I fear that playing hyprid characters like battlemages, nightblades etc. might become significantly harder (as in less enjoyable) in Skyrim:

1. When you level up you will have to decide if you want to raise magicka, health or stamina (as far as I understood the attributes are gone) but whereas a warrior might only need to put most points in health and some points in stamina eventually reaching high values in those, a battlemage would need all of these raised and will most likely end up weak in all categories. In previous iterations of TES you just planned a little bit more and could get most if not all attributes to the maximum.

2. I also fear that the perks will mostly be designed for archetype warrior, mage, thief/assassin characters and hyprids might not get perks specially designed for them. I strongly hope to be wrong here put implementing those in addition seems like a lot of work and quiet difficult (concerning balancing).

3. All skillups will count towards a level increase and while the highest skills will be weighted more a hyprid charcter will still need more skills at high levels to be effective (or to just feel like one) than a warrior / mage etc. and therefore might reach higher levels faster without really high skills.

Are there any infos concerning this?

PS: sorry if my english seems a little strange it`s not my first language. ^^

So what you're saying is its going to be a challenge. right? i don't see the problem in that

but your concern is legit. we'll just have to see what bethesda has in mind i'm sure they've pondered over this a lot.

If you want to level up specific perks, you can. That's the point of this new system, to better allow you to play what exactly you want to be.

So battle-mages won't be as good at magic as pure mages, and won't be as good at weapons as pure fighters?

Well duh...

this

its not surprising you cant be an expert in all areas

They have more or less said that the character who specializes in a single or a few skills will be more powerfull than one who uses many (Todd Howard podcast i think).

It is only right that if you want to be a jack of all trades you will only be 'good' at things and not specialised in anything. So in the senario you are creating the very label hybrid, is the best of everything all in one. This wouldn't and shouldn't be achievable.

However I don't believe a battle Mage for example should be a hybrid class, it is more someone who is very strong with a sword but not the best, and very good with magic, but again not the best. IMO this is the right way to do it because a pure Mage and a pure warrior should be better in their respective skills. The new system will allow you to perk your particular magic skills of choice to the max and your sword skills for example, but rightfully so, you will lose out on the redundant magic and weapon perks you have chosen to ignore.

So to answer your topic title, no I don't think it will be hard to play as a battle Mage. If you choose the right perks and skills I think you could create a very strong, interesting and fun character

1) Seems like it should be, if you want to specialize in more than one area you are gonna take a hit for it. You'll be able to adapt to more situations so it should make up for it.

2) Going by the plethora of preset classes in Oblivion that mixed up different styles of play, I'm sure Bethesda will do all they can to facilitate that in Skyrim.

Well you could definitely do exactly that in Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion so it didn′t seem all that obvious to me, but thank you for enlighting me. ^^

Well, more powerful within a certain area. Your typical pure warrior/tank character is still in trouble if he runs into spellcasters and doesn't have apropriate gear - that's the whole point of having a hybrid character: to be able to engage a broader selectrion of enemies. :read:

On another note.
Since leveling any skill from 10-11 awards less towards leveling the same skill from 50-51, players that specialise in lots of skills will level up aproximately as fast (although just a bit faster perhaps) as someone that only trains one or two skills.

And hey, there's nothing a good mod can't fix in the worst case scenario.

:tes:

You're saying a battle-mage needs to raise Magicka, Fatigue and Health, but what it really needs to raise is Magicka, 'cause you can use Magicka to restore Health and Fatigue, and you can use restoration potions as well. That's what being a mage is all about. I don't see why there should be a problem with a little challenge.

Sounds about right to me. Hybrids are meant to be a jack of all trades-master of none, imo.

I don't really see how the new leveling system will make it harder. You'll still get a perk each level up. Bethesda has done pretty good thus far making any template viable and I imagine that trend will continue.

I don't really like how this level-bound system sounds.Sure,it makes it interesting to have to make more choices,but it'll always get harder to level and probably you won't be able to change to an archer from a swordsman at level 30.The system will make you start all over again,which I don't want just to use bows instead of swords.

As for hybrid classes,I think that's one of the most important aspects of TES.The game used to break cliches so damn hard.You could be a sneaky axe-wielder,or a fully armored mage.Or a Dark Elf who isn't evil.If that aspect is lost,and we'll "make our choices" to become a wizard,archer or paladin in the end,I'll be very disappointed.

More powerful in a certain skill category is what I'm sure he meant, not overall.

I don't care what the devs do, but I'll probably mod in (or get a mod) for two perks per level.

You can still be a "master" of everything like past games. At least as far as skills go. For perks and those level bonuses, you will take a hit from that.

Or you could flip it, a battle Mage could have a ton if health and a little pool of mana. You can be a heavy combatant and fall back on magic when you need it.

Perks are skill specific, so there are no mage-perks, fighter-perks. Just pick the perks that benefit your archetype. There is no limit to how many skills you can max out. With the perks, you'd can maximize your character by only following perk trees that apply to you. For example: A pure Mage can pick all destruction perks(lighting, fire, frost), with little fear of running out of perks before the soft cap. A fighter can do the same for one handed weapons(blunt, axe, blade), but battle-mage might need to be or selective. Maybe follow the blunt tree and the lighting tree (blunt good against armor, lightning good against mages) living you enough perks to spec your character to you liking.

All characters should be as strong as one another, the specific differences being in specialization, so a mage is as strong as a fighter or archer, but that a jack of all trades is still as strong as the rest, just weaker in their specific area. A jack of all trades would surely still be harder to train tho but will be more verstile because of it. That I think is the way it should be designed. After all, the most verstile warriors usually actually are the ones who live/survive while in reality those that train specifially in only one area tend to have many openings against styles or techniques they have not seen before... a Samurai with a Katana needs to get close to a Samurai with a Bow and a Katana... the one with the bow will use the bow first to wound the other Samurai and then finish him off in melee combat. Or European soldiers would toss things like Javelins and Axes and then go in with a Spear or a Sword.

As for becoming perfect in all areas, it's not that big a deal, in most of those games you couldn't do that until near the end of levelling anyway, you'd have to build up your character in one style, the biggest problem I think is you just started off too well at everything (expect conjuration what was just a single bound spell....) since all the attributes started at an average of about 55, really getting +45 on all attributes wasn't that hard. If the attributes had been designed to start lower then in Oblivion it'd have been a heck of a lot harder to cap them all say all attributes average to around 25 at the start, it'd have required really tailoring your level up with care and dedication to cap all stats like that given how Oblivion was designed. I think this, Perks are an answer to making play styles and characters more unique and hybrid tactics is just another play style.

I do however fear that they will ignore the hybrids just that bit too much. A hybrid should not be as capable at fighting as a warrior, spell casting as a mage or as good of a marksman as an archer, but a hybrid should still be able to compete with them or even best them. A hybrid takes advantages of more tactics and styles, a hybrid would use a bow and use long range to weaken down a warrior, the hybrid will get in close and slash down the mage with a sword at close range and the hybrid will use magic and enthrall an archer before cooking his insides with a fireball. A hybrid is verstile and while not as strong as the others directly, should be stronger indirectly because of their verstility.

I believe it'll be hard to make an hybrid char in the 1st playthought. I'm aiming at that, because battlemages (or some sort of "magic warrior") are my favourite classes, but I'm already aware that I might have to redo my char at some point. I'll try my best not to need to do it, though...

thats what svcked about morrowind and oblivion and youre welcome

With the dragon shouts won't every type of character have access to really powerful magic abilities no matter what skills they excersize? Obviously, you have to find all the component parts of dragon shouts to increase their power, but aside from that, they aren't dependent on level as well, right? So, in essence, that opens up hybrid character options pretty significantly, because dragon shouts are definitely a form ofl magic, seemingly very powerful, that every archetype as far as I understand it has access too.

Remember, however, that health ALWAYS raises when you level up. So warriors double up on health (or can put into stamina), while a battlemage could just put points into magicka and health, each other level or so. It'll be slower than a warrior, but probably faster than a pure mage (a mage might do magicak every 2 levels and health every third).

A legitimate concern, but if the perks are anywhere as good as New Vegas we won't have this problem.

That doesn't make any sense. A hybrid character always sacrifices skills. For example, in Morrowind, a battlemage will always be split right down the middle. A weapon skill, an armor skill, probably block, armorer, and then 4 or so magic skills (probably destruction, alteration, restoration, and conjuration, the most offensive of the seven) and probably alchemy. The same will happen in Skyrim, so I don't see the issue with leveling up. Trying to level 12 separate skills at a once (all combat and magical skills) is just asking to have slow leveling anyways. It would be more prudent to choose a good 6 to level up, just as a battlemage in Morrowind and Oblivion can never pick ALL combat and ALL magical skills. That's just spreading it too thin.

From what I know, when you level up, your health raises and then you can choose an additional boost in health, magicka, or stamina. I'm intereseted in seeing how they'll handle hybrid characters. But, keep in mind there are 280+ perks... That's a lot.

I think one of the biggest drawbacks for that hybrid type is that you don't have anything to block with, assuming you are using a spell and an axe/mace/sword in the other hand.

Move [censored]!! Duck and weave.

Ward spell, shield spell, turn invisible, summon creature, paralyze, conjure shield. You can always heal yourself after every blow.

I doubt it will be hard to play a hybrid, I thought one of the reason they did away with classes was to allow you to experience the game how ever you choose. Placing restrictions would be counter productive.

No.Playing as battle mage is never hard.