Garfink

Diary of 1/May/2014 1:00am Tested out populated forts and it was definitely a serious challenge, I was level 25 and after dying about 4 times, I manage to kill all the bandits and checked their stats and noted 6 level 25 bandits and 3 level 19 bandits and 1 level 1 bandit. Most of the bandits were from populated forts. The open spaces make it possible to win, had to use fury to turn them against each other, there were a couple of dual wielders that could one shot me and an archer that can as well. If I can get the drop on any one of them with my dual wield, I can two to three shot most of them as well. sort of a fair fight, apart from the fact they out numbered me and my follower and my summon. Fun. I then went into a small inn like building and there were 2 in there and a brave stupid rush in there swords swinging got me killed very quickly, but a calculated fight won easily. Seems good so far... A random fort fight was EPIC. I am a little concerned that there were at least 3 bandits that could one-shot me... could be a problem. Noted that all NPC from Populated forts were level 25. 1:30am Problem: Enter the prison of the fort (dunstead) and got murdered, one shot by a dual wielder that I had NO chance against, especally in a tight space, it was a level 25 bandit, same level as me. Game is still too difficult. More adjustments needed. 2:30am Here is my fix for the problem, seems to be just right to prevent frustration. Install SkyTweak and change the difficult settings of Novice. The default setting of HLE hardcore is: Damage Dealt 1.00 Damage Taken 1.00 Change this to: DD 1.25 and DT 0.75 (A simple fix that just works) While you are at it: Go to NPC and change Follower Catch Up to 1.0. This will increase the speed your follow will catch up when they fall behind. This is to make up for the stupid AI pathing that often occurs. As a conjurer, this makes your reanimate undead almost useless as they are never there when you need them. 3:30am Good news played another hour and settings seems good. Not too hard and far from easy and the battles seem realistically deadly. I will do more testing tomorrow. Then I will adjust the dragons. Need to see more different types of enemies before making final judgement. 9:40am Just installed Northern Encounters and Extras, its a mod I've always like the sound of and just never got around to it, while I was fighting CTDs. Also installed the NPC water AI mod, no boundary and the horse stamina mod (I merged these together.) 3:00PM Many hours later and at level 29, I have since increased the Damage Taken and Damage Dealt back to 1 and 1. I have discovered the difficult problem I was having was due to Resplendent Racials, it would give certain races superpowers and the NPCs can close the distance that would normally take 5 secs in an instant! Redguard have this whirling blade skill that make dual wielders deadly, this may actually stack with something else as well... I am not sure... but in any case by deactivating NPC resplendent racial powers, I am able bring the level back to 1:1 fairness. I am finding having no ASIS increase spawns means small mobs and that is making it slightly easy, I will probably increase chances of 1 extra spawn now and see if that makes it a little tougher. 5:00pm Found and fixed a bug with the asis ini for perks, noticed that the game is well balance except for dual wielders seem to have SUPER speed, takes them an instant to complete a whirling power attack which is silly, so I added a perk mod exclusion to prevent it. The problem is with the dual flurry perk, just add flurry to the ASIS perk exclusion to fix it. Appears the flurry perks stack and is additive. 5:30pm Uninstalled that no boundary mod, I have discovered that it breaks quests that require you to kill bandit chiefs, IF the bandit chief or even other NPCs follows you OUTSIDE where they are suppose to die, the area is not considered cleared. Stupid but true. oh well. Why is it I am the one to have to find these things out the hard way! Also noted that the horse stamina mod looses its MCM menu when merged with other esps, but appears to work fine otherwise.

To do: Refine difficulty, Dragons, Loot, Bosses, Suggestions!

Found the balance for difficulty in terms of combat: HLE Hardcore: Set on Novice (This is the most important mod to make this work) SIC leave on medium, do not use extended stats/damage/armor (these will give too much "health" to monsters) Random Encounter leave on adept and don't add extended stats or the options below that one in the MCM. I would decrease all the monsters to 1-2 max, 3 or 4 is too much for most of the creatures (as set on default). You will die from the Falmer many times if you don't do this, the game ends up spawning too many for anyone to handle, especially at this difficult level. ASIS increase spawn OFF Currently using SkyRe combat module, will probably work the same with Duel V5 & V7 (both of which I prefer) from experience. Remember you need Revenge of the Enemies, HLE, ASIS AI, Perks, Spells & Potions (you need to install the Improved ASIS ini files), NPC enchantment fix, Apocalypse Spells to even out the playing field too, I am using Skyrim Redone using the main, standing stone modules and for races I am using Resplendent Racials which gives even more cool powers to you and your enemies. Level 24 character with decent medium armor + armor spell can be two shot-ed by a 2 handed weapon monster or archer (monster at the same level as character or slightly higher.) Takes about 3 power attacks (dual wield with average weapons) to kill a heavy armor draugr. Feels about right. The creatures seem just right on difficulty. I will test more and I am installing populated dungeon caves ruins and Populated forts towers places now and see if there are too much much spawns. Currently 2% chance of 1 extra ASIS spawn (token spawn, just so I don't have to uninstall it.), Random Encounters set to default and SIC on default. This isn't final by any stretch. Lets call this: Garfink's Skyrim Rebalance Project (GSRP) V 0.6 Beta

Well just did some testing... the new ASIS version is NOT compatible with SUM. SUM finishes but ASIS in SUM is corrupt and causes CTD on loading save game. Yes 64bit, its just with my OVERLOADED mod-list I sometimes get errors when running SUM. This fixes that problem... Edit: I will test a little and see how things are and then install the populated series and see. I'll be back.

Sure thing, remember that you have to download the reproccer to make sure all your mod added gear's stats is adjusted to SkyRe Specs: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28467/? and install the patches from here https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/48629/?, if you are using the immersive armor 7.1 then don't install the patch from the installer, but install the pre-post reproccer patch separately.

Ha ha, you should've downloaded the real-life SkyTweak and given yourself some speed boost or even better... Better AI for yourself! Sheesh... what some people will do to get some Skyrim time!

You'll need to teach me what to do because I've no idea! I can boot Tes5edit and clean mods and make simple merge patches of other patches but that's about it. I did learn something very interesting just now. Download this https://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php run it on java and javaw, and SUM works again with reproccer, ASIS, LLI, dual sheath even with massive load orders. You can now assign 1900 of ram that fixes the issue. For some reason NPC Enchant Fix doesn't like SUM though. I have uninstalled OBIS from my current game, just to test the whole unlevel loot and scarce loot thing before even thinking about making such a patch!

Yes and no, yes you can play a fast in & out character but with certain situations and mobs you really need a diversion of some sort or you'll get hit too often. You will probably need some specific equipment, speed increase gear allows you to run circles around the enemy and that may work, cast a fury spell to get the combat started and a fear spell if there is one to many enemy on you. Read the Skyrim Redone Guide that is written by the author, it is very enlightening and will highlight the design choices made. Gives you a good idea what character build you can make with it. Just google it.

1) No, SkyTweaks is great that way, I use it to view what other mods are doing to my character as well as make changes AFTER the other mod's changes. 2) You could just ignore the MCM and just disable increase spawns when using the proccer, there is no documentation with the MCM anywhere, so I am not sure even how it works... do you need to reload a new save? do you need to reset the cells? or does it just work dynamically? I have no idea. 3) I am using the leveling from the pack (can't remember the name at the moment, but I have typed it here on this thread somewhere.), I just modified the perk leveling back to the SkyRe default. The ini slows leveling from 1-30 and then reverts back to vanilla from >30 onwards and limits some skills like Smithing's affect on leveling beyond level 30. Works great Yes you are correct, Morrowloot & CCOR combo has very personal order requirements. The default loot will work but not the way that is intended. Yes the spell books from mods like forgotten magic are still found normally on dead bodies and its merchants and ALL other spell books from vanilla and mods aren't touched by Scarcity. In fact all books aren't affected. You've described my goals very well. I want a challenge without frustration, a very fine line indeed. What I am certain of is I don't want health-sink monsters (1:1 player/npc damage is perfect), so just increasing difficulty is NOT an option, vanilla game is TOO easy, deleveling causes issues at various levels of play (in my personal experience, even with Requiem, yes I have play through 2 characters with Requiem, I like certain parts of Requiem but not others, if only it was modular, come to think of it, if only skyrim unleash was more modular...) and is very difficult to balance and also causes frustration and limits exploration in the sandbox world of Skyrim. I think what makes the biggest difference is mods that improve AI, give NPC player skills, increase spawns, increase types of creatures and leveling the monsters closer to your level. These evens the playing field whilst retaining the essence of the original leveled game. On top of this add a few well done quests to flesh out the world bigger, then I will have my perfect Skyrim. So far everything is going great, in the next two days I have a lot of play time (public holiday where I am) and I hope to finalize the "increase spawn" balance of ASIS, random encounter and SIC and I think I am done. I am slowly getting the hang of all the options of these mods and how they interact, which was clear as mud before hand. Lots of trial and error really, not an exact science that's for sure. EDIT: Now that I have gotten rid of Wet and Cold, its no biggie really, I do miss the footprints more, believe it or not. I have tried hunterborn, I like how it adds time to skinning etc. Let me recommend Professions: I don't care for the "professions" part of the mod, doesn't make sense to me, BUT, you can add game-time to ALL activities like reading, crafting, enchanting etc. works great after you have fine tune the settings a bit. The defaults are WAY too high and you will starve to death. (I may add these back in later, for more realism... but I remember using these adds a lot more non-combative management to the game, that I am not sure I like. For roleplaying, I guess its great.

That Seasons of Skyrim color palette is really nice. (I am currently using Seasons myself). But makes the Screens look quite a bit like Seasons now. The Sky-filter looks a little blue with the distance clouds looking unnaturally blue. Indoor shots look great, I too use ELE and RS, how dark are the dungeons and nights?

Both Radiance are the same version, so it doesn't make any difference. No problems at all with ASIS, with AI, Potions, Perks, Spells and increase spawns ON. I haven't had a "freeze" type crash for a long time, I used to get those before the Memory Patch & Enboost, so I am not sure what is wrong. Its also possible that ASIS is spawning something that shouldn't be spawned or something that has an error. Get those Updated ASIS.ini from the nexus, they are not perfect, but they are a crap load better than what came with ASIS originally. BUT.. if RE works for you and you're happy with what it does, then don't bother. Just use ASIS for the AI, Perks, Spells and Potions.

I can't imagine playing Skyrim without SkyRe with Duel myself.

I have always considered Dual Wield Parrying, though realistic, a cheat. Dual Wield is so powerful to begin with and when playing with it, the fun is to know when its safe to go into melee and when not to. You will have to rely on getting the initiative and stagger your opponents with power attacks. Being able to block really makes it easier as blocking is pretty powerful.

I have been thinking about installing that for the last few days, (the no boundary mod), I will balance the rest of my game a little more before doing so.... I was about to install it when I got mobbed in-game last night and wish I could cross a boundary at the moment... I went back into upper Saatharl, the door was lock and the mobs came in from below anyhow... I think I had to reload the darn game 10 times before I found the combo of scrolls, potions, spells and to attack whom first.... Need to turn off ASIS increase spawn now, before bed! Haven't had time to play tonight unfortunately. The old girl organized a Mahjong game....

The Jugs of Dibella are more a candidate for STEP than this mod methinks. Interesting idea, but seems rather un-lorefriendly. How is shooting red bits lore friendly? Where do all the other dragonborns come from? I ain't going to mention the stomach scene either?

I have tried all 3 dragon mods, Deadly Dragon is great because you can adjust the vanilla dragons, all the other monster mods don't touch the dragons because of its existence, so if you want to make adjustments, this is the mod to go to. I have been using DCO for a long time, I've had no issues with the scripts, apart from that "stalking" dead dragon after you kill one. Oddly if you install ALL three mods DD, DCO and ERSO one, these dragons disappear. Just an observation. I love the dragons introduced in DCO, they are better than the ERSO ones and are more scaled to your level, with ERSO, they are either too easy or too tough depending which nightmare level you choose. I found that I have to install progressively tougher dragons as I level up, which is a little disturbing. Never had an issue with DCO, feels vanilla, apart from all the awesome powers the dragons have. You can use DD with either/or/both, so you can adjust things. Also the protect essentials option in DD is nice sub-mod to have running. Speaking of scripts.... DCO with wet-cold, frostfall, EBT, footprint, DSI, Duel V7 etc. (script heavy mods), might cause issues. Now that I have uninstalled 3 of these, I am having NO issues ANYWHERE. But could be a problem with people using STEP or Extended Step and definitely SR. I have used Duel for the LONGEST time. I love both Duel 5 and Duel 7 (not the latest one with the questionable archery changes), they make the use of the stamina bar of all the combat mods. I am currently using SkyRe Combat module, just because I haven't used for awhile and I was trying to flesh out my final scripting load issues and it is OKAY, just a little too easy on the stamina in my opinion. It isn't very often I run out and only in long long fights. In duel its a real concern, especially if you power attack and block. Duel 7 is a lot more "real" or "less forgiving" in my estimation, Duel 5 is great too. Now that all my CTDs are gone, I will definitely go back to Duel in my next play thru. I will check out you uncapper.ini too. Standby there. As for HLE, probably best to ask the horse that wrote the mod, I have used both and there weren't obvious differences. I just noted that the SIC version is newer and since I use SIC I use that, but it only comes in one version so it maybe an issue and also its unlikely to be updated any time soon either, but neither is SIC I guess. I am pretty sure SIC introduced spawn points are different and under its own control, and so is random encounters, so there is no overlap. I say use both. I like that random encounters allow you to make a lot of changes on the fly and the difficult adjustments (the specific ones) apply to ALL spawns. Its ASIS spawns I can live with out.

Not a problem if its mergeble via that Tes5edit script merging plugin...

How do I get rid of the clouds and/or fog in the world map and how do I zoom in a lot more? I can't remember where I've seen these options... Anyone?

HLE Hardcore is my answer to the alternative to deleveling, you can of course use it whilst using an encounter delevel mod. I think the vanilla adept setting where you do 100% damage and so do the enemy (i.e fair) is WAY too easy, especially when NPCs spawn on average lower level than you. I can win with any character and most fights are just a walk in the park. Hardcore doesn't change anything but just make the "leveling" fair for the monsters and makes every dungeon so much more fun. I think it should be about fun. Too easy is no fun. You can use SkyTweak to set the difficulty slider back to default so people can choose a real Novice level if they want to, so that shouldn't be of any concern. You can of course patch it too back to default difficulty scaling I guess. NPC enchantment fix simply allow NPCs to use all the enchanted gear they happen to have on them. In vanilla only certain enchantments work for the NPCs, so it isn't fair. This just fixes it. No patching required so this is a no brainer insertion. Radiance is sort of like Skyrim Cutting Room, adds encounters to the outside world, pretty seemlessly and without scripts. I've been using it for the longest time. Extended Encounters does something similar, but I am not so sure about some of the encounters, there is ONE encounter that has the Vigilants fighting off some Daedras, you can't loot the armor so its not bad (you can harvest their hearts though, but since daedra hearts are almost impossible come by for alchemists, in super scarce world, its not game changing.), but it can happen a touch too often to suspend disbelief. SIC version is needed if you use SIC! SIC already adds so much more variety to the creatures at all levels but with HLE support its even better. Very lore friendly. I like it. As for the economy, I will keep you up to date with any further findings and adjustments I make. So far so good, I think it still probably needs some minor tweaks like increasing merchant items for sale and maybe some minor trade & barter tweaks, like how much gold the vendors should have, but my suggestion so far is very close to the correct ball park. I am just concerned that its a little too Scarce. But we'll see. Random encounter is different from ASIS, it adds spawn points all over Skyrim, these function like vanilla spawn points so ASIS will affect it. BUT: Random encounter (RE) can control its own spawn point spawning rates and is customizible via MCM, changing the spawn rates within the RE MCM doesn't affect vanilla spawn points though, so you need ASIS for that. So far I have found with the increase AI fairness, there is no need for extra spawns of ASIS, just a few smattering of spawns from RE is enough to add more without adding too much more. Another reason for installing SIC is it too installs its own unique spawn points and this will further encounters, without needing all these other encounter mods like populated series. I highly recommend you read this https://sites.google.com/site/immersivecreatures/home to get a handle on all the options for SIC and HLE. Its too bad not all the MCM options are documented in much detail, like the difficult settings. I currently have extended stats and armor, I might turn off the armor as it could be making the enemies a little too resistant to damage, currently I am needing 3-5 power dual-wield attacks to take down an even/slightly higher level spawn and I think that is a little to much, 2.5 should be enough, so I will be trying that out tonight. With HLE hardcore you don't need extended damage, as you will get knocked about enough as it is. The next adjustment is dragons... I don't like the expert setting in deadly dragon, dragons have a touch too much health compared to vanilla. So I will be manually adjusting these settings as I go. I am using dragon combat overhaul also. (BTW, I don't use much of REG, only all the bits that don't need patches, I am not a huge fan of ETaC myself, its a good implementation and I see why people like it, like dawn of series, but I am not in for adding bits (especially such large bits) to Skyrim that serves no function but aesthetics, like the market stalls outside whiterun, you'll never buy anything from them but they just take up space, they serve no quest function either, but the quests I like very much, BUT for example since I don't use the patches I can't use Aurora Village with Moon and Star say... no biggie. Moon and Star is so much better anyway. )

Just an update on my own modding endeavors that maybe relevant to your pack dreadflopp. Since I am too in love with the SkyRe Perk Tree, I don't know if I can migrate to SPERG anytime soon. (you can sell me on it though!). I think this is very relevant to your pack, as you aren't relying on Requiem for every change. So here it goes: As you know I am trying out HLE hardcore module. I have discovered something awful last night... I run asis with a relative low spawn rate, 0-50 1-200 2-50 3-10 and I have the "reduce indoor spawns" turned on in the MCM. I also have random encounter running and that adds spawn points and I left that at default settings. Well... its still TOO many spawns with HLE hardcore. First thing: Had to set it at Novice difficulty (equivalent to adept in vanilla), with ASIS AI, Perk, Spells, revenge of the enemy, NPC Enchantment Fix, HLE hardcore, the game has indeed become an even playing field. Monsters are tough, but not unbeatable... unless you get totally swamped in a tight space. Trust me, I play pretty darn well. ASIS and random encounters seem to interact making it harder to adjust spawn rates. In Sarthaal, admittedly my current illusionist character isn't well equip against undead (most of the illusion spells just don't work on them), I kept coming up against very large >5-10 draugr mods, some below, some at my level and some higher, I can see HLE hardcore at work, the average enemy level is level closer to the character now and I like it. But >5-10 draugr in room after room that are so high level is just too much! Even 2-3 is a tough fight even with a follower and summons. Very nice. My recommendation with this setup is to turn off ASIS increase spawn in the MCM and leave the extra spawning to Random Encounter. What happens I think is ASIS works for EVERY spawn point and in Random Encounter you can set the number of spawns per Random Encounter added Spawn point. So if ASIS spawns 2 extra spawns, in a room with 3 spawning draugr (pretty usual), you could end up with 6 draugr and if Random Encounter has a spawn point in that room and was set to spawn 3 draugr to, you can get another 6 draugr with asis running in the background too.... that is potentially 12 draugr with an average of 6!! I haven't even started to talk about draugr in adjacent rooms being alerted to your battle!! Way too much!! So I recommend users to disable ASIS Spawns altogether and adjust Random Encounters to spawn ONLY 1 or maximum 2 of any single creature type. Outdoor creatures can be adjusted to more to your liking. You could dispense with Random Encounters of course, but I like the extra spawn points around Skyrim, makes the world less empty and monsters where you don't expect them to be. Having said all this, HLE Hardcore is a welcome addition to my game, in combo with the other mods I mention that even the AI-player playing field, there is less need for huge mobs to balance the game or increasing in-game difficulty turning the monsters in to health-sinks. The game makes sense now, an arrow from a even level creature can take you down to your knees and a couple of unprotected swipes from a draugr can bring you close to death. The draugr that are higher level to you will kill you very quick if you are complacent. I forgot to mention that I have Apocalypse spells installed so the monsters are armed with these spells as well. Just to round off: I also have SIC and OBIS and Scarcity (loot 8x merchant 6x) and Morrowloot and many of the usual armor/weapon mods installed. Like our other conversation: After playing more I am finding Scarcity and Morrowloot combined is SUPER, I don't think the other armor and weapon mods added to the level list (contaminating Morrowloot's) is a real problem in game. I have discovered a super tight economy. Loot is super Scarce and you'll need to find Morrowloot's loot to make things work. I am still using some dumb Fire Enchanted Cyrodillic shortsword and an unenchanted elven longsword I found at around level 15 for God sakes! At level 24 with a slow uncapper ini progression (which means I have had more time to acquire loot), I have acquired less than 10000 gp, which is NOTHING in the new economy. With my Trade and Barter Settings and being Thane of Whiterun, things are reasonably priced (cheap actually) in Whiterun, but everywhere else its terrible and you'll need them barter potions. BUT the economy isn't so bad that I can't afford a house and a horse, I am able to buy all the illusion/conjuration spells I wanted so it isn't silly and deviate too far from vanilla. I would probably increase Merchant loot rarity to 4x, as the merchants have so very little sell it is funny. I have more stuff to sell than they do! Hope that helps, I would love to be accredited for anything Skyrim... as I can't write a mod or make a pack of my own for my life! Ask any questions you like and suggestions to try out for testing.

I think that "mega" guide will occur when the packs are more mature and there will be a pack for combining packs one day!

I am using SR, with SkyRe and minor modifications, so I can't really attest to objective SR performance in terms of testing. BUT, having said that... It would be absolutely brilliant if you can list in the troubleshooting section, heavily scripted mods in SR, so that people that are using OTHER packs know what to uninstall first if getting CTDs that weren't there before. I am now 100% certain that scripted mods combos running together can cause rather random seeming CTDs. Could be SkyRe and EBT and maybe even Footprint, Wet-Cold, Frostfall, BSE for example. But given how many modders here use SkyRe/Requiem/Duel etc. in their plays, it wouldn't be a terrible idea. You can't assume that all these end-user modders will know how to troubleshoot problems and I know how frustrating it all is. I've written elsewhere on these forums, that uninstalling EBT has solved my (hopefully) final random CTD issues, I am certain its not the fault of EBT per se, its the combo of heavy constant scripts, particularly those that compete to affect surrounding NPCs that is the issue. I know that this isn't what this "pack" is about, but there is almost a certainty that almost all modders will attempt to merge yours with other mods and I am 100% certain this advice is worth its weight in GOLD. With the advent of the memory patch and ENBBoost, and apart from the usual missing masters and silly installation mistakes and out-right mod conflicts, script conflict/competition caused CTDs is the last bastion of the random'ish CTD in Skyrim.

Problem was readily fixed, just missed installing the relative weapon's DSR mesh. Thanks redirishlord.

Brilliant!

If you are snobbish, I am a modding prostitute. :) I've used this mod to remove orphan scripts, even after following proper uninstallation procedures. I just uninstalled footprints using this method. I stop the quest per the footprint uninstall instruction and then disable to mod and deleted the scripts. Worked fine. There were no longer any thing from foot print running in following saves.