[Rachel Briere]

Oblivion XP Update
Version 4.1.9a

Download links:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35333
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/817-oblivion-xp/

Oblivion XP Update is a full update to SirFrederik's Oblivion XP mod. It has several bug fixes and script optimizations that utilize the new features and functions available in the newer versions of Oblivion Script Extender. I intend to release further updates that will include more bug fixes, performance improvements and a complete overhaul of the third party mod support.

This is a complete self-contained package. It does not require the original Oblivion XP - everything is included in this update. This is being released as an upgrade to the original Oblivion XP mod because the changes are quite extensive and the overhaul of the third party mod support will require major structural changes to the plugin (ESP file).

Existing users will be able to install this update and continue with your current games. You should not lose the progress you have made. You will need to follow the upgrade instructions in the readme file because the location and contents of the ini file have been changed.

The package is BAIN compatible, with an OMOD conversion script for OBMM as well.

Description

For those unfamiliar with Oblivion XP, it is a levelling system replacement. The Oblivion levelling system is based on skill use to improve the skills themselves and their associated attributes. However, for many players this has turned out to be a tedious exercise that forced them to use skills that did not fit their roleplaying experience in order to improve certain attributes. It also required a certain degree of "micromanagement" if you wished to get the maximum attribute bonuses when you increased in level.

Oblivion XP aims to change all that. It brings the experience point reward system to Oblivion. You gain experience points for performing a variety of actions, including completing quests, killing monsters, picking locks or discovering new locations. When you accumulate enough experience points, you will gain a new level. Upon gaining the new level, you spend points to increase your attributes and skills. You no longer improve your skills by using them. You earn experience points by action and spend an allotted number of points on skills and attributes to improve them, anyway you wish, when you level-up.

SirFrederik is the original author of this mod. He devised the mathematical formulae that control the number of points you need to level and the number of experience points you receive for various actions. The system he designed is complete and operates as a balanced and comprehensive unit. I will not be altering any of this underlying logic. He also made Oblivion XP extremely customizable through settings in the ini file so that this system would work with a variety of playing styles.

Important Notes

The ini file has been relocated to the ini directory under (install folder)\Oblivion\Data\. There are several mods using this convention now, so the Oblivion XP ini file will be found in the same directory used by other mods.

See the readme file in the download for a full description of all the changes.

Requirements:
This release requires http://obse.silverlock.org/. This is a newer version than what the original Oblivion XP required.
Also requires http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32200/ version 8a.

Other Languages

As of version 4.1.9, translating Oblivion XP is as simple as translating the ObXP_strings.xml file. See the readme for full details.

FatalIllusion has already done an Italian translation and the file is on the Nexus download page. Just download it and copy to your Data\Menus\Strings directory. You must install the new version of Oblivion XP first.

Translations Available

Italian by FatalIllusion
Japanese by nkyhiro
French by Sita

Previous Threads
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1126968-relz-oblivion-xp-update/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1147258-relz-oblivion-xp-update-thread-2/

Change Log

Ok, now the details on what I've done so far... This is only a brief summary - see the readme file for details!

Version 4.1.9a

• fixed problem with text display for some Skill Perks.
  
• on-screen log was listing wrong string when an artifact was found. On-screen log would say "Read a book" when it should have said "Found an artifact".
  
• added missing Dark Brotherhood quest and added alternate ending for Fighters Guild quest

Version 4.1.9

• HUD overhaul! New progress bar to match the other HUD elements. Also restored option to display progress text. New ini options to control display of progress text and progress bar itself.
  
• menu overhaul! Character statistics menu and Level-up menu have been given a face lift.
  
• added support for Dark UI
  
• skill increases per level capped at five. Configurable in ini file.
  
• skill point cost progression. Higher level skills will cost more to increase. Also configurable.
  
• Skill Perks are now displayed when you increase a skill to the next mastery rank. May be turned off in ini file.
  
• can set trainingSessions and/or trainingCostMult ini settings to 0 to disable. Disabling Oblivion XP's control of these parameters will revert them to the default game settings and unused training sessions will NOT carry over to the next level (if trainingSessions is set to 0).
  
• all messages and menu text moved to the ObXP_strings.xml file. Now anybody wishing to translate Oblivion XP only has to translate the ObXP_strings.xml file. Oblivion XP now requires MenuQue. It also requires a newer version of OBSE than previous versions.
  
• enhanced OBSE detection. Will detect if OBSE is not running properly in addition to detecting if wrong version is installed.

Version 4.1.8

• Fixed miscellaneous stats bug. This is the "no experience from miscellaneous actions" bug that has plagued Oblivion XP for so long - not any more!
  
• Removed built-in support for AFK_Weye. Dwip has created a patch that will award experience points for all quests in AFK_Weye.
  
• Fixed vanilla/BTmod character stats menu. Now your current level will be displayed properly in the menu.
  
• Fixed bug that was preventing the training cost multiplier from being processed properly. Now if you change the ini setting, it will be reflected properly in-game.
  
• Changed Health regeneration calculation so that the minimum rate is always 1.0. Previously it was possible for characters with low Endurance and/or Willpower to have a rate less than one, so there was no Health regeneration at all.

Version 4.1.7a

• Fixed bug in Curse of Hircine script. Also fixed a bug in the Cowl of Nocturnal script. Points were still being awarded if your "normal" infamy exceeded that of the Cowl - naughty, naughty
  
• Removed built-in support for The Ayleid Steps - Ervvyn has added Oblivion XP support to the latest version of The Ayleid Steps.

Version 4.1.7

• No points awarded for kills by poison, part 2: The previous fix didn't work in all cases. I think I got it this time
  
• Training sessions not carrying over to next level, part 2: There were still some problems with training sessions carrying over properly that has now been fixed. No special steps to upgrade anymore either!
  
• Gray Cowl of Nocturnal bug: A large number of experience points would be awarded when removing the Cowl. Not any more!
  
• Curse of Hircine bug: Similar to the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal. No more XP for switching forms.
  
• Point awards fixed for Lockpicking: If you broke more lockpicks than the setting in the ini file, you would still receive full points for picking the lock. This has been fixed. Furthermore, there is a new ini setting for the Skeleton Key. By default, if you have the Skeleton Key, you will NOT earn any experience points for lockpicking!
  
• Points awarded when in text input mode: Previously you would earn points for reading a book everytime you went into text input mode. Fixed now.

Version 4.1.6

• Summons bug No. 1: Kill a conjurer with a summoned creature and you'd only get the points for killing the measly creature.
  
• Summons bug No. 2: Experience point running total corrupted by killing a zero-level summoned creature.
  
• Poison Kills bug: No points awarded for killing a creature or NPC via poisoning.
  
• DLC Quest bug: No points awarded for completing the official DLC quests.
  
• No Level Adjustment for 3rd Party Mods: Experience points awarded for completing quests in third party mods with built-in Oblivion XP support were not scaled properly.
  
• No Kill Points Awarded if Bonus Muliplier Disabled bug.
  
• Training Sessions bug: Training sessions not carrying over to next level. See the readme file for details.
  
• Master Training Quests bug: No points awarded for completion of master training quests.

Outstanding Bugs and Future Plans

• overhaul the third party mod support. This is a source of most of the performance hit in Oblivion XP.
  
• reward points for fencing stolen goods rather than for simply stealing them. This will fix an exploit with stealing items. It also seems to better fit the effort required to actually sell stolen items rather than simply picking something up. The points awarded will be scaled to the monetary value of the item.
  
• see if experience points can be awarded for the Speechcraft mini game. Currently there is an ini setting for rewarding points for changing the NPC's disposition, but this was never implemented.
  
• look at new locations discovery script. Might be able to use city markers instead of current mechanism. This will allow Oblivion XP to work with extended worldspaces better.
  
• scale the experience points awarded for lockpicking according to security skill. Picking a hard level lock with a security skill of 20 will yield more points than picking the same lock with a security skill of 80.
  
• award points for arena matches. Looking at awarding points when player attains a new rank and for the overall completion of the quest.
  
• award points for repairing items.

Credits

I wouldn't be able to do this alone! Thanks to:

• Bethesda for creating Oblivion.
  
• SirFrederik for creating Oblivion XP.
  
• Tejon for some hints and a sample script to fix the summoned creature bug.
  
• Javert93 for his help in anolyzing, testing and fixing the miscellaneous stats bug.
  
• kyoma for his help in fixing the miscellaneous stats bug. Also for his help with the menus.
  
• TheNiceOne for his help in demystifying Oblivion XML and the Darnified UI.
  
• Phitt for his suggestions on the new skill cost progression. Also for his help in testing.
  
• Amadaun, Klaus, samuro_, Tatts4Life and FatalIllusion for their help in testing.
  
• LHammonds for the Readme Generator that the readme file was based on.

[AnDres MeZa]

Friends of Oblivion XP

Friends of Obivion XP is a prestigious group of mods in which the mod authors have taken the time to build Oblivion XP support into their mod!

When you complete quests in these mods, you will be awarded experience points. Oblivion XP only has a small amount of work to do to process these points, so performance is greatly improved. Also, this code is only run for mods that you actually have loaded and if the mod author changes the mod, you will get those changes as soon as you download the new version of the mod!

Current Friends

Kragenir's Death Quest
Enhanced Economy
The Ayleid Steps
AFK Weye (external patch written by dwip)
Faregyl Village
Frostcrag Village

Now I'm sure that there are more out there than that, so if I've missed anybody, please let me know and I will be sure to add them to the list.

Adding Oblivion XP Support

How do I make my mod support Oblivion XP? Excellent question

If your mod requires OBSE, then all you need to do is add a couple of lines of code to the result script for the quest completion stage, as follows:

if ( isModLoaded "Oblivion XP.esp" )	runScriptLine "set ObXPMain.interOpGainedXPMessage to sv_Construct %qCompleted the blah blah quest%q"	runScriptLine "set ObXPMain.interOpGainedXP to 100"endif

Replace "blah blah" with the name of the quest. Replace the 100 in the second line with the number of points you wish to award.

Point guidelines:

* For simple quests that really only require you to talk to somebody, you would award about 50 pts. The Deliver the Amulet quest is a good example. The master training quests in which all you need to do is find the trainer and talk to him are also good examples.
* For quests that involve you doing bit of leg-work, you would award about 100 pts. The miscellaneous quests "The Potato Snatcher", "Raid on Greyland", "Go Fish" or "Bear Season" are all good examples.
* For quests that involve a small dungeon dive and retrieval you might award about 150 pts. The Daedric Shrine quests all fall into this category. "Find the Heir" or "Weynon Priory" are also examples.
* For quests that involve a more extensive dungeon dive or a lot of running around, you might award 200 to 250 pts. This is typically the upper limit.


Oblivion XP will handle everything else, including scaling those points to the player's level.

If your mod doesn't require OBSE and you don't want to add it, then let me know and I will see about creating a patch for it. Patches will be posted as extra files on the Obivion XP download page. The downside to doing a separate patch is that if a mod is changed, then the patch will become obsolete unless it is updated as well.


Third Party Mod Support

When SirFrederik released Oblivion XP, he included support for 22 mods. I plan to overhaul this part of Oblivion XP and set things up so that the only processing that occurs is for mods the player actually has loaded. The best way to do that is to ask mod authors to add Oblivion XP support to their mods.

Here is the list of mods that have support built into Oblivion XP:

Arrows of the Ayleid King v1.8
Bartholm v6.0
Blood & Mud
C&C - The Blackwood Company v1.0.2
Daggerfall Memories - The Liberation of Cybiades v2.1
Danger Sense - Feral Instincts v1.5
Gates to Aesgaard Ep. 1 v1.1
Glenvar Castle v2.10
Heart of the Dead v5.3
Integration – TSL
JQ Assassin Quest v1.0
Malevolent v1.0.2
Midas Magic v0.990
Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul v1.34
Ruined Tail's Tale v3.0.1
Servant of the Dawn SI v2.25
Tamriel Rebuilt – Stirk v1.2
Tears of the Fiend v1.2.2
The Dungeons of Ivellon v1.8
The Lost Spires v14
Verona House – Bloodlines SI v1.2
Windfall v1.0

Patches

I will list the patches currently available in this section. Patches can be downloaded from the main download page.

A Brotherhood Renewed
AFK Weye (patch written by dwip)
Kvatch Rebuilt 1.1

[brandon frier]

Translating Oblivion XP

If you are interested in translating Oblivion XP, all you need to do is to translate the ObXP_strings.xml file that was introduced in version 4.1.9.

Oblivion XP uses a new MenuQue feature that will take any xml file in Data\Menus\Strings and append it to the base strings.xml file. The strings.xml file has most of the menu text in it. It is located in the Oblivion - Misc.bsa file. You don't need to touch the original strings file or extract it from the BSA. MenuQue will append the data in your custom string files at runtime.

FatalIllusion has already done an Italian translation. He said it only took about 20 minutes!

If you decide to do a translation, please let me know and I will host your translated ObXP_strings.xml file on the Nexus download page.

Translations Available

Italian by FatalIllusion
Japanese by nkyhiro
French by Sita

[Cccurly]

Hi, I plan to switch to Oblivion XP from Realistic Leveling. I have a level 21 Nord Warrior. Will I run into any issues that'll mess up my character's stats? Any special procedures I should do to make the switchover problem-free?

[kristy dunn]

Just wanted to voice my interest and support for the new update that is coming out. Thank you.

[Alister Scott]

Hi, I plan to switch to Oblivion XP from Realistic Leveling. I have a level 21 Nord Warrior. Will I run into any issues that'll mess up my character's stats? Any special procedures I should do to make the switchover problem-free?

When you install Oblivion XP, it will reset your character to level 1, figure out how many skill and attribute points you have available for spending based on a level 21 character and present you with the level-up screen so that you can set up your character. Basically you would go through and increase your skills and attributes to whatever you want all in one go. It's not too bad - everything is on one screen. There is no link between skills and attributes anymore with Oblivion XP, so increasing a skill does not affect how much (or how little) you increase your attributes.

This will give you the opportunity to really change your character, within the spending limits for skills and attributes. If you like your current character, then I suggest you do screen-prints of his stats so that you can set him up the same way under Oblivion XP. I don't know how Oblivion XP compares to Realistic Levelling in terms of how much your skill and attributes will differ between the two.

I suggest you wait until the new release though. I will be releasing a new version in about a week with a new skill cost progression system, so you might want to wait for that.

The readme file in the download explains how the skill and attribute points work, so you might want to have a look at that.

[Scott]

Ah, thanks for the info. I decided to install anyway (sorry I can't wait, I really like the idea of an experience point system in my Oblivion ) and I find that the mod had given me a truckload of points to spend on attributes and skills. Even after I've restored my attributes and skills to exactly the same numbers as how Realistic Leveling had setup my character, I was left with about 110 points to spare on attributes, and about 300+ on skills. o_O

Is this normal? Will these extra points go away once I click "Done"? I don't want these extra points to carry over for the rest of my game, it would seem too cheating.

Also, a minor nitpick... Oblivion XP totally resets minor skills (geddit? minor nitpick on minor skills!? snort snort) to whatever the character would possibly start with, so I'm left with a converted character with really low minor skills stats. Of course this was easily solved by using the console command player.setav, but... I think it'd be nice if for minor skills, the mod would just carry over whatever the character had before installing Oblivion XP.

[Ashley Hill]

Ah, thanks for the info. I decided to install anyway (sorry I can't wait, I really like the idea of an experience point system in my Oblivion ) and I find that the mod had given me a truckload of points to spend on attributes and skills. Even after I've restored my attributes and skills to exactly the same numbers as how Realistic Leveling had setup my character, I was left with about 110 points to spare on attributes, and about 300+ on skills. o_O

Is this normal? Will these extra points go away once I click "Done"? I don't want these extra points to carry over for the rest of my game, it would seem too cheating.

Hahaha - that's good to know. Man that must have been a hard game under Realistic Levelling. No the points do not go away - they accumulate. It sounds like you'd be happier under the new version - with the skill point cost progression, you'd spend those points quicker

Oblivion XP resets all skills - you are free to spend your points as you wish. If you opted for the default cost allocation, minor skills will cost more to increase though. You might want to decrease the number of points you have to spend each level and redo the initialization. Here's the ini setting:

Set ObXPSettings.skillPointsPerLevel 		to 48		; 48

Change that to 30 or something. Note that that default is from the new version. I have increased the default because it will cost more to increase your skills as your character gains higher ranks in skills.

Also, a minor nitpick... Oblivion XP totally resets minor skills (geddit? minor nitpick on minor skills!? snort snort) to whatever the character would possibly start with, so I'm left with a converted character with really low minor skills stats. Of course this was easily solved by using the console command player.setav, but... I think it'd be nice if for minor skills, the mod would just carry over whatever the character had before installing Oblivion XP.

There's little or no distinction between major and minor skills anymore. I guess that's why you have so many skill points left over You're supposed to spend your skill points to increase your minor skills too. Click on the arrows next to the Combat Skills heading in the level-up menu - those are arrows, not just decoration. In the next section are your magic skills and in the last section are your stealth skills. Use your skill points to increase all your skills, not just your majors.

If you didn't increase your minor skills as well, then that's why you have so many points left over. Ignore my comment about lowering your skill points per level, above.

I think at this point, you'd better go back to your saved game before intializing Oblivion XP and try again. Oblivion XP isn't going to like your use of SetAV - it will take a temper tantrum :wink_smile:

[Epul Kedah]

Oh, I didn't know the arrows were clickable. Serves me right for being impatient. So THAT'S why I had so many unused skill points. But... that still doesn't explain the extra attribute points.

I remember double-checking to make sure I've restored my character's attributes accurately, yet I still ended up with 110 extra unspent points. Why does this happen?

Regarding the SetAV issue: unfortunately I've overwritten the save and it's too late to turn back. Hopefully if I uninstall Oblivion XP, do a clean save, then reinstall OXP, the level-up menu will come up again.

I'd do it right now but I'm about to head to bed already, will try when I wake up.

Oh and I really love this mod. Keep up the good work, and will be playing this mod for a very long time.

[Louise]

Oh, I didn't know the arrows were clickable. Serves me right for being impatient. So THAT'S why I had so many unused skill points. But... that still doesn't explain the extra attribute points.

I remember double-checking to make sure I've restored my character's attributes accurately, yet I still ended up with 110 extra unspent points. Why does this happen?

Regarding the SetAV issue: unfortunately I've overwritten the save and it's too late to turn back. Hopefully if I uninstall Oblivion XP, do a clean save, then reinstall OXP, the level-up menu will come up again.

I'd do it right now but I'm about to head to bed already, will try when I wake up.

Oh and I really love this mod. Keep up the good work, and will be playing this mod for a very long time.

You might have more attribute points than what you had before. Oblivion XP gives you 13 attribute points per level. Basically it assumes efficient levelling, which means that you always got the +5 modifiers. With efficient levelling, you could increase two attributes by +5 each and then use one point on Luck or increase three attributes by +5 each. So Oblivion XP is a compromise between the two. And if you didn't worry about efficient levelling when you were using Realistic Levelling, then you will have a lot more attribute points. Just spend them!

I think you should be able to remove Oblivion XP and it will maintain your stats. Why are you being so stingy on your saved games? You really should have several to try to prevent corrupted saves. So if it retains your stats when you uninstall it, then you will be able to reinstall it and go through the initialization again. Now one thing with removing Oblivion XP is your menus will be screwed up. If you are running a UI like Darnified, you should reinstall Darnified to fix the menus.

[Ria dell]

Okay so I finally got around to reinitializing my character with Oblivion XP, following my old Realistic Level stats.

I started with attributes. I changed the attribute points per level up to 15, to simulate a 5/5/5 character. After following exactly all of my stats, I still had a few hundred points left to distirbute. Being a level 21 character, it's no wonder. At first I felt that it's really cheating to raise my stats to numbers beyond 100, but then I reminded myself that I'm playing an OOO game, so the enemies are still going to kick my ass most of the time anyway. So I went ahead and distribute my remaining attribute points that would suit a typical pure Warrior.

Now on to skills. I started with about 828 skill points to distribute. So I went ahead and followed my old stats. By the time I got to the Stealth page to raise my stealth skills, I had run out of points. :/ I hadn't cheated at all while I was playing my character with RL, some of my minor skills are genuinely high just by playing naturally, mainly Mercantile, Speechcraft and Security, because I used those a lot. I also trained Restoration and Mysticm a lot with trainers. So as you can see, eventhough I'm a pure warrior, I did train the other non-combat skills.

So what should I do? If were to rely on Oblivion XP to calculate my available skill points, I just won't have enough. But according to you, using SetAV afterwards will mess things up. Help.

[lauraa]

Okay so I finally got around to reinitializing my character with Oblivion XP, following my old Realistic Level stats.

I started with attributes. I changed the attribute points per level up to 15, to simulate a 5/5/5 character. After following exactly all of my stats, I still had a few hundred points left to distirbute. Being a level 21 character, it's no wonder. At first I felt that it's really cheating to raise my stats to numbers beyond 100, but then I reminded myself that I'm playing an OOO game, so the enemies are still going to kick my ass most of the time anyway. So I went ahead and distribute my remaining attribute points that would suit a typical pure Warrior.

Now on to skills. I started with about 828 skill points to distribute. So I went ahead and followed my old stats. By the time I got to the Stealth page to raise my stealth skills, I had run out of points. :/ I hadn't cheated at all while I was playing my character with RL, some of my minor skills are genuinely high just by playing naturally, mainly Mercantile, Speechcraft and Security, because I used those a lot. I also trained Restoration and Mysticm a lot with trainers. So as you can see, eventhough I'm a pure warrior, I did train the other non-combat skills.

So what should I do? If were to rely on Oblivion XP to calculate my available skill points, I just won't have enough. But according to you, using SetAV afterwards will mess things up. Help.

Well, I actually raise the number of skill points per level I have to spend. I leave the number of attributes per level at 13 because even with efficient levelling, periodically I would increase Luck. So with Ob XP, I do 5-5-3 and then 5-5-2-1 with the last one being Luck. That simulates 5-5-5 and then doing 5-5-1 when I wanted to increase Luck.

Now, for the skills, it's a little trickier. If you switch to "jack-of-all-trades" (Set ObXPSettings.skillPointPreset to 0), then it's a little easier for me to show you the calculation. Alright, so now all skills cost 3 points to increase. Also, let's stick with increasing our attributes by 13 each level. Well, under the old system, to increase your attributes by a total of 13, you'd have to increase two skills by 10 each, so that's 20 total. For the 3, you'd have to increase your skils by about 6. So that's 26 skill increases. If skills cost 3 points each, then you need 78 skill points. Now that's with nothing extra. Even with efficient levelling, you would increase a few other skills here and there. What I did was to play vanilla for a while and actually record every single skill increase. I determined that on average, even with efficient levelling, I actually had about 35 skill increases per level. Since each skill costs 3 points to increase, I actually increase my skill points per level to 105!!! Yeah, that's a huge increase over the default I will admit that in the later game, I wind up with an uber powerful character, but hopefully this will give you some ideas on how much you might want to increase the skill points per level to. If you leave the skillPointPreset at 1, which means it's cheaper to increase major and specialized skills, then pick a number that's divisable by 2, 3 and 4, like 72. I think the next one after that would be 84, if my math is correct

Also, under the new version, you are capped at increasing your skills to 5 per level. And skills cost more to increase once they hit Journeyman level. Basically under the new system, I think I'll decrease my skill points a bit to make it a little tougher.

[Sophie Louise Edge]

So... am I supposed to get 108 XP for discovering an "Easy" location at level 4? It seems a little excessive, and if I'm reading the .ini right I should be getting

30 * (1 + player level * multXPLevel)

which is

30*5*0,2=30 XP, not 108... what's happening? When I'm rested, I get 216 XP for each new location! I basically went around discovering about 6-7 new locations and now I'm almost at lvl 5...



EDIT: Ok, so now I discovered a couple of "Very Easy" locations, and these gave me only 54 XP... so does the XP gained depend on the "difficulty" of the discovery? Still, shouldn't I only be getting 30 XP and not 54?

[LuCY sCoTT]

Hello!

I've been playing with Oblivion XP since a much earlier version, but recently got around to starting a new game with version 4.1.8, and I love the bug fixes you've added. I'm very happy to no longer be avoiding using poisons! Some of the features you're advertising for the next version sound great, too. I'm really excited about the idea of increasing skill costs at higher ranks.

Anyway, I popped in to throw out some ideas, things that have occurred to me as "this would be better if"s - while playing with Oblivion XP. Some of it might be well outside the realm of plausibility, but it may give you ideas for similar or better features that are doable, anyway.

1- The skill-cap-by-level feature, Apprentice/Novice/Journeyman/Expert/Master/Grandmaster. This would be better if it broke AFTER a given level. Specifically because of cap removers and Grandmastery. I'd like to set a much higher level barrier on exceeding 100 skill points, but I don't want to cap out at 99 and have to wait for my mastery perk till I'm at a level I consider sufficient for grandmastery.

2- Ability to access the levelup menu anytime you have unspent points. More than once I've accidentally closed it without spending all my points, without noticing, and continued to play for quite a while, then had to decide whether to wait till my next level to use those points, or go back to the point of my previous levelup to spend them.

3- In a similar vein to the above, though this is probably the least plausible idea I'm going to mention: A point-buy system that is not specifically level based, but awards levels and spendable attribute points based on the amount of skill increases purchased. This would be most awesome if it actually gave you natural skill increases and used the vanilla levelup menu, with XPing simply as the basis for skilling up. This would put the normal multipliers in effect but allow you to level efficiently without designing your character counter-intuitively or spending time letting rats and mudcrabs beat on you to improve your armor skills. IMO, though implausible as a revamp for Oblivion XP, this would be the most desirable leveling system.

4- A minor point: Repairing equipment should grant XP! Alchemy does, lockpicking does... for some reason using my armorer skill gets me nothing. Is it a scripting limitation or an oversight?

5- Similar to the above, it would be awesome to see some kind of pluggable code for miscellaneous XP through other mods. So, for instance, I could get XP for crafting armor or arrows using the MMM system.

6- A few more options in ini for the way XP for kills is calculated. multXPKillBase is straightforward enough, but the way I've observed multXPKillBonus to work (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) is that it basically lowers your effective level for calculating all XP. This doesn't JUST mean that, if you set this to "2", a creature half as powerful as you in stats gives you XP as if it were your equal, but that a creature that is exactly equal to you will give you double XP (because it calculates as if you had half your actual stats). And a creature that's a number of levels above you and has twice your stats seems to give staggeringly high amounts of XP if you turn this number up.

That's all for now, thanks for all the hard work AndalayBay!

[Kara Payne]

So... am I supposed to get 108 XP for discovering an "Easy" location at level 4? It seems a little excessive, and if I'm reading the .ini right I should be getting

30 * (1 + player level * multXPLevel)

which is

30*5*0,2=30 XP, not 108... what's happening? When I'm rested, I get 216 XP for each new location! I basically went around discovering about 6-7 new locations and now I'm almost at lvl 5...



EDIT: Ok, so now I discovered a couple of "Very Easy" locations, and these gave me only 54 XP... so does the XP gained depend on the "difficulty" of the discovery? Still, shouldn't I only be getting 30 XP and not 54?

Finding a location depends on distance from the nearest city. A very easy location has a base of 1, while a very hard location has a base of 5.

Your calculation is incorrect. 30*(1+PL*mxp) = 30*(1 + 5*0.2) = 30*2 = 60. Your forgot the 1 and the priority of the brackets

Anyway the actual formula is:

( 1 + ObXPMain.playerLevel * ObXPSettings.multXPLevel ) * ( getPCMiscStat 7 - tempLong ) * ObXPSettings.multXPExploration * distanceFromCivilization = (1 + 4*0.2) * (1) * 30 * 2 = 108

which is what you got. For an easy location, the distanceFromCivilization is 2. If you think that's too high, just reduce the multXPExploration setting in the ini. You can turn it off by setting it to 0.

[Rudy Paint fingers]

Hello!

I've been playing with Oblivion XP since a much earlier version, but recently got around to starting a new game with version 4.1.8, and I love the bug fixes you've added. I'm very happy to no longer be avoiding using poisons! Some of the features you're advertising for the next version sound great, too. I'm really excited about the idea of increasing skill costs at higher ranks.

Anyway, I popped in to throw out some ideas, things that have occurred to me as "this would be better if"s - while playing with Oblivion XP. Some of it might be well outside the realm of plausibility, but it may give you ideas for similar or better features that are doable, anyway.

1- The skill-cap-by-level feature, Apprentice/Novice/Journeyman/Expert/Master/Grandmaster. This would be better if it broke AFTER a given level. Specifically because of cap removers and Grandmastery. I'd like to set a much higher level barrier on exceeding 100 skill points, but I don't want to cap out at 99 and have to wait for my mastery perk till I'm at a level I consider sufficient for grandmastery.

2- Ability to access the levelup menu anytime you have unspent points. More than once I've accidentally closed it without spending all my points, without noticing, and continued to play for quite a while, then had to decide whether to wait till my next level to use those points, or go back to the point of my previous levelup to spend them.

3- In a similar vein to the above, though this is probably the least plausible idea I'm going to mention: A point-buy system that is not specifically level based, but awards levels and spendable attribute points based on the amount of skill increases purchased. This would be most awesome if it actually gave you natural skill increases and used the vanilla levelup menu, with XPing simply as the basis for skilling up. This would put the normal multipliers in effect but allow you to level efficiently without designing your character counter-intuitively or spending time letting rats and mudcrabs beat on you to improve your armor skills. IMO, though implausible as a revamp for Oblivion XP, this would be the most desirable leveling system.

4- A minor point: Repairing equipment should grant XP! Alchemy does, lockpicking does... for some reason using my armorer skill gets me nothing. Is it a scripting limitation or an oversight?

5- Similar to the above, it would be awesome to see some kind of pluggable code for miscellaneous XP through other mods. So, for instance, I could get XP for crafting armor or arrows using the MMM system.

6- A few more options in ini for the way XP for kills is calculated. multXPKillBase is straightforward enough, but the way I've observed multXPKillBonus to work (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) is that it basically lowers your effective level for calculating all XP. This doesn't JUST mean that, if you set this to "2", a creature half as powerful as you in stats gives you XP as if it were your equal, but that a creature that is exactly equal to you will give you double XP (because it calculates as if you had half your actual stats). And a creature that's a number of levels above you and has twice your stats seems to give staggeringly high amounts of XP if you turn this number up.

That's all for now, thanks for all the hard work AndalayBay!

1. Grandmastery is to raise your skill above 100. Master is the setting to raise it to 100. Grandmastery kicks in at 150. You should be able to raise a skill from 100 to 149 as soon as you hit level 20, with the default settings.
2. No. That would severely mess things up. With the new cost progression, you're likely to have points left over quite often anyway. I suggest you save right before levelling. I have changed the HUD so that the on-screen log now reports how many points will be carried over to the next level.
3. Actually I've had similar discussions about this before. Oblivion XP does not track your skill use at all, so it's not possible. I do think the Specialization could use a bit of tweaking so that you're not forced to pick Combat, Magic or Stealth, but it's hard to design something that would make everybody happy!
4. That is an intended addition for a future release. I see that I didn't list it here, but it's in the readme and I think it's in the Nexus post.
5. I can hardly keep up with rewarding quest points for other mods!
6. It's generally not recommended that you change the multXPKillBonus. It is meant to represent the difference in power between your character and an enemy. The base value should be left alone. If you want to tweak these settings, you are better off changing the multXPKillLevel. The setting is in the ini for those that wish to change it, but it's set to 1 as a default so that it doesn't have any effect. Also, the description in the ini is extremely confusing, but I haven't be able to figure out how to word it better! The actual calculation is:
( attributeSumNPC / attributeSumPlayer ) * ( ObXPSettings.multXPKillBonus ), where attributeSum is the total of all the attributes of the NPC or player character. So if the NPC is tougher than you, you will get more points than if he is weaker than you. So yes, if the NPC has equal stats to your character, setting the bonus to 2 would yield twice as many points.

[Carlitos Avila]

Finding a location depends on distance from the nearest city. A very easy location has a base of 1, while a very hard location has a base of 5.

Your calculation is incorrect. 30*(1+PL*mxp) = 30*(1 + 5*0.2) = 30*2 = 60. Your forgot the 1 and the priority of the brackets

Anyway the actual formula is:

( 1 + ObXPMain.playerLevel * ObXPSettings.multXPLevel ) * ( getPCMiscStat 7 - tempLong ) * ObXPSettings.multXPExploration * distanceFromCivilization = (1 + 4*0.2) * (1) * 30 * 2 = 108

which is what you got. For an easy location, the distanceFromCivilization is 2. If you think that's too high, just reduce the multXPExploration setting in the ini. You can turn it off by setting it to 0.

Thanks a lot for the answer. Actually my calculation used level 4 and not 5, so it was correct (30*(1+4)*0,2)=30 XP :thumbsup: Now I realize that's not the whole story though, that's good to know. What I would like though, is to set is so that every location gives the same amount of XP instead of scaling with the distance to civilization. I think the XP for easy discoveries is quite resonable, but the "harder" ones give too much. Is that possible?

Also, I'm wondering what the thinking is behind the XP for misc things that don't involve killing enemies or completing quests. As it is now, at least on my low level, you can gain levels super fast by reading books and finding new locations, while killing enemies gives a lot less XP for something that is harder and takes longer. I know that I can easily change these values myself, but I was wondering what your thoughts are on the defaults. The amount of XP you get for these actions increase as you level up, but maybe the increase in XP needed to level increases even more, thus making the effect of misc actions smaller and smaller as you gain levels? From the XP curve in the readme, it certainly looks like XP needed will increase quite a lot more than the XP for misc actions (I did a quick calculation as well), but it's hard to know for sure. How do these values compare to, say, the values in Fallout 3/NV, if you know?

Basically, what I'm a little worried about is that I'll hit the level cap too quickly and lose the incentive to continue playing, like what happened to me in Fallout 3 (I hit lvl 20 way before finishing all the content). I'm using OOO as well so enemies won't really level with me that much. I have no problem with using the default settings in the mod, since I have no idea what I should change, if anything. Basically I want to level up at such a rate that I can do most of the content in the game without getting super overpowered or hitting max level.

Also I'd like to say that I love the mod

[Star Dunkels Macmillan]

I actually like getting XP for the other actions in the game. Not all characters spend all their time doing quests and killing things. What about stealthy or pacifist characters who are more likely to sneak their way through a dungeon instead of killing everything in it, or a thief character who spends a lot of time in cities stealing, and so on. Those are valid ways to play the game too. So my thoughts on the defaults are that they're a good way to get some bonus XP if you know your character isn't going out to the dungeons all the time. I don't even gain that much XP from them. Maybe you're discovering more locations and reading more books than I am, who knows.

And I'm not the mod author, but regarding your concern about leveling too fast, I also think the default is a bit too quick too early. Maybe that's the XP curve increasing sharply later on, but I just started a character and after about 15 hours I'm level 5. That's not too bad in itself, I don't want to spend too much time at level 1 or 2 anyway, but I have a lot of mod-added content I want to see before my level shoots up. So I just changed ObXPSettings.multXPNeeded to 2 instead of 1, making it take twice as long to level, to slow myself up. You mention OOO, where it's true that the content doesn't level with you as much. But I thought OOO added some high-level enemies like Bosmer rangers? Not sure what level they are. Anyway, you could check out creature/enemy mods like MMM to add lots of difficult fights after level 20 if you're interested.

Thanks for working on this Andalaybay, the mod is a fun alternative to the original leveling. I wanted to also note that there are so many different ways of playing Oblivion, especially with mods, that no matter what the defaults are a good portion of the people will want to change them. So I'd just say to everyone to be ready to change the .ini to your liking, that's what it's there for. All the values are very well explained in there, to your credit andalaybay

[Nomee]

Thanks a lot for the answer. Actually my calculation used level 4 and not 5, so it was correct (30*(1+4)*0,2)=30 XP :thumbsup: Now I realize that's not the whole story though, that's good to know. What I would like though, is to set is so that every location gives the same amount of XP instead of scaling with the distance to civilization. I think the XP for easy discoveries is quite resonable, but the "harder" ones give too much. Is that possible?

Also, I'm wondering what the thinking is behind the XP for misc things that don't involve killing enemies or completing quests. As it is now, at least on my low level, you can gain levels super fast by reading books and finding new locations, while killing enemies gives a lot less XP for something that is harder and takes longer. I know that I can easily change these values myself, but I was wondering what your thoughts are on the defaults. The amount of XP you get for these actions increase as you level up, but maybe the increase in XP needed to level increases even more, thus making the effect of misc actions smaller and smaller as you gain levels? From the XP curve in the readme, it certainly looks like XP needed will increase quite a lot more than the XP for misc actions (I did a quick calculation as well), but it's hard to know for sure. How do these values compare to, say, the values in Fallout 3/NV, if you know?

Basically, what I'm a little worried about is that I'll hit the level cap too quickly and lose the incentive to continue playing, like what happened to me in Fallout 3 (I hit lvl 20 way before finishing all the content). I'm using OOO as well so enemies won't really level with me that much. I have no problem with using the default settings in the mod, since I have no idea what I should change, if anything. Basically I want to level up at such a rate that I can do most of the content in the game without getting super overpowered or hitting max level.

Also I'd like to say that I love the mod

Your calculation is still incorrect - multiplication takes precedence over addition, with calculations in brackets also having a higher precedence. So for level 4, it's 30*(1 + 4*0.2), which is 30*(1 + 0.8) = 30 * 1.8 = 54, which is what you got. Doesn't look like math is your strong suit The location discovery is not configurable other than to turn it off altogether. I might be rewriting that script at some point and I'll see about adding more options if I do. Right now it's hard-coded to the different cities so it won't work in alternative world spaces. I might see if the new map marker options in MenuQue and/or OBSE give some other options.

The idea behind the miscellaneous actions is to reward points for things other than kills. It was meant to give doing other stuff have a little more meaning, and reward. Basically the game itself records all this stuff - you can see it in the accomplishments tab in the character stats menu. SirFrederik is the one who designed all this and I think he did a very good job. He devised the formula for how many points you would need to level and also figured out how many points you should get for doing stuff. Overall his system works really well and I find that the levelling rate is a bit slower than vanilla. I've actually had reason to play vanilla for a bit lately and I couldn't believe how quickly I levelled. The really nice thing about Oblivion XP is that you don't have to worry as much about how you design your character, so you aren't forced to pick skills as majors that you never use so that you can control your levelling.

Now it is true that some of the point rewards are rather frivolous. I believe that a lot of the extra stuff was added by player request and that's why all those things are configurable in the ini. I actually turn off most of them. There are also a couple that should be turned on. You should get points for the speechcraft mini game, but that was never implemented. The option is in the ini, but it doesn't do anything. I plan to implement that and to reward points for repairing items.

The early game is tough because there are so many locations that are unexplored and books that you haven't read. And yes, early on you don't require as many points to level, but you don't get as many points for doing stuff either. It does balance out. From the feedback I've gotten from players, most never maximize all their skills. I believe that's the case even for those playing FCOM.

I like to maximize all my skills and I don't play FCOM, so I tweak the settings. I also load Elys Uncapper and Grandmastery of Alchemy so I can increase my skills and attributes to over 100 and get some use out of them. I increase the number of skill points I get each level. But I do turn off the point rewards for stuff like reading books, collecting Nirnroot and feeding as a vampire.

Have a look at the readme for tips on slowing your rate of levelling if you want to do that. I have suggestions in there on the best parameters to change for that. I've done that quite often myself. You can also turn off the setting for scaling reward points as you level (multXPLevel). This means that you always get the same amount of points, no matter what your level is. That will make a big difference when you start to reach higher levels.

Oblivion XP doesn't really compare to Fallout. I played F3 once and didn't like it very much I just remember that I had finished the game by level 10 or something because I didn't explore very much. In one of my Oblivion games I have a level 40 character who still hasn't maximized everything. Now he does have a number of skills and attributes over 100 though, but I still haven't been able to maximize them all. I did reduce the rate of levelling in that game by increasing the quadratic slope to 1.2. I reset the slope when I hit level 20 or so. Basically I wanted to make sure I would finish the main quest at level 22, so I played and adjusted things accordingly I guess that was Oblivion XP's version of efficient levelling!

[Jessica White]

I actually like getting XP for the other actions in the game. Not all characters spend all their time doing quests and killing things. What about stealthy or pacifist characters who are more likely to sneak their way through a dungeon instead of killing everything in it, or a thief character who spends a lot of time in cities stealing, and so on. Those are valid ways to play the game too. So my thoughts on the defaults are that they're a good way to get some bonus XP if you know your character isn't going out to the dungeons all the time. I don't even gain that much XP from them. Maybe you're discovering more locations and reading more books than I am, who knows.

And I'm not the mod author, but regarding your concern about leveling too fast, I also think the default is a bit too quick too early. Maybe that's the XP curve increasing sharply later on, but I just started a character and after about 15 hours I'm level 5. That's not too bad in itself, I don't want to spend too much time at level 1 or 2 anyway, but I have a lot of mod-added content I want to see before my level shoots up. So I just changed ObXPSettings.multXPNeeded to 2 instead of 1, making it take twice as long to level, to slow myself up. You mention OOO, where it's true that the content doesn't level with you as much. But I thought OOO added some high-level enemies like Bosmer rangers? Not sure what level they are. Anyway, you could check out creature/enemy mods like MMM to add lots of difficult fights after level 20 if you're interested.

Thanks for working on this Andalaybay, the mod is a fun alternative to the original leveling. I wanted to also note that there are so many different ways of playing Oblivion, especially with mods, that no matter what the defaults are a good portion of the people will want to change them. So I'd just say to everyone to be ready to change the .ini to your liking, that's what it's there for. All the values are very well explained in there, to your credit andalaybay

Thanks for the support Caveat. You might consider changing the quadratic slope instead of the multXPNeeded. The quadratic slope slows your levelling nice and smoothly. I found the multXPNeeded too abrupt. Try setting ObXPSettings.multXPNeededQuadraticSlope to 1.2, instead of the default of 1. If you do change that, change the multXPNeeded back to 1

And there are going to be a LOT more settings in the new release

[Liv Brown]

1. Grandmastery is to raise your skill above 100. Master is the setting to raise it to 100. Grandmastery kicks in at 150. You should be able to raise a skill from 100 to 149 as soon as you hit level 20, with the default settings.

Right, I understood how this worked. So, for instance, if I'm level four (with default settings) my skills can't exceed 49. What I was suggesting is this might be better if it was set AT the perk number rather than one below it. So in effect rather than being unable to achieve journeyman level till 5, I couldn't EXCEED it till 5. But as I originally said as well, this is mostly of interest to me for grandmastery, I'd like to cap on 100 for a long time. As it stands (at least if mastery works the same way as the lower levels), I'll cap at 99 till a given level, but as soon as I can place points for 100 and mastery, I can also put in point 101, 102, etc. - I'd rather be able to hit 100 without being able to exceed it till an arbitrarily high level.

EDIT: I re-read what you said, and it seems that maybe you're saying this IS how it works specifically for the Grandmastery cap? I haven't actually tested it over skill level 100 in game, but I know that how I understand it to work is correct at least through expert level. It seemed logical that the grandmastery cap setting would work the same way.

2. No. That would severely mess things up. With the new cost progression, you're likely to have points left over quite often anyway. I suggest you save right before levelling. I have changed the HUD so that the on-screen log now reports how many points will be carried over to the next level.

Got it. I always save before leveling, but sometimes it takes me a while to realize I forgot to allocate some points. But if this isn't doable with the way the mod is designed, it was nothing more than an idea. I hope that even if some of my suggestions sound like criticisms of the current system, it's certainly constructive and well-intended. I appreciate all the hard work you're doing with this mod that I consider one of my most essential!

3. Actually I've had similar discussions about this before. Oblivion XP does not track your skill use at all, so it's not possible. I do think the Specialization could use a bit of tweaking so that you're not forced to pick Combat, Magic or Stealth, but it's hard to design something that would make everybody happy!

I think you misunderstood what I was suggesting slightly, although I realize this is still well outside the realm of anything that could possibly be done within Oblivion XP. I like the way XP is accumulated, and I certainly don't want Oblivion XP to track skill usage. My ideal leveling system would grant skills only based on XP gathering, with a point-buy system rather than a levelup screen like we have now. These XP-purchased skill increases would then count as vanilla skillups, and when appropriate result in a vanilla levelup. Total mod-daydream theorycraft.

4. That is an intended addition for a future release. I see that I didn't list it here, but it's in the readme and I think it's in the Nexus post.

Awesome, good to know!

5. I can hardly keep up with rewarding quest points for other mods!

Haha, I understand. Maybe someday when you've perfected everything else! Although, I will say, as much as I appreciate how many other mods are granting me quest XP from Oblivion XP alone (no outside support), maybe you should put the necessary code in the readme 5 separate times and just say "contact the author of your favorite quest mod to get support added... or make a patch yourself for the community!" Seems like gruntwork, from my admittedly greedy end-user perspective I'd rather have the person who's upgrading one of my favorite mods making the core functionality of the mod better and leaving cross-mod support to the rest of the community.

6. It's generally not recommended that you change the multXPKillBonus. It is meant to represent the difference in power between your character and an enemy. The base value should be left alone. If you want to tweak these settings, you are better off changing the multXPKillLevel. The setting is in the ini for those that wish to change it, but it's set to 1 as a default so that it doesn't have any effect. Also, the description in the ini is extremely confusing, but I haven't be able to figure out how to word it better! The actual calculation is:
( attributeSumNPC / attributeSumPlayer ) * ( ObXPSettings.multXPKillBonus ), where attributeSum is the total of all the attributes of the NPC or player character. So if the NPC is tougher than you, you will get more points than if he is weaker than you. So yes, if the NPC has equal stats to your character, setting the bonus to 2 would yield twice as many points.

Right. So I'd love to see a new setting in the ini maybe, that would do what I originally understood multXPKillBonus to do: ONLY increase the XP for lower level creatures.

I play with FCOM, so this actually plays into something Caveat said about OOO. I level incredibly fast early on with FCOM because I encounter so many enemies that are higher level than me. But conversely, at high levels, I run into a lot of low level baddies that do less for moving me toward my next level than picking up pennies on the sidewalk contributes to my bank account. This can actually get a little frustrating at high levels unless you have a very good memory for where the highest level enemies are always at and make a habit of running through the same places again and again.

Sorry for the long multi-quote post. I hope at least one of my ideas is of some value to you!

[Glu Glu]

Right, I understood how this worked. So, for instance, if I'm level four (with default settings) my skills can't exceed 49. What I was suggesting is this might be better if it was set AT the perk number rather than one below it. So in effect rather than being unable to achieve journeyman level till 5, I couldn't EXCEED it till 5. But as I originally said as well, this is mostly of interest to me for grandmastery, I'd like to cap on 100 for a long time. As it stands (at least if mastery works the same way as the lower levels), I'll cap at 99 till a given level, but as soon as I can place points for 100 and mastery, I can also put in point 101, 102, etc. - I'd rather be able to hit 100 without being able to exceed it till an arbitrarily high level.

EDIT: I re-read what you said, and it seems that maybe you're saying this IS how it works specifically for the Grandmastery cap? I haven't actually tested it over skill level 100 in game, but I know that how I understand it to work is correct at least through expert level. It seemed logical that the grandmastery cap setting would work the same way.

I have to admit that I'm usually at a higher level than any of those limits, so this isn't something I've run into personally. So all the levels would work the same, then. The issue is the way that Oblivion has set up the skill perks. You don't get the new skill perk until you reach level 50, for example, so the limits on character level work the same way. You get the benefit when you attain 100 in a skill. For the most part, raising it over 100 doesn't do much. Same with the rest of the perks. So you have to attain the required level before you get those perks and that's why it's 25 and over, or 50 and over etc. Changing it so that you can get the perk but raise it no higher defeats the purpose.

Got it. I always save before leveling, but sometimes it takes me a while to realize I forgot to allocate some points. But if this isn't doable with the way the mod is designed, it was nothing more than an idea. I hope that even if some of my suggestions sound like criticisms of the current system, it's certainly constructive and well-intended. I appreciate all the hard work you're doing with this mod that I consider one of my most essential!

Well the new version will now report right on-screen how many skill and attribute points you have left over... Not sure that will help much, but it might serve as a bit of a reminder. Of course, that message will be on-screen only for a few seconds after you level.

I think you misunderstood what I was suggesting slightly, although I realize this is still well outside the realm of anything that could possibly be done within Oblivion XP. I like the way XP is accumulated, and I certainly don't want Oblivion XP to track skill usage. My ideal leveling system would grant skills only based on XP gathering, with a point-buy system rather than a levelup screen like we have now. These XP-purchased skill increases would then count as vanilla skillups, and when appropriate result in a vanilla levelup. Total mod-daydream theorycraft.

Yeah, Oblivion XP is modelled after the Dungeons and Dragons games. The experience points your earn only go towards attaining a new level, not in determining how many skill points you have to spend. Now in traditional D&D games, the number of skill points you have to spend on dependent on class, but Oblivion doesn't really have a concept of class in the same way as D&D games, so that can't be implemented in Oblivion XP. You also might have noticed that you get XP for some rather odd things. Getting XP for collecting Nirnroot or feeding as a vampire? I find those odd things to earn XP for. Basically SirFrederik had to use what was available, so Oblivion XP awards points for those things that can be tracked.

Awesome, good to know!

This sort of links to what I just said previously. I will implement these extra point awards provided that there is something I can detect. I suspect that SirFrederik never implemented the points for the persuasion mini-game because it was too hard to find something to key off of. It's also possible that the OBSE functions didn't exist. I'm pretty sure I can do it now, but doing these sort of things definitely depends on OBSE and having the functions available!

Haha, I understand. Maybe someday when you've perfected everything else! Although, I will say, as much as I appreciate how many other mods are granting me quest XP from Oblivion XP alone (no outside support), maybe you should put the necessary code in the readme 5 separate times and just say "contact the author of your favorite quest mod to get support added... or make a patch yourself for the community!" Seems like gruntwork, from my admittedly greedy end-user perspective I'd rather have the person who's upgrading one of my favorite mods making the core functionality of the mod better and leaving cross-mod support to the rest of the community.

Did you see my Friends of Oblivion XP post? There are some mod authors that have added Oblivion XP support to their mods and I really appreciate it when they do because it saves me a ton of work and also helps improve performance

Right. So I'd love to see a new setting in the ini maybe, that would do what I originally understood multXPKillBonus to do: ONLY increase the XP for lower level creatures.

I play with FCOM, so this actually plays into something Caveat said about OOO. I level incredibly fast early on with FCOM because I encounter so many enemies that are higher level than me. But conversely, at high levels, I run into a lot of low level baddies that do less for moving me toward my next level than picking up pennies on the sidewalk contributes to my bank account. This can actually get a little frustrating at high levels unless you have a very good memory for where the highest level enemies are always at and make a habit of running through the same places again and again.

Sorry for the long multi-quote post. I hope at least one of my ideas is of some value to you!

Yeah mods like the FCOM group do have some unintended side effects in that you get high level enemies before you really should. It makes the game more interesting, but makes it tough for mods like Oblivion XP I don't know what to suggest other than making sure multXPLevel is turned on (greater than one). This really will kick in at higher levels and you'll start to get tons of points for the "little things".

The input and interest is always appreciated - even if I don't agree with it all the time I like to have the discussions and people do come up with interesting ideas.

[Your Mum]

Your calculation is still incorrect - multiplication takes precedence over addition, with calculations in brackets also having a higher precedence. So for level 4, it's 30*(1 + 4*0.2), which is 30*(1 + 0.8) = 30 * 1.8 = 54, which is what you got. Doesn't look like math is your strong suit The location discovery is not configurable other than to turn it off altogether. I might be rewriting that script at some point and I'll see about adding more options if I do. Right now it's hard-coded to the different cities so it won't work in alternative world spaces. I might see if the new map marker options in MenuQue and/or OBSE give some other options.

The idea behind the miscellaneous actions is to reward points for things other than kills. It was meant to give doing other stuff have a little more meaning, and reward. Basically the game itself records all this stuff - you can see it in the accomplishments tab in the character stats menu. SirFrederik is the one who designed all this and I think he did a very good job. He devised the formula for how many points you would need to level and also figured out how many points you should get for doing stuff. Overall his system works really well and I find that the levelling rate is a bit slower than vanilla. I've actually had reason to play vanilla for a bit lately and I couldn't believe how quickly I levelled. The really nice thing about Oblivion XP is that you don't have to worry as much about how you design your character, so you aren't forced to pick skills as majors that you never use so that you can control your levelling.

Now it is true that some of the point rewards are rather frivolous. I believe that a lot of the extra stuff was added by player request and that's why all those things are configurable in the ini. I actually turn off most of them. There are also a couple that should be turned on. You should get points for the speechcraft mini game, but that was never implemented. The option is in the ini, but it doesn't do anything. I plan to implement that and to reward points for repairing items.

The early game is tough because there are so many locations that are unexplored and books that you haven't read. And yes, early on you don't require as many points to level, but you don't get as many points for doing stuff either. It does balance out. From the feedback I've gotten from players, most never maximize all their skills. I believe that's the case even for those playing FCOM.

I like to maximize all my skills and I don't play FCOM, so I tweak the settings. I also load Elys Uncapper and Grandmastery of Alchemy so I can increase my skills and attributes to over 100 and get some use out of them. I increase the number of skill points I get each level. But I do turn off the point rewards for stuff like reading books, collecting Nirnroot and feeding as a vampire.

Have a look at the readme for tips on slowing your rate of levelling if you want to do that. I have suggestions in there on the best parameters to change for that. I've done that quite often myself. You can also turn off the setting for scaling reward points as you level (multXPLevel). This means that you always get the same amount of points, no matter what your level is. That will make a big difference when you start to reach higher levels.

Oblivion XP doesn't really compare to Fallout. I played F3 once and didn't like it very much I just remember that I had finished the game by level 10 or something because I didn't explore very much. In one of my Oblivion games I have a level 40 character who still hasn't maximized everything. Now he does have a number of skills and attributes over 100 though, but I still haven't been able to maximize them all. I did reduce the rate of levelling in that game by increasing the quadratic slope to 1.2. I reset the slope when I hit level 20 or so. Basically I wanted to make sure I would finish the main quest at level 22, so I played and adjusted things accordingly I guess that was Oblivion XP's version of efficient levelling!

Actually math is my strong suit - I got an A in all my university math courses. All the more reason to be embarrassed that I misread the formula Thanks for the explanation. I have no problem with getting xp for misc actions, in fact I wouldn't have it any other way. I was simply wondering about the specific values chosen and why misc actions, at least in the early game, give so much more xp than killing normal monsters. I'm sure I'll be ok though

[Charlotte Lloyd-Jones]

Actually math is my strong suit - I got an A in all my university math courses. All the more reason to be embarrassed that I misread the formula Thanks for the explanation. I have no problem with getting xp for misc actions, in fact I wouldn't have it any other way. I was simply wondering about the specific values chosen and why misc actions, at least in the early game, give so much more xp than killing normal monsters. I'm sure I'll be ok though

Tsk, tsk, somebody isn't getting enough practice I'm pretty sure SirFrederik is a mathematician. You should see the levelling formula or the one he put together to figure out which menu elements should be enabled!

Yeah, I think it will all balance out in the end.

[Jessica White]

Dragar the half-orc, you need to roll d20...save vs. willpower or burst into euphoric dancing until your next turn...Elingwin the elf, you've rolled a 1 to hit; your attack hits Dragar your companion and knocks him prone. All enemies in 5 squares get combat advantage....

Ah, those were the days. Keep up the wonderful work, Andalaybay! :thumbsup: