LE Planning an Overhaul mod, would like advice!

[Arrogancy]

Hey folks. After trying out Requiem and SkyRe I found neither was quite what I was looking for, and after making a few patches for Requiem I thought: you know, I might as well do this from the ground up.

 

The main goal is to make a role-playing overhaul like Requiem, but with much better documentation, balanced high-level gameplay, more interesting perk decisions, and gameplay mechanics that don't make the mightiest words of power "quick", "save" and "load." I think it breaks immersion more to have to constantly reload an encounter than it does if lethal damage at low levels is two arrows instead of one.

 

I've got a pretty solid technical background, but I haven't modded Skyrim before (aside from some small patches). And since overhaul mods are big deals, with lots of moving parts, I was hoping some of you forum-goers might be able to offer some advice on how I ought to design it.

 

I'm particularly interested in what people really like about other overhaul mods, and what they don't. And any guidance about what should be changed about melee combat (I usually roll a mage) would be especially appreciated. There are a lot of melee combat mods on the nexus, and I'd be interested to hear which ones people prefer, and why.

 

You can take a look at my design document (a giant google spreadsheet) here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nKmefex5hVvguTmY-qEU7fYQkhGyTwL1iziDSI-hwik/edit#gid=1497829727 Since it is a google spreadsheet, it'll update as I work on it more, and you can follow along with my work in real time. Fair warning though! It might be a bit messy.

 

Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you'll share your thoughts!

[monganfinn]

Advice, giving ideas ... this one is pleased!

 

Personally from the combat mods I have taken that when wearing light armor you should die in a few hits but when wearing heavy you are able to tank a lot! A thought that is sadly hardly implemented, but seriously all the people wearing heavy armor in the middle ages they did not do so to then die from a single hit. Spots which the armor doesn´t cover are an exception.

- look at the fight scenes from game of thrones between brianne? of tarth at the camp of the youngest Baratheon brother and her fight with the hound, in both cases the chest plates took the full brunt of an swordhit without giving way.

 

I want spears: one handed, two handed, halberds etc - the lack of those in vanilla are ridiculious, halberds are probably more easy to implement since for them the regular two handed animations suffice.

I believe however that there are already some mods for spear animations on the nexus.

 

Arrows, if not blocked should deal a lot of damage depending on where they hit. So either a locational damage system or a chance for a critical hit. Afterall if a mere mortal is hit in the knee with an arrow he has to give up adventuring, but the dragonborn and undead should be able to tank some not deadly arrows.

 

Undead creatures aren´t undead in vanilla. But instead of the mod available on nexus that tells you to kill them with a special weapon or the ressurect themselves I think it would suffice to give them a lot of life and say that you simply have to bash them until they break apart and can´t move anymore. - Skeletons look kinda fragile, thus they are useless.

 

Magicka and stamina potions could very well have instant effects but healing takes time, simply spam chucking healing potions, duing the frenzy of battle!!, and filling up your lifebar with them is unrealistic - even in a magical environment, as the wounds sustained on the human body simply need time to heal.

Healing spells could still be instantaneously as they really are pure magic and simply work better than some mere potion.

 

The dragonborn can run for miles, non sprinting, then fight for hours, as long as he doesn´t use power attacks, climb up the 7000 steps and then immediately start his training with the greybeards without resting once!

- simple running should take a tiny bit of stamina, as does regular fighting, powerattacks perhaps a bit less: depends on the perks

 

Make shouts more useful and more powerfull as they are the main symbol of dragons, Talos, Wulfarth? aka Ysmir - who nearly had god status!

 

a nice easy to handle mcm menu

 

gold coins to septims - even the stormcloaks won´t banish them as they are based on Talos dammit!!

 

less sexual forms on the heavy armors - I would really like to know the woman whose breasts won´t be pressed together if a steelplate is over them!

light armors are totally okay with breasts.

 

more playable gear - which are non playable in vanilla.

 

a simple eating and sleeping mod - i use and am happy with ineed: the feature of small icons which change colour is, in my humble opinion, superior to continues text messages.

 

your teleport idea is in my opinion a bit lore breaking unless you implement it very well. - the collage of winterhold and labyrinthion could reasonably have them.

How about dragon fast travel, later in the game.

Or you introduce more carriadge destinations and replace the fast travel in such a lore friendly already introduced way.

 

a death and rebirth system: as a vessel for an immortal dovah sil other dragons - or at least old Parthurnax could shout you back into life.

After having visited Sovngarde you could spend some time between dieing and ressurecting there - see thread Sovngarde Expanded - http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2010009-sovngarde-expanded/

 

Frostfall is a bad idea, I always enjoyed running around the coast of the sea of ghosts in underwear - joke

It is a great idea!

Perhaps more warm clothing than just the Winter is Coming cloaks: the jarl clothes and other noble clothes as well as the fur armors have all parts that were allready separated from their outfits in scarf and gugles something - a mod

Bags and pouches! as well as bags to at least give a semblance of a reason as to why you can carry so much

a horse inventory?!

 

dragons know more shouts and don´t land so often only for them to have their faces bashed in, at least make them land on outcroppings where one cannot easily reach them.

the bite attack of a dragon should physically speaking easily be able to at least stagger a puny human if not tearing it apart, the tail attacks are incredible weak compared to the clubs of giants.

wings - so they cannot fly anymore, and the side of the face would be their only weak points.

 

several of the enhancing potions should have longer durations

perhaps it should be only possible to drink potions when not in direct combat - to add immersiveness

 

Just some ideas!

 

Having tried many overhauls I must say that most changed simply to much for my tastes and made many mods incompatible with the overhauled game.

That said, this is your ambitious projekt, thus I will praise you for whatever you may create!

 

I hope to have contributed to your goal! Good luck!!

Edited August 23, 2014 by monganfinn

[monganfinn]

Hi again,

how about replacing the upgrading of gear in vanilla with a deterioration system. It makes little sense why weapons should suddenly gain in power if you add some metal to it but never get weaker no matter how many dragonskulls you bash in with them.

[Arrogancy]

I've always liked the idea of deterioration. There are some balance questions, but it's definitely on the table.

[monganfinn]

Would it be possible to exclude some items from the deterioration system, like the daedric artefacts or wuuthrad etc, simply to make those unique items more special and legit to use at high levels.

After all with their history it would make sense for them to be special and it would give the PC a reason to collect and use them all instead of forging a new daedric weapon at the highest smithing level, double enchant it and create a new artefact far stronger than any original daedric etc artefact.

[Arrogancy]

Monganfinn, that's an excellent idea. In fact! I believe the idea solution would be to cause enchanted items not to deteriorate! It solves the main problem with deterioration, namely, that at low levels it is an interesting mechanic, because it constrains limited resources, whereas at high levels it is largely a chore.

 

And, of course, only with a lot of skill in smithing can one temper enchanted items.

 

You needn't be concerned about artifact use, however. All of the artifacts will be substantially buffed.

[monganfinn]

Looking at the posts until now...

it looks like you are doing this overhaul just for the two of us! :D

Nice to see that you pick up my ideas anyway.

 

If all of the enchanted gear doesn´t deteriorate, and there are a lot, wouldn´t that make the whole thing quite meaningless as most weapons the PC will use are enchanted?

To balance all of it out and take into consideration your concern that it is a chore at higher levels: a bit of fine tuning would be necessary but how about:

-regular gear deteriorate normaly and you temper them to keep the starting stat

-enchanted gear deteriorates normaly, but when you reach advanced skill in smithing and enchanting you can created gear whose stats are superior to unique artefacts, you still have to reload them with souls

-unique artefacts don´t deteriorate? perhaps also don´t have a need to be recharged with souls, contrary to normal enchanted gear, but their stats are weaker than the items you create with ca. lv 90 smithing enchanting

That way theres a reason to keep the uniques on you at high levels but you also have a reason to forge your own gear.

 

New Idea: there are already several mods like this, but: useable targets and practice dummies and a death - rebirth system, as to why only you can use it, how about:

 

when the pc dies he goes to Sovngarde - before the defeat of Alduin the Hall of Valor is still locked because you aren´t a legendary hero yet - however the pc already has a dragon soul namely his own thus when he reaches Sovngarde for the first time he learns and unlocks a word of a shout that allows him to return to Skyrim as a ghoset and do a quest that allows for his rebirth, he however only has a certain time limit to do the quest afterwards he gets transported back to Sovngarde where he then has to wait for quite some time for the shout to cool down. - Perhaps some additional content to the outer regions of Sovngarde to explore or don´t know an arena where he can train with other dead spirits?

The 2nd and 3rd time he dies he learns the remaining words of the shout but he will need extra dragonsouls to unlock them. Those words extend the time he has in Skyrim to do the reincarnation quest or lessen the cooldown back in Sovngarde.

After you get the allegiance of a dragon: Parthurnaax, Odahviing etc you can call that dragon and ask him to shout back into life directly skipping the quest, you would have to have used your own shout to come back to Skyrim as a ghost before that.

 

I don´t know yet what to do about the pcs items yet, loosing them and having to go search for them would be realistic but also quite hardcore? - perhaps an inidividual solution for the mcm

 

I know this is crazy extensive!! But I think I can say that such a system would be "realistic" and lore-friendly - Alduin already calls back other dragons into life - and just f***ing marvellous!!

Thanks for reading and please don´t feel pressured! :laugh:

[monganfinn]

Not having access to your items from Skyrim in Sovngarde would also explain why the PC uses the Skuldafn portal to reach Sovngarde for the Main quest line.

In Sovngarde the PC would have just some simple clothes.

No new content for Sovngarde would be necessary to be made by you, probably someone will or already has added some content to the outer regions.

Edited August 25, 2014 by monganfinn

[Arrogancy]

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?

[Mattiewagg]

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?

I think for enchanted weapons:

 

Unenchanted or enchanted weapons without charge degrade normally.

 

Enchanted tempered weapons lose enchantment charges (very slightly) faster, unless you get a perk like "Enchanting Smith" (< Needs a better name), in which case it degrades normally.