Destruction is a point of contention it seems... Many decry it for being weak, while others just say "Enchantment abuse/Impact will solve your problems!"

In the DICE Summit, Todd introduced a diagram illustrating the sweet spot between Boredom and Frustration that designers aim for when designing gameplay.

Using it, I think I can illustrate just why Destruction missed the sweet spot: http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/1073/boredomfrustration.png

Without impact, you have no means to stagger your foes with Destruction. While you can walk up to someone and stagger them with a power attack with a melee weapon, you can't with just straight Destruction Magic. Melee foes can just waltz right up to you without a hitch to start hacking at you. FRUSTRATION!!!

With Impact? You can literally stunlock a DRAGON until you kill it. And Stunlock is universally decried as a cheap move in any sort of PVP environment... and so it is here too. Boredom...


Cast costs? You're pretty much tapped out on your magicka bar trying to kill anything beyond a low-level rube mook, and oftentimes they're still standing, or you're stuck using the Novice/Apprentice spells because they don't have the abhorrent damage/cast cost inefficiencies of anything Adept or above and complete lack of depleted magicka recources (which melee weapons have in normal attacks and archery never has to worry about because of the prolific availability of arrows). To kill anything that you couldn't just kill by looking cross-eyed at, you're required to carry around huge piles of Restore Magicka potions, since the agonizingly slow 66% hit to your magicka regen rate in combat makes relying on that, even with fortify enchants and potions, a futile effort. FRUSTRATION!!!

On the opposite side, how do you fix that? Enchantment abuse. You coat yourself head to toe in Fortify Destruction enchants to make some effort to mitigate the hobbling cast costs of anything beyond the Apprentice spells so you can actually kill something without 20, 30+ casts of Firebolt or its contemporaries (and as a result become a one trick magic school pony), or you grind grind grind grind grind grind grind Enchanting up so you can concentrate as much Fortify Destruction as you can in a single enchant, to the point where you can get 100% cast cost reduction and cast for free. Boredom...



The root cause of much of this is the combat regen penalty IMO. It's a massive limitation on a kill skill that is completely reliant on a very limited resource to function (unlike melee and archery as discussed above). Many of the other schools of magic aren't quite as affected by this as Destruction is, because their effects are usually over a duration. But with Destruction? They're instant... and aren't really that great compared to the many other things you can do in other schools. If we could actually use the Adept and above spells more than a few times before we're tapped out, the Impact problem wouldn't be an issue because we wouldn't NEED stunlock (Impact needs to be nerfed of that regardless). And also, enchantment abuse would no longer be de facto mandatory to be able to get use out of Destruction. There are many a PC mod out there now that significantly increases the combat regen rate for magicka. I'm using one, and I actually can use Destruction as a viable kill skill because of it without resorting to the boredom-ifying workarounds available in a vanilla game.

You've hit the nail on the head there, as far as I'm concerned. Each time this conversation turns up, you have on one side the ones saying magic is too powerful and the others saying it isn't powerful enough. The problems with the ones saying it is powerful, are then followed by a complicated formula, or range of actions you have to perform in order for it to be so (this is excluding exploiting potions and enchantments).

With a sword, I hit. With a bow, I hit. With magic, I have to think hard about the sequence that is about to occur. i.e.; boredom or frustration depending on your mood at the time.

Both these problems have been cured for me by making magic scale to my level, or by lowering the cost of higher level spells.

Good post. Agree. Thanks for posting. Maybe the devs will listen.

J

I agree with everything you said,... but... I still haven't been told why you can't just lower your difficulty to solve this problem. It really is that easy.

The diagram you linked to is 80% green with blue and green ends. Couldnt you just take something less than 100% mana reduction for the sweet spot? And stun lock is more difficult when you have 3 mobs at once.

Why do pvp'ers always assume 1 on 1 in their anologies?

Nice one xD


You can AoE stun lock... It's called Ice Storm.

That doesnt really work unless they are tightly clumped. Try it. You can get 2 with effort. Most of the time 3 wont work because 1 or 2 always move out of the way.

That's my problem with this solution, it would fix the destro-focused mage but might unbalance the other schools. Maybe change the impact perk with a perk that increases combat regeneration (or just increases regen across the board - less downtime is never really a bad thing).Also, be careful not to completely eliminate the combat regen penalty or with some mana regen items (archmage's robes, dragonpiest mask, resto perks) you'll basically be able to get infinite mana for all 5 schools.

To fix impact, I would love to see it taken off most spells and added to runes. Those are less mana efficient than the adept and expert spells (especially since they don't benefit from augment). Even better would be to see them cast like the master spells (takes two hands, long cast time) rendering them relative worthless in battle, but allowing you to drop 1 rune per element.

http://i39.tinypic.com/24uwbwz.jpg

I fixed your graph.

Win! lol

The thing with destruction is like this,

"i go to a fort at level 4 and the semi-boss there kills me before i can kill him, i can survive 3 to 4 minutes casting flame on him and running around but eventually he kills me. I decide to leave the fort and come back once im bit stronger. I level up destruction and now i can cast fireball spell at level 10 with some efficiency regarding the mana cost and decide to go back to the fort to kill the semi-boss there and to my suprise the fight end's up turning to be just like it was 6 levels ago. I gained 6 level up's and increased my destruction but i still cant kill the guy.

To me the frustration with destruction comes in form of running in circles casting flames 3 to 6 minutes to kill a low level boss but with melee character i can kill one in less than 10 seconds.

exactly, my opinion is that destruction is fine, and i do just fine without abusing ANY game mechanics with destruction. what's your response to that?

Agreed, but, and I hate to say this, here is the obvious and chronic answer to your comment:

I don't want to....

...lower the difficulty.

...use enchantments.

...change my playing style.

...use a combaination of skills.

so the completely viable options already available in game aren't good enough? sorry, but that's ridiculous and childish. HEY BETH YOU GAVE ME 7 OPTIONS BUT THEY JUST AREN'T GOOD ENOUGH.

some people, myself included just want to become a master of destruction. Not alchemy nor enchanting etc.

Uh oh, I saw the lower the difficulty suggestion- you all should know that is a fire starter, this thread is dead if the right people see that. Not that this horse hasn't been brutally beaten already.

OP is right- destruction is the inferior to the other skills, thankfully PC can fix this. Console? become a warrior.

It does not fix the fact that they decided to make spells not scale and tier them to where certain spells become obsolete, which leaves you only casting in most cases the highest tier of the spell over and over (ie Incinerate spam). To fix this, more spells need to be implemented, spells need to synergize, and players should be encouraged to branch out on the spells they use. Players will naturally gravitate towards the most efficient means of doing things. The most efficient means should also be the most complex and dynamic to combat the problem the OP mentioned of boredom. This means that players seeking a greater challenge and higher yield, will be rewarded in terms of gameplay. The problem is that the most efficient method is to just Dual-Cast Incinerate with Impact perk on pretty much everything. Yes, there are more spells in the game, but if they are not efficient most players won't use them. What you are left with is a bunch of players upset that the game mechanics are boring.

Does not compute.

What's the name of the woman at the college of winterhold whom is a master of restoration? Kinda looks like an older miribel. I feel like her sometimes "You think destruction is a perfectly viable school of magic, don't you?". What I am saying is destruction doesn't work well at higher levels unless paired with enchanting and alchemy (yawn).

That that is your opinion and you are entitled to it and nothing else. There are a lot of people that think differently and find fault with how the system works. They (we) believe that the Magicka system could have been designed better to give a greater sense of enjoyment for all and please us both. The real argument on these forums as it relates to pretty much everything is that gamers believe that the game should be structured with a proper enough rule-set to be fun and balanced without having to change or adapt their playstyle, and the RP immersion crowd believes that practicing self-restraint, intentionally not progressing, self-gimping, and imposing outlandish rule-sets is the way to go.

Don't take me wrong, those aren't my opinions, they are just the answers that the 'destruction is broken' people have been using since day of release.

My view is that comparing the damage/ability of the single skill of destruction to the damage/ability of the combination of one-handed + smithing + enchanting + block + an armour skill is an inherently imbalanced view, used only to further people's personal agendas.

A far more accurate comparision is to compare either only destruction with only one-handed (using unimproved weaponry), or a comparison of the effectiveness of enhanced destruction (using enchants and potions, etc) vs enhanced one-handed....however, this second option would be somewhat more anectdotal, rather than empirical, because how do you measure the actual benefits of ranged vs melee combat, or area effect vs one on one?

I've asked on several occasions for any of the posters in these threads to actually try playing a melee character who only wears street clothes, and only uses an unimproved weapon (preferably iron or steel), and uses no other skills...but no one has taken up the challenge...simply because they know that they will get wasted very early on...yet the imbalanced comparisons still roll out on the forums.

The fact is, the game is designed a particular way...the focus of the magick system is to reduce the costs of spell casting, and to provide higher damage spells of the same type, not to increase the damage each individual spell is capable of doing...and some people don't like that. Granted, it requires them to adapt to the system, but every game requires certain adaption...simply labelling a game as another in a series (i.e. TES 5) does not mean that the elements and processes of the earlier games are going to be retained...and that doesn't sit well with a lot of people, particularly those that prefer the mage characters.

There could be any number of reasons for this, but the salient point is that this is the design choice that Beth made, and we players have to adapt to what we have got. No amount of complaining or discussion is going to get a basic game mechanic (such as the magic system) changed...it's far too radical. The other side of the coin is that for PC users there are mods available, and will be more, but that doesn't help the console users.

that's because the enemies scale to your level

My one major gripe with destruction magic is that the cloak spells become obsolete later in the game. My character is a mage of battle, he likes to get up close to enemies and taunt them. On the other hand I suppose the cloaks were never meant to be a powerful fire and forget area weapon. Just something to help kill the weaker enemies in a mob while you concentrate on the boss. Well this was a kinda pointless (if a little informative post)

Enemy scaling is not the issue. Spells not scaling properly and the lack of tactics you have at your disposal are the problems.

I'm fine with using ancillary skills to bolster Destruction.

I am not fine with having to use ancillary skills to make Destruction viable in the first place.