EDIT: Woops, messed up the title. It was going to be a question but I changed it. Excuse the question mark.

Do you like it less or more than Morrowind's current leveling system? Do you think it's balanced? I've just wondering because I'm sort of a silly perfectionist - and I keep getting the feeling that Galsiah came up with his values for attributes, statistics, tweaks, etc. based on short-time gameplay and that over long-term gameplay (80+ hours) his system for stats would become either underpowered or overpowered. I really like the idea of getting rid of sleeping to level, choosing your attributes, etc. - it feels extremely streamlined and innovative to a degree. But is it one of those mods where it's really not as good as it appears to be? Would you say it's a "Must have" when it comes to Morrowind modding?

FWIW a lot of people play MW with GCD so that gives you an idea of it's popularity. There was a poll a little while ago and I think it was the most popular of all the ways to handle leveling in the game, including vanilla. I have used it for a long time and am happy with it. You can tweak it to suit yourself if you aren't happy with the values Galshiah came up with.

So, I'm in the can't play without it camp, so much so that nGCD was one of the first things I downloaded for Oblivion (even though it's not by the same modder).



-KWM

I'm very perfectionist about my preferences as well. I really like GCD, particularly for the fact that it makes your actual choices of specialization matter in the long-term.

Having only played vanilla to an equivalent mid-to-late-game extent, I can't speak for its game-balance and feel in comparison with other chardev mods, but I find it a great improvement over vanilla.

Having researched them trying to figure out which one I wanted to play and what were the advantages and disadvantages of each, I turned my notes on them into a http://www.mwmythicmods.com/Gluby/Gluby_CharacterDevelopment_Mods.htm. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but I'd definitely welcome additional in-depth gameplay information on any of them.

Personally, I have been growing fond of Balor's Leveling System myself. I like the idea of having skill deterioration over time. I still haven't gotten to the point of having a long running game with it, but what I have seen so far I like it a lot. Also, it reduces the multiplier chase for me significantly, which I feel is good.

GCD is one of several mods i use (in addition to a lot of self imposed rules) to make the game more challenging. I have used it consistently for a couple of years and haven't noticed anything particularly unbalancing.

The danger with any levelling system is that eventually you will become overpowered,GCD should ensure that you wont become 'uber' too quickly and you will be more appreciative when you do level.

Actually, what's funny is that I sort of dread seeing the level go up in my charsheet, as I think, oh no, the powerlevel is getting ratcheted up... more nix hound mastiffs charging at me at 115 MPH and chopping my health down in three bites, and more UBER rats ("UBER" being actually part of their object ID -- it's MWA's nasties) placidly waiting to suddenly attack as I pass by, showing me that sometimes nix hound mastiffs hide in rat's clothing. It's pretty sad when you have to rely on console-killing a rat at level 28 to avoid death-reload.

Long story short, combine it with another effective player-nerf mod (TAD Balancing) and difficulty-upping mods like Creatures and MWA, and there's no such thing as a safe stroll through the countryside...




The elimination of the multiplier chase is a big relief in any of the chardev mods for sure. But you know, I didn't think I'd be able to say this, but Balor's skill atrophy is a bit too hardcoe even for me! And I usually like the stuff as hardcoe as it gets. But I shrink from that. oo:

I used to use GCD, but it greatly increased my CTD rate and I had to get rid of it. I use Linora's Leveling Mod now. Increasing a skill one time guarantees at least a 3x multiplier (I'm using the Hard setting).

It's really not as bad as one would think, or at least not so far as I have noticed, assuming one is not minding RPing fully, as then you keep enough focus on skills you utilize that they don't falter, and they never drop below certain levels, that do increase as you learn in the skills. Might be rough in a long running game though, I will have to see.

Can't really comment on GCD though, never used it, so I will shut up now as I am strolling OT.

Hmm... I do have a higher CTD rate right now than I would like, and often find GCD script information in the crash dump... I hadn't thought of it, but it seems that may be one of the tradeoffs with GCD. Of course, in my setup that's not at all conclusive, and I can't be sure it's not something else, so I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions on my side of things. Were you able to test with some certainty that it was in fact GCD causing it? It may be something to annotate on the guide... though I wouldn't want to scare people away from it. I have to say that, even if it is in fact causing my CTD rate, I wouldn't give it up.


Well, I'd love to hear your impressions after playing for a while with it, as I'm curious whether that effectively introduces a new thing to worry about, for example along the lines of, "I've gotta exercise each skill once every so-and-so interval to avoid it decreasing..."

EDIT: Sorry tp1337dude -- don't mean to threadjack. I'll stop going OT as well.

Are you using MCP? It seems to have helped others with GCD CTD's. I have the occasional CTD when several stats are raised just after a battle, but it happens once in a full moon so it doesn't bother me. I'm more annoyed by the @@@@ CTD's on startup. They don't happen very often either, but once in a while.

Other than that I love GCD. Some criticize it for nerfing mage/warrior hybrids too much but I always play hybrids and think they turn out just fine.

Yep. 90% of my CTDs occurred shortly after an attribute increase from raising skills. There was always a chance it would crash, then I would have to reload a previous save and go get the increase again. I won't deny that it's the best leveling mod for Morrowind ever, but it's incredibly unstable for me.



Odd that you would mention that, as I have just started using it with my game. When I had GCD before, I had no idea MCP even existed, but I'm already into my current character with all the mods I want, so I won't be getting it again. Linora's mod suits me just fine.

Must have.
GCD is a very great mod but it need some tweaks (and works) to remove CTDs.
I have a version which does that (now GCD can be compiled in MWEdit) : Galsiah, if you see that ! (I've also sent you a PM).

GCD makes for a somewhat more "focused" character, and is also a slight difficulty enhancer versus stock opponents. For fighter or fighter/anything hybrid characters, it's a lot tougher to get high hitpoints, and in a game with MCA, Creatures, or some other difficulty enhancer, that can be downright brutal. Any way you look at it, though, it's a lot better than the vanilla levelling system.

For me, I use it with certain character builds (Mage or Thief), but prefer the venerable old MADD Leveler mod for fighter or hybrid characters. Unfortunately, MADD tends to level slightly faster even than the "vanilla" system.

I always use it and consider it a must have, I don't think that I would ever play without it, as it pretty much encompasses a lot of my beliefs about what a levelling system should be like. The only thing that it lacks, for me, is skill attenuation.
It's also never given me any problems with CTDs. :shrug:

It's a must-have in my game, too. Admittedly, I don't have a lot of experience with higher level characters, but I've yet to see any problems with it being unbalanced. I don't like being reminded I'm playing a game (which the leveling up screen does for me), and overall, it feels natural, and (usually) raises logical attributes for the skills you use, making it perfect for a roleplayer like myself.

Oddly enough, I haven't have any CTD problems with it either, and my setup is usually quite susceptiable to them...

In my humble opinion it's a must have with a big M.
It's perfect in my opinion.

Most of what I would say about GCD has already been said here - suffice to say I'm pro-GCD and I'll emphasize just one thing that might get lost in the abundance of replies.

And that is: GCD is a difficulty mod. It may not advertise itself as such, but no matter how you play your character will have lower stats and hit points than a vanilla character, by a fair margin. Even using the 'fairly easy' settings ESP. And the gap grows with time. The stats and skills you have by the time you're level 30 under GCD could easily be exceeded by a level 15 vanilla character that had been well planned, excluding the one or two skills that you have which actually exceed 100.

Also... I almost never CTD in Morrowind anymore, although I have a fairly high-end PC. I use the code patch and I also use the 4GB executable patcher running on vista x64 (which allows 32-bit programs to access more memory safely). This may be something to consider depending on your own hardware.

i sometimes use GCD. it favors pure mages and pure thieves, while it makes warriors difficult. i'm not that fond of above 100 skills, as skills beyond 100 are generally game-breaking, balance-wise. however, early character development is where GCD shines, it really changes how your character grows.

on a funny note, a GCD monk is perhaps the strongest character melee-wise, as hand-to-hand above 100 becomes near god-like as it keeps increasing, especially with the code patch correcting the hand-to-hand damage formula. it's hilarious that the monk will knock-out cold the strongest of opponents in 1-2 hits.

I don't play without GCD.
It makes some games significantly harder for me (for example, right now I'm playing a Witch, which has a horrible skillset), but I wouldn't miss it for anything. It takes the whole abstract aspect out of leveling in favour of a much more freeform style. In the end, I just don't have to care about leveling anymore (except for the skills), which suits me just fine.

I have two mods which I consider essential, GCD is the first. I like having my skills/attributes constantly improving, even after hitting 100. I play a stealth/fighter and it is fairly difficult to keep my guy alive, hit point are determined by a wide range of factors. The levelling system in vanilla Morrowind was my one big complaint about the whole game. I sat down and thought about how I would have liked the leveling to work, when I read the description of GCD it was eerily similar to what I originally wanted.

for me it is a must have mod

GCD is amazing, and is one of my must-have mods for playing any sort of mage character. It's pretty rough on fighters, though, with its HP formula. But it's just dang sixy to have a mage with 1k magicka that lays waste to everything he sees and drops in a few hits to rats.

Let me add my voice to the chorus of those recommending GCD. I always use it.

GCD destroy the Vanilla multiplier system. And I like it that way. I recommend GCD.

I should also add that GCD enables you to also use PirateLord's Improved Skilled Magicka, which very nicely makes high-cost-but-low-casting-frequency magic skills much less of a pain to improve, getting rid of little annoying necessities like using a Spellmaker to make 1-Magicka-cost spells that do nothing but allow you to increment the skill progress meter. The other mods that do the same thing either require MWE or use a very clever, but slightly awkward, way of doing it.

Looking at this and other threads, it definitely looks like GCD has the status of a standard, alongside (or possibly more so than) vanilla.