I have a few ideas I hope they've thought of adding for skyrim in the magic department. For one, I think it'd be awesome with a new casting option for channeled spells, being able to summon a continous wave of fire/frost/lightning that you can keep up until you either stop channeling or run out of magicka. That in itself would add a huge amount to customizability to spells. Another thing I'd like to see is a reworking of the shield spells, why not have them work like actual shields? Have you use them like a channeling spell, where you as long as you're channeling it in effect works like blocking did in Oblivion, with the added effect of being able to absorb/reflect spells cast at you, along with all kinds of visual goodness for when you manage to deflect something ^^

Apart from that, being able to finally set things on fire would be an awesome sight. I'd also love some kind of knockdown/knockback effect to be able to use to keep your opponents at a distance, and of course, last but not the least, some sort of short-distance teleport spell

I agree that shield spells should be used like shields, where you reassign the block button to cast the shield spell for the block like it was a shield.

^ I agree, I dislike the whole limited feeling with magicka. Let's say there's a Breton who's not born under the sign of the mage, but he's trained with destruction every day of his life. He's mastered it, essentially. This Breton should be able to cast an enormously powerful destruction spell and not be limited by magicka, though he may have to rest for a couple hours..

We also need more hot key slots, at least on the console. This would obviously benefit all builds though.



Perhaps magic skills could go above 100. they wouldn't make your spells stronger but it would lower Magicka costs. They could make it take extremely long to go from 100 to 101, so its not unbalanced.

I don't know about magic skills going over 100. But I do agree that something should be done so that if you have mastered the skill you should be able to cast some uber powerful spells. Perhaps they have some perks for higher skills, ie: expert reduces magic costs by 'x' and master reduces them by a further 'x'. Whatever the percentages have to be so you can cast powerful spells with out needing vast amounts of magic.
I'd also like to see magic increase more then just 1 pt for every point of intelligence, or 2:1. Maybe sometihng like health does, 1/10th of your intelligence increase in magic every level up. Or some variation, maybe once your intelligence gets to 100, every subsequent level gives you 10 more magic, but prior to obtaining an intelligence of 100, it just goes up like it did in Oblvion

The spell system needs lots of changes, had to use mods to make it viable-fun in Oblivion.

-Magicka pool from int increased, or spells made cheaper.
-Magicka regen from willpower increased.
-Faster spell travel speed on projectile spells.
-Better spell effects, animations, and/or shaders. They all looked pretty bad in Oblivion.
-Possibly bring back mark and recall.

-Stronger physics based spells.
1. Telekinesis spell line that acts like gravity gun from HL2.
2. Hurricane spell line that throws enemies and objects around.
3. Frost spells can freeze. Once frozen target can be shattered or manipulated by any means of physics. Freeze chance increases with your destruction level.

-Better Spell HotKey system. I want to press 1, 2, 3, C, X, etc. and the spell instantly starts casting. Select and cast was fail in Oblivion.

-Spell Combos. example: Freezing someone with iceball, and then shattering them with lightening bolt for super mixed AOE damage around that enemy = win.

This is a MUST... I just don't FEEL powerful when I fire my little fireball of doom that looks the same as the level 1 fireball of fail I got at the beginning of the game, and you don't see the difference until... BOOM city momentarily engulfed in mild fire... And then what? Nothing, no effects? No scorched earth? Some stuff flying around? Lots of pissed off and dead NPCs, but that's it? Yeah no... I want to see the energy build for a spell like that, I want it to look cool and feel cool, and I want some dramatic after effects to. The fact that no matter how long you play in TES games your spells always remain mediocre in appearance and you never truly get that arch-mage feel is annoying, in this regard I hate to say this, but TES could take a few pointers from Two Worlds (Preferably II).............

So animation seems to be a big deal here as well, how bout people start talking about an agreeable, reasonable animations. Like, for instance, I think illusion spells should be more or less invisible, depending on your illusion skill. A few things that made no-little sense to me: green poof clouds on charm, invisibility, and chameleon. Seems like you wouldn't want people to know that stuff is going on.

And I know there are plenty of things that people want but I want to keep this thread from being a wishlist for Lamborghini's and free Ice Cream.

Try and make your ideas work. Try and be complete with them (1 fireball example is not really complete). And try and realize when what you are asking for will require advanced or extensive engine requirements. Environmental damage, for instance, seems a bit unfamiliar in the engine they have been using (not to say a few scorch textures would be impossible, Jonquill).

How about sneak attack bonuses for some spells or types of spells? For example, touch spells, or similar? Would make being a "Nightblade" or similar feel quite a lot better.

You mean that the new technology of the game wont be able to handle spell animations, etc? then i doubt that it will have any revolutionary elements, because except magic and maybe fight a little bit the other elements werent lacking so much, and of course i wont buy a game to see things like dragons which already exist on games nowdays

I would love better animations with improved skill. I want my master-level fireball to literally svck the light out of the air around me. I want to pull lightning down from the sky. I want to fire a jet of cold that freezes enemies like liquid nitrogen.

Maybe spell combos? Freeze an enemy then blast them with fire or lightning and watch it spread among enemies while also sending icy shrapnel in all directions. Destruction is easy to think of animations for. I like the idea of using shield spells like an actual shield. Holding the block button and having it bring up the shield. I wouldn't mind ricochet animations. A fireball glancing off the shield. Ripples when struck by a blade. This is all likely asking too much, but it'd be pretty awesome, nonetheless.

Lets face it, the heart of an rpg game is the mage and then the fighter, because usually you dont get one on any other type of game, if i want stealth i go for assasins creed, thief and of course the latest batman, so if an rpg lacks of its magica system then it fails a lot

Or the Apprentice, for that matter. Mage birthsign gives +50 Magicka. Apprentice Birthsign gives (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong) +150 Magicka.




I agree here. In other RPGs (like in some final fantasy games such as FFIX) you had three schools of magic. White. Black. And Blue. White Magic was PURELY defensive: ie spells that only buffed/healed your characters. Black magic was purely offensive: ie spells that demoralized your enemies, took down their buffs, and - OF COURSE - helped you kill them. And blue magic was a kind of in between, with both offensive and defensive. In FFIX, you acquired spells by gathering them from monsters, giving you their abilities. I just thought that was a cool twist to the Blue Magic. I also think in some there was a Red Magic, but I don't remember what spells were in it.




I agree with Illusion being an "invisible" spell system, kind of like the force, and where calm/charm (Jedi Mind Trick)(and not only limited to this) is an instantaneous spell instead of a bolt of energy that has to make contact with your target for it to work. Actually, a lot of spells could use this "instantaneous" piece. I remember in Dark Messiah with the fire spell you snapped your fingers and your enemy lit up in a ball of flame (of course, you had to have your targeting reticle on them for it to work, so this is some aiming to it, but that is purely user skill). I think that would be cool.

NO WAY. Stealth is part of a RPG game, especially Elder Scrolls. The permutation between Fighter and Mage = Battlemage; throw in Stealth and you got some cool stuff happen

Yes. I agree with this. I would like there to be a sneak bonus for sneak-magic'ing the backside of my opponent. I've seen a lot of discussion about improving the sneak-attack-from-behind/slit throats for assassins. But it would be awesome for a Night Blade (or some user-created equivalent) to sneak attack an enemy with magic. Maybe create an animation that, when combined with fire, bring you to them, and you put one hand over their mouth, and the other around their throat and burn the crap out of their vocal chords (but of course this kills them), or over their heart which makes it EXPLODE inside their chest, or something awesome like this.

It seems you havent read what i wrote, stealth is a part of rpg, of course much more on TES, but the heart of rpg is not stealth, is magic which influence very much all the other characters of the game, i believe that i made my self clear, and you should definitely check some other rpg games, which they dont have stealth characters at all

I disagree with sneak bonuses for magic. If you don't see me there, it's going to hurt just as bad. While with melee, you can aim for a vital organ or slit a throat.

I suppose a "sneak bonus" per se is not the right way to go for magic. I can see how magic should hurt just the same as is it should if you were standing in front of someone and blast their face with a fireball. HOWEVER! I just thought there should be cool animations for attacking someone while in sneak, even with using magic to do so.

Does anyone else feel that they should either make the boring spells interesting, or scrap them? Casting burden on someone just makes them stand there, they can still attack you. How about burden makes mages fall out of the sky, and brings fighters to their knees? Or if the spell isn't too high powered, they might have to drag their foot behind them.

Damage health? Who came up with that? A little orange glow and they go owie? I'd rather see the ice shards tearing through them! Something interesting, dramatic!

I want to sack Restoration entirely. Have you guys looked at the spell list? It's all generic crap. They've got a restore for every stat, skill, and attribute, an absorb for all of those, and then fortifies or cure paralysis. It's so bland I want to shout at someone.

First of all, they need to stop permanently damaging skills and attributes because it's nothing more than insanely annoying, especially when you have to fight a dozen enemies who do that. If those effects were temporary and were spells affecting you, you should be able to dispel them. There should be two healing spells, one for self and one for other, and you can change the magnatude and duration during the game. Neither spell should be instant, they need to increase your rate of healing. These healing spells will be in the Thaumaturgy skill.

Oh, a cool animation would be neat, like for a touch spell, grabbing their throat and doing it

Well for me there is no doubt, if there are any revolutionary elements on the new game, they will be only on magic, if not, the game will be a letdown for me, i dont care about dragons at all

I don't want dragons...period. They'll ruin it for me. If I want to chase dragons, I'll play generic fantasy game version 203481

But as you can see on the trailer they will be there for sure, i would prefer if it was cinematic and was about a battle between two mages, its would be really great, a daedra mage and a dark elf

I agree that my method or explanation isn't the most efficient, but neither is it beyond game engine technology, like I said take a look at Two Worlds II, which is already released in Europe, and works great on both consoles and PC. That being said, it's not necessary to do it the way I described, and I will grant that. There are a lot of things that could be done to make spells more epic looking without taxing the engine too much, namely theatrical effects, but while these would make things look cooler, its questionable rather gamers would embrace them or shy away from them because they are outside the typical TES approach.

For example, anyone who's watched Lord Of The Rings, can remember with relative clarity the sequence of scenes in the deeproads, or the many other appearances of Gandolf after he become the Gandalf The White. In each of the sequences, darkness was embraced much more in dungeons, and night scenes, or even in scenes where there was merely a bright light. This effect could be simulated with relatively little effort in game creating a sort of consuming darkness feel in dungeons that would make the light spell, or any spell feel much more vibrant, and powerful, clashing with the darkness, and creating a anagogic, arcane, or cabalistic feel.

This effect of course wouldn't be applied universally, but could be applied to just about all spells in direct relation to the power of the spells. Natural forces, could create a a degree of wind in the immediate presence of the caster whipping his robes or hair, the animation could be slowed down during the casting of more powerful spells (With the option to disable these effects in the menu), and if the spell produces light, they could simulate the spell consuming the light around it giving the effect of a radiating power surrounded by darkness as previous mentioned, but this effect could also be applied during the day. The combination of all these effect in various degrees for various spells in varying intensity based on spell-power, would be enough alone to give more depth and feeling to the power of spells, and make a spellcaster feel more satisfying as he powered up.

ty God I thought I was the only one that thought those spells were UBER LAME.

and why not just make them curses like:

Weakness: drain strength and agility from the enemy for 30 seconds (higher levels of the spell give it an AOE effect)

and so on.


-Stronger physics based spells.
1. Telekinesis spell line that acts like gravity gun from HL2.
2. Hurricane spell line that throws enemies and objects around.
3. Frost spells can freeze. Once frozen target can be shattered or manipulated by any means of physics. Freeze chance increases with your destruction level.

-Better Spell HotKey system. I want to press 1, 2, 3, C, X, etc. and the spell instantly starts casting. Select and cast was fail in Oblivion.

-Spell Combos. example: Freezing someone with iceball, and then shattering them with lightening bolt for super mixed AOE damage around that enemy = win.

^ YES ^