Unified Vidya Games thread

[Cain]

Yup.

It was included in purpose by the Requiem designers - but you have to look pretty hard for it.  If you look around Helgen Keep, you can also find a copy of "A Skyrim Bestiary" which explains, in lore-friendly terms, the changes they've made to certain enemies, "The Craftsman's Manual" which, along with a perk in smithing, allows you to undertake iron, leather and steel smithing, a vial of Frostbite Spider Venom (very deadly due to Requiem's changes) and a couple of bags of gold hidden in odd corners.

I also acquired an Orcish greatsword from one of the Stormcloaks.  Which would've been great...had my character not been a thief.  And a crossbow, which was nice, because out of the gate a crossbow hits for something like 120 damage, and takes less stamina to fire than a bow.  With perks and steel bolts, the damage goes up on quite a nice curve.  I'm not sure if they have innate armour penetration though...would need to consult the documentation.  I think they do, but I'm not sure.

[Junkenstein]

Markarth is especially fucked up, it may be the single most fucked up city in Skyrim.  Any city that is more corrupt than Riften, more unstable than, well, Riften and is home to both Molag Bal and Namira cultists is not exactly a place you'd want to live.  That said, a lot of the good quests there are higher level, under Requiem's rules.  Anything daedric is basically level 20+, at least for a first time player, or so I've been led to believe.  Cihdha Mine I don't know for sure about...but I would suspect a mine filled with dangerous bandits and Forsworn would be at least level 10

I've been thinking through some of the quest arcs and the following would probably be quite good for this:

Any Daedric quest (Namira, Molag Bal and Sheogorath in particular)
Mages guild - Hopefully it's been altered somewhat so it's not quite as obvious who's got an agenda.
Cidha mine - You know why.
Main quest - First ascent to greybeards / Paarthunax stuff - Just getting there should be entertaining. I've managed one small mountain and that nearly killed me multiple times.
Bards college - "Go where? For what? Couldn't you just make another one?"

[Cain]

I know for a fact that the Molag Bal quest is hard.  I mean, doesn't it seem odd to you?  Vigilants normally travel in pairs, yet there is only one investigating the possibility that one of the most powerful and scary of the daedric princes (I mean, he's called "The Lord of Rape") has a foothold in the city?  Could it be that Vigilant Tyranus doesn't need back up, because he's that scary on his own? 

Admittedly, I only know this because someone mentioned in passing how he has some of the best armour in the game, and others have mentioned his fight is difficult.

Altering actual questlines is pretty much impossible.  They're hardcoded into Skyrim's system.  All Requiem can do is add flavour text (in terms of letters, notes etc) and abilities which would be consummate with what you would expect in a deleveled world. 

So for the Mages Guild, nothing changes in terms of plot.  But the difficulty arc is much higher.  Saarthal is very hard because it is a draugr infested ruin.  You need fire, sun damage and turn undead spells to complete it...and to rely heavily on Tolfdir's assistance.  Labyrinthian is, as you'd expect, pretty nightmarish.

Obviously, the main quest is quite tricky, since you have to be able to complete BFB and then Dragon Rising to activate it.  Getting to the Greybeards probably wont be easy, with Frostfall installed, though you might be able to afford a horse by that stage.  And dragons are pretty hard to kill in Requiem...especially with Dragon Combat Overhaul installed.  Oh, and you need to get that Elder Scroll, don't you?  Mzulft is suitably harder now, I believe.  Dwemer automatons are very difficult to kill, as they're heavily armoured and, in some cases, quite fast.

[Cain]

New computer arrived.  No monitor as of yet - will figure out how to use my laptop as a screen in the meantime.

[Junkenstein]

Ah. Didn't know the plot was coded in like that, which is something of an annoyance. The quality of writing does vary quite a bit and the "Spot the bad guy" thing with the Mages guild was one that was particularly painful. It's even more jarring when you've just come from something quite well written and involved like the truce negotiations. Again, another that will be quite interesting to read, eventually.

[Cain]

Yeah, if you've played Civil War Overhaul, you'll know just how buggy quest overhauls can be.  And that's restoring a mostly complete vanilla questline.  It still crashes your game a good 25% of the time, requires you to start a new character and usually requires a decent amount of debugging to complete.

[Cain]

I lol'd

[Cain]

OK, my monitor probably wont be arriving for another week, give or take.  This is annoying as hell, but it does give me some time to consider what mods I want to include.  Since I'll be doing the video for you guys as much as my own entertainment, I thought I'd get some feedback.

Requiem, Frostfall, Interesting NPCs, Inconsequential NPCs, Immersive Patrols/Weapons/Armor, miniHUD, Requiem Plus, some lighting and texture mods....all of those seem pretty obvious.  But questions?

Realistic Needs and Diseases?  I've watched some videos, and it seems less annoying/time consuming than I initially thought.  But would you guys necessarily welcome the ever-potential possibility of my character starving to death and having to sleep every 18 hours or so?

Hunterborn?  It's mostly compatible, but as skinning takes time, it can interact badly with RnD and Frostfall (ie; you starve and freeze while prepping the carcass).  I could disable the time penalties and rely on it mostly as an alchemy overhaul....thoughts?

Hard Times?  The Azirok patch makes the economy of Skyrim even more brutal.  But since we're going to be playing a thief anyway, it doesn't seem like that is really an issue.  It just means stealing is even more worthwhile than before.

The Dragonborn patch?  Requiem doesn't officially cover the Dragonborn DLC...not yet anyway, and probably not until at least 2.0 (for reference, 1.8 is likely to be released in the next few days).  Also, some people have reported that the patch made by Azirok puts the difficulty level somewhere up in the "insane" region, and adds an entirely new plot to the DLC, revolving around the usage of cursed Daedric armour to defeat Miraak.  At the very least, it's a level 50+ area.

Character wise, I'm looking at specializing in stealth (obviously), somewhat into archery and one-handed, favouring archery more, pickpocket, lockpicking, light armour, alchemy and illusion.  Quest wise, I'll be looking at the Thieves Guild, the Mages Guild (for Illusion and access to their library), the Imperials for the Civil War and the Dawnguard for that DLC, along with random dungeon delving in search of riches.  Also no save-scumming on thievery, aside from actual quest jobs.  So if I get caught, I'll do the time.

[Reginald Ret]

OK, my monitor probably wont be arriving for another week, give or take.  This is annoying as hell, but it does give me some time to consider what mods I want to include.  Since I'll be doing the video for you guys as much as my own entertainment, I thought I'd get some feedback.

Requiem, Frostfall, Interesting NPCs, Inconsequential NPCs, Immersive Patrols/Weapons/Armor, miniHUD, Requiem Plus, some lighting and texture mods....all of those seem pretty obvious.  But questions?

Realistic Needs and Diseases?  I've watched some videos, and it seems less annoying/time consuming than I initially thought.  But would you guys necessarily welcome the ever-potential possibility of my character starving to death and having to sleep every 18 hours or so?

Hunterborn?  It's mostly compatible, but as skinning takes time, it can interact badly with RnD and Frostfall (ie; you starve and freeze while prepping the carcass).  I could disable the time penalties and rely on it mostly as an alchemy overhaul....thoughts?

Hard Times?  The Azirok patch makes the economy of Skyrim even more brutal.  But since we're going to be playing a thief anyway, it doesn't seem like that is really an issue.  It just means stealing is even more worthwhile than before.

The Dragonborn patch?  Requiem doesn't officially cover the Dragonborn DLC...not yet anyway, and probably not until at least 2.0 (for reference, 1.8 is likely to be released in the next few days).  Also, some people have reported that the patch made by Azirok puts the difficulty level somewhere up in the "insane" region, and adds an entirely new plot to the DLC, revolving around the usage of cursed Daedric armour to defeat Miraak.  At the very least, it's a level 50+ area.

Character wise, I'm looking at specializing in stealth (obviously), somewhat into archery and one-handed, favouring archery more, pickpocket, lockpicking, light armour, alchemy and illusion.  Quest wise, I'll be looking at the Thieves Guild, the Mages Guild (for Illusion and access to their library), the Imperials for the Civil War and the Dawnguard for that DLC, along with random dungeon delving in search of riches.  Also no save-scumming on thievery, aside from actual quest jobs.  So if I get caught, I'll do the time.

Realistic Needs and Diseases sounds good.

Hunterborn is pointless without the time penalties, for me at least it was the time penalties that made it immersive.

Hard times sounds good, for the rest i have no opinion.

[Cain]

Normally I would agree, and for my own gaming purposes I wouldn't let it affect me.

However, I'm thinking it wouldn't be much fun to watch my character kill a wolf, spend all day skinning it and harvesting its ingredients, then eat and drink something and go to sleep, because that's the day gone.  And if I were playing Skyrim with a more wildnerness survival focus that could also fit, but I mostly wanted it for the immersive content, the improvements it makes to Frostfall, and for the alchemy upgrades.

[Raz Tech]

question... Are you going to be doing a live steam of you playing, or recording yourself and uploading to the internets?

Reason i ask is because if you're uploading, people can just skip chunks they don't want to watch, so it's not really a big deal.

Live steam, otoh, everyone would have to watch you spend a whole day skinning a deer, but that isn't really too much different from watching you wander back and forth through town all day, trying to buy all the salt and mead you can and then carrying it back to make venison chops for your next adventure, right?

[Cain]

It would be recorded, as, unfortunately, my internets are located in the countryside and so not as good for livestreaming.

Although I might experiment with the new hardware, and see if it is any better.  Once my damn monitor arrives.

[Junkenstein]

Can I suggest the Prisoners mod(name escapes me). Mainly because I think it would be amusing to see bandits rob you blind when your stealth fucks up.

I'd also second hard times and realistic needs/diseases, adds a lot more interest to standard gameplay.

Hunterborn I'd say is fairly optional, maybe show it off once and then drop it from the setup? Everything else I'd prefer you've either already got in or would just make for an unpleasant game and viewing. I'm probably alone in wanting mudcrab encounters to be the things songs are written about.

Junkie, once took down 6 crabs over about 2 1/2 hour. Real time.

Vicious bastards.

[Cain]

Big mudcrabs in Requiem are scary.  I've seen them take down heavy armoured two-handers before.  Also slaughterfish.  I've heard they get...big.  Like, mammoth sized.  One of them has one of the few pieces of daedric armour in the game.

Also, it seems Hard Times' documentation has vanished, which makes me wary about using it at the moment. 

Requiem 1.8 should be dropping this week...the new update makes spellcasting while in armour slightly less costly (the mass effect system was a bit over the top), but also gives bandits and guards proper weapon perks.  It turns out that "all guards derive from the generic civil war soldier, as such they need to master both armor types and all three weapon types, despite the fact that imperial guards only use one type of armor, one sword and one bow in Vanilla. As a consequence they are severely underskilled for their levels and often would not naturally qualify for the high-skill perks." 

So now, if a guard or a soldier or a bandit has a weapon, they probably know how to use it.  Meaning the game just got even more deadly.

I'm not keen on any kind of "captured if you fail" mods.  The fact is, you are going to be killed.  A lot.  And the early-game economy in Requiem is sufficiently bad that any capture would probably lead to economic ruin, especially as the respawn rate is low enough that you cannot simply "farm" bandits like in Vanilla.

[Cain]

Also, how do we feel about Civil War Overhaul?

It does have a distressing tendency to break games, but Apollo assures me the new version is more stable than ever, unless I try and switch sides during Season Unending, in which case I'm possibly screwed.

Previously, I've found it fails about 25% of the time, but it does make the civil war so much better.  Or would we prefer a guaranteed, if boring, civil war experience?