lol you're really reaching with that one.

That will be the case until we find out how strong you can make a shield enchantment. It it comes out to add up being better to have a robe, a hood, two rings, and a necklace enchanted with Shield than it is to wear armor then armor is forsaken.

I don't understand. What's the rationale behind armor penalizing magica regen? Why warrior/mages build should be penalized. Weren't other effective means of preventing overpowered characters than implementing a stupid penalization?

Seriously though, we are all mastering our theorycraft skillz on those forums. We can guess about most game elements and mechanics but only after the game is in our lustful paws we can say for sure how it is all working in reality.
On the subject :
I suppose that both approaches ( armor/ no armor ) will be quite similar as I don't think that penalties are so high but on the other hand it is quite possible that a mage can go without armor thanks to all those protection spells + perks.

I wish there were leaked streams of people playing mages. Every one I've seen is someone that doesn't really know what they're doing. Haven't seen any stealth either.

Its either Pure Mages wearing Robes/clothing get buffs, Hybrids get penalised for wearing armour or (as the case actually is) a mixture of the two, otherwise Pure Mages get effectively punished for not wearing armour especially since movement speed can be equalised through a perk.

Its decent balancing, if you are wearing heavy armour you will generally be spending less magicka on healing anyway.
Carry a few extra potions around with you, since your effectiveness is not harmed its not really a major issue.

Because wearing heavy armor has to have drawbacks or there'd be no reason to not wear it. If you want to be a pure mage you're better off not wearing armor and just using magic to protect yourself.

"Why do they have to penalize overpowered characters? Can't they penalize overpowered characters without penalizing overpowered characters?"

The "rationale" is that it promotes interesting choices, provides a more consistent power level between characters (so the game isn't "too easy" for min maxers or "too hard" for casuals), and it gives you a reason to roll additional characters, to experience the game in different ways.

I mean, FFS, it's not even a hard penalty to work around if you're that determined, but I feel like if I point out the blindingly obvious way to do it, I'm just rewarding you for your willingness to whine about something without giving it even a moment's worth of thought.

I've never viewed the Silence spell like that. In lore, I believe mages can cast spells just by thinking it if they are skilled enough. It wouldn't be very stealthy either if you had to say every single incantation out loud. Magnus can hear you whether you're thinking or speaking. But since it's never explained in concrete, everybody has their own interpretation. I believe that the Silence spell creates a magical barrier around the caster that prevents the person from harnessing or using any of the magic that comes from Aetherius or that is already instilled within their body.

That's true if your gameplay mechanics are flawed. I'm sure there are ways to penalize people using armor without restricting magic users not to use them. What about warrior mages?

At least I hope it's possible to enchant armors to hasten magica regeneration.

There is a perk under Enchanting that gives boost to helath/magicka/stamina enchants on armor and there are magicka regen boost enchants so it should be possible.

Your way of viewing the Silence spell is pretty accurate, but you seem to be under the impression that the Quiet Casting Perk allows the casting of magic whilst silenced in this way... I'm pretty sure it does not actually do this, and instead allows those who have it to cast whilst sneaking without their position/location being given away.

By flawed you mean balanced. A person wearing plate should not be as good at magic than a person in cloth.

It's a trade-off. It doesn't mean a Battlemage will svck now, they will just have slower regen than a pure Mage. Makes sense imo.

Well armor slows you down. So in robes you might be able to out maneuver attacks while hammering them with flames and stuff. I will go with light armor because heavy armor is always too slow, and robes you die too easy. I've never had much problem getting a max AR with light armor also, so to me heavy armor has always been pointless. Especially now that degradation is removed.

No, by flawed I mean flawed

I'm expecting someone wearing armor to move slower, not to have less magica or any other impairment not connected to armor.

I know it's an expedient to make play more balanced but it's pretty lame.

No doubt there'll be robes with more magic bonuses (larger magicka pool, even faster regen, and buffed magic skills). You could probably do the same with armor via enchanting, but that means you need to split your skills and perks further, between armor, magic, and enchanting... vs focusing on just magic with a pure mage. Potions can only take you so far, as you'll very likely have a limit on the number you can drink in a given period of time.

I believe it is your expectation is flawed, not the mechanics. The mechanics make perfect sense, and work quite well for their intended purpose. The fact that they prevent you from being SuperTankMageGuy doesn't mean they're flawed.


Warrior mages are not as good at magic as pure mages. What's so difficult about this concept?

[theorycraft]
Actually, with introduction of perk system ( with huge limitation in number of perks ) and solid protection spells it is balancing itself. Warrior-Mage won't have enough perks to be good at both. You could max one weapon and armor skill but that leaves less perks that you could invest in magic skills. That way, pure mage can excell in more schools than warrior-mage. Also one small thing - Mage Armor spells should be very potent with the appropriate perk so it could as well give you benefits of very good armor without the need to wear it.

Example:
Warrior-Mage
One-handed (10perks)
Armor(10perks)
Magic(30perks or 40 perks if you don't use weapons)

Pure Mage
Magic(50perks)
That means you can get 10-20 additional perks for magic skills. Even with 10 perks you could add them to 2 schools greatly enhancing those schools.

If you won't take perks for armor then it will be inferior to protective spells(especialy with perks) as armor perks give great benefits to armor rating and you need only 3 perks to maximize mage armor spells.
[ / theorycraft]

I get it, people want to use robes on a mage, but this is assuming you guys are never gonna get hit. What happens when you're in a dungeon or something fighting multiple monsters and you die after 2-3 hits with no armor? Or when you armor spell wears off? It only lasts like 60 seconds. What a pain in the ass to have to keep recasting it. The point of my post was that IMO, all things considered it would be better, at least for me, to wear armor and have potions for when I'm low on magicka

No they're not. A flaw in the system would be making heavy armor objectively superior. If you suffer no penalties to any sort of action or play style while you're wearing heavy armor then there is literally no practical reason to not wear heavy armor. As it is now a warrior has few reasons to not use heavy armor (slows you down, slows stamina regen) but if he's playing properly, using the right perks and stat boosts and play style, then those disadvantages will be outweighed by the superior protection the armor provides. Mages and thieves have much more compelling reasons not to wear it: it slows your magicka regen and it makes you easier to detect while you're sneaking.

You just want to have your cake and eat it too. It doesn't work that way. Want to be a warrior-mage? You won't be as good at melee as a warrior or as good at magic as a mage. But you'll be better than both in that you have flexibility they lack. And you can compensate for your weaknesses with enchanting (increase regen rate enchantment) or alchemy (magicka potions).

"This is assuming" or "YOU are assuming"? I don't see any one "assuming" any such thing. If you have more armor, you'll resist more damage. If you have health instead of magicka, you'll live longer. If you can cast strong armor spells and plentiful healing spells on yourself, or have the perks to use spells from stealth or charm liches, or summon atronachs, then maybe you'll find other ways to avoid damage. The point of having different abilities and armors and weapons and skills is to find different ways to approach the same content. Isn't that half the fun of these games?


Then you die, and you figure out WHY you died, and you do things differently? And then when you DON'T die you feel like you learned something and got better, and that makes you feel better about yourself, because that's how human brains work.


So it seems that some people will prefer to wear armor and chug mana pots, and others will prefer to wear robes and recast armor spells. More ways to play the same game? Sounds like good game design to me.

So always having to create tons of potions, pick tons of herbs/ingredients, and constantly chugging a manapots to make up for the lack of superb-regen is somehow less of a "pain in the ass" than re-casting armor spells every 1-2 minutes?


This idea of yours is way way way more tedious and time consuming than the alternative. If you run out of pots in a 2 hour dungeon you're basically screwed out of the play style.

Is anyone else seeing how you could create an articifer/tinker class from this? =p


Heavy Armour + Enchanting + Alchemy + Smithing.

Craft, customise and enchant your own magical staves/armour and bolster it all with potions - SIMULATING the effect of magic, but through mechanical means. Kind've like the alchemist or whatever it's called in Torchlight

The regen penatly could work better than the percentage hinderance IF the regen penalty is large enough. It could make an armored mage a viable option and let a fighter fire off a single powerful spell and still have it hit at 100%, but then have a nearly empty, very slowly refilling mana pool thereafter.

Makes more snese to, just cause you're using heavy armor doesn't mean that double-handed fireball of death should do less damage, but one could say the magical energies that surround you are being blocked by the cold man-made steel that your body is encased in, whereas a robe, especially with magical enhancments, allows the free-flowing of that energy, or even draws it in.