LE Requesting Mage-changes

[Fraggelvarg]

In each sucessive TES game since Morrowind, I have noticed a plethora of coders and designers of various game mechanics that have done a great and massive job in remaking the TES games, softening the bumps and bugs that a Bethesda game ALWAYS has.

There is something about that design-team. They create a very nice premise and do an incredible amount of legwork creating their worlds. But they also do strange and to me kinda stupid mistakes. But they are lucky that there is such a dedicated group of fans out there.

Therefore I feel that there is a chance that I can get the game I have been hoping for these past 23 years.

You see, I have always wanted to play a mage, a fun one that is based in Sword-and-sorcery-esk game-mechanics. There has been some close games summing up what I would like, and even though TES can never be the exact imagination, it can still be closer than anything else I have a chance to play. I love the quests, and I love the style of the design. Couple that with the fixes to the game that already exists (SkyUI, map-mods, and so many others). Since I lack any skills in coding and game-design, and the fact that real life gets in the way, I ask that you the community do the work for me.

Yea, lazy like that :D

Hopefully you will agree with what I consider a fun mage is.

Perhaps I should explain what the general vision is, so as to better explain why I ask for the changes that I do.

Concept

Why magic? if it is not sharper than a sword, then why use magic at all? Because there is nothing better.

Magic is perhaps not better at hurting enemies than a sword, or an arrow. But it can do things that a warrior or archer can not. Any one area, the mage falls short. But couple all the skills together, and you get someone who can stand against more enemies than any warrior, or archer; if played right. The whole construction is only based on the fact that you become a pure mage, any playing imbalances that arise from combinations of skills is unfortunate, but since there is a cheatfunction built into the console anyways, it does not really matter. We dont break the game in reshaping it, hopefully :D

I am looking for a character that cannot take a lot of punishment, a character that really has no business in close combat, and a character that has skills to avoide the situations that would really put them close to failure. A fast change of position, a kiter with fireballs.

 

To do this, there is a set of skills that the Mage needs. Lets start with the skills that needs to be minimized.

Healing.

Using it during combat is far too easy. And in vanilla Skyrim it makes a lot of other skills surpluss. So, the sollution is easy. Keep healing outside of combat. In combat you can only use healing-potions as a last resort, a way to get a little bit of breating-room. Not to change the tide of battle, but only to escape. So. The potions need to be changed as well, recharg over time seems to be the only good choice. In combat there is the problem with your companions and other NPC's that you might want to keep alive. So, the one healingspell that should still work as it does in vanilla, is lay on hands.

Mage-armor

Increasing the armor of the mage, or the health he gets works against the type of Mage I would like to play. These skills allow the mage to take more damage, and therefore does not require to be as on-toes as I would like. In any close combat, you should always run the risk of being an easy kill, especially at the later levels with the thougher opponents. So, minimize mage-armor, or perhaps remove it compleatly.

Conjuration

There is nothing wrong with conjuration, except that it will instantly overpower the mage if coupled with the spells I have as a suggestion. Besides, the mages does not want to go into close-combat, and if they do, they will have a very slim chance of survival. So any thralls would remove too much of the threat to the mage, and the bound weapons would be like equipping a fish with sunscreen and chucking it on a treck across the desert. So the entire conjuration-tree should be removed. The companion is all the Thrall this type of mage needs. He dont need no stinkin zombies

 

Now for the needed spells

As dmg spells go, Fire, frost and lightning does the job. Fire burns, frost slows, and lightning cramps up muscles. No knockback (that is what the shouts are for). The only addition that I would request in the destruction-tree would be the WoW inspired frost-nova. But with a 60% massive slowdown instead of a 100% freeze.

 

Defence

The wards. Since they are only infront, it would require some positioning to avoide potential death, and it does take pressing down a key instead of the automatic mage-armor. So The wards should be the bread and butter defence-spell. Negating a lot of damage, spell-kind and otherwise. So I suggest that master-versions of the Wardspell should negate 90% of physical dmg, and spelldamage, so long as the ward stands between the dmg, and the mage. Ofcourse, an aoe to the back surcumvents the ward for obvious reasons. Standing in a Fire of any kind does the same. Also, they are zero-cost untill a spell or weapon hits it. Then it takes the amount of dmg it negates from Mana. If there is not enough mana, it negates the dmg with the amount of mana left. It also stops the use of any destruction-spells, since they cannot travel through the ward from either side. All other spells that are not cast in a straight line, or any line, can still be cast while the ward is up. Ofcourse this does not incluse any channeled spells or spells that require two hands. (inspiration was the mana-shield from original Diablo)

 

Teleport

When the mage gets crowded, he needs to be somewhere else. Therefore he has teleport. Teleport has one downside. It removes all protective-spells that the mage has applied. It is instant-cast, and scales only in distance as it grows stronger.

 

Protective spells.

The elemental shields work in negating only 20% dmg, but also mirroring a portion of the dmg to the attacker. And also either through the spell itself, or through perks, restors a portion of mana. So, lets say that it mirrors 33% dmg, and restores 50% mana. this ofourse only if the spell is of the same type (fire, frost, electricity) as the shield, and that it actually hits the mage (not the ward). Applying a elemental shield is a channeld affair, forcing the mage to stand still for something like 3 to 4 seconds. resetting 33% of the bar for each hit the mage takes. Making it difficult to apply (but not impossible) during combat.

 

Silence is a cool anti-mage spell from the same universe as Baldurs Gate. It stops a mage from casting any spells in a period of 10 seconds. This spell should also be part of any enemy mage's arsenal. Perhaps even stopping mana-regen for the same amount of time. Or the mana-regen killer could be a sepparat spell called muffled, or some such.

 

Illusions

THe mage needs a few more Crowd control-spells, once of them being the old Total Recall favorit: Body double. If cast, the mage duplicates like a single-cell organism.

The copy can take 10 times as much dmg as the mage (which is not nearly as much as a warrior, and should not keep anyone busy for too long). It goes on the offensive, and attacks the nearest target with its first, or daggers, dealing little dmg.

 

Fear is a powerfull weapon. One that the mage employs as much as possible. The target is overwhelmed with fear, running away from the fight. Perhaps in later level it might even drop a hand-held item. Problem is that the fear-spell does not decide which direction the mob would run, potentially placing the mage in a bad position when the mob looses the fear (opportunist backstab anyone?)

 

 

These spells should allow for a focused combat, forcing the mage to use all of the cc's, protective spells, and dmg-spells in good concert to take down her opponents. teleporting around the battlefield to stay ahead of the sharp and painfull swords, facing any and all enemies that might hurt him so his wardspell works properly, and choosing the right Elemental shield to increase his combat-effectiveness.

When it comes to the mana-regen, I would like to see something like a 500% to 700% increase, but less total amount of mana. This would lessen the effectiveness of wards, and making sure that you want to avoide using it unless you know you are about to take damage. But with the increased regen, you can slow down the speed of the spells being cast. The low mana-pool sees to that. But the high regen-rate meen the mage will not be running backwards for most of the fight. Also, it remove the need for mana-potions as something more than emergency back-up when silenced/muffled.

 

Key-bindings

This mage lives on the sole fact that the spell is used in the right circumstance, and only during the window when it is really needed. So a posibility to bind a key for specific spells are a must, both for survival rate, and for fun-of-combat.

My suggestions for key.bindings specific to the mage class would be:

Shift activates the Ward-spell. When the player lets go of the shift-key, it reverts to the spell-setup the mage had before the ward-spell. the F-key or any surpluss mouse-key could be the teleport-spell. the E-key and the R-key applies fear and silence/muffle respectivley. ctrl-z ,ctrl-x, ctrl-c, is bound to the three different elemental-shields. If there is a possibility of another mouse-button, then that could me mapped to muffel (if sepparated from silence) and Body double.

the 1 through 8 keys should primarily be used for destruction-spells, and because of the intenceness (hopefully) of combat, the reality is that only 1 through 5 is used for destruction-spells. 6,7,8, is used for none-combat spells like detect life, cat's eyes, and waterbreathing.

Ofcourse, if anyone can solv the bindings, then it would be nice to be able to decide the spell bindings as you see them fitting your hand and coordination. Customization FTW

 

Animations that are needed for 3rd person view. A stronger indication of what spells are in each hand. Perhaps the entire arm is frozen, burning, or crackling with energy.

 

I hope that someone likes this setup enough to do what I cannot.

List of spells for reference.

Destruction

Any of the current destruction-spells are more than adequate. And what is now available through different spell-mods fleshes out the destruction-schools choices far more than enough.

Frost Nova 15% of the mana-bar. has a 60% chance of slowing down the enemy to a mere crawl, somwhere in between of standing still and walking.

Ward

Uses no mana unless hit by dmg. Then the amount of dmg uses the same amount of mana. It can never negate more than 90% of any type of dmg, but does not destiguish between the forms of dmg. Can be upgraded to to use less mana in negation.

Teleport: instant travel between 5 to 15 meters in the direction of the mages nose. Teleport removes any beneficial buffs from either potions or spells. costing something like 20% of the manabar.

Elemental Shield

Negates 20% dmg from the same school of dmg as the shield (fire, frost, lightning). Also mirrors 1/3 of the un-negated dmg back to the attacker. It siphons 50% of mana from the attacking spell. The shield is a channeld spell, taking something like 3 seconds to cast.

Fear

The target creatures flees in a straight line (randomized) for 3 seconds as fast as they can. costing something like 10% of the manabar

Body Double

A spell that requires 2 hands to cast, creating an illusion of the caster that has 10 times the health, but does nothing but use un-armed attacks ineffectively. It lasts for 30 seconds, or untill the health has been depleated.

Lay on Hands

Works as it does in Vanilla. It is a help for those that lack the Artificial intelligence to survive. Can be cast through the wards, and can travel up to 3 meters from the caster. Not so much lay on hands, as lay on blow-a-kiss really. But that just sounds odd :D

Healing

Only done outside of combat. Combat-heals come solely from potential ally lay on hands, and potions.

Silence/muffled

Silence stops the target from casting any spells for 10 seconds. Muffled stops any mana from regenerating for the same amount of time. costs 20ish-% of the manabar.

 

The people who agree with me, and implement this can come to Sweden and drink as much coffey as I can brew. 'Cause this will make my month if anyone manages to do this mod.

Post Scriptum

I understand that Teleport kinda removes the use of Elemental-shield since the shield has a cast-time. And would be removed as soon as you teleport again (which should be done frequently if the build works as I imagined), so perhaps it does not need a cast time, or maby 1 second cast time is good enough.

D.S.

 

EDIT

 

Just to point out the mana-regen rates. I am currently using mod-enchanting items that give something like 1400% faster manarate. But I have used console-commands to lessen my mana-pool. And I can happily report that it is a lot more fun than using potions, even if they had a key-binding. Ofcourse, it becomes LOADS more fun when you have to menu-pause the game for potions. Try it out yourselves. Use the 15x mod for enchanting, and dont add any fortify magica on a lvl 10 mage, and you get the same result as I do... The chest-piece and hood are the ones enchanted with mana-regen.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Fraggelvarg

[Fraggelvarg]

In addition, I have been playing around with the creation-kit to try and do as many of the changes as I can my self. The first step was the changes to the Ward-spell. Eventually I found that just making a spell that gave me 6000 in magnitude on shieldconcself, setting the game to master, and using the very controlled leveling of the Player Leveling Overhaul Mod, gave me the play-experience that I wanted. I also enchanted my gear to give me a total of 0 extra mana, and 1540% manarecharge. This ment that when I used the shield, I took little dmg in comparison. I am also using light armor to not gain any Cloth armor plusses. I use no potions, since that would bog down my game with forced and tedious potion mats aquisition, skill leveling, and crafting.

 

What I got was the Sword and Sorcery style of play that I wanted. It did not become OP, since my mana still depleated fairly quickly (I satt the ward to 0 mana/sec) from the destruction-spells. Using the ward and continuosly casting dmg-spells ment that any mob that should be a challange, still was. Since the game sometimes surprises you in mob difficulty (leveled monsters and all that) I still had to run and kite 2 bears, and that with a mage companion summoning a Flame atronach (this at lvl 14 with 78 destruction). I try not to use heals during combat, since that would go against the laws I set for myself. However, I find that often times I will still go through all my mana-potions, AND all my health-potions. And STILL need to break the no-heal-during combat rule. Even in the open where I can attack from afar.

 

However, playing with this setup I found that even though the ward seems to only protect the front 120 degrees, I was confered protection in the back as well. And since I cannot script, and I have not found any choices already backed into the spell-system, I still need help with this sword-and-sorcery mage mod.

 

I am having a bunch more fun with the game as it plays right now, giving me the feel of a powerful mage with special abilities (shouts) without making me unkillable (in fact, those 2 bears I wrote about killed me outright 3 times before I threw in the towel and added combat healing to the list :D)

 

EDIT

 

I feel kinda ignored. Noone even calls me a Goblin, or lazy, or stupid not playing the game as it was ment to be played. Or some such. No feed-back at all. Hehe, here I am requesting flames, just so I feel like I am getting something as a response :D

So, I still need to figure out how I can remove Healing-spells from combat alltogether (cept lay on hands), I have to adjust the ward-spell so it is functional for all levels (OP in the begging, and getting worse with each level aquired). AND also solve the directional protection to force positioning and ordered retreat. A mage as it is now, needs to plan and be very carefull in leveling, using any and all skills for even a chance to succed. This would not have been such a big issue, had it not been for the horrible lack of direct-binding to skills, and lack of programable buttons for spells. I have not been able to even start on the Macro addition, since I dont even know which program is best suited for the tast. Hopefully someone with the know-how can help me out, or atleast point me in the right direction. /Cheers

Edited February 10, 2012 by Fraggelvarg

[Fraggelvarg]

alright then. It seems that noone leaves even a hint on how to do these changes. Still gonna try to implement them myself. But the result might be wonky. Too bad that noone seems to want a more sword and sorcery-esk game with easier mechanics. Or, as they say, easy to learn, hard to master. I am gonna let this post die now. Buuhuu