Yesterday I had the honor of walking 4.5 miles in 6 inch snow to get grocery. While walking I was thinking that if Skyrim makes snow treading more realistic, it would be quite immersive. Things they can do are:

1. snow splash when walking. I realized no matter how careful i am while walking in deep snow, there's always splash toward the FRONT. it's caused by your front foot's kicking motion.
2. slow down walking and running speed while on snow covered surface.
3. if you try to sprint on snow, you'll fall
4. If your agility is high then 2 and 3 might be countered, while your enemies have to suffer them.
5. foot prints, but some threads already covered it.

I don't mean to make the devs work harder, it's just that snow is a big part of skyrim

If snow starts impeding my motion I'm enchanting my boots with fire.

My Skyrim character is a lot more physical fit/able to use magic than you. She/he won't fall on his/her ass like you. She/he will kick ass of monsters instead.

Vikings fought in snow as well, is there any historic info about how they fought?

PhYoshi has a good point - would love to see little things you didn't expect like fire enhanced or frost resist to work like that. Also I like the idea of snow

I like your ideas but I'd hope you don't fall everytime you sprint, just sometimes.

yea of course lol

Frazil Ice


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V9p4mFEYXc

dangerous monsters should be the only tedium I should face, I don′t need snow to be something that makes me go "damn" thank you.

Most snow scenes in the sagas are about fleeing or being chased across the snow, like in the Valla-Ljóts saga when a Viking jumps down a gorge, lands in snow drift above the ice and then slides all the way down to the bottom. Usually fights in wintertime are rare, but when they happened it normally occurred in or around a long house (where it can be assumed the snow may have been partially cleared). There's such a fight in the Svarfd?la saga.

However there are a few examples of Vikings fighting in snowy countryside. It is obvious that Viking men did not favour fighting in snow, since it either is so deep it hinders footwork or is packed down and slippery. As evidenced by this passage in the Vatnsd?la saga, "It is said that the very morning on which they were to go to the duel, there was such a thick fall of snow and a frost that not a soul ventured out"

But here are some rather painful examples of rare times they did...

Droplaugarsona saga: "He mounted the steep snowdrift, making for Helgi Droplaugarson, and thinking he had something against him. But when he came into the snowdrift, Helgi Droplaugarson aimed with a spear between his legs and pierced through the scrotum, and he fell backwards, and the spear stuck fast in the snowdrift, and he hung there on the snowdrift for the whole day."

Fóstbr?era saga: "When Butraldi was about halfway up, Thorgeir placed his spear underneath him, with the spearhead facing forwards, raised his axe to shoulder height and slid down the snow towards Butraldi. He heard the sound of Thorgeir whizzing down and looked up, but before he knew what was happening Thorgeir struck him full on the chest with his axe and cut right through him and he fell back down the slope."

Hope that helps...

I like this a lot, espessially # 2&3. That would add a whole knew dimension to the combat. I imagine archery will be very useful when enemys can't run towards you.

I also think there should be snowboots in the game like these: http://tinyurl.com/5vdvaxe They make walking in snow a lot easier!

Edit: These are more in style for Skyrim http://tinyurl.com/66crq7k

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. x 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

That's at the point of annoyingly realistic, in my opinion.

Didn't look at the snowboots I linked? They would make it less annoying.

It would also be nice with different types of snow, like crust snow and powder snow.

I despise the look of snowboots and still think it would be annoying to even have to deal with snowboot. There's plenty of snow where I live. I shovel it, I walk in it, I beat it with a shovel to break it apart when it hardens, and I'm sick of it. It's bad enough, for me, to have to see it in Skyrim at least half the time I'm playing, but to have it be a pain in the game as it is in real life is too much for me. I want my footprints to appear in it and I'd love to see some accumulate, but clumsily trudging through it is not something I would be happy with.

For 1, 2, and 3 I think how deep/hard the snow is would matter too. That might be too much realism to implement.


Then they would also have to add realistic melting snow.

I wonder about footprints in the snow? That had been cool, and they has confirmed that you got snow in different depth depending on locations and not only white ground texture.
Only two reasons for this, seasons or footsteps.

Thanks for the info. Riveting stuff (I'm not being sarcastic, I enjoy learning about this stuff). Your quotations remind me a bit of combat scenes in the Iliad or the Aeneid (except they didn't have snow). The Greeks and Trojans also liked nailing people in the scrotum with a spear. =/

Sounds like OP might have the right idea then. Venturing into snow would be akin to venturing into tall grass without a pokemon. My only complaint is that it might be a pain to get around (like it is in real life), but maybe a horse could solve that.

For me it depends on the level of annoyance. Carry snow shoes and operate fairly close to normal (although you wouldn't be able to in real life, trust me!), but receive greater penalties when not wearing them but without going realistic where you sink to your knees or even crouch. I certainly don't want "you can't walk without snowshoes without slipping", although the *occasional* slip would just add to the fun. Enemies, and creatures in particular, might have an added penalty where you get to see them slip up every once in a while.

i'm usually cool with stuff like this, but considering 90% of the gameworld will be snow/ice and mounts haven't actually been confirmed yet i'm vehemently opposed to the idea of having it slow you down.

i'm cool with slipping on ice and i'm cool with footprints.

Exactly this ^^^

Yeah that's basically all it needs, with maybe snow slowing you down just a little.

actually more than slowing you down i'd be cool with a sort of constant effect stamina drain for each step you take. nothing overwhelming, but enough to give you the impression that you're actually on difficult terrain.

alternatively, slowing you down but with a fairly low-level athletics/acrobatics/whatever perk to negate the effect.

There was a 3DO game (the first game console to use motion video) that was D&D based that programmed in a unique feature, in that the ice -- if you were to be moving on it-- you would slide. You have velocity and gravity. And so if you cast a spell like "Ice Storm" that would coat the ground and make the stones slippery. It was very realistic, and actually it made for the one of the most memorable moments of gaming in my life. I had to adapt my fighting style to the fact that I would be sliding as I tried to cast my spells, namely a fireball spell. So I had to lead the shot just like if you were aiming at ducks crossing the sky from right to left and you had to shoot way in front of it so your bullet would get to the duck at the same time as it reached the bullet.

I didn't think that was too annoying. It was harder, more challenging, but infinitely more satisfying that someone actually thought to add that kind of attribute to the environement to make the environment its own challenge, as most environments in the world actually are. If no one at Bethesda thinks to add this feature, then I'm calling on some gifted Modder to invent this system for us. I think the extra dimension of slipping on the ice, or getting knocked sideways on a hill and suddenly finding yourself on your ass sliding down a hundred feet to the bottom sound absolutely insane and awesome. Not only could they do it to us, but we could do it to them.

Imagine knocking a large orc on its ass and as it's sliding down a 100 foot hill you have all the time you need to draw out your bow and start taking shots at it. Now it's at the bottom of a slippery slope and can't reach you, so it decides to run away lest you kill it easily. How hilarious would that scenario be over the normal standard battle. You'd have a story to tell your friends about something original that happened in a video game.

So in my book, bring on the slippery slopes and sliding features!

I actually find myself going faster when I run down slopes in snow than when there is no snow, because as I run I take big strides so the snow does not impede me as much as if I was walking slowly and because I′m not as afraid to lose my balance and fall I don′t hold back any, on even ground or upward slopes snow makes one go slower though.

No one would run down a steep mountain, and no one would run with all his might down a slope. But when you have 15CM of snow breaking your fall in case you lose your balance all carefulness goes out the window (wouldn′t help so much with a whole mountain ofc, just speaking about slopes here).

So they would have to balance it so that you can increase your speed even when going down while getting slowed down on even ground and uphill slopes.

Well, Ellert, you got me thinking there about the need for variations of snow density -- fresh powder versus hard-packed snow. The fresh powder would have rules like what you just said, while the hard-packed snow or partially melted and re-frozen snow would have properties like my former post.

Maybe then if you knock over the troll in a half foot of powdered snow, he doesn't slide, but now he does have a chance to get stuck in the snow while you slam it in the head with your mace, hahaha... or maybe he takes additional cold damage and it slows him down a bit.

Imagine being chased by a crowd of skeletal warriors down a mountain and you get the crazy idea to jump on your shield? You could fly down the mountain like you were on a sled, and if you were going to crash into something you could cast a "web" spell (if there is one) to catch yourself and stop in your tracks.

Of course all of that requires tons of programming. Not likely to see that in there, but maybe it could be Modded? Ahh... one can dream.

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PS: I really love this forum, Zenimax! The design is really smart and its easy to find your posts and revist them. Whoever designed this interface was genius.

No, I don't think snow should impede your movement. In fact, I don't think it'll ever be high enough in Skyrim to be able to do that. And I assume the snow you're talking about would be like the snow outside my window right now. Yeah, there's no crossing that even if I wanted to. Up to my stomach, semi-frozen, and the surface can't support the weight of an advlt. You have to break apart the frozen top layer in front of you if you even want to move. Takes forever to get through it, and that's just my yard.

If you want to be "realistic" when it comes to snow, you don't walk in snow.