SKYRIMLE Wintermyst - Enchantments of Skyrim (by Enai Siaion and T3nd0)

[keithinhanoi]

Wintermyst - Enchantments of Skyrim (by Enai Siaion and T3nd0)
 
Wintermyst - Enchantments of Skyrim is the latest mod by Enai Siaion, with help from T3nd0
 
In case you're not familiar with them, Enai Siaion is the author of the spells mod Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim, a spells mod with over 25,000 endorsements and 1 million downloads, as well as a number of other very interesting mods.
 
T3nd0's (you do know who he is, don't you?) involvement as I understand it, is mainly about creating a ReProcessor patch maker that will "inject" the enchantment lists to be available to third-party armors, clothing, jewelry and weapons. Cool stuff.
 
From its Nexus Mods description page:
 
Features

• 104 unique new enchantments: 57 armor enchantments and 47 weapon enchantments.
• Thousands of new enchanted items added to the game's loot lists, NPCs and vendor inventories.
• All of the new enchantments can be disenchanted.
• Fair and balanced.
• Many bugfixes and balance improvements to existing enchantments.
• Configuration options available in the Wintermyst MCM if SkyUI is installed (SkyUI not required to use Wintermyst).

I've been testing it for some days now, when taking "breaks" from working at the weekend. The author has taken a very interesting and creative approach to all of the new enchantments. Many of them are conditional - meaning you need to do something specific in battle - in order for the buff to be applied. I like that because it could really change my strategies when fighting.

 
I've got a couple mods that add a few new enchantments, but not as a headline feature, and they don't expand much beyond what vanilla enchantments provide, so I'm pretty sure this mod is going to be a keeper for me.
 
Here's a Broudal video to get you all excited...
 

Edited February 11, 2015 by keithinhanoi

[Kelmych]

How does it differ from the "NPC Enchantments Fix" mod that is now part of ASIS?

[gpthree]

How does it differ from the "NPC Enchantments Fix" mod that is now part of ASIS?

Maybe I'm not really sure what the NPC Enchantments Fix does, but isnt this different right off the bat?

Features

[*]104 unique new enchantments: 57 armor enchantments and 47 weapon enchantments.

[*]Thousands of new enchanted items added to the game's loot lists, NPCs and vendor inventories.

[TehKaoZ]

Doesn't NPC enchantment fixes just give NPC's the ability to take advantage of enchantments via a perk. Doesn't actually put enchantments on any weapons, 3rd party or otherwise?

[keithinhanoi]

Kelmych, this mod is doing a completely different thing.

 

It adds a lot of NEW enchantments, all really quite different from the Vanilla ones. Think of it as Apocalypse Spells, but for enchantments, if that helps.

 

Watch the video, read the full description - there are so many great things added.

[Livnthedream]

I have the same issue with this that I have with most of his mods. It looks good on paper, but then he goes to far and just adds too much. Too many things from out of left field, with some very questionable balance choices.

[swiftfoxmark2]

I have the same issue with this that I have with most of his mods. It looks good on paper, but then he goes to far and just adds too much. Too many things from out of left field, with some very questionable balance choices.

Yeah, I agree that he adds a lot of unnecessary spells, shouts, and enchantments.  But that doesn't mean that they aren't all useless.  On top of that, you don't have to use those enchantments, spells, or shouts if you don't find them useful.  I hardly much use of most of the stuff in Vanilla Skyrim myself.

[Livnthedream]

Yeah, I agree that he adds a lot of unnecessary spells, shouts, and enchantments.  But that doesn't mean that they aren't all useless.  On top of that, you don't have to use those enchantments, spells, or shouts if you don't find them useful.  I hardly much use of most of the stuff in Vanilla Skyrim myself.

I don't like installing unnecessary stuff. If I want to overhaul Smithing and Speech, I will either mod them myself, or find suitable mods for them, not install SkyRe. It feels as though he ballooned the number here, just for the sake of having more. Many of those "activation" enchants are stuff he has had the code sitting around for awhile, like the earthquake effect has been in his race mod for a year. I get the impression that it was tossed in there not because he thought it would be a cool enchant, but just so he could say he added over 100 new enchants. I don't use Apocalypse Magic for similar reasons. why install over 200 spells when I am only going to use 5? On top of which there is some REALLY questionable balance choices, which is only reinforced by his insistence of his idea of "fun" being what is balanced.

[TehKaoZ]

Not to veer off topic but I have to disagree about Apocalypse. I don't think the mod was ever really intended for you to use all 200 spells unless you are going total mage. If I were to make a spell thief I would only likely bother with maybe 2 schools of magic and ignore the rest (same for the vanilla spells). The number promotes diversity in spells to help customize a play style to your character, so installing 200 spells to use 5 makes perfect sense to me. Many of the spells are very evidently inspired by Dungeons & Dragons as well (Of course to say D&D has redundancy in spells is another topic entirely). That being said, as far as balance goes I can definitely see some of them causing issues and of course some of the spells I don't like at all (instant death base spells for example). Any who didn't wanna go off topic. If I had to guess (and guessing I am) this mod is suppose to promote a similar idea.

Edited October 7, 2014 by TehKaoZ

[Livnthedream]

No, I get that. I just don't like the shotgun approach. If you want to do some cool stuff, then do some cool stuff. Don't just do cool stuff and then filler for the stuff you don't care about as much to say that you support it too. T3nd0 has a serious issue with that imo. I am pretty ambivalent towards PerMa because based on what he has stated Magic is again an after thought. Or at the very least he has a drastically different idea of what magic is/should play like, than I do.

[keithinhanoi]

...and so, this is the beauty of modding - you can make it the way you want, or don't want.

 

To each their own, blah blah... But it's great to see the lively discussion! 

[EnaiSiaion]

I have the same issue with this that I have with most of his mods. It looks good on paper, but then he goes to far and just adds too much. Too many things from out of left field, with some very questionable balance choices.

When people report balance issues, they get fixed. Unfortunately, people don't report balance issues, they just bash the mod behind my back.   

Yeah, I agree that he adds a lot of unnecessary spells, shouts, and enchantments.  But that doesn't mean that they aren't all useless.  On top of that, you don't have to use those enchantments, spells, or shouts if you don't find them useful.  I hardly much use of most of the stuff in Vanilla Skyrim myself.

I don't use Apocalypse Magic for similar reasons. why install over 200 spells when I am only going to use 5?

Obviously no one can use 200 spells or 100 permutations of shouts and people only use 5. The point is that everyone uses a different set of 5, or at least should be encouraged to do so. Why do Slay Living/Leech Seed/Iron Maiden/Horrid Wilting/Banish Living/etc exist when you can just kill people with fireballs instead? Because perhaps you're roleplaying a necromancer, druid, paladin, warlock etc. Hell, I ran into a guy who roleplayed a Magna-Ge before Spectraverse was a thing. That guy would have no use for fireballs but would love Mana Void. There are people who use Spelltwist to kill enemies with healing spells, which is about the least efficient way to deal damage, but it fits certain trickster or pacifist characters. Not to mention novices and apprentices need spells too, but those spells are useless for high level characters, so that's unavoidable clutter right there. And in the end, having those 195 other spells doesn't hurt anyone. Spells that aren't used don't consume resources, so there's no harm in having them available at one Winterhold vendor somewhere, and they may even add immersion - there's more magic in the world than just the magic you personally use (literally, if you're using ASIS Automatic Spells). 

On top of which there is some REALLY questionable balance choices, which is only reinforced by his insistence of his idea of "fun" being what is balanced.

Balance is important so there's a reason not to use the same spell nonstop from the second you get it all the way to level 81. If you want overpowered spells, type player.modav destructionpowermod 500 and every spell becomes overpowered and you can choose which overpowered spell you use. (Balance is also important because if players find just ONE overpowered spell, they will diss the mod as "imbalanced and broken") 

It feels as though he ballooned the number here, just for the sake of having more. Many of those "activation" enchants are stuff he has had the code sitting around for awhile, like the earthquake effect has been in his race mod for a year. I get the impression that it was tossed in there not because he thought it would be a cool enchant, but just so he could say he added over 100 new enchants.

There's Tremor which is from Resplendent, and there's Counterspell, Illusory Burden, Slay Living and Exemplar on weapons because they are the kind of effects that belong on weapons (just like Soul Trap is both a weapon enchant and a spell). That's 5 out of 104.

 

And there's a very good reason for the number 104: throwing enchantments into loot lists at random will result in massively biased drop rates because adding more items to lists will dilute the drop chance for each of them. For instance, if you have 20 vanilla enchantments and add 15 new enchantments, the result will be 5 vanilla enchantments showing up twice as often in a given pile of loot. I didn't throw in stuff just to reach 104, but it's not like I was able to pick an arbitrary number either.Hope this helps.

[redirishlord]

@ EnaiSiaion: Very thoughtful rebuttal, I'm going to give Apocalypse Magic another look and consider a new game based on it, glad you posted.

[Aiyen]

Originally when I read this first I considered making a post about balance and scope.. but I see others did most of that. 

 

The main reason I do not use any spell mods or enchantment mods is because of redundancy... stuff does things with a rather narrow set of effects and modifiers. Just because a spell has "name that really helps immersion" then it is essentially just a fireball at the end of the day.... roughly speaking. 

 

The beauty of spell and enchant mods is that as long as you do not try to force them to be used by every single NPC etc. they are essentially stability free... so people who want them can get them without much fuss about load orders and all the other jazz. So in that regard I will just give people the advice to try them out and hopefully enjoy some of it... it cant hurt. 

 

As for balance.. then again as long as NPC´s do not have them then the point is rather moot. Magic and enchatment in skyrim is overpowered by way of the rather simple design the game use. Also the creator of spells etc cannot be held accountable for which perk mod you might be using, as each of those also will make magic more or less powerful. 

 

At the end of the day I guess mods that add more magic and enchantment into the game are for people who just want to have some more fun in playing... one way or another. 

[Livnthedream]

`

 

When people report balance issues, they get fixed.
 
Unfortunately, people don't report balance issues, they just bash the mod behind my back.
 

 

No they don't. Or should I link you to the similar responses from Nexus where people have said as much and you told them tough, you think its fun. Notably the control spells. Spells and Powers by Warriorkeke is considered op, its kind of odd that you think otherwise when you include similar ones.
 

Obviously no one can use 200 spells or 100 permutations of shouts and people only use 5. The point is that everyone uses a different set of 5, or at least should be encouraged to do so.
 
Why do Slay Living/Leech Seed/Iron Maiden/Horrid Wilting/Banish Living/etc exist when you can just kill people with fireballs instead? Because perhaps you're roleplaying a necromancer, druid, paladin, warlock etc. Hell, I ran into a guy who roleplayed a Magna-Ge before Spectraverse was a thing. That guy would have no use for fireballs but would love Mana Void. There are people who use Spelltwist to kill enemies with healing spells, which is about the least efficient way to deal damage, but it fits certain trickster or pacifist characters.
 
Not to mention novices and apprentices need spells too, but those spells are useless for high level characters, so that's unavoidable clutter right there.
 
And in the end, having those 195 other spells doesn't hurt anyone. Spells that aren't used don't consume resources, so there's no harm in having them available at one Winterhold vendor somewhere, and they may even add immersion - there's more magic in the world than just the magic you personally use (literally, if you're using ASIS Automatic Spells).
 

I didn't claim harm. The point is, most of them don't feel like different spells. I agree that at least partially to vanilla it has this problem, but nowhere near to the degree that your mod does. The only real disconnect in vanilla is going from Apprentice to Expert as they are just copies of the same spells with higher effects. At least adept makes the difference of the aoe component. If the wall spells weren't so useless I would remove them from that tier entirely. Unfortunately that is not the case.

 

Balance is important so there's a reason not to use the same spell nonstop from the second you get it all the way to level 81. If you want overpowered spells, type player.modav destructionpowermod 500 and every spell becomes overpowered and you can choose which overpowered spell you use. (Balance is also important because if players find just ONE overpowered spell, they will diss the mod as "imbalanced and broken")
 

I don't want op spells. Which is why I have 2 major issues with your mod. Most of your damage spells are not op, they are simply boring. They feel like the same spell with different names/graphic effects. To me that sucks. Your utility spells on the other hand are split between pretty cool (like the channel to run to faster) to op (easily perma CC). Its the latter I have an issue with. And its present in all of your spell mods. Seemingly because you feel its fun. Maybe instead of adding so many spells, you go the route that Forgotten Magic Redone has and add base spells that level with the user? I much prefer that mod for that reason alone, nevermind the customization.

 

There's Tremor which is from Resplendent, and there's Counterspell, Illusory Burden, Slay Living and Exemplar on weapons because they are the kind of effects that belong on weapons (just like Soul Trap is both a weapon enchant and a spell). That's 5 out of 104.

 

And there's a very good reason for the number 104: throwing enchantments into loot lists at random will result in massively biased drop rates because adding more items to lists will dilute the drop chance for each of them. For instance, if you have 20 vanilla enchantments and add 15 new enchantments, the result will be 5 vanilla enchantments showing up twice as often in a given pile of loot. I didn't throw in stuff just to reach 104, but it's not like I was able to pick an arbitrary number either.

Why do you feel its a problem if some enchants are rarer than others? Especially if it causes you to admittedly pad them? That seems rather lazy to me. I get it, designing spells is hard. As someone who has spent most of the their gaming experience playing various MMO's, I am well aware of how tough it is to ride the line between balance, and keeping things feeling unique. I feel that your mod fails the unique test.

Hope this helps.

Response in teal.