zyg0tic

I would love a mod, integrated into the main quest (yet optional to do) that causes a large onslaught of dragons, or waves of dragons, to an area near Skyhaven Temple, and the Dragonborn must gather the Blades together to fight them all. I dont play with followers because it makes the game too easy, but this would be an ideal use for them in my opinion. There are already multiple follower mods like Extensible Follower Framework and Ultimate Follower Overhaul, so they could be used and it wouldnt have to be part of the mod.

Just search the Nexus for ASIS or Google for skyrimnexus asis ASIS increases spawns both inside and outside and is customisable.

I just made a mod so you can select the same type of staff from the Favorites menu without it being an annoying mess. Now you can quickly hotkey and dual wield those twin Fireball staves without a hitch! It adds to the item list of the game a second copy of each of the spell staves, marked with II. You will have in your inventory/favorites menu Staff of Lightning Bolts and Staff of Lightning Bolts II. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29126 Unfortunately the second staff must be added via the console. Perhaps someone can make it so you turn a spare staff somewhere and it is converted/exchanged for the second version.

PRobably would be fine, but itsnt the Ti version of the 660 a better card? You might also consider getting a card with more VRAM on it than just 2GB. I would also suggest getting a 256GB SSD as your C drive and a 1TB as your 2nd drive. I have a 128GB SSD for my C drive and I have all my games on their own SSD, a 256MB Samsung 840. My computer is about the same or better than that and Skyrim still has issues. You just learn to live with it, and while frame rate stutter and the occassional plummet do occur, CTDs dont for me really so that is good enough.

Oh, you know, a bit of this and a bit of that.

No Fast Travel is quite common among players on the Nexus I've found. I don't use carriages though. The only fast travel I do is when Im already in a city. I just fast travel to the stable or to different areas in the city to save time and boredom. Horses are okay in my book. Mounted combat a little bit cheap, but the horse can still die because of it. Mine died today while I was riding it because of multi-spawn of assassins - I survived after falling off because I used intimidating shout asap. Other challenges you might like are no potion spamming... I made a mod for it... http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/28958

My idea is to have 5 different pieces of headwear, with each of them providing a 20% boost to the strength of a magic school. They can only be obtained by crafting them, and require lots of rare and semi-rare items to make them. Sort of like a high-level, end-game restriction. Also balance it so they provide no armor rating increase, and possibly even a detrimental effect. This would be really neat to have as an Illusion magic user at high-levels when most spells start to become ineffective - it would allow Illusion to remain effective against some, but not all, high-level enemies. UPDATE: I was just looking into how this could be done with the CreationKit and I ended up making a craftable Crown of Illusion Mastery. So I guess I'm making the mod now... I was hoping for something like a hood or helmet with the magic school emblem on the back though.

Get a retail copy of 64bit Windows 7, a GTX 670 or 680 (or AMD eqivalent if you prefer) and 8GB RAM and you'll be fine probably. DDR2 RAM can be hard to find in retail shops now so if you have trouble finding/buying it you're best asking in the trading section of enthusiast PC forums. Win 64-bit and the graphics card will both be transferrable to a new rig if you decide to upgrade the CPU and motherboard in the future. The problem with Skyrim is that even with a great rig, performance is very finnicky and requires ini editing and patience in that process. Skyrim CFG Maker and Skyrim Configurator will help to get you up and running. Some graphics issues like mountain flickering can only be minimised, and fixes can introduce micro stutter. You will still get pop-in, and Whiterun will still look sucky at distance for the most part. I have an i7 OCd to 3.5ghz and a GTX 680, and still the game is troublesome. A SSD drive also helps.. I have Skyrim installed on a Samsung 840 Pro and still get loading stutter. Mods also effect that.

Without a dedicated graphics card you're going to have a hard time. That computer only has on-board graphics, meaning its integrated into the motherboard, and is much less powerful than your average graphics card. Other than that, I personally prefer Intel processors and I would also get more RAM, like 8gb instead of just 4. Here are the specs of a custom machine I just put together using that same website. Case: Cooler Master Silencio 550 CPU: Intel i5 3570K - (4 x 3.4 GHZ) - Ivy Bridge CPU Cooler: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo - Low Noise RAM: Corsair 8GB XMS3 PC3-12800 1600MHz (2x4GB) - Lifetime Warranty (DDR3) Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti - 2 GB - (PALIT) - (PCI-E) Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LX (Intel Z77) - VGA/DVI Power supply: Corsair 750W PSU - Low Noise Hard drive: 1 TB Seagate (1000 GB) SATA-III HDD 7200 RPM 64MB DVD: Samsung 24x DVD/CD Re-Writer/Reader - Black - (SATA) Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 BIT £954.45 It would be very good for Skyrim and other game, but probably twice your budget. But it provides a good indication, and you can scale down from there. You could get a cheaper power supply for example, 500W minimum. You could also save money off of that price by getting a cheaper CPU/processor, like the cheapest quad core i5. You will want more than 1 hard drive because you'll want to back up things from your main drive. But they are usually easy to find and you probably have an old computer you can take one from.

If I were to use any lighting mods itd probably only be Realistic Lighting with Customization. I know there are some mods tha tmake the game look much much nicer, with more vibrant colors and removal of that drab-grey feel of vanilla. But tbh Ive just been too lazy to figure out how to install them and also too undecided about which one to use. If you settle on one yourself Id be keen to know which one you choose. Ive learned to live with the white aura, mountain flicker and pop-in - not much to do about them without introducing other issues. I dont really have any issues with all the mods being installed at once. Deadly Dragons has instructions for how to make it compatible with ASIS. If I install/uninstall a mod, and I get a CTD before the game loads, then I know its probably that I just need to repatch Automatic Variants and then repatch ASIS. I now play on Adept difficulty, and tweak the difficulty using the various mods. I also have a mod that increases average level of enemies encountered, which High Level Enemies offer a similar thing too except it also changes the difficulty levels so Adept becomes the equivalent of Easy.

@Elsarian. I don't think so. "Google is your friend." Pretty sure AMD cards have their own equivalent.

Must have mods for me are... ASIS High Level Enemies Immersive Patrols DFB Random Encounters Immersive Armors Random Alternate Start Character Creation Overhaul SKSE with SkyUI Automatic Variants Deadly Dragons Legion Armor Variety Stormcloak Armor Variety Run for Your Lives When Vampires Attack

I enable v-sync with iPresentInterval=1 and limit fps to 45 using Nvidia Inspector. Try that and report if it improves.

@Watchmegoing - Good point about Master inclining/forcing maxed out enchanting and smithing. Whilst its certainly possible to beat Master without abusing craft skills, there is the need to always have an edge over the opponent that is more to do with rolling bigger numbers than skill per se.

As my Nord friends are so often telling me, "I love a challenge!" And I agree with them... However, I now have grievances with Master difficulty that have resulted in me abandoning it for Adept instead. I've always played on Master, finished the game twice on it. In my second playthrough of the main quest I beat it on Master and only died twice. So why is Master "more difficult" anyway? It accomplishes it in a very simplistic way. All it does is make it so you do less damage, and whatever it attacking you does more, by some multiplier. All is does is nerf you and buff them. That is a really really mundane way of increasing difficulty. It makes it just plain stupid - I mean, you whack them 10 times to remove a small amount of their hp, and they hit you twice and you're dead. Same weapon, same amount of skill, so its an immersion killer if you think about it. I know its a fantasy RPG, but it seems really unrealistic and dare I say it, game-breaking. Your shock spell makes them a little bit angry, their shock spell makes you very much dead, but its exactly the same spell, with exactly the same perks/skill as you. That's. Just. Stupid. If you think about it, its not fair, and is a very unimmersive, unintelligent way of adding difficulty to the game. On Adept there is 1:1 ratio for damage done and damage received. Surely that makes more sense. But then, it certainly is easier... But what if we could make Adept harder. You know, keep the realistic damage ratio, but increase the difficulty in a more immersive, sensible way? Well there is. Many things in Skyrim are the way they are because the game developers knew their major audience and their major limitations. Can a console handle 100 NPCs on screen all at once? Typically not. A PC, maybe. So here's the thing: I have a PC. A quad core. Its got a GTX 680. It can handle lots of NPCs. It can also handle a lot of NPCs all wanting to kill me, all at once. Here's how I'm making Adept more difficult.... 1. Increase average encounter levels of enemies - The game has 4 settings for the level of NPCs encountered. By increasing all of these values, the average level of all enemies I encounter is increased. So chances are the enemies I bump into are frequently going to be meaner and stronger. 2. Increase the amount of enemies that spawn. I've set ASIS so there is, at the very least, a double spawn of all applicable enemies. There is also a chance of +3 additional spawns. So in conjuction with increasing encounter levels, something like 4 high level bandit chiefs is a possibility (probably best to avoid that when it happens). 3. Reduce the amount that I can improve items with enchanting and smithing. I love enchanting and smithing, but the ability to craft OP gear gets a bit ridiculous. So I have simply made a mod that reduces the levels things can be improved. 4. Increase difficulty of sneaking - make myself more detectable. 5. Make potions heal over time, rather than instant. 6. Use Deadly Dragons so the dragon fighting aspect is still reasonably difficult, as it can be on Master. 7. Improve the AI/reactions of enemies. ASIS does a good job of this with the Customized AI feature, especially with casters healing themselves. 8. Give the NPCs access to the same perks/character development as the player. Again, ASIS provides this. (Yay ASIS!) 9. Increase the amount of random encounters. Am using DFB Random Encounters mod. Random encounters are things like when you're out in the wilderness and you get approached by a thief or assassin. 10. Don't use a follower. I think these are the sorts of changes that make for a better difficulty experience. Keen to know any other ideas and other thoughts.

Case in point: After collecting ingredients around the Morthal swamp I next went to a certain Falmer cave to harvest copious amounts of mushrooms and chaurus eggs. Upon first entering the cave I was only level 2 or 3. First things I had to deal with were spiders, so no problem there. Next was the Falmers. Realised they were all a few levels higher than me. So had difficulty killing even one, and one of their arrow shots took out most of my health. Used up all my heal potions so I decided I'd best leave the cave and go make some more. Along with some paralysis :) Came back to Falmer cave (now level 5 because of alchemy skillups), paralyze the Falmer waiting for me at entrance, dual flamed him while he was down, no problems.

Are you going to be recording your gameplay? Permadeath? Mods? (:

Not sure what ERSO does to difficulty... But I managed clear out an entire cave of them, with increased spawns, as a two hand warrior. I started the game outside their cave because of the mod Random Alternate Start and Character Creation Overhaul. Took ages though. Just had to do massive damage when they were within reach, thin them out slowly and also run them around pillars. The strategy I use to begin every game is to travel to Morthal swamp area ASAP and collect the canis root and swamp fungal pods. Gives you a significantly large amount of paralysis potions early on. Also from there you collect death bell and river betty (from the water, just look below where the dragon flies are). Poison your bow to hit them from afar then move in and there you go. Also, I always choose to increase Health when I level for at least 10 levels. I find this is vitally important on Master difficulty to avoid being one shotted. Sometimes you get hit and the only way to survive is to quickly open inventory/favorites/hotkey for heal potions. Without boosting your health you dont have that extra split second to react and heal.

Great idea and great ideas about how to implement it. Wouldn't be too tremendous an amount of work if you already knew your way around the CK. I've not yet touched NPC creation and such so cant help you there Im afraid. The thing they were attacking would have to die first and then zombify after right? This is really similar to what happens when you have a conjurer mage cave and ASIS increased spawns. Except if every corpse could be reanimated at once... the horror.

Also playing with permadeath will greatly increase the tension and concentration required for every fight (:

I have since spoken with an accomplish lighting/shadows modder, and he confirms that this problem cannot be eliminated by ini settings other than turning shadows off completely. It's an unresolvable issue with the game engine we just have to live with. I have tweaked my settings so it is less defined, and try to stay in first person view more often and the white aura becomes less frequent and less noticeable, so not as distracting. Just have to live with it unfortunately.

Disable all mods, even ones that seem harmless, and try again.

I have been greatly annoyed lately by the white aura that appears around any character that is standing in front of a shadow. One of the places in Skyrim where the issue is most apparent is the Dawnstar blacksmith. I have tried many many combinations of ini settings to try and get rid of it, or otherwise greatly minimise its appearace. I'm at the point where I'm willing to pay someone to find a viable solution so I don't have to spend however many more hours myself looking for it. The solution can't be just to turn off shadows. The solution could be a mod, or a different .dll, or something, as long as it doesnt eliminate shadows altogether. Failing an ultimate and desirable solution, if anyone could please tell me just how to minimise/reduce the eyesore this issue causes, I'd appreciate that too. So far the best settings I've arrived at are to set blur to 2, however this causes shadow edges to be very pixelated which is a problem itself - and the white aura with blur 2 still looks terrible. My theorized solution is to make the player character continually in shadow, and then brighten this shadow that's on the player character so that its back to normal brightness in appearance - my theory about this is because the white aura disappears when the character is also in shadow. Here are some examples screenshots with different settings. For all the screenshots I used 4096 shadow resolution, iShadowFilter=4, iShadowMode=4. iBlurDeferredShadowMask=2 iShadowMaskQuarter=10 fShadowBiasScale=0.6 http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/2659/blur2bias06mask10.jpg iBlurDeferredShadowMask=2 iShadowMaskQuarter=0 fShadowBiasScale=0.6 http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/9120/blur2bias06mask0.jpg iBlurDeferredShadowMask=32 iShadowMaskQuarter=5 fShadowBiasScale=0.6 http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/7205/blur32mask5bias06mode4.jpg iBlurDeferredShadowMask=0 iShadowMaskQuarter=4 fShadowBiasScale=0.3 http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/4471/blur0res4096af16aa8mask.jpg

Hey that does help! Navigation with keyboard seems more responsive and accurate now. Thanks!

The alchemy crafting menu is a pain to use because in order to select ingredients by their effect, the listing for the effects is a horizontal scrolling bar that is rather unresponsive or too sensitive and just clunky and annoying. I've noticed SkyUI makes it a little easier to actually select the listed effects, but other than that it provides no improvement. Does anyone know if there is a mod or anything else that makes navigating and selecting effects in the alchemy crafting menu easier?