Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[Lhynn]

Is there really a difference between having lots of HP and an insane troll-like regen or godlike resistances? The result is the same, you have to hit the dudebro a million times unless you can poke his weak points.

yes, resistances dont have to be universally high, so far from the same.

 

[Gord]

Given that they are supernatural/magical creatures, I have no issue with higher hp for undead (just don't blow it up too much).
However, they do also have certain resistances that might reduce the damage they take quite a lot (I think they are resistant or immune to most swords and daggers, arrows, ice/lightning and poison), so what looks like hp bloat might just be damage reduction.

Personally I think that there are other issues with Requiem that are more immersion breaking, like the insanely high damage from arrows.

 

[Lancehead]

They have a lot of hp because they're undead.

It's lame, as I said. What, does being undead suddenly make their bones turn into metal?

Likely the lingering magic that animates them.

Is there really a difference between having lots of HP and an insane troll-like regen or godlike resistances, though? The result is the same, you have to hit the dudebro a million times unless you can poke his weak points.

Resistances are specific whereas hp gives you buffer against everything.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

What's immersion breaking is the low damage of everything else compared to arrows. Magical armor or not, a wooden shaft with a pointy iron tip suddenly finding a new home inside your chest should hurt a lot.

Anyway, arrow damage is determined by distance, even an unarmored character can take an arrow or two from a long distance. Don't run into archers head-on, tanking their arrows with your face like in vanilla.

yes, resistances dont have to be universally high, so far from the same.

Resistances are specific whereas hp gives you buffer against everything.

Good point. But I was thinking more of exceptional creatures like the undead, who don't really care about pain so they may last much longer in a fight than is "reasonable".

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Is there really a difference between having lots of HP and an insane troll-like regen or godlike resistances, though? The result is the same, you have to hit the dudebro a million times unless you can poke his weak points.

Having weak points to poke is precisely the point.

edit: Think liches in BG - beatable, but only after you removed their protections and used the right wepons, or at least could tank them til their spells wore off. Jeez, you'd think a mod that references BG so often would feel a little more like it....

 

[Azrael the cat]

Is there really a difference between having lots of HP and an insane troll-like regen or godlike resistances, though? The result is the same, you have to hit the dudebro a million times unless you can poke his weak points.

High regen is countered by front-loaded spike damage, not by your overall damage output (the longer you take to kill it, the more hp you'll have to blow through - conversely if you can front load your damage you'll kill it without the regen playing much of a part).

Resistances require you to change your attack/damage type.

Both options involve tactics other than simply increasing your damage. In fact, simply increasing your damage in the same way as though it were hp-bloat is the worst tactical option in both cases.

 

[Gord]

What's immersion breaking is the low damage of everything else compared to arrows. Magical armor or not, a wooden shaft with a pointy iron tip suddenly finding a new home inside your chest should hurt a lot.

Anyway, arrow damage is determined by distance, even an unarmored character can take an arrow or two from a long distance. Don't run into archers head-on, tanking their arrows with your face like in vanilla.

Sure, you can also argue that other damage sources are too low in comparison.
But the gamaplay would suffer from increasing other damage sources, too.
I think that the guaranteed one-hit-kill effect from arrows at mid-low distances (which is the distance you will be in 90% of combat) is overkill, esp since they are fast and very accurate.
I'm not saying that I would like vanilla damage back, but make it so that you can survive one arrow (it can still hurt a lot, just not outright kill you), even when you are not an Heavy Armor sword'n'board character.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I guess Requiem's idea is that you shouldn't get shot in the first place. I don't have many problems with it, whenever I see an archer I just look for cover or put one of his melee buddies between us.

Is there really a difference between having lots of HP and an insane troll-like regen or godlike resistances, though? The result is the same, you have to hit the dudebro a million times unless you can poke his weak points.

Having weak points to poke is precisely the point.

edit: Think liches in BG - beatable, but only after you removed their protections and used the right wepons, or at least could tank them til their spells wore off. Jeez, you'd think a mod that references BG so often would feel a little more like it....

Their weak points are fire, silver weapons and anti-undead spells, like you said earlier...I don't get your point. Yeah, they have a truckload of HP, but it doesn't come into play if you hit their weaknesses.

 

[DraQ]

Being one-hit-killed over and over at the start of the game isn't much fun. One fireball - dead. One arrow - dead. One hit of a sword - dead or seriously injured. And most quests have you fighting multiple opponents, so it's just a question of who will kill your weak ass first. :/

That's Requiem's way of saying "choose your next action with exceptional care".

Planning your actions, kills and generally not acting like usual heroic tard goes a long way towards extending your life expectancy.

hitpoint sponges

Choosing right tool for the job goes a long way in Requiem.

For example a silver bladed weapon will do much better job killing Draugr than a mace made of mundane material, while a bow, will effectively cause no damage to them unless enchanted with something they're vulnerable to or using silver arrows (it will still be suboptimal, though).

Draugr are a bit tanky compared to ordinary bandits, but they go down easy with right approach.

Truly tanky enemies are Dwemer constructs, but, well, yeah - they're pretty much *actual* tanks.

No, it's a gamer mentality.

More like roller coaster mentality.

A good PC game designer designs quests to GRADUALLY increase in difficulty so that the player won't have to stop and do a bazillion sidequests until they are level 20 to take them on.

Except you're dealing with a sandbox here, and a good sandbox player will GTFO from major challenges and seek lesser ones until he can be sure he can tackle the major ones.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Truly tanky enemies are Dwemer constructs, but, well, yeah - they're pretty much *actual* tanks.

He doesn't know you have to use shock spells!

OMG, what a noob!

 

[circ]

Let's be a little fair now though. There's no way in hell you will beat even a bear in vanilla Skyrim at level 1 at the hardest difficulties. Not even decked out with a shitton of potions. You need perks, which you won't have at 1. Or even by the time you're level 10. And unless I create some super enchanted armor and weapons, even draugr deathlords will pulverize me. After I saw just how ridiculous enchant could be, without even using the alchemy loop, I've stuck to vanilla loot and elemental fury for weapons instead of enchants. More fun anyway. Plus I don't spam up smithing either.

Earlier I did the Black Star quest with a character, and I had a necklace something that gave 30% fire dam reduction, agent of mara, and maybe some generic saves vs magic ring - and still had to chug some potions fighting dremora. I could have spammed up alteration, sure, and been pretty much invulnerable with all that, and maybe a potion, but ech.

The perks in vanilla Skyrim are pretty damn boring though, and that Requiem stuff sounds a lot more interesting.

If you had trouble at lvl 1, then you probably suck at it. That said leveling does bring better enchancements to the loot tables, and there are enemies whose min level is set above 1 so you do get relatively stronger even with the level scaling, but you can get comparatively weaker if you dont build your combat skills as you level up, which is beyond comprehension.

Yawn. Really? I don't know about the bear in Helgen dungeons as I always arrow it or sneak, but you go and find a bear at level 1 at Master or Legendary, and see how you fare.

 

[Lhynn]

snip.

It dont take much to destroy a sack of old bones regardless of pain threshold, high hp is stupid, so is immunity yo bladed weapons.

DraQ And how the fuck is silver better at dealing the the supernatural than daedric? i hope it really isnt.

circ i told you, there are monsters whos base lvl is high than one, even then, sneak and legendary one handed should be good enough to kill it before the stupid thing even reacts.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

For example a silver bladed weapon will do much better job killing Draugr than a mace made of mundane material, while a bow, will effectively cause no damage to them unless enchanted with something they're vulnerable to or using silver arrows (it will still be suboptimal, though).

Draugr are a bit tanky compared to ordinary bandits, but they go down easy with right approach.

Truly tanky enemies are Dwemer constructs, but, well, yeah - they're pretty much *actual* tanks.

Draugr are the game's main enemy type and they are tame compared to the priests who are stronger than actual dragons...

A good PC game designer designs quests to GRADUALLY increase in difficulty so that the player won't have to stop and do a bazillion sidequests until they are level 20 to take them on.

Except you're dealing with a sandbox here, and a good sandbox player will GTFO from major challenges and seek lesser ones until he can be sure he can tackle the major ones.

Uh, and how am I supposed to know when these major challenges will arise? In any good sandbox game, there is usually some sort of warning. Take New Vegas, the game warns you that just straight shotting it to New Vegas would send you through deathclaw territory. The player is always warned when areas have a lot of difficult or well armed enemies. In Skyrim/Requiem no such warnings exist. Additionally, New Vegas doesn't just tell the player, "Sorry, newb. Better start grinding so you can take on the deathclaws and progress in the game.", it gives them an alternate route so they can level up on the way. There are always lower level quests and activities available. Requiem just drops a horde of high-level bad guys on you and then acts like it's your fault for not metagaming enough. That's not superior roleplaying - it's bad design that could easily be remedied by warning the player and/or having the dungeons be less linear - ie, having ways to bypass the truly difficult fights in most of the main quests.

I'll keep at it, but I'm dangerously close to removing it from my game and re-balancing the combat with duel, skytweak and a few other mods...

 

[DraQ]

It dont take much to destroy a sack of old bones regardless of pain threshold, high hp is stupid, so is immunity yo bladed weapons.

Draugr are *vulnerable* to bladed weapons and practically immune to arrows.

The logic is effectively that as long as their skin keeps them together they will fight - no internal bleeding to kill them, no organs to puncture with arrows or smash when caving their skull or ribcage with a hammr. You need to effectively chop them up which is easily done with big sword or axe.

DraQ And how the fuck is silver better at dealing the the supernatural than daedric? i hope it really isnt.[/quote]Silver deals bonus damage to undead in Skyrim.
Whether or not does this bonus exceeds all around damage you can do using Daedric would need to be checked.

 

[Lhynn]

just use SkyRe lambchop, has a better combat than duel, has new fun skill trees, and manages to achieve what requiem could not. Only problem it has is that it doesnt completly stop level scaling. but there must be a way to fix that.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

It sucks so far.

just use SkyRe lambchop, has a better combat than duel, has new fun skill trees, and manages to achieve what requiem could not. Only problem it has is that it doesnt completly stop level scaling. but there must be a way to fix that.

Well, even BG had level scaling to a degree. It just wasn't used by the designers as a LAZY AS FUCK way to handle all game balance problems the same way it is in Skyrim and Oblivion... Proper level scaling should spawn certain enemy types in certain locations depending on player level. It ensures combat always remains challenging and should never be noticeable to the casual observer. If SkyRe does something like that, I won't mind...

 

[DraQ]

Draugr are the game's main enemy type and they are tame compared to the priests who are stronger than actual dragons...

And I feel ill-qualified to reply because I'm using Mighty Dragons on top of Requiem.

Uh, and how am I supposed to know when these major challenges will arise? In any good sandbox game, there is usually some sort of warning.

Read the fucking bestiary you can find in starter dungeon and any other bestiary type of book you can find from vanilla. For enemies not listed use logic (gee, a millennia old undead caster slaved to dragons, I bet he will be easy) and your own perk descriptions when applicable.
Finally, use your build, equipment and racials to evaluate actual threat (troll - no flame spell, enchantment, fire source or huge 2h weapon to fell it before it can regenerate? - fucking run; shit using poisons - not argonian, no appropriate potions? - well, shit; archers + open space - no heavy armour with good shield or anything to occupy them? - walk the other way).

 

[DraQ]

just use SkyRe lambchop, has a better combat than duel, has new fun skill trees, and manages to achieve what requiem could not.

Replacing Restoration school with D&D divine magic?

 

[Lhynn]

just use SkyRe lambchop, has a better combat than duel, has new fun skill trees, and manages to achieve what requiem could not.

Replacing Restoration school with D&D divine magic?

Yes, is that suposed to be a criticism? because i actually think its kind of a compliment.. oh and ive said this before but:

Spoiler

 

[DraQ]

Yes, is that suposed to be a criticism? because i actually think its kind of a compliment.. oh and ive said this before but:

Spoiler

Yes, ripping off cover is completely the same as ripping off gameplay from completely incompatible setting.

 

[Lhynn]

Yes, is that suposed to be a criticism? because i actually think its kind of a compliment.. oh and ive said this before but:

Spoiler

Yes, ripping off cover is completely the same as ripping off gameplay from completely incompatible setting.

No, actually ripping of the cover is worse, and fucking lazy... copying the gameplay from something that works and still make it work in a wildly different setting, that takes skill.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Draugr are the game's main enemy type and they are tame compared to the priests who are stronger than actual dragons...

And I feel ill-qualified to reply because I'm using Mighty Dragons on top of Requiem.

Uh, and how am I supposed to know when these major challenges will arise? In any good sandbox game, there is usually some sort of warning.

Read the fucking bestiary you can find in starter dungeon and any other bestiary type of book you can find from vanilla. For enemies not listed use logic (gee, a millennia old undead caster slaved to dragons, I bet he will be easy) and your own perk descriptions when applicable.

I'm talking about before you get the quest/visit an area, not before you engage in combat. Also, I'm using live another life, so I don't know what dungeon you speak of.

 

[Eyeball]

SkyRe is a pile of ass compared to Requiem, mainly because of the poorly thought out skill trees which I hated. What the FUCK is "fingersmithing?"

Requiem is insanely frustrating a lot of the time, but winning fights in it actually feels rewarding. I took one step into the very first Draugr dungeon, expecting to chop the lowbies to death with my steel sword. 5 minutes later, I am running away like a bitch, only coming back much later with a full arsenal of silver weapons looted from werewolf Hunters. When I stopped playing my Requiem character, he could actually walk up to bears and tank them acceptably, which is a major accomplishment in Requiem and actually felt like an accomplishment.

 

[DraQ]

I'm talking about before you get the quest/visit an area

Areas typically have clues indicating what to expect.

Also, I'm using live another life, so I don't know what dungeon you speak of.

Then you're playing someone who isn't a clueless outsider and shouldn't need such hints.

Problem?

SkyRe is a pile of ass compared to Requiem, mainly because of the poorly thought out skill trees which I hated. What the FUCK is "fingersmithing?"

Ah, fingersmiths.
Forgotten caste of the ancient Dwemer - they made fingers for constructs.

 

[Lhynn]

SkyRe is a pile of ass compared to Requiem, mainly because of the poorly thought out skill trees which I hated. What the FUCK is "fingersmithing?"

Requiem is insanely frustrating a lot of the time, but winning fights in it actually feels rewarding. I took one step into the very first Draugr dungeon, expecting to chop the lowbies to death with my steel sword. 5 minutes later, I am running away like a bitch, only coming back much later with a full arsenal of silver weapons looted from werewolf Hunters. When I stopped playing my Requiem character, he could actually walk up to bears and tank them acceptably, which is a major accomplishment in Requiem and actually felt like an accomplishment.

what the fuck kind of question is that? fingersmithing is obviously being skilled with a woman.

also, yes, i can only imagine how good it must have felt to die over and over again only to go away, level up, come back and make the enemy eat shit. such a fucking novely, a innovative gameplay mechanic that should be implemented in every...

Spoiler

....ohh