Reading through these forums, and seeing quite a few people with the same feelings I have, I am already a little disappointed in Skyrim's magic system. So, we have the ability to craft weapons for warriors with magic +10000% damage modifiers... but magic always deals the same amount of damage. Meaning, magic gets left in the dust as it just doesn't scale. For no particularly good reason, increasing magic skills doesn't level up magnitude, it just drops cost, still. This made sense back when you could just make a higher-level version of the same spell, and just pay the extra magicka cost, but it makes no sense as the game takes new spellcrafting away from you.

There are two solutions to this:

1. Reintroduce spellcrafting, the thing that made the system you have now still balanced. It's less than ideal, and winds up with players having 200 of the same spell, just with minor differences in the numbers. Still, this actually makes sense.

2. Make magic scale. You don't even have to make it scale to your skill level, you can scale it to your maximum magicka, which would be somewhat more balanced. A rage spell could affect targets up to level magicka / 30 or something. You could make fireballs deal 50 + (Magicka / 10) damage.

Alternately (and potentially even more aesthetically pleasing), you can just let players create enchantable equipment that simply increases the power of certain schools. Let me hold in my off-hand a staff, magic tome, orb of power, perfume censor, talisman, lucky coin, purse, protractor, whatever, and let it have a "Increases X school spells magnitude by Y%". You could require the dual-wielding spell perk before you can hold one if you want to make that perk keep making sense. Your wizardy off-hand item does nothing but provide that passive benefit, and can be forged and enchanted using the same mechanics that let weapons get so overpowered. (Alternately, you might get to "block" with that off-hand token by using an alteration-based telekinetic blast that knocks an enemy off balance if you time it to just before they hit you.)

Using either scaling off of character level or equipment, you don't even need those duplicate spells that clutter up the menus, you just use a basic-level spell that simply scales to your level. All you really need is variations on damage over time or area of effect. (And theoretically, we shouldn't even need some sort of spellcrafting station, either, we could theoretically just go into the menu, and punch a button to say "conserve magicka, reduce the area of effect to half" or "I don't care how much it costs, broaden the area of effect" or "deal damage over time" or "double the duration" or even a "regenerate health over time" spell.

Then, you can actually give us back our useful utility spells, (although I do like that "transmute" was added, although that seems somewhat obviously abusable). If nothing else, the drain health, stamina, and magicka spells (and you get a drain health spell for being a vampire, so it's not like you can't do this...) weakness, resistance, reflect, fortify, water walking, etc. are all missing. What's wrong with feather, anyway? You practically need the carrying capacity as a mage. Just because you removed mysticism doesn't mean you have to remove two school's worth of spells (alteration and restoration were especially hard-hit).

While we're at it, why only Destruction runes? Why can't we cast paralyze runes or rage runes? Or walls of force that monsters have to bash through to get to us? You finally start giving us some alternate ways to cast spells, and then you cleave off half the spells you would most obviously want to use them with...

Once the SDK comes out, PC players will be able to get pretty much all this through mods, but console players won't. I kind of feel sorry for them, but at the same time, I have no idea why people buy this for console in the first place, as basically just providing the platform for the modding scene has always been the best part of Bethesda's games.

There's actually A LOT they could have done with spell crafting other than changing damage values For instance like altering the color, diameter and velocity of fireballs. Or customize the number of enemies affected, the general radius as well as color of chain lightning. Who doesn't want to make a giant blue fireball, or cast a bunch of smaller ones with higher velocity, or have green lightning that chains to every enemy and combine with armor disintegration? Possibilities for such a feature is near limitless and it's awesome for RP.

With enchanting, you can get -100% destruction spell cost. This allows me to spam the strongest enemies to death (on master) in no time with my level 35 pure mage. With the Impact perk, they can't even fight back... My destruction is only at 90, so it would presumably become even easier with the master level spells. This setup has the additional advantage of allowing you to skip Expert Destruction and Master Destruction (and even Adept and Apprentice, provided you can get the necessary enchanting without them). He's still probably not as powerful as a decked out melee character (I've heard it takes only a few power attacks to kill the toughest dragons etc.... it still takes me 30 seconds to a minute of running around zapping them with thunderbolt.) Introducing +damage to spell enchantments would allow for -100% cost combined with heaps of +damage (given the double enchantment perk), which would, I believe, make my character totally overpowered (honestly, he already is). Although... a large part of my character's defensive capability comes from magicka resist enchants, which he would have to forgo to get the +damage.

I'm not saying that +damage enchants are a bad idea, though. What I really mean is that the system is more or less totally imbalanced (but not beyond salvage - the basic spell casting mechanics are totally cool). I think that more complicated adjustments than just adding +damage or scaling are necessary. At the moment, spells are so damn expensive (at least the higher level ones) that they just cannot be spammed unless you invest in -100% casting cost. No amount of +magicka and +regen seemed to remedy this for me. I had like +400% regen and heaps of +magicka (before I realised I could just get -100% casting cost), and it was impossible to use my higher level spells for more than a few seconds without consigning myself to a painful ~15 second recharge period, during which I'd have to backpeddle furiously to prevent Mr. Deathmasterlord Draugr from crushing me. This problem is heavily compounded by the fact that you don't regenerate magicka at all while casting. However, going with -100% cost breaks the system and makes you a bit overpowered (though not ridiculously so - maybe it's reasonable?) Obviously your non-destruction spells still cost the normal amount, but they are cast so sporadically that there's always plenty of time to regenerate between usages.

I think that some kind of +damage or scaling (I like the idea of scaling with magicka - it's elegant), combined with changes to the casting costs of the high level spells and/or the way magicka regeneration works, could result in a good system.

Well, color is basically aesthetic unless you can somehow get bandits to know and fear you as the dragonborn just for having a blue flamethrower instead of those common red ones. In that case, it's something just for the mods for people who are interested.

Of course, having the option to pay more for more fireball velocity makes a good deal of sense. Armor disintegration doesn't mean anything without the repair mechanics in play anymore, however.

Really, the problem is Bethesda just doesn't consider scaling very well at all. Quest creatures scale oddly (with many of them having absurdly high or low damage or health at high levels), and many powers or enchantments or whatever are not rationally bounded in a way that results in an increasing cost-to-benefit ratio. Either you can completely break the game with something like 100% chameleon, or you hit an arbitrary wall like 85% shield.

I don't know what the mechanics of this game would be yet, but in Oblivion, you basically had spell cost * 1.2 - (skill level / 100) as your formula, but with an arbitrary cap at 100 skill, so you stopped at 20% normal cost. Apparently, it's different this time around, but apparently, with no arbitrary cap, you can just run straight down to -100%. Making the cost of spells divided by your skill level, rather than simply having a multiplier minus your skill level would stop nonsense like -100% magicka cost. It would also scale infinitely while still giving some benefit, albeit a decreasing one as you go into the extreme values.

There's also the matter of the illusion spells that rely upon the enemy's character level - I've never liked those spells before, because their functionality was based upon some invisible stat I had to guess at, and because they so obviously grow obsolete with the level scaling. Making a rage spell that works based upon something tied to your level, like equipment or maximum magicka, makes these much more attractive spells.

As it stands, I'm not really even so much complaining about how hard it is to be a "pure wizard", as I don't even play one (sneaky bow-conjurer wizard that hides behind summons and invisibles if need be for me), but rather at how bizarre this system where essentially everything in the game except magic scales. (Some to a greater extent than others.)

Yeah I definitely agree - the system is bizarre. End-game balance has never been Bethesda's strong point P:

With the illusion spells, I think it would be preferable if they worked no matter what the enemy's level is, but the duration was modified based on their level relative to yours (modified by perks, enchants etc.) You could also have that it's modified by their magicka relative to yours - that way it's much harder to control the mind of a powerful wizard than a meatheaded orc, which sort of makes sense. For an enemy who is significantly stronger than you, they'd only last for a moment. There could even be a cutoff - i.e. they don't work at all if the enemy is sufficiently far above you (adjusted for perks, magicka and enchants). However, I'm not sure if this is possible with a simple mod (probably not if it's anything like Morrowind). It might also be challenging to come up with a formula that takes all those things into account and still remains faily balanced in all situations.

No, illusions are a little too powerful to have it based upon duration - you can just set every enemy in the world against each other while you sit stealthed in the corner, chuckling as your puppets dance. Ideally, there would be a system where it wasn't all-or-nothing, however, with something like enemies becoming less attentive and bickering but not fighting if you only got a partial hit, or if there was some element of chance, so not ALL enemies of the same type would be affected.

Of course, those oddball spells, like having that telekinetic thrust spell that just shoves enemies off of you (even better, set it up as a rune) are what I'd really like to see.

Many of the magic perks are also pretty silly, and I'd honestly think it better if you just gained a perk that lets you use the same basic spells in rune form or wall form, or the like. Most of these perks just let you do the same thing, but add a silly modifier. The perks for other skills let you do entirely new things - with a bow, I get to zoom in and slow down time.

Also, I really just liked those mods in Oblivion that let me carry around a magic tome or a "staff" that I carried in my off-hand as a shield (which increased my magicka regen), and would like to see those again, although I'm sure there will be mods for that. Nothing really makes you feel as "magey" as marching onto the battlefield carrying your mighty war-books... Except maybe riding into battle on the back of a large, multi-limbed golem while you fight your battle with a book open in your lap.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1269400-mage-underpowered-no-way-try-alchemy/

there are these things called wards (different levels)
they up your armor while casting and with a perk can also absorb magic

Oh? I didn't realize alchemy would actually increase your magic magnitude. My mistake, then.

That doesn't mean I don't still want to see some sort of permanent passive so that I don't have to explode my kidneys working through gallons of the stuff each fight. I like alchemy, but it's too much of a pain to collect all the stuff for it to be using potions on every single fight.

I still do believe that simply throwing the magnitude-boosting onto equipment enchantment is the simplest way to keep magic damage scaling equally alongside physical damage (and warriors can drink potions, too). (And I also still believe it's just silly that you can cast your magic for free.)

Mathematically, making spell costs be based upon "spell cost / skill level" would mean that the progression from a skill level of about 20 to 100 would mean having spells cost 1/5 as much at 100 skill level as they did at 20, just the same as the "1.2 - (skill level / 100)" version, but with the rate at which those costs went down being very differently distributed. The "spell cost / skill level" version would drop faster at the lower levels, and eventually level off, making it much less breakable when scaled out to higher levels. (Costs half as much at 100 as at 50.) The "1.2 - skill level" version, meanwhile, has little effect until you suddenly start seeing your magicka costs plummet at the highest levels. (Costs half as much at 100 as at 80.)

Then, you could let the player have all the scalable enchantments pushing skill levels up you wanted without breaking anything.

Since this thread is about comparing to warriors who use that alchemy/enchantment combination exploit: As a previous poster mentioned, you can make your magic essentially free by enchanting your gear with Fortify Destruction (or other schools). You would only have to pop a potion for tough enemies, but most of the time even constant level 1 flame thrower hands would work. Especially with the stagger perk.

Or you can make a staff. That's what mages use. They even let us use one in each hand now.

Ideas - some new, some already mentioned here:

Fix for magicka regen scaling vs. casting cost reduction tradeoffs:
1a. reduce the number of slots that can have casting cost reductions enchanted on them, or make them non-stackable
small casting cost reductions still available, but the pole at 100% is no longer reachable
complication: what about pre-enchanted items taking up other slots?
1b. make the reduction % sub-linear past 25%
2. make magicka regen scaling non-linear - instead of normal regen * (1 + bonus% / 100), have it be normal regen * (e raised to the (bonus% / 100) power)
that means that small boosts are almost unchanged, but large boosts become huge - +10% becomes +11%, +50% becomes +64%, +100% becomes +170%, +400% becomes +5360%.

Fix for spell damage:
1. Leave the system as-is, but add extra master-level spells that cost more magicka than the normal ones and do more damage
requires that a nerf be done for the casting cost reduction stuff first
2. Add bonus damage% enchantments as an option
possibly overpowered?
3. Add some kind of spellmaking or dynamic spell system tieing allowing damage to scale with available magicka better

Fix for stun-locking on area damage dual-cast destruction spells:
1. eliminate the impact perk, replace with extra damage if possible?
2. have impact not apply to area damage
still leaves single-enemy stunlock issues
3. have impact not apply unless the spell does a significant faction of the targets health in damage

Eliminating impact would require the dualcasting destruction perk to be changed, as dualcasting destruction spells generally isn't worth it without the stagger. You can just doublecast intsead.

An idea I had is to allow spell research to upgrade spells similar to how weapons are upgraded. Instead you use filled soul gems, a spellbook of the spell(may need to change this, since I think master books are limited), and some gems such as diamonds/rubies/emeralds.

Also, since we know magnitude modifiers exist for spells, it should be fairly simple to make spells scale directly with skill level, if desired.

I'd agree with removing impact in general, or at least severely nerfing it, although I generally don't like the perk system from top to bottom, and want to see it wholly overhauled.