10) How will enchanting work in Skyrim? Will we have to constantly refill our enchantments with soul gems like we did in Oblivion, or will it be more like Morrowind in which the weapons recovered after a certain resting period?



True. (I found Daggerfall's soul trap and enchanting to be the most fun. Morrowind and Oblivion seemed to make it more difficult with each generation of game.)



What!?!? Who told you that? I'm normally polite (now-a-days), but the main thing that turned me off from Oblivion was having to bust hump to re-charge my weapon all the time. After putting the game down for a year (or more), I finally went back and just paid Mage's Guild enchanters. No exaggeration, enchanting/recharging was the most frustrating part of the game for me. I'm sad now.

I understand where you're coming from and I agree, but there is a good chance you will be labled as a "whiner" by some on here.

Hm.. don't care about enchanting.

Don't get me started on that, I think I've argued about it for at least 20 pages over several different threads. The one thing I wouldn't mind seeing streamlined out of the game is the thing they decided is an integral part of TES.

Pretty much. Get ready to be told "lol shut up u just wanna make GOD MODE CHARACTERS enchantments are balanced this way". :rolleyes:

The Oblivion system was contrived. To me, soul gems in Daggerfall and Morrowind were rare, powerful artifacts created for only the most advanced magical purposes. I seldom enchanted many things on my own, and to soul trap or behold a soul gem itself always had an air of impressiveness to it. In Oblivion, soul gems are pretty much found everywhere and with them being reduced to mere ammunition they just became a mundane and unfulfilling part of the game to deal with. And less cool-feeling, in some regards. :spotted owl:

I wouldn't mind as much if Cast on Strike items didn't require constant charge. I've always imagined your archetypal magical D&D flaming sword as being self-sustaining. I think if they keep the Oblivion system only staves should really require recharging. Even better would be a compromise between Daggerfall and Morrowind's system.

That being said, I like the idea of breaking down existing enchanted items and learning their enchantments.

Well, it's just that I don't really mind I guess. I love permanent enchanting as much as I love to have to think about when to use the weapons I have, so...

OP you forgot to include the ENCHANTING WIN portion of that quote from Bruce:

"There are some changes from Oblivion, including the effects you can use when creating items, as well as how you learn effects. You now learn enchanting effects by “breaking down” a magic item you find, as opposed to them coming from spells you know. This allows us to separate enchanting from the other magical skills better."


in Oblivion you learned new spells and the effect becomes unlocked for enchanting weapons or creating new spells.

In Skyrim, the enchantment effects get unlocked by breaking down magic items, which is a fun feature and gives you a reason to be excited about finding a crappy magic item with a new effect. and a lot more immersive than suddenly being able to enchant items with every single effect from spells purchased via merchants.

Yeah that actually sounds like a good idea, I just don't want to run around refilling my gems constantly.

Nothing wrong with you not liking the decision, but I hate when people act like everyone hated something just because they did. Them saying it worked well might have been a consensus opinion in the last game, or it may have just been their personal feelings on the matter.

Object if you're not happy, but don't try to speak for everyone.

What's with needing magic points to cast spells anyway? How lame is that?!

But seriously, a return to the Morrowind method -- items recharge, but very slowly -- would be best. That way you don't have to constantly spend money on soul gems or recharges, but you still have to manage your weapon's power as you use it. Bigger charge reserves or perhaps a way to "deactivate" the enchantment temporarily so you don't waste it on weaker enemies would certainly help too.

I would rather them just retcon soulgems and make it so instead of being a source of power, they merely provide a sort of framework for the magic. I think what I hated about them more than the annoying recharging is they made power weapons seem like the rest of the cheap generic magic items lying around. Having a limit of 18 uses on a major artifact with it's own lore just kills that feeling of getting awesome loot.

Without Oblivions level scaling, soul gems could be much rarer again. So I think the system will be fine for Skyrim.

I'm sympathetic with the need to balance enchantments, but I agree that Oblivion's method wasn't the best way. A better way would be the one you suggest: make soul-gems rarer, make high level enchantments require the souls of high level enemies, and so on.

I think it would be okay if they just expanded the options of enchanting. Seriously, why only one soul gem per item? I understand making weapons difficult, but maybe they could make it super difficult to add constant effect fire damage and even then it would be tough to add too much damage. Just open up the possibilities for weapon enchanting because right now we are horribly limited for a game who prides itself with options.

they were confirmed as being among the loot found during the 30 minute demo.

if you need soul gems to power up your items, as Nick Breckon says, I think they won't be quite so rare

I will most likely get a mod for this.

enchanting is a skill. skills have perks. there may well be a perk that lets you enchant a thing that recharges!

i liked the idea of having to recharge stuff myself, though. it made using staves and stuff a tactical decision.

Unlike weapons, staves (and wands) having limited charges as a primary weapon is very common in RPGs. It's also better justified considering it's not use as a primary weapon.

I'm not very familiar with the Lore. I think it's cool, and a necessary part of the games, but I'm not so keen to read everything about the setting behind the game. So, in the Lore, are enchanted weapons recharged by Soul Gems, and not by time as well, as in Morrowind? I hate that in Oblivion. I suppose it makes enchanted items less overpowering.

I've always been a fan of the Enchantment skill because I tend to play more combat-focused characters and the enchantments substitute for magic skills and spells. Actually, to think about it, Dragon Age is the only game I've really ever played where I've played as a magic-using character, because I found melee classes boring...I like the effects and the sparklies! Mostly in games previous I've always been about the swords and the hitting.

I don't see any reason why then can't recharge. What Bruce said is BS in my opinion, it worked horribly in Oblivion. I would say "If it aint broke, don't fix it." but now I want to scream "IT'S BROKE, YOU BETTER WELL FIX IT!!!!!" Whew, writing in caps does wonders to calm me down. But seriously, that was a dumb idea.

I'm not sure if any clear explanation is ever given in the lore. But to me, at least, soul gems felt a lot more powerful when they were an auxiliary means of adding powerful enchantments to items - and not a cheap power source everybody has to carry around to power their enchanted pants.

I'm hoping there will be perks that give some regeneration to enchanted items. There probably will be.

Yeah, usually it's only a few evil cursed weapons that feed off souls, not every single magic weapon in the world.

I used cast on use enchantment a lot I Morrowind, Yes they was overpowered, pretty easy to get higher DPS than any weapon in Fallout 3 except the fatman, Yes I used Azura’s stat a lot in Morrowind, I used the Ebony staff a lot at max enchantment.

I would expected an Morrowind type enchantment recharge as everybody talks about streamlining the game, obviously a game with fewer armor slots than hard core niche RPG like WOW or even Runescape has to be more streamlined than Fable.

Seriously I would see this as the best solution, low level enchants would mostly recharge themselves but the huge ones would require frequently recharge if use more than at special events.
Note that high powered enchanted items in Oblivion did more magic than physical damage, they was primary a magical weapon.

Enchanting takes too much tedius work, so I rarely enchanted anything. I really don't care though anyways. It's more fun just to play. I like my character's power to be innate and not reliant upon some special item.