Is it even possible to reach level 80 with a heavily modded game?

[LibertyPrime]

So, has anyone achieved this feat? Because not only the game starts to become boring the more powerful you become (and trust me, I have over two dozens of mods specifically to increase the difficulty of my game), but it starts to become sluggish and slow, because of how the game works.

 

Are there any tricks to reach end-game?

[Pyrus]

Just ignore end-game.  Or get it out the way early and have fun with other stuff since there really is no end-game, some mods pick up from the end of the main quest or have different dialogue and quests available afterward.

[LibertyPrime]

Just ignore end-game.  Or get it out the way early and have fun with other stuff since there really is no end-game, some mods pick up from the end of the main quest or have different dialogue and quests available afterward.

 

It's just that some mods I use really start to shine at end game, i.e. some of the cooler spells in Apocalypse - MOS are only available once you reach level 90 or so of these skills and do their respective quests.

[Taskmaster]

What?

 

Do you not make up your own rules, per the role of your character?

 

The game doesn't really become boring if playing that way, at least for me.

I restart often due to refreshing stability and clean starts on large mod updates/installs. 

 

Most mods give you what you need to break the game before you even leave Helgen or the Alt Start Prison. It's up to us to self restrain on a role playing basis. If that's not your thing, or you're unable to resist the temptation, then give up some of the power creeping mods outright.

 

Simply stating that you have over two dozen mods to increase difficulty does nothing. You didn't state anything specific, and scaling numbers isn't going to increase difficulty for example. It's AI driven, imagine going into a tomb and all the draugrs are capable of shouting fus, sending your body flying back up against a wall. Or organized crossbow bandits that REFUSE to dumb their tactics leaving their vantage point. 

[LibertyPrime]

Even resisting minmaxing and save scumming Skyrim is too damn easy. That is my point. I also roleplay the way I like it; I don't mind playing powerful characters. I find it bland always starting as a weak, jack-of-all-trades character.

 

And I'm not simply using mods to make enemies sponges.

[Taskmaster]

Double post: Check out a proc patcher called WTF. 

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28761/?

 

Well, you're not really specific about what you actually have in your game.

[Shisouka]

If you leveling process feels like being glued to the ground: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33395/?

Skytweak allows you to alter many different aspects of the game, even leveling speed of certain kinds of skills/abilities.

[LibertyPrime]

Yeah, that mod does exactly what I avoid; turn enemies into sponges. At least that is what I gather from reading the descritipion.

 

I'm using all sorts of mods not just to enhance combat. Mods for basic necessities, private needs, mods that adjust the economy etc., and others.

[Taskmaster]

If you leveling process feels like being glued to the ground: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33395/?

Skytweak allows you to alter many different aspects of the game, even leveling speed of certain kinds of skills/abilities.

 

Add SkyAI to that. Same author.

 

https://sites.google.com/site/grimyskyrim/my-mods/miscellaneous

[LibertyPrime]

If you leveling process feels like being glued to the ground: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33395/?

Skytweak allows you to alter many different aspects of the game, even leveling speed of certain kinds of skills/abilities.

 

Now this interests me a bit...

[darkconsole]

my current character is 42, and it is the highest i have ever gotten. according to steam i've logged 665 hours with skyrim and 1279 hours with creation kit. lolllllllloolololololol. i only just finished the alduin quest chain for the first time a few weeks ago. i keep getting sidetracked by everything and get nothing done.

[Rayblue]

The Community Uncapper allows for customization of how much skill points and perks you can get, asides from removing the level cap without resetting by vanilla methods (like resetting your perks).

[afa]

In terms of mod lag, strangely enough I haven't really notice too huge if a difference between a newly started game and a level 100 game. Occasionally some mod seems to work better after you have a few level in you. Although to be fair I usually avoid any overhaul mods that changes gameplay too much.

 

Changing AI is probably slightly too tall of an order for mods, and you are likely going to end up with another set of wonky behavior.

IMO focusing on quantity and quality of enemies might be a better bet, although some of the tighter corridor of dungeons really aren't design for handle too many NPCs fighting at once.

 

Another thing is character improvement vs difficulty. It is logical for the character to get stronger the more time you put into developing their skills and crafting, but if you also have enemies keep up side by side then the whole system sort of falls apart into the question of why bother with getting stronger if you aren't really stronger, then might as well just keep the game at level 1 consistently.

 

The vanilla game actually sits at a somewhat interesting position, if you want to overpower it you can, but you will have to devote time to it, if you just want to run out and fight your way through it I find it keeps up with the difficulty fairly well if you devote to a play style....well except of sneak archer, but then everyone is a sneak archer.

[aqqh]

Why exactly would you want to reach lv 80?

Your character can reach max combat prowess at like lv 60. And i usually stop leveling somewhere around that.

 

Because Skyrim is the only rpg i know that leveling further makes you weaker...

[afa]

That depends on a few things. If you are running vanilla there will usually be a point where enemy/area don't scale anymore.

 

Say the Whiterun fields for example, it is rare to run into bears there, except for the occasional giant spider if you are really high level. In the beginning you should see nothing but wolfs and eventually sabre cat, but no more. So if you can already kill sabre cat with ease you have outlevel that area. While further away you start seeing bears then cave bears starting to replace the wolfs and sabre cat but then no more also. Therefore by the time you can handle cave bears with ease you have outlevel what the game can throw at you and further leveling past that point will, supposedly, make fighting the cave bears even easier.

 

You can technically find a point where you are at your max power fighting sabre cat and stop there so you will never meet a bear if you think it is easier to be slightly lower level fighting sabre cat than high level fighting bears.

Similar concept can be employ for different tiers of bandits, vampire, etc...

 

But imo that's fairly minor in the grand scheme of things.

 

However there are supposedly enemies that have no cap, those could potentially become damage sponge. I think the daedra for the conjuration ritual quest might be one of them.

[aqqh]

Sure mobs that are predefined to be always at certain level wont become any more powerful.

 

But thats minority in this game.

Most of NPC you fight with are leveled. Which means while you level up they become stronger as well. Above lv 60 you are no longer able to become more powerful. But they can.

Dragons are the best example. But thats not only that - if you would go to dungeon filled with leveled draugrs at lv 40 there would be all sort of them - mostly restless to scourge with one or 2 deathlords. Go there at lv 80 and most of them would be Draugr Deathlords.

 

So that's whats is moronic in vanilla skyrim. At some point you simply become so powerful that it is impossible to become any more powerful.

And in my book it means that they fucked it up. Badly.

[Shisouka]

Yeah, that mod does exactly what I avoid; turn enemies into sponges. At least that is what I gather from reading the descritipion.

 

I'm using all sorts of mods not just to enhance combat. Mods for basic necessities, private needs, mods that adjust the economy etc., and others.

 

Actually SkyTweak does more then that. You can adjust the damage you make from x0.01 to x10. Damage you take. Stamina/Magicka recharge in combat. etc etc.

 

Its a nice little mod, that gives the player the control so he/she can adjust the game to get more fun out of it.

[afa]

But most enemies in the game go up in similar fashion, the wolf > sabre cat > bear is just more visual

It is essentially the same concept in terms of progress from Draugr > Draugr wight > Deathlord; Bandit > thug > marauder. They might have more variations in between but they all eventually reach a cap, Overlord, Maraudar/Chief, Nightmaster Vampire, Falmer Warmonger, Legendary Dragon, etc. You might encounter them more frequently but that also eventually reaches a cap.

Once you get past their level only you continue to get stronger through health/magicka/stamina at the minimum

I mean technically your offensive power can probably cap before that if you beeline smithing/enchant/alchemy and one hand/two hand/archery, and armor/resist has hard cap.

 

There's only a few outliers that scale indefinitely I think.

 

Anyways the key is that if you really game the system, you are going to be plenty powerful for whatever the game throw at you to the point of irrelevancy, if you skip the more tedious grinding part and just stick with a set combat style the game should scale fairly well up to a certain point.

[Rayblue]

*shrugs* Unlike back in those terrible MMO days where it's the survival of the fittest, I play this game not to be on top of it.

[enkephalin07]

Futzing with the numbers just doesn't make for greater difficulty. Pump up the enemies stats and you'll just do the same thing but more of it. It's not difficult, it's tedious. Smarter enemy AI may be too much to ask for. NPC's can have all the same abilities as players, and if they had the AI to make optimal use of them, then you'd have a genuine challenge.

[pinky6225]

Yes got to 88 last time before starting over again

[Taskmaster]

Futzing with the numbers just doesn't make for greater difficulty. Pump up the enemies stats and you'll just do the same thing but more of it. It's not difficult, it's tedious. Smarter enemy AI may be too much to ask for. NPC's can have all the same abilities as players, and if they had the AI to make optimal use of them, then you'd have a genuine challenge.

 

If you use Skytweak and SkyAI you can adjust the AI yourself.

 

For example say you'd like bears to react like deers and elk do, and run scared from everything in sight. You can do that. 

 

You can also adjust meaningful things, such as how slow all characters and NPCs move depending on armor and weapon weight. Vanilla levels are extremely low, you can triple the value of you many things. Making NPCs clad in heavy armor, true juggernauts, where only blunt weapons can dent them, but moving at a snail's pace. The difference can be made so large, that your character at level 20 would struggle hard against a full heavy armor worn level 5 NPC, where the weakness of a dagger makes sense in that it isn't going to penetrate heavy armor so easily. Sneak attacks with the dagger obviously ignore armor(since it's a well placed and unaware stab).

 

Perhaps you want it so archers NEVER miss, or that they seem much more human in their inaccuracies. Maybe you want runes to have not only a sneak multiplier, but a high one - giving reward to the usage of stealth rune placement. 

 

How about you want NPCs to actually run out of arrows and bolts instead of having an infinite supply of the arrows they have atleast 1 of? 

 

What about archers and mages actually using tactics like not only hiding behind objects but CROUCHING behind ones that are lower? What about archers and mages never compromising their vantage point and staying at range, instead being a bonehead running up in melee combat because you wouldn't approach their line of sight?

 

All possible.

[afa]

Ah damn, doesn't seems like it could change follower damage deal/taken scaling as PC, or adjust the multiplier for weapon skill and armor skill of NPC in relation to PC. That would've been interesting to see in combination with other mods.

[Taskmaster]

You can adjust enemy armor scaling with a tick, but that's about it. It's actually a good option as it opens up many different ways to express gameplay in conjunction with mods like SkyRe and it's various weapon type related perks. Example: Warhammer power attacks ignore all armor but costs 50% more stamina. Your best friend for a melee specialist type of role against heavily armored bodies. 

 

The follower damage dealt/taken can be adjusted through AFT, I think. Unfortunately I think followers seem to ignore the enemy armor scaling setting.

[Killing Joke]

Tried these mods, and as much as I love to have so much control, I ultimately ditched them. I don't have anymore the time nor the patience for this and on top of that, I reroll often and I didn't find a way to export those gazillions tweaks.