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About this mod
Leveled Skyrim Regions is an Encounter Zone mod that divides the land of Skyrim into several zones of specific levels. It’s designed for a balanced game-play, taking into account five different factors to provide user as much realism as possible.
- Permissions and credits
Are you tired of cheesing you way through the horde of enemies like butter? Want a smooth scaling of difficulty from low to high level? Does an ancient Nordic Tomb in a distant mountain feel like just a random bandit camp to you? If your answer is yes, yes and yes again, then you’ve come to the right place. This mod will make the game neither too hard nor easy of course and at the same time boosts the immersion by One-hundred percent.
So what is this mod by the way you may wonder. Simply saying, Leveled Skyrim Regions, LSR in short, is an Encounter Zone mod that is designed for a balanced game-play. The land of Skyrim is divided into several zones of specific levels. Each and every hold is leveled depending upon it’s position, status and enemies within. And all the locations within a particular hold are leveled accordingly, further depending upon its nature, type(s) of enemy encountered and distance from the capital. Lastly the locations of main quests are given special attention so that it doesn't become impossible to clear in early levels.
Now let’s have a more in-depth look on the factors that are responsible for setting up the level of a location. There are a total of five factors and these are as follows:
- Hold level: The level of a hold has a minimum and maximum value. The level of all the locations within a hold are bounded by these values.The holds are leveled according to their History and Geography. As for an example, Winterhold is located in the north-east corner of Skyrim, in a very cold and mountainous region. On the top of that, it is a part of the ‘Old Holds’. So it’s assigned to the highest difficulty level.
- Location type: There are a vast variety of location types in Skyrim, namely cave, fort, ruin, shack etc. All these types are grouped in four difficulty levels in a realistic way. For an example, a shack guarded by some wolves is much easier than a camp full of enemies.
- Enemy type: All the types of enemies are grouped in a similar way so that two locations of the same type containing different enemy types vary in difficulty. For an example, a dungeon full of Draugrs is harder than one that is the home of just a few Spiders.
- Position: Distance of the location from the capital of the hold matters here. Each capital has it’s own line of control within it’s hold and thus the location which are near are of lesser difficulty than the ones in distance.
- Main Quest-line: The locations one has to visit in main quest-line may or may not follow the above rules so that it’s neither too difficult to progress in the story in early levels, nor too easy to beat the game in higher levels. For an example, Bleak Falls Barrow is a super early main quest location and the player needs to go there to basically start the story-line. So despite being a Nordic dungeon and full of different types of enemies, it’s level is scaled down to be in line with low player level. But it’s having a high range of minimum and maximum levels, and thus can be challenging if one decides to clear it in higher levels.
Table below depicts the difficulty levels of the Holds:
Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLC locations levels are touched also. Recommended levels to start story-lines are 30 & 40 respectively.
Spoiler:
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But be aware that 'Planes of Oblivion' you've to visit in these DLCs are set to a minimum level 0f 70, and will level up with the player as these are basically realms (infinite planes). So if you're way higher than level 70, don't be dissapointed. It'll be challenging still. The minimum level of Forgotten vale is set to 75 and Skuldafn to 80. Same goes for 'Sovngarde' and it's minimum level is set to 85, the highest, as it's the 'Sovngarde'.
Lastly, the following game settings are changed also: FleveledActorMultEasy, FleveledActorMultMedium, FleveledActorMultHard and FleveledActorVeryHard. These determine the level list pool of the enemies to be spawned. Higher the value, more difficult will be the enemies. These are changed from 0.33, 0.67, 1.00 & 1.25 to 0.5, 0.8, 1.1 & 1.4 respectively. It means if the player enters a location and it’s level is set to 10, then easy enemies will spawn with level 5 (10*0.5) or lower; medium will be spawning with level 8 or lower; hard will be of 11 or lower and finally very hard (end area enemy/boss) will be of level 14 maximum. It may seem easy first, but as you level up and visit a place at, say level 80, then imagine how hard will be the final boss or bosses.
Q. I understand all these, but why do I need an Encounter Zone mod again?
A. In one word, if you want a challenging game-play. Vanilla Skyrim is for milk-drinkers. You can beat the main story-line at a minimum level of 24 (less if you’re playing in Easy setting). And it’s just a matter of few hours to get into that level. Do you think you can experience all the things a legendary game like ESV has to offer in those few hours? Of-course not, you Thalmor! An EZ mod is a must have to continue playing in high levels.
Q. All-right! But there are a couple of other EZ mod out there and some of those are very popular. So why should I use LSR?
A. Firstly, if you’ve been using an EZ mod already and you're content, then you shouldn’t listen to anyone and continue using that. Now for those who feel something is missing in their game, then consider taking a look at this mod. Yes, there are a couple of good EZ mods already (and LSR is in-fact inspired by one of those), but this mod is made with two strong purposes in mind:
- to provide player as much realism as possible, by taking into account various factors that make sense in this context
- to provide player as much user-friendly experience as possible, by a smooth scaling in difficulty from low to high level.
Q. Can i install it in mid-game? Is it safe?
A. It's absolutely safe. It doesn't contain any script. But the changes will not take effect instantly. You've to wait for the cell to reset (three in game days approximately).
Q. Where it should go in my load-order?
A. It doesn’t matter, unless any compatibility issue.
Q. I got some compatibility issues…
A. Continue reading "Dov-ah-kiin".
LSR modifies the values of two parameters: Encounter Zones & Game Settings. So any mod that does the same is not compatible with it. But can be made compatible easily if you’re handy with xEdit. Some of these are:
Rebalanced Encounter Zones and Leveled Actors
Skyrim Revamped - Loot and Encounter Zones
Morrowloot Ultimate
LSR is compatible with any combat mod. In-fact these type of mods are strongly recommended to enhance the experience further. Some of these and others which i personally use and recommend are:
Wildcat
Skyrim Revamped - Complete Enemy Overhaul
Know Your Enemy
SkyTEST - Realistic Animals and Predators
Mortal Enemies
KS Dragon Overhaul 2
Missing Encounter Zones FIXED
Encounter Zones Unlocked
Just install through your favorite Mod Manager or drop the plugin in ‘Data’ directory manually.
My big thanks goes to samuro_, the author of the 'Skyrim Revamped' mod series. Not only LSR is inspired by his mod, but he helped me with some invaluable suggestions. I want to thank this lovely modding community which is growing big day-by-day. And last but not the least, thank you Bethesda for ESV: Skyrim, one of the greatest game ever created.
