Necromage, can we get it working for undead players?

[PlanB]

If you pay undead, you should benefit from necromage.

Why was this disabled?

[Velinestra]

I agree, the necromage effect seemed intended for vampires. Was it an actual bug?

[Arthmoor]

Yes, because:

Necromage no longer boosts the power of spells and enchantments used on a vampire player.

isn't what it was intended to actually do.

 

Think about it. That means that enemy spells incoming will be boosted in power. That combined with the exploit enabled by it boosting self-cast spells is why it was modified.

[Velinestra]

But the 'exploit' makes sence, if you have an undead body <_<.  You'll notice that noone really agrees when you remove something that is justified in game. The nexus already has a couple of fixes for this particular problem.

[Arthmoor]

Just because a small minority of people disagree and have posted reversal mods for it doesn't invalidate the rightness of the bug itself being fixed.

 

You're also severely limiting your audience if you think the entire world is against this having been fixed, because in the circles I occupy pretty much everyone was like "yep, that's a huge exploit".

[Velinestra]

Just by reading the definition of the perk you should know it's intended to work that way. But even if it is an exploit, it should be up to the player to decide if they want to use them or not. Why dont you release a side version just for bug fixes? I tell you, a lot of people would appreciate that.

[Guest]

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/28781

this mods reverts the USKP change.

 

i support that this change should stay in the uskp. the necromage (e.g. even according to the linked mod's description page) not only affects regualar spells, not even just effects added by enchantments on gear. no, it apparently also enhances effects granted by other perks. of course this only if those perks are added after Necromage. i guess i don't have to explain why this doesn't look anywhere close to an intended feature.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Gruftlord

[Arthmoor]

Can we please not continuously try to retry this case? It isn't really helpful to keep banging on the issue in hopes that continuing to press it after the decision has been made - TWICE - will get the decision reversed.

[XJDHDR]

Sorry to resurrect this topic, but since it is a top search result, I feel that I should refute the reasoning presented here once and for all.

On 1/21/2013 at 11:38 AM, Velinestra said:

Just by reading the definition of the perk you should know it's intended to work that way.

You provided no evidence whatsoever proving this claim, and the evidence actually says the exact opposite.

The perk's description is as follows:

All spells are more effective against undead.

This description refutes your claim in two different ways:

1. It says "All spells are more effective". But Vampires with Necromage don't get just their spells boosted. Enchantments and potions also get affected. Even standing stones, racial abilities and other perks become more powerful as a result of vanilla Necromage's interaction with vampirism. None of these are spells, so there is absolutely no justification for arguing that these getting enhanced is "working as intended".

2. It says 'against undead'. The definition of against in this context is: "in opposition to; contrary to; adverse or hostile to." In other words, the perk is supposed to target hostile undead. It goes without saying that the player can't be hostile to him/herself, nor can casting a Heal or Resist X spell on someone be justified as being in opposition to them. As with before, there is no justification in arguing that the spells being more effective in these situations is "working as intended".

 

The problem is even worse for people who admit that vanilla Necromage is an exploit and yet, claim that it's working as intended. The definition of exploit is:

(in a video game) the use of a bug or flaw in game design to a player’s advantage or to the disadvantage of other players.

Enough said!

 

On 1/19/2013 at 12:43 PM, Velinestra said:

You'll notice that noone really agrees when you remove something that is justified in game. The nexus already has a couple of fixes for this particular problem.

I concur with Arthmoor. It is a fringe group that has a problem with the Necromage fix, not "everyone". Case in point, the USSEP currently has 4,119,788 unique downloads on Nexus Mods, whereas the USSEP Necromage fix has 11,202. So by my rough calculations, around 0.3% of USSEP's users have enough of a problem that they downloaded a patch.

 

On 1/21/2013 at 11:38 AM, Velinestra said:

But even if it is an exploit, it should be up to the player to decide if they want to use them or not. Why dont you release a side version just for bug fixes? I tell you, a lot of people would appreciate that.

As per the above, exploits are bugs and so Arthmoor and his team are well within their bounds by patching this bug in Necromage's data. The only thing that might be negotiable is that, as per the description's wording, harmful spells cast on the player should be made more effective.

Now, all of this is merely regarding the facts of the matter. The question of the morality of using exploits in a game is not the topic of anything above, regardless of the persistent Straw Man fallacy I constantly see from opponents of this patch, who ruthlessly lie through their teeth by characterising me and others like me as, "telling others how to play the game," because I committed the 'crime' of proving that their claims were illogical and/or objectively wrong.

[VexedCobra]

Necromage is a class of sorcerer that can be encountered in Skyrim anniversary edition that’s been published my Bethesda. They use conjuration and ect. Necromage is a perk in the restoration tree that states spells are more effective against undead. What is a necromage? Well it’s a mage that uses necro or dead. Description, Spells are more effective on the undead. What’s a spell? It’s a magical effect that can be positive or negative. What’s undead? Anything that lives beyond or after a normal death or life span. Is a vampire undead? Yes it is. So if necromage is a type of sorcerer that can be fought and uses undead why is it considered a bug for the spells or magical effects to enhanced both positives and negatives?
 

In vampire lore, vampires have increased powers, enhanced abilities over their human counter parts. In oblivion, vampires also received an enhancement to physical and magical abilities. Your argument is based on an interpretation of somebody who did not make Skyrim, did not name the perk or have anything to do with the development of the game. They made a mod. They produced a mod in which is supposed to fix game breaking glitches and improve the experience of game play. goal of the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch (aka USSEP) is to eventually fix every bug with Skyrim Special Edition not officially resolved by the developers to the limits of the Creation Kit and community-developed tools, in one easy-to-install package. 
 
So if I can prove necromage isn’t a bug and works as intended by the developers according to the description and information available then that proves that it should not have been touched in this mod according to the mods intended purpose. So is necromage working as not intended? Well if a spell is a magical affect that can be positive or negative and the undead is anything that lives beyond a normal life span or after death then a vampire is undead. You as a player can be undead ex vampire. So magical affects are enhanced on undead which can and does include you. Therefor magical effects are enhanced for you as a player both positive and negative.Each of the five schools of magic includes a set of Magical Effects these effects are used in a number of different ways - for example they may appear in spells, potions, or enchanted items. Certain magical effects may have limitations to their use   That’s how this perk works therefore the perk is working as intended by the developers. Also, a necromage isn’t a class of sorcerer who uses holy magic or fights undead, it’s someone who fights with undead channeling dark arts such as necromancy.

A razers edge is the premise in which an argument given without much evidence can be dismissed without much evidence. They idea of only so many people believe x = y is correct. So does that mean because the mast majority aren’t downloading a work around mean the necromage isn’t working as intended by the developers point of view? False. Allow me to counter. Long ago lots of mast majority of people believed things were okay such as, slavery, women not having rights, using lead paint, the list goes on but does that make them right just because the majority did those things? No it doesn’t. Just because everyone else does something doesn’t make it right. A lot of the people who are downloading the unofficial patch are doing so for the game breaking bugs and glitches so they don’t have to restart a game. Now I ask, is it fair for someone to be making a mod to a game that’s intended purpose is to fix bugs to go further and then force interpretation of how the game should be to someone else’s game(the player)? No. If it’s a bug fix it should fix bugs. Not alter the game developer intentions.

[Sigurð Stormhand]

Let me first make it clear that we are not going to revert this fix, none of the arguments presented over the last decade have been convincing. That being said, I will make one final attempt to explain why this fix was implemented before locking the thread - which is probably what I should have done in May.

I have never heard of "The Razor's Edge" as a rhetorical device in argument, I believe you are referring to Hitchens's razor, "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." That principle is not applicable here, because we have evidence. Now, I agree that we should not measure the validity of a fix based on the number of people who approve of it or not. The UPP does not operate that way, and if we go back and feel that a fix was applied for that reason in the past we revert it. However, we never made the argument that "everyone agrees so it's right" It was actually Velinestra who appealed to the majority, and Arthmoor pointed out that it was really only a small minority of people complaining about the fix.

So, what evidence do we have that the perk is bugged? There are four basic things.

1. The description text, "All spells are more effective against undead." This is not the same as "Spells are more effective on the undead". The key word here is "against". The most generous interpretation would be spells they mage casts on undead, i.e. touch or target. It definitely shouldn't apply to enchanted items the caster is wearing or potions they drink because items and potions are not considered "spells" in the Elderscrolls. In fact, Morrowind included magical items like rings that allowed player unable to cast spells themselves to instead trigger magical effects using the item, like casting fireballs. This was conceptually different to spells because, unlike spells, the enchanted item did not require concentration to use and the "casting" never failed.

2. The fact that the perk is in the Restoration school, rather than Conjuration. This indicates it's primarily intended to affect the offensive "Turn Undead" spells in that school.

3, The name - Necromage - it basically means the same as "necromancer" (master over death vs wielder of death) but it sounds different, it's not intended for the "blood and guts" necromancers but for "respectable" mages. It's also worth pointing out that there's a separate "Necromancy" perk in the Conjuration tree that has completely different effects. The fact that the "Necrormage" NPC class exists is interesting, but I don't think it's relevant because it's not something I've seen in the game lore, just in the internal files. What is relevant is that none of the Necromancer NPC's use the "Necromage" perk.

4. Gameplay logic. Most players do not power-game, and most would not initially think to take a Restoration perk to improve their overall magical affinity as a vampire. However, players might become a vampire having that perk, or decide to take it to target undead, and then discover they were more susceptible to fireballs and other forms of magic thrown at them. This is a negative effect of taking the perk. I can't think of any other perk which applies a permeant penalty when you take it, indicating this probably isn't intended.

Now, what evidence so we have the perk it working as intended?

1. It's in the game like that, and you can use it to power game. This doesn't really stack up, see point No. 4 above, but also because the same argument was applied to "Marked for Death" for almost a decade. We were repeatedly told that we had "broken" Marked for Death and that it was working as intended. Then, Bethesda patched the game and applied out fix, proving it wasn't working as intended.

In summary, there is significant evidence that the perk is bugged and no evidence that it is working as intended other than the fact that it appears in the vanilla game like that. Therefore, we have applied the most practical fix available to us without being able to edit the game engine directly.