Oh brother, this to me is a minor issue. I understand the hardcoe among us who wanted to be able to craft their own spells but I'm glad it's not in. I hated having to abuse Spells like Charm, Drain Health, or Fortify a Skill like Merchantile. I hope though that the 85 spells that are in Skyrim aren't crappy spells but spells that are actually effective.

This

I know a bunch of you quoted this already, but THIS

If enchanting made it to a skill why would they dump spell craft seems a little strange I still think it's a reference to the fact to can't use both hands to combine fire and lightning ect like we already know, you can not combine spells not you can't create spells, could see this being difficult to translate/get across in general.

No... :sadvaultboy:

In all honestly, if the only thing you care about is spellmaking then why are you a fan of Elder Scrolls? There is sooo much more to TES than spellmaking. The removal of this tiny aspect is being replaced with an entirley revamped magic system. Not to mention dual wielding spells! With their new system spell making CAN NOT happen. It is for the best. Magic is better than ever, I know that the devs know that.

Spell editing was nice, but hardly integral to the spell casting system. I largely just used it to make straight upgrades to previous spells, because I didn't want to wander around looking for the NPC that sold the premade version, and to make on-touch versions of a couple spells like heal and water walking to use on a horse. That's pretty much it.

If losing that is the price paid to get more complex individual spells, such as those mentioned by GI, I'm willing to go with it.

ha ha! My thought transfer machine is working!

There are no excuses for getting rid of spellmaking.
"We can combine spells now" They are hoping for it, its not certain.
"Now spells have multiple effects" So? That means you need less spells. It doesn't erase spellmaking. It wouldn't break the system either, damage for the "flamethrower" aspect could be derived from the 1 handed aspect, just as the 2 handed aspect can be derived from the one handed aspect.
"you could make uber 1 second spells, such as charm 100 pts for 1 sec" conversations are in real time breaking this exploit. Why can't menu's be in real time? That is a solution to the 1 second exploits, not removing customization

The game series was about freedom. Taking away the freedom to make our own spells when it wouldn't break the new system is stupid. The new system won't replace spellmaking. A big part of an RPG is making a unique character. Whats unique about my character if we all use the same spells? Freedom was the most important aspect of TES...

Yesh, the puppies and kittens are falling from the sky really hard now. If they can't balance spellmaking, they should get rid of it. I can hardly see getting rid of it takes away all this freedom. Besides, they still have till summerish to try and ballance stuff. It could still get in for all ya know. Not buying Skyrim because you can't make a spell seems a little insain to me. Take a chill pill and wait till we have some solid confermation.

There's no way they would get rid of that. That would be more [censored] than half the mistakes they made with Oblivion.

It still is, your still going to be able to create your own custom character. You can roleplay him or her how you wish, unlike a Bioware game where your stuck on a particular path.

Why must you use spells at all?



This

What is this freedom you speek of? The custom spells were just upgraded versions of the spells you found/bought with different names. Its not like your character cried out the name when it was fired. Its the same thing with getting rid of class name. You can call it whatever you want, there just might not be a specific line in game where you can type it in. All that line did was sit there anyway, it didn't do anything. It just looked pretty.

This is my only real concern. No need for multiple fire spells anymore? I can use one fire spell to eliminate single targets, a group of enemies, or set it as a timed trap and run away. Don't worry about magicka absorption/drain spells anymore, because all of your lightning abilities will take care of that. One less thing to worry about in combat.

It just feels more like Hexen than the Elder Scrolls to me. I'm quite fond of both series mind you, but still.

Thats not exactly true.
You could only buy waterwalking on self. But as a waterwalking horse can sometimes be handy, you used a spell altar to create a waterwalk on touch.
On Morrowind I used slowfall on target to saveTarhiel, Waterwalk on touch on some NPC's etc.

Combining spell effects, customizing duration, area, potency and self/touch/target allow for a lot more than just upgrading standard spells.

Also, personally I dont really care about how anything looks, I care for what it actually does.
Besides, Im old enough to find vanilla Morrowind graphics stunning to this day.

Spell making is a big deal for mage players because it let us play EXACTLY what we wanted to play. You could do some really silly stuff with spells. Some of my favorite were things like Mark on Target, so I could teleport across a chasm. I never tried this one out, but theoretically Recall on Target could force an NPC to your marked spot.

Spell making allowed us to do a ridiculous number of combinations (6400 with just 2 spell effects, assuming 80 spell effects in the game, too lazy to look it up. 512,000 for 3 spell effects!), and we found that to be a major part of being a mage. I loved crafting "perfect" spells that did exactly what I needed them to do while being the most efficient.

That isn't to say we can't think of cool spell combinations in Skyrim, but it really cuts down the creativity.


Yes, but everyone keeps mentioning OFFENSIVE spells, what about the defensive ones? What if I wanted to dispel my ally? What if I wanted to heal him? What if I wanted an area of effect heal spell? What about a heal spell that fortifies attributes and rallies? Fun stuff like on-target levitation 1 power, so they moved like molasses.

Where will that go?

Custom spells might not sound very special, when all the spells look about the same. But people probably treated it as a form of customization, role play of sorts into use a specific set of spells they created. Merely upgrading spells to higher damage caps is more of a meta gaming thing really, when you really care more about killing stuff the hack and slash way.

Magic mods probably will be a lot more popular this time around. Lets hope the construction set gives modders the means to.

I had the understanding that duel wielding spells and a hold down power/duration system was in for Skyrim.

I don't believe they would take spell creation away so I think we should wait to see the new system in action first. All talk of greater customisation, they would never take such a major part of the series away. Just wait and see everyone...

Hmm... I understand what you mean. At least enchanting is in. I personally think that this new system of magic sounds superior to the old system.

If they can't balance spears, get rid of it.
If they can't balance levitate, get rid of it.
If they can't balance crossbows, get rid of them.
If they can't balance thrown weapons, get rid of it.
If they can't balance mounted combat, don't do it.
If they can't balance enchanting, so get rid of armor slots and clothing layers
If they can't balance birth signs, get rid of them.
If they can't balance the economy, do away with placed loot or give merchants set gold levels
If they can't balance thieving, make it so you can't sell stolen items, or 90% of the time there's nothing worth stealing.
...

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Don't let a puritanical, ideological drive for "balance" deprive the player of options, freedom, and customization.

Custom spells offered a way for me to make something unique. Combining multiple spell effects, shifting them to be most efficient for their purpose. If I want to create a spell that does 1 pt fire damage over 300 seconds then I should be able to. If I want to add paralyze for 1 second onto a frost spell to stagger my opponent i should be able to. Now if I want to add effects they are on two spells I have to cast separately, even if they are dual wielded. I can no longer make intricate custom spells to achieve my own odd results. Now we are forced to use the boring standard spells. They may have made the system more intricate, but they have removed my customization. And why? It doesn't break their new system, its easy to remove most exploits. There is no excuse.

And why must I cast spells? I always play a mage character. The few times I don't play a mage character I end up stopping at about level 5. Its called choice, and TES is slowly losing it.

If this is just a mistranslation I will be happy. I like the new system for spell casting, in conjunction with custom spells. I have found plenty to complain about in Skyrim so far, but nothin has been enough to throw me over the line until this. I've been patient for TES to actually improve, to see the light. It hasn't, and to me it doesn't seem like it will. This is of course a personal perspective, but I will not sit idly by and accept loses for no acceptable reason.

You can say that it can't work with the new system, but thats not true. Its easy to make it work. Find a truly acceptable reason to remove it.

They way I see it, they can just put those variations of the spell in game already and have the ability to buy them and everything would still be fine. Just cause they got rid of the ability to make them yourself doesn't per say mean that you can't get your hands on them still.

I rarely created custom spells in Morrowind honestly, and enchanting is still in, but:


Gone with the spellmaker? Really I could care less about how "effective" spells are, and I think the potency of your magic increasing as your skill does makes far more sense than having to attain increasingly powerful spells. But it's fun stuff like this, which others insist are superfluous or imbalanced (in a single player RPG) that always get axed. :shrug:

Since spells have multiple effects depending on how you use them and with other spells in the other hand making a custom spell would not work out to well. It would be a pain in the ass trying to get all the effects to work properly for your new uber spell. The creation of spells was to make something that did a specific thing when you used it. Now the spells have multiple uses and effect the enviroment. How would mixing fire damage and ice damage into a spell look? It would require new effects for both general use AND all the other methods of use. If holding the fire did a flame thrower and holding ice made a large ice chunk and launched it how would mixing them look? In oblivion doing something like that just gave you another fireball that just so happend to somehow do ice damage as well and that made no sense to me. They are trying to make each spell feel special and powerful for itself, mixing different spells would just turn into a coding cluster [censored].

Im guessing that spells will improve as your skill in their school improves so they will gain more area and start becoming more mana efficiant.

But they won't put in every variation possible. People often make custom spells that don't seem to have a function for a very specific goal.