NCGDMW Lua Edition

[void roost]

But I play on all possible "always hit" mods and...

• fortify attack 100pkt for player only makes game too easy because DMG dealt is full
• always attack for player and npc/creatures based on physical hit makes game harder because everything is stronger than player and makes some mechanics like sanctuary complatly useless
• always hit but dmg dealt reduced for % of not hit chance like Kazyma makes game very frustrating because every any dealt to player more dmg than player to enemy - because propably enemy is too strong for player but player don't know - he always hit but forgetting that DMG is controlled by enemy sanctuary, agility, armor class etc

Vanilla fight system is really the best for Morrowind

Btw @past pendant you could add to NCGDMW option to regenerate health and Magicka based on vanilla formula but in real time - these same formula what is used for resting so player will regenerate health 10% of endurance per hour and magica 15% of intelligence in real time while playing and when waiting. When resting it will make doubled amount but make resting until full healed 1/2 faster

Of course not as default.

Any other/faster magical/health regeneration is op in Morrowind - game was designed for slow regeneration but resting required is frustrating.

Of course - atronach and stunned Magicka will block magicaka regeneration in real time and while waiting too

[swift hornet]

I came back to a whole other thing it seems lol. Personally I don't mind any of the vanilla mechanics except the pressure for early game endurance and the weird way you control leveling by putting skills you don't want to level as major/minor lol.

My whole thing just came from the place of my stats being too high and being too strong for level 9.

I think the hang up is that higher level skills contribute more to level progress. Which in theory is good, especially if higher level skills take longer. It's just training puts a wrench in it somewhat and also it's a bit too much of a curve in general.

Because imo, the only reason early game leveling in vanilla takes a long time is you're not actually leveling at the full speed. You're controlling it to make sure you get the full 15 attribute points every time.

[wet escarp]

Anyone know what reason the stat menu won't open when I click the hotkey

[swift hornet]

that was an old bug that i thought got patched

theres a solution for it that i used before the patch, but i'm pretty sure you don't need to anymore

[wet escarp]

I only recently installed the mod, so I have the latest version but when I click the hotkey nothing happens

[swift hornet]

weird, did you auto install a modlist or manual?

[wet escarp]

Auto install of Total Overhaul

[swift hornet]

the only thing i can say to do is what you did before but use -b with it

that was the solution given to me when it happened

[wet escarp]

I already did that, as the mod pack wouldn't even install unless I did -b

[void roost]

@past pendant I created a new character instant like I want without back from resume screen to birthsign and info attribs changes and NCGDMW begun was showed after close resume windows and everything looks now properly

And here is "yesterday" character also created with NCGDMW active but from resume screen I back to birthsign to change and NCGDMW messages showed before character creation end

So much difference

[swift hornet]

strange, that's really weird, because that's a thing the last version specifically patched

[void roost]

Next thing which useful in NCGDMW would be player run speed and jump height limiter - yes/no to limit player like he have max 100 athletics acrobatics speed strength because on eg 500 of theses.skills and attribs speed and jump height would be absurd

or option to set these run speed/jump height factor

[past pendant]

I get your idea, but we cannot undo done existing MW mechanics. We cannot remove specialization, we cannot change major/minor skill bonuses...
Then I prefer to compose with these mechanics

[past pendant]

I'm not sure regen features fit into NCGD. There are other mods that already do that.
I think NCGD is already big enough. I don't like big monolithic mods.

[swift hornet]

i think the mod and most of the mechanics are fine, as mentioned 15/10 lol. vanilla leveling only has a few lame quirks and this mod basically removes all of them

[past pendant]

regarding the misc skills contributing to the player level, I agree that it generally has a bad impact on progression.
Maybe a better approach, as said before, would be for the player level to always consider the 10 best skills, whatever if they are major, minor or misc

in most cast, it could only be vanilla leveling, it would prevent cheesy strategies where players boost misc skills above others

[swift hornet]

Yeah, major and minor skills just start with more points in them, maybe also increase faster too.

[swift hornet]

also prevent issues like mine where i don't touch misc skills and end up giga strong for my low level

[past pendant]

They do increase faster, but IIRC, in an old NCGD version they were all increasing at the same speed (changes on GMSTs)

[swift hornet]

i'm just saying that's enough of a distinction from misc. the top 10 skills contributing to level progress is a good balance.

[past pendant]

yeah, but NCGD's spirit tells that every skill should be considered equally, only their level matters

10 best skills follows that spirits

different skill gain factors doesn't

[swift hornet]

I'm saying in general, as long as major/minor skills have some sort of advantage (starting at a much higher level), that's enough of a distinction.

especially if the overall leveling is balanced around only 10 skills contributing to level progress at all times.

[past pendant]

there is still the specialization that boost related skill gains

[swift hornet]

how would this handle ties?

like if my 10th and 11th highest skill was equal?

[past pendant]

you mean for the player level calculation?

taking 10 best skills doesn't care if some of them have the same value

[swift hornet]

yeah, like if the top 10 skills are the only ones that contribute to level progress, how does it work with ties?

like if i had 2 skills at 80 and leveled one of those skills to 81, would that not contribute to my level progress if it wasn't already one of my top 10?

or do skills level, then apply level progress based on the new value?

[past pendant]

if it was not in the top 10, it will now be part of it and the other won't be anymore

my idea is, at chargen, get the 10 best skills, sum their values and save this sum

then each time a skill is increased, take the 10 best again, sum them, and subtract the original sum

That final sum difference will be divided by 10 to get the player level

+1 ofc

Ties will be naturally handled. For example, if your best skills are all at 80, and you have 11 of them, then sums will be 10*80, not 11*80

[void roost]

Something like in daggerfall

And it will be very nice and allow to avoid power leveling by pushing misc skills above major/minor

[past pendant]

That's why I suggest a 10 best skills approach

[void roost]

But best 10 skill will be used to calculating player level but what about attributes?

If player have best skills at 60 but rest train up to 59/60, he still will get very high amount of attributes?

In one way, I understand to slow player from reaching very high level and absurd about of health but that's why player train misc skills even inputted n vanilla - to get attributes multipliers from skills

And I understand that there is no possibility to keep specialisation +5 skill bonus but delete mechanic which make choiced spec skills required 80% of progress to increase skill

[past pendant]

That's a very good question. I was actually thinking about that. Vanilla behavior allows excessive attribute values, but I'd like to limit their growth

[past pendant]

Not sure I understood. Specialization can be cancelled by changing a game setting. But we cannot remove the spec choice during chargen. As the player will select a spec, I don't want ton cancel its effect.

[past pendant]

A strict solution could be:

• gather all increased skills and sum the related impacted attributes
• calculate the proportion of each attribute
• compute a normalized value for each attribute based on the player level

A less strict solution could be to take into account every skill increase and their related attribute, but with a gradually decreasing formula

[swift hornet]

I'm curious to see my level with that formula instead

Since I never boosted misc skills lol

[past pendant]

Then it will be like in vanilla

[void roost]

so misc skills will increase attributes but only top10 skills will affect player level?

[static folio]

This sounds like some strange form of oblivions leveling system

Efficient leveling

[swift hornet]

so i'd be much higher level

[past pendant]

NCGD's spirit has always been: All skills matter, only their level is important.
I'd like to reinforce that principle:

• top 10 skills can be composed of any skill
• all skills contribute to attributes (but to a certain limit)
• no accelerated increases for major and minor skills, compared to misc skills

[past pendant]

I'm talking about the base formula.
Your issue with player level too high later in game can be dealt with an added mechanism

[swift hornet]

yeah that what i was saying, my level would be fitting of how strong i actually am on that character.

also your fresh loot mod is so dope

[past pendant]

Ah yes. I was not sure if you were referring to your too low early level, or too high late level 😅

[past pendant]

Thx! If you have any feedback on balance/bug/suggestion, please leave a message on the dedicated chan

[swift hornet]

you're good, this basically fixes the issue i had

[swift hornet]

oh i did already, i was just praising it again lol

[swift hornet]

Now I'm excited for this new version.

[past pendant]

About limiting the attribute growth in case of misc skills increases, if I add a player level-based limit but still want to account for every skill increase, I'll need to work on attribute proportions and the player may experience attribute decreases

for example, suppose you only increase your major/minor skills up to player level 10, with a warrior class: You'll get attribute growth on Strength, Agility, Endurance.
Then you decide to start casting spells by increasing the Destruction skill: I'll have to increase the Willpower attribute, but as the total attribute growth already matches your level, I cannot add to Willpower without removing from other attributes

I'm afraid that system will confuse players, or even frustrate them

[wet escarp]

Since I can't get get the stat menu to open and I haven't been able to get any fix, how would I go about disabling just this mod from my Total Overhaul list?

[past pendant]

Did you started a new character? Or installed NCGD midgame?

[wet escarp]

Ive made multiple characters, and ncgd was installed at the same time I installed the rest of Total Overhaul, I tried disabling it in the opennw launcher but then it got upset about a merge, so I turned the mod back on

Still unable t access the stat menu tho

[past pendant]

if you press F10 to see the log, the press the menu key, do you see any error in the logs?

[wet escarp]

Haven't tried that yet

I'll do it rn

[past pendant]

also, did you checked in NCGD settings page that the stats menu key was correctly defined?

[wet escarp]

Yeah that I did

It's set as N

[wet escarp]

Log shows nothing when I click the key

[past pendant]

could you try to:

• load you game save
• open the console
• type:

luap
I.NCGDMW.ResetStats()

• close the console and wait 5 seconds
• try N again

[wet escarp]

Holy shit, the nerevarine ain't got shit on you, tysm

[past pendant]

I don't know why but NCGD was not started

which version do you use?

[wet escarp]

I use openmw 0.49 and idk the exact version of ncgd I have, I did the Total Overhaul auto install about a week to a week and a half ago

[past pendant]

alright

[wet escarp]

Am I gonna have to type that command every new game?

[past pendant]

I think you have a version 3.5.X

[past pendant]

with your version, maybe yes...

version 3.6 changed the chargen detection mechanism, so I hope it's fixed

but your bug has not been reported yet, and I don't know what's happening

[wet escarp]

I've been trynna find a fix for days lol

[past pendant]

sorry for that

[wet escarp]

All good!

[swift hornet]

Couldn't you just make the top 10 skills be what contributes to attributes?

[void roost]

I think that attributes should rise when leveling skills like it's working now, just player level limit to top10 skills

[past pendant]

The issue with that is when a skill reaches the top ten.
Suppose you only have warrior skills, and decide to raise Destruction.
When it reaches the top ten, and replaces Long Blade for example, should we remove attributes gained thanks to Long Blade and replace them with those impacted by Destruction? I don't think so.
If we just keep both, we're back to the too-many-attributes issue.

[swift hornet]

we def dont remove attributes gained, but this concern can easily be solved by making the formula balanced around it

[past pendant]

I don't see how a formula could solve this: You cannot have at the same time:

• all skills contribute to attributes
• prevent huge attribute growth with misc skills are raised
• be faithful to vanilla by providing enough attributes during early game

[swift hornet]

so the clear issue with the formula in general is that misc skills are VERY easy to exploit, yet you want them to matter just as much as major/minor

[past pendant]

Exactly. Maybe it's my goal that is not reasonable

[swift hornet]

it feels too ambitious. I'm the type that doesn't have an issue with classes and being somewhat restricted based on what you chose.

[past pendant]

The only solution I have is to only consider attribute proportions, based on all raised skills, and use the player level to set attribute values based on the proportions.
But this implies losing some attributes when you change your skill profile (e.g. warrior to mage)

[swift hornet]

or you just dont cater so much to people changing their entire character halfway or later in a playthrough. because misc skill abuse is the same thing that vanilla encourages.

[past pendant]

Yes, another solution is to release the constraint on misc skill abuse

[swift hornet]

you also end up with people like me who never touched misc skills and have giga attributes but low level.

[past pendant]

Maybe I'll add a setting:

• limit attribute growth to player level
• or not

1. May be weird as you can have decreasing attributes when you shift your profile
2. May lead to abuses

[swift hornet]

like the leveling system being balanced around misc skills just seems too hard to impliment. because misc skills don't matter in vanilla except just to exploit

[past pendant]

I think I prefer the first option, but I'm sure most players will prefer the second 🙂

[past pendant]

I like the concept of "skill equality"

[swift hornet]

like me personally, i'm likely never going to change my mind on a build concept when im already level 20 or something.

[past pendant]

I also want to remove skill gain advantage on major/minor/specialization skills

[swift hornet]

well of course, i do too, i'm not saying it's bad, i'm saying it's hard to balance.

[swift hornet]

that's something i'm curious about? i mean, why remove it? like, i think some choices should matter beyond some bonuses to skills.

[past pendant]

Be careful, maybe you'll raise speechcraft because some quests require tough negotiations 😉

[past pendant]

Same skill equity principle

Moreover this mechanics penalizes multi class profiles

Are you strongly against that?

[swift hornet]

i disagree on this, it helps them because misc skill abuse lol

[past pendant]

But now you'll have a setting to prevent misc skill abuse 😉

[swift hornet]

i wouldn't say "strongly", i just don't mind choices actually mattering

[swift hornet]

but the cost is attributes randomly juggle up and down. i mean that wouldn't affect me, but id likely be frustrated if it did lol

[past pendant]

The idea behind NCGD is to do more choices during your playthrough, and less during chargen

[past pendant]

Yeah it's like the decay feature. See it as "you chose to train something else, then your old attributes will regress a bit"

[swift hornet]

why not both though? i don't mind changing your mind mid playthrough, but it should inconvenience you some.

[swift hornet]

yeah but maybe leveling becomes painful because your attributes are limited but you don't level quick enough, so the cap could make it to where you actually don't get stronger for a significant period of time.

not saying this would happen, but it could

would the leveling formula that factors only top 10 be like vanilla? where 10 skill levels give a level?

[past pendant]

That's the idea

10 skills -> 1 player level

[swift hornet]

because that would have made my save i sent you WAY higher level lol.

considering major gave 8% and minor gave 5% and i never touched misc skills

[past pendant]

Depends on how many attributes per skill level I define

8% of what?

[swift hornet]

level progress

[past pendant]

Ah. That's not vanilla 🙂

[swift hornet]

wym? vanilla is 10 skills are 1 level. that's what i'm saying

each skill up is 10% in vanilla, this current version on NCG is 8% for major and 5% for minor and 2-3% for misc right?

so if you don't touch misc you'll have a lot of attributes and be lower level like that save i sent you

[past pendant]

Yeah but that values for player level progress are different from major/minor skills give all 10% to player level

[swift hornet]

how so?

[past pendant]

The current version is based on an exponential formula, I cannot translate it into percents

[past pendant]

Ok the 8% was referring to NCGD's formula

[swift hornet]

yeah, which i've voiced that i didn't like, as it makes late game leveling WAY too fast lol.

[swift hornet]

yes, which makes the early leveling much slower unless you specifically pushed misc skills

that slope of early game leveling being slow then speeding up later is weird for sure. the 10 skill ups being 1 level always works well because as skills get higher they get harder to raise

[past pendant]

I think we're ok on the player level progression

Regarding attributes, maybe I'll allow abuses to prevent frustrating limits and decreases

But what I can also do is make attribute growth proportional to the raising skill level

Like, low growth below level 15 (minor skill limit), higher above 15

[swift hornet]

i mean, it sounds like we solved it

[swift hornet]

that's a great idea, that way if you wanted to abuse it, you'd need to spam train a skill a ton

which is annoying enough to not wanna do it

maybe higher threshold than 15. maybe actually 50 because when you hit 50 its hard to find trainers

[past pendant]

Actually I think we need a "normal" attribute growth for traditional minor/major skills, i.e. from 15, otherwise early game will be too hard and not vanilla friendly

And I'd like to use my new formula I'm so proud of 😁

But on attribute growth instead of player level

The missing variable here is: How many attribute points per skill raise?
In vanilla, you raise 3 to 15 per 10 minor/major skill points, and with the current NCGD version, I think the slow attribute growth is around 3-5 points

[swift hornet]

im confused here. because wouldn't that just let you train a misc skill like 4 times and have the attributes?

[swift hornet]

per level?!

[past pendant]

"per 10 levels"

[past pendant]

10 times yeah. But otherwise, even minor skills won't raise your attributes much, and you'll struggle to get decent attributes during early game

Maybe I can try with 20. I'm talking about the threshold to go over half the gain, not full gain

Anyway, it's getting clear in my head, thx so much for the brainstorming. I'd like to share these ideas with @shut wedge once he'll be available, and then 4.0 will be on its way.

[swift hornet]

wait.. so vanilla is 3-15 per 10 and NCGD is 3-5 per 10? isn't that just a total nerf?

if that's the case how does my save have too high attributes for level 9 when i never touched misc skills?

[past pendant]

3-5 with a slow growth setting, but it can be different, as it depends on the so-called exponential formula that can produce higher values.

[swift hornet]

im slightly confused lol. i had it on normal, yet i had too many attrobutes for level 9 and i dind't do any misc abuse

how would the new version affecta character like that? would i be way weaker?

[past pendant]

Normal is already high

I think

When I say vanilla is 3-15, it's not the average at all

15 is only when mon-maxing to the death

[swift hornet]

sure, but the problem is how easy it is to do exactly that.

[swift hornet]

so just playing the game in a non min max way i got too strong? lol

[past pendant]

I suspect the "normal growth" setting to be too high. I've always played with the slow setting

[swift hornet]

maybe, i also just think the early leveling is too slow also, which we discussed already and is also being addressed

so maybe itll balance out, i suspect it will

i'm just excited in general for it, because it's already a great mod, it cured the biggest gripes i have with vanilla leveling, so it can only really go up from here

[past pendant]

Yeah but leveling mods are quite are to balance and to fit every needs

[swift hornet]

i agree for sure, i'm on the lower end of specific needs, I just don't wanna feel like i have to micro manage training to get 15 points and 100 endurance ASAP

[spark pawn]

I was wondering with this mod do major skills contribute more to attribute gains than minor skills and minor skills more than misc skills? I remember when playing modded Oblivion I used Ultimate Leveling: https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/49134. One of the things I liked about that mod was that it took into account class specialization, favoured attributes, racial bonuses, and major skills when calculating attribute increases and I was just curious if NCGD does anything similar.

[past pendant]

Currently NCGD makes higher skills contribute more to their impacted attributes. Not directly because of major/minor/misc, but solely because of their level

Specialization is not directly used, but as it gives you a bonus to the related skills and a bonus to their gain, it's easier to increase the impacted attributes

[void roost]

Imo ncgdmw work nicely right now, just only lvl rising from increasing all skills makes charakter to overpowered

I had idea to make lvl based on "top10 skills / 10" which make player with top10 skills at 100 have player level 100 but for this working, health should be calculated based on current stats like in MWSE stat-based health where player don't need increase endurance ahap asap because even on high lvl, increasing strength and endurace will make these same amount of health

• player don't need to start on str+end build and rush end to get the biggest HP bonus on every lvl

• player starting with combat HP based build don't have any profit from maxing STR+end because mage after reaching these same amount of str+end on high lvl will have these same amount of hp

So warrior which learn magic at mid-end game have these same health amount like mage which in mid-end game increase end and str based skills

Only profit is from race and birthsign profits like magical from int or attributes bonus which isn't count when leveling

Some people like this e.g. me
But I know, that's can be very controversial

[swift hornet]

Pretty sure you have a setting for state based hp anyway

[past pendant]

I had the same idea, and we talked about that here recently, I think I'll set the player level according to the 10 best skills for next version

state-based HP is already a setting

[void roost]

Someone said that stat-based health is only checking stats to modify but health isn't only stat based -if you understand what I mean

Your health increased every level by 5/10% but stat-based health modify when e.g. endurance is damaged by spell

But truth is I don't check this how it's working exacly

[void roost]

But "my idea" is that level is calculated on top10/10 so player after starting isn't on lvl 1 but e.g. around 30lvl

[past pendant]

if the "state-base HP" is checked, your health is dynamically set based on endurance, strength and willpower, and it's updated with buffs or damaging spells

if it's not checked, then it's not dynamic (exclude buffs), but it uses the same formula

ah ok, but I don't want to start level 30 😄

[void roost]

But if it's checked then it increases with my level?

[past pendant]

it always increases with your level, checked or not

health formula is like baseHealth + (playerLevel - 1) * (4*END + 2*STR + 1*WIL)/7

[void roost]

Top10 skills e.g 30 35 40 45 40 25 25 35 25 25 35 divided by 10 takes you 36lvl

[past pendant]

ah yes, actually by top 10 skills, I mean their increase, not their base value

[void roost]

If my math is correct XD

[past pendant]

after chargen, I sum the 10 best skills, save the sum, and then each time a skill is increased, I do a new sum of the new 10 best skills and subtract the original sum, then divide by 10

[void roost]

I think ot will be very ok

[spark pawn]

The only issue I see with this is that the player's class skills and specialization matter for only the first 30 minutes of a playthrough. Why wouldn't I just choose all of the magic skills as my major skills to get their starting spells and as soon as I reach Balmora, train the skills I actually want to use for absolute chips?

[past pendant]

Indeed you could do that. You can do many things with MW. But I don't think you'll really enjoy it, and it will cost you a lot (depending on the economy mods you have)

[spark pawn]

Morrowind thrives on planning. Why limit the importance of the player's starting choices? I never in a single playthrough become Arch-Mage of Mages Guild, leader of the thieves guild and leader of the fighters guild. Instead I create a new character and choose a race and class that coincide with that character's goals. I'd just prefer if those starting choices were significant throughout my playthrough rather than just the beginning.

[past pendant]

I get you. There are multiple ways to consider that. But NCGD is about freedom and natural leveling: it's essentially your actions that define who you are, rather than being imprisoned for ever by the clicks you originally made.

[dawn spindle]

You can look at https://discord.com/channels/260439894298460160/1343504949589442641 to set specified skills to zero for the duration of the game. Really helps me focus my faction efforts and differentiate playstyles.

CRAP (https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/53721) also helps prevent faction and skill every-man-ism by lowering starting attributes by 20 across the board.

[spark pawn]

I'll look into that thanks for the suggestion

[swift hornet]

I actually agree here. Its very easy to exploit misc skills in many situations.

Conjuration especially. The ghost summon is busted af.

[spark pawn]

I understand. You have your vision. I won't try and impose anything on you. Just one of the ways that other mod solves that issue is by providing class books that allow you to change your class on the fly. These books are acquirable as loot or at book vendors.

[swift hornet]

I enjoy the idea and concept of more freedom, but the early choices almost not mattering is definitely not my favorite.

Tho I don't have to rush endurance or do bs training misc to get full attributes per level so this mod is already 10/10 for me.

[spark pawn]

I agree. Eliminating the min-maxing is already a godsend.

[swift hornet]

Tho there's a new form of min maxing now. Hopefully this new version eliminates that too.

I always pick conjuration when I make a new guy. The free ghost spell is too good and there's virtually no drawback

[spark pawn]

Honestly, I'd recommend giving that mod's readme a look. Not all of its ideas land, but it's certainly interesting.

[past pendant]

I don't get why using the 10 best skills to define the player level at any time during a playthrough would allow cheesy tactics. On the contrary, it prevents to boost misc skills above others without impacting the player level

[void roost]

Maybe it should be a nice idea to give starting spells with no matter what skills he choice during character creation

[swift hornet]

So the one they mentioned. You get a starting spell of you choose a magic skill as a major skill. You can get that spell for free and then just pick something else immediately. Because the starting spells are always very easy to cast even at low skill levels.

[past pendant]

You can do that whatever the player level computation

[swift hornet]

Yes, but the less that starting choice matters, the lower the opportunity cost is. Is their point.

So why not just do it every time and get free spells at no cost?

[past pendant]

If I remove the skill gain boosts for major/minor skills, then yes it eases such strategies.
But the new player level computation idea does not have any impact on that. It's basically vanilla mechanics with a safeguard added.

[void roost]

To get starting spells you must get min 30 skill points in related magic school to get starting spell of this school

[swift hornet]

Which is pretty often if it's your major.

[void roost]

If you create e.g. orc with combat spec, then even choosing magic as major you will not enough to get starting spells

[swift hornet]

I thought you were talking about removing the skill gain boosts for that and specialization

[swift hornet]

That's exactly a single example.

[past pendant]

@pseudonymousrex comment was on the 10 best skills idea

[void roost]

But for e.g. most chars with combat as major, magic as minor, even choosing magic spells will be not enough to get starting spells

[past pendant]

But about skill gain boosts, you have good points

[swift hornet]

When I pick conjuration as a major skill on dark elf I get the free spell without specialization and dark elf has no bonus to it

I actually get 2 free spells.

[past pendant]

Starting spells also depends on your willpower

[swift hornet]

I chose warrior sign which drains that by 10 and still got it.

[past pendant]

It depends on your casting chances

[past pendant]

Casting chances depends on your relevant skill, willpower, luck and the spell cost

[swift hornet]

Yeah I'm just saying I got the free spell without any racial bonus or specialization and with -10 Willpower. All i had to do was make it a major skill.

[dawn spindle]

Okay, hear me out. How about minor skills total is capped at 2/3 of major skills total. Misc skills total capped at some lesser fraction.

Perhaps misc skills are capped at some portion of major+minor. There are so many more of them

[void roost]

Maybe my mistake and wrong observation

[swift hornet]

You're all good. Im just pointing out it's actually very very easy to do.

And I'm not even saying it shouldn't be that way, I just think that making that choice should impact your character in some way. It should have opportunity cost.

[spark pawn]

I'm not really saying that the 10 best skills scheme promotes cheesy tactics. It's more that it minimizes the importance of major and minor skill to being almost pointless beyond the beginning of a playthrough. I was wondering if the same intentions behind the 10 best skills scheme could be achieved by increasing the weight major and minor skill have on attribute and level calculations. For example, if I choose the Acrobat class, every two skill points in Acrobatics could increase speed by 1. Whilst if acrobatics were only a misc skill I would need 4 skill points to achieve the same speed increase.

None of these numbers are hard and fast. IDK exactly how calculations work in the current version of NCGD

By the end of a playthrough, an Acrobat and a Warrior could look completely different attribute-wise despite similar skill investment.

This could also work the same for level calculations. If the Warrior and the Acrobat decided to invest in the same skills, yet for the Acrobat these are major and minor skills and for the Warrior these are only misc skills, the Acrobat should end up being a much higher level than the Warrior.

[dawn spindle]

I like where you're going here

Less punitive that my suggestion 😆

[spark pawn]

I think relying on skill gain boosts to differentiate major/minor/misc is simply not enough. In Morrowind, too many skill gains are achieved solely through training.

[swift hornet]

This was my main talking point. Training can close almost any gap in skill gain boosts. Not to mention it creates the dynamic of choosing all magic skills as major for free spells at no cost.

[dawn spindle]

Capping lesser skills (or nerfing them with the mod I linked above) is the way I am seeing to keep training from making every character a universal prodigy who is all things to all factions.

I have tweaked Useful Starting Spells (https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/40439) and liked it. It doesn't address scummy skill choices for maximum starting spells, though. I usually addspell whatever spells I want my character to start with "for RP", though. I'd rather cheat than make degenerate starting skill choices.

[past pendant]

I usually like to prevent any exploit, but we have to be careful to not distort, limit or degrade NCGD's quality just to prevent some min-maxers extremists from using unnatural and fastidious strategies

Moreover, we have to consider NCGD in a balanced mod setup where economy mods prevent you from abusing of trainers and other game weaknesses

[shut wedge]

Which is what we try to do on MOMW with Expanded Vanilla and Total Overhaul

[swift hornet]

which i use both and can confirm it's quite easy to do what i described

[spark pawn]

I guess I just don’t really understand the sentiment here. Morrowind is an RPG where the player’s choices have consequences. Why should the player’s starting choices during character creation be any different? I’m sure a lot of people during their first visit to Balmora joined House Hlaalu not knowing that they would be blocked from joining the other houses. Because of that possibility of making that simple error early on in a playthrough, should we allow the player to join any house regardless of any prior affiliation? NCGD isn’t part of any MOMW modlist designed for a first playthrough, so most players that use it will know that in Morrowind when some doors open, others will close. I don’t think making the player’s choices in class selection more important necessarily restricts player freedom and boxes the player in as much as it incentivises planning.

[shut wedge]

We're talking about what I consider to be the original spirit of the NCGD mod, going back to the very first version by Greywander.
I have never carried on a deep discussion with them but I imagine that one of the design principles of the mod was to not restrict players' growth (based on its original code/design).
Of course that and anything else is up for interpretation, we're trying to strike a balance here.

You're definitely not wrong and your ideas aren't bad. It's just something that we as long time players and maintainers of NCGD don't find as an easy thing to change or think about how to change in a way that fits the overall feel of the mod (again, in our views)

[spark pawn]

No, that's fair. Thanks for the insight into the mod's philosophy.

[past pendant]

Here is how attribute could grow based on their related skills increases

The growth is like a percent 0 to 1, see it as 0 to 100%

That way, misc skills have a low impact on attributes, except if you train them to the max of course

We have then to define what is 100% growth

In vanilla, during a level up (10 skill increases), you can increase from 3 to 15 attribute points. On average, without excessive min-maxing, we could take 4-8 points

If we say 4 is the max gain per level up, that means a skill can contribute up to 4/10 = 0.4

According to the graph, a skill level 20 would then contribute to 0.4 * 0.5 = 0.2 attribute points, distributed over its 4 impacted attributes

That 0.4 could be the slow attribute growth setting

Normal growth could be 0.6, fast 0.8

[past pendant]

Maybe we need to tweak "for the right price" mod to increase the training cost.
Personally I never use trainers, I prefer training things myself. If it was for me, I would disable training.

But if you're able to quickly train many skills, then your mod setup has flaws

[past pendant]

That's interesting. I'm thinking about a customizable approach based on your suggestion:

• minor skills cannot go over the lowest major skill
• misc skills cannot go over the lowest minor skill
• the customization could be: cannot go over X percent of the lowest skill of the higher skill category
• with that approach, no need for the 10 best skills defining the player level, we can use the vanilla approach

[golden coyote]

What about adding training sessions (or training points) similar to oblivion/skyrim, but accumulating on level up? Number of gaining sessions could be configurable.

[past pendant]

For that we would need an interface, and the possibility to block training

[swift hornet]

The problem is that of course it's easy. The skills start super low, it also isn't like you are training from 1 to 50. You just train enough to where the skill is usable, then play normally, you just got to have a bunch of free spells and a generally way easier early game experience.

[swift hornet]

The mod set up is just total overhaul with your mods lol. If it's easy, then it's likely by design at this point.

[swift hornet]

I think this idea is great imo. This also limits training and misc abuse. Also this totally removes the min maxing with early game spells. Because you'd actually need to care about the skill.

Tbh, the only time I ever really train is with skills that are frankly way too annoying to ever level

Or when the trainer is also a shop owner and I need a way to give them more gold so I can sell them my stuff

[past pendant]

Event Better Merchants Skills ?

[swift hornet]

Yeah that's there too.

Both for the right price and the merchant skills.

[swift hornet]

Also this idea satisfies the "char gen choices matter" topic.

As far as training itself, Idk how you could nerf it without it just being unusable. Some skills just absolutely suck to level on your own

like if i couldn't train speechcraft, i'd need it to level like 10 times faster unironically.

[past pendant]

The "Speechcraft Rebalance (OpenMW)" mod helps to ease the leveling. Not enough for you?

[past pendant]

Maybe you could also install "Price Balance", as I recommend in HBFS's doc. It reduces many overpriced items.

[swift hornet]

not at all, tbh, it fails 98% of the time, bribes work exactly once, and you always end up with way lower disposition than you started

speechcraft just feels extremely annoying to use in this game lol

[past pendant]

the suggested new approach will not block training anyway, it will only limit the max level

[swift hornet]

oh i know i meant your comment about training in general, i was explaining the only times i use it lol

[past pendant]

if speechcraft is really important for you, set it as major and minor. This is the very purpose of the new approach

[swift hornet]

this is with it being a major XD

[past pendant]

haha

[swift hornet]

like it literally just never works, i have to use bug musk for literally any admire check to ever succeed

[past pendant]

hmmm maybe talk about that on the momw thread, it may be a balance issue

[swift hornet]

this is just the skill being awful to play, not the mod in general

the training thing and the early game spells thing is just discussing what you COULD do, not what i do in actually play

I just wanted to have real data when testing

[swift hornet]

I think the big issue with this mod is that it makes minimum success chance higher, but it lowers disposition change... but only for successes lol... So you just lose 1 or 2 rolls and now they have 0 disposition and you can't get anywhere.

[past pendant]

yes, I remember experiencing such a situation

IIRC I looked for random NPCs with a low speechcraft skill to ease the training, before going back to those related to my current quest

[swift hornet]

it's just a massive slog, even as an imperial specializing in stealth with major skill speechcraft, i'd pay 5 times as much gold to train speechcraft rather than leveling it tbh XD

[swift hornet]

with quest nps i just save scum, bug musk and 78 speechcraft still made me end up with -30 less disposition after 5 admire attempts lol

[golden coyote]

https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/lua-scripting/interface_skill_progression.html
Example shows how to block skill progression. Can't you just add progression source check?

[past pendant]

Ah yes, we already use such skill handlers, but I meant an UI, so the player understands what's happening

[golden coyote]

You can show message: "You don't have training sessions left". And add sessions count to your UI.

[past pendant]

Still, I don't think I can prevent the player from clicking on the skill to train. But I can prevent the skill from increasing

[dawn spindle]

I notice that when I have a -100 skill-nerfing debuff in place from https://discord.com/channels/260439894298460160/1343504949589442641, training costs 1 septim and leaves the skill at 0 (forever). Maybe this behavior could be useful to you for preventing training.

[dawn spindle]

I like where you have gone with this!

minor skills cannot go over the lowest major skill
This doesn't appear nice to me -- I think it needs to be based on the total or the average of the skill groups. Something like * no individual minor skill can exceed the average of major skills

Sorry I haven't been up during your days to chit chat, hope you are well. I enjoy your work a lot!

At any rate, we are discussing extending the gameplay revolution of NCGD, so it suits us to tread carefully and mindfully indeed! It seems tasteful to at least give homage to MW's vanilla character progression, despite having evolved so far from it already.

[past pendant]

I also thought about that. Your formula is more balanced I think, but less understandable for the player. You won't easily know when your skill will be capped. Expected if I give capped skills a specific layout in the stats menu.

[past pendant]

No worries, there are many timezones here

[dawn spindle]

As long as the error message is good, yes? "Raise your major skills first" or "none of your minor skills can exceed the average of your major skills"

Maybe "...the average of your major skills which is X" even better

[past pendant]

That error message would be fine for training, but not for natural progression. I will not display the message each time the player uses the skill.

[dawn spindle]

Is it still good if the restriction only applies to training, then? @past pendant

[past pendant]

Good idea

[dawn spindle]

Fits with the mod's name, too 🙂

[past pendant]

True.
The only issue remaining, I can think of, is that the player will lose time and money with trainers until he understands he reached the limit

[dawn spindle]

Did you consider this?

when I have a -100 skill-nerfing debuff in place from ⁠Daggerfall-style advantages and…, training costs 1 septim and leaves the skill at 0 (forever). Maybe this behavior could be useful

This behavior would make it very clear which skills can not be presently trained

[past pendant]

Ah yes, I did not understand this the first time sorry😅
Then I just have to largely debuff the capped skills when the player opens the training window, and restore it after.
Or the opposite! Large buff so the player won't do it because of the huge price.

That way the player didn't even lose 2 hours of training

[dawn spindle]

This is how it looks with Special Disadvantages and Advantages

Probably " - 1" is cleaner than "- 89234758973" 🙂

[past pendant]

Maybe yeah, and that way I can show a message

[dawn spindle]

With SD&A, training costs 1 gold for "ineptitudes" and has no perceivable effect, other than costing 1 gold and 2 hours (edited for accuracy)

Perhaps it can detect when they train at 1gp and pop the message if so

[past pendant]

I can already detect when a skill is increased from training. It's in the recent Lua skill handlers

[dawn spindle]

@past pendant Ah okay, I wasn't sure if the debuff curse I referenced from the other mod would allow the skill to be 1 long enough to be detected before resetting it to 0. I can train that "disabled" 1gp skill over and over with no effect other than the 1gp cost

[past pendant]

You still lose 2 hours, don't you?

[dawn spindle]

Aye

Probably a good slap on the wrist for attempting 🙂

[past pendant]

It has a real impact if decay is enabled

[dawn spindle]

More than once, maybe twice, is madness anyway

More power to them if they like learning the ABCs over and over, I say!

I cannot imagine many players continuing to pay 1gp and wait 2 hours for nothing at all, especially with a warning message.

nothing at all
I mean, apart from the quality time with Caius 😉💋

[swift hornet]

So what exactly is this?

[dawn spindle]

Talking about how to cap training by major/minor/misc as they advance relative to each other

...to bring some meaning to major/minor/misc under NCGW, beyond starting values/spells.

[swift hornet]

I thought it was limiting all increases?

[dawn spindle]

Well, the scope of the discussion narrowed a bit while you were away, friend. 🙂

[swift hornet]

I can see that lol.

[dawn spindle]

Esentially because an error message cannot be displayed each time a capped skill is used in the world

[swift hornet]

True. I appreciate the desire for so much transparency. Though I wish it would be easier to impliment a guide book or tutorial on how leveling works with the mod

That way you don't have to worry so much

[dawn spindle]

And it's confusing and cruel to users otherwise. This mod is in MOMW modlists, so kid gloves are called for

[shut wedge]

Though I wish it would be easier to impliment a guide book or tutorial on how leveling works with the mod
Hey this is a really neat idea, maybe it could be in the form of an actual ingame book

or even a more UI-based thing

[swift hornet]

That's what I'm saying

[shut wedge]

I'm definitely curious to hear your thoughts

[swift hornet]

It's WAY easier to warn the player upfront rather than when it's actually happening

[swift hornet]

Also this prevents this issue too. No human on earth is gonna install a whole modlist. Then just skip a tutorial or guide on said mod/mods.

[dawn spindle]

Johnny! You already made an in-game manual, and your avatar has handed it to me many times, you sly one

[swift hornet]

That's unhinged 😆

[shut wedge]

We do describe the mechanics of the mod in the README, do you find any of that lacking? Just wondering if that content is appropriate for a theoretical ingame book or if we need more/different content.

[shut wedge]

Unhinged is a take on that, I was just having fun 😅

[swift hornet]

Well I ALWAYS read a Readme. But I'm saying something in game like that for less "methodical" players lol

[shut wedge]

Yes, my question is: is the README content good to put in that book?

more? less? different words? Help me out 🙂

[swift hornet]

I meant what I said about about installing modlists then just not bothering with tutorials on them

[dawn spindle]

I think most users do this exactly!

[swift hornet]

Yeah tbh. Maybe toss in some lore flair to it.

[shut wedge]

Ahhh thanks for clarifying and sorry for misunderstanding you!

[swift hornet]

The game all about preparing and not holding your hand.. is the game where people install modlists then skip the tutorials.. I'm lost on other humans.

[dawn spindle]

Experienced players are likely to get right back into to their old favorite game post-install, and expect no changes that aren't obvious.

[swift hornet]

Maybe call it "The guide to true grown in morrowind"

"This is a harsh and unforgiving province, this is a short guide on how to make the most of yourself."

[shut wedge]

Nice, I like that

[swift hornet]

That's why we do the Johnnyhostile and give em a book for it

[dawn spindle]

So much dancing to get around UI-modding limitations. :sigh:

[shut wedge]

When you give folks the power of automatically installing + configuring 500+ mods, the biggest challenge is properly setting expectations about what they are getting.

Sure we have the FAQ, and people can look at the actual mod list, but it takes time to digest all of that and I can totally understand the excitement and wanting to just jump right in.

[swift hornet]

I agree. I wish the UI just worked easily. But we got what we got. I mean, MAYBE we could display the error message on normal increases but attach a timer to it or something.

[dawn spindle]

Further, if a player is handed a library when they start, nothing will be read at all.

[shut wedge]

I think for this, the main challenge is that the UI API takes a bit of effort to get to something that's nice and usable.

[dawn spindle]

Slippery slope.

[shut wedge]

So so true

[shut wedge]

I say this not to imply that the API is bad, it isn't per se, it's just pretty low level

[swift hornet]

Idk, I'm just a different guy about that. I read almost everything. It's fun to get lore and i don't like having to check 100 times for directions. I like to be sure the first few times

[shut wedge]

my dream UI for the N'wah's Guide or really any other kind of tutorial UI is something like a checklist that the user can tick boxes in and get a % completed.

[dawn spindle]

I have seen some pretty divergent UI implementations in .48/.49!

[shut wedge]

I'm pretty proud of the Signpost Fast Travel UI even though it's really simple. It was somewhat tricky to get gamepad support in there (maybe I'm just a brainlet 😅 )

[dawn spindle]

I have presumed that nothing major will be accomplished in this vein prior to UI dehardcode, since it would be effectively obsoleted even if still supported.

[swift hornet]

I'm the weirdo that loves that mod but doesn't like how cheap it is money wise.

[shut wedge]

Ahhh, great callout. Maybe we should make it more expensive for MOMW lists.

I appreciate that feedback.

[dawn spindle]

To me, it's "realistic" for it to be cheap. It should just take way longer than a strider or ship. TBH not sure if it does that currently. Seems like the cheap and slow travelfare for sure though

[swift hornet]

It's only too cheap because it often is cheaper than other fast travel methods.

[swift hornet]

See idk If I agree. Paying for your own travel supplies (this is what the gold cost simulates) is way more expensive than paying a dude in a cool hat to sit on a bug for a few hours.

[shut wedge]

It's hard for me to remember exactly what the methodology was for the pricing but I want to say I was trying to be close to what vanilla prices are for roughly equivalent distances.

[dawn spindle]

We are limited in what tradeoffs we can make to balance fast travel, since risk is eliminated from the equation. We have: how long it takes and how much it costs. I'm all for scaling all travel up in cost (esp. teleportation) for economic balance reasons, but it's just good design to have relative tradeoffs between the travel modes that make thematic sense (to the extent possible manipulating just two variables).

Buuuuut...I think we have gotten pretty far afield from NCGD on account of Johnny's book.

[swift hornet]

Did the channel turn read only for anyone else? It was like that for me this whole time after I sent my last message

[swift hornet]

True my bad. I can sidetrack a discussion pretty well

[shut wedge]

No worries, it's a tangential discussion really

[dawn spindle]

There's always https://discord.com/channels/260439894298460160/1171224310359265360 🙂

[swift hornet]

So as far as NCG is concerned. I like the limiting of skills idea you made. Id definitely want it to be a limit to all growth and not just from training. As once a skill hits 30-40, the training cost is very real to be fair.

It's just once it's that expensive, you can just use the skill normally.

[dawn spindle]

We were talking about the no-manual design of NCGD and if it must be preserved or not.

[shut wedge]

The original NCGD did not have any manual but it did have more of a UI than what we have now. So I think it might not be too much of a stretch to add a book. Maybe.

[dawn spindle]

It should be a setting, I agree. Default to no

[swift hornet]

Oh sure. Because at the end of the day it's all setting based. You guys have the setting for skull rates. If players really want to you can set it to give a full skill up every time you hit with a dagger once lol.

[dawn spindle]

I also agree with having skill capped everywhere, not sure where @mym stands. Might be we were just hammering out details and he went to bed to town in France.

[swift hornet]

France is cool. It's 1:25pm for me rn and I'd LOVE to be asleep

That sounds amazing

[swift hornet]

I mean even if this topic is a setting, there's a lot of mechanic changes in general not fully described

So an in game book or guide could help

[dawn spindle]

Even an additional UI is an imposition on the user.

[swift hornet]

Though I'd rather have a type of imposition on the user than just not knowing what's going on.

Though to be fair, the player is gonna know something is up when they see their level progress not work

[shut wedge]

I just want to say that I really love and appreciate the thoughtful discussions that have been going on in this thread. It's so awesome to have so much engagement and so many great suggestions from everyone.

[dawn spindle]

These little impositions can add up across a big modlist, and modded Morrowind becomes less fun.

[swift hornet]

Yiu and mym are the goats.

[swift hornet]

True, but as mentioned. There's a high chance a player is gonna see their level progress not work and know something is happening.

[dawn spindle]

It still behooves us to differentiate between bare-NCGD context and MOMW list context when discussing where to go with the mod

[swift hornet]

Yeah for sure. I'm just saying that awareness of this mod even in a big list isn't likely to be nonexistent. I was thinking about it.

[dawn spindle]

Not necessarily for the misc/minor skills

[swift hornet]

Why does that matter? Player would hover level to see progress and see it's always 0/10

[dawn spindle]

That is not how it works with the method I proposed to mym

[swift hornet]

I'm just saying that's a limitation to the mod. It will likely always do that.

Method likely doesn't matter. That has always been the case in every version.

I'm strictly speaking of mod list users. Like the player knowing the mod is there. Or at least knowing something is doing that.

[dawn spindle]

You are 💯 correct about the 0/100 for progress thing, my bad.

You make a good case.

[swift hornet]

No worries here. I was just saying strictly for mod awareness because that was a big talking point.

I feel you'd have to be especially oblivious to not notice it at some point lol.

[dawn spindle]

This question should have been "if the hypothetical error message only applies to training"

...but I cannot be sure that mym took it in that way.

[swift hornet]

True. I mean worst case they didn't take it that way and we just correct it.

[dawn spindle]

He will see it, I'm sure.

[dawn spindle]

I feel the love, Johnny! 🤗 These discussions are enjoyable for me not just due to the topics but also the fellow brains in the room.
It's so rad to be able to participate in the development of a tool I use without even dirtying my hands. 😊

[shut wedge]

Yeah! Collaborative development can really be a blast, especially when we're all so passionate about the thing we're working on!

[swift hornet]

Hey I take offense to that! I'm not a brain at all!

[dawn spindle]

It's the same amazing feel as collaborative brainstorming on projects in broader senses, very good feels.

It's okay Nerd, I didn't mean you 8P

[shut wedge]

Don't sell yourself short! You are thinking up some great ideas, keep em coming.

[swift hornet]

I'm passionate about not leveling endurance

[swift hornet]

Good. I always choose warrior sign. I wish it also drained intelligence.

[dawn spindle]

Mr. mym, I missed this before. I think you struck on the simplest method right away here.

[past pendant]

You guys talk too much 😱

What did I miss?

[dawn spindle]

Mmm, I unironically think it needs more discussion. The cursing method I shared from that other mod holds the skill at zero specifically, instead of whatever non-zero skill. Not sure if it works the same (or at all) if you are trying to limit the skill to something other than zero. This was an oversight on my part when proposing that method. Maybe you have another approach in mind.

We have a path forward for training caps at least.

...which is dynamic adjustment on entering/exiting the menu

[past pendant]

That was my idea too

[dawn spindle]

Mr. Nerd is correct that we'd rather have it be for skillups as well.

[past pendant]

Why? (Sorry I missed all the argument)

[swift hornet]

Yeah, as I mentioned i think modlist users won't actually struggle with mod awareness here because they would notice level progress not working or moving.

[dawn spindle]

they would notice level progress not working or moving
...if that is how it can be made to work at present

[swift hornet]

If what? The level progress bar already doesn't work.

I mean the vanilla menu. Like players are gonna know this mod exists or something is happening then go to the FAQ.

So a direct notification when they try to level a skill past the limit might not be needed

[dawn spindle]

You sure about that?

OH, do you mean level progress or skillup progress meter?

[swift hornet]

Level progress

The bar when you hover your level

It's even part of the modlist faq "Why doesn't my level progress bar move at all?"

[dawn spindle]

Ha! Wow, I have not seen the level progress meter since I started using NCGD. Regardless, the lack of progress on the meter will indicate nothing about capped individual skillups, just like it indicates nothing now. That pop-up is a relic of vanilla MW leveling

[swift hornet]

Also they would notice not getting the "you should rest and meditate in what you've learned" message after 10 skill ups.

[swift hornet]

I'm saying it would tell them that a mod is doing that. Or something is going on. It's literally in the modlist faq. It directs them to this mod.

[past pendant]

You mean that the new skill cap should be applied to all situations because there is no need to inform players when it happens?

[dawn spindle]

Tooltips are not dehardcoded like that yet, sadly

[swift hornet]

Basically yeah. You can put an in game guide in, but it isn't that needed because you'd have to be pretty oblivious to not notice that

[swift hornet]

Lol that isn't what I'm referring to.

[dawn spindle]

The level progress meter being dead weight is ancient NCGD history that cannot be changed, or it long since would have been.

[swift hornet]

I'm saying the player would literally see the progress meter not working and the level up message not showing. Then go to the modlist faq or ask about it

This is absolutely true because there already is an faq for this EXACT scenario that I just described lol

[dawn spindle]

They will go to #general and ask, let's be realistic! 🤣

[swift hornet]

But then they get the same answer.

Which is "NCG mod is doing that" then they look it up

See the features and what it does

[dawn spindle]

And then they update NCGW through umo and there is a stealth change

[swift hornet]

But that doesn't relate to this specific discussion about this feature.

A skill limitation setting isn't a stealth change anyway.

[dawn spindle]

It's a larger discussion about changing mechanics with no UI to reflect it

[swift hornet]

Tbh the faq exists because exactly this reason lol.

[swift hornet]

I'm just saying that it likely doesn't have to be UI. Or you can put a timer on the message that plays when you try to level a skill past the limit.

Also why does it need a UI change if it's a setting that is default off?

Like you have to literally go in and manually turn it on, how would you not know what happens?

[dawn spindle]

Also why does it need a UI change if it's a setting that is default off?
It's also this conversation. I'm with you.

I don't know that we have a graceful way to cap the skills outside of the training window. The training window is the low-hanging fruit, and arguably the bigger impact.

[swift hornet]

It doesn't need to be graceful. If the player is opting into it on purpose. They already know they can't do it. So it doesn't have to be super graceful as long as it functions

[swift hornet]

That's my whole thing. We shouldn't assume the player is this unaware person when this all has to be enabled by them on purpose.

[dawn spindle]

I think making a succinct case for why it isn't just training that's capped would be helpful to mym. That is what he asked 17 mins ago.

[past pendant]

Thx yes. I'm handling my family while trying to understand your arguments with my limited English, not easy 😁

[swift hornet]

You're all good. We're talking it out so you don't gotta worry about it. We can give the short version when we have a good case one way or the other.

[dawn spindle]

We discussed skillup caps defaulting to Off

[swift hornet]

Because you already have settings for skill up rate and skill exp rates. Some skills are just annoying to level as a whole. It's nice to be able to level them naturally without it being a huge slog, but capping them when they aren't a major skill makes it still balanced to have that QOL.

Like i want to be able to have the lame skills level fairly quickly, and not have to change settings when they get a reasonable level.

Capping natural skill ups gives me that.

You could even make the skill up limit 2 settings, 1 for training and the other for training and natural.

[past pendant]

Thx you both, give me time on that, I'll get back to you

[swift hornet]

You are the goat.

[past pendant]

Natural skillup, or trained ones?

For natural skill ups, I think the player earned them

my main issue is with trainers

easy level up

[past pendant]

I'd prefer no setting and no natural limit. Only limit trainer boosts, or, more precisely, improve the already existing limits

[swift hornet]

i guess, i gave a qol reason for natural, i'll just switch settings and manually manage it

[past pendant]

what do you mean by "qol reason for natural" ?

[swift hornet]

as i mentioned before, some skills just simply take way too long to level naturally, speechcraft and enchanting to name a few, you have settings to make specific skills level faster

[past pendant]

ah yes

[swift hornet]

if a player uses those settings ever, it's really easy to over level that skill because it is too fast

because a normal player isn't gonna know the exact formula.

so setting a limit naturally can assist in that situation specifically

it gives a compromise between better qol for leveling slow skills, and not going overboard by accident

[past pendant]

about the capping formula, I don't really like the idea of using an average of the upper skill category

I prefer the simple concept of major skills are greater than minor skills, which are greater than misc skills, period

simpler to understand, and seems more coherent to me

[swift hornet]

oh i'm not arguing for the formula to use. that's whatever you want lol.

i just prefer it exist at all

the method of which you decide is totally fine regardless, because it has direction

[past pendant]

yeah, sorry, you just made me remind that point 🙂

[swift hornet]

no apologies needed, all i care about it that it exists and also can have a setting to also affect natural skill ups

because i do understand that most players don't havea grasp of the economy in the game like i do, and likely can't abuse training so well. They likely spend money on supplies and other stuff because their early game characters aren't as powerful

[past pendant]

@dawn spindle you said you didn't like the formula "minor skills cannot go over the lowest major skill", but do you have any other reason that "not nice"? 🙂

[dawn spindle]

Do tell!

[past pendant]

If a player changes the default settings, he's on his own. I don't want to add settings for players who experiment with NCGD

[dawn spindle]

I suppose I could allow it 🙂 but it would seem cruel for misc skills to not go over the least minor skill, because minors can start at 15

[swift hornet]

like i said, the settings would only be changed for qol, and encouraging spamming to level skills to go over the training limit doesn't super solve it

as you could just train to your limit then level past it normally.

[past pendant]

We said something like "chargen choices should matter", which, in this case can translate to "you should have select than misc skill as a minor skill"

[dawn spindle]

...and minor skills can be neglected for quite some time, depending on the build

[dawn spindle]

Your logic is infallible, thank you for the correction. 🙂

I have not crunched any numbers yet.

[past pendant]

I hear you. But know that @shut wedge also don't want to add settings "just in case" 🙂

[swift hornet]

well its more than "just in case" it's to have the function of the training limit work at all.

[dawn spindle]

Time never becomes a limitless resource like money does, though

[past pendant]

Thx for the clear explanation, I'll see with johnny what seems best for NCGD

[swift hornet]

sure, but once a skill becomes sufficiently high, you don't need the trainers anymore to level it, heck NCGD itself has the magicka based leveling where big spells give more skill progress, once you train enough to actually succeed in casting the big spells, you can level rather quickly on your own

[past pendant]

Sorry, but I don't get your point here

[dawn spindle]

There are also couple of skills that allow AFK levelling, but they are few (without an autoclicker or Sikuli or something)

[swift hornet]

yeah i wasn't thinking of afk leveling at all, other than like, armor skills. I'm more mentioning casting/attack skills. as one you train them up to a good level, you can just use them normally, which makes the limit kinda not matter anyway

[dawn spindle]

@mym Just reinforcing that capping training only is 99% sufficient.

Also, I think the rule of: "you can't train a skill above the lowest skill in the next category up" is simple and lovely.

[swift hornet]

like i said, i like that concept, i'd just prefer it be 100%. it's actually kinda tough to balance around misc skills

[dawn spindle]

@swift hornet , I agree that it would be fine if it applied to skillups, too. At the end of the day, each of us is responsible for not degenerating our play, and manual practice might be just how some people want to spend their play sessions.

[swift hornet]

it's probably closer to like 80%, most spell skills get pretty fast to level the moment you hit 40

[swift hornet]

i think it's the biggest concern with spells specifically

as you don't even need to really spam cast for practice, they just grow really fast when you can actually cast real spells

[dawn spindle]

You need to play with SA&D if you haven't yet. Setting half of your character's skills permanently to zero might be your type of challenge. Takes some foresight because you can permaban yourself from factions due to skill requirements.

[swift hornet]

i've been meaning to.

i'm also just expressing a desire for the skills i hate to level quickly but also have a limit in case i don't pay attention enough

[dawn spindle]

I usually mod better starting spells or spellcraft me up some good early spells for my char. It makes sense to me that if you have 5 or 10 in a skill, practice won't do much -- you'll be needing a trainer before you can even practice by yourself.

I can dream of a big switchboard in NCGD to allow users to change the leveling rate of each skill individually. That would solve your use case as well

[swift hornet]

there is basically

[dawn spindle]

At that rate, just console them back down if you get too skilled. NCGD will gracefully delevel you if needed.

[swift hornet]

i know i CAN do these things, I just want it done for me XD

this is me being selfish

[past pendant]

Don't forget that the training is already capped by the governing attribute value. We're just improving the capping formula.
Also don't see that cap as a general skill capping system, but rather as a safeguard to the training system.

[swift hornet]

i'm aware, i'm just saying a person like me just has to pay attention when i naturally play lol

[past pendant]

😄 I know what you mean, but I still trust in your abilities to succeed in your progression

[swift hornet]

but i dont wanna be trusted, i wanna be lazy lol

[past pendant]

the "lazy" point talks to me

[swift hornet]

thats why i wanna be microd, so i can skip leveling the lame skills without having to pay attention lol

[past pendant]

please stop make my reconsidering again and again the approach 🙂

[swift hornet]

i'm sorry, i know how to speak to the masses

[past pendant]

yeah, it takes time to enter my brain... but it does

[swift hornet]

It's just a more pleasant way to skip some of the lame aspects of morrowind.. speechcraft cough cough

[dawn spindle]

This existing system for skill caps, by governing attributes...is probably hardcoded right now?

[swift hornet]

ooooh maybe that cap can just apply to skills overall? i mean, that solves a lot of it in general and helps itself.

[dawn spindle]

I am all in favor of capping both training and skillups. I just see training as very low hanging fruit, since the implementation is already fairly clear.

@swift hornet I was thinking more around just taking it over entirely so NCGD can govern based on the combination of attributes it uses for each skill instead of a single attribute.

[swift hornet]

hmmm

[dawn spindle]

It's an idea to run by @past pendant

[past pendant]

You mean to cap all skills based on all of their related attributes?

[dawn spindle]

Yep

I was more imaginining the same weighting of the attributes that the mod uses for distributing attribute increases from skillups

...like, with enough Willpower and Personality, you might be able to raise Mysticism beyond your Intelligence. Random idea from me again. 😊

[past pendant]

Let me sleep on that. I like the concept, but I feel the impact on the whole system.

👋 💤

[dawn spindle]

Bon soir mon frere

[dawn spindle]

I have been self-enforcing the "rules" we discussed for skillcaps in NCGD. It's not too much different from how I have been developing characters specifically for distinctness. It has been my preferred way for a long time. I am able to constrain myself to it, but understand that others don't have the self-control. Of course, I think everyone should play MW and drive a car more like I do! Just gotta force them to. 😉

[past pendant]

After discussing with @shut wedge, we won't limit natural skill increases for now. Only training will be capped using the new rule major > minor > misc

[past pendant]

Your idea to cap skills using all impacted attributes is sensible, but players won't be able to know in advance what limits are. You'll need a calculation or a clue from NCGD

For now I prefer to test the new rule we elaborated together

[dawn spindle]

Yes, I was sleeping on the difficulty of indicating the cap to the player and waking up to nothing. Agreed.

[dawn spindle]

I'm eager.

[past pendant]

Me too 😁

Also @dawn spindle I'd love to have your opinion on this issue, and the propositions in the screenshots:
https://gitlab.com/modding-openmw/ncgdmw-lua/-/issues/47

[dawn spindle]

Oh wow, what a combinatorial nightmare!

[past pendant]

True

[dawn spindle]

Mehdi had me nodding on his first proposal up until Alchemy got Speed.
Is there a spreadsheet available of current NCGD governing skills matrix? I would like to visually diff Mehdi's 2nd proposal

[past pendant]

I can share you a copy of my Google sheet if you want 😅

Mehdi is me

But there is already an ODS sheet in NCGD archive

[dawn spindle]

Standing by, unless you need anything from me in order to share.

[past pendant]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1prCpzhy9ZhxeyTkOeiQKLsv98iCFC-FUWG6oS15AoUM/edit?usp=drivesdk

[dawn spindle]

What is "Lord Chop" and what is the third set of values, please?

[past pendant]

Lord Chop is the guy who opened the issue

Third table is my proposal

[dawn spindle]

Thank you

Initially, I think this is the only change I could defend:

I have to say that balancing that spreadsheet is like having a melee battle in a phone booth!

@past pendant

[past pendant]

It makes sense, but my issue with 4 STR in Acrobatics is that it can lead to strength boost abuses (jump, jump, jump...)

[dawn spindle]

That is a good point. I need to really dive into this and keep balance in mind.

It reminds me of solving Ken-Ken puzzles. 😁

I will do my best to provide you some feedback of value!

[swift hornet]

My laziness nooooo. Is the leveling progression still gonna change like we talked about awhile ago?

[swift hornet]

It's not so much about self control tho I am lazy. I just really think only training limit doesn't solve it.

Because you can still just take whatever magic skill you want as a major and get the free spells without any drawback. Because you only need a train a skill to like 30 something before it becomes usable anyway.

You don't really need to limit training for skills anyway because training is only really really busted for making a skill not be at 10 lol.

Once a skill is at roughly 50, you can't even train it realistically anyway because you gotta find a trainer for it.

It's not so much about self control or whatever. It's more about what we originally discussed about the major/minor choices mattering.

[dawn spindle]

Laziness and self-control are a part of the same spectrum.

take whatever magic skill you want as a major and get the free spells
The skill-capping we have discussed would address this squarely, I believe.

[swift hornet]

I'm aware. I'm just illustrating my point that I'm not sure what training limiting in this fashion actually does. Because the training limit is already when almost everyone stops anyways because a skill is only unusable when it's lower than 30-35.

[dawn spindle]

That is a big assumption on your part.

[swift hornet]

I don't really think so. Because training after level 50 is already extremely inconvenient to the player as there's only a handful of trainers in the game able to even do it.

Once you hit 40 in a weapon skill, you almost never miss except vs very agile enemies, and once you hit 30-35 in a spell skill. You have at least a 50-60% chance to cast virtually any spell.

And alchemy becomes entirely self sufficient the moment you hit 25-30. I tested it last night at the request of one of my friends and I trained alchemy from like 9 to 25

Then made potions for an hour and it was lvl 100.

[dawn spindle]

How you play is not how everyone plays, believe it or not! And the skill that is least tempting to train makes a poor example against capping training as discussed.

[swift hornet]

I'm not saying Playstyle things though. These are just actusl numbers of what you can do. The entire premise of the original discussion was making the major/minor skills more important. You're saying training cap fixes the picking magic skills thing firmly. But it kinda doesn't lol.

But that's my whole point tho.. alchemy literally never needs to be a major or minor skill. It can always be misc and just be level 100 anyway.

I'm not saying anyone even has to change anything. This is a setting default off after all. I'm just saying why I'd likely never turn it on because I have to self manage anyway.

[dawn spindle]

I get where you are coming from. If mym and johnny both nix it, seems like all you can do is make your best case and offer constructive ideas, and move on to bigger and better things.

[swift hornet]

That's what I'm doing currently lol. I'm presenting numbers to actually reference, not coming from a place of "hey 2 out of 100 gamers are gonna exploit this"

I mean hell the mod literally let's you change skill gain settings lol.

[dawn spindle]

Well, to be fair, you have included "appeal to majority" among your many fallacious arguments. 🙂

[swift hornet]

Anyone can just say you get 1000% skill progress for making a potion or talking to an npc once.

[swift hornet]

Well I'm not the only one who's specifically expressed feeling like the major/minor skills aren't actually a choice that matters. Im not even the original person who brought up the spell thing.

[dawn spindle]

Yeah, NCGD was part of a long evolution of leveling mods. It's pretty different from MW leveling, and raises new issues.

[swift hornet]

If i was the only person who felt this way, i wouldn't really say anything except bringing it up maybe once.

[dawn spindle]

I'm fully down with being free of rest-to-level and min-maxing attribute gains per level.

[swift hornet]

I'm literally playing this mod no matter what for this reason.

[dawn spindle]

The flattening of the skills out of maj/min/misc was a cost.

[swift hornet]

They could literally make 30 overall bad decisions with development and it's still better than vanilla

[dawn spindle]

True

[swift hornet]

I'm just expressing and explaining that concern specifically. And I'm just also trying to understand why capping training does anything at all.

[dawn spindle]

Picking your least favorite skills as maj/min so that enemies would be underleveld...you think that this would be foreseen.

[swift hornet]

Because the most you're doing is stopping the play from gaining MAYBE 10-15 skill levels

[dawn spindle]

I guess you don't refer to the list of master trainers very often.

[swift hornet]

Or even expert

[dawn spindle]

Training becomes exponentially efficient. Practice doesn't. Does that help?

[swift hornet]

But training becomes also exponentially way more expensive and inconvenient.
Especially with for the right price.

Also practice does with NCGD because most skills level faster the higher you make them.

[dawn spindle]

Income is also exponential. Inconvenience is a lack of knowledge and experience.

Also practice does with NCGD because most skills level faster the higher you make them.
This is settings-dependent and not true in MOMW lists.

[swift hornet]

MOMW settings has magicka based leveling on by default.

[dawn spindle]

The player's real life time is not exponential, so practice loses, even with expensive spells.

Yes, I assume magicka-based

[swift hornet]

But most players aren't going to amass the money required to train that high anyway. If they can, then capping training definitely doesn't do anything because you can afford it.

[dawn spindle]

But most players aren't going to amass the money required to train that high anyway.
This is so, so, so wrong.

Capping means disallowing training whatsoever, not just making it expensive.

We were not on the same page at all! 😆

[swift hornet]

It literally doesn't. Because you can just train the lower skill. What on earth are you talking about?

If you're able to afford expert or even master level training. Then training up to that point is almost a non issue.

[dawn spindle]

Okay, I was wrong there haha. But the runaround becomes an extra cost. There we are again with time being the real resource.

[swift hornet]

So then practice doesn't lose? Like if real life time is the barrier and players have to choose one option to raise a skill, they are gonna pick the faster choice.

[dawn spindle]

I have definitely teleported around between trainers to bump up lesser skills strictly for the attribute gains, so I could eventually train up my dominant skill further.

It's a mechanic.

[swift hornet]

Which means the cap doesn't do anything.. lol which is my whole point. You can just train the lower skill like you just said.

[dawn spindle]

Which means practice loses...

[swift hornet]

You can and will. It doesn't change the gameplay loop at all. Because you just do what you were doing anyway.

[dawn spindle]

The fast choice is turboclicking training. The making of the money for it is the adventuring part of the game. I have to say that I basically never ever practice, because it's lame and boring to click click click and watch a number go up. I'd rather play Progress Quest.

Perhaps this is why only capping training makes great sense to me.

[swift hornet]

This right here is what I'm talking about. You said you literally do this. Which means capping training doesn't actually do anything.

You can just train the lower of the major/minor skills like you already would.

[dawn spindle]

...it makes you figure out how to teleport around and make it happen

[swift hornet]

But you just said that isn't an issue because that's just player knowledge and skill..

[dawn spindle]

Hard to address your points individually when they are so rapid.

The playing of the game is the gaining of the knowledge and the skill. Not clicking in a corner.

[swift hornet]

This specifically. Wouldn't this logic also apply to teleporting around?

[swift hornet]

I'm not talking about spam clicking as practice. Disregard this entirely. I never even mentioned spam clicking in general.

[dawn spindle]

The money->skill mechanic of training is fundamental to the game. Corner-clickers need not be catered to.

[swift hornet]

I agree. I never talked about corner clicking even once. Lol

[dawn spindle]

Hunting mudcrabs is different. Running instead of teleporting is, too.

[swift hornet]

My entire angle is that the capping of training doesn't actually change the loop in any way at all. You still just train the lower skills like you already wanted to for attribute gains.

[dawn spindle]

But those take time and decision-making

[swift hornet]

What you need to do in order to teleport around and afford all of it is the exact same

[swift hornet]

The same time and decision making as if you didn't cap them.

[dawn spindle]

This is wrong.

[swift hornet]

It really isn't though. How is it any different. You even admitted that money isn't an issue because you can already afford master training.

[dawn spindle]

Making a plan to teleport around and which skills when, how to move the money if you are smart and play with .01 gold weight, etc...all of this is a metagame as old as Morrowind.

[swift hornet]

Which capping doesn't change.. you've still not actually made a point that proves this wrong. Because you can still just train the lower skills to raise the cap

Which gives attributes anyway..

Also .01 gold weight isn't in any modlist for openmw

So this point is massively moot.

[dawn spindle]

Without capping training, there is no need to do all of the above...

[swift hornet]

There literally is though.. you literally just said it. You actually just said you do it anyway lol. To gain attributes..

[dawn spindle]

Man, this is starting to feel pretty pedantic.

[swift hornet]

Idk what to tell you. You're talking about playing with .01 gold weight when that's just not on a mod list at all.

[dawn spindle]

Very rare cases, where I built my character poorly.

[dawn spindle]

Gosh, you didn't inform me that we were in an MOMW list context at the moment.

[swift hornet]

I'm literally just mirroring what you said. I'm not even changing the words around in any fashion.

[dawn spindle]

Like I was saying earlier about differentiating that?

[swift hornet]

Were talking about the overall players. You JUST said how you play isn't how everyone else plays.

[dawn spindle]

Soundbitism a.k.a. quote out of context logical fallacy

[swift hornet]

It isn't though, but okay lol

You didn't get misquoted but okay lol.

I'm just not sure how you can say how I play isn't how everyone else plays, while also talking about gold weight, which I guarantee not many people use.

I also don't see how capping training does anything when it doesn't alter the loop that you literally said was "as old as morrowind" nothing was misquoted here.

[past pendant]

🤯

I hear you both

After dinner I'm take time to integrate the arguments

[swift hornet]

My whole thing isn't bashing or anything. I'm just trying to understand what this type of capping actually does. Hear me out.

This is a setting that is default off, so the only people that actually want this on are people that have a tendency to exploit training too much, and want something that prevents them. The issue lies with the cap is what it actually does to prevent anything.

As all you need to do is raise your lower end Major/minor skills in order to then train your misc skills, the problem is that doing this gives you attributes, so you are already incentivized to do it. So it doesn't really do much to prevent anything, as the inconvience of training other skills is already rewarded with attribute gain. The monetary cost is also not relevant because if you can already afford expert/master training, you can certainly afford cheaper training.

If anything, training should be capped based on something that is more difficult to directly increase, which is the issue i'm having with finding an alternative. I'm not directly suggesting it be scrapped or changed, i'm just really unsure what this setting actually does to prevent anything.

[past pendant]

Thx for your recap.

I agree with you on the fact that the training skill capping will not prevent abuses

But I think it will be more fastidious

I think NCGD should add discreet safeguards, but should not try to solve every issue in Morrowind

like I said, economy mods partially solve the training issue

also, skill settings partially solve the natural progression of misc skills (lower gains)

I think setting a hard cap on natural progression, even if it's a setting, will generate miscomprehension and frustration

[swift hornet]

like, it's Moreso why it's a setting at all, because most people aren't going to turn it on because most people aren't abusing training like that anyway, they are just playing the game, heck this mod largely removes the stupid loop of getting 15 attributes and rushing endurance. So even more people are just gonna play the game.

but they people that DO turn it on, how does it actually stop them, when they are already rewarded for the slightly extra effort?

[past pendant]

I was planing to set the training cap on by default, without any setting

[swift hornet]

that's certainly more concrete, because i was confused as to why it would be something you turn on/off

[swift hornet]

i was striclty speaking on training caps when i meant hard capping anything.

the only real casualty from not capping natural skill ups is that alchemy is still a 100% free roll. you just never ever make it major/minor as it's effortless to raise to whatever you want.

[past pendant]

true

but I see that as an alchemy skill issue, not a leveling issue

meaning I'm not sure NCGD should do something for that

[swift hornet]

its 100% alchemy being the issue because it's the only crafting/non combat skill that's easy to raise

[past pendant]

maybe mods like Alchemical Hustle could do something on that

[swift hornet]

enchanting, speech, mercantile, repair are all way more annoying to raise

[shut wedge]

And at the opposite end you have a few skills that are stupid hard to level up, yep you nailed it and I'd add sneak to that too

[swift hornet]

not really, all the alchemy mods just nerf the value of potions and remove the obvious broke nloop

[swift hornet]

exactly, and this is where the training cap can be pretty annoying

[past pendant]

True. And there are mods and GMSTs that can help

[shut wedge]

My hope is that as the Lua API grows we can make gameplay mods to affect those more impactfully

[swift hornet]

because you essentially have to make them a major skill in order for them to increase at a reasonable rate

in NCGD i unironically have sneak, speech, enchant, merc, and repair at almost 5-10 times the growth speed

[past pendant]

If it's a major or minor skill, then the capping won't be an issue. If it's a misc skill, then you made a wrong chargen choice 🙂

[swift hornet]

but i thought minor can go above lowest major?

[past pendant]

true, then you'll have to take your time to progress at a normal pace

[swift hornet]

well the problem is the skills i mentioned just dont progress at a normal pace, thus why i change those settings at all.

[past pendant]

Then use or create mods that improve on that

there are GMSTs for sneak that really help

[swift hornet]

your mod already improves that, which is what i was saying. I'm saying these are theoretical problems, but as you said, it's those skills that are the problem

so is the leveling progression gonna be the same?

[past pendant]

Ah yes I recently added a boost on sneak and pickpocket gains in NCGD's default settings

[past pendant]

player or skill level progression ? 😄

[swift hornet]

player level, we talked about it before, but I likely forgot what was actually decided.

[past pendant]

ah yes

we've been expecting you

player level will be same as vanilla

[swift hornet]

like major/minor skills contributing to level progress and misc just contributing to attributes?

[past pendant]

exactly

[molten oyster]

mym, what about adding training cost increase to your GMST plugin for HBFS?

[past pendant]

I already recommend "For the Right Price" mod which does that

[molten oyster]

Ah gotcha

[past pendant]

I don't want to cover every popular and good mods 🙂

[swift hornet]

based, OP. Goated.

i'm just gonna download all of your mods and run it

[past pendant]

But now I think about it, after the hot debate on training here, maybe it would be better to increase even more the training cost.

[molten oyster]

I personally use a mod to double training costs so I'm not tempted into abusing it lol

[void roost]

Probably the best idea to make harder to fast increase attributes related do misc skills

If someone will train misc skills via using them it very fair

But train all misc skills to higher levels because they are very cheap can be very obvious

Because of training, character sheets of players aren't these same value

[swift hornet]

I wish there was a mod that wasn't a flat price increase but an exponential price increase. Even more than vanilla.

After all, the master level trainers are literally one of a kind. Their services should only be available to the most weathly heroes.

Because as I've said like a billion times. Early training shouldn't be touched in any significant way, early training is fine because skills just aren't usable at 20 or below. You're too inept to actually level them on your own.

It's even pretty realistic, as if you suck really bad at something, you need to be taught how to do it right before you can practice it on your own.

[void roost]

You are right

[past pendant]

I'm not satisfied with my current new formula for attribute growth

using the related skill levels is not enough to prevent misc skill increase abuses

I'm thinking I could apply the same skill growth factor for misc/minor/major skills to attribute growth too

default GMSTs for skill growth are major * 1.25, minor * 1, misc * 0.75

maybe those ratios are not enough

I think it would be better with:

• major skills make their attributes grow at 150%
• minor skills make their attributes grow at 100%
• misc skills make their attributes grow at 50%

"chargen choices matter"

or maybe 100% for both major and minor, and 50% for misc, because both major and minor skills define your profile.
Or major 125%, minor 100%, misc 50%

@swift hornet @dawn spindle @shut wedge I'd like your opinion on that

[past pendant]

I just tested with major 100%, minor 80% and misc 40% and it seems well balanced

with a base growth of 0.5 attribute point per skill increase when at 100%

meaning that major skills can give you up to 5 attributes points per 10 increases (a player level up)

this is with the attribute "slow growth" setting

normal growth is +50%, fast growth +100%

note that the skill level is no more a factor of attribute growth

[swift hornet]

HUGE. Grand. Amazing.

Misc skills should contribute very little to attributes. Maybe minor 90% and misc 30%

As you said minor skills make up your character just like major ones do.

This compliments whatever training balance you want to impliment because now you're not being heavily rewarded for the supposed inconvenience. Thus making it actually inconvenient.

This + training cap or like I suggested, more heavily exponential cost. As low level training is honestly totally fine and even necessary.

[past pendant]

We need to test the ratios on real situations (game saves...) to fine tune the values

[swift hornet]

I can send a guy when I'm at the house.

[past pendant]

Here is an archive of my current work, if you or anyone could test it on a game save, to compare player level and attribute growth

on test it on a new game, and using the console to increase the skills

[swift hornet]

I got you. I just have to survive the DMV.

[past pendant]

DMV?

[swift hornet]

Yes in America it's hell. It's where you go to renew your drivers license..

There's always a huge line, it's hot, and smelly lol

[dawn spindle]

Real slice of life! Everyone but the rich must go.

[swift hornet]

Wym?

[dawn spindle]

Sorry, I am not familiar with the word you used.

Walk Yer Mom?

[swift hornet]

Oh my fault. It's What do you mean?

Yes I'm aware it should be wdym, which some people also use.

[dawn spindle]

Well, she has been gaining weight, and it's nice to have her crap somewhere besides the yard for once. Neighbors like to see her.

[swift hornet]

No no lol, I'm saying "wym" stands for what do you mean.

[dawn spindle]

That's what I meant!

[dawn spindle]

You're the one who said it right here. Not me. 8P

[swift hornet]

I'm aware i said it? Like I get that you're trolling me, but I was just straight up asking what you meant lol.

[dawn spindle]

Everyone goes to the DMV but rich people.

[swift hornet]

You can avoid the dmv if you're rich?!

[dawn spindle]

...who have representatives.

[swift hornet]

Gah I need to be a millionaire

For literally just that reason.

[dawn spindle]

Nah just ride dirty. And keep the talk here about NCGD. 😛

[swift hornet]

My fault. I'm good at lowering the total IQ of others around me.

[past pendant]

Yeah, now nobody will see my test archive 😭

[past pendant]

Bump 🙂

[swift hornet]

Speaking of, do you do the reset stats command?

[past pendant]

No need when upgrading

It's automatically done

[swift hornet]

Oh sick.

[dawn spindle]

Yeah never used that one myself.

[past pendant]

Only useful when things go wrong

[dawn spindle]

Noted. I should be able to test sometime today. Attribute vs. Skill growth ratio, that all to look at?

[past pendant]

Yes, and the player level

You'll inevitably get different values, and the idea is to evaluate whether attributes and the player level are coherent with skills

Also, check NCGD's stats menu to see stats on attributes

[dawn spindle]

Okay. I'll plan to speedrun it with player->setskill and opening the NCGD menu in between, if that will work.

[past pendant]

The starting values are now the real chargen values

[past pendant]

Perfect. Also, comparing stats of an existing game save is very relevant

[dawn spindle]

I have to say that I have grown addicted to spell-based stat/attr/skill buffs from mods, since they do an end-run around NCGD's math, coming after.

(Things like Class Abilities and Special Advantages & Disadvantages.)

So I'm curious what you mean here, how they were not before:

The starting values are now the real chargen values

You mean when NCGD fires, the stats come out to what chargen would have made without it?!? No way

I'm probably overdue to spin through the NCGD docs again.

[swift hornet]

so how exactly does the training cap work with this version? I can't train major skills either?

asking because i made a new character and i can't train any skill at all.

i've actually checked every possible skill for reference, I can't train anything at all

[spark pawn]

Any idea why when updating NCGD on an ongoing save, my character is cured of vampirism?

[swift hornet]

mym blessed you this day

[spark pawn]

I don't know how much of a blessing it really is. In Total Overhaul, vampirism is pretty OP. You get like 60 additional attribute points and +20 to several skills.

[swift hornet]

oh i was just joking, i imagine you are a vampire on purpose if you are one

[past pendant]

I may have an idea. Thx for the report. I'll check that before the big update

[spark pawn]

I also had several attribute bonuses from the elixir in Shal Overgrown just vanish as well.

[past pendant]

Might be the same bug

[spark pawn]

Do you know if you'll also give a bonus to the attribute growth of favored attributes, so rather than just giving a static +10 at character creation, favoring an attribute like strength will increase the strength gained by leveling blunt weapons for example?

like a scaling bonus

Maybe specialization as well, with skills under your specialization contributing more to attribute growth?

[swift hornet]

what is the attribute growth rate for this version exactly? it might be too low as a bug unless my math is off

[past pendant]

We don't give bonus to attribute growth for favored attributes or specializations. I think the +10 bonus is already very good in terms of advantages, and now NCGD will preserve the chargen values, and thus that bonus will be intact.

Specialization will make skills increase faster, which will also make their impacted attributes increase faster.

I don't think we need to double that bonus.

[past pendant]

What is your growth speed setting?

I gave all the details above

[past pendant]

here

[dawn spindle]

🤣 Gents, this seemed appropriate to our conversations here: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/43498

[swift hornet]

normal

[past pendant]

the math is simple: with major skills (default to 100% factor), you can get up to 5 attributes points per player level and slow growth

the it's 7.5 with normal growth speed

but, it's 7.5 distributed over 3 impacted attributes

with such settings, my level ~20 char got a similar attribute growth distribution

I'm not sure if it's enough, that's why I'm asking for your help with your tests 🙂

[swift hornet]

what about minor skills specifically though

[past pendant]

@swift hornet you're right on training caps, there were a bug

the training cap should be fixed with this archive

[swift hornet]

lol it was that or i had the perfect character to never train XD

[past pendant]

80% of the above values, as we discussed

might be a bit less, because of the decimals

[swift hornet]

that's where my math is tripping up. because i only get 5 attributes for raising a minor skill 10 times

when it should be 6

but if it's a little off, that's obviously fine

[past pendant]

ah yes, decimals: you have remainings waiting to be completed with more skills

remember: each skill impacts 4 attributes with the following proportions: 4, 2, 1 (+1 for luck)

[swift hornet]

i see now, it was 5 for the first 10 increases, and it was 6 for the next 10

[past pendant]

true! I always felt that odd. I'm glad to offer now an approach that preserves your original stats sheet

[past pendant]

excatly, something like that

[dawn spindle]

This I have to see!

I have really come to count on the attribute bonuses from starting skills to round out races that otherwise lack in certain areas.

[past pendant]

you mean how NCGD currently round attributes based on skill values?

that makes me think that another approach could have been to just ignore chargen attributes and completely define them based on skills

but it would be frustrating for the player who carefully builds his character

[dawn spindle]

I would riposte that further erosion of the meaning of major/minor should be avoided.

[dawn spindle]

here

[dawn spindle]

I like this about it. It effectively retroactively applies NCGD to the presumed preceding skillups. It tailors races to builds (but not too much imo) and allows for interesting combos.

[swift hornet]

huge agree

I personally never had an issue with certain races being better at stuff than others. I mean, orcs are renowned for their battle prowess, they should have a natural leaning towards martial combat.

[past pendant]

It does have advantages. But it kind of breaks the base attribute initialization mechanic of vanilla Morrowind

You don't get what you asked

Chargen choices...

[dawn spindle]

I usually come out ahead, which helps me like it, I think. But I really liked CRAP, the race mod that set default skills to 20 before racial bonuses instead of 40. The gravy skill bonuses from NCGD at level one (sometimes making you level two, even) sort of needed it for balance.

I'm on TR races now, or I'd still be CRAPping.

I do wonder if all of the MOMW list balancing efforts will need revision if NCGD isn't pouring out the gravy skillups at chargen.

[past pendant]

Ah yes, that occasional level 2 at the beginning is exactly what made me start to contribute to NCGD and Lua mods, just to fix that 😂

[dawn spindle]

Believe it or not, I think I remember seeing you jump in for exactly that!

And the documentation...

[past pendant]

Could you explain that sentence to me, in other words? 😅

[dawn spindle]

If the "economy" of skill points at chargen changes, balancing may need tweaking.

For convenience, I have called the extra skill points from NCGD at chargen "gravy".

No gravy changes things.

[past pendant]

Sorry I don't get it. Next NCGD's version will alter attribute distribution. Not skills

[dawn spindle]

Yes, the skill points generate the attributes. Lack of gravy attributes probably doesn't affect balance pacing as much as lack of gravy skills, but still.

Attributes are also skillcaps, so there is a ripple effect when they start lower.

Deep waters.

[past pendant]

You mean the next NCGD version will nerf players?

[golden coyote]

I started this build. My level lowered from 19 to 14. I like it. Most of my attributes stay at same level. Only personality fall from 80 to 60. Surprisingly my HP jumped from 49 to 114, but I was able to tune it in settings.
This build looks promising. Big thanks.

[dawn spindle]

Technically, isn't starting with character sheet attributes instead of NCGD-ized attributes a nerf?

[past pendant]

Thx so much for that feedback. I moved the health settings, so you probably lost your customizations

[past pendant]

I don't think so. It depends on your skills

You'll just be less dependent of your skills

It's roughly the same except when starting attributes don't match the skills you selected

Like, if you maximized your strength attribute at chargen, but only selected magic skills, then you'll see a big difference between current and next version of NCGD

Thank you all for the talk 👋 💤

[dawn spindle]

Sweet dreams, thanks for what you do!

[dawn spindle]

I had the foresight to remove constant effect gear for a couple, at least.
My brain is scrambled from the results, and I no longer have any thoughts at all. It's pleasant, really.

[swift hornet]

So for when you wake up or whenever, I can now train stuff, but the message saying i can't still shows. It still tries to tell me nothing can be trained

[swift hornet]

few bug reports: Some misc skills can just be trained anyway, I had block as a misc skill, it originally prevented me from training it past 15 which is my lowest minor skill, then after leveling up, i was able to train it indefinitely all the way to 100.

also if you train a misc skill right after leveling up, it immediately levels you up then de-levels you. This only applies to misc skills, as the moment you gain any player level progress, it stops.

[past pendant]

Thank you! I see quite big differences. And the new version seems to reduce your stats. Did you have the same attribute growth setting value?

[past pendant]

Noted

[past pendant]

Thx! I'll check that too, once I'm free from my 2nd child

[swift hornet]

I have tried to replicate all of these bugs, It's "kinda" consistent. I'm not exactly certain what i'm doing to cause it. Especially the infinite training misc skills.

it feels like the trainers themselves are what's bugged? because sometimes it still caps me like intended.

[past pendant]

I think I fixed all your bugs

you really helped me with your tests, thx

[swift hornet]

Damn lol that was fast

[swift hornet]

You're the goat.

[past pendant]

I found the culprit code and fixed it!
Next version won't cure you from vampirism or any player's active spell

[swift hornet]

You're finding these bugs super quick.

I didn't give great explanations lol. I'm trying to allow video recording for morrowind so I can just show you the bug happening in the future if anything happens.

[past pendant]

I'm now really really familiar with NCGDMW's code

that bug was easy, as I just removed some old code used to clear old curses required with openmw 0.48

but diseases were also cleared...

[dawn spindle]

I consistently use Vanilla and Down to 1/2.
It felt like a sturdy nerf across the board. I'm also thinking about that it means to have lower stats and level, but the same skills.

I did not change any settings. I was dropping into expanded-vanilla, so I just replaced the mod files, noting that I needed to copy ncgdmw.omwscripts to ncgdmw-dev.omscripts before the game would init.

[past pendant]

that's skill reductions, but I meant attribute growth setting

[dawn spindle]

My bad!

I don't remember having ever touched that setting. At any rate, attribute growth is Standard.

[past pendant]

ok then your profiles give lots of info. The question is: Do they seem coherent with your skills?

do you agree with lower and higher attribute values?

[dawn spindle]

Tough to answer. I would say that attributes seem less coherent with skills, and more coherent with race.

[dawn spindle]

I am still getting my head around the net effect of lower attributes/level, but same skills.

[dawn spindle]

It feels like a nerf, so I recoil at the loss of character power, of course. I can't opine yet, good or bad.

I really like being able to coax out a more robust Altmer, a wiser Orsimer, or a stronger cannibal elf. My instinct is to demand that back.

Plus, isn't it kind of racist to tell a little Redguard boy that he can't grow up be the most powerful wizard in Tamriel?

[past pendant]

I suppose it's logical

[past pendant]

I get you, and I also liked that old property.
But it had its drawback: the scramble of chargen attributes, which is really weird for new players and which does not respects the base mechanic

[dawn spindle]

It stands to reason that the doing of the thing enhances its associated attributes. That's the basis of NCGD. I think it's appropriate to have that be retroactive in light of the presumed skillups that preceded chargen.

[past pendant]

Anyway, I'm thinking on a setting to control that: Percent of chargen attributes preserved.
50% would be similar to the current version. 100% would be my current dev

[dawn spindle]

The complexity added by multiple governing attributes is a big part of the magic of NCGD. It also adds "realism", nuance.

Replayability

[dawn spindle]

"Attribute Pliability" or "Racial Adaptability", roughly?

Here is a weird one: what about "attribute decay", if no associated skills are leveled?

I still need to do some chargen and training on the new build.

[dawn spindle]

I'd like to try 25%. "Raised by wolves" type. 🙂

[past pendant]

I'm not fond of decay. Even though I completely rewrote that part and I had a lot of fun doing it

[past pendant]

The concept could be pretty easy:

• 100% attribute preservation: Untouched chargen values, and only use skill increases
• 0% attribute preservation: set chargen values to 0 and use full skills values
• 50% attribute preservation: half of chargen attributes, and half of chargen skills + skill increases

[dawn spindle]

I mean, on the lower end of the raciality vs. professionality scale, could a nerdy orc be weaker than chargen?

[past pendant]

Would presets be better than a percent value? Like 0, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1 ?

[dawn spindle]

I'd prefer percents until we have a slider.

MOMW is giving a 9.39~% bonus to attributes.

I really enjoyed CRAP, as I've mentioned. ("Attributes are now lower across the board, by a lot. The "average" attribute value is now 20, half of vanilla one.") I think I'll love the beta, because there is no CRAP for TR. I think it's a great direction to go.

I could see great value in being able to adjust even how much race contributes to attributes.

[past pendant]

Thx. What matters is not the average, because I can change globally the growth to match the old average.
What we should consider is whether the up and down differences are legitimate or not. And also how the growth evolve from low player level to high level

[swift hornet]

i want whatever option makes my power actually make sense for the level i am, as we have discussed.

[dawn spindle]

I'm 100% on board with relatively lower levels and attributes now. I have seen the 💡

It's only "lower" because current momw ncgd is a little bit "splashy with the gravy"

[past pendant]

You mean that, whatever the new formula, it will depend on the character construction and progression, and thus we need to be able to adjust it midgame?

[dawn spindle]

Current beta is much closer to how chargen plays out in vanilla, feels like.

[past pendant]

Lower player levels compared to current NCGD's version?

[past pendant]

That was the intent 🙂

[swift hornet]

no no remember i originally was way too strong to be level 9, i wanted to be weaker but be the same level, or be higher level to reflect my stats

[past pendant]

Ah ok, sorry. Then you already have the attribute growth setting

[dawn spindle]

I know two versions right now: "beta" and "momw". Beta is relatively lower than momw in levels and attributes. Closer to vanilla

[past pendant]

Wait, by beta you mean from the beta version of MOMW? Or the version I uploaded in this thread?

[dawn spindle]

This one.

[past pendant]

Is it better that way?

[dawn spindle]

I was open about feeling nerfed, but that's relative to the gravy train that's been going with NCGD as it has been for a while. When I first started using NCGD, it felt fairly cheaty, specifically on the attribute start and growth.
Perhaps a moot question at this point, but was that part of the carrot that brought over everyone who adopted it?

Maybe not moot at all. How will everyone cope? 🤔

I was an early adopter.

[past pendant]

I did not feel the same way. My attributes were relatively low. Maybe because I always have balanced/multi-classed profiles, and the last version of NCGD has the tendency to nerf those profiles

[dawn spindle]

I have noticed that effect, and it pushed me to more archetypical characters, for sure.

[past pendant]

I have no idea what drives players 😁

[past pendant]

Not exactly true as my sole motivation for modding is gameplay

[dawn spindle]

Trying to make this easier to read in pop-up timeframe.

[dawn spindle]

I actually liked this about it, as a change from classic Morrowind everyman character syndrome, but the balance between the archetypes and the everyman seems like it could be a little less harsh on the everyman -- in MOMW 6.x.

[void roost]

I would just delete word "any"

[dawn spindle]

Needs to be clear that it's the lowest Major, not the highest, no?

[void roost]

if you list the lowest major/minor, why to say "you cant exceed any skill"

[dawn spindle]

Not listing those. Listing skills prohibited from training and why, upon entering the training menu or trying to train a prohibited skill.

[void roost]

ok, so it's needed because i didn't understand

[dawn spindle]

I opted against putting them both because it was a bit much to take in at popup speed. It gets busy, but maybe okay.

(My colors are horrible 😅 )

[void roost]

maybe just "Misc skill (red)Speechcraft may not exceed (blue?/green?) Mino %skillname%"

and every skill will generate his own popup

1 question - minor may not exceed miajor, and misc-minow while traing for money or always, even during skill use?

[dawn spindle]

See above 🤣

[void roost]

during skill use it's skill training too

[dawn spindle]

Just training in the current development.

^ That was a johnny call btw.

Imagine getting a popup every time you use a skill that is at its cap.