I don't know if you'll read this. Or are still modding Skyrim for that matter....
But, could you make an update to this mod eventually to nerf some of the bosses as well? If you look at their stats in CK. You'll see just how crazy OP they are. Old King Shadow for example levels with the player until level 150....
His base HP is 50, sounds fine.... Until you look at the health offset stat. Which is 8800. And his calculated health is 9258.... For contrast, Miraak, who has a similar level scaling. Has a health offset of 400, and a calculated health of 747.
Keep in mind, this wasn't even including his perks. Which includes one that... halves your damage on him.... Oh, and he has a healing spell too. The other two shadow bosses also have similar stats and perks I believe. Oh, and let's not forget that with the other two shadows. You fight them at the same time. (Though funnily enough, you can Bend Will shout one of them, and take some of the raw fire-power off of you.... Still doesn't help much because of just HOW bloated their HP and defense is.)
Honestly, I'd use Ebony Warrior as a baseline for their stats. But MAYBE be just a bit under his power. Since he is meant to be the end all be all of normal Skyrim.
Overall, I like the idea of balancing out Darkend. I just think this mod could go a bit further with the balancing.
I hope this wasn't too much to read through. And thank you in advance for reading this.
Balancing a fight is an ocean away from balancing items (and I'd probably make a separate mod for it). I don't even fully understand how NPCs work in the CK. I'd also have to nerf basically all of the bosses if I want to keep the last boss as the strongest, which is quite a lot of work. In short: there's very little chance of that happening, sorry :(
Still, if you just want a small number tweak, you can just manually reduce the health of the bosses with SSEEdit yourself. You can even publish it on nexus and I'll link your mod in the description of mine if you want.
I've been sort of trying to nerf the bosses myself. (All you need to do to find all the Darkend enemies/bosses is type in XJK in the actors search bar. Drag the name tab over so you can read their in game name. And then just find the boss you want to edit, and right click it.)
But yeah.... Even with nerfs to his attack (basically, deleting the damage times 4 perk he has). Old King Shadow still hits like a truck in Legendary mode. Legendary tier Dragon Scale armor with powerful defensive enchantments wasn't enough to prevent him from 2 shotting me. He has a ton of attack multipliers. Totaling to 6 times damage scaling....
But yeah... and even then, some of the other bosses proved to be quite unbalanced. The dragons, the Bone Golem (who has a Spark Cloak that somehow hits you even when you're super far away from it.)
Honestly, I'd say the best bet is having the final stretch bosses HP, Magicka, and Stamina. (Though for Old King Shadow, maybe reduce his stamina more than by half. 3000 is a decent number I believe?) And getting rid of their attack multipliers. (Since I think the weapons themselves hit super hard. Even with this balance patch active. Unless the NPCs somehow have different copies of the weapons? Agony is a 2-Handed weapon, but Old King Shadow uses it in one hand.)
Anyhoo... sorry for the lengthy comment here. I just figured I'd talk about things I noticed. I feel like aside from the damage being a bit high, the rest of the bosses are much more manageable.
EDIT: So it turns out, Old King Shadow DOES have a special version of his sword only he can use.
The one the player can use is a two-handed sword with a base attack of 36, and his version is a one-handed sword with 56 base damage. Couple this with the two-handed version's other stats. Faster swing speed, and 1.5000 reach. And you have a MONSTER of a weapon.
Interestingly, though, I'm pretty sure Torment, and Despair don't have an alternate boss only version. But, Despair like Agony has a faster swing speed.
hey please make mod that removes black smoke effect when equiping ring of pain, it would be better if this effect appeared only when in combat but this effect is always on
Where does one get the Red and Blue Tearstone rings? I've found all the other rings, and their +1 versions, but have never seen the tearstone ones in the map. Were the Tearstone rings never added into the game and only obtainable by console?
Yeah, that's kind of a problem with Nexus.... It doesn't notify you when you get a reply to a comment you made. So you missing that is highly understandable.
Yeah, I feel like that was a MUCH bigger issue than the items were honestly....
Those bosses are a huge difficulty spike. Like, tons of health, and one hit killing you. (Oh, and the sword-wielding champion also has a faster swing speed than average.)
I feel like if this mod was gonna nerf the items. Then the bosses should have been nerfed to compensate too. Since I ALMOST feel like those items are OP as f*** in an attempt to "balance out" the bosses.... (It doesn't really work, even with the armor points boosting ring. They still one shot you pretty much.)
Thanks so much for making this. One thing I didn't like about Darkend was that stuff was pretty overpowered. Do you have any plans on doing something similar for Vigilant? I love Vigilant a lot but it gives you perk points like candy as well as stat increases. Nonetheless, excellent work!
You should play it pronto my friend, incredible mod comes short. But i don't think vigilant stuff deserves a debuff, some of the things are op but not really like the ones in Darkened, things in vigilant are more like in dark souls, one items gives something really unique that makes you switch between rings and such. It does passively up your stats and give several perks but vigilant does require you to be a certain lvl and that's so you can manage, being the minimum lvl required will make it so it does feel like darksouls lol. Point is by the time you can get all them boosts in a manner it could be considered OP you'd already be pretty high in lvl and it wouldn't really matter so much like it would if you were the lowest lvl required and got all that, which ya cant. Which explains why all of that is there, so you can manage as earliest as possible.
Yeah I know, I don't use them p: it's just obnoxious when it's the same "here's a perk point that highlights the problem with power creep with the endgame.". That's my only problem with Vigilant is that as soon as you got to Act 4, you get handed super powerful items and ingredients and it doesn't feel like I earned them at all.
I made this long ago but if I remember correctly the effects I nerfed are used both by the weapons rewarded to the player AND the skeleton archers. So that would be a yes.
38 comments
But, could you make an update to this mod eventually to nerf some of the bosses as well? If you look at their stats in CK.
You'll see just how crazy OP they are. Old King Shadow for example levels with the player until level 150....
His base HP is 50, sounds fine.... Until you look at the health offset stat. Which is 8800. And his calculated health is 9258....
For contrast, Miraak, who has a similar level scaling. Has a health offset of 400, and a calculated health of 747.
Keep in mind, this wasn't even including his perks. Which includes one that... halves your damage on him.... Oh, and he has a healing spell too.
The other two shadow bosses also have similar stats and perks I believe. Oh, and let's not forget that with the other two shadows. You fight them at the same time. (Though funnily enough, you can Bend Will shout one of them, and take some of the raw fire-power off of you.... Still doesn't help much because of just HOW bloated their HP and defense is.)
Honestly, I'd use Ebony Warrior as a baseline for their stats. But MAYBE be just a bit under his power. Since he is meant to be the end all be all of normal Skyrim.
Overall, I like the idea of balancing out Darkend. I just think this mod could go a bit further with the balancing.
I hope this wasn't too much to read through. And thank you in advance for reading this.
Still, if you just want a small number tweak, you can just manually reduce the health of the bosses with SSEEdit yourself. You can even publish it on nexus and I'll link your mod in the description of mine if you want.
But yeah.... Even with nerfs to his attack (basically, deleting the damage times 4 perk he has). Old King Shadow still hits like a truck in Legendary mode. Legendary tier Dragon Scale armor with powerful defensive enchantments wasn't enough to prevent him from 2 shotting me. He has a ton of attack multipliers. Totaling to 6 times damage scaling....
But yeah... and even then, some of the other bosses proved to be quite unbalanced. The dragons, the Bone Golem (who has a Spark Cloak that somehow hits you even when you're super far away from it.)
Honestly, I'd say the best bet is having the final stretch bosses HP, Magicka, and Stamina. (Though for Old King Shadow, maybe reduce his stamina more than by half. 3000 is a decent number I believe?) And getting rid of their attack multipliers. (Since I think the weapons themselves hit super hard. Even with this balance patch active. Unless the NPCs somehow have different copies of the weapons? Agony is a 2-Handed weapon, but Old King Shadow uses it in one hand.)
Anyhoo... sorry for the lengthy comment here. I just figured I'd talk about things I noticed.
I feel like aside from the damage being a bit high, the rest of the bosses are much more manageable.
EDIT:
So it turns out, Old King Shadow DOES have a special version of his sword only he can use.
The one the player can use is a two-handed sword with a base attack of 36, and his version is a one-handed sword with 56 base damage. Couple this with the two-handed version's other stats. Faster swing speed, and 1.5000 reach. And you have a MONSTER of a weapon.
Interestingly, though, I'm pretty sure Torment, and Despair don't have an alternate boss only version. But, Despair like Agony has a faster swing speed.
Those bosses are a huge difficulty spike. Like, tons of health, and one hit killing you. (Oh, and the sword-wielding champion also has a faster swing speed than average.)
I feel like if this mod was gonna nerf the items. Then the bosses should have been nerfed to compensate too. Since I ALMOST feel like those items are OP as f*** in an attempt to "balance out" the bosses.... (It doesn't really work, even with the armor points boosting ring. They still one shot you pretty much.)