On the contrary, nothing YOU said makes any sense.

Melee should do the most damage because, guess what, swinging an axe into someones face is going to hurt them more than shooting them with a tiny sharpened stick, or even covering them with gasoline and setting them on fire (the equivalent of a fire ball spell, in terms of damage to skin and flesh) You can easily survive those last two, if you only get hit once. Not so much with the axe in the face.

Stealth should get bonus damage for close up hits, because, well, it's like any other form of melee, ie, more dangerous than arrows or spells. You compensate for the smaller size of the knife compared to the axe (which decreases range and momentum) with increased accuracy. It's easy to get a kill shot on someone with a knife if they don't know you're there, because you can target the throat, or heart, or other vitals. But if you come at them from the front, they can easily grab your wrist and disarm you...something harder to do when it's an axe coming down with all it's enertia.

Magic has no real world equivalent, so we have to compare to real world damage from similar effects (fire, extreme cold, etc) Covering someone in gasoline and lighting them on fire is fairly easy to do, just like a low level fireball spell. And just like a lower level fireball spell, it does less damage than an axe blow to the face. You might die eventually, but you'll live long after the fires gone out. Now, a flame thrower or a small bomb might kill someone relatively quickly, but that takes a lot more money and experience to buy/build/use, just like a higher level magic spell.

Magic should NOT be over powered, "just because it's magic." Magic should be BALANCED, because this is a game, and you need to make all things proportionate. Obviously magic is overpowered on it's own, otherwise mages would traditionally be given the same statline as warriors. But game makers for decades have realized "hey, these guys can do crazy $#*!, let's make 'em squishy.

This is what I love about tes games. It allows you to eventually become legendary with whatevre you do. Want to become a powerful sorcerer? A legendary knight? A master thief? Go for it. Magic is incredibly diverse and useful for any play style. If anything, the spells are underpowered.

Yes it affects me. Knowing that people use Fast Travel in Oblivion makes me so angry I rage and uninstall Oblivion and reload Morrowind. Once Bethesda removes Fast Travel and apologize to me for allowing other people to use fast travel in their games then I'll think about re-installing Oblivion. :disguise: :celebration: :foodndrink:

this is almost exactly the character I have been playing in Oblivion for the past 6 months with the help of FCOM, Duke Patricks, Supreme Magicka and Less Annoying Magic Experience, although I am playing a sort of mystic archer using archery, but no armor whatsoever because it reduces spell effectiveness.

It's taken me 6 months and 350 hours to get to level 7 and 71 health. I frequently get one-shotted by enemy archers, enemy spellcasters and enemy melee opponents. However, I also have some really powerful spells, using all the weakness to magic chains, some spells with paralyze effect, shield, frenzy, command spells, fear spells, partial chameleon, invisibility, etc., and the game is still damn hard and I still get my ass handed to me.

Even, for example, a single bandit archer on the road I have to approach really carefully because one wrong move and his arrow instantly kills me. It's a lot of fun and pretty well balanced even with all the magic exploits. the Skyrim devs can take a cue from FCOM/OOO/MMM/Frans/Warcry and Duke Patricks.

You mad, bro? You know there are ways to disable the fast travel system, right? Don't allow other people to effect how you play your game the way you want to.

That's not even close to balanced. Not even in the general neighborhood of balanced.

Melee characters can already take more damage than any others - if they could also GIVE more damage, then they'd be far and away the most powerful characters in the game.

You know - I find it telling that this is the recurring refrain from so many - not only that mages should be gimped, but that warriors should be stronger. I really don't think this has anything at all to do with "balance." I think, at heart, it's a bunch of people whose e-peens are threatened by the thought that a lowly mage might be as powerful as their muscle-bound, sword-swinging alter-egos. That's really the only explanation I can come up with for so many being so bothered by the fact that SOMEBODY ELSE plays a powerful mage.

Where is this mages should be ultra powerful but really weak stuff coming from? This is TES, not 1st edition dungeons and dragons. Spellswords, battle mages, standard classes. With the OB system, if a mage could be ultra powerful, so could these mixed classes. All the magic none of the weaknesses. At least with the perks and all that, everything you invest in weapons or armour comes at a price, a disadvantage in your magical skills compared to a pure mage. worth playing a pure mage, nice.

Still think power should have limits though. Will the run up to TES VI have posts like this? " We all know magic was underpowered in Skyrim, why, I couldn't even kill a dragon without using several spells. Where was the feeling of being a mighty...."

I disagree with the idea that Magic skills were weaker than others in TES. They seem obviously the most powerful to me. Just pick any magic skill you want... and then pick a stealth or combat skill and compare. I doubt that the least powerful magic skill would be any less versitile or powerful than any skill from the other archetypes (in Oblivion).

If instead you were arguing that magic skills should be more powerful and that, furthermore, they should be much much more powerful, then I have to disagree. If they made the use of magic a more rare presence in TES I would be ok with this, but since it seems to be something pretty basic to the world, the concept of the great wizard is about the equivalent to the great warrior. The legendary exceptions only reach that strength through unorthodox means like very rare magical items/books, not just by casting spells a lot.

I agree with the idea that the way the numbers were engineered, many builds did not feel rewarding as you leveled up in Oblivion. The world often grew in strength faster than you and also relative to your effort, so the harder you trained the weaker you got. Also, skill level caps were low (not in terms of the number, since that is relative to the strength you get per increment, but in terms of overall strength at a maxed out skill). This was an issue across the board in Oblvion however that only a few skills did not suffer from.

I would be surprised if Skyrim does not address this issue though. First of all, the perk trees for each school of magic will almost certainly add a nice touch if they are at all creative. Second, I think I read somewhere that increasing higher skills increases your level faster than low skills, so hopefully they also made it exponentially difficult to increase those skills and that the boost you get in strength for that skill is also more rewarding. Perhaps getting to a level 100 in a skill will be extremely difficult and will usually require rare items and skill books for practical leveling at 90+, which would really give a nice feel for magic focused players who are most interested in maxing out a skill (since the other archetypes often require more heavily on combining multiple skills anyway, not that they couldn't focus on one skill if they really wanted to though).

Man, get real. Warriors both need to take AND give damage, because whatever they are fighting is going to be RIGHT in front of them. An archer could have 1 Health point and arrows could do 1 damage, and as long as you can back peddle out of the range of warriors, you could kill a guy with 500 health points (provided you had 500 arrows)

Mages also have the ability to attack from range...with the added bonus of other stuff like invisibility, chameleon, paralyze, etc...

Which is why I also think Warriors need balance. I hate that a guy in full plate doesn't sink like a stone, or can run up hills as well as a guy wearing leather armor. I know knights weren't the steel turtles some people think, but trust me, 60lbs of steel does catch up with you, and the game should show that.

Honestly, I blame WoW and all other crappy MMOs which have no idea how to properly balance characters. The whole idea of a "tank" class that can absorb damage but is weaker than some elf with two knives is absolutely the most moronic thing I've ever heard. They know what a real tank is, don't they? Not only is it covered in armor, it has the biggest gun on the battlefield, besides artillery which CANNOT move.

lets start with stealth, i misunderstood what you said the first time, i totally agree with what you said this time.


im all for balance. mages should be extremely squishy but on the other side of the spectrum warriors shouldnt do much damage because they are tanks and rogues are somewhere in between, on the more squishy side of the equation.
and you cant really compare these to real world situations. in real life if you get lit on fire you get rushed to a hospital get skin grafts and go back to the world of the living, albiet much poorer. in games you get lit on fire and its because someones trying to kill you. and if you're on fire in real life your gonna be panicking if not unconcious or in shock and easy to kill even for a physically weak mage. if someone comes at you with an axe in real life you can fight them off better than if they just lit you on fire.

Honestly if the games handled damage realistically, mages (most of the time) and most straight up fighting stealth characters would be underpowered. A single swing of an Orc's axe at your face will spell instant death or damn well near it if it connects.

This isnt what the op is asking for though....what you describe would be farrr too difficult for him as he wants to be able to destroy entire cities with a single spell....not put the thought into chaining weakness to magic/paralyze/shield/all that you list.

I think more than making Warriors, Mages, Thief/Assassin, or hybrid characters all precisely equally balanced in dps vs. health, etc. - the more important and difficult task is simply making each of them fun to play in different ways. This is a different kind of balance.

This kind of balance is important in a singleplayer game because for many of us, a big part of the fun of playing RPGs is the choices we make during character progression.

When you level up, you have all these different perks open to you and various paths to reach them. If a brutal, non-magic using warrior, or sneaky non-magic using assassin are all fun playing styles then the choice of which perk to take, which skills to focus on become more meaningful and difficult choices.

If the choices are easy because all the warrior and thief perks were lame, then less people would end up playing pure warrior or thief builds.

From what we know of Skyrim so far, I suspect that compared with past TES games, we will see a lot more non-magic using builds, simply because all the flashy eye-candy stuff is no longer exclusively the domain of the magic skills. Hopefully the Companions NPCs and quest lines are more compelling than the Oblivion Fighter's Guild, as well.

Sorry if I flipped out, I just don't like being accused of idiocy, if you disagree with what I've said, that's fine, I just like to see the reasons why.

I still think Warriors should do lots of damage, because all their fighting is done up close. Mages and Archers can attack from a distance (or in the case of stealth characters, attack up close but without the enemy knowing). So they are at zero risk for taking return damage, except from other mages and archers, who are equally as squishy.

As to being set on fire, I'm sure you've seen some movie where a guy gets lit on fire and continues fighting for at least a few seconds, comes at you all "AAAAGGGGHH" and tries to basically burn you with him. Assuming magic fire evaporates more quickly than say, burning tar, I think the effect would be enhanced.



But that Orc could have his throat slit from behind and die just as quickly. I don't think stealth guys should do high damage just because they have light armor. They should have high damage for sneaking up and attacking an opponent unawares. Mages on the other hand can blast a fireball, then paralyze the orc, blast him again, rinse, and repeat. If things get real bad, turn invisible and run away.

Of course, ALL this is assuming "pure classes." What about a barbarian warrior who wears NO armor? If warriors dealt low damage, he'd be useless. But if warriors dealt high damage, he could use his lack of armor to increase his ability to spam attacks without collapsing of fatigue. To fight this, a mage might wear heavy armor, take the first blow, then use an "on touch" spell (which are cheaper in terms of magica than ranged spells, which is good as his magic bar will be lower than a pure mage) and he then might pull out a sword and continue to fight with the now weakened barbarian.

I will agree that Goblin Warlords and the Scalling were PART of the Problem. But they were not the entire problem.

I do like how you pick and choose which wizards from popular fiction and from legend you point to, while also leaving out many of the feats attributed to those you mentions. You think Dumbledore or Voldemort or Yoda couldn't destroy a batch of goblins in an instant? No mention of the ancient Prophets who parted seas, and summoned fire storms, and ancient folktale fairies and enchanters who, forget about paralysis, could turn folks to stone, or frogs, or put whole kingdoms asleep for a century, etc. etc.

Merlin transformed Uther into the mirror image of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, so that Uther could bed the Duke's wife, Igrayne. I would say that such a convincing transformation would rank right up there with invisibility as far as illusion magic and alteration spells go.

And as to Gandalf. . . oh, my dear lady, you have come to the right person. I know more than most about Olorin The Maia, Enemy of Sauron The Maia, who came into this Middle-Earth in the guise of an aged wanderer and had many names among the many people. Cannon is the books, not Peter Jackson. Peter candidly stated that he had a bias against explosive displays of magic, and that bias shows in that, at the same time he turned Legolas into a hybrid cougar -man with expert marksman skills, he edited out most of Gandalf's more spectacular feats of magic. Even so, that storm Saruman summons in the first film, and the mountaintop shattering mountain which issued from it. . . probably could take down a couple of goblins. That said, if you actually read The Hobbit, Gandalf kills dozens of goblins with explosive magic early on in the book. He is seen using similar explosive power against the wargs in the novel of Fellowship of The Rings, AND, he fends off all Nine of The Nazgul Lords in a night long excercise of powerful fire enchantments atop Amon Sul.

Also, Gandalf became invisible on several occassions. After killing several goblins with lightning in the caves, he vanished and followed Bilbo and the dwarves unseen into the chamber of The Great Goblin.

Though even if this were not so, the relevant issue would be what mages in ES lore can do. Does Tarzan's lack of Superhuman strength mean He-Man and Superman cannot have it either? Should Gargamael's limitations as a wicked warlock extend to Voldemort?

A powerful wizard, on par with Dumbledore and the like, would indeed be able to walk into a town and fry it (several wizards in ES Lore perform such feats), just as a mighty warrior, of superhuman strength (which the game and lore do allow) could walk into a village and slaughter everyone, if they were so inclined to evil.

I get the feeling that some of the most ardent nay sayers to powerful magic, are in the school that likes the Conan type Nord warrior, and relishes the idea of them cutting through minor sorcerers like a scythe through wheat. Some my have images in mind of the rather pitiful sorcerers who fill the Conan novels, always made feeble enough for a brawny barbarian with no magical protections to speak of, to overcome with relative ease: the much feared but largely feeble summoner who calls a pack of ineffective wind spirits to blow sand in Conan's eyes, right before Conan hurls his sword through the dust cloud and cleaves the inept magician in half. I think the notion of the Voldemort type wizard who could fry a barbarian where he stands is an unnerving anathema to such players, and thus, the conviction that moderately powerful magic should be paired down untill it is properly ineffectie.

ive probably contradicted myself several times over the last few posts because i just say what im thinking even if it directly contradicts something i previously said but my main argument is it should be fun and you should be able to play however you want. you should only be limited by your own limits. you shouldnt be limited by other people whining about something they dont like.

To use outmoded 70s vernacular from before I was born. . . GPSTR, you are my MAIN MAN! :foodndrink:
Your words are sagacious, as ever.

It obviously will have posts like that.....as thats EXACTLY what the op is asking for now....to be able to do all this...but the difference between your logical sarcasm and the ops actual post is that while you're being sarcastic about not being able to kill ONE with a single spell...hes being serious about not being able to kill SEVERAL with a single spell







Thats like saying any swordsman worth his salt should be able to wait until he has 10 enemies around him then in one motion spin around slicing through all their throats killing them all instantly, even if you cant do it again for a short time.

now i might contradict myself here, sorry if i do. by warriors having low damage i mean against other warriors, they can hack at each other for a while before killing them. but if they get close enough to an archer they could split him in two. they could do the same with a mage sometimes, depends on the magic he's employing. by that i mean if hes pure destruction and lets the warrior get to close hes dead but if hes got a few tricks up his sleeve he could paralyze real quick and (hopefully) levitate away.

all right im done, i think im confusing myself so im just gonna go play a good ole simple FPS to clear my head

You want to a super powerful mage that's outside the limits of the normal balanced game? You want to destroy cities in a single spell? Uh, mods, cheats, and difficulty sliders are -------> that way. Simple enough, no? And I'm pretty sure NO ONE will care if you decide to tinker with the difficulty slider or if you decide to play with cheats in YOUR single player game. Have fun.

They definitely look overpowered in Skyrim... I'm probably playing as a Mage though so I'll just amp up the difficulty to balance it out.

The problem with mages isn't that magic was "too powerful", you have to get specific. When I was playing a mage in Oblivion, I knew 100% for certain that if I played a certain way, I would never die (let alone take a single hit). You could easily just walk around with Invisible cast all the time, and when you found an enemy you would just cast paralyze repeatedly while spamming offensive spells or melee attacks. Took no skill to do, and it made the combat feel like a dumbed-down joke. And that's not even getting in to some of the spells you could craft (like an 85 point shield spell that gives you the same defense as Daedric Armour, or how you could stack spells with weakness to magic effects to strategically one-hit-kill creatures)... it became very clear to me after playing a mage that they were the easy-mode class, and I don't want Skyrim to have an easy-mode class. The other archetypes need to be equivalently as powerful as a mage, and the only way I can realistically see that happening is if they review and rebalance a lot of the mages' gameplay mechanics from past games.

You people are foolish to think that a fireball or some ice is more of a mortal threat than a bladed weapon of any size.

Getting shocked doesn't hurt nearly as badly as a sword being driven through your body.
Mages are powerful in that they have more ready access to damage negation and resistances, melee attackers of any sort are powerful in that they are using deadly weapons at close range.

I never play archers, so I don't care about their mechanics.

I found that goblin warlords were powerful against warriors too. It took many attacks to take them down and unlike a cowardly mage, you had to engage in close combat with them whereas a mage could jump backwards (or flip jump backwards, whatever suits you) and cast all manners of spells at them, summon creatures and magically heal their health. The E3 gameplay video confirms my suspicions that combat looks easy...well at least as a mage.

In fact, I turned my warrior into a battle mage just because of how easy it was to kill people with a fireball plus, I didn't have to go through the stress of them blocking me and me staggering as a result of it.

:cryvaultboy: :sadvaultboy: :spotted owl:

The closest emoticon they have for warrior is this: :poke: It svcks I know. Mages again get the more attention...cowardly bastards. I enjoyed killing them in Dragon Age and siding with the Templars.

I agree with the original post, to a certain extent.

In the firt place, I can't understand what "overpowered" means when it's about Magic. I think it can refer to two things.

First, some people who think that mages could be overpowered might fear that the game could not offer them enough challenge when they finally reach the rank of Master Wizard. Well, this is losing sight of the possibility that the game might contain other master wizards than the player.

Second, people could think that master wizards being able to achieve things common guys couldn't even dream of are quite unrealisitic. And from lack of realism, they infer immersion break. Well, this is losing sight of a slight difference between a realist world, and a believable world. Nirn is unrealistic in the sense that it is unalike the "real" world. Yet Nirn is a believable world. Of course, believability requires an amount of realism, but more specifically in behaviour, choices, coherence, historical logic and ecological patterns. Believability requires that mages that are supposed to be powerful indeed happen to be. In other words, even if it is unrealistic, the extent of the magical power of a master wizard, to be believable, should be extremely wide.

Well, let me give some examples of what I always thought magic should look like. (Though I don't think the current state of technology could even allow to render even a small part of it on the screen.)

Well, one of my peculiar fantasies, when it comes to magic, would be to encounter a Monarch. Those are said to be extremely powerful greater Atronachs. Well, the picture I see is that of a tall being, incredibly charismatic, speaking to you with a refined tongue yet what he says is terrifying. He could be dreadfully powerful enough to freeze entire lakes when he has to cross it, he could frighten entire cities, he could manipulate the waters of a lake to build a wondrous castle of ice... THAT could be an adversary for a grand wizard. For those ennemies, it would make perfect sense that the fight against a mage could be long lasting, terrifying, epic, the kinf of event that breaks down the castle of ice and transform the lake into a chaos of sharp broken ice and boiling waters and the surrounding forest into heap of half burnt wood broken by the wild winds of blizzard and fire that have been casted.

An illusion mage that has reached sufficient level of mastery could make an entire city believe that the sun is rising or that it darkens, or that it stands still. Why should he? To make people believe that it's earlier or later than reality, which could provide military advantage, to provoque panic or crowd movements and take advantage of the confusion, or for any other reason. To avoid a battle, poweful mages should be able to make all swords on the battle field so burning hot that soldiers must drop them. Or they could frighten the soldiers massively. A powerful mage should be able to take control of somebody's mind and force him to kill anybody else. A powerful alteration mage should be able to change the weather drastically, as the Ayleids did, and to summon dread storms, making an entire float sink. A necromancer standing in the middle of an ancient battlefield should be able to raise an army. A powerful healer and necromancer could even perhaps resurect his beloved, possibly after a long and epic quest.

Well, perhaps it is overpowered? I don't think so, for two reasons. The first one is that, in my opinion, all of these fit the lore. The lore is full of wondrous things achieved by great Mages. The second is that one can never be overpowered but with respect to his opponents. Which means that if there are (of course rare) dreadful opponents such as ancient liches, monarchs, especially powerful dragons, whose resiliance and resistence are justified, then the battle will offer challenge anyway. And if there is challenge, there is no overpower.