Introduction

The aim of Skyrimmersive is to provide a more immersive Skyrim experience by making the game systems more believable, deeper, smoother, challenging, and less frustrating at the same time while also taking lore and balance in consideration. Besides sporting a considerable set of configurable core features, Skyrimmersive will also offer modular (optional) features which take the Skyrimmersive principles to other areas of the game.

Core Features:

• New Attributes
  
• Complete overhaul of the Perk system
  
• Smooth and immersive character progression
  
• Deeper interaction between character statistics
  
• No level scaling of the world whatsoever
  
• More dangerous and diverse combat

Due to these drastic changes to the very fundamentals of the game I do not yet know with which mods Skyrimmersive will be compatible. Ideally, Skyrimmersive's arsenal of features will reduce the need for many smaller mods that change game mechanics. I can promise that the core features will not touch any visuals such as models, textures, weathers, lighting, et cetera, nor will core features change worldspaces or interiors.

I'm very open to feedback, constructive criticism, new ideas, and also to cooperation/integration with other mods if they are roughly based on the same principles as Skyrimmersive.



Features


Attributes

Attributes will increase similarly to Skills, namely in a smooth manner whenever a related action is taken. At the same time the affected Attribute(s) will also influence the character's performance in said action, either directly or indirectly through another statistic or both. This is not only true for Skill related actions such as hitting someone with a weapon, but also for actions that are not related to any Skill such as mining or cutting wood.

Note that not all actions are equally strongly related to Attributes. The effectiveness of using a crossbow for example is much more Skill dependent than Attribute dependent. Effectiveness of heavier weapons is more dependent on Attributes than Skills while the reverse is true for lighter weapons. If the effectiveness is less dependent on Attributes then usage will also increase those Attributes more slowly. All this adds a rather interesting dynamic, especially when choosing a Skill or weapon that isn't related to your highest Attributes.

Skyrimmersive introduces the following Attributes:

• Strength
  
• Endurance
  
• Agility
  
• Dexterity
  
• Intelligence
  
• Willpower

Here follows a description of what each Attribute is supposed to represent and what it affects:

Strength

Strength represents physical strength of a character. It is most important to the Warrior archetype. Strength is especially important for heavy tasks such as carrying great burdens or wielding heavy weapons.

Endurance

Endurance represents physical endurance. It is useful to both the Warrior archetype and the Thief archetype, although the Warrior will generally need it more due to the heavier loads. To contrast it with Strength, Strength is a matter of "how much" while Endurance is a matter of "how long". Endurance determines how long you can efficiently keep up actions that take energy, and is thus the most important factor influencing Stamina.

Agility

Agility represents overall body control, such as balancing, reflexes and flexibility. It most important to the Thief/Assassin archetype. Agility is important when using relatively light weapons and armour and when relying on strategy and perfection rather than brute force.

Dexterity

Dexterity represents fine motor skill, i.e. the coordination of small muscle movements which occur in body parts such as the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes (source: Wikipedia). It is mainly an Attribute for the Thief archetype, though the Warrior benefits from it as well. Dexterity is important when carrying out actions with the hands that require precision and subtlety such as picking locks and pockets, but also in some crafts and when aiming with a (ranged) weapon.

Intelligence

Intelligence represents a character's understanding and ability to learn. It is useful to any character, but the Mage archetype benefits especially from it. Intelligence provides faster learning of new things and helps in understanding Magic, which makes it less of an effort to cast Spells. Intelligent characters are also more aware of the effects of what they say to others and how they say it.

Willpower

Willpower represents the source of Magic in an individual and mental determination. It is most important to the Mage archetype. Willpower provides more magical power and recovers it faster, while also providing resistance to harmful magic depending on how much magical power the individual has available. A strong will can also help somewhat when persuading others and when stubbornly keeping up physically heavy tasks.

Those who have played Oblivion may wonder why Personality, Speed, and Luck are not among the Attributes. First of all, I'm not trying to mimic Oblivion, I simply choose what I think will work.

The problem with Personality is that it really only applies well to one Skill, and that is Speech. The old Mercantile has been merged into it, and I always found it a bit odd that Illusion was governed by Personality while it is clearly a magical Skill. Another reason is that Skyrim uses an oversimplified disposition system where the bonuses of Personality simply won't work anymore.

The issue with Speed is that in Oblivion it made differences in movement way too big, and Skyrim has no more Acrobatics and Athletics Skills. Because I want to limit the maximum movement speed to a reasonable level a Speed Attribute would have been too marginal in importance. Instead the Agility Attribute will increase movement speed, while movement speed penalties due to a heavy inventory (not just the equipped items) has been introduced. The difference between 'light' and 'heavy' characters is thus more distinct.

Luck simply doesn't fit in the increase-by-use system that Skyrimmersive has.


Perks

Passive Perks
The vanilla Perk system is completely overhauled. Many Perks whose effects applied to the Skill as a whole (such as damage increases or cost reductions) are now passively integrated by default into the Skill. Many new such Passive Perks have been introduced, making raw Skill level more important. Attributes also influence the magnitude of many Passive Perks.

Specialization Perks
Only the Perks that provide a certain specialization within a Skill are Perks that you actually see in the skill menu. However, these Perks are not chosen within the skill menu anymore but need to be actively earned during gameplay. This is most often done by the same principles of increasing Attributes and Skills, namely be executing related actions. For example, a Sprint Power-attack Perk can eventually be earned if you often use the forward power attack in combat. Often using Necromancy spells will earn you Necromancy related Perks in the Conjuration Skill. Often bashing with a shield will earn you bash-related Perks, while if you never bash and only block with a shield you'll never earn bash-related Perks and only blocking-related Perks. And so on.

Earning Perks
These Perks still have minimum Skill requirements and not rarely also minimum Attribute requirements. Once you have reached the minimum requirements, every time the related action for that Perk is executed there is a small chance that you'll earn the Perk. The more your character's statistics exceed the minimum requirements the higher the chance that you'll earn the Perk upon executing that related action.

I'm also playing with the idea of involving the NPC Skill Trainers in the earning of Perks, especially the high level ones. High level Perks could perhaps be exclusively received through a Trainer (at great cost) while low/mid level Perks could be earned through experience as described in the previous paragraphs or received through a Trainer, which would be faster but still fairly costly.

Master of All
The new method of earning Perks does not limit the amount of Perks you can earn. To prevent characters from becoming a Master of All, Skyrimmersive will feature well-balanced, non-frustrating Skill and Attribute degrading.

Seriously neglecting certain Skills/Attributes will degrade them over time. The higher the level of the Attribute/Skill, the faster they degrade, very low Attributes/Skills won't degrade at all. Whenever a Perk's minimum requirements are not met anymore due to degrading, the Perk will become inactive until the requirements are again met. Degraded Attributes/Skills might receive a small progress increase bonus until their previous level has been restored again.

The degrading usually won't kick in for Attributes/Skills that you regularly use. If you however change your play style and thus start to consistently neglect certain Attributes/Skills for a considerable period of time, they will degrade. You would need a very strict routine/skill rotation to be able to keep all statistics at max level. I might also make the degrading go faster depending on the total level of all Attributes/Skills combined, depending on how this all plays out in practice.

The aim is to create a system that puts a limit on the power of the player at a specific point in time, yet without making the player worry about increasing the wrong statistics or making the player feel like constantly fighting an uphill battle.


No level scaling

The levels of Actors in the world will become completely static. The reasons:

• The player's overall Level is not a proper representation of combat effectiveness.
  
• Level scaling partially destroys the reward of character progression.
  
• It's possible to level the "wrong" skills, which I find frustrating. Getting better at something should feel good.
  
• It makes absolutely no sense that other's abilities depend on your character's ability.

The new static levels of Actors will be mostly based on race but sometimes also on location. For example, all Draugr will be strong and dangerous, but in the biggest/most important ruins you'll find stronger Draugr than in others. Lore plays a big part in this area, if the lore says that a race is very dangerous, then it is. Dragons will be very, very dangerous for example (although, as a side note, Shouts will be made more dangerous and especially more useful against Dragons, making the Thu'um a vital weapon against them).


Dangerous Combat

In general, the stakes will be higher in combat. Damage multipliers will be increased. Due to the introduction of Attributes and more Passive Perks that provide more interaction between stats the combat will naturally be more diverse than in vanilla. I'm not sure yet if this mod will adapt combat extensively itself or whether I'll make it compatible with an existing combat overhaul. More info on this in the future.

Reserved

This sounds really interesting. I don't use many mods, but I might actually give this one a shot.

Could your Strength attribute by dynamically tied to your weight morph? It would be awesome seeing a physical change in your character when you hit certain thresholds.

Sounds of course intressting. But why are all of you guys taking the task to revamp the combat system? I mean there are sepperate mods out which have months of work in it like http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/5485. But I look forward to it.

Well Luck and Charisma are attributes I always liked, but I understand why you let them out. And for speed, well I'm quite happy that is not going to go in, because I always found it was a relative strange attribute amd relative a game brocker for me. For example walking with 100 Speed in Oblivion was just strange. And as for as I know in reality you can max your speed just upt 40%, Speed isn't as trainable as endurance.

Well for the dragons will you also force them to use different shouts? And are you considering about using ressources, for the dragons "Bellayches New Dragon Species" would be perfect, as it is well made and compeltly lore friendly, also in terms of the artistic style, it would ad more diversity to the dragons but without alienate them from the original Skyrimdragon style.

Question: How will you implement the attributes? Unused actor values?

Yes, I've had that idea as well, but it will be optional.


In the last paragraph of the OP I mention that it's still up in the air whether I'll make it compatible with one or more quality combat mods or whether I'll make a system myself. The thing is, the introduction of Attributes and overhauling the Perks has a pretty big effect on combat calculations. It may turn out to be easier to implement my own combat system than making it compatible with existing ones due to the amount conflicts and undesired mix ups of Perks with stat multipliers.


Sadly, yes. There is no other way to relay variables to Perk Entry Points, or else I would have simply used Properties. I currently use these:

• FavorActive
  
• FavorPointsBonus
  
• FavorsPerDay
  
• FavorsPerDayTimer
  
• BypassVendorStolenCheck
  
• BypassVendorKeywordCheck
  
• LastBribedIntimidated
  
• LastFlattered

Six for the Attributes and two for percentages of the current value to the max value. If someone can show me a way to calculate a percentage of actor values in Perk Entry Points I can scratch two of the list, but after hours of thinking and trying stuff out I haven't found such a method. On that note, I find it incredibly silly that Perk Entries don't allow dividing.

I specifically chose these because they don't conflict with Duke Patrick's combat mod, it's one of the candidates for a compatability patch if that's fine with spooky. If another quality mod that could possibly work together with Skyrimmersive uses the same obsolete AV's let me know and I might switch to a different set of AV's.