Mod: Levelling Just Happens

[Klepto]

This is an OpenMW mod very like GCD. It currently requires a forked OpenMW that adds a bunch of extra scripting commands, but in time OpenMW should support these new features and no fork will be required.

Levelling Just Happens replaces the vanilla levelling system with a more gradual and less intrusive system that attempts to provide deep and immersive character development and to maintain differences between character classes throughout the game. Attributes and levels are automatically applied depending on the skills the player uses. The skills you start the game with are now much more important, and strongly influence your starting attributes and how your character progresses.

Skills and attributes are no longer capped at 100, instead skills begin to suffer from neglect at higher levels, levelling down as you level them up. Your attributes and level can decrease as your skills decrease. This will in effect cap skills, attributes and level, but in a way that matches your play style, and allows you to change your focus (within reason) over time. You level on all you skills, not just your major and minors.

The rate at which increasing skills increases level and attributes is limited and delayed, meaning it will take some time to reap the benefits of your experiences. Health is dynamic and responds to changes in endurance. Health and magicka regen have been added, with the regeneration rates being dependant on endurance and willpower respectively.

Changes to individual skills will have knock on effects on three attributes rather than just their governing (primary) attribute. The effect on the secondary and tertiary skills is less, but helps to provide a well rounded character even if you are concentrating only on a few skills.

Code: Select all

;               Primary      Secondary    Tertiary
; -------------------------------------------------------
; Block         Agility      Endurance    Speed
; Armorer       Strength     Endurance    Intelligence
; Medium Armor  Endurance    Agility      Speed
; Heavy Armor   Endurance    Strength     Agility
; Blunt Weapon  Strength     Endurance    Agility
; Long Blade    Strength     Agility      Speed
; Axe           Strength     Agility      Endurance
; Spear         Endurance    Agility      Strength
; Athletics     Speed        Endurance    Willpower
; Enchant       Intelligence Willpower    Endurance
; Destruction   Willpower    Intelligence Endurance
; Alteration    Willpower    Intelligence Personality
; Illusion      Personality  Speed        Intelligence
; Conjuration   Intelligence Willpower    Personaity
; Mysticism     Willpower    Personality  Intelligence
; Restoration   Willpower    Personality  Endurance
; Alchemy       Intelligence Agility      Endurance
; Unarmored     Speed        Agility      Endurance
; Security      Intelligence Agility      Willpower
; Sneak         Agility      Intelligence Willpower
; Acrobatics    Strength     Agility      Speed
; Light Armor   Agility      Speed        Endurance
; Short Blade   Speed        Agility      Intelligence
; Marksman      Agility      Strength     Intelligence
; Mercantile    Personality  Intelligence Willpower
; Speechcraft   Personality  Willpower    Intelligence
; Hand To Hand  Speed        Strength     Agility

Many features can be configured by setting global variables in the console, I have tried to choose sensible defaults. Ideally you should make any changes before the end of chargen or edit the default values in openmw-cs, but you can change all of them except kpt_ljh_fSkillsPerLevel and kpt_ljh_fAttributesPerLevel at any point. Note that all calculations are done using game time, so if you play with a timescale other than the default you may need to make the appropriate changes.

Code: Select all

; float kpt_ljh_fSkillsPerLevel         11       ; number of skills increases needed for level up
; short kpt_ljh_iLuckChance             75       ; percentage chance that level up/down will add/remove a point of luck
; float kpt_ljh_fAttributesPerLevel      6       ; number of attributes to award each level
; short kpt_ljh_iGradualChargen          0       ; if nonzero chargen skill influences are not applied immediately on chargen

;                                                ; the sum of kpt_ljh_fPrimaryRate, kpt_ljh_fSecondaryRate and kpt_ljh_fTertiaryRate
;                                                ;   should be 1
; float kpt_ljh_fPrimaryRate             0.6     ; proportion of attribute increases from primary skills
; float kpt_ljh_fSecondaryRate           0.25    ; proportion of attribute increases from secondary skills
; float kpt_ljh_fTertiaryRate            0.15    ; proportion of attribute increases from tertiary skills

; float kpt_ljh_fNeglectFloor            1.5     ; this multiplied by initial skill gives the level at which neglect starts
; float kpt_ljh_fNeglectMult             0.05    ; used to calculate skill neglect

; float kpt_ljh_fSkillInfluence          0.5     ; how much skills influence atrributes at chargen, 0=not at all, 1=completely
; float kpt_ljh_fAttributeFloor          5       ; minimum attribute value when calculating chargen skill influence

; float kpt_ljh_fHealthLevelEndMult      0.1     ; health per level endurance multiplier
; float kpt_ljh_fHealthRegenMult         0.06    ; health regen per hour is this multiplied by endurance
; float kpt_ljh_fMagickaRegenMult        0.12    ; magicka regen per hour is this multiplied by willpower

; float kpt_ljh_fInterval              0.5       ; number of seconds between updates

; short kpt_ljh_iMinAttributeInterval    8       ; minimum number of game hours between attribute modifications
; short kpt_ljh_iMaxAttributeInterval   12       ; maximum number of game hours between attribute modifications
; float kpt_ljh_fAttributeIntervalMult   0.1     ; how much player level slows attribute modifications

; short kpt_ljh_iMinLevelInterval       12       ; minimum number of game hours between level modifications
; short kpt_ljh_iMaxLevelInterval       24       ; maximum number of game hours between level modifications
; float kpt_ljh_fLevelIntervalMult       0.1     ; how much player level slows level modifications


; short kpt_ljh_iNotifyNeglect           1       ; display message when skill becomes neglected, 0=no, 1=immersive, 2=detailed
; short kpt_ljh_iNotifySkillIncrease     1       ; display message when skill increases, 0=no, 1=immersive, 2=detailed
; short kpt_ljh_iNotifySkillDecrease     1       ; display message when skill decreases, 0=no, 1=immersive, 2=detailed
; short kpt_ljh_iNotifyAttributeIncrease 1       ; display message when attribute increases, 0=no, 1=immersive, 2=detailed
; short kpt_ljh_iNotifyAttributeDecrease 1       ; display message when attribute decreases, 0=no, 1=immersive, 2=detailed
; short kpt_ljh_iNotifyChargen           1       ; display chargen message, 0=no, 1=immersive, 2=detailed
; short kpt_ljh_iNotifyLevelUp           1       ; display message at level up, 0=no, 1=immersive, 2=detailed
; short kpt_ljh_iNotifyLevelDown         1       ; display message at level down, 0=no, 1=immersive, 2=detailed

To install download and build the modified OpenMW from here, and copy the file mods/LevellingJustHappens.omwaddon to wherever you keep your mods. Select it in your load order and start a new character. Import of old characters isn't currently supported, it might be one day.

This release can be considered a first beta of the mod. It may well have a bug or two and need some balancing. There are many checks that are performed, by default twice a second. I've not noticed any performance problems, but there is some scope for swapping responsiveness for speed if required.

[Greywander]

Cool, looking forward to testing this out. I had a couple of questions, though.

How balanced are the attribute gains? If I were to level all my skills to 100, what would my attributes look like? Would they be balanced, or would some attributes be much higher and others much lower?

Do health and magicka regen apply to NPCs?

I'm curious to see how the neglect mechanic plays out. I'm not keen on losing work I've put into a character, but this will perhaps make me think much more carefully about how I build my character. Could you explain in a bit more depth how the neglect system works?

Random Luck gains... I'm not too keen. As a perfectionist, I can get very obsessive about getting "perfect" level ups in any RPG with random stat growth. It can be pretty frustrating. I'll probably just set it to a 100% chance for Luck to level up or down when I level up or down. An alternative you might consider is a weighted randomness, where if you get behind the average Luck for your level, then your chance of increasing your Luck actually goes up, while if you get ahead then it goes down, thus maintaining an average and making getting "perfect" level ups kind of pointless.

Another point I'm curious on is how this mod compares to GCD. I know the neglect mechanic is new, but what else is different or new?

Finally, I hope you're going to maintain this mod with each new release of OpenMW. Thanks for the hard work!

EDIT: One last thought about skill neglect. You could have the game remember the highest rank you've reached in a given skill, and double the growth rate of that skill until you reach that rank again. That way, even if you neglect a skill, you can still build it back up to where it was more easily. Just a thought.

[Klepto]

How balanced are the attribute gains? If I were to level all my skills to 100, what would my attributes look like? Would they be balanced, or would some attributes be much higher and others much lower?

You wouldn't be able to level all skills to 100 because of neglect, but you should be able to level your major skills to well over 100. When a skill levels it adds (by default) 60% attribute gain to it's primary attribute, 25% to it's secondary and 15% to it's tertiary attribute. Which skills put up which attributes is shown in the table in the first post. I've not worked it out, but if you were to level all skills to 100 it should be pretty balanced.

Do health and magicka regen apply to NPCs?

No, I may do something for NPCs at some point, but that would be a different mod.

I'm curious to see how the neglect mechanic plays out. I'm not keen on losing work I've put into a character, but this will perhaps make me think much more carefully about how I build my character. Could you explain in a bit more depth how the neglect system works?

When your skill goes over a certain multiple of it's initial value (default 1.5) it begins to accumulate neglect as game time passes, more neglect the more the skill is above the threshold. I calculated that it should take about two and a half weeks for a skill to level down of it is only a single point above the threshold, but when you raise the skill over 100 it will be levelling down every day or so. I've changed various things since I calculated that, and the neglect system is the part that is most in need of balancing. So yes, if your high level character takes a holiday for a month he's going to lose attributes and levels, but he's not going to level all the way down. If he spends a few days brewing potions his alchemy will push higher, but other skills may suffer. You can change the numbers it works with by changing the values of kpt_ljh_fNeglectFloor and kpt_ljh_fNeglectMult, if you like you can disable neglect completely by setting kpt_ljh_fNeglectMult to zero.

EDIT: One last thought about skill neglect. You could have the game remember the highest rank you've reached in a given skill, and double the growth rate of that skill until you reach that rank again. That way, even if you neglect a skill, you can still build it back up to where it was more easily. Just a thought.

That's a very good idea, I may well do that, or perhaps raise the neglect threshold to a fraction of the current skill level, so you may lose a portion of your skill, but there would still be permanent gains for progress above the threshold.

An alternative you might consider is a weighted randomness, where if you get behind the average Luck for your level, then your chance of increasing your Luck actually goes up, while if you get ahead then it goes down, thus maintaining an average and making getting "perfect" level ups kind of pointless.

I'll give this some thought. I could have had each skill increase add a small amount to luck progress, but I wanted luck to involve being lucky. I'm thinking of a mod that will limit saving and loading in some non-annoying way, in my game it may not be possible to re-take the level multiple times, at least not without levelling down through skill neglect or prison.

Another point I'm curious on is how this mod compares to GCD. I know the neglect mechanic is new, but what else is different or new?

It's not a direct clone, I haven't copied the formula or anything like that. GCD has to do a lot of work to determine the base values of stats, this mod doesn't have to do that as I've added the needed commands directly to the scripting engine. While both mods award attributes dependant on skill gain, GCD levels you up based on attribute gain, where LJH still uses skills. Other than neglect the other major addition is the delay feature, where you can only gain attributes or levels at a certain rate that slows as you gain levels. Oh, and LJH adds health and magicka regen.

Finally, I hope you're going to maintain this mod with each new release of OpenMW. Thanks for the hard work!

I'll certainly give it an overhaul when the de-hardcoding has been done, it will be possible to do a lot more then. Until then I hope to get it bug free and balanced, then I expect it will stabilise for a while. At some point I'll formally GPL it, so even if I'm not around it can be maintained.

There are bugs, I'm working on them

[Greywander]

I just got done testing and here are my results:

I used the console to mod all my skills to 100. I started with a few skills, but around day 80 or so I had them all to 100. I would repeatedly wait for 24 hours, until game day 365, and I never experienced neglect EXCEPT when I temporarily drained a couple skills to 0. And even then, the skills did not decrease (perhaps because they were already 0), it merely gave me a warning message informing me that I needed to train those skills.

Skills cap out at 100. I thought this might be a UI bug (where skills only appear to cap out at 100, but in fact continue to increase), however I confirmed the 100 cap by trying to mod my acrobatics higher (much higher), and I didn't jump any higher than I did at 100. I performed the test again, this time by brewing potions of water walking. Modding my alchemy higher after 100 had no effect on the potions.

Attributes appear to not be capped. The values in the menu would display as over 100, and repeating the alchemy test above I was able to confirm that my potions would increase in strength as my Intelligence and Luck increased over 100.

I stopped on day 365, at which point I had reached level 81. My attributes appeared fairly balanced (142-166), with Personality being slightly weaker than the others, but still well over 100. Luck was slightly over 100 as well. I might repeat the test again later with accelerated leveling speed in order to reach max level quicker. I'll probably also try to test it with character that starts with initially balanced stats, as I didn't pay to much attention to that at the time.

Hope this is helpful.

[Klepto]

Hope this is helpful.

Very, thanks for the input

The Mod<Skill> commands is still capped, I added ModUncapped<Skill>commands instead of changing Mod<Skill> because the cap at 100 is used by GCD and perhaps other mods and I didn't want to break those.

I just did a quick test, I raised my sneak skill to 110, waited for all the updates to happen, and neglect started happening at the rate of several skill points per day, if anything the rate is a bit harsh. I did make a couple of bugfixes last night after the initial post, it's possible one of them fixed something. Alternatively, were you waiting or sleeping? Neglect is disabled when sleeping, but not when waiting, so if you were sleeping you may well not see neglect happen for a while.

I'm glad the attributes are fairly balanced, I suspected personality might lag a bit as there aren't as many skills that increase it. If a character was personality focused, with skills like illusion and speechcraft and even restoration, then it shouldn't be a problem for them.

[Klepto]

I used the console to mod all my skills to 100. I started with a few skills, but around day 80 or so I had them all to 100. I would repeatedly wait for 24 hours, until game day 365, and I never experienced neglect EXCEPT when I temporarily drained a couple skills to 0. And even then, the skills did not decrease (perhaps because they were already 0), it merely gave me a warning message informing me that I needed to train those skills.

I think I've figured it out. It seems OpenMW isn't correctly setting all the local variables in the script when a game is loaded. I'm using well over 100 local variables in one script, perhaps that has something to do with it. I noticed it when my character stopped levelling up due to the level progression rate being reset to zero. I'll investigate further and if it looks like that is indeed the issue I'll file a bug report. Of course it's possible that I'm wrong. In the mean time I'll refactor into multiple scripts, which is how it should really be anyway.

[Greywander]

Some additional details: I was waiting, not sleeping. Once a skill reached 100, they no longer had a progress bar and were stated to be at the maximum within the menu. I did not try leveling skills naturally, so I'll try that in the latest version. Alchemy should be pretty easy to level if I give myself a crapload of ingredients via the console.

I'll also test more thoroughly how balanced attribute gains are. If you pick Strength and Speed as favored attributes for a male Altmer, you should have 40's across the board, except for Intelligence, which will be 50. Similarly, picking Willpower and Agility for a male Imperial will get you all 40's except Personality, which will be 50. Finally, Willpower and Endurance for a male Khajiit will give all 40's except Agility, which will be 50. These three should provide good test cases to see how balanced attribute gains are.

While I'm waiting for the latest version to build, I was wondering how your mod handled permanent attribute/skill fortification. I believe GCD treated them as part of your initial stats, for example, if you chose The Lady as your birthsign. Speaking of, how does your system handle temporary attribute and skill fortification? If I fortify a skill, will it start getting neglected if it was previously too low for neglect? Will the effects of neglect be stronger?

[Greywander]

Before I get into the results of my testing, here's another thing about neglect. Of course it was harsh with the parameters you set; you had neglect kick in at 1.5x the initial skill! That means that a skill that starts at 40 will be subject to neglect at 60, whereas a skill that starts at 5 will begin being neglected at... 8! A better formula might be something like (initialSkill * 1.5) + 30, that way a skill that starts at 40 will begin being neglected at 90, and a skill that starts at 5 will begin being neglected at 38. Much more reasonable. Of course, the magnitude of neglect probably factors in, too. Anyway...

Test results:

I gave myself a set of grandmaster alchemy equipment and 65k each of scales and kwama cuttle to make potions of waterwalking. Alchemy stopped increasing once I reached 100. Using ModUncappedAlchemy, I was able to increase it beyond 100, however the skill would not naturally grow beyond 100. Also, I noticed that skill gains were not applied until I left the potion making screen, perhaps because the game is paused while making potions.

The next set of tests all involve starting new characters and modding their skills to 100 and comparing their final attributes.

Maxing out an Altmer (all skills 100) resulted in a level 210 character with these attributes:
4007 Health, 550 Magicka (x1.5), 810 Fatigue
188 Strength
220 Intelligence (+10)
192 Willpower
248 Agility
180 Speed
182 Endurance
142 Personality
193 Luck

On another note, I feel like the health and magicka regen is a bit too slow. I feel like with 182 Endurance, I should be getting at least 1 health every 2 seconds, especially with 4000+ max health. Magicka regen was a bit faster, but still seemed slow for having 192 Willpower. Keep in mind that most players would never attain this level through normal play, so their stats would be considerably lower.

Maxing out an Imperial (all skills 100) resulted in a level 210 character with these attributes:
4027 Health, 219 Magicka, 810 Fatigue
186 Strength
219 Intelligence
194 Willpower
247 Agility
179 Speed
183 Endurance
145 Personality (+10)
188 Luck

At this point, I noticed a few things. First, that the attributes were different between the Altmer and Imperial characters, and not just Intelligence and Personality, but all of them. Second, Intelligence and Personality, which should have been different, with the Altmer having +10 Int and the Imperial having +10 Per, ended up being very close (+/-1 for Int, +/-3 for Per). This has lead me to suspect that (a) initial attributes are actually ignored, and (b) initial skills (in this case, racial skill bonuses) have an effect on attributes that can still be seen even when all skills are raised to the same level. Rather than doing the third test with a Khajiit, I'll do some more tests where I mod my attributes prior to exiting the census office, as well as picking different classes.

I should probably mention I'm using a mod to get through chargen faster. I don't know if that has an effect. I don't think it does because LJH doesn't seem to kick in until you leave the census office.

Maxing out a Dunmer Adventurer (all skills 100) with all attributes modded to 40 before exiting the census office resulted in a level 210 character with these attributes:
4006 Health, 218 Magicka, 808 Fatigue
187 Strength
218 Intelligence
193 Willpower
246 Agility
177 Speed
182 Endurance
143 Personality
196 Luck

Maxing out a Dunmer Adventurer (all skills 100) with all attributes modded to 100 before exiting the census office resulted in a level 210 character with these attributes:
4666 Health, 248 Magicka, 928 Fatigue
217 Strength
248 Intelligence
223 Willpower
276 Agility
207 Speed
212 Endurance
173 Personality
254 Luck

This confirms that initial attributes do matter. Now to check and see if initial skills make a difference.

Maxing out a Dunmer Acrobat (all skills 100) with all attributes modded to 40 before exiting the census office resulted in a level 210 character with these attributes:
4311 Health, 216 Magicka, 822 Fatigue
195 Strength
216 Intelligence
190 Willpower
241 Agility
170 Speed
196 Endurance
139 Personality
200 Luck

It would appear that initial skills do have a lasting impact on attributes, even when all skills are set to 100. Furthermore, some imbalances have come to light in the way skills increase attributes. Ignoring Luck, attributes seem to be favored in the following order:
Agility > Intelligence > Strength/Willpower/Endurance > Speed > Personality.

Perhaps some the Agility allocations could be redirected to Speed and Personality, and one or two Intelligence allocations moved to Personality. Otherwise, though, it seems fairly balanced. I'm going to conduct one last test, though.

Starting a new Dunmer character with all attributes modded to 40 and all skills modded to 5 before exiting the census office resulted in:
29 Health, 27 Magicka, 108 Fatigue
27 Strength
27 Intelligence
26 Willpower
28 Agility
26 Speed
27 Endurance
25 Personality
40 Luck

Already, discrepancies in attributes (which should have been identical) can be noted.

Maxing that character out resulted in a level 234 character with these attributes:
4905 Health, 222 Magicka, 860 Fatigue
203 Strength
222 Intelligence
197 Willpower
259 Agility
185 Speed
201 Endurance
143 Personality
214 Luck

And that's all folks!

One more suggestion: It feels kind of anticlimactic to have nearly 5k health but barely over 200 magicka. How would you feel about having magicka increase at a level up the same way health does? And, dare I ask this? but perhaps tone down health gains a bit? I would say have health (and magicka) be more influenced by your Endurance/Intelligence than by your level, say with base health/magicka being equal to your Endurance/Intelligence, and increasing by 5-10% every level up. That way, your level is important, but your attributes are much more so in determining your health and magicka. Just a thought.

[Chris]

Before I get into the results of my testing, here's another thing about neglect. Of course it was harsh with the parameters you set; you had neglect kick in at 1.5x the initial skill! That means that a skill that starts at 40 will be subject to neglect at 60, whereas a skill that starts at 5 will begin being neglected at... 8! A better formula might be something like (initialSkill * 1.5) + 30, that way a skill that starts at 40 will begin being neglected at 90, and a skill that starts at 5 will begin being neglected at 38.

Seems odd to me that neglect would be different depending on the initial skill value. The initial skill value just represents your training/capabilities at the point in time of the start of the game, so IMO a skill of 40 (or whatever) should be treated the same regardless of when it reached 40.

I think the way it could work is that a skill can be lowered through neglect to about 25% or so of the highest value its been (or 25, whichever's smaller). So if you start with a skill at 40, and never use that skill, it will eventually lower to 10. Raise it up to 60, then neglect will make it go down to 15. Get it up to 125, and it will eventually go down to 25. This would be to simulate how you never forget the basics of what you learned, but you're nothing like what you used to be.

Similarly, a neglected skill could have a bonus to how fast it raises, up to about 50% of its highest point. So if you had a skill at 80, then it lowered to 20 or 30 through neglect, it would raise faster until about 40. This would be to simulate getting back into the swing of things that you once knew, but it still requires substantial effort to get back to where you used to be.

Just some of my ideas.

[Greywander]

In vanilla Morrowind, if you're even halfway decent at managing your skill gains to get optimal attribute multipliers at a level up, you would inevitably end up with all 100's, for both attributes and skills. Some folks are okay with this, but it makes it seem like your choices at character creation don't really matter. It's like playing through a Bioware RPG with all these choices you have to make, but they all lead to the same ending anyway.

Part of the point of this mod, as well as the mod that inspired it, Galsiah's Character Development (GCD), is that your initial choices will still matter endgame. Part of it is because your skills and attributes aren't capped, so you can still increase them beyond 100, and thus never truly "max out". The other part of it is that skill growth slows down after a certain point, to the point where it's not really worth it to try and level that skill up anymore (but you still can if you like, it just depends how much you like grinding), with the slowdown point depending on the initial value of that skill at character creation. Thus, your choices of major and minor skills always matter. What I remember hearing for GCD was that major skills would generally reach about 140 before becoming impractical to level further, minor skills 120, and misc. skill around 90.

Ultimately, the point is that if you take Long Blade as a major skill and Short Blade as a misc. skill, your Long Blade should always be a lot higher than your Short Blade, even endgame. Thus, you can actually focus on building an interesting character instead of just picking the optimal skills to get the best attribute growth.

There's a couple different leveling mods out there. I think there's one that's basically like vanilla, except that you always get x5 multipliers for your attributes when you level up, thus removing the need to micromanage skill gains. I think there's another one that works like a traditional RPG, where you just earn generic XP and level up, but I'm not sure how that translates into skill and attribute gains. Personally, I like the natural grow mods like GCD, as it feels more immersive to me.