SKYRIMLE Harvest Overhaul (by Omeletter)

[MontyMM]

Based on what Rootsrat and Z have said, definitely seems more like a pack candidate. I'll think I'll be using it myself, because I don't like grinding for ingredients, but it clearly has balance implications for vanilla.

[rpsgc]

By that logic 'Ars Metallica' shouldn't be in STEP either.

 

* Provide skill advancement for the use of the smelter to melt down ore. After all, that's as important as knowing how to shape it once refined.

* Provide skill advancement for the use of the tanning rack to make leather. That's far more important in my mind than the skill advances from using the leather to make stuff.

* Provide for a small amount of skill advancement from mining the ore itself out of ore veins.

 

For Hearthfire:

 

* Provides smithing experience for using the various workbenches used to construct your homes. The drafting table does not count since nothing is actually built using it.

 

It makes smithing easy.

[MontyMM]

Possibly, but it's a question of degrees, not absolutes. I've never looked closely at Ars, but if its effects are as unbalancing as Rootsrat suggests of this mod, then I'd agree with you.

[rootsrat]

I think it all depends on how you look at it. I have stopped using Harvest Overhaul purely for the reason that when I count all the factors, it actually breaks my immersion more than it adds to it.

 

Purely from STEP mandate perspective - I think you're right. Neither HO nor AM should be part of base STEP set up.

[rpsgc]

How does getting 2/3/4 flowers from a bush breaks immersion but getting only 1 flower from a bush with a dozen or so, doesn't?

[rootsrat]

I've explained it here: https://forum.step-project.com/showthread.php?tid=1791&pid=26154#pid26154

[z929669]

Before anyone confirms, I'd like to draw attention to an important fact of this mod:

 

This is a gameplay mod, and it must enhance some aspect of vanilla step ... but not change it unless 'it' is broken in some way. What is this mod doing? It is allowing > 1 harvest item per harvest. It also appears that the amount you harvest will never be zero. Unless there is something I am missing, this is inherently unbalancing of a not-broken system in vanilla Skyrim IMO. This sounds much more like a Pack item to me.

 

Balanced harvest mods modify chance of harvest by a few sensible factors rather than random probability (assuming this mod is basically random). These might include alchemy skills, race and character level. I am not a big fan of the new leveling system of Skyrim, as it is too linear. Heaping more opportunity and flooding that system with assets (e.g., this mod) seems like an exacerbation of the problem and might require some balancing acts elsewhere to compensate.

 

Pushing the lump down here will only cause it to pop up elsewhere ...

I understand your concern about it possible leveling up alchemy faster do to the greater harvest but it would be no different if you went and searched for hours collecting the stuff. This possibly just makes alchemy "easier" to level up.

 

In my opinion, this mod corrects a faulty system in the game. When you look at the snowberry bush and see 20 snowberries on it but only harvest 1 or 2 berries...that is faulty and completely unrealistic. The same can be said for flowers and many other harvest-able items in-game. It corrects the realism of the harvesting feature, so...from my point of view it does enhance/fix a vanilla aspect of the game. If you harvest something (by the very definition of the word) it should never be zero.

 

Same goes for creatures. Take a sabertooth kitty. In vanilla sometimes you get an eye and sometimes you don't... why? They all have two eyes don't they? So you should always be able to get at least one eye when you harvest. Harvest Overhaul corrects this. It's one of those things that is just glaringly obvious to me that some may never even thing about.

Sorry, but that is a flawed argument. 20 flowers on a plant does not translate into 20 potential flowers in your inventory. These individual flowers are representative of a quantity. they are not meant to be viewed literally as individual flowers. one flower, or anther, or piece of fish is representative of a 'realistic' amount.

 

Also, it is not the leveling that should be the concern, but the number of aliquots of the ingredient! With this mod, I can potentially make 3-10 potions  where I could previously only make one.

 

That is significantly unbalancing from the vanilla construct. It does not matter if we agree with the vanilla construct or not. the point is that it is not broken or 'wrong', so this mod is a gameplay-preference mod, and it belongs in a Pack for that reason.

 

I don't think that there is any debate other than the balance impact unless we change the STEP mandate, which we are not going to do. Additions like this open the door to many other like additions. Soon we would have a very different gameplay result than vanilla Skyrim ...

 

Can anyone demonstrate that this mod does not alter the balance of the game to benefit any player that chooses to collect even a single ingredient and use that to poison an arrow or create a potion?

 

EDIT: there can certainly be "zero" items harvested, depending on the skill of the harvester. it is about capturing *useful* ingredients. there is variation in plants and animals (and harvesters) that affect the amount of useful ingredients collected. Zero is totally realistic, and there are a wealth of moddeers and mods that would concur with that.

[EssArrBee]

I think the point about Ars Metallica is spot on when assessing what Harvest Overhaul does to vanilla Skyrim, you level when smithing the ore, then again when smelting the ore to ingots, then again when making the equipment which can then be smelted over again, rinse repeat. The amount of balance goes back to the heart of what a role playing game is, and you have to choose what that is for your character. Are you level spammer? or not? I can see Harvest overhaul being the same for Alchemy and speech since you can just gather tons of ingredients and make potions then sell them leveling both very quickly.

 

If Community Uncapper is in the guide it will affect vanilla level unless you revert the whole ini back to default, which would make no sense to have it installed. With the way the guide is right now it might be useful to have a recommendation for at least part of the Uncapper ini and throw it up on the wiki, maybe even asks Elys, who seems to be the most helpful person on the nexus. This could help to solve spamming problems with certain mods because a lot of casual users will following the recommendations to the letter and will not be able to level as fast if things like alchemy and smithing have leveling reduced by say 20%.

[rpsgc]

z929669,

 

If you're so adamant in sticking with the STEP mandate, no ifs or buts, then you have to remove 'Ars Metallica' from STEP as it does similar than what you accuse 'Harvest Overhaul' of doing.

 

I can melt pretty much all the weapons, ammo and armour I have to make new ingots. So why mine the ore or buy ingots when I can just melt everything I find?

 

 

And this:

https://forum.step-project.com/showthread.php?tid=1791&pid=26180#pid26180

[rootsrat]

Gentlemen, as I stated before, the game is as much fun as you make it. Ars Metallica and harvest overhaul give you possibility of exploit. Whether you are going to use this exploit and ruin your own game taking fun out of it is up to you really :)

 

Although purely from step mandate perspective both should be removed in my opinion.

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[z929669]

z929669,

 

What about the separate creature mod? That doesn't effect any skill. And it removes gold from wild life.

That sounds like a winner to me ... I never know a bear with  an income :P

[Neovalen]

Gentlemen, as I stated before, the game is as much fun as you make it. Ars Metallica and harvest overhaul give you possibility of exploit. Whether you are going to use this exploit and ruin your own game taking fun out of it is up to you really :)

 

Although purely from step mandate perspective both should be removed in my opinion.

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

Going by the letter yes... by the spirit though....I'm not so sure. Its the same type of discussion we had for Atlas Map Markers... it can be exploited but balanced by default.

 

Personally I think we should not discount mods that CAN be exploited... there will always be exploits... but rather only those that are in your face about it.

[z929669]

By that logic 'Ars Metallica' shouldn't be in STEP either.

 

* Provide skill advancement for the use of the smelter to melt down ore. After all, that's as important as knowing how to shape it once refined.

* Provide skill advancement for the use of the tanning rack to make leather. That's far more important in my mind than the skill advances from using the leather to make stuff.

* Provide for a small amount of skill advancement from mining the ore itself out of ore veins.

 

For Hearthfire:

 

* Provides smithing experience for using the various workbenches used to construct your homes. The drafting table does not count since nothing is actually built using it.

 

It makes smithing easy.

Ars affects levelling opportunities and increases interactivity. I don't think that it translates as drastically into a balancing issue as this mod does. Ars is more a game-correcting/enhancing mod than a gameplay *preference*

 

It is a fine line though. I advocate Ars for core STEP but not HO.

[z929669]

I think the point about Ars Metallica is spot on when assessing what Harvest Overhaul does to vanilla Skyrim' date=' you level when smithing the ore, then again when smelting the ore to ingots, then again when making the equipment which can then be smelted over again, rinse repeat. The amount of balance goes back to the heart of what a role playing game is, and you have to choose what that is for your character. Are you level spammer? or not? I can see Harvest overhaul being the same for Alchemy and speech since you can just gather tons of ingredients and make potions then sell them leveling both very quickly.

 

If Community Uncapper is in the guide it will affect vanilla level unless you revert the whole ini back to default, which would make no sense to have it installed. With the way the guide is right now it might be useful to have a recommendation for at least part of the Uncapper ini and throw it up on the wiki, maybe even asks Elys, who seems to be the most helpful person on the nexus. This could help to solve spamming problems with certain mods because a lot of casual users will following the recommendations to the letter and will not be able to level as fast if things like alchemy and smithing have leveling reduced by say 20%.

Again, leveling is not so much a point in this case. It is more about multitudes of potions/poisons and ingredients. I think that collecting 3-10 of anything per harvest is grossly liberal and unbalancing. Rootsrat is right about the player taking part in the 'unbalancing act', but this mod breaks alchemy IMO.

z929669,

 

If you're so adamant in sticking with the STEP mandate, no ifs or buts, then you have to remove 'Ars Metallica' from STEP as it does similar than what you accuse 'Harvest Overhaul' of doing.

 

I can melt pretty much all the weapons, ammo and armour I have to make new ingots. So why mine the ore or buy ingots when I can just melt everything I find?

 

 

And this:

https://forum.step-project.com/showthread.php?tid=1791&pid=26180#pid26180

I do think that we need to reconsider many of our gamelpay mods as being part of core STEP. many of these will be taken out and bundled into Packs I think. We just need to come up with a litmus test of some kind.

[EssArrBee]

I completely agree that getting 7-10 of an ingredient is far to many but I think that only happens with the mountain flowers and not across the board for every type of plant or fungus. I think those are from 1-5 which i can handle because in game I've been getting 2 or 3 of stuff most of the time which I don't think unbalances alchemy. Actually it is more immersive (hate that word) to me because I don't have to stop to harvest plants as much now and I can just run around being a normal murdering psychopath instead of a murdering psychopath that enjoys botany.