Ambitious question about OOO scaling

Post » Sat May 28, 2011 2:09 pm

So, I hate level scaling. It punishes the character for getting better. And even OOO has it, with huge ranges, like 1-22. On the other hand, if monsters DON'T get stronger over time, it'll hurt the challenge of the game.

So I'm wondering.. is there any way to make it so that the monsters in OOO scale from DAYS PASSED rather than player level? All it would take is to return a value based on days passed whenever the player's level is "called" by the code. How hard would this be?
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Emmie Cate
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 12:36 pm

The place where the player's level is called by the code, is not accessible to modders. It's baked into Oblivion.exe. Maybe an OBSE plugin could achieve this, but the research would probably have to be done by the plugin author; I doubt the OBSE team has dug up that particular trigger, and there's really nothing for scripters to do with it, so it won't be on their current agenda.

Now, there are tools in OBSE to manipulate leveled lists and creature definitions, and it's technically feasible to redesign everything everywhere to be static, then use a script to keep track of time and edit every relevant resource in the game accordingly. But brother, I ain't gonna be the one to tackle that. ;)
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Mark Hepworth
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 3:58 pm

You could probably have a general purpose script to dynamically increase the level of any creature you encounter based on time played. But it'd be a pain in the [censored] to do, and not something I particularly fancy... It would also only work for a completely static system, so any scaling at all would throw up problems.
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Richard Thompson
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 11:14 am

I know this isn't exactly what you're after, but have you tried Strategy Master's http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23993? It fixes the levels of creatures in a given area to the level they had when you first went there. So you would still run into new, strong (er) enemies all through the game, but there will be areas where you'll just breeze through.

Hope this help somewhat!

cc
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Irmacuba
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 10:22 am

One conceivable way to do it:

Remove the levelling from the player altogether. Start with one of the many mods that change how you gain experience, then remove the vanilla levelling from it altogether. Instead script a function to allow for stat and skill increases when certain conditions are met.

Then script the players level to increase based on time passage and nothing else. Make sure that no stat or skill increases are associated with this background levelling.

In this way the creatures will still level with the player and have the off-sets from OOO/FCOM/Vanilla/Whatever mods, but that levelling will now be entirely time based and have no relation to the players stats and skills.
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Cat
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 5:02 pm

One conceivable way to do it:

Remove the levelling from the player altogether. Start with one of the many mods that change how you gain experience, then remove the vanilla levelling from it altogether. Instead script a function to allow for stat and skill increases when certain conditions are met.

Then script the players level to increase based on time passage and nothing else. Make sure that no stat or skill increases are associated with this background levelling.

In this way the creatures will still level with the player and have the off-sets from OOO/FCOM/Vanilla/Whatever mods, but that levelling will now be entirely time based and have no relation to the players stats and skills.


You know, that gives me an idea. What if I just periodically changed my character's level using the console? If I, say, swapped my level from 10 to 5, would that affect any stats?
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Reven Lord
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 9:51 am

Damn, it works! I set my level 4 character to level 60, and now the bandits at Vilverin are so strong I weep tears of blood!

Furthermore, setting myself to level 60 didn't seem to affect my stats or anything.
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Rhiannon Jones
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 9:09 am

Why would it? Skill increase (or attribute increases) contribute toward level advancement, not vice versa... The leveling system is not, increasing XX from level 1 to 2 gives +2MP and +5HP...wrong game, haha.
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Alex Vincent
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 10:14 am

Why would it? Skill increase (or attribute increases) contribute toward level advancement, not vice versa... The leveling system is not, increasing XX from level 1 to 2 gives +2MP and +5HP...wrong game, haha.


Well, I thought there was a chance that it would screw with my HP or something, even though the accumulated HP gain from levels is a separate variable. I was also afraid that if I got to level 5, then manually reverted to level 4, the game would say "oh never mind you already got level 5" when it was time to level up again.

But nope.. I've been playing it this way for several hours now and I'm getting no side effects, I can't believe the solution was something so simple :)
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Mario Alcantar
 
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