The history of The Elder Scrolls is one of class-less character style, where a player can choose to specialize in whatever they want. Where other games treat people who swing swords and people who evoke fire as utterly different and absolutely incompatible, TES has always encouraged people to think outside the box. Leading to Battlemages, Nightblades, Spellswords, etc. Oblivion was especially good at this and encouraged the player to mix sword and spell by adding the dedicated "use magic" key, so you could block with your shield, zap with a spell, and then hack with your axe while they are stunned, all within a matter of seconds. There was a fludity to the interface that said "You should use magic all the time. Look at how easy it is." The classless character system shined because the UI allowed you fast access to your different abilities.

And now there is Skyrim.

Two-handed weapon and magic? No, don't be absurd. One-handed weapon and magic? I hope you didn't have any plans about defending yourself in any way. By the incredibly simple and probably unintended expedient of binding spells to a hand slot and removing the dedicated "use magic" key, gamesas has basically murdered the playability of their own canonical and unique character classes. It isn't really practical to mix magic and anything else now because for two-handed weapon it's just too slow to switch, and for one-handed weapons you somehow lose any ability to parry while mesmerized by the flames in your other hand; .... and your enemies are not at all fazed by being set on fire and will not pause in their ongoing effort to hack you to bits. I think it's pretty clear that nobody testing this game was actually using the mouse and keyboard given how many outright bugs there are in the UI, but did nobody over there ever play sword+sorcery in Oblivion and realize that the next game would completely murder it?

They are probably so heavily invested into what they have that putting back in the "use magic" key would conflict with all kinds of animation and control things, and wold not be easy to fix. I would love for them to fix this, but I doubt it will happen. I just think it's important that we acknowledge that the removal of the "use magic" key was a mistake, and needs to come back for the next game. It was a step forward in TES4, and its absence is a step back in TES5. Such great gameplay brought low by a simple oversight in the UI.

I play a stealthy, two handed weapon using mage and I do it well. Is that odd?

Also, have you every played morrowind?

Word.

You clearly haven't. Either that or you have forgotten.

What? Me being a mage, its so much better than oblivion. it feels like a full aspect of game play, not just something that is tacked on, i really like the new magic.

Yes I played Morrowind. No it wasn't possible to fluidly use magic and melee. Which is why if you'll read my post again a little closer, I said that the dedicated "use magic" key was a step forward for Obilvion.

@ Momaw.

Beyond that it is clear bethesda hasn t passed 1 minute thinking on PC. They deliberately lied spitting on the face of their PC player base.
If the spit wasn t intentional it means bethesda team isn t competent at PC programing, I believe this is the explanation as Tod declared that PC programing is a headache, or its simply another of his famous lies to try to justify a work that is even worse than Morrowind, litteraly a decade step back.
The issue with PC quite numerous, from a bad UI to a horrible gameplay interface.

How much did you have to tweak with your mouse so the game is playable for example. How many time did you click somewhere and you choosed the wrong option ?

Worst they already sayd there will be NO PATCH for PC, NO upgrade. So we are left with hope the architecture is open enought for Modders to crack it an improove it adding quick keys or setting keys.

Bethesda is a console only company PC is only a bonus...and what a bonus cause player base is at least 40%.

As for morrowind i was able to use magic/fight very fast with the quick keys. As i throwed Oblivion in the trash rather quickly, i didn t use it much.

Are PC users ever going to stop crying and slitting their wrists over believing Bethesda has [censored] their children and killed their pets?

Also, I believe PC users made up something in the teens, in term of percentage that have purchased the game in whatever way. So you guys can stop claiming PC is the majority, or as it was mentioned in this thread, "40%".

Sorry, I must have missed this. Could you link to the source, please?

Your unexpected hostility confuses me. My post affects console users just as much as it does PC gamers. Unless you have found some "use magic" button on your controller and some way to bind a spell to it? Plus the PC users are complaining about the bad UI specifically. The game itself has been performing reasonably well aside from locking up a few times. Pro tip: external camera and forced-dialogue starts do not always play nice together. Resist your cinematic impulses when people are talking, and stay in first person. Haven't run into any really heinous problems, just the usual funny bits like physics breaking, AI getting confused, arrows stuck in me that won't go away, etc.

But the UI is objectively and demonstrably BROKEN. I didn't even make it through chargen before I found bugs in it. For example: using the mouse to turn the character's head makes the adjustment sliders stop responding until you click on another tab at the top. Another fun one, you can rebind your "move right" key and it will work when you're walking around but it does NOT change the "move right" in some places in the UI. Also the tooltips for what keys to press don't actually change if you rebind anything. And the mouse is so unreliable in what you can click and what you can't that the only proper way to use the menu system is with the directional keys, like we're stick in a 1990s time warp where games could not assume everybody had a mouse. That's not "Oh poor PC players ", that's "Did they even test this at all??" (Answer: no)

Also, I believe that even if PC players are a minority this time around, they have more than paid for the right to a functional and platform-specific game. Even if only 10% of copies sold are for the PC, they will sell easily 5 million copies of this game. 500K PC copies times 50$ each is 25 million dollars. They can afford to have two guys go through and make sure the PC version has a UI that works and make sense.

What also affects the poor selection of viable playstyles in the game are too few skills, and a magic system that feels like it comes straight out of a dozen other games and forces you to utilise all magic skills for a mage build.
I simply cannot believe what they have done to magic.

And yes, the UI is also not that handy on xbox.
Why are things like what guild youve joined or what reputation you have in what hold hidden to the player?
Why is the inventory one endless list instead of filling the screen?

Honestly, Morrowind had a much better interface and that is a decade back.

No, it's just you who cannot go along with the change.

Yes, playing a spellsword is a still viable alternative, I PLAY EXACTLY THAT WAY.

Oh no, you actually have to thing strategically, decide whether you want bigger firepower by sacrificing a hand.

Yes, you cannot block while using both hands... that doesn't mean anything. Blocking with a weapon was always weak and nearly useless, and you can always just... you know DODGE.
See an enemy, step away. Get close to the enemy by continuously casting a spell and when right next to them, hit them with your sword, then back away, casting spells again.

Yes, doing this with two handed will be pretty slow, but GUESS WHAT, TWO HANDED WEAPONS ARE SLOW BY DEFAULT.



And what the [censored] does this have to do with the PC? Is there anything that cannot be balmed on this being a "console port"?
stop lying please

Now 210.000 played Skyrim on steam at peak today, next on list is MW3 on 75.000.
Total sale number is much higher as not everybody play at once or even each day and many play in offline mode.
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Say sale is at least 3 times 210K, 5 days after release, would say main question is if they will sell two million on pc platform.

I'm playing a light armoured spellsword, without using destruction at all... no problems here...

It also sounds like you've completely neglected to use shouts. Because if you had you'd be able to do exactly what you describe here:

Actually I have no problems with having to give up one hand to cast spells, even if soul trap on target while holding a bow was useful.
My main issue is that then equipping a spell it pop up in a pretty random hand. Why can I not have shield, flame and soul trap in left hand and sword and heal in right.

Sounds like you're not using the Favorites tab.

Shouts are not magic. You can certainly do what you describe with shouts, though.

Pausing the game, clicking a spell, restarting the game, using the spell, pausing the game, bringing back your weapon, and then unpausing the game are not the same as blocking, using magic, and then hitting someone without any pauses. I didn't think that needed to be pointed out, but there you go.