by ProbablyManuel
Hi Requiem enthusiasts,
This release features numerous simple and effective gameplay tweaks to alleviate longstanding issues. For the full list of changes, please refer to the changelog.
Of particular mention are the changes to the Mass Effect. The script has been rewritten from scratch to be robust to improperly timed equip events sent by the engine. It should no longer be possible to arrive in an inconsistent state under any circumstances. This implies the Mass Effect no longer conflicts with other mods like Unlocked Grip or Equipping Overhaul. To facilitate these changes the scope of the Mass Effect has been reduced to your cuirass, helmet, gauntlets, boots, and shield. Weapons and miscellaneous apparel like jewelry or backpacks are no longer included. This eliminates the problem that sheathed weapons still apply the full penalty, which incentivized strange behavior like assassins equipping their weapon only in the last moment or warriors traveling with their weapon unequipped instead of wearing it on their back or belt.
Motivated by Noxcrab’s Tweaks, further changes have been made to the Mass Effect. Heavy armor is more bearable in the early game by shifting the bulk of armor weight penalty reduction to lower perks. Nonetheless, the reduction from high-level perks remains impactful due the increasing returns from additive reduction on a percentage basis. The penalty for untrained spellcasting in armor is changed to scale with spell tier instead of effective mass so that the penalties for Master spells are harsher than for Novice spells rather than the other way around. Furthermore, casting spells in heavy armor no longer applies an additional unremovable penalty. Therefore, casting spells in heavy and light armor follows the same rules and spell cost in heavy armor is “only” limited by the inherently higher weight (and requiring more perks to remove the penalty for untrained spellcasting). Lightly armored spellcasters received some attention too. Agile Spellcasting now only requires the first Evasion perk and has a lower skill requirement. As a result of these changes, mixing heavy and light armor has become a viable strategy for armored spellcasters if they choose to go that route.
On a final note, those of you who are not yet using Bug Fixes SSE should fetch it now. It has been added as a highly recommended mod and the Reqtificator will display a warning if it isn’t installed. Its fix for delayed updates to movement speed is much cleaner than Requiem’s workaround (which has been removed in favor of the mod) and the other three fixes offered by Bug Fixes SSE, in particular the one for Magic Effect Conditions, are important for a smooth gaming experience too.