I will look forward to downloading your mod and trying out your better alchemy system tomorrow then.

I will look forward to downloading your mod and trying out your better alchemy system tomorrow then.

Spam-able instant health potions are a horrible game mechanic. All potions should have a duration, with a limit on how many you can have active. Ideally, drinking a potion would have an animation as well.

Potions improving in small increments per alchemy level clutters inventory and is just unnecessary. Have certain levels determine what effects, or more advanced ingredients, are "unlocked", while also improving lower level effect magnitudes/durations. Use intervals of 25, for consistency.

Remove skill increasing potions. Alchemy shouldn't make every other skill better, it just doesn't make sense to have a potion that gives you increased lockpicking skill or whatever. A skill is not something you gain from chemicals, it's something learned.


These relatively simple, and IMHO obvious changes, would make Skyrim's alchemy system far better.


Agree/disagree?

Spam-able instant health potions are a horrible game mechanic. All potions should have a duration, with a limit on how many you can have active. Ideally, drinking a potion would have an animation as well.

Potions improving in small increments per alchemy level clutters inventory and is just unnecessary. Have certain levels determine what effects, or more advanced ingredients, are "unlocked", while also improving lower level effect magnitudes/durations. Use intervals of 25, for consistency.

Remove skill increasing potions. Alchemy shouldn't make every other skill better, it just doesn't make sense to have a potion that gives you increased lockpicking skill or whatever. A skill is not something you gain from chemicals, it's something learned.


These relatively simple, and IMHO obvious changes, would make Skyrim's alchemy system far better.


Agree/disagree?

Eh, the spammable health potions has been available in the Elder Scrolls game for as long as I can remember. It's the only way for some classes to play without getting murderwrecked on Master.

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I could design a better magic system in a day.

Currently, any player reaching mastery in Destruction and Restoration will most probably already have custom equipment, enchanted to have zero cost of spells (and sets for other schools of magic, maybe, but these two are essential). That makes obsolete all the "half" perks, and all the master perks. Just how much poorer gamedesign there can be?..

The good system:
1. Spell types are learnable from tomes/teachers/quests
2. Perks improve the power of spells. No spell levels, no "apprentice"/"expert" spells.
3. Spell targets for spell types that support them: self (cloaks), ground (runes), spray (close combat, most powerful) or distant (projectiles). Can be changed runtime while charging (holding its button) the spell with pressing some selector (mouse wheel on PC, for example).
4. To cast a more powerfull version if needed, hold it (like "power attack" of warriors). No "uncastable" spells because of mana requirement - cast as powerful as you can with current mana amount. The more player holds "attack", the more mana spell charging takes.
5. Enchantments make magic a bit stronger, not zero cost.
6. Sneak multiplier like for bows, when having Illusion's silent casting.

A system with dynamical spell power vs mana (by ability to "charge" spells, holding attack), dynamical spell targets and ability to cast different spells from both hands doesn't really require any spellmaking for an effective magical gameplay.


I could design a better smithing system in a day.

Currently, there's no point in exploring 150 linear dungeons with trash in final chest, because neither there are really rare ingredients (for alchemy/enchanting/smithing), nor there is anything better than overpowered player's equipment.
Also, currently base damage of a sword is 8 at start and 100 at end (with perks and "honing"), which is insane. To balance this madness, enemies at higher levels have more HP than mammoths. This is seriously poor gamedesign.

A good system:
1. Learn how to work with materials ONLY from teachers-smiths or tomes/ancient knowledge.
2. Progress smithing only with working with top-edge materials by amount of item's value.
3. Honing is for keeping bladed weapons in shape, not for improving. Blades should lose sharpness with cuts, the faster the greater the material of targets is. Cutting ebony armor with a steel sword should make it dull in a minute. All maces and hammers have spikes/edges, so i guess there's sense in same mechanics for them, too, but in lower degree.
4. Simple weapon crafting constructor screen: design (shape) + material. That would help modders a lot and remove the list of smithing options (that'll become very long in modded game), and can help player to choose from different designs with the same material. Orcish and Daedric bladed weaponry looks impractical and freaky, giving player a choice is a right thing. Also, the whole point of crafting isn't about making an overpowered stuff, it's about personalizing and customizing your equipment. There's no point in making a sword like every next NPC has, even if player can only work with same material and even if it won't be more powerful.
5. Really rare smithing materials and knowledge in dungeons/quests.
6. Using gems and precious metals for decoration of weapons and armor? That was the whole point of wepons for rich/famous ppl, they didn't really use it but it was the symbol of status and wealth. That could help a smith to really earn money with his craft.
7. Smithy option for houses?



I could design a better enchanting system in a day.

Currently, a mage can... eh, totally destroy an ebony warhammer while trying to find out its enchantment? Orly? Why can't he do that in battle, could be realy useful. And if armor and weapons aren't smithed with enchantments - they are enchanted later - why does unenchanting destroy them?
Also, enchanting is disconnected from schools of magic: a protagonist who never casted a fireball can enchant stuff with supreme fire enchantments. That's silly.

So, a good enchanting system:
1. Knowing a spell type makes possible to use it for enchantments
2. With a perk (or skill level vs enchantment level), any item can be unenchanted (without breaking it). Leaning an enchantment adds a spell type (common base of spell types for spelling and enchanting).
3. With a perk (or skill level higher than enchantment level), player can add effects to enchanted item.
4. No limit of number of enchantment effects; instead, limit of total complexity which is defined by enchantment skill, and complexity of each effect is defined by 3 variables: base power of spell type, desired effect level and knowledge of that school of magic.


That's it. I didn't touch anything totally new, and all that isn't about any additional modelling, animating and serious coding, while most of ideas are plainly obvious. In my personal opinion, Skyrim is full of poor gamedesign ideas which often contradict themselves and the rest of the game.

p.s. another whine statement, please: all QA staff should take arrows in knees. "Patch for exploits"? Oh please, all that alchemy/enchanting stuff is obvious and
should have been tested in the first place, and can be tested with console by anyone in 5 minutes.

I will look forward to downloading your mod and trying out your better alchemy system tomorrow then.

So i'll be downloading your mod +1 day of CK release?

Ah, I meant more as every 5 levels all your potions get better, or you can make new ones. Smaller things like that. I agree perks should be less often. Though there are so many again that would be cluttered... At level 50 suddenly you get access to 5 perks? Lame.

The designs in this thread are better than the designs in Skyrim.

And harder to implement. The Skyrim team wasn't limited by the designer's understanding and imagination, but the developer's budget for implementation and QA's budget for testing.