[IsAiah AkA figgy]

Let me try in layman terms..

Depending on location and what settings the encounter zone has for that location

If you enter that location say at lvl 6, when you come back to it later on at say lvl 16, the level of the npcs / creatures etc are going to be locked at lvl 6 and not adjust to your current level. So thus you have weaker npcs/creatures for the rest of game in that location. Because it does not "reset"..

What Pluto is changing will fix that and allow for certain locations npc/creatures etc to reset in level. And when you come back to location after you have already visisted, things will level up to current lvl..

Hopefully that helps..

Yeah it did help. Well in that case I think it should be neither and be random. If you think about it, from a realistic standpoint. There is this fort next to whiterun called fort greymoore which usually has bandits. So inside of that place there is an old lady that pretty much works for anybody that comes in. So she tells you stories about one night so and so came in etc. The point is that anybody or anything can occupy a deserted area. So you can clear up level 15 out of a dungeon come back and now that same dungeon is occupied with level 30 trolls and vice versa.

[victoria johnstone]

Shouldn't necessarily be random, though. Troops from the various holds will patrol roads (or would, and I would like to add that), and smarter creatures, the more powerful ones, would learn to stay away from those areas - and those that don't, would be killed. Thus, the more difficult areas would stand to be out in the wilderness, farthest from the cities and roads.

I've got a few ideas that'll require some extensive scripting. In the meantime, I should have a major update within the next few days.

[Alister Scott]

I've got a few ideas that'll require some extensive scripting. In the meantime, I should have a major update within the next few days.

[J.P loves]

I love the idea of patrols, but there might need to be faction tweaks, or full-on fixes, for that to work out (in terms of player interaction). I just joined a fight the other day where 4-5 imperials ganged up on a town guard at the city gate of Riften. Eventually a couple more guards came, and then even the khajit from the traveling caravan. We were all fighting the imperials. After the last imperial died, the guards immediately turned to arrest me for my new bounty... I've had that happen with thalmor, too, and probably fighting with imperials on other characters as well.

I don't know if PISE is the right home for a faction overhaul, but fighting patrols could end up being a real hassle.

[Elle H]

I intended to keep patrols in the proper areas.. such as imperial patrols near solitude, stormcloak near windhelm, and just have faction neutral guards patrolling in other areas. More for the intent of keeping stuff like monsters off the roads than combat patrols.

Almost done mapping. Then comes the long part of sticking them all into the game. Threw in a couple areas that'll be a little bit of a surprise if you enter them prior to level... 50. Only a couple, mind. Just be wary when you enter a place. You never know what'll live there

Btw: these changes will be most effective for a new game. Most of the easiest areas will have a base minimum level of 6 - this has little practical effect since very little spawning changes happen until level 8-9. A significant amount of bandit areas along the roadsides will have a minimum level of 10-12.

I'll highly recommend a slower leveling mod to get a better appreciation of these types of changes. Later, I'll force more areas to a level range, so you'll more properly feel powerful as you go onwards. But, exploring at level 8 or so might be a great experience.

[Richard]

Shouldn't necessarily be random, though. Troops from the various holds will patrol roads (or would, and I would like to add that), and smarter creatures, the more powerful ones, would learn to stay away from those areas - and those that don't, would be killed. Thus, the more difficult areas would stand to be out in the wilderness, farthest from the cities and roads.

I've got a few ideas that'll require some extensive scripting. In the meantime, I should have a major update within the next few days.

Ok cool. If you are putting logic behind it then that is cool.

[Bitter End]

Btw: these changes will be most effective for a new game. Most of the easiest areas will have a base minimum level of 6 - this has little practical effect since very little spawning changes happen until level 8-9. A significant amount of bandit areas along the roadsides will have a minimum level of 10-12.

I'll highly recommend a slower leveling mod to get a better appreciation of these types of changes. Later, I'll force more areas to a level range, so you'll more properly feel powerful as you go onwards. But, exploring at level 8 or so might be a great experience.

So the next version will cause me to suffer yet another restartitis .
Anyway, this mod is really great! Can't play Skyrim without PISE

[Emily Jeffs]

Finished the encounter zones.. I'm hoping it's not too difficult at the beginning. Many of the areas have minimum set levels of 6-12, it's the 10-12 that'll be hard. Once the player starts progressing through level 10, the difficulty should stabilize a bit more, but the player'll have a lot of areas that will be just too difficult for the player to explore.

Going to go back to the item lists, and finish those up for the next release.

Great news - getting my girlfriend's old laptop (she's getting a new one) so I'll be able to do testing myself now.

[Sam Parker]

Gutted, I'll have nothing to do testing wise now

[Laura-Lee Gerwing]

Hehe, I'll still need some testing help. I'll do a small local-release for the encounter zones before it goes out. Just so I can have a people run around and let me know how it feels. But, I'll need a lot less testing for specific variables.. Once the CK comes out though I'll need help testing scripts, making sure they run properly in all the odd situations that I'd not always try.

[Joe Alvarado]

Finished the encounter zones.. I'm hoping it's not too difficult at the beginning. Many of the areas have minimum set levels of 6-12, it's the 10-12 that'll be hard. Once the player starts progressing through level 10, the difficulty should stabilize a bit more, but the player'll have a lot of areas that will be just too difficult for the player to explore.

Going to go back to the item lists, and finish those up for the next release.

Great news - getting my girlfriend's old laptop (she's getting a new one) so I'll be able to do testing myself now.

Woot! Can't wait for the update! I wish I could endorse your mod more than once, Pluto. It's criminally undderated on Nexus.

[marie breen]

It's criminally undderated on Nexus.

http://i.imgur.com/lSXlc.gif

[Esther Fernandez]

Put up a test version. If anyone would like to give me some feedback... It's in the misc section of the file. Full PISE only.

Basically, that'd just be taking a character (preferably under level 20-30, under level 10 is probably the most ideal) and exploring some areas you haven't explored on a save. It won't take retroactive effect on zones you've already visited. Give me an idea if I've changed areas too much on the hard/easy side, etc. Not really anything specific here, so. Bear in mind it's pretty subtle. The main fact will be some areas will be way too difficult to even consider entering. It won't be as dramatic of a change as my other updates until you find those areas though.

Working on the equipment changes again, that's not in the test version.

And as a note, I have not in any situation decreased the minimum levels of zones.

[Charlotte Henderson]

Sweet! I have a level 4 mage I just started. Does this affect quest areas also?

[Jerry Cox]

Question/Request... is it possible to give certain races modified perks?

Personally, I'd love to see Bosmer have heavily increased Ranger and Quick Shot perks. Where's Legolas when you need him?

[Andrea P]

WoW. Lots of nice changes to keep the game challenging.

Question/Request... is it possible to give certain races modified perks?

Personally, I'd love to see Bosmer have heavily increased Ranger and Quick Shot perks. Where's Legolas when you need him?

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1324642-relzwipz-races-and-doomstones-lo-rebalanced/.

[Darren Chandler]

Sweet! I have a level 4 mage I just started. Does this affect quest areas also?

It does. However, I'd DEFINITELY recommend backing up saves. These changes are irrevocable in the saved games. It won't cause troubles removing it, but if you remove the mod, and an area is higher than you think it should be, there's no way to set the minimum level back down easily. If you keep using PISE, the only issue will be if I change any of the areas as per balance in the official 0.80 version, in which case if you visited any of those areas they'd already be stored in saved games.

[Karine laverre]

Pluto you think its possible in to detail exactly what changes your mod makes? This is important so I wont add other mods that might conflict, and its just good to know if we see something and wonder if its your mod.

[Marguerite Dabrin]

I was looking for a MODe that actually would make the game normal for mages. When I say normal I mean that it removed the immense possibility to be overpowered. As opposed to melee or ranged characters, mages and their spells can cripple any foe easily, removing the fun out of skyrim just before level 10. If a mage makes a small amount of effort to concentrate on restoration and destruction then you can bet dragons, bosses and anyone will be killed easily. Very easy if compared to melee or ranged hunters where you actually need to run side to side avoiding attacks and spells and praying you kill the enemy before it kills you.

I have 2 players, a melee warrior and a wood elf archer. Both of which I REALLY need to take care not to pull many enemies or fall into traps. When fighting dragons or giants I need to be careful not to make a mistake.

My brother has a mage. In level 11 he killed on of the dragon priests VERY easy. He also killed a dragon by healing with one hand and throwing fireballs with the other without even moving from the spot he started attacking.

Basically mages and very overpowered. Not just normal overpowered which would be something like 50% to 100% better than other types. I mean a 10 level mage did what I could not on higher levels. And still after looking at him after level 20 I see dragons are like running foxes. He just comes, pulls the dragon, kills it in about 10 seconds and the whole "watch out for dragons" is gone. He even killed 2 giants, a mammoth and a dragon all against him without running, just walking backwards while healing and throwing lighting or fireballs. Beats the whole difficulty/fun deal.

I write this here because of what I see that this mod is doing. It is leveling the scenario for all types. Now my question is, will it create a playing area where the mage has to take care not to make a mistake. Will it be as difficult to a mage as a melee or archer.

Do NPCs and Enemies actually have some percent of immunity or resilience against any or all magics. This is a very good question that this mod might solve and make the game as it should be for OP mages.

[Jaki Birch]

@cyrex:

what you are talking about here is not the overpoweredness of mages in general, it's the healing spell. Get your brother to try doing that without channeling healing and see how he does.
Ther are quite a few magic mods out there but sadly I have yet to see one that substantially increases the mana use from channeling healing to nerf it. Why in the hell Beth chose to make the basic healing spell more useful at mitigating damage than ward spells, less movement restricting, and less mana per second is beyond me. It is OP.

On that note, since Pluto makes use of the healing spell for enemy mages and also has enemies use potions, it does help to balance things out a bit (among other AI improvements).

[Daniel Lozano]

I just spent the last 3 hours or so trying out the test 0.8 PISE. I had a bunch of other mods installed (including PISE 0.7) but put PISE-test.esp last in the load order. I visited the following areas while level 1 and noticed no change at all from vanilla:

Bleak Falls Barrow
South Skybound Watch
Greywater Grotto
Fort Neugrad

All these seemed to have the usual L1 bandit/animal trash.

Southfringe Sanctum - Spellswords as in vanilla, seemed higher level but as I recall they were in vanilla too.

Haeman's Cavern - Vanilla vampire fledgeling's and vampires (didn't go all the way in to the master vamp).

Bonechill Passage - This did have ice wolves and a snow troll. As I recall this was all ice wolves in vanilla?

Is this expected? I was expecting to find some stuff a bit higher level in at least some of these.

EDIT: Forgot to say I started a new game when trying it out.

[Albert Wesker]

Iirc (I'm at a starbucks right now), only Bonechill and Southfringe have signficant advances to the levels. The minimum level of Southfringe is bumped to 28, while Bonechill is bumped to 22. The rest were a bit too close to certain areas - Haemar's was right off the main road to Riften from Falkreath, Bleak Falls is too early in the MQ, Skybound is too close to Riverwood/starting area, Fort Neugrad and Greywater are the same.

You'll have to venture out away from those areas to see the changes. Generally, the starting area of the game, near the cities, and a lot of places on the most main roads between cities are kept relatively low-key.

My suggestion? Try going almost straight south from Haemar's Shame and see how you do.

[Peetay]

Pluto you think its possible in to detail exactly what changes your mod makes? This is important so I wont add other mods that might conflict, and its just good to know if we see something and wonder if its your mod.

That's a long list. Basically, leveled NPC lists (it's not too big of a deal to overwrite these, though), NPC mages, AI game settings, certain level scaling settings and some loot settings, generic leveled items. Check my full change log. If you're wanting a record-by-record, you're better off opening up the file and seeing what's changed.

---snip---

That is, to be entirely honest, outside the bounds of what I want to achieve with my mod. I'm not necessarily striving for a balance in the game, but in improving the game's experience through variety (in all sorts of ways), allowing NPC's the same potential as the player, the increased spawns, and an improved AI.

Combat rebalancing will be outside of my mod - that way, you can pick and choose which combat balancing mod to use and I won't conflict. (well, hopefully)

[Daramis McGee]

Iirc (I'm at a starbucks right now), only Bonechill and Southfringe have signficant advances to the levels. The minimum level of Southfringe is bumped to 28, while Bonechill is bumped to 22.

I killed about a half dozen spellswords in Southfringe Sanctum while level 1 using nothing but the Novice familiar spell and flames. That couldn't have possibly been level 28 min. I wonder if something else I have installed is conflicting with your changes (I figured putting the test esp last in NMM would ensure it wins)

EDIT: Went south and hit Arcwind Point. Is that the area you were referring to? I found a Draugr Overlord outside and he died to flames dual cast just as my mana ran out. Found a bunch of skeletons (probably a dozen) and a Drauger Wight Lord. He took a bit to kill but I was able to kit him /w flames and kill him w/o getting hit (he shouted twice and missed me both times). I haven't found the entrance yet (never been here before). Still seems easy.

[Mike Plumley]

That.. definitely shouldn't be right. And loading it last should be fine. In fact, since I'm fairly sure I'm the only one editing encounter zones, there shouldn't be any mod conflicting at all. Did you try a getlevel on them? The way the lists work, they'll not always spawn high level ones.. My current char @ level 24 often sees quite a few novice and apprentice level mages, for example. The last area I entered had all novice, apprentices, except for one conjurer and a single arch pyromancer.

Ah well. Appreciate the feedback. If you get any more information on it, let me know - this is why it's in testing, first.