Beth actually DOES know the reason of the bloating issue. Happens that it's something within the game engine itself. Something you can't just fix in a patch. So they try to make it as easy as possible to manage, by cutting back on other things that won't require them to change the [censored] engine they've used since Morrowind...

Funny thing is, if they FINALLY decided to either make a completely new engine, or get over their pathetic ego and choose a good one, at least half of the bugs of this kind wouldn't even exist (and no, it wouldn't create other ones... although knowing Beth, it probably would lol))

I bothered me a bit in FO3 when I would give ol' Gauss a break and let Metal Blaster get in a few kills, but it really started to get to me in NV when other laser / plasma weapons actually became useful - its pretty bad when you have to actually alter your build based on the potential of gunking up the entire damn wasteland with permanent waste piles. And Obsidian's defense of 'well that's the way it was in FO3' was weaker than ****, to be honest. Then of course Skyrim comes around, and the problem still hasn't been fixed, compelling me to very sparingly use any reanimation spell shy of Dead Thrall / Ritual Stone to keep from gunking up the beautiful countryside and interiors - at least you weren't terribly upsetting the 'beauty' of the wasteland in FO3 / NV by leaving ash / goo piles everywhere.

So yes, I agree completely - rather that kicking necromancers in the nuts with patch 1.3's changes, how about instead going after an age-old problem that is likely causing just as much if not more lag and bloating?

And on a related note, one of the game's many many counter-intuitive ironies is that a pile of carbon flakes that could be blown away by a strong breeze somehow has more sentience than the flesh, blood, bones and sinew of a human corpse.

Bump.

So if it is a named character (Vighar, Movarth, Sild the Warlock, Orchendor, etc.) is it safe to store their bodies in your home? On gamefaqs and here I've seen lots of debate, but it doesn't seem like anyone knows for sure.

On a similar note, does it even matter if it is a named character? If I Thrall a Volkihar Vampire, will that also disappear like other generic characters?

He basically uses them to augment the furniture.

Well you're asking the right person.

Certain NPCs just happen to leave behind permanent corpses. There's really very little rhyme or reason to it, sadly - it isn't 'all named NPCs,' or 'all quest-essential NPCs' or anything like that. Let's take Orchendor for example, who happens to have a permanent corpse - in his case his permanence seems to be caused by his dungeon (dwarven ruin, forget the name) never respawning. Since Orchendor is permanent, he'll be that way every time you kill him on other playthroughs. I don't really have a good list of permanents since it's so hard to test for them (more on that in a minute), but I believe Orchendor, Arondil, Sild the Warlock, and Rigel Strong-Arm are among the NPCs who leave behind perma-corpses.

However, in Skyrim moreso than any of its spiritual predecessors in which I've played, it's harder than ever to test for permanency - you've got corpses that refresh after 7 days (pre-patch), 10 days, 30 days; you've got some that are permanent in their respective dungeons but lose it when you take them out, you've got some that are permanent up until a certain vaguely-related quest is completed...it's a friggin' mess, honestly.

So in no small amount of irony, Patch 1.3 makes it easier than ever to test for permanent corpses - simply save, thrall the NPC you want to test, lead them to wherever you want to store them, re-kill them, fast-travel to the furthest walled city from wherever you're at, return, and check - if the corpse is still there, then it's more than likely permanent. Just bear in mind that perma-corpses of named NPCs are still pretty rare, so you'll usually walk away from this scenario empty-handed.

Your other option for permanent corpses post-patch are pre-deads; NPCs you find already-dead in dungeons and whatnot, who are almost always permanent. Of course they're usually low-leveled and are terrible as combatants, but if you want some grim decor in your house, these are the ones to look for.

And if you really happen to be nutty like me, you could just delete the patch and play the game the way it should be - pre-patch, you could keep nearly any corpse in the game around indefinitely provided that you visited the cell you were keeping them in within the refresh window (i.e. never stay away from your house or wherever you're keeping them longer than 7 in-game days).

I knew I was asking the right person after spending an hour reading the forums and your posts on the other website about Thralls. I'm loving playing as a necromancer, but it can be irritating having to essentially walk on egg shells to make sure you don't lose your babies. My character isn't as bad as Arondil...but he's open to it.

Heh...I think I might keep your post tucked away for use against certain people who think I'm the only one who plays the game this way.

And if you're that gung-ho about necromancy, you might want to consider deleting the patch - of course you'll probably have to start a new playthrough as all the good corpses have likely already disappeared. There's also a slight chance any saves made with the patch in effect will get corrupted in its absence, and unless they've radically changed their programming methods, you'll need the patch to play the eventual DLC. But it's still an option for the time being - personally the patch in its current form didn't fix any of the problems I was having, so I'm certainly not missing it.

I'm going to wait until the next patch comes out before I decide whether or not to delete. I'm one of those serial re-starters, but my necro's always are my favorite and are the ones that I can stick with the longest. I'd hate to restart right now, but that might be what I do if 1.4 doesn't fix Thralls. I've heard wonderful things about Volkihar, so I hope they can stick with me without disappearing. I've only encountered one and that was in a previous game. It took me 6 hours (game hours not real world) of fighting it to finally give up. Unfortunately for me, Shadowmere provided it an endless supply of food to revive so he won the fight. After that fight, I quit that game and started a new game to go back to necromancy and have been with it ever since. I know vampirism isn't that great, but I might make myself be a Vampire Necromancer or some sort if I can get some Volkihar to stick with me without disappearing.

A "permanent dead thrall" should be exactly that...permanent. You shouldn't have to worry about it disappearing after you store it in your home or fast travel. Fortunately, I rarely ever fast travel so that part isn't an issue for me, but I know many other people struggle with their thralls and fast traveling. Oh, and my character's name is Xarus Blackwyrm. He's an Altmer descendent of the...temporarily dead...King of Worms. It's only fitting that he should be just as good a necromancer as his favorite uncle!

Bump.

I bump in solidarity. I am only an expert necromancer so far but I can see where you are right to be annoyed by the patch.

Made a topic about this on the general forum, but I wanted to cover as many bases as I can.

It's my understanding (through very unwelcome personal experience and subsequent research) that the window for clearing corpses was reduced from 7 (roughly?) days down to 1 day - being a longtime necromancer, I was more than a bit taken aback to find that, shortly after downloading the patch, the rules had been unknowingly changed and my house-full of minions had been wiped clean.

Myself and a lot of people have come to rely on a certain necromantic playstyle that involves taking our work home with us, or at the very least wanting to keep more than two potential thralls on-hand for use; since not every useful named NPC has the luxury of leaving behind a permanent corpse, the change made in patch 1.3 is a pretty severe blow to our playstyle. Prior to the patch, you could keep nearly any corpse in the game around indefinitely provided you visited the cell you were keeping them in within the window to prevent a clearing-out - since it takes over a full in-game day to fast-travel from Markarth to Riften, this becomes quite impossible under patch 1.3.

You've never before targeted corpse-clearing in any of the previous games I've played, being Oblivion (extensively), Fallout 3, and New Vegas (even though it wasn't directly developed by you it certainly isn't a stretch to consider it a spiritual successor), and it's painfully ironic that you would finally choose to do so in a game that actually features necromancy as a viable gameplay style.

I'm hoping that since you're starting to target long-standing problems like permanent ash piles and such, you might end up reconsidering the ramifications (at least to a small but dedicated minority of us) of 1-day corpse-clearing and hopefully reset the window to it's original state by the fifth patch (maybe...?). I understand you had your reasons for making the change and I understand quite well that you know the workings of your games far better than I do, but I hope you'll understand that what might have been a negligible workaround on your part has severely hampered the playstyles of a few of your most devoted (dare I say it...crazy?) fans.

Has anyone looked at the fixes for 1.4? Do any of the fixes address the problem with Thralls disappearing whether it's in your home or from fast traveling?

the longer we keep stuff like bodies around for the game to track, the more unstable (least that is the conclusion Ive been able to come up with basing on other peoples experience) the game becomes because eventually that is a lot of info to track. Less items the game needs to keep track of the better in the long run as it wont bog down the engine as much

Edit: Good point about the corpse bloating.

Agree with the idea that bodies inside of a player-owned home should not have any decay timer (or be able to move / warp / reset to their original location)




Either way, agree with the OP. Patch 1.3 makes one of the coolest spells and play styles in the game become ridiculously frustrating.

They could keep all bodies at 1 day, but if a body has been made a thrall it could have an increased limit like 7 or 14 days etc.

Could you simply make it so bodies stored in an owned home never disappear instead of having it tied to being hit with the Thrall spell? I know when I'm on the hunt for new Thralls, I'll just wander around and use Thrall on any humanoid character I can just for the heck of it. Those who survive are "worthy" of coming home with me to be my new Thralls. This would create far too many corpses laying around. Instead, just make it so if a body is in your home, it will not disappear as long as it is stored in your home. On top of that, while it is acting as your Thrall, make it essentially behave like a follower so you don't need to worry about your Thrall getting stuck in a dungeon, disappearing when fast travelling, or just randomly dying on you (I'm looking at you Velehk Sain). You should also not need to worry about the "timer" running out on your Thrall while they are acting as your Thrall (this is directed at your mister random assassin).


Necromancers unite! We will one day rule the world!

Might as well post this here rather than starting a different thread. Do we have a good list for permanent corpses yet? Not counting the bodies you find wandering around the world. I'm talking about options for safe Thralls like Orchendor, Sild, etc.

Say, would anyone in this thread happen to know the fine in Skyrim for necrophilia?

Dunno...never been caught.

Huh that's weird because I was just on here saying that there are certain areas where NPC corpses never disappear. In particular a couple of the named NPCs you fight in the Ratway. They haven't cleared up, for me at least, in over 150 hours of gameplay.

First offense, or previous offender?

Not sure if it still applies after 1.3, but some areas indeed do this - Ratway and Ratway Vaults are both this way. If you take these NPCs out of their spawn points however, they'll lose their permanency, and disappear after the appropriate amount of time. Only other example of this I found is the Imperial officer who orders your execution at Helgen (provided you chose to escape with the Stormcloak Ralof) - she'll stick around forever in her own dungeon, but move her out of it and she'll lose the permanency. Weird.

Adapt.

Bethesda should make a necro house in one of the dlc . Maybe put a bunch of slabs in the basemant you can put your fully geared thralls on when your not using them.