Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[Drax]

Isn't there a "detect life" spell or shout thing?

 

[DraQ]

Isn't there a "detect life" spell or shout thing?

Spell doesn't work, because it only detects things that are genuinely alive - no undead, daedra, automatons, etc. (interestingly enough it doesn't register Sanguine's sad lot of revelers in his realm, meaning they are likely disguised daedra).
Shout, I'm not sure if it catches invisible entities but between cooldowns, needing other shouts and how fast and generally OP the entites are, using it would be suicidal.

You can use "enemy radar" if you are a popamoler and have it enabled but other than that it's best to have something to keep them lit up and preferably inflict damage, like a damage aura.
Ice Form shout is great, because it both ices IEs over and keeps them from murdering you.

Wabbajack might be a good weapon because whatever it polymorphs IEs into will be less threatening, but it just reminded me that IEs are also present in Pelagius' Wingo of Solitude Palace.

 

[roll-a-die]

Hey draq can I get your current mod list? I'm honestly curious, if you use mod organizer you should be able to click the smaller wrench and screwdriver and export to CSV, then click active mods. You are the resident expert on requiem, and I'm looking at setting up a bit of a playthrough of it right now, to either reaffirm my woes, or finally play a bit of it.

 

[Grape_You_In_the_Mouth]

I also didn't use Requiem because of it's immense conflicts with other mods

 

[roll-a-die]

Also fun story of skyrims shitty bugginess, some of the problems I experience in Requiem could have come from a bug on loading saves. Which caused perk effects of already initialized NPC's to basically double up. So when I was doing things like the arrow testing 2 years ago when I first tried the thing. Or even during general gameplay, say I died and reloaded. It would double the effects of requiems already insanely potent perks. Making the thing that had just killed me, twice as potent relatively speaking.

EDIT: Should also clarify that this is an engine bug. Not a requiem specific bug.

EDIT2: And that it's fixed, in the aptly named Bug Fixes mod. I'll dig up a link now http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/76747/?

 

[GarfunkeL]

I also didn't use Requiem because of it's immense conflicts with other mods

What are these oh so important mods that conflict with Requiem? I think I have about 160 mods in use that do not conflict with Requiem and I cannot think off the top of my head of a single mod that I *wanted* to use that I couldn't have because of Requiem.

 

[Grape_You_In_the_Mouth]

SYPE and some combat mods for starters. Can't remember much, but maybe the better dragons combat overhaul as well? And I had an awesome mod that could tweak anything, like level scaling and a bunch of other things that were pretty rarely choose-able via slider bars.

 

[hell bovine]

Requiem is definitely not the most balanced mod, but cheap magic tricks are still not comparable to obvioulsy retarded mundane stuff.
Magic is magic, but swords are swords.

I wouldn't call a spell that can two-shot a dragon a "cheap magic trick"; rather the opposite is the problem. And I don't buy the "magic is magic, but swords are swords" excuse in a game where you can run with glass & daedric pointy sticks. To me both of these implementations are ridiculous, albeit for different reasons.

Still trying to persuade ogerboss to either axe them or give them a visible wake...

I'm pretty sure I've seen people proposing fan-made models (aren't they supposed to be daedra?) ages ago. Honestly, those things are ridiculous, because it makes you feel like your character is the only one not in on the joke.

 

[GarfunkeL]

As far as I know, at least some of the combat overhaul mods work with Requiem, if you really want/need the extra difficulty. Both DDO and DCO work with Requiem, which takes care of dragons - and you can even use all three if you really enjoy pain. You might want to give it a fresh try, since it seems that the last time you tried it out was multiple versions ago.

I wouldn't call a spell that can two-shot a dragon a "cheap magic trick"; rather the opposite is the problem. And I don't buy the "magic is magic, but swords are swords" excuse in a game where you can run with glass & daedric pointy sticks. To me both of these implementations are ridiculous, albeit for different reasons.

But that spell does shit all damage if your Conjuration is low. It only becomes powerful when your Conjuration is at or near 100, right? In that sense, it is equal to a sword made out of dragon bone.

And glass isn't glass but rather obsidian. Dunno why Bethesda went with the term glass but the description for glass gear makes it obvious that they are talking about obsidian.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

As far as I know, at least some of the combat overhaul mods work with Requiem, if you really want/need the extra difficulty. Both DDO and DCO work with Requiem, which takes care of dragons - and you can even use all three if you really enjoy pain. You might want to give it a fresh try, since it seems that the last time you tried it out was multiple versions ago.

I wouldn't call a spell that can two-shot a dragon a "cheap magic trick"; rather the opposite is the problem. And I don't buy the "magic is magic, but swords are swords" excuse in a game where you can run with glass & daedric pointy sticks. To me both of these implementations are ridiculous, albeit for different reasons.

But that spell does shit all damage if your Conjuration is low. It only becomes powerful when your Conjuration is at or near 100, right? In that sense, it is equal to a sword made out of dragon bone.

And glass isn't glass but rather obsidian. Dunno why Bethesda went with the term glass but the description for glass gear makes it obvious that they are talking about obsidian.

Maybe because Obsidian has only an attack rating of 84.

 

[hell bovine]

But that spell does shit all damage if your Conjuration is low. It only becomes powerful when your Conjuration is at or near 100, right? In that sense, it is equal to a sword made out of dragon bone.

I'm pretty sure my first toon, who was a necromancer, was killing lizards with it long before reaching mastery. That was some time ago, though.
(Btw, calling glass obsidian wouldn't change much, considering the later is also prone to breaking.)

 

[DraQ]

Hey draq can I get your current mod list? I'm honestly curious, if you use mod organizer you should be able to click the smaller wrench and screwdriver and export to CSV, then click active mods. You are the resident expert on requiem, and I'm looking at setting up a bit of a playthrough of it right now, to either reaffirm my woes, or finally play a bit of it.

You probably don't want my mod list.

Normally when I do something of my own (not modding but in general) I'm meticulous to a fault, but when just trying to get things to work for my private entertainment I don't have much patience for poorly documented tools, jumping through hoops and obscure rituals that may or may not serve an actual purpose.
Programming (and even bug hunting) may be fun, but maintaining lists of someone else's buggy mods for a buggy, closed source game is neither programming nor fun and, all in all, I consider it closest to an abuse of my free time, so I hack and take shortcuts, especially when I don't have up to date patches for half of my stuff because I still don't own The Sims: Skyrim Edition and don't plan to unless a friend or close relative gifts it to me, so fuck USLEEP very much. I also hate maintaining lengthy mod lists in the face of all their changing dependencies, breaking compatibilities and frequent updates and hotfixes (that's one of the advantages of Requiem for me - even though it might need some compatibility patches it's still one mod instead of a whole bunch of major mods for me to try and keep off each other toes).
For that reason I also don't really care that much about conflicts that don't actually break anything in significant way - if I can tell what breaks and determine that it doesn't matter all that much I will likely prefer slightly broken version over having to maintain a hierarchy of constantly updating patches.
As far as modding games goes I typically end up with install image I end up copying around if I ever need to set the modded game up again.

Today, for example, I manually edited a small esp (in NPP, and yes it is a binary file) I once cobbled together in TES5Edit to replace normal Morrowloot compatibility patch (as it lets too much Morrowloot through and leaves you swimming in ebony battleaxes), because I had to do some specific changes TES5Edit either didn't allow me to or didn't provide accessible enough option for it to be an attractive alternative to learning how esp headers are structured by dissecting one.

The bottom line is:

• My Skyrim is not exactly a stability wonder (although considering what I've done to it, maybe it is)
• Many things in my load order are the way they are only because a game in progress can only take so much abuse
• There are probably better ways to do some things, especially if you own The Sims: Skyrim Edition
• There are few but possibly significant things in my load order that are handmade glue keeping it together that I won't care to upload so you won't be able to replicate
• I reserve doing things properly for stuff I can actually look into and hope to discern what makes them tick, for all the rest I can settle for making things work at minimum effort

I can however provide an NMM-compatible digest of my load order if you specify what you're interested in.

SYPE and some combat mods for starters. Can't remember much, but maybe the better dragons combat overhaul as well? And I had an awesome mod that could tweak anything, like level scaling and a bunch of other things that were pretty rarely choose-able via slider bars.

SkyPE doesn't seem to do anything better than Requiem and it makes no sense to load two mods overhauling perk trees.
What combat mods are there that do things significantly different, yet better than Requiem? Most are either made redundant by Requiem or do things differently but generally worse. Some can be set up to be safely overriden by it leaving small subset of their functionality that does go beyond Requiem intact.
DCO has compatibility patch.

Requiem is definitely not the most balanced mod, but cheap magic tricks are still not comparable to obvioulsy retarded mundane stuff.
Magic is magic, but swords are swords.

I wouldn't call a spell that can two-shot a dragon a "cheap magic trick"; rather the opposite is the problem. And I don't buy the "magic is magic, but swords are swords" excuse in a game where you can run with glass & daedric pointy sticks. To me both of these implementations are ridiculous, albeit for different reasons.

And on different levels.
Having character adept at using iron but not steel sword is just fundamentally wrong for any reasonable meanings of "adept", "using", "iron", "steel", "sword" and "not".
One-shotting a dragon with spell in a setting where dragons are supposed to be an apocalyptic menace is also retarded but at least magic has no RL counterpart, dragons don't really have one either and the whole thing is more of a serious balance issue than shit being irreparably wrong by design.

Anyway, I've never found much use for spectral arrow, at least not with conjuration up to 50-ish.
Lightning cascade is much more problematic as, hard as it may be to cast, it generally one-shots dragons.
They seriously need some good lightning resistance, poison resistance as well (to counter that special daedra heart extract you can make).

And glass isn't glass but rather obsidian. Dunno why Bethesda went with the term glass but the description for glass gear makes it obvious that they are talking about obsidian.

Obsidian is a kind of naturally occurring glass.
Although TES glass looks more like Moldavite.

 

[roll-a-die]

Hey draq can I get your current mod list? I'm honestly curious, if you use mod organizer you should be able to click the smaller wrench and screwdriver and export to CSV, then click active mods. You are the resident expert on requiem, and I'm looking at setting up a bit of a playthrough of it right now, to either reaffirm my woes, or finally play a bit of it.

You probably don't want my mod list.

Normally when I do something of my own (not modding but in general) I'm meticulous to a fault, but when just trying to get things to work for my private entertainment I don't have much patience for poorly documented tools, jumping through hoops and obscure rituals that may or may not serve an actual purpose.
Programming (and even bug hunting) may be fun, but maintaining lists of someone else's buggy mods for a buggy, closed source game is neither programming nor fun and, all in all, I consider it closest to an abuse of my free time, so I hack and take shortcuts, especially when I don't have up to date patches for half of my stuff because I still don't own The Sims: Skyrim Edition and don't plan to unless a friend or close relative gifts it to me, so fuck USLEEP very much. I also hate maintaining lengthy mod lists in the face of all their changing dependencies, breaking compatibilities and frequent updates and hotfixes (that's one of the advantages of Requiem for me - even though it might need some compatibility patches it's still one mod instead of a whole bunch of major mods for me to try and keep off each other toes).
For that reason I also don't really care that much about conflicts that don't actually break anything in significant way - if I can tell what breaks and determine that it doesn't matter all that much I will likely prefer slightly broken version over having to maintain a hierarchy of constantly updating patches.
As far as modding games goes I typically end up with install image I end up copying around if I ever need to set the modded game up again.

Today, for example, today I manually edited a small esp (in NPP, and yes it is a binary file) I once cobbled together in TES5Edit to replace normal Morrowloot compatibility patch (as it lets too much Morrowloot through and leaves you swimming in ebony battleaxes), because I had to do some specific changes TES5Edit either didn't allow me to or didn't provide accessible enough option for it to be an attractive alternative to learning how esp headers are structured by dissecting one.

The bottom line is:

• My Skyrim is not exactly a stability wonder (although considering what I've done to it, maybe it is)
• Many things in my load order are the way they are only because a game in progress can only take so much abuse
• There are probably better ways to do some things, especially if you own The Sims: Skyrim Edition
• There are few but possibly significant things in my load order that are handmade glue keeping it together that I won't care to upload so you won't be able to replicate
• I reserve doing things properly for stuff I can actually look into and hope to discern what makes them tick, for all the rest I can settle for making things work at minimum effort

I can however provide an NMM-compatible digest of my load order if you specify what you're interested in.

That makes sense, and thanks for taking the time to provide that explaination, I think I'll just go with a relatively standard set up then. Also may actually provide Skyrim Sims Edition to you, at a point where I have extra money in the next 2 weeks or so, just so that you can get the HD/64bit update. You are one of my favorite posters, even if we do disagree a fair amount of the time.

 

[hell bovine]

And on different levels.
Having character adept at using iron but not steel sword is just fundamentally wrong for any reasonable meanings of "adept", "using", "iron", "steel", "sword" and "not".
One-shotting a dragon with spell in a setting where dragons are supposed to be an apocalyptic menace is also retarded but at least magic has no RL counterpart, dragons don't really have one either and the whole thing is more of a serious balance issue than shit being irreparably wrong by design.

Anyway, I've never found much use for spectral arrow, at least not with conjuration up to 50-ish.
Lightning cascade is much more problematic as, hard as it may be to cast, it generally one-shots dragons.
They seriously need some good lightning resistance, poison resistance as well (to counter that special daedra heart extract you can make).

Balance issues are design issues, though. Magic is still mainly a combat tool, since there is little else you can do with it in Skyrim. It's not even a question of a single overpowered spell, but rather that conjuration has a few balance issues, destruction has a few balance issues and alteration has more than a few (it's like the Swiss army knife of magic schools). It sort of adds up when playing a mage.
Anyway, I kind of gave up on waiting for a magic overhaul.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Once he fixed the raise dead II spell, so that it didn't work on giants and the raised undead are not near-invincible, I don't think there are any big balance issues in the magic side, at least under 50. My destruction was at ~45 or so and my Alteration was around that point too, which meant that I really felt that I had become a more powerful sorcerer than I had been at lvl 1 but I could still be easily killed if I didn't pay attention or got swarmed.

 

[DraQ]

Balance issues are design issues, though.

Balance issues like those are balance issues. Point issues, easy to fix:

• Lightning cascade 1hks dragons? Give dragons lightning resistance to protect them against it and hitscan lightning ray/vortex that make hitting flying target easy.
• Necromancy too strong? Make raising powerful targets harder, make no-disintegration perk require 100 conjuration and long chain of prerequisites (already done).
• Spectral arrow too strong? Nerf or replace spectral arrow.

etc.
Nothing tweaking a few variables won't fix.
If the mod was a baby it would be a low birth mass one, born a month too early, maybe with spina bifida and some mild heart defect, also ugly and with a couple of problematic genes - bad issues but perfectly possible to fix or work around.

OTOH YASH issues are fundamental - they are built into the very system as designed and impossible to remove because they are how the mod is *designed* to work. So yeah, being lean and lightweight and overall soundly built is all well and good, but if YASH was a baby it would have perfect birth mass, born on time, well formed overall etc. -with the exception of having no nose, one eye and chaotic, nonfunctioning clump of malformed neural tissue in place of a brain - even if it miraculously won't choke to death within first few minutes after birth, brain or respiratory defects will most likely do it in by the end of first day and if miraculously they won't, then certainly by the end of two weeks hell, just make it acrania instead. Here comes the medical waste bin.

 

[hell bovine]

Balance issues are design issues, though.

Balance issues like those are balance issues. Point issues, easy to fix:

• Lightning cascade 1hks dragons? Give dragons lightning resistance to protect them against it and hitscan lightning ray/vortex that make hitting flying target easy.
• Necromancy too strong? Make raising powerful targets harder, make no-disintegration perk require 100 conjuration and long chain of prerequisites (already done).
• Spectral arrow too strong? Nerf or replace spectral arrow.

etc.
Nothing tweaking a few variables won't fix.

And yet they have remained unfixed for a few years now. Which, if they are as easy to fix (wouldn't know, since my modding skills are nonexistent), makes it even more ridiculous. It's not a baby, it's an elephant pregnancy.

 

[DraQ]

Balance issues are design issues, though.

Balance issues like those are balance issues. Point issues, easy to fix:

• Lightning cascade 1hks dragons? Give dragons lightning resistance to protect them against it and hitscan lightning ray/vortex that make hitting flying target easy.
• Necromancy too strong? Make raising powerful targets harder, make no-disintegration perk require 100 conjuration and long chain of prerequisites (already done).
• Spectral arrow too strong? Nerf or replace spectral arrow.

etc.
Nothing tweaking a few variables won't fix.

And yet they have remained unfixed for a few years now. Which, if they are as easy to fix (wouldn't know, since my modding skills are nonexistent), makes it even more ridiculous. It's not a baby, it's an elephant pregnancy.

https://requiem.atlassian.net/wiki/display/REQ19/Known+bugs+in+the+latest+version

 

[Lambach]

Is there even a point to continue playing past level 44? I've got Alteration, Illusion and Alchemy at 100 and One-Handed at 70-ish (Daedric Weapons go through pretty much anything like a hot knife through butter), I'm pretty much an invulnerable engine of destruction. The Slow Time Shout only makes it even easier. I've finished both DLCs, and I'm supposed to trap Odhaviing now.

Thing is, the game has gotten so bloody easy I can't find the urge to play it anymore. I hear the Alduin fight is absurdly hard, so I've tried pushing through to get there, but it's just too boring at this point. I can stand in front of a dragon and just tank him with zero armor and only +30% Magic Resist due to how fucking powerful Absorb Essence is when you cast it with both hands.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Might as well finish it and see who is more OP between your dude and Balladuin. Shouldn't take long if you're not dicking around.

 

[jungl]

any word when requiem 2.0 coming out?

 

[DraQ]

any word when requiem 2.0 coming out?

After 1.9.5.

 

[circ]

Still with the Requiems. Silly rabbit. SPERG and Combat Evolved modular. You can't turn shit into a gourmet meal.

 

[DraQ]

Still with the Requiems. Silly rabbit. SPERG and Combat Evolved modular. You can't turn shit into a gourmet meal.

Certainly not by just spicing it up with several different spices.

 

[Mexi]

Okay, Wildcat is a fucking badass mod to anyone looking to spice up the gameplay. I'm going toe-to-fucking-toe with mudcrabs. It's awesome. I had vigor with it prior, but I don't know why anyone says they are compatible. It's fucking overkill. I even stopped all stagger/etc. from vigor like the directions say, but I lose, seriously, all fucking stamina with one swing of my sword. It was fucking ridiculous. Wildcat+YASH+Combat Evolved is fucking legit.