Mod: Levelling Just Happens

[Okulo]

Right, a mage is someone learns and practices magic. The game starts you out at level one and puts the entire world at your feet, so it's up to the character to learn and practice magic. It's backwards to then say your character is already halfway to mastering some prechosen skills with the others being near unusable.

That would be true if the character just poofed into existence. Which he didn't. You, the player, are dropping in somewhere in the character's life. What this character has done all its life is up to you. Have they always focused on magic? Then that should be reflected in their stats: their magic should be higher than the rest.

If you've got someone who has been fighting all their life, but wants to be a mage, then yeah, that person will start at level one and be a mage. If they put work into magic, their magic skill will rise - be it before you start controlling them or after.

The game is. If your skill with a particular weapon is low, you're going to fail to hit, and if your skill with (the lack of) armor is low, you're going to be hit. The game doesn't give you a chance to raise these skills in a fair and fun way because it's designed for you to use skills that are already in their 30s and 40s.

Yeah, in vanilla Morrowind, but not with this mod - that's the whole point, right?

Keyword being if. You start the game as a nobody, not someone who's halfway to being a world-class sprinter.

Sure. You can make them a jack of all trades. Or you can give them a different background. Perhaps they can be someone who was raised a mage (and thus is better at it than someone who has always used swords, or someone who would always prefer to run), but they have sworn never to use magic again because their parents died of it or whatever.

How much you should give characters a bonus due to their background is another issue entirely - but the fact remains, your character has a background, a history before you started controlling them, and that should have an effect.

[Chris]

That would be true if the character just poofed into existence.

Or if their skills are in farming or raising cows, which aren't reflected in the gameplay, or were a 'green' guard with no real experience in combat, which would have a negligible effect on your effective skill set. Such people haven't seriously trained their relevant skills before, which is just what I'd expect from someone with little adventuring experience. They're not a level one master, they have to get experience by training their skills.

Have they always focused on magic? Then that should be reflected in their stats: their magic should be higher than the rest.

If someone had focused on magic so much to be so skilled, they wouldn't be a level one nobody. Not every starting adventurer is going to have been training a single set of specific skills since they were born. I'd say a good number haven't, which is why their skills would be low and relatively even... Not because they just poofed into existence, but because they're just starting a career as an adventurer (if they were a seasoned warrior/mage/thief/etc with decent skill, they wouldn't be a level one weakling).

Yeah, in vanilla Morrowind, but not with this mod - that's the whole point, right?

I know the mod implements skill deterioration and changes how attributes level, but I don't think it really effects how the skills start or how they effect gameplay (just lowering the starting skills isn't going to be enough if the hit chance and damage aren't also changed to accommodate).

Keyword being if. You start the game as a nobody, not someone who's halfway to being a world-class sprinter.

Sure. You can make them a jack of all trades.

Not a jack of all trades, a random joe with no (relevant) trade. You're just starting as an adventurer, not jumping into the middle of a character's career.

[Klepto]

OK, I think it's working now, I'm a bit embarrassed I broke it just in time for it's first release You just need the new LevellingJustHappens.omwaddon file, there are no changes to OpenMW.

Lots of under the hood changes, mainly to make it work the way it was always meant to. I've changed the default configuration values a bit, and made detailed messages the default while it's still being tested. I increased kpt_ljh_iAttributeFloor from 5 to 10 as the starting attributes were a bit low. They may be too high now, I think it should probably be 8 or 9. I upped regen rates a touch and lowered the neglect multiplier. A few bugs that no one had spotted yet were fixed.

Almost all data is now kept in global variables, which as a coder makes me feel physically sick, it's not the way it should be. To compensate I split the attribute, skill and level code out into individual scripts that don't all run in the same frame. I'm not sure what the overhead is for starting and stopping scripts, they have very few local variables, I expect it probably runs better this way. The main timer now counts frames instead of seconds.

What attributes are raised by what skills has been finessed a bit to hopefully solve the slight imbalance (details below). I should point out that personality is always an issue even in vanilla, less skills use it. It would be interesting to see what a character looked like with 100% of the attribute gains going to the primary attribute, this could be done by setting kpt_ljh_fPrimaryRate to 1 and kpt_ljh_fSecondaryRate and kpt_ljh_fTertiaryRate to 0 before the end of character generation.

Code: Select all

; ---------------------------------------------- ; skills and related attributes
;               Primary      Secondary    Tertiary
; -------------------------------------------------------
; Block         Agility      Endurance    Speed
; Armorer       Strength     Endurance    Intelligence
; Medium Armor  Endurance    Speed        Agility
; Heavy Armor   Endurance    Strength     Agility
; Blunt Weapon  Strength     Endurance    Agility
; Long Blade    Strength     Speed        Agility
; Axe           Strength     Agility      Endurance
; Spear         Endurance    Agility      Strength
; Athletics     Speed        Endurance    Willpower
; Enchant       Intelligence Willpower    Endurance
; Destruction   Willpower    Endurance    Intelligence
; Alteration    Willpower    Intelligence Personality
; Illusion      Personality  Speed        Intelligence
; Conjuration   Intelligence Personaity   Willpower
; Mysticism     Willpower    Personality  Intelligence
; Restoration   Willpower    Personality  Endurance
; Alchemy       Intelligence Personality  Agility
; Unarmored     Speed        Agility      Endurance
; Security      Intelligence Agility      Willpower
; Sneak         Agility      Willpower    Intelligence
; 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

It should be fine for playing a proper game now. Neglect for a major skill (initial value 40 i think) is a little over one skill point per day at skill 100, and a point every 35 hours at skill 85. Remember that neglect doesn't apply when sleeping, so that's quite a lot of game time, at least until I write my Things Take Time mod At skill 150 neglect is just under eight hours, so that's probably getting pretty close to the cap.

I will be changing the neglect system, but would like to give this current version a bit of testing first just to make sure it's all working properly and get some of the remaining non-neglect balance issues sorted out. I'd also like to get the configuration menu written at some point so people can play with different settings without having to open the console.

Enjoy

[Okulo]

That would be true if the character just poofed into existence.

Or if their skills are in farming or raising cows, which aren't reflected in the gameplay, or were a 'green' guard with no real experience in combat, which would have a negligible effect on your effective skill set. Such people haven't seriously trained their relevant skills before, which is just what I'd expect from someone with little adventuring experience. They're not a level one master, they have to get experience by training their skills.

If a character that has lived under a rock all their life is what makes you happy. But considering that even commoners have skills (hand to hand, mercantile, unarmored) it'd be just be your character being gimped against the rest of the world, so I wouldn't recommend that.

You have this idea that characters should start at level 1, but that's simply wrong. Skill level 1 means total incompetence. Watch as you run 20 meters and level up your athletics - what should we make of that? "This character has never run before?" Of course not. Even your gimped character who has lived under a rock has experience in something. And you especially should not want to force other PCs into the same mould of complete and utter incompetence.

No, I have not yet seen a single good argument against letting an NPC's past, whatever it is, be reflected in their stats.

[Chris]

But considering that even commoners have skills (hand to hand, mercantile, unarmored)

I'd argue that they don't. Not in any appreciable amount, anyway. Most people won't be anymore effective using a dagger than they will with an axe or their fists. Most people don't know how to wear/use heavy armor or light armor to reduce damage any better than when wearing no armor. Most people have not seen/participated in real combat.

In my mind, a level one character represents someone who has just taken it upon themselves to go and do something. They have not yet done anything and have little to no training in anything specific, so the skills they ultimately get good at are the ones they end up using in their travels (i.e. during play).

You have this idea that characters should start at level 1, but that's simply wrong.

I've certainly had the idea that a player could select a starting level, and consequently get a number of skill points to apply as they see fit. So if you start at level 1, you start with an even set of low level skills, and will face weak enemies. Start at level 2, and you then get a certain number of points appropriate for a level 2 character, and will face slightly tougher enemies. And so on.

No, I have not yet seen a single good argument against letting an NPC's past, whatever it is, be reflected in their stats.

Because I don't think anyone's arguing that. It's a pretty dumb idea that a character's past shouldn't influence their stats in an RPG. What I'm saying, though, is that you're starting as a level one nobody/weakling, and it doesn't make sense for characters to be half way to mastering some skills by the time they start adventuring.

Maybe you like making characters that already have some experience under their belt, and that's fair enough, but it's certainly not the only way to make characters in a "real RPG". The way I see it, Skyrim finally lets us create a character that starts from scratch and is built upon through gameplay, rather than one who's already set in their ways before starting.

[Okulo]

But considering that even commoners have skills (hand to hand, mercantile, unarmored)

I'd argue that they don't. Not in any appreciable amount, anyway.

Well, you could argue that if you want, but the NPCs disagree. As for any appreciable amount, that's just balancing a character's level against what those levels represent.

In my mind, a level one character represents someone who has just taken it upon themselves to go and do something. They have not yet done anything and have little to no training in anything specific, so the skills they ultimately get good at are the ones they end up using in their travels (i.e. during play).

But that's in your mind, not in the game. I wonder if you can even have a level 1 skill in something. Isn't the floor for starting skills level 5? What does skill level 5 represent? "Heard of it but never tried"?

Because I don't think anyone's arguing that ... a character's past shouldn't influence their stats in an RPG. What I'm saying, though, is that you're starting as a level one nobody/weakling, and it doesn't make sense for characters to be half way to mastering some skills by the time they start adventuring.

Then I do not see why you are arguing what I said. I never argued for starting at level 50 in a skill and I never argued against rebalancing. I think it was you, however, who said that a starting set of skills should be undefined, which neatly rolls into the next part:

The way I see it, Skyrim finally lets us create a character that starts from scratch and is built upon through gameplay, rather than one who's already set in their ways before starting.

Skyrim lets us create that and nothing else. My character's background is not reflected in any stats at all. When you create the character, a farmer == a mage == a fighter. That's why it's one of the reasons why I can't count it as an RPG.

My whole point is that the best way to handle stats is to have the character's background be reflected in them, and then have this mod continue that character's story.

[Golken]

I haven't followed this whole conversation. But in vanilla Morrowind, the character's specializations affects not only the growth rates, but the the character's starting skills at level 1. A major skill will start at 30, indicating that the character is at this point already a little good at it.
It is very funny, and a little jarring, from a total roleplay perspective, that it would be possible for you to start playing a level 1 character and level up Athletics after one or two minutes of running... never thought about it like that. If your Athletics is a misc skill (starts at 5), then you aren't an experienced runner, but you will possibly start to improve within a few minutes, leading to "What, did I never run for 2 minutes in my life before this moment?". On the other hand you could explain this pretty well by the "no, your Athletics was higher before you got into prison, but it atrophied" excuse. Might be less suitable if you play a Paladin-like lawful character (how the heck did you get into prison in the first place? well, guess you just could've been framed or the victim of corruption) or an alternate start/chargen mod where you start elsewhere, though.
Also, of course vanilla MW commoner NPCs still have skills and stats, which are not all minimum in level 1 either, in fact they have their own class which specializes in Hand to Hand, Unarmored, Speechcraft, etc, and they would be better at those compared to an autocalc'd NPC whose class specializes only in weapons and armor.

Anyway, as far as character building and leveling goes, I think a sore point of the Elder Scrolls series is that all characters become equivalent at high levels. Perks alleviated this a little bit, but even those you can eventually acquire all of, rendering that moot. Every character is a jack of all trades. That shouldn't be the case. It should be more like how a Bard in DND might be able to do anything, and increase his ability in anything, but he'll never be quite as good as a specialized character.

A mage could practice and improve in other skills if he wanted, but he should never be able to be as good at lockpicking as someone who specializes in it (and just has the natural talent). A warrior specializing in combat and without Destruction is a major skill should never be as good at attack magic as a mage specializing in magic and having Destruction as a major, etc. I think it could be solved relatively easily by making your class matter more. It will make the choices more meaningful as well:
By default, all skills are now capped at a certain number (could be configurable, say 50). That could be a hard cap or a virtual cap, where skills at that point start increasing extremely slowly through practice and cost a LOT more to increase through a trainer.

According to your class, caps for given skills will be raised. For instance, assuming the base cap is 50, the cap will be increased accordingly:
All skills belonging to your Specialization (Combat/Magic/Stealth): +10
Major skills: +40
Minor skills: +20

Additional ideas are to slightly increase the cap for skills receiving a starting boost from your race and/or governed by your Favorite Attributes (this would actually give a downside to choosing Luck, which is good, normally there is no reason not to choose it).
If you like skills above 100, then you could allow caps over 100 or major skills belonging to specialization being uncapped, etc.

This will make it so you can be pretty good at everything (even 50 is not a bad level, that's a major increase from the starting 5), and be very good at a lot of things but you certainly can't master everything. Yet, you still have the freedom at character generation to choose exactly how to specialize. If you want to be a thief that is, regardless, very good with Axes and Mysticism and pretty good at Blocking, then you can.

Hardcore difficulty mode could have non-specialization misc skills capped at 30 or less, or "wimp mode" would set the base cap high, at 75, making jack-of-all-trades very possible but not master-of-all-trades.

What do you guys think about these ideas? Might be worth checking opinions about design at the more general Morrowind forums as well.

[Klepto]

Yeah, in vanilla Morrowind, but not with this mod - that's the whole point, right?

I know the mod implements skill deterioration and changes how attributes level, but I don't think it really effects how the skills start or how they effect gameplay (just lowering the starting skills isn't going to be enough if the hit chance and damage aren't also changed to accommodate).

True, and it's worth saying that the rates of skill advancement in vanilla are a bit off and a bit fast.

Really it seems the discussion is about the rigidity of the class system and how that relates to effective role play. Strict systems like D&D are far far too rigid, I disliked them even in the PnP days for just that reason, that and the fact they were wedded specifically to polyhedral dice back then. There's no reason why your mage should be completely incapable of wearing armour, he may suck at it, he may suffer for it, but he should be free to do it. The Elder Scrolls games remedy this but go too far to the other extreme, all characters eventually will become near identical masters of all trades.

I want to preserve the uniqueness of characters while not making that uniqueness a straight jacket. GCD did that job pretty well on vanilla, but on OpenMW there's no reason to work around the limitations of original engine so regardless of incompatibilities GCD was never going to be optimal.

I'm aiming for the default settings producing a character that maxes out with misc skills no higher than 40-50, minors 80-100, majors upwards of 120, and attributes comparable to a maxed character in vanilla. There's a lot of scope for changing things, you could simply zero the neglect multiplier and have a totally uncapped system, or you could set 6 skills per level and have the game levelling up faster than you are. I'm not particularly catering for powergamers or role players or specialists or whatever, I hope there will be enough scope to configure the mod to keep everyone happy.

[Chris]

Well, you could argue that if you want, but the NPCs disagree. As for any appreciable amount, that's just balancing a character's level against what those levels represent.

...

But that's in your mind, not in the game.

In Morrowind, sure. It doesn't have to be that way, though.

Then I do not see why you are arguing what I said. I never argued for starting at level 50 in a skill and I never argued against rebalancing.

What sparked this discussion off was:
"One of the (many) reasons I cannot possibly count Skyrim as an RPG is because when I create a character, she is bland. She has no background except the one I have in my head."
Which I argue is a perfectly valid RPG character creation scheme. What makes your character a character is what's in your head, and it's up to you to make your background fit what the game starts you with (whether it's a relatively even 15-20 in everything, or 40s in some things, 20s in others, and 5s in the rest). I mean, can I make a background that says I can rival to Divayth Fyr? Or that I'm a lowly farmboy that just got dreams of adventure? Sure, but then it's up to me to explain why I start the game the way I do.

Think about tabletop RPGs... the most popular way to generate a character is to roll some dice to randomly generate your stats, and then you can go about working on their background. Your background then has to be molded to fit the stats you got, whatever they happen to be. It's the same thing here.

The way I see it, Skyrim finally lets us create a character that starts from scratch and is built upon through gameplay, rather than one who's already set in their ways before starting.

Skyrim lets us create that and nothing else.

Not really, you can still make a character that's set in their ways in Skyrim... just use the skills your background says they're set on, and only those. That's how you'd play in Morrowind, right? Sure, you may have to alter their background to explain why they are like they are at the start, but that's par for the course in RPGs.

My character's background is not reflected in any stats at all.

Neither is mine in Morrowind, because it forces me to set my major and minor skills at the start, rather than discover them through the course of the game. Like I said, "it's up to you to make your background fit what the game starts you with". There's plenty of character backgrounds you can come up with that allows the character to start as they do in Skyrim, and then cause them to turn out wildly different in their skillset after a few levels in game.

I'd actually go as far as to say that the way you start in Morrowind doesn't reflect most of the character backgrounds you can make. Think about it, in Morrowind it specifically says that you've been in prison in the Imperial City, and were then transferred via carriage to Vvardenfell (a trip that would take weeks at least). As you've been in jail, shouldn't your skills start out deteriorated? Yet they're quite usable right off the boat. Unless you want to say your character used to be a (grand) master and the skills you start with are their deteriorated state, but A) IMO that's far more restricting in the types of character backgrounds you can make, and B) it doesn't really make sense that you used to be that good yet no one knows who you are.

At least in Oblivion, it never specifies how long you were in jail, and in Skyrim you were just captured, so you have more flexibility in coming up with what you were doing right before the game starts. And Skyrim even comes with a built-in excuse for your poor skills, as you were knocked unconscious in the ambush. Who knows what such a blow to the head could do to someone's abilities.

[Okulo]

"One of the (many) reasons I cannot possibly count Skyrim as an RPG is because when I create a character, she is bland. She has no background except the one I have in my head."
Which I argue is a perfectly valid RPG character creation scheme. What makes your character a character is what's in your head, and it's up to you to make your background fit what the game starts you with (whether it's a relatively even 15-20 in everything, or 40s in some things, 20s in others, and 5s in the rest).

See, and that's where the insanity lies. Why does someone who has never picked up a sword fare just as well as a practiced fighter? Why does my character who has only learned to fight with sword and board suddenly pass Faralda's test of "hurr, those who wish to enter must show some degree of skill with magic" with flying colours?

Your headstory does not make your character more or less (in)competent. Your farmerboy is exactly the same as your battlemage. They learn at the exact same speed. They do the exact same damage, run at the exact same speed, and are just as good as wearing heavy armour. That is not good character generation. Shit, even Super Mario Bros 2's characters had more difference between them than Skyrim's. It's a sick joke and saying that players should actively avoid using skills or avoid content because the game just lets every backwards idiot join Magic Mensa means that the game is clearly not doing its job well.

Think about it, in Morrowind it specifically says that you've been in prison in the Imperial City, and were then transferred via carriage to Vvardenfell (a trip that would take weeks at least). As you've been in jail, shouldn't your skills start out deteriorated? Yet they're quite usable right off the boat.

My (muscle) memory tends to last longer than two weeks. I can guarantee you that I am just as proficient at say... cooking after not having cooked for two weeks. But sure, let's say they are deteriorated. Apparently it doesn't matter, because everyone being exactly the same is a perfectly valid system, right?