Morrowind

About this mod

Morrowind Balance Overhaul is a modular, lightweight, and true-to-the-vanilla-game set of balance adjustments, made to encourage playstyle diversity and interactivity.

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Changelogs
Morrowind Balance Overhaul
by Chantox

Created for the May Modathon 2019.

Morrowind Balance Overhaul is designed to be a highly modular, lightweight set of balance tweaks, made to encourage playstyle diversity -and character growth- while neutering options that would otherwise make the player's power steamroll (or undermine interactivity). The philosophy throughtout all these changes is that for the game to hold player decisions as valuable, every decision must first be viable; that is to say, for the player to get meaningful interactions in gameplay, the player's options must not only be powerful, but plentiful. The mod is balanced around the vanilla game - it may be a little harder late in the game as you can't make game-breaking setups as easily.

        The mod is split into many modules, so if you have an issue with balance, look through them! Or, if you trust me very much, go for a full install.


As it stands, MBO has the following modules (more details on these, as well as changelogs, are included in the readme):

WRAR (Weapon Range Adjustments and Rebalance): Changes up the range of melee weapons to encourage player skill and weapon knowledge, while simultaneously balancing tons of weapons (and correcting some clear developer mistakes) to ensure each and every option is viable.

MBO core: Covers both magic effects and armor -according to the guidelines at the very top- as to not only balance endgame armors, but try and smooth out the curve of armor acquisition so you aren't, for example, stuck with a 15 AR or so set for most of the game before jumping straight to a 50 AR one later down the line, as was the case with light armor. Magic and armor is included here in one module because, with the amount of enchanted armor and clothing items, I feel like changing any one of these necessitates changing the other. Additionally, due to the scope of this module, I've included all random tweaks that otherwise wouldn't merit their own module, here, thus making this the "core", though it is not required to install the other modules.

MBO Races: Changes up the races to be, quite simply, unique and balanced. Most race mods get the "unique" part down perfectly, and provide great, fun gameplay for the changed races. However, all race mods I've seen don't address the balance issues between races, meaning what uniqueness may be provided usually dies off in favor of the existing (and skewed) power balance between the vanilla races and spell effects. MBO Races boasts gameplay balance over other mods, but also holds its own vision of each race's strengths and weaknesses I hope you'll enjoy, in concept and in gameplay.

Fair State-Based HP: A modification of Talrivian's State-Based HP which not only fixes abnormally high lategame HP values, but introduces diminishing gains on endurance to prevent punishing players who would opt to not rush this attribute straight to 100. With this, endurance does what it's supposed to, while being as strong an attribute as any.

Adjusted Movement and Fatigue: Increases base movement speed, while leaving movement at 100 speed and athletics no faster than before. Additionally, it increases sneaking speed slightly, and reduces running fatigue costs, while shifting the fatigue costs onto other actions to keep the base-game fatigue economy intact.

(deprecated: I recommend more modern leveling mods such as MULE: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/47452)
Chantox's Leveling Mod: A twist on the tried-and-tested leveling mod, a la Linora's Leveling Mod or Better Vanilla Leveling. This module takes the attribute gain per level you'd see on an NPC (approx. between 9.5 and 11.5 points per level), and adjusts the attribute multiplier per skill level-up to emulate this, giving you 10-11 attribute points per level. Additionally, attribute multiplier gain for leveling misc skills is removed, to keep said 10-11 points constant, and to remove the cumbersome process of min-maxing (Don't worry! 10-11 attribute points is plenty.)

Adjusted Leveling Speed: Changes the xp gain values on almost all skills, as in the base game, some skills leveled noticeably faster than some others. As per other modules, changelog accompanies the .esp in the mod folder.



Installation

The mod's base directly includes a readme with descriptions of each module, and sub-folders containing each module. To install, simply grab any desired .ESP files, and drop them into your "Morrowind / Data Files" folder. Again, a more specific readme with a list of changes accompanies each module in their subfolder, if you want to see more specific changes.

Compatibility

This mod is purely .esp tweaks, so if you think a mod might conflict with this one, take a look at the changelog, and either let this mod replace, or have another mod replace this one, by putting it lower in your load order. Should have no issues.
I'll be making patches for weapons and armor mods to bring them up to this mod's balancing standards as they come to mind. Feel free to drop a suggestion!

Patches (found in the optional files)

NPC Daedra Patch: Tweaks the values on equipment found in the mod, as well as the new dremora and golden saint NPCs' statistical values and elemental resistances, while also adding new spells to these aforementioned daedra. Additionally, the patch makes it less likely to find daedric gear on the more mundane dremora, and reduces the soul value needed to create a constant effect enchantment to that of any grand soul gem, as golden saints can no longer be soul trapped. Changes to elemental resistance are as follows:

Dremora
  • Reflect effect was completely removed
  • New: 30% Magicka Resist
  • New: 60% Fire Resist
  • New: 40% Frost Resist
  • New: 35% Shock Resist
  • New: 25% Poison Resist

Golden Saint
  • Reflect 20% -> 15%
  • Resist Fire 50% -> 33%
  • Resist Frost 50% -> 33%
  • Resist Shock 50% -> 33%
  • New: 25% Magicka Resist

Siege at Firemoth Patch: Buffs the new magic shield, the ward of akavir, by giving it defense appropiate to MBO core's dragonscale towershield, as well as increasing its luck enchantment, considering how hard the shield is to get.

Expanded LeFemm Armor patch: Introduces the value tweaks on gold armor from MBO core to the new pieces of the armor set in expanded lefemm.



If you have complaints or suggestions of any sort, feel absolutely free to post and/or start a discussion in the mod page.
Feedback is very much appreciated!


Recommended Mods:
NPC Daedra by C4B4L
requires mods by Westly found here and here.
Dremora and Golden Saints are treated as creatures, and can't regularly have armor unless they cast a shield spell. If you want to make these fights any challenge, this mod is heavily recommended. Potential issues are only that you'll be seeing more daedric armor drops, but I personally don't mind, as the mod only assigns this armor to high-level dremora.

Purist Friendly Magicka Regen by Remiros and Greatness7
My favorite magicka regen mod.

Gold Armor Reforged by Bethesda, Moranar, Articus, and Pherim
Great visual mod that, more importantly, features a fixed version of Expanded LeFemm Armor.

Better Governing Attributes by Androl
This one almost comes down to preference, but I think it's pretty great, particularly for any practicers of the security or spear skills.

Immersive Alcohol by Merlord
Great alternative balancing factor for alcoholic beverages.