Rebalancing Skyrim

[hobosrcool]

I actually find mages to be quite fun to play as. Maybe you didn't have the right apparel or perks to make it work? I'm currently lvl 40 and am a complete mage. I haven't leveled anything else at all and I'm doing fine. You usually should research your enemy by going to a library and reading about them to find their weaknesses, that helped me a lot. But your other ideas on thieves and warriors, I haven't played as them yet so I can't really say anything about that. What I will say though, is that if you are willing to make such a mod, it'd probably be in your best interest to create separate mods i.e. a mod for only warrior, a mod for mages and warriors, a mod for all of them, etc.

[Deleted3103979User]

2 short things:

 

First: Do you even really care about meele characters? NO patch notes whatsoever for them while you want to patch mages into oblivion (:D) i srsly ( no offense ! ) think that balance PATCHING is a thing that can only be done by someone that played 100 hours + with every single main specc thorughtout all levels up to 50 on every difficulty.

So again, no offense but esp. the difficulty makes it really hard to balance the game properly.

 

Secondly to one of your points:

"Taking more magic dmg if wearing some sort of heavy armor"

 

Srsly? Ever played meele class in full heavy armor vs heavy mage composition on highes difficulty on lvl 25+? I guess not cause you do not even stand a chance against 3-5 mages and if you get close you burn potions like they are chips and die in the end. Getting even more dmg... sure.

 

Conclusion:

Either screw the idea or invest a lot of time into playing the game yourself in alle the ways it can and is played. Do this on every difficulty till you hit softcap and THEN come up with this. Cause your changes, either small or big have way more impact on the world and way DIFFERENT impact depending on the difficluty you play on thatn you can imagine (not even test) by now. Sit back, learn, obsever and then get your thoughts going - way to early.

[Jovias]

Okay, so here is a specific change log I'd do, in theory. I haven't even touched Skyrim yet in terms of modding, but I might carry this idea out given a little time:

 

fourtylashes' theorhetical Skyrim Balance Patch v1.0 changelog

 

General

 

Character Stats

 

*Spells now gain 2% more damage per 10 points of maximum magicka (this means that spell damage is 20% greater for all characters on default)

 

*You now gain 2% more physical defense per 10 points of maximum health (again, this means 20% more armor), and 5 more maximum encumbrance

 

*You now gain 1.5% more physical damage with any weapon per 10 points of maximum stamina

I don't really like these. The magicka tweak only effects destruction; It would be useless to a mage who opts for one of the weapon skills instead. The other two just seem unnecessary at best and a bit overpowering at worst.

 

Spells

 

*All spells have had their costs halved

 

*Three to five completely new spells have been added to each discpline:

Destruction: Corrode Armor, Drain Magicka, Weakness to Magic, Corrode Weapon

Alteration: Feather, Open Easy Lock, Open Average Lock

Conjuration: Bound Armor, Bound Boots, Bound Gauntles, Bound Helm, Summon Skeleton

Illusion: Silence, Dispel Other, Dispel Self

Restoration: Fortify Health, Fortify Stamina, Fortify Magicka

 

*There are now "Lesser" "Minor" "Greater" and "Legendary" versions of each spell. Lesser spells are equivalent to existing Skyrim spells after aformentioned mana and damage changes. Minor spells are slightly more magicka-effecient. Greater spells are slightly more magicka effecient and deal slightly more damage. Legendary spells are slightly more effecient and have a pronounced amount of added damage, but either have longer casting times or come at some cost (such as reduced defenses or self-damage while used).

 

*Those specializing in magic of any kind will be able to acquire and customize a familiar of their choice which will scale and level with the player. This will occur through an obvious early game quest. Those who do not wish a familiar can opt out for 10 permanently increased magicka, stamina and health.

Don't halve the magicka cost. Instead just increase spell damage; dramatically in the case of master level spells. Mages should very, very powerful as long as they manage their magicka level properly. If they don't, they're boned.

 

As for new spells:

 

- Corrode spells have no purpose as equipment no longer degrades. Instead add a single new spell, disintegrate, which has a chance to immediately vaporize the target's weapon (not armor).

 

- Merge all the bound armor pieces into one spell, but make multiple variations of the bound armor. For example: Bound armor of magic resistance, armor of increased health, armor of magicka regeneration etc.

 

- Add drain stamina to destruction. Add swift swim, water walking, and jump (maybe) to alteration. Add summon draugr, summon draugr wizard, and summon centurion sphere (not purchasable, must be found like in morrowind) to conjuration. Add a sustained invisibility spell to illusion (rapid magicka drain). Add cure disease to restoration (expert level spell).

 

I don't like the lesser, greater, legendary thing; not all spells need multiple variants. Just make tiered varients of the low level spells that don't already have a more powerful version. For example: flames (novice), firestream (adept), volcanic spray (master) and so on. I would also change enchanting; make the individual enchantments more powerful and increase (through perks) the max number of enchantments per item to three or four.

 

I do like the familiar.

 

Social

 

*Many merchants can now be turned into fences without the necessary perk, provided they are "corrupt" in nature. Deepening relations with a specific merchant now improves their buy/sell prices over time and gradually causes their wares to improve.

*Marriage is now more complex. All marriage candidates have had some added unvoiced dialogue. All marriage candidates have had at least one quest added. Some marriage candidates no longer open a shop upon marriage, but offer other unique services instead.

*Choosing not to marry provides its own bonuses now, providing you with the ability to interact with some NPCs differently to improve prices, acquire unique weapons, armors and temporary buffs.

Everything sounds great except the last one. I don't think I understand what you are talking about there.

 

Perks

 

*Skill Trees now cap at level 150.

*Each skill tree has aproximately 35 unique perks, diverging into 2 to 4 "paths"

*At the beginning of the game, you are given the option in the form of a minor quest to forever abstain from leveling/improving a single skill tree of your choosing in exchange for three free perk points and 5% faster leveling speed for all other stats.

*Every tree now has at least 1 perk which is effected by your skill in an unrelated perk (ie, an archery perk that you can only take provided you have invested 5 or more perks in destruction magic).

*Most notably, all "paralysis on power attack", "negated movement speed reduction while wearing heavy armor", "mana cost reduction for X class spell", "dodge", and "damage reflection" perks are either being moved to the bottoms of trees or completely removed and replaced.

Don't increase the skill cap. It would be extremely hard to balance correctly and would require an overhaul of way more than just the perks.

 

Weapons and Armor

 

*Armor and weapons of enemies are adjusted to new average levels of armor/damage for players

*Heavy armor's effect on movement speed is lessened, however, heavy armor now comes with a downside - most heavy armor is weak to a given magical element (lightning, fire or ice). This stat varies from armor to armor, some armors have no negative modifier (but perhaps offer less physical protection) others may cause you to take as much as 30% more from a specific element's spells, while others may cause you to take 10% more damage from all sources of magic. These negative effects can be tempered through smithing and new accessories like rings/pendants.

*Light Armor now naturally provides a small amount of dodge.

*"Clothing" now naturally provides a very small amount of dodge and increased magic resistance.

*The effects of cleave, bleed or armor-penetrate are naturally inherent to swords, axes and maces respectively. These natural effects can be improved through perks.

I don't like the changes to armor and clothing at all. It seems unnecessary and implausible to me. Better to keep it simple and common sense. Heavy armor could drain stamina while running, light armor could slightly increase attack speed, or maybe heavy armor could slow attack speed and light armor increase running speed, or something. Basic clothing should not do anything at all; but mage robes could have slight magic resistance.

 

----

 

I think you are looking at several mods here. A basic rebalance mod, which would be as minimalist and non-intrusive as possible and only includes the most necessary changes (increased magic damage, new variants of existing spells, some light perk tweaks but not a full overhaul). A perk overhaul mod, a new spell mod, a social/marriage overhaul mod and the equipment mod.

 

I don't have the CK, but assuming it's just as or more flexible as the CS, the rebalance mod would take just a week or two to make, and that includes all testing and polishing. The equipment mod could be done in a similar time frame, depending on how much scripting you have to do, but the perk, new spells, and social mods would take a very long time. You'd have to make a ton of quests (for the social mod) new VFX (spells) alter the flash based perk menus and do a metric butt-ton of scripting. It could all be done I think, but god damn would it be a lot of work.

[Starhero]

No matter what, this would be something I would get..esp if a full overhaul would be done. The game def needs some rebalancing.

[gagugu]

hmm don't really like a lot of the ideas here

 

i think the key to proper rebalancing lies with enchantments

 

first of all, the -% magicka cost enchantments desperately need a cap ( - 75-85 % seems reasonable to me)

but I wouldn't be surprised if that's something that will be introduced in an upcoming official patch anyway (like the chameleon thing in oblivion)

 

then we can introduce +% elemental damage enchantments with the same magnitude as the -% magicka cost

(which makes sense because even while -75% cost quadruples damage/magicka, +75% damage still has the stronger effect on crucial opening attacks and short encounters)

if adding such an effect is possible, distribution can be easily handled by replacing the -%cost effect on either circlets or rings with the new one

 

to give pure mages a reason not to wear armor besides aesthetics "Mage Armor" should also improve spell duration (and massively so, I'm thinking 5-15minutes at level 3)

furthermore the benefits of the "Magic Resistance" perk should also only apply to unarmored characters

 

another thing i would like to see if possible is a reduction of overall effect-power of player-made enchantments by 1/3 while enabling two effects from the beginning with the final perk giving a third one

this would make enchanting a little more interesting at levels below 100 while leaving the maximal benefits relatively untouched and would work well if more effects are added to the game (light, shield, detect life, fortify speed ...)

 

and one final thing

to make up for all that, filled grand and empty black soul gems are to be completely removed from vendor inventories

[l2eset]

I find that playing as a mage is more of a think-ahead game, as opposed to the melee types which just charge in waving big swords and axes - which is as it should be. That said, archery on player end is much too weak - again we have the repetition of the Oblivion problem with arrows being so weak you need to spend a dozen of them to kill stronger opponents (and I'm not talking dragons here).

 

Have you actually played an archer in Skyrim? I have, on Master, for about 50 hours on that character alone.

 

I must say, it is probably the strongest combat form in the game.

 

Early on, it is quite weak, I guess that is why everyone is slandering archery in skyrim, because they shoot a few arrows early on and decide right then that archery is worthless.

 

But, there comes a time in the game where you get a lot of the perks, a bunch of armor with +x% to archery damage, and you end up with a bow that deals 200 damage or so plus whatever enchant you'd like.

 

And at the start of every fight, you can get three or four (sometimes more) shots off that deal three times the damage out of stealth. I've taken out four enemies that were standing right next to each other each in one shot without being seen.

 

By shooting a single arrow from stealth, and then running away for a bit, you can take down almost every normal enemy without being seen.

 

This is on master, btw. Most people struggle with mages and warriors on adept.

 

It really took a lot of the challenge and fun out of the game. So now I'm playing an orcish warrior..

 

By the way I'm not sure what your last statement means. Do you think a dozen arrows is a lot to kill a tough enemy? What do you even consider a tough enemies? We probably don't think the same things are tough.

 

Like for instance, some people think that the snowy saber tooths are tough. Well they die in one arrow, maybe two, and you don't even get the attention of their friends nearby.

 

Or say, a frost troll, I've taken half of ones health out in a single arrow on master. 3x damage, plus the crit perk...

Edited November 16, 2011 by l2eset

[fourtylashes]

Thanks for everyone's feedback so far. I'll make some changes to my patch notes once I can reflect on them more. Also thanks for the archery feedback. I need to create a new character and open up the console and see for myself how strong Archery is :D

 

And I was suspicious of the sneak attack bow perk. It seemed a bit strong to me since you didn't need to be behind your target to do it... Sneak in general is a bit too powerful but I don't think there's anything that can be done to fix that, given that it's mostly an AI issue (if you cast invis for instance after killing an enemy and immedaitely crouch, lots of enemies will completely lose track of you and start pacing about, letting you walk back up to them for x15 damage and one shot them).

Edited November 16, 2011 by fourtylashes

[Jovias]

Yeah, the x15 multiplier for sneak needs to go. Even if the AI weren't so stupid it would still be ridiculously overpowered, but with the AI it's just asinine. I'd make it x5, maybe just x3; It was usually just x2 in F3/NV depending on your weapons crit damage, and it seemed fine there.

[Turtlicious]

I would like to point out I went as pure mage, and am getting my ass handed to me by everything I have to drain my mana bar to kill one enemy and my Fire perks are damn near worthless, I will be re-rolling just so that I can actually kill something. I already endorse this becaujse this is what Skyrim NEEDS.

 

Thank you so much for trying to fix what is broken.

 

Sorry if none of this is relevant I don't spend a lot of time on the Nexus forums.

 

Oh hey Ontopic Edit

 

Conclusion:

Either screw the idea or invest a lot of time into playing the game yourself in all the ways it can and is played.

 

Third idea, Get a team together who have that information (Say four or five guys who each decided to go a different route) and have them help. I don't think learning everything possible about this game is possible with just one person.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Turtlicious

[NoDebate]

So I've been playing Skyrim quite a bit since it was released.

 

And I can say without fear, that right now, Skyrim is a mess. At least in balance. Be critical or not of it in other areas, but Skyrim is in desperate need of rebalancing. Thankfully, we can mod the game. I'd like to devote this topic to fixing the game because it needs lots of help. Will I be making a mod to fix Skyrim? Possibly. I don't know yet what my time permits, but this topic should be something anyone wishing to balance Skyrim should speak their mind on. I'm going to present how I would fix Skyrim though, so react to what I have to offer as though I were releasing an official Skyrim balance "patch" today.

 

There are several huge flaws in Skyrim's balance.

 

#1 - You are required to level every skill in Skyrim to reach max level

 

This is a huge flaw because if I want to play a pure mage character, I shouldn't be required to hit monsters with bows 2000 times to maximize my magicka count or spell potency.

 

.................

 

*Skill Trees now cap at level 150.

*Each skill tree has aproximately 35 unique perks, diverging into 2 to 4 "paths"

*At the beginning of the game, you are given the option in the form of a minor quest to forever abstain from leveling/improving a single skill tree of your choosing in exchange for three free perk points and 5% faster leveling speed for all other stats.

*Every tree now has at least 1 perk which is effected by your skill in an unrelated perk (ie, an archery perk that you can only take provided you have invested 5 or more perks in destruction magic).

*Most notably, all "paralysis on power attack", "negated movement speed reduction while wearing heavy armor", "mana cost reduction for X class spell", "dodge", and "damage reflection" perks are either being moved to the bottoms of trees or completely removed and replaced.

 

Firstly I'd like to say, I love these ideas thus far. You've covered about every major gripe I have with the game as well as a handful of things that would be interesting to play with (see environmental effects, lightning damage while in metal armor, etc.). However, I've highlighted two of your statements, both regarding the leveling system. I personally believe the larger issue is not that there are enough skills in the game (and this is an issue I take strong offense too) but rather, the *rate* at which you level. Your first seven levels you "beam up" every five or six skills. Then by level twenty its taking about fifteen skills to level (I really wish someone has looked into the numbers on this, perhaps I will do this later today to prove my point). Anyways, ranting aside, by level 40/50 it's nearly impossible to level. It takes ages, somewhere in the upper teens in terms of skill points and it requires you to go to other skills to grind from level to level. So, instead of increasing the skill caps on everything, which may or may not see you to level... 40, maybe? Adjust the rate at which you level. If it were possible, revert back to the tried and true system of "level every ten skill increases." That way, if you maxed just the Mage skills. You'd be level sixty. Assuming you can lift or adjust the "hard-cap" of level 81, increase the level cap to whatever you deem worthy, with a cap on each of the three "attributes" (yeah right) being whatever else you deem worthy.

 

Alternatively and for a more code intensive change to the "leveling" system, check this puppy out. Assuming you've played and own (or "borrowed") a copy of Morrowind, take the ten minutes, download it and try it out. It may give you some... Inspiration? For your current project. Link: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=2030

 

Hope I've helped in one way or another. And good luck to you!