Hmm.


Well, from one point of view, I'll say "they're not going to make your game, sorry." :shrug:


From the other point of view.... I feel that way all the time in OB. I've never tried to attack a guard. And when I run into something genuinely threatening (i.e, not a couple road bandits when I'm lv20), I do hope that my armor's repaired, I've got potions, etc.

(Like.... I'm currently playing Shivering Isles for the first time. Just went through a couple Knight of Order dungeons. I'm lv17-18. Been using an "stat gains are always +5" mod, so my stats are pretty awesome. 90 str/80 end, ~70ish agi/spd. I'm wearing 60 points worth of light armor & shield spells. And getting attacked by 3 Knights tells me that I'm in for a somewhat tough fight. Need to watch my blocks, dodge, concentrate on one target, etc. And I'll be needing to use my healing spells and potions. And then there are the bigger fights..... I've been jumped by 5 knights. Or 4 and a caster. Lots of running and healing there.)


edit: oh, this is on Normal difficulty, with Francesco's leveled creatures & items mod

There's your answer.

Magicka Regen speed would actually be a nice use of the perk system.

By default for all characters, regen is slow (maybe faster for mages, but still slow).
Have a 3-4 level deep perk tree, with each level increasing regen speed.
Tie the return multiplier from the perk to willpower, so you get max benefits from high willpower + max perk level.
Also increase speed of return as you're closer to 100% magicka.

A scheme like this provides greater diversity between different types of characters. It also means that you have to choose to spend a perk or several perks to get decent regen speed, forcing a trade-off between this and other options.

Its simple bethesda had a choice of how destruction magic would work....I expected waaaay back with a new magic system tey would reorient mages to a more squishy high offense low defense combat style... becuase thats what most people like.




Now your mage isnt a destruction oriented mage.. yours is more illusion restoration oriented... you will have to wait till we know more about those to find out how your kind of mage plays. But from what we have seen the fireball flinging sorc/elementalist is rocking along nicely. And yes likely does more dps then a warrior and the warrior is alot more defensive oriented then the fireball style mage.

I didn't, and I did use said mod for a while and too played on normal difficulty.
If anything, I felt annoyed by dangerous foes, but never threatened.

Not in the way I felt threatened on my last LARP when the soldiers of the Baron entered the tavern and searched for anything we could have hidden from them, while I had a dagger under my coat. But I do sincerely believe a computer game could be that good.



This for example is what I do not want.
A single bandit in ragged clothes who somehow managed to obtain a proper weapon, let's say a long axe, steps on the road in front of me. I'm a veteran warrior (high level). I should STILL be afraid. Not scared to the point of running away, but to the point of thinking "If I don't win this fight, it's game-over for me. My chances are 9 to 1, and I must stand my ground, but I hope he won't hit me."

That doesn't sound good at all.


Personally, I see the ES games as Heroic/High Fantasy games where you're Better than those other people. (You're the Hero?, after all.)

Not Low Fantasy where simple things like minor wounds (omg, infection!) and finding enough to eat are as much of a danger as the Great Evil.



I'm sorry, but.... based on everything they've said and everything that's come before, you're not going to get the game you're describing. That's incredibly "niche", in an era when games are being made as mass-market as possible to make back their production costs.

Spec bethesda got alot of useful feedback right after ob on the magic system and combat in general and I can say for certain they listened. I dont think you would agree with that feedback.... but then thats what mods are for.

Personally, I think magicka regeneration is almost as bad as health regeneration, so I don't want the magicka to regenerate at all. Though, if they include special advantages/disadvantages, like in Daggerfall, I'd like magicka regeneration to be one of the special advantages.

There are so many variables it is hard to say how and if magicka regen should be in the game.
How effective are spells?
How effective are magicka restoration potions?
What is the range of fight sizes?

Some people loved the morrowind system. I liked the skill roll part of it and failing a spell, but the lack of magicka regen did not add much to my game. All it meant was I got really good at alchemy and bought a crap ton of ingredients for restore magicak potions. I don't think no magicka regen adds anything when you can have constant potion chugging.

On the other hand when you have a relatively fast magicka regen system, the ability to chug potions could be overkill. To "balance" it once you leveled up a bit it would take 10+ of your 50+magicka spells to drop a equal leveled foe and you actually needed those potions especially in big fights or you needed to run a lot. That does not seem like an ideal system either.

My preference is they focus on how much you need for a average fight and give focused mages enough mana to cover that. Don't have natural regen in a fight, but have you fast regen out of a fight. And then have a limit on how many mana potions you can use in a given time period, like have a 2 minute cooldown on mana potions. This would hopefully allow you some slack if you screw up in small/average fights, allow you to keep going a bit in big fights, but not devolve into a spell and potion spamfeat.

I feel regen rate should depend on the race you chose since some races are far more adapt in magic then others. After that your stats can help impove it as well as enchanted items to help.

High fantasy means that the world in wich it takes place is fantastical, as is the storyline. E.g. Tolkien.

Low fantasy means fantasy set on Earth, or on an alternate world that is sufficiently earth-like but includes fantastical elements, such as for instance most works by Stephen King.

Interesting.

The definitions of high & low fantasy that I learned waaaaay back in the day (I just checked Wikipedia, and it follows yours) were that "low" fantasy was fantasy that was more "realistic" - minimal magic, more dirt/mud/peasants, heroes who need to worry about alot of mundane things - like where their next meal will come from. Just slightly more-than-normal guys who are just trying to make it day to day, not trying to Save The Empire/World/Universe. And High fantasy was the epic stuff - dragons, wizards, Shining Knights with Shining Swords, grand non-mundane issues.

(Or maybe that was high & low fantasy in regards to pen-n-paper RPGs. It's been awhile. :shrug:)

The definition really depends on the genre. High and low fantasy can mean both of what has been said above.

Since we're in a fantasy role playing genre here, I think your definition's more accurate. I'd rate Tolkien (and, if it turns out as I expect it, Skyrim) medium fantasy, Morrowind high fantasy and, for example, Mount & Blade low fantasy.

I think you could possibly combine a couple suggestions from this thread.

1. Make regen slower than Oblivion at the start (low levels)

2. Make regen tied to Willpower and Intelligence. The higher these attributes the faster the regen.

3. Make regen tied to Perks in Magic skills. I assume Destruction, Restoration, and the others all have perks. If you take a perk for a magic skill it has its main effect (whatever the perk does) plus a secondary effect of increasing magicka regeneration.

You have to balance out the attribute/perk ratios, but maybe having high Will & Int (75+ or so) gives you about OB level regen and perks takes you beyond that. If you are a pure mage you probably have these attributes high as well as perks for your magic skills. A warrior or stealth character would not and therefore have a really slow regen of magicka. And a hybrid Mage would have attribute/perks spread out over their stealth or warrior counterpart skills so even though they can cast better than pure warrior or stealth character they can't compete with the pure mage for magicka regen.

Just a thought.

Its already tied to Willpower, and Intelligence determines your magicka pool.

Personaly, I feel it would work well (depending on how spells work) If the willpower - regen association was exponential not linear, which would have significantly low regen for low level characters, and significantly fast regen for those who raise willpower a lot, and it would be decent for those in the middle.

Of course even a high level mage shouldn't be able to spam spells like nothing, but they should be using powerful spells that could be used more than once.
Its difficult to get the balance right without knowing how much spells cost, how powerful they are, and hopefully we won't need to spam uber spells just to kill goblin warlords...

Intel willpower and all those stats are gone as far as we can tell. At level up you get hps and then can chose from one boost to either hps stamina or magicka.

Why are people saying they removed stats? They haven't shown them likely because they are assumed in the game. Game Informer and other sources are easy to choose.

And quite frankly, if I can't damage my opponents strength I will be greatly upset!

Then again, I said the same about Spellmaking... :sadvaultboy:

no. thats one of the huge improvements from MW to OB. so what if you can cast an infinite amount of the weakest fire balls, it isn't like they are one hit kills. regenerated magicka is a must have if you want to be able to use powerful spells that eat up half or more of your magicka.

Just want to point out that mages usually puts most of their points in wisdom and intelligence, which leaves them VERY vulnerable to just about everything else. The ONLY thing they have for them is magic, and last time I checked, monsters in groups don't sit around and wait for you to chug potions so you will have a fighting chance. It will also be a very slow and frustrating game if the magic regeneration is too slow, nothing like waiting forever for your magic to regen after every fight, especially dungeon exploration which has monsters in every room. Unlike the fighters who can jump from one fight to the next with almost no pause(of course they have to heal, but EVERYBODY has to do that).

Well for one thing in an interview todd said there was no agility.

Secondly ALL intel did was control magicka and magicka is now controlled by picking it on level up over more hps or some stamina.

Thirdly endurance only controled stamina/then called fatigue and health but isnt doing either this time.

That's why magic should be SUPERNATURALLY POWERFUL. In most Fantasy, a single mage could take out almost ANY warrior alive in a one on one battle, unless the warrior had enchanted weapons or armor. So should it be in Skyrim. However, that power should come at several costs: the mage should be physically weaker and vulnerable, the mage should NOT have infinite magical ability and magical endurance (i.e., the same powerful spell that would allow him to defeat the great warrior should ALSO leave him very much weakened and drained for a time).

One problem I had with Oblivion's magic is that even a simple Barbarian/Warrior character could spam health restoration spells.

Why not have no magicka regeneration, and some kind of rest / meditate when enemies aren't around to fill it up? Similar to morrowind, but you dont need to look for a bed.

Of course, atronach wouldnt be refillable by that means.

I agree, and that kills realism for me. Not every single warrior should be a freaking expert wizard.


Basically, what has happened is that the way you play with a warrior is exactly the same way you play with a mage. Hopefully there is a possibility of real specialization in Skyrim (although being a RedMage like in the original Final Fantasy should be an option too, of course => sacrifice mastery in one skill for competency in many).

Like many of the "improvements" in MW, they took something that needed fixing and replaced it with something else that also needed fixing. Going from NO magic regen to a "human flamethrower" who can spam "flare" spells all day almost without a break was an over-reaction to the complaints about the lack of Magicka regeneration. I liked MW's noticably deeper magicka pool (or was it the same pool, but less expensive spells?), but hated the fact that you constantly either had to find a bed or spam potions to replenish it. MW's Enchantments worked excellently in that regard: slow enough regen that you had to use them conservatively and intelligently, but fast enough that you rarely had to speed the process by manually refilling with soulgems. Oddly, OB took away the regen of enchanted items, and a lot of people then complained about how they hated "charges". The two problems were just swapped between the two games. A middle ground would have made a lot more sense.

I want to see a regen rate that requires INTELLIGENT play as a Mage, but doesn't cripple their potential. If I want to run around and mindlessly destroy stuff, I'll play a barbarian Fighter.