes.

Just think of what we could have done with storm call, whirlwind sprint or Mark of death in spell creation that would have gave us options. They should have added the affects of shouts to the magic system left the old spells and spell creation.

Then we would be customizable and play our mages as we wish. They need to start adding to this game series instead of taking away.

As the magic system stands it is just a shell of its former self.

Why can't we have all of them? I would still use shouts since they don't effect my magicka at all. In plus you are forgetting about the warrior and archer types who don't put points to magicka at all. It's a nice addition.

Since you are making me choose one or the other. I pick spellmaking and true magic.

He was.

I still don't quite get it. I'm assuming he was referring to a member's post, but I am uncertain.

Xarnac was the championed martyr and Patron saint of Spell Creation. Once Bethesda decisions crucified him, he traveled to Aetherius on the wings of a gilded Spell Making Altar. Kynareth wept for two centuries, until the mystery wrapped inside his own enigma had faded from Mundus. The World awaits the return of the Xarnevarine incarnate.

Others argue that he was no more than a clever Troll that learned to speak. Regardless, Pre Release threads regarding spell creation are riddled with his apocalyptic prophecies on the consequences of a Nirn without spell creation.

wth?

where the heck did this come from?


...please have a link to continue my amusemant.

Before he vanished, he left us with one relic of antiquity. The Search feature. There you must find Xarnac, in the past. I can not accompany you there. Those who enter, enter alone. He who was once him, The Conqueror awaits.

Now I have to wait, for I'm out of Magicka.

You are playing a different Skyrim than I am. My mage never touched a bow and Shouts were an excellent addition to her magic repetoire. They are just another magic school imo.

@OP - I don't think that's why they took away spell making. They also gutted enchanting.

What's the point of being a mage if you can't really do much of anything with magic? It's not mage-ish to go to thief-school to learn how not to be heard or how to open locks, especially not when the lore indicates that you have plenty of ways to fix locks and in fact have much more potential for it than any locksmith could hope to have. It's not mage-ish at all to go to rogue-school to learn how to mix potions, particularly not when the gameplay is designed so you'd need to do it fairly often to simply stay alive.

Seriously, read almost any issue of X Men to see just crazy powerful telekinesis could be. Lift yourself, lift something else, manipulate something else, or do a Vader-style force choke on some enemy. Huge number of applications, really. Think about what you could do with Destruction and fire spells. Morning shave? Check. Fried eggs? Check. Melting enemy equipment? Absolutely. Melting a lock into scrap? You betcha. Melting the eyeballs of an opponent? Hey, why not? And much the same thing can be done with frost, making metal brittle or causing the liquids in an eye to become a lot less liquid. It's all those crazy applications that make mages fun to RP. What can we in Skyrim? Well, we can be the arch-mage who can cast a mere few dozen pre-made spells and who kills his enemies by... summoning allies to kill them for him. Who opens locks by... pretending to be a damn thief. Waow! Exciting... *zzZzzZZzz*

If you think magic is awesome in Skyrim, you either don't have any creativity whatsoever or you simply haven't spent more than a few seconds pondering what magic could be like. Hint: When you play table-top RPs, your game master isn't going to simply hand you a list of spells and then insist they can't be modified for special applications in any way whatsoever. As a result, mages are fabulous lock-openers, if a lot slower, more spectacular, and much less discrete, than your average thief. This is just like how in the real world an explosives expert is way better at opening locks than any locksmith ever, at the cost of making a lot of noise and needing a lot of preparation. And ruining the lock and possibly everything behind the door, mind. It's the same principle, though.

Maybe you just want to hose stuff with a fairly useless flamethrower. Me, I want to hose stuff with a potent frost-thrower, just because I can. I want to create a layer of ice on the ground between me and my enemies and laugh as they fall to their asses. I want to ruin the footing of archers shooting at me by lining their boots with ice. I want to pursuade criminals to cooperate with me by literally lighting a fire under their junk. In short, I WANT TO ACTUALLY RP!

What I don't want is to use the same diplomatic means of extracting information as any ordinary bard or rogue or clumsy oaf of a warrior. I don't want to open locks by fiddling with a pick like some fool thief, as if an arch-mage would ever lower himself to learning a menial craft like that. I don't want to "pick" locks, I want to nuke them. If I can melt dragons and freeze giants into giant statues then how can I not be able to tear apart some freaking wooden chest? Heck, I should be able to tear it apart with telekinesis alone.

It's not like we've ever been able to do even half of the above, but at least they could call it hardware-based engine limitations in the past. Currently it's just flat-out design choice to intentionally move away from letting magic ruin the linearity of the planned gameplay. Because yes, as an arch-mage you damn well better believe that I'd put a new meaning into "burning stomach ache" or "cold shivers down the spine". If only the devs and designers would get off their asses and let me.

idk what your smoking throw voice is amazing for stealth bow players. throw voice, stealth bow hit kill/almost kill

i would trade shouts for spell crafting but only because shouts feel forced. and idk about anyone else but i find myself using just detect life, i also accidently shoot villagers with fire=\

Being a full melee character shouts are the only thing I have to damage a dragon and force it to land. I don't have Dragonrend yet =/

I don't want any features stripped away, even shouts.
Though I do think it is total bullcrap that the magic system is gutted to its core, while at the same time unique and interesting spell effects like slowing time, freezing enemies solid, knockbacks, lightning storm... were made into stupid shouts instead of proper magic, LIKE THEY SHOULD BE.

I liked the whimsy of spellmaking and enchanting. The ability to make a dagger that healed or armor that burned the wearer for example. A lot of the playfullness and imagination is gone without things like this.

Shouts are more interesting than most of the spells in previous games, in fact they're probably better than most spells in Skyrim. They just have more..."substance" to them. You see your FUS RO DAH energy and it has a satisfying and noticeable effect on an enemy, rather than just cutting off some of it's HP. I hope they incorporate some of the shouts into magic for future games. A "kinetic wave" spell or something would fit in with alteration.

Dovahkiin > milk drinking mage.

So either you haven't found "Elemental Fury", or you don't use un-enchanted HtH weapons, eh?
The one that lets you slow down time is pretty fun (and useful) as well,

Personally, I'd rather have more interesting spells than the 'spreadsheet'y stuff that was in Oblivion, more cloak spells, more rune spells, more stream spells.

Shouts are irrelevant.

Beth should hire Xilver (of Midas' Magic fame) for their magic system