Total Realism Overhaul

[Ixflashpointxi]

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.

 

Actually, thinking back on your post and the 2 I quoted. I have to say I more so agree with you. But there are some parts I agree with in the others, as well.

 

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.

 

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.

I agree with this part of his suggestions, not as much with the rest. If anything is made for stat changes, I think it should go back to the old system in Oblivion or Morrowind. It would make your characters feel more unique and not the same (Besides Race & Perks). The magic part at the end sounds kind of nice as well.

 

And in Harmonics post. I agree with the bits about magic. And having a larger stamina pool, but a slower Regen.

 

 

Im also in favor of getting attributes back. It could be used in ways to help this mod as well. Like intelligence could effect magicka regen. Endurance reduces amount of stamina it takes to do things (and maybe damage). Strength. Carry weight and weapon damage (Including bow, you need strength for a good archer). Agility for speed. Willpower could effect damage from magicka and the length/effect of poisons. And so forth.

 

The perks would also need to be overhauled. Magical damage bonuses don't make sense. Damage should be effected through skill and the gear. I also don't think damage increasing enchantments make much sense.

 

EDIT:

 

I also agree with Surasshu about the compass. But it should not show quest goals.

 

And if you plan to remove quest markers, you will need to complete overhaul the quests to give detailed steps to find your destination. Or at least mark the location on your map. Not necessarily where it is at the location. I don't want my thief to rely on clairvoyance.

 

I also agree with Atlantiantokradesu on the crime rep. If you're a known criminal. It would make sense for people to blame things on you.

 

Also, I have another idea for crime. Make it so NPCs perform crime as well. Not THAT often though. Or add some non essential random NPCs in each town to be murderers/thiefs/victims.

 

And again, there's no way you can finish this on your own in a reasonable amount of time. You need a team.

Edited December 4, 2011 by Ixflashpointxi

[noobax]

Hmm. So basically it will make your char like any other general bandit/guard. interesting.

[Levgre]

Human clothes/robes/some armor is flammable too. Honestly if you treat magical fire the same as real fire (in vanilla it is not, as is evident when you shoot down a lantern into a vat of oil creatures burn a long time) you will be an unstoppable killing machine from level 1. It would be like you are carrying a mini WWII flamethrower in the middle ages. Destruction spells do need a buff, though.

 

Further more, an arrow to the head actually wouldn't necessarily kill a Large creature like a bear or sabre cat. For one, their brain would be smaller in proportion to their head size, making it less likely to be on target for a "kill shot". Secondly, they may have very thick skulls which an arrow would not so easily penetrate like a thin human skull.

Edited December 5, 2011 by Levgre

[harmonic]

Well it is called "Destruction" magic :P and this is a realism mod. I ultimately don't think it would be any more powerful than the melee weapons cept for the range thing (and the awesomeness) and really its a stream of fire what do you expect? In my mind I still dont think it would be op against heavily armored foes or mages with shielding and wards (might want to boost the power of those) On the arrow headshots thing: imo it should be a chance based thing. Better helmet / mage shield / thicker skull means a much lower chance of instadeath. (in the mage shield case I don't think it should really be possible till the shield is down considering the hole-less nature.) maybe could make lightning spells damage mage defenses more quickly to balance fires destructive capabilites? (disrupting the magicka holding the shield or ward together)

[surasshu]

Maybe the map and compass system can be similar to how it was in Far Cry 2? Except without the GPS, replace that with a "simple" compass. Like this:

http://i.imgur.com/hUIUd.jpg

 

And none of those silly arrows too of course :D

Edited December 5, 2011 by surasshu

[Ixflashpointxi]

Maybe the map and compass system can be similar to how it was in Far Cry 2? Except without the GPS, replace that with a "simple" compass. Like this:

http://i.imgur.com/hUIUd.jpg

 

And none of those silly arrows too of course :D

 

 

I smell a good idea.

[surasshu]

Thanks!

 

Actually, come to think of it... One more suggestion!

 

Something I really liked from Dark Souls was the fact that even if you went into inventory, the game never paused. So you could always be attacked. Maybe this mod could have that too? The favorites system allows you to switch really quickly in my experience, but perhaps you'd need an even faster switch method, like perhaps a "next/previous favorite" type command? This may conflict with two-handedness though, but perhaps something can be figured out, like maybe instead of favoriting individual spells and weapons, you favorite "sets" (like lightning+heal, fire+summon, 2handed sword, etc.) and cycle between those.

 

Anyway, if the game continues while you're trying to switch weapons, it adds just a bit of realism, especially since you can't ask a group of criminals to wait politely while you dig into your backpack to find that right scroll (that's how the game is now! :D).

 

Oh and I just wanted to comment on this too:

Provide methods for cleaning (linen rags, bathing).

I suggested this exact thing to a friend when we were playing the game! How it would be so awesome if instead of the blood just fading off the axe/sword, the character would take out a rag and wipe it off. And to add a gameplay element to this visual thing... That'd be so sweet!

Edited December 5, 2011 by surasshu

[hooost]

Mansh00ter, about breakable shields. i think light shields that made of wood is fine to be breakable, but try to break a Banded Iron or Dwemer Shield, it's next to impossible. so more realistic is not making them breakable, at least some kinds of shields.

 

if you're hit really hard instead of breaking the shield you can just lose it. like disarm but with shield. you wouldn't hold your shield so hard that it would rip your arm off, u'd just lost a handle on it.

Edited December 5, 2011 by hooost

[Oomo]

 

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.

 

 

Ah yes, in game menus. I hope the installation takes place out of the game. In game menus are too much of a cheat temptation for me.

[Sukha]

I love this, this is how I played Oblivion