Greetings All.

This is my first message on this forum. But I have been very actively lurking here for the last 3 weeks. =)

I am Morrowind semi-newbie. However I am hardcore and long time computer RPG-gamer and also a big fan of the Dagerfall. 2 weeks ago I finally installed MW + 2 expansions, which I purchased long time ago, and I have been playing it ever since, while at the same time spending a lot of the time reading these forums and downloading mods.


What can I say? I think Morrowind is a great game, almost masterpiece, although IMHO it has few flaws that prevent it from achieving that status, unfortunately.

Nevertheless I am deeply in love with this game, it is the best RPG that came out for a *very* long time.

I want to express my deep respect and gratitude to all great MW modders on this forum. I have been playing RPGs since the days of “Eye of the Beholder” and “Darklands”, but I never witnessed anything that comes even remotely close to the huge amount of new great content that was created by you guys for this game. Without it would be simply a good RPG. Your work made it great. Thank you!

Also thanks to all people who wrote great guides for the new mod users like me and posted them here and elsewhere. I've downloaded and read half dozen of them, will read more later on.



All right, back to the topic of this thread. The main reason while I have been dragging my feet on MW all that time is that I've heard hundreds of times how the balance is completely broken in this game and how the game became ridiculously easy later on. Which is huge turn-off for me, since I like my games to be VERY challenging (not masochistic, but close enough =) ) and I hate "cheese" and "powergaming".

So when I've started playing the game for the first time, I've spend a long time trying to put together list of things that I should not do in this game, based upon the stuff that I read on this forum.


Here are my "houserules" that I have been using for my char in my first game of MW.

1. Difficulty on 100% from the moment I step from the prison ship.

2. No trainers!

3. No uber-enchantments on armor/weapon/clothes.

4. No abusing alchemy. The alchemy houserules that I have created for myself are these: I only use what I gathered or found myself, no buying from NPCs. No buffing INT or Alchemy. No selling potions to NPCs. Only make potions that I have discovered how to make in-game

5. No artificially "bumping" my skills like casting 5000 "training" micro-spells to increase magic skills or letting rat chew on my heavy armored leg for few hours to increase Heavy Armor skill, et cetera...

6. No stacking "buffing" effects on potions/spells/items

7. To try not to think about what do I need to do to get 3 “x5 “modifiers when I level. (hard!)

8. No trying to get enemy NPC stuck behind the crate/chair/whatever. To put it mildly, the pathfinding AI in this game err... has some room for improvement. A big room. A palace.

9. No MudCrab/Creeper(sp?) traders, or whatever their names are. =) I haven't even met them yet but I already hate them, since in each and every single thread about powergaming or difficulty balance these two infamous individuals were mentioned. So when I'll find them I'll probably try to kill both of them in some gruesome way, and than walk away from the loot. =)


10. I am playing with one of the standard classes (Battle Mage, Breton, Apprentice sign), instead of generating class of my own (sigh!), since I am concerned that I might accidentally create something too powerful and it would further screw the balance of the game for me. (Although even this race/class/sign combo maybe a bit too much(what do you think?) - long blades/heavy armor/almost all magical schools, tons of mana - but I am not sure, since I have no other chars to compare with - this is my first game after all)



I think that's about it. By the way, one point of concern for me is that it is still quite easy to steal loot from the empty rooms in people houses/stores. But it is so tempting! =) And without it most of the towns/cities in the game would seem kind-of placeholders, having no effect on the game itself. Not to mention this is the only way for me to raise my pathetic Security skill, by opening locked doors/chest in the houses. The chests in the dungeons are too few and mostly too tough for me, so I have to use spells. ;( I wonder if there is some middle ground here? I couldn't think of a good rule that would feel right and limited the looting.



NOTE: I would really like to hear the opinions of veterans players about this "houserules" setup - what do you guys think? Does it make sense? Any corrections or suggestions? Have I missed something?

The bottom line is - I am trying to create as challenging and realistic experience as possible for my first game, while the game still feels fresh and exciting for me, full of unknown lands, creatures and adventures.


I hope some of the veteran players around here could relate to what I am trying to do and will be kind enough to share their thoughts.



All right, here is my experience so far - the game seems to be reasonably balanced and challenging so far, partly because I was just learning the ropes and getting myself into trouble.

However I am now level 12, and I have been growing concerns recently that the game is becoming too easy, partly because of my own recent experiences, and partly because of some unsettling info that I keep reading about on this forum while I was playing the game.

Sure, I know that 12 is still low and there are still plenty of creatures in MW who can kill me in 1-2 hits, not to mention expansions that supposed to be much tougher. But... something just doesn't feel right. But what really bothers me is that I've recently read several stories about people who were avoiding powergaming like me, while playing on 100% difficulty, and still feel the game is way too easy for them once they are getting closer to middle or endgame.


So after long consideration, I am thinking of starting new game with new char, but this time using bunch of great difficulty raising mods. Unfortunately there are so many of them, and each has some pluses and minuses, as far as I can tell. And it is extremely difficult to me to choose the right ones for my situation, partly because I haven't even finished a single MW game yet.


Luckily for me after long search I finally find this great thread.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.p...topic=85560&hl=


Most of the mods that he mentioned I already heard about and some even downloaded but never installed. However even more valuable for me was his description of how these mods could be tweakened to and combined together to provide best epxereince, as well as other people's comments and suggestions. A fantastic thread, and thank you very much HotFusion for starting it!

I am going to take a close look at each of the mods and try to see which would work best for me. I don't think I'll install all of them, because (as much as I hate to admit it!!!), HotFusion seem to be a bit more hardcore than even me. Besides obviously he has 1000 times more MW experience than me and knows the game very well, being one of the very talented moders, so what could be "very challenging" experience for him could mean "masochistic, bordering on total impossibility" for me. (( Nevertheless, I am going to use many mods from his lists, just need to decide which ones.


Meanwhile any comments or suggestions for me from any of the experienced players and modders would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you very much for reading this long post.

Regards,
Stormbinder

This post has been edited by Stormbinder: May 26 2005, 10:25 PM

One mod I think you might consider is Morrowind Guild Services. It's available through TheLys, and makes MW guilds behave in a fashion resembling Daggerfall--in other words, you get more services as you rise in guild status. Hardly anybody knows about or promotes this mod, but it performs admirably. I use it along with the Wakim's Game Improvements: faction module to increase entry requirements for guilds.

Here are the mods from his list that I believe would work very well together and do a good job for you. Not all the mods on his list will be compatible, you should stick to these in my opinion:

-Galsiah’s Character Development
-Wakim’s Game Improvements
-Giants Ultimate
-Taddeus’ Balanced Weapons
-Taddeus’ Balanced Armors
-Spell Target Speed Mod
-EcoAdjusterBeta: All ( I've never heard of them tho but I guess they could be good )
-MagickaBasedSkillProgession

I'll also add:

-Tejón's Fatigue Effects

-Morrowind Enhanced with Combat and Blocking Enhanced will let you adjust the strength and health of the monsters, so if you start to feel they're too easy, just move the sliders to right, also, assing the Block skill to your left mouse button, so your character will block only while you're about to swing, so you can charge and block then counter attack.

-Multiple Teleport Marking is a must, don't think of it as a cheat, think of it as a time saver so you can spend more time ENJOYING morrowind instead of running back and forth to places you've already been 10 times.

-TechNiko

One more to think of is Zapparas "Tombs Expanded" preferably with the Undead!

Hmm on second thought you might want his "disturb the dead" too!
http://www.kotiposti.net/zappara/downloads.php

I'm still working on figuring out which mod caused this but after I installed about 20+ mods at once almost ALL of the creatures (minus scribs, rats, etc.) were extremely difficult to beat. I only installed two creature mods though and the only one that described such a monster tweak was the Nightmare Mod.

I couldn't find a link for it but here's one for some other balancing mods: http://files.tessource.net/files.php?cat=4

I agree on the claim that Morrowind gets too easy too early. Regarding unmodded Morrowind, I'd say it's balanced for the first 15 levels, once you get above level 20 there isn't much of a challenge left.
Additionally the game has a lot of loopholes, which you might not figure out instantly, but you will pretty soon. Fortunately most of those loopholes can be easily avoided.

Overall balance is not an overly strong part of the original game. Difficult early on, and suddenly everything gets too easy. To counter that, both the official expansions and some mods add new ultra-tough high-level monster. This is an inflation of power on the player side, countered by inflation of power on the monster side. That concept never works.

However, keep in mind Morrowind is not only targeted at the hardcore RPG fans out there, but also at a legion of XBox players who - in my experience - often lack the patience to play something which is overly complex. XBox and PC players are different types of folks. I'd guess Bethedsa wouldn't be able to survive on the business with few hardcore RPG players only, so it's not really a flame saying balance is lacking.

Well, fortunately you came to the right place, as Morrowind mod indeed can improve the situation significantly - though don't expect mods to fix all and every flaw in the game.

There are tons of mods out. The art is to find those YOU want and YOU consider fitting your style. You did not ask the usual "What's the best mods??!" question, that speaks highly of you. :*) - There is no such thing as "best mods", only mods you or I or someone else like best.

Concerning balancing mods, I suggest looking over this page:
http://www.mwmythicmods.com/realism.htm and pick some which sound interesting to you.

My personal favourites for balance are:

* Galsiahs Character Development, which drastically changes the levelling system. You can install this into a running game, but might prefer to start a new character as especially the first levels are quite fun with this.
* Wakims Game Improvement fix a lot little gameplay settings.
* Taddeus Balance Pack (armours, weapons, items, alchemy etc.) adjust lots of items, especially tuning down some insanely expensive and powerful weapons/armors and tuning up formerly weak weapons. (Ever wonder how the Legions conquered Tamriel with those sucky broadswords and platemails?) - In short, it closes the gap between low-end and high-end stuff which is IMO ridiculous in the original game.
* CompleteTradeFix is an attempt to counter some of the most glaring loopholes in the trading system (other people prefer EcoAdjuster instead or additional to CompleteTradeFix, but I havn't tried it yet myself). It is partly successful, partly not. But you can only do so much with modding, and you cannot fix a system which is completely broken by design (rather: lack of design).

I would not want to play without those four mods anymore, those four I personally consider must-have. But lots more on the Realism page waiting for you. Good luck. :*)

You may want to check out Horatio's NPC Enhanced. Being one of the "Enhanced" series of Mods, it'll need the Morrowind Enhanced Helper Application running in the background, but it's well worth it. One of it's major selling points is that it'll detect when an NPC has gotten stuck on a poor pathfinding grid, and will unstick them automatically.

Thanks a lot to everyone who replied to my post. Your input and suggestions have been very valuable for me. I'll take a close look into each of the mods that you have suggested.


Right now I have already started to download/install several mods from this thread as well as from HotFusion's hardcore thread and Tejon "Balance/realism" thread, preparing my "fresh start" for my first hardcore mod-enhanced Morrowind game.

I will definetly have several questions regarding some of these mods later on, their best order of installation, leveled lists, merged object lists, etc.


Right now I have few questions regarding mods that have been mentioned in this and other threads:

1.



Where can I get this mod? I've searched several sites and forums but couldn't find it.


2.


I spend a long time researching these two mods, since a lot of people speak highly of them. But I am still not sure if I want them in my first complete game of MW. Don't get me wrong, I believe the idea is very solid and the execution was done very accurately. True work of highly skilled modder. But I can't shake the feeling that perhaps the balancing went a bit too far toward flattening power curve (which by itself is a very god idea IMHO). I mean when I looked in the weapon .xls tables (btw it was very nice of Taddeus to provide them for user's convenience), it seem that the top end weapon (Daedra) is only 50% better than the cheapest one (Iron) in this weapon mod. The original difference was 5 times better (500%). So the power curve was flattened by the factor of 10.

I could easily be wrong here, but I can't shake the feeling that perhaps it went a bit too far. I mean, let's look at it from realism/RPG point of view - after my character would adventure for hundreds of hours in the MW world, raising from pitiful lvl 1 commoner to a powerful hero, the best and rarest not-unique weapon available in game is would only deal 50% more damage than the crappy iron one I have started with on lvl 1??? For example 13 average damage (6-22) on Daedra Longsword vs 9 average damage (1-18) on Iron Longsword? I mean - I am all out for faltering power curve in weapon and armor, and 500% difference was clearly too much.

Also the original enchantment difference between Daedric weapon and Iron one was 300%. (60 vs 180) Now it is zero - both have the same amount of enchantment points. (100 vs 100)

I guess what I am asking is this - am I the only one who feel that maybe it is a little bit of overkill? Perhaps there some "light" version of Taddeus’ Balanced Armor/Weapons mod? Or am I missing something important here?

NOTE: Please keep in mind that these are just my personal feeling, in no way meant to disrespect excellent work done by Tadeush. Also I fully realize that I can easily be wrong here, since current experience with MW is still quite limited comparable to veteran players. So any corrections or comments would be most welcome.

3. It would be great to know the opinions of experienced players on my "houserules", listed on my first post in this thread. Of course I realize that there are no "right" or "wrong" way to play Morrowind, everybody should create any houserules that he/she is comfortable with. However I really would like to know if these rules make sense in eyes of more experienced Morrowind players, and if I have missed something. My goal, as I stated earlier, is to have very realistic and challenging game experience.



I will post more questions later on.

Thank you,
Stormbinder

This post has been edited by Stormbinder: May 26 2005, 09:10 PM

Couldn't find it on TheLys or Summit unfortunately. Could you provide the link to this mod please?

It is actually called Service Requirement, not Guild Services.

Service Requirements on TheLys

This post has been edited by Heaven and Earth: May 26 2005, 09:51 PM

You're actually right about Taddeus’ balanced mods, if there is no difference of enchantment points between a daedric and iron weapon, then it's just stupid, might as well have deleted every weapons but iron ones it would have done almost the same.

And I who wanted to try them in my next game... What you should do is maybe balance the weapons yourself, yeah I know it would take a while but for the sake of having a better game to play I myself modify alot of things for my personal games, never to be released to the public as the changes i make individually would unbalance other people's games. You have the tools for customizing it to your liking so why not do it? I myself modified every weapon I'm likely to use, so only LongSwords and Darts in the case of my next game. I gave much more thrusting damage and lowered chop and slash, since I want to run into my ennemies.

I suppose you could download Taddeus’ balanced mods and alter them, leave all the weapons and armors you plan not to use alone, and change the high-quality weapons you WILL use back to their original value or at least closer. Anyways that's what I'm going to do =)

-TechNiko

Great tip, thank you SC_Wolf! I am a bit afraid to install a beta mod since I am a beginer mod user, but I'll certnaly keep an eye on that mod. If it will indeed manage to do what it is intended to do, I imagine it would become a "MUST HAVE" on everybody's mod list.



Got it, thank you Heaven and Earth.

This post has been edited by Stormbinder: May 26 2005, 10:01 PM

Thanks TechNiko, There are few modes that you mentioned that I haven't downloded yet, I am looking into them.



I think I have the final version of them, called Economy Abjusters by HotFusion, v1.0. I will probably use all of them except merchant .esp, since based upon what I could found out it is using scripts that removes merchants first response and screws few quests. I'll use "Economy/Trade Fixes v 1.5" by PirateLord instead to raise mercantile skills on merchants, which I hope will make economy a bit more realistic.

This post has been edited by Stormbinder: May 26 2005, 10:11 PM

Some thoughts on your houserules:

1. Fine - though if you add difficulty enhancing mods you might want to consider going somewhere in between 50 and 100.

(2 & 5) With most misc skills at 5, you either need to use trainers, or use the skills in safe artificial situations to get them started. Neither of these should be viewed as a cheat / loophole. Using trainers is probably the more satisfying method until you've reached a skill of perhaps 15 to 20. Giving yourself a start with trainers is what your character would do (if he's sensible). With economy balancing mods, training is more expensive, and money harder to acquire, so getting a start by training a misc skill will require a lot of effort in getting the funds.
GCD (if you use it) will also eventually make training in many skills impossible, due to attribute limitations. It will also make training misc skills at high levels prohibitively expensive (indirectly).
Once you have balanced training, you needn't avoid it on principle - you can just avoid it because you don't have money to burn .

Using training to get a start on some skills will hopefully help you to avoid the temptation to let rats bite your ankles until you're reasonably skilled. This should probably be avoided (though I'm occasionally guilty of this ).

3. This can be balanced to a degree using balance mods, but eventually you'll have to use some restraint. This is a good idea - 100% chameleon is not fun for more than a few minutes.

4. Most of this isn't necessary to enforce in game - you can restrict the amount of ingredients by using merchant balancing mods (e.g. PirateLord's complete trade fix, Hotfusion's economy adjusters), and by using a herbalism mod, e.g. advanced herbalism. There are mods to make player made potions worthless.

6. The only complete no-no is intelligence potion stacking. I wouldn't worry about spell stacking - powerful spells should be very effective on a temporary basis. Powerful item effect stacking should usually be avoided. You also should avoid some exploit type spells / spell effects - e.g. calm humanoid / creature magnitude 1, duration e.g. 30 seconds: this is fairly cheap, and totally incapacitates your opponent, without any worry of reflection - don't do it .

7. Either Madd leveler or GCD will completely solve this problem. You should definitely use one of them. I won't suggest which one - I'm a bit biased .

8. Often necessary, but not always - it's reasonable that climbing a wall / pile of steep rocks should aford protection from e.g. a wild guar.

9. Hotfusions economy mods fix this.

10. I'd go for a custom class myself - it feels much more personal that way. You can't do much that's unbalancing with your class. I'd say that race and birthsign are more important in balance terms.

With economy adjusting mods, it shouldn't generally be necessary to refrain from theft. There are exeptions to this where mods are concerned, however: many items from mods are priced very highly, but are easily stealable, e.g. in the magical weapon shop in Balmora Expanded. [I usually can't resist stealing these anyway - I just feel guilty while I do it .]

I occasionally think of ways to make theft more realistic - e.g. very expensive items should be more securely locked away / guarded / alarmed. Theft of very expensive items should be noticed after a while even if you aren't "caught in the act". Investigators / thugs should be sent to recover such items. Resale of these items in the same area should be impossible (usually)... Implementing this for a specific item wouldn't be hard; doing it in general would be very hard.

At the moment you have to control your kleptomaniacal urges from time to time.

I think you've covered most of the angles. Of course it's best to fix as much as possible using mods, so that you can feel unrestricted while you play. A few things you do still have to avoid though.

This post has been edited by Galsiah: May 26 2005, 10:17 PM

My biggest problem with mods which tweak weapon and armor stats is that modded in weapons are typically designed to fit in with the rest of Morrowind, and so they will suddenly unbalance the game. Also, the numbers you report about Taddeus's mod strike me as incredible overkill.

Now, I play the game for the quests, for the interaction, for the immersion. Balance and challenge are distinctly secondary.

The fact that the game is rather easy I find to be liberating. I can completely ignore my stats and equipment, meaning I can play however I like without losing my ability to finish quests. For me, this means a ridiculous mage of 200+ Willpower and Intelligence, with 45 Strength. I like a really skewed specialist character in this game, and the fact that I don't need to worry about grabbing the greatest item streamlines things for me. These are just my views, for your.... enjoyment? Or mine, I guess.

To Galsiah: Thank you for dropping by to my thread and sharing your thoughts with me. I only recently started getting involved with MW, but I know that your great GCD mod got rave reviews from everybody who has used it. I have downloaded it myself and will almost certain use it for all my future games. (I want to try my 1st complete game with less drastic changes to original system, just so I could appreciate your mod even more when I'll switch to it afterwards ). Nevertheless I've studied your mod and its math carefully after I downloaded, and I can see that overall it is clearly better system than standard Morrowind.


Now about your comments:



<nod> I'll keep it in mind.



Heh. This is a very sound logic. If the mods selection that I'll install will indeed completely fix economy. The problem is as I mentioned above I will probably end up with only some subset of all available economy/balance tweaks. And that may unfortunately exclude some most drastically economy-altering mods, like Tadeush Balance/Armor mods(which reduces Daedra weapons from 100.000+ to few thousands). Also I will probably have to exclude Merchants part from HotFusion Economy mod fix, which conflicts with some in-game quests and mechanics if I understand it correctly. (I'll use all his other Economy fixes though, they are great (including reduction on Daedra/Ebony drops, among other things). And I'll use the PiratesLord's EconomyTradeFixes mod, which supposes to make merchants better by raising their merchant/mercantile skills.

I am sure it'll improve overall economy balance, but do you fill it will be enough to the point that trainers expense would be justified? If it is, than I will have no problem training some of my 5 misc skills to 10-15 if I need to, as long as I'll have to really work to get these money. You are right, if the economy is working it should be perfectly reasonable thing to do.



That would be great. The less artificial restrictions the better. Which herbalism mod would you recommend? I couldn't find Advanced Herbalism mod that you mentioned yet. So far I only found HotFusion EconomyIngredients adjustment mod (as part of his EcoAbjaster package), which I am definitely going to use. Any other Alchemy/Herbalism mods that would make sense for me to use?



Got it, thank you. BTW do similar spells/potions effects stack with each other always or there are some restrictions.



I am not - and as I already said I like your system. ( Although to be completely honest I haven't looked into Madd’s mod yet, since your mod is mentioned much more often as far as I can tell. )



Hmm. Very good point. Damn, I need to remind myself to think more in character despite all my worries about not exploiting the system. Thank you Galsiah.



Right.



Hmm, true. As long as you do not include stuff like Aerobics and Athletics into your primary skills, which would cause you to level very quickly and painlessly (in vanilla MW system), correct? LOL, I guess I am still thinking in terms of Daggerfall, when you could easily make yourself a demi-god by balancing advantages, disadvantages and attributes.

After all I have been playing Breton/Apprentice/Battle Mage, which is probably one of the most powerful combos available, correct? ;( Perhaps I should design something less strong or more specialized for role-playing or balance reasons?

<to be continued...>

This post has been edited by Stormbinder: Yesterday, 12:06 AM

True, if the mods that I am going to use are enough to completely fix economy. Are they?



This should not be a problem for me, since I am avoiding any new content mods at this moment, other than Morrowind Advanced v1.82 which mostly add new monsters and increase difficulty.



LOL. That's exactly how I feel robbing these clueless Morrowind dwellers who let you freely roam through their homes stealing anything that is not nailed down.



That would be a fantastic mod Galsiah. It would remove guilty feeling about exploiting the system, make MW homes feel much more real and would make robbery much more fun all at the same time! But I understand that it might be impossible to do using tools available for moders. Oh well...



The thing is it is very hard to define some houserule thieving system that would make sense. At least I haven't found anything yet, other than not still anything worth more than <insert some arbitrary number> But it feels like a very artificial restriction.

If anybody can think of some good house rule system that would allow some form of restricted stealing please let me know!



I completely agree.



Aye, if something will come up that will feel "cheesy" or too unbalancing I will definitely avoid it


Thank you for the great comments Galsiah, please let me know if you'll have any suggestions or comments .

****************************************************



Anybody else has any comments/suggestions for this set of "houserules" from the 1st post on this thread?


Regards,
Stormbinder

This post has been edited by Stormbinder: Yesterday, 12:04 AM

I don't know about the house rules part, but to make things "balanced" ie; Harder.

A few Ideas/suggestions:

Make places available through journal (given the quest), other wise the doors won't open, and you get immediatly thrown out if you coc

Place someone in every home, it's amazed how many single people live in morrowind, well remedy it.

Those two above will solve two problems.

your a goody two shoes arn't you Stormbiner...

I think not being aloud to generate your own custom class is going too far.

seriously, some of your rules surprised me. However I do agree with you that the game is two easy. My character rules the world now. The only thing that can kill him is about 6 of the rikling raiders in bloodmoon.

but this statement here made me laugh out loud. funniest thing i've heard all day:

"no letting rat chew on my heavy armored leg for few hours to increase Heavy Armor skill"

cheers stormbinder, hope you enjoy the rest of MW.

Not me. My character. And only in my first game. In my next game I may decide to play evil spell-wielding power-hungry berserker. And then the rivers of Morrowind shall turn red with blood of the innocent victims, and the Gods themselves shall weep and turn their faces from the scorchered realm... <evil grin>







Thank you.

This post has been edited by Stormbinder: Yesterday, 01:00 AM

Stormbinder:
Not using GCD or Madd leveler on your first game is probably a good idea - I'd suggest not including many mods which significantly alter gameplay until you know what you like / dislike about the standard system. Not using either on your second game is just criminal .

Of course I prefer GCD, but don't assume that GCD is better than Madd leveler just because you've heard more about it. GCD is newer than ML, so it's bound to be discussed more at the moment (also since I'm still here, and making adjustments, whereas Madd isn't around much any more). This is true of a lot of mods - some of the best are rarely discussed, since they're no longer widely known / the creator is not around. If you think GCD is wonderful, then fair enough, but if you have any misgivings, you should definitely check out ML (you might want to check it out anyway).

EDIT: Link to Madd Leveler

This post has been edited by Galsiah: Yesterday, 07:07 AM

Many of the comments I've seen about the game being too easy come from fighter types using heavy armour & long blades (like Knights and Battlemages). Since they are constantly using the best protection and weaponry, not much can withstand them.

Try playing as a straight Mage with no Magicka regen mods, no armour and no weapons stronger than a silver staff (until you earn your Wizard's staff, or the Staff of Magnus, then you can use those). At difficulty 100, I think you'll find this VERY challenging. Of course, the Alchemy exploits are out (and I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Sri's Alchemy by Srikandi, which removes all possibility of creating Intelligence buffing potions by changing ingredient properties in that regard. Sri's has long been regarded as the standard-bearer for Alchemy adjusting mods). As for an herbalism mod, my favourite is the latest version of Herbalism Redux (1.2, I think). It makes the plant containers more realistic and less annoying, without adding a new Herbalism skill (which I have found to be an FPS drain for relatively little gain).

I don't use Enchanters, either. I do enchant my own items (without buffing potions, although I do wear Mentor's Ring), and I only use self-enchanted items, and those I find in the game.

No armour, no big weapons, no Alchemy exploits, no Magicka regen, no ridiculously over-enchanted items, and a maximized difficulty slider make the game rather challenging. You find yourself relying on spells, weak items, and Magicka-conserving tactics. You also spend good roleplaying time looking around caves and ruins for out-of-the-way places to sleep in order to recover Magicka. It took me four in-game days to complete my first quest to a small Dwemer ruin.

Have fun!

This post has been edited by Vorwoda_the_Black: Yesterday, 01:37 PM

1 mod that might make it harder, dunno if you would agree...

Enemy H2H damage
it changes the hand to hand combat damage from fatigue to health, it pretty much depends on how much more fatigue you have over health, just click the top link in my signature to get to the site with the mod on it

Taddeus Balanced Armors/Weapons is quite controversial, but the main reason why I like it is that it gives *your opponents* good gear. That has a much higher influence on the game than *you* getting better gear. In fact, you are getting way reduced gear because most prominently glass, ebony and daedric isn't anymore riduclous powerful.
Those iron battle axes are no longer crap, you will fear them, especially when going as unarmored or lightly armored (due to the unarmored bug wearing no armor at all isn't feasable) spellcaster. Makes romping through those smuggler holes much more interesting, when you don't anymore laugh at the next orc running towards you with a big axe in his hands. At difficultly 100% that usually means one hit = dead for my mage. Quite fun.

I aggree with that, when i started plaing i had no mods till level 15

I think it's the definition of early that's causing the problem. Have you folks ever bothered to read the messages you get during levelup? The devs obviously never intended ordinary characters to get past level 20.

I find their descriptions to be pretty accurate about the difficulty at each level. If you haven't really thought about it, go open the Morrowind.ini file and find the [Level Up] section. It starts talking about things being not so hard as level 5. At level 12, the comment is "You can believe how easy it is." At level 15, they make a comment about growing old. At 18, the comment is about staying at your peak.

Obviously the final messages which talk about being at your peak and not getting better aren't literally true since you can levelup and max out all of your skills and attributes. But I think the concept is that from a practical standpoint by the time you reach level 20 your skills are high enough that you can do anything and gaining more experience won't make a practical difference in what you can accomplish.

If you simply play through the main quest while joining a great house and 1-2 other guilds you are very unlikely to reach level 20. I'm sure that's how they envisioned we would play based on in-game dialog and other hints.

Now, if you are like me, and most of you seem to be, deciding to explore absolutely everything and join every faction to do every quest gets us in trouble because we easily pass through level 20 without really trying.

What I find amazing is the competing complaints of "It's too easy." and "Why do they cap skills and attributes at 100 so that all 90th level characters look alike?" We need to remember that we are NOT playing the game the way it was designed. Attempts to balance level 80 characters are doomed to failure. I find that keeping the player within the 5-15 range is much more satisfactory. I actually take almost the opposite approach of others. I alter the learn-by-doing parameters so that you would have to jog around the island an insane number of times to gain a level and then make use of trainers at strategic and role appropriate times to truely manage my levelups. If Caius says "go get training" I do and make sure I gain a level. When other guild officers make a comment about my low skills, I try to fix them but don't otherwise attempt to actively again skills. I focus on the quests and story and find that NOT leveling up much after level 10 actually improves the experience. The biggest problem is my powergamer tendancy which makes this style of play so hard.

Thanks for the reminder, ps33! I did say "with no armour", and I do wear a Wizard Hat or a single cloth bracer or light boots for just that reason - that skill IS broken. But going truly unarmoured (BECAUSE it is broken) does make the game harder!

My characters never wear helms, never wear pauldrons (unless I equip them with a quiver, which I do occasionally), never use shields, never enchant weapons or armor, never use pre-enchanted weapons or armor, never use potions (except for Cure Common Disease and Cure Blight), never use trainers, never use alchemy. They rarely use fast transport.

As if all this didn't make things difficult enough, I also run at least one creature mod (usually Giants, lately PirateLord's Creatures).

In addition I have tweaked the stats of every weapon I might possibly use in a game. I drop the minimum damage of weapons to 1. I remove any enchantment from a weapon or armor I might be likely to use (such as Bipolar Blade). And I slow down the speed of any weapon I might be likely to use. In my game every weapon I use slows down my attack speed.

I always create a custom class and I do it specifically to make the game harder, not easier. For instance, my characters always wield longswords so I make longsword a misc skill.

I tweak every race I play. I remove bonus points. I lower the total number of Attributes from 310 to 280. I change the governing Attribute of every Skill I use to Intelligence (an Attribute I never use) which has the effect of eliminating bonus points.

As you can see, I have no need for so-called 'Balance' mods in my game. It is already fiendishly difficult to accumulate gold or stay alive alive as it is.

This post has been edited by Pseron Wyrd: Yesterday, 04:44 PM

Stormbinder, it sounds like you are a purist, when it comes to playing RPGs. I can respect that. There are tons of mods that add realism to the game, without difficulty. There are others that add more difficulty than realism. I would suggest settling into a mod site and getting a handfull (at least a few dozen) of the realism type mods and the ones that add depth to the game. The essentials, the balances, the fixes, the schedules, the lights, etc.

With all the realism mods installed, it becomes a choice to make the game more interesting for yourself. Many of your points do not require a mod to force teh character, but rather a choice on your part.

This is a common topic on other threads in the general section: whether to powergame or play purist. Restrict your character to a certain personality and therefore restrict the actions to those that align. You mentioned stealing as being 'so hard' to ignore. That is the difficulty you are looking for, not just a bigger monster with a heavier hand.

I used to use difficulty +100, but I find that I much prefer using mods to increase the difficulty. Giants is a good one in that respect.

It's all quite correct what you say. However, at least for myself I find it quite hard to abandon a charcater and start over from scratch. I *do* restart with a new char regulary, but it needs a really good reason for me to do it:
* New great mod which does too many changes
* Reached level 30 or so and it's really boring now
* Various technical problems like overly dirty saves (own fault)

I suppose those of us who follow this forum are interested in more than the vanilla main quest. We want to play lots of mods because we know the rest of the game in and out.

I find it hard to start over because it takes a long time to obtain some things which I usually want to have, and it's mostly a matter of money. When playing with the various trade-fix mods, I find it extremely difficult to for example earn my 5000 septims for the Ashlander tent, the 10000 septims for the ancient blood for Aundae quest (Vampiric Hunger mod), the 12000 septims for a Metal Queen Boutique outfit, the 8000 septims for a Carnithus Armamentarium outfit etc.
I do not complain about the prices, not at all. I do enjoy the fact I consider 3000 septims in cash "rich", a ridiculous thought for all those who sell daedric loot in 24-hours delays to mudcrab. I want it that way. But it takes a lot of real-life time to get a character going with all sort of nice gear and gimmicks. And trashing that because the level counter reached 20 is often a bit too much for me.
I find the approx 5-15 range the most fun in the game, but getting from 1 to 5 is a tedious and sometimes boring task. Gathering mushrooms for Ajira the umpteenth time gets old. Also so many mods are designed for level 20 and up, or even worse. Inflation of power, not good.
Fortunately, there are mods like Oluhan who are interesting, replayable and can be started at level 1. Those make starting over way easier.

Finally, there is GCD, which is for my taste one of the best mods ever released. It delays the levelup sufficiently enough to stay on the more interesting scale of ~10-15 much longer than with the normal levelling. It forces you to focus on one class to be powerful enough to survive, else be a Jack of all trades which usually doesn't work out. With GCD the game keeps more interesting for a longer time, because it stops those characters who fight like the Imperial Dragon Knight, cast like the Telvanni Archmagister, and steal like the Masterthief - and probably hold all those positions themselves.
With GCD I usually don't even bother to join a guild which isn't in my characters class, and thanks to ServiceRequirements/WGI that means you get much less variety of services. And I never managed to get head of more than two guilds so far with GCD and WGI rank requirements. That's a good thing.

</babble>

Wow. You are certainly right. I imagine with such setup it is very tough just to survive in almost every encounter. It is something I may try once I will beat game few times and will be looking for more challenge.

I am always surprised that people play on beyond level 20.

What is there to do? Sure, there are mods that pit you against uber enemies, but the combat system in MW is so, erm, boring, that such uber battles are a real yawnfest.

I am always starting new characters. It is very rare that a character of mine gets beyond level 10, and never beyond 20. As has been said, it is clearly the intention of the devs to 'cap' the level at 20.

As for a Battlemage, I would disagree that is the strongest class. It is, I find, a bit of a 'jack of all trades' type character. I find pure Mages to be the most powerful character, you just have to have the skill to play them and the discipline to stay in character so you aren't wasting your level ups on miscelaneous tubbish.

Anyway, you folks should really start new characters more often. there is nothing like that fear of entering a new cave........how do you get your buzz without that?

When you get your mods perfect stormbinder, you should make a "hardcore" mod list for other people who are interested in making the game a lot tougher.

Good luck with getting your game perfect

-NuclearDope

Heh. Sure, if there will be interest for it. Although there were two good threads that were very helpful to me, dealing with the same subject. One by Tejin, which I almost managed to hijack recently with my endless questions. Luckily Tejin doesn't seem to mind and has been very helpful. Another by HotFusion, dealing with similar subject.



Thank you. Amazingly enough I am almost there (I think . I just finished reading 3rd large tutorial about MW's moding and have been playing with Construction Set for a while. What I learned so far is not enough to make any complex mods, but hopefully enough to mess up other people's mods, tweaking them the way I want them. And that really expands my horizon as far as creating the "perfect" hardcore setup concerned.


This post has been edited by Stormbinder: Today, 06:46 AM

UPDATE:

While continuing my quest for "perfect" hardcore setup, I accidently stumbled upon very interesting set of houserules. Some were very similar to my own, but some were not. I've decided to adopt few that I liked the most and incorporate them into my own ruleset. Thanks to Aragorn for creating this interesting ruleset. These are the rules I am going to add, quoted from author's homepage:

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Alchemy and Enchantments:

1. Player created effects can never stack. That is, you can not wear two self-enchanted gloves that each give 20% chameleon, or drink two self created potions that both increase your intelligence. You are allowed to stack a self created effect with a game artifact, or to stack effects of multiple artifacts.

2. You can only drink one potion at a time, and you have to wait till the effect animation stops before drinking another potion (about 2 seconds). This nicely takes care of zero casting time of potions. It also adds some realism, since it becomes much harder to drink a potion during a fight (as the monsters get about 2 seconds of time to hit you while you stand helplessly under the shock effect of the potion).

3. In the same vein, you can only cast an enchantment when either the previous enchantment has reached its target, or when more than 2 seconds have passed. This prevents uzi-style enchantment casting.

4. Nor the magnitude of an enchantment, nor the total enchantment points can exceed your base score in the relevant skill. That is, if your destruction skill is 25, you can only enchant fire damage with a maximal magnitude of 25, and with at most 25 enchantment points. If you enchant an item yourself, than the magnitude or enchantment points should exceed neither the base score in the relevant skill, nor the base score of the Enchant skill.

The above rules make the game more interesting and challenging, and they also add some common sense to the game. The rules for enchantments for example make the game artifacts much more interesting since it becomes quite hard to do such enchantments yourself. Furthermore, it is for example much harder to open difficult locks early in the game, since a powerful open-enchantment is way too difficult to get, both in value and in skill level.
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Comment from myself: Personally I always thought that instant cast of unlimited enchantments or unlimited drinking potions are very unrealistic. In almost all serious RPG system that I know (and have played almost all worth mentioning) using item (or drinking potion, whatever) takes some time. It may be faster action than the normal "combat round", but still.... Leisurely drinking 219 Munchkin-Quality Restore Health potions in the middle of combat when huge Ancient Dragon is about to bite your a-rse off is a bit unrealistic in my opinion.

This post has been edited by Stormbinder: Today, 07:17 PM