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About this mod
There are lots of damage adjusters and anti-damage-sponge mods, this one is just my flavor. boosts the multiplier of weapon skill and strength/agility bonus. I ALSO lowered the durability reduction rates and balanced the repair hammer accordingly.
- Permissions and credits
Kill It With Fire - Oblivion
Version: 003 - FINAL
Last Updated: 2018.10.19
Read RED for instructions
Read YELLOW for technical
Read WHITE for banter of technical
Read GREEN for notes on planned changes
Read BLUE for new changes (everything is current now)
If you see MAGENTA find a healer
Version: 003 - FINAL
Last Updated: 2018.10.19
Read RED for instructions
Read YELLOW for technical
Read WHITE for banter of technical
Read GREEN for notes on planned changes
Read BLUE for new changes (everything is current now)
If you see MAGENTA find a healer
Purpose of the Mod
Everyone's favorite section: The "Blah, blah, blah -I'm so smarty greaves! Derp!" But I'll get to the point... I made this for myself, I'm continuing to improve on it and I figured "why not share it if it works?"
We all hate wiffle-batting, HP sponging, Damage sponging... whatever we call it, its the same problem that appears at higher levels in the vanilla game. Traditionally, before modding, I combated it by applying reflect damage/spell sigils to my armor and jewelry. That worked surprisingly well... defensively. Offensively it was still a problem when you use over 200 arrows on a single enemy at level 45 and have to use 2 bows because the first one broke... or more than one sword in a single combat, despite having 100 in the skill and governing attribute... -you get the idea, you've been there. Casting a weakness spell with an enchanted weapon only does so much at 40+ and it still sucks. It's clunky and we all hated it. So we made mods or downloaded them (I loved Deadly Reflex, but I haven't been able to get it to work recently) I've seen a lot of 200% damage alterations to game settings and that works, but it creates new problems such as more frequent stagger on player and enemies as well as causing equipment to degrade at a frustratingly faster rate. This mod aims to solve both these issues at the same time.
So I've done a little more than just that. I've "tried" to balance it all out, even magick to some extent. Spells will, at higher levels cost less. Masters will be able to cast any spell for half the vanilla cost. The change is gradual and only becomes noticeable at levels above journeyman.
Needlessly made an alterations to shrines/alters, effects last 1440 seconds (24 min or "half a day") instead of 300 seconds (5 min or "2.5 hours") so you can actually clear half a dungeon instead of it running out when you get to the cell access point because Bethesda time scales.
1. Seamlessly remove wiffle-batting from the game
- damage upped for all via formulas
-skill progression adjusted in conjunction
2. Adjust equipment condition degradation to NOT be horrible
- equipment degrades less to adjust with damage buff
- repair skill altered to maintain current balance
3. Slight adjustment for casters
- magicka costs
- magickal projectile speed change
4. Fluff
- Alter and Shrine buffs
- Slight boost to mercantile
I have tested my current work up to level 39. I'm content to see it the way it is all the way to my cap build at 50. Right now there still is a little bit of wiffing albiet A-LOT less of it. Overall creatures... some creatures don't use the same damage formula. But honestly a lot of them pack a punch anyway, or have a stumble chance bonus that opens you up in a fight. Some enemies cap, others match against player level. A non-magickal Warrior is capable of general survival (that is with no enchantments or magick). Battle-mage builds are still the OP solution. And now, Assassins are actually feasible. Marksman doesn't suck AS MUCH anymore either. Sneak attacking is OP, sort of as it should be. But I don't want to play with detection since other mods do that nicely already. It's done. Enjoy. Details below.
Requirements
NONE
NONE
Compatibility
Plays very well with any armor/weapon mods. I only changed game settings, skill descriptions, the repair hammer and spells associated with alters/shrines. When in doubt, check TES4Edit for specific mods you use. I don't advise mixing damage altering mods (they'll stack or override each other)
Load after Unofficial Patches but before all other mods and it's good.
Weapon Damage Changes
Typically, people like to simply remove a certain multiplier making it 1.0 instead of 0.5 just doubling weapon damage. Overall this is fine, but I feel that skill and attributes should better determine damage. At level 15 it's a little too easy with a blade skill of 80 and a strength of 90, enemies aren't quite keeping up at normal difficulty. Also: this makes equipment for the player degrade faster in combat. It's not terribly well planned without the next section taken into consideration.
I'll be blunt: if you're using a weapon skill below 13, you will do negative damage. that is to say, zero. But lets face it. You're probably trying to level the skill anyway so it's fine. you get access to hands from the get-go and a choice of blunt, blade and bow almost immediately after the two rats appear and the wall breaks. it's fine...
Vanilla
Damage = BaseWeaponDamage * 0.5 * ( 0.75 + Strength (or Agility) * 0.005 ) * ( 0.2 + Weapon Skill * 0.015 )
That's 106.25% base weapon damage
Unarmed's "limit" was 15
Skill Gain Melee = 0.50, Unarmed = 0.60, Marksman = 0.80
TES4_KIWF
Damage = BaseWeaponDamage * 0.5 * ( 0.5 + Strength (or Agility) * 0.0075 ) * ( -0.5 + Weapon Skill * 0.05 ) (yes, that's a negative)
That's 281.25% base weapon damage (at 100 and 100)
Unarmed's "limit" is now 30 (you need skill AND Strength for this to be truly noticeable)
Skill Gain Melee = 0.85, Unarmed = 0.95, Marksman = 1.25 (to compensate hitting less for more)
Total change
If Str/Agi = 30 and Skill = 30 (lowest for any build out of the prison), a solid 123.93% against original. (best i could do to preserve formula balance)
If Str/Agi = 100 and Skill = 100 (highest attainable), you get the 281.25% which is 164.71% above vanilla max.
What the original formula sought to do was make it so strength played a bigger role in damage before you were journeyman in the weapon skill. I have done my best to preserve that with the formula and this is the result to remove wiffle batting at higher levels. To be fair. the original formula was perfect for up to level 25 (sticking to main quest and reasonable side-questing) which was likely the original aim. But thanks to the expansions, 35 and beyond... was likely. And for those of us who played longer, then 50 and up to 55 other possible combos aside with class/race building, was the actual limit. This new formula is designed for that while trying to maintain early leveling.
Sneak Attack
Brotherhood assassination was a bit of a joke... sure, Poison could help, but even with a 100 alchemy skill there was still a limit. but at 100 blade and a 100 sneak with the best potion I had still resulted in the need to whack away with a one handed blade for a while. Archery was of course still a nightmare.
Vanilla Sneak Bonus
Melee Novice 4x, Apprentice 6x, Master Ignore Armor
Ranged Novice 2x, Apprentice 3x, Master Ignore Armor
TES4_KIWF
Melee Novice 4x, Apprentice 6x, Journeyman 8x, Expert 10x, Master Ignore Armor
Ranged Novice 2x, Apprentice 3x, Journeyman 4x, Expert 5x, Master Ignore Armor
Changes were made to settings existing fSneak* functions, previously capped at 6 and 3 (Despite skill description saying 4x for melee)
Now you can "rely" on sneak to do a lot of the damage. This can become broken, but I might make draw back changes. So far it's comparable with the rates at which Fallout 4 rates which are actually better for this HP scaling. With damage changes and a lot of leveling, I don't think I need to alter this one bit unless I have to cut it back later. A power attack sneak attack at master should one-hit most opponents. If you supplement with poison then it'll be a bit as well.
Blocking, Stagger, Defense
Armor values have not changed. I'm keeping it where it is. The formula for damage is fine, just stack shield magick like we've been doing. It's immersive. It all caps at 85% anyway unless you have over 100% reflect damage. You can intentionally break it with or without my mod. I just wanted to make a change early on so the damage buffs didn't get you killed and when your enemy blocks it means something too.
Vanilla
fBlockMax = 0.750
fBlockAmountWeaponMulti = 0.500
fBlockAmountHandToHandMulti = 0.250
fKnockbackDamageBase = 50.000
Skill Gain Block = 1.25
TES4_KIWF
fBlockMax = 0.95 (don't want you to defend forever)
fBlockAmountWeaponMulti = 0.70
fBlockAmountHandToHandMulti = 0.40
fKnockbackDamageBase = 100.000
Skill Gain Block = 2.00 (to compensate being hit for more)
Total Change
Blocking is more effective than not blocking... In combat, staggering occurs about as often as it does in vanilla.
Needed to be adjusted at least slightly with new damage levels, otherwise reckless attack spamming is better than defense.
Weapon/Armor Condition
Other mods I've seen don't completely factor this in, so double damage means repairing your gear three times more and more often because the very high damage exceeds the protection value so much that it causes significantly more wear and tear. I don't see any mention of this new problem anywhere. Probably because there's a condition remover mod I have not seen yet... I don't know, but I make it work the following way.
Vanilla
fDamageToWeaponPercentage = 0.06
fDamageToWeaponPercentage = 9.00
Skill Repair = Per hit @ 1.50 Exp
Skill Light Armor = 1.50, Heavy Armor = 1.25
TES4_KIWF
fDamageToWeaponPercentage = 0.01
fDamageToWeaponPercentage = 1.50
Skill Repair = Per hit @ 3.25 Exp (to better match the rate of how often you'll want/need to repair)
Skill Light Armor = 3.00, Heavy Armor = 2.50 (to compensate being hit less, combat proceeds MUCH faster)
Total Change
1/6 the vanilla degradation rate, approximately 1/4 to 1/2 degradation rate experienced with NEW damage settings
I think this works splendidly. Because there's no changes directly made to weapons and armor, standalone weapons and armors will also be positively affected by this change. It's all-around ballstastic. The only downside is that in practice, the armorer skill can be abused to level it quickly whenever the value is 99% or lower. as every hit is now more than twice the EXP. Repairing is still = Skill + 3 and has the same chances of breaking and float variables.
Magick Changes
Magicka costs decreased... ever so slightly. Only noticeable at lvl 50 with any spell skill, more noticeable at 75, definitely noticeable at 100. Essentially since I am adamant about altering spell damage directly, I'm going the skyrim strategy of making them cheaper to cast so a mage can spam them to do more damage. But that's just wiffle batting with magic. Custom spells change everything, so no further changes will be made here.
Vanilla
Cost = BaseCost * (1.4 - 0.012 * Skill)
TES4_KIWF
Cost = BaseCost * (1.4 - 0.013 * Skill)
Total change
100 magicka @ 25 skill110 (Vanilla)107.5 (KIWF)
100 @ 508075.0
100 @ 755042.5
100 @ 1002010.0
If you've played Morrowind and Skyrim, you'll know that in oblivion, offensive magick was overpowered while utility was nerfed (ie. destruction spells more devistating, but no jump/levi spells). This change was made because combat just got 2.5x quicker with enemies at max levels.
Alters and Shrines
Blessings no longer last 300 seconds, they last 1440 seconds. So basically you can enjoy the blessings of the divines all day. OF COURSE the deadra way more potent higher beings than the divines considering they give us relics which last forever. But I feel like a divine blessing should last long enough so that you can clear a dungeon or two instead of having it wear off as soon as you get to the door of the first one. "My faith is my shield."
Attribute Blessings
5 (Vanilla to 10 (TES4_KIWF)
HP/MGK/FTG Blessings
10 (Vanilla) to 25 (TES4_KIWF)
All Blessings now last 1440 seconds (24 Minutes) instead of 300 (5 Minutes)
Other Changes
Boosted mercantile by 25% because... well. i have probably sold as much loot as i have slashed at things in vanilla and damn. Even with stealth as a class priority, it was advancing way too slowly to be of any real use. it's slight enough that it's not horrible either.
Vanilla
Skill Gain Mercantile = 0.4000
TES4_KIWF
Skill Gain Mercantile = 0.5000 (25% boost)
No others. It's finished.
Go find a healer.