No need to start a new game. Safe to update on games in progress, despite the esp file name change.
CHANGELOG: Summary: extensive fine-tuning update, using 4 years worth of user feedback (and a lot of additional playtesting by me), to address the most common problems users had. Difficulty is generally slightly lower for interiors now, which should improve how the vanilla Thieves Guild sneak quests play. NPCs should feel more responsive when you are out of sneak mode, and should have slightly less difficulty finding other NPCs (if hit by frenzy spells etc). Difficulty scaling has been improved between vanilla, RAID Lite, RAID Medium, and RAID High versions.
Details:
Reduced interior detection distances (a bit closer to vanilla values), significantly for RAID Lite, and slightly for RAID medium, and very slightly for RAID high. This mitigates problems users had with excessive sneak difficulty (both visual and sound), particularly for the Thieves Guild sneak quests, which were designed with vanilla detection distances in mind.
Increased the detection ability bonus NPCs get while searching in RAID Lite to the same level as RAID med/high, to slightly improve NPC responsiveness when searching (this makes it a bit easier for enemies hit by "frenzy" type illusion spells to acquire targets in the dark).
Made NPCs react faster to you or other NPCs running into them OUT OF sneak mode, particularly for RAID Lite. They will now be more likely to skip the "search" mode in well lit environments and go straight to combat mode (closer to vanilla behaviour).
Slightly lowered the speed NPCs can detect you while sneaking outside in RAID Lite, particularly during pleasant weather, partly to compensate for the above reaction speed increase, and just to lower the general daytime sneak difficulty slightly.
Increased overall NPC hearing ability, particularly for RAID Lite, to compensate for the above reduced interior detection distances (which also nerfs hearing), and partly to slightly improve NPC ability to find other NPCs via sound detection in dark environments.
Reduced the amount of additional noise running makes compared to walking for all RAID versions (closer to vanilla levels), to prevent a significant increase in difficulty due to the above increased hearing ability edit (while still retaining the boost to NPC-on-NPC search performance, as that seems to be considered "walking" instead of "running" by the game).
Increased how well enemies can hear action sounds (melee, spells, arrow impacts, etc), particularly for RAID Lite, partly because it was a bit on the low side, and partly to compensate for the newly reduced interior detection distances. Compared to the previous version of RAID Lite, distances are now slightly lower for interiors, but slightly higher for exteriors. However, the sneak eye indicator will tend to open a bit more, at closer distances (but still far less than in vanilla).
Increased the minimum movement noise the player or NPCs make (when not wearing any armor etc), while slightly lowering the effect of heavy gear weight on movement noise (to compensate), after I realised a higher minimum value would slightly mitigate RAID's problems with un-armored NPCs struggling to find each other in dark environments (as they now make more noise for each other to hear). This only has a small effect on player sneak difficulty when wearing no armor.
Increased the effect walking (as opposed to running) has on visual detection particularly for RAID Lite, as the old value was a bit too forgiving, and to slightly help NPCs search for each other (NPCs technically walk during searches, even though the animation looks like slow running). This also gives standing still, walking, and running, a slightly smoother progression in terms of how easily you are detected for each.
Slightly lowered the overall large difficulty jump from RAID Lite to RAID medium.
Very slightly increased the ability of NPCs to see in dark outdoor environments in RAID Lite, to be more consistent with interior sneaking difficulty in similarly dark places.
Very slightly increased the difference standing or crouching (sneak mode) has on detection.
Crime response range of city guards has been further reduced slightly for RAID Lite.
Reduced the time an enemy stares at the location of a detection event (where a spell was cast, or a projectile impact) from 4sec to 3.5sec before starting a search.
Detection range of dead bodies was reduced slightly for RAID Lite (to remain consistent with the reduced interior detection ranges).
The GMST Datasheet optional download has had some minor description/wording updates
Feedback on v3 from veteran RAID users is appreciated (if it feels very similar, or if you can't tell the difference, thats a good thing - I was trying to refine the wheel, not re-invent it)
Update 3.1 safe to update mid game, despite form id change (normally its not safe to update a mod that changed its form id, but RAID only has GMST records so it is safe).
Now an ESL flagged ESP.
A few very small changes to improve difficulty scaling of the High/Medium and Medium/High versions (particularly GMSTs that are shared between interiors and exteriors), for better difficulty scaling balance relative to the Medium/Medium and High/High versions.
Added a new GMST as ITM - "fSneakFlyingDistanceMult" - this controls the detection ability of dragons when flying. Unintuitively, it does not increase detection distance, but rather detection power/speed. If you notice dragons have trouble engaging you (maybe they tend to fly off more often than expected) increasing this value may help.
I would say this mod is too realistic. Thing is in real life stealthy individuals don't have magic on their side to not be seen. Muffle? They'll see you. Invisibility? They'll perceive you.
While I appreciate realism, hence why I installed this in first place, is just doesn't adjust with what I was expecting. Falmer shouldn't be able to see me from a distance, they are almost blind and we are in a cave, in an area without any light. That is not realistic within the Skyrim universe.
If you want to make every step count, then maybe this mod is for you. But if you are going to reload every time you get caught, or don't want to spend an absurd amount of time memorizing enemy paths so they don't catch you, then is best to find something else or just go vanilla detection, really.
they detect me well from front, but not from behind. and even when there's a fighting enemies not too far away are completely unaware of that. i installed this but it doesn't really fix it. trying to figure out which mod is causing it cuz it's driving me mad
1007 comments
Don't worry about what version to use. You can install and uninstall any version during a serious playthrough without any risk.
No need to start a new game. Safe to update on games in progress, despite the esp file name change.
CHANGELOG:
Summary: extensive fine-tuning update, using 4 years worth of user feedback (and a lot of additional playtesting by me), to address the most common problems users had. Difficulty is generally slightly lower for interiors now, which should improve how the vanilla Thieves Guild sneak quests play. NPCs should feel more responsive when you are out of sneak mode, and should have slightly less difficulty finding other NPCs (if hit by frenzy spells etc). Difficulty scaling has been improved between vanilla, RAID Lite, RAID Medium, and RAID High versions.
Details:
Feedback on v3 from veteran RAID users is appreciated (if it feels very similar, or if you can't tell the difference, thats a good thing - I was trying to refine the wheel, not re-invent it)
safe to update mid game, despite form id change (normally its not safe to update a mod that changed its form id, but RAID only has GMST records so it is safe).
While I appreciate realism, hence why I installed this in first place, is just doesn't adjust with what I was expecting. Falmer shouldn't be able to see me from a distance, they are almost blind and we are in a cave, in an area without any light. That is not realistic within the Skyrim universe.
If you want to make every step count, then maybe this mod is for you. But if you are going to reload every time you get caught, or don't want to spend an absurd amount of time memorizing enemy paths so they don't catch you, then is best to find something else or just go vanilla detection, really.