Deviously Cursed Loot LE 9.0 (2021-03-09)

[JR42]

11 minutes ago, Kimy said:

When I playtest DCL features I use mages almost 100% of the time

 

11 minutes ago, Kimy said:

As I said above, my goal is to keep both DD and DCL class and level agnostic. When playing with these mods, it ideally should not overly matter what class or level you are.

 

Currently, it's not agnostic at all, it really matters what class you are: as a mage you can have a good experience, but melee-types are so disadvantaged that they are virtually inviable. The no-armor quests in CL, and the armor slot-blocking DD restraints all strongly favor mages over warriors, even if that was not your intention.

 

Try playing with CL+DD items at your usual difficulty without relying on magic, you will not have a fun time.

 

I don't mind the idea that a primarily melee character would occasionally have to switch and rely on magic due to CL/DD, this can be interesting gameplay. The problem I think is that the opposite isn't true: a primarily mage character never has any reason to switch: relying on magic is basically always superior. There are many situations where playing as a mage is significantly easier, but almost no situation where playing as a warrior is easier.

 

That's why I think specifically anti-magic restraints and/or quests would be a great addition, for both fun and balance. (some ideas, although simple variants of already existing items with a different name and some moderate anti-magic effect would already solve the issue) The goal is not to make mages inviable, but to occasionally have a situation where playing as a warrior is the superior choice (at least temporarily), instead of the current non-agnostic gameplay where playing as a mage is almost always the clearly superior choice.

[Clea Strange]

it doesn't matter what class or level you are when using this great mod because it is not that difficult to accomplish anything in game be it mage, warrior, thief or a combination of any of them

[Kimy]

Adding quests that punish mages instead of melee characters isn't the way to resolve this, IMHO. Because then the mod would STILL provide content that's unfun for your character in some situations, and that's not my goal for DCL or DD. I am rather interested in hints and suggestions to make the content equally fun for all characters. It's needs to be fairly specific btw. Just "This quest isn't fun for melee types" doesn't help me addressing it. A user back then provided me very detailed feedback of WHY the Queen Sarah quest doesn't work well for warriors, and I made changes to that quest based on their feedback. I will do the same for other quests.

[DonQuiWho]

2 hours ago, Kimy said:

If this feature is disabled in MCM and gets fired anyway...something isn't right!

 

Have me a log of such occurrences, perhaps?

 

I'll do what I can

[Reesewow]

1 hour ago, Kimy said:

Adding quests that punish mages instead of melee characters isn't the way to resolve this, IMHO. Because then the mod would STILL provide content that's unfun for your character in some situations, and that's not my goal for DCL or DD. I am rather interested in hints and suggestions to make the content equally fun for all characters. It's needs to be fairly specific btw. Just "This quest isn't fun for melee types" doesn't help me addressing it. A user back then provided me very detailed feedback of WHY the Queen Sarah quest doesn't work well for warriors, and I made changes to that quest based on their feedback. I will do the same for other quests.

+1 to this for me, my character has become proficient at all combat at level 80 since I run mods that allow me to acquire perks without levelling up, and I don't really understand the sentiment that the way to make things better for melee characters is to make the game occasionally not fun for casters.  I don't particularly have an issue playing any style with DD items on or a nudity collar as the mod currently stands.  

 

In my experience the current version of the mod is more balanced between the fighting styles than it ever was previously, where magic users became completely useless and frustrating to even attempt to play as soon as a soulgem item was equipped.  If you can cast a spell, you can use a weapon - the only exception for me is that I use a mod that allows for casting magic while wearing bondage mittens because I found that item type to be pretty common and a show-stopper whenever they showed up.

 

If someone finds that physical styles feel extremely weak for a particular quest or special item, I think the best route would be suggesting what buffs would improve the experience, like the Queen Sarah set's buffs.

[Clea Strange]

I to do not have a problem what so ever with how things are with this mod, you can do anything with any combat style. Sure I don't use mods that allow me to get perks without leveling up since I don't need those because I still level up my skills normally, of course it takes awhile though what with me having it set up that my character is usually tied up majority of the time with arousal always maxed out usually, but then that is where having 3 followers come in to help when I am tied up through amazing follower tweaks.

 

shoot I am usually level 20 or higher by the time I finally get to whiterun to go to the place to get the dragonstone cause again always making detours to look for keys, or asking blacksmiths to help if they decide to help. I could always ask the master at captured dreams to help but I never do because that is the easy way out, well to me at least.

 

My character she is a vampire who needs to feed so you have to be careful about that especially when you need to feed but you are gagged, adds another level of difficulty to it especially when you are equipped with something that makes it difficult to sneak up to your opponents. I use mods that like sands of time which increases the difficulty alot which is another reason why I am usually level 20 or higher before I even get to whiterun.

 

As mentioned in my post I have no difficulty with any of the combat types it just takes time be it looking around for keys or asking black smiths and the master from captured dreams, I've played through with a thief a warrior and mage or a mix of those and still no problems. Cause again I think it just takes patience, got to take your time on things I think and I think this mod is balanced out right now. of course its natural that some people will disagree on that and say its not possible etc

 

Of course this is all just my opinion and right now think its fine

 

 

[Code Serpent]

3 hours ago, JR42 said:

Currently, it's not agnostic at all, it really matters what class you are: as a mage you can have a good experience, but melee-types are so disadvantaged that they are virtually inviable. The no-armor quests in CL, and the armor slot-blocking DD restraints all strongly favor mages over warriors, even if that was not your intention.

 

3 hours ago, Kimy said:

Adding quests that punish mages instead of melee characters isn't the way to resolve this, IMHO.

A quick change that could help with this is changing cursed collars so only chest armor is blocked, while boots/gauntlets/helmets and other armor are still allowed. So warriors could still use 3/4 of their armor in those cases.

[JR42]

3 hours ago, Kimy said:

Adding quests that punish mages instead of melee characters isn't the way to resolve this, IMHO. Because then the mod would STILL provide content that's unfun for your character in some situations

There's a difference between things being challenging and crippling. I'm suggesting the former.

 

4 hours ago, Kimy said:

When I playtest DCL features I use mages almost 100% of the time

This is really apparent. Let me stress that of the various predicaments CL+DD throws at the player, most of them are easier for a mage than a warrior to deal with, and the opposite is almost never the case. If class-agnosticism is a goal, in the sense that things should be similarly challenging for spellcasters/melee-types/etc, the current implementation falls short of that.

 

Those who play at easy difficulty levels might not see the issues - the point is that at any difficulty, CL+DD favors playing as a mage compared to other types like warriors. If you have no problem playing as a warrior, playing as a mage would be even easier for you.

 

I actually like the idea of being forced to go adventuring completely naked sometimes (this is an LL mod after all). But clearly, an item or quest that prevents armor use is much more of an issue for melee-types than mages. Trying to make it easier for warriors by e.g. granting some melee buffs wouldn't really make sense imo as a physical restraint that buffs physical abilities is nonsensical. So that's not where I'd look for a solution.

 

1) Do you agree that CL+DD often creates situations that are significantly easier for mages compared to warriors?

 

CL+DD creates various challenging situations. I don't think the goal should be that every single challenge be equally difficult for every class. That might not even be possible in some cases: e.g. being naked favors mages over warriors, but it makes sense, it is what it is, I don't really mind it. What would be a more reasonable balance goal imo is that if there are situations that favor one archetype over another, let there also be some situations that do the opposite.

 

2) Do you agree that having some items/quests that are easier for warriors than mages to deal with would be a good addition? Given that there are already many that do the opposite. This is my main suggestion.

 

3 hours ago, Kimy said:

very detailed feedback

 

Just for the sake of giving a more concrete suggestion (the values or even the approach could change, I don't really mind), let's say there were collars/belts/bras/etc that reduced normal magicka regen by 50% until you manage to unlock and remove them. So with one piece you're at 50% of your normal regen, two pieces you're at 25%, three 12.5% etc. Mages could still use potions for magicka and wouldn't be crippled, but it would be a challenge, and one that is (for once) easier for warriors to deal with. Getting into one of these could encourage mages to try some other approaches (melee, archery) for 5-20 mins until they can remove the restraint, which would result in interesting gameplay.

 

I'm a bit surprised that you seem extremely wary of "crippling" mages, when being forced to go naked (a theme in CL/DD) makes all of a warrior's armor skills completely useless.

 

CL already has some rare but very challenging/punishing events (e.g. Slave Set). I think in addition to some easier magic-debuffing restraints like above, it would be interesting to have a stronger more punishing rare item, e.g. a "witchcatcher" collar as well (an optional one that can be disabled in the MCM). I'd like for my mage to get stuck with some cursed anti-magic restraints, and have the normally cautious girl be forced to pick up a sword and rush into the fray, at least until she can deal with her predicament. I think it would be a lot of fun.

[kplh]

Well, there is a mod that adds armor values to Devious Devices https://www.loverslab.com/files/file/2014-devious-armors/. If all DD items had armor values by default, would that help warriors or would it make mages even more overpowered?

 

More difficult solutions:

Implement yoke bound combat (at the moment you can switch into combat mode, but attacking does nothing which I think is a bug in DDi as the option in MCM says it should only work for armbinders, therefore it should not toggle on at all with yokes).

 

When wearing items that disable use of hands, slave/pony boots and mittens could maybe spawn in a temporary invisible devious device which is categorized as a mace (or other weapon) this way one handed skill would increase damage of bound combat? For example: wearing mittens would be like wearing boxing gloves, and being kicked with a metal hoof would probably hurt. Or maybe yoke could be classified as a shield? It is a heavy metal object that could block a sword quite easily.

[Reesewow]

45 minutes ago, JR42 said:

Just for the sake of giving a more concrete suggestion (the values or even the approach could change, I don't really mind), let's say there were collars/belts/bras/etc that reduced normal magicka regen by 50% until you manage to unlock and remove them. So with one piece you're at 50% of your normal regen, two pieces you're at 25%, three 12.5% etc. Mages could still use potions for magicka and wouldn't be crippled, but it would be a challenge, and one that is (for once) easier for warriors to deal with. Getting into one of these could encourage mages to try some other approaches (melee, archery) for 5-20 mins until they can remove the restraint, which would result in interesting gameplay.

 

I'm a bit surprised that you seem extremely wary of "crippling" mages, when being forced to go naked (a theme in CL/DD) makes all of a warrior's armor skills completely useless.

 

CL already has some rare but very challenging/punishing events (e.g. Slave Set). I think in addition to some easier magic-debuffing restraints like above, it would be interesting to have a stronger more punishing rare item, e.g. a "witchcatcher" collar as well (an optional one that can be disabled in the MCM). I'd like for my mage to get stuck with some cursed anti-magic restraints, and have the normally cautious girl be forced to pick up a sword and rush into the fray, at least until she can deal with her predicament. I think it would be a lot of fun.

The issue I'd personally have with the idea of a mage-centric restraint set is that they seem more likely to force a mage to use physical attacks than simply offer an increase challenge to fighting with spells, which is not an equivalent to a melee character losing their defensive armor while still having full access to their weaponry.  I'd argue that if you ever feel that you simply must pick up a weapon instead of relying on casting as someone who has specifically built a magic using character, you most certainly have been crippled. 

 

I think there is one other wrinkle - archers or assassin type players don't have as much need for armor either, but I don't believe we'd need a special set of restraints to reduce the effectiveness of surprise attacks or remove the ability to sneak.  They don't care much about being naked assuming they aren't being hit often, but they also wouldn't bat an eye at a magic user restraint set.

 

Of course all of the above is ignoring bound combat - sounds like it is going to get an overhaul anyway, but currently it certainly is firmly in favor of warrior type characters with naturally large health and stamina pools (the main issue is that it does little to no damage outside of the very early levels).

 

 

 

[JR42]

Trying to make being physically restrained less challenging for physical (warrior) characters is not how I'd approach the issue.

 

I think it's inevitable that some archetypes will have an advantage in some situations. It makes perfect sense that physical restraints are a bigger challenge for physical characters. I don't think that's an issue: it adds variety. For example, currently a melee-type that's forced to go naked is steered towards magic or maybe archery until she can deal with the item. I think this is ok, this is interesting gameplay.

 

The problem and imbalance imo is that this never happens in the opposite direction. I'd like to see a mage character occasionally "incentivized" to temporarily use something other than magic (until she can deal with the cursed item).

[JR42]

15 minutes ago, Reesewow said:

The issue I'd personally have with the idea of a mage-centric restraint set is that they seem more likely to force a mage to use physical attacks than simply offer an increase challenge to fighting with spells, which is not an equivalent to a melee character losing their defensive armor while still having full access to their weaponry.

This is a fair point, but that's why I suggested e.g. a 50% magicka regen reduction (while still being able to recover magicka from potions). Or there could be some other moderate negative effect on spellcasting that offers an increased challenge without crippling mages.

 

At higher difficulty levels or with combat mods, a melee-type "losing their defensive armor while still having full access to their weaponry" is seriously crippled. It's only not an issue if the enemies are not challenging anyway. I've been trying to play as a spellsword (mage-warrior hybrid) at high combat difficulty with CL+DD, but always end up having to just focus on magic, which, unlike melee, is almost never penalized by CL/DD.

[Reesewow]

43 minutes ago, JR42 said:

I think it's inevitable that some archetypes will have an advantage in some situations. It makes perfect sense that physical restraints are a bigger challenge for physical characters. I don't think that's an issue: it adds variety. For example, currently a melee-type that's forced to go naked is steered towards magic or maybe archery until she can deal with the item. I think this is ok, this is interesting gameplay.

 

The problem and imbalance imo is that this never happens in the opposite direction. I'd like to see a mage character occasionally "incentivized" to temporarily use something other than magic (until she can deal with the cursed item).

Fair enough, altho I don't personally agree that a warrior type character ever has incentive to use magic due to nudity vulnerability (other than possibly casting a single magic-armor alteration spell before combat) - magic simply does not scale well enough in Skyrim to be useful for a character that has not invested a ton of levels and perk points into buffing the archetype.  If the game is set up to be challenging for a warrior at full effectiveness, I don't think falling back to low-teir magic on a baseline magicka pool would be a viable choice.

 

The reason I don't think a set that specifically targets mages would be that fun of an addition is that it either heavily punishes your character when it happens, or it isn't much different than a regular set of restraints. 

 

21 minutes ago, JR42 said:

This is a fair point, but that's why I suggested e.g. a 50% magicka regen reduction (while still being able to recover magicka from potions). Or there could be some other moderate negative effect on spellcasting that offers an increased challenge without crippling mages.

 

At higher difficulty levels or with combat mods, a melee-type "losing their defensive armor while still having full access to their weaponry" is seriously crippled. It's only not an issue if the enemies are not challenging anyway. I've been trying to play as a spellsword (mage-warrior hybrid) at high combat difficulty with CL+DD, but always end up having to just focus on magic, which, unlike melee, is almost never penalized by CL/DD.

It would be a challenge to find something that works well - reduced magicka regen while allowing potions for instance only works as long as the player never gets a gag that blocks potions.  A melee user with a similar stamina regen reduction can still rely on normal attacks and evasion over blocking, but a caster that can't effectively regen their magicka pool is severely crippled in any fight that takes more than one mana bar.  Perhaps someone could come up with a cool idea, but I don't think I've seen a great one yet (Skyrim's casting system being kinda crappy in the first place without mods doesn't help).

 

At lower difficulties it might be fun to have a restraint set force you to play a different archetype for a period of time, but I think at higher difficulties/levels getting a set like that while playing a highly specialized character would be as debilitating as being locked in heavy bondage, and effectively force you to stop adventuring to get it off first.  That isn't necessarily the case with a naked warrior, because while you can't take a hit you can at least still dish it out.  I personally really liked someone's else's suggestion earlier that to mitigate the main issue warriors have (nudity) the collars that enforce it could accept no chest armor as "nude" and allow for helm/gloves/boots, as that would allow for significant armor to a warrior type character without significantly buffing a caster type (which just adding armor to the restraints or collar effect would do).

 

Of course, more sets still add variety, and totally up to Kimy if it was something that should be added (hopefully with the option to set the occurrence chance to 0% for mage purists). 

[Slagblah]

7 hours ago, kplh said:

When wearing items that disable use of hands, slave/pony boots and mittens could maybe spawn in a temporary invisible devious device which is categorized as a mace (or other weapon) this way one handed skill would increase damage of bound combat? For example: wearing mittens would be like wearing boxing gloves, and being kicked with a metal hoof would probably hurt. Or maybe yoke could be classified as a shield? It is a heavy metal object that could block a sword quite easily.

You should try my unofficial Combat Boots mod. It adds various strengths of unarmed combat buffs to all devious boots (requires DD 4.0 and DCL), but only when you're wearing arm bondage (anything with the HeavyBondage keyword). Softer, rubber boots don't give much of a buff, but heavy, solid and/or sharp boots like metal heels or pony boots provide greater and greater bonuses (3 levels).

 

(For those who have seen this before, it's now been updated for DD 4.0, but only comes in the DD+DCL version.)

 

Combat Boots for DD4.0.7z

[Reesewow]

8 minutes ago, Slagblah said:

You should try my unofficial Combat Boots mod. It adds various strengths of unarmed combat buffs to all devious boots (requires DD 4.0 and DCL), but only when you're wearing arm bondage (anything with the HeavyBondage keyword). Softer, rubber boots don't give much of a buff, but heavy, solid and/or sharp boots like metal heels or pony boots provide greater and greater bonuses (3 levels).

 

(For those who have seen this before, it's now been updated for DD 4.0, but only comes in the DD+DCL version.)

 

Combat Boots for DD4.0.7z

Cool, thanks for updating this and I'll totally use it as a hold-over to help bound combat (I recall it existed as a DD3 mod).

[Lupine00]

18 hours ago, Kimy said:

Adding quests that punish mages instead of melee characters isn't the way to resolve this, IMHO.

I don't think people are really asking for that.

 

I made some optimistic noises about how great it would be to have some melee oriented quests, but they weren't intended to penalize mages. In fact, I even suggested some "lore friendly" themes, and mechanics, though those aren't exactly hard to come up with.

 

New quests and new major cursed items are work, so I don't suppose anybody expects such a thing to happen overnight, or maybe ever. But people always enjoy new content and features. Punishing mages, that's not new content.

 

But if there were quests that are hard for mages and fun for melee, and quests that are hard for melee and fun for mages (like we already have), that would be balanced.

 

And in a fully balanced world, there might be stealth friendly quests too.

[pinkpunkt]

On 24.4.2018 at 12:56 PM, Uniaa said:

I have a problem with Leon's qest. When I give the money to servant - the game freezes.

I have the same problem as this gentleman.

 

Edit: Around DCL6.0 or something like that... that specific quest ran fine.

[Lupine00]

Here's a repost of my joke idea for a melee-centric DCL quest (it was posted weeks ago, so you'd never find it in all the posts DCL forum gets):

 

It would make way more sense to make a brand-new quest, in the style of Bound Queen or Rubber Doll, but melee oriented.

 

I imagine some sort of harness (Grooella's Battle Harness, for example), that has great buffs on melee skills, but has a progressive "stupidity" curse that increasingly eats up your magic skills and MP, giving you more SP in return. The more aroused you get - and of course it is highly arousing - the stupider you are. Of course it messes with your dialog too, like gag talk, so you can only say inane things, or if horny enough, beg for (or forcefully demand) sex.

 

The only way to remove the curse is to kill loads of bandits. With a 2H weapon. No wimpy one-handers. Yes. Bandits. Bound Queen does draugr and dwemer, so why not? Eventually you collect enough drops to free yourself from the harness, but by that point, are you so dumb that you might think wearing it is a good idea?

 

Maybe scope for a mechanic like the Devious Stories (unfinished) stones, where you get arousal for killing things, especially bandits, and a bonus for the axe? So the more you try to progress to completion, the more it impacts you.

 

And if you have a DCL follower, they say some pretty funny things about what an idiot you are, how horny you are, and how much they're enjoying sex with the new you.

 

Just an idea.

[DonQuiWho]

22 hours ago, Kimy said:

If this feature is disabled in MCM and gets fired anyway...something isn't right!

 

Have me a log of such occurrences, perhaps?

 

Hi Kimy

 

Rather than clutter up the thread, I've sent you a PM with the details

[DonQuiWho]

I've followed most of the main mod threads for years. 

 

I understand why not everyone is always happy, the language barriers that can hinder expression, and users' wishlists

 

After '000s of hours gameplay, I can also see why purists might want to play their way through the game using a character that has one primary thematic style

 

Additionally, I can see that not every mod, in fact probably no one single mod, is EVER ever going to exactly fit even a minority of people's hoped for Utopian path - unless they write these themselves

 

OK, so what's so wrong about having to think laterally, and do something different, such as adopt one's playing style to take account of differing in game encounters, as and when required?

 

The bottom line is you're really trying to beat the mod author, and their vision of 'Purgatory in Skyrim'

 

I'm not suggesting that you should all get your paddles out, take aim, and whack  @Kimy 's rump for being so mean to you all.  Rather, just some more visible acceptance that we're all very lucky to have been given what we've got!

 

The only potential exception to that is where any mod author's product doesn't do as advertised/what it says on the tin.  At that point, it's not unreasonable to look for a fix, but asking should be polite, good humoured, not look like washing dirty linen in public, and with an understanding that mod authors have real lives to live too   

 

So, apart from making constructive contributions to that sort of improvement, and legitimately adding some new ideas that might take off/fit the author's vision of what they want their mod to do, which many here actually do, otherwise interminable arguments about content style may be a great way of practising one's keyboard skills but, fundamentally, they are often just a complete waste of time

 

Maybe I'm just too old, jaundiced and cynical, and from a different, even 'out of touch', generation, but I thought I'd say this, as sometimes I feel @Kimy, and a lot of other mod authors deserve better.  

 

No need to reply.  This is a one off comment.  I'm not intending to start any flame wars, and I wont be taking this any further, or responding to any follow ups on it.  I just thought it needed said, and was worth saying

 

[Rynnes Master]

It was.  And well said.

[Lostdreamer]

At risk of changing the subject - can someone confirm to me which mod has the animations for things like plug vibrations and chasity belt events? I'm having trouble getting them to work currently.

[Laura]

29 minutes ago, Lostdreamer said:

At risk of changing the subject - can someone confirm to me which mod has the animations for things like plug vibrations and chasity belt events? I'm having trouble getting them to work currently.

They are from Devious Devices Integration.

[Lostdreamer]

1 minute ago, Comrade Laura 'Lokomootje' said:

They are from Devious Devices Integration.

Cool. Didn't know if they were DDI, or from Assets or Expansion.

 

Sadly, that isn't showing any conflicts in MO so that idea is shot as well. Bother. Need to work out why they ain't working - the game pausing every few mins for my character to stand there in a t-pose gets old fast.

I've run FNIS so that shouldn't be it.

 

Any ideas?

[WaxenFigure]

5 hours ago, Lostdreamer said:

Cool. Didn't know if they were DDI, or from Assets or Expansion.

 

Sadly, that isn't showing any conflicts in MO so that idea is shot as well. Bother. Need to work out why they ain't working - the game pausing every few mins for my character to stand there in a t-pose gets old fast.

I've run FNIS so that shouldn't be it.

 

Any ideas?

Look at your FNIS run again, you may have missed a problem (most warnings are actually fatal), checked an option you don't have installed or installed a mod that requires an option that you forgot to check.