I'm not including Arena and Daggerfall in the poll because they can't be done on console and that's how future games will be, but they're similar to Morrowind and Oblivion anyway.


Many have complained about the change in spell system and don't like dual wielding, while others have taken to it. In previous games, casting spells was completely different to wielding weapons, allowing you to have a spell active that you can cast with a separate button. In contrast, Skyrim changed it up to allow you to put one item in each hand, AKA dual wielding, so you can use two spells at once, or one spell and a weapon or shield, but can't use a weapon, shield and a spell at once.


Which do you prefer? Or do you think both are awful and would like a system change?


Personally, I prefer Skyrim's way. If you want to be a full mage, it makes sense to be able to cast multiple spells at once and see yourself casting them. Previous games allowed you to be a full warrior who can cast a spell as a separate thing whenever, without having to really choose. Personally, I'd like a simple system where you can cast more spells at once at the expense of weapons. I don't know how this could work with consoles in mind, but it would make me feel like a proper mage as oppose to a warrior who can cast spells, or having two empty hands but still only being able to cast one spell and have your hands be empty in game. Staves allowed a change in Morrowind and Oblivion, but they are very different to spells.

Well, Arena really had a much different system than the later games did, including Daggerfall. But that's not really important to the conversation.

We've touched on this subject quite a bit in some of the Beyond Skyrim threads, and you'll probably be directed to post there by one of the moderators. Basically, I think that Skyrim's magic is the most mechanically sound, but Morrowind and Oblivion have a far better variety of spells. If the system could combine the best of both worlds--Skyrim mechanics and Oblivion (and especially Morrowind) spell variety--along with a couple other aspects like a better spellmaking system and perhaps combo spells, that would be ideal to me.

The Beyond Skyrim thread is where I got the inspiration. A poll is usually a more interesting way to gather opinions, and they're not usually moved because you can't create polls in the Beyond Skyrim thread.


And I agree, and more spells to cast at once makes more sense, as while warriors tend to use the same weapons in a fight, mages have a large variety of spells to use whenever at their fingertips.

Skyrim's, hand down. At least in basic mechanics. But the volume of spell effects is something of a different issue.

I don't think Morrowind's system should be linked to Oblivions, however, because it did still involve putting your weapons away in order to cast a spell. In some ways, it was similar in execution to Skyrim's (just with a 3rd spell slot instead of treating the spell like a hand-equip) but only limited you to a single spell at a time.

Oblivions was just terrible. Like, absolute rubbish. Being able to fully use Magic and Weapons with absolutely no trade off in between? People groan about the 'jack of all trades' approach, but the way Oblivion handled Magic made it far and above the worst for it. There was absolutely no reason to not have a spell equipped at any time, because you didn't even need to sheath your weapon to use it.

There was a bit more to this than I initially thought. I voted Morrowind/Oblivion since I felt Skyrim's system gave such an overwhelming advantage to single handed weapon + healing spell, that nothing else could really compete. The ability to cast spells with weapon in hand would have favored a more diverse playing style, where weapon+shield, dual weapons or even bow would have potentially worked just as well - in which case at least I would have switched around more between them.

However... Thinking some more about this I realize that kind of system also sort of assumes you want to use a weapon at all. For all-in mages, the dual wielding system is obviously a big plus. But until someone else here writes something smart I haven't thought about I think I'll keep my vote anyway, since I feel the reason above is important to enough to move away from what Skyrim used. Perhaps an ideal system would be something like that you retained what you had in Skyrim, but with the difference that you could cast weak spells regardless of what you held in your hand, which increased in effectiveness if they were cast with a hand in which you held a staff - by some multiplier determined by the level of the staff.

Or something.

Skyrim's needs a few adjustments, but it's getting there. Wielding a bow, or even a two-handed weapon, should not prevent casting, even if you can't cast and shoot/hit at the same time. A staff should be usable as a blunt weapon as well as a spell-source. I think they got the two-handed casting about right, with the choice of two spells or a doubled one.

Oh, I was just talking about spell variety, not the entire system, when comparing Morrowind/Oblivion to Skyrim. Even though some spell effects were gone by Oblivion, I was just sort of lumping them together for comparison to Skyrim since there was less of a difference between Morrowind and Oblivion.

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of pressing C to cast a spell either. Looked absurd to hold a sword and cast a fireball with a fist clenched around the handle of the sword.

I liked Oblivion's spellcasting. it made foes much more competent, seeing as majority of default npc classes utilize a little magic.

I'd go with skyrims basic system, but obviously bring the more spell variety from morrowind/oblivion, and I also want to see a slightly modified % chance of casting the spell like we had in morrowind.


Rather than doing oblivion's approach of having to be level 50 to cast a spell, or skyrims approach of making advanced spells unavailable at all until you level, or if you did get hold of an advanced spell, you can never cast it until you get the perk that half's the spell cost for expert level spells or whatever, you bring in % chance for the advanced spells if you don't have a good enough skill.


So how I'd imagine it works is you can successfully cast spells your level no problem, but if you increase the spell through spell making to give increased effect, you have less and less of a chance of casting. So at low levels if you have enough magicka to cast a high level spell (by fortifying for specializing strictly into magic), you can potentially sacrifice your life trying to cast a spell well beyond your capability and failing at a crucial moment, but if you succeed in the casting, the reward is casting the Awesome spell and changing the tide of the battle with your risk, something you normally can't do.


To me personally, that makes more fun of playing a pure mage.

This sums up my feelings on it as well.

Aside from from the lack of the spellmaking system, I prefer Skyrim's system of handling a spell in a desired hand and combining them in case of dual wielding.

Your poll is wrong though, Morrowind doesn't allow you to cast a spell while you have weapons equipped, you have to ready your "hands" for casting just like you have to unsheathe your weapon before swinging it. I feel that someone already addressed this problem, but I'm too lazy to check previous posts.

I'd actually prefer if activating spell-casting opened a menu, so you could choose not only what to cast, but HOW to cast it. Rather than having a custom spell made in advance, picture being able to trade off spell strength, duration, area of effect, and other parameters on the fly. Skill could affect both the amount of adjustment possible from the "base" spell, and the total power available to divide between the parameters. If you increase one parameter, you either have to lower another, or risk the chance of failure; better yet, higher chances for partial success (not the full effect), partial failures (doesn't do exactly what you wanted, but similar), with an occasional outright fizzle (no effect at all). That means less spells in inventory, because you only need one entry for each spell effect. The current settings would be stored for each spell, so if you choose it again later, you don't need to reset everything before casting unless you want to change it.

With a little experience, you can edge the damage up a few points, or else convert it to a ranged spell. You can edge it up even higher (slightly outside of the limits for your skill level), but then it might not always work when you need it. More practice and you can give it a small area of effect, or more power. As your skills grow, it becomes a lot more versatile, or you can just funnel it all into pure damage if needed for that one nasty encounter. At high level, it becomes a thing of great power in your hands, or you can keep it scaled back to conserve magicka.

Two-handed casting should be the norm, doing it one-handed would then reduce the maximum settings and/or increase the risk factor. There should be a penalty for splitting your concentration between spells and weapons or other distractions.

I liked Skyrim's spell mechanics. I just think they need to add back most of the spells we had in previous games.

I've seen a few in-development Indi projects which play with that idea... But they all seem to be very light on effects. Even lighter than Skyrim was. The best execution of that sort of on-the-spot spell creation is Magicka, but even then it's more about putting together components to execute pre-designed spells than actually creating your own on the fly. I think the problem with any sort of system like that is, if it has any real diversity of Effects or Parameters, it's going to absolutely annihilate any sort of pacing or tension in a game. It'll be worse than Fallout 3s VATS pause.


Even then, it's not really reflective how how Magic is portrayed in-universe. At least not the accessible kind of magic. If you train with the Psijics for three lifetimes, maybe, but most mages rely on pre-designed spells that they execute, now whip up on the spot.


It's actually a magic idea that recently came up in the Beyond Skyrim thread, and I do think there's some glue in the basic premise (of being able to alter some parameters as you cast) but as a wholescale magic system, I think you'd be looking at a massively ponderous mechanic that takes am extended period of time to accomplish even the simplest action.

Skyrim's system. Puts it on the same level as weapons, so it feels less like it's supposed to just complement with melee and more like it can be its own standalone thing. And I think it's important that they emphasize that playing a pure mage with no weapons is a solid way to play the entire game. Don't forget that Skyrim still technically had Oblivion's casting system on top of that - they just kept it for shouts, racial powers, and a few unique lesser and greater powers you could discover as you played.

What they need to do moving forward is reduce menu time for mages. Being able to set up a favorites menu just for spells, and expanding the versatility of each single spell, should help a lot.

Dare I suggest a weapon wheel, except for spell selection?

That's what I'm thinking, but for fairness I'd say it should be able to include spells and weapons, just so non-mages don't have a quickwheel they'll never use.

I'm not really a huge fan of any of them. Morrowind's system was fine for me, but nothing special. Combat in general just wasn't Morrowind's strong suit. Oblivion's whole system was rubbish, but it at least still had a lot of interesting spell effects and spell crafting which gave some diversity to mage builds. Skyrim is a little closer to what I would want mechanically, but the lack of spell diversity made the whole system fall flat for me. A better way to select spells on the fly would help the system out a lot, as having to pause to switch spells got tiresome fast.

I think I kind of want staves to take a bigger role. I don't really care for the whole "free spell on a stick" thing they've got going on right now. Having them act as more of a catalyst or focus for your spells (with an option to whack people in the head, of course) would be more interesting to me. Different types of staves could have different kinds of effects on the spells you cast through it i.e. amplifying the magnitude of a spell, extending the duration of a spell, decreasing the cost of a spell, etc.

and let there be like three different sets that can be switched upon by pressing rb or lb (xbox 1) so you can set up magic in each wheel for different situations like one for battles another for sneaking around the city and another for just being an [censored] to npc's. I would like that.