[Nymph Girls of Skyrim] Looking for a few testers to help me out

[goaway]

 

 

Due to the extreme limitations on my time for the next week and a half, and my strong desire to publish my mod before I go out of town again, I would really like to get some help from a few beta testers.  Maybe 5-10 at most.

 

The mod is 99.9% finished so mostly all you would need to do is download it and try to play it normally and let me know if there are any major issues that come up, and maybe give some input if you have some balance suggestions. 

 

The assumption is that you would know how to install and use mods via mod organizer or whatever and that you know how to use/already have some sort of HDT physics/skeleton, since my limitations on time mean I don't have time to do any hand-holding on mod usage right now. 

 

Requires legendary edition or dawnguard/dragonborn/hearthfires, hdt-highheels, either SMP or PE physics, and racecompatability.  You probably also need a follower manager like EFF or AFT, and it isn't required but to use the unique voice version of the followers you also need relationship dialogue overhaul.

 

You can either check my blog here on LL or check this link to my tumblr to get all the details of the mod https://nymphgirlsofskyrim.tumblr.com

 

I only ask that you don't share any of the actual mod files with anyone else at this point, since I would prefer to keep track of who has a copy until I release it.  In return I will credit you as a tester when I publish it (here and on nexus).

 

If you're interested, post a reply here and I will PM you the link when I check it.

[foreveraloneguy]

Sounds interesting. I've got all the pre reqs installed, and custom races are kind of my thing. These sound like they might be a bit more interesting than most. If you have specific areas the testing should focus on, I'd want to know about those ahead of time. Otherwise, I'm game.

[27X]

Sure.

 

What exactly needs to be stress tested other than 'is RDO compliant".

[goaway]

Nothing specific to test.  Just want to have a small group of people who may have different mod environments than my own test and verify that things work, followers, races, etc.  Or maybe testing to make sure that people with different SMP settings are still able to get functional physics on the meshes I have edited. 

 

Maybe also if the shaders I have built for all the powers look reasonable on different ENB presets (I use snapdragon).

 

Bugs I'm looking for is stuff like any mis-mapped textures, odd follower behavior (there is a bug I have had to fix more than once where a follower will try to cast a flesh spell over and over for no apparent reason), neck seams I have missed, eye decals bugs, little detail things.  I think I've put in enough hours of scrutiny that there shouldn't be any huge problems., it's the little details I might miss because I've gotten used to how it looks.

 

Gameplay wise, the major area of testing I have not been able to work on is anything above level 20 or so.  I have done extensive testing on low level Nymph characters, trying to simulate starting a new character and ensuring that the powerset is balanced starting out.  

 

Example - the followers have a series of perks that should help them scale as the player levels, but I have not played a character all the way up to where they would max out their skills to see if they still perform well against high level enemies.

 

Another example - both the night nymph and beast nymph race get unique racial powers that have the potential for extreme lategame power, and I have not really tested to see how balanced that is when you have a set of top tier enchants.

 

Other than that, any sort of general feedback is appreciated.

 

I should probably re-post this map to help clarify where to find the followers.

 

Spoiler

 

[mercplatypus]

I'm willing to check it out.  My job is going to require a lot less of my time over the next couple of weeks and I already have everything you've got listed installed.

[DarkTrojan77]

Nice work and the Download is ?

[Harvald]

 Sounds very interesting. Do not know, if I will have enough time, cause my christmas is the time of many liabilities. What I can offer is my experience in mod cleaning. If there is any dirty edit I will find it.

[goaway]

On 12/12/2018 at 2:17 PM, DarkTrojan77 said:

Nice work and the Download is ?

I am not sure how to answer this.  The mod is not available for public release yet.  

 

On 12/12/2018 at 4:55 PM, Harvald said:

 Sounds very interesting. Do not know, if I will have enough time, cause my christmas is the time of many liabilities. What I can offer is my experience in mod cleaning. If there is any dirty edit I will find it.

I appreciate any help I can get, but you may have to wait until saturday-sunday.  I have made a lot of little tweaks this week while I have had a few spare minutes.  In addition to bug fixes, it has added up to enough that I am going to get a new build going which I will upload to my testers this weekend.  If you are still willing, I will share the link with you then.

 

 

 

Some of the changes I have made include

1. I rebuilt poxy's poison hit shader and aura shader so she creates less visual clutter.  Previously it was a giant green mess that filled the screen and made it hard to see.

Spoiler

 

2. i tweaked the shader for arborea's prism-flesh and synne's sin-flesh to make them look more distinctive

 

Sin-flesh

Spoiler

 

 

Prism-flesh

Spoiler

 

 

3. I hard-coded both poxy and lykaea's wolves to ignore all friendly fire since they keep getting in the way of magic

 

No screenshots for this one

 

4. I added an alchemical ingredient to leveled lists as a throwback to daggerfall http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Nymph_Hair

 

Spoiler

 

5. Rather than leaving an empty head, I added a headshape and custom skin to male nymph races that should serve to not-so-subtly discourage people from trying to play a male nymph

 

Spoiler

 

Plus I have fixed almost a dozen bugs.  Big thanks to those testers helping me out!  I have gotten enough experience building shaders and effects now that I can come up with something interesting looking in about 10-15 minutes when I have some free time.  Huge leap forward from last summer when it took me several days just to make Synne's flame spell.

[Rygus]

I'd be happy to test the mod out for you if you still need people to help. 

[goaway]

I've been pretty busy the last couple days despite now being out of town for the holidays.

 

 

Like usual there were a few bug fixes, and I added a few nicer screenshots for some of the racial presets for the mod page

 

Desert Nymph Girls

Spoiler

 

 

Blended Nymph Girls

Spoiler

 

and I made a new spell for Mystra, after I figured out that she is terrible at fighting draugr.  She's a necromancer, so having her be bad at fighting the undead just felt wrong on so many levels.  Her new ability is a high-level damage spell that she has to be level 25 or higher to cast: It's a quirky anti-undead damage spell that only works on vampires and draugr, it doesn't work on ghosts or skeletons. 

 

AUGHHH GERMS UNCLEAN INFECTED NO NO NO DIE DIE KILL IT GET IT AWAY FROM ME, etc.

 

Quote

Once achieving a sufficiently high level Mystra is capable of using the following extra spell
 

Sterilize, a spell borne of Mystra’s germ-phobia that twists Restoration magic towards a more Necromantic (and neurotic) purpose. Sterilize is extremely potent against “squishy” undead, the kind that are just CRAWLING with icky germs, dealing huge unresistable damage, but it does nothing against non-fleshy undead like ghosts or skeletons, nor does it do anything against the living (unwashed though they may be). 

It's not super fancy like some of the other effects I have made, it's mostly just a slight visual tweak/recoloring of turn-undead with some extra particle effects, but it still looks nice.

 

Spoiler

 

 

I also made some bodyslide race options after somebody pointed out that it's fairly inconvenient for users who aren't mod savvy to customize the Nymph races and not everybody likes 7BO.  I wasn't really planning on doing this initially but... I got to thinking about how much of a bummer it is when I find a really cool mod, and it only exists in some weird non-customizable shape that I don't really want to use. 

 

 

Right now what I've got is UUNP for the races in both HDT-SMP and HDT-PE versions, plus arborea, since there have been some strange issues with her outfit.  I may do this for the other follower's outfits eventually, but I don't think it will be until after I release the mod.  

 

I've gotten the mod description on nexus completely written, well over 60 pages long now.  It has also been just over 6 months since I started working on this project too.

 

I have one major thing left to do for the mod in regards to racial .trishape morphs.  There have been some weird eye/mouth clipping issues and unexpected incompatibilities in certain mod environments.  As you can imagine, it would be a huge problem to have to put together a sculpted fix for an incompatibility with a popular mod on short notice.  I have learned not to trust creation kit to just do what it is supposed to anymore, and I don't want to leave anything up to chance at this point.  So, as a pre-emptive hard-fix,  I am going to build a racial Nymph trishape morph for every single headpart and make sure they align the way they are supposed to.  That is the absolute very last thing.  For real this time.

 

After the trishape stuff is all done I may send you tester guys an updated final build, just to make sure I didn't screw something up.  I haven't decided if this is necessary yet.

 

Anyway, if all goes well, I will probably publish it this week.  I say probably, because every time I think I only have 1 or 2 things left to do and I can plan when those will be done, something inevitably goes terribly wrong and it takes me a week to fix.

 

 

EDIT: Oops, I almost forgot

 

Since nobody seems to have found any of the easter eggs yet, I have re-located a couple of them to more conspicuous locations. 

 

I definitely won't include these location hints when I publish the mod, so this may be your only chance!

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

As for "the bow that shoots rainbows" and "arrows that can take down a dragon", well, you'll have to find those for yourself.  Ok... one hint.  They *might* be collecting dust in a sarcastic merchant's house.

[BitesZaDusto]

looks interesting, I'd be willing to try it out!

[goaway]

Ah, too late unfortunately ,I think I have enough testers for the time being.  Thanks for your interest though!

 

We are (hopefully) on the last test build before publishing, so it should only be a few more days before it gets released. 

[goaway]

Ok so... ah, my one last thing I was trying to fix ended up being kind of a mess.  I'm not sure why I'm surprised at this point.  I have decided it wasn't the fix itself, but the way I tried to implement it.  Nothing has been easy while making this mod, unfortunately.

 

I have been working on a new fix, and from my end it looks like it's working finally.  I haven't seen any bugs so far, after making several dozen characters.  Gonna have to send out another test version to make sure it's working though.  Look for it sometime tomorrow.

 

In the meantime, more interesting developments!

 

I have re-worked the skillsets of the wood nymph and desert nymph.  Compared to the other three races, they didn't have nearly as interesting of powers, definitely a more passive feel.

 

Also, most of you guys gave me feedback about the wood nymph feeling very weak starting out.  I don't exactly agree, but I decided perceptions sometimes are more important than math when it comes to fun.  

 

 

I'll go over the wood nymph first.

 

My original reasoning was that by giving them huge starting crafting skill bonuses, the player can level those up without increasing the combat level of leveled enemies as much.  Skyrim's level scaling makes it so every level you get that doesn't include combat skill increases makes combat more difficult, by having 9 crafting levels and 10 combat levels you are more or less level 10 and have to fight level 19 enemies.  

 

Thus, if you have +30 starting skill bonuses in crafting, you can reach the same skill-level with only say, 4 crafting levels, rather than 9, making you level 15 vs. level 19 enemies.

 

Unfortunately like I said, most of the testers do not seem to see it this way, and they mostly have reported that the wood nymph feels too weak.  Regardless of whether my math/reasoning is right, if it doesn't feel fun, it's a problem.

 

Since the wood nymph has such a hard to define role in terms of how you are supposed to fight and progress through the game, I thought it might be effective to highlight the alchemy/crafting powers.  These should end up giving the wood nymph a lot more lategame power when those skills really start to define your character, since her extra naked bonuses mean you should be able to reach a higher peak of enchantment/alchemy net bonuses than you can on any other race.

 

To supplement that, I added a 15% alchemy crafting buff and a power that makes all beneficial potions the wood nymph drinks last 50% longer.  This effect is a very large buff that makes many short duration potions far more viable to try and maintain constantly.  This power also doesn't require her to be naked, unlike almost every other power she gets.  

 

The wood nymph can gather lots of crafting ingredients, makes stronger potions, and can keep those potions active more often, so hopefully that will help make her feel more fun!

 

 

Next is the desert nymph, which is a very interesting change, but maybe not strictly as powerful as what the wood nymph got

 

I got rid of the armored limbs spell.  While I really liked the idea, it didn't seem to add all that much to the flavor of the character, especially since I was trying to highlight blocking as a defense over armor.  I may end up re-using it on a new race if I ever decide to add a Nymph Race expansion.

 

Instead, the desert nymph gets an new naked power that does 2 things

 

1st, it adds your block skill to your critical hit chance with every weapon.  The math is about 0.15% per 1 skill, so at 100 skill it adds 15% crit chance.  This will stack with sword crit bonus perks.

 

2nd, while naked, bashing adds a 1 second duration effect to an enemy that reduces their armor/magic resist by 250/50, making it so you can bash and land a single strong riposte.  

 

This strongly encourages a defensive counter-strike strategy, which I feel fits with the theme of the race and makes for an interesting play style.  To really use it right you have to conserve enough stamina so you can bash and quickly start a power attack.  

 

I added the magic resist debuff to keep from pigeon-holing the desert nymph into a pure melee role, now you can play shield mage and try some interesting bash->cast tricks too!

It has a very visible and unique effect while it is active (only 1 second, remember) so it is easy to tell when your window to strike is.

 

As for anyone else reading, I have to say this now means I don't know when I am going to release it.  I should have known better than to make predictions, again.

[Hythix1990]

So, I hate to be the one dumb guy asking dumb questions in this highly technical, highly amazing thread, but...this is / will be compatible with SE, correct? Or is this, like the version posted on Nexus, for Skyrim only?

 

It's a bit late to be asking either way, as I just spent the last few hours downloading as many of the required supporting and recommended mods as I could, and the file from this site has almost completed downloading as well...but, well, y'know, I just thought I'd stick my foot in my mouth publicly to confirm either way.

 

Regardless, even if it is not for SE, I am interested enough in your fantastic project to simply purchase and then redo everything on / for the base game version. Keep up the amazing work, yours is easily one of the top 10 most in-depth mods that exist for the franchise...and that's saying something, considering the sheer amount out there. Thanks again!

[goaway]

Someone is already working on a SE version.  I gave them permission, and it should be a relatively simple port, since there is only one script.

[sweforce]

On 1/8/2019 at 8:23 PM, goaway said:

Someone is already working on a SE version.  I gave them permission, and it should be a relatively simple port, since there is only one script.

I tried that version from Nexus. Sadly, there seem to be some problems, especially with the CBBE body I suspect that the CBBE body isn't a proper CBBE SE body. If you haven't already I suggest checking out the comments for it. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/22526

[TheLoverLabCriminal]

i have a problem i download it but the race doesnt appear

[DarksideTinkerbell]

I am very interested in helping out test your Mod, I currently would inflict upon your race PSQ, Better Vampires, and run her through Whiterun Brothel, Shout like a Virgin and Maria Eden, not to mention, MME, SL Disparity, Hormones and Adventures.

Totally love your work, and cannot wait for the complete addition, for my next full play through.