» Fri Jun 14, 2013 9:30 pm Groan, not another one!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that most of you probably aren't really excited when you hear about overhauls.
You hear the word "Overhaul" and usually you go find another mod to look at or something.
Maybe you already have some overhauls, and you're not really looking to replace them.
Maybe you just think overhauls are big, clunky, with too many compatibility issues.
Or maybe you're OCD and you hate it when a mod isn't quite perfectly balanced the way you like it.
(Raises hand, guilty of the latter)
If any of those 3 reasons are why you don't normally give Overhauls a chance, I hope you'll give Abilities Plus a chance, and here's why:
- Novel Content: The overhaul is going to feature lots of new content, stuff you haven't seen in any other mods yet, as well as my take on old favorites like timed blocking. Maybe you have old overhauls. Well, I can't really make a new overhaul that won't conflict with old ones. But I can at least promise there's going to be enough new toys to be worth your consideration, and hopefully I'll keep enough old favorites that you can justify the transition over.
- SuperCompatibility: Okay so at the end of the day, I'm making an overhaul. It's going to have conflict issues inevitably. But I'm going to do everything in my power to make it as compatible as possible in spite of that. The overhauls going to be split up into several smaller modules. One submodule for every 1-3 skills. And each submodule will have an MCMenu where you can tweak game balance and activate/deactivate various scripts. I made http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/33395/ afterall. So you can rest assured that there won't be any compatibility issues beyond what's absolutely necessary for the core mechanics of each overhaul to function.
- Tweakability: I know how it feels to be OCD about the exact balance of a mod. I'll put as many game balance options in your hand as possible. This may be an overhaul, but you should have the tools to customize each submodule of the overhaul to your hearts content.
So what is Abilities Plus about?
To me, it's about innovation. With every submodule I release, I want to add something new to the community.
New gameplay mechanics with a fundamentally different approach on how to make the game more balanced and interesting.
Most of these gameplay mechanics will be implemented through new abilities, unlockable by the player.
Hence the name: Abilities Plus.
One common theme among all the skill submodules is the Loadout System:
In the loadout system, each traditional perk will unlock 2 "Loadout" perks.
You can buy one of the loadout perks with gold, serving as a gold sink.
You can only have one loadout perk from a pair at a given time.
You can switch to the other loadout perk any time in the future, but it will cost cash and will deactivate your current loadout perk.
This is meant to give an extra layer of character customization to the game.
I want people to be able to give some serious thought on how they want to build their character.
Release Schedule:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/36814/
Vile Concoctions is the Alchemy Submodule of the overhaul.
What do most Alchemy Overhauls do?
Often times they make potions work over time, that way you can't spam them.
And a lot of them are focused on making potion crafting less profitable and exploitable.
SkyRe added new poison based traps, and a few mods added explosive grenades/arrows/etc.
But there's never been a big content based alchemy overhaul.
- Toxicity system inspired by The Witcher series of games.
In the Witcher series of games, potions last a long time.
So Vile Concoctions lets you make fortify potions last very long, to encourage you to use up those potions of fortify X and resist Y, instead of just selling them.
This is balanced because like in The Witcher games, you can't just stack a million potions. Each alchemy effect increases your toxicity. And if your toxicity goes too high, you overdose and suffer various penalties (tweakable) ranging from attribute damage, skill damage, slowed movement speed, and projectile vomiting.
- Potion cooldown system. Most mods prefer to make healing potions work over time.
But like I said, Abilities Plus is about Innovation.
Potions, such as healing potions work instantly, but trigger cooldowns that prevent certain other potions (or all other potions, depending on your perks) from working.
If you try to drink a potion during cooldown, it will have no effect and your potion will be refunded.
There's more depth to game mechanics with a cooldown system
I think most other modders don't implement a cooldown system since it's *much* more annoying to implement than simply making a cooldown system.
But I'm not cutting corners for this overhaul.
- Battle Alchemy
Most people craft in order to make money and to make OP potions.
I can't really do anything to the crafting system to change that fundamentally, so I didn't.
Instead I attempted to shift the focus off of crafting over to "Battle Alchemy"
Vile Concoctions adds Grenades, Landmines, Explosive Arrows, and some poison based abilities.
You gain experience now for drinking potions, poisoning enemies, or blowing them up (the various xp rates are tweakable of course)
That way you can level up alchemy without ever needing to craft. Not that crafting was removed.
Armored Artes - WIP
Vile Concoctions is the Light Armor, Heavy Armor, and Block Submodule of the overhaul.
Here's the problem I have with most "hardcoe" combat mods.
They tend to increase difficulty by restricting the player's options.
A very common feature for example, is increased stamina cost.
Swinging your weapon costs more stamina, blocking costs more stamina, blocking is ineffective at low stamina.
Which sounds fine on paper but what happens when you actually play one of these mods?
Well you have to be more "Tactical". Tactical of course meaning you have to abuse chokepoints and do a lot of backpedaling as your stamina restores.
If that's what "hardcoe means", well, I don't like it.
I want the game to be difficult where if I screw up, even against the weakest enemies, I'm dead.
But at the same time, I still want to feel like a master of the battlefield.
I want to be able to go up against 5 bandits and be able to kill while standing my ground.
I just want it to be really hard to do so, not impossible, just hard and skill based.
- Player Stagger System:
Most mods have a player stagger system, it's standard fare.
If you've used the Player Stagger script in SkyTweak, that's going to be similar to what you'll find in Armored Artes.
Ultimately Player Stagger is essential to challenge. Without it, you can kite enemies all day long with little to no risk.
Player Stagger gives enemies the chance to stun you then beat you down if you make the slightest mistake.
- Timed Block
Timed block is also standard fare in many combat mods.
The exact mechanics are based on my personal preferences, but if you've used SkyTweak you should be familiar with the general mechanics.
- Twin Armor Perks
One thing I didn't like about perks, is they kind of discourage you from trying out different equipment.
If you get perks for Heavy armor, it's almost like you're committed to heavy armor.
Perks for Light and Heavy Armor have been paired. If you get a perk for Light Armor, you will automatically receive the mirrored perk from the Heavy Armor tree as well.
Your Heavy Armor skill will still be low, so the armor rating will be low until you level it up, but you won't need to spend extra perk points or a perk reset to swap armor specializations.
- Armor Based Abilities
Another problem I had with Vanilla Skyrim is that light and heavy armor aren't really different from each other, espcially at level 100 and when you max out the perks.
I want to change that, I want you to really think "How is a heavy helmet different from a light helmet and which do I really want?"
Armored Artes adds armor based abilities. For Example:
If you wear heavy boots, you can use seismic stomp, an AOE stagger spell that consumes stamina and has a cooldown.
If you wear light boots, or clothing shoes, or no boots at all, you can use Haste, a temporary boost to your movement speed at the cost of stamina.
And so forth. These abilities are all centered around movement and crowd control. Like I said, I want the game to be a challenge, but the kind of challenge where I can charge into a group of 5 enemy bandits and come out on top. These new armor abilities will make that possible, even if your difficulty is set so high you go down in a handful of hits.
Charging won't be the safest plan, but at least it will have a chance of working.
Combat mods that encourage "Tactical" gameplay are boring IMO.
I'm going to encourage "Risk vs Reward" gameplay.
Getting surrounded is going to be very risky, but the prize!
Leveled List Editor & Squads - Future Project
I'm adding a lot of mods that give the player new abilities.
And you're probably thinking, don't all these new abilities make the player pretty OP?
Well, you would be right.
And here's are the solutions:
- Leveled NPC List Editor
Add/Remove enemies from leveled lists through the convenience of an MCMenu.
Add new tougher enemies to give you more challenge.
- Squads
So high level enemies are nice and all, but they're probably not quite enough.
Lets look at other, more combat oriented games like Bioshock for example. How do they approach combat differently?
Well they have very diverse enemies, with very specific roles. The handyman is very fast and designed to pressure the player to keep moving.
Whereas ranged enemies with guns prevent the player from just moving anywhere he wants.
Gamers in Skyrim ask for better AI this, better AI that. But really, is AI really necessary to make combat interesting?
Maybe all we need, is a collection of enemies with good synergy with each other.
Lets look at ASIS, it increases spawns, making more of the same enemy.
Lets up the ante, lets add squads. Groups of enemies that (on paper anyways) work well in a team.
Perhaps a squad of one battlemage and two shocktroopers. The battlemage showers the battlefield with fireballs, whereas the shocktroopers are given high movement speeds and high aggression, so they flush the player out of cover. Will these NPC's have good AI? Well I will make the obligatory Combat Style edits and GMST edits, but not more than any other mod. With this overhaul, I'm gambling that the right combination of enemies will provide just the right spice and challenge to combat, to complement the other overhauls.
Custom Crafts - Future Project
This is the Smithing, Enchanting, One Handed, Two Handed, Marksman submodule for the overhaul.
Smithing and Enchanting are really OP in vanilla Skyrim.
They don't really add anything to the game either, they're just easy ways to get epic gear.
Custom Crafts adds ability level up by upgrading existing items.
And I'm not talking about tempering, I'm talking about an in depth item customization system.
You will be able to loot certain rare customizable items
These items will have randomized default stats, and a random number of slots.
Lets say we loot Epic Sword.
It has 3 gem slots, 4 tempering slots, and 24 overall slots
We use our smithing skill to encrust 3 rubies, this consumes 3 gem slots and lets say, 6 total upgrade slots. Leaving 4 tempering slots and 18 overall slots.
We get some experience and now our sword has absorb health on critical hit thanks to those rubies.
This project is a ways off so the exact mechanics haven't been fleshed out yet but I hope you get the idea.
If you're familiar with my mod: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32991/ imagine that but the loot is upgradeable.
One Handed, Two Handed, and Marksman will also be overhauled, but possible as a separate module from Custom Crafts.
I intend to make implement an intricate critical hit system, so that will need to tie into the 1H/2H/Marksman skill trees inevitably.
Other Future Projects
I do want to cover the entire skill tree by the time I'm done the overhaul.
but those aren't really on my mind right now. I'm going to work on what I listed above, and if I get through those, I'll keep going.
