Valenwood Improved. Options

[Renee]

This thread is going to be dedicated to Valenwood Improved which can be found here.

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/225...iption&BH=2

I know a few of you have experience with VI. I am installing this now (reinstalling, actually, just to make sure I get all those meshes & textures and whatnot). I do not have any Elsweyr mods, so I won't have to worry about patches there.

So far, I am noting four archives included with Valenwood Improved: Full English, Full German, English Update, and German update. Apparently, the mod's DESC page is out-of-date. Its installation instructions say

Please unzip the archive and extract the folder completely to Oblivion\Data\ (without the *. txt). .

But that is incomplete. According to a couple random gamers in the mod's POSTS section, it's best to install..

1). Full German first
2). Full English second (overwriting stuff)
3). English Update.

Because apparently the German version has a few things missing from the English version? How does that sound, so far? Right, or wrong?

This post has been edited by Renee: Sep 27 2020, 05:32 PM

[Renee]

Valenwood is awesome. I am loving it! Everyone speaks German (in text dialog) which is perfect. I want the place to have a different language from Cyrodiil so that works for me.

I thought there weren't any NPCs? The first town Balztu walked into is packed with people. In fact the place got attacked by a couple of bears and Balztu tried to help defeat them. Most other people were running from the beast. There were at least a half-dozen people fighting or fleeing the bear.

Balztu tried to help, thinking she'd save them all, and immediately be in their better graces. But instad she hit somebody. And got arrested. Now she's back in Skingrad. Oops.

[Acadian]

Friendly fire is an unforgiving mistress in Oblivion!

[Renee]

Yes it is!

mirocu, you gotta try this mod!

macole did provide a list, which I will copy/paste here for easy reference.


Valenwood Improved v1_02_1 Eng Full.7z (From Nexus, I merged the following:
1) Valenwood Improved 1020 Full Ger
2) Valenwood Improved 1020 English Translation
3) Valenwood Improved 1021 Update Eng

Valenwood Improved OCOv2 Patch Version 1.01-47803-1-01.rar
ElsweyrAnequina ValenwoodImprovedPatch.rar
Vampire Hunting Valenwood Improved Patch-30568.7z


Valenwood Islands v1_25.7z
Valenwood Islands LOD fix-45533-1-25.zip
VI Palm Replacer

Unique Landscape patches:
Valenwood Improved - Fallenleaf Everglade EV - Patch.esp [Version 1.0]
ValenwoodIslands - ULCliffsOfAnvilpatch.esp
Valenwood Improved - River Ethe EV - Patch.esp [Version 1.0]

This post has been edited by Renee: Sep 27 2020, 09:38 PM

[macole]

But that is incomplete. According to a couple random gamers in the mod's POSTS section, it's best to install..

1). Full German first
2). Full English second (overwriting stuff)
3). English Update.

Because apparently the German version has a few things missing from the English version? How does that sound, so far? Right, or wrong?

That's right.
The further south you travel the less populated Valenwood becomes. Southpoint especially so. The countryside is gorgeous. Beware the spriggans! They are very tough and have at least three lives. Once the Jandaga and his Ladies fought a single spriggan for what seemed like half an hour.

[Renee]

Bleagh, spriggans, hate the things!

It is REALLY gorgeous. Definitely worth the very long install process, my gosh. I have barely touched the opening village (whatever its name is) and after my orc got arrested, I realized that subconsciously I am teasing myself. I could have rolled that scenario over, but part of me wants to be blown away again, reentering the province from scratch!

[SubRosa]

Bleagh, spriggans, hate the things!

It is REALLY gorgeous. Definitely worth the very long install process, my gosh. I have barely touched the opening village (whatever its name is) and after my orc got arrested, I realized that subconsciously I am teasing myself. I could have rolled that scenario over, but part of me wants to be blown away again, reentering the province from scratch!

If you use my Witchcraft or Forest Friend Amulet mods, Spriggans are friendly.

[ghastley]

The spriggans in VI are a different formid, so I'd suspect your mod wouldn't think they're really spriggans.

They had a buggy script that let them resurrect themselves after dying, three times, but it reset every time, so they were immortal. I think it got fixed (after I sent in a patch for it), but if you got an old copy, it might still be there. The texture was changed, so you could visually tell a VI spriggan from a regular one, and avoid them.

[Renee]

Yes, I have used Witchcraft in Lady Saga's game for years now. It has interesting results when paired with MMM and Maskar's. Most Earth-like enemies are tranquil for instance, but there will be that one exception here and there. A wolf or a bear or a mudcrab or even a mountain lion. I like this. Real predators can be unpredictable, after all.

Saga will eventually head to Valenwood herself (she's supposed to be from that province), but I wanted to go there first with Balztu. This way, when Saga goes there I will already be familiar with certain areas. Saga will be able to just head to her homeland, and so on.

They had a buggy script that let them resurrect themselves after dying, three times, but it reset every time, so they were immortal. I think it got fixed (after I sent in a patch for it), but if you got an old copy, it might still be there. The texture was changed, so you could visually tell a VI spriggan from a regular one, and avoid them.

Okay, I will let you know if I see any reviving spriggans, ghast. Good to know you contributed to this mod in the past.

[Renee]

An update on Valenwood Improved. As my orc has attempted to travel away from Arenthia, Valenwood's initial town, results have been mixed.

-- Arenthia itself is amazing, yet not overstated. It is a rather unusual town, as it is built upon a mountain side, and its main avenue climbs upwards. Lots of people. It is obvious VI's mod author spent a lot of time making this area.

-- Outside of Arenthia, results have been mixed. The countryside looks no different from the mainland Cyrodiil. Same trees, same road textures, and so on. I don't see this as a huge problem, but if the entire province is like this, it won't be as interesting to explore.

-- Valenwood is annoyingly dangerous. Especially for my Level 1 orc, we're already seeing bears and even a lion. There is no real 'progression' like there is with my modded Cyrodiil, or even vanilla Oblivion. Witchcraft makes no difference, here.

I looked into this via the Construction Set. Had a look at VI's Leveled List markers, only to find ... there is something wrong here. Every marker I clicked on is showing Deer, Imps, and Wolves for Level 1, so how can we already be seeing alpha predators? I figure it's gotta be something going on with my mod list, specifically MMM. Maybe MMM is influencing Valenwood, somehow. However in Cyrodiil, MMM portrays a more balanced list of enemies. It's never frustrating. Yes, some super-dangerous creatures show up, but there are plenty of easier ones around, too. And like I implied, Witchcraft has a habit of keeping the dangerous creatures from blindly attacking most of the time.

-- Finally, there is one area where a broken bridge lies, roughly a half-mile outside of Arenthia. There's some sort of trigger here, or I don't know. If my orc passed through this area, BAM, the game would CTD, or even worse, it would freeze up! ... And I'd have to Ctrl + Alt + Delete my system. That's something I've rarely had to do! Argh.

Again, I found this area in the Construction Set, and tried to see if there's anything obvious (such as an X-marker which goes with a half-finished quest) which might be causing this. No luck! Maybe it's something to do with distant load textures, I don't know enough about landscapes and how worldspaces are built to be sure, though.

Overall, maybe some of this stuff will go away if I finally learn how to make a Bashed Patch (right macole?) so I'll give myself X amount of time to learn how to do this. There are pictoral guides for WB after all.

... and if that doesn't help, I'll have to move on! I can't spend too much time cleaning up somebody else's messes when I've got my own to clean up!

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 12 2020, 07:30 PM

[Acadian]

Renee, your observations largely align with mine. Arenthia was great and gave me high hopes that VI might hold up to the high standard set by the Deserts of Anequina full zone mod. Sadly, it seems the farther out into Valenwood you go, the more unfinished/unpolished VI seems to be. Eventually I dumped VI.

[Renee]

That's such a shame, since both of us have our wood elves who'd love to see their Mother Lands.

[Pseron Wyrd]

Every marker I clicked on is showing Deer, Imps, and Wolves for Level 1, so how can we already be seeing alpha predators? :

I know this is nearly a year later, but I think this is most likely due to Maskar's mod. Depending on your .ini settings, MOO can randomly bump up ordinary enemies to boss-level enemies. In its default setting Maskar completely over-rides vanilla leveled lists. What we see in the CS does not apply in-game.

For the purposes of level-scaling MOO divides all enemies in the game, including vanilla enemies, into four groups: "grunts", "bosses", "named bosses" and "extremely hard bosses". The chance of a grunt being replaced by a "boss" or higher is dependent on your .ini settings and on your current location relative to the nearest vanilla walled city.

As an example, I have my MOO preset at a modified "Expert" (an average of 6 levels above my character, down from the default 9), which means that every enemy in the game, even the lowly vanilla grunt, is an average of 6 levels above my character.

At the default normal and advanced presets you have a 33% chance of turning a grunt into a boss enemy in zone 3 (3 being the most dangerous, which is how MOO categorizes Valenwood). The Expert preset bumps this percentage up to 50%. The boss has a chance of being bumped up to a named boss and the named boss has a chance of being bumped up to an extremely hard boss. These are a lot of percentages to work through, so the chance of encountering an extremely hard boss at an early level is slim, but it is possible.

In short, Maskar can make regions outside of Cyrodiil especially tough!

[Renee]

Okay thanks Wyrd, I appreciate! The thing about MOO is I don't use it to add creatures to the game at all. I only use its Vampire Sun Damage and a couple other random features here and there. I didn't like seeing elephants and crocs added into Cyrodiil so I turned all of that off.

But that would be an interesting experiment. Trying turning MOO all the way off, and see if there's any difference.

Another thing is, I have learned how to use Bash over the past 6 months or so. Maybe that'll help. In fact, Bash is really easy to use--no more difficult than Wrye Smash for Skyrim. I don't know why Bash's initial guide for Oblivion was written in such a complicated way, otherwise I would have tried WB sooner!

At the default normal and advanced presets you have a 33% chance of turning a grunt into a boss enemy in zone 3 (3 being the most dangerous, which is how MOO categorizes Valenwood).

Oh my gosh!

Valenwood is still in my game, my Bosmer has been there a couple times since I last posted. But only to Arpenia. So I need to try going further, to see how things work out.

This post has been edited by Renee: May 30 2021, 08:07 PM

[macole]

I like Pseron's approach to MOO. Since I use Maskar's and Oscuro's together I left everything pretty much default. If I would change anything it would be to eliminate the mimic creature.

In Valenwood Improved I felt the trip south along the road that runs through the center of Valenwood is great scenic adventure. Lots to see along the way to Haven. The city of Elden Root is a favorite of mine.

It's a shame it is so unfinished. It's a Lena_Wolf dream land.

I'll leave word with Lidowen at the Stairway to Haven Inn to hold the best room for you. It's very secure with three doors.

If you happen to be there the next time I pass through we can explore Noutar Emero together.

[Lena Wolf]

In Valenwood Improved I felt the trip south along the road that runs through the center of Valenwood is great scenic adventure. Lots to see along the way to Haven. The city of Elden Root is a favorite of mine.

It's a shame it is so unfinished. It's a Lena_Wolf dream land.

I'll leave word with Lidowen at the Stairway to Haven Inn to hold the best room for you. It's very secure with three doors.

If you happen to be there the next time I pass through we can explore Noutar Emero together.

If you continue tempting me like this, I might just bite the bullet and finally fix up that 360 controller to work with my PC...

That IS the dream land...

[Renee]

If you continue tempting me like this, I might just bite the bullet and finally fix up that 360 controller to work with my PC...

First step is X-padder. Just in case you haven't got that program yet. There's also a utility called Keys to Joy, but that is for those who are more tech-savvy. X-padder is easier to use, and even includes a visual template, so you can place which keyboard & mouse keys correspond to which buttons, triggers, bumpers, and mushrooms. I even got variable walking movement to work through the left analog mushroom, just like it operates on Xbox or PS3.

Not that I'm trying to tempt ya...

[Lena Wolf]

I am almost ready to try this - with a twist. I want it in TWMP.

TWMP has every region of Tamriel, and apparently it is even possible to actually install it all, including Morroblivion. I found instructions here: How to install all TWMP mods plus Morroblivion. It includes Valenwood Improved - note that it includes both the original Valenwood Improved and its TWMP port, both suffer from incompleteness and somehow complement each other.

I am currently in Skyrim (TWMP Skyrim Improved), and I'm building a few things there, but then I'll go South and then we'll see! Building stuff is half the fun...

Oh, and I'll have to try the instructions in a different order because I already have Hammerfell and Skyrim (they come in one module), and I installed Elsweyr separately. So once Lena's adventures take her South, I'll try both Valenwood mods and see how good or bad the land tears are. I might just fix them, actually...

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Oct 8 2021, 02:31 PM

[Renee]

Sweet! Let us know how it goes for you. That's great you provided a link as well to TWMP's install process.

I assumed the land tears are due to conflicts between Better Cities and VI. I mostly see tears around the area west of Silorn, where that large hill meets the water far below. Once I was in Valenwood's mainland, I remember there was one land tear near a bridge. They weren't all over the place though, thankfully.

Lopov also installed High Rock / Hammerfell into his Skyrim a few years ago and had nothing but good things to say, by the way. Makes me tempted!

[Lena Wolf]

No-no, it's not Hammerfell into Skyrim, it's Hammerfell and Skyrim into Oblivion! All of these provinces are for Oblivion.

If you start with TWMP Locations on Nexus, it gives the list of dependencies - that's the overall TWMP support plus High Rock, Hammerfell and Skyrim. But there are other mods for everything else.

Oh, and I don't use Better Cities. I generally don't have a lot of mods that change the landscape of Cyrodiil - it is too easy to get conflicts that way. I like it mostly just the way it is.

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Oct 8 2021, 03:06 PM