Roleplaying Overhauls - Requiem / Skyre

[sourdust88]

I am loving Requiem.

 

The one thing that makes Requiem stand out for me is that the world is obviously not at all concerned with what level you're at.

 

 

Call it whatever, hardcore, realism, old-school. Labeling is irrelevant to me. The fact that the world doesn't level with you. That's the operative thing. Sleepwalking through all quests from the chopping block to the first dragon fight, is no longer an option.

 

Playing vanilla skyrim, going into Bleak Falls Barrow (for instance) - if you're level 1, Skyrim holds your hand and makes sure all of the bad guys are going to be around level 1, just for you. If you're level 20, all the bad guys are going to be around level 20. This absolutely sucks the joy out of adventuring and exploring for me. See a cave somewhere you've never been to, you already know the enemies in there are around your level. They're always around your level, and they level with you. There's a bit more to it, I realize, but that's basically it. I absolutely hated it in Oblivion, and I hate it in Skyrim.

 

What's the point in leveling up when all the enemies level up with you? It forces you to min/max the skills if you want to feel powerful. That's a fun little mini-game for a little while, but it does absolutely nothing to scratch my RPG itch.

 

I can't be the only one who finds this incredibly immersion breaking. If you put a lot of work into Speechcraft, Pickpocketing, and Lockpicking, the levels you've gained from that have not added to your survivability at all, obviously. And yet, in vanilla skyrim the enemies have all leveled up every time you have. You're falling behind the enemies unless you focus on your core fighting skills exclusively. It's not difficult. It's just immersion breaking. It makes leveling up something like pointless.

 

When you start out in Requiem, "level 1" means you are a very soft target for anything you meet in the world. It does NOT mean that the majority of enemies are also level 1.

 

When you start out in vanilla, "level 1" means you are already one of the most powerful beings in the world, and that most every enemy you face is going to be within a few levels of level 1.

 

In vanilla skyrim I can be the leader of the Thieves guild and the Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, theoretically at level 1. That's just silly. Sure, I can crank the difficulty up if it's too easy, crank it down if it's too hard, but by that point the immersion is already gone. The sense of accomplishment, irretrievable.

 

In vanila skyrim, if someone tells you they cleared Bleak Falls at level 5, so what? Did it at level 1, did it at level 20, same difference. At level 1 you're facing Draugr. At level 20 you're facing Draugr Deathlords or whatever. Boring.

 

With Requiem, if you beat Bleak Falls at level 5, that means something. How did you do that? That place gives me nightmares until I'm at least 15 or so. The people of Riverwood have nightmares about Bleak Falls Barrow, but in vanilla skyrim I totally rule Bleak Falls at level 1. It just silly. My roleplaying ability is just not sufficient to suspend that kind of disbelief.

 

Requiem is closer to what Skyrim and Oblivion should have been, for me.

 

If something in Requiem is too difficult, run away. Come back after you've leveled up a bit and try again. When you do finally overcome it, the sense of accomplishment is something new that never was in vanilla skyrim. I had more fun finally beating that team of bandits at the bridge / walkway east of Whiterun, than I ever did putting Alduin down in vanilla.

[salawow]

I like to Roleplay very much, and i can say i like both Requiem and Skyre, depending what kind of roleplay i want and how i feel.

 

SkyRe : Enjoyable controlled roleplay. Since nothing is realy hard and alot of things is doable at low level, i have to make my own scenario about how i managed to beat a big spider that is 3 time my size, me who never did anything else than chopping wood. So it's nice, but i pretty much control all what happen to my character and write my own story through my playthrough as i want it to be.

 

Requiem : Enjoyable roleplay, where the game is in control. I don't have to make scenario to explain how i managed to kill that spider, if i'm weak, i just can't, which is more realistic to me. I'm no longer the game master, i just live in a hard world and do what i can to survive and get better. Think about any strong NPC in game.. well, i don't think he was much better than me when he first began, he was a noob, probably not able to defeat a big mean spider. An orc mage seems nice yes, roleplaying an orc, who unlike most of hid kind managed to master the way of magic. In SkyRe you can, and you can in requiem as well, but you can't skip the hard part of "how as an orc i achieved that, given that my race is at a disaventage in magic. How hard it was at first ? but i managed it" in SkyRe, you can start just after this part.

 

So to me, both are nice in a roleplay point of view, but different. Most people may like one or the other, for my part i prefer SkyRe most of time, but it happens that i feel to play in a different way.

[myztikrice]

Except Requiem is like that for the first 20 levels, and then you steamroll everything because they're either level 1-5 or they're using basic AI. Also vanilla Skyrim leveling has level caps and minimums, it's not every cave you go into at level 20 will have level 20 enemies.

 

And I personally don't enjoy steamrolling low level enemies for trivial quests just because I made the mistake of focusing on quests in one region of the world.

[Sjogga]

While Requiem is in my opinion better than SkyRe, it does have some issues.

 

First, it's the difficulty on low levels. I don't really enjoy grinding, but I found myself having to go and hunt mudcrab and eventually I ended up killing my conjured skelleton with flames in Whiterun, just to get both skills above 25. This part was not enjoyable at all, heck I could've just used the console and not feel bad about it. Things did get more enjoyable afterwards though.

 

The second thing is the deleveled world. While I love that you cannot enter certain areas at low levels, it also makes these areas a faceroll once you've reached the level threshold. For example; once you've beaten one draugr dungeon, you can beat (almost) all other. The real issue here though are how few level thresholds there are. If there was two levels of Draugr dungeon types, like one ~15ish and one ~30ish the gameplay would be much smoother. Similar things would have to be implemented for other enemy types as well.

 

And then there are all the overpowred artifacts. I like it because they are unique relics after all, but I also hate it. Once I found the Staff of Magnus few could stop me really. Sure, labyrinthian was hard as hell, but the staff is just too powerfull. Same went for Konahriik. You are more or less immortal while wearing it. True that it is heavy armor and hinders spellcasting unperked, but the regen it provided allowed my mage to step inside a bandit cave dressed in full steel. I then went AFK untill I had enough heavy armor level to perk myself out of magicka fatigue.

 

Overall its a great mod despite its flaws.