Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[Eyeball]

No, I don't think you've ever mentioned Requiem before.

Requiem does not allow you to craft "+10 HP permanent" potions, it allows you to pick some perks giving stat boosts or extra powers. This is not the same. I want some very rare potions requiring super expensive and hard to find ingredients to brew and a high skill level that give stat upgrades, a bit like how it was in Gothic 2. No mod I've found lets you do that.

 

[hell bovine]

I've been playing quite a lot with this by now, and it works pretty much as "advertised". Yes the author didn't consider it finished but what probably will happen is that a couple of zones (+ the DLCs I guess) will scale to your level and overall you won't even notice.
At the start of the game I had to keep to the streets, wandering off meant death.
Sometimes even the streets could be dangerous because of the 20 level random fork. The opposite can happen too, but on average I found dungeons in remote areas truly harder, sometimes they were exceptionally hard. Had I had installed from the start the last piece of my current combat modification combo, I should have delayed them quite a bit longer, too.
I honestly can recommend this mod as it does what I was looking for, even though it was released "as is" (I understand the author left the modding scene altogether, but I might be wrong).

Of course having Immersive Creatures in combination will help too, as you'll find more exotic monsters in the deep wilderness and lost dungeons.

Thanks for the explanation; the lack of Dragonborn support is a bit annoying, though. I use Immersive Creatures and they're quite fun, just installed the High Level Enemies version and hopefully nothing will blow up.

After playing around for a bit (which mostly consisted of my mage dying terribly), here are some impressions in comparison with Requiem (since that's the only other Skyrim overhaul I've played).

What I found this mod does better than Requiem:
- If you have no skill in a weapon, it will do almost no damage in your hands. In Requiem, my beginner necromancer could one-shot people with a bow, despite having no perks in archery. By comparison, starting with no archery skills and perks in YASH means you can do an amazing 1 point of damage with a hunter's bow.
- If you have no skill in armor, it will be equally useless. Better armor requires more skill to be used effectively, same as weapons.
- Spells can fail, which uses up magicka. No more summon spamming (or any sort of spell spamming, because at zero skill they fail very often).
- Gathering plants can fail as well, although there is an optional mod changing more plants into ingredients. Definitely better than Requiem, where alchemy was the easiest way to break Skyrim's economy, which was annoying, because it also had some good features, like the ability to experiment on your body.
- Swimming is slower, getting out of water is slower. My mage almost got eaten by a pack of slaughterfish courtesy of ASIS increased spawns.
- Compatibility. I am not using a 'bashed patch' because I'm to lazy to learn how to do it, but everything seems to work anyway. No need for additional patches so far.

What it could do better, but doesn't:
- Health regeneration is stopped in combat, but not out of it, which makes no sense considering both healing potions and spells are available in-game.
- No MCM, which is very annoying, because I'd love to be able to change the chance of high level enemies being spawned.
- Loot - there is still too much good stuff to be found, although Random Encounters might be partially at fault here. I'd recommend getting either DFB Random Encounters or Immersive Creatures. I'm using both and the problem is, you can get good loot just by waiting a random battle out, because there are too many critters crawling around and they run into each other.
- Animal behavior - bears hunting together with wolves makes no sense whatsoever, unless they escaped a zoo together.
- Smiths don't sell leather or ingot, but mines yield more ore. I don't see much point in this, but someone else might enjoy it.
- Sneaking in the open should be harder. Not going to play a thief this time, but I'd recommend another mod for sneaking. You can bash locks up to expert with two-handers apparently, so that's a plus.

Playing an imperial necromancer again, but no thievery this time. Haven't gotten to high- (or even mid-) range levels yet. Using YASH - main file and some of the optional ones, ASIS, Random Encounters, Immersive Creatures (including the High Level version), Mighty Dragons, Dragon Combat Overhaul (combined with the Dragon Stalking fix, because of course I'd get this bug), NPCs in the dark (combined with Pure Weather and RLO dungeons), NPC water AI (enemies follow you into water), Realistic Needs and some mods to make the game look prettier (like Schlongs of Skyrim).

Hmm, tried to play YASH and the scripts initialize correctly while I'm in the cell (Alternate Start), but I get a CTD as soon as I embark on my chosen beginning. It's never easy, is it?

I use Alternate Start and the camping in the woods, came by ship, patron at an inn and shipwrecked beginnings all worked for me. Alternate Start is loaded almost at the very end (only graphical mods and ASIS are after), courtesy of BOSS - and yes, I know that LOOT is newer, but I had crashes when using the load order it suggested.[/QUOTE]

 

[Goat Vomit]

Anything I should add or remove?

Yes, you need this and then this.

It is canon.

Spoiler

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Interesting NPCs are...interesting.

Spoiler

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Features:
-Fully voiced follower, able to follow you (obviously) and marry you (why)
-Custom textures and meshes
-Indestructible and powerful. Seriously he'll probably kick the ♥♥♥ of most things, he's level god damned 100.
-Custom attack spell. It's just blue fire, but hey, better than normal fire.
-Has achieved CHIM.
He can be found in Belethor's Trade Goods in Whiterun, where he is planning to do horrible explicit things to the owner. If you ask me where he is you forfeit any rights have to me being nice to you, and I get to call you any variation of stupid I want)

I use Alternate Start and the camping in the woods, came by ship, patron at an inn and shipwrecked beginnings all worked for me. Alternate Start is loaded almost at the very end (only graphical mods and ASIS are after), courtesy of BOSS - and yes, I know that LOOT is newer, but I had crashes when using the load order it suggested.

Had the same experience with LOOT. It tries to operate in a fancy "load mods according to their order of importance relative to each other" method (instead of just making sure patches load after masters) but I think it still doesn't really know what to do with compatibility patches, which is nearly 1/3 of my list. Eventually I settled for learning how to manually order the list.

My Alternate Start is at that same point, so I must be doing something stupid like leaving active something that had Requiem as a master or whatever. If it's not that, I'll just bruteforce it and deactivate mods at random until it doesn't crash anymore.


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edit: I just disabled everything and started YASH without problems. I'll detail the interesting changes I noticed here for anyone interested in giving it a try.

Started as a redguard warrior from Hammerfell camping in the road between Whiterun and Rorikstead, in front of Old Hroldan Inn. The owner gives me a bounty, a rumour to investigate Helgen and starting the main quest and some expensive food (including new ones) which gives me a small fortify effect to attributes for a while, similarly to Requiem (in vanilla they restore attributes instead). A cheap green apple gives me +5 stamina for 300 seconds, an expensive cyrodiilian wine gives me +30 health for 300 seconds, a seemingly common fish gives me +20 magicka.



As I explore the surrounding area, I notice you can inspect tree stumps, trees and other static objects. Some skill (alchemy would be my guess) must influence it because even trying to collect flowers doesn't always yield results. Still, I get a hawk beak from a tree. The red, purple and blue flowers retain their vanilla effects (restore health, stamina and magicka). Eventually I find a camp with two people who have been slaughtered by a brown bear...no, that was Requiem. Here, they were killed by a skeever . Still, I almost died as well because I had no armor . Took me a while to realize I was doing shit for damage because I was using a steel scimitar, and at 5 skill I was only able to use iron efficiently. All skills start at ZERO, except the ones with a racial bonus. Requiem was kind enough to start them at 5.

I pick up an iron sword from the camp, and now I'm doing decent damage (8, as opposed to the 1 damage from the steel scimitar). I test it against a wolf who sneaked up on my as I prayed at a nearby altar to Dibella, to heal a disease I picked up from the skeever (the blessing costs a gold coin. Fucking godesses). The disease just makes lockpicking and pickpocketing 20% harder (like in vanilla), but it makes me feel icky. On the camp there was also a pickaxe, which I test on a nearby iron ore vein. I got 22 ores, one garnet, one flawless sapphire before getting overloaded and giving up. Looks like veins are infinite, which is kind of exploitable but makes more sense than depleting and mysteriously "respawning" a month later.

On the way to whiterun I make a detour to sneak past two sabercats hunting goats a bit too close to the road, and I find a orc hunter in full plate (?). I heard him fighting against someone/something, but when I met him there was no body nearby (??) He warns me when I approach, but when talked to he offers to sell fresh meat from the game he's hunting (???). His inventory is actually empty (????).



I leave the lunatic and find the saner-in-comparison M'aiq, followed by traveling khajiit merchants. I dump the stuff I found at the camp and buy some gear, including iron boots that slow me down because I'm not skilled enough. I notice they have dwarven weapons for sale, a good enchanted item (steel boots of resist frost 36%) and the (expensive) potions work over time. There is a forsworn-occupied fort nearby and I sneak around a little. I got close enough to hear someone talking and get them to notice my own noise and start searching for me, but I leave before long because I'm pretty sure I can't take them one at this point.

I kill some mudcrabs for practice, easy enough as long as I'm a bit careful. Then I am accosted by a khajiit highwayman, who absolutely DEMOLISHES me when I fail my Intimidate attempt and then outright refuse to give him my jewgold.



I can't even touch him as he runs circles around me, power attacking with two orcish daggers. As I manage to run away after bash-stunning him, he yells "You aren't worth it" from the distance.



As I look back to see if he truly gave up, I notice I'm close to a thalmor patrol. They have black-tinted armor now (heavy elven armor?). They usually get hostile if you get close so I decide to get away from the road. Looking into the grass, I find a pillar with an orcish shield leaning against it, which triples my armor rating. I decide to test it against some mudcrabs inhabiting a nearby pond (the one with the giant mudcrab fossil).

One of them unfortunately is a Large Mudcrab, which is fast and hits hard. He also has Terminator-like determination and decides to chase me back into the road. As I'm finally getting away, I climb a hill to see which way is Whiterun. I notice a really big giant (herpderp) chilling in the horizon, maybe double the size of a regular giant. Then I hear a howl and am suddenly jumped by a wolf, who puts me out of my misery. I never reached Whiterun.



I'll play this some more. It's very unforgiving but everything bad that happened to me was caused by my own mistakes. One thing I missed was animals growling if you get too close, demonstrating a bit of survival instinct. Here, they just attack you outright like in vanilla.

For shits and giggles, I decided to attack the khajiit merchants upon reloading. I easily killed the unarmored girl with the dagger but the other two (bodyguard in steel plate and the leader with a broadword) were visibly stronger. A third one was hanging at the back flinging shock bolts at me, completely depleting my magic (not that I knew any spells). He kills me with a bolt as I try to escape from the barbed dick rape.

 

[hell bovine]

I use Alternate Start and the camping in the woods, came by ship, patron at an inn and shipwrecked beginnings all worked for me. Alternate Start is loaded almost at the very end (only graphical mods and ASIS are after), courtesy of BOSS - and yes, I know that LOOT is newer, but I had crashes when using the load order it suggested.

Had the same experience with LOOT. It tries to operate in a fancy "load mods according to their order of importance relative to each other" method (instead of just making sure patches load after masters) but I think it still doesn't really know what to do with compatibility patches, which is nearly 1/3 of my list. Eventually I settled for learning how to manually order the list.

My Alternate Start is at that same point, so I must be doing something stupid like leaving active something that had Requiem as a master or whatever. If it's not that, I'll just bruteforce it and deactivate mods at random until it doesn't crash anymore.

If we swap crash stories, I've just found out immersive creatures crashes my game at the same location it did with Requiem (near Whiterun, where the giant spider spawns). I'm too lazy to troubleshoot it, so I'll just stick to ASIS & Random encounters for now. Might be better to test how YASH fares at higher levels anyway.

The ore veins are not infinite, an iron one will give you about 50, which means you can't mine everything at the beginning, because of carry weight issues. The more expensive ones will give you less. Failing to pick flowers is a nice way of reducing alchemy usage at the beginning (and becoming too rich early on). I haven't tried making a potion yet, so I have no idea if the same applies to brewing. If you want to experience a tougher beginnings, avoid some of the options in Alternate Lives, though; sailing to Solitude gave my mage over a thousand gold in jewellry. :/

It is a bit hilarious to slaughter mudcrabs only to find out one of the bunch is high level and very deadly. :D (I'm curious about draugr, as they are supposed to get improved shouts, same as you.)

 

[Incantatar]

Interesting NPCs.

Have to wait for a Requiem compatibility patch i guess. Or is there a new one?

 

[Luzur]

So is this "Requiem" the best of the best mods out now?

How about any new big landscaping mods? better cities? more people?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

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A few corrections about my YASH experience: the orcish shield was pure luck, there is no hand placed loot ("No hand placed loot means that there are no hand placed items, but bosses will often carry powerful weapons and boss chests will often contain valuable loot: to encourage exploration most lists have been moved from the merchants inventories to the bosses chest" - unfortunately I think this makes money and Speechcraft more useless than ever, and I don't really like the idea of shops being relegated to vendor trash dumping grounds. But we'll see).

And the mudcrab chased me because of the "open encounter zones" setting, which prevents enemies from giving up chase and going back to their spawn point if you run away (the highwayman did give up, but maybe he's a special case). So no trading a few blows with someone and hiding behind a door to heal.

edit: Also, khajiit claws are great. At level 1 I can kill a generic stormcloak soldier with a single power attack (3 claw swipes) :D

So is this "Requiem" the best of the best mods out now?

How about any new big landscaping mods? better cities? more people?

Requiem is a big overhaul, it adds/changes way too much stuff to describe here. If you know about Oscuro's Mod for Oblivion, this is like that. I like it very much, but whether it's DA BEST depends on what you want to play (people who rage easily need not apply). It recently received a big update, but here's an old video describing what it's all about.



You can find the rest of the stuff you asked about here

http://www.skyrimgems.com/

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In another news, Azirok is back and he's going to update his unofficial Requiem patches soon.

 

[Luzur]

-

A few corrections about my YASH experience: the orcish shield was pure luck, there is no hand placed loot ("No hand placed loot means that there are no hand placed items, but bosses will often carry powerful weapons and boss chests will often contain valuable loot: to encourage exploration most lists have been moved from the merchants inventories to the bosses chest" - unfortunately I think this makes money and Speechcraft more useless than ever, and I don't really like the idea of shops being relegated to vendor trash dumping grounds. But we'll see).

And the mudcrab chased me because of the "open encounter zones" setting, which prevents enemies from giving up chase and going back to their spawn point if you run away (the highwayman did give up, but maybe he's a special case). So no trading a few blows with someone and hiding behind a door to heal.

So is this "Requiem" the best of the best mods out now?

How about any new big landscaping mods? better cities? more people?

Requiem is a big overhaul, it adds/changes way too much stuff to describe here. If you know about Oscuro's Mod for Oblivion, this is like that. I like it very much, but whether it's DA BEST depends on what you want to play (people who rage easily need not apply). It recently received a big update, but here's an old video describing what it's all about.



You can find the rest of the stuff you asked about here

http://www.skyrimgems.com/

-

In another news, Azirok is back and he's going to update his unofficial Requiem patches soon.

thats sound slike something i want to add in, when i reinstall Skyrim.

also, this:

 

[hell bovine]

A few corrections about my YASH experience: the orcish shield was pure luck, there is no hand placed loot ("No hand placed loot means that there are no hand placed items, but bosses will often carry powerful weapons and boss chests will often contain valuable loot: to encourage exploration most lists have been moved from the merchants inventories to the bosses chest" - unfortunately I think this makes money and Speechcraft more useless than ever, and I don't really like the idea of shops being relegated to vendor trash dumping grounds. But we'll see).

And the mudcrab chased me because of the "open encounter zones" setting, which prevents enemies from giving up chase and going back to their spawn point if you run away (the highwayman did give up, but maybe he's a special case). So no trading a few blows with someone and hiding behind a door to heal.

edit: Also, khajiit claws are great. At level 1 I can kill a generic stormcloak soldier with a single power attack (3 claw swipes)

I prefer randomly placed loot, because with hand placed loot the fun of exploring is reduced in subsequent playthroughs; you already know, where the fun items are (I also prefer the randomized enemy spawns). I don't think Skyrim's economy can be fixed anyway, it's broken on too many levels.

Another observation about YASH: race specific perks. My imperial can get the first cost-reducing perk in Conjuration, but the second is reserved for Bretons. So of course I've decided to restart as a Nord necromancer, who desecrates the memory of her ancestors by raising draugr as zombies (hopefully they can be raised).

 

[Jools]

Is there a mod that introduces "hit zones"? I mean something a la New-Vegas, or as seen in some FPS of old. Hit leg: cripple enemy. Hit arm: disarm. Hit head: stun/daze if wearing helmet, otherwise instakill or 100% critical chance or something like that. Something like that would be cool, but I wasn't able to find much (anything at all, in fact)...

 

[mastroego]

There's Locational Damage that should do just that, BUT I have not seen it in too many mod list (if at all) which suggests that there might be compatibility issues, or too many scripts, or stuff like that.

Deadly Combat has a more streamlined locational damage system.
I'd go with that one also because Deadly Combat is an awesome mod overall, which can safely be coupled with ACE (that adds, among other things, the handling of combat states like being hit from behind or prone), AND with Combat Evolved.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Only problem is that it'll probably make the game too easy with you sniping/warhammering heads left and right, which you probably don't want since you're installing a combat overhaul.

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SOMEONE MAKE A FUCKING ANIMATED FISHING MOD FOR SKYRIM, HOW COME THERE ARE STUPID ANIMATIONS FOR BLOWJOBS, RIMJOBS AND ANAL SEX, BUT NO FUCKING FISHING ROD ANIMATION, YOU FUCKING DEGENERATES?????????

I should read those more oft-

I agree Oblivion is better than Skyrim. But better than Morrowind? Nope. Before you talk about nostalgia, the first game I played was Skyrim, then Oblivion was the first TES game I ever owned, but Morrowind just has so many tiny details, and AMAZING factions/guilds

^The complete opposite actually. Oblivion has by far the most details questions and guildes that were ever in an elder scrolls game. You just have to play the darkbrotherhood questline and i assure you that its better than any guild quest from morrorwind plus Oblivion is fully voiced over that means that morrorwind can't even bring in the flair of an actual roleplaying game. And what many people forget are the DLC/Addons. The SHIVERING ISLES addon is by far the best addon ever made. The whole world has his own ambiente whats make it so unique. Its just these crazy peoples and what their saying whats making that addon even better than the actual game morrorwind. And don't get me wrong Morrorwind is a great game but when you look at every aspect of the 3 latest Elder Scrolls games Oblivion is by far the best one.

nevermind

 

[Jools]

OT but, I wonder, is there a way (mods, community patches, total convershuns...) to make Oblivion vaguely tolerable? I could never play it beyond the prologue, and I tried some 4 or 5 times, with years or painstakingly slow recovery inbetween attempts...

 

[Clockwork Knight]

An Alternate Start mod to skip the lengthy intro + a big overhaul that at least removes the broken level scaling (Oscuro's Overhaul , Francesco's Creatures and Items, Tamriel Improved Experience, Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul, FCOM, etc) improves it a lot already. But I don't see much point in forcing yourself to like a game you've already tried to play before

 

[DraQ]

No, I don't think you've ever mentioned Requiem before.

I need to rectify that.

Urgently.

Requiem does not allow you to craft "+10 HP permanent" potions, it allows you to pick some perks giving stat boosts or extra powers. This is not the same.

Not even if perks are alchemy dependent?

- If you have no skill in a weapon, it will do almost no damage in your hands.

:hmm:
So if you axe someone in the face they will shrug it off because you're unskilled.

IMO, if you have no to-hit, stamina, attack speed and various other parameters make much better skill dependent variables than damage. And it means you can still kill with an unfamiliar weapon in a pinch, but not really fight with it.

Requiem is far from perfect here (stamina modifiers, especially on bows, should be more severe and speed modifiers more prevalent and generalized, also ranged spread), but generally goes in the right direction.

If you have no skill in armor, it will be equally useless. Better armor requires more skill to be used effectively, same as weapons.

So you cover yourself with a skin of metal, but it turns into paper-mache because you're not used to it.

Requiem is much better at that - heavy armor still works, but is nigh unusable due to restrictions and side effects, light armor is mobility related instead. Both are highly incentivized by mechanics without making your armor a wet paper bag if you don't have the skill.

- Spells can fail, which uses up magicka. No more summon spamming (or any sort of spell spamming, because at zero skill they fail very often).
- Gathering plants can fail as well, although there is an optional mod changing more plants into ingredients. Definitely better than Requiem, where alchemy was the easiest way to break Skyrim's economy, which was annoying, because it also had some good features, like the ability to experiment on your body.

Ok.

- Compatibility.

Most mods win by default here, so duh.

- Smiths don't sell leather or ingot, but mines yield more ore. I don't see much point in this, but someone else might enjoy it.

I guess that's ok - ingots sold for fraction of price of actual goods made from them mean you sell less of those goods.

- Sneaking in the open should be harder. Not going to play a thief this time, but I'd recommend another mod for sneaking. You can bash locks up to expert with two-handers apparently, so that's a plus.

Requiem has killer stealth (meaning you usually get killed horribly when trying to sneak in the open, unless skilled and in advantageous conditions) and it has bashing too.

Took me a while to realize I was doing shit for damage because I was using a steel scimitar, and at 5 skill I was only able to use iron efficiently.

One thing I missed was animals growling if you get too close, demonstrating a bit of survival instinct. Here, they just attack you outright like in vanilla.

Actually animals threatening you is vanilla behaviour.

Have to wait for a Requiem compatibility patch i guess. Or is there a new one?

No guarantees but it seems to work just fine with old one.

So is this "Requiem" the best of the best mods out now?

How about any new big landscaping mods? better cities? more people?

Requiem fixes gameplay. That's rather important.

(people who rage easily need not apply).

Also, this.

Original content isn't that bad (and Requiem fixes some of it - like loot and enemy placement - too).

Make a Requiem version.

OT but, I wonder, is there a way (mods, community patches, total convershuns...) to make Oblivion vaguely tolerable? I could never play it beyond the prologue, and I tried some 4 or 5 times, with years or painstakingly slow recovery inbetween attempts...

Other than uninstall exe overhaul your best bet is trying to burn through a lifelong supply of booze and drugs while playing, but while it may let you enjoy the expansion, I doubt it will help much with vanilla - ideally you will OD and die, meaning you won't have to put up with it.



Though technically, if you mod it to the limits of stability and beyond with FCOM, MOO, deadly reflex and so on, you might reach the point where the game becomes something you might play voluntarily - if locked in a room with a non-networked computer and only it installed (and allowed to run) with no hope of ever getting out.

There's Locational Damage that should do just that, BUT I have not seen it in too many mod list (if at all) which suggests that there might be compatibility issues, or too many scripts, or stuff like that.

Last time I checked it suffered from limitations of its workarounds (like inability to test for actual hit location with projectiles, so aiming point was used which became increasingly lolrandom as the distance increased) and had to feed pretty much everything through Skyrim's woefully slow and unreliable scripting engine.

Other than that it's ok, customizable and works as intended, but scripting in particular is a good reason not to use it if you're running many other mods.

SOMEONE MAKE A FUCKING ANIMATED FISHING MOD FOR SKYRIM, HOW COME THERE ARE STUPID ANIMATIONS FOR BLOWJOBS, RIMJOBS AND ANAL SEX, BUT NO FUCKING FISHING ROD ANIMATION, YOU FUCKING DEGENERATES?????????

I should read those more oft-

I agree Oblivion is better than Skyrim. But better than Morrowind? Nope. Before you talk about nostalgia, the first game I played was Skyrim, then Oblivion was the first TES game I ever owned, but Morrowind just has so many tiny details, and AMAZING factions/guilds

^The complete opposite actually. Oblivion has by far the most details questions and guildes that were ever in an elder scrolls game. You just have to play the darkbrotherhood questline and i assure you that its better than any guild quest from morrorwind plus Oblivion is fully voiced over that means that morrorwind can't even bring in the flair of an actual roleplaying game. And what many people forget are the DLC/Addons. The SHIVERING ISLES addon is by far the best addon ever made. The whole world has his own ambiente whats make it so unique. Its just these crazy peoples and what their saying whats making that addon even better than the actual game morrorwind. And don't get me wrong Morrorwind is a great game but when you look at every aspect of the 3 latest Elder Scrolls games Oblivion is by far the best one.

nevermind

At least the first one rated MW higher than OB and Skyrim, that still counts, right?



...
Actually it doesn't if you're rating OB higher than anything, Skyrim included.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

So if you axe someone in the face they will shrug it off because you're unskilled.
[...]
So you cover yourself with a skin of metal, but it turns into paper-mache because you're not used to it.

The justification provided on the description is that it's supposed to emphasize character skill. So a character that has a very low knowledge of sword fighting would flub his attacks, and a character not used to moving in heavy armor would leave weak points exposed, etc. LARPing, maybe? Meh. Tbh it seems that with an unleveled open world most items become obsolete a few hours after starting the game, because you're bound to find something nice if you just walk around a bit. This method makes you use a higher variety of equipment through a playthrough so I'm willing to overlook the THIS IS HIGHLY ILLOGICAL CAPTAIN factor, especially since it applies to NPCs as well so it doesn't feel cheap. The highwayman that destroyed me was certainly skilled enough to use orcish daggers efficiently, though.

IMO, if you have no to-hit, stamina, attack speed and various other parameters make much better skill dependent variables than damage. And it means you can still kill with an unfamiliar weapon in a pinch, but not really fight with it.

In addition to the above, it also has a system that slows you/your attacks down depending on how heavy the armor/weapon is.

edit: I'll just go ahead and quote it

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32562/

Even in the lucky event that you find an Ebony Battleaxe or a Glass Bow after one hour of play, you'll not be able to use it properly until you meet the skill requirements for that weapon. You'll be slow and clunky and won't deal a great amount of damage. Again, your skill will be almost meaningless, while your character skill will be essential. I can't stress this enough: this applies to everyone else as well. If you happen to stumble upon a low skilled bandit wielding a Glass Mace you'll notice that he will be slow, clunky and not very efficient with it. The same applies to shields, if you lack the required skill for a specific material you'll block much less damage then usual. Cuirasses and boots will slow you down. Helmets will slow your magicka regeneration, gauntlets will double the spell cost and halve the spell magnitude. Spells have a chance to fail, skill dependent.

 

[DraQ]

The justification provided on the description is that it's supposed to emphasize character skill. So a character that has a very low knowledge of sword fighting would flub his attacks, and a character not used to moving in heavy armor would leave weak points exposed, etc. LARPing, maybe?

Derping, more like.

You can be totally clueless and stab/hack/shoot someone dead just the same. In fact that's a pretty good reason to be afraid of a clueless fuck with weapon even if you're super skilled yourself - you never know what they will do.

This method makes you use a higher variety of equipment through a playthrough so I'm willing to overlook the THIS IS HIGHLY ILLOGICAL CAPTAIN factor

So the solution to player potentially finding a powerful item early is not only illogical scrubbery but forced loot and damage inflation?

Besides, with such attitude why bother looking?

The only way higher end weapons should be less usable than their low end counterparts would be risk of damaging them if unskilled, and that should still only apply to some (for example TES glass should allow for both lighter, faster and sharper edged weapons but running risk of getting damaged or broken when wielded by an unskilled fighter) - for some the inverse would be true - bronze or iron weapon will damage more easily than good steel.
Unless they are something designed to be wielded by superhuman - which certainly doesn't apply to ordinary steel or most of gear in RPGs - weapons shouldn't be restricted by skill compared to their low quality counterparts (high tech weapons or entire risky weapon classes like flails might, but that's on class level, not quality within class).

 

[hell bovine]

wall of text incoming...

- If you have no skill in a weapon, it will do almost no damage in your hands.

:hmm:
So if you axe someone in the face they will shrug it off because you're unskilled.

IMO, if you have no to-hit, stamina, attack speed and various other parameters make much better skill dependent variables than damage. And it means you can still kill with an unfamiliar weapon in a pinch, but not really fight with it.

Requiem is far from perfect here (stamina modifiers, especially on bows, should be more severe and speed modifiers more prevalent and generalized, also ranged spread), but generally goes in the right direction.

I agree that reducing weapon damage might not be the best solution, but I'd say that Requiem goes even further in the wrong direction (even though I've enjoyed playing it). If you pick up a bow for the first time in your life, I'd doubt you'd be a deadly sniper with it, as you could in Requiem. Considering the size and weight of a two-handed glass axe my mage should have tripped just trying to swing it. Yet she could one-shot wolves with it; sure, she'd run out of stamina while doing it, but that's not much. To be honest, the only fair system I could imagine is where you literally are shit with a weapon unless you have the skill to do it, e.g. the aim and speed would be off when you'd try to poke a monster with it.

If you have no skill in armor, it will be equally useless. Better armor requires more skill to be used effectively, same as weapons.

So you cover yourself with a skin of metal, but it turns into paper-mache because you're not used to it.

Requiem is much better at that - heavy armor still works, but is nigh unusable due to restrictions and side effects, light armor is mobility related instead. Both are highly incentivized by mechanics without making your armor a wet paper bag if you don't have the skill.

From what I've noticed, you get increased stamina drain when running as a consequence of wearing armor you're not skilled in (very noticeable in heavy armor, less in light armor), and you'll be slower when running. The difference is it won't drain your stamina just by standing still. My poor necromancer has to yet find some good armor so I could test it in more detail.

- Spells can fail, which uses up magicka. No more summon spamming (or any sort of spell spamming, because at zero skill they fail very often).
- Gathering plants can fail as well, although there is an optional mod changing more plants into ingredients. Definitely better than Requiem, where alchemy was the easiest way to break Skyrim's economy, which was annoying, because it also had some good features, like the ability to experiment on your body.

Ok.

It's a nice mechanics for a beginner mage. Spells fail less often the higher your skill is, though, so most likely I'll run into the same problem as with Requiem, where the difficulty for higher level mages just falls flat.

Sneaking in the open should be harder. Not going to play a thief this time, but I'd recommend another mod for sneaking. You can bash locks up to expert with two-handers apparently, so that's a plus.

Requiem has killer stealth (meaning you usually get killed horribly when trying to sneak in the open, unless skilled and in advantageous conditions) and it has bashing too.

Requiem definitely does stealth better.

One thing I missed was animals growling if you get too close, demonstrating a bit of survival instinct. Here, they just attack you outright like in vanilla.

Actually animals threatening you is vanilla behaviour.

Animals still threaten you, including growling wolves, but in general animal behavior is not fixed. So for example wolves and bears hunt together, which just doesn't make any sense. Mudcrabs are still at war with everyone.

So the solution to player potentially finding a powerful item early is not only illogical scrubbery but forced loot and damage inflation?

Besides, with such attitude why bother looking?

The only way higher end weapons should be less usable than their low end counterparts would be risk of damaging them if unskilled, and that should still only apply to some (for example TES glass should allow for both lighter, faster and sharper edged weapons but running risk of getting damaged or broken when wielded by an unskilled fighter) - for some the inverse would be true - bronze or iron weapon will damage more easily than good steel.
Unless they are something designed to be wielded by superhuman - which certainly doesn't apply to ordinary steel or most of gear in RPGs - weapons shouldn't be restricted by skill compared to their low quality counterparts (high tech weapons or entire risky weapon classes like flails might, but that's on class level, not quality within class).

Bows are dependent on how skilled you are in aiming, for example. And in Skyrim by default that's your mouse aiming skill, which in Requiem translated into killer snipers from the beginning on. Why the glass axe is available so early on, I have no idea, you literally risk nothing by getting it, and you can get it with a level 1 character. Same with archmage robes, but that one at least requires a trip to the college. That's the problem with hand placed loot.

 

[Gnidrologist]

So, you guises still playing this game. Is it any good? I completely phased out when all the hoopla around it's release was on so i don't know shit. Is it ok with some mods or should i try vanilla to get a general understanding in the first place? I really love free roaming sandboxy shit so even with all disrespect to Bethesduh i will prolly try this sooner or later.

 

[you know what time it is]

Well, i never got past level 15(~), there was always something missing (gameplay wise) or broken (in general), so i had to mod it and mod it and mod it, till it became a huge 40+gb clusterfuck of CTDs, freezes and shit. Though the most fun i had was a "survival" run, with all of the mods geared towards complex needs (not just basic food/water/sleep) and unforgiving combat. It can be the best hobo simulator out there, if you mod it just right.

 

[Monocause]

So, you guises still playing this game. Is it any good? I completely phased out when all the hoopla around it's release was on so i don't know shit. Is it ok with some mods or should i try vanilla to get a general understanding in the first place? I really love free roaming sandboxy shit so even with all disrespect to Bethesduh i will prolly try this sooner or later.

Currently playing a bit with two mods - SkyUI (which is essential) and Skyrim Redone.

SkyRe's been nice so far. Doesn't depart from vanilla that much in terms of basic flow of the gameplay but makes it so that you easily get screwed over if you push into a dodgy situation unprepared. Could easily criticise the skill system redesign in a fair few points but overall the changes were a plus.

Tried Requiem but overall found it a too frustrating experience. It does indeed make it hardcore, but then it's a hardcore game with a core that was never designed to be hardcore and it shows.

If you sit down to play Skyrim expecting a relaxing RPG-lite romp you'll enjoy it; if you expect more though, the issues with the core game will ruin your fun regardless of the mods you'll use. It's not a bad game per se but it's definitely targeted at a less demanding audience.

 

[Luzur]

So Skyrim Redone, Civil war overhaul, and the TES Arena mod, would that be good enough mod list?

maybe i'll add in the better bodies mod too.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

So, you guises still playing this game. Is it any good? I completely phased out when all the hoopla around it's release was on so i don't know shit. Is it ok with some mods or should i try vanilla to get a general understanding in the first place? I really love free roaming sandboxy shit so even with all disrespect to Bethesduh i will prolly try this sooner or later.

Currently playing a bit with two mods - SkyUI (which is essential) and Skyrim Redone.

SkyRe's been nice so far. Doesn't depart from vanilla that much in terms of basic flow of the gameplay but makes it so that you easily get screwed over if you push into a dodgy situation unprepared. Could easily criticise the skill system redesign in a fair few points but overall the changes were a plus.

Tried Requiem but overall found it a too frustrating experience. It does indeed make it hardcore, but then it's a hardcore game with a core that was never designed to be hardcore and it shows.

If you sit down to play Skyrim expecting a relaxing RPG-lite romp you'll enjoy it; if you expect more though, the issues with the core game will ruin your fun regardless of the mods you'll use. It's not a bad game per se but it's definitely targeted at a less demanding audience.

I found SPERG a lot better and more fun than even SkyRe for similar reasons - it doesn't try to make the game a hardcore realistic simulator, but it makes for fun, flashy combat and character development, with rarer, more interesting perks that really change the way the game feels (the "basic" boring perks are gained automatically at certain skill levels and you only get one point every two levels). Combine it with Deadly Combat and it's actually a damn fun game to play if you've got nothing else to do.

I had to stay at my parents' for two weeks and then had no internet for a subsequent three, don't judge me, it drives a man to desperation

 

[Luzur]

So, you guises still playing this game. Is it any good? I completely phased out when all the hoopla around it's release was on so i don't know shit. Is it ok with some mods or should i try vanilla to get a general understanding in the first place? I really love free roaming sandboxy shit so even with all disrespect to Bethesduh i will prolly try this sooner or later.

Currently playing a bit with two mods - SkyUI (which is essential) and Skyrim Redone.

SkyRe's been nice so far. Doesn't depart from vanilla that much in terms of basic flow of the gameplay but makes it so that you easily get screwed over if you push into a dodgy situation unprepared. Could easily criticise the skill system redesign in a fair few points but overall the changes were a plus.

Tried Requiem but overall found it a too frustrating experience. It does indeed make it hardcore, but then it's a hardcore game with a core that was never designed to be hardcore and it shows.

If you sit down to play Skyrim expecting a relaxing RPG-lite romp you'll enjoy it; if you expect more though, the issues with the core game will ruin your fun regardless of the mods you'll use. It's not a bad game per se but it's definitely targeted at a less demanding audience.

I found SPERG a lot better and more fun than even SkyRe for similar reasons - it doesn't try to make the game a hardcore realistic simulator, but it makes for fun, flashy combat and character development, with rarer, more interesting perks that really change the way the game feels (the "basic" boring perks are gained automatically at certain skill levels and you only get one point every two levels). Combine it with Deadly Combat and it's actually a damn fun game to play if you've got nothing else to do.

Ok...so this SPERG instead of Redone ans the other mods i mentioned then?

I had to stay at my parents' for two weeks and then had no internet for a subsequent three, don't judge me, it drives a man to desperation

but you have a penis and two hands, that didnt help at all?