LE Cast Spells without de-equipping weapon and shield

[xleileix]

It's been a long time since I played Oblivion but I seem to remember in that game that I was able to cast spells without losing (de-equipping) my shield and weapon. I was a mage who used heavy armor, a shield and a onehand sword, and it was easy to block with my shield and then melee or cast spells at the same time or consecutively depending on what the situation called for.

 

I'd love to be able to recreate that in Skyrim but it's become more...difficult. Constantly de-equipping and re-equipping my shield and weapon inbetween spellcasting is annoying and silly, even with hotkeys. If I want to dual-cast, I have to be completely shield and weaponless for a few seconds, then re-equip them. I don't see why my character can't cast a spell while holding a shield and weapon, as long as she is just holding them and not using them at the same time as she casts (although if not dual casting, I think she should be able to shield block with one hand and cast with the weapon hand). But right now, I constantly have the several second delay of re-equipping them in combat. It makes playing this kind of character seem more trouble than it's worth, when if I am remembering right it was actually a valid class style in Oblivion?

 

Also, it would be really cool if you could be a heavy armored mage with a 2hander. I know you *can* do that, but again the same problem is faced, the delay of several seconds when switching back in the 2hander after spellcasting. I just want to keep the weapon in my hand so that I can immediately use it after the cast finishes, instead of being vulnerable to attack and wasting melee time. It's just not fun, it feels clunky, and makes me feel like I should take the starting stones literally and become a pure Mage, Thief, or Warrior instead of trying to play a hybrid character.

 

If anyone wants to suggest a fix or go to the trouble of making one, I would appreciate it. Also, even if I was wrong about it being easier in Oblivion (I haven't played it in so long I could have just imagined it), this is something I'd like to see for the reasons mentioned.

[DeMocha]

Its a pity that one can't just apply a staff enchant to a sword, unfortunately you'd still have the same problem. On that note its a pity that there is no melee using staves or polearms (animations anyway).

 

I imagine you'd need someone to do a bit of scripting..... or make spells be cast in a similar manner to shouts, since you don't need to unequip for them.

[scottym23]

It's been a long time since I played Oblivion but I seem to remember in that game that I was able to cast spells without losing (de-equipping) my shield and weapon. I was a mage who used heavy armor, a shield and a onehand sword, and it was easy to block with my shield and then melee or cast spells at the same time or consecutively depending on what the situation called for.

 

I'd love to be able to recreate that in Skyrim but it's become more...difficult. Constantly de-equipping and re-equipping my shield and weapon inbetween spellcasting is annoying and silly, even with hotkeys. If I want to dual-cast, I have to be completely shield and weaponless for a few seconds, then re-equip them. I don't see why my character can't cast a spell while holding a shield and weapon, as long as she is just holding them and not using them at the same time as she casts (although if not dual casting, I think she should be able to shield block with one hand and cast with the weapon hand). But right now, I constantly have the several second delay of re-equipping them in combat. It makes playing this kind of character seem more trouble than it's worth, when if I am remembering right it was actually a valid class style in Oblivion?

 

Also, it would be really cool if you could be a heavy armored mage with a 2hander. I know you *can* do that, but again the same problem is faced, the delay of several seconds when switching back in the 2hander after spellcasting. I just want to keep the weapon in my hand so that I can immediately use it after the cast finishes, instead of being vulnerable to attack and wasting melee time. It's just not fun, it feels clunky, and makes me feel like I should take the starting stones literally and become a pure Mage, Thief, or Warrior instead of trying to play a hybrid character.

 

If anyone wants to suggest a fix or go to the trouble of making one, I would appreciate it. Also, even if I was wrong about it being easier in Oblivion (I haven't played it in so long I could have just imagined it), this is something I'd like to see for the reasons mentioned.

I understand where you're coming from, but you need to take these things into consideration:

 

Bethesda changed this from Oblivion to Skyrim for a reason. Probably because they realized that it's kind of unrealistic. Your spells come from your hands, which are holding a sword or a shield. As you and I know, spells come from the palms of the casters hand. This part is being blocked by whatever weapon/shield you're holding, thus making it so you'd be burning the held part clean off or burning yourself in the process. Either way, it would be illogical to cast a spell while the hand is being used.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that it's kind of challenging now (you might argue annoying, and I wouldn't disagree with you on that). Seeing a spell in your hand is much more visually and aesthetically pleasing then just clicking a button and seeing a bogus split second spark.

[xleileix]

@ Democha, the idea about casting spells like shouts is a pretty good one, as long as they still consumed Magicka instead of causing the shout cooldown. I have no idea if it's possible, but it would be a solution. Meleeing with staves would also be nice, but I prefer true melee weapons like axes/maces/swords. That's just a personal preference though and if someone adds melee staves then more power to them.

 

@ Scotty, I know some people are super concerned with "realism", but this is a fantasy game. Bethesda do a good enough job of breaking the "immersion" themselves on many occasions (I'll cite just a few below). Also, I don't really want to get into a debate about the realism of magic or magical weapons but since you brought it up... for instance, my weapon has a fiery enchant on it. So I don't see why I can have that, but suddenly my weapon might get burnt when I cast a firespell with the hand holding the weapon. It's so easy to make up reasons why your personal weapons wouldn't get damaged by magic use ("I enchanted them using my magic to be immune!"). After all, why don't I burn my hands or get frostbite or get electrocuted? It's because I'm a mage in a fantasy game and my own magic doesn't harm me or my possessions. Also, while it's nice to have an uber glowy hand, your hands can still glow while holding something, or even cause what they're holding to glow perhaps.

 

There are also lots of fantasy games currently available where you can cast spells without unequipping any of your weapons or armor.

 

A degree of realism can be fun, getting banal about realism removes fun. And let's face it, realism in Skyrim is pretty much just a facade and only exists as a combination of modding and the player's imagination. Have you really not met someone who's asked you if you go to the Cloud District very often over 20 times, or been referred to as male when you are female on multiple occasions, or not collapsed from exhaustion after "waiting" for 12 hours outside a shop in the freezing snow? Have you met 5 different NPCs who have exactly the same voice? How about killing a wolf and never being able to take any of its meat? Running into a strange farm's potato and cabbage patch, looting all the vegetables without being accused of stealing, and then selling them to the farm workers who were standing right there and tending them? Have you ever carried around over 200 burned books while fighting a bunch of vampires? Skyrim is not a realistic game, people just want it to be.

 

If you want to argue about the realism of how you would cast with a weapon, then I imagine any skilled mage could channel the spell through their palms and shoot it from the weapon, much like a staff.

 

Shields can actually be attached via straps to the arm, meaning you could let go of your shield without dropping it temporarily. Of course, if you're casting, then you can't block with your shield hand but all I want is to be able to immediately block (or melee attack) as soon as the cast finishes. Same goes for weapons.

 

As for challenge, when I want more challenge there are many ways to increase that (just a few examples: not using followers, reducing my characters stats using the console, upping the in-game difficulty, wearing light armor or clothing instead of armor, not using enchants, installing mods that make certain enemies more powerful, the list goes on)

 

It's not challenging to change my weapon and shield, unless you consider that my character becomes vulnerable to attack when doing so (and all this means is that I am constantly kiting, sprinting and hiding behind corners to avoid being melee'd). All it does for me is mean I have to constantly spend combat time waiting as I switch from weapon to shield to spell. Combat stops being exciting and fast paced and becomes slow and rote. I just don't see how Bethesda created more than one archetype based around the idea of being a combat melee mage and then punished them by changing this mechanic.

 

Also, if someone doesn't like the idea of going back to Oblivion's style of battlemage/spellsword then they could just avoid downloading such a mod, script or fix if it actually existed. Which it doesn't, but I would really like it if it did.

[valus22]

Bethesda changed this from Oblivion to Skyrim for a reason. Probably because they realized that it's kind of unrealistic. Your spells come from your hands, which are holding a sword or a shield.

 

Away with this "realism" nonsense plaguing my games! :wallbash:

 

I totally second xleileix's request, Oblivion's system is the way to go.

[xleileix]

Oh, and I forgot there is this thread that currently details all the immersion breaking things people have found so far: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/495105-pre-ck-list-of-immersion-breakers/ . Bethesda thought it was too unrealistic to let me cast without de-equipping weapons, but somehow overlooked a very long list of other things. For all we know, this change has nothing to do with realism anyway - a lot of changes from Oblivion to Skyrim were simply made so that the game would be compatible with the Xbox and PS3. I don't imagine people playing Skyrim on a console are hitting their favorites menu to change spells and weapons half as often as a PC player, and I'm going to guess that the console versions have even less spell/equip hotkeys available because of the limited amount of buttons on a console controller.

 

Two of my classmates at college were once arguing about what racing game was best. I don't play racing games so unfortunately I can't recall the actual titles of the games, but anyway, one student was a programmer who only worked on the technical side of computing, and the other student worked at Rockstar Games as an intern or something. The programmer argued that the most realistic racing game was the best because obviously it had "the most realism", and the student who worked at Rockstar said that it was one of the most frustrating and unenjoyable games he'd ever played because they had focused so much on realism instead of fluid or fun gameplay that he quit out of frustration.

 

I'm not saying realism should be removed from all games, a degree of it adds balance and enjoyment (for example, I refuse to use any console commands in Skyrim that give me gold or godmode powers, and I only use fast travel when I really need to as I like wandering the lands). But when I ask a lot of people what their favorite racing game of all time is, they pick something like Mario Kart.

[Greytale]

If you want to argue about the realism of how you would cast with a weapon, then I imagine any skilled mage could channel the spell through their palms and shoot it from the weapon, much like a staff.

 

Shields can actually be attached via straps to the arm, meaning you could let go of your shield without dropping it temporarily. Of course, if you're casting, then you can't block with your shield hand but all I want is to be able to immediately block (or melee attack) as soon as the cast finishes. Same goes for weapons.

 

HOLY COW, xleileix.... you and I think VERY much alike, sir!!!! O.O

 

I literally JUST posted about an idea of "channeling" a spell through a weapon or shield--I'm going to absolutely have to mention you in my post if ya don't mind!! :)

 

As to the "realism" thing that others are bringing up... oh gawd... PLEASE. Spare us. Let me just bring up some examples of where it's already WAAAAAAY ridiculous, and let's get back to the entire point of mods + gaming which is to have MORE FUN, not pump up realism:

 

* You can carry 12 swords, 5 suits of armor, 50 potions, 200 ingredients, 50 soul gems, 25000+ gold, etc. etc. --- oh is THAT all? :)

* You can swim in armor... during a lightning storm... IN THE SNOW.. ... ... after which, you can enter a pub 30 seconds later and be greeted by "Oh, a little of this and... a little of that"--no regard for your soggy dog syndrome...

* Healing spells uh.... repair eviscerated organs... broken legs... punctured skulls... ... OH! And even minor cuts & bruises! *whew* I hate those nasty papercuts. I use "Heal More"... ;)

* You can run for hours upon end. Drink stamina potions--you're the cat's meow!! You can travel on foot for hours with no breaks. Who needs treadmill horses...

* While your hands are on fire... they don't burn. Well... only when someone ELSE casts flames at you. You can't be burned by YOUR OWN flames, duh! That's obvious logic, lol.

* You can (literally) steal the clothes off of someone's back. They're clearly on crack, because... they don't care.

* You are never stopped by the guards for running around without undies. People TELL you about their thoughts on it... but... nope--no harm no foul I guess. Free Willy! lol

 

Alright, enough of that. De-rail over. Video games aren't "logical"--ever. The end.

 

Here's what I was thinking in this post:

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/521899-a-genuine-but-good-list-of-ideas-by-greytale/

 

(it's #38 in my list, btw)

 

if you've hotkeyed a spell, AND are holding a weapon or shield... you cast a spell channeled THROUGH that item?? Maybe?

 

Some thoughts on it might be:

 

* Channeling magic through a _______ is better than doing it through a __________ (maybe swords channel better than axes, etc.)

* Two-handed weapon channeling is akin to dual-wielding a spell, although still not AS powerful as having empty hands to cast

* While we're at it... perhaps an enchantment that can INCREASE CHANNELING...

* While we're at it... perhaps heavy armor (especially gauntlets/gloves) that are plate/metal could possibly REDUCE channeling power?

* While we're at it... Glass armor could have a good % bonus per piece to channeling (fits in that it would be magical)

* Channeling magic through a bow could create flame, fire, ice arrows (so you don't have the illogical alternative that you have "a quiver of ice arrows")

 

I have no idea how one might organize the damage bonuses and/or penalties... but I think it'd be a good way to solve the issues of not being able to cast offensive destruction magic at people quickly enough... and also solve the issue of having to lower / unequip item A or B from left/right hand (or both) prior to casting.

 

It also would require some new animations (probably). Well... maybe not SO much for the shield... but definitely a tweak to the anims of weapons... which might have to "stop" halfway through, as if you are swinging the weapon out to POINT it at the enemy, and... zzzziiipp---*blam*... spell executed.

 

Hmm though--sounds VERY complicated possibly. Maybe a definite requirement of the CK... :/

[xleileix]

Thank you Greytale, I'm glad you also want this! Please go ahead and mention the post if you wish.

 

I feel like this would definitely take some decent scripting knowledge to implement (which I don't have) and as you pointed out, possibly small animation fixes. Maybe there are existing animations that could be tweaked or re-used.

 

I think you have some imaginative ideas for how channeling could be handled if we got the basic implementation, but as a general rule I think modders should make anything that nerfs the game optional since every player has their own preferences about difficulty setting. After all, the concept of a combat mage is that s/he often wears heavy armor instead of traditional light/mage robes, so it wouldn't really make sense to have wearing it reduce your channeling power. If someone wanted to add this feature then sure, just make people able to use the base feature and opt out of it.

 

I want to learn to make mods once the kit comes out since I would love to be able to just make something like this myself, but this might be too complex for even the kit (Right now I only know how to create retextures for things which isn't really helpful at all here)... so unfortunately it will remain as a suggestion until someone with the interest and skill looks into it.

[JanusForbeare]

Bethesda thought it was too unrealistic to let me cast without de-equipping weapons, but somehow overlooked a very long list of other things.

 

The issue for Beth wasn't realism or immersion, but balancing the combat mechanics. This request is similar to one that was posted not long ago, for the ability to block to be incorporated into dual wielding. In both cases, the OP requested that the critical disadvantage of their chosen combat style be removed because they found it "annoying". This is fair enough, but those limitations are put in place to ensure that no combat style becomes overpowered in relation to its counterparts. If, in the suggestion above, the OP's suggestion were to be implemented, the reasonable way to go about it would be to either increase mana cost or decrease spell power when casting while wielding a weapon.

 

Don't get me wrong, I want to see battlemages return as a viable class option as much as the OP. I just don't Skyrim to become even less challenging as a result.

[xleileix]

You are talking like someone who plays an MMO - which Skyrim is not. It is a single-player game, therefore issues of what is "balanced" and "difficult" subjectively rely on only one person- the player. People have different skill levels and like different levels of difficulty. If this WAS an MMO, you can bet that people would be asking to nerf High Elves right now since they run faster, jump higher and hit harder than any other race in the game. Also, the existence of readily accessible console and cheat codes makes it clear that Bethesda does not care if I am playing the game balanced "their way". There are already mods and command that give your character extremely overpowered abilities, I choose not to use them because I do not want to trivialize the game to quite that extent.

 

Some playstlyes are inherently harder than others anyway. When I find that things are getting too easy in Skyrim, there are dozens of ways to up the difficulty of the game and I'm sure that there will be more to come (I've already seen a few mods focusing on making the game more difficult, I think).

 

The whole point of modding is that it allows players to play a game they find enjoyable and remove frustrating features. People often confuse annoying and tedious tasks with difficulty. These are not the same thing. There is no multiplayer system so it's not like I'm going to be running around having people complain how OP Battlemages and Spellswords are, nor would this hurt any other person's play experience. If this ability unbalanced the game to the point that it was too easy, there are some solutions:

 

1. Completely ignore the mod and don't use it

2. Up the difficulty level of the game using mods, console commands, limiting your playstyle (i.e not using potions for example) and the in-game difficulty setting.

3. Choose a different character class archetype

 

edit: spelling

Edited January 16, 2012 by xleileix