Hardcore Thrift Overhaul

Make the savings system less forgiving. The bane of the saver loved by masochists.

Inspired by the savings system of Kingdom: Deliverance.

SKSE is required.

IntroductionIntroduction

My name is Alistair and I am a money saver. Or, I was.

Until recently, role-playing games to me were an exercise in crafting the best outcome for each situation. Conversation check failed? Reload. Taking too much damage in combat? Reload. Accidentally tripping off a cliff, desperately trying to get around the intended path and instead running up a 70° rock wall to my destination? ...reload

By installing the Requiem overhaul for Skyrim, this sorry state of affairs will only be further exacerbated. My savings were endless in the face of a world that was suddenly more challenging than before. Like a maniac on a playground of my own creation, I thought back to the past in order to iron out mistakes and weave a series of events in which I effortlessly slaughtered enemies that didn't even have the strength to fight. Capturing an entire bandit fortress at level 3 using such dirty tricks can be fun, but it's not satisfying. There's no suspense when you save before moving around, there's no tension every time you reposition an arrow a few seconds after reloading it, and every time a well-placed arrow ends your life of regrets, it screams "Never be here!" Clearly, I needed to make a change.

That said, I'm not a fan of the most restrictive saving systems in the game, as they often feel too restrictive to the point of breaking the heavy and elusive immersion. A good example of this is Fallout 4's hardcore mode, where the only options for saving are to sleep in a bed (beds are sparsely placed and not portable) or to save using Exit. I like the idea, but the implementation of the system makes you want to find a filthy mattress to take a nap before every battle. I just feel silly.

Enter Kingdom Come. It's a great game in its own right, ostensibly featuring a save system that's very similar to Fallout 4's hardcore mode, but also adding the famous Savior Schnapps: a purchasable and craftable resource that allows players to save the game if needed - but in a limited way. Ultimately, I found a system that feels good.

There are several great mods with similar concepts, such as ``Only save when resting'', but none of them quite fit my needs. So I present what I’ve been working on for the past few days: Hardcore Saving Overhaul. I hope you like it.

how it works

When you first install this mod to sleep, lucky coins will drop nearby. This coin is a Magic card that you will treasure forever. It prints out some flavor text to fully immerse you, and if you activate it in the inventory, you can choose to enable "Save Hardcore" or not. If you choose to enable Hardcore Saving, autosave via log, quicksave, and regular save will be disabled, leaving only three saving methods:

hibernate

Save the game normally, creating a new save each time you sleep.

Savior's Brew

Saves consumption by cycling between three slots. When you activate Hardcore Saving, it is added to the drink tier list and becomes available for crafting (cookware). The recipe is 1xAle, 1xFrost Mirriam, 5xSnowberry (unless you enable harder crafting, in which case it's 1xAle, 3xFrost Mirriam, 3xDragon's Tongue, 5xSnowberry). I also took the liberty of adding more Frost Myriam to the apothecary's brew list and increasing its value.

Save and exit

Creates an exit save that will be overwritten every time you save and exit the game via the Lucky Coin menu.