http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Don't reply if you can't or don't want to argue against the person's opinion(s). You're just contributing to a degradation to a flame war.

Yes, a new topic is needed. And its VERY IMPORTANT to anyone who really apppreciates the Arcane Arts. Crafting your own spells was the epitome of arcane skill. Not only did you need high skill values to pulll of the spells you *could* make but you needed to know how to make them properly. The spells you made were potentially the best ones available. It was like its own little game, creating ridiculous spells.

Someone was complaining about the "spreadsheet" nature of spellmaking...WHAT? A little math never hurt anyone (asking to get flamed?). But seriously comparing and contrasting various spell types, magnitudes, durations, AOE, and making the best spells (balance of damage and mana cost) was a SKILL in of itself. It added so much depth to the magic, and personlized it to the player. The "spreadsheet" spellmaking was easy to understand and kind of necessary for proper spellmaking.

The lack of variety for destruction magic is kind of sad, I miss MY spells which were better than the in-game ones. Combing elements into projectiles, illusion +destruction, mysticism (oh where art thou) + restoration. It was LEGIT.

Just trying to justify the incluson of Detect Life into the Alteration school since the removal of Mysticism is all....

Spellmaking is something that should've been in Skyrim. I call BS on the technical limitations/reasons, you could easily set what spell it is and the effect within a menu like Oblivion did. With Spellmaking out the number of options we have in concerns with Spells is dramatically reduced from what you had in Oblivion. Losing Mysticism isn't a big deal, the spells are still there but losing the ability to create custom spells well that right there is a problem. Warriors can make armor from Blacksmithing, yet Mages can't create custom spells, the only thing they have is enchanting.

The argument that they couldn't make spellmaking work with the new system is a fallacy. Before we even knew the entirety of the Magic system we were working on possible ways Spellmaking could work with the magic system. And while we didn't have all the information on how spells worked and what types of spells there were many of our proposed systems would have worked just fine if not needing a few minor tweaks.

And I've never really understood how some people say "It svcked anyways because you could only mix spell effects and tweak their settings. We should be able to make entirely new spells." Afaik, doing that is for the most part impossible without the development tools. There would be no way to define what the spells would do and how they would look without manually coding in the effect and designing the projectile in an external program.

Ad Hominem is when you attack someones character out of context to the conversation; it may be irrelevant to the spellmaking discussion, but he wasn't directing his comment towards him anyway. And even then, his comment wasn't hostile as it was calm inquiry to tell others not to argue back. There are some people on this forums that go on the attack at any criticism for Skyrim; so I think its justified in this case. His advice is to ignore, and I agree.

As with Spellmaking, I don't exactly agree at all with these spreadsheety argument BS, considering Skyim still has skills that have this aspect still--its unavoidable in most RPGs to have a spreadsheety feel to at least some of it. Its how it operates. Math and planning, dividing between rows and columns for combinations--it exists in a lot of RPGs because that's how we can show representative values for things. We do it in real life for nearly everything. So this argument to me always felt like an echo from Todd when he said it. It was a fun aspect, an important element for mages, and what it was replaced with was half baked.

Spellmaking isn't spreadsheet at all, it's a very simple process to do once you get the hang of it.

Well, it kind of is. Or, one could lay out every effect into a spreadsheet to represent every possible combination to be had. To me, that is considered spreadsheety, and I do not consider it a bad thing from a development standpoint at all. Alchemy and Enchanting do it, and continue to do it. In a gameplay perspective, however, I definitely agree with you.

Edit: Rereading my last post, it looks as though I'm against spellmaking. I didn't mean it that way, my apologies.

I also regret not being able to make awesome custom spells !

I agree with that. Mr. Howard said in a pre-release interview that one of the reasons they were eliminating spell crafting was because it was "spreadsheety." I am hoping that this comment follows Horse Armor into Oblivion.

It's not a big deal whether your against or for Spellmaking. Both sides have partially valid reasons although lately I'm seeing the no Custom Spellmaking to be a problem rather then a good thing. Heck a couple of months ago I was arguing that Spellmaking being out is a good thing, not anymore though as it needs to be back in, hopefully in future DLC.

Spreadsheety is when you have coefficients, modifiers, forumlas and multiple variables in an equation that produce an end number. Depending on what you can modify and how it is constructed, Spellmaking probably would not spreadsheety. We have Base value of spells, duration, cost and effect type. Perks will modify this, Alchemy will modify damage, and Enchanting will modify Spell Cost. It is very basic to understand no "spreadsheet" to figure it out. An example of something being spreadsheety would be if you had a Magicka Power, Magicka Crit, Magicka Penetration etc. stats and THEN gear could modify these in different ways and certain spells had different coefficients tied to them, etc, a convoluted system. No matter how you look at it, Skyrim's system is incredibly homogenized and basic.

I am for it being back in, so to me it is important that I am clear about it. Though personally I don't think the side that is against spellmaking to have no valid arguments at all, honestly.

I can partially agree with that for sure, and will once again clarify that I am for spellmaking, and not against it, and also agree that Skyrim's system is very basic. Though, again, from a development standpoint, it is still kind of spreadsheety--maybe not in depth as your is, but there are still variables to take into account that can be divided and subdivided into multiple categories for what makes what and how. Especially when you determine the magnitude, and if its anything like Oblivion, how many spell effects go into one thing.

Sorry to tell you but spreadsheets are a apart of RPGs. It allows for players to min max and basically get the most output for the least input. It's incredibly effective, and your description of a spreadsheet is exactly what spell casting was before, and what it would have become.

The new system of magic/perks allows for many more variables that influence the final output of the spell, not to mention dual casting, and the new ways that you cast spells. It would be very difficult to implement it into the game which makes you wonder if it would be worth the time investment to introduce a severely limited mechanic. Skill trees are what make up much of what you character is and to have a system like spellcrafting would undermine that in a way.

I also really miss spell making from previous games A LOT!
I was always played as some monk/mage in previous games, and spell making made experience of it simply awesome since I could adapt spells to my style of playing.
The sad news are that current spell system simply can't have spell making in it. :-/
Removal of making spells wouldn't bother me that much if they've replaced it with something good... but they didn't.
There are a lot of things I wish they did differently with spell system in Skyrim, but the thing which bothers me the most is that there is no spell combos (you can see them in their 'jam' video).
That would be something which would be a decent replacement to spell making imo.
I really hope that we get spell combos as a DLC!

No Spellmaking is effing dumb.

So did casual gamers suddenly become evil in the 21st century? Casual gamers make up a majority of the target market and without them gaming wouldn't be as big as it is now.

Fan made mods and the like take years and years. Eg Natural Selection 2, a game which has been so long in development now it looks like a 2003 game and sparks very little interest.

Hey, no fair!

Everyone here hopped in the Way-Back Machine ™ without telling me! Phooey.

Yeah, I definitely miss it. The magic *feels* great to use, but the existing spells got dull real fast. Having to switch between multiple spells instead of having one custom spell with multiple effects is kinda a chore, but granted that's just as much thanks to the dreadful UI.

You misunderstand me. I AM a casual gamer. My comment referred to the COD mentality. All style, point and click. No development, no richness.

Casual gamers make them money not better games. Core players are important and even Todd Howard said he was surprised by by how many core gamers there are for TES. Piranha Bites gave Gothic to Jodwood to do and Gothic 4 sold badly because they alienated their core players to try and sell to casual gamers. Skyrim could have back fired on Bethesda.

Just because I'm a casual gamer does not mean I want a cool-looking game with no substance. Believe me, I would gladly sacrifice graphics for deep, truly immersive gameplay. I'm 45 and love games, I just don't play every day or for extended periods. But I am in total agreement that style over substance is bad.

Skyrim isn't an Rpg,indeed is an action/adventure game with some Rpg elements; this is what has become the whole Tes series after Morrowind.
You must accept it,or play something else (or simply don't play the game)

I sincerely feel that all that you want is "Morrowind 2012 edition" but it's not possible, sorry.

Well, this is what i can tell you from my perspective:

Todd Howard is an executive producer; so you must consider that economic gain is the priority for him

and the trend in terms of sales says this= Morrowind < Oblivion < Skyrim

and -surprise surprise - this is due to the action/adventure shift

and with TesVi we will very probably see even less and less Rpg elements,so yours and other complaints are meaningless,sorry.

Maybe Spell Making is "very important" for you (and even for me and a lot of other people) but i repeat: Skyrim isn't an Rpg despite some claims; and you can speak only for yourself as i said earlier in another thread instead of dictate yours "absolute truths"

Maybe after all Mr. Howard is right,the Rpg players are a minority and have to accept some compromise if they want to play Tes; and i think that even a lot of Rpg "purist" have played and enjoyed Skyrim,despite all the flaws/bug/glitch.But no; you want "the perfect Rpg" in an action based game and that's impossible - which says a lot about your continued negative suppositions about Bethesda and Todd Howard.

Surely they had to sacrifice something in terms of gameplay,but these are difficult choices to make and the improvements are more than the flaws in my opinion in Skyrim,and you must bear in mind that with Dlcs there's a lot of room for improvement,at least in the moral choices/consequences and other essential things (for me) already been mentioned (mounted combat etc.)
Oh and don't forget that in Skyrim you can hear the beautiful "exploration" music theme from Morrowind,which is something at least

You misunderstood Todd if you are referring to what he says in this interview: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/02/20/todd-howard-interview.aspx

He says, "I can give you my guess, which is people underestimate how many core gamers there are; people who want a lot of depth and will play a game for a long time. There are a lot of them." He means that those in the habit of thinking of gamers as mainstream or hardcoe generally fail to see that many of those they call mainstream are, in fact, hardcoe. He means that TES is gaining popularity not because they are tailoring it to the mainstream gamer, for it isn't being tailored it to the mainstream gamer. Skyrim was built according to the same game-design principles they always followed. He means that the popularity has grown because more players who can appreciate what TES has always been about are turning to TES.

Todd is somewhat surprised by Skyrim's popularity. Any surprise he feels over the number of core gamers is a result of his surprise at Skyrim's popularity. It is not, as your post seems to imply, surprise at how many players are grumbling about the changes. I think he knew quite well that there would be much grumbling over the absence of spell making.