EDIT as of 7/01/09: Work in OpenOffice is almost finished.
Weapon damage and stats are tied in to the Armor AR and other armor-related properties. Marksman weapons (thrown) damage has been increased, weight reduced. Most weapon weights are not as crazy as they were before, either. Almost everything has been adjusted, stat-wise, for balance and realism.

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Turns out I'll be readjusting the weapons in addition to http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=854780. Started it today. I've got Price, Weight, Reach, and Speed done. I'm almost done plugging in the numbers for Health. If I didn't have carpal tunnel before, I probably have it now. :rolleyes:

[EDIT2]Please see the most recent post, I have some questions to ask you![/EDIT2]

[EDIT]Finished Health. Now, on to Enchantment![/EDIT]

I haven't started on ranged weapons yet, though.

The Speed is increased for most of the weapons (some piddling decimal, nothing dramatic). I've standardized the Reach to be more consistant (for instance, shortswords and daggers are slightly less than 1, battle axes and warhammers have the same reach, et cetera; Spears/Halberds have increased reach, too).

Weights are reduced big time. Prices have increased (used my Master Price for material type from my armor mod and transferred it over to weapons). Makes sense. Big slowdown will happen when/if I change the damage values for chop, slash, thrust. I might just leave that alone, I'm not looking forward to the headache it will bring me...

Progress will slow down over the next week or two (I have some assignments to work on), but I hope to finish soon so I can get to playin' some Morrowind. :hehe:

As usual, I'll make this super-compatible (MW, TB, BM, TB + BM, with artifact or no-artifact versions), with a tutorial on how to make it compatible with mods that also alter weapons (such as artifact replacers).

I can't believe it's been almost 3 weeks since I started the armor mod! The reason I haven't put it into the CS yet is because I want to work on this weapon mod. I might go into another round of mod-making and this time address clothing and jewelry. I already have some basic stuff set up in excel for that, but I haven't decided if I wanted to modify the clothing/jewelry or not.

So, what do you all think? Anything terribly unbalanced with the vanilla system that you'd like to see changed?

I can post more details about the ratios I'm using, but I don't want to bore everyone to death with numbers. Let me know if you are interested in the specifics, and I'll go ahead and post them.

rebalance the whole game?


xD

:sadvaultboy:
It's... it's not the whole game. I'm not going after the leveling system.


I can't decide how I'm going to determine the enchantment points on weapons. What do you folks think: should weapon enchantments stay at roughly vanilla values, or should I beef them up? Please leave feedback and input!

It was a joke. I'd say to armor and weapons. Also, enchantments should be slightly reduced IMHO.

Just FYI, Morrowind does not recognize weapon reaches less than 1. Anything less than 1 is treated as 1.

The weights in Morrowind appear to be somewhere around 1 = roughly 1/4 pound (100-125g). A weapon with a weight of 20 would weigh around 5 lbs., which is not totally out of line, but perhaps a touch on the exaggerated side. A few other mods have tried to "correct" the weights of weapons to 1 = 1lb., and the results have been absurd. You could walk around with 20 swords plus your armor, which would probably make you look like a steel pincushion in motion.....

The durability of armors in Morrowind has never been anywhere even remotely consistent. Using those to differentiate the various types would appear to make a lot more sense than having an iron cuirass with 2000 points and a matching gauntlet with 70, or something like that. Cutting the durability of Chitin would make it strong but "brittle", instead of a huge improvement in general over leather and fur for a roughly similar price. Make fur a LOT more durable, and it suddenly becomes a "useful" line of armor, even as weak as it is, for those adventurers who don't want to have to stop every 20 minutes to repair.

I like the idea of a rebalance, but it's either got to be done for a rational reason with a bit of thought behind it, or it's not going to work any better than what it is now. Good luck with it.

Heaviest weapon is now a daedric warhammer, 64 MWU (morrowind units). I could try assuming 1 MWU = 1 ounce, but I really don't feel like doing that sort of jiggery-pokery with all the numbers. :shrug:


http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Chitin is on my side! And yes, I corrected the oddity with the 2000 HP Iron Cuirass. It is slightly more durable than steel, but it is heavier and offers less protection (and less enchantment capacity) - this is all based on my knowledge regarding steel and iron material properties in the real world...


Thanks for the input, Kovacius! :icecream:


Ah, thank you for the FYI, I didn't know! I'll treat daggers as 1 and increase the other lenghts appropriately!


Oh, are the enchantment capactities for weapons too high? :confused: They are rather pitiful compared to armor enchantment capacities... I've never really played with an enchanter character, so I don't have a good sense regarding enchantment-spell-costs compared to enchantment capacities.



Folks, can I get some more feedback regarding the enchantment capacities of weapons?

Hey Alaisiagae!

Sounds awesome, as usual. Good re-balancers are something the Morrowind community needs more of, and I salute you for it! :icecream:

I'm still looking forward to seeing how your Armor balance mod is coming, I for one plan on using it.

Anyway, concerning weapon enchantment capacity: This is one of the areas where gamesas actually stopped to think at least a bit. The issue with weapons vs. armor is 'on hit' spell damage (or other effects - like paralyze or calm. Of course, if you're doing that and feel dissatisfied with the level of challenge, it's your own fault, just like if you're creating mega-potions. /endrant). If weapons had higher enchantment rates, you could turn a silver longsword into a one hit kill artifact on some of the games toughest non-unique creatures.

Personally, I think that spell costs (in magicka) and enchantment costs (in enchant points, which are just a function of spell magicka costs), rather than capacity, are to blame. If you lower the weapon enchant capacities across the board, you'll be making low end weapons practically unenchantable, or removing the difference in capacity between high-end and low-end weapons.

So, what do I think should be done? In my game, I play with a customized spell-cost rebalance that I made for myself, and that pretty much has me happy in general with the kinds of enchantments I can get on my weapons, and how powerful those effects end up being. Basically damage spells are higher on average by about 20%, while calm and paralyze are much higher. Of course, the weapons themselves could use some rebalancing in terms of enchantment capacity, just to make them make more sense! So I'm not discouraging you from doing this at all.

Good luck!

D'aww, thanks!


Okay, I can keep enchantment values at vanilla rates, and make sure everything is standardized (that is to say, no anomalies). I've sent an email containing my final draft for the armor values and my work-in-progress spreadsheet for the weapon properties. Let me know what you think!

If anyone else is interested in taking a look at my spreadsheets (I've made mhtml versions so you don't need excel to view them), let me know and I can send them off for your perusal.

I looked it over! I hadn't really looked at the weapons closely for awhile, and on second thought, it might be good to reduce slightly the enchant values of the very highest weapons (such as the whole set of daedric, which are at least one-third more than anything else on average).

Weight is something that certainly needs serious rebalancing on weapons, too. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it! Responding here to keep your thread up and generate interest. :goodjob:

And please remember that if you adjust the health of weapons/armor, you should adjust the cost of the disintigrate line of spells accordingly. Otherwise those will suddenly become either over or underpowered.

And crossbows should, in general, be quite a bit slower than bows, but hit a bit harder. The animation for reloading crossbows tends towards a stirrip type of reloading mechanism, which implies a slower reload, but a lot more power than a lever redraw (or a bow). Crossbows do wicked damage, but you do have to make each shot count. You won't get nearly as many.

No worries, values are still within Vanilla range. In other words, highest HP for armor health is the 2400 on the Daedric cuirasss. Weapon health is based on my master values for armor health multiplied by a constant to achieve vanilla-range values (though daedric weapons now have less durability).


I haven't gotten to the ranged weapons yet, but I will definitely keep in mind what you suggested. I also plan to make thrown weapons do more damage.

Thanks for the feedback, Harlequin! :dance:

UPDATE: I've finished the enchantment values. A bit tricky to get them right, but I think they will be satisfactory. Keeping Tyrthyllanos' suggestion in mind, Daedric weapon enchantments are now about 2 solid whole points less than vanilla values.

I don't think I'll be messing around with damage values.

So, after I clean up my spreadsheets, I'll probably start going after ranged weapons.

Might not make a lot of progress this weekend (I have an assingment due Monday). I'll probably be able to finish up the spreadsheet data. I'll need a lot of time to put things into the CS, though. I've been looking at the computer screen too much lately, my eyes ache... :blink:

Most welcome! I have used a few rebalancers before, but I have never found one that quite matches my vision. Hoping yours is.

And this:

Has been sticking in my craw as being and excellent road to take.

UPDATE: more tweaks to the values and ratios in my equations. I'll add an optional .esp with changes to the artifacts (in case folks have artifact replacers or there is a mod that you love that changes a certain artifact). I'll put up the spreadsheets and such as a downloadable resource when I finish and upload this mod. That means that if you don't like the values I chose, you can put in your own values and tweak the equations to your heart's content.

What's left to do? Well, I have to gather the data from the different work pages and plop it onto one easy-to-reference workpage. That shouldn't take too long.

Then, it's off to the CS for this mod and the Armor balance mod. This will take quite a bit of time. I did the MW armors in the CS for an earler draft of the Armor mod, and that took about an hour. -_-

I hope I get this done sometime either late this week or next week. :unsure: No promises, though.

EDIT: I made the weapon weights relative the the armor weights... which has resulted in a dramatic decrease in weapon weight. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I don't think you have to worry about becoming encumbered anymore, though...

Looks like you have most of the work that requires feedback done already, so I'll just say:

Keep up the good work! It's appreciated, and I for one eagerly await the finished product. :icecream:

Bad thing. "Weight" in Morrowind is actually a combination of weight, mass, and bulk.

Armor has weight due to the weight and quantities of materials used. Steel weighs more than fur, and thick steel weighs more than thin steel. A 7 foot wooden spear might not have a lot of actual weight, but it is to bulky to just strap a few on you.

Buuut....armor is less encumbering due to the fact of how it is strapped and balanced and spread across the body. Yes, that suit of steel might weigh 60 pounds, but that weight and bulk are spread all over your body. It encumbers less. Weapons are held in the hand, which is a natural lever, which increases the applied force. And weapons are also oddly shaped for travel. Try to actually carry 1 sword, a bow, 50 arrows, a battle axe, and a spear on you.

Take for example a 10 pound barbell. If you toss it in a backpack, you could wear it all day with nary a thought. You could even keep two in that backpack, maybe strap one to each of your thighs, and probably put one around your neck all at the same time with little discomfort. Thats 50 pounds right there, but spread across your body. Now, see how long you can hold a 10 pound weight in your hand at arm's reach. Few minutes at best before you really start to feel it. Now try it with a 50 pound weight at arms reach. I don't think a lot of folks here could do that for more than an instant.

The weight is the same, but bulk and weight distribution are far different.

That's a logical point I've made myself more than once. Alaisiagae - maybe add a constant multiplier to your previous numbers? Or, if you want to make it even more realistic, but more complicated, a multiplier to your material-based weight, in turn based on weapon type.

You make an excellent point, Harlequin. :thumbsup: I shall revert my weight calculations to a previous formula I was using... Thank you for the feedback! :nod:


Thanks, Tyrthyllanos! :foodndrink: I, too, am eager to finish this (though I'm not looking forward to the task of putting all this into the CS! But, the end result will be worth the effort).

Oh, look! Heh, I type too slow, I see you've got a post agreeing with Harlequin's observations regarding weight and bulk. I'll try adding some constants to what I'm using right now (the armor_material Master Weights) and see if that balances things out. If that doesn't seem to work, I might use my initial tactic: making material weight as a percentage (greater or less than 100%) of the weight of Steel (which I set manually).

I keep fiddling around with my ratios for weapon health and weight; I'm not sure if I'm messing things up or actually making improvements. I've had to stick constants here there and everywhere for some material types to make things balance out... Weapon health has been a bit of a problem. What do you think the max and min health for weapons should be? In other words, should weapon health go no higher than, say 10,000 (Daedric warhammer), and no less than 300 (chitin dagger)?

I would narrow that range a bit. I could argue that a chitin dagger might have a health of maybe 100 or less. Something like that could need repairs frequently. And 10, 000? Wow, seems like a lot.


However;

Since we don't have a lot of real world examples of things like chitin weapons, and certainly nothing like Daedric, this is really all subjective. I could post a well reasoned discourse showing you how it should be one way, Tyrthyllanos could post a well thought out discourse showing how my values are not realistic at all.

In the end, both of us can be right, since we are talking about things with few real-world examples. So you have to decide how you will procede. Will you go for realism or balance? Realism would tend to have a few top-notch sets of armors and weapons, and the rest of the stuff is what you wear until you get the best. Balance might sacrifice some gut-feelings about reality, for the sake of options. Technically chitin might be brittle and need lots of repair, making it inexpensive "crappy" armor you wear until you get better. Thats realism. "Its crappy, I wear it until I get better stuff", end of story. You don't drive a moped if you can afford a Harley. Thats the motorcycle, not me. Just clarifying.

Balance might say that chitin, being hand-crafted through traditional ways passed down through generations, and using ingredients from freshly killed creatures, might lend it a higher-than average enchantment value. Now, there is a choice. If you plan on having some enchantments made, suddenly a set of self-enchanted chitin might very well be better than the (technically) better glass armor, which you have to pretty much take as-is enchantment-wise.

So, in short, we have plenty of real-wold armors based on steel and iron (and fur, skin, leather, chainmail) we can refer to, but the more exotic stuff? Thats all you.

I agree with Harlequin, pretty much. Just one small note that is going to make the whole issue more confusing, probably...

You have to remember the weapon health 'damage' is dealt based on how hard you're hitting with the weapon. A big badda boom hit with a daedric warhammer might knock 60-100 points off your weapon health, whereas a little stabbity stab with your chitin dagger (is there actually a chitin dagger?) might knock off 3-20 weapon health. Edit: and that range is mostly based on your strength. So if you have 40 Strength (nevermind that you wouldn't be able to swing a Daedric warhammer), they would pretty much be 3 for the dagger per hit, and 60ish for the warhammer.

It's like I am a prophet. :dance:

Thanks, Harelequin.

As I mentioned, I'll be releasing the excel spreadsheets (and an mhtml format of the same) for people to download. That way, it's easy to calculate new values if I value I picked doesn't feel right. I've color-coded everything, my spreadsheets look like a pastel rainbow vomitted all over them.

I've reverted to my initial formulas and ratio values for several things - or, to put it another way, I've undone all the meddling I did today.

I'm leaving the chop/slash/thrust values alone for all the weapons. So, I'm only changing Speed, Reach, Price, Weight, Health, and Enchantment Capacity for weapons. For artifacts, it's a bit tough, since not all the weapons are made of easy-to-identify materials (like, the lore says that Mehrunes' Razor is Ebony, so that's easy. Except, maybe not, since Daedric weapons are Ebony weapons fused with the soul of a Daedra. So, is the Daedric Scourge just ebony, or also Daedric? And the Staff of Magnus? I have no clue what that's made out of!).

Oh, my! Two more posts have occured whilst I was typing!

Thanks for all the great feedback, Tyrthyllanos and Harlequin! :cake:

Magnus, obviously. We sure do miss him.

You are most welcome for any feedback of mine that is of use to you. On the surface, this sort of project seems pretty easy and straightforward, but you soon find lots of complexity and encounter questions with no real solutions.
Actually, that sounds a lot like dating.

Ooooh... I need some help with Weapon Reach values. My recent go at it produced the following results (where a value of 1 is the shortest reach) :

Axe 1.7
Battle Axe = 2.2
Broadsword = 1.8
Claymore = 2.5
Club = 1.5
Dagger = 1
Dai-katana = 2.5
Halberd = 3.2
Katana = 1.8
Longsword = 1.8
Mace = 1.5
Saber = 1.8
Shortsword = 1.7
Spear = 3.2
Staff = 2.8
Tanto = 1
Wakizashi = 1.5
War Axe = 1.7
War Hammer = 2

Will these values totally mess up the game, considering the highest vanilla length was 1.8?

Hmm... I haven't personally played much with weapon reach, so I don't know what that much of an increase will do. It may require testing! Sorry, I'm not much help on this.