Finally, A Gameplay Setup I am happy with! Must haring!

[Garfink]

I just played about 10 hours using HLE SIC edition with the hardcore module, set the difficulty on apprentice (as adept was way too hard with the hardcore module, everything can one-shot you.) with scarcity (loot 8x, merchants 6x), morrowloot 4E, OBIS, ASIS, Radiance, random encounters, extended encounters and less quest gold.  I don't have any encounter deleveler running now.  

 

My Observations:

 

Really had a GREAT time, the secret is the hardcore module which increases the leveled creatures higher, makes all the dungeons reasonably tougher and combat so much more tactical and fair.  If you aren't on the ball, you will get killed, but when you are controlling the battlefield you are rewarded with a great fight.  The difficult balance is JUST perfect actually.  

 

I have morrowloot 4E loaded after ALL "relev" mods and above complete crafting overhaul remade (I have the "delev" and "relev" marker removed from CCOR) to ensure it has priority in the bash patch and retain the crafting from CCOR and it works, loot is rare generally, and morrowloot's hand placed loot means you really have to look around the dungeons for loot.  Really added exploration into the game!

 

OBIS simply isn't 100% compatible with morrowloot's ideals, the OBIS bandits now only carry the equipment they were programmed to carry, no extra loot.  But OBIS's bandits still wear a large variety of armors that can make some armors/weapons easier to obtain than morrowloot on its own, at least you have to kill something to get it, its better than just finding it in a treasure chest.  Also, its not like they give you dragon bone/daedric armor which is fortunate (they MAY give you dragon armor really really late into the game, but by then you probably have some yourself anyway, I don't think I have even seen them with daedric armor though.)  You can argue that the greatly increased difficulty in my setup means this doesn't totally wreck the balance or anything, but its worth noting (I may uninstall this if I feel that it makes loot too easy to come by).  Same can be said of some of the encounters from Radiance and extended encounters but to a way lesser extent as these usually loaded from the vanilla level lists.  Gold is rarer, but to be honest still not too hard to come by, which makes sense for a successful adventurer.  But it is rarer so you have to be a little more judicious when spending, if and when there is something worth buying.  Merchants have a lot less to sell now, which also makes sense in-game, given the limited shelf space they physically really have!  (I've also trade + barter setup fBarterMin 3.5, fBarterMax 7.5 and -40% buying Price).

 

I prefer Radiance and extended encounters and random encounters for outdoor encounters compared with immersive patrol because you don't get as much of it, I find these huge outdoor battles around every corner just a little immersion breaking.  With this combo, you get the occasional huge outdoor encounter and quite frequent smaller encounters outdoors and I find the balance just right.

 

What I am probably going to install again, now that EBT and its patches are gone is Populated Dungeons and Populated Forts (NOT Populated Roads or Cities), not Roads because in combination with the above mods, adds a little too much to the roads, but the Populated Forts/Dungeons really adds some nice nasty surprises in often tread dungeons, especially with ASIS running.  The forts are now crazy to siege and the battles are EPIC!  Controlling the battlefield is essential for victory.  If I am playing a melee character that doesn't have a follower or two, its probably best not to install these mods as you simply don't have the manpower to control the battlefield and muscling through isn't going to work with the mods I recommend running.  

 

I am also running resplendent racials with adds even more abilities to NPCs (which they use I can assure you!) and you, and with Revenge of the Enemies, ASIS perks/spells/potions/AI, makes fighting even more crazy!! (and fairer in my opinion)

 

I watch Gopher's channel like most of you and I noticed that he is striving to maintain difficulty without turning NPCs into health-sinks and I think I have achieve this, whereas he has failed miserably, his recently late level plays are so boring combat wise, this is most definitely because he is an archer (which is too uber) but its also just his world isn't leveled with him enough.  Locational Damage aside which only really works well with archery, whilst making it unfair for melee characters, he only gets into trouble if he is overwhelmed by a mob of tough monsters and that is RARE even with HLE installed, he needs the hardcore plugin & ASIS really.  There is room for fine adjustment within the mods i have selected and further tuning can easily be done with mods like SkyTweaks (highly recommended) and specific adjustments if you are playing specific type of characters, like I am playing an illusionist/conjuration/poisoner/dual wield Argonian (crazy fun, so many options in battle!  The undead are the most challenging as illusion spells doesn't seem to work on them even dual-cast, probably something I installed breaks this SkyRe perk) and so I have forgotten magic redone/Apocalypse spells installed, if I was playing a thief I may have other specific mods installed.

 

I have tested this with 2 characters, one a two-handed tank and now this character and it works GREAT from level 1 to level 60 (where I stopped playing to try another character), difficulty can be adjusted on the fly via the vanilla gameplay menu or adjusting ASIS/Random Encounter Spawns and SIC difficulty, but I found that I didn't need to for the most part.

 

There is no reason why you can't run these with a encounter deleveling mod if that is your thing.  As mentioned elsewhere, I just don't like my world encounters deleveled, my play time is limited and when I am playing I want some action, not running away as often (I can assure you, that you WILL be running....errr...tactical retreat... often enough with my setup) or more importantly finding easy kills everywhere once you have leveled up some.  

Edited April 28, 2014 by Garfink

[dreadflopp]

Your setup looks really great. When I get The time I will try these mods and hopefully use some of them in my and nicopads pack. If I remember it correctly, moving CCOR after morrowloot is enough to make CCORs crafting take priority over morrowloots. Removing relev delev from CCOR is necessary because otherwise it brings back high level loot to the levelled list. Jaysus swords and the like can be used too if item distribution is turned off. Same goes for amidianborn. Content add-on shouldn't be used (just information, I don't think you use it).

 

Great job anyway, as said I will probably copy much of this.

 

As a side note, I think its funny when you say your time to play is limited and you brought two characters to level 60 ☺ I'm lucky if I get the time to just create a character ☺

[Garfink]

I am using Jaysus swords and lore weapons etc.  you are saying that I should turn off delev/relev or just relev on those too?  Or is moving them to load before morrowloot enough?  

 

I am not very tech-savy with the details, let me walk through this slowly......  delev makes wrye bash removed items from level lists as requested by the mod and relev marks the mod so that it relevels items in the bash level lists (meaning merging the level lists), but does the load order matter when it comes to these bash tags?  I am thinking yes, only if mods edit the same item, but since mods like Jaysus add new items for merging, so as long as they have the relev tag, they will be merged with morrowloot and cause them to appear in loot.  Million $ question: Does the level list of things likes Jaysus sword include vanilla items??? (Is my logic right?)  And if Jaysus swords add daedric/dragon strength weapons, then it will certain make morrowloot pointless....(well maybe not pointless, just less effective.)  does Jaysus Swords, Lore Weapons, Amidianborn stuff add Daedric/Dragon strength items?  I hazard to guess YES.  So removing the relev tag is probably a must, but the delev tag?  

 

Another question:  If I remove delev/relev or relev (depending on your answer to my previous question), how would I actually get Jaysus Swords?  I must craft them I assume?

 

All very annoying, because if I must craft these swords, then I can only access them through crafting and that means a non-crafting character will miss out and also it makes no sense that these swords are not more widely available in the skyrim world.  How about SkyRe???  It merges various weapons/armor mods like Heavy Armory and for the life of me do I need to remove delev/relev on it too?

 

Skyrim is a bit for a monster really, on the one hand I am pretty darn tired of modding and testing and reproccing and on the other hand that is the reason why its the best RPG video game ever.  

Edited April 28, 2014 by Garfink

[MadWizard25]

Sounds like you have a very similar play style to me, although I use requiem so npcs and spawns are deleveled. Deleveled enemies has not been a problem, im slowly approaching level 25 and for the first time I can take on large bandit camps (with a follower) unless there are mages. The difficulty and slow progression really makes it satisfying. 

 

The money situation is much better as well. I fully agree that money scarcity is needed. I have doubled carriage ship prices, and buying houses costs between 6 to 10k, horses are 6k, and mercenaries are 5k. Gold also has weight so its now a struggle to collect enough capital for most things. Needless to say I cant afford a horse or house yet. I spend an insane amount on healing (requiem disables health regen unless spell/ potion), and traveling since fast travel is disabled.

 

Rare loot is also amazing. Makes exploration much more fun. I dont use morrowloot, but i think Requiem removes high leveled loot from leveled lists. I.e. only vampire bosses have ebony, and elven armor is super expensive and rarely shows in merchants, or found in dungeons/ thalmor, both of which are still out of my reach.

 

Hardcore for the win!

Edited April 28, 2014 by MadWizard25

[Garfink]

I missed SkyRe and other Requiem non-compatible mods too much when I used Requiem.  I also did not like a deleveled world.  Requiem is great though and I like all the ancillary support it has gotten.

[dreadflopp]

Load order might matter since a mod tagged delev removes items added before it. I am not sure if it matters for relev. But what I meant was to turn off item distribution for jaysus in CCORs MCM menu. This will make the swords craftable only. If you don't you may find high level swords from jaysus which contradicts what morrowloot does. Thats why I don't think you should install amidianborn content add on, or item distribution for other item mods for that matter. That is just my opinion though. I also turn off item distribution for immersive armors in its MCM menu.

[Garfink]

Ahhh....  I see, Jaysus Swords & immersive armor's distribution can be turned off and on via MCM, you can install them and craft them but they won't appear in loot list unless you turn it on.  BUT how about this quote from the Morrowloot 4E description:

 

"This mod also modifies leveled item lists, so anything that modifies them will either be incompatible or will need to be merged via Wyre Bash. If you do not merge things, you will find higher tier loot either appearing where it shouldn't, or your new, modded items not appearing at all! So merge. Seriously. Merge."

 

This leads me to believe that morrowloot stops high-level loot from appearing full stop, but if the item even if modded is lower-level on the level list merging via bash should still be okay and the lower level equipment (modded or vanilla) will appear both in game and in the crafting menu as usual.  (I could be totally misinterpreting this of course)

 

The way Jaysus Sword is integrated into CCOR means the high level Jaysus Sword items will be added to the loot in game as it wasn't merged into the bash patch via the usual method.  Correct?

 

In ANY case, I will just keep things the way it is, with Scarcity I am rather unlikely to find any daedric equipment any way....  I am thinking a remote chance of finding high level items wouldn't destroy Morrowloot's balance, could add an interesting layer of unknown and replayability.

 

I am in the process of testing all this loot-rarity thing and in-game economy and I will keep you all posted with my findings and settings.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Garfink

[dreadflopp]

It is easily checked if you load the bashed patch in TES5Edit. Jaysus swords are added to the leveled list but are turned of by CCOR so they are indeed there. They are added by CCOR and the relev tag is not needed since jaysus items are new. New items are always added to the bashed patch.

If morrowloot is to remove high level loot added by other mods it must be loaded after them. But it also must be loaded before CCOR. I don't think it removes high level loot from mods that add new items but that is easily checked with TES5Edit.

[Garfink]

Could I manually edit the Bash Patch to delete the High level loot from the leveled item list?  Is it a simple process, just look at the list and delete?

Edited April 28, 2014 by Garfink

[vidalia]

Your mod setup definitely seems interesting. One question though - I read on the SIC forum page that the author included some elements of Radiance encounters into the latest version of SIC. If you are using SIC and Radiance together did you need to create a patch to make them work together?

[dreadflopp]

Could I manually edit the Bash Patch to delete the High level loot from the leveled item list? Is it a simple process, just look at the list and delete?

It is as easy as that but that way you'll have to redo this every time the bashed patch is recreated. It will probably work to make a patch instead. In TES5Edit, right click the mod that adds high level loot, create an override into a new plugin that will be the patch. Remove the loot from the patch and add tag delev to it. Rebuild bashed patch and check in TES5Edit that it worked. Edited April 28, 2014 by dreadflopp

[dreadflopp]

Had a little look in TES5Edit. Scarcity does what it says. It makes all loot harder to find. It doesn't touch the levelled lit though (Edit correction: it does touch it but it doesn't add or remove anything, just alters possibility of loot). This means that OBIS spams the levelled list with high level loot and will need much patching for all to be removed. If you don't there is not much meaning with using morrowloot since OBIS adds back daedric and ebony. High level enemies also needs patching but not much and it is easily done. If you decide to make a patch for OBIS-morrowloot I'd be happy if you shared because honestly, it is too much work for me 

Edited April 28, 2014 by dreadflopp

[Garfink]

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!

Edited April 30, 2014 by Garfink

[thommaal]

Weird, I have no problem with SUM running ASIS, Dual Sheath Redux and the NPC Enchant Fix. Do you have a 64bit OS too?

 

Re OBIS: The Populated series mods should be fine though - and you wanted to add Forts and Dungeons anyway. With OBIS gone, they should fill some gaps without overcrowding the area.

Edited April 30, 2014 by thommaal

[Garfink]

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.

Edited April 30, 2014 by Garfink