Forums » Elder Scrolls

The Dumbing down of Magic in skyrim

    • 19 posts
    January 12, 2017 3:26 PM EST

    Ronny Philange said:

     You could be able to use illusion to make enemies fight for you rather than just attack anything, or use it to make an alerted enemy ignore you, which would be great for thief builds.

     

    Agree, it would make more sense than being a master stealthy character with 100 sneak skill and be right under the nose of an ennemi without him detecting you.

    • 627 posts
    January 12, 2017 3:53 PM EST

    Bonelord said:

    There are no skeleton champions mate, that's what I miss,  magic was dumbed down because you cannot make your own spells, destruction still doesn't scale with skill and it should, you didn't need a black gem to capture human souls, Skyrim was made after the dissolution of the Mages Guild and the ban on necromancy was never implemented, at the College of Winterhold, it was much nicer to play a Mage in Skyrim? not with the expectations I had for ES5 Skyrim.

    Destruction still not scaling isn't dumbing down, because as you said it didn't do it before, so in that regard magic is just as smart as it was in the previous games. I agree however that it would be nice for it to do so, but it still isn't dumbing down that it doesn't do it because it never did.

    In Oblivion you did need a black soul gem to capture the soul of an npc, the white ones could only capture the souls of animals, so again nothing has changed from Oblivion. Sure they could have made them rarer, in fact it probably would have been better if they included the ritual for creating them that was in Oblivion as the main way to obtain then, with necromancers very rarely carrying them, since Mannimarco is still the 3rd moon so he should still be shining the required light.

    Yes I know the Mages Guild is no more, admittedly I didn't realise that it had been disbanded so close to the end of Oblivion, so I'll give you that point ;D

    When I said that it's nicer to play a mage in Skyrim I was talking about the mechanics of it, the fact you can use two spells at once is instantly better then Oblivion's single spell that wasn't even your primary weapon. Sure in Oblivion you could hold a staff and use a spell, but you can do that in Skyrim hell you can use two staves. The removal of spell making in my eyes is a symptom of the reduced variety of spells, which is a negative no matter how they try to lore it away. So you can have half that point... I think that's how it works.

    • 585 posts
    January 12, 2017 5:39 PM EST

    Molicha said:

    It could be great to create a patch of ice and see a bunch of dwemer spiders struggling on it :D. 

     

     

    Also I think it would be more interesting if the spell, say firebolt (destruction), sees its amount of damage increased the more experienced the character is in the school of destruction, other than learning another more powerfull spell which basicaly do the same effect. Like a kind of spell evolution. 

    I think you've hit on something I'd also like to see. I think crowding spell lists with loads of different types can be a little annoying, so being able to learn your way up to more unique effects with existing spells would be cool. Destruction has this a bit, but there's so much more that could be done with it, in terms of gameplay and RP. For example, if you're a very accomplished shock mage with lots of perks, when casting massive spells in the open clouds start to form above you and it begins to rain etc. That would be amazing. Not dramatic effects in gameplay, but little details that make the whole thing more awesome.

    • 6 posts
    January 12, 2017 6:17 PM EST

    Verke00 said:

    Like grabbing someone's face with both hands and see his head turn red by all the fire that is blasted directly through him, while fire is coming out of his mouth and eyes before his limbless body drops to the ground. 

    Jeez mate it's skyrim not manhunt! the hand spells would be cool as a sneak attack though.

    • 1595 posts
    January 12, 2017 9:27 PM EST

    Dragonborn1721 said:

    Damn, my comment didn't seem to go through.

    I think what happened with Skyrim is a re-focusing of Magic. If you remember, the spell systems in Oblivion and Morrowind were kind of clunky, and once you got Spellmaking you were basically overpowered as shit from minute one. What Skyrim focuses on, is your spells being upgradeable rather than needing more spells. I mean, Flames can get up to 30* points of damage fairly easily (not including Taper Damage or Necromage), and that kind of thing was impossible in Morrowind and Oblivion, you just made a new spell every 5 levels or whatever and were good to go again.

    What Skyrim could use, is more spell effects to broaden what a mage can do. In Skyrim you just don't have many options compared to what you could do with spells like Burden, Unlocking, Charmeleon (OP but still nice to have), Weakness to _____, Absorbing Spells, Fortifying Spells, etc. It was just a much broader, more interesting selection.

    I agree quite a bit to the first point, but also to balance that OP-ness it gave a character focus... for me, at least. The guild questlines were hella long and completing one felt like a real achievment and true character progression. The resources needed to make those custom spells were quite demanding (although I admit there were probably exploits I didn't use which would have made the process easier) and encouraged adventuring to acquire them. Factor in the DLC like Frostcrag Spire and a character could really feel like an Archmage! I remember my desire to create an ultra fortify acrobatics spell so that I could leap from one side of the map to the other. It was that goal, that drive, that gave which gave the character structure. Shallow, maybe, but damned good fun! :D

    Then we also had things like Conjure Bear or the ever-useful Summon Xivilai who would in-turn summon his own wrecking ball of a Clanfear. By then a character is likely OP anyway but due to the levelling mechanic that was where you needed to be. No sense going into the Shivering Isles and getting Dawn/Duskfang and mantling Uncle Sheo until you were at that god-level status.

    • 5 posts
    January 13, 2017 4:14 AM EST

    Well since we are all jumping in the nostalgia train...

    My favorite Destruction version was Morrowind, where it was like reverse-restoration, with vulnarity spells, poison and stat damage (not just to stamina or magic but on strength or endurance and such).

    I can understand why touch spell were droped off, in a way it was kind of a cheap trick for low magicka build to use the same high cost missile spell; that was nice in Morrowind when NPC and creatures were not leveled (kinda if I remember), but start to suck a little in Oblivion for squishy mages after the first levels when minotaurs started to punch like a sack of brick.

    Also I believe that even if the range of magic in Skyrim has been drastically reduced compared to previous TES games, it is kind of balance by the shouts that actually add some nice variation that could have been spells (slow time, whirlind sprint, throw voice,etc...) and work quite well in builds feature on this site

    • 1 posts
    January 16, 2017 1:41 AM EST

    I would personally like to see touch destruction spells come back. It would make being a battlemage a lot more interesting, I think. In between swinging your sword/axe/mace you can put your hand on them and burn them or shock them. The novice spells do an okay-ish job of that, but Flames is really the only spell you can power up a lot, and i'd like to not necessarily be pigeonholed that way. And speaking of pigeonholed... I don't want to go to a place where like 75% of the enemies you encounter are damn near immune to one type of magic. Being a frost mage in Skyrim is kinda painful at best, and actively faceplanting into a wall repeatedly at worst. Yes, there are ways around that, to an extent, but it's really obnoxious to have to worry about poisons to make one element as good as the others. 

    • 1441 posts
    January 17, 2017 10:26 PM EST

    Vargr White-Tree said:

    I never played Oblivion or Morrowind so I have no idea how those magic systems worked, spell crafting sounds amazing but from the above comments it seems that it wasn't balanced very well.  As far as my experiance goes Skyrim has the best magic system i've ever played in a video game i just wish there was more of it.  So instead i'll talk a bit about what i would like to see in TES 6. 

    This could turn into a really long discussion for me since magic is one of my favorite things in Skyrim.  So quickly.

    Spell power scales with skill level, i.e. Fire ball does more damage if you have 100 Dest vs 50 Dest, Stone flesh protects more/lasts longer if you have 100 Alt vs 50 Alt etc.

    Greater range of spell effects.  I.e. Dest is basically throwing different colored lights at the enemy wouldn't it be cool if you could conjure a lightning whip that you could swing around, or sheath your fists in spikey ice boxing gloves, or send homing flame snakes that meander after enemies turning corners and flushing them from cover, etc. 

    Adding other elements to the magic school like air and earth.

    More utility spells/make the ones we have actually useful.  Clairvoyance is pointless when you have a HUD like Skyrim's, the light spells aren't really needed since Nords believe in lining all of their tombs with candles and torches.  The other probelm is lack of variety, it would be great to unlock things with a spell, or magically lock them preventing enemies from following you.  Or a spell that lets you walk through walls or fly.  Spells that increase your speed or your strength.  And morphing spells like turning into a rat or bird to avoid detection instead of just invisibility.  I understand that some of these aren't teneble given the restrictions of the game engine and some would break continuity of missions but it doesnt' mean i cant wish for them.

    Also wouldn't it be great if a spell like Stone flesh didn't need to be recast every minute but instead just lowered your total magicka by like 10% but stayed active continuously until you decide to deactivate it?

    Finally I want my spells to be flashier too.  I want more giant tornadoes of fire and have stone flesh actually sheath you in slabs of rock.  I want my spells to be more than just a flash of colored light.

    I found a mod that gives an effect depending on the flesh. Apparently it was ori,ginally implemented, but was dropped