So I've seen plenty of threads detailing proposed and WIP "hardcoe" mods for Skyrim.

None of which seemed complete to me.

First, one must ask... what does "hardcoe" entail?

As I'd define it... It is the inclusion of aspects which make the game more realistic, difficult, and are aspects which enhance immersion for those who enjoy a more realistic experience.

Now, to me, hardcoe doesn't exclude things like music, as it adds to the immersion of being inside a created world. hardcoe is also, sometimes, about options. The option to tailor your game to your own specifications is inherent in all mods.

However, enough philosiphizing

This is my list of mods which I think would form a wholesome "hardcoe" mod compilation. I've listed mods which I've seen as WIP, please correct me if I'm wrong or if I've missed any that are in the works. Or if you see some areas for inclusion, improvement, by all means. I've seen a thread like this before, but it didn't really express the HC mods I had in mind.

- Gameplay -

- Eating/Sleeping Mod [WIP]
- No Fast Travel [WIP/REL??]
- Enhanced Hunting
-- Making animals more rare, and thus more valuable in tandem with an Eating mod requirement.
--- Whilst keeping the populations appropriate, just not leaking out over the roads as they are now.
-- Also adjusting the economy so selling animal hides and meats is a worthwhile endeavor (See Enhanced Economy Mod)
- Fishing
- Player and NPC damage scaling [WIP]
-- Making the damage scale less forgiving for both enemy NPC's and the player
- Campsites/Shelter
-- Would work in tandem with a Hypothermia mod
- Transportation Revamp [WIP]
-- Realtime Carriagess
-- Wheeled caravans w/ Carriages
-- Horsedrawn Carts
-- Boats
- Realistic Armor [WIP]
-- This is more of an option than anything, I'm not a fan but would be appropriate. This is an option that others might enjoy.
-- Would remove all uber-fantasy armor from Skyrim (Ebony, Glass, Daedric, etc)

- Overarching Game Mechanics -

- Realistic Timescale [WIP??]
-- With all quests adjusted for said timescale.
- Rarer Resources
-- Ores should only spawn very rarely outside of mines
-- Adjust the availability of ingots/ores in stores
- Hypothermia/Weather Effects on Player [WIP]
-- Player has to find shelter in cold environments, dress warmly, and find/create fire.
-- Same would have to apply for long exposures in moderate, but rainy climates.
- Economic Revamp [WIP]
-- Lower overall prices, but less gold in rewards.
-- Red Dead Redemption had a decent economy, something akin to that in terms of selling prices.
-- Varying availability of resources and prices in cities
- Significant Farming
-- The ability for a player, when a home is built, to farm/harvest/sell their goods.
-- Crops would require water and time to grow, when they're harvested would affect the price.
- Town Building [WIP]
-- Would require significant amounds of wood, thatching, etc to start as well as monetary investment
-- Ability to create different towns with different specializations
- Creature Revamp [WIP??]
-- Make dragons much rarer but more powerful
-- As stated above, lessen the amount of hostile/friendly animals overall.
- Some Kinda' Crafting Revamp

- Aesthetics -

- HD Landscape Textures [WIP/REL]
- HD Building Textures [WIP/REL]
- HD Clothing/Armor Textures [WIP/REL]
- HD Weapon Textures [WIP/REL]
- HD Creature Textures [WIP/REL]
- HD Clutter Textures [WIP/REL]
- HD Player/NPC Textures [WIP/REL]
- Revamped Animations
-- Eating/Drinking for player
-- Farming/Harvesting for player

Again, this is just my list. Focuses mostly on making the game more realistic and difficult, whilst building off of the great work Bethesda did making an immersive experience.

Like the sound of all this!

I think the eat/sleep/drink and hypothermia mods are important. If you want to have a no-fast-travel mod, then a long journey takes careful planning: will there be places to stop and rest along the way? Will I need to hunt for food? These clothes have awesome enchantments... but what if it snows... do I have some fur armour?

Also, the transport: real-time horse and cart rides would allow for hop-off or hop-on at random locations. Plus, (complicating things further here...) needing to defend the carriage you are riding in from a dragon attack would make the trip feel more realistic- a horse and cart is easier to spot than a lone dragonborn.

With rarer ores, it should also be rare to the point that a trip to specific mines and doing some mining for materials feels worth while. To make this feel like it achieves something, the level of improvement that raw materials can make to weapons should be higher. If I'm going to make a trip from Whiterun to a silver mine in the Reach in order to improve my favourite blade, I want to feel that I have gained a real upgrade. This, as opposed to the current situation where I max out the improvement of my blade, then find something in a cave that will match it, or at least improve beyond my current blade.

I want some changes for the AI.
Example when bandits say "mercy", I should be able to give them mercy!

Resources like ebony, malachite, and orichalcum ores/ingots; diamonds, rubies, emeralds, should be MUCH more rare. Iron and steel should be fairly common, and not just any blacksmith should be able to make some ebony armor. Only the best should be able to.

Prices on houses, and higher grade weapons and armors should be raised drastically. Same goes with rare ores and gems. Think MORROWIND prices.

It should also take much more to raise your smithing level.

I think this would level everyone's mountains of gold.

I agree about offering mercy, but I'm not sure that makes it more 'hardcoe'!

I will definitely be wanting the eat/sleep and hypothermia mods. Someone also suggested a 'difficult swimming' mod on the hyothermia mod thread (sorry I've forgotten people's names!), which sounded great.

More realistic carrying capacity would be good, with a backpack and saddlebags to compensate, maybe even packhorses.

@ Volvagia - No fast travel mod! Can't believe I forgot about that, I think it's already been done in Skyrim too so will have to throw that one on the list. I agree, it makes planning an actual trip much more fun in deciding what you'll need to do, a la Oregon Trail. I like the idea of the transport mini-quest type things with bandit raids, etc and that's exactly what I had in mind about the rarer ores.

@ Vinnst - I do agree that the mercy option should be significant, certainly not a priority, as 99% of us RP/Play badass-take-no-prisoners characters. But yeah, the option to give mercy should result in some gold or something to spare them or even additional quests. But would have to be in moderation, wouldn't want every random bandit giving a quest in the middle of battle.

@ skc - I think the materials you mentioned would be made rarer by the rare ore, vendor revamp, and economy revamp. Like the "Economic Coherency" mod thread here says, Malachite would be more prevalent in the Rift/Eastmarch being closer to Morrowind, etc.

@ Zora - I like the idea of realistic carrying capacity, and I think there's a mod out now that makes items more heavy or gives them true-to-life weights. I like backpacks and saddlebags would be a great addition, and would also give more use to the horses which right now are just glorified magic carpets... and are slow at that.

This thread is a fine example of creative thinking that I would bow down to. If you all intend on creating such game implants, I would forever worship you. Every idea here would MAKE the game for me, it is all pretty much what I want to add to my game when the damn Creation Kit decideds to come out.

I am certainly willing to learn the CK, I'm not a modder but I'd be more than willing to learn the CK to make some of the more simple mods happen. Luckily for all of us, the majority of these are already in WIP or even Release phase by other modders. I'm just trying to bring them all under one roof, as even the other hardcoe compilation proposals I've seen hadn't really encompassed all that I thought they should. Just a personal opinion.

This list is also very much open to suggestion, making a game more immersive/realistic is as much about the little things as it is about sweeping revamps. And obviously, it's slow/impossible for me to think of all the little things that would improve the game's experience for the player who wants "hardcoe".

EDIT - Perhaps when I find a bit more time, I'll search out the links for all of these mods and [with the permission of the authors] post them here. Or y'all can download/test/look them over yourselves! Whatever works, it's all about choice here.

I love this idea EXCEPT for the exclusion of fantasy armors. If you remove them, you might as well remove all magic as well, then remove all fantasy creatures, places, etc...then we're looking at Medieval SIMS!

Make the fantasy armors and weapons much harder to come by, make, etc. Give them true value in that after you've fought off a Killer Dragon, exhausting all your resources, you get a prize worth fighting for in the first place!

I think that eating/drinking/sleeping are wasted programming hours in this game. There's no reason to do any of it. Give it all value (ie. you don't eat for a while, you start to suffer from significant weakoning of all powers and abilities, eventually dying! You don't sleep for a while and your vision becomes cloudy or you start seeing things that aren't really there).

These things wouldn't really be all that difficult to do, it think (says the non-programmer) and would really increase the "immersion" factor while placing value on game mechanics that are already in-game!

"-- Making animals more rare, and thus more valuable in tandem with an Eating mod requirement."
See, for immersion i would want a mod which adds alot of new, non-hostile animals so natural areas feel more real, alive, abundant and immersive. Opposite of what you are saying.

"Would remove all uber-fantasy armor from Skyrim (Ebony, Glass, Daedric, etc)"
If you did that, then why not take out magic, gods, races and what not? I want immersion and all, but i do not want to change TES. See what i'm saying?

"- Realistic Timescale [WIP??]
-- With all quests adjusted for said timescale."
In my personal taste, it would feel more immersive if the time scale sort of fit the land scape. In lore Skyrim is massive, but in terms of gamplay it is like 10 square miles; so the time scale would not be to scale.

Like I said, it was "more an option" than anything. And I'm not in favor of it, simply that it might be of interest to others.

@ Vault-boy - Hadn't thought of it, not necessarily the opposite of what I was saying... As it stands now, I encounter a bear or lumbering Elk every ten feet... that is absurd. Making them rarer, like they are in the real world, but more valuable is what I wanted to convey in that. What I profoundly did -not- want to convey, is an effort to make areas feel less real/alive/immersive. Adding more types of animals is a good idea, thanks.That, and I never operated under the illusion that this was anything other than my personal choice for hardcoe mods.

Again, this is my personal preference. That, and I specifically stated that I didn't support this... but others may.

Do you want hardcoe? How about getting slashed with one solid strike causing irreversible bleeding until death? ;-P

Personally, I would love it! ;-D

This would be under the Damage scaling. I doubt I'd support this, as a game is a game and must maintain some unrealistic mechanics to remain fun. But making it -more- realistic is certainly worthwhile. But, the sentiment is appreciated, and could be applied to both NPC's and the player.

Haha, that's why more realistic armor is needed ;-P

Its too bad Bethesda didn't include some of the things that existed in fallout 3 and fallout new vegas, like getting your limbs broken, the need to sleep, eat, and drink and also healing items healing over time instead of instantly for added dificulty.

without having read through the all the responces..

hypothermia wasn't entirely common unless you obviously didn't dress right.... or made frequent/unnecessary stops resulting in lack of movement.. therefore getting cold..

There are some other things in the list that aren't exactly required.... I could see it if you went swimming and ended up with hypothermia...

Blizzards that you can't see anything through at all preventing you from progressing would be good.... or if you wanted to proceed.... high chance of a dragon spawning and killing you (wading through snow/blizzard conditions should drop your preparedness resulting in you defences being very low and resistances making for any animal including bear to nearly one shot you.)

Not really on board with the blizzards dropping your "preparedness". People can get hypothermia from just being exposed to a cold environment for an extended period of time. Not to mention frostbite. You should take some hit if you go out into the wilderness uprepared, or even if you are prepared, it shouldn't be possible for a player to stand in a blizzard for hours on end without seeking shelter/warmth.

IMO, when I think of a "hardcoe" mode, I think of Fallout: New Vegas.

-You must eat, sleep, and drink, or negative effects accrue and may kill you.
-No 0-weight items, ie, arrows weigh .01 pounds, quest items have weight, etc.
-Potions and food heal over time, not instantly.

In addition:
-Quest Items can be dropped/stored/sold
-No Essential NPCs