Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

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Zomgmeister
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:05 pm

Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

Post by Zomgmeister »

I always loved the game. It is still the best CRPG in many aspects, but with deep flaws and dated in others. But you are well aware of that.

This post is supported by a spreadsheet, consider to open this link.

1. Materials

Vanilla game have almost linear "tiers", where Elven is better than Silver, Dwarven is better than Elven et cetera up to Daedric. I decided to change it, making stuff, well, more interesting, both during leveling and in endgame. Thought process should be more involved than "red = good".

Materials are divided in four groups: Iron, low, mid and high.

Iron is the worst.
Low: Steel, Silver, Elven.
Mid: Dwarven, Mithril, Adamantium.
High: Ebony, Orcish, Daedric.

Not touching Armor right now, it is expanded on later.

In each group one material is the best for Enchantment Power, another is better for raw damage, and last one is somewhat balanced. It is a bit mixed, just look it down here.

Steel: Damage.
Silver: Enchantment Power.
Elven: Light Weight.

Dwarven: Enchantment Power, Heavy Weight. Weight is contrary to vanilla, but feels to work better with known lore of the Elder Scrolls.
Mithril: Light Weight, well-balanced. This is the first material that hits everyone, and it is great to find a weapon of that kind.
Adamantium: Damage, Heavy Weight, Low Enchantment Power for this tier.

Ebony: Balanced. Moderate Weight, great Damage, good Enchantment Power.
Orcish: The most powerful raw Damage in the game, Heavy Weight, Low Enchantment Power.
Daedric: The best Enchantment Power in the game, Very Heavy.

Notice that vanilla Enchantment Power does not works as a straight unified modifier. Numbers are different for various types of weapons. Therefore, it does not listed neither below, nor in linked spreadsheet, although you can always check (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Enc ... er#Weapons). But in general, it grows, with some exceptions, like Silver and Dwarven are better for Enchantment Power. These exceptions are not only saved, they are expanded.

Now for the numbers!

Iron
Damage bonus: 0.
Value modifier: x1.
Weight modifier: x1.
Enchantment Power modifier: x1.
To Hit modifier: -10.
This is the default material. It has no bonuses and has a penalty to hit. It is the weakest one, you should change it asap.

Steel
Damage bonus: vanilla +1, suggested +3.
Value modifier: vanilla x2, suggested x3.
Weight modifier: vanilla x1,25, suggested x1.
Enchantment Power modifier: x1,2.
To Hit modifier: vanilla +0, suggested +10.
At the start of the game, Steel weapons are great for raw fighter. Well, until he meets and imp or something worse. You know how it goes. Should have small to hit bonus, because Steel weapons are supposed to be good overall.

Silver
Damage bonus: vanilla +1, suggested +1.
Value modifier: vanilla x4, suggested x6.
Weight modifier: vanilla x1,25, suggested x1.
Enchantment Power modifier: x2,5.
To Hit Modifier: vanilla +0, suggested +0.
If you are able to attain Magic Items creation on low levels of the game, then Silver Weapons are very valuable indeed. Weak otherwise, as they should be.

Elven
Damage bonus: vanilla +2, suggested +2.
Value modifier: vanilla x8, suggested x4.
Weight modifier: vanilla x1, suggested x0,75.
Enchantment Power modifier: x1,5.
To Hit Modifier: vanilla +10, suggested +20.
Observation: Elven weapons are weaker than Steel ones, but they are lighter (not matters much) and have better Enchantment Power (interesting), and, most important, can hit way more creatures. So an intelligent beginning Warrior will value an Elven weapon, even if as a backup. Especially with improved to hit bonus.

Dwarven
Damage bonus: vanilla +3, suggested +3.
Value modifier: vanilla x16, suggested x40.
Weight modifier: vanilla x0,75, suggested x2.
Enchantment Power modifier: x4.
To Hit Modifier: vanilla +20, suggested +20.
Dwarven weapons as enchantment vessels are on par with vanilla Daedric ones. This allows the possibility of the powerful Dwemer Magical Items, which is cool.

Mithril
Damage bonus: vanilla +4, suggested +4.
Value modifier: vanilla x32, suggested x50.
Weight modifier: vanilla x1, suggested x0,75.
Enchantment Power modifier: x2.
To Hit Modifier: vanilla +30, suggested +40.
Light, can hit everyone, not bad for Enchantment Power — yes, Mithril is a very good material. To hit bonus is supposed to show easeness of wielding such a weapon.

Adamantium
Damage bonus: vanilla +4, suggested +6.
Value modifier: vanilla x64, suggested x45.
Weight modifier: vanilla x1, suggested x2,25.
Enchantment Power modifier: x1,2.
To Hit Modifier: vanilla +30, suggested +30.
Overall, for a balanced Spellsword character, Mithril is better. But for a pure non-magic strongman, who does not care about extra weight of his Warhammer, Adamantium is great.

Ebony
Damage bonus: vanilla +5, suggested +8.
Value modifier: vanilla x128, suggested x300.
Weight modifier: vanilla x0,5, suggested x1,25.
Enchantment Power modifier: x3.
To Hit Modifier: vanilla +40, suggested +60.
Basically Mithril, but better. A bit heavier, but no one cares on that level. The best to hit bonus in the game. Ebony items in lore are supposed to be great, and now they are.
Note: I think that the Ebony Dagger option at the start of the game either should be removed completely, or the Dagger should be not higher than Dwarven or maybe Mithril. It will still be more powerful than other alternatives, which should be thought about, but at another time.

Orcish
Damage bonus: vanilla +6, suggested +10.
Value modifier: vanilla x256, suggested x200.
Weight modifier: vanilla x1, suggested x2,5.
Enchantment Power modifier: x1,4.
To Hit Modifier: vanilla +50, suggested +40.
Hulk smash! And with x1,4 Enchantment Power this still allows some Magic Item possibilities, especially if you prefer to use Swords. Although it may be more fun to use a War Axe or a Warhammer and ignore Magic whatsoever, if you are user of fine Orcish weaponry. Slightly lower to hit bonus does not matter much for a melee specialist anyway, but makes other options more interesting for a mixed character.

Daedric
Damage bonus: vanilla +7, suggested +7.
Value modifier: vanilla x512, suggested x500.
Weight modifier: vanilla x1,25, suggested x3.
Enchantment Power modifier: x5.
To Hit Modifier: vanilla +60, suggested +50.
You may notice that Daedric weaponry is weaker than Orcish and even Ebony in raw damage, and this is good. Because its' Enchantment Power is ridiculous, and yet its' Damage bonus still match vanilla. It is definitely not "nerfed", but it now has some competition for being an endgame equipment, which is great. Well, to hit bonus is slightly nerfed, but it is still very high.

2. Material recolor

Vanilla ultra-saturated colors for most materials are, well, suboptimal to say the least. I tinkered with the colors somewhat and this is what I find to be good. Link to the image.

Explanations!

Two colors are used in these textures: primary and sheen. Primary is just complete fill of all pixels, generally gray with some non-saturated tint in most cases. Sheen is the one with all the details, most prominent in highlights.

Iron: dull dark gray with dull orange sheen, indicating rust.
Steel: pure grayscale, high contrast with light gray sheen. This is the default color and it is great as that.
Silver: instead of being very bright almost white, with loss of details and thin shadows, it is now close to steel, but primary has unsaturated cyan tint.
Elven: well, Altmer. And they use sorta gold equipment, which looks great, and definitely better than almost-exactly-Silver one we have in vanilla. So, tasteful dark gold, not saturated, close to the material in TES 4: Oblivion.
Dwarven: instead of pure yellow it is way darker, bronzeish. Can't be confused with the Elven, because it uses completely different colors, more saturated and high contrast.
Mithril: rare material, not often used in TES. Vanilla dark deep blue looks wrong, because it is supposed to be silvery-like in original source. But sure, fair blueish colour looks great.
Adamantium: another rare material, and in this case I used completely different color scheme for the sake of diversity. Instead of pure black it has dark violet primary color with very pale, almost white slightly cyanish sheen. Looks unique and works better than dull dark cyan they used in TES 3: Morrowind. That one kinda clashes with Silver and Mithril, and violet wasn't used at all, so here we are.
Ebony: instead of doing glossy pure black I decided to highlight it with moderately saturated and moderately bright golden yellow. There is a tradition of showing Ebony weapons in black with golden inclusions, ornaments et cetera. It looks pretty unique and can't be confused with anything really. Also it does use the darkest primary color.
Orcish: primary is kinda saturated, but dark green, with almost white slightly greenish light gray sheen. Evokes that look of orcish items from later games.
Daedric: black primary with red sheen, obviously. Shares the darkest primary with the ebony. Red is pretty saturated but not as bright as in vanilla, so it looks menacing, not clownish.

I used only four sprites to demonstrate recolor, and did not redone all textures for two reasons:
First, I think that in current Daggerfall Unity material system works differently, using recolors to base grayscale (steel) armor with just one tint.
Second, I believe that while vanilla is great game, best and unsurpassed in many aspects, it is also deeply flawed and dated in other aspects, with all due respect. So, probably it is better for a good artist or a team of artists to either upscale the resolution of all the equipment or even completely redo all the textures. And then, perhaps, to apply my suggested recolor as materials.

3. Weapon Types

Vanilla stats of weapons make no sense. Too long to explain in advance, so here are the suggestions to change it, with reasons explained on the go.

I am using "actual" values of damage from https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Weapons, because why shouldn't I. So all numbers used are for Iron weapons.

Again, consider to check out the spreadsheet with the data. Probably will be easier to digest.

// Short Blade

Dagger
Damage: vanilla 0-5, suggested 0-6. Just a smidge more powerful, to make it in line with the other Short Blades. Still the weakest weapon. Read below though.
Value: vanilla 3, suggested 10. Some rebalance of value all along.
Let's compare vanilla Dagger and Wakizashi. Daedric Dagger only loses 4 damage, but costs 1536 versus 12288. Which is really weird.
Weight: vanilla 0,5, suggested 0,4.
In vanilla it is 0,5 and because the game rounds down to 0,25, it stays that way for all other materials. Which is kinda not nice. Therefore, I think that all weights should be rounded down to 0,1, to make numbers a bit more varied. This way, Daggers from heavier materials will weigh more, which makes sense.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 150, suggested 600.
There is an archetype of a Dagger as a magical weapon, well-fitted for Nightblades. Dagger has unique weapon animation, and it is in the game name, so while it should remain weakest as a pure brawn weapon, it makes things more interesting to make it great enchanter's weapon.

Tanto
Damage: vanilla 0-7, suggested 1-5. Goes in line with other changes for all Akaviri weapons. Average damage is higher then the Dagger's one.
Akaviri weapons — all of these are remade with higher lowest and lower highest damage ranges, while in general they are slightly nerfed to make other variants viable. This is more fun and interesting than "always use Katana/Dai-Katana".
Value: vanilla 9, suggested 12. A bit more than Dagger, because this is exotic Short Blade.
Weight: vanilla 0,75, suggested 0,6. A weapon with higher damage feels like it should weigh more, but not that much more.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 165, suggested 300.
While it is stronger than default (most if not all of them are, just because it is more fun anyway, and numbers are not high enough to think of imbalance), it loses to a Dagger. Therefore, Tanto is better if you don't have enchants, but worse if you do.

Shortsword
Damage: vanilla 0-7, suggested 1-9.
Ugh, did you saw the texture? It looks way more wicked than pitiful Tanto, and should be sort of "medium blade". This weapon becomes the most powerful of the group, dethroning Wakizashi for pure damage.
Value: vanilla 15, suggested 15. Feels right.
Weight: vanilla 2,5, suggested 1,1. 2,5 kg is unreasonable for a Shortsword. 1,1 is still a stretch, but okay.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 300, suggested 450. Made way stronger to make Short Blade weapon class a viable choice against the Long Blade. Long Blades are still better damagers, but Enchanting Power is similar.

Wakizashi
Damage: vanilla 0-9, suggested 3-6. Overall "new feel" for Akaviri weapons. Damage is slightly lower than the one for Shortsword, but not much.
Value: vanilla 24, suggested 18. The weapon is slightly inferior to the Shortsword in general, but exotic, so it still costs more, but not much more.
Weight: vanilla 2, suggested 0,9. Yeah, this is where it still beats the Shortsword.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 337, suggested 450. Makes it a personal choice between Shortsword or Wakizashi as a weapon of choice. Or just use enchanted Dagger, of course.

// Long Blade

Broadsword
Ideally it should be two-handed and renamed to "Bastard Sword" or something like that. Have you seen the sprite of it? It looks gorgeous, and it is by far the weakest of the Long Blade family. Which makes zero sense.
So, here are the stats for it as a heaviest one-handed weapon, and below there are alternative stats for it as a two-handed weapon.
Damage: vanilla 0-11, suggested 2-18. Well yeah.
Value: vanilla 30, suggested 40. It is buffed to make it worth it.
Weight: vanilla 5, suggested 2,25. 5 is ridiculous for a one-handed sword. 2,25 is still high, but it is massive.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 375, suggested 350.
This weapon, from being a joke, becomes the most powerful one-handed Long Blade, almost reaching a Battle Axe and a Mace, which are, spoiler alert, massively buffed in damage department. A tradeoff is lower Enchantment Power, not that low as Axes and Blunts have, but somewhere in between. Which feels great, because right now this weapon has a purpose: a sword for a warrior, who prefers to use swords, but rely upon brawn, not Magic.

Saber
Vanilla saber is just a weaker, inferior sword type. It is not as worthless as a Broadsword, but still does not makes any sense, because the sprite looks really impressive.
Damage: vanilla 2-11, suggested 0-16. Lowest minimum damage for a Long Blade, just to make it somewhat flavorful. Think of glancing blows or whatever, this is not really supposed to be painfully realistic, because it is impossible.
Value: vanilla 36, suggested 35. Or it can stay 36, whatever.
Weight: vanilla 3,75, suggested 1,75. Noticeably lighter than a Broadsword, but heavier than other one-handed Long Blades. Because it has a heavy hilt and it looks, well, heavier than other two.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 393, suggested 450. One-handed long blades, with exception of a broadsword, have exactly the same enchanting potential, which makes it a style choice.
Another way to go with the Saber will be to nerf damage to, say, 0-12, making it by far the weakest in Long Blades, but grant something like (1 + [Material Damage Bonus]) as Armor. Again, heavy hilt is great for protection. But it is probably harder to implement.

Longsword
Ideally should be renamed to just "Sword" or "Arming Sword". I believe you already do know why is that, it is common knowledge these days.
Damage: vanilla 1-15, suggested 1-15. It just works.
Value: vanilla 45, suggested 30. Compare with the Shortsword, no reason to cost three times that. Two times feels more natural. And it should not cost more than a Broadsword, which is heavier and (now) more powerful.
Weight: vanilla 4,5, suggested 1,5. Kinda normal weight for a sword, well still too heavy, but ok.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 450, suggested 450.

Katana
Damage: vanilla 2-15, suggested 3-13. Very slight nerf, to erase the idea of "the best weapon in category".
Value: vanilla 75, suggested 40. 75 is way overpriced and it really feels in Daedric.
Weight: vanilla 2,5, suggested 1,25. It looks really small.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 450, suggested 450.

Bastard Sword
As been said before, this is an alternative version of a Broadsword, made two-handed. Either one or another should be used, these are designed as different weapons. Although there is no reason not to add weapon types in the game, completely with sprites etc, but that's another story.
Damage: suggested 2-20. Yeah, like vanilla Dai-Katana, and this is the weakest two-handed sword.
In general, two-handed weapon users lack a shield / off-hand weapon with possible good enchants. They lose survivability (in form of a shield) and utility (in form of switching to another weapon), and gain not much. Therefore, they should get more in raw damage.
Value: suggested 50.
Weight: suggested 2,5.
Enchantment Power: suggested 600, just as other two-handed weapons do have. This makes it a "light" two-handed sword, inferior in damage, but with lower weight and cost, and viable at the end because of good enchantability.

Claymore
Damage: vanilla 1-17, suggested 3-23. Packs a punch indeed.
Value: vanilla 90, suggested 60. This is mostly to make Daedric prices less insane.
Weight: 3,5. Normal weight for a heavy two-handed sword.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 525, suggested 600. Just like a Dagger.

Dai-Katana
Damage: vanilla 2-20, suggested 6-20. Equal average damage with a Claymore. Using that Akaviri feel.
Value: vanilla 150, suggested 75. Still the most expensive weapon in the game.
Weight: 3. Heavier than a Bastard sword, and technically better, but that's fine.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 525, suggested 600. All two-handed swords are equal in this important stat, making all equally viable.

// Axe

There are only two Axe weapons in the game, and generally no reason to use these. They are heavier than Swords and damage for less. This is being fixed now.
In general, Axes and most Blunt weapons are reworked as a "Fighter" weapons. Axes are, to be precise, "Barbarian" weapons. So, they are worse than Blades if you consider enchant and endgame, but they are very desirable if you don't have such an option.

Battle Axe
Damage: vanilla 1-11, suggested 0-22. The most powerful one-handed weapon in the game, sure. This skill only covers 2 weapons, and this tradeoff must go for something.
Value: vanilla 60, suggested 15. Come on, this is an axe. They are cheaper than swords. Again, great choice for a pantless Barbarian, as it should be.
Weight: vanilla 6, suggested 2. Still heavier than swords, which actually is not that realistic, but feels fine in this case.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 393, suggested 150. Whoops. As been said before, this is a Barbarian's weapon anyway, and they tend not to care about enchantments. If you need an enchanted weapon then just use a sword.

War Axe
Damage: vanilla 1-15, suggested 0-30. Still not the most powerful weapon in the game though.
Value: vanilla 60, suggested 30.
Weight: vanilla 7,5, suggested 4.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 375, suggested 250.

// Blunt Weapons

Familiar "Akaviri feel", now for Barbarians! Yes, all blunt weapons go like that, with high overall damage and low variations of damage. While their maximum damage is low, on average these are just as powerful as Axes, just feel differently.
Basically, each chop of an Axe is a gamble of damage, while hews of a Mace are slow, but guaranteed erasure of hit points. So, stylistically Axes are better suited for live-faster-die-younger Barbarian types, while Blunts are for heavy plated Knights. Which feels very right for me.

Mace
Damage: vanilla 1-11, suggested 10-12.
Value: vanilla 30, suggested 12. It is easier to make than a sword.
Weight: vanilla 4,5, suggested 2,5.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 375, suggested 150.

Flail
Damage: vanilla 1-13, suggested 10-18. Average damage is slightly lower than the one for War Axe.
Value: vanilla 45, suggested 32.
Weight: vanilla 7, suggested 4,5.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 337, suggested 200.

Warhammer
Damage: vanilla 2-17, suggested 10-22. Yep, the most powerful weapon in the game. Something had to be. War Axe is just a bit weaker, but noticeably lighter, so it is still a choice.
Value: vanilla 60, suggested 40.
Weight: vanilla 7, suggested 6.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 412, suggested 250.

Staff
Obviously different sort of a Blunt Weapon. It is fitting for Wizards and Martial Artists. It is a light weapon, so it does not have that "Akaviri feel" of heavier Blunts. And, of course, it retains its' highest Enchantment Power.
Damage: vanilla 0-7, suggested 0-12. Hey, this is still a two-handed weapon, it should hurt more than a Shortsword. Makes it a bit viable as a "weapon", not just as a stick for enchantment. Still weaker than other two-handers, Swords and Blunts, of course.
Value: vanilla 15, suggested 10. Hey, it's a stick with small metal points on ends. It should not be as expensive as a Smallsword.
Weight: vanilla 2, suggested 1. Again, it's a stick.
Enchantment Power: vanilla 1125, suggested 1200. Double Dagger power.

// Ranged Weapons

Vanilla Short Bow is strictly inferior to a Long Bow. This is fixed now. Short Bow damage is lower, but its' minimum damage is a bit higher, "Akaviri style". And it has better Enchantment Power. Therefore, suitable for Nightblades, while Long Bow is great for pure brawn Warriors, such as Archers and Rangers.

Short Bow
Damage: vanilla 3-15, suggested 3-15. Actually ranged weapons do have good numbers, not much is changed.
Value: vanilla 30, suggested 30.
Weight: vanilla 1, suggested 1.
Enchant: vanilla 150, suggested 450. This is a magical character's bow.

Long Bow
Damage: vanilla 3-17, suggested 0-28. Noticeably more powerful.
Value: vanilla 60, suggested 60.
Weight: vanilla 1,5, suggested 1,5.
Enchant: vanilla 262, suggested 250.

4. Armor

Oh boy. Well, this game obviously needs expansion on Leather and Chain Armors as a viable "medium" Armor of variable materials. I don't know how hard is that (probably not very, considering what people are doing, especially Chain issue).

Purpose of Armor types:
Leather — Rogues, Archers and other characters who do fight, but either in range and/or using magic.
Chain — heavier melee characters with some sort of addition to their brawn, or just not strong/wealthy enough to use Plate. Probably more dexterous, barbaric, damage-dealing types.
Plate — all-in melee Fighters who love to be tanky.
Pure mages, theoretically, should not use Armor at all. In practice, this is doubtful, because Armor equals enchantment slots. This may be fixed by some special wizardry clothing, which should be worn in Armor slots. So, therefore, we do have another Armor type:
Cloth — Wizards.

Also, to make it easier for everyone, this Cloth Armor should be worn under normal clothing, not above it. Which makes its' appearance practically a non-issue.

Of course, you always can mix and match, and go against the fashion, as usual.

Therefore, it should go like this!

Armor Type: Cloth (does not exists in game currently), Leather, Chain or Plate.
Armor material: from Iron to Daedric. Makes not much sense with Cloth or Leather, but probably still better than what we do have now. Names of Leather and Cloth types can always be reinvented and/or expropriated from The Elder Scrolls Online, but I'll stick with the default ones for the purpose of this text.

Alternative variant, using TESO as a source/inspiration, just as an idea.

Iron — Jute — Rawhide
Steel — Flax — Hide
Silver — Cotton — Leather
Elven - Silk - Thick Leather
Dwarven — Kresh — Topgrain Hide
Mithril — Ironweed — Iron Hide
Adamantium — Silverweave — Superb Hide
Ebony — Ebonthread — Fell Hide
Orcish — Void Cloth — Shadowhide
Daedric — Xivilai Silk — Dremora Leather

Now, why a Mage should use Cloth or a Thief should use Leather? Heavier Armors do provide more protection! Sure, these classes are probably banned from using Armor as a Disadvantage, bu-ut creatively made Custom Classes ignore that.

Therefore, we need some reasons to use lighter Armor Classes. And here are suggested pros and cons for each Armor Class.

Cloth
Pros:
- Best Enchantment Power.
- Very low weight.
- Can be worn by anyone.
- Cheap.
Cons:
- Very low protection. I thought to make it zero, but it works better this way. It is very low, even on high-tier materials.

Leather
Pros:
- Low weight.
- Can be worn by most.
- Cheap.
Cons:
- Low protection.
- Low Enchantment Power. Nightblages should use mix with Cloth for better results. Leather is also an armor for Barbaric or Non-Magical Rogue character types.

Chain
Pros:
- Good protection.
- Moderate price.
Cons:
- Noticeable weight.
- Harder to wear, not for everyone. Read further.
- Average Enchantment Power.

Plate
Pros:
- The best protection.
- High Enchantment Power, although lower than Cloth has. Dedicated Battlemages could probably mix it with Cloth.
Cons:
- High weight.
- Very difficult to wear, basically requires special training.
- Very high cost.

Need to say a word about Shields here. Buckler goes to Cloth, Round Shield to Leather, Kite Shield to Chain and Tower Shield to Plate. Fits nicely. They share basic pros and cons of corresponding Armor Classes, and yeah, a Buckler has more Enchantment Power than a Tower Shield. Which is completely intentional, because otherwise there is near to no reason not to use the heaviest possible shield in all situations.

Now to numbers.

New baseline is Cloth, "Iron" Cloth to be more precise. The worst of the worst, but it's a start!

Buckler: Armor 4, Value 6, Weight 1, Enchantment Power 600. It actually protects just like any normal Chain Armor piece, and it makes sense.
Other Armor pieces protection: 1.
Hat: Value 8, Weight 0,5, Enchantment Power 1200. A wizard hat is a powerful item indeed. Tied with the Jacket, and surpassed only by the Staff and maybe some jewelry.
Jacket: Value 12, Weight 3, Enchantment Power 1200.
Epaulet: Value 6, Weight 0,5, Enchantment Power 300.
Gloves: Value 9, Weight 0,25, Enchantment Power 300.
Pants: Value 10, Weight 1, Enchantment Power 600.
Shoes: Value 10, Weight 0,5, Enchantment Power 300.

Notice that, compared to vanilla, numbers are both streamlined and kinda tweaked. For example, Pants (Greaves) Enchantment Power is vastly enlarged, because it was far too low for such a large Armor piece.

Leather Armor modifiers: Armor x2, Value x4, Weight x2, Enchantment Power /4.
Chain Armor modifiers: Armor x4, Value x10, Weight x4, Enchantment Power /3.
Plate Armor modifiers: Armor x6, Value x20, Weight x6, Enchantment Power /1,5.

And now it works as suggested by pros and cons above.

Unfortunately, this system still does not supports a Battlemage look: heavy Cuirass, perhaps a Helm, with all other pieces in Cloth. It is optimal to do completely different — use Cloth Hat and Jacket with Chain or even Plate in smaller and lighter slots, such as Arms, Feet and especially Hands. But, first of all, change of this requires vastly more deep rebuild of game systems, because a Chest piece should provide way more protection value than any small slot. And, second of all, it is probably fine.

5. Armor materials

These are easy, which is great, because it allows for consistency. Modifiers for Armor materials are exactly the same with Weapons materials.
What's new is the formula. Instead of a raw +bonus from a material, it goes like this:

Protection (Material) = round ( [Protection (Iron)] * [Material Bonus to Damage/Armor] / 2 ).

And here are numbers for each material. They are equal to weapons, although Armor bonus is shown as halved already.

Steel: Armor x1,5, Value x3, Weight x1, Enchantment Power x1,2.
Silver: Armor x0,5, Value x6, Weight x1,25, Enchantment Power x2,5.
Elven: Armor x1, Value x4, Weight x0,75, Enchantment Power x1,5.
Dwarven: Armor x1,5, Value x40, Weight x2, Enchantment Power x4.
Mithril: Armor x2, Value x50, Weight x0,75, Enchantment Power x2.
Adamantium: Armor x3, Value x45, Weight x2,25, Enchantment Power x1,2.
Ebony: Armor x4, Value x300, Weight x1,25, Enchantment Power x3.
Orcish: Armor x5, Value x200, Weight x2,5, Enchantment Power x1,4.
Daedric: Armor x3,5, Value x500, Weight x3, Enchantment Power x5.

Few observations.
1. Protection of Daedric Plate is +21, just as in vanilla.
2. Protection of Orcish Plate is +30, which is higher, but balanced with much lower Enchantment Power.
3. Protection of Silver Armor is worse than of Iron Armor, which I'm fine with. Silver Armor does not makes any sense anyway. It is good for Enchant Power, though. And, if necessary, it may be manually patched to be equal to Iron, not worse than that. Which may be good for Leather and Cloth "Iron".

6. Armor Skill

To make Plate and Chain Armors less desirable for non-specialists, game should include an additional skill: "Armor". It is very simple both in concept and implementation: the higher your Armor Skill and Strength are, the less your penalty to speed from wearing Heavy Armor is.

First, your Armor Skill works as a percentage which is subracted from your total Armor weight, excluding Shield.
Then, from that lessened weight of your Armor, your Strength/10 is subtracted.
If the result is 0 or less, then you don't feel any Armor whatsoever.
If it is higher than 0, then it works as a percentage penalty to your Speed stat. This effect is non-magical, and can't be resisted or healed or fixed in any way, except improving Armor skill or wearing less heavy Armor.

Details are at the spreadsheet. There is a calculator for Armor Skill there, which you can play around with, if you'll copy the spreadsheet to your Google Documents account.

////

If you've read down to here, thanks!

Now. The thing is, I am not a programmer and I can't do this as a mod. Therefore I put this as a design document of sorts, with corresponding table with all the numbers and explanations. If you liked this train of thought and have skills to make it as a mod, then please do.

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MasonFace
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Re: Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

Post by MasonFace »

Phew! That is a mountain of text you got there. I saw a lot of things in there that I like and it's clear you've put a lot of thought into this and your reasoning is sound.

I really like the balancing of properties of weight, damage/protection, and enchantability.

The material recoloring looks excellent. Separating the albedo and specular values (primary and sheen as you call them) makes a huge difference!

Making the axes more of a raw damage dealer means somebody might actually use them!

I like the idea of closing the min-max damage range for most blunt weapons. To me it makes sense that blades can land awkwardly and cause only chip damage sometimes if it isn't angled just right. A hammer on the other hand... if it lands, it's going to do major damage regardless.

I like the idea of adding cloth armor for high enchantability, but I don't agree with it going under clothes (enchanted underwear?) Having it below the clothes doesn't necessarily "make it's appearance practically a non-issue" since it could still be seen if the character's clothes are removed. Aside from this one point, I really like the idea.

Armor skill is a neat concept, but how does it exactly dissuade non-specialist classes from using heavy armors? Couldn't they just add the "armor" skill too? Maybe the armor skill levels with damage absorbed, so that lighter armor contributes very little XP to the armor skill progression?

Anyhow, this was an interesting read. I think a lot of things in here would make the base game operate in a more intuitive way for new players. Also, it gives more purpose to a lot of otherwise useless weapon types.

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King of Worms
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Re: Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

Post by King of Worms »

Well, its long, but Ive read it and I like what I see.
Im quite sure the balancig of Daggerfall would welcome some polish, as all other parts of the game.

I would deffo use this mod for my gameplay.

Zomgmeister
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Re: Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

Post by Zomgmeister »

Hey guys, glad you liked it!

//

On cloth armor going under clothes: my reasoning was to try to keep the look of "unarmored" spellcaster, with all the different excellent clothing available. And naked character is, well, naked, he should remove all enchanted "underwear" also to be considered that, so.

From logic standpoint it is unreasonable to use enchanted underwear, and armor should be on top, but I am trying to keep as much of the Daggerfall original feel as possible. And freedom of clothing choice for unarmored characters (for all, but more pronounced for unarmored) seemed like important thing to me.

Of course, if more people think that cloth armor should be just like other armor types and work on top of clothing, that is fine with me!

//

On armor skill: if they add the skill, they are already multi-role, losing one slot of skills to that. Adding it as miscellaneous won't do much at start, and you should really improve it to be able to wear heavy armor, and also be strong to do it. Current system is just "get 3x Int and Spell Absorption General, don't get forbidden Plate, done", and with the skill you still can do it, if you want to, but it costs more dedication.

Yeah, it should level exactly with damage absorbed, I forgot to mention that. Glad you catched my drift, seems to be on the same wave. Exactly like that, in heavier armors it can grow faster, and in lighter it almost does not grows, but you don't need much of it anyway.

//

General thought: basically 6 points I made in the original post are, for most part, semi-independent. Anyone who knows how to just can go and remake Material bonuses and/or Weapon rebalance as a small mod, and even any one of that will work fine.

//

Or, if anyone can teach me how to do it — I will. No programming background (well, QBasic around 20 years ago, doesn't count), but I am able to work spreadsheets and not that IT-illiterate. So with a tutorial or three, probably, I can do most if not all of it myself, which would be great for everyone who liked that.

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ShortBeard
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Re: Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

Post by ShortBeard »

I like the idea, it seems that the values actually can't be modded right now though - at least to my knowledge. For example, if you look at

Code: Select all

GetBaseDamageMin()
in DaggerFallUnityItem.cs, it's a method that is returning hard coded values to determine the base minimum damage based on the weapon type. It's a similar story for the other methods like modifiers for material, etc.

The easiest way for people to be able to edit these values is if these returned hard coded values were instead exposed public fields so then the modders could just do something like WeaponManager.Instance.MinDaggerBaseDamage = 6 (or something like that) to change the values in their mods. Not sure how else it could be done.

Zomgmeister
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Re: Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

Post by Zomgmeister »

Huh! Weird thing to be hardcoded. I hope that at some time in the future this will be changed.

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ShortBeard
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Re: Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

Post by ShortBeard »

Zomgmeister wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 2:09 pm Huh! Weird thing to be hardcoded. I hope that at some time in the future this will be changed.
Hopefully! I think it would be strange to remain hard coded for very long, considering combat related mods would be one of the main things people would be looking for. Hopefully they change those values so that they're accessible to modders and then we can go wild with the stats

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Hazelnut
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Re: Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

Post by Hazelnut »

These values are hardcoded because they form the basis of DF weapon damage ranges, and the focus has been on replicating the classic game. Much of the item statistics are in a resource file of item templates but damage is calculated from weapon type and material. I think there's certainly an argument to be made that parts of the item class such as these should be refactored out and made overridable. I'll take a look at that after I'm back from holiday on 22nd... although I might need a reminder. :)
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

Zomgmeister
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Re: Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

Post by Zomgmeister »

Oh, of course I understand the focus on replicating the classic game, and do completely support that. As a step 1 ;)

Was surprised by the fact that it was so hardcoded in the original. Because, well, it is kinda obvious to make such clean numeric stats easily changeable. But, of course, it was a crunch developement, so it is what it is.

Ommamar
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Re: Daggerfall Equipment Rebalance

Post by Ommamar »

In addition to yours ideas I would like a component of speed placed in to the weapons, something similar to how the damage ranges are except it would control the minimum and maximum speed a weapon could be swung. A dagger might be 4-15 where a Dai-Katana would be 0-10. This would be another way to make weapons feel very different to each other.

Another is to have the different attacks produce different damage ranges. So a saber might have a 6-14 range for chop but only a 3-10 range for thrust as it was designed more for an ability to cut ropes when another ship is trying to use grapples to board. But still had some utility as a one handed bladed weapon.

Also the actual range of combat should have an effect with larger weapons like Dai-Katanas, Warhammers and War Axe getting from a 0 to a -5 to hit depending on how close the target is where a dagger would be the opposite of a -5 to 0. This would need to have another variable added or at least extend the one that decides hit success. As it is there is really no reason outside role playing a build to not use a two hand weapon as they hit the same in all distances that a dagger does.

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