Total Realism Overhaul

[Oerath]

Alternatively, maybe being unable to sell the stolen loot in the city you stole it in, but being able to sell it in any other place or city, - could work.

 

- Make health regeneration a perk in Restoration perk tree.

 

- make compass an item you can buy (that then shows in the hud) but otherwise disable enemy radar and undiscovered locations radar. Its nice to know which side of the world is which while traveling.

 

- Also very important, make overdosing on potions a possibility so a player can get some bad effects from gulping too many at once. that would also limit the number of potions that can be taken... maybe something like Witchers toxicity gage, warning the player...

 

 

I would also like some sounds for each race so that my Khajjit growls and screams like a big mountain lion cat while in combat, and also has some idle audio sounds.

- Same for Argonians (hissing and such) and humans (humming, coughing, yawning etc sounds) - but discrete, nothing too loud or noticeable.

 

 

Oh yeah... Wolves. Can we please turn them non hostile? The way they behave now is so annoying and stupid.

Plus they are always too easy and just get in the way.

Make them run away from the player and only have big packs of them attacking high in the mountains and/or at night. It shouldn't be a problem making them smart enough to divide into two smaller groups that would attack from two sides either.

 

 

Love all of these ideas. Especially the compass and fencing ideas.

[Oerath]

The mod seems to be taking off with more followers. I do like VrayAar's idea of being able to buy a compass, I would take it further and also have the ability to add maps for locations. Or if you know the location due to reading a book or something, then it should be viewable via the compass, however if you have no clue if it exists or not then it will not show. Prior knowledge is needed.

 

This is an excellent idea.

[Deleted2558536User]

Following ideas I would add; (Not my own)

-Compass that has to be bought and can then exist as it does in game.

-Map, same as the compass, however only known locations will be marked (as game standard) however the compass will only show marked locations not all.

-Increase day length to roughly 6 hours real time. So 1/4 speed.

-Teleportation spell to replace fast travel. However it should be an Apprentice/Adept Illusion Spell, this should mean exploration should be fundamental for low level characters.

-Dragons should be more powerful and higher health, Mammoths and Giants shouldn't be more difficult than dragons, though they should still be difficult too.

-Scaling of merchant items needs to be changed, no matter my level, a shop owner should not have an entire selection of Dwarven weapons and armour. Elven should be considered rare for shopkeepers, anything above near impossible.

-Smithing needs to be harder, perhaps change it so that different items have different XP values. This should remove the Iron Dagger trick etc. Also more items should be needed to create armours and weapons.

 

That's all so far. I am sure some are repeats. :P

 

I am really looking forward to this, and will happily donate in future. :D

[Oerath]

-Teleportation spell to replace fast travel. However it should be an Apprentice/Adept Illusion Spell, this should mean exploration should be fundamental for low level characters.

 

I would make it Conjuration just because Illusion is only supposed to be mental and visual effects, and I would make it at Adept or Expert level because teleporting is not a simple feat.

 

-Scaling of merchant items needs to be changed, no matter my level, a shop owner should not have an entire selection of Dwarven weapons and armour. Elven should be considered rare for shopkeepers, anything above near impossible.

 

This has been said before, but is a definite Immersion breaker. Bethesda has improved the level scaling in some respects, but some things just shouldn't be scaled at all, they should be at fixed levels regardless of the player. Or scaling based on how far in certain quest lines you are, but not on level.

[Choppman]

This seems like a very ambitious task but also would make this game far more amazing than it actually is, I'm hoping you would allow for choices as to what features a person wants, I am most excited for a realistic eating/sleeping/drinking aspect to the game but a lot of your ideas are very well realized.

[MaXat1337]

 

my input to the OP

 

One idea I got while playing my imperial after I completed the imperial legion quest line and didn't have anything to do was making more options for "trading-items". Say you're a woodsman making a living on pelts. So to make nice high tier pelts you need good skills in handling pelts and animal materials (new skill tree? and maybe some oil and so on for the best and most expensive ones).

 

For example if I have two wolf pelts and bring them to the leather table (can't remember the name (a) ) I can either make two leather, the normal vanilla versions wich is used for armor and weapons, or one processed piece of fur. Obviously it would be stupid if it would actually have the name processed fur/piece of fur, but I hope you get the idea.

 

And one more thing that would be nice, though I know it doesn't have anything to do with this mod, is houses for farmers, woodsmen, miners etc that players are able to buy and which can help them get a good regular income. I want to RP some ordinary days to! :)

 

anyhow

 

awesome mod, I'm really looking forward to playing it when it's out! :D

 

I want to repost this just to see if it's a valuable idea or not :) I think we need more everyday activities (EDIT: talking about the mod ofc).

Edited November 21, 2011 by MaXat1337

[roleplaya69]

holy s*** this mod looks amazing if you complete this ill love you forever...

[ogridum]

If you have not read yet...

Im posting it here, because I realize realism and balancing mods derive their legitimacy from people, so we have to discuss it together, find reasonable, fair, justifiable, common denominators. Make it immersive, and feasible. Putting some breaks on people's is necessary. People like to be "exploity" within a balanced "out layer" of rules, so they feel they have done their best, most efficient thing. The default game does not care about this "balance", so that the "exploity" behavior ends up ruining people's experience. "Then just dont do it" common repply does not apply, because removing the "exploity" behavior is eliminating the intelectual effort and conscious reward of progressing. So we need someone to MOD THE RULES AND BALANCE STUFF and within these, we go and try to get the best possible, but this time, without feeling guilty or ruining the experience.

 

So here is the integral quote from another thread that is very pertinent here.

 

 

 

The pleasure is on the journey. Not to reach the destination. I dont see Skyrim as a competitive game, where efficiency and power is above all. When I play an MMORPG Im the last person in the world to waste any time doing anything besides doing the most efficient thing to level up or make the most amount of money/valuables per time and micromanaging multiple accounts on virtual boxes, using all macros/exploits/cheats I can find/design. When I play MMORPGs Im there to cause effect on players themselfs. When I play single player RPGs, playing like that gives me no pleasure, no satisfaction. Before playing Skyrim I came straight from Dwarf Fortress. The only similarity between both playstyles is that they are extreme and I invest all the time and effort I can to do the things I need to do.

 

 

So here is the list of my self imposed rules for Skyrim.

All of those implemented at the same time with a new character with barelly any knowledge of the game (first character was level 50 in like 7 hours and I was like... "oh s*** I think Im about to ruin the best game of all time" because I originally thought it was part of the challenge/design decision of the developers. When I realized I wasnt achieving anything by doing that due to how stupidly easy everything was balanced/thought out, so I took a step back, rethought everything I was doing and figured out I had to make a previous "contract" with myself to legimitize and justify everything in a way that makes my conscious not harm my immersion/experience. Most of the times I tried to do this in other games, I would reach many invisible barriers due to the lack of tools/features. For that, Skyrim is the closest game to perfection in that sense... AAA title at least. This game was clearly not designed with the intention for the players to "beat" the game, because it doesnt take its challenges seriously with all the lack of balancing, the excess of freedom, and how game mechanics of acquiring things, crafting, trading, ai, leveling and level scaling works.

 

Finally my list:

-Must play on master difficulty all the time

-Must use real time scale set to 1 all the time

-The post processor injector settings were tweaked so gamma was increased to realistic levels of darkness. Its part of my immersion to not have everything visible. If I want to see something, I take out a torch or use a spell. Therefore I set gamma to 1.50 (default for most people is 1).

-No changing of armor gear during combat, except taking out shield.

-No drinking potions while the game is paused. Must fall back from combat for at least 6 seconds to drink a potion or be far from enemies and in cover to drink more than more potions.

-Must role play physiologic needs regularly:

-Must eat food every day.

-Has to use "sleep" every day like in real life, or sleep for longer in situations where you deprive yourself from sleep. After sleep is the only moment the player can save the game.

-Must take shower every few days and REMOVE cloths to shower and wait/jump a bit before putting clothes back on.

-I remove my helm (has it on favorites) when talking to people in towns.

-I remove all my gear, except my dagger when sleeping.

-I crouch to do physiologic necessities when nobody is looking.

During low temperature scenarios, such as night snow, heavy snowing, snowing or rain in high altitude and blizzards, player must roleplay adequate behavior: seek refuge, remain close to a fire source, use fur armor, frost/fire cloak /stoneflesh magic, frost resist on armor or drink a frost resist potion. If none is available, role play hypothermy.

-No Fast Travel.

-No fast travel through carriage.

-No using "wait" to skip time passing.

-No quick save and quick loading

-Character dies, must use the save made after last sleep. "Everything was a bad dream".

-Player can only hike slopes that have 130 degree of inclination or more. No wall running of anything with less than 130 degree of inclination.

 

-No unreasonable, not natural, unjustified methods to improve skills. This is very very important to me and even with all the rationalization and reasonable justification for "training", my current character "personality"/'approach" does not like or is even aware of the idea of "training":

this means no rubberbanding sneak behind a balcony near a vendor. While its ok when hunting or stealing/pickpocketing or trying to assassinate someone. Sneaking everywhere in town without an insidious purpose other than training a skill is not reasonable.

not using azura black star for cheap enchanting leveling, If the player stumbled upon the quest naturally without previous knowledge of the devious exploitative possibilities, its ok. Starting a new character and doing a bee line for it is not ok. If it is acquired a long playthrough where the player has effectivelly paid his deeds by leveling enchanting the hard way up to level 80 or so, its excusable, but not to abuse it by non stop enchanting up to 100 in a sit. This exception is just to not negate completely one of the unique rewards for quests just because the unlucky player got spoiled about it.

Not abusing bribery in Riften to raise speech skill. Speech has to be leveled naturally. Its ok to sell items one by one, its reasonable to imagine the character bartering for each item individually and thus gaining more experience in doing so.

Not intentionally breaking lockpicks over and over on a master lock for the purpose of fast leveling. This has to be leveled naturally, players has to do its best to get the locks opened.

Not hurting yourself on fire/blizzard/fall damage in a method that by itself could represent a threat for the life of the player (anything that deals huge chunks of damage in one attack/event) for the purpose of training restoration or training with an enemy that represents a threat (character is not going to risk its life stupidly during training). If the damage to life is manageable by its nature, then it could be naturally used by a healer to train its abilities. This allows the player to use enemies/methods that obviously dont represent a threat as training subjects, such as conjured enemies without weapons, mudcrabs, slaughterfish, due to their obvious characteristics. Using terrain against their physical limitations is perfectly fine, like dragging enemies to slopes or river streams or way below me.

In combat is not fine to abuse the AI pathfinding, for example: you know the enemy cant reach you in a straight path, but it can do so if it turns back and circle around an obstacle, but after the enemy starts doing so, you promptly move again to an area where the actual pathfinding cant reach you, forcing the AI to find a new pathfinding and then repeating it over and over, making it so you can easily and unreasonably kill an enemy by abusing the AI, such as a frost troll/bear/giant/mammoth getting stuck behind a rock or elevation that it would be realistic in that situation for said enemy to just escalate, jump over, jump down or pass over, but due to the mentioned AI limitation, it does not do so. Its ok to attack a target from a strategical advantageous position, but once the AI has figured that the current path cant reach the player and makes up a new pathfinding, the player can either remain or move to a different spot, but after the player moves again, and the AI addapts the pathfinding, the player cannot go back to a previous position, forcing the AI to backtrack everything again in an endless exploitative cycle when the AI limitations when judged by the player would not hinder the actual enemy from reaching the player. A giant, frost troll, big cats and bears should be able to jump over an obstacle the player can also jump, but since they dont do so, the player cannot use the AI limitation to get a cheap kill. The player can only use/explore strategic points that enemies would not legitimaly be able to reach, even if they could jump/escalate according to their individual physical characteristics.

 

Pickpocketing attempts must be preceded by reasonable undetected aproach to the targets (no just walking behind them after they saw you and then activating sneak, its unreasonable because the npcs should still know you were just there, therefore the player must account for npcs memories and refrain from pickpocketing unless he is certain that according to the situation the npc is not aware of his presence, such as approaching enemies from behind, in dark areas, or while they are sleeping are examples).,

 

Allowing oneself to get hurt moderatelly by an enemy that is no threat for the purpose of training restoration/alteration/block/light armor/heavy armor is allowed. Just like the random event student that asks to train his magic abilities on you. Its reasonable and part of the role play.

Conjuring enemies to use them as sparing to train one handed/two handed/archery/destruction magic is ok, as well as weak enemies the player knows that doesnt represent a threat to its life, such as a mudcrab or a slaughterfish, due to their obvious limitations, its reasonable within the setting to use them for the purpose of evolving ones abilities.

It goes without mention that naturally improving during life threatening situations has no limitations, as long as the character intends to cease the aggression as fast as possible by disabling/killing the threats. Not maiming dangerous enemies. Thats unreasonable. Player must role play realistic threat for its life and role play accordingly.

 

-Player cannot use an alchemy guide for the purpose of finding all the effects of each ingredients without error or waste of materials. Players has to eat alchemy ingredients to find their properties buying the alchemy perk, read recipes they find in-game. Attempting to find ingredients by trial and error only if the player never read an alchemy guide, thus not being spoiled forever.

 

-No console modifications such as adding/removing money/perks/skills/levels/carryweight, etc.. Cosmethic changes such as removing the hud for screenshots are ok. Changing FOV to a lower value for the purpose of zoom cheating with eagle eye is not allowed. Player has to choose one FOV setting and stick to it. Its ok to use the map or the quest markers. Its justified as the equivalent of the character socializing more in depth with the npcs to gather more accurate information on the targets/locations.

 

-I read all books, notes, diaries I come across.

-I evaluate what items to take with from an expedition, if its worth resting or going back before proceeding further into dangerous areas (like when my companion starts saying things like "this doesnt look good")

 

-When I craft, either alchemy, blacksmith and enchanting. I evaluate the how realistic it would be for me to craft that specific item in that specific time frame. So I self imposed myself rules such as minimum time between crafts, as if imagining and aknowledging a realistic time to craft a piece of weapon or a piece of armor. Usually 30 minutes per the most common materials and pieces of weapons, double that for armors and jewelry and even more time for items involving rarer materials. For alchemy, atleast 5 in-game minutes per brewed potion and 15 minutes per each enchantment.

-I roleplay a trader when selling my crafted goods "Buy Alicia Dragonborn daggers of paralyze! The best in all Skyrim!"

-I give food, potions and other items to my companions, take breaks, heal them, cast courage spells every so often.

 

-I also walk when Im towns and there is no sense of urgency that justify me running. If there is a sense of urgency due to quests, current situation or weather conditions, or any justifiable reason, then its ok to run in towns.

 

I think this covers most, if not all the "self imposed rules".

"The way its meant to be played". Its a shame people ruin their own experience inadvertently, by not staying true to the immersion, trying to be fair and reasonable, justifying everything in a coherent way. Preventing themselfs from using cheap routes.

 

 

 

Feel free to use any of the ideas and implement more "tools" and "rules" in-game.

Edited November 21, 2011 by ogridum

[ogridum]

Yeah, I know,

wall of text, crits for 36.9K damage!

 

and yeah, I will be paying attention to the repplies and contributing with ideas.

Edited November 21, 2011 by ogridum

[VreyAar]

I also think it would be cool if the northern ice sea would damage the player slowly.

I also think it would be very cool if you would stand on some small piece of ice and a two meter tall black flipper suddenly passes you by. Or several of them.

:)

 

Also, polar bears that can swim. Because they can. Very well.

:masochist:

 

Just to explain my idea about the compass:

 

Even if you buy it - it still would not show any locations on it. It would be there just to orient yourself.

The locations would be marked on the world map - but not on the compass.

You also would not see enemies on it like its some kind of radar.

 

The mod for that actually already exists so it would be easy to incorporate.

I just thought it would be nice if there was no compass at all if you dont buy it.

So in a way, it would all be up to the player.

 

I think that sense of exploration would work much better if you didnt get the radar informing you on any not yet discovered locations around you.

So you would orient yourself by the big world map and the compass as in real life (well sorta) to find locations marked by quests, and you would have to discover all those small temples, caves and locations by yourself.

 

 

I still think that having a designated merchant in every city would be nice feature. By striking a "deal" with one you would enable him to have more money then others (because of all the loot you are selling to him - that he resells) and could get a "cut" every once in a while.

 

There is also a new mod that removes "stolen" tag from the items so you can sell everything everywhere.

But just for gameplay purposes it would be cool if stolen tags worked for the city you stole items in.

That may be too complicated to make though...

 

As for fur coats and such i really wish it could be enabled that we wear clothes under or over the armor because changing the two constantly will become very boring fast.

I think i already saw some NPCs wearing both...

 

And it would be great to have some camping gear available.

 

As for weapons being made more dangerous.... im already having that experience on Expert difficulty. Ive just been in a den of rival organization during the theif guild quests (im level 32 i think) and even though all mercenaries there had only fur, leather, iron etc armors and normal weapons i would get one-shoted often. The difference was all in their natural abilities rather then their gear.

 

I am playing a rather broadly skilled character though so my health is a bit low compared to some specialists around.

 

Oh and definitely throw out leveled items available for purchase - unless you sold them to a merchant.

Only a few important smiths should have better armor and weapons for sale.

 

 

 

I dont see Dragons mentioned here but,

 

- Dragon Ai needs to be improved a bit. And they should fare much better against animals and guards. Maybe giving them some kind of damage boost against specific types of enemies is possible?

Often they do well, really. Ive just fought a frost dragon that chewed (you know, took them into his maw and tossed around move) couple of guards, did the same to a pair of elven fighters and wasted a lot of animal life around the area.

But its all somehow inconsistent. Sometimes it happens sometimes it doesnt.

 

Generally it would be much more satisfying seeing a dragon do that special move more often when fighting other human enemies, or smaller animals.

Which would make it easier for a dragon to clear incidental mobs (of lower level or importance) and give you all of its attention.

 

Seeing a dragon fighting with some ordinary bandits (or ordinary wildlife) for half an hour isnt that impressive.

 

Solution:

- Make Dragons have more damage against low level or guard - bandit level of enemies.

- Make Dragons get that special finisher move of "picking up the enemy in its mouth then tossing it around" more often against ordinary enemies and wildlife.

- Make animals and ordinary enemies more sensitive to elemental damage?

 

 

 

 

Also one big thing :

 

FIRE

 

I think that fire damage should have additional effects like staggering enemies and making them flee. Especially ordinary animals.

Im tired of seeing enemies burning but otherwise functioning normally.

The discrepancy with reality is just too big.

This, of course would work for the player as much as for the enemies. -edit-

Edited November 22, 2011 by VreyAar