Levgre

I'm not positive if EW changes things, but it is very easy with EU to change basic stats with tools provided here. I personally reduced Zombie move speed, attack damage and health, don't think they should be utterly lethal super tanks.

Right now I'm working hard on publishing my first major flash game, so work on this will be sporadic at least for a couple months. This thread will help me develop and track goals until I can start on it, though. If anyone can contribute and wants to join in on the project, that'd be great. Or just give your input, if you wish. Features Soldiers now start with a number of upgrades. The idea is to make soldier deaths not snowball into failure, let soldier deaths be a balanced game aspect, and increase strategy depth, especially from the start of the game (as opposed to rookies who can only shoot or throw grenades). Rifle suppression, Deep Pockets (or just an extra slot) Other possible starting abilities (for all soldiers, or some classes) Rapid Fire, Bullet Swarm. Holo-Targeting, Grenadier, Will to Survive, Snapshot, Squadsight, Smoke Grenade, close combat specialist, Sentinel Whatever level progression they have beyond this (they may simply start at a high level) will occur quickly, i.e. at least one level up per most missions. Trade offs for the extra capabilities include: Soldiers will no longer gain health as they level up, or very little. Advanced tech armor will only add a slight amount of health. Stat progression overall will be low, i.e. +2 to Aim and/or Will per level, depending on class. However starting stats will be higher than current. Medkits will be less effective. If possible, all wounds, at least of higher damage, will inflict 'bleeding' (perhaps just represented as poison). Med kit use will be required each time to simply stop further damage. There will not be insta-healing of wounds in the field, except perhaps as a medic upgrade(1-2 HP) Soldier hirings will be more expensive, perhaps 20$-40$. Soldiers may require upkeep, depending on rank. There will also be more distinguishing between the classes, more weaknesses, as opposed to vanilla where classes can pretty much do everything well. Some classes will simply not be good/viable on some mission/map types. More careful selection of the team makeup will be required. It's possible that some maps will dictate a nearly full assault team, perhaps with 1 heavy and 1 support. Over watch will not be available to all classes, or the penalty will just be much greater for some classes. Snipers will be the over watch specialists, perhaps assault will have oversight at close range. Sniper Class: Will be made weaker in short-distance combat. A penalty with the sniper rifle will be added for a shot within a certain distance. They will not be able to do incredible damage with 2 shots in 1 turn. They won't be the 'nuker' for the team. Their role will be to enable/support the other soldiers, by either suppressing distance targets or taking out pesky enemies. Assault Class: Assault classes will be made the primary class for close range combat. They will have slightly more movespeed, be the only class able to do 2 shots in a turn (at a larger penalty, to make it not the obvious choice even at long range), more will, and more health. Support Class: Support will now be less bonuses in combat, thus truly embracing the 'support' role. They will not get move speed bonus. Heavy Class: The heavy class will be the best at suppression, and doing damage to large targets. Machine guns will no longer be usable after moves, although more sidearm options will be available, such as a sub-machine gun, so they have the choice to forgo a rocket launcher for better close combat. They will have slower movement and lower accuracy compared to other classes, but this is compensated for now having the highest damage potential weapon (at least slightly surpassing sniper rifles). General Gameplay Cover will be at least twice as effective, for both humans and aliens. Proper military strategy will be required to remove an enemy from cover, i.e. flanking (aided by suppression), explosives, and so on. Accuracy against open targets will also be greatly increased, as even from a large distance this is an easy shot for a trained soldier. However, all alien weapons will become more effective at destroying cover (i.e. alien weapons with current environmental damage of 125 will be increased to 175). The soldiers will have to be more mobile, as a result. Human weapons will be slightly more effective at destroying cover, in particular the LMG and Sniper Rifle, to partially simulate their ability in real life to penetrate barriers. Units (soldiers, enemies if possible) will receive stat penalties after taking wounds in battles. Sight range will be increased, perhaps more for aliens than for soldiers. The goal is to eradicate the "move as little as possible as to not trigger enemies" core strategy. Knowledge of the battlefield should be a benefit, not of harm. Soldiers may receive a will/defense bonus per active enemy group (or perhaps +1 or +2 per enemy), to simulate the benefit of knowing where your enemies are, and balance the player's ability to fight larger groups. Aliens will be of a harder difficulty, in general, whether that is higher stats, more per battle, more UFOs, so on. I want the mod to highly accessible for a newer player, but to retain a challenge for veterans, as much as is feasible. SHIVs will be cheaper, and less effective. They will generally be there for taking hits and risky battle positions. An elite soldier can cost a million ore more to train, the purpose of military robotics research is to reduce the cost of injured/killed soldiers. Base Balancing While the majority of this mod is currently focused on battle, there will be some changes to the other aspects of the game. Much of this will link directly into combat, as really that is the part of the game with the most depth and player control. Continent bonus rehauls. Currently none of them really facilitate different strategies. They just save you time and money in a different way, but if you are a skilled player you typically always want to pick the one that saves a good amount of money early, since you can leverage that into later gains. Elite Training All soldiers start at a a higher level, and/or with higher stats. (Benefits a basic, versatile approach to the game) ET Exhibitionism You start the game with Arc Thrower tech (or boost for the research), and an alien containment. Whenever you capture an alien, you receive 10$, perhaps different amounts for different aliens. (promotes a more subtle/precise strategy, where you capture a number of live aliens) Military Tradition You can buy new soldiers at a discounted price, and their maintenance is decreased. Officer school upgrades are cheaper. (allows certain more risky squad makeups, attack strategies, etc.) Will add more as I think of them.

I have played a lot of strategy/FPS, including the granddaddy combination of the genres, the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six series. Xcom seemed really fun to me at first. Then I got sick of all the lame, unexpected things happening which by and far determined my success. Therefore learning the quirks of the game was much more important sound, consistent strategy. I tried some mods and they did little/nothing to alleviate what I see as the greatest problems in the game. So I have a number of ideas on how to improve the game, I think not just in my own vision, but making it a more fun, in depth, turn based tactical shooter. 1. Basic (real life) soldier skills should be available to all XCom soldiers. These are the foundations of modern squad-based warfare, and without them you get a strategy as close to say Battle Mech, as you do to say real life, or Rainbow Six shooting games. a. All soldiers start with suppressing fire. This is a core foundation to modern squad based combat, one of the main facilitators of flanking/teamwork. Without it, aggression on the battlefield is extremely limited. How is this kept balanced? Have class paths that improve suppressing fire, so it can start lower (still has to be useful from beginning). More reloading, either drop assault rifles down to 2 shots, or have suppressing consume 2 ammo, if possible? Ammo upgrades could therefore be more useful. b. XCom soldiers should be able to hit more than the broad side of a barn. If you have pretty clear shot against an enemy, even if they are far away, it should be a near guarantee to hit. Closer up, it should be a guarantee. How is this kept balanced? Give 'big' penalties on accuracy while shooting at a distance, against an enemy behind cover. Thus while you have better shooting, you are more restrictions on when you can shoot. Have accuracy/movement penalties when a teammate is hit could help. 2. To balance the now arguably more 'super soldiers', increase the cost of new recruits drastically. XCom has things completely backwards. In RL modern warfare, skilled soldiers are much more expensive than most equipment, other than some vehicles/ships etc. The estimated cost of training a Navy Seal is 1 million dollars, or more. Even give them a small upkeep cost, which increases with rank. SHIVs should be cheaper (and less poten) than soldiers. Also give soldiers longer recovery times from injury, as I see in some mods. However, I don't think they should get fatigue between missions, as a realistic amount would be too small to be of impact. Another realistic addition, balancing super soldiers, is have every would require a med pack use to stabiize (stop taking bleeding damage). Medpacks do not heal any damage, as ofc you cannot instantly make wounds disappear on the battlefield. This will make medics even more pivotal, because while everyone could carry packs to heal themselves, you will likely require more packs overall and the 3x is hugely efficient for inventory. Perhaps medic could also get an upgrade where the recipient heals 1 damage? 3. Balance away the willing un-discovery of enemies as a core strategy. Right now, you want to conserve movement/sight because knowledge of your enemy, is your enemy, as supposed to your ally. I'm not sure how you'd offset this in the game mechanics, but here are some ideas. a. Have ai hunker down if they are a certain distance away. Just because you revealed them, doesn't mean they saw you (like with a vison grenade thing).b. Reduce movement speed, so they can't close gaps so quick once they are discovered. Sight then means you could get some extra shots (give Xcom guys superior range?) The movement decrease would also have to apply to Xcom soldiers for balance, although I think with sprinting they have an excess of mobility anyways.c. Some sort of bonus for Xcom soldiers for a more revealed map? Either in will, defense, or marksmanship. The formula could lbe based on how many of the current enemy groups are visible. 4.It would also be nice to give the aliens some capabilities that are actually unique/separate from the human Xcom soldiers. Much of the time they just seem to be similar units in a different skin. However I think I will need to play the game more to get ideas on this, beyond perhaps buffing some of their special abilities. Anyways, I am fully programming flash games right now, so I don't really have time to learn to mod Xcom. However if a group of ppl/anyone want to take up this mantle, I would put time into testing or give as much input as desired towards making XCom a more true-to-life, strategic, and fun tactical shooter.

bump

I'm new to the workshop, but I do have some programming experience with flash. So I feel pretty confident. My goal is to get rid of the 3rd person deaths. I want the player's camera to simply fall to the ground and stay there, perhaps allow rotation. It does not even have to follow the player (like if they died and flew into the air). I just want simply the camera to go down to where the player's body would be, if they fell down and back a bit. So I'm not asking for specific instructions (although I'll take any help), I just want to know what general area I should be looking in. What game assets should I be modding?

Water is actually pretty heavy, 10 pounds per gallon. Not sure what size water bottle we are talking about here...

^ Did you really believe anyone actually thought of this as a legal entitlement issue? Or that such legal technicalities are of any real relevance in the realm of customer satisfaction and sales? You couldn't make a more irrelevant post if you tried. Restaurant customers aren't legally entitled to a fresh and hot meal when they eat there, yet anyone who has basic business sense realizes that businesses who feel they are entitled to have their customers most often suffer/fail. They know that meeting customer expectations (what customers feel entitled to, either because it was promised, or what they expect due to past experiences with that company/competitors alike) is paramount.

The customers of Skyrim are actually entitled to the construction kit, 100%. The reason for this is they promised from the outset that it would be provided. They are also entitled to receive it around the time promised. Bethesda would wholeheartedly agree with this, as they obviously know the basics of operating a business. The service provider is subordinate to the customer, not the other way around (especially in this day and age of pirating and used game vendors). The customer has what they want/need, money. And claiming that "the majority of people who buy the game don't care about mods" is irrelevant, 600k - 1 million+ in sales is still a significant amount, irrelevant of overall sales.

Bandits are career criminals and honestly in medieval times it was conserved lawful and just to kill criminals. I suppose the better route is for the authorities to send out overwhelming force and detain the bandits, but you don't see them doing that... so by killing bandits often you are saving the lives or wealth of their innocent victims..

Guys are the majority who buy the game. Hence most of the audience does not care if there are attractive males, in fact it may make some guys feel a bit insecure (not that they should :P). I suggest a mod.

Start waking up in a inn room in Whiterun (or anywhere else). Have some other guests staying at the hotel, who can start you on various quest lines.

Scary generally requires a feeling of lack of control, of vulnerability, or both. Skyrim in general does not have this at all. Enemy combatants generally can't chase you down. They don't have too much variety in attacks. You can always just open the equipment menu for a "reprieve", and down 10 potions. The lighting is also very accommodating, you won't be surprised by a bear in a dark cave, you will always see them coming (of course they usually are constantly growling). Bandits, marauders and such do not look shifty or angry, they generally look like your typical townsfolk, but with weapons and armor, and have a teasing banter going on as they fight (instead of a sense of hatred/cruelty coming from them). I think a mod could definitely 'fix' many of the things that make Skyrim not a scary game.

Probably.. if you want a quick, poor man's method of doing so, just go to console and type player.setAV Smithing (or whatever the exact skill name is) x (x is the skill level you want). Then just ditch a proportional amount of gold to simulate the purchasing of iron ore and leather straps. It's probably an average of 100-200 gold per skill level.

If you are at least given information as to the general location (which isn't even true some of the time :/) then you can always go old school and write location notes about quests on a piece of paper.

Health should naturally regenerate at a slow rate, based on what condition your body is in (well-fed, not sick), and what the environment is. Not all damage to you is deep gashes, some could just be bruising, shock, etc., and naturally you would be treating your wounds while you rest. So for example, if you rest in the temperate fields near Whiterun, you heal say 10% per day naturally. Less if you are in a swampy area or snowy area. Maybe more in a city(you could go to the temple for in-patient treatment)? Restoration or some sort of medic skill could increase that rate as you treat yourself better. So generally, healing potions/spells would be required for healing at a fast enough rate to actually get things done. But you wouldn't be completely screwed without those remedies, it would just be awkwardly slow.

Ya...except, no it doesn't. Patch is fine, fps is fine. Saves are fine. Gotta love when people post total PEBKAC like it's universal. And therefore you are doing the same now ? You are also saying its fine, thats also an universal description...for every person its different...im thankfull that he warned us about possible bugs...i will rather wait with the patching. Lemme try and spell it out then. The patch is fine, does not break saves, does not lower fps. There is something on your end you are doing wrong. Given that this was 100% not true for patch 1.2, that MANY people with no mods encountered problems, console users and pc users alike, you are being an ignorant and foolish to claim that 1.3 must be working fully well for everyone. But really, I'm guessing you are just trolling. Have fun with that, I personally find it is weird that people enjoy behaving like ignorant a-holes.

Yeah, the internet is full of counterparts to the real life "annoying kid in the room who just tries to make others angry". Unfortunately it is harder to discourage that immature, anti-social behavior online, being anonymous. n real life discussion, some of the trolls would even be 'normal' people, and be appropriately embarrassed with themselves when they saw others' emotional reaction to their immaturity (online people are real too, you just don't have that emotional aspect to guide the socially defunct). I encourage any behavior to punish these people for their purposeful anti-social behavior. It is usually not difficult to pick out when one such person is crossing the line.

I stole someone's key to take a cursed sword from the basement. Next to the sword was a book where said person talked about how it must remain hidden and out of the wrong hands. I go back upstairs and I sell it to him, and he doesn't care at all that I stole it despite his warnings (not technically stolen so it was sellable). So yah, NPC reactions need to be more complex/accurate.

I found a courier and talked to him, but he wouldn't tell me what business he was involved in. I wasn't a good pickpocket so I killed him to read the message. Right now I'm on the prowl for a companion with some sort of moral fault so I can justify using him/her for a human sacrifice.

If you want to play on a harder difficulty I suggest you get a "linear leveling mod". As is you can easily set yourself up for disaster if you like playing around with different skills and get lots of them to 30-40. The leveling mods will stop you from getting to level 15-20 within 3 hours of game play and being hopelessly outmatched unless you maximize your character for combat.

It is kind of weird how everyone in Skyrim is either 7 years old, 40 years old, or 70 years old.

Human clothes/robes/some armor is flammable too. Honestly if you treat magical fire the same as real fire (in vanilla it is not, as is evident when you shoot down a lantern into a vat of oil creatures burn a long time) you will be an unstoppable killing machine from level 1. It would be like you are carrying a mini WWII flamethrower in the middle ages. Destruction spells do need a buff, though. Further more, an arrow to the head actually wouldn't necessarily kill a Large creature like a bear or sabre cat. For one, their brain would be smaller in proportion to their head size, making it less likely to be on target for a "kill shot". Secondly, they may have very thick skulls which an arrow would not so easily penetrate like a thin human skull.

Well the last two days I have been thinking about combat a lot. A combat overhaul may be better fit for another mod, but it mostly shares the same goals as realism. Mainly the idea is adding uniqueness and tactics to each type of foe and combat. Example, against animals... Even the strongest warrior can rarely stand toe to toe with huge cave bear or sabretooth cat. Just because they are animals, does not mean they are not powerful beasts that everyone should fear. They are the top of the food chain, on which humans can easily be the bottom. So, how do you fight them? Human ingenuity, being prepared, and never being caught off guard, to name a few.. So some mechanical/gameplay changes: Animals are MUCH FASTER. You cannot out sprint a bear or sabre tooth at all. If they chase, either you stand and fight, or you are dead. Related, it would be great if the AI could jump over small obstacles. I think it could also be a good change to make the player not so spider-like. This will put players and enemies on a more "level playing field", pun unintended :P. If you are on a steep cliff, you will slide down into their waiting claws. Climbing equipment would be great to add, but the climb speed should be slow and should take preparation. Make traps and and hunting equipment valuable and effective. Add those "bear traps" as a carryable item. They would be heavy, 10 pounds or so, but would do good damage and slow down and/or stun animals. Add special arrow/weapon poisons especially designed for hunting. Slow down a large animal, drain their stamina, reduce the damage of their attacks. More variety in attack types and animations. For bears, paw swipes should have a chance to stun, and should be medium damage. A bite could be medium damage, and cause bleeding and wooziness from shock. Maul attack should be almost certain death, but easier to avoid. You must watch and react appropriate to their attack. Sabretooths combat tactics would be to pounce on you. If you are pounced on, you are basically gone. Either wounding their leg or a well-timed evasive roll could be how you survive. Wolf tactics, wolves should be much faster and their bites should be more dangerous. They should circle their prey, and also slow you down when they bite (trying to pull you down). Hence your tactics would be to never have your back to a wolf, and to quickly kill one or two before they kill you, and to use defensive traps, either spells or gear, to create a defensible position. Nighttime should be the realm of the animals. The player should also not be able to sneak that well against them. Their hearing, smell, and other senses make them much more aware than humans typically are, extremely so at night. And if the player rests at night in the forest, make it possible for them to wake up to a bear/wolfpack. Along with the greater challenge, the prizes from hunting dangerous animals should be greater. Hunting should be a viable method of money-making for the player. I also think a good system would be one that uses stamina as a much more key trait. I think the stat system could overall be made into 2 stats instead of 3, one being more about willpower and intelligence (mostly for magic) and the other one being about physical strength/durability, combat instinct, etc., and health could perhaps be incorporated in a different manner. Stamina could be used at any time to slow down combat, but doing so drains your stamina, your muscles and mind in a heightened state of readiness. Thus your character is able to meet challenges fit for a great warrior, even if us players at the computer can't have the millisecond reflexes and awareness. I think quick dodge abilities are a must, but if they incur a stamina cost they cannot be abused. And if you run out of stamina before your opponents, you can be in real trouble... possibly penalties for running out of stamina. Along with slow-mo, add a variety of combat attacks or techniques, all which take a toll on stamina. A whirlwind strike, swinging around with your weapon, would be effective when being mobbed. But you can't run around a battle spinning nonstop. You have to decide when its most appropriate, and smartly manage your stamina. Different attacks could be hot-keyed to letters easily hit by your fingers. A good plan would be also to create combat techniques in a rough "rock-paper-scissors' system. Similar to how if you with shield raised there are certain outcomes, different attacks interact when they meet.Possible attacks... Stabbing lunge, strong against someone with no shield. Parrying Slash, you push their weapon away with yours as they swing, and then hit them. Charge/Running attack - you hold your weapon up in the air, then release to bring it down as soon as you are in range. Best suited for larger 2 hand weapons. The charging power attack as is, is pretty cruddy. Quick dodge with light attack beats slower, powerful attack. They miss, you get them while they recover. Powerful attack beats a medium, more conservative attack. You bash through their weapon, throwing their swing off, and connect. Medium attack beats a quick/dodging attack. They don't have enough time to move and swing before you hit. Parrying/blocking should remain effective tools against lighter attacks, and there should also be attacks like swing at the legs if someone is blocking. I also think blocking should be quicker, less of a delay for bringing the shield up, and down. Magic combat should also be made more about trickery and tactics. Incorporating Illusion and misdirection would be great, for example players an enemy alike can create mirror images, so you'd have to quickly cast a detect magic spell to find out which ones were fake. You could have a sort of rock paper scissors system thrown in, you dodge to beat projectiles, you shield yourself to stop blasts, and there could be ways to absorb the spells coming at you. Well there is a ton more that could be added to combat, and completely different and viable systems which would all improve on the current hack and slash in Skyrim. But those are some of my ideas!

Smithing increases your combat rate at a faster rate than any combat skills. +70% or so armor and +~70% weapon damage? Even more if you end up crafting higher tier equipment that you otherwise couldn't buy? Yeah can't get that with 50 weapon skill and 50 armor skill.

Hi, for a long time I could not see the link from Skyrim Forums to Skyrim Nexus, so I had to go straight back to google, or type in the address to return to the Nexus. Then one day I sat down intent on finding it, and I did find the links in the "More" drag down.. Almost all popular sites have a much clearer path from the forums back to the main site, often in the top left corner, or at least among the prominent headers at the top of the page. For the nexus's, browsing files can very easily lead you to the forums, so it should be equally easy to go back. In addition to the sneaky nature of the nexus link, it is also in an awkward location for accessing. Small menu on the far right, then a drag down that you have to focus on to use correctly. Other sites you can just subconsciously drift your mouse and click. Great site and great organization overall, I just think the layout is off and could use some re-prioritizing!