[WIP] Apocalypse New

[ryanshowseason2]

 

 

- Conjure Staff... we have swords, we have axes and we have bows, but we are mages, we do not need this things, let us summon a wizard staff that would scale in level and benefit from the Conjuration perks. Lightning attack or something equally sinister would be superb. Though I think Drain Life would be a bit OP... your call if it is viable.

This seems to be the same thing as the attunement concept, except with direct damage in conjuration. The complaints about skill tree identity in Apocalypse told me that most people expect direct damage to be purely a destruction thing (even though the best offensive magic effect in Morrowind was Drain Health in mysticism).

 

So while you can still shove people off cliffs with alteration and mill their stats or cast instakills with restoration, there will be no form of direct spell damage outside destruction.

 

 

 

I wouldn't say so. Attunements I assume still use magicka when casting the unlocked spell. Or is the unlocked ability simply a 'z' use power without cost? Also the one listed doesn't last 120 seconds. Staves don't cast out of your pool they cast out of charge.

 

I assume whenever you'd conjure a new stave it would come by default fully charged. So you'd basically get conjuration based destruction magic for one up front cost for 120 seconds.

 

If these staves had a small meager charge and dispelled when it ran out it could be balanced. In fact could be a good mechanic to balance things behind, instead of timed attunements they'd be limited to an amount of uses that could scale with skill level.

 

Could even have mages *eating* soul gems to prolong attunements.

 

[Tykiii]

[conjuration] Haunting curse - A ghost is summoned to haunt the target npc. May steal and drop his items, as well as perform other mischievous acts.

 

 

Actually... that one is not a totes bad idea... like I agree with Enai that it would elliminate the purpose leveling pickpocket in the game. However... maybe with some handicap. Like it works only once per day... ? Or the ghost has a random chance of stealing from the target... bashing him several time or just scarring him?

 

What I am pointing at is... in vanilla all summons are a "damage buffer/dealer" types. Since the summon corpse spells will be removed... maybe some multitask summons can be used... like summoning a healer or summon a thief? I know it kinda makes conjuration to... replace other mechanics (like healing spells or pickpocketing)... but yeah... just think that this school has a bit potential.

[TehKaoZ]

Dropping another idea here for ya in case you want more.

 

Back in Oblivion I used a mod, I can't remember the name anymore, but it had the Arcane Archer theme to it.

I'd love to see a set of spells centered around it. Perhaps bound arrows with elemental properties (and yes I know you can simply enchant bows with elements), but maybe something

with a bit more oomph to it, they would need to do less damage than straight destruction projectiles with maybe more of a focus on status effects for Ice, Fire and Lightning.

I know Requiem has elemental based arrows. Gopher recently made a video on flame based arrows (non magical, but the effects are nice).

Mechanically speaking, I know that this doesn't really add anything to the mix, as my previous post it is more about the theme.

 

Edit: Also looking forward to seeing your battlemage spells

Edited November 27, 2013 by TehKaoZ

[KawaiiSpider]

That's four variations of instant kills and a spell that makes pickpocketing obsolete. How is this adding gameplay?

 

I was just throwing out some ideas.

 

I wasn't going for instant kills or pickpocketing, though. Another well known rpg I've played(baldur's gate) had spells that could turn your enemies to stone and do other interesting things. Modded skyrim has plenty of spells that cause damage and even a few utility spells, but I feel like magic would be even more interesting if you could do things like transform your enemies into chickens and cast curses on them.

[Xander9009]

For the turn to stone one, it could be balanced so it's not essentially an insta-kill. If it had a fair cost, worked only for a minute or so (probably a lot less), fully healed the target/gave a large health/stamina regen boost/something else, and was dispelled if cast on another target (who would then also be fully healed), then using it once at the beginning of combat might be a good idea to eliminate one enemy. But using it after you've already done a bit of damage would work against you by healing the damage you dealt.

 

Conjuring a staff seems to me to be a fairly good idea. Have the staff's damage scale with destruction just like any other damaging staff, add to that the fact that staves don't grant experience, finally throw in the idea already mentioned about giving them a relatively small pool to work with, and you arrive at a spell that only works well in combination with the destruction school; thus not eliminating the need for the destruction skill. An alternative would be to be granted specific staves that you charge and use like normal, but you conjure them. You still have to recharge them yourself, but you can avoid having to carry them around everywhere you go. Not the most compelling argument, but something. Now, to be fair (I actually mentioned this before, but I don't expect you to remember that, so I'll say it here again...), while I do have Dwemerverse installed, I've not played it yet. So, it may very well render this entire paragraph moot.

 

Haunting Curse could be limited so it doesn't destroy pickpocketing by ensuring the ghost is only annoying, not life-altering; i.e. it only drops cheap things, not their gold and expensive items.

 

I also like Nirnbound Soul. It wouldn't have to be an insta-kill. In fact, it could be made to do no damage at all. Instead of having their soul "yanked out of their body", simply prevent it from moving on to oblivion. Like Soul Trap. When they die (which the player would still have to do some other way), their ghost remains behind. Of course, making that play fairly with Soul Trap might be less than straightforward. Or maybe that could be its utility: allowing you capture part of an NPC's soul in a soul gem when you kill them, but having their soul splinter so part of it also turns into a ghost, allowing you to fill two soul gems (which would, of course, need balancing a bit but I'm not sure that'd be easy enough to warrant the effort).

 

Also, simply because I don't intend to ever make a spell overhaul mod, I'll throw this to someone who actively does so: I like the idea of special spells that cost and deal in percentages instead of absolute values. Example, a destruction spell which costs half of your maximum magicka to do damage to an opponent equal to half of their health. It's actually a fairly bad example, but it shows the basics. I'm not expecting you to use it (or any other part of this post), but I figured I'd throw it out there.

[EnaiSiaion]

Have you ever danced with us under the pale moonlight?

 

http://i39.tinypic.com/nlstg9.jpg

 

 

No, the blue isn't final.

Yes, female dremora exist.

Yes, yellow skinned dremora exist (Arena, Battlespire).

 

Top right one starts with 0 stamina, and when it dies it gives you health and magicka based on how much stamina it has.

[cab52290]

TLDontR: I like Apoc Spell Pack. Hope to see some sort of tele return for easy travel. Hope to see some sort of conjuration level based summon spell. Thanks for making Apoc.

I really enjoy the current Apocalypse set as a pure mage.

Forgive me if this has been answered anywhere, but will any form of talon strike return? I dont know how the coding work for damage on it. Could you make it eat your mana on hit relative to how much damage it did? or maybe stamina? or both... I just enjoyed the thought of more dmaage over range. Me being a shitty shot when i actually pull off that long range shot and watch his health drop

I use teleport for traveling across the (imo sometimes absolutely terrible to traverse) terrain. I've never used it in combat. I feel like you are trying to restrict an issue that can be done in vanilla. You could still jump up on stuff and sit back and fire spells or arrows at a melee enemy ( its how i got my ebony blade back in oblivion with 200 arrows). Eitherway will a non-combat non-enemy-targeting teleport spell be returning?

 

I am also a fan of the move speed boost spells. Something about blurring through the woods and then starting to sprint on top of it. very satisfying. Did not originally think there would too much of a benefit over Almalexia's Grace, but I was wrong.

As i mage my usual fighting consists of summoning distractions and then running away to talon strike. If they get close i use my starting ice blast and run some more.

If the wolf pack or something similar in nature perhaps considered making it based on Conjuration level as some other spells are based on level of skills. I'd think at max level maybe six wolves. One of the magic packs I've used I could summon 20 skeevers (five at a time) which is a little obscene. That combo'd terrifyingly with your Fire of the Master spell.

 

Spells that were only usable outside or any sort of limitation like that I immediately lost interest in. I feel like a large portion of the game is in a cave or building so I dont like the idea of having a dead spell for that much of the time.
I understand trying to create interesting tradeoffs and more complex than 'herp derp I do damage to you'.

I did like that you made more damage spells in other trees.

Destruction is not the only way one causes damage.

Keep on keeping on. You're doing awesome things.

Edited November 28, 2013 by cab52290

[Tykiii]

@cab52290

 

Try checking out Dwemerverse? Talon Strike and long distance teleports were implemented there... like... I hope they will be made Dwemer specific spells cos I dunn like spell doubling.... also for short distance travelling... levitation should be as good as teleport for that I think.

[SkyTech21]

Well then... I like Apocalypse... and I use it with a slew of other mods as well... hmmm.... a new updated version... that'd be cool I guess.

 

Pretty visuals and shiny things... that's what I want... but really I think a small amount of legit curse spells would be really fun. Perhaps not something that will instakill people or turn them into stone. More like sickness or hallucinations and the such. Drive them to madness perhaps? Which would give them new dialogue and packages to go with the madness?

 

Anyways... thanks for the thread... I wouldn't have seen Dwemerverse & Resplendent without it... kudos.

[Strigvir]

Again, this is in Dwemerverse. I can see why this gets overlooked: most people only download Top 100 mods. Even Thunderchild succumbed to "page 2 syndrome" and its download count has pretty much stalled. Apocalypse is the only thing I can do which anyone cares about.

Actually, it's not only because "page 2 syndrome", Dwemerverse is worse than Apocalypse, despite latter being your first mod and covering 4X more magic schools. Thunderchild, being a mod for aspect which is TURBO-USELESS in vanilla game, bound not to be poplar.

It's intended as a nerf.

You seem to miss the point of my complaint: Levitation IS bad. That doesn't have anything to do with balance or cheesing.

Let's take, for example, route from point A to point B with two mountain ranges in-between.

How it will look with Teleport: use it to get past mountains ignoring everyone. Simple, intuitive to use, productive, fun throughout all way.

Now with Levitation: jump at least 50 times on one place (in new edition: while running around) just to start moving. Some skeever spotted you? Tough luck, repeat jumping part again. And again. And again. Clunky, counter-intuitive, useless, fun only at landing part and for the first 3 landings at best. Also, it exposes ugly "interior" city meshes.

Basically, teleport is THE alteration spell of your pack. If you want to remove it, might as well remove Cloak of Mimicry from illusion, which allows cheesing mages just by running around.

It removes the toxic elements of teleport ie the ability to gain damage immunity as long as there's a rock or tree nearby.

Funny enough, I can gain damage immunity as long as there's a rock or tree nearby without using teleport or even mods at all.

There's a reason Floating Bridge conks out in combat. (Bifrost Bridge may or may not end up in alteration 2.0 because it's fairly cheese proof)

That's actually an exemplary example of "overly balanced" spell. From all playthroughs, I found exactly 1(ONE) use for it: I had to get at the highest tower of Winterhold in order to complete Thunderchild challenge (because not using fast-travel and becoming archmage would take some time). There won't be a difference if you remove it or not.

There's a reason you got two warnings already, and that reason is not that the whole world is out to get you...

Wow, I got two warnings on nexus forums, how strange!