Where to begin....o' where to begin? Well, I guess I should start with a basic statement that I think most people will agree with: Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls series are first and foremost an open-world experience generator. The entire point of Skyrim, and the primary reason behind the Elder Scrolls franchises' success, is the fact that you can pretty much go out and do whatever you want. I would further venture to state that due to the very nature of this beast (and Skyrim is a Beast. Rawr.) that it is impossible to have any standardized ideal of how the game should play or be played; as this variable changes completely on a person-by-person basis. In other words: Skyrim is meant to played exactly how each person sitting on the other side of the screen decides to play at any given moment. I would like everyone here to keep that thought in their minds as I continue with my dialogue. I will now list a few concepts, expectations, and demands I have seen on these forum that I believe should be addressed.

DPS

Good gods I loathe even seeing this phrase on this forum or any forum related to this type of game. I blame World of Warcraft for the proliferation of this concept in gaming today. "DPS" or "Damage Per Second" was originally brought into the mainstream gamer populace due to MMO's. In most MMO's the primary goal was to kill the big bad monster before your support ran out (i.e. your healers ran out of mana or your tank ran out of defensive cooldowns). This inevitably meant you generally had "x" amount of time to kill big baddie before he would overwhelm and kill you. Due to this mechanic, every resource and every action players used became measured in seconds; those whom's primary responsibility was to deal damage, began to measure their performance in how much damage per second they could accomplish. This of course led to people making direct correlation between a characters worth and how much DPS they could generate (I know I'm simplifying here, but for the sake of this discussion further detail is really irrelevant). I am not saying the concept of "DPS' is in anyway irrelevant in a game designed around core mechanics that support or even prioritize this sort of concept; what I am saying, is that this is not a concept that is required or beneficial to every other genre of gaming. I would further venture to say that in a game designed around experiencing new environments and stories as it's primary selling point; the prioritization of how much DPS you can muster is largely inconsequential. The goal of Skyrim is not to kill the big, bad, world ending dragon before he hit his rage timer then one shots you. Hell, you don't even have to kill him at all. You can go create a story completely unrelated to the main quest line if you so desire; and if you *do* decide to go kill him, as far as the game mechanics are concerned, it does not matter one bit how fast you kill him. Not. One. Bit. You could go on a mission collecting a ridiculous amount of various summon scrolls and take him out that way. Sure it would take an eternity to do, but what a story that would be! DPS does not apply to Elder Scroll's games.

"I want to be a pure destruction mage and be just as powerful as that duel wielding bad-ass I saw on YouTube!"


First off, I'm not referencing any specific YouTube video. I'm just pretty damn sure there's a video of some insane warrior type character wizzing around with his fancy one-handers somewhere out there. Call it a hunch. People who make post/comments similar to this drive be bonkers (yes, I said "bonkers") and this is why: There is no defined character archetype system in place in Skyrim. None. Nadda. Zer-O. You can make any type of character you want. The College of Winterhold and the Companions don't seem to give a damn about your skill-set so why should anyone else? You can be a light armor wearing, alchemy using, archer who packs a Daedric Shield and mace for when things get up close and personal; and still buy yourself a potion to enhance your magic abilities long enough to cast that spell to allow you entry to the college....and all your magic abilities are still at the starting default of your race. What would be the point I'm trying to make, you may ask? Simply: You can't make comparisons of "x" is stronger then "y" because there is no defined "x" or defined "y". As a matter of fact, "x" and "y" are completely interchangeable and their relative strength changes based on what you combine them with. It is only logical to realize that there will be some combinations that are more viable then others, but in the end the decision of what combination you have is utterly dependent on you.

Here's an example: "Jimmy" wants to play a mage that only uses destruction spells as his offense. As a matter of fact, the only skills he has decided to developed are: Destruction, Restoration to heal himself, Speech to increase barter prices, and enchant to eliminate the cost of his destruction spells. Jimmy see's his buddy "Billy" playing a fully enchanted, dual-Daedric sword wielding, bad-ass in a full set of Daedric armor. Jimmy is not happy that Billy cuts a path of destruction through his enemies much easier then he does. Jimmy believes the character build he created should be just as powerful as the one being played by Billy. Jimmy is wrong! "Why is Jimmy wrong?" , you may ask. The answer is simple: The decision to create a mage that solely focused on *Pew* *Pew* with lightnin' an' fire'n-Balls, without any other support skills was his own decision and does not guarantee equal effectiveness to other skill combinations. Jimmy could have just as easily developed a different type of character skill-set that included Destruction spells that was equally as powerful as Billy's "hack and Slash" character. In the end it was Jimmy's decision (and lack of creativity in my opinion) to only focus on Destruction Spells that limited his character power.

Remember, power in this game is not measured only in how much damage you deal out. Power is determined in your ability to effectively deal with enemies(you don't always have to kill them to deal with them!), to control your environment, or handle situations to your benefit. There are many different ways to achieve power in this game.

Balance in Skyrim

I have seen this mentality all over the forums and it makes me a sad panda. Many people have decided that "Balance" is good and required in all games. End of Story. No alternatives. No questions. This is another disturbing trend I believe MMO's are responsible for spreading. It is closely linked to the whole DPS situation I described earlier. I'm going only going to say this once: Balance that is completely based on how an individual decides to develop his/her character in a game-world that they do not share with anyone else...is irrelevant. I mean who's complaining here? The NPC's declare a strike and are marching outside your house with sign's or sumthin'? O' you mean *you* don't like it? Then don't build a unbalanced character! Take some [censored] personal responsibility that you do indeed control your own actions, and that mysterious outside influences are not forcing you to make character-development or enchantment choices. There are actually a lot of people out there that like creating a totally unbalanced overpowered god-toon. Let them have their fun gad' dingit'! They'll eventually get bored and re-roll anyways...

Well that's my two Septims. /endrant

*Edit*
I just wanted to clarify a few things:
A: I am by no means presenting the argument that the Magic system in Skyrim is the pinnacle of a magic system in a modern game...of course it can be better. Much better. My point I'm trying to get across that many problems people are having with it is that they still try to fit themselves in the old DnD style class archetypes. When that one self-imposed archetype proves to be less then stellar (or lack in the department of complexity or mechanics are weak) they say that it is "broken". I simply disagree. Not that a mechanic in the game is weak, but that that entire view of set archetypes is relevant. I also miss making my own spells and the variety we had in older TES games...
B: Since some of you think it matters when I started playing TES: My first was Daggerfall. I guess how much "gamer-cred" that gives or detracts from me is up to the viewer...
C: I do know the difference between dual and duel. Spell check, however, was a bit confused by what I meant. I'll keep it in there because people who actually disregard entire points of view based on typo's are fun!

**Final Edit**
I went ahead and posted a response that I hope will clear up some things. I honestly can not believe I received such a huge response to my post. I'll take it to mean that a lot of people are still very passionate about our TES games and that is a good thing!

I endorse everything youve said, 100%

Same here, but this wont convince nay-sayers

I agree that not all play types should be equal. I also think that it is spot on for mages to be weaker than warriors when in combat, especially if they are only focusing on 1 type of magic.

While balance may not be necessary, I think a player should be able to play however they want and currently the magic system prevents this. The problem with destruction mages isn't that they are "weaker" than warriors. The problem is that they are just plain bad - if you are a destruction mage, then expect to die... a lot.

So sure we can technically play mages, but it isn't reliable at all so if we want to actually get anything done we are pretty much forced to rely on swords instead of magic and that, not balance, is what is wrong with destruction.

When someone does not even understand the difference between dual and duel, it's a pretty safe bet that they also don't even fully understand what the problem is. And it has nothing to do with "The grass is greener" syndrome.

Conjuration, Illusion and Alteration (mostly) are fine, and a Mage can have no issues when using those schools. This does not change the fact that they are also better off using bows or even melee weapons over casting a single Destruction spell. Your entire argument is based off of the assumption that any given school must be leashed to another and that to use one individually and expect to do well is a foolish endeavor. This is however is not how the game is actually structured and it also eliminates much of the point of the TES games.

This is simply incorrect.

If EVERY type of attack the PC could deal only did 1pt of damage while EVERY attack an NPC/creature could deal did 1000pts of damage, would you still say that balance isn't an issue? Sure, this is an extreme scenario, but it just shows that balance is important in a single-player game.

Look, I do not have to read this. But we-hey, I have.

And while you provide a nice block of text there is a single sentence that invalidates it all.

Have you played Daggerfall or Morrowind?

Yeah.
Mages are not broken compared to any other title in the series.
I do not really care about how it is handled in this particular game.
I care about the progression.

Simple fact is that games that are made 20 years ago have better magic.
I do not have to name them, you know them. I name one, masters of magic.

What the hell?
In a TES game?

How can you defend this magic system?
In a TES game?

I have said it before and I will say it again.
The simple fact is no spellmaking is no Daggerfall. Arena would never have had the staying power without it, being only a dungeon crawler in the end.

No Daggerfall, no Morrowind, no Oblivion
And you remove the one thing that got you all this way.

Well done.

I have bookmarked this for future usage.

Agree 100%

Interesting. So your entire rebuttal rests on the fact that he misspelled one word..... In that case I completely agree with this guys argument and the OP is [censored] garbage!

Taking your example of "Jimmy and Billy" Jimmy did take something to support his destruction, it's called enchanting, now since Billy gets +% dmg enchants and Jimmy is stuck with -% magicka cost, Jimmy is forced to spend much longer in simple battles. If Jimmy was allowed to have the same enchant as Billy and get +% damage, Jimmy would probably be happy. As stated before, having the ability to infintely casts isn't as great as it sounds as the battle just becomes one long stunfest with dual casting.

In other TES games the different magics were just different colored balls, they are just trying to flesh out new ways to portray magic and something tells me that theyll get onto something with the next game.

Agreed.

It seems that most of the people who are defending the current system don't realize that it could be a lot better.

[censored] sigged, for utter truth.

Yeah, bullhockey.
At least the 'little ball' had seven effects all of the power and duration ordered by me.

Oh, but, yeah, this generic ball of light that does less damage the more you power it up is better.
OO so it has fancy light show.
Id rather have some meaning thank you so much over a friggin special effect.

Yes.
I like most of the changes Beth made from Oblivion to Skyrim.
But Not magic.
magic is on a three game long downward slide.

Yeah, I agree with the entire OP. There's no reason for a pure mage to be as tough in combat toe-to-toe as a steel-encased warrior with heavy weaponry. There are always tradeoffs, and somebody who puts all their emphasis in heavy armor, block and a single-handed weapon is simply going to be tougher in toe-to-toe combat than a mage with no real armor and ranged spells; the "ranged" part of the ranged spell doesn't come for free, after all. Basically, some people get pissed that their mage isn't simultaneously (1) as good at face-to-face slugfests as the aforementioned heavy-armor warrior and (2) as good at ranged combat as an archer who's put all their development into sneak and archery. They also probably want spells to allow them to pick pockets and sneak around as well.

The only caveat I have: while I agree people shouldn't necessarily make a fetish of DPS, it's still a useful concept to have. I.e., there's nothing wrong with asking the question, "Yeah, this battleaxe will deal more damage in one swing than this sword, but is the sword fast enough to do more damage over time by hitting more often?" I can't stand people whose idea of "retaining RPG elements" means obsessing over the stats, but at the same time any soldier will try to look rationally at his equipment and make some choices based on rational factors.

Perfect balance shouldn't be necessary, but there should be ways to increase the damage of spells past their base damage. Saying that balance can just be thrown out the window because it's an open world game is just encouraging lazy design.

Balancing destruction could be as simple as giving someone wearing no armor a percentage boost to spell damage, or giving the novice/apprentice/etc perks a growing bonus to damage.. or, to stay balanced with melee in effort required to get powerful, allow enchantments that increase actual damage output of spells. It would be interesting to choose between spells being free of cost and spells that hit like a truck but actually deplete a resource.

Also, spells should scale up. Flames, sparks, and frostbite are my favorite spells aesthetically, and they become obsolete -fast-. That svcks.

He is full of garbage and my post explains why.

Oh look you're making the same ludicrous argument that gets made 5 times a day on these forums. Groundbreaking stuff.

I'm completely appalled at the number of people stating they like this thread. All you said is you hate mmo's and blame them on people wanting to be able to do reasonable damage. If you play a mage you have to play one very specific way, every time. As a warrior you can smash faces any way you want. It won't matter because you do so much damage.

Mage direct damaging spells are weak, no amount of hating wow or the term "dps" will change this.

the destruction school is a much smaller issue than the missing utility spells.

Mages arnt broken.

I used to think they were before i learned to play.

Oh I know, thats why I agree with your well thought out rebuttal, it not only makes perfect sense but it is such an elegant and concise argument that I dare say no one could even think of disagreeing with it.

Skyrim doesn't need balance you're right.

Now ask yourself, "Would Skyrim be a better game if it was more balanced"?

For me that answer is a resounding yes.