Mod Idea - Streamlined Leveling
Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2021 1:27 am
I suppose this should be moved to Creator's Corner at some point, but right now it's just an idea (if it should be there, my apologies and please move it). I have to learn how to mod the game before I can start.
Brief Summary:
A leveling mod that attempts to mimic the balance of Daggerfall's vanilla leveling.
1. It ties attribute gains to skill gains, rather than having the player assign points to attributes.
2. It would eliminate time limits and resting in relation to skill gains.
3. It would eliminate RNG in leveling.
4. It would eliminate penalizing your max level based on your starting specializations.
5. It would eliminate the 95% skill cap which exists on all but whichever skill passes the cap first.
I don't necessarily have a problem with Daggerfall's leveling system (except points 2-5 above), but I'd like to try to implement a more streamlined experience.
Attributes would rise on their own based on skill gains.
Skills would all cap at 100 (at present, I understand only one skill can reach 100, with the others capping at 95).
Continuing to practice a skill beyond 100 would still (maybe) gain attribute points, but at a diminished rate.
Eventually, you could max out everything at 100.
Primary, major, minor, and miscellaneous skills would only affect the starting percentages. Their contributions to attribute gains would be the same across the board. (This means gaining a point in a miscellaneous skill will have just as much impact on attribute points as gaining a point in a primary skill.)
Each skill would potentially add to different attributes.
I'll also have to make sure every attribute can hit 100, and... (maybe?) that there's approximately the same number of skills to train for each attribute.
I can see this potentially leading to some more commonly used skills being more powerful than less-commonly used skills. I'm interested in suggestions for balancing this. (The language skills are basically impossible to reliably train, right?)
HP gains would probably also be assigned at the time an attribute point is gained. Effectively, this will make levels meaningless. I understand the game uses levels to govern several things, though, so I'll probably just bump up the level for every 5 attribute points gained.
I'd also want to remove the time limits on gaining skill points, and any relationship to resting.
I'm open to additional suggestions.
Note that the goal is to make a different leveling system. For the most part, it should be roughly equal in balance to the vanilla system.
Exception: At the high end, all skills and attributes can be maxed at 100. The skill cap in vanilla feels arbitrary to me. The vanilla leveling system caps your attribute gain, and actually punishes you for specializing in your skills. As far as I can tell, It would probably be impossible to max every attribute in vanilla through leveling.
Due to these differences, I'd probably want to slow down leveling just a little bit, to help even it out, as well as slightly reduce the hit point gain per level (since the max level would be higher.)
Additional thought: Let player choose how they want to apply skill caps, allowing them to choose a more specialist playstyle, with faster skill gains for skills that fit that playstyle, but lower caps/slower growth on skills that aren't related to it. (This would likely be governed by the skills selected during character creation.)
Brief Summary:
A leveling mod that attempts to mimic the balance of Daggerfall's vanilla leveling.
1. It ties attribute gains to skill gains, rather than having the player assign points to attributes.
2. It would eliminate time limits and resting in relation to skill gains.
3. It would eliminate RNG in leveling.
4. It would eliminate penalizing your max level based on your starting specializations.
5. It would eliminate the 95% skill cap which exists on all but whichever skill passes the cap first.
I don't necessarily have a problem with Daggerfall's leveling system (except points 2-5 above), but I'd like to try to implement a more streamlined experience.
Attributes would rise on their own based on skill gains.
Skills would all cap at 100 (at present, I understand only one skill can reach 100, with the others capping at 95).
Continuing to practice a skill beyond 100 would still (maybe) gain attribute points, but at a diminished rate.
Eventually, you could max out everything at 100.
Primary, major, minor, and miscellaneous skills would only affect the starting percentages. Their contributions to attribute gains would be the same across the board. (This means gaining a point in a miscellaneous skill will have just as much impact on attribute points as gaining a point in a primary skill.)
Each skill would potentially add to different attributes.
I'll also have to make sure every attribute can hit 100, and... (maybe?) that there's approximately the same number of skills to train for each attribute.
I can see this potentially leading to some more commonly used skills being more powerful than less-commonly used skills. I'm interested in suggestions for balancing this. (The language skills are basically impossible to reliably train, right?)
HP gains would probably also be assigned at the time an attribute point is gained. Effectively, this will make levels meaningless. I understand the game uses levels to govern several things, though, so I'll probably just bump up the level for every 5 attribute points gained.
I'd also want to remove the time limits on gaining skill points, and any relationship to resting.
I'm open to additional suggestions.
Note that the goal is to make a different leveling system. For the most part, it should be roughly equal in balance to the vanilla system.
Exception: At the high end, all skills and attributes can be maxed at 100. The skill cap in vanilla feels arbitrary to me. The vanilla leveling system caps your attribute gain, and actually punishes you for specializing in your skills. As far as I can tell, It would probably be impossible to max every attribute in vanilla through leveling.
Due to these differences, I'd probably want to slow down leveling just a little bit, to help even it out, as well as slightly reduce the hit point gain per level (since the max level would be higher.)
Additional thought: Let player choose how they want to apply skill caps, allowing them to choose a more specialist playstyle, with faster skill gains for skills that fit that playstyle, but lower caps/slower growth on skills that aren't related to it. (This would likely be governed by the skills selected during character creation.)