» Sat Oct 06, 2012 3:43 am 
And as always, make sure to check out the mod's main page: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/19281/
STRUCTURE
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You might want to hit STRG + F on your keyboard so you can type in the stuff you want to find in order to navigate through this list of changes.
Please consider that this description is very trimmed, as the description length is limited on this website so I cannot really go into detail. But the most important stuff is documented here so you get the basic idea of the mod, and for version 1.0, a detailed external ReadMe is planned!
Features with a * at the end can be adjusted via the optional files!!!
1) Leveling System
2) Perks & Skills
3) Magic
4) Combat
5) Atmosphere
6) Items
7) Bugfixes
8) What's coming Next
9) Known Bugs & workarounds
10) Known compatible Mods
11) Known incompatible Mods
12) Optional Files
1) Leveling System
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"It does not matter how strong or smart one is. It only matters what one can do." - M'aiq the Liar
- Absolutely nothing is dependant on the player's level:
° You might walk into the forest and find nothing or you might be swallowed whole by a bunch of rampaging frost trolls on level one. You might wander into in a bandit camp finding only weak and easy to dispatch individuals who somehow managed to acquire an ebony dagger, or you might just walk into an experienced marauder who doesn't need anything but his simple iron greatsword to finish you off. The list goes on infinetly.
° You may now find everything up to ebony equipment (however, you'll find much more low quality items than high level ones) from first level on in the world or at vendors. But Daedric and Dragon Equipment is very, very hard to obtain - but it'll be worth your while...
°Besides everything becoming more static, it also becomes more random. You'll almost never be able to tell what opponents you're going to encounter, making it very important to improve your skills fast and to be VERY cautious at lower levels
For a more comprehensive depiction, have a look at this list:
°Low Level Enemies (managable from first level on, IF taken on appropriately)
- Animals (Skeever, Mudcrabs, Wolfs, Bears, Sabrecats, Slaughterfish, Horkers)
- Bandits
- Forsworn (If they're still human!)
- Normal Humans in general
- Skeletons (if they're about a human's size)
°Mid Level Enemies (might still be somehow managable from first level, but requires great amounts of skill and tactics!)
- Soldiers and normal Guards
- Draugr
- Most other zombie-like creatures
- Witches/Hagravens
- Trolls
- Icewraiths
- Spiders
- Spriggans
- Giants
- Mammoths
- Fire Atronachs
- Ghosts
- Giant Slaughterfish
°High Level Content (don't expect to have a chance against these without greatest preparations)
- Vampires
- Mages
- Dragons
- Falmer
- Dwemer Constructs
- Werewolfs
- Giant Trolls
- Gigantic Mudcrab
- Dragonpriests
- Dremora
- Frost Atronachs
- Storm Atronachs
- Elite Troops (For example, Bodyguards of Rulers etc.)
What's behind it techniqually:
- All leveled lists have been changed so that they can spawn all available NPCs, Items etc. from level one on, without changing the possibility of getting another result with an increased level.
Also, some leveled list have been altered slightly to support the atmosphere (for example, you'll now find more small mudcrabs than big ones and more wolfs than bears, more unskilled people than skilled people etc.)
- Also, many NPCs have been redone, mere bandits will always be managable from first level on IF you go on them with some tactics - if you don't see an archer in a dark corner, he's most likely to kill you. If you've spotted all enemies and use cover etc - you'll stay much better chances, while mages will be very unpredictable.
Also, NPCs that you'd expect to be very skilled now actually are very skilled - for example, guards who protect important people will always be experienced combatants that most likely mob the floor with you if you're not a high level.
In case of dungeons - most of them will be very static and their difficulty is quite hard to be described - basically, it's now all about tactics and preparation. If you play all your cards right, you might find many of them quite easy. If you're not, well, any dungeon might just prove to be quite devastating.
2) Perks & Skills
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"That looks good. Who knows, with enough practice, you might forge the most legendary weapons one day..." - Alvor
- Skill rates have been adjusted to lower values, so the skill leveling should be a little bit slower than the Vanilla rates
- Skill books do not increase most of your skill level by 1, but only a bit
- Completley redone perk trees and new perks with more fleshed out descriptions and effects
- The descriptions now do not offer any numbers, but barely describe the effect in a more oldschool style in order to prevent power gaming triumphing over roleplaying. *
Examples:
°Nightly Thief: "You have learned how not to wake up targets during your "nightly visits", so you can free them from their worldly burdens with ease." (You always succeed at stealing from sleeping targets)
°Bladesman -&--#62; Sword Specialization: Makes attacks with onehanded swords faster
°DualFlurry -&--#62; Flurry: Makes all onehanded weapons faster, regardless of combination
°Warmaster -&--#62; Great Cleave: Chance to knock down ALL hit targets when sideway-powerattacking with twohanded weapons
°Hunter's Discipline -&--#62; Gruesome Shot: You deal double damage over very short distances with a bow
°Quick Hands -&--#62; Self-Sufficient: Craft your own lockpicks at a forge
°Twin Souls -&--#62; Summoning Mastery: "Oblivion's realms and entities know no limits - knowing this, you're now able to control even more creatures simultaneously."
°Intense Flames -&--#62; Cremation: "Your fire spells burn so ferociously that they deal more damage by setting foes ablaze, often causing them to run away in agony."
° Regeneration (a new 2-rank perk in the alchemy tree): "Having consumed extracts from troll fat and fish eggs, you are now able to regenerate when immersed in water."
°You'll notice a great difference in gameplay now when it comes to the weapons you use:
- Swords will be even faster when perked, allowing true flurries of blows that are ideal for dealing damage with elemental enchantments or to take down unarmored foes - though you'll have a tough time against foes that aren't that easily sliced by your blade's edge.
- Maces and Hammers will still be the slowest, but because many enemies now actually posses a really high armor rating, they REALLY come in handy when you've been specializing in them.
- Axes now are a middlething between the two - they offer both increased damage and a weaker form of armor penetration than that of the maces. Probably the best weapon to deal with armored draugrs...
- Twohanded weapons will profit more from some of their associated perks than onehanded weapons - for example, when fully specialized in, maces ignore up to 50% of armor, while warhammers ignore 75% of it, as they have a much higher weight that can be made used off when fighting with it correctly. However, twohanded weapons will be hard to handle, as they won't allow you to use a shield for protection from arrows. Use them with care!
It'll make much more sense for warriors and other characters that engage in melee to actually have more than one weapon type at their disposal.
- Mastery level perks for spell levels provide some basic spells upon accquiring them
- You now need to specialize more in the trees to get the best perks available. For instance, if a perk tree splits like the Illusion tree and both strangs lead into one single perk, you have to learn every perk in both branches to get the last one - to make this up, most High End Perks have received a major boost, like increased effects or unique spells.
- No more "I steal your pants while you wear them" - Even Garrett wouldn't bring that on...
- Smithing Perks (except Basic Blacksmithing and Advanced Blacksmithing) now require the player to have certain books in his inventory that depict how the equipment related to the given perk is made and worked with - you can find these books in the game world or at some vendors. You'll recognize them by their description! *
3) Magic
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"Fancy yourself a wizard, eh? You know, if you think you got the aptitude, you should consider joining the college of Winterhold..." - Farengar Secret-Fire
- About 60 new custom spells, many of them scripted, some of them copy pasted to provide a more wide-spread and extended quantity of them, most of them being avaiable only in Winterhold for now:
A few examples:
- Umbral Vision (Ilusion, 25): You can see in the dark. Toggable.
- Arcane Resonance (Illusion, 25): Works like the shout "Throw Voice", but as a spell version
- Telekinetic Blast (Alteiration, 100): A concentrated blast of telekinetic Force, sending anyone it strikes flying through the air while tearing appart their very skeletons.
- Firestrike (Destruction, 100): A flaming meteor that reduces anything in its impact radius to cinders.
- Featherfalling (Alteration, 25): Negates Falling Damage
- Telekinetic Grab (Alteration, 100): Grabs the target NPC which can be thrown or roasted while grabbed.
You can also use the target as a (meat)shield to protect you from projectiles (be it alive or dead - yes, it also works on corpses) or just crush them into the next rock and cast them high into the air - wating for them to die because of the fall.
- Summon Ghostly Steed (Conjuration, 50): Summon the ghost of a horse thats a quite unqiue mount - it's the fastest mount available, while being completley invulnerable - it can even fall down all of mount High Hrothgar without taking a scratch. Also, the caster becomes ethereal, too, when mounting it - also making him or her invulnerable for as long as sitting on the steed. However, this also prevents attacking from this mount!
- Teleport I (Conjuration, 50): Teleports the caster to the target location
- Teleport II (Conjuration, 50): Works like a Mark and Recall spell
- Toxic Spray (Destruction 50): Cover your foes in toxic and corrosive slime.
- Transmute Corpus (Alteration, 100): The caster attempts to turn the target into a slimey pile of ectoplasm.
- Lightning Cascade (Destruction, 100): The target is tormented by ferocious lightning for a limited duration.
- Telekinetic Disarry (Alteration, 75): Removes all clothing from the target and disarms it.
- Lightning Speed (Alteration, 100): The caster moves almost as fast as light, making everything slow down almost to motionlessness.
- Transmute Muscles (Alteration, 25): The caster hardens his arm and hand muscles, making them like stone. All unarmed damage is drastically increased.
- Telekinetic Execution (Alteration, 100): Casts the target miles into the air while maiming every single bone in its body.
- Absorb [Attribute] (Alteration, 50 to 100): Drains the targets lifeforce, magic energy,... and gives it to the caster
- Telekinetic Nova (Alteration, 75): Breaks the bones of anything nearby and sends it flying through the air.
- Arcane Dominance (Illusion, Master of the Mind): Completley control the minds of all nearby weak individuals, causing them to not attack you even when threatened, to give you outrageous prices while bartering and to submit to almost any proposal...
- Fury IV (Illusion, Master of the Mind): Causes the target to go beserk without the caster risking to be detected as the spell's source.
- Phantasmal Killer I (Illusion, 50): Kills the sleeping humanoid target instantly without any sounds.
- Phantasmal Killer II (Illusion, 75): Causes the target humanoid to commit suicide.
- Phantasmal Killer III (Illusion, 100): Causes the target to either face its most feared nightmares or die from a terrible heartattack.
- Arcane Missle (Destruction, 50): A missle of pure arcane energy that is fired instantly and deals non-specified damage, penetrating all mortal resistances.
- Arcane Volley (Destruction, 100): Evokes hundreds of magic missles, dealing a great amount of damage per second that cannot be resisted by mortal means.
- Arcane Vortex (Destruction, 100): A ray of pure arcane energy that simply annihilates everything in its path, piercing all resistances and reducing almost anything to a pile of smoking ash.
- New and unique enchantments available via enchantment perks. A new mechanism has been built in to get them in a more immersive way.
Examples:
°Annihilation: The weapon is infused with vile energies that provide a small chance of killing almost any target instantly.
°Force: The weapon is surrounded by a strong force field, sending anyone it strikes flying through the air.
°Flame/Shock/Frostburst: The weapon causes elemental explosions that deal damage to all hit targets. Bows actually cause all targets nearby the arrow to explode. But every enchanter should beware when using this potent enchantment, for it also damages the caster - using it in melee will require protection from the respective element!
°Spellbreaking: The weapon has a certain chance to dispel all magic from the target - which also can kill any summoned creature instantly.
- All existing spells have been redone to suit the mod better (adjusted effects, changed some graphics, renamed for better sorting and much more)
- Almost all spells now improve with a better spell school skill level
- Spell costs will double when you only have a very small amount of stamina left
- Heavy armor increases magicka cost for all spells (up to incastability) - Ongoing Battlemages can get rid of this by investing in certain heavy armor perks
- All shouts have been improved so that whenever you make use of your Thu'um, it will really feel like your literally shouting your unfortunate foes apart!
- Tweaks to shouting bonuses:
°Every 5 levels decrease the player's shout cooldown by 2%. Caps at 20%.
°Every six words of power known, the player gets another 5% cooldown bonus, which caps at 50%.
°Every hundred times the player shouted, there is a slight bonus of 1% cooldown bonus, which caps at 10%.
°Based on how often the player shouted, certain shouts' effects become even more powerful.
- All Standing Stones have been overhauled, somewhat according more to the original effects. Also, you'll now have to make a tougher choice, as you will only be able to change the stone blessings between those stones that belong to your chosen guardian constellation:
Those who have chosen the Mage will never be able to have another sign but The Mage, The Apprentice, The Atronach or The Ritual.
Those who have chosen the Warrior will never be able to have another sign but The Warrior, The Lady, The Lord or The Steed.
Those who have chosen the Thief will never be able to have another sign but The Thief, The Shadow, The Lover or The Tower.
If you don't choose a guardian constellation, you can do it later - Or, you can choose the Snake, which renders all other signs inobtainable! Your choice is permanent, so choose wisely!
- Shrines now only grant bonuses if you do not have commited too much crime during your adventure in Skyrim - for criminals aren't favored by the divines! Also, the duration of the blessing has been increased greatly. Also, if you do certain deeds, some gods might grant you even more power - for instance, Mara's blessing enhances your health if you've completed her temple quest. On the other hand, some god's might also refuse to bless you - for instance, if you join the imperial Legion, Talos will refuse to bless you for this blashpemy.*
- Playing a Mage is harder at the beginning, but after becoming an expert or even a master of just one school, you'll notice a great if not almost god-like increase in power. But remember one thing: You're not the only mage in this world.
- Removed most starting spells - only some races still have some (Bretons, Dunmer, High Elfs)
- All summonable creatures have been improved. Even the once weakly Familiar now can be quite useful.
- All magical projectiles are twice as fast
- Magelight (Light II) and all Wall spells can produce an unlimited amount of wall sections/light sources.
- Firesparks, Lightning Sparks, Icewind and all Wall spells now are fired for a fixed amount of time (3 seconds) and then have to be recast instead of being continous (this is to prevent stacking their effects by just recasting them rapidly) *
- Some low level spells are not available at any vendor except those in Winterhold (for instance, Healing/Heal Self I or Fast Healing/Heal Self II). They still can be found randomly in the gameworld, however!
4) Combat
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"The best techniques are handed on by the survivors..." - Gaiden Shinji
- The Difficulty is now static - turning it up or down won't have any effect. *
- NPCs are more intelligent: They will block, bash and attack more often, aim better with shouts, spells and bows and will always go for the best weapon available - so better prepare well! They also have received a higher chance to carry potions with them, which they'll most likely use if things begin to look bad for them. And as they use potions, they might also use some poison on you - as you're not the only one who can take and use it from frostbite spiders!
- NPCs will yield in a more believable way. When they say it, they mean it! If left alive, they'll be affected by a fear effect that will cause them to panically run away from you for quite some time - if you leave them, they might just disappear or become hostile after you return to the loaction after a long while.
Also, many NPCs might choose to flee even sooner when their health drops to a critical value and the player is not severly injured or paralysed - however, certain factions and races are much more fierce in combat and do not flee that easily.
Also, some animals are also affected by fear when their health drops a critical value, making them quickly run away from you when they sense their death - you'll have to chase them in that case, or you can leave them be.
- Magicka, Stamina and Health are now even more important for they also grant passive, dynamic bonuses.
The bonuses granted by these are very small at the beginning, but you'll notice them when you've reached a higher level and have access to enchantments like Fortify Health, Magicka or Stamina, which of course are also calculated for these Bonuses!
This list provides the statistics in a more detailed way:
Magicka:
Every 40 points increase Magic Resistance by 1%. Caps at 25%.
Every 40 points increase Magicka Regen by 8%. Caps at 200%.
Stamina:
Every 40 points increase damage with bows by about 1.4%. Caps at 35%.
Every 40 points increase stamina regen by 8%. Caps at 200%.
Every 40 points increase your rate of movement by 2%. Caps at 50%.
Every 40 points increase poison resistance by 1%. Caps at 25%.
Every 40 points increase disease resistance by 1%. Caps at 25%.
Health:
Every 40 points increase damage in hand-to-hand combat by 1.5 points. Caps at 35 points.
Every 40 points increase damage with melee weapons (except daggers because of a vanilla bug) by about 1.4%. Caps at 35%.
Every 40 points increase carry weight by 4 points. Caps at 100.
Every 40 points increase poison resistance by 1%. Caps at 25%.
Every 40 points increase disease resistance by 1%. Caps at 25%.
- Sprinting costs have been drastically reduced
- Running (not sprinting) now also consumes a small amount of stamina (about 0.2 points/second) and negates regeneration - standing still or walking solves this problem! Or you cook some more nutrtitous meal...
- Having a practically depleted stamina will result in a high risk of losing the grip on your weapon and shield.
- You receive less carry weight by leveling up Stamina. *
- Also, if you have more than 200 Health and Stamina each and do sprint into an enemy of about your size or a non-armored weakened one, you might abe able to send him (or her) down to the ground. The same is true if you wear a full set of heavy armor.
- Creatures that use poisons against you (Spriggans, Falmer, Spiders, Charusses etc.) will "check" your poison resistance whenever you're hit by a poisonous attack by them - if it is above a certain threshold unique to the respective creature type, the poison will not affect you in any way - if it's below, well, then you've got yourself a serious problem.
Races with a natural poison resistance now won't be affected by most poisonous creatures by default - Argonians and Redguard only need to fear poisons of really big enemies and have a mucher easier time to become totally invulnerable to their poisons by just drinking an Elixir of Poison Resistance,
However, you should drink your potion BEFORE fighting these creatures, regardless of your race, for if the poison has entered your body, it won't help increasing your resistance. You'll have to heal yourself over the time the poison affects you or use a cure. Or seek out the blessing of one of the divines.
Also, remember that poison effects stack - Each hit will increase the poison damage you take per second!
- Combat now varies a lot. All damage is drastically increased, yours and your enemies'. Tactic is now of high value, and can easily turn the sides of battle. Just wildly engaging in battle straightforward will most often end up in a painful death.
However, the actual time a fight will last is very variable. Lightly armored human targets will drop very fast (that also counts for you) or very slow if they go for something like ebony armor and you don't bring armor penetration or magical damage. Very big enemies will take even more time to defeat, and defeating a dragon might take even longer.
- You will be staggered much more often. Whenever you're hit, in fact, though this can be prevented by fulfilling one of these terms:
° You wear a full set of heavy armor
° You are undead (a vampire, for instance)
° You are currently blocking
° You are using a Mage Armor spell while having invested at least one perk in it
- Armor is required to survive direct combat, unarmored targets are dispatched in a trice.
- Armor will increase your respective skill rating very slowly when your wear it while running and sprinting in it.
- Armor and clothing cannot be changed during combat. Don't even try, you will not like the results! However, you can still change rings and amulets during a fight.
- Heavy armor is extremely hard to wear if you're not having at least some perks invested into the respective skill tree, for if not, it'll drain your stamina, increase sprint cost by about 100% for EACH piece worn and will also increase power attack stamina consumption.
- Blocking is essential. Not blocking in combat is almost like suicide if you don't wear a second skin made of pure steel - as many enemies also have armor piercing attacks (like bears crushing you under their sheer body mass), even that might not save you from a painful death. But don't even think about blocking when you're not trained in it...
You can also try to dodge, but that won't always be an easy task, especially when fighting creatures that are faster than you.
- Running low on stamina during a fight is possibly the worst thing to happen with this mod:
If you become hit by a spell, arrow or whatever sort of attack while your stamina is really low (absolute value), you will become staggered and won't regenerate any stamina for some moments. Also, you are practically unable to block when having a very low amount of stamina, as you won't have any more strength to parry or deflect incoming blows effectively. Also, you'll move slower as long as you have only a small amount of stamina left.
- Archers are now extremely deadly. Arrows are much faster, NPCs aim better, drawing a bow takes more time for untrained persons. A normal human will go down with one or two hits when not being armored heavily - for a piece of wood and metal in your intestines isn't something you just shrug off.
Warriors should remember that arrows can actually be blocked manually, but that requires a great amount of skill and somewhat a bit of luck - besides having more than just some perks in blocking, timing and angle will also be of great importance. If you're feeling lucky, try to position yourself so that you look about 10 to 15 degrees to the right while blocking with a shield so it points to the archer - you might just be able to deflect it! But you've been warned!
Also, Heavy Armor is almost unpenetrable by bows over longer distances, while every archer receives a high armor penetration bonus when the target is almost in melee range.
Also, the range you can score a sneak attack with ranged weapons now depends on your archery skill level - if unskilled, you'll have to get VERY close to deal extra damage - if on 100, the range is without any limits.
Also, NPCs do not have unlimited ammo anymore, as they now use the arrows in their inventory. When they're all used up, they either flee or, much more likely, engage in melee combat, so if you're struggling in a fight against archers, you can try make them exhaust their ammo!
In addition to this, the damage you deal with ranged weapons is also generally dependant on your skill level in relation to the distance your target is away from you. Don't expect to be a perfect sniper without any skill!
- The caps of armor, blocking and resistances have been increased to about 95% - don't be fooled by this high amount, for the hardest encounters, this will be neccessary!!!
- The range of all melee weapons and bashing has been decreased.
- Many foes now possess more perks and skills, making combat even more thrilling - if you see someone wielding a mace, he most likely has also training in its use, so make yourself ready for some armor-penetrating blows!
- Many essential characters can now be killed when you hit them with a weapon, but not with most spells. Also, characters that are important for the main quest aren't affected by this at the moment.
- Many creatures now have unique features
Examples:
- Creatures with no clear, vulnerable anatomy cannot be sneak attacked for extra damage
(Ghosts, most Undead, Constructs, Atronachs)
- Creatures with carapaces and such now actually have a considerable armor value that can only be cracked by experinced fighters or by magic means
- Poisonous creatures are very nasty, especially when they manage to bite you. Spiders can even paralyze you when you're foolish enough to take them on in close combat. Side effects can be avoided with a high enough poison resistance...
- Giants are strong. VERY strong. They can crush you even when wearing an ebony armor. You'll need something thicker or better than that to engange in melee...
- Draugr are what one would expect of a zombie: a walking tank that feels no pain. They are very resistant to physical damage, as no critical damage to organs is applied - though bladed weapons show the greatest effect. Also, they will suffer even less from frost (extreme cold is meaningless to them, only piercing them with shards might have a slight effect) and shock (Electricity wouldn't stop any organs from working, they just might get scorched a little from the heat). But they're vulnerable to fire as their dry and rotten skin would burn very easily - magic fire might also melt them down completley. Fire also would apply overall damage to the body, so flames would be the best way to deal with draugrs and other zombie-like creatures.
- Fire Atronachs consist mostly of animated fire and molten lava. Therefore, physical damage will have almost no effect on them. Also, they'll explode much faster and MUCH more violently when they die, so better don't even think about engaging in melee if you don't really know what you're doing - however, they might not even let you, for they've discovered melee for themselves...
- Trolls have immense regenerative abilities - one can actually see the wounds that even a greatsword inflicted closing faster than they were inflicted - Only a severe amounts of damage will suffice to slay such a beast - though some say that fire stops the regeneration completley...
- Ghosts are almost immune to all forms of physical damage, requiring severe weapon damage output to destroy them - magic is highly advised, though silver swords might also be of great help
- Constructs are a real pain to fight - They're highly resistant to all forms of physical damage, arrows will just bounce off them with no effect and they're immune to paralysis, poison and highly resistant to fire and frost. Only severe overloads of eletric energy seem to have a great effect on them, though one can still fight them with normal weapons - but that will be a long fight indeed - trying to kill a centurion with a regular steel greatsword will require 100 hits - if the wielder posses great skill in its use! But also make sure to have proper resistances, as these constructs will probably cook you alive with hot steam and electricity...
- Dragons are truly gruesome creatures, being protected by a strong shell of scales that grants a high armor rating. They also have much more Health, a strong resistance from the element of their breath, though they also are vulnerable to the opposed one. Their bite will tear anything to shreds if its not wearing at least a full set of ebony armor. They will also strike fear in the hearts of many!
- Alduin now truly is the Worldeater - he can easily kill you during the Tutorial and will also tear you to shreds in mere seconds if you don't possess the mightiest protection available - either by the fire bolt rain or with his breath attack - so don't even think about getting too close!
Like this, almost all creatures have received certain strengths and weaknesses. There also is new ingame footage in form of books in which most of these are described in great detail!
5) Atmosphere
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"You know what's wrong with Skyrim these days? Everybody is obsessed with death!" - Jon Battle-Born
- Fleshed Out the Start in Helgen - if you look carefully, you'll find more background information, small secrets and stuff that'll help you survive for the next few minutes.
- Time will now run slower than in Vanilla, making it feel somewhat more realistic. (The mod's value for that is 5) *
- Handplaced unique non-respawning creatures, some of them named - some just for atmospheric reasons, others might carry unique loot.
- Many tweaks to certain settings, including Barter Prices, Greeting Distances, Combat mechanics and much more (weapon and armor value increase should also be applied to other mods)
- Merchants will rip you off if you aren't good in speechcraft or don't bring some illusion magic.
- Merchants are now more different. Smaller ones will have less money and goods, while those in less rural locations do have much more in stock. Their goods also somewhat depend on their location, like Alchemists in Markarth selling a lot of dwarven oil and much more of such smaller things.
- Most merchants' wares are now actually accessible via certain chests in which they store most of their wares - they are masterly locked, however!
- Merchants will only restock every 7 days
- All traps now do much more damage. Don't expect to survive them without any thick armor or magical protection.
- No more fasttraveling. Use a cart, teleport, buy a horse. Or even better: Walk. *
- You can wear circlets and masks with hooded robes
- Lockpicking is actually hard: Don't expect to even open a Novice Lock without the proper perks or advanced magical help.
- Added Lockbreaking to certain weaker doors and containers:
When you melee attack such a door or container (basically all which are made mainly out of wood and those with padlocks), a script attached to it will check the player's adjusted breaking value (which is 2x your health + 1x your stamina) - if it's at least equal to the break value of the lock, the container/door will be open after you hit it.
Breaking values are as follows:
Novice: 300
Apprentice: 500
Adept: 700
Expert and Master level locks cannot be broken, however, regardless of the material!
- Added a lot of locks to the game world.
- No more easy sneaking in heavy armor. Others will most likely spot you before you spot them.
- Wearing any heavy armor will render most thieving activities much harder or even impossible (pickpocketing, for example)
- Sneaking tweaks:
° Sneaking in general is harder
° Enemies field of view has been reduced
° Enemies will search much longer for you
° Standing in Light now means a greater risk for being detected
° The impact of your sneak skill has been reduced slightly
- Regeneration is much slower, Health doesn't regenerate at all naturally. Now where's that healing potion again?
- Food doesn't magically heal your wounds anymore.
- Diseases are a PLAGUE. You'll want to avoid them and always carry at least one Cure for it with you...
- Redone racial abilities and statistics
- Faendal & Sven are no longer available as followers *
- Though not depicted ingame, gold now has a weight. You'll have to find a place to store it... *
- Arrows and bolts also have a weight: *
°Light Ammo (Forsworn, Iron, Elven, Steel) weigh 0.1 units each
°Medium Ammo (Orcish, Dwarven, Glass, Draugr. Nord Hero) weigh 0.2 units each
°Heavy Ammo (Ebony, Daedric) weigh 0.3 units each
- Starting max weight is reduced to 85 to 125 units, depending on your chosen race *
- Horses can sprint much longer, and are faster (not too fast, for one should remember: Skyrim's horses are stiff!)
- Horses will avoid combat more often (except certain unique exceptions)
- Horse charge: Weak and small enemies are trampled down when a horse charges into them
- Many predators are much faster now, making running away quite hard when chased by them.
- Many animal factions have been tweaked so that there are more hostile encounters - for example, Spiders now actually are hunting Skeevers if there are any nearby.
- Messages the player receives have been changed to First Person Singular, depicting thoughts and feelings
- Removed Quick/Auto - save/load messages *
- Player Homes are now automatically locked when you leave it for immersive reasons (Who doesn't lock his house when leaving it alone?)
- Don't expect to find anything but fur, intestines and other natural stuff on animal corpses. No more gold, jewelry or stuff like that that would make one think: Did this beast just swallow a treasure chamber, mayhap?
- Available Training Units have been halved *
- All starting skills that aren't modified by your chosen race will start on 5, not on 15
- Loading screens will only tell you lore-related stuff. No more hints and advises of how to interprete the HUD and such things.
- Those triggerplates with runes on them are now invisible.
- Many sounds have been replaced with silence, for instance the critical hit sound, some sound effects when updating a quest and so on.
- If the player dies, he'll be send to the loading screen almost immediately to represent the fact that he/she is dead - no more time to look around the enviroment. If something has managed to take you out without you noticing it... You'll have to be more careful the next time.
- All falling damage has been increased.
- Most hostile NPCs now have much shorter and similar "names" so you aren't able to tell if you're facing a weenie little guy with no experience or the ex-grandmaster of the arena himself. You'll have to judge about him by looking at the equipment, for instance...
- Blood Splatter on the screen when becoming hit will stay only for few seconds
- Blood on your weapon will last multiple minutes and fade away slowly
- Cleared Dungeons will not respawn *
This is both for immersive reasons and because you can now think about actually storing some stuff or even claim a conquered dungeon as a new home (though still in some cases, there might be some trouble - as it would be realistic, there is always a certain risk that another faction occupies it)
- Werewolves now all have static claw damage and tweaked abilities (more Health, slightly faster, stagger resistance)
- If the player becomes a Vampire, he'll also receive the Vampire Template of this mod, which decreases all damage from non-bladed weapons (Maces, Warhammers, Bows) by 66%. In addition, being a vampire also has increased benefits, as some bonuses have an increased value. Besides, vampires do regenerate their health by default, as do they have a much greater strength, allowing them to carry more with them etc.
6) Items
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"Some may call this junk, me, I call them treasures..." - Belethor
- New Weapons (Selected stuff from Weapons of the Third Era)
- New Food (Milk, Water, Mudcrab Meat and some more stuff)
- New Hunting Loot (Fat, Hearts, Claws, Fur, Meat...)
- New Recipes (Sweetrolls, Bread, new ways to smelt down metals, some new weapons at the forge and some unique ones acquired by perks)
- New Books (some are from previous Elder Scrolls Titles, others are completly new and have been written by myself)
- New special items (for example, the "Bag of Holding", which increases your maximum carry weight by 500 as long as it is in your inventory)
- Most new items have been integrated in loot tables, vendor lists, can be carried by NPCs, can be crafted while a great amount also has been handplaced.
- Clutter and other unusable stuff received many tweaks, like repricing, weight and general usability
- All scrolls are now somewhat more useful - you'll think twice if you really want to sell them immediately!
- All Staves have been overhauled
- Craftable Staffs at the forge:
° Depending on your enchantment skill, you'll gain new recipes for magical staffs of different materials. The better the material, the better the spell it can hold - Artificing a Daedric Staff will yield an arcane instrument of power that does not require any charges as it feeds on the life force of a slain dremora.
- Completley redone lootlists
- Completley redone artifacts with more fitting roleplay-like descriptions and effects
Examples:
° Dragonmasks are now worthy to be considered as equipment, not to mention what power the best of them all now bestows upon its wearer...
° Daedric Artifacts are now much more that what they should be... Make sure to try them, if you're sinister enough to do the bidding of the princes... Especially the Wabbajack... But careful, for the insanity might break you. Or the Cheese. Or the sweetrolls. Or.. BOTH!!! Or maybe not? What the hell am I just talking? Ah, well, jsut carry on reading...
° Quest rewards are now static and don't level with you
- All Potions have been renamed to make sorting somewhat less of a pain
- Fortify Restoration and Fortify Destruction Potions now decrease magicka cost instead of raising the respective spell school's magnitude
- Many other potion effects have been altered
- You can only have one potion of every type active at a time - potion effects will not stack anymore, and drinking one while one other of its type is already active will just result in a wasted potion!
- Many other ingredient effects have been altered
Examples:
°Nirnroots' effects are stronger than that of normal ingredients
°Daedra Hearts are extremely powerful ingredrients:
They make your health, stamina or magicka inexhaustable for 30 seconds or can be used to make a very deadly poison that could possibly even slay a dragon...
- Alchemists with at least 25 skill points can now craft special oils at the forge that work like poisons:
- Oil of Fire: Deals fire damage
- Oil of Frost: Deals frost damage
- Oil of Storms: Deals shock damage
- Oil of Silver: Deals severe damage to any enemy vulnerable to silver
Each oil needs a certain type of salt, a metal ingot base and some dwarven oil to be crafted
Unfortunately, they only work on living enemies, as the game seems not to check the associated resistance value but the poison flag of the potion in order to judge if an effect can harm an undead or otherwise poison immune NPC.
- Food will restore both Magicka and Stamina when consumed out of combat. Raw food, on the other hand, will damage these attributes, unless you belong to beast race, in which case you'll receive a bonus instead when eating it out of combat.
Also, the effects of cooked food now last much longer, making it more worth the while. Concerning how Stamina now works, you will want to have at least some food with you on longer journeys so you can restore your stamina more quickly so you'll actually want to eat/drink something once in a while.
7) Bugfixes
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"How does one know there was a city of Winterhold? M'aiq did not see it with his eyes, did you?" - M'aiq the Liar
- No more unlimited pushing of enchantment/smithing/alchemy via magic effects
- No more restoration/enchantment exploits
- No more continous spell exploits (by firing them rapidly in succession)
- Many Vanilla Keyword Association Bugs fixed
- Some spells now work as they were intended (Storm Thrall for example now actually summons a Storm Thrall)
- Replaced many muffle enchantments with sneak skill bonuses as muffle seems to be glitchy
- Some misplaced objects placed correctly (No unsafe changes have been made [Deleting Vanilla Objects, for example]
- Conjuration spells don't have a chance do be absorbed from your own absorb abilities
- Fixed a vanilla bug that would make enchanted generic bows too cheap
- Fixed a vanilla bug that gave certain staves the wrong effect
- Fixed a vanilla bug that gave certain ghosts wrong loottables
+ Many other minor fixes, though you still should use the Unofficial Patches, too!
8) What's coming next - Ideas and things I'd like to add if this mod pleases enough people:
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"M'aiq is always in search of calipers, yet finds none. Where could they have gone?" - M'aiq the Liar
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Have a look at my current to do list (If I delete something, there probably already is a mod that suffices to bring the respective feature into the game):
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- Gruesome Prison: The Player is sentenced to death when his crimes are too vile while time spent in prison also has stronger drawbacks on the player (much slower skill gain, for example)
- Make certain equipment breakable
- Flesh out Daedric Quests
- Merge Requiem with certain suitable mods and make compatibility patches for others
9) Known Bugs
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"Dragons were never gone. They were just invisible, and very very quiet." - M'aiq the Liar
1) Conflicts with other mods, especially with those that alter leveled lists, NPCs, Items and Perk Trees might cause very weird bugs and glitches when used with my mod. Make sure to check out the copatibility list below for troubleshooting!
2) If aimed very, very bad (certain points of rooftops, for example or behind the walls of a city), the teleport spell might kick you out of the game world.
3) Telekinetic Grab might cause minor glitches when used on certain NPCs under certain conditions.
4) There seems to be a bug in Vanilla Skyrim that leads to certain summoning spells causing crashdowns after the summoned creature dies - because of this, some spells included in this mod might show a similar behaviour.
Known affected spells:
- Conjure Dremora Lord
- Summon Ghostly Werewolf
5) Some spells seem to spawn some strange black blocks upon killing a target in some rare incidents - it's beyond me why this is happening.
Known spells causing this bug from time to time:
- Fireburst (aka Incinerate)
6) A bug has been reported that slows down attack speed drastically.
A temporary solution is to reset the player's attack speed via the ingame consol:
player.setAV WeaponSpeedMult 1.0
Also, it is possible for your attack speed to become way slow upon getting an attack speed bonus when your load order is not correct - in this case, you most likely have a mod checked and loaded after Requiem which alters the player!
7) Some players have reported a bug that causes you stamina regeneration to suddenly drop to 0 and never restoring to the default value.
You can fix it by setting it to the default value via the consol:
player.setAV StaminaRate 1.5 (for everything that is not an Imperial)
player.setAV StaminaRate 1.8 (for Imperials)
Or you save the game to a new slot and load it immediately after saving.
8) Your movement speed might not update properly according to your stamina due to a vanilla bug (or feature, actually?) that makes magic effects that alter running speed only kick in under certain conditions (like drawing/sheathing a weapon or entering/leaving sprint mod).
9) The mounted power attack does not work, as you'll get stuck in the animation. Sheathing your weapon unstucks your character again.
10) Bounties are not calculated correctly in some of the Holds.
11) Horse charge attacks might cause too much force to be applied to actors sometimes.
12) Trainers seem to grant you weird amounts of skill experience under certain conditions - so sometimes, you do not get any increase in skill, and sometimes two increases, sometimes you get a lot more than that. I am not sure why this happens, but I am aware of it and will try to fix it as soon as possible (if possible)!
13) If there still are enemies flagged on your compass, the game still thinks the player is in battle, which will disable some actions (getting bonuses from food, changing armor, pickpocketing). If this is the case, you might want to go into another cell, wait or just go farther away. After that, you are not considered in combat anymore.
10) Known compatible mods
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"What does it mean to combine magic? Magic plus magic is still magic." - M'aiq the Liar
- Practically any graphic-enhancing mods
- Practically any mod that deals with pure animations
- Practically any Interface-enhancing mods (SkyUI, for example)
- Alternate Start - Live another Life
- Auto Perk Stats Level
- Bandolier - Bags and Pouches
- Banks of Skyrim
- Brawl Bugs Patch (highly recommended)
- Bring out your dead'
- Classic Classes and Birthsigns
- Compass Tuner
- Deadly Dragons (should not cause any trouble when loaded after Requiem, though it will overwrite Requiems changes - use it if you prefer flashy dragon encounters over lorefriendly ones)
[- Duel - Combat Realism (load it before Requiem) - Some people report it works, some say it does not, for now, I am not sure if it works out fine - Use on your own Risk!]
- Economics of Skyrim
- Edited Colors (load it before Requiem)
- Extended Death Cam Options (use this if you do not like Requiem's settings!)
- Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival
- Horse commands
- Immersive armors (load it before requiem so you get them as crafting recipes while requiem overwriting its lootlist changes for no conflicts)
- Imps more complex Needs (load it after Requiem so it gets the priority on food - it should then run fine!)
- Ishs soul to perk
- Jaysus Swords (it should work if you load it before requiem)
- Locational Damage
- Lorecraft (can be used to an extend, but it'll only take effect when loading it after Requiem, thereby overwriting its tweaks to blacksmithing - some might be ok with that, however. If you like it more than the tweaks of this mod, you can still use it)
- Morrowloot (If loaded before, handplaced loot will be there, though the leveled list changes from Morroloot will be overwritten by Requiem most likely. If loaded after Requiem, you won't get the loot experience that is meant to be in the game with this mod, however, it still should work without any problems.)
- No Quest Items
- Proper Aiming (load it after Requiem)
- Skyre - Standind Stones (load it after Requiem)
- Skyre - Races Overhaul (load it after Requiem)
- Skytest (Load it after Requiem, but consider that it will have a minor influence on some animal encounter difficulties!)
- Unofficial Skyrim Patch (better load it before Requiem, highly recommended)
- Warzones (though beware, it becomes even more deadly!)
- Winter is Coming 2.0 (load it before Requiem, as this is needed to overwrite important leveled lists - you'll still have the stuff available enough, as I understand)
To be continued...
In general, everything that ONLY adds NEW stuff should be perfectly compatible. New crafting recipes and handplaced stuff for example. New weapons might also work, however, if they are integrated in already existing leveled lists, it might come to (minor) conflicts - I'm not very sure it's hard to generally say if they're even noticeable!
11) Known incompatible mods
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"Skyrim was once the land of many butterflies. Now, not so much." - M'ai the Liar
- Mods that add new Monsters (like Skyrim Monster Mod): Generally, they are compatible, but there are certain things that will cause a rather weird experience when using such mods with Requiem. Most of Requiems creature templates will not work on new ones, and the leveling system and overall encounter difficulty might vary greatly. Use on your own risk!
- SkyRe Complete
- Third Era Attributes for Skyrim (Using Requiem with this one WILL mess up character developement and gameplay feel/balancing)
12) Optional Files available
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In the main archive, you'll find a folder called "Optional Files", in which you'll find an array of, well, optional files that allow you to tweak Requiem a little to make it suit your personal taste. However, I do not recommend to use them, as they somewhat defeat the overall atmosphere the mod is meant to create!
If you want to use one or more, just copy the respective ones into your Skyrim Data Folder and load them AFTER Requiem in your load order. That's it, you're done with customization!
IMPORTANT!!! Some optional files have been reported to only work correctly when they are installed BEFORE a new game - on existing savegames, they seem not to work correctly. In the following list, I marked the respective options with a ! , just so you know!
Also, these marked options need to be installed again after you update the mod and before you load your old save again, to prevent any chaos!
Atmosphere:
- Additional Carry Weight +10000
- Additional Carry Weight +200
- Adjusted Game Time (resets the flow of game time to the vanilla value)
- Adjusted Training Units per Level (includes multiple values to choose from)
- Alternative Altar Blessing Conditions (this tweaks the altars so that they just require having no bounty in no hold, instead of looking at you entire lifetime as an adventurer)
- Arrows have no Weight (also does what is says) !
- Disabled general respawn (disables the respawn of the entire game world)
- Faendal available as follower (does what it says)
- Gold has no Weight (does what it says)
- No Dragon Fear Aura (does what it says)
- Non-Immersive Descriptions with numbers (Affects Perks, Abilities, Standing stones and some more stuff, so for all those who need the numbers, this might interest you!)
- NPCs do not use AMMO (for bugfixing reasons in the first place)
- Reenable Fast Travel (well, reenables fast travel)!
- Restored Saving Messages
- Standard Carry Weight gain when choosing a Stamina Bonus on LevelUp
- Standard Respawn Time for Cleared Dungeons (does what it says)
- Vanilla Timeflow
Combat:
- Difficulty bar restored which allows the configuration of overall difficulty again.
- Less Deadly Dragons which decreases all dragons' difficulty
- Less NPC Spell damage which nerfs most enemy spellcasters a lot
- Lower Arrow & Bolt Damage which sets the arrows and bolts to standard values and increases it just as much as all other weapons instead of giving them another boost.
