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About this mod
A balanced, optimised, and compatible alternative to AULIAS. Leveled quest rewards can be updated to your current level in exchange for gold using altars located around Cyrodiil and the Shivering Isles.
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
- Donations
Description
Balanced Leveled Item Upgrade allows you to upgrade your leveled quest rewards using “Altars of Ascension” at various locations in the game. Doing so will cost gold equal to the difference in the leveled item value.
This offers a balanced alternative to mods such as Auto Update Leveled Items and Spells, as it means that there is a cost associated with getting a better version of the item. The cost of upgrading also gives you something to spend your gold on as you level up. The scripting is much simpler than AULIAS and only needs to run when you use the altar, meaning that this mod should be better for performance and stability.
The altars are located at enchanting-themed locations in Cyrodiil and the Shivering Isles, namely:
- Imperial City, The Mystic Emporium
- Leyawiin, Mages Guild
- Bravil, A Warlock’s Luck
- Crucible, Earil’s Mysteries
The Crusader's relics are not affected as they can already be leveled up in the vanilla game for free using the displays in the Priory of the Nine.
This mod purposely does not edit the two leveled spells in the game, as the vanilla scaling and high cost of the spells makes them essentially un-castable for most characters at high levels. Therefore, it is mostly beneficial to recieve and keep them at a low level. It is probably within the scope of another mod to moderate the effects and cost of these spells.
Sigil Stones are also intentionally not affected. Upgrading Sigil Stones would incentivise saving all Sigil Stones until their maximum level rather than actually using them as the game intends. Use Spirit Stones to prevent Sigil Stone meta-gaming instead.
Ramblings:
Spoiler:
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A list of leveled items is available on this page at the UESP (note: this UESP page only covers the base game; the leveled items from DLCs can be found on the respective DLC item pages). These are items that have different stats depending on the level that you obtain them.
There are three sorts of mod that address leveled quest rewards, each of which has its disadvantages:
Contrary to popular belief, the idea of leveled quest rewards is actually somewhat sound. It rewards the player with an item that’s pitched to be ‘good’ for their current level. As the player levels up, the item will become outmatched by other quest rewards and dungeon loot, which incentives exploration and finding new items. This way, the player isn’t stuck using Chillrend for an entire playthrough.
The problem comes when people are overly aware of the system. This can lead to meta-gaming when to complete quests in order to get the best reward, which ruins immersion as the player essentially enforces their own high level requirement on most of the game’s unique content. This makes sense in some ways, as it prevents losing out on a good end-game item, but it comes at the cost of enjoying the game organically.
This mod attempts to strike a balance between the above methods by keeping items leveled, but offering an option of upgrading them for a cost. This cost somewhat balances the fact that you will receive a better item for no additional gameplay challenge.
There are three sorts of mod that address leveled quest rewards, each of which has its disadvantages:
- Auto Update Leveled Items and Spells, which upgrades the items as you level up. The downside to this is that you can complete a quest early in the game and then the item will always level up to be good for your current level, which devalues finding other items in loot. As mentioned before, AULIAS is very script-heavy and needs to constantly be checking the player’s inventory for items to upgrade.
- Mods that simply give you the highest level version of the reward (e.g. Unleveled Quest Rewards, Unleveled Rewards, and Unique Loot Deleveled). This has the obvious flaw of potentially giving you very powerful items at low levels, essentially having the same effect as above but worse. Editing the stats of each item can also cause conflicts.
- Balanced Unleveled Rewards, which gives the items static stats, but not necessarily those of the highest level version. This can also have the same disadvantage as the other static version, as some items will have good stats at low level. However, the benefit of this approach is that most items are balanced for the mid-game, so there is still value to late game dungeon loot.
Contrary to popular belief, the idea of leveled quest rewards is actually somewhat sound. It rewards the player with an item that’s pitched to be ‘good’ for their current level. As the player levels up, the item will become outmatched by other quest rewards and dungeon loot, which incentives exploration and finding new items. This way, the player isn’t stuck using Chillrend for an entire playthrough.
The problem comes when people are overly aware of the system. This can lead to meta-gaming when to complete quests in order to get the best reward, which ruins immersion as the player essentially enforces their own high level requirement on most of the game’s unique content. This makes sense in some ways, as it prevents losing out on a good end-game item, but it comes at the cost of enjoying the game organically.
This mod attempts to strike a balance between the above methods by keeping items leveled, but offering an option of upgrading them for a cost. This cost somewhat balances the fact that you will receive a better item for no additional gameplay challenge.
Installation
This mod requires the xOBSE.
Standard installation procedure: install with your mod manager of choice and activate. I recommend Mod Organizer 2.
The main plugin covers all items from the main game and Shivering Isles. The separate DLC patch covers items from all other DLCs and is mergeable with Wrye Bash.
Uninstallation
Simply remove the mod.
Compatibility
All leveled items from the base game and DLCs are covered by default. Items from other mods can also be supported easily through the use of patches that can be merged in Wrye Bash. To do so, simply add a leveled list for the leveled item to the BLU0RewardLeveledLists leveled list in a patch. The mod works by checking all the items contained in this ‘list of lists’ when the altar is used. It automatically detects if the player has an item from each list and whether that item is the highest level available for the player’s current level. The cost calculation is also automatic.
This mod does not edit any leveled items or vanilla forms except for placing the altars in the locations listed. This means it is compatible with any mods that edit leveled item stats, etc.
My Mods
I spend a lot of time creating and supporting my mods, so any donations are gratefully received.