I'm of the opinion that magic was gutted to preserve the relevancy of Shouts. I don't see any other reason. There is no technical reason from a programming standpoint that I can discern. All the effects are already in the code and the interface for it already exists in Enchanting. The real reason magic was gutted is Shouts. If Magic had been preserved in Skyrim, offering approximately the same spell effects as Oblivion and including Spellmaking, then Shouts would be pointless and if Shouts were pointless the whole plot of being Dovahkiin would be trivial. This is why Mages have been nerfed in multiple ways, from the loss of spellmaking and the amount of effects to increasing inaccuracy in aiming by implementing a casting delay or not letting spells scale with you [even though weapons do]. In every way, magic feels like it is designed to discourage the use of magic for the sake of attempting to preserve the relevancy of Shouts as a gameplay mechanic and central plot point. This is what the situation appears to be in my eyes.

So, if you were given the opportunity to trade in those Shouts for more spell effects and spellmaking like there was in Oblivion or Morrowind... would you keep your shouts like a good Dovahkiin or are you on your way to the mill to get the wood for an alter?

The sad thing is shouts are completely pointless. I use one shout in the game: whirlwind sprint. And that is just so that I can move around town more quickly. The rest are simply fluff.

The frost/fire breath ones do a pitiful amount of damage, throw voice is buggy at best, and worthless at worst when you know how to sneak, become aethereal could be useful for closing on mages if getting 80% magic resist wasn't already trivial, dragonrend is nice if you don't have a bow, oh wait, except THAT won't happen because you can't play the game without a bow. What else...force shout can be fun to knock someone off a cliff, so I'll give that one amusemant points at least. kyne's peace? Sure, because I've worried about bear attacks since I was level 2... Animal companions? No thanks, my follower gets in my way enough as it is.

Shouts really add nothing at all of value to the game, so to answer your question: yes, I would without a second thought trade them for a spell crafting system.

YES!

Without a shadow of a doubt, yes I would.

:rolleyes:

Disagree. There are fire and ice breath shouts which are less effective than their traditional spell counterpart, and other shouts which do things magic spells can't do, like make the user intangible, call a storm, summon a dragon or blast enemies across a room; these things weren't possible in Oblivion, which didn't have shouts.

Whatever reason there is for making magic less effective, it wasn't because of shouts.

Sorry, the truth hurts. Shouts are worthless.

Bethesda shouldn't have to gut one of the signature and unique features of their latest game to give us something that's been in every single TES game since Daggerfall.

I agree a spell crafting system would be nice (i think modders will do it ) , however i disagree with you on the rest , i play the game without a bow and it works just fine , the only problem is against dragons , but you have the dragonrend shout

Personally i like the shout concept , but it should have been a high tier skill that you unlock after completing a long Bard's college guild for instance (or a High Hrothgar priest faction ) , or maybe a master's skill in the Speech tree ... and gave the Dovahkin only the Fus do Rah shout for the main quest

Unfortunately , the Bard's college is only 1 quest in skyrim and High Hrothgar isn't a faction ... so it will not happen

I tend to agree that magic was toned down to increase the importance of shouts. But, I also don't have a problem with that. . .

I think that a lot of this is driven by the story and the lore. The concept of the dragon shouts has been in in-game books in TES games for awhile. It's also part of the Lore that magic isn't as prevalent in Skyrim among the Nords. You could look at that as a purely cultural limitation - i.e. someone could still be just as powerful a mage in Skyrim, it's just the Nords choose not to; or, one could perhaps discern that maybe the reason that magic isn't as powerful amongst the Nords is possibly because magic works differently in different parts of Tamriel and Nirn. Perhaps magic just simply isn't as powerful in Skyrim? Finally, it may be that a lot of knowledge about magic has been lost since the dissolution of the mages' guild, and the other changes that have occurred throughout the empire.


In any case, it was pretty much given that a game set in Skyrim would be about the Shouts, and that magic would need to be toned down a bit so as not to completely obviate shouts. I suspect that if there is a TES VI (which, of course, there's no guarantee this won't be the last TES game, although its huge financial success makes a strong argument that they'll probably keep the franchise alive), you very well may see magic revived to be more powerful. Perhaps TES VI will be set in Summerset Isles, home of the Aldmeri (High Elves), and the most magical of the realms, and in that game, magic will be even more powerful and varied than it has been in any other of the games (if they ever do a game in Summerset Isles, I hope it also includes the Hidden Isle of Arteum, and finally tell the full story of the Psijic Order).

i don't really agree that spell making was taken out to make shouts relevent. many of the shouts have effects that were not in oblivion or are traditional. if i remember correctly todd howard specicifly spoke about spell crafting while in development, commenting that they felt it removed the magic out of magic and felt spread sheety.

which i suppose i would be okay with if they had actually replaced spell making... WITH ANY THING!!! combining two different spells with the left and right hand function (while cool in general) doesn't actual do any thing to help the absence of spell combinations.

i think we could have both shouts and spell making, and probably will with mods soon (i hope)

Give me my spell creation and my spells types. We should have all of that with the inclusion of shouts.

I like the concept of shouts, rather I would liked to have seen them be alternatives to Magicka for players who do not want to pursue Magic and have to invest heavily into the Magicka pool and have to swap weapons to cast spells. Further, I do not think the Dual-Casting is nearly as cool as the concept. I would prefer if they eliminated Dual-Casting and went to a true Spell-Crafting system. Take Enchanting, arguably the most overpowered profession anyways, and replace it with Spell-Crafting. Enchanting would instead be done by a vendor for cash. The whole concept of having to use a soul-trap spell is removed. Instead all slain enemies have a chance of filling soul gems should you have them on-hand. Soul gems are now consumables that allow you to recharge your weapons at any time. This makes Enchants scale better without having to invest, or overpowered enchants, and gives the option of Spell-Crafting.

lol, if you can't play the game without a bow, it's your own personal failing.

But yeah, magic please. The best shouts like throw voice, aura whisper, marked for death, etc. were all Mysticism spells beforehand, anyway. Shouts are nice, but spells are better, if they're all doing the same thing.

Would rather the old magic system, but I think there needs to be purpose for being dragon born like a perk tree, ie; Dragon skin, Wings, Dragon breath, Dragon shape. Something you can develope to complement your playing style whether it be melee, ranged or mage.

This is a much better concept than Shouts, but could include Shouts and the modification of Shouts. Perk investment feels more progression based than finding some echoes for something you don't particularly use anyways. It would be nice to have something that passively affects your character or that you can draw benefit from more often than Shouts.

In a second. What took the magic out of magic was removing spell making and leaving us with a paltry amount of spells that become useless because they don't scale leaving you with very few options when you get high level.

Wouldnt want to play withut shouts. Only like 5 shouts were mentioned. Aside from needing clear skies in the main storyline, unrelentless force knocking a person down for a while, ice form freezing people so, ethereal letting you escape major dangers, mark of death doing serious damage, disarm being a bit fun, and slow time making it easier to deal with a couple spefific traps. All this to go with it being on a separate recharge system than magicka, making it easier on my health oriented redguard

Uh... So I could have a bunch of old features put back in, yet be a Dragonborn without shouts... Hmmm. Sorry, love the lore too much for that kind of stupidity.

overall i like the changes in skyrim to magic. oblivion and morrowind magic was as bland and dull as you could get and it had a spell for everything making picking skills like sneak or security moot cause there was a spell for that as well. im glad they borrowed from dark messiah and from bioshock as well. thieves should always be better at opening stuff than mages.

i think they dropped the ball on not letting people be able to customize their spells though. for instance i would have loved a higher damage/higher magic cost flames spells because if you use followers they end up being hit by chain lightning and fireball almost as much as your intended targets. that would have also solved the issue with magicka not scaling properly and becoming underpowered.

Yes I would. Nothing makes you feel like a powerfull mage like making your own spells. While puny mages around you cast fireballs, frost bolts or lightning bolts. You cast all three in a single glorious spell, a glowing sphere of death. This applies to all schools of course, not just destruction. An illusion spell that makes you silent and invisible at the same time for example would be perfect for a rogue-archetype, the examples can go on forever.

Now, don't get me wrong. Shouts are cool, very cool. Summoning a raging thunderstorm with your voice is awesome, shouting someone off a mountain top is awesome. But, is it as awesome as making your own spells where only your imagination (And the number of spell effects) is the limit? No, no it is not.

So in short, yes. I would trade them in a heartbeat.

shouts too, becuase they may be more usefull for a melee type or your gameplay, I just gave the suggestions I did becuase they were'nt shouts.

frost/fire shouts do decent damage, never used throw voice, become ethareal is very usful for anyone who can come up with plans before a fight, dragonrend is very useful aganst dragons (and if you cant play the game without a bow you have problems), unrelenting force is very useful in a battle (again, to the people with the ability to reason and plan for a fight rather than hack/slash mindlessly), and kyne's peace is fun for an rp and for getting a strong animal to help you in a fight

shouts are very useful and functional, you just lack the mind to use them properly. that said, i would rather have a functional spell system back

i would trade away shouts in a heartbeat

To be quite frank, I never got that far into Oblivion, as such, I've only scratched the surface. Hell, my max level character was lvl 7. I finished all the campaigns and thought of myself as a pretty pimp character; that is, until I heard what lvl other people were in...

Also, shouts aren't completely useless. Whirlwind sprint, Unrelenting force, and Dragonrend adds alot to the game. Same with the Aura whisper one, although, as a mage, it get pretty much useless...

Edit: I just realised that mage alone can be a bit shallow, as it's the only one without any crafting. Thiefs( and its respective subcatagories) got Alchemy, and Warriors got smithing...
What's the reason for removing this feature again?