» Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:05 am I've been meaning to start a discussion about game balance and the effect various mods have on the game. I'm a huge game balance freak, because I find that games that have a multitude of nearly-equally balanced pathways to achieving power give me the most enjoyment. Of all of Bethesda's games, Skyrim has been the most stable, expansive, and has the best framework with which to achieve a wonderful balanced game where melee, magic, stealth, artisans, and hybrids thereof can actually do well, despite the imbalance in the vanilla game.
I had a huge post going about 2 months ago that got deleted that said nearly everything I wanted and got deleted at the last moment. After punching 15 holes in various walls and having a mild stroke (kidding) I finally decided to set out and get my thoughts on Word so I could discuss stuff with the community. It ended up being about 3x bigger, and as such I think I'm going to split it up into sections that are somewhat more manageable.
Hopefully there's some interest in discussion on these topics, as what *I'm* looking for are introductions to well-planned and thoughtful mods that I have not yet seen. In addition, perhaps .ini tweaks, in-game settings, and theory behind why you use the mod you use.
To that end, I'm really only interested in small, tightly-focused mods. Tytanis, Skyrim Redone, and things like this I'm not as interested in...as I find these tightly focused mods make for a better experience overall. I want to state now, before people get angry: this IS NOT some sort of bash-fest towards those mods! They're great mods in their own right, and highly popular! They're just not my cup of tea, fair enough?
One last thing: a HUGE thank you to the mod authors out there! Without you, my life would be drab and dull, in comparison. No joke.
Magic Mods
There are a multitude of fixes for magic, as Bethesda made a standard developer oversight of overcompensating for a previous fault (magic was overpowered in Oblivion, now it's much more tame). These mods either add on to the current system, or overhaul the base system in some way.
Midas Magic:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3413
Phenderix Magic Evolved:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/5898
Apocalypse Spell Package:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/16225
Balanced Magic:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2275
Better Magic:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4374
Empowered Magic:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11139
Skyrim Improved Magic System:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8451
tejon's Simple Skyrim Spell Scaling Solution:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2585
Mighty Magick Skyrim:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13166
The Revenge of Colette:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17353
Psijic Teleport Spells:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8535
Mark and Recall with Menu:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/14947
**This list is by no means completely comprehensive (nor are any of the lists I will post in the future)...but again that's the point! Tell me if you've found a mod that you like that addresses magic in a way YOU like, and WHY you like it!**
Balanced Magic, Better Magic, Empowered Magic, Skyrim Improved Magic System (SIMS), tSSSSS, and Mighty Magick are all modifications to the base system, while Midas Magic, Apocalypse, and The Revenge of Colette are additions to the system.
Phenderix is both an addition and an overhaul, but I have never used it as I've read numerous reports of spells or perks ranging from the wildly overpowered to the utterly useless. Both of those situations are problems for me, and until I've read that the community has found that updates have toned down the balance problems I'm not so interested in this mod.
Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with Mighty Magick. I tried to get information from this mod, but at the moment the mod is set to hidden, and I've not played with it at all. If anyone would like to give it a fair shake in a paragraph or two, I'd love to hear your take on the system!
Balanced Magic was one of the first magic overhauls that I used, and when used in concert with tSSSSS it really made the vanilla system work well. Balanced Magic allowed mages to compete in combat, and tSSSSS made leveling up your actual skill worth more while removing infinite magicka via 100% cost reduction. This was a great combo, but Balanced Magic has since been bereft of updates.
Better Magic is the second overhaul that I used. The best part about this overhaul is the fact that each progressive mastery perk improves the entire tree, not just the level of spells at that mastery level (i.e. taking adept destruction improves spell magnitude by 15% for all destruction spells). This is very intuitive and makes taking the next perk in the series very attractive regardless of your goals in a tree (many times I just want apprentice illusion or restoration in vanilla...why bother continuing to master when there's no benefit?). Because this is particularly important for destruction, the elemental perks are reduced in power but include a defensive component for their respective element. Alteration has it's defensive abilities significantly augmented. It also has a number of small spell changes, one of which I'd like to highlight: cloak spells have their radius included as a variable, making the spell much more viable late game as you can become a veritable vortex of destruction (small aside: smart, small tweaks like this that make underused or completely unusable spells a real option are really what make a mod shine best!) This overhaul is one I wish other overhauls would take note of for the common sense change to the perk tree mastery element - be it improved magnitude, duration, or reduced spell cost. Mastery selections should improve the entire school in some way, along with making the next set of spells economically feasible (50% reduction). It's currently being updated, so it's definitely one of the systems I'd recommend using.
Skyrim Improved Magic System is an overhaul I have not used, but have considered. The mastery improvements that I discussed in better magic are present in force here - the destruction tree gives increased spell magnitude, and actually gives a scaled amount for each perk, with "Destruction Master" giving a full 25% magnitude improvement to lower skill spells compared to 10% for apprentice. SIMS adds a lot of spells present in previous games that were not included in Skyrim, such as open lock, fortify skill, and so on. Lastly, it removes starting spells and allows you to choose your starting spells via a single-use castable scroll. Again, I've never used SIMS, but it looks like it definitely is on the right track with it's mastery improvements and starting spell options. I don't know if I'm a huge fan of the new spells, as I never felt the fortify attribute/skill spells added much tactical variety, new summons having the same problem (a different version of meat shield or archer is just that), and open lock spells render an entire skill tree nearly useless (lockpick, obviously) while giving you a number of other abilities, such as oakskin, magelight, and depending on the number of other mods you use, stuff like a mark-recall spell (which fits best under Alteration).
Empowered Magic is the current magic system that I use, and the one I have the most experience with. At the heart of the mod is a changing of scaling from cost reduction to magnitude. This allows nearly all spells to become more powerful as you improve your skill: oakflesh will give more armor as your skill in Alteration increases, fireball becomes more powerful as your skill in Destruction increases, fast healing gives you more health as your Restoration skill increases, etc. However, to unlock such scaling the novice perk from a given school must be selected; this indicates your 'initiation' into the school as it were. In addition, the mod makes some fairly interesting perk changes. The Illusion tree has the most obvious effect, giving you some real difference in tactical options that make illusion viable for a mage outside of simply limited crowd control. I have to say that off all perk tree changes I've seen in any mod, Empowered Magic's Illusion tree really stands out as if not the best, then it's way up there! Destruction, Alteration, and Conjuration all have significant changes as well. The only thing I feel is missing from this mod is a change to the mastery perks, giving further benefit to spells at lower mastery levels. Due to the removal of cost reduction, introducing a further reduction in the mastery perks would compliment this mod greatly, in my opinion. This mod also includes nice small tweaks to individual spells, such as a lower cost to ward spells (something sorely needed, as wards are not much of a real tactical option unless you're using a mod like Deadly Combat in conjunction).
On to the additions:
Midas Magic is an unfinished spell addon that adds a system of spell creation involving a treasure-hunt aspect: collect 4 items, one of which is always a gold ingot (I believe), and you can create a spell in an Aurum Reactor located in a few places. The recipes for these spells are spelled out in a tome that is usually near the Reactor. This mod is the successor to wildly successful "Midas Magic" mod in Oblivion, a mod I've had a lot of experience with. Unfortunately, the mod is not finished and there are a number of completely unbalanced spells to be found. Given that Xilver picks the work back up and adds the content he did in Oblivion and balances the spells that are overpowered currently, this has great promise...but there have not yet been updates since the last one in February.
Apocalypse Spell Package is one of the gems of Skyrim's modding community, in my opinion. The mod adds about 150 or 160ish spells to the game. That's a lot of spells. On top of this, they're all pretty well balanced (for the most part), and nearly all of them have thematic appropriateness. That's a difficult thing to say when you're adding *160* spells. The only downside to this mod (and in my opinion, it's a small downside as the 'violations' are pretty minor) is that most schools end up having abilities that should be exclusive to other schools (as an example, Alteration ends up with a fairly overpowered direct damage spell)...but generally speaking this is an incredible addition to any overhaul you decide to go with. Highly recommended!
The Revenge of Colette is an interesting add-on. It contains a lower number of thematic spells aimed at hybrid-esque characters. It looks fairly professional-grade and seems to be well-planned and lore-appropriate. I am tempted to use this mod frequently, but on reading the system I get the feeling that one of the following, or multiple of the following, would occur:
1) I'd be overpowered. In a game where I'm already running ASIS/Deadly Dragons/Custom Difficulty/Duel or Deadly Combat/other difficulty enhancing mods...this could be a problem. This mod is a direct power upgrade to your character, which can be just what you need if you're running a lot of these mods and you find yourself dying all the time anyways, though.
2) I'd be breaking the rules of magic using while using both hands with weapons. This is somewhat related to #1, but Bethesda made an explicit decision that offensively, you've got 2 hands (although I disagree with the defensive aspect, and I DO use DW blocking) and your mouth, leading to number 3...
3) I'd have abilities that completely override shouting. Bethesda did something magical when they introduced the shout system in Skyrim - they found a special power that the hero of the game could have nearly exclusively, made it mysterious, powerful (in theory - to be discussed in another thread), and fun to develop. I don't want new powers to override shouts.
4) Lastly, and probably most importantly, the combo system would change the way I view, plan, and conduct combat extensively. While this is not bad by itself, I worry that I would always be looking at my focus counter (the mechanic introduced in this mod), and be trying to set off a new combo. I don't know if that's the way I want combat to be paced.
This mod is something that I think I'll use eventually, but I'd like for others to describe their experience with it. Are my fears founded, or is your experience completely different and definitely worth a try?
Lastly, the two fairly small, but important mods as I use mods to prevent fast travel:
I currently use Psijic Teleport Spells. I figure using both would be redundant, and so I picked this one as it is fairly limited in scope, has tiered skill requirements for the 4 spells added, and adds combat mechanics thanks to the blink and shadow step spells.
Mark and Recall with Menu was the only other option I was considering, but this mod gave you the ability to teleport with a much lower skill requirement, much lower magicka requirement (using Psijic, it would require something like ~800 magicka to go not quite cross-province, AND it's not completely accurate when looking to teleport in the wilderness which adds some fun/immersion/realism), and was very user-friendly. Almost too user friendly, it seems. I've not used it, but if someone who has used both mods can convince me that it's better than Psijic, I'm all ears!
There's also Skyrim Mark and Recall (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/10955) which looks pretty amazing but has been reported to be somewhat buggy and updates have not been made in awhile.
Whew! That's a lot of mods! I don't think other sections I wish talk about are as extensive as the magic section, save perhaps the crafting / smithing section (that's got to be the biggest CF I've ever seen aside from LA traffic). Hopefully this gets some real discussion started~!
