Imperfect but doable solution to the destruction balance pro : V - Skyrim

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 9:27 pm

the only thing i could see destruction needing to be more effective at higher levels and difficulties is maybe giving the three elemental mastery perks 5 levels instead of 2

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:55 am

there is already a mod out doing exactly that , and while it does help for starting mages it judst becomes very unbalanced at high lvls ; my lvl 36 mage can insta kill a a overlord with a dualcasting incinerate on expert lvl
you only have to throw a few fireballs in a room to clear it out at this lvl with little or no risk for your self
i don't think balacing destruction is done so easily

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 6:27 am

Here's an easy way. When you take a perk that reduces the level of magicka used for a certain level of spells it also raises the amount of damage done by all lower spells by 5%. So when I take the perk that allows me to cast Apprentice level spells for 1/2 magicka, I also get 5% more damage on my Novice spells. Reaching Master would add a total of 20% to the Novice spells, 15% to the Apprentice spells, and so on. This would allow lower level spells to scale a bit better while keeping the upper level spells from becoming overpowered. Expert spells would only gain %5 total, and Master spells wouldn't gain anything using this method. Doing it this way would allow us to keep using some of the earlier spells, while keeping the higher spells within reason.

I was thinking of something like that. My idea was like at higher level, you get better versions of the lower level spells. Like Sparks. I love casting that for fun but it does like no damage at all.

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 9:26 am

I think that the balance of spell power is correct the way it is, but they need to lower the casting time of master spell specialy for the destruction 'cause in combat they are
hard to time and can be interrupted.
What I meen is that storming the place whit non stop fireball in each hand is more reliable than master destruction spell.
What do you think?

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:56 pm

there is already a mod out doing exactly that , and while it does help for starting mages it judst becomes very unbalanced at high lvls ; my lvl 36 mage can insta kill a a overlord with a dualcasting incinerate on expert lvl
you only have to throw a few fireballs in a room to clear it out at this lvl with little or no risk for your self
i don't think balacing destruction is done so easily

when will you guys realize not everything revolves around mods or PC; this suggestion is about the base game for all platforms.

I'm not really sure what kind of extra balancing besthesda could do for destruction. I wish there was more dev talks streams so we could chat with them to hear their thoughts.

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 6:20 am

when will you guys realize not everything revolves around mods or PC; this suggestion is about the base game for all platforms.

I'm not really sure what kind of extra balancing besthesda could do for destruction. I wish there was more dev talks streams so we could chat with them to hear their thoughts.

Unfortunately TES games need mods to compensate for Bethesda's many mistakes in game design.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:27 pm

there is already a mod out doing exactly that , and while it does help for starting mages it judst becomes very unbalanced at high lvls ; my lvl 36 mage can insta kill a a overlord with a dualcasting incinerate on expert lvl
you only have to throw a few fireballs in a room to clear it out at this lvl with little or no risk for your self
I don't think balancing destruction is done so easily

Response to bolded: no, it's not, as I found out while doing my own Destruction mod.

I implemented higher bonuses than that in order to keep lower spells viable later on, but ran into the 'Incinerate Problem' in the process- lower-tier spells just cannot keep up if you can chain the higher-tier ones as well. Adjusting it is going to be a pain, though, as there's no good way to allow the lower-tier spells to remain viable that doesn't screw up the system in the process.

@StealthBlade:

Yeah, we know mods don't help those on PC, he was just offering a tip for those who are.

Like you, I'm not sure what Bethesda could do either, and I honestly don't expect them to do anything about it at all as any fix would require at least a partial, if not total, rewrite of the magic system.