Starting "hardcore Skyrim" Need Serious experience feedback (unbalanced encounter..etc..)

[Kanirod]

Hi,

 

Im not used to post a lot and im not english speaker so please forget any typo and let's focus on answers.

Also please avoid comment like "why doing that? why not play vanilla then ..."

 

First, let me explain the context so you will perfectly understand, there will be a bit to read but i thank you in advance for taking time to understand.

 

Im starting a new playthrough in an old style hardcore setting done by combining "Dead is dead" mod and "Death souls" mod

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/60179/?

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49294/?

Basicaly, if i die, my save game are locked and not usable anymore

BUT i will not really die as long as i have dragon souls, everytime im supposed to die i can consume dragon souls to resurect. if i have no more dragon souls.. game over. a little bit like old game when you had only 3 life at the start and had to search for a "1up", difference here is that you will have to hunt these life, and hunt them hard..... i already tried as experiment in an existing savegame and it totally change the way you play, trust me.. very exciting..

In this case, you have only 1 life until you kill first dragon. Or, as you will see with my mod, i only managed to kill the first dragon at lvl 17.. so until level 15+, no mistake allowed..

I never played Skyrim past lvl 22 so i only know a little of the game, i want to make my skyrim experience unique, a unique first playthrough. what i did before was just balance testing.

 

Also my skyrim is modded with a lot of dungeon mods and some overhaul.

 

this is the few impacting combat/skill mod i will use;

 

ultimate combat

Enhance Enemy ai

ACE for perk trees

Weapons and Armors fix remade

Resilient dragons (only good dragon overhaul for me, lore friendly, no overpowered dragon move etc..tried the others, was disappointed)

Complete crafting overhaul.

Stronger Miraark and Harkon

 

i will play in adept without HUD :D.. i don't see any enemy life bar, i have no compass, no quest marker, i don't even see my life stamina magic bar

i use the mod important information overhaul that just change my screen effects depending of how magic health stamina run out, that give me informations when i need to run in a fight.

i don't play with follower coz i hate that, im some kind of RPG videogame sociopath, i like playing alone without team. (but i like FPS and was pro in CS 1.6 haha)

I play with Morrowloot 4E and Scarcity, no rare ingots vendor and barter&trade to give a real economy and hard time, there will be not much magic item for sales, crafting will be hard.. there is no dwemer or better ore and ingots for sale..

 

As you know, sometime, modders like to give unbalanced encounter because they want to kick your uberchar ass.

For exemple: in the excellent CONAN hyborian mod, very well designed and said for characters level 10, the final encounter with pitfighters is totally unbalanced, i did it at level 20 and despite im full health heavy armor build theses guy just 2 shots me at CAC and they keep knockout me despite my 280 armor and 315 health they use with a shout like fus ro dah... Looking at the CK i saw these guy are leveled and have a bonus of 980 hp average with minimum 45 in their skill... and they are 3, this is totally unbalanced, i tried many way to deal with them.. no luck... how are you supposed to do that betwwen level 10 and 20, also i saw a video of a guy in youtube dealing with them at lvl 79 in daedric.. he was constantly knockout and had to use health potions, he said he was really surprised by that...

 

I already tried

- Revenge of enemies but i saw too many unbalanced encounter or drop added to some npc. also, looking at comment and video on how Red Eagle just kick ass of any character facing him.. im discouraged

 

I also question mysefl on Ultimate Combat when i can read in comment section that Dragon priest are overpowerd and get an ice spell that one shot character with 85% elemental and magic resist...should i deactivate dragon priest AI in MCM menu for this mod?

 

in fact, im not afraid of some very strong magic, im just afraid of being stuck, without escape option, with modified npc that were just modded with instakill spell or attack.

 

Okok i can already see people saying "why playing with perma death mod if you don't want to die" it's not that, im ready to die and loose even a save with a level 60+ .. but if this happen, i want it to be an epic fight, not a : "enemy cast instadeathspellOMG, player use dragon soul to revive, enemy cast instadeathspellOMG, player use dragon soul, enemy cast instadeathspellOMG, PERMA DEATH"

 

SO, after reading all of that i think you understand my question:

 

Can you list me some mod where you know i will have to be really carefull because there is some unbalanced encounter or where you have to do some tricky jump across a botomless hole to go further?

Do you have some to recommend?

Or just give me the name of a character in a mod that should be edited in CK to be less complicated?

 

Also, here some of the quest/dungeon mod i will use (non exhaustive):

- Undeath

- Agent of Righteous Might

- Conan Hyborian Age

- Shadow of meresis

- The oblivion realms serie 1 & 2

- Wyrmtooth

- Falskaar

- Here there be monster

 

i also have mods from the quest series

Edited January 29, 2015 by Kanirod

[TheObstinateNoviceSmith]

Hey Kanirod.

 

I understand what you're looking for, but unfortunately I'm not mod knowledgeable enough to help you on this. Sorry.

 

I just had to tell you though that I think the way you intend to play makes sense and sounds pretty cool. I may have to give this a try if I ever get back to playing Skyrim.

 

Awesome stuff and I hope it ends up being as fun as you like.

[mindw0rk2]

You dont need to hide HUD completely, you can use Immersive HUD and turn off there everything except your health/stamina/magicka and even them will be on screen only when lower then full.

 

Im having hardcore Skyrim myself with almost 600 mods installed. I use other death mechanics though. Dead is Dead mod + SkyTweak with enabled bleeding in misc section and 1 additional life. This additional life let me survive death from glitches (I still loose about 40% gold) or oneshots but the feeling pretty much the same as DiD, since penalty is very hursh. If I dont sleep after loosing bonus life, next death is permanent.

 

I also use SkyRe, Frostfall, Realistic Needs & Diseases, Deadly Combat (imho the best combat mod), Deadly Dragons, tweaked Trade & Barter (economy is really hursh), Expensive Investments, Realistic Room Rental Basic, Tougher Traps, Traps make Noise, OBIS, No starting Spells and many many other mods that add difficulty.

 

Living Takes Time changes experience quite abit, since everything you do now takes time, up to 4 hours if its crafting a chest. And with hunger/thirst mechanics you have to care for provisions. I tweaked it a lot though and installed RND/Frostfall patch.

 

Animations mod - prevents abuse of gathering everything on the run. YOu have to invest time to get reagents. Hunterborn is a good addition to it since you now have to butcher meat and skin pelts which takes time.

 

Also I made health regen veeeeery slowly, and added bandages mechanics. You can craft bandages from linen wraps and they regen 1 hp per second for 45 sec small one, and 2 hp per second for 120 sec - big one.

 

Also carry weight is limited (from 80 to 120 depending on race +whatever backpack you can find) and you cant carry 100 potions and arrows. 12 potions max, 35 arrows max, 10 poisons max, 20 lockpicks max. You can tweak this in SkyTweak scripts section.

Edited January 29, 2015 by mindw0rk2

[Kanirod]

Thx for this answer, im using as well some of the mods you listed, that will make a masochist experience.

Then, from your experience, any Quest/dungeon mod where i might experience unbalance encounters?

Edited January 29, 2015 by Kanirod

[MightyZ0G]

Dragon Combat Overhaul will make you take great care against any dragon as all the fights against dragons are epic and very unpredictable. you will have to work really hard to earn those dragon souls.

SkyTEST - Realistic Animals and Predators is another mod that I would recommend as it can make wolves into a force to be respected when you are at low levels as they hunt in packs rather than on their own, and there is a Skytest mod that makes them harder as well

[stebo104]

If you really want to add some hardcore to your game, add Requiem to it, mobs become x5 (if not more) harder. All mobs with 1h weapons have sheilds and KNOW how to use them, just 1 small exampal. Don't even bother attacking dragons till your like lvl 30 (max lvl is 53 or 54, can not go past since most cheat mods don't work with Requiem, and when you go legendary on the trees they do not start back at it was at start of game) and in the best gear you can find. All perk trees are redone, spell trees give spells as you go up in the, heck you don't even get any spells at lvl 1 unless you put some or all of the 3 perk points you get at start). Some locations have added mobs, like the Main chamber in bleakfalls barrow has like 10 added mobs, vary hard to do the dragonstone quest.

 

I am going to have to get Requiem mod again and make a profile on MO just for it, couse it's fun, may try out a elf mage or orc tank.

[Kanirod]

Right, but does any of you knows, in term of content for mod like Wyrmtooth or undeath or whatever if there is some unbalance encounter?

For exemple, if somebody can tell me : Hey, be carefull in this mod, there is a totally unbalanced boss that constantly knockout no matter what"

I saw this in comment in a mods where people clearly say "well done but last boss is insane, one shot all the time all of my team, had to reload 10 time" or "I opened your mod in the CK, man you gave all the bandits in this cave 65000 hp, it's ridiculous"

[notmyhome]

I wouldn't install Undeath, unless you're not planning on becoming a Lich anyway. The transformation scene is buggy as hell and can kill your character. There's no telling what it'd do with so many death scripts already running.

[vram1974]

Your quest to lead a hardcore character in Skyrim is admirable but doomed to failure, I think. I like the idea of hardcore, it's the only way I played Diablo 2 and 3, but Skyrim has way too many silly ways to die to make this work, even with dragon souls.

 

Your horse call fall off a cliff. Dead.

A draugr can blow you off a mountain. Dead.

You get trapped by a texture while trying to retreat and hacked to death.

You get landed on by a dragon and one-shotted.

 

I like the mod Death Alternative because when you die you randomly respawn somewhere else with a new scenario. You can invent some kind of lore-friendly excuse how your character went from the Shroud Heath Barrow to Riverwood again. Perhaps your companions carried your unconscious body there.

 

But the random silly ways to die in Skyrim are too numerous to make death permanent. It will likely never be a "glorious death"

[moose109]

Your quest to lead a hardcore character in Skyrim is admirable but doomed to failure, I think. I like the idea of hardcore, it's the only way I played Diablo 2 and 3, but Skyrim has way too many silly ways to die to make this work, even with dragon souls.

 

Your horse call fall off a cliff. Dead.

A draugr can blow you off a mountain. Dead.

You get trapped by a texture while trying to retreat and hacked to death.

You get landed on by a dragon and one-shotted.

 

I like the mod Death Alternative because when you die you randomly respawn somewhere else with a new scenario. You can invent some kind of lore-friendly excuse how your character went from the Shroud Heath Barrow to Riverwood again. Perhaps your companions carried your unconscious body there.

 

But the random silly ways to die in Skyrim are too numerous to make death permanent. It will likely never be a "glorious death"

Or fall through a bucket and die... Or sprinting to the counter in the Sleeping Giant Inn and having a pot hit you in the head and kill you(this happened to my dad who was a vampire at the time, so no health regen, and he had a tiny amount of health left, so sprinting to Orgnar to get some food and the pot flies into the back of his head... It was hilarious), guards attacking you for no reason...

 

These are all reasons why I don't play "hardcore" as Skyrim has to many dangerous non-realistic death traps.