Longer Lasting Combat?

[Seagull84]

This may be an unpopular idea for many due to the desire for "realism" and added difficulty, but I honestly love combat in Skyrim. The problem is at the higher levels, it goes by extremely fast! A few hits, and either you or your enemy is down for the count. I want encounters to be epic, but I don't want to have to consume a health potion as soon as the first spell is cast. I'd love for combat to last a few minutes instead of a few seconds.

 

Has anyone experimented with various mods or difficulty settings to make combat last longer?

 

I recently installed Dynamic Difficulty, but experimenting around with the settings hasn't made much difference. I assume I should lower the damage modifiers for min/max to fairly low values?

 

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[whateveroo]

Actually that is not so un-popular to ask for harder enemies in Skyrim, most enemies are capped at 50 or less and that in the peak of when you are getting stronger.


You should try increasing your the difficulty at first.
Difficulties in Skyrim change the damage multiplier causing direct changes to skills that rely on them. There are six difficulties, ranging from Novice to Legendary, from less to more difficult, respectively.

Difficulty Player Damage Dealt Player Damage Taken Novice 2x 0.5x Apprentice 1.5x 0.75x Adept 1x 1x Expert 0.75x 1.5x Master 0.5x 2x Legendary 0.25x 3x


If legendary isn't enough for you, try downloading some mods, for example:



High Level Enemies:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27866
Deadly Dragons:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3829
Immersive Patrols:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12977
Extra Encounters:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29688



*
High Level Enemies: I think this is exactly what you need, give it a try, when i tried it wasn't that hard to stay alive but it wasn't easy to kill others too.

Deadly dragons: Who would want to fight flying lizards anyway, this can make seem feel less like lizards and more like dragons, What i like about this is that it is completely toogle-able, you can change it to your liking.
-"If a single giant or small group of bandits can take down an ancient dragon, why the hell does Skyrim need us to save it?"

Immersive Patrols: Adds more encounters from vanilla, so that you will have more people to fight,
-"Immersive Patrols adds fully functional, scheduled patrols of almost every major faction, from Stormcloak & Imperials, Silver Hand & Werewolves, Dawnguard & Vampires, basic Travelers and Merchants to plain old Bandits,"

Extra Encounters: Add new encounters to the game, not all of them are combat based encounters though,
-"It basically adds a whole bunch of lore friendly, levelled, randomised encounters to the wilds of Skyrim."

Edited April 12, 2013 by whateveroo

[sisterof]

Now how the hell do i delete this extra comment >_<

You can click edit, erase the contents of the double comment - substituting them with ASCII representations of free form dancing that describe your current mood. :P

 

[Anska]

I am not sure if this suggestion isn't totally superfluous, but if you want your combats to last longer without necessarily being much easier to kill, you could arrange your gear in a way that it enhances your defensive stats but somewhat neglects your offensive abilities. This way you are better protected but deal less damage, resulting in longer battles but less reasons to drink health potions. Apart from this whateveroo has already said everything I can think of.

[jackowonderful]

you could mod those difficulties so they just all have below 1 numbers, so you both do awful damage at legendary, for longer battles. skytweak would probably let you do it ingame. too lazy to check.

if you want more combat mods you should check lifestorock's creatures/random encounters mods.