Bethesda Hates Mages: 12 Reasons Magic in Skyrim Sucks

[immortalfrieza]

5. True, but how exactly could this be fixed? I mean, if it was a close kill, I could see maybe grabbing an enemy's head and liquifying it with whatever brand magic you are using, but how exactly could you make distance kills interesting? (Besides, I love how the current kill cams often send enemies flying farther then they probably should be.)

It's not that hard really. Right off the top of my head, I'd recommend with the distance kills just have something appropriate for each element. For instance, have enemies that are killed by a fireball be set on fire, flail around trying to put it out, and then the bodies burn into a skeleton or something, while lightning has them spasm out for a few seconds (like when electrocuted in real life) before collapsing, while the ice would have them freeze solid, perhaps shattering when they fall and hit the ground, all with the appropriate sound effects of course. That's just for the destruction spells, but I think you get the idea.

I Illusion is by far the best school of magic (largely because the spells it uses are the kind that are so overpowered that your enemies can't use them on you - what kind of possible mechanic could you use to simulate "rage", "pacify" or "flee" when used on a player?)

Again, it's right off the top of my head so take it with a grain of salt, but I'll answer that:

Rage: Simple, have the player lose control for a few seconds while the character blindly attacks any creature around it at random.

Pacify: The attack controls don't react to player input for a few seconds. i.e. if the player presses the attack button the character won't swing their sword.

Flee: Either the same as Pacify or have the player once again lose control of the character and it would retreat from the caster for the duration.

To help ensure they don't become a cheap way for enemies to off the player, with all of them the only versions enemies would have are short duration ones and the player would be able to shorten the duration of said magic effects a little further by pressing the movement(Rage and Flee) and attack keys (Pacify) repeatedly.

OT: I agree with most of what Shamus said, however I think he is selling magic short in a lot of ways. For one, it's incredibly versatile. Not only does magic have plenty of noncombat applications it makes up for it's lack of finishing moves with the fact that there's just so many ways one can kill the enemy, to wit:

Burning it alive.
Electrocuting it to death.
Freezing it.
Make them kill each other.
Prevent it from attacking and slay it however one wishes.

and probably a few more I'm forgetting. By contrast, a fighter character's options are "run up and hit it over and over" and an archer/assassin character's options are "shoot it from afar over and over again" and "sneak up behind it and slit it's throat" respectively.

However, I agree that magic itself is pretty underpowered compared to a fighter/assassin/archer character. What most people here that defend it have said only shows this all too well. In order for magic to just be viable not to mention effective the player either has to hybrid their class to do it, mix magic schools together to compensate for their weaknesses i.e. illusion to keep enemies off you while you pelt them with fireballs or exploit cheap tricks like enchanting clothes to make the magic cost nothing and things like that which one won't have access to right off and shouldn't have to do anyway. With being a fighter/archer/assassin all one has to do is draw their weapon and attack essentially. Especially compared to other options magic requires a ridiculous amount of preparation just to be of any use at all, and it's only worse if one is a pure mage character.

 

[Auron225]

Which is why I wore normal armor, used a sword in the right hand and kept the left reserved for spell-casting. I only used magic to augment combat - mostly sticking to Restoration, Destruction & Conjuration. It seemed to work really well...

Then I realized that being a stealth-archer was much easier since that combo is hideously overpowered.

 

[Lawnmooer]

Magic users can get pretty overpowered pretty quickly. Much to the same way that melee/archers can (True, Magic users don't scale as well into the late game but they can tear up early game and stay there due to not leveling up armour skills as often)

Destruction + Enchanting is all you need to wipe out everything.

Once you get enchanting high enough to be able to enchant your way to 100% cost reduction for Destruction spells, you can just run around throwing your best spells at everyone constantly.

With no other skills to unlock, you don't have to face the ridiculously inflated health pools of the late game.

This is while a Melee/Archer will be wanting to level up their Armour, Blacksmithing, Enchanting, their particular weapon type, potentially Alchemy to further improve their weapons (Potion of Enchanting skill > Better Blacksmithing enchants > Blacksmithing Potion > Massive Upgrades) and potentially Sneak and Pickpocketing meaning they will get to the point where their 1000+ damage weapons only take off tiny slivers of health on max difficulty more easily.

The only downside to mages is early game can be a bit rough, even more so when Staffs are kinda sucky due to their limited charges.

 

[Shalok]

100% agree, Skyrim was my first Elder Scrolls game and I generally go in for magic users in games I play but in this case I just didn't enjoy it and quit that playthrough about 10-15 hours in. In the end I re-did as a Fighter/Rogue (Sword & Shield + Bow) and eneded up sinking a couple of hundred hours into the game

 

[GabeZhul]

OT: You are not using mods. You are doing it wrong.

Also, I did complete a full playthrough with unmodded Skyrim just after its release, and I never found mages underpowered. The one thing that is underpowered in the game is the Destruction school, but I could always work around that.
Not to mention, the article's repeated use of the term "proper mage" just crawls under my skin. In Tamriel everyone has magic and everyone can learn magic. I don't see why your mage just has to be a stereotypical robed guy with a staff. My sneaky mage, dressed in light armor and setting up runes everywhere and while using illusion and conjuration to deal with most enemies without dirtying his own hands played pretty well, thank you very much.

There are two things I have to agree with though: The robes were lame and destruction spells (and dragon shouts, if we are at that) were rendered mostly useless whenever you had friendlies with you because they had a really, really uncanny sense to wander into the line of fire and then get pissy about being roasted.

[Edit:] However, if we stay at vanilla Skyrim, there is one thing you forgot: There are some really, really impressive Master Destruction spells... that have casting times waaaay too long to be useful and learning said spells is a pain in the neck.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Really though, is there any game that does magic well, and doesn't just attribute it to 'shooting power from your hands or staff'?

Critical Intel did a very good article on it a while back.

 

[Kahani]

I first discovered this in Morrowind when I rolled a new fighter and killed my first foe in two or three hits. Then I rolled a mage and spent all my mana trying (unsuccessfully) to burn someone to death. Then I ran around in circles waiting for it to recharge

No you didn't. Magicka didn't recharge in Morrowind except when you rested.

Magic is spread out over six skill trees.

This really doesn't make sense as a criticism. Magic that does direct damage, which is obviously the only kind you're talking about with all the comparisons to fighters, is only a single skill tree. One that actually gives you access to a lot more variety than any of the other direct damage options. The other magic skill trees all do entirely different things and don't make any sense in your comparison at all. Illusion, for example, is far more useful for a stealth character than it is for a pure mage, restoration is useful for absolutely everyone, and despite one of your complaints being that fighters get to use enchanting, you apparently failed to notice that enchanting is, in fact, one of those magic skill trees.

Magic is less satisfying to use. A typical kill animation

Considering how utterly stupid the mere concept of being ripped out of the game and forced to watch the same shitty pre-animated sequences over and over again is, it seems rather pointless to complain that some of them aren't quite as good as others.

Magic is prone to friendly-fire.

That's one of its best points! Hey look, it's a bunch of indistinguishable soldiers who are supposedly wearing different colour uniforms but are pretty much impossible to tell apart without walking right up to them and hoping they stay still long enough to figure our who the hell they are. Fuck it, nothing a few fireballs won't sort out.


Note that I completely agree that the magic system in Skyrim has issues, it's just that the things you complain are issues are mostly either completely irrelevant or just plain wrong. There are really only two main problems. Firstly, destruction is both underpowered and too easily exploitable - you can't do anywhere near enough damage compared to other options in the mid- to late game, but it's too easy to stun-lock absolutely everything and make actual dps irrelevant in the majority of fights. Secondly, duration of some spells is far too short - the problem with mage armour being one of the things you actually got right, but other things like light spells are also affected. Both of these issues are incredibly easy to fix with mods. And yes, I know that won't help people playing on consoles; that's why you shouldn't play a series which has always had modding as a huge part on a platform that won't let you use mods.

 

[ExtraDebit]

I totally agree with the article, balance aside the magic system is underdeveloped, uninspiring and mechanically boring.

They have 3 basic attack spell archetypes: projectile (think guns in fps), flame thrower and traps(glypes). BORING!!

They have really great level designers, but they seriously need better game play mechanic designers and little more time on game polish. Aside from the gameplay they need to set more acknowledgement of player's actions, like if I steal a store clean during the night I expect to see some specticles in the morning.

 

[Niccolo]

Well some of the article is true, but I find mages pretty OP myself. I read it as "I don't know how to play a mage in Skyrim".

One of the first little tricks is that north of Whiterun there's a mine full of easy kills and a transmute spell for turning iron into gold. Level your spells, create wealth, buy destruction skills (unless you're doing the summon critter, kill critter practise for your destruction keeping in mind that mages study).

I will agree that the robes could be better looking though.

EDIT: I also seem to recall picking up enchantments that boost destruction and mana regeneration at the same time. I guess Shamus wasn't looking hard enough.

I came here knowing I'd find at least one guy saying this. But

Magic actually is kinda pathetic. Yeah it's OP for making money with the transmute spell, but since your flamethrowers spell does 8 damage and your firebolt always does exactly 30 damage (or thereabouts) and your fireball does an explosion of 75 damage whether you're level 1 or 50 says something's a little off (By the way, the enchantment you're thinking about makes the spells easier to cast, not more powerful). You can kill things fairly quickly from the outset, but later on the warriors have levelled and they're hitting for incredible amounts of damage (While wearing fucktons of armour, to boot) and you're still dealing the exact same level of damage.

Luckily, just like for everything in Skyrim, there's a mod which fixes this! It makes magic scale with skill and suddenly you can keep up with melee masters! Suddenly you can mow down those goddamn Falmer, rather than throwing a couple of firebolts and hiding in the corner having removed only a fifth of their health (or whatever) while a melee man just wades in and starts hacking like he's a fucking lumberjack.

Sure, you'll still be a squishy little bugger, but at least you're a glass cannon rather than just plain old glass.

 

[Cerebrawl]

I have to say the magic system is pretty uninspired and I miss the spell creation sysem of the previous games. I also REALLY REALLY hate the friendly fire.

On the other hand, I can't agree that magic is underpowered. It's a bit of a pain the first few levels(helps a lot to be Altmer, though the racial loses all value eventually), then it starts to ease up and by mid levels you're OP.

My lvl 48 mage/crafter with ~85 destruction, maxed speech, alchemy, smithing, enchanting, and various levels of other skills. Casts destruction and restoration spells for free. 1-3 shots most enemies with double-casted thunderbolts, even dragons die in 5-6 hits(and rarely do they ever harm me, one did a sliver of damage with its breath once), one-shots entire groups of human enemies with ice storm, and if there actually were any melee enemies that could get to me, I could stop that with wall of frost or wall of storms. Frost cloak also has a tendency to make many enemies just fall down as an ice block before they get to me(yay deep freeze).

Oh and did I mention I cast all destruction and restoration magic for free because of my enchanted equipment? I did the enchanting+alchemy loop around lvl 45, as well as alchemy/enchanting enhanced smithing(seriously my light armor set is about 1200 points of armor) Restoration is there because it means I can hold wards up indefinitely for free, completely nullifying magic casting enemies. If they shield, they'll run out of magicka eventually and be disintegrated.

I don't even bother with summons, don't need them.

Oh and if I ever feel like I need a bit more oomph I have potions that double my damage output.

 

[Mr_Terrific]

Someone has either not actually tried playing a mage, or does not know how to play a mage in Skyrim.
dual casting + mana potions = stunlock anything to death
at most you might have issues with some of the mages using wards, but then it's dual cast rune = dead mage

Now that's on expert, on the highest difficulty level, well, if you are playing on highest difficulty level,
STOP WHINING IT'S HARD, THAT'S THE POINT.

No. The point is there is an imbalance between melee and magic where one is fun and useful and can be improved, and the other is shit.

Shame on you for thinking stun locking is fun. Look at meeeee...I play a mage on nightmare and I stun lock. Weeeeee!

Meanwhile, every other class has tangible benefits to their class and perks while you're stun locking.

Some one clearly has no idea what balance is and that is the point of this thread.

 

[PapstJL4U]

"I first discovered this in Morrowind when I rolled a new fighter and killed my first foe in two or three hits. Then I rolled a mage and spent all my mana trying (unsuccessfully) to burn someone to death. Then I ran around in circles waiting for it to recharge,"

I'm going to guess you didn't actually play a thousand hours of Morrowind because if you had, you might realize that in the game that was given to us by the developers, magic didn't recharge just because you ran around. To wit, from http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Magic

"Magicka can only be replenished by resting, using Restore Magicka, Spell Absorption or Absorb Magicka effects."

Also, my mages in Skyrim rocked it, dropping dragons with various forms of ice spikes.

On top of this: You did not 2-3 hit anyone in Morrowind. If you roll your first char and use the question/classes, you mostly get something like 30-40 points into a fighting ability. This is something like 50% miss chance and rats and crabs hit you 'hard'.
On the othe side magics like ice/frost/lightning/fire bite (the on touch variation of damage spells) can kill many npcs with 1-2 casts. If i have to judge by the article, the author did not play Morrowind.


I don't get, how people think, that magic sucks in TES. Its a different playstyle from melee and range and this is GOOD!. Its not just melee with RGB colours. Its something different. If you are a mage, you need money for potions. This is okay, because you dont need money to repair items. You need to think ahead. That is the whole deal about magic. In the end magic was just strong. My Morrowind mage had 2 two Atronachs of each type, 2 Dremoras, a golden saint, can fly above the battle field, travels across the world easily with divine invention, almalexias whatever and mark&return. She could throw multielemet damage balls, etc.

Magic does not suck in TES. It sucks in games like DS, but not TES.

 

[nyysjan]

Someone has either not actually tried playing a mage, or does not know how to play a mage in Skyrim.
dual casting + mana potions = stunlock anything to death
at most you might have issues with some of the mages using wards, but then it's dual cast rune = dead mage

Now that's on expert, on the highest difficulty level, well, if you are playing on highest difficulty level,
STOP WHINING IT'S HARD, THAT'S THE POINT.

No. The point is there is an imbalance between melee and magic where one is fun and useful and can be improved, and the other is shit.

Shame on you for thinking stun locking is fun. Look at meeeee...I play a mage on nightmare and I stun lock. Weeeeee!

Meanwhile, every other class has tangible benefits to their class and perks while you're stun locking.

Some one clearly has no idea what balance is and that is the point of this thread.

Who said anything about fun?
The point was about magic being underpowered.
Ability to stunlock a dragon to death, is not underpowered.

Could magic be better and more fun? Hell yes, but that was never the point of conversation.

 

[Wolyo]

Underpowered? Well, the damage are not that great at High Level but with the right enchantement, my pure destruction mage, spend next to nothing on magicka with a regeneration rate so high you never run out of spell. So yeah, you won't one shot anything like an archer can, but you don't have any difficulty destroying everything with a lightning spell. Faster than an arrow, stunning and impairing the magicka of the opponent.

Our dear Alduin did not last long when he was eating a never-ending Lightning Storm.

 

[Frozengale]

Yeesh so many people trying to show off their nerd cred in this thread.

Why do so many people just say, "Mods fix this." That's not the point of the thread, and mods should never be used as an excuse for something being bad in a game. If you have to install something that was not made by the developer in order to fix a game then that means there is something wrong with the game. Pointing out that there are mods to fix magic does not change the fact that Bethesda does not know how to balance magic.

I've played Skyrim more then I've played any other TES game, and I have to agree with Shamus on this. Magic is full of problems. I've never been a big fan of Resource dependent magic in games because of games like Skyrim. Either the resource becomes a huge blow to making the magic system fun, or it can eventually be ignored entirely via buffs/perks/enchantments/etc. The one thing that I do like about magic in Skyrim however is that if you play a Mage type it forces you to be more strategic in how you deal with enemies. When playing a melee only character it's basically a game of slash, slash, slash, block, slash, slash, slash. It gets repetitive and somewhat boring. As a Mage I tend to approach combat from several different angles trying to find some way to make up for the inherent weakness in the spells. All in all I think TES games need a bit of an overhaul in all departments of combat.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

As someone who has just started his first magic using class, I'm finding all of the above. I have to keep my onehanded relatively leveled and my archery very powerful to supplement the flames coming out of my hands? Something is wrong with that.

I guess next time I'll start a rogue class.

 

[Kieve]

Four pages long, did not read through all of it, so I have to ask:
Did anyone else mention the sheer joy of Runes yet?

Magic in Skyrim has its flaws, to be sure, but nothing makes me happier than placing a dual-cast Fire Rune in a hallway, tossing some magelight next to it, and waiting for the inevitable explosion.
"What was that?" ... *BOOM!*
*watches plates and pots come tumbling out of the room, trailing fire*

 

[Cerebrawl]

Yeah... I mean when my frost/storm mage gets rushed by 5 bandits and one single cast of ice storm kills them all, or when I snipe them with thunderbolt from 50m, or kill a dragon with 5 thunderbolts, or duel a mage and turn invincible with greater ward and hit them until they run out of mana and disintegrate... I'm not feeling underpowered.

In fact my mage is facerolling everything.

Some of the undead take 2-3 casts from lightning, they resist frost. But they never reach me.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Playing as a mage in Skyrim (first time I really tried to play one in Elder Scrolls) I found that conjuring and illusion mixed with enchantment to lower mana consumption was the best way to get any where without being completely murdered, though hiding round a corner while summon creatures do all the fun combat gets old. Even then you have to power level to get the top tier perks which make those skills go from underpowered to well overpowered.

Like most things in Skyrim now, I can only play a mage with mods.

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

I'm someone who mainly likes playing stealth characters, but I found that as soon as I enter melee combat, tits go up pretty rapidly. If I use two weapons, stuff dies quickly, but so do I. If I use a single sword, I can block, but it seems to do very little. Am I playing it wrong?

Don't enter melee combat is my advice; use a bow and unlock all the perks -- combined with high-level stealth powers, most enemies in Skyrim die before they even know you're there. As a last ditch defense weapon, get something that can paralyze and you should be okay when facing the exceptions.

Regarding the article, I completely agree. The Elder Scrolls games are one of the few RPGs in which my default character is not a mage. It is just too much hassle for too little reward.

So how does it work for people who actually want to go into close combat?

It works fine, people here saying otherwise just don't have enough faith in their character builds or are spreading their skill points too widely. I've got a stealth character that specializes in Bow (Legendary), Light Armor (Legendary), Sneak, and 2-Handed (Legendary). Even with the handicaps associated with the Legendary process he's kicking all kinds of ass.

Just make sure you whittle your opponents down with your bow weapon (invest in Deadly Aim and Power Shot at later levels to make your long-distance attacks more effective), and you'll be totally capable of rushing in and taking out the stragglers in close combat. Oh yeah, get a good set of enchanted light armor -- that will raise your survivability odds significantly.