[WiP] Weapon Balance mod : III - Morrowind

» Fri May 27, 2011 4:28 am

I found a site that talks about changing esps to esms if you care to take a look at it: http://www.angelfire.com/clone2/shadowsong/How-To.html
This site also talks about what you can do in a esp that you can't do in an Esm (when editing). I'm not sure that is what you meant by esp-esm relationship but I hope it helps.

Hmm, seems to be a bit out of date. It doesn't really provide any info regarding the types of changes I am making, so I'm not sure what to think. Maybe I will leave this mod as an .esp instead. :shrug:

» Fri May 27, 2011 6:39 am

Yep, it's a bit of a pain working on the unique stuff. Luckily when I made PTE my formulas coped with the unique items, but the only thing I had to manually plug in was all the enchantment costs, if only the MW export including the spell cost of the enchantment on items, that would have saved hours.

Still, can't complain, OB CS doesn't even let you export this information, so it's even slower doing the same type of mod (another reason MW is better then OB

)

» Fri May 27, 2011 11:53 am

I found this in the Creatures XI thread. This should be what you were looking for regarding esms.

Just wondering, should I now make Creatures an ESM? It's become quite an overhaul of MW's creature/list system and it may help resolve conflicts. Can anyone more experienced them me shed any light on this?
In my tests I haven't found esms to behave any different from esps, except that they load earlier, which might be undesirable for a mod that should not have its objects merged. (FWIW, I put Creatures into merged_objects and see no problems at all, but anyway - the current standing recommendation is to not include it, and that means that it's probably better if Creatures loads pretty late, so turning it into an esm would be counter-productive).

In Pre-MCP times, one of the incentives for turning a mod into an esm was that esm didn't cause (as much) doubling. The reason for this was that Morowind was often able to re-match esms correctly when the load order had changed, but not esps. The Morrowind Code Patch fixes this, so esms have no advantage over esps in that regard.

I've also seen many claims that "esms cannot change esms", but my tests indicate otherwise.

Personally, I suspect that the Morrowind engine, after having been fixed with the MCP, handles esms and esps almost identically. If that's correct, then the only advantage of turning a mod into an esm would be that other mods can be made dependent on it in the construction set, so that they can change references added by your mod without doubling them. And even that is perhaps just a limit of the construction set, not of the game engine (it may be possible to achieve the same effect by adding an esp as another mod's master, but I haven't tested this).

So, in short: If your mod adds many new *references* (not objects) that other mods may want to modify, then turning it ointo an esm might be a good idea. Otherwise it might be counter-productive since it would cause Creatures to load much earlier, making it more susceptible for overrides.

So apparently esms aren't as amazing as they used to be.

» Fri May 27, 2011 6:01 am

Update: I just finished inputting the final numbers on the spreadsheet and handed it in to Alaisiagae. Progress should be made, and all that's left is giving generic enchants items a price boost.

After that... Well keep a lookout going.

» Fri May 27, 2011 4:14 pm

Update: I'm sick, and not really in a mood to wrestle with spreadsheets at the moment. Does anyone know of any good Excel tutorials? I need to figure out how to use the vLookUp function (no, the 'v' is not a typo).

» Fri May 27, 2011 8:24 am

Update: I'm sick, and not really in a mood to wrestle with spreadsheets at the moment. Does anyone know of any good Excel tutorials? I need to figure out how to use the vLookUp function (no, the 'v' is not a typo).

Does http://www.theofficeexperts.com/excel.htm#TheDreadedVlookup help? The download might help too.

» Fri May 27, 2011 8:43 am

Does http://www.theofficeexperts.com/excel.htm#TheDreadedVlookup help? The download might help too.

Awesome, thanks! I'll take a look at the download when I'm feeling a bit better. I hope it works the same in Open Office's calc program, which is what I'm using right now...

» Fri May 27, 2011 6:18 am

Um.... could use some help deciding how much to increase enchanted items prices. I'm tempted just to make generic enchanted items twice as expensive, regardless of what the enchantment actually is. Special and Unique weapons would also be multiplied by a simple integer. Anyone have any ideas? I'm just overwhelmed by the shear number of enchanted items. And I've never played a mage character, so I have no idea how much a spell costs (in terms of gold). :wacko:

» Fri May 27, 2011 5:33 pm

Hmmm...

I'm not sure... I suppose I could use the UESP to look up how Spell Prices are determined, and then just run some numbers.

I already put in 1.5 and 2.0 multipliers for Special and Unique items respectively, 3.0 for (most) artifacts.

Hmmm... What if you just add the items "base" cost on the UESP? For instance a Shockbite War Axe costs 90 drakes, so it gets a +90 modifier. It does mean inputting each increase seperately,but IIRC you'll have to do that anyway if you have a multiplier.

Edit: Maybe half their "base" price...

» Fri May 27, 2011 6:50 pm

I agree with doubling the price. In real life salespeople would say its not just an iron sword, but an ENCHANTED iron sword. They would continue to make up stories of how great the enchantment is. Its not until afterward you realize that it is enchanted like he said, but it was a weak and pathetic enchantment compared to how he made it sound. So yeah, they would use the fact that its enchanted to sell if for a ton more, even if the enchantment isn't that great. Because not everyone is as smart as the Nerevarine, so not everyone would know its a rip off

And if you think its a rip off, then just enchant your own. Simple as that

. That way enchanted stuff isn't as easy to obtain, even weak enchantments.

» Fri May 27, 2011 12:02 pm

Hmmm...

I'm not sure... I suppose I could use the UESP to look up how Spell Prices are determined, and then just run some numbers.

I already put in 1.5 and 2.0 multipliers for Special and Unique items respectively, 3.0 for (most) artifacts.

Hmmm... What if you just add the items "base" cost on the UESP? For instance a Shockbite War Axe costs 90 drakes, so it gets a +90 modifier. It does mean inputting each increase seperately,but IIRC you'll have to do that anyway if you have a multiplier.

Edit: Maybe half their "base" price...

The problem with some of the weapons is that the devs forgot to make the prices for some of the enchanted items different from the base, unenchanted item. http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=e0e4ab22ba8021fdd2db6fb9a8902bda, if you'd like to take a crack at it. It seems that generic enchanted items don't have any price increases, though. Too bad the Code Patch doesn't adjust enchanted item prices retroactively.

» Fri May 27, 2011 12:26 pm

That would indeed make it easier...

Well, I suppose I can take a look, probably tomorrow though.

On the other hand... The "average" spell costs between 300 and 500 septims, so maybe if I just played around with the Spellmaker and wrote down all the prices, divide them by base number of uses from the item sans recharge...

*muses*

» Fri May 27, 2011 6:51 am

So, are there any news about this. I'm pretty stoked to see this released.

No pressure or anything:) !

» Fri May 27, 2011 5:08 am

So, are there any news about this. I'm pretty stoked to see this released.

No pressure or anything:) !

Well, I've been slowly working on the ammo. I have to put in values for the enchanted versions now. The going has been a bit slow because: 1) I've been sick for the past week (but I'm better now!), and 2) I've got college and stuff.

Autocthon was going to help find a way to calculate prices for the enchanted items. I haven't heard from him for a day or so, he might be busy with real life or other mod projects at the moment.

But, don't worry, the project is not dead.

In fact, I'm working on the ammo stuff right now. Thanks to PirateLord's explanations, I, too, now wield the formidable power of the VLookUp! :toughninja:

» Fri May 27, 2011 4:06 pm

I got attacked by RL, I suppose it happens to the best of us.

Hopefully once life stops trying to chew a hole in my brain I'll be a bit more... predictable.

vLookup FTW!!

» Fri May 27, 2011 4:04 am

Great to hear that you two are still plugging away at it.

All the best to you!

» Fri May 27, 2011 7:34 am

Great to hear that you two are still plugging away at it.

All the best to you!

Yup. Right now, Autocthon and I are wondering if anyone knows how the game calculates (as in, what formulas/equations are used) the gold cost when you are making spells. There must be something, since the Morrowind Code Patch is able to tack on appropriate values for player-created enchanted items.

I'm standardizing the damages for some of the enchantments (just making sure there are no exceptions, e.g. 'cruel' weapons would do, say, x-y damage, but one cruel weapon does z-b damage instead). Going to change some of those Cruel and Dire shortblades to tantos and wakizashis (from dagger and short blade, respectively) to add a bit more variety.

» Fri May 27, 2011 9:31 am

Yup. Right now, Autocthon and I are wondering if anyone knows how the game calculates (as in, what formulas/equations are used) the gold cost when you are making spells. There must be something, since the Morrowind Code Patch is able to tack on appropriate values for player-created enchanted items.

I'm standardizing the damages for some of the enchantments (just making sure there are no exceptions, e.g. 'cruel' weapons would do, say, x-y damage, but one cruel weapon does z-b damage instead). Going to change some of those Cruel and Dire shortblades to tantos and wakizashis (from dagger and short blade, respectively) to add a bit more variety.

If all else fails I can manually work out every Enchantment cost and give you the numbers.

» Fri May 27, 2011 6:51 am

does this include fixes like in unoficial patch?

» Fri May 27, 2011 7:14 pm

does this include fixes like in unoficial patch?

Yes, I will try to include as many as I can, including the changes to the "cursed" items' scripts that quorn made.

» Fri May 27, 2011 6:10 pm

any updates? Im enjoying your armor mod.

» Fri May 27, 2011 3:49 pm

I think it's currently on "standby" as Alaisiagae deals with AIM and RL. The latter taking priority over everything as it usually does.

» Fri May 27, 2011 11:53 am

Just got back from Aruba yesterday. B) Currently, I'm going to catch up with the MW Mods forum, then deal with all the pictures I took on vacation. The AIM mod is taking priority over the weapon one, at the moment. I've got to sort out some name changes/standardization, and enchantment standardization. Still stuck on how to calculate the cost for enchanted items. Might just use a blanket price? Autocthon, have you any ideas on what we should do for enchanted item prices? I, uh, haven't really been thinking about mod for the past week... :whistle:

FEEDBACK NEEDED: You might all recall names like "shardcleaver" and "sparkskewer" and you know the '-cleaver' means it is a halberd, and '-slayer' is for claymores. Thing is, there is nothing for daggers, tantos, and wazikashi.

I need to figure out good suffixes for these. My list of possible names is:
- talon
- claw
- barb
- thorn
- fang
- tongue

Feel free to suggest new suffixes. Please let me know what suffix should go with which item, e.g. "steel flametongue" = steel dagger, or "iron vipertalon" = iron tanto.

» Fri May 27, 2011 4:18 am

Daggers: Thorn

Tantos: Claw

Wakizashis: Fang

That's what I'd do. As for enchanted item prices... You may have to just use blanket prices. It might be preferable to give them prices equal to the cost of making the enchantment, but without an external way to calculate those prices that maye be more work than its worth.

I suppose someone with a good head for numbers could try to figure out the formula to determine the cost of making an enchantment at an enchenter with a disposition of 50, but so far I've had noi luck finding the formula the game uses anywhere.

Edit: How was the trip? Hope you enjoyed it.

» Fri May 27, 2011 12:03 pm

Daggers: Thorn

Tantos: Claw

Wakizashis: Fang

That's what I'd do. As for enchanted item prices... You may have to just use blanket prices. It might be preferable to give them prices equal to the cost of making the enchantment, but without an external way to calculate those prices that maye be more work than its worth.

I suppose someone with a good head for numbers could try to figure out the formula to determine the cost of making an enchantment at an enchenter with a disposition of 50, but so far I've had noi luck finding the formula the game uses anywhere.

Edit: How was the trip? Hope you enjoyed it.

You know, I do believe (without checking) that your choices are exactly the ones I had started plugging away with before realizing that maybe the community could provide extra advice and ideas. :lol:

Great minds think alike? :lightbulb:

Yeah, I'm thinking a blanket price is a good idea. For unique items/artifacts, I'll probably do my traditional "type in a bunch of random numbers" but I'll be more precise with the lower-end enchanted items. I'm thinking increments of 50 to 100 will be suitable. I'll need to construct a table of sorts that prices some of the common/repeated enchantments found on weapons (and armor), such as the elemental damage, etc.

The trip was great! I still have to sort out the photos (I went with my family, so there were three other cameras taking pictures), and then I hope to put them up onto photobucket or flickr, and I'll probably link to it in my signature or something. I ended up getting a little sun burnt, but now it has turned into a nice tan. B) The water was lovely, the sun was shining, the breezes were great... *sighs wistfully* And I saw iguanas and found a coconut! :dance: