I was tinkering in the new version of NifSkope to see if there were any flags that would make staffs appear on the back when not being used, but quickly realized it would take more than just flicking a Nifskope switch to do it.

Is anyone thinking about doing this? Does anyone want to see it? Am I alone?

I've honestly never used a staff once, do they just disappear when you sheath them?

Your second melee weapon does this too. If you have two swords, only your right handed one is sheathed, the other one simply disappears. I would love to see integration for all these things to actually remain on your person.

One handed staffs ftl.

Yep, that bothers me too about the second melee weapon. So let me go off my own topic and mention that too....

Think back to Oblivion and how you might use a sword, shield, bow and arrows. If your sword was equipped, you wouldn't see the bow and vice versa. Compare that to Mount&Blade where you could simultaneously see a sword at the hip, a shield on the back, a bow on the back and a quiver. It was always a nice touch I thought. With Skyrim, instead of improving on third person weapon display, it becomes even more disappointing when you consider we can wield two melee weapons at once but only see the main one. I would have thought that after all these years someone might've made a mod for that, but I imagine the scripting is kind of tricky because what kind of conditions would you be looking for? The Oblivion engine sees a weapon as either equipped or not. It can't tell what you'd LIKE to see sheathed---only what the active weapon is, and whether it's ready or not.

Forgive me because I know nothing about scripting, but is it possible that Skyrim provdides a new tool for scripters to call up a condition, namely whether an item is included in your list of favorites? Would it therefore be possible to make it so a weapon assigned to your right hand in the favorites is sheathed to the hip or the back, a weapon assigned to your left hand is sheathed to the left hip, and any and all appear simultaneously?

You know I had a glitch once. I used the console command showracemenu and might've been drawing a weapon when I typed it. I don't remember exactly how it happened. Anyway, when I closed the console and went back into third person I noticed it was displaying a mace on my right hip and a sword on my left. I took out the mace and it worked, but it also still showed the mace on my hip---meaning I had two maces, a glitch within a glitch. Point is, it looked amazing and, well, more than amazing, it simply looked the way it should.

Does anyone have any thoughts on any of this, or on my original staff question?

EDIT:


I think I see your point. The staffs are one handed, and the game is hard-coded to show one-handers equipped at the hip. Making staffs "appear" when sheathed would actually show them at your side and look ridiculous. So we would need to somehow tell the one-handed staff to appear on the back like a two-handed weapon. Now it gets tricky, I assume, and maybe more work than it's worth.

I always get tired of people comparing TES to M&B, but that is a nice visual little touch I never appreciated until I played Dark Souls(which does the same thing). I do know there were various mods that put Shields and 1handed weapons on your back for Oblivion, so it must be possible to some extent. Maybe the offhand could use up the Arrows slot or something?

They all required duplicate meshes of each shield which would be attached to the back, so a lot of work went into those mods. God I hope the same isn't required of the kinds of things we're talking about here, but the more I think about it and write about it, the more I think it may be the case.

Agreed BTW about Elder Scrolls and M&B comparisons. Complete apples and oranges, except for a few minor details, particularly third person NPC appearance, animations, weapon attachments, etc. For instance I don't see a problem with saying TaleWorlds did a better job with p.c. jumping animations than Bethesda (maybe debatable but you see my point). But to ask why M&B has horse combat and Elder Scrolls doesn't...well that's just going too far.

I don't use staves really ever either (unless I have to). I really wish that they didn't have a charge, if they required no charge or refill they'd be amazing and I'm sure any mage would use them.

But it is a shame that staves don't appear on you at all when you "sheath" them.

I'm playing a mage character and I love my staves and currently have about eight of them and rely on them. I would love it if the one I have equipped was visible when my character was wandering about.

Actually I only used them once myself, but was disappointed that they simply disappeared when I unequipped them (no doubt they went to that strange mystical bag of holding where I stored the three sets of steel armor I'd looted, the 4 bows, the 3 shields and the 27 daggers).

In Oblivion there was a fantastic mod which allowed enchantments to restore over time. I'm hoping for a mod like that in Skyrim.

I also notice that it's so hard to find a staff that does actual damage - most of them either conjure, or you find the "Magelight Staff" all the time.

This is true, and since any mage worth his or her salt already has a light spell, who's really going to waste one of two slots for this?

Lol no one, but you find them all over. Even get them for quest lines (like the Staff of Magnus) and it's actually a really cruddy staff.