It runs once per save, the first time it's loaded. There's a way to rerun it, but tbh, it's been so long since I've made this mod that I can't remember what that is, lol. It should also be fine to uninstall after it finishes running if you want to save a plug-in slot. It just tricks the game into thinking that you've already visited a place when you were a certain level, so all the relevant data is stuff the game has built in.
Thanks for the explainations! Though since it uses trick to "pre-visit" the dungeon before you do, i assume it wouldnt work well with mods like "Encounter Zone Unlocked"?
Definitely not. EZEZ tackles unleveling from the complete opposite direction as most of the other encounter zone mods. Normally, if you discover a cave at level 10, even if you don't go inside, it will be a level 10 cave forever, even if you're level 80 when you finally enter. Unlocked Encounter Zones keeps the game from locking a zone to the level you are when you first visit, so if you return at level 80, it will be a level 80 cave.
By contrast, EZEZ was inspired by Requiem's philosophy and is designed specifically to lock levels and keep them locked. The difference is that it locks *all* of them up front, without regard to whether you've discover them and without regard to the player's level. Essentially, the world is the world and EZEZ decentralizes the player's place in determining what's in it. Some places are easy, even if the player is strong. Some places are hard, even if the player is weak. (And since this affects the leveled loot inside too, it also means a low-level player who manages to survive a dungeon way above their level should get a reward to match.)
So after running EZEZ, that cave may be locked at level 20, regardless of whether you are level 1 or level 80 when you discover it or go in. Different types of zones have different level ranges within which they can randomly be assigned when the script runs. So for example, a Dragon Priest lairs will generally have a floor that's higher than a bandit camp's ceiling. And certain individual zones may have an easier or more difficult range than others in that category for story reasons (for example, Saarthal is much easier than a comparable Draugr dungeon because it's meant for low-level mages).
Running the two together would effectively undo this mod. EZEZ would run, locking all zones to a random level to decentralize the player. And then the other mod would unlock them, recentralizing the player. Essentially, EZEZ completely decouples zone difficulty from player level, while Unlocked couples them tighter than vanilla.
Thank you for the detailed explainations! Yeah i figured using the two mods together would essentially render this mod useless. Tbh before receiving the answer from you that comfirm this mod runs on every new save, i was going with a more different approach, which was combining static level world and vanilla scaling, using Synthesis patchers "True Unleveled Skyrim", "Enemy Releveler", "NPCs Stats Rescaler" with Arena EZ on top, and it works great. However, i think this mod is a lot more fun, because it basically randomizes the game everytime you start a new game, which makes it into sorta "Rogue-lite" game, which i really like. Probably wont work well with Arena in terms of balancing though since this mod uses lv range between min and max, and Arena removes max lv cap from EZs, and being locked away from main quest by a lv60+ Bleak Falls Barrow doesnt sound fun.
Regarding the DLL, does the updated DLL have anything important? If its for the new version of skyrim then i think i wont need it because im still keeping my game on 1.5.97.
Oh. Yeah, if you're on that version, you should be fine. You just need the correct version of the dll for your game, since that's where the function to set a zone you haven't been to to a specific level comes from.
This looks like a clean alternative to all the mods that painstakingly edit the encounter zones manually. Nice work!
One thing I would caution against, though: the full version of Missing Encounter Zones Fixed has a major bug where hostile NPCs abruptly stop being hostile when the player moves a short distance away from their encounter zone. I confirmed that the bug existed on my save when I was still using that mod, and the problem seems to be linked to the exterior EZs the mod adds. Just thought I'd let you know, if you decide to provide support for it on this page.
No, the bug only appeared once I installed MEZF, and the comment section is full of people reporting the same thing. I understand not being allowed to kite enemies all over Tamriel, but the exterior EZs make it so they end combat as soon as you get like 50 feet away from them.
Hi,is the Missing Encounter Zones FIXED - Vanilla Fixes version safe then?Does the problem only occur with the Missing Encounter Zones FIXED - All Exteriors Zoned Version?
Just a heads up, you're using a function from powerofthree's Papyrus Extender to generate random numbers for zone levels and should list it as a requirement.
I really love the idea for this mod. I had never even thought of this before. Mod authors really do solve all of Skyrim's problems!
I had one question regarding this statement: "Mods that change the difficulty parameters for spawning leveled enemies within a zone should be compatible, and should apply those parameters using the level set by this mod:"
If I understand it correctly, Arena - An Encounter Zone Overhaul should be compatible? It changes the Leveled Actor Multipliers for dungeons to make enemies higher level, but it also changes the encounter zones themselves so that minimum level will be based on enemy type (i.e Bandit caves are min lvl 5, Dwarven Ruins are min lvl 20, etc.). Would both the changes to the Leveled Actor Multipliers AND the encounter zones be compatible with this mod or would just the Leveled Actor Multipliers be compatible?
The mod should overwrite Arena's Encounter Zones and keep its leveled actor multipliers if I understood the author on reddit. I don't think there's any reason to combine them; Arena is based around a leveled world and this mod seems to be for an unleveled world, but hey I know people love combining things.
No, except for Missing Zones. This mod runs through a list of all of the zones, assigns a level, and locks them to that level with the idea that it will remain at that level. So something like Unlocked that continues to unlock it it after you’ve visited it to keep it leveled at your current level when you go back literally does the exact opposite of what this mod does.
Missing Zones adds the cells outside some dungeons to the dungeon’s zone. So this mod will set those cells to the same level as the rest of the zone.
20 comments
By contrast, EZEZ was inspired by Requiem's philosophy and is designed specifically to lock levels and keep them locked. The difference is that it locks *all* of them up front, without regard to whether you've discover them and without regard to the player's level. Essentially, the world is the world and EZEZ decentralizes the player's place in determining what's in it. Some places are easy, even if the player is strong. Some places are hard, even if the player is weak. (And since this affects the leveled loot inside too, it also means a low-level player who manages to survive a dungeon way above their level should get a reward to match.)
So after running EZEZ, that cave may be locked at level 20, regardless of whether you are level 1 or level 80 when you discover it or go in. Different types of zones have different level ranges within which they can randomly be assigned when the script runs. So for example, a Dragon Priest lairs will generally have a floor that's higher than a bandit camp's ceiling. And certain individual zones may have an easier or more difficult range than others in that category for story reasons (for example, Saarthal is much easier than a comparable Draugr dungeon because it's meant for low-level mages).
Running the two together would effectively undo this mod. EZEZ would run, locking all zones to a random level to decentralize the player. And then the other mod would unlock them, recentralizing the player. Essentially, EZEZ completely decouples zone difficulty from player level, while Unlocked couples them tighter than vanilla.
Regarding the DLL, does the updated DLL have anything important? If its for the new version of skyrim then i think i wont need it because im still keeping my game on 1.5.97.
One thing I would caution against, though: the full version of Missing Encounter Zones Fixed has a major bug where hostile NPCs abruptly stop being hostile when the player moves a short distance away from their encounter zone. I confirmed that the bug existed on my save when I was still using that mod, and the problem seems to be linked to the exterior EZs the mod adds. Just thought I'd let you know, if you decide to provide support for it on this page.
Thanks in regards
I had one question regarding this statement:
"Mods that change the difficulty parameters for spawning leveled enemies within a zone should be compatible, and should apply those parameters using the level set by this mod:"
If I understand it correctly, Arena - An Encounter Zone Overhaul should be compatible? It changes the Leveled Actor Multipliers for dungeons to make enemies higher level, but it also changes the encounter zones themselves so that minimum level will be based on enemy type (i.e Bandit caves are min lvl 5, Dwarven Ruins are min lvl 20, etc.). Would both the changes to the Leveled Actor Multipliers AND the encounter zones be compatible with this mod or would just the Leveled Actor Multipliers be compatible?
I already use Zone magic, Encounter Zones Redone, Encounter Zones Unlocked and Missing Encounter Zones FIXED.
Is your mod complementary ? Thank you in advance for your answer.
Missing Zones adds the cells outside some dungeons to the dungeon’s zone. So this mod will set those cells to the same level as the rest of the zone.