Love what I see in the description so far. Illusion never got the time to shine in vanilla. Would love to see more mods from you, we could really use more Vanilla-style mods with such elegant execution.
Great and balanced mod! Thanks once again Still, as spells part may conflict more or less with big overhauls, is there any chance you can upload separate version of mod with vampire changes only? It looks solid. Thanks in advance
I am going to be honest here, I have modded my game a lot and even made edits to other peoples mods and made my own changes for my personal use over the years, but spells is the one area where I find it difficult to tell what is balanced and what is over-powered.
I just recently started using Supreme Magicka Updated and had a look in the esp and the changes are too complicated to understand. So trying to make a comparison to your mod, I used wrye bash to set Supreme Magicka Update as a master file for your mod, so I could see the differences between the two.
Supreme Magicka edits almost all the spells you do and their take on things are equally as complicated as your changes, but the thing I noticed is that they differ alot on the changes you make. Spells you make stronger they make weaker and spells you decrease their duration they do the opposite. It is rather complicated.
Anyways since i just started using Supreme Magicka I am going to try to get used to their changes and then maybe check out your mod so I can comprehend any differences from some of the changes.
Now I am not implying anything from this weird post, but thought that in the hope of getting the perfect spell mod I was wondering if you could give your take on the differences between the two mods as your understanding could shed some light on things. If you are unfamiliar with supreme magicka no worries.
I just wish I could understand spells so I could maybe combine your two mods myself to keep the positive changes from each one, like the way you made controlling higher level enemies more possible. That sounds like fun.
Finding the perfect feel for gameplay in Bethesda games is a long and difficult struggle, especially when you have different desires for your game than what the biggest and most competent overhaul mods offer. It's the reason why I started modding in the first place. I'm glad you decided to try mine out in the future and start a discussion, I could talk about this stuff for days!
Unfortunately, I have NOT used Supreme Magicka (Update?). However, by reading its description and comparing it to the changes I've made myself, I think I could provide a simple explanation of how our mods differ.
The biggest things I think I should point are likely differences in philosophy, size and modding skill. SMU's author has gone much more into the meat of the game to produce a more ground-up overhaul. They change many, many things in the game, including base costs of spells and output and effect of attributes. Moreso than that, they add unique features to the game like long range AoEs, static debuffs for elemental spells and light spells, new effects, and even some ideas/concepts present in other mods (ignoring whether those mods came before or after SMU) rolled into one mod for the sake of convenience and/or 'completeness'.
I would say, overall, that SMU takes aim less at the options available to the player already and instead goes for the guts of the magic system in general, changing the core of the game and adding new effects. My mod, for all it's length in the description section, is much more simple. It seeks less to change the magic system as a whole in Oblivion and more to alter what the vanilla system already offers the player before spellcrafting, improving your options by making the existing spells just as (or as close to) palatable as custom-made spells. My mod doesn't change base costs for spell effects, it doesn't add new effects, it doesn't make significant changes related to magical effects beyond the stock spells, it doesn't alter the custom spells a player is capable of making beyond making certain spell effects (like weakness to magicka) harder to obtain by increasing the skill level of magic needed to purchase that spell effect and unlock it for spellcraft.
You mentioned illusion, so lets look at that. The author says that their leveled spells now go up to level 50 instead of 25. Now, I don't know if their mod changes how magnitude scales with level, but in the base game a mod effecting level 25 enemies (or 100pts of magnitude) effect all enemies in the game except those that are purposely made to scale above you, like bosses and town guards. Now, to my knowledge, this feature can be circumvented by casting a 'weakness to magicka' effect on that target, multiplying the magnitude of the illusion spell you cast on them and 'forcing' the effect to go through. In this respect our mods probably do the same thing when it comes to the spells NPCs sell to the player in-game, and spellcraft Illusion spells could already accomplish high-max level trickery on enemies.
Beyond that SMU adds an entirely new magical effect to the game (detect attitude) and alters the effects of two existing spell types (Light and Chameleon). Here our mods begin to grow more different fundamentally, as his changes are much more complicated modding-wise (for me, at least) and alter gameplay at its core more significantly while mine stops sooner and sticks to improving existing concepts.
In all honesty SMU seems like it does much of what my mod does and more, so at the end of the day it'll mostly come down to whether or not you want, or think you need, the 'more' that SMU provides. If you install my mod you may not even notice that it's there when you first start the game; if you don't use magic then you may never even notice it. However, should you be a character who specializes in Illusion, it's quite likely you'll notice that the enemy-effecting spells you can buy from Delphine Jend, Raminous Polous or Athragar can now be used against any enemy as long as you keep them up to date, and that you'll no longer need to join the mages guild to spellcraft competent versions. If you use destruction spells, whether pure spellcaster or not, you may begin to find that your need to create special spells to make use of weaknesses and/or the damage health effect past level 10 (or so) scaling have lessened significantly.
The biggest question now, I suppose, is whether you want a lot, or a little. (Jesus this text box was empty when I started.)
Ayyy, I remember you. Glad to have a repeat customer!
Hrm... I would instinctively tell you to be wary when using ANY mod with other big overhaul mods. Still, if the big mod in question doesn't alter existing spells or powers directly in the game, I'd say that you're solid. If they alter the effects of attributes or level scaling or what-have-you however, it may effect balancing. If you're savvy with creating merged mods/batched patches or whatever, then it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Controlling your load order might fix any issues as well since my mods alter existing powers/spells.
Beyond that, many overhaul mods change the gameplay so significantly that you may prefer their alterations over mine given the context, but the choice is always yours. It's the glory of modding!
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Still, as spells part may conflict more or less with big overhauls, is there any chance you can upload separate version of mod with vampire changes only? It looks solid. Thanks in advance
I just recently started using Supreme Magicka Updated and had a look in the esp and the changes are too complicated to understand. So trying to make a comparison to your mod, I used wrye bash to set Supreme Magicka Update as a master file for your mod, so I could see the differences between the two.
Supreme Magicka edits almost all the spells you do and their take on things are equally as complicated as your changes, but the thing I noticed is that they differ alot on the changes you make. Spells you make stronger they make weaker and spells you decrease their duration they do the opposite. It is rather complicated.
Anyways since i just started using Supreme Magicka I am going to try to get used to their changes and then maybe check out your mod so I can comprehend any differences from some of the changes.
Now I am not implying anything from this weird post, but thought that in the hope of getting the perfect spell mod I was wondering if you could give your take on the differences between the two mods as your understanding could shed some light on things. If you are unfamiliar with supreme magicka no worries.
I just wish I could understand spells so I could maybe combine your two mods myself to keep the positive changes from each one, like the way you made controlling higher level enemies more possible. That sounds like fun.
Unfortunately, I have NOT used Supreme Magicka (Update?). However, by reading its description and comparing it to the changes I've made myself, I think I could provide a simple explanation of how our mods differ.
The biggest things I think I should point are likely differences in philosophy, size and modding skill. SMU's author has gone much more into the meat of the game to produce a more ground-up overhaul. They change many, many things in the game, including base costs of spells and output and effect of attributes. Moreso than that, they add unique features to the game like long range AoEs, static debuffs for elemental spells and light spells, new effects, and even some ideas/concepts present in other mods (ignoring whether those mods came before or after SMU) rolled into one mod for the sake of convenience and/or 'completeness'.
I would say, overall, that SMU takes aim less at the options available to the player already and instead goes for the guts of the magic system in general, changing the core of the game and adding new effects. My mod, for all it's length in the description section, is much more simple. It seeks less to change the magic system as a whole in Oblivion and more to alter what the vanilla system already offers the player before spellcrafting, improving your options by making the existing spells just as (or as close to) palatable as custom-made spells. My mod doesn't change base costs for spell effects, it doesn't add new effects, it doesn't make significant changes related to magical effects beyond the stock spells, it doesn't alter the custom spells a player is capable of making beyond making certain spell effects (like weakness to magicka) harder to obtain by increasing the skill level of magic needed to purchase that spell effect and unlock it for spellcraft.
You mentioned illusion, so lets look at that. The author says that their leveled spells now go up to level 50 instead of 25. Now, I don't know if their mod changes how magnitude scales with level, but in the base game a mod effecting level 25 enemies (or 100pts of magnitude) effect all enemies in the game except those that are purposely made to scale above you, like bosses and town guards. Now, to my knowledge, this feature can be circumvented by casting a 'weakness to magicka' effect on that target, multiplying the magnitude of the illusion spell you cast on them and 'forcing' the effect to go through. In this respect our mods probably do the same thing when it comes to the spells NPCs sell to the player in-game, and spellcraft Illusion spells could already accomplish high-max level trickery on enemies.
Beyond that SMU adds an entirely new magical effect to the game (detect attitude) and alters the effects of two existing spell types (Light and Chameleon). Here our mods begin to grow more different fundamentally, as his changes are much more complicated modding-wise (for me, at least) and alter gameplay at its core more significantly while mine stops sooner and sticks to improving existing concepts.
In all honesty SMU seems like it does much of what my mod does and more, so at the end of the day it'll mostly come down to whether or not you want, or think you need, the 'more' that SMU provides. If you install my mod you may not even notice that it's there when you first start the game; if you don't use magic then you may never even notice it. However, should you be a character who specializes in Illusion, it's quite likely you'll notice that the enemy-effecting spells you can buy from Delphine Jend, Raminous Polous or Athragar can now be used against any enemy as long as you keep them up to date, and that you'll no longer need to join the mages guild to spellcraft competent versions. If you use destruction spells, whether pure spellcaster or not, you may begin to find that your need to create special spells to make use of weaknesses and/or the damage health effect past level 10 (or so) scaling have lessened significantly.
The biggest question now, I suppose, is whether you want a lot, or a little. (Jesus this text box was empty when I started.)
Hrm... I would instinctively tell you to be wary when using ANY mod with other big overhaul mods. Still, if the big mod in question doesn't alter existing spells or powers directly in the game, I'd say that you're solid. If they alter the effects of attributes or level scaling or what-have-you however, it may effect balancing. If you're savvy with creating merged mods/batched patches or whatever, then it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Controlling your load order might fix any issues as well since my mods alter existing powers/spells.
Beyond that, many overhaul mods change the gameplay so significantly that you may prefer their alterations over mine given the context, but the choice is always yours. It's the glory of modding!