The fact is that even though you can CHOOSE not to use invisibility, having such an overpowered ability constantly available makes it very difficult to resist. For example, if I want to do an Oblivion Gate it might take half an hour because I have to fight all the daedra... but if I have invisibility I can just run through in about five minutes. It ruins the immersion, but it's difficult to resist.

You know the Blade of Woe quest item you get for joining the Dark Brotherhood? You can't get rid of it until you complete the guild questline. Well, imagine if instead of being a weak little dagger, it was in fact a ridiculously powerful blade that did about ten times the damage of a normal sword. You would have it constantly in your inventory. Whenever you fought an enemy but were using a weaker sword, you would constantly say to yourself "If I were using the blade of woe I would be killing him so much easier". Sure you could choose not to use it... but actually COULD you? Constantly having this ultimate sword in your inventory would be a real pain, because either A) You never use it but wish you could, or B) You use it and ruin the immersion and the challenge. Well, invisibility is the very same. Once you've learned the spell it's constantly there, and the temptation to use it utterly ruins the fun.

On my first character in oblivion I learned an invisibility spell as soon as possible. A few hours later I abandoned the character and started anew, because I hated the way it made things so easy.



Just because you can choose not to use something doesn't mean the devs shouldn't fix it. If something is broken, what's wrong with wanting to improve it?

Invisibility/chameleon need to stay, but NPCs just need to learn how to use detect humanoid

I really think the AI is the problem more than an over powered effect. The NPCs don't have any kind of situational awareness. I kill one of several NPCs in a room, but since they don't detect me, they don't look to see why the guy died. If I'm well hidden, and don't move, I can usually pick off everyone in the room.

I never use chameleon or invisibility since I never needed them.

In the fallout games the AI is a little better. I've had monsters keep looking for me for several minutes, rather than give up quickly. It's harder to use stealth in those games too. So maybe the creatures we encounter will act in a more realistic manner. I hope so.

So long as interacting with the environment breaks it, I think invisibility is fine. I think that other that voluntary (the player setting rules for themselves) balance at high levels conflicts pretty directly with fun, and if their intent is to make it possible to play a pure mage, then mages need to have alternative ways of doing things.

There is a sword like that in Oblivion it's called Umbra although you don't get it like the Blade Of Woe you still could get it with little effort.

I do agree with you and the argument for "Well just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it" is a very weak and poor counter argument. If there is an overpowering game mechanic in the game that makes the game incredibly easy then why keep it in. If it's broken then it needs to be fixed or gotten rid of. In Invisibility's case I don't need to see it go but it needs a major overhaul and it needs to be toned down.

I wouldn't complain if they removed Invisibility and instead improved stealth - like enabling you to re-hide after being spotted.

Or nerf Invisibility so that it's as limited as Cloak Mode in Crysis, then it would feel like an accomplishment to sneak past enemies instead of a cheat.

Hopefully, without spellmaking, the existing Invisibility spells will not be cheap enough to be used repeatedly or strong enough to last forever.

100 Sneak in Oblivion is way better then Invisibility. Even though Invisibility made you invisibile 100 sneak allowed you to walk right up behind an enemy and take them down. Pretty much the same thing but you aren't invisible and if the enemy looks around he/she will spot you.

Invisibillity annoyed me too as much as I liked it. I think it is matter of balance. Maybe keep it in, but like some other previous posts, have a way for the enemy to detect you. Maybe some have detect life spells or enchanted items. Those enchanted items would glow slightly so you can tell from a far that being invisible doesn't work.

I liked invisibility in OB, using it for when a Mage needy to be hidden was cool but I feel it needs to make more sense with in the games world and eugh I hate saying this but for realisms sake, so if i'm stomping about making lots of noise while invisible I should probably b detected so for if I bump into someone. I don't think it should be removed or gimped so much that's it's useless because as others have said tes should encompass lots of playstyles but it had to make sense with in the game world

I can't agree to this statement though... because invisibility is something that should be available to all play styles (except those that choose not to use magic at all or that school of it) but not be broken. Sure you should be allowed to use invisiblity or not use invisibility. You should be allowed to or not to do anything you want. That doesn't mean that the mechanic should be broken, glitchy, or silly unless the game is supposed to be silly. TES is not supposed to be silly. Yes YOU can be silly, and RP someone silly, but clearly the devs aren't intending the MECHANICS to be silly.

Cast invisibility all you want, but let invisibility make sense to the game world. You should be able to be heard, detected with Detect Life, bumped into, etc. The real flaws to invisibility are the same flaws to darkness (or lack thereof) in the old games. What invisibility needs isn't a rewrite of the spell, but of the NPC's AI. A smarter, more believable AI and game mechanic is better than allowing people access to a virtual cheat in game for their difficulty bypassing pleasure.

People seem to be confusing chameleon with invisibility and like someone else said, why are you not complaining about sneaking? It was way more powerful than Invisibility or Chameleon below 100%. Obviously a little Chameleon with a high sneak is enough to be extremely OPed. There was nothing wrong with Invisibility, Chameleon could use some balance with better AI. Although 100% chameleon should leave you almost undetectable, since it would be a master spell anyway.

Here here!

I loved Invisibility on my Illusion Mage. Its one of his favorite spells and I hope its in the game and done very well.

In my opinion it was balanced very well in Oblivion, as it canceled upon action and didn't last super long and took a decent chunk of magicka.

One starts to get the feeling that the players complaining are not just upset over an inability to restrain themselves from using invisibility. . . it is that some of them don't want the game to allow any other players to create characters who have distinct advantages over the type character they wish to play. It would be like a mage oriented player complaining that warriors should not be able to break down doors (they aren't anyway, but this is hypothetical remember), or mage and warrior based players going on about how master sneak should not be so thorough etc.

Are open lock spells also overpowered because the allow the mage to bypass the trouble of lockpicks and lockpicking? Is Nocturnal's skeleton Key a game breaker? Or is the spell a reasonable thing for a powerful wizard to have, allowing him to access things and places a normal person could not open or enter? Is not the Skeleton Key a rare Daedric artifact, granted by a goddess in return for a valued and heroic service?

Mages can do things that normal people can't. SURPRISE! It is why Bilbo was careful not to close his door too quickly on Gandalf, even though he wanted him to go away. He noted that, "Wizards, after all, are Wizards." And they can do things the average bloke cannot, like curse your fields to be blighted for a hundred years, or turn you into a toad. A game that balances wizardry out until it is barely worth having, or is perfectly in line with the abilities of every other type of player, not only breaks immersion, it takes all the magic out of magecraft.

And in Oblivion creatures could hear you, despite invisibility. Some creatures would even come in your general direction while you were invisible, but they could not actually find you. Since I have brought up a certain famed hobbit, This is not unlike what Bilbo experienced in the presence of The Great Dragon Smaug. "Well, thief. I can smell you, feel your air, and I hear your breath. . . " It was enough for the leviathan to know someone was in the room with him, and to have a general idea of where that someone was, but it did not allow him to actually pin the hobbit down and crush, eat, bisect or incenerate him.

if you know how to use it it could have been an easy game breaker if you put it on armor you have the unlimited invisibility and can do what you want with no limitations... so yeah i agree with the Op. tbh its only use is if you want to skip something one of my oblivion characters had the rangers chest that added invisibility, i never really used it i sold it and stuck with my dark brotherhood outfit

open lock spells are a stupid game mechanic. they make the security skill completely obsolete. it was bad enough that you could beat the minigame with low level lockpick skills but on top of that you could pick alteration and be able to cast open the locks anyways. and to add even more on top..........you didnt have to worry about lockpicks anymore since you just cast the spell. alot of people either skipped nocturnals key or in my case used a mod that reduced its effect to only 5.

as for invisibility, lots of people want to use invisibility including me.............why am i forced to have to use something that is clearly overpowered. why am i supposed to put up with a system that essentially destroys gameplay. clearly some people want to have god like characters that never get hurt but serious gamers want an actual challenge. i will say this in the plainest possible words. ITS NOT OPTIONAL IF I CANT USE IT CAUSE IT RUINS GAMEPLAY.

if swords were consistently more powerful than axes...........does that mean people that want to use axes should just shut up. after all axes are optional. you dont have to use axes you can just use nothing but swords.

and my biggest issue is that why can i go around and cast invisie all over the place and do sneak attacks but NPCs cannot. if i can do something then NPCs should be able to do the exact same thing as long as they are of the same class.

Frankly I don't really care what options Bethesda do include in the game, because as a single player game its always my choice to use it ot not. What I do care about is Bethesda taking options out of the game that I might want to use.

not gonna lie i completely abused invisibility in the thieves guild as well as the 100 percent chameleon you could get from certain items. There should be a solution, after reading over this i think the best one is make invis cost a lot of magicka

Ah. So there should be no lock spells in your opinion either. But does that make sense?

Be serious. If you were given an account where Gandalf, or Dumbledore, or Raistlin, or Elminster, or Ged, or Merlin, or Harry Potter, or Lamia, or Hannibal Traven, or the mage who wrote "On Oblivion" and "Darkest Darkness", or any other famous wizard, and in that account the mage came up against a locked door. . . . if they gave up on getting in because they had run out of anything suitable for picking a lock, you would laugh yourself sick, and refuse to listen to another word of the story. You would say, or at least most people would, "I thought he was this awesome friggin mage? He can't get into a locked door without a key or a lock pick? Why doesn't he use magic, for God's sake?!

That is the thing about magic. . . it can circumvent normal conventions and rules. You seem to be trending towards a game like Fable where the mage has no abilities beyond battle magic/elemental attacks etc. A well rounded wizard should be able to get into locked places without a pick or a hair pin, and they should also be able to avoid being seen when the wish.

he is saying that lock spells arent stupid for a certain type of character.. Like if your specialized for a mage a mage should be able to unlock doors with a spell.. a thief can pick the lock. There are multiple ways to do certain things depending on your character

I actually really love using it, but I don't mind them limiting it. Even though you couldn't really touch or do anything without showing yourself, so that was a limit.

Its fine. Just make mages smart enough to use life detect if they hear something, and have non magic type fighters ready up if they hear something. If they suddenly have someone die, they should panic too. Maybe swing their swords around a little, or have them kick up some dust that messes with the invisability spell when it too becomes invisible after touching you. Making chamelion and invisiblity harder to obtain and use would work good enough.

Removing stuff doesn't make it ballanced. Ballancing makes things ballanced. Smarter ai gets rid of tons of the gripes people have on being overpowered. If npc's would be smart enough to sneak up on me, using invisibility and other things as well, suddenly the player is a lot less overpowered. Heck, if they're pathing could allow them to jump as well then there goes the stand on rock exploit.

The problem is with games like Oblivion and soon to be Skyrim, is that the player can do so many things. We're allowed to do anything really. And the problem arrises that creating ai that can handle something like that is nothing short of asking for ai as smart as humans. Next thing we know, TES will be the reason robots take over the world. Anyway, other games have it much easier, because the player is limited. When all the player can do is shoot, all the ai has to worry about is getting behind stuff to be safe, and then shooting back.

When we as a player can go invisible, shoot arrows, swing a sword, teleport by speaking a word, and all the other stuff we'll be able to do...asking for ai to handle all that is asking for near human intellect. The ai in skyrim will not be perfect. People should accept that right now. But it will be better. The ai improvements from Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim is pretty obvious. Skyrim will be another improvement...but it still isn't going to be perfect.

if gandalf used a spell to unlock the door i would be more inclined to laugh. i would imagine gandalf just using his force push to blow the door off the hinges if anything.

as for the game its a stupid game mechanic because it made security a nonviable choice. security didnt do anything in oblivion since you could do the minigame with less than 50 in the skill easily and some people bragged they could to very hard locks right off the bat. why would anyone pick security if they could pick an entire school of magic as a major that also let you open locks and gave you other spells. open lock spells should have been limited to only being able to unlock hard level spells leaving the really tricky locks for the thief type characters. i have the same issue with fortify, restore health and cure disease spells as well. you could buy them or make them very early in the game and made potions almost meaningless. disease was a joke in the game cause you got cure disease at journeyman. they should have made some of the rarer diseases only curable at an altar.

one of the reasons i dont like TES magic is that there are no restrictions or limitations on it at all. in the D&D games you had a limit on how many spells you can cast per day or period. with oblivion your magicka regenerated so fast that it made all the spells easily spammable. i dont mind poweful magic and in fact attack spells should have monumental amounts of damage...............but you shouldnt be able to keep casting those spells every few seconds. i dont like "epic" games where i end up wading through dozens of enemies at a time barely taking any damage.......if i wanted that i would go play assassins creed and chain attack 20 guards in a row.

if a mage can be just as sneaky as a thief using spells and get past any lock using spells and has ranged attacks like thieves as well, then whats the point in having sneak or security at all then. why bother making a thief character when mages can do the same thing and get all the "mage" extras like fireballs as well. ever class should have something that it excels in. very hard locks and traps should be the domain of thieves.

Sorry, but youre argument makes no sense at all.
The way I see it you want to force a single playstyle on a game that inherently and by default means you can choose lots of playstyles.
You say open/lock made lockpicks obsolete?
Well that is kind of the point. Mages are not thieves and do not use lockpicks, they can spend their time better training their magical skills than their thief skills.
You are saying everyone should be forced to train security.
I think you are confused with a shooter or maybe you have never played a TES game before.

What is the point of having sneak and security?
Well dur, a thief style character is fundamentally different from a mage style character.
Now if only the ability to bash open locks came back to provide an option for warriors it would be perfect.
But you dont go clamour to remove something totally optional just because you cant resist the need to powergame instead of roleplaying.
Its sellfish and bullheaded.
Many a people here, me included, dont give a flying ratchet about powergaming. Was Umbra the best sword in the vanilla game? Yes. Does that mean that its the only sword anyone ever used? No, I have actually not one time not turned it in to Clavicus Vile in exchange for the helmet. I prefer simple, unenchanted longswords and that is what I play with.

And as has been said many a time before: We should not all be refused cookies just because the fat kid cant keep his hands out of the cookie jar.

Yes, and thats important in TES
Otherwise we'd all have to play jack of all trades characters

Back on subject I'd like to see invisibility remain but I think some of the ideas about limiting it like you can still be heard, a suspicious mage might cast Detect Life etc, are good
I'd rather they cut or drastically nerf chameleon