[cassy]

Hello folks. This is Delte. Remember me? It wasn't that long ago that I started an on-going thread on the Oblivion Mod forum.

Remember Delte's Thread of IMMERSION Mods? It was a recurring thread that turned into a sort of magazine dedicated to realism and immersion for the Oblivion game. It was a place where you could go to talk about what you liked, didn't like, and wanted to change by way of modifications to the vanilla Oblivion game. Modders announced their mods on that thread. Many mod and Oblivion improvement ideas were launched from discussion on that thread.

Well, the thread is back, this time dedicated to Skyrim.

Out of the box, I think Skyrim is a near perfect game. I'm enamored with it. Many of the tweaks I touted on the original "Delte's List" have, to my lovely surprise, been incorporated to vanilla Skyrim. The more I play, the more I smile and say to myself, "Hey, I used to have to mod the game to get THAT!"

Skyrim's developers did an outstanding job. Huge Kudos to them.

The things I want to change about the vanilla game are, to say the least, nit-picky. But, what the heck. Eh? Why don't we all sit back and delve into enjoyable discussion on the things we'd like to see modded, or even changed in a future Bethesda patch, for our new favoriite game.

Please, please, please! No spoilers about the story of the game in this thread! Don't spoil anything for somebody else (especially me!).

Oh, and one more thing. I take pride in that the original Delte's Thread, over its multiple "issues", never once hosted a flame fight. Keep your comments civil when posting on my thread. Here, everybody loves everybody else. Play nice, sit back, put your feet up, enjoy your brew, and tumble through the pages of the IMMERSION magazine for Skyrim.

This is Delte, signing on!

[Becky Palmer]

Hmm, forcing you to have to eat and sleep would be cool (even drink lol)

More spells and a spell creation system, im just hoping that comes out in DLC

And a BOOKSTORE!! haha

There are many other things but ill see how this thread plays out first

[Emily Jeffs]

First of all, I suggest the usual console and .ini tweaks:

- set timescale to 12 through the console, a saner rhythm for time to go by. (default is 20)
- set bShowCompass=0 in the SkyrimPrefs.ini, disabling the compass. This gives you a beautifully free screen since everything else fades away out of combat, and it makes exploration more interesting without the compass to lure you to every landmark a mile around.

That'll be all for now

[Dan Scott]

My first comment....Companions.

Is about the companions in the game. I love 'em! Excellent implementation...except.

Yeah, except that poor old Lydia--who has been going everywhere I go since she became my housecarl (we're a team!)--keeps stepping on traps. I look back, and the poor thing is down on one knee, about to die, because she stepped exactly where I told her not to. Many times, she catches me in the trap, too. It gets frustrating sometimes.





Companion Idea #1: I'd like some system that will keep Lydia, or any other Skrim companion, from tripping the traps. Ideally, I'd like to use my Activate key to "mark" the trap for Lydia. If I don't mark it, she should be able to set it off just like I could. But, if I see a trap and mark it, I'd like Lydia to be unable to set off the trap even if she steps in the wrong place. Maybe a tweak to the game where, after a trap is "marked", companions are not recognized by whatever code sets off the trap? I dunno. I'm not a modder.

If that order is too tall, then, at the least, I'd like a mod that makes companions "invisible" to traps 100% of the time. Though this is not the ideal situation, I'd sure rather have a companion that never sets off a trap than one that does it all the time.

Care has to be made so that monsters and enemies still do set off traps. I like using the Voice to blow a baddie back a few feet onto a trap trigger, then watch him and his buddies get stapled to the wall. It's a great crowd pleaser.





Companion Idea #2: Another thing I'd like to see incorporated into the game is a way to communicate with Lydia from a distance. For example, I sometimes use the Voice to sprint through a trapped hallway of slicing blades. Before I do that, I usually tell Lydia to wait for me. What I'd like is a method of calling to Lydia, as if I were just speaking to her normally. The range should be limted on this to shouting range. I get to the other side of the trap, and I'd love to just hit a key to call her to come to me, after I've found a chain or some other way to deactivate the trap.

There are many other uses for this idea. I'm sure the player will be creative. But, think of it. You could have your companion guard a suspicious doorway while you clear the far corridor. When you're ready, you simply to her to rejoin you.

Maybe this could be done, simply, by taking the existing companion commands that show up in a dialog box and assign them to hot keys. Keys 1-8 are used in the game. Why not use keys 9 and 0 as hot keys that will tell your companion to either "Stay Here" or "Follow Me". I think something as simple as that would solve the issue.





Companion Idea #3: Companions need to have their own horses! Remember, in Oblivion, when you left Waynon Priory with Jauffrey and Martin on your way to Cloud Ruler Temple? Martin got on his horse. Jauffrey got on his horse. And, off you went, the three of you, on the trek to the fortress of the Blades.

Why can't that happen in Skyrim? If you buy a horse, you should be able to buy two--another for your companion. The horse could even be "owned" by the companion. When you mount your horse, the companion mounts his. When you dismount, so does the companion.

I have no idea how to implement this. Maybe look and see how Oblivion did it?



That's it for now. I've got several other ideas for mods/improvements to Skyrim. Stay tuned to this thread to check them out.

And don't hesitate to post your own comments, ideas, suggestions, thoughts as well.

[Rhiannon Jones]

Nice to see you again Delte, remember me? I had my first taste of modding as a result of your Oblivion thread, and I'm still going.

I still think a lot about immersion when I play, so expect to see me in here often

Cipscis

[Cheville Thompson]

Hmm, forcing you to have to eat and sleep would be cool (even drink lol)

That was a staple for the original Delte's List. So was the need to sleep. I must admit, though, that I completely love the sleep system that the developers have put into vanilla Skyrim. If you're the type of player who does not want to sleep, then you're not penalized (as all of the Sleep mods for Oblivion did). But, if you do want to sleep, you get a neat little buff that makes your skills improve faster. The more rested you are, the better the buff. For example, if you are "Well Rested", then you get a 15% bonus to your XP for 8 hours, until you start getting tired again. This bumps down to 10% when you're only "Rested".

I'd like to see something similar with Hunger mod. If you don't want to bother with it, you don't have to. But, if you want to eat and drink, then you get a little benefit of some sort if you're not hungry. I envison to states: 1 - Hungry, 2 - Satisfied. Satisfied means you get the small benefit, like being Rested, in the game.

The problem, though, with Hunger mods is that the vanilla alchemy system must be changes--or at least some of the food items. There needs to be a way to work around that. Maybe by adding a fifth element to each food item that doesn't mess with the four alchemy effects each food item already has? I dunno. Some thought needs to be put into this.

There are many other things but ill see how this thread plays out first

Did you have follow the original Delte's list? If this thread's popularity is anything like the original thread, you're in for a treat.

First of all, I suggest the usual console and .ini tweaks:- set timescale to 12 through the console, a saner rhythm for time to go by. (default is 20)-

I'm quite happy with the timescale in vanilla Oblivion. 20 is much better than the default 30 in Oblivion.

The problem with messing with timescale is that it also effects the distance between two places on the map. What used to take a couple of days travel could only take hours if the timescale is altered enough.

set bShowCompass=0 in the SkyrimPrefs.ini, disabling the compass. This gives you a beautifully free screen since everything else fades away out of combat, and it makes exploration more interesting without the compass to lure you to every landmark a mile around.That'll be all for now

Yep, good suggestion. I can't stand the red dots showing you how many enemies you still have to fight and their relative direction.

Plus, the Clairvoyance spell in this game is pretty awesome. Disable that compass, and that spell becomes pretty valuable.

As much as I love the Skyrim soundtrack, I always preach that immersionists should disable, or at least turn down to zero, the Music slider in the game. There is an ini command to completely disable the music, too. Even with the slider at zero, the music is still playing, using the computer's resources. Disabling it in the ini file is the best way to go.

I used to suggest this on the old Oblivion "Delte's List". So many times people wrote on the thread, thanking me for the suggestion, in that it made their game so much more realistic and immersive.

[Monika Krzyzak]

Nice to see you again Delte, remember me? I had my first taste of modding as a result of your Oblivion thread, and I'm still going.

Ab-so-friggin-lutely, Cipscis! How ya doin', bro! Great to hear from you again!

Folks, this is one of the old-timers from the original Delte's Thread. And, he's turned into a pretty mean modder, too. I expect to see great things from you, Cipscis.

I still think a lot about immersion when I play, so expect to see me in here often

Cipscis

Well, I sure hope so! You were one of the ones that made the original thread last as long as it did. Welcome back, bro! Welcome back!

[Nana Samboy]

Really glad this is coming back, I loved the list last time. Now we just need immersion mods. Come on Creation Kit!

[willow]

My biggest complaint?

There aren't many. The game is head and shoulders over Oblivion. More magical spells and spell crafting would be great re-additions. These features have been STAPLES of the Elder Scrolls since Arena.

More ways to earn perks. Leveling is good. But the number of perks by the end of the game feels a bit limited. This DOES increase replay necessity (not necessarily replay value, as if I'm FORCED to replay the game just to experience certain features that are blocked for seemingly arbitrary reasons, I'm less likely to do so) but I'd rather have a few more perks, whether from major quest rewards, more per level, or being able to convert dragon souls to perks.

Unlock spells and lock/door bashing. I can cave in a Giant's skull, slice off a dragon's head and incinerate a Daedra from the face of the plane, but I have to PICK a lock?

Spears/ polearms. Probably won't happen as there are no working animations. I hate that these disappeared after Morrowind. Dragon Age forgot them too. What do publishers these days have against polearms??

chest sorting. Please.

Food/ drink/ sleep necessity mods and a portable bedroll... This should have been here.

These are small issues and i'm finding myself LOVING this game right out of the box rather than looking constantly for mods like I did when i started playing Oblivion.

[Jamie Moysey]

i think as far as like party control and horse control and stuff, the shout system as it stands is a fantastic framework. you could add non-combative shouts that just trigger script effects to tell something to wait or follow or maybe access the companion control system (which is a godsend, and would be a lot better if you could access it remotely) and set it up so you just "shout" at your companions and they'll do whatever it is you're telling them to do. that way you could just favorite them and use the existing shout system without having to deal with adding new keys or menus through SKSE or whatever.

also for hunger i think a neat way to handle it would be to do something along the lines of what STALKER: Call of Pripyat does and make it so hunger affects stamina regeneration (and eventually health regeneration) rather than some EAT OR DIE system. my biggest problem with hunger mods is that they're always awkwardly intrusive and the whole TIMESCALE of hunger just feels way too fast.

the ability to lug around and set up simple traps (like snares) would be super nice. also stronger trap effects, like stepping in a snare drains a ton of stamina or briefly paralyzes you or something.

as far as making it so companions don't trigger traps, i THINK there's a high-level stealth perk that makes it so you don't trigger pressure plates when walking on them. assuming you can assign perks to NPCs it seems like it would be trivial to give that to most companions, or set it up as a script so if someone becomes a follower they get that perk and they lose it when they leave or something.

[liz barnes]

Excellent comments, might be a couch!

i think as far as like party control and horse control and stuff, the shout system as it stands is a fantastic framework. you could add non-combative shouts that just trigger script effects to tell something to wait or follow or maybe access the companion control system (which is a godsend, and would be a lot better if you could access it remotely) and set it up so you just "shout" at your companions and they'll do whatever it is you're telling them to do. that way you could just favorite them and use the existing shout system without having to deal with adding new keys or menus through SKSE or whatever.

Make it work, and I will test it out. Uh-hm.

also for hunger i think a neat way to handle it would be to do something along the lines of what STALKER: Call of Pripyat does and make it so hunger affects stamina regeneration (and eventually health regeneration) rather than some EAT OR DIE system.

Exactly. Follow Bethesda's lead with the Sleep system.

my biggest problem with hunger mods is that they're always awkwardly intrusive and the whole TIMESCALE of hunger just feels way too fast.

Yes. This is a great comment, folks. I used to preface my recomendation of hunger mods for Oblvion with a note on timescale. Eating and Drinking must be Immersive fun, not Immersive drag. Having to do it too often is a drag. On my fourth and last run-through of Oblivion, I didn't use the sleep/hunger mods and kept my timescale at the default 30 (which means, for those who do not know, that the game is on a 1/30th scale. One second of real time represents 30 seconds in the game. One minute of real time means 30 minutes in the game. One hour of real time means...you get the idea. Skyrim uses a default 1/20, which I think is a better choice.)

1/20 scale may just be too often, leaning more towards "drag" than "fun".

the ability to lug around and set up simple traps (like snares) would be super nice.

A friend of mine thought it was possible to do just that with vanilla Skyrim and a bear trap. He never could figure out how to do it in the game--probably because it's not doable (yet).

as far as making it so companions don't trigger traps, i THINK there's a high-level stealth perk that makes it so you don't trigger pressure plates when walking on them. assuming you can assign perks to NPCs it seems like it would be trivial to give that to most companions, or set it up as a script so if someone becomes a follower they get that perk and they lose it when they leave or something.

Awesome. One step closer to smarter companions.

[Tessa Mullins]

Got a lot of my mods from the OB thread and looking forward to getting more from this one. (To this day one of the first things i do in games is to turn music off)

[C.L.U.T.C.H]

Hey, how about that damned sneak eye? I can't stand that my sneaking character knows when he's observed or about to be.

With Oblivion, there was a neat little, simple mod that exchanged the sneak eye textures with invisible ones. The sneak was was still there. The player just couldn't see it.

How about something similiar for Skyrim?

[Mylizards Dot com]

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1227
http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=285, with a file also removing the sneak eye. The standalone sneak eye remover seems to have been removed?

Also, I might mention my own mod - http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=746 (or just reduce them)

Cipscis

[A Dardzz]

Oh, and courtesy of CptJoker, who's also still around, here's a diagram showing how to find a "north star" in the constellation of http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/9722/skyrimnorthstar.jpg

I've really enjoyed playing without the compass or the map, navigating by the stars and landmarks.

Cipscis

[Josh Trembly]

I would like to second (third? Whatever) a call for a hunger system set up in the same way the Sleep system is: Where being well fed gives you a bonus. Carrot, rather than stick, as extra stick-whacking tends to reduce gameplay fun, particularly given timescale issues.

Definitely a hotkey to command companions; it's extremely frustrating to have to stand right beside them to enable the command-mode.

Also, just disable companions from setting off traps. I'm not sure if there's a better way to manage things, but really, you're almost always ahead of them anyways, so if you trigger it, you trigger it. If you don't, they can follow your lead and "step around" pressure plates or what have you. From a modding perspective, I'm nearly positive it'd be easiest just to flat out prevent them from triggering traps. Can't see how it would really impact balance.


Nods to those who already mentioned these things, just wanted to put in my two bits

[Lew.p]

Hi Delte, there actually is a mod for that...: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=279 I am playing with it and it is super choice

Hey, how about that damned sneak eye? I can't stand that my sneaking character knows when he's observed or about to be.

With Oblivion, there was a neat little, simple mod that exchanged the sneak eye textures with invisible ones. The sneak was was still there. The player just couldn't see it.

How about something similiar for Skyrim?

[Anne marie]

Oh, it is still there. Guess I didn't look hard enough

Also, for command mode, you can enter it by aiming at your companion from a distance and hold the activate button. It's not perfect, but it's something.

Cipscis

[Rude Gurl]

I remember this thread. Don't remember what I used from it, but I remember viewing it a lot haha.
Well I've seen a thread complaining about the fires that do no damage to your health; that's one simple change that could be made.

[Laura Wilson]

Hey Delte!

No need for brighter torches this time I think, as most of the dungeons are as bright as a sunny day in the dessert.

I'm not much of an immersionist (is that even a word?) myself, but your threads on the Oblivion mod forums have shown me quite a few gems that I didn't know excisted. Also, the word immersion has been used and abused over and over again for every single "concern" (also a dreaded phrase) on the Skyrim general forum, so I developed a bit of an aversion against it.

Still, I look very much forward to the Skyrim edition of your list!

[Claire Vaux]

Wow...what can i say...I am so happy to have you back here Delte.I read your Immersion's thread more than playing Oblivion
Im looking forward to spend time in here and give some suggestions...
Til now my only big problem is in the 3rd person animation.I hate the fact that when my character is facing me and i want to turn by 180° its a completly robot movement.So an immerson breaker for me.I hope u understand what i mean...
Another thing that i would love is fog...yes dense fog...where u can loose yourself...and without a compass and no idea where u are in a map well it would be perfect
Anyway im glad ure back and lets make skyrim the perfect game!

[Tyler F]

Hey Delte!No need for brighter torches this time I think, as most of the dungeons are as bright as a sunny day in the dessert.

Hey Bro!

You're so right. We need a mod that makes dungeons and caves DARK. Who's lighing all those candles and torches, anwyay, huh?

THEN, once they're are dark, we'll need some brighter torches

Wow...what can i say...I am so happy to have you back here Delte.I read your Immersion's thread more than playing Oblivion

Thanks! And, welcome....again!





THOUGHT FOR THE COMPANIONS (re: the traps, as cited above in a couple of posts by might be a couch and myself) - Companion Idea #4.Is there a way to make your companions exactly follow your own foot steps? Maybe this would be something that can be turned on and off? Therefore, if you see a trap, instead of marking it, you go into a mode where the companion follows exactly your own movement path. Once you get past the trap, you turn it off.

Thoughts?

[carla]

I've found that Companions can detect you when you are sneaking and cause the eye to open - which then makes it so that the eye is not informing you if your enemies are detecting you. horses too.

Buggy behavior like this maybe could be addressed by official patches (one can hope) or at least the unofficial patch.

Delte - if you were not aware Kivan is taking bug reports for unofficial patch https://unofficialskyrimpatch.16bugs.com/projects/7078/bugs. So maybe things that are wrong could be addressed at that level - that is if the thing that is wrong appears to be obviously against design philosophy.

[REVLUTIN]

Inn safe storage:

For a 50 gold deposit you can rent a safe chest at an inn where you can store your valuables.
The rate is 5g per day (rather 50% off the rent a room which are in vanilla 10g), so if you come back after 2 days to claim them, you get 40 gold back and if you come back after 30 days, you have to pay 100g to take your stuff.

[N Only WhiTe girl]

Small console mod I've been playing with: player.modav healrate -0.7

Gets rid of the automatic health regeneration you naturally seem to have. You then need to heal using magic/potions/food/rest which I find more immersive.

Doomguy