Roleplaying as a weak, helpless girl.

[SkyAddiction]

I find magic to be difficult with a follower, and pure archery is weak when not solo. More often than not, I tend to focus one-handed, light armor, and block, with a mid-focus on archery, stealth, smithing, alchemy, and enchanting.

 

When paired with a standard tanky follower or an outright good one like DCL's Chloe, it offers enough diversity to take ordinary fights and win consistently. Creep in, get a few sneak attacks off with the bow, let your follower charge and take the aggro, then charge in yourself and pummel people from behind. Once it stops being effective, it's a rare game where I can't restore the balance with some enchantments, better tempered armor and weapons, and potions to keep it all going, all of which requires doing things to make and/or buy things anyway.

 

There's still some wonk where the leveled enemies start coming into play and I need more cash to drive my PC to better skills, but it's infinitely better than the vanilla rocket-leveling power fantasy, and it wouldn't get old. If I ever cleared the entire map of locations and quests, I'd still probably only be around level 40 or so, which, as the definitive "I can beat anything" point, makes sense since I'd have literally done just that.

[Darkwing241]

13 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

Playing a healer character doesn't really work in Skyrim, because of the way combat is balanced. The damage curve seems like a cliff. Your tank is either taking no damage and needs no heals, or goes down so fast you'd think you were playing Everquest. There's no middle ground, it's cakewalk or catastrophe. Reducing the damage rate doesn't help much, because the cliff is so steep.

Well maybe this is the problem then? I know I have tried a few different follower mods and never gotten it quite right.  It seems like there has to be one out there that smooths out the progression.

 

I think it is Amazing Follower Tweaks that allows you to choose when followers level and how their skills are distributed? Sky tweak or any other cheat menu style mod probably has something that you could juice your follower with and/or nerf yourself.  Not the most immersive, but not really different then have a dedicated mod when you really think about it.  It's pretty tough to test that kind of thing though, going through all the levels...

 

By far the best experiences I've had with the weak/helpless theme have been in DF centered runs.  Usually some combination of healer/alchemist/summoner.  I've played around with illusionists too but even with stuff like ordinator and custom spells it's tough to make them work as enemies don't really kill enemies very quickly.

 

 

[afa]

To balance combat is just very difficult in Skyrim, I am not talking about tweaking to the way it needs to be but merely just tweaking it in a direction you want it to go.

Battles majority of the time is a sure win or a sure lose situation.

A non combatant focus approach already exist in the game in the shape of the 3 crafting skills, and they are ridiculously powerful. Gear dependency is already in the game and it goes up the higher level PC is.

Magic too depends on cost reduction gear, its cost is simply too high, and invest in magicka is a fool's errand.

[Lupine00]

1 hour ago, Darkwing241 said:

I think it is Amazing Follower Tweaks that allows you to choose when followers level and how their skills are distributed? Sky tweak or any other cheat menu style mod probably has something that you could juice your follower with and/or nerf yourself.  Not the most immersive, but not really different then have a dedicated mod when you really think about it.  It's pretty tough to test that kind of thing though, going through all the levels...

EFF also has follower training. Alas, this doesn't solve any of the problem, which is deep in the mechanics of how Skyrim combat is designed to work - or wasn't.

 

Sure, you can power-up followers in various ways. You can, for example, pick a follower who is +10 levels based on yours, you can pick one with absurdly OP stats and procs, like Yuriana. Making them strong enough to win is possible, if you are determined to do that.

 

The downside is that a follower who can win the hard fights, which are few, is that they finish the easy fights before you even know they've started. You are reduced to a loot mule for them. And if that was explicit (say in DF) it would be cool during the early part of a game, but even DF doesn't support that immersively, and it's not really a fun way to play long-term.

 

But... Experiences vary. I'm using Skyrim Immersive Creatures, and have at times used other things, More Bandit Camps, SD Cages with Badass NPCs, the various Wenches mods, and I'm still using Buxom Wench Yuriana, though I haven't recruited the buxom wench herself as a follower, I'm just doing the other quests. BWY adds some numerous and non-trivial enemies to various dungeons and forts.

 

With pure vanilla, I probably wouldn't hit many hard enemies at all, but that would just leave me in boring easy mode, depending on a follower who wins every fight with a one or two hit kill.

[Seijin8]

Been following this topic for a while.  Lots of great thoughts in here.

 

On the subject of follower comparative strengths, it would be simple enough to throw an alias on them that comes equipped with effects/perks/whatever the generate the desired level of toughness/power without needing to find explicit followers for this purpose.  This could be tuned through a few globals/variables tweakable both for immediate effect and taper over time (assuming the PC is intended to be someday viable, or never is). Just another MCM setting to tune in.

 

I've personally found the support role to be viable (with the right mods, and without too much W&T or other debuffs), as I frequently play as a "weak dragonborn" that attracts followers to fight for them, and buffs them as the fight goes on, healing etc as needed.  In other cases, the PC has been a tool in someone else's arsenal; kept nearby to suck up the dragon soul, but is otherwise not involved.

 

(Of course this requires the player to be taking the active role but pretending it is not by choice.  Sadly I'm not aware of any way to *actually* be the subordinate in the questing.)

 

Anyway, keep up the great discussions.

[Darkpig]

39 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

But... Experiences vary. I'm using Skyrim Immersive Creatures, and have at times used other things, More Bandit Camps, SD Cages with Badass NPCs, the various Wenches mods, and I'm still using Buxom Wench Yuriana, though I haven't recruited the buxom wench herself as a follower, I'm just doing the other quests. BWY adds some numerous and non-trivial enemies to various dungeons and forts.

 

With pure vanilla, I probably wouldn't hit many hard enemies at all, but that would just leave me in boring easy mode, depending on a follower who wins every fight with a one or two hit kill.

Don't you want a hubby that can pack a punch yknow as a weak helpless girl? Joking aside, getting the right balance in an RPG is a crapshoot. Heck balancing anything is a crapshoot. Even fighting games have a character hierarchy in competitive play. Given that there is a shit ton of number crunching as well as consideration of player exploitation. Things are not always ideal so my question is this; what kind of game are we aiming for here? For example I like bullet hell shooters, stealth games, and RPGs to an extent. If we are going RPG then we should look at games like Final Fantasy for inspiration if we are going to do a fighting game look no further than Smash Bros. Is there a certain game you are thinking of?

 

TL;DR: We should take this opportunity to take inspiration from other games especially cause nobody here is paid to fix Bethesda's shit.

 

PS. I find Bethesda's ? to be very lovely otherwise I would not be mucking around in it.❤️

[SkyAddiction]

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

EFF also has follower training. Alas, this doesn't solve any of the problem, which is deep in the mechanics of how Skyrim combat is designed to work - or wasn't.

 

Sure, you can power-up followers in various ways. You can, for example, pick a follower who is +10 levels based on yours, you can pick one with absurdly OP stats and procs, like Yuriana. Making them strong enough to win is possible, if you are determined to do that.

 

The downside is that a follower who can win the hard fights, which are few, is that they finish the easy fights before you even know they've started. You are reduced to a loot mule for them. And if that was explicit (say in DF) it would be cool during the early part of a game, but even DF doesn't support that immersively, and it's not really a fun way to play long-term.

 

But... Experiences vary. I'm using Skyrim Immersive Creatures, and have at times used other things, More Bandit Camps, SD Cages with Badass NPCs, the various Wenches mods, and I'm still using Buxom Wench Yuriana, though I haven't recruited the buxom wench herself as a follower, I'm just doing the other quests. BWY adds some numerous and non-trivial enemies to various dungeons and forts.

 

With pure vanilla, I probably wouldn't hit many hard enemies at all, but that would just leave me in boring easy mode, depending on a follower who wins every fight with a one or two hit kill.

 

You know, over the last few weeks I've 100% reversed course on using mods to mess with difficulty settings or other means of challenging the player. I'm back to playing on Master/Legendary depending upon the tag-along I have with me (Lydia v. Chloe comparison), and with the skill changes, economy mods, and scarcity, it plays quite nicely.

 

Money is hard to come by and has to pay for either training, a follower, rest and recovery, or items. You don't, at all, ever out-level enemies, and even low-tier ones remain something to be careful of until they bump up due to leveled lists.

[SkyAddiction]

41 minutes ago, Darkpig said:

Don't you want a hubby that can pack a punch yknow as a weak helpless girl? Joking aside, getting the right balance in an RPG is a crapshoot. Heck balancing anything is a crapshoot. Even fighting games have a character hierarchy in competitive play. Given that there is a shit ton of number crunching as well as consideration of player exploitation. Things are not always ideal so my question is this; what kind of game are we aiming for here? For example I like bullet hell shooters, stealth games, and RPGs to an extent. If we are going RPG then we should look at games like Final Fantasy for inspiration if we are going to do a fighting game look no further than Smash Bros. Is there a certain game you are thinking of?

 

TL;DR: We should take this opportunity to take inspiration from other games especially cause nobody here is paid to fix Bethesda's shit.

 

PS. I find Bethesda's ? to be very lovely otherwise I would not be mucking around in it.❤️

 

Speaking specifically for myself, I see the following flaws in Beth's systems as implemented in Skyrim and have chosen to address them:

1. Vanilla game results in a glut of currency and a massively over-powered character.

2. The die-and-reload system promotes otherworldly means of countering enemy NPCs.

3. Once you have a glut of currency, you can just massively improve your character's status without any real effort.

This is fine if you're trying to create an all-powerful PC, but it's ridiculously detrimental to the PC if you want to make adventuring comes with some sort of price, which it should.

 

Rather:

1. You create a tight economy where investment in one area has consequences.

2. Failure in combat results in actual in-game catastrophic events. e.g.: I'll go through the prison first because I have less resistance, then the main floor, then the tower. Because the results are so extreme, you're likely to run away if you can't handle them. <- this is infinitely important; you can't assume success or equal distribution of skill. You might have to run away, and given the punishments for losing, it's better to run away.

3. While income increases based upon level obtained in enchanting or through smithing, you have the option, and it's an attractive one, to pursue an option non-combat related.

 

Being an adventurer is presented as a fickle path. You can choose it, but it won't be simple, and shouldn't be.

[Lupine00]

With respect to combat difficulty, I want there to be some fights that are hard, and you have to abandon them, and come back later.

 

But, if you return after several levels, they should be achievable.

 

I want the occasional disaster, that stops the direct progression through the game, but this should never be the result of a single unlucky event.

 

A catastrophe should either require a series of unfortunate events (reference intended) or a series of bad moves and decisions on the part of the player (me).

 

Still, there should be plenty of potential for series of unfortunate events to occur.

 

Also, there should be net to catch you when things do go horribly sideways, and that net should not be a nice place to be.

 

I also want the basic combat to be difficult enough to be generally challenging enough that if I don't make an effort of some kind I won't win. I don't want to just walk in and win.

 

I don't want to spend forever on click for money skills, like alchemy, blacksmithing, cooking, or enchanting. I find repetitive clicking very dull.

 

I want some sex content, but it shouldn't be going on all the time. If it's going on "quite a lot", it should be like DF, with periodic interference from the follower or some NPC. DF has this sorted for me when it actually fires off.

 

I don't want to spend all my time running around time selling items, fiddling with my inventory, and managing cash.

 

I want the occasional surprise or at least somewhat unanticipated event.

 

 

I'm not really getting this right now because:

• too much running about vending stuff
• not enough random events to mix things up
• most fights too easy, and hard fights too hard to run from in many cases
• DF not putting enough pressure on, and no other source of unanticipated financial crises
• too much sex content at the start, not enough now
• advancement slow, because I can stave off DF, but can't afford to buy skills much

 

It's not completely unsatisfactory; the problem is mostly cash.

Because cash pays for both DF followers and advancement, I end up paying for DF, but not advancing.

If I had enough for both, it would be too generous.

To get more cash, I'm doing a lot of vending.

 

• I've put some SLD measures in that can screw up my speech, badly. This (as I know from past games) is an occurrence that has the potential to block cash flow and lead to major financial problems.
• I have SXP for advancement, so it's an alternate path. I'm starting to spend those points now, which is fixing the advancement issues.
• I've lost some of the meaning of cash though.
• Fight difficulties not really resolved.
• I've made property very hard to afford, so I don't have that convenience.

 

[Darkpig]

2 hours ago, SkyAddiction said:

 

Speaking specifically for myself, I see the following flaws in Beth's systems as implemented in Skyrim and have chosen to address them:

1. Vanilla game results in a glut of currency and a massively over-powered character.

2. The die-and-reload system promotes otherworldly means of countering enemy NPCs.

3. Once you have a glut of currency, you can just massively improve your character's status without any real effort.

This is fine if you're trying to create an all-powerful PC, but it's ridiculously detrimental to the PC if you want to make adventuring comes with some sort of price, which it should.

 

Rather:

1. You create a tight economy where investment in one area has consequences.

2. Failure in combat results in actual in-game catastrophic events. e.g.: I'll go through the prison first because I have less resistance, then the main floor, then the tower. Because the results are so extreme, you're likely to run away if you can't handle them. <- this is infinitely important; you can't assume success or equal distribution of skill. You might have to run away, and given the punishments for losing, it's better to run away.

3. While income increases based upon level obtained in enchanting or through smithing, you have the option, and it's an attractive one, to pursue an option non-combat related.

 

Being an adventurer is presented as a fickle path. You can choose it, but it won't be simple, and shouldn't be.

So let me see if I got this right.

You went through a playthrough with a harsh economy and leveled up only by hiring trainers correct? Well Lupine was saying that followers were either too weak or too powerful to which I said we need a basis to form a good follower system but I didn't correctly convey my meaning. I meant to say that we need another game to make a basis on balancing Skyrim in particular a follower system from another game that does it right. I agree that balancing Skyrim's economy is a step in the right direction but followers are a different matter entirely, I mean you didn't go off and sell Lydia's armor did you??

[chevalierx]

3 hours ago, SkyAddiction said:

 

Speaking specifically for myself, I see the following flaws in Beth's systems as implemented in Skyrim and have chosen to address them:

1. Vanilla game results in a glut of currency and a massively over-powered character.

2. The die-and-reload system promotes otherworldly means of countering enemy NPCs.

3. Once you have a glut of currency, you can just massively improve your character's status without any real effort.

This is fine if you're trying to create an all-powerful PC, but it's ridiculously detrimental to the PC if you want to make adventuring comes with some sort of price, which it should.

 

Rather:

1. You create a tight economy where investment in one area has consequences.

2. Failure in combat results in actual in-game catastrophic events. e.g.: I'll go through the prison first because I have less resistance, then the main floor, then the tower. Because the results are so extreme, you're likely to run away if you can't handle them. <- this is infinitely important; you can't assume success or equal distribution of skill. You might have to run away, and given the punishments for losing, it's better to run away.

3. While income increases based upon level obtained in enchanting or through smithing, you have the option, and it's an attractive one, to pursue an option non-combat related.

 

Being an adventurer is presented as a fickle path. You can choose it, but it won't be simple, and shouldn't be.

try device training (with any device equipe mod  like device loot or device chest) that make your all perks to 0 and combat evolved without followers and without fast travel and only vanilla armors, weapons

i have die 10 time in first 3 bandit i fight without boss and with device equiped on you without escape , it hard to fight without armor ench

i end up by runing fast i can't without enemy see me  but i can't move faster mod reduce my  speed , and device do sound on movement so it alert them

the hell and pain

[Lupine00]

4 hours ago, chevalierx said:

try device training (with any device equipe mod  like device loot or device chest) that make your all perks to 0 and combat evolved without followers and without fast travel and only vanilla armors, weapons

I think you're talking about Deviously Cursed Loot

What is "device chest"?

And what is "device training?" Devious Training II ?

 

 

No followers is a very different kind of game. I like Devious Followers too much.

[Lupine00]

Something clearly went bad in my game a while back, and now Apropos and SGOIII have gone crazy. Some scripts running, others not. All broken.

Probably a stack dump. Looks like I'm going to have to go on without either of them, and probably some "save cleaner" antics to bandage the game up enough to play it until I'm fed up of it.

[chevalierx]

9 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

I think you're talking about Deviously Cursed Loot

What is "device chest"?

And what is "device training?" Devious Training II ?

 

 

No followers is a very different kind of game. I like Devious Followers too much.

Devious Training II it hurt this mod really hurt

deviously enchanted chests is better and simple then DCL

i hate follower

[xboronx]

Still very interesting discussion.

 

I am currently quite happy with having added naked dungeons. The armor breaking feature alone is already great. Still finetuning though.

 

 

Which mods do you use to make enemies tougher? I only use Perma Zones so far and change ingame difficulty if needed. But is there a good mod which makes the normal Skyrim enemies a bit harder without altering too much?

Like increasing all enemies levels by +10-20 and adjusting their stats without going too far from vanilla Skyrim because i mostly like the vanilla feel. But especially the lowlevel bandits are just too weak, imho the normal bandits should have about the stats as bandit thugs or highwaymen etc..

[Slorm]

4 hours ago, xboronx said:

Still very interesting discussion.

 

I am currently quite happy with having added naked dungeons. The armor breaking feature alone is already great. Still finetuning though.

 

 

Which mods do you use to make enemies tougher? I only use Perma Zones so far and change ingame difficulty if needed. But is there a good mod which makes the normal Skyrim enemies a bit harder without altering too much?

Like increasing all enemies levels by +10-20 and adjusting their stats without going too far from vanilla Skyrim because i mostly like the vanilla feel. But especially the lowlevel bandits are just too weak, imho the normal bandits should have about the stats as bandit thugs or highwaymen etc..

Try Tougher Bandits https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/56555

 

 Be warned, plain bandits can put up a reasonable fight and at low levels around 5 and under will give you a good kicking so need to be tackled with care. At higher levels if you spawn in half a dozen they can give you a run for your money if you're a light armour user. Basically it removes the nerf on vanilla bandits so they hit the correct damage and have the correct HP.

[Lupine00]

7 hours ago, xboronx said:

Which mods do you use to make enemies tougher? I only use Perma Zones so far and change ingame difficulty if needed. But is there a good mod which makes the normal Skyrim enemies a bit harder without altering too much?

More Bandit Camps - adds more banditry and is mild, difficulty-wise; doesn't make the bandits harder, just makes them more frequent.

 

Organized Bandits In Skyrim - does add difficulty to bandits, and more bandits generally. It doesn't claim to be harder, specifically, but it is.

 

Tougher Spiders - is a very modest patch that just buffs up the HP and damage on some super-weak spiders. I modified it further to buff several spiders it didn't, particularly "boss" spider encounters. Spiders still aren't hard with this, but at least they aren't completely pathetic.

 

Arachnophobia - makes spiders harder. Combine with Tougher Spiders for extra value. It's stupid really. Any spit that hits takes you down instantly. I think this old mod could be good with a few tweaks, but as originally designed, the one-hit-down mechanic is too arbitrary and lacks game-play. If a spider needed a number of hits to web you completely, with incremental webbing-effects you could choose to struggle, or ignore and keep fighting, prior to complete webbing, it would be much more interesting.

 

Skyrim Immersive Creatures - can be tuned to be very mild, or intrusive. You can also turn off some of the weirder creature types. It can sometimes spawn weird creature gangs that make little sense. Sure, wolves and wolf-cubs ... but a troll, with two sabre cats, and a pack of wolves as a group? It's not lore friendly, immersive, or well balanced. It adds a lot of buffed-up resurrecting skeletons that are quite good, but some other creatures it adds are sort of dumb-looking and stupidly tough. Spriggan Patriarchs for example. It's for the sort of person who likes having to run from encounters.

 

SD+ Cages - has an option for "Badass" NPCs, that are quite vicious. They add quite a big difficulty jump.

 

Skyrim More Immersive Zones - the exact opposite of what you want in terms of extent, but exactly the thing in mechanics. It modifies the levels of encounters in a widespread way, and locks the levels of most areas, so the difficulty of an area is fixed, not based on your level. Alas, the creator had some eccentric ideas, and thought draugr should be end-game enemies, completely blocking any hope of doing any of the major quests before you're about level 70. Even the bandits are vicious. This is a seriously hardcore mod that has a lot of potential to screw you up completely by locking you in a quest area, with no way out, and mobs 50 levels above you. Such scenarios are quit, go back ... a dozen saves ... and reload.

 

If this had been a modest, well considered mod, it would be exactly what you wanted, as it's a tiny thing that just changes how zones level - but the way it's executed it's overly impactful and breaks more or less all of the vanilla Skyrim experience with no real plan for how a player might level up through it.

 

I could probably say the same of PermaZones. If you read between the lines, both mods are for people who think the game starts at level 70 and who conflate minimum level and maximum level. The key determinants of what things you encounter are the max and level offset, and that's what matters at level 70; yet they insist on f**king up the low-level game because they believe no bandit should ever be level 6 and draugr should be "scary"? It's like difficulty curve is an oxymoron for them.

 

I'd steer clear of these mods as a group if you want subtle changes:

1. Deadly Wenches - still milder than SD+ Cages
2. Hateful Wenches - the number of wenches spawned, or draugr that wenches spawn in addition to themselves are unpredictable, and even limited numbers of wenches can result in huge numbers of other spawns. If you turn a lot of that off, they still add a lot of unbalancing loot, and enough extra enemies to throw encounters way off balance. Has some interesting additional "color" material, plus weird ghosts. A very mixed bag. Nothing subtle about it though.
3. Forgotten Wenches - relatively well set up and not as crazy, unpredictable, or randomly broken as Hateful Wenches.
4. Judgement Wenches - as above, but typically a bit harder.

Buxom Wench Yuriana - a quest, follower and dungeon difficulty mod all rolled into one. Adds content to bandits and undead. Adds some tough undead wenches with giant skeleton henchmen, as well as wench bandits. If you use any of the regular wench mods, it's hard to tell what is part of them and what is Yuriana. I suggest trying it by itself. The Yuriana follower is ridiculously OP. I have rarely ever seen a gang of mobs take her down, even if you don't assist her. With all her powers turned on, you probably won't go down either. Rarely, she can fail due to lame Skyrim AI, but other than that, she's bordering on invincible, especially in a regular game. To counter this, some of the added mobs are effectively immune to followers. This can cause a nasty surprise if you're using this mod but haven't recruited Yuriana.

[Lupine00]

9 hours ago, chevalierx said:

deviously enchanted chests is better and simple then DCL

I tried Deviously Enchanted Chests a couple of years back and found it glitchy, unreliable and lacking customisation (that worked).

 

It's been developed more since then, so perhaps I should look at it again?

 

It's not a bad thing to take the original core of DCL and just do that.

So, if it has the customisation I want now, it might be good.

 

However, I do like the trapped plants and doors in DCL.

While FMEA also makes plants potentially horrid, it only does debuffs and EC+ rapes.

[afa]

I can't get permazone to work on outdoor areas, only dungeons have crazy high level enemies. For outdoor areas I am still seeing only wolfs at low level except of the guarantee high level mob spawns. And given how tight some of the dungeons area are they aren't really all that fun when traveling with followers.

 

One issue with followers development is that they follow a lot of the same rules that govern NPCs as well; bonus health, different multiplier for skill, difficulty related damage taken multiplier, and as far as I know the add perk/remove perk console commands don't work so you can't give or remove perks on the fly. Either they have the perk because CK said so or they don't. A possible work around is to have two (or multiple) copies of them and give them different perk configurations and then switch them on and off which is way to cumbersome.

 

Anyways a lot of the combat "rules" and numbers behind Skyrim's system makes it very difficult to strike a balance for the game play that is needed for a somewhat reasonable "weak" but manageable playthrough.

[Lupine00]

12 hours ago, afa said:

Anyways a lot of the combat "rules" and numbers behind Skyrim's system makes it very difficult to strike a balance for the game play that is needed for a somewhat reasonable "weak" but manageable playthrough.

All but one of the combat overhauls is simulationist and "realism" fixated.

 

Buried in those mods there is some idea that rendering the entire system even more twitchy and vulnerable to script lag, and putting more load on a collision system that was sketchy from the get-go, makes Skyrim better.

 

Skyrim doesn't even have hit locations, and while some mods try to add them, it doesn't have a control mechanism for melee weapons suitable for guiding attacks to specific locations either, so it's a lost cause.

 

 

Nobody has set out with the explicit intent of moderating the strong vs weak combat differential, so weak enemies are not so weak and strong enemies are not so strong.

The changes the simulationists have made only make this problem worse.

This suggests the opposite is also possible.

 

 

Skyrim's design relied on the level matching system to do most of this, so in theory, you're mostly fighting enemies close to your level. Because of that, they didn't worry much about a differential resulting in a slaughter.

 

The idea of locking area levels so they have a fixed difficulty only makes the combat differential problem worse. Much worse.

The best fix for this is to set the max level cap to 99 where reasonable, and set modest level offsets for most areas.

 

It's a start. The exact opposite of what most combat difficulty increase mods do.

Combat difficulty doesn't need increasing if you've nerfed the PC - so they don't have access to uber gear, or high skills, or possibly any skills at all.

 

Other ways to stop things being very sudden are decreasing damage for everything across the board.

 

 

I know lots of people would see this as heresy, or confuse it with "easy mode", but with the debuffs I had on my character for most of my current playthrough, she could barely take out a basic, not tougher-bandit by herself - and that was in full armor and with an adequate weapon. Tougher enemies remain unapproachable. A bear is near certain death. And then there are the wounds, with their long lasting consequences, that often result from the most basic of fights.

 

Being so fragile, running away was rarely an option. She'd be knocked down and zero stamina before she could even turn to run.

 

People clearly want different stuff, but to get the game I'm aiming for, something like Wildcat is the opposite of help.

[xboronx]

Thanks for the advices Slorn and Lupine00.

 

Have added tougher Bandits and Spiders so far, probably will try either the wenches or SD+ cages soon.

 

 

 

[SkyAddiction]

10 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

All but one of the combat overhauls is simulationist and "realism" fixated.

 

Buried in those mods there is some idea that rendering the entire system even more twitchy and vulnerable to script lag, and putting more load on a collision system that was sketchy from the get-go, makes Skyrim better.

 

Skyrim doesn't even have hit locations, and while some mods try to add them, it doesn't have a control mechanism for melee weapons suitable for guiding attacks to specific locations either, so it's a lost cause.

 

 

Nobody has set out with the explicit intent of moderating the strong vs weak combat differential, so weak enemies are not so weak and strong enemies are not so strong.

The changes the simulationists have made only make this problem worse.

This suggests the opposite is also possible.

 

God, this is so true. Getting combat to feel even remotely right caused me far more grief than anything else. Economy in comparison was absurdly simple - cut down the money supply and find outlets for it.

[afa]

Personally I actually dislike player skill/input dictating too much of the combat. For some crazy strange reason one of the few concepts I liked from Morrowind was the dice roll combat. Regardless if I (the player) can no scope 360 headshot someone from a mile away shouldn't dictate if the PC can accomplish the same feat. When a scenario occurs where movement and terrain dictate combat outcome the player is heavily favored. In an open slug fest stats typically dictates the winner however the rules for these stats are all over the place in Skyrim.

 

I have actually tried the decreasing damage across the board method before. I halved the damage taken for both PC and NPC, basically a mix of easy and hard difficulty combined, further more I also tried even out the multiplier of NPC and PC damage and armor multiplier so they are on equal footing. But issue arises again when balancing follower vs NPCs who abides by the same rule. Magic also took a hit since they now to half damage while costing just as much, but magic has its own issue altogether.

High level NPCs also "cheat" by having passive damage + defense perk, on the other hand they don't have access to high level gear with the exception of a few. To individually even those out is going to take a lot of work.

Alternatively there are mods out there that upgrade bandits' gear...and you pretty much have glass weapon and armor littered across the world, which might be a good thing to keep the pace of the game going if we assume PC will eventually hit a spot where she will lose all her stuff. However that only applies to bandits, and you will eventually see bandits ripping apart Imperials and Stormcloaks.

[sapho888]

20 minutes ago, afa said:

Personally I actually dislike player skill/input dictating too much of the combat. For some crazy strange reason one of the few concepts I liked from Morrowind was the dice roll combat. Regardless if I (the player) can no scope 360 headshot someone from a mile away shouldn't dictate if the PC can accomplish the same feat. When a scenario occurs where movement and terrain dictate combat outcome the player is heavily favored. In an open slug fest stats typically dictates the winner however the rules for these stats are all over the place in Skyrim.

 

I have actually tried the decreasing damage across the board method before. I halved the damage taken for both PC and NPC, basically a mix of easy and hard difficulty combined, further more I also tried even out the multiplier of NPC and PC damage and armor multiplier so they are on equal footing. But issue arises again when balancing follower vs NPCs who abides by the same rule. Magic also took a hit since they now to half damage while costing just as much, but magic has its own issue altogether.

High level NPCs also "cheat" by having passive damage + defense perk, on the other hand they don't have access to high level gear with the exception of a few. To individually even those out is going to take a lot of work.

Alternatively there are mods out there that upgrade bandits' gear...and you pretty much have glass weapon and armor littered across the world, which might be a good thing to keep the pace of the game going if we assume PC will eventually hit a spot where she will lose all her stuff. However that only applies to bandits, and you will eventually see bandits ripping apart Imperials and Stormcloaks.

I am of the opposite opinion for combat.  Skills can affect ease of combat, but having skills and RNG randomly determining everything about combat turns combat into the lock picking game to get out of Devious Devices.  Now you just have to keep trying till you get a lucky roll.  I would rather more skill/input but if there is something that should be making it more difficult such as withdrawal or restraints, then I would rather have something affect your ability to actually aim.  Screen shake or something like that.  Make me FEEL like it is harder to accomplish a task now.  Give me something to try to accomplish instead of just rolling again and again until the dice gods finally take pity on me.   

 

Also, there seems to be a new Defeat/ Prison/ Addiction mod that just got released called Dragonborn in Distress... I haven't tried it out yet but it looks interesting.

[Darkpig]

17 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I know lots of people would see this as heresy, or confuse it with "easy mode"

You know the Dark Souls fandom is going shit on us either way and don't get me started on the Touhou fandom.?

Didn't see that one coming didya? Didya?