With Persuasion Lite there seems to be an upper limit with the stereotypes that arbitrarily blocks you from progressing certain quests or paths in quests. With a breton character, Imperials hate my guts and every beggar in the game is an Imperial, making it impossible without Charm spells to "find" the Thieves Guild by talking to the beggars, you simply cannot get their disposition high enough to open up to you.
It does introduce a more Morrowind-like speech system and do away with the "boring pie" minigame. That PCs with low speechcraft will find it hard to persuade NPCs is indeed a feature, and not a bug. Taunt returning from Morrowind is greatly appreciated. I like the concept of this mod, I really do.
However, the execution is lacking. Even at ~60 speechcraft, success and failure on the MOST liked option felt extremely arbitrary. The "upper limit" at which diminishing returns kicked in felt quite restrictive, especially given that many disposition checks are looking for greater than 60-70 disposition. Reaching those levels was still incredibly time intensive, click intensive, and "power-leveling" at a Journeyman level of skill. A level of skill where I think trying to persuade the average townsfolk shouldn't be too difficult. Even after increasing the skill by 30-some levels, the return on investment felt very marginal. Yes, I was noticeably getting to a higher maximum, and failing less often at lower disposition, BUT... Those 30 levels had only bought me the ability to routinely get to 50 instead of 40 disposition before running into random coinflips. I still had long chains of ups and downs in the 30-40 range. The mod succeeded in requiring Speechcraft investment to engage with the persuasion system, but it failed to make that investment feel rewarding.
Compared to Morrowind, successful checks with this mod give much less maximal gain in disposition. In Morrowind, hitting a successful check can often raise disposition by ~10 points, albeit there is some give and take. Thus, while skill is needed, fewer checks (and chances of failure) are needed to adjust disposition up to the next bracket.
Furthermore, in Morrowind, disposition is easiest to raise around 40-60; people who feel neutrally about the PC are the easiest to influence. This means that it's not too much of a grind to get an NPC into the 50's range of "slightly positive" with a beginning character with Speech as a major skill. With this mod, getting to 50+ is actually quite time intensive. Morrowind making success less likely amidst extremes also means that failure tends to lead to greater failure. In this mod, success is MOST likely at low disposition, preventing a fail state. I find this just drags out the chain of attempts, to the point that it will eventually succeed either by chance or by leveling up enough in one conversation.
Bribes are also always available and effective in Morrowind as an easier backup, though they have their own problems. I get wanting to avoid "hand people 10 cents at a time until they like you" syndrome, but bribes with this mod on are pathetically inefficient and weak. In some cases, I even seemed to be locked out of offering bribes at all to some NPCs, despite the patch notes indicating that such had been fixed.
The overall result is that this mod make persuasion frustratingly slow, even with decent Speechcraft, to get NPCs to the disposition levels needed for many speech-based quest resolutions. Success and failure feels arbitrary check-by check even, when the "best" option is identified, through journeyman levels. Gains per success seem to be low (2-6 points) even when the lvl 50 perk kicks in, so many checks will be needed. 25+ speech is enough to hang onto a conversation with any NPC for whom an option can be found that successes cancel out or exceed failures (for some NPCs, e.g. most guards, I couldn't find any option that gave more positive on success than negative on failure w/ Argonian, Female, lvl 64 Speech).
Lastly, I am personally uncomfortable with the degree to which the mod depends on what I can only call fantasy racial profiling (and gender stereotypes too). ALL "Imperials, Redguards, and Bretons despise Nords, Orcs, Argonians and Khajiit," and so on. Few of these self-admitted stereotypes even seem to have much basis in lore (the mod hits about as often as it misses). Beyond my personal discomfort, the factors based on race and gender can interact with the individual NPC preferences in ways that make certain NPCs painful to raise disposition with.
Bottom Line: I really wish I liked this - I hate the vanilla minigame and I have a fondness for Morrowind's Speechcraft - but I don't. It shares most of the problems of Morrowind's speech system, while lacking key tuning that made said system worthwhile for me.
EDIT: Trying with a different build (imperial) went slightly better, but not good enough to reverse my opinion. Ultimately, all the variables in play make it very hard for some builds (in particular, races with low starting personality and "despised" by imperials) to get much success out of the system (without ad nauseum attempts) until very high levels. I also think the impact of Personality on amount of gain/loss is much too strong - Personality should only primarily influence starting disposition imo.
Essentially, until the player has high speechcraft and high attributes (Personality, but also Willpower, Intelligence, and Strength) relative to an NPC, gains are largely cancelled out by losses, and the amounts are small. This forces spammed checks to move disposition significantly, and spamming is unlikely to result in a fail state since success is more likely at low disposition. Thus, the mod is simultaneously trivially exploitable and a slog to use, much like the vanilla minigame.
Some valid issue in this and is why in my new form of this mod within Supreme Overhaul I made it work alongside the vanilla speechcraft system and its primarily about getting out a gift rather than focusing on opinion. The opinion gain or losses is for role players instead.
Wait what? I just installed SMO but I haven't loaded up the game yet. Is it not about disposition anymore? And don't races have prejudices to each other?
I really hated the vanilla persuasion minigame. I'm not against minigames--at all--but the Oblivion persuasion minigame just made no sense and had no relation to how you might approach the challenge of winning someone over.
If you have low speech skills, it will take a while to get to the point that you can improve NPC's disposition with speech--and this is EXACTLY what one would expect. Complaining that your character's low-charisma personality turns off NPCs is like complaining that your low magic skills don't allow you to cast the good spells.
Think of a character with low speechcraft skills as a buffoon who continually sticks his foot in his own mouth. A person like that will offend people without even trying. If you think of it that way, you can understand why more conversation = lower NPC disposition.
Some advice, after playing with this mod for a while:
1. If you have low speechcraft skill and you try to use persuasion to advance a quest, it will be difficult--as one would expect.
2. If you have low speechcraft skills and want to boost those skills, focus on talking to NPCs whose job it is to interact with people and for whom there is no particular gameplay penalty for that NPC having a low disposition. Guards are PERFECT for this role. Over time, with more conversation, your character's speech skills will improve.
3. If you're speaking to an NPC and their disposition is dropping toward zero, just say goodbye and move on to the next one. There is no shortage of NPCs in Oblivion.
4. If your speechcraft skills are low, don't spend time practicing conversation with named NPCs whose help you may need. You will only reduce their disposition toward you. This would seem obvious, but just FYI.
EDIT: I saw below some claims that this mod will cause NPCs to attack you if the conversation goes poorly. Despite having low speechcraft skills, I've seen that happen exactly ONE time, when I intentionally picked "TAUNT" during a difficult conversation with an orc.
So, just FTR, if you don't want to fight, don't taunt an orc. Orcs aren't exactly known for responding to taunts with witty repartee and clever rejoinders.
Actually the Orc attacking you means your Taunt WORKED. Taunt isn't a normal persuasion option as can be seen by the fact it disappears if you pick any other option. Taunt is there to make an NPC attack you and make it so you don't break a law by killing them in self defense (doesn't work on guards who will just give you a fine to justify their attack)
>Be me pick Speech as one of my class skills (but redguard as my race so personality) >Spend hours trying to max out the first two guards in the city >They keep gaining and losing >I notice that the second guard the female one gains two but loses FOUR on her FAVORITE topic to talk about (At this point I have the rank that lets me see what two topics they dislike and the other topic she liked only gives one point for success) >Gain at least one level up but don't sleep >Finish with them talk to the redguard that loves to pick pockets >He loves all my jokes and I max him out instantly This mod is a wild ride
it would be funny if you can put random dialogues in it. like instead of boost it would say "I killed a dragon!" or some other things every time depends on if it will be successful or not. If a person going to react positively to admire "your eyes are beutiful" or if they are not gonna like it "you look like a a... pumpkin'" :P
Sadly, there's no clue as to which they respond +/- to as it is with the in-game method. Further, they seem to respond randomly +/- to each method. But, it still felt more natural and I liked not having to use all 4 methods on people. Also, it appears that he changed the NPCs themselves to respond more logically. Now warrior types can't be coerced and so on.
Yes randomly but not totally random. It follows the rules he set up, you can clearly see that in game. For example, if you talk to an npc the first time and you get lots of disposition increases, say, until the 60's, and then drop one, you will suddenly get into a negative spiral down to 30. It happens every time. Dark elves like jokes, women almost always like compliments etc.
I've found a rather easy fix for the speed at which your speechcraft attribute improves. Simply:
1) Get the TES4 Construction Set 2) Load Persuasion Overhaul.esp as the active file 3) In the menu, go to character/skills tab 4) Go to SkillSpeechcraft and change the "Use Value" to something more suited to your taste... 5) Save, exit, and play! You might keep the original number somewhere, or keep the ZIP files of original mods like I do, just in case.
I'm running OOO 1.34 at Level Slow, and I've changed the "Use Value" as mentioned above to 0.1. This has really slowed down how quickly I level up in speechcraft, and has brought it in line with my other skill leveling.
On another note...I've noticed some other threads talking about "it's hard to gauge what choice to make" or "it is too random"...I can sympathize with these statements, HOWEVER, I like to play as "realisticly" as I can, and IMHO it is often difficult to just talk to someone and gain their trust right away....I like the "randomness" this mod offers, but there ARE some situations that can be learned/exploited...nonetheless, this is a good replacement for the Vanilla version and makes it much more important to either say the right things or don't say anything at all! I give this mod my endorsement....thanks for the hard work!
I love this mod. It radically changes how you approach the character interactions, on the same level as Unholy Darkness changed the game (those who have played it know what I am talking about). First things first, I must say that 2 out 3 playthroughs I did with this game were NOT speechcraft based. This is important, because this seems to be a very common argument against this mod. You have to understand, that, first of all, Persuasion is NOT a harmless conversation. It role-playing terms, you are attempting to get something out of the other person, and having low-level Speech means that it is obvious you are doing so. You will have to practice your Speech, and learn the "tells" and preferences of different NPCs. And there will be times, when you will not be able to persuade a person. You will need to resort to other means to get what you want. Or to come back later, as if they were an enemy you had to run away from. That's how this works. And trust me, you will adore the moments, when you manage to dramatically raise an npc's desposition.
116 comments
It does introduce a more Morrowind-like speech system and do away with the "boring pie" minigame. That PCs with low speechcraft will find it hard to persuade NPCs is indeed a feature, and not a bug. Taunt returning from Morrowind is greatly appreciated. I like the concept of this mod, I really do.
However, the execution is lacking. Even at ~60 speechcraft, success and failure on the MOST liked option felt extremely arbitrary. The "upper limit" at which diminishing returns kicked in felt quite restrictive, especially given that many disposition checks are looking for greater than 60-70 disposition. Reaching those levels was still incredibly time intensive, click intensive, and "power-leveling" at a Journeyman level of skill. A level of skill where I think trying to persuade the average townsfolk shouldn't be too difficult. Even after increasing the skill by 30-some levels, the return on investment felt very marginal. Yes, I was noticeably getting to a higher maximum, and failing less often at lower disposition, BUT... Those 30 levels had only bought me the ability to routinely get to 50 instead of 40 disposition before running into random coinflips. I still had long chains of ups and downs in the 30-40 range. The mod succeeded in requiring Speechcraft investment to engage with the persuasion system, but it failed to make that investment feel rewarding.
Compared to Morrowind, successful checks with this mod give much less maximal gain in disposition. In Morrowind, hitting a successful check can often raise disposition by ~10 points, albeit there is some give and take. Thus, while skill is needed, fewer checks (and chances of failure) are needed to adjust disposition up to the next bracket.
Furthermore, in Morrowind, disposition is easiest to raise around 40-60; people who feel neutrally about the PC are the easiest to influence. This means that it's not too much of a grind to get an NPC into the 50's range of "slightly positive" with a beginning character with Speech as a major skill. With this mod, getting to 50+ is actually quite time intensive. Morrowind making success less likely amidst extremes also means that failure tends to lead to greater failure. In this mod, success is MOST likely at low disposition, preventing a fail state. I find this just drags out the chain of attempts, to the point that it will eventually succeed either by chance or by leveling up enough in one conversation.
Bribes are also always available and effective in Morrowind as an easier backup, though they have their own problems. I get wanting to avoid "hand people 10 cents at a time until they like you" syndrome, but bribes with this mod on are pathetically inefficient and weak. In some cases, I even seemed to be locked out of offering bribes at all to some NPCs, despite the patch notes indicating that such had been fixed.
The overall result is that this mod make persuasion frustratingly slow, even with decent Speechcraft, to get NPCs to the disposition levels needed for many speech-based quest resolutions. Success and failure feels arbitrary check-by check even, when the "best" option is identified, through journeyman levels. Gains per success seem to be low (2-6 points) even when the lvl 50 perk kicks in, so many checks will be needed. 25+ speech is enough to hang onto a conversation with any NPC for whom an option can be found that successes cancel out or exceed failures (for some NPCs, e.g. most guards, I couldn't find any option that gave more positive on success than negative on failure w/ Argonian, Female, lvl 64 Speech).
Lastly, I am personally uncomfortable with the degree to which the mod depends on what I can only call fantasy racial profiling (and gender stereotypes too). ALL "Imperials, Redguards, and Bretons despise Nords, Orcs, Argonians and Khajiit," and so on. Few of these self-admitted stereotypes even seem to have much basis in lore (the mod hits about as often as it misses). Beyond my personal discomfort, the factors based on race and gender can interact with the individual NPC preferences in ways that make certain NPCs painful to raise disposition with.
Bottom Line: I really wish I liked this - I hate the vanilla minigame and I have a fondness for Morrowind's Speechcraft - but I don't. It shares most of the problems of Morrowind's speech system, while lacking key tuning that made said system worthwhile for me.
EDIT: Trying with a different build (imperial) went slightly better, but not good enough to reverse my opinion. Ultimately, all the variables in play make it very hard for some builds (in particular, races with low starting personality and "despised" by imperials) to get much success out of the system (without ad nauseum attempts) until very high levels. I also think the impact of Personality on amount of gain/loss is much too strong - Personality should only primarily influence starting disposition imo.
Essentially, until the player has high speechcraft and high attributes (Personality, but also Willpower, Intelligence, and Strength) relative to an NPC, gains are largely cancelled out by losses, and the amounts are small. This forces spammed checks to move disposition significantly, and spamming is unlikely to result in a fail state since success is more likely at low disposition. Thus, the mod is simultaneously trivially exploitable and a slog to use, much like the vanilla minigame.
LOL, wow, people
I really hated the vanilla persuasion minigame. I'm not against minigames--at all--but the Oblivion persuasion minigame just made no sense and had no relation to how you might approach the challenge of winning someone over.
If you have low speech skills, it will take a while to get to the point that you can improve NPC's disposition with speech--and this is EXACTLY what one would expect. Complaining that your character's low-charisma personality turns off NPCs is like complaining that your low magic skills don't allow you to cast the good spells.
Think of a character with low speechcraft skills as a buffoon who continually sticks his foot in his own mouth. A person like that will offend people without even trying. If you think of it that way, you can understand why more conversation = lower NPC disposition.
Some advice, after playing with this mod for a while:
1. If you have low speechcraft skill and you try to use persuasion to advance a quest, it will be difficult--as one would expect.
2. If you have low speechcraft skills and want to boost those skills, focus on talking to NPCs whose job it is to interact with people and for whom there is no particular gameplay penalty for that NPC having a low disposition. Guards are PERFECT for this role. Over time, with more conversation, your character's speech skills will improve.
3. If you're speaking to an NPC and their disposition is dropping toward zero, just say goodbye and move on to the next one. There is no shortage of NPCs in Oblivion.
4. If your speechcraft skills are low, don't spend time practicing conversation with named NPCs whose help you may need. You will only reduce their disposition toward you. This would seem obvious, but just FYI.
EDIT: I saw below some claims that this mod will cause NPCs to attack you if the conversation goes poorly. Despite having low speechcraft skills, I've seen that happen exactly ONE time, when I intentionally picked "TAUNT" during a difficult conversation with an orc.
So, just FTR, if you don't want to fight, don't taunt an orc. Orcs aren't exactly known for responding to taunts with witty repartee and clever rejoinders.
>Spend hours trying to max out the first two guards in the city
>They keep gaining and losing
>I notice that the second guard the female one gains two but loses FOUR on her FAVORITE topic to talk about (At this point I have the rank that lets me see what two topics they dislike and the other topic she liked only gives one point for success)
>Gain at least one level up but don't sleep
>Finish with them talk to the redguard that loves to pick pockets
>He loves all my jokes and I max him out instantly
This mod is a wild ride
Dark elves like jokes, women almost always like compliments etc.
1) Get the TES4 Construction Set
2) Load Persuasion Overhaul.esp as the active file
3) In the menu, go to character/skills tab
4) Go to SkillSpeechcraft and change the "Use Value" to something more suited to your taste...
5) Save, exit, and play! You might keep the original number somewhere, or keep the ZIP files of original mods like I do, just in case.
I'm running OOO 1.34 at Level Slow, and I've changed the "Use Value" as mentioned above to 0.1. This has really slowed down how quickly I level up in speechcraft, and has brought it in line with my other skill leveling.
On another note...I've noticed some other threads talking about "it's hard to gauge what choice to make" or "it is too random"...I can sympathize with these statements, HOWEVER, I like to play as "realisticly" as I can, and IMHO it is often difficult to just talk to someone and gain their trust right away....I like the "randomness" this mod offers, but there ARE some situations that can be learned/exploited...nonetheless, this is a good replacement for the Vanilla version and makes it much more important to either say the right things or don't say anything at all! I give this mod my endorsement....thanks for the hard work!
It radically changes how you approach the character interactions, on the same level as Unholy Darkness changed the game (those who have played it know what I am talking about).
First things first, I must say that 2 out 3 playthroughs I did with this game were NOT speechcraft based. This is important, because this seems to be a very common argument against this mod.
You have to understand, that, first of all, Persuasion is NOT a harmless conversation. It role-playing terms, you are attempting to get something out of the other person, and having low-level Speech means that it is obvious you are doing so.
You will have to practice your Speech, and learn the "tells" and preferences of different NPCs. And there will be times, when you will not be able to persuade a person. You will need to resort to other means to get what you want. Or to come back later, as if they were an enemy you had to run away from.
That's how this works.
And trust me, you will adore the moments, when you manage to dramatically raise an npc's desposition.