Skyrim Mod Ideas

[Thomas Kaira]

Maybe just prefix the scripts with our screen names or a unique initial of such?

[Mael]

There is a working BSA extraction tool. I had to get it to fix a problem with one of the MQ quests.

[Mael]

Another mod I'd like to see, but I don't know how it would be done, is to have the main roads show up on the world map.

[Arthmoor]

They already do, but the height over the map is so far up that you can't always make them out beneath the cloud layer. The game's map is built from LOD data.

[Thomas Kaira]

Even with the Google Skyrim map tweaks, it's still very difficult to make them out. You'd have better luck using the paper map to find the roads.That's what I don't like about this map, it's all flash without any real substance. But the good thing about this system is since the game draws the map procedurally, modders won't need to make custom map textures for their new worldspaces.

[Arthmoor]

Are you sure it draws procedurally? That would be awesome as hell. I've got doubts though since it's supposed to be based on LOD data, which isn't usually generated at runtime.

[Thomas Kaira]

You don't see it much in its default configuration, but yes, it is intelligently (maybe procedurally is the wrong word, but it is definitely intelligent) rendered off the LOD data. That is, it reads all the LOD data (however it gets packaged in Skyrim) and draws the map based on that data. It's not a half-baked pre-modeled thing, it is really checking the game files for what to render.How I know is this, if you set this setting:fMapWorldTransitionHeight=XXX (Skyrim.INI under entry [MapMenu])To a high enough value (50000 should do), whatever cell grid you currently occupy will be rendered in full detail. Trees, buildings, shadows, everything (except the grass). However, the catch is that this breaks the map when you are indoors and also causes some cells to not be loaded, resulting in large holes here and there in the map (probably where the game is culling cells where you absolutely cannot see a single object within them).EDIT: Skyrim's LOD works in a similar manner to Oblivion's (cell-by-cell pre-generated records), but now, instead of one LOD data file for one cell, there are now three: Objects (.BTO), Terrain (.BTR), and Trees (.BTT). The map gets drawn by scanning the BTO and BTR files and rendering whatever is contained within them at the lowest detail setting. Trees do not get drawn on the map.Also, Fallout 3 did have some basic runtime LOD functions, but mostly for removing objects from the LOD render when they are removed from the game world. Skyrim might have similar capabilities, but I have yet to see anywhere they might be needed.

[Mael]

Referencing what Samson said in another thread, one idea I had for an alternate start mod was a shipwreck near Winterhold. Player would start with minimal gear and no gold. Maybe toss some chests or something in the wreck with some gear and gold and a potion or two. Or some corpses from drowned crew and passengers that you can loot iron/hide stuff from.Not entirely sure how to go about starting the MQ though.

[Mael]

Maybe even add a whole quest sequence in. Like, some random guy survives with you and leads you to safety as you fight your way through some bandits or pirates who had immediately descended upon the wrecked ship in search of plunder. Maybe a cave with a small bandit/pirate base that takes you up through the cliff outside of Winterhold and exits up near the road somewhere.

[Arthmoor]

Played my alt-start for Oblivion? Or the one from Morrowind that did the same? :)Yeah, I'll probably have another shipwreck option available which would necessitate it being on the northern coast somewhere. Getting led out by a companion would be a neat angle too. Especially if you could elect to keep them around afterward.

[Mael]

Neither actually. I did have the Anvil alt. start for Oblivion. But that wasn't quite a shipwreck.I like the companion-able quest guy though. That's a good idea.

[Dwip]

Only if a teleport storm suddenly takes all your equipment.

[Ysne58]

Played my alt-start for Oblivion? Or the one from Morrowind that did the same?

Yeah' date=' I'll probably have another shipwreck option available which would necessitate it being on the northern coast somewhere. Getting led out by a companion would be a neat angle too. Especially if you could elect to keep them around afterward.[/quote']I haven't played all of them, but yes I have and it is really well done, as are all your mods.

[Mael]

Thought about it some more on my way to the store. I'm thinking that we inject the race selection script pretty immediately -- none of that unskippable drama as in the original start. Then the player wakes up on the shore with the wreck in the water. I'm not sure if it's possible, but the effects that you get during the Beth start after Alduin lands and before Ralof shows up would be pretty handy right there.Handy NPC that survives or sees the shipwreck helps you up and whatnot and throw in the dialog the option to follow the guy through the "tutorial" or just strike out on your own. If you follow him, you can keep him as a companion. Him could also be a her.I'm not sure how to hook it into the MQ yet. It needs a way to get the player into Whiterun with the necessary quest flags to get Irileth to start her thing when you walk into the castle. I was thinking it would be all dramatic to have the player fight his way through the smuggler's cove and then after making it through, pass out and wake up in Whiterun in the inn or something. Maybe Hulda is a friend of the companion's.I'm gonna think about some other starts. One that popped to mind is a start as a slave in the illegal slave trade when the place gets hit by the imperial forces thinking it's a stormcloak base or something along those lines.

[Thomas Kaira]

Okay, I'm currently bouncing ideas around as to how to make Smithing a bit less of an easy-button, and I've come up with this so far:- Crafting weapons and armor from ingots will be removed completely. The new crafting system I will detail later.- Ingots are now used solely for making improvements to existing weapons and armor.- Improved weapons and armor will gradually degrade back to their base. This will help insure a steady income of Smithing experience now that Dovahkiin Iron Daggers Inc. has been shut down. How fast weapons degrade will be dependent on material.- New crafting system: You can now find weapons and armor in pieces throughout dungeons. To make your own weapons and armor, you take these pieces back to the forge and put them back together. Higher level equipment will have a higher chance of being found in fragments.That's what I have so far. If anyone has anything else they would like to add, please feel free.

[AndalayBay]

Okay' date=' I'm currently bouncing ideas around as to how to make Smithing a bit less of an easy-button, and I've come up with this so far:

- Crafting weapons and armor from ingots will be removed completely. The new crafting system I will detail later.

- Ingots are now used solely for making improvements to existing weapons and armor.

- Improved weapons and armor will gradually degrade back to their base. This will help insure a steady income of Smithing experience now that Dovahkiin Iron Daggers Inc. has been shut down. How fast weapons degrade will be dependent on material.

- New crafting system: You can now find weapons and armor in pieces throughout dungeons. To make your own weapons and armor, you take these pieces back to the forge and put them back together. Higher level equipment will have a higher chance of being found in fragments.

That's what I have so far. If anyone has anything else they would like to add, please feel free.[/quote']The smithing in Risen was really cool. You collected the raw materials and sold the ore to a smith or you could get him to create blanks for you. Then you took the blanks and used the forge to heat them. Then you took the heated blanks and hammered them on the anvil to shape them. Then you quenched the crude blade or whatever. Then you took the crude weapon and sharpened it on the stone. All the steps were animated and you had to do each one to get a finished weapon.So you might be able to take the step where the player can sell the ore or get the smith to make a blank. Then the player would use those blanks for new weapons. The idea is that only the smith would have the forms for making the blanks. And of course the resources to completely melt the metal and pour it into the forms.

[Thomas Kaira]

Well... the whole point of this change is to make it much more difficult for the player to actually craft weapons and armor. Being able to have your own suit of Dragon Armor the instant you hit 100 Smithing and grab the perk is... well, not a very good idea. It ruins the feeling of getting your hands on such powerful armor that you can so easily make it by just trucking a load of materials to the Forge and convert them into top-quality armor in less time than it takes to sharpen a dagger. Realistically, crafting the armor in this game from nothing but raw materials would take weeks. But, since we can't really go that far, the next best solution is simply to distribute armor and weapons in fragments and allow the player to utilize their smithing skill to put them back together. The higher up the chain, the less likely it is you will find a whole weapon and more likely it will be fragmented.If my ideas on lock bashing work out, too, I will also be able to work that mechanic in, so that if a warrior is a bit overzealous, whatever whole equipment was in there will be broken down into fragments and he can repair the gear he damaged at the forge.And, of course, you could always pay a blacksmith to put it back together for you if Smithing is not your thing, or you don't have the needed perk.The ultimate goal is to give Smithing longevity (improved gear degrades back to normal over use), and a sense of accomplishment (finding the fragments of a Daedric sword and putting them back together for a powerful weapon that you worked hard to obtain). As it is, the best way to improve Smithing is mass-production of low level gear. That unbalances the game to the extreme, especially considering how quickly Smithing increases. These changes would turn the tables; now the best way to improve your Smithing is to keep your equipment in prime condition, with a sizable bonus from putting a weapon or armor piece back together from time to time.

[prettyfly]

Well, I'm thinking up a Crowded Cities mod for now. It'll probably have to be a bit more complicated than the Oblivion version though. I'll probably have to tweak each city's spawns to make sure they have the right races for the right area (lots of lower class dunmer in Windhelm, for instance, and nords most of everywhere else). I'll probably name most of them simply after their race rather than the whole hunter-farmer-mage-traveller thing there was going for Oblivion as well. I might put some spawns in interior cells like taverns. And for that note, no aggressive spawns, and they won't be leveled to have really high level gear at high levels. The college of Winterhold will probably get a few special mage spawns of its own, albeit set up to go along with the quest (they won't spawn on the inside at certain points).

[Dwip]

There's always the NWN2 model where you could buy blanks and ore directly from the smith, but that whole thing seemed like way too much complexity for too little gain.That aside, my issue both with buying blanks and scavenging armor pieces is that it removes one of the neat things about Skyrim's crafting, which is that it treats me like any other smith (or enchanter) in the world, with the same restrictions - The only difference between Eorlund Grey-Mane and my high smithing guy is that I have a ton of dragon bones to smith with, and he doesn't. Suddenly forcing me to scavenge pieces just creates new restrictions that nobody else has. Nor, for that matter, am I particularly interested in playing scavenger hunt for the last piece of daedric cuirass, and anyway I keep getting ebony and dwarven from the random draws and argh. Scavenger hunts like that are about the least fun thing ever.Too, while I understand the desire with some people for degredation in some form, I find more and more that I just don't miss it at all. Moreover, given the extremely high number of combats you'll find yourself in over the course of the game, how you would prevent this from semi-constant running back to Whiterun to pound on another bloody ingot is troublesome.All of that said, my problems with smithing as it stands are thus:- It would be nice if smelting gave a very small xp increase, tanning likewise. Could tie into the xp tiers I'm about to describe.- For that matter, it would be nice if I could smelt down armor/weapons (and more of the dwarven clutter) for raw materials.- Bows should probably require leather straps or something, which I don't believe they do.- Also, would it be too much to ask to be able to smelt like 20 or 50 arrows at a time with an ingot, some leather straps, and some kind of wood?- xp for actual smithing is a little too high, or rather xp for smithing iron daggers sticks around way too long. It would be nice if, once you hit a certain smithing skill level, xp for certain tiers of equipment started decreasing and eventually went away altogether, which would force you to smith higher level stuff in order to get better. The prevelance of dwarven and dragon bone means that this system isn't altogether unworkable due to lack of materials.- Ingots above the iron/steel/corundum (maybe orcish) level should probably go away and stop being sold in shops. I have issues with high level anything being sold in shops, but the ingots are actually game-breaking. If you really want ebony armor, finding a mine (or waiting for the high level bandit chiefs and such for armor to smelt) should be the way to go.- Somebody would need to sit down with the stats, but I suspect it would be worth the time making the various enhancements somewhat less good than they currently are, so that Legendary EQ isn't competetive with stuff three tiers beyond it. OTOH, this does mean that one can largely base their character's look on stuff they think looks cool instead of following the merciless armor upgrade grind, so maybe this is a dumb idea.- It might be cool to think about using the enhancement system for minor perks. Like instead of Fine/Superior/Exquisite/Flawless/Epic/Legendary, let's say instead of an Exquisite steel plate armor, you can craft a Superior steel plate armor (one rank down) that weighs 10% less or something. Or if you've got some perk in another tree (destruction?), you can give your armor 5% fire resistance or something. Same thing for weapons. Adds a little bit more tradeoff without going the full enchantment route (which needs its own set of fixes).- It may or may not be a good idea to think about replacing the smithing perk set with some other set of perks instead of just letting you craft certain armor tiers. The improve magic stuff one is fine, but this might be a good spot for some of those improvement perks, or this is where you get the Fine/Superior/etc improvement perks, or you can craft with half as much material or something. Might be far more interesting to have to learn how to craft equipment tiers from actual smiths - anyone can teach you iron or steel, but you'd have to go find an orc for orcish, some schematics in some dwarven ruin (good radiant quest idea here), some high level smiths for ebony and daedric, maybe some kind of dragon quest for dragon armor, etc. You'd still need the actual skill level you need now to actually smith it, but it could be more exciting than just "Oh, new perk! Instant daedric!"- Speaking of Enchantment, it would seem to me that the way quality is calculated is way off being the main problem, with low level items being useless and high level items being uber, but milage may vary on that. Actual progression and the perk tree was fairly reasonable.Most of this is probably contingent upon exactly what the CK gives us (or SKSE), but that's where I'd go with it.

[Dwip]

@prettyfly - Crowded Cities could be reasonably cool (though I'd rather have crowded roads. It's better than Oblivion, but still barren), but names, man. Names. Few things are more immersion killing than talking to "Dunmer". YMMV.@All - Since we're sharing, here's where I'm thinking about starting.Have a house mod, almost certainly in the vicinity of Whiterun or maybe Falkreath (really thinking about the south shore of that big lake west of Riverwood). Probably not as epic as the manor from AFK_Weye, but I do want something bigger than the Whiterun house and less way out in the middle of freaking nowhere than the Solitude house. You'd find it (or possible be given it assuming you have to make Thane in Falkreath first), and it would be more or less in ruins. I think you'd get the option of either flat out buying the upgrades, or using your crafting skills in various fashion to upgrade things, then purchasing a few cheaper upgrades (for cushions, plates, etc).Depending on what architecture is available, I'd like to go with the full on Companions-style longhouse (not that building though) with the big central area and some smaller side rooms or a basement or something. Lots of display plaques/mannequins, a full on smith, enchanter, alchemy station, lots of bookshelves, etc, probably a flunky as well if you make Thane.There's the possibility of this developing into a full-on AFK_Weye style mod, though my idea is to loosely tie this mod into a much larger, more village + epic quest mod thing, and where I'm going with THAT idea is most definitely actually putting you in charge of running a village and throwing down Crossroads Keep style where you can actually create stuff in your village, also with additional added epic quest mod as a bonus.I am heavily open to suggestions as to possible features and inclusions for any of this.

[Thomas Kaira]

On topic of improvements: grindstones and workbenches are everywhere. Almost every large dungeon has one, and if it doesn't, I can always add them. Need to make field repairs? You don't need to look far. To help with the ingot costs, a new perk for Smithing would be added, a 5-tier perk that for each rank, allows you to make improvements without ingots (20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 skill for the ranks). Just find a grindstone and you get your stuff back in shape. This is balanced by the equipment not holding its edge forever. But it will never just snap and break on you becoming useless, the degradation bottoms out once the weapon returns to stock quality. This makes it less forceful and more of a nudge. Nice to have, but not the end of the world if you don't.The reason for the whole scavenger hunt is because just having blacksmiths stop selling higher level metals doesn't solve anything. The exploits lay in the low-level stuff. In order to get Smithing balanced properly, you need to remove the exploit. I don't know if it is possible to modify skill EXP gains at such a low level in this game, unfortunately. It looks like the exact same system as Oblivion, where a set XP gain is provided for each action. If it is, degrading XP gains for individual weapon tiers might not be possible. So that means the only other option is limiting the potential of crafting new weaponry. The minute someone gets the ability to craft iron daggers in the vanilla system (which is right at the start of the game), Smithing is busted.Whatever system replaces this old, highly exploitable system needs to have some serious limits to keep Smithing from being as game-breaking as it is right now. If it does turn out to be possible to stop XP gains from certain equipment tiers once you reach a certain rank, I will take that over the scavenger hunt, but if it isn't, scavenger hunt is the only option.

[Dwip]

We must be going to different dungeons, then, because I don't recall seeing all THAT many grindstones/workbenches where I was going, but I'm not sure that changes my point overmuch. Milage varies a lot here, and I'd probably have a much different answer if this were a component of a survivalist mod that also required eating food, sleeping, etc (which I'm not opposed to as a concept, actually). Just by itself in the game? Not so much.We disagree about the exact location of Smithing's "I win!" button. Your issue seems to be that Smithing, by itself, lets you level and level and level off of iron daggers alone. I don't tend to see that as being the big problem - Smithing by itself is worth, what, less than 9 levels in a game where individual levels don't mean a ton? I could just power level Conjuration and avoid the whole issue. To my mind, the real win button in Smithing is that high level Smithing allows you to craft, much earlier than is normally the case, high quality equipment with merchant-sold ingots. Thus, removing easy access to the higher-level ingots forces the player to do a lot more exploring for locations than they might otherwise (which is fun) rather than scouring endless dungeons for that one scrap of armor (which is only fun in Diablo II). I'm further trying to expand the fun and decrease the perk-granted win button armors by forcing schematic quests, Fallout-style, though I'd make these actual quests and skill challenges you get off smiths (sort of like OB-style trainer quests) rather than just wander the world until you find them sorts of things. Since you need to actual gain ranks in the skill AND go questing, that increases the sense of accomplishment via a pretty fun method, IMHO.So it may or may not be able to modify XP levels (though I'd settle for a moderate decrease in overall XP), but I don't really see that as being the main problem with the system in the first place.

[Mael]

I will never install a mod that makes a grind profession more difficult, regardless of how "real" it makes it, and I think I can pretty much speak for 99% of the player base on that.Too, I don't think having high quality ingots at the smith is a bad thing. It kept my character broke constantly because I would buy everything I could and then smith it and it still took me a damn long time to get to 100. And I never did make dragon armor because I sold all the bones for money to buy ingots. And once I'm at 100, so what if I only have to kill a dragon to make a whole set of armor. God dammit, I just spent hours and hours and 100K+ gold to level the skill. I deserve a God damned reward.You guys forget that the game has a difficulty setting. If you think your uber armor is too uber, jack up the difficulty a notch. That's what it's there for. I seriously doubt you'll kill Alduin in 10 seconds even with your epiced out level 50 character on the hardest setting. And don't give me some crap about "I shouldn't have to mess with the difficulty setting." This isn't Diablo. If you want more challenge, play the game on hard. Meanwhile, I'll play on adept and get through the story lines because that's the part I enjoy. Don't go fucking me over because you feel under-challenged. And by me I mean all the people like me. But most importantly me.I don't think you should have to improve crafted armor to begin with. If you're capable of making exquisite armor, then every piece you smith should be exquisite. Leave improving to stuff you find on corpses. Obviously weapons too.There are a few mods I've seen underway that let you melt down stuff to make ingots, and make arrows with an ingot and firewood and feathers. It would be cool, in my opinion, to be able to make enchanted arrows with, say, hagraven feathers. In that mod you get feathers by deconstructing other arrows, but I'm sure there's a way you could make chickens and quail have feathers to loot and use. Hell, you want to get creative? Use dragon scales as fletching and bone for shafts. I'm pretty sure someone's doing or done that. Hagraven fletched arrows could do additional poison damage, dragon scale fletched arrows could have a knockback, etc etc.I agree that bows should take leather strips or even linen wrap for the handles. The bow my dad made used linen and glue as a strengthener and wrapped linen for the grip. Go go longbow.I find myself wishing they had put goblins in Skyrim, because I have so many ideas for a goblin quest mod. In fact, they really didn't put in any bad guy demi-humans, did they? I guess I could use scaled down atronachs or something... TEACUP STORM ATRONACH STATIC SHOCKS YOU FOR 2 DAMAGE!

[Thomas Kaira]

Then we will have to agree to disagree. I enjoy hardcore challenges like that, because I look for enhancing the difficulty in means beyond simply increasing an arbitrary Strong-Weak ratio adjustment. For me, true difficulty comes in challenging the player in a more indirect fashion. Tying Smithing into treasure hunting is something I would like, it limits resources and makes it much more difficult to obtain such high-quality gear.See, I'm of the mind that one should work towards their rewards. Given how easy Smithing is to train, that effectively makes it free handouts once you get your skill high enough and get the perks you want. the moment I hit 70 Smithing, I had full, upgraded Glass armor in five minutes. Despite only ever seeing a single piece in my entire game up to that point while dungeon-diving. Something is very wrong with that picture. When armor is supposed to be rare, allowing the player to just press the "gimme" button for a few hundred coins obliterates the feeling that you really got something special. I'm trying to find a way to put that feeling of accomplishment back, you worked hard to get everything together for that rare armor, and once you put the pieces back together and see that brand new suit of Glass, you feel like you truly earned it.Mael: don't underestimate how many hardcore players exist out there. Check out the hits on Fallout 3's Arwen's Realism Tweaks. Those are about as hardcore as you can get, and is one of the most downloaded Fallout mods there is. So I call foul on that 99% number. If my mod caters to them and not to you, so be it. I'm not trying to change any minds, I'm proposing something that would make Smithing into what I want it to be. Don't like it? Don't use it.

[Ysne58]

The reason for the whole scavenger hunt is because just having blacksmiths stop selling higher level metals doesn't solve anything. The exploits lay in the low-level stuff. In order to get Smithing balanced properly' date=' you need to remove the exploit. I don't know if it is possible to modify skill EXP gains at such a low level in this game, unfortunately. It looks like the exact same system as Oblivion, where a set XP gain is provided for each action. If it is, degrading XP gains for individual weapon tiers might not be possible. So that means the only other option is limiting the potential of crafting new weaponry. The minute someone gets the ability to craft iron daggers in the vanilla system (which is right at the start of the game), Smithing is busted.[/quote']Take a look at Elys Uncapper for Skyrim. It is possible to slow down skill level gain.