Total Realism Overhaul

[Ixflashpointxi]

Holst, I indeed have played a lot of M&B and I agree that it has some of the best melee combat out there (and the best mounted) - and the changes I will do to Skyrim melee will go along those lines - massive damage from weapons, very effective blocking. I hope to include breakable shields, but that will depend on whether Bethesda left in item durability at all.

 

They left at least part of it, from the tiny bit of looking around I've done in the .esm file. Whether it is enough to re-implement the entire system the way it used to be, I have no idea, but there might well be something usable.

Forgive me. Im no modder... Yet.

 

Anyways, if we only have remnants (or even nothing at all) of the durability system. We can rebuild it and make it better, right? I dont think it could be really all that hard to implement.

 

And also, I really don't think this is a one man job. You need to get some more hands on board for this. I'd love to help, but Im modding noob. So while Im teaching myself how to mod, I could possibly help in other ways if you want.

[harmonic]

Here are my thoughts on the list so far:

1 the lightning spells and armor thing. If Nirn does physics at all like irl does having metal armor on would not make you more vulnerable to lightning. In fact if you strip a guy naked, cover him head to toe in chainmail, and hit him with lightning he would come out relatively unharmed other than perhaps burns from the metal and air overheating.

 

Electricity follows the path of least resistance which in that case is through the metal. It wouldn't even touch his skin even if it was in direct contact with the metal. Electricity spells ingame are an anti-mage weapon and it seems to work better to me in that context. Make electricity spells almost useless if the target is covered completely in metal but devastating against other mages.

 

Cold spells on the other hand could potentially freeze armor joints and make movement even harder even if they don't do extra damage. Fire spells would also make a tin man into a nice little metal oven, while the armor would protect against the initial burst over time the metal would start to burn the skin severely and take a long time to cool. Perhaps a long term burning effect for heavily armored foes that increases in duration and power the longer you apply flame?

 

 

2 For the weapon damage perks I see one potential replacement for two handed weapons at least. Instead of the unrealistic dame perks how about perks that increase attack speed? Any untrained grunt could hit someone with a giant hammer and do dame but without training and conditioning with that type of weapon you would find it extremely cumbersome and would probably barely be able to lift it let alone swing it all over the place effectively.

 

 

3 Hypothermia: I've been wanting this one for a while and I've got a few extensions potential to what you have outlined: for one thing make getting wet in a cold place have an effect. If I fall in a river in the middle of a blizzard that should have a serious effect like direct damage till you heat up again. In addition to the heavy clothing perhaps an amulet of warmth or something like that? Moderately expensive and it takes the amulet slot but saves you from lugging around heavy clothing. Potions of warmth also seems reasonable for those fell in a frozen lake situations (or perhaps when you want to dive into the frozen lake as a preventative measure)

 

 

4 As a pure opinion thing magicka seems like it is supposed to be separate from physical fatigue to me. I think slowing magicka regen when tired seems good but lowering your overall pool seems a bit off to me. Like when your tired you should still be able to draw upon your full power but once it's exhausted its a lot harder to get it back. Again that's just how I feel it should be.

 

 

5 Stamina imo should be given a much larger pool but slower regen. This seems more realistic to me (I can sprint for a lot longer than the guy ingame and I'm out of shape but once I'm done it takes a lot longer until I can go again) In game terms this also makes stamina management much more strategic and potentially gives stamina potions a use. You would be able to smash a few foes with full strength no problem but in an extended battle you would start to tire and weaken if you cant get a break. If you made all stamina potions long lasting regen potions it wouldn't make you last forever but it would make you last significantly longer for those long or difficult battles.

 

Thanks for reading hopefully you'll like some of these ideas and be able to use them.

[Levgre]

Well the last two days I have been thinking about combat a lot. A combat overhaul may be better fit for another mod, but it mostly shares the same goals as realism.

 

Mainly the idea is adding uniqueness and tactics to each type of foe and combat. Example, against animals...

 

Even the strongest warrior can rarely stand toe to toe with huge cave bear or sabretooth cat. Just because they are animals, does not mean they are not powerful beasts that everyone should fear. They are the top of the food chain, on which humans can easily be the bottom. So, how do you fight them? Human ingenuity, being prepared, and never being caught off guard, to name a few..

 

So some mechanical/gameplay changes:

 

Animals are MUCH FASTER. You cannot out sprint a bear or sabre tooth at all. If they chase, either you stand and fight, or you are dead.

 

Related, it would be great if the AI could jump over small obstacles. I think it could also be a good change to make the player not so spider-like. This will put players and enemies on a more "level playing field", pun unintended :P. If you are on a steep cliff, you will slide down into their waiting claws. Climbing equipment would be great to add, but the climb speed should be slow and should take preparation.

 

Make traps and and hunting equipment valuable and effective. Add those "bear traps" as a carryable item. They would be heavy, 10 pounds or so, but would do good damage and slow down and/or stun animals.

 

Add special arrow/weapon poisons especially designed for hunting. Slow down a large animal, drain their stamina, reduce the damage of their attacks.

 

More variety in attack types and animations. For bears, paw swipes should have a chance to stun, and should be medium damage. A bite could be medium damage, and cause bleeding and wooziness from shock. Maul attack should be almost certain death, but easier to avoid. You must watch and react appropriate to their attack.

 

Sabretooths combat tactics would be to pounce on you. If you are pounced on, you are basically gone. Either wounding their leg or a well-timed evasive roll could be how you survive.

 

Wolf tactics, wolves should be much faster and their bites should be more dangerous. They should circle their prey, and also slow you down when they bite (trying to pull you down). Hence your tactics would be to never have your back to a wolf, and to quickly kill one or two before they kill you, and to use defensive traps, either spells or gear, to create a defensible position.

 

Nighttime should be the realm of the animals. The player should also not be able to sneak that well against them. Their hearing, smell, and other senses make them much more aware than humans typically are, extremely so at night. And if the player rests at night in the forest, make it possible for them to wake up to a bear/wolfpack.

 

Along with the greater challenge, the prizes from hunting dangerous animals should be greater. Hunting should be a viable method of money-making for the player.

 

 

 

I also think a good system would be one that uses stamina as a much more key trait. I think the stat system could overall be made into 2 stats instead of 3, one being more about willpower and intelligence (mostly for magic) and the other one being about physical strength/durability, combat instinct, etc., and health could perhaps be incorporated in a different manner.

 

Stamina could be used at any time to slow down combat, but doing so drains your stamina, your muscles and mind in a heightened state of readiness. Thus your character is able to meet challenges fit for a great warrior, even if us players at the computer can't have the millisecond reflexes and awareness. I think quick dodge abilities are a must, but if they incur a stamina cost they cannot be abused. And if you run out of stamina before your opponents, you can be in real trouble... possibly penalties for running out of stamina.

 

Along with slow-mo, add a variety of combat attacks or techniques, all which take a toll on stamina. A whirlwind strike, swinging around with your weapon, would be effective when being mobbed. But you can't run around a battle spinning nonstop. You have to decide when its most appropriate, and smartly manage your stamina. Different attacks could be hot-keyed to letters easily hit by your fingers.

 

 

A good plan would be also to create combat techniques in a rough "rock-paper-scissors' system. Similar to how if you with shield raised there are certain outcomes, different attacks interact when they meet.Possible attacks...

 

Stabbing lunge, strong against someone with no shield.

Parrying Slash, you push their weapon away with yours as they swing, and then hit them.

Charge/Running attack - you hold your weapon up in the air, then release to bring it down as soon as you are in range. Best suited for larger 2 hand weapons. The charging power attack as is, is pretty cruddy.

 

 

Quick dodge with light attack beats slower, powerful attack. They miss, you get them while they recover.

Powerful attack beats a medium, more conservative attack. You bash through their weapon, throwing their swing off, and connect.

Medium attack beats a quick/dodging attack. They don't have enough time to move and swing before you hit.

 

Parrying/blocking should remain effective tools against lighter attacks, and there should also be attacks like swing at the legs if someone is blocking. I also think blocking should be quicker, less of a delay for bringing the shield up, and down.

 

 

 

Magic combat should also be made more about trickery and tactics. Incorporating Illusion and misdirection would be great, for example players an enemy alike can create mirror images, so you'd have to quickly cast a detect magic spell to find out which ones were fake. You could have a sort of rock paper scissors system thrown in, you dodge to beat projectiles, you shield yourself to stop blasts, and there could be ways to absorb the spells coming at you.

 

 

Well there is a ton more that could be added to combat, and completely different and viable systems which would all improve on the current hack and slash in Skyrim. But those are some of my ideas!

Edited December 4, 2011 by Levgre

[skippythec]

I can't wait for a comprehensive realism mod and these ideas are great. I would also like to see the weight of carried equipment affect the player gradually... for example, in the regular game you may be able to sprint just as fast carrying 299 pounds as you can carrying nothing, but as soon as you hit 300 you can't walk at normal speed.

 

Another area I would love to see some added realism is combat. I really like the approach of making combat less about button mashing and more about the skill of moving your character and timing your blows. Each landed blow should affect your target (and yourself) in a way similar to stagger, including knockdowns for exceptionally powerful hits. Who hits whom first should matter. The affect of blows can perhaps be mitigated by armor, blocking and perks.

 

Can't wait to see how this turns out!

[CampanaAliquanta]

I have a question about compatibility which probably can't be answered until the CK comes out.

 

But if you do a food overhaul, and change how food and drink affect the character, what happens with other mods that introduce additional food and items into the game? Or even new creatures that drop different kinds of meat that can be cooked?

 

Presumably a mod with new cooking recipes or new kinds of food would only be compatible if it was based on the mechanics of the realism overhaul?

[apollosyndrome]

Love the idea - I had some of these myself but don't know enough about the scripting to pull it off. However, whilst it's a great idea, I think that you are going to have to totally rebalance the game to the point where it could break the fun because too much realism will just make it frustrating and painful to play.

 

My advice would be to pay greatest attention to the combat as this is really the key aspect of the fun. Two or three arrows and your dead - that sort of stuff will be frustrating as hell because it's so easy for one bandit to rush at you whilst another stands in the distance and pops an arrow in your ass whilst your not looking - stuff like that will become a PIA very quickly. Ask yourself how long can someone spend in the world just trying to survive before they get bored?

 

A loooong time. :) TRO is a mod for those who like the immersion in their games. It's not so much about finishing the game as it is about playing it. So the feeling that when you swing that axe, you are swinging a deadly weapon, or when you notch that bow that you are going to do some real damage (and vice versa) is integral to that.

 

That said, I will pay attention to make the game enjoyable as well. Right now I am spending time just working out the basic concepts, trying them out in my head, setting up a priority list etc. Combat-wise, I want to make the combat difficult and reward the player with the sense of accomplishment after each fight. I don't want to see annoyance fights in the game, or fights which are so unbalanced they break the immersion. What I want is deadly combat, deadly archery and deadly magic, but presented to the player in a way which will demand skillful playing and reward it, instead of just demanding a lot of reloading.

 

To that end I am thinking out different concepts as to how the gameplay could be adjusted to keep it interesting and immersive. Just the other day I had a fight with a dungeon boss which I ended up winning by resorting to a tactic which is often used in Bethesda games, exploiting the fact that the AI is basically dumb. Popping a few fireballs to lure a boss into your rune trap and then running away and hiding, ten times in a row, should not be a recipe for a glorious boss fight.

 

Now if I had an option of standing there, bold as brass, and deflecting his spells with my wards, trading blows of lethal magical energy while our atronachs duked it out in the background, that would have been something else, even if I ended up losing, it would have been much better. But the way vanilla game is (un)balanced, that is often not a possibility with the most memorable and special characters, which is a shame, and that's what I'll strive to fix.

 

Make no mistake, TRO will make things much harder, but harder doesn't mean less fun.

 

Hey Mansh00ter,

That sounds cool and I can tell you are passionate about this. I'm glad you did not take my points to heart and think I was purely trolling as some others did here! Sure I don't know loads about realism mods, but when I play vanilla Skyrim I try hard to never fast travel, (but I am guilty of it sometimes just to dump all the heavy loot) I don't abuse the smithing, or any leveling up aspect because I want to play it as realistically as I can within the confines of what I have been given.

 

I meant what I said, I do hope you get it off the ground and I would love to try it - maybe I will learn to appreciate TRO!

Cheers

Apollosyndrome

P.S: If you need any help with texture art or models let me know.

[Ixflashpointxi]

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I agree with everything he said. ^^

 

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As well with him.

 

Animals should become much more fearful. Also, make it so Elk can die from one arrow. It's always annoying to be hunting one and it gets away because it didnt' die the first shot or two.

[Hoptic]

Animals should become much more fearful. Also, make it so Elk can die from one arrow. It's always annoying to be hunting one and it gets away because it didnt' die the first shot or two.

 

I strongly disagree with both statements. (or the three of them, whatever)

 

I don't think a real deer would be stopped just by an arrow in the knee (although it triggered some others to retire from adventuring. ...).

But slowing the animal down, for sure!

 

Besides, it totally kills immersion to have to shoot 54309543 fireballs to kill a bear. I mean, basically, it should be scared by the fire, and second, it has a pelt that means it's flammable that means 1 shot and it's on fire and soon to be dead. Same applies for the Sabre Cats. I mean, really, when I headshot with an arrow, I don't care if it's the wildest of all cats: it should be dead. My concern being the other one running at me and for which I can't get an arrow ready in time...

 

And besides, if a bear/sabre cat gets close enough to give you a punch (or whatever bears give), you should fall to the ground, lose half hp or even more, etc. Unless you wear super heavy armor and are super strong.

 

That's what I'm really hoping with this mod: if you advance carefully, prepare each fight, stick to your character specialization/philosophy, you should face more challenge that in vanilla but still come out ok (with very good planning). Right now, to get some challenge you gotta put Skyrim on Master difficulty, and then you have those strange moments when you headshot a barehead guy (that is to say he has an arrow that gets from one side of his head to the other) and he's still talking to his companions, running around looking for you, ready as ever...

 

I became aware of this by replaying Oblivion today. With Oscuro's Overhaul. I realized it was actually pretty dumb to use fire spells against Dark Elves bandits. It's just awful, the number of good ideas already present in the vanilla Elder Scrolls games but that have to be made effective by modding. Just like the torch/light spells... useless until you get a "darker nights/dungeons" mod or the like.

 

(ps: "bearhead", do you really say that? I meant, a guy not wearing head armor. Sorry, non-native English speaker)

 

Anyway, I hope I didn't misinterpret Mansh00ter's vision of his mod.

[Atlantiantokra]

I haven't read every post but so far I think it's a great idea.

You said you'll make different versions and an ingame menu to select features, will the ingame menu be on installation only, because having it always available could be too tempting.

And with quest markers you should definitely give that options, i.e none at all, only on world map or vanilla

With the hunger requirements will this include certain alchemic ingredients such as fish? (or add recipies to turn them into food)

"merchants are going to be ripping you off" sounds good but if you're buying something from a befriended priest it doesn't sound realistic anymore. If skyrim has a responsibility parameter like oblivion did you could try to make that affect prices as well as whether they like you

By "I would like to enable players to choose which kind of finisher, if any, they would like to perform at the end of battle." does that mean we can stop finishers we don't like and make others more likely to happen?

Your list says "stop health regeneration" wouldn't it make more sense to make it unnoticably slow otherwise you could get a scratch and 5 weeks later still be down on health for it

I think the suspicion of crime feature rather than being a fixed minus rep for each crime should be proportional to your current reputation i.e. if everyone likes you and they've never seen you commit a crime then if you kill one person without being caught your reputation should be almost untouched, if you kill a second without being seen then you take more of a rep hit etc. And if you're a known criminal then any unseen crimes might be attributed to you even if you're innocent

 

Also it's proably been said although if you're making features selectable it might be difficult but what about putting some features as perks

 

Finally, this mod is starting to sound like it's going to be a skyrim version of OOO, deadly reflex and about 5 other oblivion mods. So it might be worth dividing features into a few mods rather than one big one, how you've divided the planned features on your first post might be a good way of doing it (making popular features stand-alone as requested). This might make it easier to deal with compatability issues with other mods as well.

[surasshu]

I'd really like this, but if you're gonna take away the compass, I think there should be a compass object that you can hold in your hand!

 

Also, one thing I thought of that I didn't see mentioned (could've easily missed it though...) is the concept of fire spreading, especially forest fires (villages burning down might be a bit difficult to pull off, although it would be awesome). This might make it a risk summoning a flame atronach or blatantly using fire-based spells everywhere, and maybe even lightning based spells too?

 

And I agree with atlantiantokradesu too, splitting it into several "realism-themed" mods might be better. At any rate I hope it'll be possible to switch certain elements in the mod on or off. For example, I already use a mod that makes nights darker, so if I had that one and this one at the same time, it'd cause trouble.

Edited December 4, 2011 by surasshu