How can I balance out my Skyrim better (hate waiting for CK)

[RaycerX]

Let me be honest here. I might upload my balance changes but that's highly unlikely (because so many people are planning on making one and releasing it). Currently, I'm really not liking enjoying the whole situation as it is right now. I was wondering if you guys n' gals would be willing to look over some changes that I plan to make in my copy of Skyrim since these ideas have been brewing in my head for a few weeks. If anything seems overpowered or underpowered, do tell and perhaps help my adjust them.

 

General changes:

 

Leveling:

- Max level is now 80, not 81.

- After having your hands freed in Helgen, you will automatically be able to increase one stat and acquire one perk (to make up for the reduced level cap).

 

Notes: The whole thing with level 1 - 81 I personally didn't find appealing, so the hard cap has been adjusted to be 80 (because level 1 is still level as well).

 

 

Beginner perks:

- All beginner perks that max out at 100% will have their effectiveness halved.

 

Notes: Beginner perks were way too strong. Now they're not.

 

 

Enemy and player scaling:

- Enemies can no longer perform deathblows.

- Enemy mages and archers have better damage scaling (as in no more one shot or two shot kills).

- Magic has damage scaling.

- Magicka regenerates at 75% (instead of 33%) of your normal rate during combat.

- Increasing stamina attribute now increases carry weight by 10.

 

Notes: Need I really say more? Magicka is the lifeblood of mages. No Magicka = no spells. At least warriors and rogue characters are able to attack even if they're out of stamina. Spells also scale to the player now since they didn't before. The whole thing with enemies performing deathblows was getting a little out of proportion for me and seemed rediculous so I removed that instead of lowering their chances. Carrying items has both been an immersion point and a limit for the player to make money. That's been changed up a little in the merchant changes.

 

 

Item enchanting:

- Item enchantment modifiers’ (damage, spell costs, etc) formula changed.

 

- OLD formula: Three enchantments, one with 50%, one with 20%, and one with 10% would add up to 80%.

EXAMPLE: .5 + .2 + .1 = .8

 

- NEW formula: Three enchantments, one with 50%, one with 20%, and one with 10% would multiply and add up as 65%.

EXAMPLE: .5 + (.5*.2) + (.5*.1) = .65

 

- Enchantments no longer stack if they have the exact same effect. IE: Two 25% damage enchantments won’t work but one 26% and 25% will work.

 

Notes: Enchanting was overpowered. Not so much now imo.

 

 

Potions/alchemy:

- The highest strength of potions that can be found, looted, or stolen are now second tier potions (IE: Potion of Healing which heals for 50 HP). Anything higher than that must be found in dungeon chests, purchased from alchemy shops, or crafted.

 

Notes: Potions/alchemy/smithing provided a quick combination of being overpowered. This change also has something to do with the fact that I found it pointless to craft or purchase healing/magicka/stamina potions since so much tier 3 (restore 75), 4 (restore 100), and 5 (restore 150) potions can be found openly. With my changes, anything *that* useful should be found in end of dungeon chests, purchased, or crafted.

 

 

Merchants:

- Merchants now purchase items at 10% base value.

- Merchants now have a base of 2000 gold.

 

Notes: Merchants seemed poor, now they carry double the gold for a better economy. Add in the fact that they lowball you means you have *got* to rank up your speech and equip items if you want decent prices.

 

 

Items:

- The highest ranking of equipment that can be bought is Orc and Elven. Equipment greater than Orc and Elven must be found by slaying powerful enemies (usually found at the end of dungeons) or chests at the end of dungeons.

 

- The highest ranking of arrows that can be bought are Elven arrows. Arrows greater than that must be found in dungeon chests or looted off powerful enemies. (Found in amounts of 3-6.)

 

- Potions weigh .2 instead of .5.

- Scrolls now weigh .2 instead of .5.

 

Notes: Again, this has something to do with the economy. These changes are to intended promote crafting items or more exploring and planning (since Ebony, Daedric, Dragonscale, and Glass equipment must now be found or crafted).

 

 

Heavy Armor changes:

- “Reflect Blows” perk functionality changed to: "You now reflect 10% of melee damage back to the enemy while wearing a full set of heavy armor".

 

Notes: Reflect blows basically enables better offensive capability in heavy armor. This is also an attempt to distinguish the end perks between light and heavy armor.

 

 

Light Armor changes:

- “Deft Movement” perk funtionality changed: Avoid melee and arrow damage 20% of the time and reduces stamina cost of unarmed power attacks by 25%.

- “Wind Walker” perk functionality changed: Regenerate stamina at 75% (instead of 33%) of your current max rate while wearing all light armor during combat.

 

Notes: Light armor = light on your feet. With a 20% chance to avoid attacks, survivability in light armor is greater. The reduced stamina cost for unarmed power attacks is a response to the additional unarmed damage that heavy armor enables (with relevant perks). Wind Walker's change is also an attempt to add an additional advantage to rogue styled characters wearing light armor.

 

 

Blocking changes:

- “Deadly Bash” now only affects shields.

- Power bashing has increased stamina cost (about 1/4 of your max stamina).

 

Notes: Sword and shield combos were overpowered to the point where you could literally just push enemies off cliffs. WTF??

 

 

Archery changes:

- “Eagle Eye” perk now has its stamina drain reduced by 50%.

- “Power Shot” perk functionality changed: “Arrows stagger all but the largest enemies when zoomed in with the block button.”

 

Notes: Archery is fun but felt a little underpowered compared to say, dual wielding with appropriate perks/buffs to make you an insane hack n' slash machine. This is an attempt to balance it out between melee and ranged attacks.

 

Pickpocketing:

I don't even know what to change to pickpocket since imo, it's incredibly messed up that you can steal equipped weapons and armor from a character and not have them notice a thing. I wouldn't mind some input.

Edited December 18, 2011 by RaycerX

[RaycerX]

Dual casting changes:

- Cost modifier now 2x instead of 2.8x.

- Damage modifier now 2.5x instead of 2.2x.

- Cast time modifier now 1.25x instead of 1x.

 

 

Destruction changes:

- Flames, Frostbite, and Sparks has their base damage increased to 10.

- Cloak spell base damage increased to 10, additional functionality added: "+1 armor for every 2 points in destruction."

 

- Firebolt base damage increased to 30, base cost reduced to 40.

- Fireball base damage increased to 50, base cost reduced to 70.

- Incinerate base damage increased to 70, base cost reduced to 90.

- Firestorm base cost reduced to 300, cast time reduced to 1.5 seconds (instead of 3)

- Fire Rune base cost reduced to 100.

 

- Ice Spike base damage increased to 30, base cost increased to 50.

- Ice Storm base damage increased to 50, base cost reduced to 90.

- Ice Spear base damage increased to 70, base cost reduced to 110.

- Blizzard base cost reduced 400, cast time reduced to 1.5 seconds (instead of 3).

- Frost Rune base cost reduced to 140

 

- Lighting bolt base damage increased to 30, base cost increased to 60.

- Chain Lightning base damage increased to 50, base cost reduced to 120.

- Thunderbolt base damage increased to 70, base cost increased to 130.

- Lightning Storm base damage increased to 90, base cost reduced to 120.

- Lightning Rune base cost reduced to 160.

 

- "Rune Master" perk added functionality: "Place a maximum of three runes at once."

 

Notes: Wow this was a big one. Magic was underpowered at the end game, but with scaling, I want my magic to be balanced out. At the same time, magic costs have been reduced since the damage ratios were so weird. Fire spells are now the low cost, slow projectile, high damage choice. Frost spells, which also affect stamina, have higher costs to compensate for the additional effects. Shock spell projectilces are instant, affect magicka, and enemies near death are disintegrated (with relevant perks). Therefore, lightning spells have the highest costs. Rune spells are great for traps, but they cost too much. Not a problem with these changes to them.

 

 

Alteration changes:

- Detect Life and Detect Dead base cost reduced to 60.

- Telekinesis base cost reduced to 80.

 

- Oakflesh base cost reduced to 80.

- Stoneflesh base cost reduced to 120.

- Ironflesh base cost reduced to 160.

- Ebonyflesh base cost reduced to 200.

- Dragonhide base cost reduced to 400.

 

- Paralyze base cost reduced to 300.

- Mass Paralize base cost reduced to 500.

 

Notes: Alteration perks increases the duration and amount of armor each spell enables, but before combat, you have to cast those "--flesh" spells which require absurd amounts of magicka for little protection. That has been (hopefully) addressed with reduced costs. Paralyze and Mass Paralyze has tremendous potential, but it's costs were too high.

 

 

Restoration changes:

- Heal Other and Healing Hands range increased 3x.

- Grand Healing range increased 3x and now damages undead an equivalent amount to amount of health healed.

 

(I don't like anything that causes undead to flee so basically, those have to be changed. I just don't know what to change. Cause damage to them? Set them on fire? Both? Other suggestions??)

 

Notes: Healing other people definately needs a massive range increase. They required the mage to be too close to be safe and thus, *should* be rectified.

 

 

Illusion

 

I haven't used illusion spells at all so I can't say anything at all about this line.

 

 

Conjuration

 

I rarely used this spell line and when I first read the perk descriptions, my first thought was "OMG Final Fantasy style summonerz!!1" But that changed after getting about halfway through the tree. From what little I've experienced, this line needs either way better balancing or a complete overhaul on how it works.

 

 

Conclusion: (for now)

 

Again, this balance change suggestion is for me only. Why? Again, because there are tons of other topics for this sort of thing and those guys n' gals will release their changes when possible. Me, I just want my game balanced in the way that nothing is too overpowered or underpowered (pfft, yeah, as if that could be done quickly), but there is only so much I can do by myself :wallbash:. Do I sound like an a**hole, douchebag, d*ick? Yes. Yes I do. Am I trying to be one? Nope, unless you start something with bad comments. But then yet, if people don't like my ideas of changes don't even bother wasting time here since you won't be playing with them.

Edited December 18, 2011 by RaycerX

[Sunnie]

To be brutally honest, balance is completely subjective and in the realm of "in the eye of the beholder". I understand everyone has their own opinion and way of interpreting everything, personally it bugs me that a handful of people are so vocal about what they consider out of balance, as if it was the way the majority of the user base feels.

 

All I can suggest for "you" is to make the changes "you" want to see that "you" think will enhance "your" game play. If you want to upload them for others to play with thats fine and I encourage you to do so, but be considerate of those who are happy with the way the game was built and refrain from calling everything "broken" and call your modifications "fixes" like so many others have. Of course, these are just my opinions and you can take them with a grain of salt or sugar, or just disregard them completely! :tongue:

Edited December 18, 2011 by Sunnie

[RaycerX]

To be brutally honest, balance is completely subjective and in the realm of "in the eye of the beholder". I understand everyone has their own opinion and way of interpreting everything, personally it bugs me that a handful of people are so vocal about what they consider out of balance, as if it was the way the majority of the user base feels.

 

All I can suggest for "you" is to make the changes "you" want to see that "you" think will enhance "your" game play. If you want to upload them for others to play with thats fine and I encourage you to do so, but be considerate of those who are happy with the way the game was built and refrain from calling everything "broken" and call your modifications "fixes" like so many others have. Of course, these are just my opinions and you can take them with a grain of salt or sugar, or just disregard them completely! :tongue:

 

My idea of balance is that in a perfect world, combining different aspects of all the trees, or specializing in several trees would still provide a gameplay experience that doesn't end up with anything that can be easily exploitable to steamroll through enemies. Several glaring problems that I have encountered include:

 

- Infinite casting of spells via enchantments.

- Smithing doesn't include diminishing returns for each item crafted.

- Knocking enemies off cliffs via shields.

- lolpwn with 30x damage from daggers.

- The slim differences between light and heavy armor.

* Heavy armor perks being better than light armor perks.

- Money being relatively pointless during mid to high level play.

 

These problems are just a few or the many gripes I have with my gameplay experiences and I'm attempting to rectify them. However, there's no way I can address every single problem, hence, I posted my ideas to see if others can get ideas to help me with other parts of the gameplay that I have no idea how to address IE: Conjuration.

[Sunnie]

i think that if you just have some patience and wait for the toolset to get released, you might be able to change all the things you don't like fairly easy. We just don't know yet what will be possible, but I'm confident that quite a bit will be able to be done fairly easily.

[billyro]

Things bound to be made by modders:

-Altered Perks

-Altered Damage

-Altered Levelled Lists

-Economy Mod

 

Basically, you're covered.

[Falconian]

I agree with all your changes save for destruction magic changes.

Mages are already brain-dead OP in Skyrim if you know how to play/enhance them; no need for damage boosting of destruction at all.

My gf plays a lvl 50+ pure mage and has been one-shotting everything with fireball since lvl 10 or so - and that's without using any alchemy/enchanting/gear exploit.

She needs like 10/15 fireballs for dragons and 5-6 for bosses.

 

And unlike Sunnie says, balance isn't subjective.

Balance means you're just as strong as an enemy wearing the same gear you wear and using the same attacks you use.

If, with same gear/level, you are much stronger or weaker than any other NPC means something is wrong.

It's true you're a "Dragonborn" but there is no hinting that you should be one-man-army, Dragonborn only means you have dragon blood and as such you can learn their shouts, not that you are a god.

Let alone all the exploits you can do through enchanting/smithing/alchemy, are those intended? I don't think so.

Bethesda makes mistakes. That's why they make the game moddable for us to balance/fix them.

 

That being said - it's true that someone hides cheats behind balance, but your changes are definitely not the case.

They just put you at the same level as other NPCs, aka balance.

 

The only thing I would like to add, there needs to be many, many, many more NPCs.

5-10x more guards in town; it's not realistic you can take over a town by yourself, if you assault a town you should be swarmed by 50 archers.

Bandits and wolves should roam in much larger packs.

In general, the amount of enemies should be raised by 2x and above.

Edited December 19, 2011 by Falconian

[Sabatasso]

@sunnie

Playing on the hardest difficulty, where you receive a fair amount of damage, but you're suddenly not capable of dealing sufficient damage. And at the default difficulty, where you deliver a fair amount of damage, the enemies can hardly scratch you... that is what I consider poorly balanced. I'd like a mix between the two, where I was able to kill a NPC in two-three solid hits, and he was able to do the same with me. Also called "realism" by some... I don't really know what went through their minds when they implemented HP multiplier on the difficulty slider, when everyone with half a brain knows that just damage multipliers would be better.

 

From a game perspective, Skyrim is a numbers game but the world is supposed to look "realistic", and the system that interaction and combat is based upon is not. The system and immersion actually contradict each other. The combat system is not even logical or good in any way what so ever. Perks make no sense, and they are also a large part in unbalancing the game system. Increasing HP and DMG and call it "increased difficulty" is a big lazy ass joke. The world of Skyrim should be made dynamic, where increased weapon skills made your moves better, not your damage. And Armor skills should make you more comfortable, faster and able to move more silent in said armor, not make it protect better. Sneak should solely affect sneaking, and have nothing to do with any damage at all. A big burly guy with a greatsword should do devastating sneak damage as well as the little sneak with a dagger. The difference between the two is how able they are to actually remain unseen until he strikes.

 

I'm in no mood to elaborate, but even though it might seem that I hate Skyrim, I really don't. I just think it's a result of a rushed project that deserved so much more love and affection from the developers.

Edited December 19, 2011 by Sabatasso

[Sunnie]

And unlike Sunnie says, balance isn't subjective.

 

Balance is certainly subjective, it is your opinion and not a fact that everyone agrees is a fact. Like I said, I understand that everyone has a different perception of the balance, and while i may agree and/or disagree with your opinions, they are still just that. I also have a laundry list of things I want to change for my own personal play experience, most of which will only ever see the light of day on my desktop. These are just small things though in the grand scheme of the game, since I am happy with 95% of the vanilla game.

 

 

I just think it's a result of a rushed project that deserved so much more love and affection from the developers.

 

I completely disagree with this. Again, that is your opinion and not a fact. While every game comes down to the final 6 month crunch time, the game seems like it had more than the 3.2 years of actual development time, and for me, in no way feels rushed. I believe they took great care to make a game that hands down has the best environmental elements, has a great deal of content, is interesting and fun to play, out of the box. This also is subjective to ones own interpretation, but the current statistical estimates indicate that may just be the case. If you want to talk rushed, just look at DA2, that's the epitome of rushed.

[Darksun45230]

Just a few ideas I've been peddling about though I'm certain have been covered in other topics.

 

* Re-vamp Conjuration to require soul gems to summon Daedra or the undead and increase the duration of summons for up to three in-game hours. When said summon is killed they drop an empty soul gem of the one used to summon them or when a higher tier soul gem is used to summon, that soul gem is reduced a rank (Common soul gem to Lesser and so on.) Conjuration perks should focus on improving the abilities of our summon only (would like to see them use Afflicted zombie vomit from Pyryte Shrine quest.)

 

* Restoration needs a Transform Undead spell (in faction only) so that healing spells harm enemies. This is a stretch, however, I was hoping the abilities and spells depended on a players fame, and had penalties depending on how high their infamy was. A player with more fame would have (at least Lore-wise) the blessing of the people thus posses stronger powers. For players with infamy, give Restoration perks that enchance (and spells that give) Absorb Health, Stamina, Magicka spells. Have a players infamy reflect the power of said spell (but not so much as to undercut Vampiric Drain.)

 

* Enchantable staffs and scrolls for players to use during battle. I've always felt a Mage should use them to cast spells, rather than having pretty energies erupted from their fingertips like Emperor Palpatine. They would have much the same restrictions as enchanted weapons, and scrolls have the option of duplicating spells already in possession (at the cost fo mana as to not be abused) without sacrificing a soul gem.

 

Those are just some of my ideas. What do you think?

Edited December 19, 2011 by Darksun45230