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Unified Vidya Games thread

Started by Cain, November 21, 2013, 05:10:58 PM

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Cain

ELFX is Enhanced Lights and FX.  I thought I mentioned it, though now I'm not so sure.

I only use Windows 7, so I have no idea if it works on Windows 8 or not.  Does 8 have that backwards compatability thing, which allows you to run a program like you're using an earlier version of Windows?  Just checked, it should work on 8.1 no problems, though apparently it can sometimes be tricky.  Video may help. 

Also worth noting that Nexus does sometimes suffer with serious downtime and server errors...kinda ridiculous, given the advertising and subscriper fees they are raking in, but I had problems downloading some files today.

Freeky

Must just be my machine, then.  I had similar problems downloading Spybot, S&D software for my laptop (which was what I was really asking about).

Edit: The laptop, not the software.

Cain

Yeah, Windows 8 is a tricky beast, I hear.  But the modding community will have the resources out there...somewhere.  Best bet is just google "how to install nmm on windows 8" until you find a solution.

Well, Azirok should be at work making patches from tomorrow.  So I'll probably start making videos again around when they come out.  I still have things to download and folders to sort out, not to mention juggling two jobs, a course and jobsearching.

Cain

So...since my new computer is bust, I'm back on the old one.  Because I'm getting Requiem withdrawal symptoms, I've been looking at a lightweight implementation of a more roleplay attuned game, in line with Morrowind or similar.  Here is what I've come up with.

Morrowloot 4E Edition: basically, delevels loot, and puts in handplaced items instead.  Now you'll find dwarven metal in dwemer ruins, elven weapons are carried by the Thalmor, Orcish weapons are carried by (wait for it)...orcs, and very few, very important people have ebony or glass armour.  There is one set of daedric armour in the game (and you can't craft it anymore).  I'm using the Lore Weapon expansion patch, as an alternative to Immersive Weapons.

Hypothermia: as a light weight replacement for Frostfall.  Hypothermia is smaller and less script intensive, I believe.

Immersive Armours.  Of course.  But in accordance with Morrowloot dictates, I've removed all above steel/corundum armours from the distribution lists.  They actually recommend removing all of them, but I'm making a value judgement here - if an armour comes from readily available base materials, even if it requires superior perks, it should be distributed in world.  So stuff like Apotheos and Falkreath armour get to stay.  Imperial Knight armour, however, is right out.

Morrowind potion names.  Because immersion is awesome.

Character Creation Overhaul.  Because classes and shit should matter.  Also small, but useful, bonuses for class-related skills.

iNeed.  Lightweight replacer for Realistic Needs and Diseases.

Scarcity.  Use it to reduce loot, alongside Morrowloot (in a sense) and make the economy more brutal.  Also using Trade and Barter and some quest gold tweaks to make Skyrim much more expensive.

WTF - to randomize encounter zone levels and effectively delevel the world.

Cain

Also, despite an unfortunate name, this seems like the best lightweight race overhaul out there.

Obviously, you have the SkyRe and Requiem racial adjustments which are pretty awesome, and Enai Sinon's Resplendent Races (which is really cool, but does use scripts - like a lot of his mods.  Definitely for higher end computers), but if you just want something simple, balanced and lore-friendly, this seems the way to go.   Combining it with Character Creation Overhaul gives a nice Morrowind-y feel to the game, I wont lie.

Cain

OK, so after spending a couple of weeks making sure my computer isn't going to shit itself and die on me, I'm fairly confident to start recording again.

Order of business:

1) Dishonored.  Save games were lost when the computer was repaired, but I can get back to where I was with no problem.  This will also give me a chance to pick up the runes I missed and pick abilities I've since found to be more useful.

2) Skyrim.  Azirok has still not released the patches, after 3 weeks of waiting.  I was going to ditch Civil War Overhaul anyway - while my impression is that it is more stable now, it is still not stable enough and in particular I've found the Siege of Windhelm to be buggy under certain conditions, through several playthroughs.  iNeed will be replacing Realistic Needs and Diseases, and because the Immersive Weapons Patch seems to be dropping daedric tier weapons where there shouldn't be any, I'm going to try Lore Weapon Expansion instead, which should not need patching.

If things get too easy at level 30+, I will install OBIS, assuming it has been patched for by that point.  If it's still too easy, I will consider Revenge of the Enemies, which has been patched for.  That said, for my particular character, things should be plenty hard enough for at least the first 20 levels. Silver weapons have been nerfed somewhat, bandits are harder, crossbows require perks to take advantage of armour-piercing properties.

As a consequence of offensive Illusion getting something of a nerf (basically, bandits and other mid-tier enemies now have larger magicka pools, making them more resistant to such spells), what I am considering is starting off using Illusion as well, as it's a useful skill for a thief, and then after Trinity Restored occurs, branching into Conjuration magic.  Conjuration is fairly powerful (not as powerful as Destruction, but is anything?), furthermore I think it makes sense that the champion of a Daedric Prince would be interested in using the forces of the Oblivion Realms to give them an edge in battle.  No necromancy though, necromancers are sick fucks (see Arondil for more on that).  Just daedric summons and bound weapons.  Between Illusion and Conjuration, I should be able to lock down any truly dangerous foes while staying out of the firing range myself.  It's also more interesting than shooting a fireball out of the shadows and watching everything die, or just sneaking by every high level encounter.

Junkenstein

Hey Cain, I see project Eternity has been shoved back to early '15. Was there much seriously wrong with the beta or are they just taking a good time for polish?
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Cain

Eh, the beta was OK.  I mean, there were balance and GUI issues which needed to be sorted out, I'm not gonna lie, but nothing major.

I think the main issue is the localization language one.  They're now offering support in Italian, which wasn't previously on the cards.  For such a language intensive game, that is going to take a while.

Edit: Doing some final tests on my Skyrim modlist today.  Hopefully, by the end of next week, I should be in a position to record and upload consistently.

Junkenstein

Balance and GUI are to be somewhat expected so that's not too bad. Better than a launch with something clunky and various classes/skills/whatever broken.

I'm fairly willing to wait for this, after replaying Planescape: Torment it's very noticeable how little plot development goes into many modern games.
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Cain

I will say this: though I've criticised Skyrim's plot before now, I've actually come around to the idea that it was the implementation and gameplay that are more at fault.  When you delve into the (deeply bizarre) lore, it actually makes the game at least 10 times as awesome.  The Thalmor come across as more evil and inept than they do in the game, too.

But yes.  Planescape: Torment is definitely one of a kind, which is not a good thing.  Fallout: New Vegas is meant to be quite good as well, also from Obsidian, but I've not played it myself, so I cannot comment.  There were also significant time and engine constraints with that game.  And I have a copy of Alpha Protocol downloaded, an "espionage RPG" from Obsidian, which sounds potentially interesting.  Yet to give it a try though.

Junkenstein

For Plot and Lore though, Skyrim will always be competing against Morrowind which beats it like a child labourer. The level of detail given to the Nerevarine main plot alone makes skyrim look very light indeed. I personally preferred it to the "You're half dragon, yo." way that skyrim unfolded.

The strange thing is, I suspect the overall plot of skyrim could be considerably better if the ordered was altered somewhat (Visit Sovngarde earlier, Learn lore from previous dragonborn and then apply that knowledge to finding/completing X objectives in the main world.

Example out my head (read - arse) - Carted to Helgen, char creation and execution. Black screen, comes to in intro dungeon eventually leading to sovngarde and encounters with previous DB and intro to who/what you are. Revived, time altering bullshit moving you to second in the queue, Helgen can proceed as normal, first mission now to track and slay your first dragon and proceed with destiny(read main plot). Or something. It just felt like there should have more attention paid to the sequence of events/encounters.

Did you ever get round to Watchdogs? From what I've heard it's somewhat disappointing, which is probably Ubisofts corporate slogan nowadays.
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Cain

Not yet, no.  But that's pretty much what I've heard.  Ubisoft's development cycles are way too fast, and overreliant on the same tired old mechanics of the same tired old engines.  Call of Assassins Creed Duty: Black Flag Ops is the perfect example, of course.

Skyrim could've been approached in a few different ways.  More focus on Akatosh, Tiber Septim, the Thalmor and Mehrunes Dagon would've helped quite a bit.  A lot of the interesting things about Skyrim have been deduced from previous Elder Scrolls games and materials...like why Hermaeus Mora pays such attention to the Dragonborn, what the Thalmor are up to (though Kirkbride's C0da and Landfall deal with that, to a degree), whether it's the Dragonborn or Alduin who is a Shezzarine (it's probably not Alduin), the "oversoul" ascension of the Dragonborn and so on.

Cain

OK, so here's a quick test to see if your mod install is stable.

After escaping Helgen, save the game.  Open the console (if you don't know how to open the console, press "`" or "¬" on your keyboard).

type in "tcl" without the quotation marks, and press enter.  Then type in "player.setav speedmult 1500" and press enter.

What this does is it removes the collision physics, and allows you to move really fast.  In short, you can fly.  Look up to the sky and run.

Fly around Skyrim.  Harass enemies, zip around the place, go climb a mountain or 10.  If your game is stable, it will stutter and suffer frame drop in places, but it will not crash.  This will be pretty severe framedrop, because you're basically forcing the game to render the cells as quickly as possible...I got it down to 3 FPS quite a few times.  Sometimes, the game will momentarily freeze and you will need to wait a second until it responds again.  This is all normal and good.  You should be able to fly around for anywhere between 5-30 minutes with no problems.

If you do have a mod issue, however, your game will crash pretty quickly with this method.

I was using this earlier today, while testing Skyrim Immersive Creatures (which still refuses to work on my computer).  It is definitely that mod, because removing it removed the crashes completely, just like before.  I even managed to correctly install ENBoost (which significantly upgrades your game stability and available memory) and tested it with that, to no avail.  Either one of my "must-have" mods conflicts with it, or else even my computer cannot handle it.  Which is entirely possible.  New computer is good, but the graphics card is only a GTX 660.  A damn decent card, but compared to the current, high end cards, it may as well be a potato.

I might have to try Sands of Time again instead.  If I can find settings which don't annoy the shit out of me.

Cain

I'm starting to find Sands of Time settings which don't annoy the shit out of me.

I still have some tweaking to do.  Taking Faldar's Tooth turned from a 10 minute venture into something closer to an hour.  On the road to Ivarstead - attacked by wolves.  Lots of wolves.  Fair enough, I'm mounted, it's not a problem.  Then I'm attacked by bandits.  Not a problem either.

Get to Faldar's Tooth.  Bandits attack.  Because I'm mounted, they can see me and so call for reinforcements.  Only a few extra, but they are OBIS bandits, so they're tougher and smarter than normal.  Then, a "peddler" who was walking by starts to attack me.  As it turns out, he was a Morag Tong/Mephala assassin in disguise.  Then some Elite Vigilants of Stendarr come along...since I don't have any daedric artifacts yet, they join in on the fighting and kill a few bandits before being taken out themselves.  Inigo spends most of his time paralysed by poisons.  Thanks a lot, you useless skooma addict.

After 10 minutes or so, I get past the main gate.  Once in the castle, I get down the stairs, and another assassin follows me through the door.  She sets off the trap, killing herself, but not before poisoning my character and requiring the use of a lot of healing potions (even in Dark Scrubberhood armour, that stuff was just eating my life away.  Maybe Deadly Poisons is increasing the damage even beyond SoT's intended levels).  In the fort, things are slightly better, as I can use stealth to my advantage, taking out isolated bandits before mopping up the more concentrated groups.  That said, because I'm using SSR and Combat Evolved and Duel, staying in stealth was not easy and the times I was exposed, the bandits would call for reinforcements. 

Get to the outside section.  Wolves start attacking the gates.  Bandits see me killing them, call for reinforcements.  The bandit chief, due to exceptional AI (Combat Evolved) realises the fort is under attack and starts raining down crossbow fire from the very top of the tower.  It's almost impossible to hit him, due to the protection up there, but he can and does rain down some serious pain on myself and Inigo.  We fight our way past the bandits and rampaging wolves and pit wolves up the tower, to finally slay the bandit chief and take his delicious loot.

It's now night time, and with RotE enhanced vampires roaming about, I'm debating whether to stay in the fort and risk being ambushed in my sleep, or making straight for Ivarstead.

So, settings wise.  I've turned off the Zombie Apocalypse entirely.  I did give it a go, but Whiterun, Windhelm and Ivarstead were being attacked simultaneously, and Whiterun was pretty bad.  I think there were about 30+ zombies massing outside the city walls, and they're very hard to take down in close combat.

Currently using the "ale-drinker" preset with enforced lore mode, once I find the settings I like I'll no doubt put it on Spartan.  I turned off Burning Inferno, turned on lore-friendly Silver Hand and Vampire Hunters.  I turned off rats entirely, that shit is annoying.  Same for spiders, and not just because I don't like them.  The hallucinogenic spider is annoying as hell.  I'm also looking for options to turn off the refugees entirely...that encounter isn't something that really interests me.

I think I need to play with the cooldowns and spawn increasers more.  I don't mind a bit of variety, but fighting through 7 extra spawns in a single area is a bit much.

But yes.  If you want fun times, I fully recommend Combat Evolved, OBIS and (significantly configured) Sands of Time.

Cain

OK, I'm hoping to have an optimal setup by the end of this week.  I intended to use last week to do this, but I got caught up in job applications.

Lore Weapons Expansion is out, unless someone patches it.  Bows don't work correctly, the Cyrodiilic longbows are far too quick. So back to Immersive Weapons.  If I get an accidental Daedric weapon drop....I dunno, I'll just sell it, or swap it out for a lore appropriate weapon or something. 

I'm also looking into the mysterious and wonderful world of ENBs, thanks to some advice I got recently.  Have to do all the configuration properly and look into texture optimisation of my other mods, which may take a while...but I've seen some very impressive results from less than top-tier computers, so I figure it is worth the effort.