Visually Adequate Magic - need ideas

[tomislawus]

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/23341

 

WIP Overhaul of all spells to be more balanced and visually adequate.

 

Goal of this mod is to make Skyrim magic sytem more realistic and balanced. What do I mean by visual adequateness? Ever wondered why Ice Spike that clearly just went through that bandit head and is now stuck in his brain dealt only 25 damage? Well, that spell damage is not really adequate to its visuals. This mod is aimed to fix things like this.

 

This mod makes all spells much more powerful, but also cost much more magicka. Almost all spells now require time to charge (up to 5 seconds).

 

Most spells work just like in vanilla and only their numbers have been changed. Couple of spells have been completely overhauled.

 

Illusory Flames (Flames)- creates a small explosion of illusory flames from caster hand that will frighten the shiit out of most inexperienced people and the less savage beasts.

 

Frostbite (Frostbite) - this spell will deal only minor damage, but will briefly stop in its tracks even the most badass motherfuucker out there granted you soften them up first.

 

Flash (Candlelight) - a magical flash of light that briefly stuns people. Need someone to check if it works against Falmer.

 

For now only destruction and restoration spells have had their numbers completely changed. Scrolls and staffs also await their turn to be changed.

 

Meanwhile, what other things about Skyrim magic and spells bother you? What other spells seem useless or inadequate in means of damage to visual presentation?

[tg08096]

My concern is that 5 seconds seems to be a long time to charge a spell. I could see this making sense if there were low damage, instant cast rapid-fire type spells, as well as 2 - 5 second high damage spells, for a wider range of gameplay style. Just offering some constructive criticism, hope you don't mind.

[nikolas55255]

I am not sure if it's a bug with my system or compatibility issues, but both me and my followers have 75 carry weight (which is barely enough to carry my armor and weapons, without speaking of loot, especially if using heavy armor, which is much more realistic, I suppose, but seriously damage the game experience).

 

In addition, dose the Illusory Flames suppose to deal 0 damage and cost about 300 Magika? and Frostbite requiring 400? I mean they are suppose to be low level spells, once that you can cast at the beginning of your mage game-play, but now you have to invest A-LOT in magic before you can even use it!

 

 

Is that how it's meant to be? or is this my old computer playing tricks on me?

[Moraevik]

@tomislawus: I have to echo tg08096. Especially at low levels having a 5-sec charge-up time for spells if you're playing a mage-type character is going to be fatal because most of your opponents are going to get in at least one, and possibly several free shots on you before you can even throw up a defensive spell. You might try adding a delay for spells above novice level, but not including novice level, with a cap of 5-sec for Master level spells, that are either defensive or offensive. I don't see a point in making utility spells like candlelight have charge-up times.

 

If nikolas is correct about novice level spell cost then you've just eliminated mages from the game and made it impossible for a beginning character to even join the Mages College. Faralda is going to ask you to cast a spell, and you're not going to have the magicka to do it until you've put a LOT points into Magicka. You can't cast a 400-magicka cost spell until VERY late in the game, if at all.

 

@nikolas55255: Not sure what your CW problem has to do with this thread, but I'll comment, anyway. The default CW for a beginning character is 300 and only goes up as you pump points into Stamina. If you're at 75 then there is either something horribly wrong with your game or you have a mod (probably a "survival/reality" mod) that lowers carrying capacity. I'd suggest that you look into that first if your game is modded. A CW of 75 is going to be very restrictive on you in this game. If you can't get it solved then you can mod your own CW. Use the following console command:

 

player.setav carryweight nnn

 

... where "nnn" is a positive integer.

[tomislawus]

Thanks for the feedback! I have to admit I might have changed some other things... like basic stats for all races:D

 

Anyway, you can remove those changes with like 5 clicks in Details window, before you load a plugin in SCK.

 

Casting a thunderbolt takes 4 seconds because the spell deals 400 damage and you are not supposed to run only with it equipped - you need to use a support spell like flash, trick or flames for some initial CC and only then you will be able to kill your enemy with the main spell.

 

Novice spells are supposed to cost that much because you are supposed to take the novice perk if you want to cast them - if you want to be a mage you should invest in it first.

 

I updated the mod with several new spells.

[Moraevik]

With the novice perk this reduces the cost of a 400 point novice-level spell to 200. A beginning character still only has 100 magicka and you'll have to get to level 10 in order to bump that up so you can cast a single novice-level spell. I repeat ... you have eliminated mage characters from the game if this is the case because no mage character will be able to cast a spell before level 10. This means that in order to survive it will be necessary to pump skill points into non-magic perks for ten levels before you can afford to start buffing your magic perks, since the magic perks will be useless until then.

 

I honestly have to say that, if the cost of novice level spells is as it has been mentioned, that you really haven't thought this design feature of your mod through to its logical conclusion. Nobody is going to use a magic mod that prevents the player from casting ANY spells at all until he reaches level 10. Furthermore, if you're pumping your points into magicka, instead of health, until level 10, and can't actually use your magicka reserve because you can't cast any spells, it's unlikely you'll even survive to level 10. Skyrim should then be littered with the corpses of would-be mages, except, of course, the NPCs won't be hindered by this restriction. I don't think this mod will improve the magic system. As I currently understand it, your mod will cripple mage characters.

 

Also, slipping "stealth features" (like altering all basic stats for all races) into a mod which isn't advertised to deal with those things is a Bad Idea. First of all, people want to know what they're getting before they get it. Secondly, when they download a mod that deals with the magic system, they don't want it fiddling with other aspects of the game. It's possible they already have mods installed which do that, and your mod will then introduce conflicts that might not be possible to resolve. Making these features "opt out" is equally a Bad Idea. Making them "opt in" is OK, especially when they're unrelated to the basic premise of the mod.

[tomislawus]

Writing such a long post about a mod you haven't actually played seems like waste of time. Why don't you download it, start a new game and see for yourself how the magic works? Only expert spells cost 400 magicka and you can cast sparks at level 1 and kill most of people even though it has a cost of 200 magicka.