[Cagla Cali]

(It is a hedgehog in your avatar pic, right?)

Badger. Psychotic.

[Johnny]

Hi - got a problem that a couple of people have reported. I scanned this whole thread and I'm wondering if there's a solution. Here's a truncated version of my OBSE log on first loading a savegame (there were about 100 entries preceding the first 'Array ID' entry that were just like it but with different ID numbers):

Behippo released a test version which should fix the bug.

http://obse.silverlock.org/beta/obse_1_2_416_dll_beta_5.zip

[Tanya]

The Shadow.
You are a Mooncalf, cursed with poverty and disease and often ignored as a harmless, luckless wretch. If you grovel, most creatures will give you pity. Your curse can sometimes be contagious.

• Mooncalf: ability
  (self) Weakness to Disease 100%.
  (self) Carried gold slowly vanishes. (Luck/6 per game hour)
  (self) Member of the Beggars faction.
  (self) Crime bounty slowly vanishes. (12/Personality+1 per game hour)
  
• Nobody: lesser power
  (self) Exertion.
  (self) Damage Personality 1.
  (self) Damage Luck 1.
  (self 30s) Chameleon 25%.
  
• Take Pity: lesser power
  (self) Exertion.
  (self) Damage Personality 1.
  (self) Damage Luck 1.
  (12' burst 30s) Calm.
  
• Contagion: greater power
  (self) Damage Personality 5.
  (self) Damage Luck 5.
  (30' burst) Damage Personality 50.
  (30' burst) Damage Luck 50.
  (30' burst) Attributes damaged by same amount as any Disease drain on caster.
  
• Moonshadow: greater power
  (self) Damage Personality 5.
  (self) Damage Luck 5.
  (self 300s) Invisibility.

I'm planing to use your mod TRAP/Birthsigns Expanded for my new pure evil character.
Shadow seems interesting as sign, but I see 300 s invisibilty as great power. This appear at first look too much, but if we look closely in term of game experience we find 300 sec is equivalent to 30 or 60 sec since invisibility disappear the next time you draw your weapon on a enemy or go through a door.

[Brooke Turner]

Tejon, thank you very much for your excellent mods. I've installed several and am playing with them now -- I really appreciate the attention you've paid to the lore behind the races and birthsigns, and both TRAP and Birthsigns Expanded are right up my alley in terms of the changes they make.

That being said, I have a few questions, which I'll break down by mod:

* TRAP

I know you've already stated that you won't provide details on every tweak, but a few of the powers/abilities are just completely mysterious (e.g. Dumner "meet challenges with boldness" or whatever). I even fired up the CS and tried tracing the ability to the script to the token to the token script, but by then I was unsure what I was looking at. Can you enlighten us as to what these mystery powers actually do?

* Birthsigns Expanded

The ideas behind the signs and their powers/abilities are truly excellent. All of the signs are interesting and compelling now, in my opinion. I particularly love the changes you've made to the Shadow, the Tower, and the Apprentice.

That being said... I can't help but feel like the balance is still wrong. The Thief used to be overpowered, and it's still overpowered: it gives you +45 (!) to attributes, plus invisibility, plus a major power. Compare this to, say, the Ritual: no attribute bonuses, a touch-only lesser power that might help to ward off some creatures (but will enrage others), and two major powers that are cool but still limited in their usefulness.

I've edited my own .esp to tone down the Thief to +10/10/10 instead of +15/15/15, but I still feel like other changes need to be made. I really, really like the power increase in the non-attribute bonus signs (Lover, Ritual, Shadow, Lord, Tower, etc). But boosting the attribute bonuses for the others (Thief, Warrior, Lady) from vanilla feels to me like you're retaining the imbalance that plagued vanilla birthsigns. Sure, the Shadow has some very cool powers, but it's hard to justify passing up +30 or +45 to attributes. Likewise for the Apprentice, who can move his +35 from one attribute to another, but whose overall bonus is +0 at any given time. The Thief, the Lady, the Mage, and (to a lesser extent, since their powers are minimal) the Warrior and Lover all seem overpowered now compared to the other signs.

I guess my question is: do you feel as though the signs are imbalanced? If not, what's your reasoning?

* MagLite

Given the magic projectile speed changes, shouldn't Shock Damage be significantly more expensive than Frost Damage? Frost is almost useless now because it's so slow, while shock is much more valuable. But you've priced them out to be almost the same.

--

In any case, good job on these mods, and thank you. I look forward to hearing anything you have to say on these subjects.

Picador

[Kim Bradley]

It is sure that BirthSigns Expanded and TRAP need to be tweaked more balanced; I find a lot of abilities/powers a bit overpowered (example +10 permanent reflect damage to some sign, 300 s invisibilty, 60 charm in 20 ft for others...).
tejon don't forget that a lot of powers/abilities can be improved over the game, so base your reasoning on quality rather that quantity.

Important Note.
TRAP and/or BirthSigns Expanded are not compatible with Realistic Leveling. So far confirmed.

[An Lor]

I know you've already stated that you won't provide details on every tweak, but a few of the powers/abilities are just completely mysterious (e.g. Dumner "meet challenges with boldness" or whatever). I even fired up the CS and tried tracing the ability to the script to the token to the token script, but by then I was unsure what I was looking at. Can you enlighten us as to what these mystery powers actually do?

It's MagLite where I didn't fully document every tweaked number. With TRAP, the mysterious unexplained listings in your active effects list are control scripts... they generate passive effects, but all of those effects actually are documented. Meet Trouble With Anticipation (a reference to the Dunmer temple faith) is the ability which gives you magicka when you lose health.

That being said... I can't help but feel like the balance is still wrong. The Thief used to be overpowered, and it's still overpowered: it gives you +45 (!) to attributes, plus invisibility, plus a major power. Compare this to, say, the Ritual: no attribute bonuses, a touch-only lesser power that might help to ward off some creatures (but will enrage others), and two major powers that are cool but still limited in their usefulness.

You would be absolutely amazed at how few people actually show up with feedback on the signs' power levels. Thank you. I've been uncertain on that one myself... the +45 total on the Thief was an early tweak (back when it was still nGCD Birthsigns, and I hadn't added active powers to those signs).

Something you have to understand, though: from a min/maxer's perspective, simple attribute bonuses considered are the worst benefit a sign can give because there's a hard cap on attributes and you can reach it with or without the bonus... so at the end of the day, someone with the vanilla Lord is ahead of someone with the vanilla Warrior. Both of them have equal maxed-out attributes, but the Lord has a lesser power.

Now, for a lot of people this isn't an issue. Many of my mods work to prevent you from ever reaching cap in the first place. On top of that, flavor is a bigger design factor than balance in Birthsigns Expanded because it's a single-player game and only the player has a birthsign: you don't have to worry about running around with the Ritual and then getting your ass kicked by someone with the Thief. But the fact remains that the min/max urge is strong in many, it's the perspective pushed by every strategy guide (because they're all for vanilla), and a lot of people find attribute-capping fun and still want to use B.E. So one of the first things I did was push the attribute bonuses up a little, so they were more attractive as an early-game bonus... and since then, it's the last thing anyone looks at when considering balance.

You've provided me with an exception, so it's worth looking at. As I said, the thought has occurred to me as well that maybe Thief should drop back to +10's; its powers are pretty beefy at this point. That would put all the "base attribute bonus" signs at +30 total.

Let's see, which others did you mention...

The Shadow is a balance nightmare, no two ways about it. It's one of those signs which is almost all flavor... the powers are above and beyond everything else, but you pay dearly for them. It's basically an enticement to role nobody would otherwise play. Maintaining a unique experience for the one time I expect most people to try it is much more important than making it a "good choice" in a general sense.

The Apprentice's attribute bonus is considered a temporary effect, meaning it can break cap. You also get to move it around. It's far better in the long run, and more versatile throughout the game, than any other sign's attribute bonus. I think it's solid. (In fact, it took me a while to figure out an implementation of the concept which didn't seem patently superior to everything else!)

The Ritual's Spectrum ability is way better than you realize. The effect is predictable, is only potentially undesirable against Daedra, is non-hostile and has no level restrictions. If there's one sign I'm concerned will make the game a cakewalk, that's it.

Lover is also stupidly good, and the +30 Personality has nothing to do with it. There's a reason I dramatically raised the cost of nearly every Illusion effect in MagLite...

My recent playtesting run was with the Warrior, by the way. There's a write-up a couple of pages back about my trip through the Kvatch gate. Clinch is amazingly useful. Warwyrd got buffed to 60 seconds. (...did I release that change? I don't think I did...)

I guess my question is: do you feel as though the signs are imbalanced? If not, what's your reasoning?

Right, after the rambling on specific signs... yes, of course they're imbalanced! There will never be enough playtest data to really balance them, because they're never in direct competition. Theoretical number-comparison never truly reflects gameplay, and if there are improvements to be made they can only emerge from my own and others' subjective experiences, and comments on whether playing under one sign really felt much easier or much harder than playing under another. Of course, even in what little feedback of that sort I receive people have major disagreements on what's strong and what's weak! The more the merrier, of course, and everyone's input is useful. In the end, though, I have to treat this as an art and not a science. "Do you think that sign is too strong or too weak?" takes a back seat to "Was playing under that sign an experience worth having?"

* MagLite

Given the magic projectile speed changes, shouldn't Shock Damage be significantly more expensive than Frost Damage? Frost is almost useless now because it's so slow, while shock is much more valuable. But you've priced them out to be almost the same.

Priced to be exactly the same, in fact. Frost has a unique area effect which generally makes it capable of hitting more enemies than any other spell. Shock is fast, but no longer allowed to have an area at all. Fire provides a halfway point. Each has its rightful place in the thinking mage's arsenal.

TRAP and/or BirthSigns Expanded are not compatible with Realistic Leveling. So far confirmed.

Not compatible how? What happens?

[X(S.a.R.a.H)X]

It's MagLite where I didn't fully document every tweaked number. With TRAP, the mysterious unexplained listings in your active effects list are control scripts... they generate passive effects, but all of those effects actually are documented. Meet Trouble With Anticipation (a reference to the Dunmer temple faith) is the ability which gives you magicka when you lose health.

Ah. My mistake. Still, this takes some investigation even after reading the Readme. Perhaps you could update the readme to include the names of the various powers? Right now they're described but not named in the readme, making it difficult to match them to the various mystery script effects in the game.

You would be absolutely amazed at how few people actually show up with feedback on the signs' power levels. Thank you. I've been uncertain on that one myself... the +45 total on the Thief was an early tweak (back when it was still nGCD Birthsigns, and I hadn't added active powers to those signs).

Something you have to understand, though: from a min/maxer's perspective, simple attribute bonuses considered are the worst benefit a sign can give because there's a hard cap on attributes and you can reach it with or without the bonus...



You've provided me with an exception, so it's worth looking at. As I said, the thought has occurred to me as well that maybe Thief should drop back to +10's; its powers are pretty beefy at this point. That would put all the "base attribute bonus" signs at +30 total.

Yes, I suppose my perspective is unusual. I tend to favor immersion and interesting experiences over min/maxing, but I still have an annoying min-maxer living inside of me. I also tend to play characters no farther than level 10 or so before I get antsy, rearrange all my mods, and restart with a new character. I'm too addicted to the variety of play that Oblivion makes possible, and I find it limiting to play a single character for too long. So I've never maxed out an attribute, and I really can't relate to all these players who have a single character they've taken up to level 50.

So I understand why strange preferences like mine wouldn't be your main concern. I'll probably makes a few tweaks to my own installation (like lowering the Thief to 10/10/10), but I think your comments below have convinced me to leave most of it as is.

The Shadow is a balance nightmare, no two ways about it. It's one of those signs which is almost all flavor... the powers are above and beyond everything else, but you pay dearly for them. It's basically an enticement to role nobody would otherwise play. Maintaining a unique experience for the one time I expect most people to try it is much more important than making it a "good choice" in a general sense.

The Apprentice's attribute bonus is considered a temporary effect, meaning it can break cap. You also get to move it around. It's far better in the long run, and more versatile throughout the game, than any other sign's attribute bonus. I think it's solid. (In fact, it took me a while to figure out an implementation of the concept which didn't seem patently superior to everything else!)

The Ritual's Spectrum ability is way better than you realize. The effect is predictable, is only potentially undesirable against Daedra, is non-hostile and has no level restrictions. If there's one sign I'm concerned will make the game a cakewalk, that's it.

Lover is also stupidly good, and the +30 Personality has nothing to do with it. There's a reason I dramatically raised the cost of nearly every Illusion effect in MagLite...

I failed to notice that the lover's Command power is a lesser power... wow. That is pretty useful (assuming it's reasonably high-level).

I'd recommend a little bit more detail on the Ritual write-up: players can't use the power properly unless they know what it does, at least in general outline, and right now the readme says basically "it casts a bunch of Illusion effects" without any more detail. Just a few words about the concept behind the spell would help: "it strikes fear into the hearts of the wicked, while it calms the righteous, blah blah blah".

As for the Shadow and Apprentice, you've convinced me that these don't need any changes. In fact, even before my original comment I'd started playing as an Apprentice -- a character modeled after a standard fairy tale hero, like Jack of magic beanstalk fame. Your Apprentice does a great job of modeling the innocence, resourcefulness, and charmed existence of this character type. (But a Dunmer Shadow outcast was my second choice.)

I have to tell you: your birthsigns, but especially the Ritual, Apprentice, Lover, and Shadow, seem to accomplish almost everything I initially set out to do with my mod "Vows and Covenants", and do it much more simply. I wanted a game where your choice of a character type would completely change your experience of the game world: where you could be a pacifist, or a clever manipulator, or a debased outcast, or a charismatic leader, etc, and each of these would constrain your choices but also open up new avenues of play style. I wanted one character to feel completely different from another. I applaud you on making this happen.

My recent playtesting run was with the Warrior, by the way. There's a write-up a couple of pages back about my trip through the Kvatch gate. Clinch is amazingly useful. Warwyrd got buffed to 60 seconds. (...did I release that change? I don't think I did...)

I didn't catch that. I'll be sure to check it out.

Right, after the rambling on specific signs... yes, of course they're imbalanced!



In the end, though, I have to treat this as an art and not a science. "Do you think that sign is too strong or too weak?" takes a back seat to "Was playing under that sign an experience worth having?"

Absolutely. That being said, of course, it's hard to play a game and not try to make your character more powerful, so some minor concessions to the min/maxer seems reasonable.

Priced to be exactly the same, in fact. Frost has a unique area effect which generally makes it capable of hitting more enemies than any other spell. Shock is fast, but no longer allowed to have an area at all. Fire provides a halfway point. Each has its rightful place in the thinking mage's arsenal.

Aha. That might be another undocumented change, though.

Not compatible how? What happens?

This surprised me as well. I think Realistic Leveling accounts for changes to races and birthsigns... am I missing something?

[OTTO]

I wonder if it would become possible in a future release for Roughing It to be configurable so that sleeping "just anywhere" is less refreshing than sleeping indoors in a bed? Or perhaps add a cap to regeneration when Roughing It regardless of how long you sleep? (It's 'cause I was so happy to be able to make Dinner Plate food more nourishing than food-on-the-run.)

If only Oblivion had an Outdoorsman skill that would govern the efficacy of food, rest, potion-creation, armor and weapon repair, and enchantment recharging when "in the wild."

gothemasticator

[Jack Walker]

Important Note.
TRAP and/or BirthSigns Expanded are not compatible with Realistic Leveling. So far confirmed.

In what way? AFAIK they should be and are compatible.

[Ria dell]

Re: Baurus/Glenroy-MagLite malfunction

I've mentioned this to Tejon already, but for everyone else: When I have MagLite (plus MagLite-Alchemy plus OOO potions calculated) active, the opening of the game fails to play out properly. Specifically, Baurus and Glenroy never come down the stairs with Captain Renault and the Emperor. Therefore, they never unlock my cell. Therefore, the whole game is stuck. So, I've been investigating, in an attempt to put off the painstaking task of deactivating mods one-by-one, restarting the game after each one, etc., etc.

So, I tried RefScope, which didn't tell me much useful. Glenroy and Baurus are both defined by Oblivion.esm. (This is new to me, so I may yet figure out how to use the refscope info to learn more about which mods affect those actors)

Tcl'ing up to the actors and using console: getav commands, though, I learned that Glenroy is indeed encumbered! Strength:20, Encumbrance:100. Baurus is fine. But, Baurus isn't scripted to move until Glenroy opens the cell door and scowls at me 'over by the window.' And since Glenroy doesn't move, Baurus doesn't either.

I used setav to unencumber Glenroy, tcl'ed back to my cell, and then everything proceeded as normal. As I learn more, I'll post what I learn.

gothemsticator

EDIT: Here's some more possibly relevant info on Glenroy:

Inventory includes

• T MagLite Effect Fix Token
  
• T Trap: Cyrodiil
  
• <5400B9147> [where 54 is the placement of nGCD in my load order (haha, I learned something!)]
  
• T Willful Widget

Race Spells includes

• Clean-Up After Vanilla Races
  
• Cyrodiil

gtm

[ANaIs GRelot]

A little more info on Glenroy, from Kuertee's actor detail .esp and ConScribe:

Glenroy Glenroyinventory:0: Oblivion.esm: C Glenroy's Akaviri Katana: 00022F82 x 11: Oblivion.esm: HH Blades Helmet: 00022F71 x 12: Oblivion.esm: PH Blades Greaves: 00022F70 x 13: Oblivion.esm: GH Blades Gauntlets: 00022F6F x 14: Oblivion.esm: CH Blades Cuirass: 00022F65 x 15: Oblivion.esm: BH Blades Boots: 00022F20 x 16: MagLite.esp: T MagLite Effect Fix Token: 4E018672 x 17: TRAP.esp: T TRAP: Cyrodiil: 5C002A63 x 18: Oblivion.esm: Gold Coin: 0000000F x 49: nGCD.esp: : 5400B914 x 110: Willful Resistance.esp: T Willful Widget: 5D001CAF x 1spells:0: : Star of the West: FF000802active effects:0: TRAP.esp: Cyrodiil: 5C0015AF code 1.17901e+009 magnitude 0

What confuses me is 0: : Star of the West: FF000802, since I thought I had just learned that the first two digits in the formid refer to the number of places the mod is loaded after Oblivion.esm. However, I have no mod placed there. My list goes up only to 61.

gothemasticator

[candice keenan]

Is there any Mirror for NGCD? Since TES Nexus is down and i wanted to try this one.

best regards,

pinky

[Sanctum]

Is there any Mirror for NGCD? Since TES Nexus is down and i wanted to try this one.

best regards,

pinky

If tejon gets on tonight, maybe he could upload nGCD and Progress to PES?
Seriously, I picked the wrong day to start a new game of Oblivion with nGCD. I tried out XP for a while and enjoyed it, but nGCD makes the game much more challenging.

[Anna S]

Sorry to double post (eh, it's been ten hours anyway), but I was hoping somebody would email me nGCD and Progress. I'd really like to play Oblivion before the week starts, but I don't want to until I have the two mods up and running. If you'd be so kind as to assist me in this matter, I can PM you my email.

[Sharra Llenos]

Perhaps I'm a bad person for making a third post when the last two in this thread were mine, but eh, my need for Oblivion outweighs my need to be a good poster. Does anybody have a copy of nGCD and Progress they can send me?

[Bambi]

Guess we have to wait untill TES.Nexus comes back up again.

[Stephy Beck]

Am I really the only packrat here?

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4ZUFM01G

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HYUEYAZQ

These are the latest versions as far as I know.

[Rik Douglas]

Perhaps I'm a bad person for making a third post when the last two in this thread were mine, but eh, my need for Oblivion outweighs my need to be a good poster. Does anybody have a copy of nGCD and Progress they can send me?

Check your inbox

[FITTAS]

I was wondering if its possible to make it so that TFE does not effect NPCs. Ive noticed alot of monsters and npcs falling down while fighting. I just think that npcs are too dumb already to want to give them another burden like Fatigue Effects.

[ijohnnny]

Im also having a problem with nGCD with vampirism. I posted the details on the actual files comment page. Just wanted to say somthing here also incase one is read more than the other. I hope someone can help.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14065

[candice keenan]

hi tejon- LOVE your mods!
I was over at the OBSE thread and advised to post this here
I am still getting with OBSE 18b5 the following errors in the log

Error in script a700db4eInvalid array access - expected string index, received numeric	File: nGCD.esp Offset: 0x00000512 Command: Let (0x1765)

where the offset and command has many different variations.

I am not having any trouble leveling but an hour of play gives 25MB of OBSE log

Progress, TRAP etc are all ok with no errors in the logs and I am still levelling but I am not sure how "well"

[Chris Guerin]

I have managed to figure out my problem (sort of) from my post above. Thanks to the previous poster for giving me the idea to test it.

I cant be certain if my issue is with OBSE or with nGCD because I dont know how to test it, but I discovered that with RC6 installed and Deadly Reflex time block also installed I had some major stability issues and bugs. Uninstalling either of those two mods would fix the problems.

Now Ive reinstalled OBSE 17 and the latest nGCD that could run on it and my stability and bug issues are completely gone.

But now I have one more issue...

I cant find the older version of Progress. Can anyone direct me to it?

[WTW]

I have managed to figure out my problem (sort of) from my post above. Thanks to the previous poster for giving me the idea to test it.
I cant be certain if my issue is with OBSE or with nGCD because I dont know how to test it, but I discovered that with RC6 installed and Deadly Reflex time block also installed I had some major stability issues and bugs. Uninstalling either of those two mods would fix the problems.
Now Ive reinstalled OBSE 17 and the latest nGCD that could run on it and my stability and bug issues are completely gone.
But now I have one more issue...
I cant find the older version of Progress. Can anyone direct me to it?

The Progress on tesnexus should be compatble with obse 17.

The vampirism problem was fixed in rc3 or 4, so its probably the obse array issue.

Did you try obse18b5 with rc6? I'm not getting the console spam with it.

[Camden Unglesbee]

The Progress on tesnexus should be compatble with obse 17.

The vampirism problem was fixed in rc3 or 4, so its probably the obse array issue.

Did you try obse18b5 with rc6? I'm not getting the console spam with it.

I had no idea there was a b5, I just looked on the site this morning and it still says obse18b4. Ill look into it. Also, the Progress v2.2 says that it requires obse18 or later. thanks for the advice.

I cant find obse18b5 on the OBSE site or through searches. If you think it might help and know where I can find it, Id appreciate it.

[Enie van Bied]

Error in script a700db4e
Invalid array access - expected string index, received numeric
File: nGCD.esp Offset: 0x00000512 Command: Let (0x1765)

I'm too getting this console spam with OBSE 0018b5, obse log file got over 100MB in size during few hours of play. Funnily, the character seems to level normally, and different characters (with Wrye Bash's save profile function) with the exactly same mod configuration don't get this problem, one of them is 6 level's higher even.