Hardcore Survival Overhaul - worth to continue working on?

[afftor]

Hello. 2-3 weeks ago I decided I'm in no way satisfied with Skyrim gameplay (been playing on the start for like 60 hours and GOD it became blatantly boring), nor with related mods and I started working on my own mod. However scripting parts go nowhere thanks to my sheer inability to comprehend guides and turning every little part into trial and error routine with little progress. Now I questioning if this is even a good idea to keep such a hard work on a stuff nobody may not even want in the first place, but I still managed to make decent amount of stuff so it also feels kinda disappointing to stop now.

 

 

Back to the topic. What I disliked much is a lack of challenge on RPG and tactic parts. You don't need planning or resource management. Health and mana restores completely in 10-15 seconds once battle ends. Obtaining items is a no brainer, crafting requires very little effort and is a gamebreaker even on hardest difficulties. And dungeons can be quite easily completed with a single destruction spell or mashing your left button until everything you point your sword on dies.

 

 

So what was my plan? First mana and health regeneration nerfed to hell (basic 0.1 per second). I never liked the part of "walking your injuries off" honestly. There's still potions (with duration now though), and also theres craftable bandages and energy stones. Bandages can only be used out of battle and restore health over duration. Energy stones can be crafted from misc gems and empty soul gems. Those can be used in battle to restore moderate amount of mana by breaking it, but also have 2 seconds charge time (they are also used in some new craftings). Both these features make it highly unlikeable to run through large groups of enemies with an axe in one hand and healing spell in other. You actually have to prepare for your adventures or you find yourself in a situation when you are deep in the wilderness with bad wounds and a bear about to munch on your leg.

 

 

Next: loot is drastically reduced. I never really had to bother with arrows or lockpicks or even armor because enemies provided me with tons of those. Boss chests with their guaranteed magic drops are even worse. Now magical items appear significantly rarer, and items in general are harder to find, well expect for materials and ingredients. My another plan was to disable looting armor and weapon from dead enemies, instead you receive materials like ore and leather. I justify this as armor and weapon gets broken on death but actually whatever, it's just does not fit the mood to take pants from a guy you just killed and wear them on yourself. On the other side crafting requires a lot more materials now up to 5 times. Previously you could craft few sets of iron armor by simply walking through a mine, now you need to put some effort to make a full set of armor for yourself.

 

 

Enemies. While obviously those became harder and cleverer they also require different approach. As I mentioned previously you could simply bang your way with a single axe. Now almost all enemies have some sort of resistance both physical and magical. Not just undeads being resistant to cold and poison. Undeads resistant to arrows and differ in resistance to blunt and cut damage. Animals have some cold resist, Giants more resistant to any weapons expect large axes. Even armored NPCs differ in resistances, Blunt and shock is more effective against heavy armor, while fire is a lot weaker with relevant perk and so on. Now you have to specialize in multiple things to effectively dispatch enemies. And if you don't dispatch them effectively then theres your health and mana on the scales. I also plan to add new skills/spells to make enemies potentially more dangerous to face unprepared.

 

 

Obviously such a complex remaking of gameplay basis requires new perks and effects to adjust, so reworking skill trees following. Those are more specialty based and less "learn this pointless skill to get access to something good" (hello heavy armor). There's not really much to say about perk trees without stating obvious things like destruction separates into fire shock and frost damage. Although now frost damage does not drain stamina and shock does and other tress will get fair amount of significant changes. I left crafting and thief trees mostly intact, I just don't have any strong view on them since I never bothered to live like a merchant/burglar, but alchemy and enchanting got its effects revoked. Restoration effects are now timed while enchantments can't be stacked on yourself like getting 85% magic resist or 100% reduce mana cost, or 180% damage from archery. Now it's not about being a munchkin and getting every possible sets of buffs but about making your apparel of choice.

 

For now I've done loot tables, enemies, about half of perk trees and partly craft. I'm badly stuck with script forbidding full loot for whole 2 weeks with little to no progress even asking for side help and theres still huge amount of perks and spells to remake from scratch. So what do people think? Is this worth continuing?

Edited March 12, 2013 by afftor

[ArtMurder]

Sounds cool, but wildly incompatible. Messing with loot tables, perks, etc. I like the idea, just try to keep compatibility to a maximum. Right now, I know of three mods I can't live without I would have to install to get the mod with all the features you described working.

 

Of coarse, you could try to make something like SkyRe, that replaces dozen of mods, but that's a HUGE undertaking. If you succeed, it will be amazing.

 

Honestly though, SkyRe, FrostFall, Realistic Needs and Diseases, etc. if combined right already do what you are wanting in general. My game is very hard at the moment. Just to start out on a new character I tackled a dwemer ruin, it took me about 3 hours, EXTREMELY strategic planning, dying about 20 times, and 90% of my good loot was alchemy related. In the end, I made it out of there with a few pieces of dwemer armor (boots and helmet) and was much more satisfying then vanilla!

[afftor]

@ArtMurder

You see, I actually planning to use it with both frostfall and RND, SkyRe is not really satisfying for me though. Combat and encumbrance system in particular. Thing is I don't specifically aim for realism, but rather for complicated and interesting gameplay. Hindering realism over the top actually annoys me like making inventory too limited or put a huge penalty in games where you are in major need to carry tons of your stuff around.

 

You certainly can make game hard if you just tweak your difficulty but usually I just find myself in need to bind my quick save and quick load on right and left buttons because instead of being challenging I just occasionally get 1hit KO and game gets more about kiting your enemy and trying your luck with save/load and thats exactly the thing I'm trying to avoid - to be challenging without smashing your face with shovel for a single bad timing.

 

I can't say much on compatibility though. I'm not sure which mods would be in particular needs with this mod because whole combat gameplay gonna be on a whole different level from vanilla. Loot list adjustments shouldn't be too rough thought.

Edited March 13, 2013 by afftor

[ChampionOfHircine]

Have you heard of Requiem?

[unuroboros]

On the subject of loot lists (LeveledItem's), at least, you can dynamically modify / revert them through Papyrus, so your mod doesn't stomp all over changes other mods make to those lists.

 

@ArtMurder: Add in Economics of Skyrim and Random Alternate Start for an even meaner low level experience. :D

[afftor]

@ChampionOfHircine

No, I did not (and a lack of adequate description does not make me feel very enthusiastic). I'll take a look at it though.

@unuroboros

Did I mention I suck in scripting?

Edited March 13, 2013 by afftor

[ChampionOfHircine]

Odd, it used to have a ridiculously long description. I don't know why it was removed. It appears to still be in the readme though. You can read it on the mod's page. Not very well written imo, it's kind of hard to get an idea of exactly what it does by reading it. Edited March 13, 2013 by ChampionOfHircine

[jackowonderful]

sounds fun.

[afftor]

Okay, I gave a few runs on Requiem and even though sometimes it hits right spots generally its plagued by those exact issues I named. Reliance on save/load because you just have been 1hit KO'd blaming your poor timing and resulting into archery and magic whoring as safe alternatives, and hindering realism without actual gameplay benefits. Well maybe not even realism just a willingness to make game more unforgiving but I don't really see a point in things like nullifying mana and stamina regen when moving, its not like it is actually fun or hard to stay in same place and wait while your stamina and mana regenerates. It simply takes 20 seconds of your play time for no good reason. Not that I actually complain about mod being too hard, its just pretty far away from what I'm trying to achieve.

Edited March 13, 2013 by afftor

[EnaiSiaion]

I tried making a SkyRe replacement but the most common question was "is this compatible with SkyRe?" so there was no point investing time into it.

 

In the end, you can't make anything that will be incompatible with SkyRe. That's just how it is.