Total Realism Overhaul

[Lokiron]

Additionally, I think mansh00ter would love to punish a wrong (or unlucky) approach to a fight and send the player running for his life.

 

My point is that a dagger is eminently NOT the wrong approach to a fight against a fully armoured foe.

 

Sure, there may be far better weapon options, and they may kick your ass if they hit you if you can't dodge, because parrying with a dagger is very difficult. That, however, is completely orthogonal to the damage you can do with a dagger if that is what you're bringing.

 

Yes, good point, dagger vs plate is a different topic than greataxe vs dagger.

 

So focusing on the dagger vs plate issue, you may be right that a highly skilled use of dagger is efficient. But a low skill would result in absolute uselessness, right?

The solution to this dilemma smells a hell of a lot like a high level perk.

[tomislawus]

Additionally, it would be good if there were some way for the NPCes to make the player drop his weapon so carrying a spare dagger for self defense would actually be viable. In reality a warrior would always carry a spare blade for such situation.

[Mansh00ter]

I am currently working on AI improvements, such as parry and dodge for NPC type actors (humanoids). Based on performance, this will determine whether I expand it with disarm. Right now I'm getting nice responsiveness from the script, and don't want to expand it much further due to performance reasons. It is doing it's job, which is replacing the utterly unrealistic combat system Skyrim has with a radically different one which also happens to be far more realistic. And with the new AI improvements, it should also be much, much more challenging to fight against high level opponents skilled in melee combat. Not because you will have to hit them 50 times to kill them, but because you will have difficulty landing the few hits required to do so.

 

As for magic, I figured out a nice, simple way to ensure that pure mages have the awesome power required to zap the new uber killing machines melee and ranged fighters are while the armored battlemage hybrids, spellswords etc still retain some utility from magic while not becoming overpowered: basically all the new special effects magic spells will get, like the instant panicking of a fire spell or muscle convulsion a lighting spell, will have dual criteria:

 

- one will be that the player is wearing clothing; returning to the magic restrictions of older games, wearing anything heavier than comfy clothing will severely impede the power of your spells. In this case not the damage, but the much more important utility factor of those spells which you will use to stop anyone coming close to you.

- and the second will be the remaining health percentage of the victim; when a victim is weak enough, usually heavily wounded, you will be able to finish them off by throwing a spell on them with devastating effect

 

So to take a fireball example. A pure mage in robes casting a fireball at a group of armored opponents will send them flying on impact, and will also set them on fire for a brief time, making them panic. Very useful, and a very nice opener. A spellsword in armor, however, will simply do usual fireball damage and effects which may or may not be so useful (you have all seen vanilla fireballs in action, you know what I mean).

On the other hand, it will take about two max arrows of any type to kill a pure mage player. A spellsword wearing heavy armor might be able to take up to five or more direct shots. Similar with melee damage - a pure mage obviously will be at a disadvantage in melee combat due to lack of armor, HP and combat oriented skills, which will make blocking less efficient. I think this should make things nicely balanced and give players good reasons to consider which path they want to take with magic and hybridization.

[tomislawus]

Great! I would like to hear how do you intend to make a certain characters deal with, lets say, 3 bandits casually met just outside some city in bright daylight. Two are melee and one is armed with a bow.

 

A warrior in a heavy armor will soak up the arrow damage (with a shield perhaps) and just overcome them with his superior fighting skills. Am I right?

 

A rogue assassin will dispose of one or two of the bandits with his bow and then finish the remaining enemies with a sword and dagger. Will he have some special moves or tricks up his sleeve or will he just fight with them head on, relying more on dodging than blocking/soaking up damage than the warrior?

 

What will mage do? Will he initiate with a fireball? How long it will take him to cast a fireball? How much mana he will use? How will it be balanced? Will he stun the first one then freeze the other and electrocute the third bandit emperor-style, pinning him to ground and watching him slowly die?

 

How do you intend to balance pure mages who are not supposed to run around hurling firebolts at their melee enemies who chase them but instead stand in their protective rings of fire, deflecting arrows and blows with telekinetic barriers and paralyzing, stunning and freezing?

 

EDIT: An idea (probably impossible): make mages more reliant on outside help. I personally see mages as these strong minded types with weak bodies who use their superb intellect to achieve success in life (yes, smart people tend to have money and power). Therefor I imagine mages in addition to being dangerous with their magic to have these mercenary brutes by their side that do all the dirty work.

 

How would it work in game? Give the player some kind of bonus money for being part of the mages guild and create some generic mercenary followers that can be easily recruited in every city? It would be an interesting way of balancing mages - 1 on 1 they are formidable but when attacked by more then 3 enemies if not prepared they will perish for sure and actually need bodyguards to not get killed by bandits. A LOT OF SCRIPTING AND A LOT OF WORK, I KNOW AND I'M SORRY :(

Edited March 8, 2012 by tomislawus

[HiddenRanger]

I think that answering tomislawus's scenario about how each "class" is going to be able to handle the three bandits will clear up everyone's confusion. I am looking forward to the mod for sure but am worried my leather wearing ranger style bosmer is going to get manhandled by some orcs in heavy armor. I dual wield also so I don't even have a shield to block arrows :facepalm: It wouldn't be a problem if there were a way do dodge to a direction or some kind of agility movement for light armor wearers. Edited March 8, 2012 by HiddenRanger

[meh12345]

Magic is *really* hard to get right, balance-wise. Fundamentally the reason is that magic is nearly always…well, magic. The biggest omission is typically the energy cost, explained away with "magicka" or whatever. If, instead, you start exploring possible ways that a human could actually achieve an exploding firewall and the energy that requires, you get into interesting territory: is the energy leeched from some 'magic' source, and only channeled through; or extracted from the environment; or need it be actually produced by the mage; can it be stored?

 

Anyway, that's sort of backgroundy. There are a few more or less classic options for dealing with overpowered magic:

 

Scarce magic (rather obvious, but certainly not TES-lore-friendly):

- It's either hard to gain the knowledge, or to channel the power.

 

Abundant magic:

- Only "low-level". Powerful spellcasters are nonexistent or extremely rare. On the other hand, there're lots of people who can cast Candlelight.

- Highly specialized. Mages have very narrow repertoires, whether it only means mastering a single 'element', or only either offensive or defensive spells, etc.

 

Dangerous magic (endemically or extraneously):

- Magic itself is dangerous, and maybe even most mages end up blowing themselves up.

- The society is unhospitable, and tries to quench all magic.

- Mages themselves are jealous of their power (either just because they are or maybe because there's only a single energy pool or similar).

 

Additionally or separately, magic can just be considered really, really hard to learn. If it takes decades to be able to create fireballs reliably...

 

 

The problem with all these, of course, is that they work wonderfully as literary (and somewhat 'realistic') devices, but they can all make playing a mage hard - but, it must be said, usually ultimately rewarding. This is, of course, a single-player game, so balancing really depends only on what the player wants.

 

Er, anyway, to get back to the point since I need to run in a moment...

 

I mentioned the stamina cost earlier. perhaps channeling energy is very tiring, and the cost is considerably higher the more powerful the spell (think quadratic/exponential as is common in physics). This would mean that casting a powerful fireball would have the tradeoff of mobility and defense (via stamina) so you'd need to be sure you're relatively safe for a moment. A battlemage on the other hand would necessarily be restricted to lower-level magic because they couldn't sacrifice their combat abilities.

 

Other variants, where the RP element would still be channeling, might simply be significantly increasing the charge-up time for big spells (the mage is gathering the necessary energy either from the environment or wherever). This could be further accentuated by locality - either in that one would need to stay in one spot (because, let's say, the energy conduit would generate an affinity toward that spacetime location the longer it was used there and would need to be re-established at cost) OR would have to constantly move (because, let's say, the ability of a small area to channel or gather energy from would be limited).

 

No time for editing this right now, so hopefully it makes some sense.

[meh12345]

Also, super-quick on topic of bandits: why do they want to kill you (or travelers etc.)? Wouldn't they just want your stuff? That should be an option more often even if you pretty much always decline, rather than getting attacked immediately every time.

[Mansh00ter]

Well, just yesterday I had the exact situation - three bandits, two melee, one with shield, one with bow. I attacked them from range, killing the bowman first with two arrows before he could draw (all hits that damage more than 40% of your health stagger you slightly), and managed to kill the one using a two hander (she was wearing leather armor, which isn't very good against arrows) before they could reach me. Then I had to switch to my sword and shield to deal with the last one.

 

In another attempt I actually managed to kill all three with my bow, the last bandit dropped right at my feet with sword raised. I did attack from long range though and the AI improvements are not yet in (better strafing, for example), plus they all had crap armour (the last one had partial iron plate so it took three arrows to drop him instead of two).

 

As a mage, you would open perhaps with a fireball, send all three flying and set them on fire. This would drain a lot of your magicka though, so you could prepare beforehand with traps (which also can set them on fire or electrocute them). You could slow them down a lot by spraying them with frost, or if they are melee, burn them with Flames to keep them away. You could of course, summon something to help you, though if you are unskilled it may turn on you (another thing I'm tweaking with magic, summons can turn berserk if the caster skill is too low). And of course, you can always conjure blades of your own and use that to fend them off in melee - though unless you have some skill in one handed, it will be difficult to block their attacks in full.

Or you could use a ward as a physical shield to protect you from their attacks, while spraying them with fire, though that might deplete your magicka quickly (wards not as much as vanilla though, since they are now essential for mage survival in battles, that is what will basically keep you alive against a dragon as a mage).

 

So as you can see, magic is all about versatility - there is no single "best" way to deal with anything. Depending on what your opponents are wearing, you might want to pick fire spells, shock spells or frost attacks, or simply resort to melee (actually a good way to quickly slaughter an unsuspecting single mage). As a more physical character you need to pick your priorities, taking out archers or mages first, then seeing who threatens you more - that guy with a shield may last a lot longer in a fight, but his pal with a two handed axe could crush through your own blocks far easier, etc.

 

I want to make each and every fight an excersize in tactics, as much as it is possible within limitations of Skyrim, of course. Hopefully I'll succeed. :)

[tomislawus]

And we shall mourn your death if you fail so, Mansh00ter...

[Jagex]

I'm getting the feeling magic will be depleted rather quickly from spells even with the training perks, so have you considered lowering the magicka cost of runes while also reducing their power. This would turn their function more into traps; you would open with a fireball and those that survived would be weakened and susceptible to those finishing effects of the spells. It would lend the mage class to be more of planning-based/ strategic experience. Do you want to save every drop of magicka for a spell in the chance that you'll wipe them out? Or do you hold back on your opener to lay safeguards for yourself?

And, also, have you heard of the Dynamic Wards mod? I'd like if you'd consider adding something similar. Basically, the mod makes it so the Ward spell only drains magicka when it absorbs damage. Maybe you could modify it so that it drains minor magicka while just held and then eats chunks of it while blocking damage. Essentially, making it similar to the way a shield would function: you'll eventually get tired from holding up the shield and you'll get tired a lot faster if someone's smashing on it all day. It would literally turn the Ward spell into the mage's shield.