I've often thought that if a mod were to give a practical game "use" to a house (or castle or tower or whatever), then houses would become important to the player to obtain as soon as possible. Really, all they are now is a place to store stuff (or a place for an immersionist to roll around in).

When you had a Sleep mod, all of a sudden, beds become important. Sleeping becomes important, whether that's in the wilderness, in a guild, in a home, or in an inn. Eliminate the ability to Fast Travel in a game, and all of a sudden, horses become very, very important (because they become pratical to the player).

I'm thinking of a mod that will do the same type of thing for owning a house--make the player need it.





I've got the Battlehorn official plug-in, and I purchased the dwemer forge. This forge adds +15 to your armor skill when using it. For me, since my toon's armor skill is already pretty high, that pops me over the edge so that I can fix armor and weapons to 125%.

Without the forge, I can't pop stuff over 100%. So (and this is key), I find myself making frequent trips back to my castle so that I can use that forge and get my stuff up to 125%.

It's a practical--in game--use.

Houses need more of this type of stuff.





Here's my idea:

Change Alchemy so that it cannot be done in your backpack. A mod like http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5478 already makes it possible to mix potions using the alchemy utensils on a table rather than in your inventory. Incorporate this mod into the Home mod with a couple of changes.

Change 1 - Make it impossible to brew potions from your backpack. You can still do this out in the wild, as in a wilderness camp, but you need a fire, a table, and alchemy gear.

Change 2 - Change the timescale when brewing potions. In the vanilla game, it costs no time to brew potions as time is paused with our inentory open. I suggest using a high timescale when brewing potions so that a significant portion of time passes while the character is brewing.

Change 3 - Since the toon won't be brewing as often, we'll need to up the skill progression when brewing so that the Alchemy skill will still advance on par with that in the vanilla game.

Change 4 - The Mages Guild will have an alchemy bench that members can use.

Change 5 - Maybe make potions longer lasting? Since the player won't be able to make whatever he needs on the spot (he'll have to think ahead), we might want to think about making potions a bit more powerful.



OK, now you have a practical, in-game reason to have a house: You'll have a save place to store your stuff, a free place to get some shut-eye, and a place to brew your potions...

But, there's more!



We could do the same thing with Armorer skill. We could require that the player be next to a forge in order to actually repair armor and weapons (not unlike having to be next to the dwemer forge in order to get the +15 skill benefit). Yep, make it impossible to do this in the inventory unless next to a forge--the forge is key. This will also have a side benefit of making the town smiths more useful (because no forge, no working on your equipment).

Change 1 - Change timescale as with alchemy. Working on armor and weapons takes time.

Change 2 - Maybe work a way to where the player can pay to use a town smith's forge--if the smith likes him?

Change 3 - We'll have to make armor much, much more resistant to damage. We can't have armor going to zero in the middle of the first dungeon crawl the player makes. This wouldn't work. It's the third time the player goes down into a deep dark cave without his armor upkeep that he runs the risk of stuff going zero...something around those lines.

Change 4 - If a piece goes to zero health, it is not repairable. It is destroyed an removed from the player's inventory--NO MATTER WHAT THE ITEM IS. Making armor stronger will make players lazy about going to smiths UNLESS they could actually lose a favored item if it goes to zero health. Better, longer lasting armors become VERY important, allowing the players to make interesting decisions ("Do I use the magical Iron gauntlets or the steel non-magical ones? Because the steel ones sure last a long time and can take some abuse.) Players will spend more money on upkeep, going to smiths when forges aren't accessible, and they'll spend money on new equipment that was destroyed (all of this combating the influx of gold experienced in the vanilla game).

Change 5 - The Figther's Guild will have a forge that members can use.

Change 6 - We'll als have to play with the Armorer skill advancement rate, making it so that the skill moves up comparable to that in the vanilla game.





I'm sure I can think of some more changes/reasons to have a house. But, this thinking goes down the track: Why should a player buy a house as soon as he can?

1. A place to sleep (if using a sleep mod).

2. A secure place to store stuff.

3. A place to brew potions (if alchemy table available, which could mean alchemy gear set up on the kitchen table).

4. A place to repair armor and weapons (if a forge is availalbe - this needs to be a major, costly, add-on to a house).





This isn't a simple mod to make, but some of the pieces are already in place (like At Home Alchemy...I bet someone would find a forge add-on...Real Sleep Enhanced uses variable timescale for different tasks, so something similar could be used to alter the timescale with brewing potions and using the forge...etc). Some of the mod will consist of incorporating other mods into it.

Nevertheless, this is a challenge.

What do you modders think?

Random thoughts...
- When the game is paused, it's paused. You can change the timescale all you want, it will not matter. Only way would be to forward the time (several mods do so), but this messes up AI schedules, quests that are tracking time, and can cause other weirdness.
- The only way I see to prevent the player from accessing the alchemy and repair menu would be OBSE, to force shutdown these menus if not some kind of marker is present. This would be really easy to do.
- Destruction of broken pieces was already done, as was mods changing how fast armors and weapon wear down.
- Potions created by the player are governed by a couple of GMSTs and the magic effects. Shouldn't be much of a problem to extend their durations, only hard to fine tune with the rest of the game.
- So the ideas are certainly possible, though I can't say I really would see myself working on them. Imho to make houses important to the player there should be something positive to draw him/her to it, not something negative everywhere else.

Yeah, there's some menu time mods that advance time while you're reading a book and what not.



Sounds good. Or, when the menu pops up, it's blank--because the elements were removed or moved to a space the player can't access (off the screen).



It seems a lot of this idea is the integration of mods that already exist. Does that make it easier, since some of the work has already been done?



We'd have to keep a stern eye on game balance, for sure.




It's positive that the house is where you can do all this stuff--like the dwemer forge at my castle keeps drawing me back.

I never thought of it as if "I can't do it elsewhere". I thought of it as "if I go back to the castle, I can improve my stuff better than I can out in the field".

Which leads me to another idea...what if we don't disable the alchemy and armor smithing out in the field...what if we just hinder it a little.

Let's say, out in the field, the best you can do is one level below what you are. A Journeyman armor smith, for example, acts as an Apprentice unless in front of a forge?

Or, if a variable is hard to to, how about capping it? Say...Apprentice level is the highest attainable in the field without an alchemy bench or forge.

Just thinking out loud here.

What I think would be cool to do if Alchemy can only be done at home/at a fire/whatever, is to make it more immersive as a whole. Basically replacing Alchemy as it is now by a scripted version similar to craftybits where you have to put the ingredients into the alchemy equipment, then mix, heat, etc.
Just a random idea that popped up when I read the word brewing, don't mind me

The first idea about Alchemy is the one that would surely make a really great immersion mod.

I like there to be advantages to being home and/or in a guild as well.


The armor issue you bring up is fixed by this http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14764

I too would like there to be some nerfing of armorer & alchemy when in the wilderness. Your suggestion for armorer works for me but not the alchemy one. Not sure what would work since I don't want it to be a nuisance. Hmm... *thinks*

Yes, but they don't affect the timescale. They merely forward the time.

Put this into the console to understand the concept: set gamehour to gamehour + 12

Essentially those menu mode mods do the same, if only that they calculate the time skip. Horrible thing for AI and other stuff in the gameworld actually time dependent.

Many "useable item's" (e.g. repair hammer's) behavior is hardcoded. Doing something like this just asks for a CTD or a concept not going to work properly. More simple: Closing the menu .


"Hey little rat in your cage! I'm going to put 3/4 of your cage under voltage. But the remaining 1/4 is then really positive, yay!"

No, it's not. That's what Skinner would have called "negative reinforcement".

The dwemer forge however is what Skinner would have called "positive reinforcement", because it enables you to do something better than what's normally possible.

Restricting what can be done outside of houses however is just imposing negative reinforcements over the rest of the gameworld, not bringing by itself something positive to the houses itself.

I understand what you're saying, but an armor in vanilla can do what the dwemer forge does if he's high enough level. I just hit 75 in Armorer, and, all of a sudden, I can do in the field what I was doing at the dwemer forge--making my stuff go up to 125%.

Now...that need to go back to the castle isn't as strong since I can do it without it.

I was hoping to give the houses the same kind of pull that the castle and forge had on me when I couldn't do the 125% bit.




I do understand your point, though. So, what are some ideas to make the houses positive?

This is a nice mod. I think I came up with the idea originally, and those modders made it. I believe it was developed on Delte's Thread. But, even if my memory is hazy on how it's developed, the reason I don't use the mod is because armor deteriorates too fast in the game. You can get in one fight with an Ogre and you'll be wearing your shirt and shoes.

If this is going to be used (and I do like the idea), then armor needs to be more lasting, as I mention above.





This is a good point, and I'm always bringing it up on my thread. Immersion isn't exactly realism. There's a bathing mod out there that gives you penalties to your personality if you don't bath. Neat idea. It's more realistic than vanilla. But, it's also a pain in the butt--who wants to keep up with that?

Some people don't like eating mods. Like going to the bathroom, you just assume it's being done.

And, then there's the things that are glossed over in a fantasy setting--like the movement our toons get in full plate armor. Running and jumping. Carrying two or four two-handed war hammers without being winded. Swimming in armor!

We take these things for granted. Realism does not always mean Immersion.

Immersion is whatever it takes to make the game feel real--not actually be real.

So, your point about Alchemy is well taken. We don't want anything being a nuisance.

We want it to be fun.

We want it to add to the game.

Not everything immersive needs to be "postive"..... Adding the need to eat, sleep, etc. could be considered negative reinforcement, simply because if you do not comply, there are negative consequences. People add these mods to their game, is it adds more "realism" to gameplay. In my opinion, restricting the ability to suspend time, and perform various actions that require specialized equipment/resources within the game, is indeed immersive.

very good ideas, delte!
(some if my comments below may be out of line with the previous posts/replies. i merely scanned through them.)

the mod can simply close the relevant menus (and an appropriate messaged displayed) if several checks fail:
e.g. for forge, check for armoury equipment around the player
for brewing potions, check for lab equipment around the player.
so, the mod can be as simple that.

as previously mentioned, time penalties are already achived with other mods: MenuTime, theNiceOne's Real Sleep Extended and my Auto-time and save.
e.g.: these mod already make MMM's crafting mini-game more "realistic".
and bg2408 is correct, the time penalties from menu-mode actions are actually achieved by putting forward time.

re: immersive gameplay...
some players like the "immersive" gameplay. but a lot of other players don't.
some of these players understand what we mean by "immersive" gameplay.
while those that don't, think that those that like "immersion" foresake "fun" for it. which is not the case at all.
"immersion" doesn't simply mean "no fun" nor does it simply mean "make it difficut".
it will mean different things, to different modders/users.

I'd been thinking about alchemy recently actually.

Ideally, I'd like to see alchemy split in two, Alchemy (magickal effects) and Apothecry (which isn't a real word but would deal with medicines), with herbalism and hunting as additional aspects (for acquiring ingredients). I'd even go so far as to highly nerf the financial side of Alchemy...really would a merchant or professional alchemist be willing to buy untested potions from a random stranger in bloody armor. Why not have a system where you have to develop a relationship with the merchant, establish a reputation, acquire some rare ingredients that the merchant can't afford to refuse. Prove your bonafides and do him a favour or two before he'll buy your potion. And then require you to be honest about what the potion is capable of when you sell it.

Then again, in my perfect game potions would have actual recipes, not just matching ingredients.

At any rate, and more to the point of this discussion, a reasonable nerf to alchemy in the wilds would be to introduce more types of equipment to use (which one mod has done), and make the better equipment to large and heavy to carry with you, and too complex to set up in the field. Have lesser equipment be portable, but not nearly as effective. Restrict the player to primarily grinding ingredients to make salves, and teas with medicinal properties, or simple magical effects. Have the complex effects require a proper lab.

How about the rain and snow.

Houses will keep you warm.

Preach it, baby, preach it. I'm hearing the word. Keep it coming.

so which house mods would have these workshops already in place?
list them here, so that i can download them and check for the room's ids and/or equipment ids that could be used for a repairing armour and an alchemy lab.

creating a mod that would check for these and close the relevant menus when they are not in the immediate vicinity of the player is easy from that point on.

then another modder willing to extend that base will be welcome to it.

I never understood how the seemingly highly delicate and fragile apparatuses like the retort, alembic, and calcinator (or potions for that matter) could possibly survive in an adventurers backpack. Perhaps instead of creating new types of equipment, make the existing equipment breakable somehow so that they could be used in the wild, but with the possibility of breaking while wrestling around with an ogre or bandit. Therefore, it is possible to take your advanced equipment with you, but there may be consequences to removing your alchemical tools from the lab.

That's an interesting idea: The thought that stuff in your backpack can be broken in a fight.

How would you do this? If a piece of armor goes to zero health, something, randomly, in your backpack breaks.

Or, you could make the backpack a hit location just like the other pieces of armor. When it hits, something in the pack is broken.

Just thinking out loud with you.

Yes! This would be great - during a fight, have a chance of your mortar & pestle being broken! (Doesn't even have to be when an item of armour is broken - how protected is your backpack anyway?)

Breaking the mortar and pestle would certainly persuade me to be more cautious about where I take them, and would make me much more likely to go home to do my alchemy.

I think, since this thread is generating so much other exciting discussion, its also time to consider (with the death of the minigames) the death of the armorer, alchemy, and possibly other menus. Armorer would seem like the easiest, but alchemy could work as well. Here is what I imagine:

Taking inspiration from Zumb's lockpicking mod, Simply turn hammers into "weapons" that can be equipped (but can't be used to fight). When you wield the hammer, you'll swing it just like anything else. But if you aim it at a piece of unequipped armor, you will perform a hammering animation and make a hammering sound (traditionally, this would be the 'successful' sound or 'unsuccessful' sound) Your hammer will have a certain health, which will be reduced while using (along with a smaller chance of breaking while in use). The more skilled you are in armory, the more successful you will be at repairing your armor. Other people, with lower skills, will simply be unsuccessful (rather than having hammers break all the time). Another possibility, if your armorer skill is really low, you may actually damage your armor in your feeble attempts to repair it, and thus have a greater reason to seek out professionals for armor repair and armorer training.

Something else that could be done with Alchemy: Make the Alchemy apparati objects that can be interacted with and have their own animations. For example, when you set up an Alchemy set, you can put aloe vera leaves into the mortar and pestle. Upon exiting the container screen, you will be prompted with a message asking you if you want to grind the leaves (and to what condition). You answer, and the message exits, and you see the mortar and pestle spring to life as if moved with invisible hands. A noise would play, and depending on how fine of a material you chose, the animation/sound would last for x amount of time. Once the animation is complete, you reactivate the mortar and pestle and withdraw the Finely Ground Aloe Vera Leaves or Roughly Ground Aloe Vera Leaves, or whatever. You can then activate the alembic, for example, and deposit the Finely Grounded Aloe Vera Leaves along with a bottle of Vampire dust that you collected, as well as mushrooms you ground up earlier, and a small bottle of water. Upon exiting, you are prompted with a message asking you if you want to boil them and for how long? You decide (lets say, one day) and then a animation of a boiling alembic begins (with accompanying sounds) as a little fire springs to life underneath the alembic and you can see a clear liquid rapidly boiling. You can then leave and come back in a day to harvest your results, or continue working on your concoction by adding more ingredients or by putting it through different apparati, or you could possibly come back earlier and 'cancel' the boiling and harvest your results now.

Of course, this method of alchemy would be infinitely more complicated, consisting of a range of possible effects and outcomes, depending upon a whole host of variables. Not to mention, of course, writing out some alchemy scrolls that reveal hints to the player for making certain potions, and acknowledging the fact that the 'four alchemical properties' of ingredients might be obsolete from here on out. Instead, alchemical properties would be based on combinations, brewing times, and other preparation variables.

Of course, something much more simpler, without changing as much, could be done, but I thought I'd go overboard first. I certainly think the above option would be the most rewarding (and most work). For example, there could be hints scattered throughout the game on how to transmute metal into gold. Building off these hints and their own knowledge of alchemical properties (which could be connected to their alchemical skill), a high level experienced alchemical player with the proper equipment could transmute metals that they find into gold. The above idea would also pave the way for new equipment that could be used (like billows, ovens, cauldrons, etc) in the alchemical (and possibly armory) process.

Poorly skilled players would be unable to identify the properties of the potions they make (meaning that they could poison themselves), and/or the ingredients that they add. Certain ingredients could violently conflict with each other, and if combined (usually by an ignorant low-skilled player), the alchemy equipment could explode, hurting anyone around and destroying/damaging itself.



Whew. That was a lot, and pretty unorganized. I know its a lot to ask for, but ideas are meant to be grand in the beginning.


EDIT: To clear some things up, I basically have two general ideas in this post:

First, to convert blacksmithing and alchemy to real time gameplay.

Second, to overhaul both skills, taking advantage of the real time aspect of the first idea. Essentially, they will make the player more reliant on skill, but at the same time more reliant on their own skill at playing Oblivion. The alchemy part of this post in particular emphasizes identifying alchemical outcomes rather than ingredient properties, and learning which recipes lead to which outcomes.

Repair hammers break only when they're being used, so the simplest idea might be to have the alchemical apparatus subject to the same random breakage in use, with higher chances in the wilderness than in the lab. To do it properly, you should have the option of which apparatus you use at any point - the Mortar and Pestle must always be used, but the rest should be optional, and what you're not using should not be subject to breakage. However, that refinement may be harder to implement, and it would work without it.

This method of applying breakage would probably be easier to implement than in-fight. I can believe in a well-padded backpack - especially one large enough to carry three full suits of armor - that would protect the equipment well enough when it's just being carried around. Things break when you get them out to use. It's also a requirement for you to be able to get the really delicate stuff home with you from the dungeon you found it in! Just don't use it until it's safe in your lab.

A further refinement might be that the higher the apparatus level, the more delicate it is. So you can safely take Novice equipment out with you, but Master level stuff breaks in a strong breeze, so you leave it at home! This would make the low-level stuff worth keeping as well as being a "house" benefit.

I can imagine the awful tedious pain of unequipping and attempting to drop onto surfaces every piece of armor and every weapon I intend to repair and then flailing around with a hammer, knocking stuff all over the room...

And suddenly making a dozen potions takes 15 minutes of real time. Also, the unimaginably large number of scrolls that would be needed to replace the menu system of listing ingredient effects...

Nothing wrong with aiming high and scaling back from there. On your point regarding "reward"...

Actions that have to be done with some frequency and in great repetition can very easily slide toward tedium. Streamlining the process can make it more fun, intuitive, and worth doing. Overloading such actions with time-consuming animations, needless extra steps, etc., drastically reduces the incentive to use those skills.

gothemasticator

Heh, funnily enough..., I can too. At the time when I wrote that, I was thinking of some sort of setup where you would activate a, say, anvil, and place "in" it the armors/weapons you want to repair. Each will appear on the anvil, in the order they are stacked. You just have to perform the animation until the armor is repaired, and then the next armor appears. Of course, the visual effect is simply to alert the player what armor they are repairing, and to give a little immersion. Really, you wouldn't need it. Just put the armors in the anvil, and hammer away at it. Take the stuff back out, and....wah-la! All repaired.

Though, of course, I'm not sure how to implement this...



Well, you wouldn't need scrolls. A lot of I wrote down was brainstorming garbage. If you adopt my whole "revolution of alchemy" idea, the focus would be on identifying alchemical outcomes, rather than identifying ingredient properties. That way, no one ingredient alchemical properties by itself. It needs to be combined.

You can, though, simply stick with the vanilla system, and in that case, you could just toss in the ingredients you want to mix, wait, i don't know, an hour as the potion brews, sticking around to watch the animations or leaving to go shopping, dungeon crawling, etc. No sense in completely doing away with ingredient properties. In fact, doing it this way actually means:
1. less time spent making potions in the menu. More time playing the game in real time.
2. another reason to have a home/be a mage's guild member.

You would, however, have a similar problem here with tediousness. I can only recommend an "alchemy table" that you can buy and place in the home of your choosing. Each table will have a different set: an Apprentice Table, a Journeyman Table, etc.



This is very, very true. Although, I must admit, whenever I go looking for immersion mods, I go expecting some sort of tediousness to be a tradeoff. Realistic fatigue, making me walk up hills rather than run, is just an example. If there is any way that you (or anyone else) can perceive as a way of streamlining this, it would be an exciting development. I think the possibility of potions exploding, accidentally making potions that poison you, and mixing up new concoctions with the same ingredients would be positives as to increasing enjoyment of the alchemy aspect of Oblivion. As it stands, the system is quite efficient, but incredibly drab. :snoring: And, perhaps, a little two efficient. But that's just my take. ^_^

Another thought on Alchemy at Home: The current dialog makes use of the four standard pieces of equipment if you have them in inventory, but Scales and Hourglasses would also contribute to potion quality by improving the accuracy of your recipes. There's scope for including their effects (if in range/inventory) for higher value and/or stronger results. This could be another "at home only" benefit.

This and breakable apparatus are beginning to tempt me to start a mod - or should they be separate? It occurs to me that an hourglass is quite breakable, too.

I would say separate, but with support for each other available should someone wish to use both together. I think you'd be able to spread breakage to non-alchemy equipment anyway, although I can't think of anything right now.

Speaking of which, I think we got a little off topic here (especially me...my bad. ^_^ ).

Anyway, as for making houses more important, I think what Canvas said on the previous page needs addressed.



This could be done numerous ways. First, you could have a mod that scripts armor and weapons to "rust" or take damage whenever a player swims or is out in the rain. Snow and snowfall is harder to invision. I'm not sure what they would be, but you could add negative effects in certain areas/at certain times of the year. For example, if the player is not wearing something considered "warm" when walking around snowy Bruma, they might get the disease Hypothermia. But again, I'm just going out on a limb here. I have no idea what is possible.

A few quick ideas before going of to work

1. Reading a book at home (time the reading so you are not only opening the book but actually spend a little time reading) add a temp INT boost (fortify Intelligence a couple of hours - at least as long so you can make some use of your raised int). Make the amount adjustable as it can break the gamebalance depending on what mods you use.

2. Sleeping/spending time at home - Raise fatigue and health for a time. Always more restive being at home.

3. Changing into ordinary clothes at home - Raise Personality temp as you spend time looking in the mirror getting your look just right :hehe: (Good to do before going off to sell your stuff).

4. Eh.... out off time - got to go to work but some of this might make homes more interesting to spend time in!

Cheers!