I've always seen these types of threads, ones about how bad Magic is in Skyrim compared to Morrowind and Oblivion. And I never knew why, because I hadn't played Oblivion. But now I have, and I can appreciate it so much more.

Magic in Oblivion (and Morrowind) was brilliant. You had SO many different effects, you could do everything with magic! Burn enemies to the ground, fortify yourself to be a master in Speechcraft, drain your enemies Fatigue, walk on water, make yourself jump higher than buildings, feather yourself to hold hundreds, and the list goes on and on! Let us not forget spellmaking. You could create your own spells, with different effects, times and magnitudes. You could make a 1 damage, 10 second and 5ft Fireball or a 10 damage, 1 second, 20 ft Fireball. Oh, and you could do touch, target and self! Or, you could combine effects. I mean, you probably get the idea, I could go on and on and on and ON.

In Skyrim, everything is so simple. That's not a good thing. If you've played both games, you'll know this. Magic isn't just more simple, it's BORING. And it's been going downhill since Morrowind, from what I can see. I dread to think of what the Magic system will be in the next TES game.

You've probably seen these threads over and over again, but I just had to pose that question. What will the Magic system be like in TES 6 if they keep "streamlining" it?

While the options for what spells you can use is tiny compared to past games the is the first time where I've found mage combat to be fun. I've used this magic system far more then I ever use Morrowind's and Oblivion's for combat.

If I had anything to do with it I would leave the combat the way it is and begin reintroducing spells from the past games.

exactly

There is nothing fun about the vanilla magic system, unless you are a gaming masochist into a mix of repetition and frustration.

For the most part, magic is worse in Skyrim. I do like that Destruction has different looking effects for it's spells this time, instead of the same animation but I'd rather have the depth that the previous Elder Scrolls had.

I happen to like it. There could always be more spells as usual. There could also be more amor and weapons as usual.
That doesn't mean every warrior character is a masochist as well since all you do is swing a weapon around or block with
that weapon.

There is actually a good bit of spells to choose from unless you only want to use one school of magick.

Compare the amount of spells in Skyrim to Oblivion. Maybe a hundred or more in Skyrim, and then thousands and thousands available in Oblivion via Spellmaking.

Saying "there are quite a lot of spells in Skyrim" just makes Bethesda think doing this is OK.

Ok, yeah, how often did you use all of those 1000 of spells out adventuring?

Or did you just make few spells that did everything you needed?

More does not always mean better.

I sure would hate to scroll through a thousand spells to find the one I wanted to cast
on that poor little bunny rabbit.

Wizards fury. Enough said.

Who's to say someone would use all of those spells. A good portion of players are probably going to have a small list of magic spells. I know I would so that I don't have to spend extra time scrolling to launch Electrocution at an enemy.

Yeah, there are still a good few spells to choose from. But there were more in the older games, and that's what made magic so much fun in those.
As a high level Mage in Morrowind or Oblivion, you can do anything basically, whether it be fortifying your strength, conjuring some armour and a weapon and going nuts, or casting levitate on target to watch your enemies fly into the air then fall to their deaths, to summoning a minion and invisibility in the same spell, etc.

There's none of that in Skyrim. I miss the feeling of power that playing a Mage for 200 hours should bring.


Personally, I don't even want to think about where the streamlining is heading.

I'm just not all that power hungry I guess.

You know what I would really like to have.

Having to create every spell I had other than standard novice level spells.

Meaning, I would have to first discover how to create a certain spell by finding
books and what have ya. Then, I would have to go out and find the necessary
components to create that spell.

Next, through trial and error I could try to create a hybrid spell by combining
components from say two spells that I know.

The trial and error would involve figuring out which additonal components I
needed to create that hybrid spell.

Something like that anyway, I haven't thought it all through yet.

Nah I like the effects in Skyrim more. There just needs to be more of them all.

Can't really disagree with that point, I miss open lock.

oh god please this i wish they kept waterwalking because your not allowed to do anything while swimming at least with waterwalking you can stay up a step above everything els literally.

That seems to be the crux of the matter. They took out a lot of things that allowed
people freedom of choice.

Open Lock was a great spell for mages so that they did not have to stoop to
picking a lock like a thief.

I have played a mage for three TES games.
In Skyrim, I play a sneak bowman.
That says enough about the magic in Skyrim.