I haven't seen anyone bring this up yet. I always found it odd that to get new spells you purchase them as if they're an item. I understand the idea is that you are paying the person to teach you the spell, but it always felt more like you're just buying it. Maybe this time the spell merchants could actually have some kind of interaction where they actually teach you the spell? I know it would be a lot of work to add into the game, but it would make learning spells feel a lot less awkward.

Yeah it'd be nice for immersion purposes, but I don't think that this is a necessary aspect that we need in game. If the Devs have extra time though, then go for it.

You dont purchase them, they teach you to use it. For money. Wich is purchasing.
It would be nice if buying a spell would take time, like training at a trainer.
But I do hope there are still mages out there willing to teach me a spell or two. For money.
Some sort of animation could be nice. Maybe the both of you could pull your spell book out and you could scribble away in yours while he reads out from his.

Like I said in my OP:



You can just walk into a mage's guild, go up to someone, click on five spells, and you instantly know them all without any passage of time. It would be nice if they could somehow make it seem like they are actually teaching you the spell.

In other words, I want it to feel like I'm paying for spell training, not like I'm paying for spells.

I imagine the philosophy will still be "no cutscenes outside of quests and no tutorials after early game." Can fast travel be immersion-breaking? Sure, but it doesn't have to be. The same goes with interacting with NPCs, anything that they did would be far too annoying after the first time.

One way I think they might be able to do that is you buy your low level spell and then use it enough times until you are ready to be trained in the next level of that specific spell... say you learn a fireball spell, at first it is quite weak but once you have used it enough it will notify you that you are eligible for the next level fireball spell. You can then go to a mage to "unlock" it's potential with all you have "learned" by using the spell. I get what you are saying.

How about being able to chop wood? Why doesn't the game just pass a few hours and give you some extra coins? We don't really need to see any actual interaction.

But learning a spell doesn't have to be a cutscene. It could, and should, be interactive.

I totally agree. I also hope they add more ways of obtaining them, i.e. you rescue a lady from a dungeon, so she teaches you a new spell.

I mean it could be something as simple as this (lets say you go to a spell merchant to buy a fireball spell):

The merchant takes you out back to some kind of target, or possibly they conjure a low level enemy. Then they say "watch closely" and cast the fireball. Then the spell appears in your hand, and you practice it a few times on the conjured enemies until you tell the trainer that you're done.

That's all I would need to feel immersed. The trainer casts a spell once or twice, then instructs you to do the same. Maybe your spell could initially fail, but after a few attempts you understand it and can use it properly.

I sympathise with the sentiment: it's true that sixy little animations can be fun the first few times, but then quickly get annoying. Like opening a map, for example. It might be cool the first few times to watch your character take out a map from his pocket (or wherever) and unfold it. But it'll quickly get annoying, because you just want to bypass it to look at the map.

But I think there are (at least) a couple of differences with spell training. Firstly, we know that there are only about 80 or 90 spells (I may not be recalling the exact number correctly, but I'm pretty sure that's roughly right). So the spell training animation won't be seen all that regularly, and it has an upper limit. Secondly, I think there's the potential here to make the spell training animation interesting and useful: there could be a different animation for each spell, where the seller demonstrates the spell to you. One might it imagine the situation going like this. The seller says "you say the magic words, and this is what happens" *zap*.



Yep, I think this would work nicely.

That would hold true for something like a looting animation which will be triggered 1000's of times in a single playthrough but not for something like buying spells which is going to be triggered very few times comparative to say fast traveling or resting or even bartering. I say make a spell salesman more like trainer and make time pass after nice little animation plays on the npc before the fade to black(that's when time will actually move forward).

Yeah I think they said about 85. Each spell training session would be different, because the NPC is demonstrating a different spell.

Well, this would be a great thing, like it. I also think you should be able to skip it, but this way, the option would still be there for the people like the OP and I that want to feel immersed.

Yeah, I would have no problem with an option to skip it, making the screen fade and passing a bit of time. But if it's done properly it would make learning spells feel more like a fun experience and less like a trip to the grocery store.

Maybe they could make learning/purchasing a spell into a minigame where you have to repeat certain syllables after the instructor to learn to properly invoke the spell.

Just please, oh please, let us skip it...in the name of sanity and all that's holy...

I never said anything like that. The merchant conjures an enemy, and demonstrates the spell. They tell you to do the same. The spell is now in your hand, and you can cast it at the conjured enemy at will, until you tell them you're done. That's it.

Not like an hour long cutscene where the trainer starts ranting about balancing your qi and understanding, deconstructing, and reconstructing matter. Just a simple demonstration followed by the immediate chance to try out your new spell.

what about based on your intelligence/wisdom/magicka there is a % chance that you will succeed in learning the spell from your "Professor" so to speak if you so choose to skip the minigame. sorta how they have the two different methods of picking locks in fallout 3. You can do it yourself or possibly bust the lock. Of course it wouldn't be something like "You cannot learn this spell" but you just forfeit the gold you spent because you took a test and failed.

i agree, but it should be really simplt and skipable. think Baurus's corny training session when you join the blades if he's alive.


alsom i'd like to be able to teach other people spells for money. If you have an uber-powerful spell, wouldn;t a spell erchant want to learn it?

I'm fine with that- as long as we can skip it.

Yeah, I see no problem with that. I just think that there should be an option for learning spells to feel different from buying scrolls.

Yep, skipping is good.

I'd love if they added a different way besides purchasing/spellmaking to get spells.

Kind of like the spell tomes addon, but different.

I definitely like spell tomes. As far as something different, there are few ways that would be pretty cool. Maybe there could be a reflect spell, causing you to return the enemy's spell back at them. After you've successfully reflected a certain spell x number of times, you can now cast the spell on your own. Just one idea.

I'm sure we'll be able to buy spells as well as find tomes. I doubt we'll see the NPC teach us though.

The only problem with there being a mini game to learn spells would be that they would have to make them different enough to keep me wanting to actually play them and considering how many spells will be included it would be a daunting task to come up with a mini game that would actually keep people interested enough to play it. That is what sort of concerns me about chopping wood, farming and whatnot.. not to detract from the OP. I think that using the spell long enough before you are able to upgrade is good enough for me.