I said on ADEPT difficulty. Which is already incredibly easy for anyone with half a brain and who is not primarily a magic-user. There's always some point in single-player games where you have "broken" them, and it is easy to steamroll everything. Developers WANT that to exist. They want the player to feel like a god if they've invested enough time and thought into the game. But they've taken that away from several builds in this game and left it for others. How exactly is that balanced?

I can agree with that if there really is nothing fun you can do to build destruction at a certain point. Crafting related enhancements would be fun, but it should definitely be scaled behind melee combat damage.

Bingo. For some people transforming into a god character is THE point of an RPG, that's where a person feels the most sense of accomplishment and fun. That's different from turning the cheat on god mode, because it has to be earned and part of the game mechanic. The idea is to feel like one earned the power, not just flip on god mode.

The issue is that I am arguing based on what we are presented, while you are trying to argue based on what you feel we SHOULD be presented.

Yeah, mages are traditionally glass cannons, but here is the hick-up: in this game, they really are not. Why? Because they have access to Alteration, Restoration and Conjuration.

The problem is that you look at Destruction and go "Look, glass canon!". But if you balance destro in a vacuum, and make it so being pure destro kicks as much ass as a fully perked warrior (which is essentially what would happen if it dealt the same dmg on top of its utility), then what do you think will happen to the player who decides to play Destro with some summons, or to add deep Resto/Alteration perks to his build? Thats right: broken, unchallenging game he can breeze through by farting in the wind.

You are just creating another problem.

Shut up, troll. So one skill, say...two-handed, should give you all the power and utility of EVERY offensive spell school just because it scales and the spell schools do not? That has nothing to do with "smarter play," it's simply a stupid design decision.

I can think of plenty of ways to build a successful mage. Unfortunately for many people none of those ways involve only using destruction. You can mix and match the schools in a variety of ways with good results.

I agreed with you up until point two. Magic should be far stronger then melee. That's how the Elder scrolls have always worked (along with most RPGs)

@Gigan....I've built up both conjuration and Illusion with my mage...he still svcks because even the summons are not scaled. Why can't you get that? Do you just not want mages to be successful?

Once again, you're imposing how you feel it should be played. After a certain level anyone should be breezing through the game. That's the nature of leveling up. I mean, you can get a bound bow with full enchants and sneak and one hit everything in the game too, should bow damage and critical hits and sneak be nerfed? Worrying about becoming too powerful is absurd, a person can always limit himself but the game won't let a person get more powerful past a ceiling.

Destro school is rendered totally obsolete by levelled archery skill and Archery doesn't need Magika to simply function.

It's unbalanced, plain and simple.

Spells should get stronger as mages level at a reasonable rate.

And I'm tired of people saying "Oh well I used flames on lvl 1 and it seems fine to me!" lol. . . In a game with scaling enemies to not scale spells is simply lulzworthy.

^ This. The trade-off is that Mages are squishy. If you can't do enough damage to kill an enemy before he reaches you, he'll probably kill you in two hits. That's why direct damage spells HAVE to deal a lot more damage than melee attacks...they give you all of your defense through offensive attacks.

Can you really not see the irony of your own words? Its kinda sad really.... here, let me help in pointing it out:

^ Exhibit A

^ Exhibit B

But of course, Im the big green mean imposing machine, right? I am not telling you how to play the game, I am explaining to you the issues your demands raise in terms of balancing the big picture.

You, on the other hand, seem arogant enough to think you can impose your own vision to the people who made this game in the first place by throwing "should"s around.

This "I should be overpowered because I want to be overpowered" mindset is just mind-numbing. The work that 'earns' you that power involves correctly building a character, not just building one. Saying that choosing only destruction should result in god-mode would make an actual versatile build some kind of god mode that puts the player into a boredom coma.

That said I haven't tried any difficulty but master, but I have to imagine the easiest difficulty is pretty forgiving of poorly planned builds.

If you read my whole post, I made it clear that a person CAN beeze through the game it doesn't mean they have to. Not having the option, however, is an imposition of a play style.

So then why can a Conjuration Mage, waltz into a room, summon 1-2 Dremora Lords, sit back and watch the bodies fly with 0 risk, yet a Destruction Mage with no summons gets smashed? Please explain the balance oh wise one.


The hell are you talking about? I am playing on Master difficulty, only using a single Dremora and at lvl 38 it's still facerolling.

Once again, just because you CAN doesn't mean you HAVE TO. If you want to play in a different way, fantastic it should be available to you. How is that hard to understand? Nothing I want would limit you in any way, just give you more choices. I don't see how that injures you in any way.

I'll repeat what's already been said; Mages AREN'T squishy in this game. With all the shields, heals, summons and crowd control they can tank a room WAY better than even a sword shield warrior. If mages want damage comparable to warrior classes they need to have many of their schools of magic nerfed bigtime to compensate.
You're free to play however you want to. Your fault is wanting to be an unstoppable god who's just as viable as people who do a better job building their character. Just lower the difficulty to zero, take a companion and only build speechcraft the entire game if you want, but don't expect to be killing things like a well-built mage would.

You point is kind of moot when as already stated all you need is conjuration to crush rooms of enemies with no effort. You're discussing a necessary balance of spells that doesn't actually exist.

Translation : Mages needs to play DDR on his keyboard while managing all 5 schools to achieve the same results as the Warrior hitting M1/M2 cause... uhhh... BALANCE! HURRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Let me break it down so even you and your lot can understand.

When trying to... no wait have to make it simpler.

I hurt enemy! I warrior! I have plate and stick with metal sharp and pointy end!
I hit mouse buttons, Enemy falls down! Enemy tries to hurt me, but I am covered in metal!
Game says armor over 1000! Enemy do no damage! I laugh. If enemy hurts I hit button to drink potion!
Sharp pointy stick has damage over 1000 too! Enemy dies fast! Warrior feel happy

I hurt enemy! I mage! I have cloth and sometimes wooden stick!
I hit mouse buttons, enemy doesn't fall down! Enemy HURTS! I have no metal cover!
I get sad, so I do more things! I bring friends! I set traps! I run away from enemy while hurting him!
I drink lots potions! LOTS potions! I take long time, but I kill enemy! Yay! Mage feel happy.

But mage thinks! If mage takes long time, and mage needs to do more things, when warrior takes short time and warrior does less things
Why not be warrior? Do more things, do less things, I want to make enemy dead. Same thing right?



Wait did you just compare 4 entirely non combat trees, to the entire mage line, the majority of which IS devoted to combat?

notsureifverystupidorjusttrolling.jpeg

Have you played a Pure mage? Where are these fantastic shields you are talking about? Please don't tell me the alteration tree...LOL

And how do you summon when a warrior appears right in front of you to kill you in two hits.

Ok, then let me put it this way:

What happens when someone likes playing RPGs because they adore tweaking a champion and seeing how far they can take it, yet like a challenging game?

You seem to think there are only two kind of people who play these games: those who like god mode and those who dont. Its a -LOT- more complicated and complexe then that.

I dont like God Mode. I also dont like to have to conciously take bad customisation decisions just to keep the game challenging. To me, RPGs are about making your toon evolve and get stronger, and if I have to restrain myself from doing that to keep the content at a decent difficulty, I am not having fun.

So in the end not only are you trying to impose what you think the gameplay should be like, but you are even as rash as to generalise and impose your own polarized view of the world on everyone. And then you have the gall to act mighty and accuse ME of doing it?

Singler player game... sounding like mmo wth?

No they don't. Why even have destruction magic in the game if you're going to make this argument? It's like saying, "well, if archery is strong then we should probably make two-handed POS-tier weak to compensate." Wut.

Most Mages are taking three or four schools of magic, not all the schools. The most fun you can have in this game is with a hybrid of some sort. And all of those hybrids should be viable. EVERY build should be viable in a SINGLE-PLAYER game. Otherwise, there's no reason for those builds to be in the game to begin with.

And your god-mode argument is ridiculous. If people wanted to be god-mode from level 1, they could do that with cheats or the console already. That's not what any of us are looking for. We're looking to have the option of building a magic-using character that EVENTUALLY becomes unstoppable after we put the time and effort into it. You know, just like all the other builds do already.

But you're just trying to make excuses for Bethesda's poor decisions at this point, so whatever.

Mages get perma summons, the alteration shields work fine, you can HEAL yourself, crowd control an entire room. A warrior is WAY more vulnerable than you and needs damage to compensate. Hell when playing my first warrior on master difficulty he was getting 2-shotted and had nothing but his 2-handed sword to defend himself with.

So only mages were designed this way? Warriors basically go into god mode with no real thought process. I mean look, it's not a consciously bad decision if you become very strong in a different way that you prefer, that's your play style. If you like mixing it up, then you've become a great Jack of All Trades with a satisfying plan and result that isn't the mainstream or easier one to do. There's no polarizing in that.

To me this whole huge debate of balance is just absurd. I play a mage, plenty destruction, but other types as well - no conjuration though since that is necromancy to me and i RP a jesus-style good character. The thing is, it works. Things might be difficult at times, but i want a challenge, so that is all good. Sure there might be ways to get melee to do ten times the damage, but why would i care. The game works for the playstyle i choose, and why would i care if it is easier for someone else.

To me the whole argument of things not being balanced is similar to someone saying the game is broken because there are console commands that can let you enter god mode killing anything just by looking at it. Sure you can, go ahead, enter god mode if you want to. Why would i care. Everyone plays the way they want.

If the game is too difficult then turn down the difficulty.

If the game gets too easy then turn up difficulty. Already at max difficulty impose some restrictions on the game (suggestion: Start out by not exploiting the combination of alchemy-enchanting-smithing that can give incredibly powerful gear and supposedly overpower melee characters).

Problem solved. End of debate.