Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[granit]

It really depends, I think fast traveling to a city or settlement is fine, after all even from a larping perspective it's just the journey home after epic quest xyz. On the other hand traveling to your quest destination is more satisfying without teleporting to the nearest possible marker next to the quest location. This lets you discover new shit as you're going there, while avoiding the meaningless trek home.

There are also certain situations where fast travel actually helps you hold up the (oh god why) "lore" of Skyrim. A good example is Hrothgar, the supposedly tallest mountain ever, except that you walk up it in 1 min...... 7000 steps.... right..... Repeatedly going up that gentle incline completely breaks all immersion and is fucking tedious. Really like most things in Bethesda games you can abuse the fast travel system or just use it when you feel it doesn't break your personal larping goals.

Who knows what happened on the way home from your dungeon crawl. Don't you feel detached from the game world by just magically appearing by no in-universe reasons?

 

[Dreaad]

Who knows what happened on the way home from your dungeon crawl. Don't you feel detached from the game world by just magically appearing by no in-universe reasons?

I guess I kind of look at it more as an overall story rather than a minute to minute account of my character.

 

[granit]

Who knows what happened on the way home from your dungeon crawl. Don't you feel detached from the game world by just magically appearing by no in-universe reasons?

I guess I kind of look at it more as an overall story rather than a minute to minute account of my character.

Interesting. I guess the games provides the means for both approaches. Obviously I'm more in the larp/autist corner. I understand your position.

 

[Delterius]

It really depends, I think fast traveling to a city or settlement is fine, after all even from a larping perspective it's just the journey home after epic quest xyz. On the other hand traveling to your quest destination is more satisfying without teleporting to the nearest possible marker next to the quest location. This lets you discover new shit as you're going there, while avoiding the meaningless trek home.

There are also certain situations where fast travel actually helps you hold up the (oh god why) "lore" of Skyrim. A good example is Hrothgar, the supposedly tallest mountain ever, except that you walk up it in 1 min...... 7000 steps.... right..... Repeatedly going up that gentle incline completely breaks all immersion and is fucking tedious. Really like most things in Bethesda games you can abuse the fast travel system or just use it when you feel it doesn't break your personal larping goals.

Who knows what happened on the way home from your dungeon crawl. Don't you feel detached from the game world by just magically appearing by no in-universe reasons?

This is Skyrim, odds are nothing happened. Not only the odds of having missed something in this theme park are very low, but random encounters arent plenty enough that you must walk over the world 17 times. Requiem takes some steps to correct this,.but not nearly enough.

 

[roll-a-die]

Oooor you could wise up, reenable fast travel and add, say, 100 pounds to the weight carry limit using the in-game mod menu instead.

Hardk0r is one thing, adding extra logistical tedium on top of that is something else entirely.

I would like to point out a mistake, fast travel outside in-universe travel functions such as horse carriage/silt strider/mark/recall is just wrong. Todd Howard kind of wrong

Hmmm, so after I've completely explored a path and gone through a dungeon, I shouldn't be able to skip the tedium of walking through a path that I've already cleared of enemies? It's not like there's really any point to that particular bit of content, is there? No really things to discover, Skyrim is kind of an open book about it's terrain, there's no real secrets, no real reason to explore the gamespace after a first glance. Other than you know, #hikingsimulator. I can understand not allowing fast travel freely in a gamespace that is similar to KotOR, where you are navigating through hubs and into linear areas. However, Fast Travel has had a place in the TES series since Arena, where for Arena and Daggerfall, it's used to skip the ridiculous distances and tedium that would occur from traversing them. And having to,

1. take the carriage,
2. walk into windhelm,
3. walk to the fort,
4. walk to the Jarl,
5. get a quest,
6. walk out of the fort,
7. walk out of the town,
8. walk to the carriage,
9. travel to the city near whatever quest you're taking,
10. walk to the quest you're about to do,
11. do the quest,
12. walk back to the carriage,
13. travel to windhelm,
14. walk into the city,
15. walk to the fort,
16. walk to the jarl,
17. turn in the quest.
18. Take another quest
19. repeat

Does it add anything to the game? It's a pointless 19 step process, that does nothing but further a fake sense of immersion. That would really be better for not having to stare at the same three trees 40 times. With free fast travel to cities and major landmarks, or even anywhere, you get a better flow, at a minor sacrifice of something ultimately pointless unless you're an LARP tard, in which case, you will likely impose the restriction on yourself. I like added logistics, the removal of fast travel, doesn't add extra logistics, it adds extra tedium, to an already tedious game.

Especially since, after morrowind they removed most of the FUN fast travel options, and left you with, either just carriages, or in DerpBlivion, left you with just fast travel.

What you list here as tedium is the role playing of your character. You know, larping and hikingsimulation as you call it and all that. Clicking a destination on a map and having your character magically appear there and just saying "No, nothing at all happened on this travel because I clicked on this button" cheapens the game.

I agree though that Morrind had it done better with Silt striders and mark/recall and whatever those fortresses were called. Morrowind is vastly superior in many respects.. but fast travel without any in-universe or in-character logic I don't like it.

Actually in the larp scene out where I am, we call unimportant traveling like this "wasteful time", and unless there's a conversation to be done, an epic car chase to happen or something similar, traveling is a purely glossed over thing. A scene at least in my games, isn't.

You walk into the hospital to visit a friend in the cancer ward.

You walk to the front desk and get a badge.

You consult a map to find an elevator.

You turn left to find the elevator.

You enter and ride the elevator.

The elevator stops on floor 4, to pick up another visitor.

Eventually the elevator makes it to floor 5, then you get out and consult another map, to find the ward on this floor.

Turning right, you then turn left after 500 feet, on the third corridor.

You pass by rooms, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, before arriving at room 80 where your friend is.


No fucking ST worth anything is gonna run a scene like that.

Instead, it would be summed, equivelently.

So you get to the hospital, and arrive at your friends room hastily to comfort them.

And then you get to the meat of the scene.

 

[Dreaad]

^ Exactly. Now it isn't actually a bad thing that you can do all the meaningless stuff, but it's also nice that you can avoid it. The best thing of course would be if Skyrim actually had interesting things happen when you go from place to place and if locations in the game world made logical sense as to their placement. If guild quest story lines didn't send you to every conceivable corner of the game world but rather were concentrated in a particular place. All of that however is just

 

[DalekFlay]

It really depends, I think fast traveling to a city or settlement is fine, after all even from a larping perspective it's just the journey home after epic quest xyz. On the other hand traveling to your quest destination is more satisfying without teleporting to the nearest possible marker next to the quest location. This lets you discover new shit as you're going there, while avoiding the meaningless trek home.

There are also certain situations where fast travel actually helps you hold up the (oh god why) "lore" of Skyrim. A good example is Hrothgar, the supposedly tallest mountain ever, except that you walk up it in 1 min...... 7000 steps.... right..... Repeatedly going up that gentle incline completely breaks all immersion and is fucking tedious. Really like most things in Bethesda games you can abuse the fast travel system or just use it when you feel it doesn't break your personal larping goals.

Morrowind handled it perfectly with mark, recall and the intervention spells. Finish quest and warp back to town via intervention. Questgiver in a weird spot? Use mark and then recall back when done. Otherwise walk the world and use in-game transport to LARP your heart out. It really was the best parts of fast travel without the worst.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Amen to this Comrade; although Skyrim with better fast travel and horses installed is not so bad; I am playing this game since December clearing one dungeon a day and planing to finish it when Twicher 3 will be ready so slow pace is not my problem... Remembering what my PC was going to do next when I played last sunday is.

P.S any lights/nights modification which would not make my ancient Stalin era build Computer choke?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

P.S any lights/nights modification which would not make my ancient Stalin era build Computer choke?

I've read that Enhanced Lights and FX is the least power hungry of those.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27043/

 

[DalekFlay]

I basically use Oblivion and Skyrim's fast travel as if it were mark and recall. In other words I basically only use it to go back to town or between towns.

 

[Delterius]

I basically use Oblivion and Skyrim's fast travel as if it were mark and recall. In other words I basically only use it to go back to town or between towns.

Personally? If I'm in Whiterun and I'm going to damn Riverwood because I want some red mountain flowers then I don't bother with the 2min and a half trek. Basically, sometimes you feel like walking and sometimes you don't. The key here is that the player should want to walk, which is something that, by design, Skyrim doesn't bother with much at all.

Simply put, location placing in a game like Morrowind makes use of the fact that you don't have a compass guiding you towards every place of interest. As such, you can miss caves and such, especially as time goes on and you master more modes of travel - Intervention/Recall/Levitation/The Boots of Blinding Light of you're feeling like it. Skyrim doesn't have that, its a Theme Park by excellence, the only reason why you shouldn't know a certain place exists is either because you never played the game before or because you never bothered to go that way before. In contrast, this is my second serious playthrough of Morrowind and I just discovered the grottos all around Seyda Neen - I was very thorough in exploring the nearby tombs and smuggler dens but I never saw those.

Meaning what? Never played Skyrim and is running Immersive HUD so that the compass doesn't show up? Try not to use fast travel, you're ruining an opportunity here. But keep in mind that the layout of the land itself helps you find stuff so try not to become too obsessed. If you're still playing Skyrim you must have realized that as a explorerfag game it isn't that good. And what interesting random encounters Requiem added should be experienced without the need for criss crossing the land like a postman.

TL DR = do whatever you want.

However moot I think this discussion is, I do think the issue of seducing the player with explorerfag content is a bit more of a nuanced matter than most people here give it credit for. For an instance, last year I resurrected the Morrowind thread with the following sentiment - I tried to play the damn thing twice but I couldn't get into it. Every time I believed the assholes from Seyda Neen that my character was total shit and that he couldn't walk around the Ascadian Isles. So I took the silt strider and went to Balmora. Against all odds, I even managed to find Caius Cossades and heard his council - join a Guild newbie. So I did, next thing you now a catgirl is telling me to pick flowers while defending myself against the evils of mudcrabs. Such a long time has passed and I haven't yet realized what this game is about.

That is until I told everyone to go fuck themselves, sacked every tomb and smuggler den between Seyda Neen and Balmora (via Pelagiad) and actually had fun. I found a certain magical ring of import and reached Balmora with a small fortune, great for tinkering with spellcasting. If anything, this was an example of a 'legit' fast travel being counter productive to a new player. Make no mistake, I felt great and even empowered when I could juggle intervention around. Levitating around the world is the most absolute reason why I'm underwhelmed towards newer TES. But this is one reason I'm not completely sold on cheap teleportation between cities, no matter the in world justification.

 

[DalekFlay]

I turn the compass off in Skyrim entirely, so yes that gives me something to do in my walks out from the city toward my destination.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Same here; Magic GLONASS on improved map is enough and now Skyrim is not fallow the Triangle game.

 

[Lancehead]

But keep in mind that the layout of the land itself helps you find stuff so try not to become too obsessed.

Morrowind's main countermeasure to this is short-range fog rather than landscape itself. Skyrim's landscape would be much better to explore just by removing many of the map markers, so that all those small places become something you come across rather than fulfilling a checklist.

 

[Eyeball]

I couldn't imagine playing without a "no compass marker" mod.

 

[Borelli]

My main problem with immersive HUD is that removing the compass marker removes the compass itself which i like to check from time to time but doing that inevitably makes me see the markers on it.
And it is hard coded because Bethesda apparently thought that NOBODY would EVER dare to trek without their precious compass markers.

 

[Eyeball]

Just get the mod that just removes the marker but leaves the compass. The one I use seem to have been removed fromt the Nexus for some reason.

 

[DalekFlay]

My main problem with immersive HUD is that removing the compass marker removes the compass itself which i like to check from time to time but doing that inevitably makes me see the markers on it.
And it is hard coded because Bethesda apparently thought that NOBODY would EVER dare to trek without their precious compass markers.

I hear you, but that compass is way too big and fat for me. There is a mod that makes it only appear when sprinting I think.

 

[DraQ]

Regarding fast travel:

I have no problem with fast travel in principle.
In a shrunken down world like TES >2 fast travel to locations that have already been visited is not bad design.
The main problem is that there is no cost or risk involved when you fast travel and time is not a factor.

There are no random encounters, no supply mechanics, no timed quests and so on.
This means that the lack of fast travel is pretty much the only thing adding gravity to your decisions regarding inventory management (both preparation and looting) and travel.
Enabling fast travel removes a whole gameplay layer.

My main problem with immersive HUD is that removing the compass marker removes the compass itself which i like to check from time to time but doing that inevitably makes me see the markers on it.

If you want to know your facing, check the map instead.

 

[Dreaad]

Regarding fast travel:

I have no problem with fast travel in principle.
In a shrunken down world like TES >2 fast travel to locations that have already been visited is not bad design.
The main problem is that there is no cost or risk involved when you fast travel and time is not a factor.

There are no random encounters, no supply mechanics, no timed quests and so on.
This means that the lack of fast travel is pretty much the only thing adding gravity to your decisions regarding inventory management (both preparation and looting) and travel.
Enabling fast travel removes a whole gameplay layer.

My main problem with immersive HUD is that removing the compass marker removes the compass itself which i like to check from time to time but doing that inevitably makes me see the markers on it.

If you want to know your facing, check the map instead.

Yes time, time is problem in my opinion. Having the potential to fail timed quests then adding randomized negative results, or even having fast travel be relatively slower compared to say, hiring a carriage would improve the game greatly. Too bad Bethesda thinks everyone should be able to experience everything in the game in one play through with no fail states possible.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Just get the mod that just removes the marker but leaves the compass. The one I use seem to have been removed fromt the Nexus for some reason.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3222/

There's this one. Some of those mods end up disabling other elements of the UI by accident, maybe yours was bugged. In any case it's just a matter of changing a line in the INI.

 

[Borelli]

Oops i worded my post wrong, when i said markers i meant to say undiscovered locations which show on the compass.
Markers are no problems with Immersive HUD while even taking a glance at a compass gives my character psychic abilities to sense nearby caves and forts.

 

[DraQ]

Oops i worded my post wrong, when i said markers i meant to say undiscovered locations which show on the compass.
Markers are no problems with Immersive HUD while even taking a glance at a compass gives my character psychic abilities to sense nearby caves and forts.

Like I said, try eyeballing the map instead (or just time, if you feel hardcore).

Will help you pay attention to your surroundings as well (as it minimizes the amount of times you need to bog yourself down with bringing the map up), so it should improve your net enjoyment as well.

 

[KazikluBey]

Eh, being able to see compass directions is cheating. I only use the in-game map (with all quest markers on) to plan my routes and make markings on this topographic map and tab out to it when out in the wilderness. If I need to get my bearings, I have a look at the map and compare it to my surroundings. Bonus: It's actually at least possible to get lost for a bit, until you find a good landmark to orient around.

OneTweak improves the experience of using alt-tab with a borderless full-screen window.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Crossbows!

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/43517

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I think I broke it. I won't load the main menu ;(