The Elder Scrolls Megathread XV: A Song of Ice and Draugr

[Generic Monk]

[QUOTE=G3rman;41632954]I spent twenty minutes or so hiding in the watchtower in Whiterun fighting the first dragon with a crossbow. Deadly dragons is hard as fuck.[/QUOTE]

that really doesn't sound fun

[G3rman]

For low level characters, no it is not fun.

[Generic Monk]

am I alone in thinking that vanilla skyrim has enough bullshit deaths?

[Wlfius28]

-snip-

Managed to fix it. The clicky symbols weren't working for me. Dunno why.

[BloodShot12]

[QUOTE=DeEz;41631237]it'd tax your hardware quite a bit if LOD quality went up

a very good solution without having to do that though is implementing good fog[/QUOTE]

But that's the thing, some of the LODs are okay, but they have terribly colored textures.

As in, they don't even appear to match what's actually there a majority of the time. If they actually did

then it might not look super amazing but it would certainly stand out a hell of a lot less.

[JenzAmaka]

[QUOTE=Altimor;41632926]Lightning mages are assholes on legendary mode.

Dodging ice/fire bolts is a fun challenge then you meet a lightning mage and get unlimited range hitscanned to death.[/QUOTE]

Become Ethernal. Best shout against Mages.

Anyways..
Dragonborn DLC + [url="http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/31697"]Command Dragon[/url]
[img]http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/6273/pqj1.jpg[/img]

[AlfieSR]

[QUOTE=Daemon White;41631620]only thing that's going for it is the butt textures.[/QUOTE]

wait what

[Weirdness]

[QUOTE=Generic Monk;41631775]so would anyone be able to enlighten me as to how this works? I trust boris, he may be a bigoted russian scumbag but he's good with shaders, but I'd like to know how he accomplished this
[URL]http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/38649/?tab=1&navtag=%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D38649%26preview%3D&pUp=1[/URL][/QUOTE]

It'll cut down your memory usage by about half (so you're less likely to hit the 3.1gb cap and CTD) and has some other CTD prevention features, but because it constantly culls things as you move from area to area, you'll get random FPS drops.

With it on and the memory reduction hacks turned off though, you'll still get less CTD's, if what boris says is true.

[editline]29th July 2013[/editline]

So you sacrifice some framerate performance for a more stable game in the long run.

[Generic Monk]

[QUOTE=Weirdness;41634710]It'll cut down your memory usage by about half (so you're less likely to hit the 3.1gb cap and CTD) and has some other CTD prevention features, but because it constantly culls things as you move from area to area, you'll get random FPS drops.

With it on and the memory reduction hacks turned off though, you'll still get less CTD's, if what boris says is true.

[editline]29th July 2013[/editline]

So you sacrifice some framerate performance for a more stable game in the long run.[/QUOTE]

yeah I used it for a while and I got more consistent but way more stuttery performance. shame Bethesda have no idea what culling is at all or they might have built it into the fucking game

[editline]29th July 2013[/editline]

[QUOTE=AlfieSR;41634040]wait what[/QUOTE]

uninstall that cloud to butt extension

[The Jack]

[QUOTE=Altimor;41628217]No he means when you upscale a texture then slap a generic tiling stone pattern or w/e on top of the original texture

FakeFactory does it and it's a heinous waste of VRAM and frametime[/QUOTE]

Why would you upscale the original texture? That's pretty dumb.

Halo Does it realy well. You grab a low resolution texture (the large wraith tank is like... 512 and it's huge.. yet if you were to look at it up close you'd think it's a 4k) Then you add another small texture on top which changes the above texture, making it look more detailed.

[URL=]https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$detail[/URL]

[Generic Monk]

just tried these ini tweaks, holy shit the game's smooth now
[url]http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/articles/1153//?[/url]

[suttles]

just got interesting npcs, this shit looks amazing

[Generic Monk]

Holy SHIT somber ENB looks like a turd; only redeeming feature is that it uses the latest version of ENB

like, it looks so bad I thought my video card was artifacting before I realized it was just a ton of terrible effects terribly applied

[editline]29th July 2013[/editline]

K enb also looks like dogshit too; it's like you're playing a game colour corrected by some demented tumblr fangirl

[Morderator]

[QUOTE=Altimor;41632926]Lightning mages are assholes on legendary mode.

Dodging ice/fire bolts is a fun challenge then you meet a lightning mage and get unlimited range hitscanned to death.[/QUOTE]
Legendary mode is BS mode. It's the same strange mechanism as Oblivion, where the player does less damage and the enemies do more damage as you increase difficulty. It would be nice to have some difficulty system, like DA:O where not only damage output matters.

[Ntag]

Yesterday I lost the motivation to continue fiddling with Oblivion mods. Looks like I may be spending a few more hours today trying to get them to work.

[[Green]]

I got a question for those that are more experienced with the Creation Kit; I'm trying to make a new enchantment that doesn't have charges, similar to what the vanilla Silver Sword has. How do I make it have no charge meter? A lazy fuck option would be to make it like 999999 charges but I'd rather it not have a charge meter at all. The enchantment is a really strong magicka drain enchantment, based on the Absorb Magicka enchantment.

[CaptainJL]

[QUOTE=Generic Monk;41635945]Holy SHIT somber ENB looks like a turd; only redeeming feature is that it uses the latest version of ENB

like, it looks so bad I thought my video card was artifacting before I realized it was just a ton of terrible effects terribly applied

[editline]29th July 2013[/editline]

K enb also looks like dogshit too; it's like you're playing a game colour corrected by some demented tumblr fangirl[/QUOTE]
It's tricky to get an ENB to look good. One of these days I'll have to port mine to the latest version but ever since I re-calibrated my monitor I can't get the fucking thing to look right.

[ClarkWasHere]

[QUOTE=JeanLuc761;41637342]It's tricky to get an ENB to look good. One of these days I'll have to port mine to the latest version but ever since I re-calibrated my monitor I can't get the fucking thing to look right.[/QUOTE]

Really, there should be some way to get ENB to change it's effects from one preset to another depending on the in-game weather.

[Konork]

[QUOTE='[Green];41636844']I got a question for those that are more experienced with the Creation Kit; I'm trying to make a new enchantment that doesn't have charges, similar to what the vanilla Silver Sword has. How do I make it have no charge meter? A lazy fuck option would be to make it like 999999 charges but I'd rather it not have a charge meter at all. The enchantment is a really strong magicka drain enchantment, based on the Absorb Magicka enchantment.[/QUOTE]
The Silver Sword uses a script effect, not an enchantment. You could try to build a simple script that does the magicka drain, but I don't know enough to know how myself. Also, attaching a script effect like that also lets you enchant the sword further, so you'd have both the draining script and whatever enchantments you put on it.

[ninjaviking]

[QUOTE=ninjaviking;41631424]Does anyone know where one can acquire the latest version of the Oblivion Character Overhaul mod? I don't have an account at the Nexus, and the friggin site is being (even more) idiotic at the moment by not accepting account registrations...[/QUOTE]

Nexus is up again :smile:

[MadPro119]

So my Skyrim crashes after anywhere from 2- 30 minutes of play. I think it mostly occurs outside when loading new content. I am not sure where to start to fix this. I can't just disable mods to see what causes it as it can take up to 30 minutes to crash. What do? I have used BOSS and I use NMM.

[editline]29th July 2013[/editline]

This log doesnt seem to help much either

[url]http://pastebin.com/0FMYkAaJ[/url]

[editline]29th July 2013[/editline]

Load order

[quote]Skyrim.esm
Update.esm
HearthFires.esm
Dawnguard.esm
Dragonborn.esm
ClimatesOfTamriel.esm
CoD Waking Nightmare II.esm
Falskaar.esm
SPIKE.esm
Omegared99-Compilation.esm
JSwords.esm
mannyDragonhead.esm
mannyBlackRock.esm
3rdEraWeaponsMoS.esm
CLARALUX - More and Brighter Lights.esm
Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp
Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp
Unofficial Hearthfire Patch.esp
Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.esp
Duel - Combat Realism.esp
SkyUI.esp
Skyrim Flora Overhaul.esp
Grass_On_Steroids_SFO-SHORT.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Dungeons-Hazardous.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Interiors-Cold.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Nights-Level-2.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Dragonborn-Patch.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Dawnguard-Patch.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Sound.esp
Dark Dungeons for ENB.esp
IMAGINATOR - Visual Control for Skyrim.esp
adalmatar.esp
dragonmourninn.esp
here there be monsters.esp
quest_andtherealmsofdaedra.esp
quest_nomercy.esp
quest_pitfighter.esp
quest_pitfighter_dlc01.esp
quest_seaofghosts.esp
quest_sorcery.esp
quest_thebiggertheyare.esp
tbmchrysamere.esp
theaviary.esp
thedomain.esp
thefrontier.esp
thesnakepit.esp
tos_amber_guard.esp
tos_granitehall.esp
tos_laintardale_hf.esp
tos_oakwood_hf.esp
wyrmstooth.esp
light123.esp
WATER.esp
WATER Plants.esp
WATER DB Waves.esp
dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp
Supreme Fog - CoT.esp
RevampedExteriorFog.esp
RemoveAmbientInteriorFog.esp
MoreGrass.esp
Detailed Cities.esp
Uncapped Perks - Combat + Stealth.esp
Uncapped Perks - Magic.esp
WheezesDungeonPack1.esp
SkyRealism - Capacity and Carry Weight.esp
WOW MOD V2.esp
Skyrim Immersive Creatures.esp
Skyrim Immersive Creatures - DLC2.esp
Dead Body Collision.esp
Better distant LOD waterfalls V2.esp
CoD Waking Nightmare II.esp
ASIS-Dependency.esp
Alternate Start - Live Another Life.esp
AchieveThat.esp
Apocalypse - The Spell Package.esp
Dr_Bandolier.esp
CornerofTheSkyrim.esp
DeadlyDragons.esp
DeadlyMonsters.esp
itsatrap!.esp
Disable Fast Travel Permanently - No Carriages.esp
ExplorerDungeonPack.esp
hothtrooper44_ArmorCompilation.esp
Immersive Weapons.esp
Immersive Battles.esp
Immersive Brigands.esp
Immersive Dawnguard.esp
Immersive Dragonborn.esp
Immersive Events.esp
Immersive Factions.esp
Immersive Mercenaries.esp
Immersive Patrols.esp
Immersive Travelers.esp
Immersive Werewolves.esp
Cloaks - Dawnguard.esp
Cloaks.esp
ForgottenMagic.esp
3DNPC.esp
DrSKnapsacks.esp
Milan's PAck.esp
Omegared99-WeaponSets.esp
Phenderix's Magic Evolved No Perks.esp
Realistic crime report radius.esp
RealisticHumanoidMovementSpeed.esp
Vampirelordroyal.esp
JSwords_Load_Screens.esp
JSwordsDistributionBalancePlugin.esp
MidasSkyrim.esp
ShenkThieveryOverhaul.esp
SSAPBWK.esp
Perky.esp
Terramis_Dungeon_01.esp
TCOSS.esp
Moria.esp
SleepingDangers-SandsofTime.esp
throwingweapons.esp
Tougher Traps.esp
3rdEraWeapMoS-lvlList.esp
1nivWICCloaks.esp
1nivWICSkyCloaksPatch.esp
BFSEffects.esp
mintylightningmod.esp
isilNarsil.esp
The Void Walker.esp
Spells Cast Light.esp
StavesofSkyrim.esp
Unique Uniques.esp
Summoning.esp
LostLongSwords.esp
Mighty Magick - Scaling.esp
Mighty Magick - Alteration.esp
Mighty Magick - Alteration Extras.esp
Mighty Magick - Restoration.esp
Mighty Magick - Destruction.esp
Mighty Magick - Dual Casting.esp
Mighty Magick - Restoration Extras.esp
AgentOfRighteousMight.esp
Crossbows_Basic_Collection_EN_LL.esp
Mighty Magick - Illusion.esp
Mighty Magick - Fortify Magic School Enchantment and Alchemy Reversed.esp
Mighty Magick - Conjuration.esp
Mighty Magick - Conjuration Extras.esp
Mighty Magick - Illusion Extras.esp
Mighty Magick - Voice.esp
OMageCommonRobes.esp
Dwemerverse - Dwarven Magic Package.esp
Advanced Alteration - Kinetics.esp
Ancient Spells 2.esp
Tribunal Maskes by Zairaam.esp
Tribunal Robes by Zairaam.esp
WoTS - Overhaul Version.esp
High Level Enemies.esp
High Level Enemies - Dawnguard.esp
High Level Enemies - Dragonborn.esp
SkyrimsUniqueTreasures.esp
OMageReplacerPack.esp
dD-No Spinning Death Animation.esp
Lost Magic.esp
iHUD.esp
OMageStandalonePack.esp
DragonCombatOverhaulDragonborn.esp
Evil MasterMind Armor.esp
Knight Of Thorns Armor.esp
SilverDragonArmor.esp
Contractor Armor.esp
cao_PerkRanks.esp
Better Vampires.esp
colossus.esp
FixedEyeAdaption.esp
hg.esp
kynesguard.esp
magicscaling.esp
midas magic expanded.esp
milestone memoirs.esp
moonpath_tp.esp
prvti_heavyarmory_dg_addon.esp
prvti_heavyarmory_dragonborn.esp
spellpack1.esp
spellpack2.esp
spellpack3.esp
spellpack4.esp
testacrobat.esp
throwing_weapons_redux.esp
tos_laintardale.esp
zinvestedmagicsteam.esp
Quietcool.esp
PrvtI_HeavyArmory.esp
BetterDarkBrotherhood.esp
[/quote]

[Crest]

[QUOTE=Medevilae;41631189]Here, I took the time to grab a few shots of my Skyrim... All it takes is the right mods yo

Same place overlooking Haafingar
[t]http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/595884319834718595/2F07CDE96B9105E80615ABF86D895CB7031071A9/[/t]
[t]http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/595884319834884959/C72528E8FBDDF747D52FF76047B2D419F9C36C0C/[/t]
[t]http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/595884319834717579/F5B94F233B9CACE8D235F161D5182284B19D84B9/[/t]
[t]http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/595884319834715319/8B0E831A85F94C160B9206D89FE547E2A2D00CC6/[/t]

Clear skies shout wouldn't give me an aurora after 3 tries, so I gave up[/QUOTE]

I think the problem is that "remove exterior fog" which is a god send to vanilla skyrim. You NEED it to hide the LOD problems. But many mods include it it seems, or atleast many ENB configs, and I don't get it. Why remove the thing that hides the ugliness.

So I usually have to make sure I know I'm not installing any fog removermods.

[MadPro119]

[QUOTE=Brt5470;41639004]I think the problem is that "remove exterior fog" which is a god send to vanilla skyrim. You NEED it to hide the LOD problems. But many mods include it it seems, or atleast many ENB configs, and I don't get it. Why remove the thing that hides the ugliness.

So I usually have to make sure I know I'm not installing any fog removermods.[/QUOTE]

Well shit, maybe I should remove mine.

Oh and damn automerge.

[Morderator]

[QUOTE=ninjaviking;41631424]Does anyone know where one can acquire the latest version of the Oblivion Character Overhaul mod? I don't have an account at the Nexus, and the friggin site is being (even more) idiotic at the moment by not accepting account registrations...[/QUOTE]
Unofficial mirror: [url]https://www.file1.info/GC9Gatl[/url]

[The Jack]

The silver sword thing is bull. Silver does double damage and nothing else does? Plus they're absurdly common from one faction and don't exist for any other.

In morrowind and oblivion silver [I]and daedric[/I] (ebony in morrowind) weapons simply ignored the "resist normal weapons" attribute that daedra/undead had. Whilst in daggerfall each more powerful monster required a weapon of material x or above.

Eh. It'd make more sense if [I]every[/I] material had an amount of resist ignoring. Like if a player fought an enemy with 50% resist and had a weapon that ignored 50% of that resist then they'd do 75% damage. Maybe certain monsters might have their own volatile weakness (Pure iron, copper/silver/gold, mithril, poison that uses a specific ingredient...) That sort of thing.

Shame this sort of stuff has to be hardcoded (if you could do it with scripting, it'd be suicidally tedious) It'd add a layer of [I]smart [/I]if you were better off planing your equipment before a quest.

[I]I'm going to fight some pretty tough cultists and their daedra servants soon.This Steel is fucking useless against them and i'm likely to get hurt by "reflect" magic too. Silver is recommended... copper is a poor man's silver... a bronze shortsword would save me a lot of health potions! i'm glad i was clever enough to think of a solution! [/I]

This simple "silver does double damage" robs you of that. Plus there's only two silver weapons in skyrim and that's pretty shit.

[MadPro119]

[QUOTE=Excalibuurr;41639031]That's because with most ENB configs, they hide it with DoF.

Game is probably running out of VRAM, or hitting memory budget.[/QUOTE]

That is what I assumed, looking at the VRAM in the Shift+Enter ENB Panel it doesnt seem like mods are using too much though. It said 3199 available Vram and mods using 137.

Does this mean I just have to use less mods?

[editline]29th July 2013[/editline]

Already edited the settings using that link.

[Rautapalli]

[QUOTE=MadPro119;41638957]So my Skyrim crashes after anywhere from 2- 30 minutes of play. I think it mostly occurs outside when loading new content. I am not sure where to start to fix this. I can't just disable mods to see what causes it as it can take up to 30 minutes to crash. What do? I have used BOSS and I use NMM.[/QUOTE]

Afaik. Claralux causes CTDs for some people. Just uninstalling it isn't enough to test if that's the cause since it also contaminates save games, I found instructions that have apparently worked for some people though:
[quote]1. Load up your desired saved game with Claralux STILL RUNNING. If this is a quick-save, make a new save copy before going to the next step so it is not overwritten.
2. Open and activate the Claralux Configuration power
3. Select option '3' in the Claralux menu, which contains enable/disable and lantern configuration. Do the following: i) Set lantern spawning to zero ii) Proceed through ALL the settings (using the little » symbol) and set them ALL to DISABLED - this should remove the active scripts from your next save (step 5) iii) Exit the menu after you are sure they are all disabled
4. Proceed to option '4' to remove the Claralux config power from your spell/power lists.
5. SAVE IN A NEW FILE (full; not quick-save) and exit Skyrim
6. Uninstall Claralux - ideally using NMM's uninstall feature, otherwise manually remove all traces of Claralux
7. Return to the game and play.[/quote]

Worth a try I guess.

[hypno-toad]

[QUOTE=Altimor;41632926]Lightning mages are assholes on legendary mode.

Dodging ice/fire bolts is a fun challenge then you meet a lightning mage and get unlimited range hitscanned to death.[/QUOTE]

The thing that annoys me most about the principle of magic-casting enemies though is the fact that they get so much fucking health. In order for the player to become an effective pure-mage you need to invest heavily in magicka reserves and not much into health/stamina, but these enemy mages get like 400 health as well as 400 magicka so you need to pummel them with your shield for like 2 minutes to make sure they can't get a spell off at point blank.

[MadPro119]

[QUOTE=RautaPalli;41639117]Afaik. Claralux causes CTDs for some people. Just uninstalling it isn't enough to test if that's the cause since it also contaminates save games, I found instructions that have apparently worked for some people though:

Worth a try I guess.[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately I have no Claralux Configuration Power and it does not have a menu in the Mod Configuration menu.

[Generic Monk]

what idiot at bethesda decided to render all the particle effects with the cpu

for fuck's sake