Bethie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict

[Aenra]

Prior to opening the gates of my own hall of shame, a necessary disclaimer regarding my valuing a game and my separating idea from practice:
- A good/great game is not a game whose principles or ideas i may have loved but only played just once/played it despite its shortcomings, obvious lacks and feelings of angst it may have generated while i was on it. Theory is cheap, fanciful and usually utopic. It is the practice that makes or breaks; what we call formulation.
- A good/great game is and should not be defined solely by the amount of time i've spent on it (as our friend mikhail bahktin once said, any form of notion can only be defined through its clashing with that of another; contrast, comparison).
- A good/great game (even more subjective than the above) should not be judged by its 'vanilla' state when tools are available for anyone, even myself, to customise their experience. You will disagree here and i get it; they sell you shit, leave you to sort things out. You are right and it is wrong, but a) i pirate my games, b) i got time, patience and to be frank? Precious few RPGs i actually fucking like in the first place. I too condemn the practice, but hell if i'm going to let that keep me away from it if the potential is there.

What a true good/great game is for me, is one i have spent the most time on when compared to all other games i've played, ever.
[Ideas that are half-assed, partly realised or hidden between piles of banality don't awe me. Unlike some of you here, i prove my IQ daily. I don't play RPGs to -wrongly- convince me i'm "better"]
[Amazing iterations/actualisations that last me a mere few hours and leave me with nada for the next five years are almost like proofs of concept. I want to play]
[With my personality, my extremely specific wants and the mindset behind them, time has become the ultimate value. Needless to clarify that time spent does by necessity equate some redeeming characteristics]


To this day, fourteen years and change if one counts them (and i do), there are only two games i have indeed spent the most time on, ever. Compare them to whatever game you might think of, and have played a lot, they come miles away.. on top; talking literally thousands (compared to tens of hours for e-ve-ry-thing else) of hours of having my fucking fun, period. Nothing has even appeared as capable of surpassing them

1) Morrowind
2) Skyrim (and a close second, may yet surpass even Morrowind)

I have praised Morrowind before; have also judged it harshly for its utter lack of correct formulation and state of bugginess. Even so, they gave us the tools to do the rest. And with all the rest available? When combined? Fuck me Freddy, nothing comes close.
I have shat on Skyrim multiple times; do so still. Vanilla, it's not worth installing, at all. With the tools available to us and a modding community of this size? You should see my "version" of it. You'd think i'm playing a Morrowind remake. Yes, it took me about 20 days (it's much more, but let me lie to you) of modding, tweaking, fixing, learning, learning more, and more, and more, and still ongoing a process that one. But i'm honestly tempted to upload what i'm playing. It really is, now, what Morrowind should have been. I honestly believe that a great number of posters here have absolutely NO idea of how deep, difficult (in the proper, 'dexian meaning of the word) and rewarding it can be made to be. None. And i stand by that. Mind you, i said "made to be". For the fucktards among you, and your number is legion here, Vanilla, it's not even worth installing.

Considering trends, audience and later titles (FO4, which convinced i will never get a "third" TES..) these two babies stood, stand and will possibly forever stand at the top.
Best games i played. Ever.

Make of it what you will.

 

[Wayward Son]

Please upload this build of Skyrim you're playing. Skyrim's actually one of my top games of recent times(that I've played), especially by play time. The only game that might beat that is Dark Cloud.

 

[JarlFrank]

For me it's:

Arcanum
Morrowind
Total War series
Civilization series
Master of Orion 2

and the golden crown of "holy shit I play this so much" goes to

MOTHERFUCKING THIEF

 

[Severian Silk]

I like to read books sometimes.

 

[Parsifarka]

Tell us how to fix Skyrim, because I tried every combat mod I found and it still was utter shit.

 

[Atchodas]

500~ hours on modded skyrim , i kinda have to agree with OP , however i would prefer that i didnt have to spend month modding a game i paid for

 

[Mexi]

Tell us how to fix Skyrim, because I tried every combat mod I found and it still was utter shit.

You try Requiem? I would agree that Skyrim is total fucking shit.... unmodded Skyrim that is. I could only take so much of playing it unmodded. I stopped around 5 hours in.

Luckily, I found that Requiem thread and tried it out. If not for that, I wouldn't even be playing Skyrim anymore.

 

[pippin]

and the golden crown of "holy shit I play this so much" goes to

MOTHERFUCKING THIEF

Thief is in a league of its own. Nothing will ever feel like it, or even felt like it before. If games were ever going to be art, Thief was the one and only step the medium ever took in that direction.

 

[Aenra]

Tell us how to fix Skyrim, because I tried every combat mod I found and it still was utter shit.

No AI/combat mod is "good". They all have issues (will take me a wall-o-text to relate in full and end of the day, subjective. But if you google a bit, you will find many posts wherein they are all compared to one another). They additionally all share and are built upon a common misconception: Combat = numbers+grind. Youngsters..
You want to see quality, you'll have to put in the work. Assuming you're willing?

- Start with Combat Evolved (shit as it is, you'll have to remove the scaling [but the AI improvement is awesome, that's one, and two, it will be your bushwalk in terms of learning the basics]), move on to Animal Tweaks (shit as it is, remove all scaling again and change health variables to their vanilla state), then get Deadly Combat and learn scripting -and- TES5Edit. I know what you'll say, yeah; take my word for it, you do not know TES5Edit. You just think you do. Has about 100 scripted operations i bet my sweet ass you've never even initiated. And you will need them.
edit: If you haven't killed yourself, this is where you start merging the above three with kirkpatrick's melee mod. Happy eye fucking.
edit 2: if ever satisfied, get Stealth Skills Rebalanced, Sneak Tools, Shenk's Thievery Overhall, CACO (only for its poison remake, you can remove the rest) and Mighty Magick Skyrim (because this is the only magic mod whose modder "gets it", even though it too needs work). More happy eye fucking since you'll need to patch them all to the above. Did i mention learning to script?

As to the guy above saying Requiem? First sign of a clueless player. No offense. It's the McDonalds of combat modding.

All that said, combat alone is the second step you should take. Learn how navmeshing works, learn how pathfinding algorythms function. Learn how to avoid Havok limitations. Learn how to make calls without bloating. You do that, then go and start tweaking combat, that's when you start getting awed. Takes... time...
And to be frank, while i love how combat is in my version, these games are not about that. Don't lose the forest for the tree. Have had more fun fucking with a boosted AI and tricking my way past things than i could ever have had with pew pewing.

( if i sound like an expert, hardly.. am as non-techie as you can get. I started from scratch, just a few weeks/months(?) ago.. you will probably find posts of mine asking really basic stuff, lol; just used my brains and dedicated my time. You don't have to understand, just observe, reverse engineer and re-employ^^ )

 

[Mexi]

Tell us how to fix Skyrim, because I tried every combat mod I found and it still was utter shit.

No AI/combat mod is "good". They all have issues (will take me a wall-o-text to relate in full and end of the day, subjective. But if you google a bit, you will find many posts wherein they are all compared to one another). They additionally all share and are built upon a common misconception: Combat = numbers+grind. Youngsters..
You want to see quality, you'll have to put in the work. Assuming you're willing?

- Start with Combat Evolved (shit as it is, you'll have to remove the scaling [but the AI improvement is awesome, that's one, and two, it will be your bushwalk in terms of learning the basics]), move on to Animal Tweaks (shit as it is, remove all scaling again and change health variables to their vanilla state), then get Deadly Combat and learn scripting -and- TES5Edit. I know what you'll say, yeah; take my word for it, you do not know TES5Edit. You just think you do. Has about 100 scripted operations i bet my sweet ass you've never even initiated. And you will need them.
edit: If you haven't killed yourself, this is where you start merging the above three with kirkpatrick's melee mod. Happy eye fucking.
edit 2: if ever satisfied, get Stealth Skills Rebalanced, Sneak Tools, Shenk's Thievery Overhall, CACO (only for its poison remake, you can remove the rest) and Mighty Magick Skyrim (because this is the only magic mod whose modder "gets it", even though it too needs work). More happy eye fucking since you'll need to patch them all to the above. Did i mention learning to script?

As to the guy above saying Requiem? First sign of a clueless player. No offense. It's the McDonalds of combat modding.

All that said, combat alone is the second step you should take. Learn how navmeshing works, learn how pathfinding algorythms function. Learn how to avoid Havok limitations. Learn how to make calls without bloating. You do that, then go and start tweaking combat, that's when you start getting awed. Takes... time...
And to be frank, while i love how combat is in my version, these games are not about that. Don't lose the forest for the tree. Have had more fun fucking with a boosted AI and tricking my way past things than i could ever have had with pew pewing.

( if i sound like an expert, hardly.. am as non-techie as you can get. I started from scratch, just a few weeks/months(?) ago.. you will probably find posts of mine asking really basic stuff, lol; just used my brains and dedicated my time. You don't have to understand, just observe, reverse engineer and re-employ^^ )

Sorry, not autistic enough for that mess that you have listed.

 

[Jazz_]

 

[Space Insect]

What have you done with Morrowind?

 

[Aenra]

Mexi As stated, got time, got precious few RPGs i honestly enjoy in the first place. I either invest in making a barebones piece of shit into something enjoyable, or continue to stare at wall (can't read all day, can't jog all day, now can i?). I elected the former. Not to say this isn't excessive of course; far from it. You think the above is a lot, well as mentioned, that's just the beginning, got about 20 more mods for the combat segment alone. Then it's perks, crafting, questing, misc (lost count with those) and lastly engine related.
Name it as you will, but it is a welcome trade off for me. The hours i get back on it are immensely disproportional to those i invested into making it thus in the first place. Enjoyable hours mind.. you need to think (strategy and tactics) to play the game now.

Space Insect In Morrowind? Wonders
(it's easier.. i know many here praise the NWN engine [learning curve aside], but for someone as clueless as me, nothing has beaten Morrowind's Construction Kit yet. The things you can do with it sans programming knowledge? Even scripters can't in Skyrim)