Total Realism Overhaul

[Dichotomy754]

Just played for 2 hours straight with no health regen and no saves except for auto saves when entering dungeons and sleeping.....its a whole new ballgame.After making and buying a good amount of healing potions I set off to find the Greybeards and stumbled upon a huge spider out in the woods on the way.What would have been another hassle in Skyrim's world was now a huge hurdle since I just trekked for 10 real minutes and this thing could easily take me out.I then ran circles around a rock screaming like a little girl for 3 minutes trying to stay away from the horrible creature(I have real life arachnophobia)while Lydia took pot shots at it from a cliff way up above.Survived and awhile later ran into a bandit on a huge tree crossing a valley over a water fall and hell bent on not letting me pass.Took a bit of damage but managed to kill him and staggered on till we stumbled upon one of those green shiny tree creatures wherein me and Lydia ran away as fast as possible to avoid having to start all the way back in Riverwood again.Then we found a man who said a necromancer was desecrating his family tomb and I agreed to help.After all the fighting I ran out of health potions and had to backtrack out of the tomb since after 8 attempts since I realized the necromancer was just too powerful.

 

Its really fun this way and I feel this alone benefits Skyrim highly.But something seems to have gone wrong and all of a sudden all enemies are way too tough.Its as if the auto scaling jumped up the enemies too high for my character.I am running from fights now left and right and that ruins immersion for me and I had to stop the game.Where before I would one shot wolves and now they need three power attacks each.

 

And when I said that shouts should not damage anything but dragons,I did not know shouts are used by other npc's and thought that was only dragonborne so your right about the lore thing.

 

If we can come together and make a system where the game stays in the "sweet spot" then this game is best ever! ;)

 

 

This needs to be done and is what I think the ultimate goal of the leveling system should be, no matter how long it takes this must be done, with that feature alone the immersion would jump up 10 fold, it's the kind of thing i see requiring voice actors for though, so we can hear the bandits talking about how their boss says be on the lookout because someones been storming other bandit hide outs, the boss gave them some fancy new equipment just in case. Or over hear a general on his horse dispatch a search party for you, some of the best bounty hunters in skyrim being payed a comfortable sum to slit your throat, then if you stalk some of the men you can overhear them remarking on the high quality blades they've been given. Might be a bit ambitious, but I see it as a final goal after a long development.

Edited November 22, 2011 by arithine

[mightnight]

Just played for 2 hours straight with no health regen and no saves except for auto saves when entering dungeons and sleeping.....its a whole new ballgame.After making and buying a good amount of healing potions I set off to find the Greybeards and stumbled upon a huge spider out in the woods on the way.What would have been another hassle in Skyrim's world was now a huge hurdle since I just trekked for 10 real minutes and this thing could easily take me out.I then ran circles around a rock screaming like a little girl for 3 minutes trying to stay away from the horrible creature(I have real life arachnophobia)while Lydia took pot shots at it from a cliff way up above.Survived and awhile later ran into a bandit on a huge tree crossing a valley over a water fall and hell bent on not letting me pass.Took a bit of damage but managed to kill him and staggered on till we stumbled upon one of those green shiny tree creatures wherein me and Lydia ran away as fast as possible to avoid having to start all the way back in Riverwood again.Then we found a man who said a necromancer was desecrating his family tomb and I agreed to help.After all the fighting I ran out of health potions and had to backtrack out of the tomb since after 8 attempts since I realized the necromancer was just too powerful.

 

Its really fun this way and I feel this alone benefits Skyrim highly.But something seems to have gone wrong and all of a sudden all enemies are way too tough.Its as if the auto scaling jumped up the enemies too high for my character.I am running from fights now left and right and that ruins immersion for me and I had to stop the game.Where before I would one shot wolves and now they need three power attacks each.

 

And when I said that shouts should not damage anything but dragons,I did not know shouts are used by other npc's and thought that was only dragonborne so your right about the lore thing.

 

If we can come together and make a system where the game stays in the "sweet spot" then this game is best ever! ;)

 

 

This needs to be done and is what I think the ultimate goal of the leveling system should be, no matter how long it takes this must be done, with that feature alone the immersion would jump up 10 fold, it's the kind of thing i see requiring voice actors for though, so we can hear the bandits talking about how their boss says be on the lookout because someones been storming other bandit hide outs, the boss gave them some fancy new equipment just in case. Or over hear a general on his horse dispatch a search party for you, some of the best bounty hunters in skyrim being payed a comfortable sum to slit your throat, then if you stalk some of the men you can overhear them remarking on the high quality blades they've been given. Might be a bit ambitious, but I see it as a final goal after a long development.

 

Hell for now we just want those options implemented, but if one day they decide to add extra voices: I will gladly help out

[mightnight]

Some ideas that could be implemented and suggestions on how to make them happen since I do not like adding "dream" features. I also agree with all of your suggestions so I will try not to add any of the ones you added.

 

1) Start small. You could find a way to confine the map to small zones and continue to expand it as you, and the community, comes up with new ideas. Lets not worry about quests for now, but rather focus on the aspect of survival and how it will work in this particular game. If you are planning on adding a feature that allows players to set up portable camps, I am sure you will be able to add roadblocks all around the map.

2) Inns. If we put ourselves in the ancient history times you will surely know that any traveler will firstly stop by the inn to resupply, drink, get women and sleep. So why not make us feel like that too? Currently in the native version of the game I find myself rarely going to the inns simply because there isn't any benefits attached to it! I am sure that with the realism theory you plan on implementing, it will be finely balanced(such as coming back from a blizzard and sitting by a fire to restore heat loss, charging MORE for renting a bed, some sort of gambling process?[even as simple as just guessing a number will do].

3) Forging and mining. All the ideas about weapon and armor damage are great but lets not stop only at going to a blacksmith and asking them to repair the damned thing for a price(of course that is still an option....the price is a different matter) just get your lazy butt in a mine and start mining for metal! Once you have the appropriate material you may go to the forge, grinding stones ecc. to patch it up. Of course for leather armor it will be with leather ecc. I believe that would make the realism factor shoot up.

4) Factions. What could be better than you making few gold by chopping some wood when all of a sudden you see a line of Imperial Soldiers assaulting the village which is owned by Rebels? Now of course, even if not visible for giving the scripter a break, house will be destroyed and economy ruined. Don't make these changes actually texture or animation visible, but rather economically visible in such a way that prices will shoot so high that will make the player even consider on moving elsewhere :D. Also lets make small factions such as the Falswarm, Silver-blade as actually factions(maybe in future :P).

5) Dragonpowers. Am I the only one that thinks this is a bad idea to implement such a powerful thing in a realism mod? For Christ sake you will be able to incinerate people left and right with it.Couple solutions are: 1) drastically increase the cool-down period for them that makes them usable in hard situations. 2) Make them that the cool-down period only decrease if you drink liquor or take drugs(HURRRRAAAYY we found a way to put those useless wine bottles to work ^^) which in the other end will hurt your wallet and get you addicted to it<another feature: addiction ;)> but than it could save your life :D. 3) Remove them >:O, cause these days everyone hates the police jkjk.

6) Economy. Now this is the fun part. Ok so lets say we have the Empire that controls one city, one fort, and two settlements. One settlement is attacked but not captured by the enemy. The empire needs to send supplies with a caravan which will cost the Empire money to hire troops and stash products. The Jarl than will carefully decide if all that is worth doing to save the village and gain wealth after that due wood, mining, farming and taxing or to save the resources and abbandon the settlement which will make the settlement independent. Of course Factions will be able to conquer settlements as they please. Also we do not want factions to become OP so I will let the scripter balance it out. Also the items on sale and such will be up to the scripter once again.

7) Caravans. Caravans were ESSENTIAL during the middle ages so for realism sake this should be reflected in the game as well. Nothing too fancy just make caravans that go from one settlement to another with armed personnel. The caravan will contain random items during game play but specific items in economic play(if that makes sense :/....otherwise just ask and I will go more depth with it) and as long as one man reaches the destination: the supplies will be successfully delivered.

8 ) Magic. Somehow if in this one-hit deal situation they need to be nerfed down(only solution available to me is increased cast time).

9) Vampires and Warewolves. I see no harm in having them in the game as well and I don't see that many major changes need to be made. These are the small tweaks I would add:

- The Good: Vampires no longer need food or water to survive, but need to suck blood instead(at least twice per day). The Bad: You get caught sneaking around town or worse sucking blood...you are in deep s*** my friend.[Vampire]

- The Good: All the same benefits from the native game. The bad: You get caught outside from 8 AM to 7 PM and you simply turn into dust.[Vampire]

- The Good: Animals do not attack you while in beast form and you do not suffer from hunger or thirst while in beast form. The bad: You turn into beast form at 12 AM until 6 AM and are shunned by the human population.[Warewolf]

- The Good: Same benefits as the native game. The Bad: Once you are out of the beast form you will be tired and forced to sleep where you last stood before turning back to normal.[Warewolf]

- Make them both weak to silver weapons!!!

10) Leveling system and Perks. To be honest I simply cannot wrap my head around this issue and I cannot yet come up with a decision on how to make it realism effective. All of the suggestions proposed are great, but somehow manage to have one flaw to each of them which makes them "doll-like" or simply erase the levelling up sense of the game. Perhaps with a bit of rest I will manage something.

 

Well thats it for today!! I will make more suggestions in the future and I will always add at least 10 of them when I decide to post them. Have a good day and looking forward on your mod!!! ;). Also apologies for the misspelling if found any...typing this at 3:15 AM eheh

[PapaStalin]

...Still, I don't think it's a black-and-white issue. I think there's a lot of value in the argument that Skyrim shouldn't revolve around the player's character, and that it makes little sense for initially-rare enemies to become more common just because your character needs something stronger to fight against. Like I said, for now I think the former system is easier to work with, and should perhaps be the short-term goal. Further out though, I'd definitely be interested in seeing a no-levels system, and testing whether it's possible to balance things so that it a) is neither too hard for beginners nor too easy for late-game play, and b) still allows the player to feel as though his character is becoming more powerful over time.

 

good points. although, in a land ravaged by civil war, we could imagine warriors slowly becoming more skilled in defensive and offensive abilities, maybe their smiths, through months of practice would learn to craft improved iron and steel weapons, and so on.

 

so in that respect we could imagine a slow progress of npcs, ofc not anything like it is now. also, im much more inclined to a progress in skill, than one in gear. For me, iron and steel should be the norm in skyrim, everything else very rare.

[Deleted2558536User]

I agree with most of your statements there mightnight, but not about the Dragonshouts. Just because they are powerful does not mean they cannot be realistic, who determines what is a realistic dragonshout when nothing like it exists in our universe. It is too subjective, which is why personally I would leave it. It is part of the lore.

[Mansh00ter]

On the issue of spotty NPC difficulty, I have also noticed the game seems to make some NPC's weak and some very tough without any obvious indicators as to which is which. I'll have to look into that more closely, but what I would like to ultimately have is some sort of consistency, so that you can evaluate most of your opponents as soon as you see them.

 

I do not believe that any NPC, at any time in the game, should be totally harmless, unless it's someone trying to fistfight you while you're kitted out in full plate armor. I also do not want to have situations where you have a group of four identical-looking NPC's, three of which go down in one hit and a fourth one which slaughters you.

 

Also, with increased lethality of weapons, it will no longer be super important to get the *best* weapons. Even an iron battleaxe can be deadly in the right hands. What I am hoping instead is to differentiate weapons along more realistic lines. So, for example, Elven weapons may be lighter and better balanced than simple iron ones, leading to slightly faster swing speed, but their lighter frame results in less actual force (damage). Steel weapons are stronger than iron weapons, so they should require less field maintenance, orcish weapons may be heavier and slower than most, but offer a greater force of impact, and so on, ultimately creating more weapon "families" than the vanilla game has and evening them out.

 

This should leave the player free to use whatever weapon they like (for example some might prefer the look of iron weapons) without putting themselves at a disadvantage, plus it shouldn't box in the player with a certain playstyle, so if you like two handed hammers but don't like staggering around like a clown while swinging them, get an elven or glass one...

[Nocli3run]

Emh.. guys ? I want this mod NOW :O , When you finish this mod the game will be what i wanted for so loong! Skyrim is easy without something like this :/

[csebal]

Overall great ideas, but here are a few additional pointers: (please note, that some of what i wrote below might seem like i'm complaining about some changes you have not even made yet. Thats not the case however, i'm merely trying to point out possible flaws in your line of thinking)

 

1) Realism does not always equal fun. Keep that in mind. There is a reason why games are unrealistic at times, and thats called: balance, playability and to keep the game fun. Not to say that the game can't be made more realistic.. walking through the blizzard in my briefs also got me thinking about why I'm not freezing to death, but other than that, quite a few of the things that most people would want to change when they talk about realism has a pretty good reason to stay the way it is. So

2) If you really want to make extensive overhauls to the various parts of the game, make sure that there is ample room for configuring them to suit the individual playstyle of the player. Everyone has a different tolerance for realism and I'm fairly sure, that if you invest time and effort to make such a thing, you would want your work to be as flexible as possible, to allow for the widest possible audience.

3) Before you plan on making broad changes to the game, make sure to actually play through the game with all the major character styles, that is: stealth based meelee and ranged, traditional meelee and ranged, spellcaster. I say this, because some of the changes you mentioned would simply not work with the way combat generally works in the game right now.. not quite sure you actually played a proper, not stealth based meelee character for example, or if you have thought about how a deadly archery mod would affect such a play style.

4) lightning vs fire vs plate vs leather: First off.. a lighting striking someone in a full plate armor would do no damage to said person. Reason: faraday cage, look it up on wikipedia. In fact, workers that make repairs on high voltage power lines are wearing grounded suits made from fabric that has metal strands woven into it, so that electricity flows around them, through the suit, and not through their body. It is esentially a faraday cage that you can wear. Fire on the other hand.. well, metal heats up from fire.. worse yet.. metal stays hot even if you stop heating it, so same guy in a full plate armor would be baked alive from the flames spell. Also the lightning spells are more like electric arcs, and arcs are dangerous not only due to the electricity they transfer, but also due to the immense heat.. so in a sense they burn the victim. The part of the metal suit that was hit by the spell would also probably be quite hot which might cause burn related injuries, but not nearly as severe as those coming from the fire based spells.

 

So to recap:

- Playability, Balance, Realism.. this is the order in which you should focus on things when making changes

- Ensure that most if not all of the changes are optional and are as customizable as possible without sacrificing overall mod balance.

[Levgre]

Plate armor doesn't function the same way as a faraday cage... that's pretty ridiculous... not that you couldn't custom faraday plate, but normal plate wouldn't be sufficient. A sustained lightning blast would also heat up plate armor quite quickly. It wouldn't just be minor burns, he could be cooked alive. Edited November 22, 2011 by Levgre

[PapaStalin]

dont want to sound rude or anything, but im pretty sure that when were talking balance and realism issues, it is all with a notion that we are after all playing a game. For me at least, modeling this detailed split in elemental damage versus different surfaces / areas hit would not be a top priority certainly. (not saying it should be ignored)

 

reading the ideas and suggestions people had, i was more under the impression that we generally strived primarily for a gameplay and balance that just made sense. And onece we could do that, its possible to build on top of that foundation.

 

for example stealth aspect too dumbed down, some enemies too strong, some too weak, dragons too weak, and so on.

 

Anyway, i am really excited about the ideas Mansh00ter expressed. cant wait to see this game in a year or two with all the awesome mods :)