A mage doesn't have to use a lock-pick unless he is a thief character, in which case he isn't a mage anymore. I'd much rather have lock-pick be a skill that is worth spending perks on, instead of mages having a lock effect.

But ok I'll try to look on those things now.

Hmm, well for silence spells: we have shock. I know it's not the same thing, but the silence effect is most likely removed because it possibly destroys a full-mage character (your character). So it's actually an attempt to allow you to play a full mage more freely, not an attempt to limit your options as a mage.

Lack of conjuration is perhaps the only thing I was really surprised over. I do agree with you on that.

As for reflect spells, I don't really see the need for that effect. We have absorb effects in both perk-form and standing stones, in addition to resistance to magic in items, perks and racial bonuses. Adding in reflect spell isn't, to me, what a mage is about. That is purely an anti-mage thing, not a thing a mage would use. I wouldn't say the pure mage class or necromancer class or whatever-class is impossible to role-play because there's not reflect spell effect.

How are you apart of this community for two years and intentionally make such a shallow post? Please, leave the discussion for those who have something to say.

Back on topic:
I find it interesting that spell tomes were originally implemented in Oblivion as an alternative to buying the spell, while many of the spell tomes taught you unique spells. They kept the spell tomes as the primary way you learn spells, but got rid of the most interesting part - the variety of spells.

I think this is all just an inevitible side effect of the way the TES games (and games in general) have changed since Morrowind. Part of that is the shift towards consoles, part of that is the need for games of this scale to reach a broader audience.

Look how many posts there are about people complaining about balance, complaining that you can break the game if you want to, how some things are overpowered, how some things are useless.

Then look back at the magic system in Morrowind. It was flexible, it was powerful, you could just do so much with it. But..... you could break everything with it. With sufficient skill and money you could do whatever you wanted and everything else in the game paled in comparison. For all it's faults, when it came to magic Morrowind was a true sandbox. There were no limits.

Subsequent games have been trying to strike a balance between player choice and balance and to do that the magic system had to be nuetered to some extent. Which is always going to be a shame for those that loved that aspect of Morrowind and I commiserate. For me, personally, I think the game is better for it. Less of a sandbox, a lot less, but a better gaming experience.

I would imagine one solution to this problem could be to give magic-users an Open Lock spell, but limit its usefulness. For instance, maybe the highest level Open Lock spell only opens up to Expert level locks. You want to open that Master chest? Invest in Lockpicking. Or perhaps allow the highest level Open Lock spell to open Master locks, but give Thieves a reason to go Lockpicking instead. Maybe Thieves tend to get better loot from unlocked chests? Maybe Open Lock requires a heavy investment into Alteration, and the work required to open a chest with an Open Lock spell is more than the effort required to pick open that same chest, thereby giving the Lockpick spell usefulness. There are many solutions to be proposed, it just requires some imagination. In fact, just thinking about it makes me excited. Hopefully, I'll be developing my own games someday and can actually put this imagination to work!



Levitation, sadly, has hardly-disputable game-breaking effects. I talked about Lockpicking above. You seem to miss the point of the Debuff. It's aim is to increase the effectiveness of attacks, not to be a substitute for them. With Water-Walking, the fact that you cannot imagine a use for it isn't a great reason to exclude it from the game. And as far as Teleporting goes, saying that Teleporting is useless because we have Fast Travel is like saying that working your ass off for that super awesome sword is pointless because "hey, you could just open the console and use 'player.additem' anyway!"

Gameplay is great. I just hope they tweak the game a bit so that if you are playing as they designed the game you dont end up breaking it. The game should be a challenge until the very end

:D

I politely disagree. I find the gameplay to be top notch and miles above oblivion and morrowind. A few things morrowind still does better, but for the most part, skyrim is bethesdas best work.

the whole point why people care so much is probably because it's so awesome overall but the few flaws it has are incredibly obvious and unnecessary (most of them at least)

I honestly haven't come across anything that I completely disagree with, aside from the occasional glitch/bug. I'm sure I might find something by the time I reach the 200 hour mark.