TESTING Lucien Lachance AE (by LeonardoTrote)

[CorneliusC]

1 hour ago, z929669 said:

1 hour ago, ButchDiavolo said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this plugin just an outfit change? If so, is it really necessary to even use it. For the ghost effect we use EVE Ghost mechanics and Shaders restored, right?

Whatever it changes is simple and could probably be covered by our patch if wanted, but I never looked closely at this and was never involved directly in testing it. Dropping it is certainly another option, IMO.

You're right, it is more or less an outfit- and name change (restoration) for one NPC, and the STEP patch combines these changes with the ones from EVE Ghost Mechanics. We've also had a short conversation about the patch one year ago, and i still haven't encountered this particular character in game yet. The more important mod for me here is certainely 'Ghosts Mechanics and Shaders Restored'.

[TechAngel85]

11 hours ago, CorneliusC said:

You're right, it is more or less an outfit- and name change (restoration) for one NPC, and the STEP patch combines these changes with the ones from EVE Ghost Mechanics. We've also had a short conversation about the patch one year ago, and i still haven't encountered this particular character in game yet. The more important mod for me here is certainely 'Ghosts Mechanics and Shaders Restored'.

I know exactly where this NPC is, but it's only one location and one quest. The NPC is originally from Oblivion and the mod restored the look of the NPC to match their look in Oblivion. I want to say there may be another mod out there that does this, but I could be wrong. It's not a big loss to just drop it.

[ButchDiavolo]

I would vote to just drop it (I already have). I mean, it is a ghost, so not a highly detailed NPC. Of course, remember to remove Lucien from the STEP Conflict Resolution patch with xEdit BEFORE uninstalling (unlike me *massive eyeroll*)

[Mousetick]

I merged this mod into a custom personal patch, long ago. The mod didn't warrant a full plugin slot.

Personal choice aside, it struck me as odd that this particular NPC, who is only encountered during the Dark Brotherhood questline if the player joins the faction, received particular treatment by the STEP Guide among all the Skyrim adult NPCs, who are untouched.

By the same logic, Jiub's spirit in the Soul Cairn should be made to look like he did in Morrowind. There is a mod for that: Jiub - Morrowind Appearance.

The changes from this mod could easily be incorporated into the STEP Patch as Z suggested.

[z929669]

I couldn't agree more. As I mentioned, I had no involvement on including this in our guide. I have nothing against it, but many mod variants exist today that effectively do what this mod is doing (mostly along with other similar things). This mod makes changes that are patch worthy rather than taking up a plugin slot.

I've yet to census all of our plugins in detail for redundancy or simplification outside of the few obvious ones like kryptopyre's patches. Dropping this will be the future action in next update.

For now, it's not a problem, since we have a working link that will last going forward.

[TechAngel85]

On 9/27/2023 at 3:46 AM, Mousetick said:

Personal choice aside, it struck me as odd that this particular NPC, who is only encountered during the Dark Brotherhood questline if the player joins the faction, received particular treatment by the STEP Guide among all the Skyrim adult NPCs, who are untouched.

By the same logic, Jiub's spirit in the Soul Cairn should be made to look like he did in Morrowind. There is a mod for that: Jiub - Morrowind Appearance.

The changes from this mod could easily be incorporated into the STEP Patch as Z suggested.

The mod was incorporated while the Guide was under my care. It was added because it makes sense for the ghost version of the NPC to have a similar appearance as they did when they were alive. Bethesda used what they used and the author found some better matching alternatives. It's as simple as that. You can't say the same about the other "alive" NPCs because Bethesda's vision of their appearance within Skyrim is the only source we have to drawn from.

If you're more talking about mods that overhaul NPCs, well Step doesn't include them because they are too subjective to personal tastes. We had them in the past and it was a nightmare to maintain because we had to provide optional, individual mods; which in turn created too many Patches to maintain (there were 9-12 at one point).  Over time we leaned more and more towards minimizing maintenance (especially when only one person is doing it all). This meant allowing the user to make their own choices in regards to several types of mods, including mods that overhauled NPC appearance.
There's you a bit of history for ya as a SkyrimSE Tester.

As for the Jiub mod, it has been unknown to me (and likely anyone else on the staff) until you've mentioned it here, so no mystery there. We can't include things that we don't know about. 

[Mousetick]

16 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

If you're more talking about mods that overhaul NPCs, well Step doesn't include them because they are too subjective to personal tastes. We had them in the past and it was a nightmare to maintain because we had to provide optional, individual mods; which in turn created too many Patches to maintain (there were 9-12 at one point).  Over time we leaned more and more towards minimizing maintenance (especially when only one person is doing it all). This meant allowing the user to make their own choices in regards to several types of mods, including mods that overhauled NPC appearance.

I was not talking about that, so there's no arguing there.

What I meant is that mods like Lucien Lachance AE cater to ES lore-obsessed freaks, which must be extremely few among the STEP user base. Most users likely don't care one bit. Including this mod is odd in that it creates an isolated special case. In order to be ES lore-obsessed freak-friendly, the guide would need to cover similar lore consistency details equally and more comprehensively throughout the game - which is not one of its goals, AFAIK - such as applying the same treatment to Jiub.

So instead of making the Spectral Assassin a special case, while other lore consistency details are ignored, this mod and its changes might as well be omitted entirely. The guide then becomes consistent and balanced in how it treats lore details.