Oi oi, no need to start throwing insults here. Not everyone plays on Master, in fact, it'd be a far better idea to base everything on the default difficulty settings, and then scale it appropriately for the easier and harder difficulty levels. There no need to insult other people like that just because they don't play on master like you do.

Right now, wards svck. I would actually make wards cost absolutely nothing (maybe 5/10 per level)?. Then make it work just like shields,just as blocking consumes stamina make it lose some percent of magicka as you are hit. Now the spell levels could reduce the amount of magicka lost.

Percents are examples, don't really know how much damage players really take at high levels.

• Novice: 100% (hit for 20, lose 20 magicka)
  
• Apprentice: 80% (hit for 20, lose 16 magicka)
  
• Adept: 60% (hit for 20, lose 12 magicka)
  
• Expert: 50% (hit for 20, lose 10 magicka)
  
• Master: 40% (hit for 20, lose 8 magicka)

Now the perk Ward Absorb, I think there is enough regeneration/fortify stuff in the game. Instead of wards recharging magicka when hit maybe they could convert some magicka absorbed to health, or reduce the percent even more, or both.
What do you think?

On default diff, there is no problem with magic that cant be solved with stacking fortify destruction enchants. You dont even need to drop cost to 0, just about 75% of the total or so and its fine.


Got a question for mysty:
The text for what novice, -> master destruction perks does not give me any numbers. I like numbers, can you give me the numbers for what these perks are doing?

I only got a play with your mod for a little bit, and it looks good. I do have a concern that mana costs for spells may still be a bit high, but I am not sure what your plans are for changing the fortify magic school enchants are. (stay the same, top out at 50% for 4 pieces, top out at 20% for 4 pieces etc.)

thanks!

edit:
ok from the readme there is this line that I would like to clairify:
Can you convert that statement into a formula? Do you have a list of all the spells new base damage and mana costs? What was your damage per mana curve like? How much mana should a level 30 100 destruction mage use to take down a mob with 1000 hit points, and how long should that take?

Ok so a spell like firebolt in vanilla has a base cost of 36 and a base damage of 25.
WIth your novice perk mana = ?, base damage is ?
with apprentice perk mana = (does this provide a cost increase or decrease)?, base damage is ?
etc.

I would go one step further actually. What you are saying, if I understood correctly, is that each time the ward blocks a spell yout magicka should decrease in a fix percentage. In my opinion, it would be better if ward's cost was completely variable and proportional to the strength of the spell being blocked (by doing this, expert-level spells would cost much more magicka to block than novice-level spells and so on...)
However, and while I agree with this approach, for me overhauling ward's cost is a secondary goal. In my opinion, wards svck because 1) you cannot cast them just before being hit and 2) they are way too easy to break (40-80 points of damage in a short period of time is nothing).

Now, If a variable cost system similar to what I proposed was to be implemented, making wards not svck anymore would be so easy as to implement the following mechanics:
1.Wards only consume magicka when blocking spells.
2.Wards will only break if the caster runs out of magicka.

Thoughts?

Not a fix percentage, a fix percentage of the damage received. You are hit by Firebolt (30 damage), you lose 30 magicka if you block with a Novice ward, u are hit by Fireball by 140 u lose 140 magicka. If you use an Expert ward (based on my example) you will lose 15/70 magicka. So if you block master spells with a novice ward your magicka will be gone in a flash, not so with an master ward.


That's exactly what I meant. The levels (Novice-Master) just define how fast your magicka is drained with hits.


1) If the dual cast spells are longer maybe the single ones speed can be reduced so that it equals the speed of a warrior raising a shield.


Is the same thing I said so, I like it

1) I havent tested wards much (because of how much they svck), but I think they block any damage (spell, melee, ranged), right?
2) Yes

The only problem I see is that the Novice spells will be useless and wont scale (like now). There should be some scaling/use for novice spells. Something like...

Novice: Attack drains 90% of damage as magicka, heal 10% of damage
Apprentice: Attack drains 80% of damage as magicka, heal 7% of damage
Adept: Attack drains 70% of damage as magicka, heal 5% of damage
Expert: Attack drains 60% of damage as magicka, heal 3% of damage
Master: Attack drains 50% of damage as magicka, heal 0% of damage

That way novice spells could still be useful at higher levels.

I was accurately describing the problem of the Magicka system on Master vs Adept. Nobody complains of Destruction being weak or boring with long dull fights on Adept and nobody's modding magicka because they play on Adept.


Adept is like a chinese kung fu movie where the hero's style is called "Tripping over Three Left Feet" and he mostly wins because the enemies are even more tragic than he is, not because he's any good or at all heroic. Probably played by Jackie Chan. Mods like this exist because a scholarly wizard is less playable and, importantly, less fun than some scrub with a shiv who thinks the lice in his body hair are just something everybody has. On Master.

Not exactly. Wards block spells up to x amount of damage AND raise your armor rating by the same x (so a 40-points ward will give you +40 armor rating when casted).



Well actually, I don't see much use for a novice-level ward, and apprentice-level ward and so on. In the school of destruction it makes sense because each level of expertise is associated with a different spell effect. Here however, wards are just wards and the only difference between the novice one and the master one is that the later is more efficient than the former. Therefore, this kind of progression you are proposing could be implemented via a script (the more you use your ward spell, the better you become at it, this kind of idea).

Then, there is the issue about "ward absorb" (the perk). Personally, I'd love to see it changing from "ward absorb" to "ward reflect", that is, if you block a spell, there is a certain chance that you send it back to the original caster. This would only work with projectile-type spells. Don't know if it would be very difficult to add such mechanic but it should be possible since there was a mod from oblivion that did precisely this (Duke Patrick's combat magic).

First... a quick vent about modding in Skyrim. UGH! Why won't they let me create new magic effects or keywords?!? BLEGH!!!!! (There, now I feel better)

How are things coming? Good news. I was able to figure out how to reduce the chance to stagger opponents with the impact perk. Now, it only staggers 50% of the time - more in line with the archery perk. Unfortunately, I haven't had any luck figuring out why some destruction spells injure companions and others don't - I'd really love to quit electricuting my followers, you know?
Alteration is coming along, if a bit slower than I'd like. Once I get the first protection spell sorted, the others should be easy peasy. I planned to add bonus armor for each piece of cloth you were wearing (or more specifically, for each bit of you not covered by light or heavy armor - this would resolve the issue with cloth mages who wear dragon masks, no more would they lose their mage armor bonus) but as you may have guessed from my rant, I'm having a few issues. I can't add new magic effects for the protection of each body part, and for whatever reason, the game won't let me stack the same magic effect multiple times in a single spell. How rude! Since I'm limited to working with only existing magic effects, that gives me 3 mage armor effects to play with... there are 4 body parts as far as armor is concerned. Meh. I'm thinking of dividing the bonus head armor among the other 3 and calling it good. Paralysis durations have been reduced. I tried making telekinesis more powerful, but that was a disaster- increasing the magnitude increased the casting cost exponentially, but didn't make telekinesis even a little bit stronger. I'd hoped to have the next update out tonight so you guys could play with it over the weekend, but real life kept me away from my computer all day, so you'll have to continue to be patient with me.

In other news, a French guy and a German guy (no, this isn't a joke...) asked about getting the mod translated into their native languages, and I am happy to do so if they will translate the text for me, so hopefully there will be multiple languages supported soon. ish.

Thanks for the suggestions for improving wards and conjuration - I'll be looking at those more carefully when I get to the related schools of magic.

Regarding insults - please let's not give anyone a hard time about their play style. Not everyone plays on master difficulty all the time (myself included!) My goal was to make using magic a more enjoyable experience regardless of what difficulty you are playing on. As far as "balance," I base my numbers on (I) vanilla - regardless of how broken it may be, it's still my best source for what a reasonable range of damage/protection is. I look at weapon damage, magic damage, NPC damage, with and without enchanting, smithing, and potions. I look at armor - heavy and light. I create spreadsheets and calculate all sorts of possible effects of my changes. UESPwiki is constantly open. I check how any changes I make affect damage and durabilty and compare those numbers to unmodded and to other playstyles. (II) previous Elder Scrolls games - how many "spell points" did a battle mage have compared to a pure mage? A spellsword? What sort of play styles were popular? etc. and (III) feedback from my playtesters (erm... that's you guys!) If a lot of people are saying "Paralysis is overpowered. It lasts too long!" chances are, it is...

If it's any context, I've been playing an illusions/sneak dagger wielder in light of all the woes I figured you were having.

One question.. is it possible to make the wood elf's Command Animal an actual, permanent charm effect? I have trouble playing anything but a Breton, Altmer, or Orc without feeling like I'm clubbing myself in the knees (my inner powergamer...)

Now if only Bethesda would implement something like this into the console versions...

Sure... base damage
Flames/Frostbite/Sparks = 8
Firebolt/Ice Spike/Lightning Bolt = 12
Fire/Frost/Lightning Runes = 30
Flame/Frost/Lightning Cloaks = 5
Fireball/Ice Storm/Chain Lightning = 18
Incinerate/Icy Spear/Thunderbolt = 24
Wall of Flames/Frost/Storms = 20
Fire Storm = 30/20/15 (at 100/60/25 feet)
Blizzard = 10
Lightning Storm = 44

The damage to cost ratio is unchanged from vanilla (automatically scaled down to base cost)

Novice Perk: damage *= 1.5, cost *= 0.75 (this works out so that all spells do 50% more damage but cost 50% less than they would if cost scaled up with damage)
Apprentice Perk: damage and cost *= 1.3334
Adept Perk: damage and cost *= 1.25
Expert Perk: damage and cost *= 1.2
Master Perk: damage and cost *= 1.17

(If you use a calculator, you'll notice that means damage increases by 50% of the original base damage with each perk.)

Assuming you use one of the Balanced_Magic .esp files, then dual casting becomes more effective, in combat magicka regen improves, and you get a better discount on the casting cost as your proficiency in that school of magic increases. How much depends on which version you choose. These help make the spells more affordable since I scaled cost with damage. (It does make sense to expend more magicka casting more powerful spells, just as they would be more expensive if you had crafted them in previous games). I built in the 50% discount in the first perk, because based on cost, the developers intended anyone investing in that school to take the 50% discount all the way up the tree - the incentive to take all 5 still exists with my mod as they each increase the power of all your spells.

Hmmm... I haven't even looked at racial bonuses yet. I think it's just a spell with special limitations. Making it permanent... probably means turning it into an enchantment. Which may or may not be possible. I am hoping they let you AT LEAST create new spells and enchantments.

Yeh, this is what I would like. Then I would actually use the Restoration school for more than just a glorified healing potion out of combat. Im not sure what all the different Ward spells are(just starting my first mage character ), but there should be one for each type of attack instead of one to absorb all magic attacks. But youd need the CK for that.

But yeh, Wards should be like shields but against magic and draining your magicka. Though IMO for "Ward Absorb" instead of recharging magicka, maybe it could drain magicka from the attacker. But er again yeh, CK. Blah.

Could you make lower level summons level up with you up to a certain point? That point being higher for more powerful summons. So they stay somewhat useful but are not incredibly useless. Like the Familiar. I am not asking it to be as powerful as the othr summons just powerful enough that it can survive more than one hit from a bandit...

That Tytanis mod has some new spells, like summon skeleton and the like. Of course they're all 60 second wonders and i don't like them, and some... well... did I need summon dragon?


Can you make the healing spells in Resto able to heal player undead minions/atronachs/dremora? they ALL resist it.

I really would like to play a sort of hands-off priest of Akatosh sort of character (or, well , The Revenant)

I'll try... Until I really start picking apart the data and seeing how it works, I can't say whether or not this is possible, but that's the direction I'm hoping to take.

Can you make the death thrall magic also raise Draugr as well? Please!
I know there is already a mod doing this, but that one was too powerful(it removed level cap on target which allow you to raise lv50 zombies,and lower level zombie spell last too long made the dual cast perk useless)

Just my thoughts here, but instead of raising more powerful thralls, I'd rather raise one more additional, depending on skill/perks. Nothing more satisfying than seeing kids cry and run when the undead come calling in town.

It's actually a lot of fun to have 10 minute raised undead with a 100 summon cap you know. The zombies seem a lot weaker than their past-life forms, at least on Master. I don't think the difficulty adjustments get applied to them or something.

Conjuration WOULD be a lot more fun if you gained +1 summon limit for every step up the tree apprentice/adept/expert/master etc

I'm trying out a pure mage with Improved Destruction now. It's pretty good, covers a lot of issues (perks, spell types, etc.), but so far feels OP on master.

I'm wondering if anyone is using Balanced Magic and Improved Destruction together, or if anyone can compare them?

Don't use them together! They are not compatible. In order to keep things balanced, I nerfed all of the high level spells - a lot! Everything got equalized to what it would be if there were a novice version of every spell, then I scaled them all up as you move up the perk tree. That way, by the time you hit master destruction, you have plenty of useful and different spells to play with.

I used ID on my first playthrough, switched to Balanced Magic for my second. I like the feel this mod gives, like working on skills and adding perks makes more of a difference. Both approach the same problem, they just go about it differently.

Also... I'd give it another hour or two... I hope to be uploading an updated version tonight that reduces the chance to stagger from the impact perk and well as a full overhaul of alteration. Full details will be in the readme at release.

Alright, thanks. I'll give this one a try.

Waiting patiently on it. Will replace the current version on my 46 Pure.