Leveled List Injection. Yay or Nay?

[StormWolf01]

Essentially what leveled list injection is, for those that don't know... are lists for items, weapons, armor, foods, etc etc etc that can either spawn as loot on enemies, as buyables on vendors and traders, or can spawn as loot in containers.

 

Some players, are very welcome to LL injected items, where others would prefer that some of these items not spawn on enemies, or be made as something only available to the player.

 

So. What's your opinion?

[ScytheBearer]

Essentially what leveled list injection is, for those that don't know... are lists for items, weapons, armor, foods, etc etc etc that can either spawn as loot on enemies, as buyables on vendors and traders, or can spawn as loot in containers.

 

< prune, snip, whack, chop >

 

 

 

Your definition of "level list injection" is somewhat askew. What you define is the level list, but not what injection scripts actually do.

 

Injection scripts automagically add items to leveled lists at game start, so that multiple mods can add items to the same vendors list of items, etc. This makes it possible for two or more mods to update the same leveled list without regressing each other.

 

The problem is that some authors do not know how to write their injection scripts, so they can (and do) pollute the players save. Not a good thing.

 

On the other hand, when these injector scripts work well, they are quite effective and can save the player a lot of patching to get two or more mods to play nice together.

 

Personally, I vote 'meh'. I don't use them in my mods, but I will gladly help users create a patch as necessary.

Edited August 28, 2022 by ScytheBearer

[IcelandicPsychotic]

I use leveled lists a lot in my Oblivion mods. I think they're great as they add a bit of randomness. It wouldn't be very fun going through a dungeon if you know exactly what you're gonna find in any chests that are laying around. Only thing I don't like about them is the leveling system.

As for the scripts, if they're done correctly then I don't see any problem with them.

[HeyYou]

For most items, If I can have it, I think NPC's should be able to have it as well. :D

 

For items that spawn, injection is the way to go. Even more so for mods that add things to the build menu. (FO4)

[lordmogul]

For me it all depends, and I see the best case when the mod author gives a choice. Between putting it in the mod installer, to in game options.

 

I have armor mods in Skyrim that use a MCM menu to change leveled list distribution.

I have weapon mods in Fallout 4 that ask you if you want the gun to be craftable, sold by vendors, and in the general enemy leveled list. (including some where you get a quest to find the gun, and after you did that, it asks. So you could have in theory a completely unique weapon.

 

I have even done some of the work myself. Things like Skyrim armor/weapon mods that don't appear in the world anywhere and have to be added by console or those that just put an NPC in the developer room.

Not too complicated to make them craftable.

Same for Fallout 4. We have all these workbenches, so why not make the weapon available there. And it doesn't take any elaborate scripting, something simple like the old "craft at chem bench" thing is enough.

 

Personally, I like to see the stuff show up in the world. (Unless it's supposed to be something unique and special). But obviously people have different opinions, so having it optional feels like the way to go. Throw it into a FOMod installer, where the player can choose, make it a MCM option, etc.

[JimboUK]

As long as really powerful weapons aren't dropping when the character is at a low level, these things can unbalance a game badly, I won't name the mod but there's one for New Vegas that saw powerful weapons worth thousands drop when I was level four, the game soon became a cakewalk.

[HeyYou]

As long as really powerful weapons aren't dropping when the character is at a low level, these things can unbalance a game badly, I won't name the mod but there's one for New Vegas that saw powerful weapons worth thousands drop when I was level four, the game soon became a cakewalk.

I run modern firearms, along with another mod that unlevels the weapons..... Yep, you can find some cool weapons even at 1st level, but, so can the NPC's..... :D Game is still pretty balanced. :D

[Oblivionaddicted]

As long as the mod-added leveled lists are well made the list injection looks like an excellent mean to enjoy these elements without any conflict and all the crashes it causes and without having to create a patch.

 

As long as the scripts and the leveled lists are well made is there any downside anyway?

[lordmogul]

On 6/11/2023 at 10:23 PM, lordmogul said:

Personally, I like to see the stuff show up in the world. (Unless it's supposed to be something unique and special).

To follow up on that with examples.

If Install a mod that adds any AR-pattern rifle in any Fallout game, that should obviously be there. Produced by dozens of manufacturers with numbers in the hundreds of millions. It would be weird not to find them everywhere, as random loot, at vendors, with enemies.  They should be everywhere, so leveled list injection feels right, especially if the mod is well balanced. (And they canonically exist in the Fallout world, it's basically the standard rifle of NCR troops)

If In install a WA2000, that is a different thing. Less than 200 produced, used basically exclusively by the german police. And it was too expensive even for that. They go for 40 grand at a minimum today. So finding one should be something special. Maybe in the hands of a raider boss, or at the end of a dungeon.

[Fkemman11]

Adding a fomod installer with the option to add items to the leveled lists is nice and I see it done quite a bit from more well known authors. Not that hard to do either iirc. Some mod assets I absolutely want added to the leveled lists. But a very few I want to be unique one-of-a-kind that only I can obtain so I feel special. I've actually made quite a few special variants on weapons, armor, items and purposely left them out of the leveled list for this very reason since I have no plans to ever package the changes in a mod and share them.