Hello everyone,

Some of you may know about my mod from the past year (when I was smart and able to do something useful, heh!) Alternative Oblivion Magic System (aka AOMS) -> http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31918

The Idea of the mod was basically give the player a list of "Classes" depending on the character's main skills.

Once this class was chosen, the mod followed the character's advancement and skill levels and given certain spells, which were different depending on the class you chosen.

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Thinking about finishing the project to make it fully playable until level 100, I had an alternative idea, So I wanted to ask for your opinions.

AOMS Classic Version

Disadvantages:
1. Long development time: Since I had to manually set up each spell list, for each class, given different skill combinations and at each skill level, until level 100 and knowing all spells from Supreme Magicka, Lame and Midas, with their costs and functionalities.

2. Difficult subjective balance decisions: I had to manually anolyze each spell's power with it's magicka cost, making sure it was "usable" by the character, and if it was useful and balanced in front of other classes to make them all interesting.

3. Straight-Forward system after choosing initial Class: Even though there were special events, such as meeting different skill-combo-level requirements, which gave the player bonus spells. The spell earning system was pretty much straight forward, and playing twice the same class would mostly give the same spells, with little choice by the player.

Advantages:
1. Customized manually spell lists: being pretty much unique from other classes. Spell by spell check and balance corrections.

2. Immersive roleplaying gameplay: The Arcane Chemist was pretty much an arcane chemist, and all the spells on his hands were forced to be 'that' spell lists.


AOMS Type 2 Version

The idea of this version would be to create a Dynamic Storage Box, where (redundantly) 'dynamically' chosen spells by an automated character anolysis would be added inside. After the character selects a Class, he would be able to chose a limited number of starting spells. And after that, each time the character advances his skill level, the Storage Box would check the character's capabilities (such as Magicka Pool) and add Spells to it, depending on the player's advanced skill and 'magical' class.

So basically, each time you increase your magical skill, you would be able to chose from a spell list, which increases the availability of spells to chose from together with the character's advancement.

Disadvantages:

1. Less uniqueness in each class: Even though I would try to limit and carefully chose the spells added to the dynamic box, the filters would be less restrictive.

Advantages:

1. Fast Development Process: Even though the redesign would take sometime before the first release, then it would be really fast to complete it for the whole game (meaning to level 100 characters, given all the spells will be added to the list and the filter would be basically the magicka pool or skill level)

2. High re playability factor: given each time you play with a character will be able to chose different spells than the first time.

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This is the pretty much general idea, on the run when I start developing this one (after you given some feedback on which one to continue), I have in mind different features, such as not requiring the secondary mods and being able to read any spells available in game, or -BuyPoints- which give the players to buy one powerful spell or many lesser spells.

I await for your feedback!

Thanks!
Revolucion09

Although I probably wouldn't use such a mod myself, I think it's an interesting idea to have spell "specialties" so to speak. My knowledge of the mod-creation process is still somewhat limited, but let me offer up a few ideas.

Using script, identify which major magic mods are active which might add spells. Then add those spell reference IDs to a big array pool along with a few details such as the spell school, base cost, and primary effect type. Alternatively, if there are script capabilities to enumerate through all spells that would be nicer than hardcoding.

Rather than having the user pick a specific class, have them pick from certain novice level starter spells from among a hand-picked set. Reset the box after initial spells are selected, but persist it thereafter. When the character gain a level, based upon both the character's skill level in each spell school and the count of spells which they already know from that school, assign a chance for new spells of that school to be added to the box. Within a school, assign chances of a particular spell showing up based upon the base cost vs. the skill level of the character, and also based upon how many spells the character already knows of that effect type. So basically if you start off learning fire and restore health spells, other fire and restore health spells would be the most likely things to show up at future choice points. Other effects in the same school like ice or restore fatigue would show up less often, and things from other schools least of all. It would be cumulative for future levels, so at level 50 if you know 20 fire spells and 5 ice spells, any fire spells you don't know yet are much more likely to show up than the ice spells; it's basically easier for you to learn other magic similar to what you're already familiar with.

Using this concept, there would be a near-infinite number of different spell progression paths, since each spell selection would influence what spells you're likely to be offered in the future.

I'm not certain how hard the scripting would be on this; it sounds more complex than what you had in mind. But on the plus side it would be quite easy to support more spells from mods/etc since you wouldn't have to hand-place very much, it would mostly be taken care of automatically based upon 3 or 4 main spell attributes.

Hope this helps .