I read them, and I still don't agree. Magic did make you more powerful than a fighter or thief. I still maintain that demanding to kill the most powerful ( well, highest health ) enemies in the game with a single spell is asking too much.

Reflect? So some, few, enemies can throw your spells back at you? If you are the Master Wizard the OP yearns for, summon similar strength creatures to fight for you, and go invisible. Just destruction shouldn't get you out of every situation.

As for the stories, everyone knows the lore is reported, unreliable, biased, or simply not true in many cases. Nothing in an in game book should be taken at face value, and anyway, if you were that powerful, where is the challenge in the game? See monster, fire off spell, monster dies, recharge magicka, see monster... repeat until bored. I like anyone else, want a character to feel more capable at higher levels, but there should always be some challenge, some things that require a change of tactics, or dare I say it, even a retreat. If your lone mage is having trouble with a group of Xivilai or liches, good, you can't expect everything to be easy. Just remember as well, those liches were powerful wizards, their spells should be as powerful as yours.

There was a thread a few days ago, '100 ways to die in Skyrim'. My contribution was 'spellmaking is in, and your enemies get to use it too.'

OK, first of all, you know it's possible to make an argument without insulting someone right?
Second, from a design standpoint, a good game shouldn't really require this much planning before the game is even started. In a good game, the rules should be easy for the player to understand so that with enough practice, the player will be able to master the challenges the game throws at him/her. Requiring this much planning and learning by trial and error is not the way to entertain your audience.

Exactly, and yes, there are even more examples of this.

Skyrim is the first TES game where I will actually play a warrior or thief character who does not use magic.

For the very first time we have with the perk trees, if not a counterbalance for the power of mages, at least some cool abilities that make it fun to play very different kinds of characters. I have no idea what these 280 perks will consist of, but it seems clear that we have new opportunities to make your character a specialist in certain areas that complement your role-playing.

If you feel that magic was not overpowered in previous TES games, at the very least you must admit it there was a lot more complexity and fun things you can do with spells, as opposed to the less flashy perks you would get from leveling up Blade and Blunt. I wonder what % of players of Morrowind and Oblivion actually played characters who didn't use any magic? I suspect that % will be higher for Skyrim.

Which is part of the reason Oblivion is not a great game, despite the reviews it received at the time. I think it was riding on the shoulders of the graphics race during that era. Anything that came out at that time was judged primarily by graphics.

I agree.


:mage:

If you don't want to plan things out, you should roll a warrior and just swing an axe. Leave the magic to the talented if you're simple minded. Besides, lizards shouldn't be mages anyway.

(Just kidding)

My apologies for being hot-headed. It does get tiring to hear people say how other people are somehow "lesser players" for not playing the way they do. People play for different reasons and have different views of what fun is.

I agree with the OP that magic wasn't all that great when compared to how it should have been according to lore for master leveled users. True that there are some exploits to Oblivion's magic system that needed to be fixed because when combined with other spell effects, they were borderline overpowered. The problem with such exploits being used is that even non-magic classes can learn to use them. THis makes mages seem rather pointless to play because through the grinding, my warrior was able to dish out spells just as good as most mages. I think what should happen for Skyrim is that magic users should be more difficult to train, especially at the higher levels, but should be powerful in dealing massive chaos with their spells. They should also be easier to kill compared to non-magic or magic-less characters. Magic heavy characters for Skyrim should also take more negative side effects on their magic if they were to wear heavy or light armor regardless of armor skill level.

Agreed with all of this.....not sure why anyone would want to be able to destroy with a single spell....seems like if theres nothing that presents a challenge to you the game would be incredibly boring.

also this


i personally wouldnt want to be able to destroy an entire city in a single spell....seems incredibly boring.....and im pretty sure all the stories in ES games have you as being a sort of david vs goliath story as opposed to just becoming super ridiculously strong to take on ancient wizards.

First things first, GREAT series

now onto my theories of magic. mages should be able to level cities and make armies shake in their boots because they can break the freaking laws of nature but because they have to spend all their time studying their frailer than a wet piece of cardboard, physically at least. In Morrowind (using morrowind because i just started playing it again) im a low level mage. i cant kill for [censored]. i have to kill from a distance and just spam healing potions until they hopefully die. when i become a higher level ill be able to kick ass, because time has passed and ive learned and grown more powerful. Warriors on the other hand start out pretty good and kinda level out higher up. Hmm does this sound like anything in real life? lets see. a person as a baby is weak and stupid, it learns and grows stronger. now if it goes the path of the athlete it gets stronger and stronger but at say 30 or 40 it's body wears out and it cant get stronger. now if that baby had gone the path of the intellectual it gets smarter and smarter but at a slower rate than the athlete (you can get ripped comparativly quickly compared to getting smart) but instead of wearing out at 30 his brain gets smarter and stronger until he gets old and dies. thats my thinking anyway.

on a different note, warriors are the tanks they take damage and deal out a steady amount of damage. mages are the dps, they deal a [censored] ton of dps but faint if a feather hits them. in a game where its just us mages need to be able to keep from being hit, either from spells like invisibility and shield or tactics like paralyzing and blasting their frozen asses. warriors can just charge in swinging away. you can play however you want but dont you dare try and take away my magic just because if offends your delicate sensibilities. you wanna be a god dam warrior you be a god dam warrior and let me play my god dam mage. if you dont like the magic and think its overpowered THEN DONT FKING USE IT! but some of us like to be mages and like to blow the fk out of things so back the fk off and lets us blow [censored] up. let us destroy entire armies if we want. YOU DONT HAVE TO IF YOU DONT WANT TO.


so my final message is: magic has never been overpowered, its just a different way of playing. you can play however you want SO STOP YOUR WHINING AND LET ME PLAY MY GOD DAM BATTLE MAGE thank you and have a nice day

If they are not powerful enough for your tastes, you can always dial down the difficulty setting when you reach the level where you feel your mage should be that powerful.

Magic in Tamriel really isn't that awesomely powerful.
If it was, you'd have three dozen Divayth Fyrs ruling the continent with no one to stop them.

Magic is under-powered if anything in most games, especially these. In OB it took a long time to get my mages skill up to where the spells were strong enough to matter and by then the baddies were scaled up to a level that the magic didn't do much....it seemed like the whole game the staff was weaker then the sword, even after buying that strong staff that had all 3 destruction spells.

Staffs and spells definitely need to be stronger, whats the fun of a fire spell if it doesn't set anything on fire or lightning that does stun gun damage?

Well the, thank God for no spellmaking. This makes for a much more varied and tangible magic usage with much more potentiall compared with if it were spellmaking. Spellmaking only limits magic and are gobsmackingly hypermoronic to use in this game.

i shouldn't have to dial down my game because some idiot got killed by a mage and went whining to the forums. mages should be able to blow the [censored] out of things but should also be weak as hell physically so if the warrior is smart and gets around the spells somehow and closes into sword swinging range of the mage he can decapiate the idiot if the idiot used all his magic on offensive spells.

Magic, Melee, and Ranged/Stealth all need to be balanced.

Melee should have the strongest attacks, because you are going toe-toe with people

Stealth attacks have bonuses to damage, because knives generally do less damage, and people who sneak wear lighter armor than up front fighters

Magic should do the least damage because you can combine various effects, like paralyze, invisibility, shield, etc to avoid harm or multiply you efficacy.

It is ridiculous to need 5 shots of that powerful of a spell to kill a Goblin warlord, but I imagine the same is true for a warrior needing to hit him 20-30 times with his sword Level scaling was broken in general. You are absolutely right about 100% reflect magic though, that is heavily unbalanced when any warrior with silver weapons can hurt ghosts, daedra, etc. Either that effect needs to be toned down or some creatures need to be immune to ALL weapons (which is unlikely, as the highest level enemies (daedra) would almost always be able to be hurt by the highest level weapons (daedric) as they have a common origin.

"Very Hard" difficulty should be damn hard, no matter what class, no mater what perks or spells and no matter what level your character is

"Normal" difficulty should be balanced and fun for the majority of players

"Easy" difficulty should be easy, the character should be overpowered and fun for players who enjoy the feeling of being all-powerful, like a demigod.

If the game is too easy on "Very Hard" then it is a broken game that will need fixing with mods.

My thoughts exactly. Spells should be strong and the caster weak...there's the balance.

umm, nothing you just said made any sense.
Melee should have lowest damage because they can take damage like a champ, because they go toe-to-toe and can survive it.

stealth should have bonus damage because they attack from the shadows and hit them in their weak spots not because their knives do less damage, in fact weapons with less damage should ,gasp, do less damage unless used properly like a sneak attack into a soft spot.

magic should be able to dish out a hell of a punishment if thats what you're going for or less damage but more effects like paralyzing and what not.




i agree with you completely, im not saying mages should be gods but they should be able to dish out a hell of a lot of damage with the counter of being weak physically.

another thing on magic, not directed at you booty but the community in general. it's god dam magic, it should be able to do whatever the hell it wants.i mean really people its MAGIC for christ's sake. i play these games because i can be whatever the hell i want to be. i wanna be a musclebound blockhead, i can. i wanna be a lady, i can. i wanna be an assasssin, i CAN. so if i want to be dam near a god i should be able to do that! it wouldnt ruin your game at all because, now listen closely im sure this will come as a shock but i want you to follow along, ITS MY GOD DAM GAME! how i play it shouldn't affect you at all, but some whiney [censored] will come and complain and there goes my fun. if you dont like a part of the game DONT FKING PLAY THAT PART. if you dont want to be an immortal god-like figure decimating armies and demolishing cities, THEN DONT. i sometimes do, so let me. for example people say levitation is game breaking, i say its fun and useful. its a matter of perception. if you think its game breaking, mod it, ignore it, or stop p[laying. dont come whining to these forums because your a little [censored] who cant stand it if someone optimizes their killing power with weakness to magic or whatever and they cant. i personally can't strategize well enough to use the weaknesses and magic to the best of their abilities, you dont hear me complaining do you? i play to my strengths i dont whine because i cant do something. my final piece of advise, man up, grow a pair, and learn to take the most out of the game instead of huddling under your momma's skirt and crying that the kid across the street is cheating because he can actually play the game.

I think mages should do higher damage in video games compared to some books. Someone referenced what Gandalf could do... Sure, he could do some pretty powerful things, but he couldn't do them all of the time. In these games, you're stuck out on your own. Same with Raistlin... good magic, but weak. In most stories, Wizards/sorcerers only really survive because of the supporting cast.

Since you don't have a supporting cast in TES, I think it makes sense to either A) beef up the mages, or b ) Use magic as a secondary function behind their primary function. Galdalf was probably part fighter as well. Raistlin pretty much just had a supporting cast behind him.

Edit: In response to the post above me.... funny you should mention god and magic in the same sentence... if magic is MAGIC for "christ's sake"... where's the line drawn between magic and gods? Would that make any magic user (trained) more powerful than the gods?

If someone can set you on fire by waving at you, I don't see why it is beyond credulity that they might be able to veil themselves from sight or paralyze you. Daedra Spiderlings paralyze pretty effectively, so that isn't even a player exclusive power.

A powerful warrior is a lot better off in a fight with a Lich than even a very powerful wizard, if that wizard isn't using at least two 100 pt plus spells at a time. And I have seen strong warriors take down goblin warlords.

Also, those spells are not exclusive to pure mage characters. The thief who stole peoples clothes off of them might have used a chameleon spell.


And as to warriors with flaming swords killing four men in one blow. . . I have no interest in playing such a character, but I certainly do not have any objections to players having the freedom to achieve such a might He-Man. Because, I am not a Hater, and it doesn't drive me crazy that other people can do something that I have specifically OPTED NOT TO DO, even if those abilities give those players a hypothetical advantage over mine.

the line is drawn wherever you want to draw it, thats my point. you should be able to play the game however you want to play it. become as powerful as you can if you want to. don't get me wrong, it should take a ton of time and effort but i think if you want to be a god you should be able to become a god, with magic anything should be possible. and before people start whining that makes mages more powerful than other classes, i think it should be possible with other classes as well, warriors should be able to become strong enough to kill a dragon easily...if they work hard enough. rogues should be able to steal the clothes off a person back...if they work hard enough. its a game, you should be able to enjoy it. if it gets boring you can always start over, follow a different path.

Seems to me that people would just rather have everything level out with the weakest system rather than the strongest one. Magic too powerful? Make melee and stealth comparably powerful. Don't downgrade magic.

this. people should be able to play how they want without someone who doesn't play that way complaining. if it were a multiplayer game where you would have to interact with these He-Men it might get annoying but its not. in your own world, your copy of the game, you should be able to do whatever you want. that's what pisses me off about people complaining that something is game breaking, that someone is cheating in a god dam SINGLE PLAYER GAME. it does NOT affect you at ALL! the only reason it starts affecting people is because of whiney spoiled little [censored]es who see someone thats better than them and instead of working a little harder or learning a little more they whine and [censored] and moan until the devs change it and ruin the fun for everyone else.