Hello everyone! I have just released my balance pack for Sandman101's H.E.L.L.U.V.A. Wicked Weapons and Awesome Armors! This takes all the equipment and balances the stats (which includes price, rating, speed, reach, enchantment value, damage, etc). I started this so that the armors could be used alongside BTB's Game Improvements. Originally, these weapons and armors would be overpowered in combination with the mods. So many of the balances are in the spirit of BTB's work. The best example I can think of is with prices:
Deadric weapons from this mod cost close to 2500 gold (there is a range depending on what piece we're talking about).

Regarding all the balances, I have to thank Alaisiagae for her mathematical genius in coming up with the formulas for all this. I simply tweaked them so that they would fit better with the stats that I desired. From the readme, if you'd like to see more:

Name: HELLUVA BalancedVersion: 1.0Date: 6/14/2011Category: Weapons and ArmorAuthor: SpiffymanDescription===========Sandman101's H.E.L.L.U.V.A. mods are a wonderful creation. However, the weapons and armors that are added stay true to the original modder's intent, thus being overpowered. What I have done is taken the armors and weapons added by the mod and balanced them.The balancing is quite extreme. For example, I wanted the prices to be low so that these would be useful armors to use, but not a money maker. So the daedric armors/weapons in this mod have prices close to 2500 (as opposed the vanilla daedric which is 70k for armor or 120k for the most expensive daedric weapon). The mod's original intent was to balance HELLUVA items to be used alongside another balancer, such as Alaisiagae's Armor Integrative Modifications  or BTB's Game Improvements. If you'd rather not use those mods, I have also created a version that modifies vanilla items as well. This mod will REPLACE the Helluva esps.If using BTBGI and you want vanilla weapons to be modified too, use HELLUVA Balanced BTB. It REPLACES BTB's equipment esp.Details=======Alaisiagae provided me with a very nicely organized spreadsheet which she used to balance vanilla weapons. I simply modified this to modify all the HELLUVA items as well. Thus, the mathematical genius that is Alaisiagae is what allowed me to create this mod. Much of the credit goes to her that.Install=======Choose ONLY ONE esp to use:HELLUVA Balanced BTB (Also changes Vanilla and HELLUVA equipment. Replaces BTB's equipment esp). HELLUVA Balanced Complete (contains all weapons/armors)HELLUVA Balanced Armors (Only contains armors, for those not wanting the weapons portion).HELLUVA Balanced Weapons (Only contains weapons, for those not wanting the armor portion).ADDON:HELLUVA Vanilla Addon (Modifies Vanilla equipment. Useful for those without a seperate equipment balancing mod. BTB version includes this so don't activate with that one).1. Copy chosen .esp(s) file to (install folder)\Morrowind\Data Files\2. Delete corresponding H.E.L.L.U.V.A. esps that chosen esp replaces.3. Check it in Morrowind Launcher (or in Wrye Mash) and you're done.Uninstall=========1. Start Morrowind Launcher, click Data Files, uncheck the .esp file(s).2. Delete the .esp file.3. Recheck H.E.L.L.U.V.A if you want to continue using the original mod.Incompatibility===============This mod should have very few conflicts with other mods. It should also work fine with Fliggerty's MCA HElluva wicked weapons mod. The only conflicts occur with Balanced VANILLA because it modifies vanilla equipment. Any other mod modifying the same equipment will overwrite (or be overwritten by) my mod. Just be careful with load order. Putting this later in the load order will ensure that nothing overwrites my changes.Known Issues or Bugs====================Currently no bugs are known, however notify me at Bethesda forums if you find one.History=======0.5, 2011/06/06 - Beta for weapons1.0, 2011/14/06 - Initial release.Contact=======You can find me on the official Elder Scrolls forums as 'Spiffyman'Credits=======Examples:Thanks to Alaisiagae who efforts and genius math skills made this mod possibleThanks to Sandman101 for the original modThanks to BTB, who helped look at the enchantments, as well as for his game improvements, which is why I started this mod.Thanks to Bethesda for creating Morrowind.Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on.Tools Used==========Tes3Cmd - http://code.google.com/p/mlox/wiki/Tes3cmdReadme Generator - http://HammondsLegacy.com/obmm/tools_readme_generator1.aspLicensing/Legal===============You can do whatever you want with this mod but all I ask in return is that you give me credit if you distribute any part of this mod. I would also liketo know what mods are including my work.

PES Download: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=380342&id=9190

Wow its nice!

I've been waiting for this so I could use HELLUVA armor in my game, good work!

However, I just tested out the BTB esp and I noticed some significant differences between this and BTB Equipment. For example, some items, like the hortator's robe and ring, which were constant effect are now cast on use, and the cuirass of the saviour's hide, which was massively nerfed by BTB is back to its original (ludicrously overpowered) stats. Is this intentional?

Edit: Is there a reason why Skull Crusher, which was already a great weapon in the original game now does an absolutely absurd 17-81 damage? I appreciate what you've done with the HELLUVA equipment, but your changes to the vanilla stuff need some work.

I checked out the Savior's hide does give it better stats than equipment of similar quality. When looking at BTB's, I've doubled his armor rating because it's a special armor, but cut the price by almost 1/30th and cut it's health by about 1/3. So yes, it is overpowered (rating wise) compared to BTB, but still less so than Vanilla. If this doesn't seem reasonable, I can easily drop the armor rating as well. This is the kind of feedback I was hoping for.

And thank you for catching the robe and ring. I know exactly what happened there. Can't believe I did that either. I'll fix that tonight.

I put skull crusher as adamantium quality as a base, then gave it bonuses for being a special weapon. So it should be stronger than adamantium Or do you mean the high end is too high... o.O (normal adam. weapons are 11-54 in that damage type)
A bit on the special stuff in general terms: An legendary iron axe is still an Iron axe. So it should based on iron axes. However, it's a special iron axe, so it should better than iron axes. Still, it shouldn't all the sudden become a daedric axe...
That may help explain some of the special weapon statistics. Was my reasoning faulty when in practice? If so, I can revamp those types of calculations for my next version....

EDIT: I think maybe what you were saying with the weapons was that the damages are too high. I have it so that all the different weapons spread out in a wider range than vanilla so that middle weapons are actually useful (usually it is beginning: weak weapon, then jump to super weapons because there is no advantage to using anything in between). I can certainly narrow that range people feel its more appropriate. Ex: Skull crusher. Instead of 17-81, is 14-70 more realistic? With that in mind, that WILL lower the damage for all artifacts as well, due to how I handled artifacts. (for reference, artifacts are 1.5x stronger than base weapons. the changed number is 1.3x stronger).

EDIT2: okay, can anyone confirm that the BTB issues are fixed with this http://www.2shared.com/file/kXp7vulf/HELLUVA_Balanced_BTB_fixed.html? I'd like someone else to confirm it before I post the fix to PES.

When you're making a balance mod, I think your highest priority should be, well, game balance rather than consistency.

Even with BTB's nerf, the cuirass of the saviour's hide is still a great piece of armor, as evidenced by the fact that I was still wearing it despite having access to glass and daedric. Without his nerf, it has an armor rating on par with even the best heavy armor despite being light, and 60% magicka resist combines with the 50% resist I get for being a Breton to make me permanently immune to magic. Why would I ever use anything else?

In the case of skull crusher, I had actually just started using it because I was sick of maintaining cast on strike weapons and was hurting for inventory space, so the idea of a weapon that carries itself, does really good damage (10-60, which would be great even for a two handed weapon) and doesn't have to be recharged appealed to me. Now that I've installed your mod, it does all that, plus it does roughly as much damage as the best cast on strike weapon I can make. Again, why would I use anything else?

I've also noticed that your changes bring back the old problem of glass being just plain better than any medium and all but the very best heavy armor in the game, which BTB had fixed.

Finding an overpowered piece of equipment halfway through the game and realizing that you're never going to have to think about what goes into that slot again is no fun, not to mention that being completely unstoppable gets pretty boring as well. If I were making a mod that is supposed to integrate with BTB, I would stick to his changes for the most part, aside from maybe tinkering with the prices a bit. BTB does make a couple stupid changes (like ruining the boots of blinding speed), but the vast majority are well founded, and serve to make the game a lot more balanced and fun.

True, but to start a balancing mod (especially with over 5000 pieces of equipment) you need consistency first or you're bound to make a lot of mistakes. Regarding the glass, there is an easy reason for that. I had originally had GMST tweaks so I could work with medium armor much better. But in the beta thread, it was mentioned that I should not do that or other mod armor might be messed up. So I had to retrofit my stuff to fit back into vanilla GMSTs, which I guess didn't benefit med armors.

Back to balance again, now that consistency is sucessful, I can work on better balancing (guess I should have made this a beta version too :whistling:). I'll have to see exactly what BTB does with his glass and daedric now though, since you mention he solved the glass problem. I didn't look at the changes in much detail when I realized that only top tier stuff was changed. I will say that I focused on price compatibility the most for BTB. So that is definitely (better be?) okay... Actually, I'd imagine everything except for damage/armor rating to be good.

Also, the actual stats were made to try to be somewhat related to vanilla (vanilla balanced?) so that is probably the reasoning for the glass. Now I can try to make it more [BTB] balanced as I get useful feedback. (after 5k equips, I was getting a bit bored of looking at all the numbers. feedback at least lets me know someone else also cares...a bit of motivation)
I'm going to make is so that Specials will be 1.25 better (not too much better) than their base material, seeing as they almost always have nice enchantments anyway. As you mention above, you use SC for the enchantment, not for the stats (which you wanted lower anyway, so it works well).

For the glass, what I think I'll do is take gimp light armor ratings and raise medium armor (lower tier as the best is pretty good already) ratings. Same with the lower heavy. Glass would work out to be around the middle point of medium armor ratings. no?
EDIT: okay, I see what BTB did with glass (actually, he didn't do much, considering it's almost the same as mine..). If I just lower glass ratings, I'd say mine has the advantage over his because I actually improve much of the lower tier armors anyway. But for the sake of consistency, I'll cap light at 40 (BTB's number) and have the other light armors change relative to this new cap. To go a step further, I'm thinking of making the medium armors medium rating be 40 (which goes beyond BTB as he doesn't change medium). This would mean that half the mediums would definitely be better than glass (which makes sense).

I agree with your post except when it comes to the BoBS. They're still extremely useful, just not ridiculously useful as before. Having a constant effect boost to Speed at even 50p is really overpowered in my view and you can get these boots as your very first quest in the game. But balance is subjective, and maybe you play with mods that add really, really fast enemies to the game.

@Spiffyman
I recommend you check out BTB's readme files for his GI mod if you haven't. A lot of interesting insights in there. Although, this might all be more work than you had in mind.

If you want things to be consistent, I'm of the opinion that you should make things consistently weaker. A lot of us have been playing for a long time and the equipment in vanilla is already way too useful so turn give the player even stronger equipment seems like a bad direction to me. So, my advice is to retool your base costs so that the strongest materials don't offer values any better than what the best vanilla equipment offers. If this means making vanilla items weaker than they were originally, I think that's not a big price to pay.

I just tested your fixed esp and it looks like the enchantments are back to their former glory. I'll be using the complete esp for now, though.

The thing about trying to go for a vanilla balance is that "vanilla" and "balance" are two words that don't belong anywhere near each other when it comes to Morrowind. Take for example the helm of Oreyn Bearclaw, which I just noticed was changed by BTB as well, which has an armor rating better than daedric and raises your agility and endurance by an astounding 40 points - and I thought it was pretty great with BTB's 10 point enchantments!

You could always make an esp that tries to keep things consistent with the original game and another that uses more BTB friendly settings.

Those armor changes sound like you're on the right track, although I wouldn't gimp light armor by that much. The very best light armor should be at least as good as upper-mid tier medium armor, and so on for medium->heavy, I think. Otherwise you run the risk of making light armor not worth the extra inventory space.


See, I would agree with you there... If the enchantment actually was constant effect. It's cast on use right now, which makes it completely worthless.


And I completely agree with this and wholeheartedly suggest you listen to this man.

Okay, BTB's equipment (armor ratings) gave the gimped overpowered armor. What I did was take that, apply it, then make it (close to) the median of the next level. Dragonscale (middle of the road medium) is now as protective as glass. And almost all heavy is as good as dragonscale. I think this solves the armor rating issue, but still gives glass the advantage over most of those armors in that it is light and has good enchantment. The advantage to the heavier is the armor health. You can use glass for its superior weight and good protection, but heavier stuff will last longer before needing repair. Sound reasonable? As for the health and enchantment, I'm thinking heavy armor on par with glass ratings would have 2x the health but 1/2 the enchantment (That is a rough estimate)..

Disagree. The boots give you 50p Speed for 60 entire seconds. You can easily dance in and out of an opponent's range and cut them to pieces with that kind of speed advantage. The usefulness is even greater if you are using Unarmored and Hand-to-Hand or Shortblade. In addition, if you need to make a quick escape 50p for 60s to Speed will save your neck almost every time.

Now, there is the blinding effect to contend with but BTB hasn't really done much to Resist Magicka so it's not especially difficult to quaff a potion so that you can make things out well enough to maneuver.

Again, all this is subjective, but my experience playing vanilla without mods that add in new creatures etc. tells me that an item that you can get at level 1 which gives you 50p Speed for 60s is still very, very handy. Granted, I have not looked at the charge values and the fact that it doesn't recharge could mean bad news but I expect that BTB didn't do anything unreasonable in that regard.

Okay~ I've done my changes, and here's what I've come up with. This compares the top level armor cuirasses:

                       Weight:          Health:         Rating:           Price:          Enchantment:Glass-                   15                 1220             40                 420                  1440                             Royal Guard-            25.8                1870             65                 930                  780Daedric-                 50.1                2820            80                 1295                 704                                                                                                  Speed              Reach               Damage      Skull Crusher:           19.6               5356             NA                  580              1.4                    1.4           12-58, 13-66, 4-17 

Notice the value... It's a lot less than BTB's.... I have to work on Special's pricing now, so ignore that number.
Note on the pricing: Daedric Battle Axes (most costly daedric item) is 2506 which matches BTB. Everything else scales relative to that, so they will be less expensive than BTB's stuff.
Does anyone have an opinion on these new changes?

EDIT2: NOOOO! Eisenfaust has alerted me that my GMST retrofit didn't fit. Easy fix, but a lot of manual typing... but this mod WILL be balanced if it's the last thing I do!

To be honest, those enchantments should really be changed, but I get lazy when it comes to the "Equipment" plugin. As someone in the thread for my mod pointed out, fortify fatigue/magicka kinda svck as constant effect enchantments because you have to keep taking them off and putting them back on to maintain them.

Unless, of course, the MCP figures out a way to fix it to work the way it should. I'm pretty sure that's what I'm hoping fro in the back of my mind.



I've been guilty of doing a *lot* for no other purpose than consistency. A certain degree of it is necessary to make your changes both presentable and palatable to the player.