Total Realism Overhaul

[Mansh00ter]

Heh man, most of your list is on mine as well. :) Except I play on Expert, for two reasons:

 

-want to get a decent feel for the overall game difficulty

-getting my ass handed to me on Master all the time

[Levgre]

Make the game increase in difficulty as you level in ways besides just giving massive health/attack boosts, or spawning the strongest monsters.

 

Ways to do this...

 

Decrease health stat progression on PC and NPCs alike. You'd also have to make all weapon and equipment improvements less strong. being able to craft/enchant, or use feats, to make steel armor 10x more effective isn't realistic.

 

Have increased number of mobs spawn

 

Have hard battles become more frequent, although still infrequent. Elite marauder/bandit bands with special items and a balanced group (melee, range, and magic). Or just a really big band of like 10+, including lots of archers (again, rare occurrence)

 

Also have a fatigue condition occur once a player has ran too far a distance, where their run speed decreases. I don't think a damage reduction is needed, although if you have a dodge ability put in, that could get worse. As is you can just kite a group of enemies for 10 minutes. This would also make the stamina stat more useful, you could run longer before you are fatigued.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Levgre

[Bearget]

Two apologies in advance: I've only just discovered the topic and I have several ideas, so this may turn out somewhat wall-of-texty. Also I was going to multi-quote, to give credit for all of the amazing ideas I've seen and modified over the course of reading this thread, but I seem to have lost the quotes. Bear with me?

 

First off, I've seen a couple of people discuss the stealth/enemy awareness balancing, and thought it might be worth pointing you towards this thread from the Requests forum:

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/467158-take-the-stupid-out-of-the-ai/

 

My personal feeling is that the adjustments to sneak should be threefold:

• Make it way easier to be seen. No more of this "sneaking 3 feet in front of a guy with 40 points in the skill" bs.
  
• Change the default gamma settings or adjust light/darkness in some other way so that, while the above is true all the time while outdoors, while indoors you can sneak quite well if you are outside the circle of torchlight/candlelight. (Also ties into the idea that for exploration purposes you'll want a torch or light spell)
  
• Make enemies' alert state last much longer.
  

 

I think between these three tweaks there should be a fairly good balance of challenge/reward for stealth archery and stealth melee characters alike - the former will have to be much more careful with their aim, as a stray arrow will alert their target and keep him alert. The latter, meanwhile, will still have the ability to get close without too much frustration, as long as they are clever and stick to the shadows. In regards to an earlier complaint that stealth melee is difficult when enemies are in groups or have their backs to the wall... well tough. Sometimes you have to switch up your tactics; it's more realistic that way.

 

You may have noticed that I said nothing about sneak attacks in the above: I think we should get rid of them. I also think we should get rid of levels. Why? Well, realism obviously - there's no reason your character should be magically able to absorb more hits as you get more experienced. Perhaps you'd become better able to roll with the punches, but then implement that as an adjustment to the dodge/parry/block features. Besides, if you want combat to feel truly lethal at all levels, you're going to end up scaling things so that the enemy-damage-to-player-HP ratio stays roughly the same throughout the game. I say just eliminate it.

 

I realize that's going to tie into a bunch of other things, but I really think it could work. Too little magicka without level-ups? Make your magicka pool partially dependent on skill levels (and yes, I definitely think those should be kept). How to make enemies get more threatening over time if you don't have level to keep track of? Okay, maybe keep it as a hidden stat. I suppose what I'm really saying is: Magicka, HP, and Stamina should never increase beyond their initial values without magical enhancement (for the first two) or high-quality food/rest (for the third).

 

The difficulty curve question is definitely one that merits some more examination: if even a lowly bandit can kill me with a well-timed swipe of his greatsword, what makes a dragon more intimidating? Two factors: difficulty of returning the favor (bandit = low armor, easy to kill him too; dragon = many more hits because of its scales), and difficulty of evading attacks (bandit = slow, unskilled, easily dodged or blocked with shield; dragon = speedy, easily staggers you, some attacks unblockable without special protection). We do have to be very careful about taking this overboard though. If all of a dragon's attacks can OHKO, then the run-and-gun or magic types will have a huge advantage over the melee guys who actually have to get near the thing. Maybe introduce rings/amulets which work as wards, so while no-one can normally survive a blast of fire breath, with the right equipment they would be able to wade through it? And maybe blocking can stop a dragon's bite, but chance of doing so is based on the skill level?

 

Also: disable inventory during combat. I can think of no reason you would need to use it if you've properly prepared ahead of time (read: favorited the right weapons/spells/powers). And for realism's sake, this seems like a must to me: armor is not something which can be donned in the middle of a fight, nor would one want to attempt drinking a potion (or... reading a book?). This could be further tweaked by modifying the size of the favorites menu and the number of hotkeys (and even what types of things - weapons, spells, etc - can be assigned to each hotkey) to approximate the number of attack modes a person could realistically have available at one time. Maybe one two-hander on the back, two one-handers, a shield, a bow, and a dagger, at the absolute maximum, and again you have to decide on which of these you want before engaging with an enemy. Further discussion to come on what constitutes engagement.

 

Next: lethality of combat. I really, really, really hope that there will be a way to track what part of the body is hit by an attack. That would make things so easy. Arrow to the face = death, torso is two or three, elsewhere it would disable. And I do think the last bit's viable: at the very least, we could use the existing disarm feature for any hits to an opponent's arm, and the fall-to-the-ground animation from yielding for leg hits. (Side note on yielding: make it better. As in, sometimes people actually mean it. And my follower doesn't always auto-kill.) This would add a further level of detail to the difficulty-scaling, as more difficult enemies could be more skilled at tactically targeting specific parts of the player's body - just imagine how simultaneously amazing and horrifying it would be for a Dremora Lord to hit you in the thigh, dropping you to the ground, then bring his weapon down on your head. In fact, if this feature is available, I say get rid of HP entirely!. Death or non-death could be determined solely based on the type and quality of the weapon, the location of the hit, and the quality of the armor. Potions could be buffed a bit (actually healing wounds), balanced by the fact that you can't access them while in a fight.

 

Lastly, a note on armor and weapon maintenance. Again I've lost the quote, but an earlier poster discussed the effects of hitting a pot with a sledgehammer. In particular, he mentioned the cracking that would occur after several hits. I say: make repairs expensive (and obviously, more expensive the more damaged the item). If you have a favorite suit of armor, you should be putting some real effort and funds into keeping that thing in good shape. And if you just want to keep yourself protected for cheap, then maybe you're actually better off scrapping the broken suit and getting a new one. As far as scrapping goes, there are already some mods which allow you to melt down weapons, armor, and even spare bits of metal like forks and such, which I think is fantastic.

 

I know that's not all the thoughts I had while reading through, but without my selection of quotes I've managed to forget the rest. I'm sure those of you still reading are breathing a sigh of relief. To the OP: I'm hesitant to PM you as I'm sure you've got plenty of people doing it already and I don't want to be a bother, but I'm very interested in the mod and would love to contribute in any way possible. If there's anything I can do - even if you just liked some of my ideas and wanted to discuss, feel free to PM me.

[Hoptic]

I'm sorry to bring that up again, but it seems like nobody noticed it, so I try again. ;)

 

I really think the potion system and alchemy have to be revamped because they are immersion breaker. Carrying around 100 potions, some of them giving boost to, say, pickpocketing... And we're talking about instant boost with a very tiny duration. In my opinion, the effects of potions should last at least an hour and not be instantaneous.

 

As it is now, the system is such that Alchemy is useless. You find so many potions that even my character, 100% mage, has no trouble with mana and health just by drinking 10 potions at a time when in a difficult spot.

 

To sum up, 3 problems should be assessed:

- potions encumbrance (so that you can have, say, 5 at a maximum, or maybe less)

- potions effects (duration, nature of the effect... Removal of immersion-breaking potions)

- "combat state" during which you are unable to drink potions, but also do smithing/tanning, eat food, undress and put on another type of armor, etc.

 

On top of that, why not revising the ingredient system. Finding out effects just by "tasting" is a bit silly. Why not, add books describing some ingredients and their effects and you actually have to read them and study to get the thing. I'd enjoy doing that.

 

I understand this is big and you've already got a lot to do for your mod. So if you don't want to directly incorporate that, I'll look for other modders who'd like to revamp the Potions/Alchemy system and make a different mod that would be 100% compatible with yours.

I'd gladly be part of such team (and/or of your team), except I don't have any modding skill (though one can learn).

 

 

About a different matter: it'd be great to have a "note" system. Being able to write in your own journal or on paper/parchment would be really useful.

 

EDIT: I like Bearget's idea of eleminating the levelling system. This is truly an immersion breaker.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Hoptic

[Deleted2558536User]

While all these features will be awesome, I will say that at the start of the game the player should be able to choose the level of realism they want. As well as disabling/enabling certain options. I believe this should occur at the beginning and then should not be changeable from then on. This will ensure that the "boundaries" are kept and temptation will be reduced. Players will need to start again in order to change the settings.

[banuriel]

Im not sure if someone mentioned this or not, but in Dragon Age, as a Rouge character I could set traps for enemies. This would be good for a ranged character as they could set up bear traps that would slow down enemies as you walk backwards shooting them.

[Mansh00ter]

When it comes to potions, there will be a few changes:

 

1. Weight revamp in line with my weigh+volume inventory overhaul, so yeah, you won't be able to carry a whole apothecary in your pockets.

2. Healing, Magicka and Stamina potions will no longer be instant, instead they will take time to take full effect.

3. Pending testing, potions may be more difficult to make, require more ingredients but also be much stronger. Something special you take perhaps even before a difficult fight, so that, for example, your flesh regenerates or you have much better stamina? We'll see.

 

I don't plan on overhauling alchemy from the grounds up, at least not initially. Once I have most of the other features in, I'd love to revisit crafting in general, since it could use some modding love too.

 

As for leveling, what I have in mind is eliminating health, magicka and stamina gain altogether. Instead, I would like to place a much greater significance on actual character skills and equipment. What will save your hide in a tough swordfight should not be a fat HP buffer, but good armor and defensive skills. What makes a great mage should not be how much magicka they have, but what they can do with what they have. So skill levels should determine how much stamina your power attacks spend, or how much magicka your spells use (this is already in, but not accented enough) and that should make the difference, not the stamina, magicka or health pools you build over time.

 

I don't think it is possible to eliminate leveling up altogether, I think that's hardcoded. Besides, perks are useful and fun and actually represent your character's growing prowess nicely.

 

This will also mean that, minus your better gear and skills, a lowly bandit can kill you at endgame just as easily as at the beginning, because you won't have ten times as much health as you had when you started out. This should hopefully keep the challenge up throughout the game, at least in a more realistic manner, without the need for HP and gear NPC scaling.

 

It should also keep those damn wolf packs interesting. Especially if there are more of them. ;)

[Mansh00ter]

While all these features will be awesome, I will say that at the start of the game the player should be able to choose the level of realism they want. As well as disabling/enabling certain options. I believe this should occur at the beginning and then should not be changeable from then on. This will ensure that the "boundaries" are kept and temptation will be reduced. Players will need to start again in order to change the settings.

 

Initially the mod will have modules which you will be able to activate or not depending how you like them. Later on I plan on having an ingame configuration menu, whether only available at start or not, we'll see. I'm leaning towards the "available at start" idea, but because the mod should drastically alter some things this may mean people will discover they are not liking something later on, when they have already invested in their character, and I'd hate to force them to restart the game just to change options to their liking.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Mansh00ter

[Bearget]

As for leveling, what I have in mind is eliminating health, magicka and stamina gain altogether. Instead, I would like to place a much greater significance on actual character skills and equipment. What will save your hide in a tough swordfight should not be a fat HP buffer, but good armor and defensive skills. What makes a great mage should not be how much magicka they have, but what they can do with what they have. So skill levels should determine how much stamina your power attacks spend, or how much magicka your spells use (this is already in, but not accented enough) and that should make the difference, not the stamina, magicka or health pools you build over time.

 

I don't think it is possible to eliminate leveling up altogether, I think that's hardcoded. Besides, perks are useful and fun and actually represent your character's growing prowess nicely.

 

Yes, I think I may have overreached in saying we should eliminate levels; really what I meant was precisely what you say in the first paragraph. I certainly agree that perks should be kept in. Though to be honest I somewhat prefer Oblivion's system where "perks" occur naturally when you hit a certain skill level.

[Evilllamas]

Sounds really good!

Although I'm hoping I'll be able to pick and chose what aspects are in my game- I like the combat stuff, and weather stuff etc... other bits I don't have time/ patience for.