LE Several realism suggestions

[silverjuggler]

Okay, I'm all for the realism stuff in this fabulous game and after bringing a character up to lvl 34 here are my suggestions for stuff I pretty much am surprised (if?) nobody made mods for yet. I'm no modder myself, so I hope someone else will find these a meaningful challenge:

 

* Dirt and smell.

 

For each hour spent outdoors (perhaps split into towns/villages, roads and wilderness), the character should get increasingly unclean, unshaven, sweaty, greasy etc. Each night spent in less than civilised conditions (tent, camp, haystack etc) should give additional dirt points (consider the toilet-going...).

When engaging in conversations and bargaining, this dirt factor should weigh in negatively. The player could wash (reset the dirt to zero) in taverns as well as in water. Hot water found only in fireplaces with cauldrons or in certain sulfuric pools would produce better results than cold water.

For added realism, the dirt factor however could sometimes have a positive effect depending on situation and individual. ("Woah, this guy is a tough adventurer" perhaps bandits, Orcs and Forsworn think, while High Elves and Imperial officers probably despise such appearances.)

The apparel should also start smelling of sweat and perhaps even gore from all those slain foes and animals, as well as simply look dirty and worn. This should again affect interaction in a generally negative way. A separate activity could be to clean the gear, possible again only in taverns and/or by water.

 

* General appearance.

 

Just like cleanliness, general appearance should also affect NPC responses. Removing one's helmet, and perhaps also shield, ought to be basic manners in most cities and villages (not to mention hand weapon, a feature which seems slightly included in the vanilla version). Similarly, donning ordinary clothes and jewelry instead of the universal armour should meaningfully affect attitudes toward you.

 

* Fighting encumbrance.

 

Ergonomic bags and pouches are all good, but is it really possible to engage in a fierce melee fight with that backpack full of food and various trinkets and huge coin sacks bumbing about somewhere on your body? Nah. In reality, and in all historic record, fighters would carry packs while moving, and then obviously drop most gear when fighting. Combat is extremely tiresome and each kilogram quickly saps real folk's stamina. The only natural way out here is to introduce a sharp penalty to melee attacks and blocking (and slightly lower perhaps to ranged combat) when wearing more than perhaps half, a third or a quarter of what one can totally carry without movement restrictions.

Vanilla has already touched this by decreasing the weight of worn apparel, which is good, but not enough.

To make this realism playable, this mod would also have to include some hotkey or easy option for how the player could, with one command, drop all combat-unnecessary gear, which obviously would have to be pre-determined by flagging it in the inventory. And - when picking this stuff up again - any things in the favourite menu should go back there.

Edited September 28, 2013 by silverjuggler

[kane480]

These would be totally awesome, but that is some really heavy scripting you're asking for. I'm also trying for the most realistic skyrim experience, but when it's all said and done, I may have to upgrade my machine to accommodate all the scripts and über high-rez textures. Me personally am ok with that, not sure about everyone else, but I'm sure some genius out there could figure this out, if they can I would very much like to see it.

 

You should also try making a thread about this over on LL, there's some really talented modders over there. If you don't know what LL is then google "Skyrim LL", it should be the first result, it's another site for mods. Hope I don't get in trouble for mentioning them.