Until recently for me, RPGs were an exercise in finely-crafting the optimal outcome in every situation. Fail a dialogue check? Reload. Take too much damage during a fight? Reload. Accidentally stumble off a cliff while trying desperately to circumvent the intended path and instead reach my destination by running up a 70° rock face? ...Reload

This sorry state of affairs was only further exacerbated by installing the Requiem overhaul for Skyrim. Presented with a world that was suddenly far more challenging than before, my save-scumming knew no end. I was like a mad god in a playground of my own creation, turning back time so that I could erase my mistakes and weave a series of events in which I effortlessly slaughtered enemies I had no business even fighting. Taking on an entire fort of bandits at level 3 using such dirty tricks may be amusing, but it isn't satisfying. There's no suspense when you save before going around every corner, no tension if you reload a few seconds back every time a well-placed arrow ends your sorry life to the boisterous cry of, "NEVER SHOULD HAVE COME HERE!". Clearly, I needed a change.

That said, I don't like most restricted saving systems in games, because they often feel too restricted, to the point where it ruins the ever-important and elusive immersion. Fallout 4's hardcore mode is a good example of this, where your only options for saving are sleeping in beds (which are sparsely placed and not portable) or using the exit save. I liked the idea, but the implementation of the system left you scrounging for a dirty mattress to nap on before every fight. It just felt silly.

Enter Kingdom Come. A wonderful game in its own right, it has ostensibly a very similar saving system to Fallout 4's hardcore mode, but with the notable addition of Savior Schnapps: A purchasable and craftable resource which allows for the player to save the game when they wish - but in a limited fashion. Finally, I had found a system that felt right.

There are several excellent mods out there with similar concepts, like Only Save When Resting, but none of them quite fit what I wanted. So, I present my work of the past few days: the Hardcore Saving Overhaul. I hope you enjoy it.


The first time you sleep with this mod installed, a Lucky Coin will drop nearby. This coin is magickal, and you shall treasure it always. It will print out some flavor text to keep you absolutely immersed, and if you activate it in your inventory, it will then provide the option of enabling Hardcore Saving or not. If you choose to enable Hardcore Saving, autosaves, quicksaves and normal saving through the journal will be disabled, leaving you with only three ways to save:

• Should be compatible with almost anything, except other mods which affect saving like No Saving in Combat. No vanilla records were touched, everything is handled by way of scripts. This also means HardcoreSaving.esp can go anywhere in your load order.
• If you use SkyrimSouls, your settings and controls options will also be inaccessible when you enable Hardcore Saving. Other than this, the mods seem to work fine together.
• Frostfall is not required, but if you do have it, Savior's Brew will grant a warmth bonus on consumption.
• As far as script load goes, it should be very minor. The only instances in which my scripts do anything are when you load a save game, open the Journal, sleep, activate the Lucky Coin, or drink a Savior's Brew.
• If you want to add the saving effect to other ingestibles or potions, simply add the Savior's Warmth MGEF (xx0012c8) to them. The save script will initialize when the duration runs out. Be warned, this will use the same three save slots as the Savior's Brew.
  

My Other Mods