Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[deuxhero]

When's Nehrim 2?

Isn't Nehrim itself a sequel?

 

[dAb.]

Heya : )

YASH author here, just to inform you that the mod has been updated and is in sync with USLEEP. Have fun!

 

[Drax]

Looks cool, will give it a try.

 

[Akratus]

YASH abides by three strict rules:

• Never, ever affect the player with something that will NOT affect the NPCs. Never. If your Khajiit character runs fast it's because ALL Khajiit in the game run fast. If your Redguard character is more skilled with one handed weapons it's because ALL Redguards are more skilled with one handed weapons. If your Bosmer character can deal more damage with bows and draw them fast it's because ALL Wood Elves are more skilled with bows. And so on. The essence of the mod is that you are NOT anything special compared to other people, save for your innate ability to shout.
• Don't disrupt the vanilla mechanics: improve them. YASH intentionally does NOT add new perks, new skills, new spells, new weapons, etc. Instead, it improves the existing game elements by making them more interesting and useful, sometimes essential to proceed.
• Focus on character skill over player skill. YASH is not aimed at button mashers but at players who carefully plan their characters.

Last but not least, never let anyone think that he's playing with a mod on. The best mod is the one that doesn't feel it's a mod at all, but something so well integrated into the game that the player could think the game has always been like that since day one. This was the hardest goal but I did my best to accomplish it.

Perfect.

 

[DraQ]

YASH abides by three strict rules:

• Never, ever affect the player with something that will NOT affect the NPCs. Never. If your Khajiit character runs fast it's because ALL Khajiit in the game run fast. If your Redguard character is more skilled with one handed weapons it's because ALL Redguards are more skilled with one handed weapons. If your Bosmer character can deal more damage with bows and draw them fast it's because ALL Wood Elves are more skilled with bows. And so on. The essence of the mod is that you are NOT anything special compared to other people, save for your innate ability to shout.
• Don't disrupt the vanilla mechanics: improve them. YASH intentionally does NOT add new perks, new skills, new spells, new weapons, etc. Instead, it improves the existing game elements by making them more interesting and useful, sometimes essential to proceed.
• Focus on character skill over player skill. YASH is not aimed at button mashers but at players who carefully plan their characters.

Last but not least, never let anyone think that he's playing with a mod on. The best mod is the one that doesn't feel it's a mod at all, but something so well integrated into the game that the player could think the game has always been like that since day one. This was the hardest goal but I did my best to accomplish it.

Perfect.

And then you have shit like "you need to have at least 20 one-handed skill for this here steel sword to not be about as effective as a nerf bat".


I like lightweight mods. I consider lightness a measure of elegance and systemic mastery plus it also means less potential problems down the line.
I absolutely adore mods that try to keep mechanics PC/NPC indifferent, because to me that's what good RPG mechanics should aspire to.
A lot of things about this mod make me hard, but still no.

 

[hell bovine]

I like lightweight mods. I consider lightness a measure of elegance and systemic mastery plus it also means less potential problems down the line.
I absolutely adore mods that try to keep mechanics PC/NPC indifferent, because to me that's what good RPG mechanics should aspire to.
A lot of things about this mod make me hard, but still no.

YASH used to be modular, meaning you could "cherry pick" the parts that you like and replace the others with different mods. Did that change?

 

[dAb.]

YASH abides by three strict rules:

• Never, ever affect the player with something that will NOT affect the NPCs. Never. If your Khajiit character runs fast it's because ALL Khajiit in the game run fast. If your Redguard character is more skilled with one handed weapons it's because ALL Redguards are more skilled with one handed weapons. If your Bosmer character can deal more damage with bows and draw them fast it's because ALL Wood Elves are more skilled with bows. And so on. The essence of the mod is that you are NOT anything special compared to other people, save for your innate ability to shout.
• Don't disrupt the vanilla mechanics: improve them. YASH intentionally does NOT add new perks, new skills, new spells, new weapons, etc. Instead, it improves the existing game elements by making them more interesting and useful, sometimes essential to proceed.
• Focus on character skill over player skill. YASH is not aimed at button mashers but at players who carefully plan their characters.

Last but not least, never let anyone think that he's playing with a mod on. The best mod is the one that doesn't feel it's a mod at all, but something so well integrated into the game that the player could think the game has always been like that since day one. This was the hardest goal but I did my best to accomplish it.

Perfect.

And then you have shit like "you need to have at least 20 one-handed skill for this here steel sword to not be about as effective as a nerf bat".


I like lightweight mods. I consider lightness a measure of elegance and systemic mastery plus it also means less potential problems down the line.
I absolutely adore mods that try to keep mechanics PC/NPC indifferent, because to me that's what good RPG mechanics should aspire to.
A lot of things about this mod make me hard, but still no.

I wouldn't call shit one of the main features of the mod, but I'm always open to suggestions. How would you handle the problem of finding uber equipment earlier than usual, even though the chances are very low?

 

[dAb.]

I like lightweight mods. I consider lightness a measure of elegance and systemic mastery plus it also means less potential problems down the line.
I absolutely adore mods that try to keep mechanics PC/NPC indifferent, because to me that's what good RPG mechanics should aspire to.
A lot of things about this mod make me hard, but still no.

YASH used to be modular, meaning you could "cherry pick" the parts that you like and replace the others with different mods. Did that change?

It did not. But skills requirements aren't optional.

 

[hell bovine]

I wouldn't call shit one of the main features of the mod, but I'm always open to suggestions. How would you handle the problem of finding uber equipment earlier than usual, even though the chances are very low?

I'm not sure if this is possible in Skyrim, but a possible solution would be for damage to be dependent on skills first and foremost. The type of material would determine other characteristics, e. g. whether a weapon was capable of harming magical critters, how durable it was etc. Because a skilled swordsman will be deadly with an iron sword or a glass one, and a beginner will be shit with both, but iron might be not enough to kill a werewolf either way.

 

[Don Peste]

I finished the thread. You people are recommending here about 600 mods (I mean endorsing. I'm not including those only mentioned). I will list them in a spreadsheet someday.

So I guess it's safe to say you only need 600 mods to improve Skyrim.

And this is my Top 25 RPG Codex users with the most mod recommendations:
This only counts the first time a certain mod is recommended. After that, that mod doesn't count anymore.

Grunker 54
Lambchop19 37
escom 36
NotAGolfer 30
Alienman 25
Multiple Sarcasm 24
mastroego 24
Gord 21
someone else 18
Clockwork Knight 17
Commissar Draco 17
DraQ 13
felipepepe 12
hiver 11
Wulfric Pinewood 11
GarfunkeL 11
Agassi 9
Lhynn 9
circ 9
Genma:TheDestroyer 8
you know what time it is 8
Manjuice Nutella 7
hell bovine 7
AN4RCHID 7
Akratus 6

 

[DraQ]

Ok, so far Requiem remains my go-to overhaul.
It's not perfect but it generally does the right thing fairly consistently.

I wouldn't call shit one of the main features of the mod, but I'm always open to suggestions. How would you handle the problem of finding uber equipment earlier than usual, even though the chances are very low?

As usual, it depends.

First loot should be tied to who wields it or where it's found. Randomness is desirable but if you need to overcome high-level threat to obtain a high level weapon it starts to balance out.
Lack of durability in Skyrim prevents this without extensive modding effort, but another good solution would be maintenance cost. Maintaining or replacing crude pointy piece of iron is going to be cheap and easy - perfectly affordable even if you use it for stabbing rats skeevers and murderhobo bandits. OTOH rats or bandits won't pay off nor replace an ultra-rare and expertly crafted glass or daedric blade, so with more expensive equipment you need to watch what you nick it on, you need to consistently take on high level challenges which you won't if you're low level fellow who got lucky once and found a daedric blade. Wear can of course be dependent on skill.
Also helpful is making different materials different. Not just incrementally better. Glass weapons should be fast, light and sharp but fragile and expensive (again, durability), steel should actually be an incremental upgrade over iron, but that's an exception. The more variables you have to work with the better you can differentiate between materials and the less of an incremental upgrade you can make a material.

You can also make it so that skill dominates benefits of better gear without overriding them. If high skill combatant is plain faster/can consistently disarm/stagger/knock down/parry/etc. lower level combatant, he will win even if the low level combatant has much better weapon and more killing power. Stamina burn can also be an effective factor. If you manage this, then you can just let the player have and use his high level item without it breaking the balance. Minimal skill requirements are awfully gamey, artificial and cheap most of the time. They can work with for example bows and some exotic weapons like katanas or glass blades (generally ones that would be easy to damage if used improperly - but you need to implement breakage mechanics, if not durability based then chance based and skill dependent - preferably with delay so weapon only breaks some time after player misused and damaged it without noticing it at the time).

 

[DraQ]

I finished the thread. You people are recommending here about 600 mods (I mean endorsing. I'm not including those only mentioned). I will list them in a spreadsheet someday.

So I guess it's safe to say you only need 600 mods to improve Skyrim.

I have about 10% of that with quite a few being minor, sometimes cosmetic tweaks, and over half of the remaining ones Requiem patches or optional modules.

 

[dAb.]

*snip*

Loot value is already tied to location / enemy power. No hand placed loot means there are no hand placed specific items, not that loot is randomly scattered all over the place. I'm afraid your proposals are either against the lore or not feasible: in TES, Glass is heavier and slower than Iron [this is why you require more skill to swing a Glass weapon] and more durable. As for durability, it can't be implemented properly in Skyrim, it's hardcoded in the engine and we have to live with it. A few modders tried to override this behaviour, with debatable results. Also, don't want to hijack the thread, hence I'm tip-toeing out of here. C ya.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

. Also, don't want to hijack the thread, hence I'm tip-toeing out of here.

Threads are made to be high, low and medium-jacked. This is the Codex after all.

 

[Hirato]

There's still the point DraQ made about rare loot being guarded by correspondingly rare and difficult group of enemies.
If they are guarded by such enemies, a weak player will have a very difficult time obtaining the loot, and if they manage to use their wits to completely outmaneuver enemies far harder than they should be able to handle, it's only fair they they get to enjoy the spoils sooner rather than later.

Some changes I'd personally make based on your mod's description
- Remove spell failure while all 3 conditions are met of: you're not in combat, there are no enemies around, and you're not sneaking.
- Half the threshold needed to gain full EXP from using items, ie, so the tiers go 1, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc, with daedric maybe ending at 50; I'd also use these points as a point where the character is no longer completely unskilled with the weapon and can use it somewhere between fully unskilled and fully proficient (this being the the original threshold value to gain full EXP).
- Match Elven and Glass with Orcish and Dwarven respectively on the material tiers; I'd also add Fur and Leather (or leather and hide?) as equivalent to Iron and Steel respectively for characters who prefer light armour.

 

[DraQ]

I'm afraid your proposals are either against the lore or not feasible: in TES, Glass is heavier and slower than Iron [this is why you require more skill to swing a Glass weapon] and more durable.

I'm terribly sorry but the thing you just said is 100% bullshit.

Quick question, have you played *any* TES game prior to Oblivion and Skyrim?
Because if you have you should have known that:

• Glass as weapon and armor making material was introduced to TES in Morrowind. Morrowind glass was 0.6 as heavy as iron or steel and slightly over half as durable as steel, but only marginally less effective, damage-wise than ebony and slightly more so than daedric.
  
• Glass equipment was described as follows by Garothmuk gro-Muzgub, the most knowledgable (or at least most talkative) smith in game:
  

  These light and elegant weapons of High Elven design feature extravagant use of rare metals and cutting edges made from rare crystalline materials. Duelists and assassins appreciate the delicate balance and sinister sharpness of glass weapons.

• Morrowind was pretty much the only TES with extensive material lore that was also reflected in gameplay. In all others it was either fairly rudimentary (Daggerfall), or simple linear scale in terms of damage and weight (Oblivion, Skyrim - Daggerfall also supported strictly linear gradation of what can hit what). Morrowind was also characterized by lack of weapons made of materials that wouldn't work for given purpose, so for example no glass bows or warhammers.
  
• RL glass is about 1/3 as dense as iron but I guess that if you account for metallic fittings and such stuff 2/3 for whole weapon isn't unreasonable, which along with low durability and described sharpness means that TES glass isn't too different from RL volcanic/meteoric glass (and can be considered rough equivalent of moldavite and TES glass weapons are essentially higher tech versions of Mezoamerican macublablasomething.
• Glass armor was described (no source this time beyond UESP page), and arguably presented as studded with relatively small glass elements which makes when trying to use hard but brittle material - small pieces are less prone to fracture while they still resist cutting.

This means yes, it's light, yes it's brittle, and yes it produces wickedly sharp edges, because both RL and the only TES that was set in an extensively volcanic (Red Mountain) and post-impact (Heart of Lorkhan) province with manufacture of glass weaponry as full blown industry, and the only TES that cared about its material lore say so.
What that shit and badly broken TES game that only showed any consistency in how consistently it contradicted itself in terms of lore (Oblivion) and that other TES game that has largely inclined over the former but still copied some of its failings including particular bits of lore (Skyrim) have to say in this matter is of secondary importance - good lore should always supersede bad lore if they conflict while stupid or internally inconsistent lore can be dismissed by saying "bah", without any further explanation.

</massive_sperg>

 

[dAb.]

*snip*

I'm terribly sorry as well: you are horribly wrong.

https://s32.postimg.org/s04igrl79/tesweights.png

If you knew anything about TES lore you'd knew that the most recent lore ALWAYS overrides the previous, no matter what previous games have to say on the matter. About your quick question: yes. And since it's pretty obvious to me that you don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, nor you have either lore or modding knowledge, I think I'm done talking to you. You can link whatever you want, from now on I'll just ignore both you and your manners.

 

[Drax]

Modders gonna mod.

 

[dAb.]

Modders gonna mod.

This is not even a matter of modding, it's just a matter of spending two seconds with the proper tools and see what the games internals have to say on the matter. Either that, or have a chat with the devs over at the Beth forums and follow their guidelines. Me and others like me use to do both since always. Whatever, apparently I've subscribed to the wrong forum.
/out

 

[NotAGolfer]

*snip*

I'm terribly sorry as well: you are horribly wrong.

https://s32.postimg.org/s04igrl79/tesweights.png

If you knew anything about TES lore you'd knew that the most recent lore ALWAYS overrides the previous, no matter what previous games have to say on the matter. About your quick question: yes. And since it's pretty obvious to me that you don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, nor you have either lore or modding knowledge, I think I'm done talking to you. You can link whatever you want, from now on I'll just ignore both you and your manners.

Glass weapons are heavier than iron weapons.
Glass armor though is much much lighter than iron one.
You're probably asking yourself what point I want to make?

That Bethesda are a bunch of retards and you are too to slurp up their nonsensical bullshit I guess.

But at least they release sorta useful modding tools so I forgive them their recent poor attempts at game design.
Will try out Enderal for a bit after I finished Twitcher 3 plus expansions. Actually looking forward to it.

 

[Mexi]

Anyone tried this guy's YASH thing? How does it hold up to Requiem? Guy gets a plus for having it be lightweight. One of the things I hate about Requiem is all the compatibility shit.

 

[Drax]

Modders gonna mod.

This is not even a matter of modding, it's just a matter of spending two seconds with the proper tools and see what the games internals have to say on the matter. Either that, or have a chat with the devs over at the Beth forums and follow their guidelines. Me and others like me use to do both since always. Whatever, apparently I've subscribed to the wrong forum.
/out

I'm not talking about the issue being debated, I'm enjoying your faggy overreaction.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Lol

 

[Grunker]

I recommended mods? Didn't I just come here for technical support?

 

[dAb.]

Glass weapons are heavier than iron weapons.
Glass armor though is much much lighter than iron one.
You're probably asking yourself what point I want to make?

There's a reason why they did so, but at this point I won't even bother explaining it.

That Bethesda are a bunch of retards and you are too to slurp up their nonsensical bullshit I guess.

Wow. Just.. wow. I've been warned and told this place is a cesspool of ignorant haters, nevertheless I tried to approach with an open mind. If anything, age taught me that everyone deserves a chance. You guys do not. I'll just be on my way.
/unsubscribing