Skyrim Rebalancing

[ZeroTorrent]

Having put in many hours on Skyrim and since turned to modding, I feel that there are some things that need to be better balanced in the game. I was a big fan of OOO for Oblivion, and while the scope of what I'm thinking is not nearly as big as OOO was, that's the closest I can find to accurately describe the type of project I'm looking at.

 

The following post is a basic rundown of things I feel need at least some tweaking. Some items I have already thought about extensively, while others I am looking for some more feedback on. Any input on the matter would be greatly appreciated, and anyone willing to help would gladly be accepted. That said, this post is only a list and explanation of some game mechanics I dislike. The project is not yet underway, as I would like to plan out exactly what will be going in beforehand.

 

1. Magic

Magic in general has quite a few issues. The biggest of these seems to be the stacking of magicka cost reduction. Free spells should never be possible, and frankly, I think magicka cost reduction enchantments should be disallowed at the enchanting table. This would promote items like the Archmage's Robes and some of the Dragonpriest Masks, since their abilities would then become unique and actually have some worth to them. Also, +Magicka and +Magicka regen would be viable again. Much like Simple Skyrim Spell Solution does, a replacement enchantment could be bonus damage or something similar. The details are still in the works, but I feel something needs to change to rebalance the various magicka-related enchantments.

 

Ice Magic is the most overpowered of the three destruction elements, in my opinion. Its damage is still relatively high in comparison with its counterparts in lightning and fire, yet its secondary effects make it even more deadly. Not only does it do stamina damage, but it also slows down its target. The ultimate result is that a caster can just backpedal infinitely, killing their target while never being in danger. This is annoying for melee players fighting an ice mage, especially since the mage's AI takes advantage of this imbalance, and it is also unbalanced for player casters. Why choose the other elements if you can just backpedal and never lose? I agree that the slowdown should be there, but not as severe. Backpedal speed shouldn't exceed frozen speed. If the frozen speed was increased to be slightly faster than backpedaling, this would still give the ice casters an advantage, but still allow them to be caught by pursuers unless they turn tail themselves. Additionally, due to the powerful slow effect, the stamina damage should be halved or so, much like how lightning only does half its damage to magicka.

 

2. Armor

Armor is a complex issue. There's a lot of stacking that goes on, and it really creates a lot more issues than it does opportunities. Armor bonuses from perks stack with other perks, which in turn stack with smithing upgrades, and smithing upgrade perks, and that's before adding in potions and other enchantments to further increase your numbers. To illustrate, I have a suit of armor with 82 base armor rating, pumped up to over 900 armor rating at the moment. That's an over 1000% increase, and I haven't yet hit the limit of bonuses available.

 

High armor rating, though, is not the main issue. There's actually a cap at 80% damage reduction, so more than 567 armor doesn't really help the player, due to the formula involved. However, it's the small upgrades per armor tier that really throws the game off-kilter. The strongest heavy armor has 108 base armor, while the weakest has 60. While that's a fairly decent difference, you have to consider that there are over half a dozen more armor sets between those two. Each armor set only improves about 6-8 armor rating over the previous.

 

Taking all of these things together, I'll demonstrate where the real problem starts. Because the difference between tiers isn't that great, the armor cap is so low compared to how high your numbers can be, and the monstrous stacking that can occur, you can take something like iron armor's low 60 armor and apply that ~1000% bonus, and easily break the 567 cap. No matter how much you stack, a player should never be able to cap out armor with the weakest tier.

 

My proposal is that upgrading via smithing be knocked down quite a bit, while subsequent armor tiers be upgraded. This would effectively balance itself. Smithing, instead of being a skill primarily for massive boosts to armor rating and damage, becomes more craft-focused. Since new tiers of armor are stronger, there's more incentive to put perks in smithing to craft the next set. Smithing bonuses would be on a curve with diminishing returns, rather than linear. This would ensure that low-level players can still boost their armor, while high-level players can't just stack to infinity to get absurd bonuses and break the cap twice over. An added bonus to this is that it makes smithing less necessary for survival. Those armor tier bonuses apply to armor found in dungeons as well, so finding new gear will be a bigger bonus than previously, meaning a player might not need to spend hours making daggers just to have a decent armor.

 

The final piece to this would be another armor reduction somewhere, most likely in the armor perks. Increasing base armor and lowering max bonuses from perks seems like it would provide a decent balance. Instead of 100% bonus from 5 ranks of perks, maybe cap it at a 50% bonus from 2 perks or so. This would half the armor increase, but due to higher base armor, work itself out about the same without screwing over those that don't specialize as much. Also, it would make the bonus per perk higher, making a short plunge into a skill tree not quite as perk-heavy in a game with limited options.

 

This would take a lot of messing about to get right so as to balance low-level players, high-level players, non-smithers, and maxed-smithers. If some sort of balance could be found, though, it would greatly affect the game for the better. This is by far the biggest part of the project.

 

 

3. Weapon Damage and Enchantments

See above, but with weapons this time. Reducing the benefits of perks and smithing makes the high-end of weapons not quite as powerful, which is good, considering a damage of 200 or more isn't very hard and that is enough to one-shot quite a few enemies out there. Base damage, like in the armor situation, would be increased to provide incentives to craft new items and move on from old ones. It's basically the damage as above, minus dealing with formula caps. I'd type an essay on weapon balance too, but it's really the same as above, and should fix itself once smithing and perks get sorted in a more balanced way. The biggest culprit in the field of weapon stacking is the ultimate dagger. Someone showed off some math that resulted in over 9000 damage, which is crazy.

 

The second thing plaguing weapons is the issue of enchantments. Armor enchantments are amazing. You can stack on hundreds of health, stamina, or magicka, and max out magic resistance to boot. Weapons barely have anything going for them. The utility enchantments are handy, especially soul trap, but the damage enchantments feel a bit weak. Stacking smithing results in massive bonuses to weapon damage, while even a maxed enchanter is lucky to eek out a 30 damage enchantment. While 30 damage is nice, it's kind of a waste when my sword does 200 damage already and Elemental Fury can increase my attack speed only on non-enchanted items.

 

Once weapon damage is sorted as mentioned above, this might not be as much of an issue, but I'd like to see enchantments play a bigger part for weapons.

 

 

4. Perks

Perks currently come in two flavors: worth it or not. There are several skills with 5 tier perks that give +20% bonuses, stacking to 100%. While that isn't so bad in itself, this is not the only source of bonuses, meaning that base values become less and less a part of the final product and bonuses make up the majority of a player's power. Reimagining the perk trees for many skills would help balance things out.

 

Firstly, because these are "trees", it is generally the case that the strongest perks are at the top. This appears not to be the case with several skills. A player who takes only a few perks from the bottom of the tree will be nearly as well off as a player who invests deeply. This is most grossly illustrated with the melee trees. Both one-handed and two-handed's best perks are their very first, the +20/40/60/80/100% damage perk. After that, the total of other bonuses gets no where near that initial boost. One notable exception is dual wielding, which receives a +35% speed boost as well as +50% power attack damage. Deadly.

 

Secondly, the magnitude of these perks restricts customization. Because bonuses are so high, it would be stupid to pass them up. This takes away a perk from something that could go elsewhere. The most blatant of these are alchemy and enchanting. Even with 100 in these skills, most stores will stock better equipment than a player can produce. Throwing in perks adds 100% to 150% overall strength, making them a viable option. But viability shouldn't be based solely on perks. Perks should indeed make the prospect of specializing worth it, but without making it a necessity to even use the skill. A player with 100 skill shouldn't be outclassed by someone with 50 skill and a couple basic perks.

 

Lastly, some "utility" perks that focus on effects rather than numbers are either too strong or too weak. I'd need to compile a list of these, but Impact from teh destruction tree comes to mind as an overpowered one.

 

 

 

 

More will come as I think of it or as it is suggested, but this is a good start for discussion. Please feel free to leave any feedback, whether in support or against. Anyone that wants to suggest some data or mathematical functions to aid in the balance would be greatly appreciated.

Edited December 13, 2011 by ZeroTorrent

[ZeroTorrent]

Reserved, just in case. Dunno if there's a text limit on posts, but I can easily see the first post hitting the character cap if so, after a few additions.

[FerrenD]

I've been looking for a place to dump ideas like this.

First of all, blacksmithing. At the endgame level it becomes ridiculous. My intended changes:

- Choosing between weaponsmithing and armorsmithing. You can not be both at the same time. Weaponsmiths will not be able to improve armor past superior, and vice versa.

- Improvements made to armor and weapons will degrade over time as you hit, and are hit by enemies.

- You can no longer reach the maximum improvement level with one ingot. You will be required to perform multiple hardenings/sharpenings to reach it.

- Generally increase the materials required to craft things, and broaden the type of materials needed.

 

I would really like to take some of the overall power away from enchanting/blacksmithing, so that the best armor and weapons can be found through quests, and in dungeons.

 

In response to your ideas, I agree on most of them. Gameplay post level 20-30 has become tedious and boring for me.

Edited December 13, 2011 by FerrenD

[ZeroTorrent]

I really like some of those suggestions.

 

"- Improvements made to armor and weapons will degrade over time as you hit, and are hit by enemies." This would be awesome. I do miss durability from the past TES games, and this would be a nice second-best option, plus be more realistic.

 

"- You can no longer reach the maximum improvement level with one ingot. You will be required to perform multiple hardenings/sharpenings to reach it." I like the sound of this, too. Coupled with the above "durability", that would make your weapons last longer the more you improved it.

 

"- Generally increase the materials required to craft things, and broaden the type of materials needed." This definitely needs to be done. Using more of the same ingots isn't exactly what sharpening means. I don't know what other materials could be used, but it's definitely a good concept.

 

The only bit I don't agree on is the first:

 

"- Choosing between weaponsmithing and armorsmithing. You can not be both at the same time. Weaponsmiths will not be able to improve armor past superior, and vice versa." I think maybe some perk distinction would be better in that regard. Instead of going down the light path or heavy path, have the armor path vs the weapon path. It would make a lot more sense than the silly vanilla version that classifies perks by metal type. Choosing one or the other is too WoW-sy for me. The option to take both set of perks seems to fit the way the game plays out currently. Other than that, I do like the idea of armor and weapon smithing separated.

Edited December 13, 2011 by ZeroTorrent

[FerrenD]

I just don't like the fact that you are able to craft yourself both the best armor and weapons in the game via a single perk path. It could be handled in multiple ways. I simply feel that the player should have to invest more time to be able to craft the higher ended armor and weapon types.

[FerrenD]

I had another idea: Seperating forges, grinders, arcane tables, and alchemy labs into their own levels of quality. Such as an average forge versus like, the skyforge, with exceptional properties. Armor and weapons able to be created would be dependant on the quality of the forge. The same could go for improvements with the grinding stone and workbench. This idea could in theory be used to improve enchanting, and alchemy as well.

[Darksun45230]

 

1. Magic

Magic in general has quite a few issues. The biggest of these seems to be the stacking of magicka cost reduction. Free spells should never be possible, and frankly, I think magicka cost reduction enchantments should be disallowed at the enchanting table. This would promote items like the Archmage's Robes and some of the Dragonpriest Masks, since their abilities would then become unique and actually have some worth to them.

 

You mean limit.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

Why not simply reduce the percentage of spell reduction abilities available, or cap it at a certain percentage (40% or 50%.) The minute you begin trimming our choices is one less person that's going to download your mod.

 

Why choose the other elements if you can just backpedal and never lose?

 

Because I want to incinerate my enemies with Chain Lightening.

 

@Armor comments.

 

There are always at least two solutions to one problem, in this case to curb abuse and looping all we need is one:

By only allowing the player to smith any weapon they find the best they can do with their Smithing perk is upgrade their current equipment.

The player is still free to pursue the Perk tree, however, they won't be able to forge said equipment until they find them (either by loot chests or quest rewards.)

[ZeroTorrent]

You're right, removing magicka cost reduction is a limit. I wasn't trying to write removal off as a total benefit. I was merely trying to throw some positive effects of the change in there. I think the Archmage's robes and other great caster pieces get overlooked because of the immediate availability of one enchantment. I still stand by my assertion that the removal would make +Magicka and +Magicka rate useful again. It's not like those items were the only reason I gave.

 

I should explain a bit more in depth why I opt for a complete removal or replacement rather than a cap. Most of it comes down to scaling.

 

Because of how reductions scale, a 10% reduction provides 11% more spell casting; a 20% reduction provides 25% morespell casting. Eventually at 50% reduction you hit 100% more, at 75% you hit 300% more, and finally at 100% you reach infinite. It's a curved graph, 1/(1-x). Capping or reducing the magnitude would have a very large effect. Halving the max bonus would quarter the amount of casting. Capping at 75% would allow for 400% casting, which still seems a bit high. Somewhere around 65% would be nearly 300% casting, which seems to be a nice balance.

 

The problem still persists that lower level versions of that enchantment would only be providing something like a 6-10% bonus once curbed (I'm thinking of the early -10% or -15% cost robes reduced to be more in line with the proposed cap at 65%), which is very small, especially with a small magicka pool at early levels. The +magicka enchantment provides the opposite, being a much larger proportionate bonus at low levels, then splitting off as you focus into roles, although it still maintains universal usefulness rather than simply one school of magic benefitting.

 

The reduction perks that are already in the various school trees seem to bring another wrench into the plan as well. Without high reductions, it's not really viable to cast from a certain school as opposed to stacking +magicka, but with high reductions, the individual perks become either very limited or too powerful, depending on where we draw the line and whether or not (and how) the perks are affected by that cap. The magic perk trees also need a good fixing, themselves, though, just as a note.

 

In my mind, it just seems like a lot to balance for one enchantment type. Of course, I don't want to simply eliminate customization. That's why I referenced a mod that replaced magicka cost reductions with magnitude bonuses. That's one proposed replacement should it come to that. Another proposal is +magicka%. This would effectively fill the same role by allowing more casting, but since its graph is (1+x), it scales linearly.

 

It's really hard to say one way or the other what would work best within the current state of magic. I might draft a spreadsheet to compare data using various different functions to aid in balancing this.

Edited December 13, 2011 by ZeroTorrent

[Darksun45230]

You may also want to look at my suggestion on how to improve the Mage in this post.

 

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/488669-wip-magic-and-the-college-overhall/page__view__findpost__p__3995647

 

What I was trying to get at was a creation of a system where reduction spells are still optional but not optimal for Mages. Being allowed to enchant our own Staffs and use our own spell scrolls would drive us to focus on Soul Trapping enemies and gather resources to perfect our magic: kind of like a real Mage might be!

[ZeroTorrent]

I really like those suggestions, especially the staff thing. I think staves get too few charges, and there's currently no way to change that. Adding staves to the enchanting table could allow for some powerful mage weapons, with a lot of customization. That would also give some use to Soul Trap, like you said. It's kind of weird that soul trap as of right now is really only good for melee and ranged types to recharge their weapons. Mages don't really have a weapon in the staff at the moment, but with some adjustments, it could be.

 

Another rebalance thread drudged up from a few pages back this morning. Reading over it seemed like they think mages are weak in that thread too. I think mages start off strong but potion-dependent, but begin dropping in power after some levels. I know that once you leave Helgen, dual casting flames will kill pretty much anything in a couple seconds, but killing one thing can drain your magicka completely in the process. I think a bit lower damage to start and much lower magicka cost to start would help in that regard. As it scales, damage would get much better. Damage as of now appears to cap out pretty early. Someone said they didn't see a single damage point increase for some spells for 40 levels of destruction, which is silly. Still no plans for this as of yet.

 

I'm going to edit on a bit about perks onto the main post while I'm at it. Doing those calculations last night made me think about the current state of perks.