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Wednesday 25 January 2012

A Hardcore Skyrim!

Skyrim is undoubtedly a masterpiece loved by thousands, including me. In fact go here to find out just how much I love it. But I have come across one BIG problem, the game breaks at higher levels. I have noticed that around level 30 unless you have messed up pretty badly, your character becomes mostly invincible, even on the Master difficulty. After defeating the final battle (and saving the world) in under 30 seconds I decided that a solution will have too be found for my next play through. So I compiled a list of mods designed specifically to make the game harder.


Deadly Dragons
Hello Doggy
Everyone loves killing Dragons in Skyrim, the satisfaction from absorbing yet another Dragon Soul is something you just cant get from a box of tissues and hand lotion. But as you progress in the game, you will find that these monstrous beasts are not quite as fearsome as you first thought. After you see a Giant kill one or a group of guards you will begin to question your existence and reach for that box of tissues again. But that's where 3JLou's Deadly Dragons mod comes in.

This does a whole lot of things, including, as the the name suggests, makes Dragons more deadly. It adds many new Dragons to your game with their very own custom textures. It also gives you two difficulty options, Hard and Hardcore depending how epic you want your Dragon battles or rather how quickly you want to die. I've tested this one and gone are my days of one hit killing Elder Dragons.

Download here!

Wars in Skyrim IV
There's always a bigger fish
Traveling through the wilds of Skyrim is an inspiring experience, the scenery is simply beautiful and you may often find yourself staring into the distance admiring all those mountains you can actually climb...woah (sarcasm? yes). Ordinarily you can wonder around mostly absently-mindedly with nothing more than the occasional bear running at you, but with Alexandrox's Wars in Skyrim IV mod, all that will change.

The mod aims to make the game more immersive and interesting by essentially adding more spawn points throughout the world. Meaning instead of a random lone bear attacking, you may accidentally stumble upon a mini war between some Thalmor Wizards and a group of Fire Atronauchs. The mod offers 5 difficulty options plus many optional changes, all of which change everything from spawn frequency to creature size.

Download here!


Hardcore and Balanced Experience
There are a lot of exploits in Skyrim, some of which are fully within the rules of the game design but can cause the player to be overpowered very quickly. I found it very strange how easy it was to get new and better equipment, especially if I invested in Smithing. I could just buy everything I needed to make a new set of Armour if I wanted to, and since gold is so readily available I never had a problem affording it.


This mod made by KospY aims to re-balance the game in a much more logical way. It of course makes it more difficult in some respects but a lot of effort has been put in to make sure it doesn't break the game. Smithing is completely overhauled actually making the skill tree more beneficial but materials are much harder to come by. Stores no longer sell ores and ingots, so mining becomes essential. Schematics are needed in order to learn how to make everything, but existing Armour and weapons can be dismantled for pieces. This is a great mod that has a lot of little tweaks and future plans.


Download here!


Filling food and Restful sleep
I used to be a cook like you...
While looting everyone and everything I came across I quickly stopped picking up all the food that is laying around. I know that it heals you but I have potions for that, I don't want to carry more than I have to. Even one of the (two?) perks of getting married is that you get a home cooked meal, bit of a cheap deal if you ask me. So whats the point in it all? Well there isn't one, until now.

Punxdog's Filling food and Restful sleep is a very interesting mod that attempts to make food and sleep essential to life in Skyrim. If you're anything like me you will go weeks without sleeping (but I should be talking about Skyrim). You would assume this lack of sleep would effect you in some way, or at least have a benefit (I don't really count the rested XP bonus as leveling is too quick even without it) and now it does.

The mod does away with Health, Mana and Stamina regeneration, requiring you to eat in order to gain regeneration in the latter two. Different food types will give you different regeneration times and not all will effect both. Health regeneration from food is gone completely, so you must rely on potions, spells and sleep. Sleep gives you a small amount of health regeneration for a short time. I like this, it reminds me of the hardcore mode on New Vegas though I a little less in-depth.

Download here!


PISE - Improved Skyrim Experience
So far I've offered you ways of ramping up the difficulty of different aspects of the game but I'm sure some of you are looking for a more overall change in difficulty, well here is your answer. Pluto's  PISE - Improved Skyrim Experience mod.

The mod changes a lot of things in order to make the game harder. More spawn points are added, AI is improved so enemies block more often, are more accurate, make use of power attackes and even can use potions and spells to heal. It also has many optional files that change everything from leveling difficulty to NPC equipment.

I'm not sure what the compatibility issues may be with this and other mods on this list so be careful if installing this one.


Download here!

Intense Difficulty
This is a simple mod with very little information it basically gives you 5 different difficulty options, changing the Master setting to be from 2x harder to 32x more difficult.

If you want a truly hardcore bed wetting experience then this is probably the mod for you.

Download here!

For more Skyrim mods check this out!

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