Perkus Maximus ?

[guk]

Since asking questions or critizing over at Nexus is still pretty dangerous, and in the best case you just get trolled by t3nd0, i want to hear some opinions about PerMa from you guys here on LL.

I saw Perkus Maximus and started reading about it - an enhancement of SkyRe that only edits perks and basic game mechanics? Hell yeah!

But then i saw that you need to dig through endless lists of in/compatible mods, find compatibility patches, and then get an .xml for every single item mod for the Skyproc Patcher.

So basically it sounds 1:1 the same like with SkyRe, only that you have to find mods for the other game content on your own (provided those mods already have compatibility patches).

And the PerPa ran ~15 minutes on my installation, then terminated with an error. Watching the video tutorial, this is meant to run "up to 2 hours" on a heavily modded game. Ermm... wtf? So every time you change just 1 mod, you have to wait up to 2 hours for the patcher?

Now while i'd love to make a vanilla playthrough with just PerMa + SexLab, i'm quite disappointed because it seems like PerMa has completely missed its mark. Just because it still edits all the armor and other item values, rendering about 99% of all mods incompatible.

So, your opinions please.

[Taskmaster]

PerMa is worth the installation time, the same as FCOM was for Oblivion. The former not changing as many things in the game, but having the same overall essential must have impact.

 

The patcher on my system only takes about 5-8 minutes with 170 plugins, but I run extremely high end now.

 

When I installed, I ran into a problem where a mod was incompatible with the patcher, I had to go down my mod list one by one until I found it. It was 'Hunting in Skyrim', I just patched first and then installed Hunting in Skyrim back in. Xaz Prison Overall is a mod that was previously incompatible with SkyRe's proc patcher, I'm no longer using Prison Overall, but that could also be the case for PerMa.

 

Again if you've read the documentation, PerMa is too essential to ignore. Although, I was waiting for well over a year for the release of this, and SkyRe had been a mainstay in my game since when that was first released starting as an excellent race and standing stone mod.

[Watamote]

It actully has far fewer compatibility issues that SkyRe, because the patcher handles so many different things at once. As for how long it takes, that depends not only on your load order, but also the speed of your CPU and HD. With an Intel i5 and an SSD, my very heavy setup takes around half an hour. If you are haveing problems with it closing early, try running one of the included debugging executables.

[blabba]

I think trainwiz summed it up best:

 

http://trainwiz.tumblr.com/post/102426952214/what-do-you-think-of-perkus-maximus-in-your

 

Basically it's an updated SkyRe.

[4onen]

I installed PerMa for my latest playthrough and...

It's glorious in its respects. My other mods are also glorious in their respects. PerMa doesn't respect them.

I have what I'd consider strongly (just short of heavily) modded Skyrim, and PerMa's patcher takes around half an hour.

I update my mods daily. Every mod update breaks the PerMa patch. And that's on top of the fact that, with any SkyProc patch, swapping out the patch file mid playthrough increases your total instability.

After about the fifth crash due to mod update-patch inconsistency, I downloaded the patch available on the nexus page that was run only on the vanilla DLC and things.

Now all my balance is completely screwed, not that I cared about balance in the first place (fucking cheater that I am)

 

So... yeah. PerMa is an incompatible little bitch, unless you run only the vanilla+DLC+PerMa version of the patch, which is now just unbalanced.

[Artorias]

200 esps activated here and took me 5~10 minutes to run the patcher, and the error can be resolved with bat files that are in skyproc patcher folder.

[bahamut2119]

Ya the patcher can be a pita but ive never seen it take more than 30 min usually about 10 min to run. What I do is I disable everything but armor/jewelry/clothing/consumable/book/spell mods ie; im running 250 active esps patchus only has touched 40-50 of those and non of those are mods from here. It hates hdt high heels so you should disable that and any mod that it uses for now. 

 

As far as a review I love it it feels more natural to me the way the perks work altho they sometimes misbehave but not to often. There are some issues with the wintermist addon I see alot but that part also works most of the time most of those enhancements it adds seem like they should be there. Over all its buggy yes but its early in release he is working on it actively and others are also fixing things as add ons. I give perma a 7/10 stars just because how many times if found something not working right but most of its fine.

[Artorias]

Ya the patcher can be a pita but ive never seen it take more than 30 min usually about 10 min to run. What I do is I disable everything but armor/jewelry/clothing/consumable/book/spell mods ie; im running 250 active esps patchus only has touched 40-50 of those and non of those are mods from here. It hates hdt high heels so you should disable that and any mod that it uses for now. 

 

As far as a review I love it it feels more natural to me the way the perks work altho they sometimes misbehave but not to often. There are some issues with the wintermist addon I see alot but that part also works most of the time most of those enhancements it adds seem like they should be there. Over all its buggy yes but its early in release he is working on it actively and others are also fixing things as add ons. I give perma a 7/10 stars just because how many times if found something not working right but most of its fine.

 

You can put the file name in blocklist, fastest way.

[Taskmaster]

Interesting thing about this, is that this is going to be the case with any overhaul mods one installs.

 

Difference here is that SkyRe and PerMa with the proc patcher attempts to make everything it can, compatible. Other overhaul mods someone might install could just throw everything into the game willy nilly, and the player would be none the wiser(cause when does anyone touch absolutely every plugin inside game during one playthrough). Some overhauls, and even SkyRe of old, needed a lot of compatibility esps, the patcher is like one giant one. Other mods would lack the ability to adapt to newer things released, or new things the player adds.

 

The perk system in Skyrim is pivotal to almost everything done within it. It can be the difference between me playing a character that can get jobs done without lifting a single blade, blunted weapon, tome, or scroll. Some things that needed to get fleshed out, got fleshed out.

 

The best thing I can say about Perkus is that, if you RP, Perkus helps the game get out of the way so you can get to actually playing it and it flows. Whereas otherwise, you might be fumbling through the console trying to set up quality of life before leaving the alt start prison to get that same feel. 

 

If you're the type of player where perks aren't in your playthrough's foundation, then PerMa is not worth the install. Or, if you choose to install a bunch of different mods that aren't as ambitious, but focus strongly on select things.

 

 

I think trainwiz summed it up best:

 

http://trainwiz.tumblr.com/post/102426952214/what-do-you-think-of-perkus-maximus-in-your

 

Basically it's an updated SkyRe.

 

Calling it an updated SkyRe is only half true, because there are many things that PerMa left out because it caused an enormous amount of incompatibility with mods. PerMa puts some of these features into the perk system instead.

 

With SkyRe, if you were going to install other combat mods you needed be certain they weren't going to completely break your gameplay, or had to deal with uninstalling SkyRe's combat system .esp. SkyRe Races .esp had compatibility issues with not only ECE, but EEO, and any mod that makes even one change to race records. Of course, everything was modular, so the player doesn't exactly have to use the combat module(I didn't) or even the races setup.

[guk]

Lots of responses already. A bit too many to quote & comment each one

I do run on an i5-3570K, 8GB RAM and a 250GB SSD. Loading screens are something like 3-5 seconds ingame even with those ultimate screenarchery ENBs + 2K-8K (Parallax) textures everywhere.

Tested PerMa on my old NMM install though with 200-250 mods in the load order, which might have been a problem (currently new skyrim install with MO + 77 plugins).

Now i still don't understand, if PerMa is meant to only overhaul the perks - why do we need a skyproc patch to make it work? The item changes should have been made optional in the first place. Balancing armor ratings to be in line with the perks can be done in a different way, like Requiem has proven without touching a single armor value.

I'm still interested in trying PerMa of course - i own Dawnguard + Dragonborn, but never played the questlines for whatever reasons. Would be enough for me to just speed through it with only PerMa installed, but i guess some 100% basic-essential mods like CT77 Remodeled Armors already don't work without a patch / .xml.

Thanks for the input so far @everyone.

[Taskmaster]

Now i still don't understand, if PerMa is meant to only overhaul the perks - why do we need a skyproc patch to make it work? The item changes should have been made optional in the first place. Balancing armor ratings to be in line with the perks can be done in a different way, like Requiem has proven without touching a single armor value.

 

Well, with the perks some things are tied to tags, then you have your alchemy ingredients, and spell tomes and things like that.

 

So added armors and weapons, would come in with different values and then scale imbalanced in under or overpowered stats for your game. Some alchemy ingredients, or potions, or stats added by other mods might not work at all(whatever is loaded last) or work inconsistently with each other not making sense in harmony. Some weapons are classified differently and function as such, some weapons having piercing abilities through armor and bonuses to other armor types. Some armor types have inherent bonuses within them that happen when conditions are met - dreamclothes as an example. Then you have spells that scale a certain way off of skill ability levels and the perks within them, that may create certain conditions for other spells to combo off of each other. And what about Wintermyst, adding new enchantments that any player would love for new armors they've added into the game to possibly drop in the leveled list with some of these enchantments.

 

Then just with all of that, it's how it would have an effect on NPCs that are wearing and using the same things the player is using. If only the perks and bonuses ingame worked with the PC, that can lose the entire feel of an immersive world to a player. I mean, imagine if in vanilla enchantments only worked for you and did nothing when NPCs used them. How about a dreamcloth top files robe with a new wintermyst enchantment, that an enemy NPC is wearing and using the bonuses against you, with the bonuses having an effect on your new 7B TERA armors, while the mace you're swinging has an effect on this NPCs robes.

 

If you add in new plugins, you can run the game just fine with PerMa or even SkyRe, but you'd rob these additions being applied to whatever you add next. 

 

As far as I know, Requiem is huge offender of incompatibility, as it is its own self contained island, and adding new things upset the balance. Mods like PerMa come with the patcher to give the player the option to make the new things they add compatible. You don't have to do it, you could just PerMa patcher a barebones game and then throw everything else on top of it(why would you, when you have the option otherwise). Mods like Requiem add an incredible amount of stuff into the game, and alter some vanilla values doesn't it? It being a self contained island works for it. Different approaches.

[w33beast1e]

I've used just about all the various overhauls and could never get on with Requiem, it's far too pervasive and takes a sledgehammer approach to everything, there's just nothing subtle about what it does.  SkyRe isn't much better, a little less heavy handed and it's reproccer made it much more flexible for us average folks who can't keep our hands off weapon and armor mods, but it's much touted modular flexibility was, to a modular gameplay overhaul fan like me, an illusion. 

 

But both are overwhelmingly one person's philosophy of everything gameplay related, the deal you do is that if you're in, you're all in. Some people are happy with that whole 'my way or the highway' approach, but I never was and couldn't stick with either for very long before feeling I was being made to dance to a tune I didn't much like. 

 

My view with PerMa is that it's disingenuous to claim 'it's only a perk overhaul'. It wants to make changes to lots of things so they'll work with the foundations it sets, and it elevates the importance and impact perks have on gameplay by orders of magnitude compared to any other perk overhaul. 

 

A really simplistic example (for my sake), it will make stamina management a significant factor in combat, and it does want you to make some logical commitments before you're able to mitigate it, but it won't make AI cleverer, it doesn't care what stone you picked, it doesn't care what race you are, and if you haven't run the patcher it doesn't give a damn what weapon or armor mods you've got installed. But if you let it see what you've got via the patcher the whole thing suddenly blossoms into the nuanced and sophisticated game it wants you to be able to play.

 

Just to reiterate, I doubt anybody has been any more vocal in their antipathy towards Requiem and SkyRe than I've been.  But I couldn't play Skyrim without PerMa, it's like the Pandora's Box of perk overhauls. 

 

[guk]

Requiem is an RPG- total game overhaul, it changes your entire game from A to Z without just adding 500 perks and making all monsters 10x stronger like most other overhaul mods.

However it is perfectly compatible with everything compared to SkyRe/PerMa.

All weapons, armors, and stuff like alchemy ingredients are directly compatible - because Requiem only changes the perks and their effect, not the base items (this is what PerMa promises but does not deliver).
NPCs just need 1-2 perks added and their base stats adjusted to Requiems's new racial starting values (scales automatically in the CK).

Everything else runs on scripts, which in turn can be a problem when you run other script-heavy mods on top of it. Only compatibility exceptions are mods like Skyrim Immersive Creatures, because they add content that has nothing to do with vanilla in any way.

 

And for anything like "NPC Beauty Overhauls" you just run the tes5edit NPC appearance script and that's all.

 

 

 

Now compare this to SkyRe/PerMa - you need a patch, and an .xml file for the skyproc patcher.

If you look at the lists, anything that is not declared "compatible", "incompatible" or "patch available" can be considered incompatible as well. Which are... all mods that add or change content.

[yatol]

Requiem is an RPG- total game overhaul, it changes your entire game from A to Z without just adding 500 perks and making all monsters 10x stronger like most other overhaul mods.

However it is perfectly compatible with everything compared to SkyRe/PerMa.

 

requiem or skyre, it's the same... you want this mod? you need a patch

 

here's an easy exemple, you have immersive potion, and install better name

the game will work, but you no longer have immersive potion (it got override by better name)

and if you place immersive potion after better name, you lose better name

 

and there's nothing you can do about that

 

if you want both, you have to open them in tesedit, and merge them manually (last edit always win)

[w33beast1e]

Requiem is an RPG- total game overhaul, it changes your entire game from A to Z without just adding 500 perks and making all monsters 10x stronger like most other overhaul mods.

However it is perfectly compatible with everything compared to SkyRe/PerMa.

All weapons, armors, and stuff like alchemy ingredients are directly compatible - because Requiem only changes the perks and their effect, not the base items (this is what PerMa promises but does not deliver).

NPCs just need 1-2 perks added and their base stats adjusted to Requiems's new racial starting values (scales automatically in the CK).

Everything else runs on scripts, which in turn can be a problem when you run other script-heavy mods on top of it. Only compatibility exceptions are mods like Skyrim Immersive Creatures, because they add content that has nothing to do with vanilla in any way.

 

And for anything like "NPC Beauty Overhauls" you just run the tes5edit NPC appearance script and that's all.

 

 

 

Now compare this to SkyRe/PerMa - you need a patch, and an .xml file for the skyproc patcher.

If you look at the lists, anything that is not declared "compatible", "incompatible" or "patch available" can be considered incompatible as well. Which are... all mods that add or change content.

No offense guk, but this topic is starting to come across as one of those  "hey guys, I have a bias, would you mind helping me confirm it?" sorts.

 

If you haven't tried PerMa, I'd urge you to before you make any big pronouncements about how it 'doesn't deliver'.  It's particularly worthwhile doing that when a lot of people are talking something up and hyping it as PerMa has been. You just  can't beat practical experience  as a basis for judgement. 

[nanashi50]

Two questions about the PerMA patcher:

 

1) For those running lots of custom armor/weapon mods, how often do you need to manually edit xml files to get them working correctly with the patcher?

 

2) How does the patcher decide how to adjust armor/damage values? And how does it decide when to reclassify items (light vs. heavy gauntlets, short bow vs. long, etc)?

[guk]

2) How does the patcher decide how to adjust armor/damage values? And how does it decide when to reclassify items (light vs. heavy gauntlets, short bow vs. long, etc)?

AFAIK you need a patcher .xml for every single armor/weapons mod. One the reasons why i made this thread.

[XJ347]

 

2) How does the patcher decide how to adjust armor/damage values? And how does it decide when to reclassify items (light vs. heavy gauntlets, short bow vs. long, etc)?

AFAIK you need a patcher .xml for every single armor/weapons mod. One the reasons why i made this thread.

 

 

I haven't touched any XML files for anything and my Perkus Maximus works 100% fine with MANY different armor and weapon addons.

 

You appear to be looking for trouble when there isn't any.

[guk]

I haven't touched any XML files for anything and my Perkus Maximus works 100% fine with MANY different armor and weapon addons.

 

You appear to be looking for trouble when there isn't any.

Well let's start with the provided tweak patches (Dual Sheath Redux etc).

Then we have the list of supported mods that need either a plugin patch or an .xml.

And finally the list of incompatible mods (408 replies in that thread so far).

So if you have for example the "Ancient Draugr Armor" (which is just a standalone skimpy version of the vanilla Ancient Draugr), but didn't install the patch, then maybe the patcher runs but doesn't patch the armor.

You might want to do a bit of research before flaming other people who raise valid concerns about a mod. And if you read some of the posts above by others, i'm not the only one seeing that.

[Artorias]

Working wonders here, just add the incompatible mod in the blocklist, and there you go...

[Shiratama]

I found PerMa absolutely terrible. The author's aggressive advertisement made it sound like the second coming of the Christ and I admit I fell for it and built up some high expectations.

 

The biggest problem with the mod is the apparent hatred of the author for passive effects. It seems like almost every perk must give some active ability, even when it doesn't make sense or goes against the role of the tree. This leads towards a bastardization of the trees, as they all seem to offer a mish-mash of defensive, offensive and summoning abilities. Enchanting really epitomizes this tendency, it's completely absurd.

 

There's also the issue of the fluffy perk descriptions, needing an additional patch (which will have to be updated separately of course) to remove them. The only explanation for something like this leaving the alpha stage must be that T3nd0 developed it in some sort of echo chamber amongst devoted worshippers. The fact that criticism of the mod, no matter how well-thought, is also pretty much banned from the Nexus certainly doesn't help the situation any...

[Mewwt]

If you hate it so much, don't use it.

[Shiratama]

I don't use it anymore. Which, by the way, doesn't mean criticism shouldn't be allowed, especially in a thread asking about opinions on it.

[yatol]

I don't use it anymore. Which, by the way, doesn't mean criticism shouldn't be allowed, especially in a thread asking about opinions on it.

 

it's not criticism when you say a mod you use is better than another one you didn't even tried

compatibility is t3nd0 forte, so saying something else is more compatible, what a joke...

 

 

wanna read a real critic? followers mods are a waste of ram

if you put x textures in textures\actors\charactors\x, and others npc use the same textures, you load x times the same files and it get you closer to the ctd

if you put x textures in textures\actors\charactors\sg, and all npc that use sg load textures from that folder, all npc that ehei load textures from that folder, 20 custom npc near you, that's no longer 2 go ram

 

 

custom armors are another storie

you wear your daedric armor, and want to switch to x

you open your inventory and click on x

and x unload sbp_32, 33 and 37 (armor, glove, feets), and load sbp_x (one nif per outfit, less time in tesedit to add it)

x apperance replace the daedric armor appearance, that's all, and you have no use for xml or patch for x

[Taskmaster]

I found PerMa absolutely terrible. The author's aggressive advertisement made it sound like the second coming of the Christ and I admit I fell for it and built up some high expectations.

 

The biggest problem with the mod is the apparent hatred of the author for passive effects. It seems like almost every perk must give some active ability, even when it doesn't make sense or goes against the role of the tree. This leads towards a bastardization of the trees, as they all seem to offer a mish-mash of defensive, offensive and summoning abilities. Enchanting really epitomizes this tendency, it's completely absurd.

 

There's also the issue of the fluffy perk descriptions, needing an additional patch (which will have to be updated separately of course) to remove them. The only explanation for something like this leaving the alpha stage must be that T3nd0 developed it in some sort of echo chamber amongst devoted worshippers. The fact that criticism of the mod, no matter how well-thought, is also pretty much banned from the Nexus certainly doesn't help the situation any...

 

You basically took it as if the author made PerMa the "second coming"; you fell for your own delusions.

 

Doesn't make sense or goes against the role of the tree? The roles of the trees are what you make them.

Each having mixes of offense, defense and summoning abilities, + more, allow the players that want to solely focus on a particular specialization to get through the game's obstacles and limitations, without having to fall back on the console.

How about in a vanilla non-PerMa game, a player wants to use only the Restoration tree? Time to hit "~" and add other stuff now, in order to make a smooth playthrough, as it isn't giving the player choices and tools to tackle some situations you can't just 'no combat' your way out of. 

 

No one is stopping you or anyone else from just using the perks you want to use for your character, and pushing the others aside. Just one single perk in a particular tree is more fleshed out than what vanilla had to offer per single perk.

 

Fluffy perk descriptions are an RP element, don't you understand that?

 

You may have criticism(and I agree with you on how nexus and authors handle that), but this criticism here isn't well thought out at all.

 

And to top this all off, the mod was in beta stage for well over a year. Hindsight is 20-20, but with these comments, you could've participated in the beta and made your voice heard during the crucial developmental stages.

 

Calling PerMa absolutely terrible, is gamer hyperbole. You may not like the mod/overhaul, it might not be for you, but calling it terrible is an extreme stretch.