A thanks, and thoughts on Leveled Lists

[ShirraWhitefur]

Greetings!

First off, I just wanted to say.. Thank you for an amazing amount of hard work done, thank you for the beautiful nature of the work, and most importantly... Thank you for sharing it with others.

I've been fiddling around with RealSwords, all the current bits in my install, and definitely been enjoying it. Even the models that don't make me 'bounce for joy' don't make me upset either because, appropriately enough, they look like real weapons. They don't just spit in the face of logic. And the 'nifty' ones are that, darn nifty, yet still functional designs. Considering that I killed over a month's time on cobbling together my install, making the mods play nice with each other, and realizing just maybe that having around a hundred mods may just be a tad bit of overkill... (... Nah! ^_^), I finally got around to playing. So for the last two weeks, I've been taking note of what works nicely, and what doesn't.
Unfortunately, Realswords, for me, is falling in to both categories at the same time. Main problem.. "balance". Kinda. Before stabbing a finger at the lil' FAQ, please allow me to ramble.
The balance issue is that every race with a RealSwords set is drastically more dangerous than one without. Weapon damage is, in general, on the x3 level, with the "Low" damage NPC esp set. And it just gets higher from there, quickly. Even this isn't too much of a problem, beyond that it enables me to get my grubby mitts on high powered weapons faster. The compounded problem is that they also sell for quite a large amount of funds, making it far to easy to get stinking rich by, in my two test cases, level five.. and that's with a merchant altering mod to make thier funds run out, like Living Economy.

But the swords.. mmm.. I refuse to take such nice work out! Now, I did a spot of reading in the forums (and unfortunately don't have the proper amount of patience to read through every single past post, I apologize), and I noticed an answer to why they weren't in a standard leveled list. The whole attempt to make 'em match up to the specific races.

Well.. That's all well and good, but as it stands, it (A) lacks the leveled progression in any way shape or form. Yes, this means your best work shows up around the times of gaudy elven, glass, and daedric. ... I don't see a problem here though, as it means we get beautiful alternatives to it, and we don't have so many -bandits- sporting blades of unexpected materials. That's my personal opinion. It also means that my economy doesn't go screaming out of whack, and that potential damage and foes and the like stay relatively smoothly on par with normal.
And (B), as nice as it is having the bandits toting gear that gives them racial bonuses, I cannot see them logically always having race-matched gear. I always got that 'hodge-podge of gear' feel from them before, and was comfortable with that. Therefor, a leveled list again works for me.
I could also easily see, once the mod is 'all done', an ESP setup like Tamrial NPC Faces Revamped mod does.. which can be merged via Wrye Bash to alter the visage of 1200 NPC faces, without borking the NPCs. It crosses my mind that adding specific weapons to NPCs as appropriate could be done in a similar fashion, though might need a hand from the maker of Wrye Bash to impliment a new merger type. But that's long term, far down the line idea.

Now, back through another point garnered from reading, something I should do a tad more often. If I'm all hot for a leveled list setup, I know who -not- to pester. Waalx. You've got more than enough on your plate already, you've already mentioned that it's not how you want to do it, and I respect that heartily. My question comes at.. if someone -else- decides to work up a leveled list style .esp for each module of RealSwords separately, would you, after some approval garnering testing from the forum goers, include them with your packaged versions? I'm not saying that I'm really up to the task myself (Though I'm thinking of giving it a go.), I'm mostly trying to open a door for someone who's good at such, and wants to contribute.

Anyhow! Thanks again for the time, and for the sharing of wonderful work. If it wasn't so darn good, I wouldn't be having to figure out a nice way to do this! ^_^

- Shirra Whitefur

[Mormacil]

You know that changing each RS plugin with a levelled list makes them incompatable with eachother and other mods that change the same levellists?

[ShirraWhitefur]

You know that changing each RS plugin with a levelled list makes them incompatable with eachother and other mods that change the same levellists?

Actually, no, I didn't know that. I was under the assumption that Wyre Bash, much like the older merging tool for Morrowind, would be able to combine those leveled list additions easily. As for those not using Wyre Bash.. Well.. I really can't say I even recommend not using it at all. :shrug: I suppose for them, a 'for all the current release together' esp would have to be made, but it'd -still- be incompatible with other level list changers, and once again, I find myself going, 'Why aren't you using Wyre Bash?'.

Still, I'm mostly looking for permission for making and releasing, an' purpose for making, on the addition of something like this. You have a good point though.. I've got an urge now to make a few test setups that all modify the same leveled lists, and see how well Wyre -does- handle them..

- Shirra

[Mormacil]

Yes Wrye Bash can fix it but not all use, also know all will be added to a levelled list in time, when RS is complete.

[Waalx]

nothing can be combined in the Released RS mods. The level lists of the characters are removed in Realswords, there is NO lists anymore. each NPC weapon is chosen. Regardless of the level, but with who they are. RealSwords is unleveled.

Having high damage weapons 'appear' by enchantment only later is not real in my opinion. They should always be there. and always dangerous. The more you progress for you and the npc too. So no more epic battle against rats if you get a good blade even at level 1. It change some dynamic in the game and that's why several bug are still there to figure out.

although when all the thing will be complete it should work better. Some things are in the work that you don't know of too...

The complaints about the money always bug me actually.. even if I say a sword cost 15 000, you cannot sell them for more than a few hundred at times, theses numbers are when the weapons are being bought by you.. And I'd be surprised to learn many people get their mercantile so high that it make a difference at low level. Beside, I understand if you are level 1 in an unreal leveled world where there's only iron that can be found, if you find a high level (non-leveled finally) RealSwords blade it should cost the same as vulgar iron? Thats not realistic. the weight is an issue.

all will be better in the end hopefully.

[Mormacil]

There's a mercentile mod that fixes this issue for the most Waalx. Everything you buy from the Merchant is added to their gold, so buy a lot then they can buy a lot too.

[ShirraWhitefur]

nothing can be combined in the Released RS mods. The level lists of the characters are removed in Realswords, there is NO lists anymore. each NPC weapon is chosen. Regardless of the level, but with who they are. RealSwords is unleveled.

Mmm.. And while some of us are really into the unleveled game style, like my friend that I help with install setups, I'm not particularly interested in that setup unfortunately. Which is why I'm just hunting for an okay to make another option.

Having high damage weapons 'appear' by enchantment only later is not real in my opinion. They should always be there. and always dangerous. The more you progress for you and the npc too. So no more epic battle against rats if you get a good blade even at level 1. It change some dynamic in the game and that's why several bug are still there to figure out.

I agree, it's heartily unrealistic, the leveled list method. It also happens to work to a degree.. Basically one either needs to have most all things on leveled lists... or everything -off- from it, for it to work well though. The middle ground is the problem that upsets things, at least for me.

The complaints about the money always bug me actually.. even if I say a sword cost 15 000, you cannot sell them for more than a few hundred at times, theses numbers are when the weapons are being bought by you.. And I'd be surprised to learn many people get their mercantile so high that it make a difference at low level. Beside, I understand if you are level 1 in an unreal leveled world where there's only iron that can be found, if you find a high level (non-leveled finally) RealSwords blade it should cost the same as vulgar iron? Thats not realistic. the weight is an issue.

all will be better in the end hopefully.

As it stands, it's pretty darn good already! ^_^
But as for fundage.. even with the merchant's gold depleting in the mod, so you can't even sell more than one to three at a time.. you can just make the rounds through the merchants of the various cities to offload them. And even if it's only 500-1,000 per blade.. you're getting them left and right from easy to pick off banditry, made all the easier by the same blades your selling. On average, the fights ended in two or three swings. It gets even worse with sneak-backstab style characters. If this was purely unleveled, and we'd be coming across high end critters with the same chance as low end.. Then this would be perfectly fine. But as it is, it's making early game parts an absolute cakewalk, and it just sorta bothers me.
As for the cost of the weapons themselves.. those are perfectly -fine-. The weight, I'm not sure on, but it hasn't been something that bothered me, as it looks close enough. If it's 1-5 off from what it 'should be' for a sword of matching shape in real life.. it's really not that bad, considering the improvement against the vastly skewed default gear. It's not the weapon damage itself, or the cost.. it's the availability of them that's causing things to be a problem in a world otherwise run via the leveled list method.

As it stands though, considering I'm finding the game far too easy again (something I was trying to avoid), I'm going to look into various methods of killing the leveled lists off entirely, and see if that ends up being too brutal to get through or not. If I go that route.. I'm going to have to go digging in other topics and see if anyone else has things to help compatible placement to NPCs for the weapons for some of the non-leveled setups.

In any case.. Thank you again Waalx for making something darn nifty. Nifty enough to actually make me want to hassle redoing all my efforts at setting things up yet again, just because your work is too good to pass up on. It's been great to see the results so far, I and many others are waiting anxiously to see your next release. ^_^

- Shirra

[Waalx]

Don't get me wrong, there will some sort of leveled system. just later-on. Now it is unleveled completely. Later-on there will be ameliorations that will patch the present problems.

but as I said there is something that is being worked on and that will change things. I have a worn version of many of my textures now, almost every blades have an old version...and that is going to be included in the next update of the mods. there will also be a single download available in the near future, one that hold all that is out already in one esp only. I have it here but it need more work, and...

more. later...

[ShirraWhitefur]

Don't get me wrong, there will some sort of leveled system. just later-on. Now it is unleveled completely. Later-on there will be ameliorations that will patch the present problems.

Ahh, alright! You'll pardon hopefully if I didn't catch on to your plans, I can be a little slow in understanding at times.

but as I said there is something that is being worked on and that will change things. I have a worn version of many of my textures now, almost every blades have an old version...and that is going to be included in the next update of the mods. there will also be a single download available in the near future, one that hold all that is out already in one esp only. I have it here but it need more work, and...

more. later...

That's wonderful news to hear indeed. I'll be honest, when this project finishes up, with the plethora of weapons you've made for each race.. I might think about removing most of the default weapons entirely from any of the random usage lists, aside from possibly the draedric ones being used -by- daedra. ^_^

Anyhow, time for me to get back to enjoying what's already done. Take it easy and try to have fun!

- Shirra

[Haruko]

Waalx does work in mysterious ways ^^ though I think this question was already answered in the FAQ section, though the avarage Forum poster doesn't read it

[ShirraWhitefur]

Waalx does work in mysterious ways ^^ though I think this question was already answered in the FAQ section, though the avarage Forum poster doesn't read it lol

Sorta-kinda covered in the FAQ, which was why I was initially leary of asking. I was trying to get permission to make a leveled list add-on, and also see if Waalx would want to include it in the plugins. By no means did I want to hassle them with the effort of making it (especially when it's not how they wanted it!), which is the main difference to me. ;)

- Shirra

[Haruko]

no worries, I wasn't trying to be harsh or anything, but there is no need as if it does come down to it by the final release it will be implimented. Waalx may need some help before this is all over, and if that's something you can do then he may ask it of you.