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

[dreadflopp]

@garfink I will make a patch for hle next week. I will show you how it's done. Making one for OBIS is done in the same way. Only difference is hle has a few records that needs patching. OBIS has a lot of records so you might not be up for it...

[Gekko64]

nice setup garfink, looks similar to mine yet different in some ways. my views: I don't use SIC hardcore and use adept difficulty, I think changing difficulty alters challenge way too artificially and I dislike that.

 

I don't use scarcity, morrowloot and less quest gold. I feel with proper modding there's no need to mess with the loot lists. I do use trade and barter to fix the economy :D

 

I don't use extended encounters, I think the current version just adds too many encounters, due to the way it works it always fires both a modded AND a vanilla encounter. hopefully this gets fixed. I do use Radiance and DFB random encounters. these both add seamlessly to the game :)

 

I've tried the populated series but they add too many npcs imo. for example as soon as you approach fort greymoor you get swarmed, I'd only suggest it for people using multiple followers. I prefer Immersive Patrols to Populated lands, and populated towers and dungeons often adds more enemies to places that already had some. feels similar to asis increased spawns which I disable. instead I like skytest, it adds some much needed fauna instead of more npcs and the diverse faction relations are great, much better than ganging up on the player.

 

I don't use revenge of the enemies as I think it gives too many powerful abilities to enemies which they don't really need with improved AI and toughness that other mods give them.

 

regarding leveling, I use skyre which includes an encounter zones plugin similar to the optional asis one. it's NOT deleveled, instead it's both place and player centric which I find to be the best leveling method. there's low and high level areas around, usually getting harder as you get further from civilization. but they still have a min/max range so they will scale a bit with the player level. 

 

I also really like the combo dynamic loot plus npc enchants fix since npcs will use enchanted loot against you :)

Edited April 30, 2014 by Gekko64

[phryxolydian]

I gotta say that you are absolutely nuts. How does one play with the HLE Hardocre version? My character is lvl41 and with an armor rating of almost 500, he gets one shot killed by Forsworn archers (which arrows have damage 8) every single time on either Expert or Adept and quite nearly on Apprentice difficulty as well? I'm also using Duel, but still, it stops getting fun after reloading 10+ times without actually being able to do anything about it, other than lowering to Novice...

[MadWizard25]

Its similar with requiem, you can get 1 shotted by archers. Im not sure how well my tactics apply to HLE but block works well for arrows, as well as enchanting your gear for armor buffs and or magic resistance.

 

You will die a lot. No matter what. Save often. Have plenty of potions, scrolls, and poisons is about the only other thing that helps. You could also install a mod the allows for dodge mechanics.

[thommaal]

(..) How does one play with the HLE Hardocre version? (..) I'm also using Duel, but still, it stops getting fun after reloading 10+ times without actually being able to do anything about it, other than lowering to Novice...

Skyrim's combat is boring in vanilla since it provides no challenge. Higher difficulties don't make combat more interesting, they just add the already far too prominent element of grinding to an aspect of the game that should be nothing but exciting. And they make combat an immersion breaking experience when you can shoot a creature full of arrows without any discernible effect.SIC/HLE, ASIS etc. actually improve combat by using leveled lists to make NPCs more diverse. Add Random Encounters + Radiance and you never know what to expect. Revenge of the Enemies adds the cream, No Combat Boundaries the cherry on top.*Balance, of course, is a major problem.It doesn't make sense to replace boring combats with boring running - mostly away. And too many hostile NPCs everywhere break immersion in another way.That's why I have reduced spawns and deactivated Extended Encounters (for now): the road to Whiterun was a war zone right from the start. It was just not feasible that any kind of civilization could still be up and running under such conditions.The added and diverse NPCs also need to be held to a reasonable amount of health in their normal/out of combat state; they can not be allowed to be health sinks, so that surprise attacks from afar and sneak attacks (that hit hard unexpectedly and move fast into their middle dealing quick damage and sowing confusion) are a viable option to deal with otherwise superior NPCs.In other words, I want to re-arrange the reward system of the game as far as possible towards sound tactics. When I can simply kill a bunch of NPCs with brute force, I don't need to sneak around them to avoid a fight or know enough about their characteristics to use concerted actions against them. But a more tactical approach is crucial with higher and diverse NPCs. However, it only works if they don't soak up tons of damage in their normal state.Like you, I don't want to deal with too much setback punishment. That's why balance is so important -- haven't found it yet.I am leaning toward an encounter zone map that makes the roads a safe[r] place for travellers. More guard patrols might also help but this can lead to loot that should not lie around ..

 

Hm, need to find a mod that makes NPC plunder their victims to deny me easy access to the fruits of their labour. Does anyone know such a mod?It's also mandatory to lower vanilla difficulty setting from highest to something in the middle to lessen the strain on a new character.And the SkyRe mod might indeed be more suited to balance this approach than my current setup.

 

---

* When NPCs follow you beyond their usual boundaries, tactics that abuse this game mechanic don't work any longer. But you can utilize it in a world that is more populated by factions that are not necessarily friendly toward another.

Edited May 1, 2014 by thommaal

[phryxolydian]

I do use HLE with both the raised ability caps and max resist optionals, I was just saying that Hardcore for a purely warrior/archer character was just suicidal. My level 40 character with a full set of Nordic armor, improved to Epic, fully enchanted got one shot killed at least 10/12 times in a row by a Forsworn Ravager using arrows with a damage output of 8! On Adept difficulty. And I had maybe 15% left of health on Apprentice. For me, it gets maybe even more tiresome because I always exit the game when my character dies. Because the engine saves data that should not be saved and all that, I've had times when the message "Heart consumed blah blah" appears even long after turning back to human form and I think it has something to do with that. Hasn't happened since I started following this habit. I mean sure, it's realistic, an arrow to the head and you are gone but 10+ times and not one miss? Too much, I say.

 

I'll definitely look into the other mods you mentioned though, those look fun.

[thommaal]

(..) For me, it gets maybe even more tiresome because I always exit the game when my character dies. Because the engine saves data that should not be saved and all that, I've had times when the message "Heart consumed blah blah" appears even long after turning back to human form and I think it has something to do with that. Hasn't happened since I started following this habit. I mean sure, it's realistic, an arrow to the head and you are gone but 10+ times and not one miss? Too much, I say.

 

I'll definitely look into the other mods you mentioned though, those look fun.

You get kicked out of the game completely? Yeah, that is tiresome. I usually go to the main window after a death to force the game to actually get rid of the temporary files -- it's less time consuming than a restart and better than non sequiturs after re-entry. But it's tiresome as well.

 

Archers and ASIS-powered Mages are a terrible threat. But since I have cut out many script-heavy mods, combat lags far less which means: I can dodge arrows far more reliable than before; and cover against magic attacks works better as well.

 

Imo, a melee character should not have acceptable survival odds against precise and powerful attacks from afar -- an arrow hitting the vulnerable parts should hurt or kill your character, whether it's made of iron or ebony. A shield covering you from head to toe, however, should render the archer helpless -- unless you are attacked from multiple angles at once. Melee characters need close combat quarters and there, they should rule. But once an opponent with longer ranged weapons gains or already has space, they should quickly lose effectiveness.

 

Of course, Tamriel is a land of magic, so our standards don't quite apply. :)

[phryxolydian]

Well, I'm really curious now about this Extended Encounters mod, as well as that No Combat Boundaries, that sounds really cool. However, please consider that my game already suffers from script lag, and I'm running both Frostfall and Duel, which, despite what the author says, in my experience, it's very script heavy, not to mention a never ending earthquake when in doors with that 7.7.2v, but that's beside the poiint... I'm thinking ASIS might be too much. And although Revenge of the Enemies sounds absolutely awesome, again, I think it may be too much script wise for my PC to handle. But what about the others, Radiance sounds OK I guess, what's your experience with the mod been like? And it Random Encounters adds 230 new spawn points, I use all of the Immersive Patrols modules, wouldn't this be waaay too much? 

[Gekko64]

I'd avoid extended encounters for the time being, it often fires 2 events simultaneously which results in big battles, not very immersive imo :D

 

asis is configurable, you can customize the extra spawns or just disable that feature like I do.

 

Radiance integrated seamlessly with the game, it's very immersive and well done.

 

revenge of the enemies doesn't use scripts so it's 100% safe, but imo it makes some enemies overpowered. 

 

Random encounters is also configurable, AND it also spawns modded creatures from SIC and MoMod. excellent mod, make sure you get the MCM version by lifestorock.

 

I use immersive patrols, skytest, random encounters, asis and radiance together, it's not too much. I think it's just right :D

Edited May 3, 2014 by Gekko64

[thommaal]

Same experience here with Extended Encounters. It doesn't break anything, but stresses immersion too much.

 

Unfortunately, No Combat Boundaries shows quest-breaking results; I can confirm Garfink's findings. fireundubh's mod + "NPC Smarter Water AI - Full Compatibility" added so much dynamic to combat with "smarter" and well-equipped NPCs that it presented quite a challenge without activating ASIS increased spawns.

 

And it worked really well with the more locational hot spots added by the populated mods. Worse, OBIS needs some patching to work with a harsher economy. So, my situational hot spot distribution is going to lose its core.

 

A viable solution is Garfink's approach: let ASIS control spawns. The result is a nice challenge but I need to test it more to see if it takes away too much from immersion in favour of excitement.

 

I simply need to find my own balance of relatively peaceful areas disturbed by situational spots (higher and more random spawns) and interspersed by highly challenging locational hot spots (so far provided by populated caves and forts) without adding too much loot.

 

And I'm not really satisfied with Duel v7. The alpha is too buggy for now and the stable version doesn't quite show the qualities I am interested in.

 

That's why I added a profile with Duke Patrick's combat mod. But the author is not kidding when he says that the mod needs to take control over every aspect of combat to work properly. Simply adding it to the end of my load order isn't sufficient to balance the game properly.

 

OTOH, it's a better combat mod than Duel, imo.

Edited May 3, 2014 by thommaal

[fireundubh]

If there are any problems actually caused by NCB, the only solutions are to:

• fix the quest scripts that are causing quest NPCs to follow when they shouldn't, or
• re-enable combat boundaries in locations that need them.

The latter is easier for me, but nobody is giving any specifics.

 

Garfink claims that one CW quest breaks because an NPC decides to follow. Great.

 

Tell me which quest. Tell me which location. Tell me which NPC. Maybe I can search the vanilla scripts to figure out why.

 

But don't just assume there are more quests that will break similarly and then tell everyone that "the mod breaks quests." That helps nobody.

 

edit: Garfink provided more information. Fixed in v1.2. Or, rather, avoided. See sticky in mod thread.

Edited May 3, 2014 by fireundubh

[phryxolydian]

So, just installed ASIS and re-merged the HLE Hardcore module. I just ticked the perk, spells, potions and AI modules for ASIS, don't really understand what GMST's are and don't know how to balance the spawning system for my system.. I am installing Radiance as well but wanted to know if you guys think it'd be a candidate to merge with other "small" mods, I mean, it doesn't seem like it's going to be updated anytime soon, so.. And I'll probably end up installing Random Encounters as well, it does sound super awesome but, will Immersive Patrols' werewolves and vampires be affected by the Immersive Preset? That'd be cool. I'll first test the IP new merged esp, which I also just installed, been using the separate modules because I didn't realize the reason why it wouldn't let me load it was Automatic Variants.  :: Perhaps PLaRP can be ditched, thing is all these mercenaries and bounty hunters and riding knights who don't actually get of their horses to fight and prefer getting killed while mounted.. they don't actually do much, do they? Only help me out whenever they happen to be in the area if I'm getting attacked. I do like them, they do add a little life into the game but perhaps if I use Radiance and Random Encounters, it'll just be too much spawns for my system to load without huge un-immersive popping-ins. We'll see...

[Gekko64]

I'd recommend against using the merged immersive patrols, because you can use this with the non-merged version: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50389/?

 

also, IP used to include an Immersive Events module. It's supposed to be merged into Immersive Factions now, but it really isn't. I can send you the plugin if you want, it was last included in 1.6 iirc.

[phryxolydian]

Hey thanks, Gekko, I'd appreciate it. What does this Immersive Events do?

[Gekko64]

it's like a mini radiance, it adds a couple events. thief trying to mug you, mammoth poachers and wild dogs trying to eat chickens. lemme know your email and I'll send it :)