Now that we've had an Elder Scrolls game without Spellmaking, what are your experiences having it vs. not having it?

Which did you enjoy more?

What were the strong points, redeeming qualities, mediocrities and/or fatal flaws in each of Morrowind's, Oblivion's and Skyrim's magic systems?

These and many, many other aspects of the past three Elder Scrolls games to be discussed here.

This is not about TES:VI, please refrain from discussing things in terms of TES:VI.

I never made spells as the new effects were not that much better than what came in the game. Enchanting is where I would combine spells.

I made extensive use of Morrowind's spellmaking system to create useful "beginner" spells that my characters could actually cast, without chewing up half my character's magicka pool in a single failed attempt, and later in the game to create high-powered spells that they would actually "want" to use (whether they could or not is another matter). For a couple of characters spellmaking was irrelevant; for most it was a key part of the game. Why cast a 60 second Waterwalk spell when you need 10 seconds to cross a river, or why heal 40 points when you're only down by 6? My characters never "spammed" useless spells at a wall for the sake of practice, but many of them made heavy use of "easy" spells that at least did part of what they needed to do.

Oblivion's "canned" spells with "ranks" (novice, apprentice, journeyman, master) felt totally artificial and was highly restrictive on creativity, otherwise known as "boring". More importantly, the removal of "failure" meant that my characters were either unable to even try, or else could never fail, removing half of the point to "novice" versions (lower casting cost being the other half).

I have yet to see a good reason to play Skyrim, because it's not the kind of game I enjoy.

I like actually playing a mage more in Skyrim. While combat system depth isn't really one of the series' high points, at least Skyrim's casting system felt way more interactive than Oblivion and Morrowind. Having spells in each hand, combining them, charging them, maintaining wards or casting healing spells in one hand while another casts a damage spell was pretty fun. More fun than the "push a button and it happens" deal Morrowind and Oblivion had going for it. I do miss how in Oblivion I could easily cast a spell while having both hands holding things without needing to swap anything out, but I feel the tradeoff was overall positive. I did end up saying Morrowind has the most disappointing magic system, but I feel that terminology is a bit too heavy. I'm not really disappointed with it or hate it, I just prefer the shift from dice rolling to player "skill" that happened after Morrowind.

The merits of the system itself I consider entirely separate from issues like balance and spellcrafting. Spellcrafting isn't something I really care about because I generally prefer to use the items the game gives me; I feel things start getting too easy once you start bringing in things like smithing, enchanting, alchemy, and spellcrafting. But if spell balance is screwed up (which it is) then spellcrafting becomes one of the few ways to make up for it. It's not a feature I really care about and I'd rather use a mod that fixes magic as a whole than make some OP spells, but I understand the appeal it has and I'm definitely not opposed to it being in the game (not sure what reason there really would be to actively not want it in the game).

As for balance, that's been done to death by people who have better ideas how to fix it than I do. Yeah, magic is generally pretty weak as you get higher level. Yeah, skills should probably give you more damage. Balance and spellcrafting I feel are almost the ONLY issues I have with magic in Skyrim. Like I said, actually using magic is really fun; the problem isn't the "magic system," its that the spells themselves don't keep up in strength with the rest of the game. I feel if Skyrim had launched with the adjustments made by a mod like Empowered Magic and it had spellcrafting, there would be no real issues with it.

To some up my votes and opinion on the matter.

I want Skyrim's magic system WITH spellmaking.

Oblivion made magic seem more like a support feature rather than a real power. Morrowind was good, but the lack of Magicka regen, good visuals, and the speed made it more boring. Skyrim got a the speed right and I could feel like a powerful Wizzard... however there was a tiny amount of spells, I couldn't combine them, and early spells like Flames became useless.

Oblivion had the best system so far. Morrowind suffers from potion-quaffing and the lack of regen, and Skyrim vacillates between "good idea, bad execution" to "who agreed to this crap?".

I felt that the OP should be opinion free, so I'm making a separate post for mine.

1-First, I did miss Spellmaking in Skyrim. Ironically, the first spell I would change if I had the chance would be to have weaken the fireball spell by reducing/eliminating the radius of the blast. Of course that means maybe I just would have increased the strength of the firebolt.

2-Runes were nice. They should have been expanded and we should have been allowed to lay down more than one to begin with.

3-I liked both Oblivion's and Skyrim's Conjuration. I wish Oblivion's Summon Skeleton spells made it to Skyrim. An animation where the skeleton comes right out of the ground would been sweet.

4-I still miss Morrowind's Levitation. I also liked a Skyrim mod called Airstream Levitation. I think if such a spell was easier to aim on the move while making it available to NPCs, fights would have been a whole new kind of interesting ...if not hectic. Simple changes to level design could have prevented cheating in the few truly levitation sensitive locales.

5-The concept of Magicka-Free spells was terrible because the trade off seemed to be doing everything possible to then keep the damage output of those spells down. It would have been better to let spells grow in strength freely and make cost reduction come at the price of damage reduction at the same time. Not 1:1, but somewhere between 2:1 and 4:1 [cost reduction:damage reduction]

5b-But in all honesty, spells should never be free.

6-The balancing of Magic in Skyrim is terrible. Not that it is much better in Morrowind and Oblivion, but at least in those two games it broke in the player's favor.

6b-The balancing ...or lack thereof, for Magic in Skyrim was made more pronounced by its disparity to how melee and archery are balanced in the game. It is practically two different games.

7-Offensive Restoration spells [against undead] is an interesting idea that I hope continues.