Cyan's *Must-Have* Skyrim Mod Recommendation Super-Gush Thread - daily updates

[dragonelite]

Neogaf already digested and refined all the info just reposting here.
For images you have use Google not allowed to post sources with photo's.

On leveling:
Totally revamped, no more class selection at the start of the game, every skill you level contributes to your overall level. And each time you level you get extra health plus the ability to get either more health, magicka or stamina.
Each level also brings you perks. Cool abilities I guess like in Fallout 3.
Also, the leveling was moved from 1-25 or something like that to 1-50, but 50 is soft-capped, you just advance really slow after that.

On skills:
Mysticism is gone.
18 skills, down from 21 on Oblivion, and 27 on Morrowind.
Tries to accomodate players who want to specialize in a certain proffesion (like mage or thief), while at the same time giving room for players who like to do plenty of everything. They want to keep a special care so that this feels good, not prone to cheating and organic.

On the story and lore:
200 years after Oblivion. Set in Skyrim, a region north of the imperial city, where the Nords live.
The dragons are returning, as it was prophetized. You are gonna be trying to stop the wicked dragon god. You are a dragonborn, a dragon hunter. Your mentor is one of the last blade, voiced by some old dude from Shutter Island and Minority Report.
Also, there is a civil war, since the king is dead.
Enemies include were-yeti's, giant spider, dragons and other cool creatures.

On combat:
They want to make it more dynamic and tactical. You have to assign each hand with a function I think, either magic, 2 weapons, a weapon and a shield, etc.
You can also waste stamina by sprinting, allowing you to get access to tactical postitions.
Emphasis on really improving the combat this time around.
They are also putting care on how each weapon feel on your hand.

Other:
Third person view has been improved
5 massive cities, more variation in caves and underground stuff.

On quests:
Quests are much more dynamic now.
The quests are now more determined by how you build your chracter, individual actions and overall much more dynamic. Examples provided: If you are more of a magic user, some other mage may approach you who may not have had if you were just a melee character. Or if you killed some dude who owned a store that was gonna give you a quest, his sister would inherit the store, but she may resent you before giving you the quest. Also, if you drop a weapon in the street instead of selling it, it may just dissapear, some kid may get it and give it back to you, which would lead to a series of stuff, or some dudes may fight over who gets it.
Also, it said that the quests you are given would be modified by how you have played (I guess like scaling the quests). For example, the location of a rescue mission would be determined by which location you have visited (it will try to give you a dungeon you haven't been in) and I guess also giving you appropiate enemies to your level.


I can add that there is an option for no HUD.


On Conversations: (thanks MrBig)
Conversations aren't done in a zoomed in static shot anymore.
Start a conversation with some and they will act like someone would in real life, looking at you occasionally and walking around a bit and also continue doing a task if they were doing one while talking.

On Weapon smithing:
Go to a forge and carve a new weapon out of red hot metal.


Recap from raphier

Dual-wielding: you have two hands now in combat and you can wield anything to both hands. You may assign a dagger on left hand and use a mace with right hand. The choice as they say is yours.

Duel: You may duel any NPC on the streets western style.

Inheritence: When you kill a shopkeeper, his/her family member will inherit the shop and will be angry about you, but stil give you missions.

Level-scaling: It is coming back

18 skills: supposedly even less skills to play with?

No mysticism

Perks: Rumored to be in Skyrim. I may have understood it wrong.

Boosts: Pick stamina, health, magic boosts on level up.

Enchanting: This skill makes a return.

"Radiant storytelling" or Level Scaling 2.0: "The game eventually logs a huge storehouse of knowledge about how you've played, and subsequently tailors content to your capabilities and experiences. Entering a city, a young woman might approach you and beg you to save her daughter from kidnappers. The game will look at the nearby dungeons you've explored, automatically set the mission in a place you've never visited, and designate opponents that are appropriately matched to your strengths and weaknesses."

Fast-Travel: As you probably expect, you can instantly travel to previous locations with a tap of the button

Sprinting: You can now sprint about!

Town visiting: You may do more in towns, like tailor weapons, cooking, farming or mining. Not much details about this or how detailed they are as jobs.



Yet another recap:

-A variation of level scaling.
-Dynamic Shadows
-Overhauled Combat-system
-Improved Faces/Improved Models Example: Faces have been dramatically overhauled. Characters now exhibit more emotion show of distinctions between different races and just plain looks better.
-Radiant AI
-Updated Engine Snow falls dynamically (not as a basic texture on the ground)
Trees and branches move independently with the wind
Water flows
-Randomly generated quests.
-Beards
-You can't run backwards as fast as you do forward.
-10 races to choose from (Holy crap thats a lot of races)
-confirmed creatures: zombies, skeletons, trolls, giants, ice wraiths, giant spiders, dragons, wolves, horses Elk, mammoth, saber-toothed cats
-presumeably open cities (as dragons can attack)
-Hud-free first-person view and improved third-person perspective
-very unique landscapes! Also unique dungeons! In other words, lots of uniqueness!
-Character creation improved, body features customizable
-2-handed weapons and duel wielding confirmed.
-Finishing moves, unique to each weapon and enemy you fight.
-Kids
-The game takes place 2 centuries after Oblivion
-Sprint is added !
- Dialog will pop up when you approach an enemy
- cooking/farming/mining/woodcutting/blacksmithing
-18 skills.
-Perk picking at every level-up
-5 Magic Schools Destruction Alteration Conjuration Restoration Illusion.

And my source on neogaf
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=418068

new trailer

 

[Neb]

Sounds very interesting.Thanks!

 

[RenegadeRocks]

scans everywhere. look good !

 

[dragonelite]

Who has played fall out 3 they say the level scaling is more like that then oblivion.
Just hope they are fixing 3rd person view animation. And the character models look really good on the scans.

 

[Neb]

Thats good becouse the level scaling in Fallout 3 is immensly better than Oblivions.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Gah, level scaling. Looks like I'll take a pass. Enemies in FO3 and Oblivioin scaling with your level absolutely bored the ever living snot out of me. I went back recently and finally FORCED myself to finish FO3 just because I'd bought it when it launched. Over 2 years to finally finish that and it was excruciating torture due almost entirely to the fact that enemies were always roughly the same level as you.

Still haven't finished Oblivion and don't plan on it. Gah, I don't ever want to subject myself to the agony entailed in finishing such a mindnumbingly boring game such as FO3. Absolutely zero sense of progression. Zero sense of accomplishment. Never thought for an instant an enemy might be stronger than my character. /yawn...

Shame that the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series has fallen so far from the glorious RPGs it used to be.

Regards,
SB

 

[RobertR1]

No console noobness for me. This will be played on the PC multiple times with mutiple mods. Can't wait.

 

[Neb]

If they release mod tools like for al ltheir other games then scaling tempo/amount can be set with a few cvar lines. In a couple of minutes you can greatly overhaul scaling (same for fallout 3, Oblivion, NV).

 

[Neb]

No console noobness for me. This will be played on the PC multiple times with mutiple mods. Can't wait.

Yep mods. Fallout 3/NV and Oblivion got 1000's of mods in all flavors. What the modding community comes up wit his fantastic. Did you know that for New Vegas there is a mod that allows you to milk the cows and tap it in bottles? :smile:

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=38190

 

[dragonelite]

Gah, level scaling. Looks like I'll take a pass. Enemies in FO3 and Oblivioin scaling with your level absolutely bored the ever living snot out of me. I went back recently and finally FORCED myself to finish FO3 just because I'd bought it when it launched. Over 2 years to finally finish that and it was excruciating torture due almost entirely to the fact that enemies were always roughly the same level as you.

Still haven't finished Oblivion and don't plan on it. Gah, I don't ever want to subject myself to the agony entailed in finishing such a mindnumbingly boring game such as FO3. Absolutely zero sense of progression. Zero sense of accomplishment. Never thought for an instant an enemy might be stronger than my character. /yawn...

Shame that the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series has fallen so far from the glorious RPGs it used to be.

Regards,
SB

They should really do level scaling something like beginner area monster level with you till level 10 or so no item scaling. The next area the monster go from 10 to 20 and etc. So this will mean for the grinders they can level on monsters and explore the areas without really following the quest they will have dangers when entering higher level areas but atleast it will be more fun entering a higher level area.

Level scaling just makes character progression non existence and item scaling is if you ask 100 times shittier. When both are present you can just finish the game in starter gear and level 1 to make it easier. Heck it's what killed oblivion for me when i became arena champion at level 5. I though #$%@ this i'm not playing anymore this should be done at almost max level not level 5.

/rant and its was my first rpg i was hyped to play because my English was good enough to actually not having to follow a dutch guide or try for months like when i was 10 to finish ocarina of time.

Yep mods. Fallout 3/NV and Oblivion got 1000's of mods in all flavors. What the modding community comes up wit his fantastic. Did you know that for New Vegas there is a mod that allows you to milk the cows and tap it in bottles? :smile:

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=38190

Im now playing through Nehrim when i have some free time and im not busy with school. Nehrim is a complete Oblivion conversion no level scaling and stuff.

 

[joker454]

No console noobness for me. This will be played on the PC multiple times with mutiple mods. Can't wait.

Hell yeah, same here. Screw the ancient consoles, this game deserves proper hardware.

Gah, level scaling. Looks like I'll take a pass.

I didn't like level scaling in Oblivion just because it looked silly when everyone was walking around in glass armor, be it knights or peasants. It's ok in Fallout though. How can they implement such an open world game without level scaling anyways, at least to a certain extent? I find in Oblivion I just walked around and leveled up doing lots of random side quests, then much later I went back and finished the main quests. Without level scaling I would have walked through the entire main quest without even breaking a sweat if they didn't at least do something to even out the levels. I think if they didn't do that then people would have complained that the game was too easy.

Shame that the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series has fallen so far from the glorious RPGs it used to be.

I dunno, I loved Morrowind but I liked Oblivion better. Personally I don't get caught up too much in game definitions, if I have fun then I like the game They better support the 360 controller on pc though! But even if not, Skyrim will be mine day one.

 

[N_B]

They should really do level scaling something like beginner area monster level with you till level 10 or so no item scaling. The next area the monster go from 10 to 20 and etc. So this will mean for the grinders they can level on monsters and explore the areas without really following the quest they will have dangers when entering higher level areas but atleast it will be more fun entering a

I think this goes against the spirit of the game, how would you define the "next area" when you are allowed to explore anywhere from the start? In Fallout 3 you at least had small locations dotted about that did contain stronger enemies, and random encounters had a chance of giving you a strong enemy, but you were given enough warning that you were getting close to a hard area so you could back out easily.

Level scaling just makes character progression non existence and item scaling is if you ask 100 times shittier. When both are present you can just finish the game in starter gear and level 1 to make it easier. Heck it's what killed oblivion for me when i became arena champion at level 5. I though #$%@ this i'm not playing anymore this should be done at almost max level not level 5.

In Fallout 3 item scaling was removed; they all had the same stats across levels and quest rewards always had the same stats (this was the biggest issue with Oblivions system IMO, if you wanted the best rewards you had to wait until you were level ~20), but NPCs would start equiping the items with stronger stats in later levels, but without writing out the weaker sets so you don't have everyone carrying chinese assault rifles at the end of the game, or have the weaker weapons become impossible to find.

The same with random spawns in the world, stronger enemies start appearing at later levels, but the weaker ones still appear, and they have stats that are pre set and not determined by your level, so you can feel like a powerhouse as the deathclaw you encounter at level 30 will be much weaker to you than at level 12 when they first appear.

On another note the engine looks like a huge step up from Oblivion with great looking characters, much more detailed environments and they say the every object in the world casts a shadow, unlike their previous games..

 

[dragonelite]

This thread needs screenshot come on Game informer hub upload those screens.
It just feels wrong without screenies.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Heh, I still have some very bad memories of Arena, but I might check this one out.

 

[(((interference)))]

OMG, looks amazing - Oblivion was the first true 'next gen' title I played, can't wait to get my hands on this.

The Elder Scrolls series have always been my favourite RPG as their world were always the most detailed, I love how you can have a house and decorate it in game by picking up and moving things as mundane as forks and plates.

The character models look as good as Mass Effect, that would be really great as the characters and animation in Oblivion and Fallout 3 was definitely a generation behind Bioware's games.

I hope it's more like Morrowind, than Oblivion as the world of Morrowind was much more interesting than Cyrodil which was a fairly generic fantasy setting,. I really didn't like the scaling in Oblivion either, they should turn off item scaling for anything other than random loot, there should be dungeons with good loot and guarded by high level enemies that require an experienced character (or a skilled player) to get past and vice versa.

I mean it's quite ridiculous in Oblivion, going into some other dimension and killing a bunch of Daedra at level 5 and then at level 20 your still getting beaten by bandits. It damages the internal continuity of the world and shatters the suspension of disbelief.

I remember when Oblivion was coming out, they said the reason was because in Morrowind people would enter a lair of vampires with their level 1 character and get thrashed so they decided to scale enemies and loot to your level so you didn't have to worry about going into a dungeon with enemies that were higher than your character - that's frankly a poor reason and another concession to make the game appeal to a casual gaming audience who can't remember who's who or where they have to go etc.

I had no problem with this in Morrowind as most of the time you could tell by the apperance, location, name, music etc if you were entering some bandit cave or a sixth house temple, vampire lair or Dwemer ruin and so would quickly learn to avoid the more difficult dungeons.

No reason it wouldn't work for Skyrim, rather than lugging us with more level scaling

 

[dragonelite]

Gameinformer has a look at bethesda studio.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/10/video-behind-the-scenes-of-skyrim.aspx

 

[nightshade]

The map looks tiny. :|

 

[N_B]

Don't think it's 'tiny' but it does seem smaller than Oblivion's. But according to the lore Skyrim is supposed to be smaller than Cyrodill.

Fallout 3's map was also smaller but remember they also packed a ton more detail in with more interesting locations and less empty space.

 

[dragonelite]

That is geological scale on a map.
Does not have to say that Skyrim in-game is half the size as oblivion.

 

[Colourless]

According to the world map, Skyrim is about half the size of Vvardenfell. Going by the logic that the ingame worlds are have the same ratio as the world map, Skyrims world is going to be twice as large as Morrowinds... that would be huge! I somehow don't think that will be the case.