Total Realism Overhaul

[Mansh00ter]

Hey Manshooter,

 

You mentioned people would be saving a lot more while using TRO. This is a big flaw IMO. Quicksaving is one of the most immersion-ruining elements of this game, and I think it helps defeat TROs purpose. For example:

 

"Hmm, that group of bandits up ahead looks really deadly. I'm not sure if I can take them.... oh well *F5* lets do it! leeeeeroooyy jeeennkiinnss!"

 

Realism would be assessing the situation beforehand, making a calculated decision of whether or not you want to fight this battle. But with quicksaving, you dont have to think at all, you can charge into any battle just to figure out if its managable or not.

 

Also, you can brute force your way through fighting impossible odds by just quicksaving mid battle whenever you score a lucky hit or whatever, and eventually, after dozens of deaths, prevail over your opponent.

 

These are both things that seem to defeat the point of TRO. I'd suggest, and I think a few other people have suggested it in this thread or on the forums, getting rid of manual saving altogether. You save when you sleep, and maybe when you enter/exit a building. Not only does this eliminate both of the problems I mentioned above, but it adds something new that is very important for this mod - a healthy fear of death. Dying = loss of progress, so no one is going to be messing around pretending to be an unstoppable hero. Every enemy will make them just a little bit afraid, which would be awesome.

 

 

Well, first, saving is probably hardcoded and there is no way to disable it. Second, that might be more realistic, but I feel it might go a bit too much over the line between realism and fun gameplay. Skyrim is just too big of a game. Games with checkpoints make sure you never lose an hour or more of your time if you die, which could easily happen if saving was disabled in Skyrim and the only way to save would be to sleep (which you won't be able to do always because of the Basic Needs) or rely on autosaves.

Also, accidents happen. The game might crash due to some bug, for example, and you end up losing an hour of gameplay through no fault of your own.

 

So if you want to go super-hardcore, you can, but I will be leaving the savegame system intact. I do not think it defeats the purpose of TRO, which is to add a healthy dose of realism to the gameplay and make it immersive, fun and challenging to play. And if someone ends up abusing the system, as I said a few posts above, they can, but that's their problem. I am making this mod for people who want to enjoy the game and immerse themselves in the game world as much as possible. They won't brute-force difficult fights by abusing the saves.

Edited November 25, 2011 by Mansh00ter

[BarryTGash]

I'm all for in-game punishment for failure. However, forcing someone to replay the last hour/day is not an in-game mechanic, it's a file system mechanic in my view. Saving is not a valid reward, nor is having to replay a valid punishment. Perhaps having to escape the nightmare of the last Daedric god you affiliated yourself with (or a random one if you've not sided with any) to return to life is an approach worth considering. Edited November 25, 2011 by Kobayne

[jeffrobot]

I agree that ultimately it comes down to the players self-control, so technically it's a non-issue. But I will say this - I am the most "hardcore" of all my friends playing this game, and I still sometimes give in to the "I dont know if I can do thiiiss........*F5* woooooo". You make a good point about crashes, too.

 

Do you have any ideas about making players fear death a little more than they do in the game currently?

[TheBlackGhost]

You should include a menu that lets you toggle some of these features between the mod and the normal game, so the playstyle can be exactly what you want.

[CampanaAliquanta]

You should include a menu that lets you toggle some of these features between the mod and the normal game, so the playstyle can be exactly what you want.

 

Does anyone actually read the OP? :P

 

The mod will at first come in the form of modules so that the players can mix and match the features they like, and pending availability of scripting support there will be later an ingame options menu where players will be able to set all the parameters to their liking.

[jeffrobot]

I'm all for in-game punishment for failure. However, forcing someone to replay the last hour/day is not an in-game mechanic, it's a file system mechanic in my view. Saving is not a valid reward, nor is having to replay a valid punishment. Perhaps having to escape the nightmare of the last Daedric god you affiliated yourself with (or a random one if you've not sided with any) to return to life is an approach worth considering.

 

That's a cool idea. So you're kind of talking about applying some sort of debuff to the character after death, that they have to work to remove? I like that, though the implementation could get pretty messy, depending on their save/load code. Since you'd have to go back and edit their saved file to include the fact that they had died and had this new debuff. The only reason I say it might be hard is because I heard a dude who was on QA for Skyrim say they had a lot of save/load bugs earlier. Might be messy code. Or it might not be an issue at all.

 

Id like to hear Manshooters thoughts on the idea.

[BarryTGash]

I'm all for in-game punishment for failure. However, forcing someone to replay the last hour/day is not an in-game mechanic, it's a file system mechanic in my view. Saving is not a valid reward, nor is having to replay a valid punishment. Perhaps having to escape the nightmare of the last Daedric god you affiliated yourself with (or a random one if you've not sided with any) to return to life is an approach worth considering.

 

That's a cool idea. So you're kind of talking about applying some sort of debuff to the character after death, that they have to work to remove? I like that, though the implementation could get pretty messy, depending on their save/load code. Since you'd have to go back and edit their saved file to include the fact that they had died and had this new debuff. The only reason I say it might be hard is because I heard a dude who was on QA for Skyrim say they had a lot of save/load bugs earlier. Might be messy code. Or it might not be an issue at all.

 

Id like to hear Manshooters thoughts on the idea.

 

I was thinking that rather than dying, the player is teleported to an oblivion type landscape where they would need to escape from. The landscape would depend on the Daedric god (eg Hircine's hunt if the PC is a werewolf, an asylum or similar for Molag Bal etc). This could of course become tedious and repetitive - especially if you die as much as me.

 

An expansion on the idea could be that you need to perform a quest for the deity that has you. Whether this is in their domain or the 'real' world is open for discussion. Until this quest is complete you could suffer reduced stats or some poison or disease effect - possibly be hunted as an undead as you won't be fully restored to life until the quest is complete. I'm supposing that the Radient quest system could come into play here to keep things dynamic.

 

I think this would sidestep the death and reload scenario, without being a cheat/easy alternative. It's certainly a concept I would love to explore. I fully intend to get to grips with the CK as soon as it's released. In the meantime I would need to seriously read up on Daedric lore ;)

Edited November 25, 2011 by Kobayne

[Mansh00ter]

One problem would be that you die a lot in Skyrim, and with the increased difficulty TRO will bring, this is likely to increase. This in turn could lead to a lot of repetition. Perhaps the Radiant quest system could be used to dynamically change quest locations, but the fact that you would be doing a lot of "redeem" quests remains. This might quickly incur the dreaded "oh damn, not *again*..." and just prompt you to press that reload key.

 

Second, bigger problem is, as was mentioned, that there is no way to retroactively tell the game that the player has died when a saved game is loaded. Which means that, if you wanted to pull the whole thing off, you would have to actually prevent the player from dying, apply debuffs and/or quests and then teleport the player to an alternate realm or location. Which will quickly become a chore.

 

I understand the need to maintain continuity and that loading saved games after your character dies breaks that, but it seems as a lot of work for something which doesn't require that much suspension of disbelief on the player's part. To be honest, the only RPG I played which had a nice ingame explanation of the save/reload was Planescape:Torment, but in that game your character was actually immortal, so that worked.

[BarryTGash]

Perfectly valid points, Mansh00ter. Thanks for your insight. I see now that a) this requires a lot more thought and b) more than likely would fall outside the remit of TRO and is therefore something I should explore independantly. I do continue to think that redefining player death and how it's handled could be a new avenue for an increased immersion factor.

 

Still, I am looking forward to TRO so I hope to pop in from time to time.

[HiddenRanger]

 

longbows - shouldn't take longer to draw, just more strength (or as individual stats are lacking, a higher level in archery for full benefit)

 

 

I agree I would be kind of irked if my master of archery character took awhile to draw the long bow. He is a master of archery so he should not have any issues.