Community Shaders & Tempus
Added 2025-01-22 17:28:02 +0000 UTCHey everyone.
Honestly I don't have a whole lot to talk about but I like to try to keep people in the loop with what I'm doing around here. If you watch my streams on Twitch, you already know this stuff, but let's go over it anyway.
I've been spending some time looking into Community Shaders for Tempus. Sadly, it is far from a clean swap from ENB to CS, so if/when that does happen, it would likely require a new save. Since I hate doing that, I've started building a second profile in MO2 - one for ENB, one for CS. CS is wayyy friendlier on my performance, but does look significantly worse. I suppose that's expected. I'm fine with ditching some visual fidelity in favor of better performance, as that has been one of the major complaints with v7, and those complaints certainly are not unfounded.
I'm also going to ditch the Ultimate Animated Potions stuff. It's more annoying than anything and doesn't (in my opinion) add anything of real value to the game. It turns my Arcane Weapon into a buggy green bar, and the timing of quaffing a potion is pretty awkward, resulting in me occasionally opening the menu, being unable to consume a potion, closing the menu, waiting a second, opening the menu...it's not worth it. So, soon, you'll be back to chugging 2,413 potions all at once, if you like.
Now here's a more potentially controversial one: I'm also considering ditching Nether's Follower Framework. I have some suspicions about it, though I haven't confirmed any. But at the end of the day...I don't really use it. The only function I use from it is to collect a bunch of followers and put them in the Museum or whatever, which we can already do with My Home Is Your Home. Between the modded companions all having their own way to call them to you, Simply Order Squad, and MHIYH, I just don't think NFF is really needed. I know it has a lot of features, but I don't use hardly any of them.
I'd also like to add more of Andrealphus' stuff, in particular the mods involving the CC player homes. This stuff can always be a bit questionable, as people tend to install giant modlists then get mad when things aren't vanilla, so I'm on the fence there.
One last thing I think that needs to change: combat. I like...some of the combat. I don't like a few things. For one, I'd like for combat to be faster. Not like fuckin anime-swordfighting fast, but fast enough to make your dodges and parries a bit more meaningful. Shorten the block window, speed up combat a little, and add in some form of attack canceling, and I think it could be a lot of fun. I know most people like the attack commitment (and most mods include some form of attack commitment) but I find myself swinging a sword and going "oh I can tell I'm dead and there's literally nothing I can do because this animation is a bit longer so I can't block or heal or drink a potion or dodge." Maybe it's just me, but that's how I'm feeling.
Let me know what you think.
All the best,
Nick.
Comments
also as someone who always disables long annoying "immersive" animations, go bananas with removing any of those, they won't be missed.
Sam Norberg
2025-02-05 20:20:14 +0000 UTCa CS profile would be huge, would love that. as for NFF, i always see it in lists and go like "oh sweet this has NFF" but then i end up never actually using any of its features. the one thing i do use is giving my followers different homes, but as you said, MHIYH does that already so i am all for removing it if you have even an inkling of a suspicion that it might cause crashes or affect performance (you wouldnt be the first mod list author to have that inkling either, so theres probably something to it).
Sam Norberg
2025-02-05 20:19:10 +0000 UTCRemoving long annoying animations is always a good thing. The long animations might give some people immersion but they're an unnecessary slowing down of the game at large and take away the fun of exploring things. When you stop doing things because you know the animations are going to take too long then you know something is no good anymore.
Magicbison
2025-01-27 05:43:25 +0000 UTCLorerim has a CS fork now. It's quite recent.
Arda
2025-01-25 19:06:33 +0000 UTCI'm all for a "performance mode" profile that sounds like a great idea
Vibe
2025-01-24 10:15:33 +0000 UTCI've yet to see one that advertises it, and I've went through most of the modlists on Wabbajack. It's kinda crazy actually
Liz umi
2025-01-23 18:40:56 +0000 UTCIn terms of followers. I rarely use them but when I do regardless of the framework unless they have behavior settings that can be set in the MCM like always stay behind me or let me use you as a healer only, not a battle person. I don't have a preference for which follower mod you use. I'll make my decisions on how I play the game through based on what you decide. In terms of combat, yes, something needs to be done and yes some of the animations regardless of source can be too long or cause issue. Most but not all mods allow for tweaking the speed and length of the animations. This can help resolve the issues of I tried to block but was stuck in a sword animation or great axe one. I have added the following mods into Tempus to adjust several areas that I like to have in my game play as I role play. They would not be for everyone, after all we are all as different in our choices as snowflakes are in design that fall from the sky. I use a [NODELETE] - Tweaks separator and use the [NODELETE] prefix in front of each mod I install: 1. [NODELETE] Dynamic Looting and Harvesting Animations. (Why, I like to take my time and the animations provide more immersion. I am not in a rush to get to the next quest, I am enjoying the journey). 2. [NODELETE] Wheeler- Quick Action Wheel of Skyrim (I prefer this method of creating favorites and grouping items such as potions, conjuration spells, healing spells, destruction spells, potions, etc.). 3. [NODELETE] Elder Creed - Wheeler Reskin (This one allows me to position the wheel to the right-side because I like third person more than first person.) 4. [NODELETE] Simple Hunting Overhaul (I like getting food and alchemy components from animals I kill for creating foods that buff and alchemy potions.) 5. [NODELETE] Immersive Death Cycle (I like not coming up on some animal that I or something else killed and not seeing them in the same state as I last left them. Immersion again.) 6. [NODELETE] Chocolate Poise (I like a bit better struggle during combat. No one shot please and it integrates well with Valhalla Combat mod. There is a check box that will display. If you use the next mod which helps to balance it in combination with the sliders for difficulty mod and the settings of Adept, Expert so on. It can be tweaked to be easy, medium, or downright hard depending on your preferences.) 7. [NODELETE } Chocolate Poise Plus - Add-ons and Rebalancing (This one really does help. I also balance some of the settings in the ENB to be less super saturated. Or at least it appears that way on my setup. ENB is tricky stuff because we all like different looks in terms of color and saturation. Some like natural looking worlds, some like high-fantasy ones, and some like them grim and dark. I understand ENB settings so not to difficult to adjust and apply, save the settings. That's all I have. In the end, I like playing Tempus because of the Legacy of the Dragonborn quest, the Magic Forge, and the many quest mods included. I feel like I have choices there. That's important. Do I use other mod list. Yes, I have an Eldergleam NG 3.0 setup to play the Rigmor Series of mods. I also have Apostasy for those crazy combat animation cycles. I have over 5,400 hours in Skyrim to-date. There's not too many mod list out there I haven't played at some point to to see what they are and if they fit my style of playing the game.
Braindump
2025-01-23 12:32:19 +0000 UTCNo other list uses CS? That’s surprising.
Nicholas Jae
2025-01-23 10:41:45 +0000 UTCAbsolutely agree with all the removals, honestly. I've always been wanting to use Community Shaders, but I don't know of a list that uses it; yours would be the first, but I love everything I've heard and seen about it.
Liz umi
2025-01-23 08:10:45 +0000 UTCI adhere to this post totally
Nelson Contreras
2025-01-22 23:13:04 +0000 UTCAgree about NFF. I don’t use Vanilla followers in general, just transit them to the museum and dump them to make the safe house more lively. As someone else said, it has a couple of features that are helpful. Don’t know if they have been or can be emulated elsewhere. Stop fighting, for instance. I have memories of poor Lucien getting his head kicked in by my other friends. I turn ENB off anyway because it tanks my performance (also Boris…). Potions seems realism vs QOL and I come down on the side of QOL. So fine by me if you axe animated pots. Not sure about the block timing because I really like block play but I somehow suck at it. Should be tweakable in user-end settings though, right? I agree with you about attack commitment. It makes logical sense but can feel clunky and not a whole lot of fun (for me, at least). As for decisions based on people bitching that something’s not Vanilla… fuck ‘em? Installing giant list then complaining about non-Vanilla things is a problem only Darwin can solve, so ignore and do what you want I think.
Paws
2025-01-22 19:33:55 +0000 UTCMy preference would be to skip the player home nerfs, include both ENB and CS profiles (root builder may help with that) and keep NFF. I don't really use potions, so whatever you prefer there, I have no opinion.
ItsAlways710
2025-01-22 19:03:29 +0000 UTCFirst, I am so thankful for both Tempus and Magnum Opus. They both helped revitalize their respective games for me. The mods to the CC homes look good and sound reasonable, and I agree with the authors positions for the most part. I think those would be a great edition to the list. I always play a vampire, so thank you very much for supporting those mods and content you don't use. That really means a lot to a lot of us. You owe us nothing, but you give anyway. On NFF, I mostly use it to gather up folks like you do and plant them where I want them. However, it's always pretty fun to get all the housecarls together when doing the civil war quest line. It's actually some what hilarious. This is minor however. The next somewhat minor use is setting every follower to essential. At a certain point, one accidental hit (especially without a way to cancel attacks) means I'm about to have to reload. That makes good saving practices more stressful as well since spamming quicksave before combat is not a great plan. The biggest issue with removing NFF for me by far is the ability to set outfits and auto hiding helms out of battle. It's so incredibly frustrating to give them fun thematic, primo gear, only for them to be wearing their base game outfit the next time I see them. Thank you again.
Zach Hennen
2025-01-22 18:52:24 +0000 UTCCS is also cooking some huge performance gains from what I can see of their development Discord, and new features are always being added to it, the future is looking better and better for CS
januarysnow
2025-01-22 18:34:19 +0000 UTCGreat post. Informative yet focused...Before Tempus, I played a list that skipped Animated Armory in favor of Goetia/Leviathan. Much higher quality animations, without tons of weapons no one uses. I'd miss thrusting Rapiers and literally nothing else.............as for Follower Franework, I've never used it. I only use Super Followers who have their own framework, who explicitly do not function with it. Wouldn't miss it. Look forward to seeing where you take things.
Jason Thacker
2025-01-22 18:31:39 +0000 UTCI have to agree with above, about potions. If there is no animation, it'd be best for restore potions to work over time as opposed to instant.
Jason Thacker
2025-01-22 18:28:16 +0000 UTCI agree with what L-D-e said about the potions bit. I do like that it makes me think more about combat but to offset the bugs it presets if potions did heal over time instead of being able to chug a whole cauldron of minor health potions to survive a hit would help make combat more dynamic. The way it is now also makes me think of how i want to heal and makes restoration spells and food more viable imo.
Dalteeno
2025-01-22 18:28:04 +0000 UTCI'm down with all of these changes
Bathrobe SamuraiB
2025-01-22 18:26:11 +0000 UTCYea, I agree with almost everything you have said here. The only thing I am unsure about is speeding up combat. I'm still trying to get a good feel for it, so I feel like I don't know it well enough to give an educated opinion. I would rather not have it go too much towards Souls type combat though, and you did acknowledge that. I'm just mentioning it because I really don't like that type of stuff. But my opinion is one of many. I do trust your judgement though. As always, thank you for all your hard work Lively!
Chef
2025-01-22 18:20:33 +0000 UTCIt is criticizing, but it is constructive criticism, which is exactly what I'm looking for. I try not to talk shit on mods unless I'm 100% sure they're actually causing problems, so I don't want to go into stuff with NFF too much, but I am currently suspicious of how it may be interacting poorly with some other mods we use, like Practical Necromancy and Sure of Stealing, just as a few examples. If it was stagnant and not doing anything, sure, I could keep it for others. And I already do that a lot (for example, all the vampire stuff, since I absolutely despise being a vampire and would never use any of those mods). I also agree in regards to the first vs third person animations. Owlessa and I talked about this at length just the other night. Matching first to third is not reasonable - and, let's face it, would be disgusting with the first person camera swinging around and whatnot - but the first person stuff could absolutely be better. I like the third person stuff, but it often feels slow and we definitely need a way to attack cancel the animations so we can dodge or block.
Nicholas Jae
2025-01-22 18:19:19 +0000 UTCI don't use NFF since I tend to stick with the "super" companions (Remi, Xelxaz, Lucien, Val) but... why remove something that isn't breaking the game or causing problems, but other people may use? It's the same question I had about removing the Winterhold expanded quests too. Sure, they can be tedious if you've done them before but there are a lot of new users trying out the list that are going for that whole "roleplaying a mage working their way up" storyline. They can even be skipped. Just something to think about when deciding whether to remove a mod or not. If you don't use it.. someone else may love it, so why not keep it and just ignore it? Yes, I understand at the end of the day, it's YOUR list and you make it for you, but just consider if there really is any value added in removing mods/features. NFF falls in the same category. If it's really not causing problems, you can just... not use it. So why remove it completely? Animated potions, I agree. I do like the tactical choice you have to make to commit to chugging a single potion. I just had a dragon fight where I had to keep ducking behind cover, chug a potion, dart back out and snipe the dragon. It beats just "insta healing" spam. But yes, it does cause problems in some cases. In a different list I played before TM, their alchemy overhaul had a MCM setting to make potions heal over time rather than instant. This forced a similar tactical choice since spamming them was pointless. Faster combat I also agree with you. Currently playing 2H. And it's funny and annoying when I commit to a forward power attack and jog 10 yards swinging my sword as the bandit casually steps aside and I smash a wall. Overall, thanks for your work. Not criticizing, just offering other points of view and considerations as you think through the next iteration.
L-D-e
2025-01-22 18:04:54 +0000 UTCIf there was something like a delay between being able to drink potions of a specific effect it would be a good middle-ground, I feel? So 2-3 seconds between the effects of Health Potions, even if you were to chug 20 at once. Right now I just don't use potions, because the amount of time the animation takes and the way it just interrupts everything feels really bad. I've ranted about the combat animations before, and I'm playing a mage this save, so I have no real useful stuff to say about the combat beyond a general wish for something that doesn't have such a massive discrepancy in feel between first and third person. Regarding followers... I feel like people walking around with multiple followers is a big thing in Skyrim, so maybe something that still lets you gather an army without relying on each follower having their separate method would be nice? I personally sometimes get annoyed even with just 1 follower, so going to it being a purely vanilla system (for vanilla followers) is fine I went to have a look at Andrealphus on nexus and holy shit that's a lot of mods. I like the two player house changes, especially the stuff like removing the displays in a list like nexus, where the main "display things" area is the museum. Regarding the shaders... i'm fortunate and priviliged enough that my PC runs the game just fine, aside from FPS drops in the very crowded areas. So I'll take it either way. I disabled a lot of the fancy stuff because it drives me nuts - Depth of Field, ambient occlusion, motion blur, etc. Realistically, unless this update happens soon-ish, I'll probably stick to my current save, I'm just getting into things and my build is coming together, wnt to get a good chunk of the game done before restarting. But I definitely am a fan of the list continuing to improve and become an even better playing experience!
Cristi Palincas
2025-01-22 17:55:52 +0000 UTCIf you're gonna ditch NFF there's a couple features from it that you'll have to get elsewhere, namely a way to reduce follower infighting, better stealth ai for followers, extinguish torches when sneaking, prevent followers from drawing weapons when you do, follower's don't set off traps, an option to mute idle chatter from certain followers, and a way for followers to recharge enchanted weapons.
The Mysterious Stranger
2025-01-22 17:47:32 +0000 UTCAs someone with a lower end gpu, I wholeheartedly support the option of having community shaders in. Would the entire profile be more performance friendly or is that too much work? As for the combat, as I'm primarily a mage player, I don't really have an opinion, but maybe just removing the potion animation mod would solve the "I know I'm dead and there's nothing I can do bit?"
Matheus Rocha
2025-01-22 17:38:35 +0000 UTC
