Arrogancy

Daedric, Stahlrim and Dragon comprise the tier 4 (Epic) armors. Dragon weapons are slightly stronger, but the armors all have the same armor rating.

No "Ultimate Overhaul" stuff. Just Skyrim Improved

We've settled on a name: Skyrim Improved. SkyIM for short. Or SkyrIM, if you want to be cute.

Take a look at it here, and tell me your thoughts! This is for the new overhaul mod, Skyrim Improved (SkyIM).

We'll be publishing something like a ReProccer. Compatability will be no concern.

I have now that you have mentioned it. My hopes, they are not high.

So, I'd like to avoid giving any of the armors a DPS boost for balance reasons - it doesn't take many perks to get any of the Secret tier armors to hit the damage cap, and with effort you can probably even get the Advanced tier pretty close. Giving a DPS enhancer to any of them would almost certainly make that armor the most optimal, which would be undesirable. At the moment I'm thinking that Ebony could reduce the spellcasting penalty (heavy armors retain some penalty even with all the perks). Health in retrospect is probably too strong to put on Daedric; I'll probably relegate it to fire resistance. I'm still not sure what to do for Dragon. I'm considering just going ahead and giving it something optimal, like magic resistance or extra damage reduction. It's dragon armor, and it requires its own perk - I think I'd be ok with it being the best. Still not sure what to do for Glass. Maybe nothing - it's the only Secret Tier light armor that doesn't have any enchantments already. That's sort of useful all by itself.

I'm pretty sure that Dwarven armor was made by the Dwemer. I mean there's a full set found in Dwemer ruins, and the guards say "Dwarven make, am I right?". And there's the quest where the Dwemer artifact makes your Dwemer armor better. Do you have a source? I don't want to put Steel Plate into standard because it LOOKS very strong. Scale I would be ok moving down if there was an alternative light armor (say from a mod) that I could put on the stronger vanilla Nord bandits, who obviously shouldn't be wearing elven armor (there are not a lot of light armor sets in this game). They won't have special abilities, though. Dremora will not drop Daedric armor; just the hearts. You will be able to get it from the Atronach forge, though. Stalrihm will not initially be for sale, but you can buy it after completing the New Source of Stalrihm quest. Here's what we're currently working with for bonuses. Advanced Armors Elven: Reduces spellcasting penalties Orcish: As effective as secret-tier armor when used by orcs Wolf Armor: Full exposure protection. Blades Armor: Slightly better armor than other advanced armors. Weighs very little. Falmer: Reduced sneak penalty. (Thanks morganfinn) Nordic Carved: Full exposure protection. Bonus to magic resistance. Vampire Armor: Bonus to sneak and magic resistance. (Stronger than the others, because vampires wear it) Secret Armors Ebony: ??? (I don't want to put something as strong as magic resistance on Secret-tier armor) Glass: ??? (I don't really like move speed. Why be faster than wearing no armor?) Dwemer: With "Ancient Knowledge" quest, almost as strong as Epic armor. This will be a much harder quest. Better Falmer: Less sneak penalty (heavy), doesn't interfere with spellcasting (light) Dawnguard: Reduces damage from vampires. Epic Armors Stalrihm: Full Exposure protection. Bonus frost resistance. Daedric: Health bonus. Dragon: ???? (I don't want to just make shouting better)

Matthias, you're absolutely right that Dwarves were master smiths, and Dwemer gear will definitely be in a higher tier than in vanilla. It always annoyed me that it was worse than orcish, given how incredibly advanced the dwemer were. At present the tiers look something like this: Weak: Leather, Iron (weak NPC gear, basically) Standard: Steel, Imperial, Stormcloak (low level PC gear) Advanced: Steel Plate, Scale, Falmer, Elven, Orcish, Nordic Carved Secret: Ebony, Glass, Dwemer, Ancient Falmer Epic: Stalhrim, Daedric, Dragon You won't be able to find Epic gear - you'll have to smith it yourself. What do people think? Raising the armor cap for higher tiers is an interesting idea, Kestrellius, but it runs into problems as soon as you consider things like the Lord Stone, enchantment buffs or the protection spells from the Alteration school. With only a few tiers, though, the difference in armor will be substantial enough that I think the difference will be noticeable. I like the idea of giving materials special abilities or characteristics within their tier. Any suggestions? lofgren, if you extend your analysis, you will find the answer to why two-handed and heavy armor would not be balanced to combine.

Uh, if you quote from a post, could you do it on the thread that you're quoting from? Pots will happen over time, and won't stack. Cooking in alchemy is a great idea. I will look into that. Do you have any suggestions of what such a perk might do? The best constraints to make nonrenewables shine are time, attrition and strong optional goals with awesome rewards attached. It's key in the last case to communicate to the player in advance that there's an awesome reward, so that they will come in guns blazing with their nonrenewable. Skyrim doesn't have any of these - you're never under time constraints, there's basically no attrition since your stats all regenerate, and the system isn't really designed to give you "awesome rewards" - there are a couple of artifacts, yeah, but nothing that will let you kill stuff you couldn't kill before; character improvements that let you take on stronger challenges come almost exclusively through leveling. A good example is actually the forests in the Civilization series. You can chop them to generate extra production, which you would totally do if you're building some key wonder that will boost you throughout the game (or through, say, a critical part of it).

I'll look into degredation some more after v1, but it's not likely. At the end of the day I want to make a mod I want to play, and I've just hated every degradation system I've ever found in another game.

Matthias, We do have strength! Improving health at level up increases Brawn, which boosts all melee weapon damage, and, with the Overpower perk, increases power attack damage with two-handed weapons SUBSTANTIALLY. Two-handed weapons are also easier to master (read: less perk-intensive) than one-handed weapons, and sprinting power attacks will knock down most foes, just like a shield charge. I think you’ll find them to be very compelling. (The stamina secondary stat is “Finesse”, which improves archery damage, sneak, thievery, and some one-handed crit chance. You’ll notice that one-handed weapons are improved by both Finesse and Brawn, reflecting their status as both warrior and thief weapons. Brawn is the more substantial damage contributor, at least until the Thick And Fast perk from the Potential tree is taken. I really recommend taking a look at the Potential tree.) So the reason Eagle-Eye drains stamina is that you hold your breath while doing it. Note the sound effects. Regular bow drawing will cost some stamina, just like regular attacks. Portable crafting systems are an interesting idea. I think Enchanting already has plenty of incentive (it’s by far the strongest tree). We’ve added some capstones to Alchemy that give some really strong passives. I think Smithing is pretty powerful too, honestly. As for fletching your own arrows, can’t you already do that with the DLCs? Firewood + other mats = arrows? Doomsdayman, Let me say first of all that I really appreciate how cogent and well-supported your points are. This is definitely the sort of thing that helps the design process. So I think you’d like the one-handed tree we’re using - take a look at it and tell me what you think. I hear what you’re saying in terms of more options within the perk trees being interesting, but I don’t think there aren’t really enough styles in the game to allow for specialized avenues in every tree - at least, avenues that would be worth the perk points. There is a reason that Restoration is where the designers put the Recovery perk in vanilla instead of, say, Alteration - and that’s because Restoration desperately needed the mechanic. That said, I think you’ll like the Destruction specializations we’ve added. Please take a look and tell me what you think! I can assure you that finding a Daedric sword will not be easy in this deleveled world! I’m pretty ok with some equipment just being strictly better than other equipment. Upgrading gear is a pretty fundamental part of the game, and I don’t think I would go so far to call it a crutch. Lots of people like seeing bars fill up and I’m definitely one of them. But you know I really like the idea of fewer tiers and more options. For one thing, fewer tiers would mean you’d really notice the differences when the upgrades do come, and I would much prefer fewer and more noticeable upgrades to more and less noticeable ones. You make some compelling points about degradation, but I’m still on the fence. The main problem is that I’ve played several games that have had equipment degradation, and I’ve really never found the mechanic to be anything other than a chore. In theory you bring along a spare set of armor or something, and only deploy the rare-material stuff on big runs, but in practice I just max repair before leaving town/carry spare repair parts and the rare-material gear sits in my chest at home forever. I feel like nonrenewable or hardrenewable resources really need a game with more constraints in it than Skyrim has to really shine. Time blocking is certainly in a lot of combat mods, and there’s no question that a lot of people like it. I very personally hate it. It bothers me for two reasons. First, because I hate timing mechanics and suck at them. Second, because it doesn’t make any sense to me at all why a timed block should be more effective than a regular one. I actually much prefer Skyrim’s vanilla system, where you block regular hits and need to bash to stop power attacks. So, the problem with cooking and survival trees is that it’s basically impossible to find worthwhile perks to put in them. Like, making trees with perks is easy - but that’s not the goal of good design. The goal is to make every tree feel overpowered. Naturally that really means that they are balanced, of course - but they should all feel awesome. I am not aware of any way to make roasting pheasant feel as awesome as roasting vampires. So actually that’s basically how I plan to implement lockpicking - without the perk it’s super hard (to the point of practical impossibility). And the way we’re planning to run it, weapons are actually going to be much less strong if you aren’t trained in their use (i.e., haven’t picked up the first perk in the one-handed/two-handed trees). I’m pretty ok though with the idea of Alchemy and Lockpicking being things you need training in. Have you ever tried to pick a lock or brew beer in the real world without training?

I've tried living takes time, but it had some technical and implementation issues - if those could be fixed, I'd be positively inclined towards it. So, the problem I have with degradation is that it's really only a relevant gameplay mechanic for a small part of the game, and after that it's just a huge chore. You can make it more relevant by making it harder to repair higher-end gear, but that only increases the chore part - yes, it does make the decision of what gear to bring with you more complex, but it doesn't make the decision more interesting. Instead of a choice between meh and awesome, it presents the player with a decision between meh and meh. That's not good game design. I don't want to go on quests to find some more ebony ore and [weird component] to get my top armor working again - I want to go on quests to reforge Wuuthrad, undermine the Thalmor, or recover an Elder Scroll.

Yes, it's not just me. At the moment there are two of us - though we would be more than happy for more assistance. We're both pretty good programmers, but domain-specific knowledge is always appreciated on a new project involving new tools. There will definitely be a ReProccer if we end up radically changing weapon and armor stats. There's a possibility we'll be able to stick to using just perk changes to balance weapons and armor and keep the vanilla skyrim values, which means that any weapon/armor mod that works with vanilla would be automatically compatible with the rules changes. (The way that would work is that the novice perk in each weapon tree would give a large damage boost to the weapons in the tree, bringing them up to our desired values. We're still examining how this would stack with other perks and modifiers to determine whether it would be feasible.) TK Recoil is interesting - but our focus is more on gameplay changes. I'd rather leave the look/sound/feel stuff to other folks. It's not really our strength. I very much look forward to any idea you'd care to offer, Matthiaswagg.

You aren't the only one. The mod is being discussed in several other places. The trouble with alternate-death mods is that they introduce a lot of annoying edge cases. Like, what happens if you die fighting Alduin in Sovngarde? While soul trapped? While in the soul cairn? Why doesn't Alduin devour your soul - he can bring dragons back to life, presumably he can keep you dead. Why don't other Dovah kill you permanently? What if you become a vampire? What if you become a werewolf and your soul is promised to Hircine? What about after you've been induced into the service of Hermaeus Mora? Maybe I don't need my items (I'm a wizard) and I'll just go to Sovngarde to fight Alduin without them! There's also the immersion-breaking nature of, like, repeating the corpse run a lot. Why do you want degradation?