[Schel[Anne]FTL]

I was thinking of having the potion drinking similar to that of what featured in the Witcher 1 pc game. You can't drink potions during battle, only before so therefore, potions should last longer and heal over time.
Also I would like to see leveling up by resting, I don't know why but I like doing it this way better. Makes me feel I truly did gain a level.

[Jeneene Hunte]

Built in, but generally terrible. I'd like to see some overall bonus such as sleeping's Well Rested bonus for having eaten period, not only limiting you to a very small selection of cooked goods. The vast majority of food in the game (and cooking, as a result) are absolutely worthless.

Playing the game a bit more, I think the reason so many foods don't provide a good buff, and the ones that do have rare ingredients, is because the game desingers wanted to encourage....hunting!

If you look at the foods that do provide good buffs, they all require you to go get the ingredient (like venison) instead of buy it at your local store.

That's why apples, by themselves, don't provide any big whoop, but Beef Stew does.

[Chantel Hopkin]

Brainstorming About Fast Travel


I know everyone is waiting on the Construction Set to be released, but until that happens, let's ponder a couple of questions about Fast Travel. How can we make Fast Travel more immersive?

There are two types of Fast Travel in the game. There's the type where you just open your map, click on it, then Fast Travel to that spot. It's very un-immersive. I don't recommend it, and I never personally use it. I mean, I've got this friend at work also playing the game. When he needs some gold, he'll go and clear out a cave, then take everything not nailed down and sell it in the various towns and cities. How does he complish the multiple trips? Fast Travel. Would he do that if there were no Fast Travel built into the game? What, walk all that way just to sell some wooden plates? No way.

He does the same thing when he needs to train. He'll get some money, then Fast Travel to the other side of Skyrim where he found a trainer for the skill he wants to improve. Once done with the training, he'll pop back to where-ever he was and continue his quest. Would he do that if he had to really walk or ride it? No way. It's the Fast Travel crutch that makes that sort of non-immersive, meta-gaming possible.

I've got another friend that is playing the game that feels about Fast Travel the way I do--but just not as strongly. Because it is in the game, he'll use it. But, he said to me, "Man, I sure wish it wasn't available for me to use. I think I'd like that better. I just can't help myself from using it, though." When I offered to change his ini file so that Fast Travel would be disabled in his game, he declined. But, I think he was sincere about wishing that he had no choice when it came to Fast Travel.

Yep, Fast Travel is an immersion killer, in my opinion. If it allows you to do what you normally would not do (which it does, as with the examples above), then it should be stuck from the game.

Skyrim attracts all sorts of players. I get that. People play the game differently and derive joys from different aspects of the game. Always play the game so that YOU have fun.

For me, the name of the game is immersion--being there. Living in that world. So, Fast Travel has to go.





Now, the other form of fast travel is the horse drawn carts that takes you, Morrowind Style, to the capital cities, for a fee. Is this more immersive? I'm not so sure. The Fast Travel described above is travel by foot, going anywhere you need to go. This Fast Travel is you traveling on the cart, pulled by the horse. I'm not sure why both methods are included in the game, because if you use the Foot Fast Travel, for free, why would you ever use the Cart Fast Travel that costs you a fee and only takes you to limited locations?




My question to you is: How do we keep Fast Travel in the game but also make it immersive?

Now, I'm not talking about adding in magic like Mark and Recall spells from Morrowind. Those were cool, and I wouldn't mind them being added. They are an immersive way to Fast Travel. But, my question is: How do we make Foot Fast Travel and Cart Fast Travel immersive in the game?

Let's brainstorm.

[Blaine]

A small animation on the map that shows your character progressing towards his destination, with a small random chance to get waylaid along the way, interrupting travel and landing you in the game where you got stopped on the map, Bladur's Gate style?

Not that I'd use it. I am currently content travelling by foot or horse everywhere, with instant carriages exclusive to capitals. The only thing I do miss is a Recall spell to take me back to the closest city gates.

[Elea Rossi]

Fast Travel Immersion Brainstorming...


I was thinking, a little more elaborately, about something like this...

You pay your fee and jump into the back of the carriage or begin your journey on foot. The screen goes to a picture of the map--your map--with a line drawing from your starting point slowly towards your destination, always using the roads, even if on foot (good idea Reeven!). Yes, there should be places where the Fast Travel is interrupted for encounters, like Baldur's Gate (I'm right with you, Reeven).

In order to Cart Fast Travel, you've got to pay the fee. I think, in order to Foot Fast Travel, the character should have, in his inventory, a certain amount of camping gear and food. If the required amount of food and camping gear isn't present, then Foot Fast Travel should not be possible.

At the end of each day, at dusk, the Fast Travel should stop, somewhere along the route, no matter if using Foot or Cart Fast Travel. If there's an inn nearby, the player can spend the night there. Traveling at night should be dangerous and impossible. The player should have to manually move, if he wants to move at night. Fast Travel should be disabled during the night hours. Even if on foot, the player should have to wait for daybreak in order to be able to Foot Fast Travel.

So, basically, Fast Travel will take you a day's journey and no longer. You can always Fast Travel again, the next morning. But, as you move, if on foot, food in your inventory is used up. And, again, if you don't have the required amount of food, then the game will disable Fast Travel until you have the right amount of food again in your inventory.

Stopping at the end of the day should have a camp--tents, skin beds, a cooking fire, etc. So, what the player sees, when he Fast Travels, is the map pop up, with the line drawing his path (that makes the most use of the roads--so no off-trail exploring with Fast Travel) for a day's journey. Then, the map disappears, it is night time, and the player finds himself in a camp.

The camp will disappear at daybreak. All the player has to do is walk away from the camp or Fast Travel again if it is not yet dark.

If the player can get to his destination before sunset, then the trip is complete.



To sum it up:

1. Player cannot initiate Fast Travel at night. He can only start during daylight hours.

2. In order to Foot Fast Travel, the player must have certain supplies in his inventory, and some of those supplies (food) is used up during the day's travel, possibly blocking the player from Fast Travel.

3. Fast Travel route will stick to the trails and roads as closely as possible.

4. Fast Travel is over at the end of one day. If on a cart, the fee needs to be paid again in order to Fast Travel again.. If on foot, food supplies (as above) carried in the player's inventory is required in order to Foot Fast Travel again.

5. The Cart or Foot Fast Travel might be stopped during the day along the route for a random encounter.

6. At night, the player either finds himself at his destination, near a town or village with an inn, or in a camp that the game will create along the route.



Thoughts?

[Michelle Smith]

On more thing....

At the beginning of the game, the player finds himself sitting the cart as it is moving. Could this be tweaked so that, at the beginning of each Cart Fast Travel, the player actually rides in the cart for a bit before switching to the Fast Travel screen?

As the Cart Fast Travel arrives at its destination, maybe the player again finds himself close to the city (instead of standing still at the horse stables), and ends up riding the last few moments of the trip to the stable. Or, the player can jump out of the cart and go on his merry way (with the Cartsman saying a standard fairwell), but he'll be able to watch the cartsman steer his cart to its place near the horse stable.

[Joe Alvarado]

How about including fast travel ONLY to the horse carts you find spread out through Skyrim?

[Robert Jr]

An idea for immersion here.

Add various children for other races and randomize some faces for others. Such as Dunmer children in the gray quarter, a couple Argonians swimming in the water near the Windhelm and Riften docks, Khajiitens following the nomads around, little orc grunters beating each other over the head in the Orc strongholds, Altmer children being conditioned by the Thalmor in cities"See that foolish Human child? Let me tell you why they all belong beneath our boots...", stuff like that. Also randomize the human children and actually make them children, not wannabe tough anti-old people personalities.

Have transportation devices included in your homes for fast travel between homes. Also personal devices that can send you back there. Something akin to the mages guild teleports of Morrowind.

[Sylvia Luciani]

Something that rather breaks immersion are the scripted events that happen when you enter a new city. The beheading in Solitude, the Dark Elf harassment in Windhelm, etc. It feels so incredibly fake and staged that these things happen just as you enter the city for the very first time, and then never again. I think it would be good if these events happened at random when entering, so they feel a bit less staged and more like random happenings (and also more such events, though new quests and/or dialog would likely need to be added to make them worthwhile).

It also kinda bugs me how the vast majority of people in cities and towns throw themselves at you to do their little tasks. Seriously, I just walk through a place and get a dozen quests without even trying. It's also kind of annoying, because I like to keep relatively few quests in my Active Quests log, but it's like every time I turn around, another quest's being thrown in just because I dared to talk to someone. Doubly annoying when it's a quest I don't want to do since I can't get rid of it (I am never going to use Nettlebane to harm that tree, because I didn't learn of the potential consequences until after taking the quest, so now I'm stuck with the quest in my log and I can't get rid of the blade; I'm never going to join the Dark Brotherhood, but because I heard some people talking about the kid, I have a quest to talk to him that I can't get rid of; I'm never going to join the Thieves Guild, but I got the quest to join them before I even realized what was going on, and thus am forever stuck with it).

Such quests should not all be available right away, but should instead have prerequisites of time (how long since you first entered the city) and reputation, to break it up and give a more natural-feeling flow, instead of all-at-once. You should also have a way to "quit" them, to purposely fail the task and remove it from your logbook.

I also think more NPCs should be willing to talk about general topics and rumors relevant to the area. And I think they could use shorter walk-by greetings. I don't need to hear your spiel about that other guy being the best blacksmith every time you look at me, when a simple "Hi" will do nicely. You can complain all you want when I ask about it.

More variation in the Radiant Quests, too. As it is, every tavern seems to just get a bounty letter from the Jarl's men, telling me to go kill something somewhere and collect the reward from the local steward. I'm sure more interesting things can be done besides that (look at Daggerfall for inspiration; it has a lot of quest templates to work with, with those few "hidden gems" that get randomly selected and play out in interesting ways).

Also being able to get quests from your spouse. It's odd enough that they'll hop into the chapel with you after doing one menial task, but it's also odd that they never have anything more for you to do. Some quests specific to your spouse would go a good ways to reenforcing the bond between you two (an initial idea: they run a shop while you're gone, so they could occasionally hear rumors of a special item being in a dungeon that would fetch a pretty coin... get the item within a reasonable time frame, and the next store earnings would be higher than normal, but take too long and the item will be taken by someone else and it fails).

[Harry-James Payne]

On more thing....

At the beginning of the game, the player finds himself sitting the cart as it is moving. Could this be tweaked so that, at the beginning of each Cart Fast Travel, the player actually rides in the cart for a bit before switching to the Fast Travel screen?

As the Cart Fast Travel arrives at its destination, maybe the player again finds himself close to the city (instead of standing still at the horse stables), and ends up riding the last few moments of the trip to the stable. Or, the player can jump out of the cart and go on his merry way (with the Cartsman saying a standard fairwell), but he'll be able to watch the cartsman steer his cart to its place near the horse stable.

I like this a lot. I would like it better if an optional travel-by-cart-all-the-way plugin was there but i can see the difficulties that might arise

[kelly thomson]

This has already been mentioned but hey, it can be repeated. The need for food, drink and sleep would be very nice. As would reduced sight during night. I've never ever had the use for any light source, ever.

[Rowena]

This has already been mentioned but hey, it can be repeated. The need for food, drink and sleep would be very nice. As would reduced sight during night. I've never ever had the use for any light source, ever.

Food and sleep are already in the game. If you sleep, you get perks for being Rested and Well Rested, depending on where you slept. Those sleeping perks last for 8 hours in the game. There are foods like Beef Stew that give you long term perks (4 game hours), so you're encouraged to eat. And, the ingredients for the food items that give these long term effects are rare, so you either have to buy them, spending your gold and doing business with a food vendor, or you have to go hunting (deer and elk are good animals to hunt).

I'm pretty pleased with the vanilla system already in place.

[Music Show]

It would be nice that, when an enemy yields and begs for mercy, he really meant it. If you let him live, he gets his wind back and continues to fight you.

[Nitol Ahmed]

Hi Delte,

This was my favorite thread on ye old Oblivion Mod forum. I will be visiting here early and often, especially once the CK is out, in order to learn of the best immersion mods available. Here is the place where one who likes a dosage of realism and immersion isn't shunned or prodded into a flame war. Whoever reads this thread already knows what it's about so people not into immersion typically don't bother to make negative comments.

[SHAWNNA-KAY]

Food and sleep are already in the game.

It's not a need, though, from what I gather. You don't die from attrition, and you don't suffer from sleep deprivation. I think sleep would have the same function for me that it did in Oblivion; skipping to the next day so I can see a damn : P

[Emily abigail Villarreal]

It would be nice that, when an enemy yields and begs for mercy, he really meant it. If you let him live, he gets his wind back and continues to fight you.

Agreed, that annoys me in game. It should be that sometimes they start fighting you again (depending on who they are perhaps?) but sometimes they actually yield.

[Sarah Knight]

It would be nice that, when an enemy yields and begs for mercy, he really meant it. If you let him live, he gets his wind back and continues to fight you.

One of the first mods I want to make is having npc's drop their weapon/ shield when yielding, and just run.

Maybe a chance of pulling a small weapon (shiv, dagger) and attacking again based on the type of npc/situation.

[Nicole Elocin]

Dragons

I think that Dragons should regenerate Health. Not like a Troll, but probably about the same rate as the PC does.

This would go a long way to making them even more fierce.

[Stacyia]

I agree

Also I wouldn't mind them being tougher overall - provided there was a way to get away from them after you engage them.

[Elina]

They should also have access to more varying types of shouts. Being that they're dragons, speaking their own language, it really doesn't make sense that a given dragon would only ever have one shout, and it's always a frost or fire attack.

Dragons should have access to a greater repertoire of shouts, including unrelenting force, disarm, become ethereal, marked for death, slow time, etc... maybe the really high level dragons could even get ice form and storm call. They should also have a bunch of unique shouts that the player doesn't know.

Also, lightning dragons. Morrowind had http://uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Fang_of_Haynekhtnamet that came from a slain dragon "with lightning for blood", so it's a bit odd that the game doesn't include a dragon like that.

[Mariana]

I agree

Also I wouldn't mind them being tougher overall - provided there was a way to get away from them after you engage them.

Might be of interest to you: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4272

[Cheryl Rice]

I recently released a small immersion mod that makes food consumption a necessity, Snotgurg's Useful Food: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3942.

Full description in the spoiler below:

Spoiler

Snotgurg's Useful Food (SUF)
Version 1.3
Release date: Dec. 25th, 2011
=============================


=== Introduction ===
The goal of Snotgurg's Useful Food-mod is to make the foods in Skyrim more relevant. The player needs to eat foods in order to gain bonusses to health and stamina regeneration. The mod has two modes: hardcoe and normal. In hardcode mode a console script is called upon installation that lowers player health and stamina regeneration by 100%. The player then needs to eat food in order to have any health or stamina regeneration at all. In normal mode, the foods simply add a bonus to the default regeneration rates. At this time the mod is balanced only for hard core mode at a timescale of 8.The regeneration rates applied to foods have been balanced to make home-cooked foods more useful and desireable. Furthermore, a balanced diet between meats, vegetables, bread and cheese must be followed in order to have both stamina and health regeneration.

See the spreadsheet SUF_foods.xls for an overview of the effects of all foods.
Differences with Punxdog's excellent mod "Filling food and Restful Sleep" are:
- SUF only has health and stamina regeneration effects,
- SUF has a different balancing of effects, i.e., what food type gets what effect, for how long and at what magnitude,
- SUF has no sleep effects changes from default Skyrim,
- SUF has no changes to werewolf mechanics from default Skyrim,
- SUF has no changes to beverages from default Skyrim.

=== Installation ===
Using your favority mod management tool, place the Snotgurg's Useful Food.esp in Skyrim\Data, and enable the esp in Skyrim's load
order.


Optional: To enable hardcode mode, place Docs\SUF_enable_hardcoe.txt into Skyrim's main directory and open the console (tilde or `-key) after loading a game. Type "bat SUF_enable_hardcoe" (without the quotes).
To disable hardcode mode, place Docs\SUF_disable_hardcoe.txt into Skyrim's main directory and open the console (tilde or `-key) after loading a game. Type "bat SUF_disable_hardcoe" (without the quotes).

IMPORTANT: To upgrade to 1.3 from an earlier version, place Docs\SUF_upgrade_to_v1_3.txt into Skyrim's main directory and open the console (tilde or `-key) after loading a game. Type "bat SUF_upgrade_to_v1_3" (without the quotes).

=== Change log ===

- version 1.3 (Dec. 25th, 2011)
o The base stamina regeneration rate for hardcoe mode is now 25% instead of 0%. Foods were rebalanced to match this. Some quests devoid the player of any food and it's more realistic to still have some stamina regeneration in those situations.
o Foods now have their own magic effect instead of using the alchemy effects. This means that regenaration effects from potions will stack with the effects gained from food. hardcoe mode is the way to play this mod.

- version 1.2 (Dec. 22nd, 2011)
o The Elsweyr Fondue now has its original effects (Fortify Magicka and Magicka Regeneration) plus a shorter duration of the Health and Stamina Regeneration effects.

- Version 1.1 (Dec. 19th, 2011)
o Rebalanced food effects to have longer duration for cooked meals such as stews and soups.
o High sugar snacks now have a strong positive effect on stamina for a short duration, but also a longer duration drain effect.
o Fixed issues with Raw Rabbit Legs and Gourds.

- Version 1.0 (Dec. 17th, 2011)
o Implemented health and stamina regeneration in all known foods.
o Implemented hard code mode by providing console-callable scripts.

=== Credits ===
- Filling food and Restful Sleep - hardcoe Mod by Punxdog. Implementation ideas used.
- figments's TESsnip Fork 1.0
- Dave Humphrey's SkyEdit

[Suzy Santana]

I agree Also I wouldn't mind them being tougher overall - provided there was a way to get away from them after you engage them.

Check this out:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3829

Also I can vouch for Snotgurg's food mod -- it really works to make food an essential and fun part of the game.

[M!KkI]

What about making the toon's faces look "mean" when they're in combat mode? All the faces look so passive. If they pop out a weapon, I think a good "war face", as Patton used to say, would be welcome.




Also....

There are those cart and horses at the stables. They never move. How about, from time to time, seeing them move down the road, possibly with supplies or maybe some people in the back.

[Connor Wing]

Eyefinity is a MUSt for immersion. If you can swing a couple extra monitors, it is worth the price of entry.