Monster balancing and Heartland

[arvisrend]

NPC claims for Heartland (map 4) are not far away, and NPCing can involve dropping monsters in the landscape, so let me lay out what kind of balancing and monster placement I'd like to see in the game. The following guidelines (which can be deviated from whenever it is reasonable) summarize numerous IRC discussions.

The abstract

Most of the currently existing leveled lists in MW, BM, Tribunal and TR_Data are pretty badly designed, and the difficulty of opponents on these lists depends way too much on (1) the player's level (a leveled list can spawn a durzog beginning at level 8 and nothing at all on earlier levels) and (2) dice rolls (a leveled list for a daedra decides randomly to spawn a scamp or a golden saint). I believe that, instead, it should depend mostly on (A) the region of the encounter and (B) the distance from civilization (towns and roads). Leveled lists are good when they consist of enemies of roughly the same difficulty (for example, a wild guar and an alit can be used on the same leveled list), all of them spawning at level 1 (so that level-1 players don't get a puppy license to walk into Mordor).

Why? For several reasons. The fact that Morrowind's roads aren't safer than the surrounding wilderness (and often even less safe due to passing through Daedric shrines) doesn't help immersion very much. The very idea of levelscaling doesn't either. By the time the player spent in Ald-Ruhn, the Ascadian Isles suddenly got swarmed with kagoutis? Really? And no one even noticed it?

Also, the idea of (WoW-style) level zones isn't that bad. It is logical that if you walk into the Armun Ashlands with a character right out of the prison ship, you get your ass handed to you; if you do it as an aspiring Redoran warrior, you will have a fair challenge; and if you do it as a Fighters Guild master, you will have a relaxing hunt. It is not logical that as a level-1 newb, you get a free pass because the leveled lists only spawn rats (or even nothing at all) at this level, that at level 10 you get some medium-difficulty monsters, and that at level 30 you get dragons breathing crimson plague.

There should be safe places and dangerous places, and everything in between. This, of course, means that not all of our lands will be accessible in the early game unless one pulls the difficulty slider very far down. But I think that with the size of our land, there still will be tons of places to explore on level 1, and sacrificing some open-worldedness to immersion feels like a good deal to me.

Levelscaling also tends to be unfair to the players who want to slowly develop their characters, e. g., by training mercantile and speechcraft or reading skillbooks. Instead of just slowly getting better, their characters actually become worse with levelup. Due to the abundance of skillbooks in the towns of the Mainland, this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

The concrete

On imitation: It is easiest to learn from examples, but please don't imitate vanilla MW, and even less our maps 1-2. They follow old levelscaled concepts and mostly have seen barely any balancing at all. Examples of wilderness cells monstered using the new guidelines are the current version of [url=http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=21201&start=160]Map 3 Claim 2[/url], and the Inlet Bog section of the Mainland.

Choosing the right creature: What creatures should be placed in the world? There are the following choices:

- Placing a regular (non-leveled) creature: Keep in mind that most creatures don't respawn, so once the player has killed such a critter, it will never reappear and the data that it is dead will clutter up the savegame. So, most of the time, you don't want to place such critters. Sometimes they are of use, though (particularly in quests).

- TR_stc_*: These leveled lists contain only one creature each (with rare exceptions, which contain a few creatures with mostly the same properties). They spawn with 100% chance and at every level. So, placing a TR_stc_kagouti differs from placing a Kagouti creature just in the fact that the TR_stc_kagouti will respawn whereas the Kagouti will not.

- TR_stat_*: These lists contain several creatures of about the same difficulty. At the moment, some of the lists don't contain much variety, but this will eventually be solved when modellers introduce new critters. These TR_stat_* lists are separated by regions: TR_stat_inlet_* are for the Inlet Bog, TR_stat_thirr_* are for the Thirr River Valley, etc. Exception: The TR_stat_wild_* lists can be used everywhere (so they only contain universal Morrowind wildlife, like guars and alits). See below for how to read the numbers. "orp" and "ap" means that the list also contains peaceful creatures (these can be more difficult; it doesn't matter since the player won't have to fight them). So don't use "orp" and "ap" for gatekeeper creatures. "sleep" means that the leveled list is used as the sleep creature for that particular region; you can nevertheless also place this leveled creature in the world.

- TR_LC_*: These are mostly old and bad leveled lists. Most of them have the issue that they don't spawn anything at all at level 1, making places that are supposed to be difficult much too easy for noobs. Some are also too broad (liches and orc skeletons shouldn't occur in every tomb). Use them with a lot of care, if at all. I would personally only use TR_LC_skeleton_diff_* (which contain skeletons, separated by difficulty) and TR_LC_dae_diff_* (same for daedra; will be added in the next TR_data update).

- TR_r_*: These are the old leveled creatures for specific regions. They are not all bad, but they scale with level, so I want them to be gradually supplanted by the TR_stat_* ones. For example, TR_r_Thirr_River_Valley_land_* can be replaced by TR_stat_thirr_*.

- ex_*: These are vanilla leveled creatures, similar to TR_r_*. Most of them make no sense on Mainland because they contain blighted critters. The ones that do might still not be very useful.

Out of the above, TR_stat_* are the leveled lists I use most often. TR_stc_* have the disadvantage of being always the same, which can get boring, but is very useful for concrete occasions (like placing a kwama warrior in an eggmine).

Measuring difficulty: Roughly, I measure the difficulty of a monster by its average damage output, with a bonus if the monster's combat stat is above 50 (Tribunal and Bloodmoon monsters have very high combat stats; vanilla ones usually don't), a significant bonus if the monster has magic or weapons, and a slight bonus if the monster carries a dangerous disease (drain end/str/int/will). Here are some examples from vanilla:
d01 (difficulty around 1): rat, kwama forager. (We have some variations on the former.) These should be doable for a player coming right out of the boat with some basic armor and a weapon.
d05 (difficulty around 5): alit, wild guar, nixhound. Scribs would also go here if they weren't peaceful. (The paralysis is why I don't put them under d01.)
d09 (difficulty around 9): kagouti, diseased rats/alits/nixhounds.
d15 (difficulty around 15): shalk, bull netch if they weren't peaceful.
d20 (difficulty around 20): wild durzog, black bear, betty netch if they weren't peaceful, blighted kagoutis, dreugh (I don't know why they're so tough but they are).
d25 (difficulty around 25): snow wolf.
etc. Peaceful monsters don't count at all. Daedra are not on the list since we won't be placing them randomly in the landscape, but if they were, they would have bigger difficulty ratings of course (winged twilight d40 probably).

Heartland difficulty zones: I am only talking about exteriors now; interiors can and should have variation. Here is a quick suggestion of how tough parts of Heartland should be. (Same map without the ugly red text, and here also without the towns.)
Key: Each region has been given 3 numbers and either an "ND" or a "D". The three numbers for each region are:
first, the difficulty of the monsters on and near roads.
second, the difficulty of the monsters which are far enough from roads that they would never attack anyone walking the roads.
third, the difficulty of the monsters that wake you from sleep.
"D" means that some monsters can carry diseases, "ND" means they can't.

The map has a typo (d02 should be d01). Also, Shackville is still a working title. d00 means "none at all".

It should be pretty clear from the above map that the northeast part of Heartland becomes a kind of tutorial area. This doesn't mean everything in there should be easy, but I totally believe it should be possible to start one's game at Seyda Neen, take a boat to Teyn and then rise up to level (say) 10 staying mostly in that place.

Diseases: As the map above shows, I don't like the idea of having them in the Thirr River Valley and nearby. First, they don't add any tactical depth to the game; they're just a major pain in the butt when you're at low levels. And I don't just mean a blighted rat sending your endurance down by 40; anything damaging strength is pure annoyance. I think the idyllic atmosphere of the TRV will be helped by not putting diseased critters there. The other places where I have put "ND" on the map aren't very clear-cut.

Sleep creatures: I think they should be generally easier than the creatures one encounters when awake. Melee fighters usually don't have much trouble with sleep creatures, but archers and mages do, and Morrowind seems already way too biased towards melee.

Sealife: Water creatures seem to have a supernatural sense of prey. They will charge at the player from long distances, much longer than for any kagouti or atronach. Keep this in mind when placing them. I am not a friend of the (vanilla) h2o_all_* creatures, as they contain both slaughterfishes (easy) and dreugh (pretty hard), with the latter suddenly appearing after a certain level threshold. I don't see why swimming should suddenly become deadly at level 5!

Bandits: These can be mostly arbitrary, as long as they don't block roads (in which case they shouldn't be much harder than the monsters along the roads). One request: please don't put leveled items like l_m_wpn_melee, TR_Random_wep_Melee, random_bandit_6-10, TR_loot_Bandit_06-10 or TR_loot_Smuggler_goods in their inventory. These leveled lists can contain various weapons, which the bandits will then fight with. Thus the difficulty will depend on the weapon randomly selected from the list.

Here is also some older writing on the balancing of Heartland, in case anyone prefers that to the picture.

The Ascadian-style region (starting at 4-13, then going along the Thirr until 4-18, then along the sea coast until the river in 4-2) should contain only really easy wildlife, up to nixhound difficulty. The main roads might not even have that, just rats and stuff. Of course, at certain spots we can have handplaced hard enemies, but they shouldn't block main roads.

Roth Roryn goes up to Kagouti difficulty, again with weaker things on important roads and stronger things in select locations (more to the ashland side). Cliff racers prominently (use TR_stc_cliffracer, not only TR_stat_roth_*!), although not too many on the same spot (this made them pretty annoying in vanilla). The part around Othras Plantation should be as easy as the Thirr River, as it's very close to the noob routes and main cities.

The eastern coast of Thirr might be either like Ascadia or like Roth. I don't think anything harder than a Kagouti is ok here, as again this place is extremely inhabited and lively. We might have some artificial dangers like the breeding Kagouti in vanilla.

Armun Ashlands should not be for noobs. I'd expect at least blighted-kagouti difficulty, but I'm not against golden-saint-like difficulty (if we get creatures of that difficulty modelled!). Again selected roads (including at least one to Ald Erfoud) should be easier.

I think the ashlands in the northern half of map 4 should be easier than Armun, but still not for the early game.

4-39 and 4-38 contain an interesting patch of Ascadian-style lands with rm rocks (mostly along the way to Verarchen). I suppose these can be something intermediate in difficulty. The rm rocks kinda say "careful, this is not quite Ascadia anymore".

[Mortimer]

I like this idea and the topic in general. One idea I've seen used conceptually was the one of "heatmaps", or encounter zones where the areas near towns have very weak monsters (with some lore-friendly exceptions, eg: the monsters are attacking the town regularly). As one radiates outwards the monsters get progressively harder where no man dare tread; high mountains, dark caves, unseen ruins - those are the places the toughest creatures should be. Of course, there is an in-between area, between towns and ruins that has the middle level enemies.

Here's a tentative plan for a really old skyrim project that never happened to relevel the entire world by hand. http://i.imgur.com/JiVv0.jpg

I was imagining more spherical/oval based maps in my mind

[Not]

Nice work, arvis, as always. I really like the system you made and I think it'll work great.

Anyways, I'd like to add something to this, but I think I'll wait till I'm more awake to post something relevant.

[Why]

Making this a sticky yo.

[Nemon]

Fo sho'

Great intro post, would a slight redesign of levelled list mean we could have ext claimers drop the monkeys into claims? And /or should we start doing path grids?

[Not]

Great intro post, would a slight redesign of levelled list mean we could have ext claimers drop the monkeys into claims? And /or should we start doing path grids?

As far as I'm concerned, that should be done on a case-by-case basis. Normally, I wouldn't allow anyone who hasn't done a quest showcase to attempt those things. However, you've been working with exterior modders for years, and I assume you know them pretty well, atleast as far as style and whatnot goes. Therefore, if you think they can handle that for exterior claims, all the better. But just so long as they're aware that they're not required to do so, and that its optional.

[arvisrend]

+1 for Not's case-by-case approach. I'm completely for optionality here, and I don't think one needs to have done a quest showcase to do monster placement and pathgrids. Monster placement isn't exactly hard, and who is to better understand the terrain than the exterior modder. The worst that can happen is some bad balancing, but the NPCers will notice, and otherwise the betatesters will. And fixing misplaced critters is very easy. As for pathgrids, let me still reiterate [url=http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=308437#308437]my wish for a tutorial with frequent questions answered[/url], but other than that I don't think there is much one can mess up at this stage. (Except being a noob like me and accidentally pressing F during the pathgridding.)

Also, thanks Nemon!

@Mortimer: Yes, these heatmaps are very similar to what I've been thinking. If you look at my Heartland map closely, you'll see that the difficulty zones don't exactly mirror the regions: for example, the Othras Plantation is in Roth Roryn but belongs to the same zone as TRV. The zones are more about the "civilizedness"/"wildness" of a place, so the whole map is much like the heatmap you linked (except I have not marked the roads, but I hope that whoever places monsters will see them).

Incidentally, do you know any non-abandoned project that tries to rebalance Skyrim to avoid levelscaling and (excessive) randomization? I've only seen an "everything can spawn everywhere (albeit with a narrow chance only)" approach, which looks awfully misguided to me. I assume that it will be better to ask such a question once modellers have made more creatures to use, but maybe there's something now already?

[Why]

Remind me to post why I disagree with case by case tomorrow

[Not]

Okay, for some reason I misread that original post (in my defense I was half asleep.) I thought you were saying that exterior modders should also be allowed to place NPCs there, which was an idea I wasn't particularly fond of.

As far as having exterior modders place monsters and use leveled lists and whatnot, that's perfectly fine, in fact I think that's a brilliant idea, as no one would know the landscape better than the exterior modders themselves.

On the other hand, I suppose my department could also do that, but I want that to be optional, they don't have to do it if they don't want to. I know some people that just want to give life to towns and whatnot, and while I really have nothing against using monster placement and whatnot, I won't force them to do it either.

[Yeti]

as no one would know the landscape better than the exterior modders themselves.

Building off this train of thought, perhaps interior modders can be given the authority to put path-grids in their interiors?

[Not]

as no one would know the landscape better than the exterior modders themselves.

Building off this train of thought, perhaps interior modders can be given the authority to put path-grids in their interiors?

I'm not so sure about that. Again, I'll leave that up to the claimant and the Head of that respective department, that's for them to decide.

I'm hesitant, but if their department head (SamirA) sees no problem with it, that works for me.

[Matin Sanguine]

as no one would know the landscape better than the exterior modders themselves.

Building off this train of thought, perhaps interior modders can be given the authority to put path-grids in their interiors?

I'm not so sure about that. Again, I'll leave that up to the claimant and the Head of that respective department, that's for them to decide.

I'm hesitant, but if their department head (SamirA) sees no problem with it, that works for me.

I am also opposed to this idea (but like Not, if SamirA has no problem with it then it isn't an issue). Because while undoubtedly there are probably interior modders who can path-grid, I doubt all are capable of doing so (I know I'm not). And even then you would need to be sure that they meet TR quality standards. So unless path-griding becomes a core component of interior modding (making every interior modder learn how to path-grid to TR standards for example), I don't see this working.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

Building off this train of thought, perhaps interior modders can be given the authority to put path-grids in their interiors?

I am very much against this idea

[SamirA]

I am extremely opposed to that idea as well.

[Osidian]

I have no idea on how to add good pathgrids... But I could learn if needed.

Anyway, even if the exterior modders know their claims better than anyone else, shouldn't creatures be added by NPC/Quest modders, who surely will have a better grasp of the whole world and how to balance the gameplay? If each exterior modder adds his/her creatures, then there will be inconsistencies between neighbouring claims.

The whole purpose of this discussion was to have a better balanced and more logical distribution of the monsters, taking into consideration TR as a whole, I think.

[Mwgek]

I really like the way you handled the different regions Arvis. Seems like a good plan that the noobs can track around ashlands near the coast to get to a place in the north. The ashlands themselves should be a rough place to cross. It would be the shorter road through the ashlands but only for the more experienced.

I agree that the road to the Septims gate should be properly cleaned by guard patrols and be relatively safe. Always hated the fact that you walked on roads with your noobie character and there is all sorts of baddies running at you from a daedric shrine etc.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Just to throw in 2pence, pathgrids are extremely easy to place, but taken en masse become a massive chore that delays the actually important part of NPCing - NPCs, and dialogue. My enthusiasm to NPC has repeatedly been gutted by a huge pathgridding session.

It would be fundamentally easier to have each int modder (or even the reviewer) do it in 10 seconds after they complete their (one) claim, rather than require the NPCer (who has no more interest or skills relevant to placing path nodes in an interior than an Interiorer does; if anything less) to take a couple of hours to do the hundreds of ints in their claim all at once.

[sorry for continuing derail of thread...]

[arvisrend]

I agree that the road to the Septims gate should be properly cleaned by guard patrols and be relatively safe. Always hated the fact that you walked on roads with your noobie character and there is all sorts of baddies running at you from a daedric shrine etc.

I thought so as well, but Why told me yesterday that the Septim Gate Pass is not a very important trade route and mostly of military use. So maybe one doesn't need to go very easy on the player there.

BC, you are not derailing anything; these things are rather important. Anything that can make NPCing easier is of great use to the project.

[Not]

Glad to see I'm not alone on this. I really don't want interior modders messing with pathgrids for a number of reasons, the biggest one of course being that most of them don't know how.

As far as exterior modders and NPCers go, I personally like the idea, and if the claimant wants to do it, have at it, but again, it'll be optional.

Worse case scenario; no one wants to at all, and then it'll have to be taken care of post review. Since I'm the one that basically does the reviewing nowadays, that just means it'll be up to me, so it's not a big deal, just one more thing I'll add in during a review.

[Mwgek]

Worse case scenario; no one wants to at all, and then it'll have to be taken care of post review. Since I'm the one that basically does the reviewing nowadays, that just means it'll be up to me, so it's not a big deal, just one more thing I'll add in during a review.

Done by the reviewer is probably the best thing. Since it will be one or a few interiors a time it won't be such a big thing. The npc detailing claims get more concentrated towards npc and dialogue.

[Not]

The npc detailing claims get more concentrated towards npc and dialogue.

True, but if the NPC claimants decide they want to do that as well, I won't stop them.

[SamirA]

I don't want my int guys touching pathgrids.

Perhaps the reviewing stage BC, but all the basic int guys? No.

[Haplo]

Am I interpreting it right, Not, that you seem to be okay with exterior modders placing pathgrids in exteriors, but not with interior modders placing pathgrids in interiors? Or do you mean exterior modders placing leveled creature spawners in their exterior claims?

Also, if you take away the #1 problem people seem to have with interior modders doing pathgridding, what other problems exist? There is not really balance to consider with pathgridding; it's one of the more straightforward concepts of modding that exists in TES: III (meaning, if you want an NPC to walk there, place a pathgrid node).

The problem of interior modders not knowing how to do pathgridding is easily solvable by having someone who knows how to do pathgridding finally making a tutorial on it and possibly even including it in their [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/?p=modding_data/tutorials&section=285513]complete interior modding tutorial[/url]. Once the tutorial is done, just make it at least optional for interior modders (not required, but if they can do it, bonus), and required during the interior reviewing or final reviewing stage (would be fine since TF said he knows almost everything about pathgridding on IRC the other night).

BC really does have the only worthwhile point here (I'm saying responses such as "why don't I want interior modders doing pathgrids? Because. That's why" aren't valid reasons), which is that the NPC and dialogue stage is one of the slowest-moving stages at TR. A large part of this is the clerical work required for each claim, e.g. pathgrids. Someone with an NPC/Dialogue claim has to do pathgrids for hundreds of interiors. This cuts down severely on their motivation and productivity, and can be remedied easily by having it be done before the claim reaches the NPC stage. When having to choose between one person having to pathgrid hundreds of interiors, or one person having to pathgrid one interior, there is a clear and obvious choice (the latter).

[Andres Indoril]

Pathgridding is not very complicated. I find myself to agree with Haplo. I look forward to seeing this discussion reach the point when I can finally pathgrid my interiors for great success, without having to claim a whole NPC claim to do so.

[Not]

Am I interpreting it right, Not, that you seem to be okay with exterior modders placing pathgrids in exteriors, but not with interior modders placing pathgrids in interiors? Or do you mean exterior modders placing leveled creature spawners in their exterior claims?

I was saying I'm okay with them placing leveled creature spawners in their exterior claims. As far as pathgridding is concerned, it's by far the easiest thing to learn as far as modding for morrowind goes, and while I'm hesitant, I trust the head of the departments (Nemon and SamirA) to make that call. If they're fine with it, all the better, otherwise I'll do it all when I initial each interior for review.

One last thing: as far as NPC claims go, I'm saying I'd rather them not worry about pathgrids, but focus on what they actually want to do (bring life to settlements.) However, if they want to go ahead and do pathgridding, I won't stop them.

[Haplo]

otherwise I'll do it all when I initial each interior for review.

And also consider if you are not the person that does the initial review.

[Mwgek]

otherwise I'll do it all when I initial each interior for review.

And also consider if you are not the person that does the initial review.

I think the other modders in the reviewers group are also capable of placing pathgrids?

[Haplo]

Well yes, but what I'm saying is Notling seems to be arguing for a "let's not force anyone to do anything at either of these stages; I volunteer to do all the pathgrids during my initial reviews of interiors if the pathgrids are not already done", which is fine if Notling is the only one doing initial reviews, but that is not the case. My point is that we need to specify a stage before NPC claims where pathgrids are required additions.

[SamirA]

I think it would be best to simply leave that to the reviewing stages of interiors. I see no need to complicate the department and confuse the current modders as will surely happen if we start giving them options on pathgriding or not pathgriding.

Now, if someone like Andres who is promoted for reviewing as well wants to save the next stage the trouble then by all means do so, I have no problem with that.

Interiors are supposed to be the simplest way to get modders into the project and I simply feel it would be counter to that if we begin to add in other bits to the system. It is a needless complication to a simple by design department.

[Mwgek]

Interiors are supposed to be the simplest way to get modders into the project and I simply feel it would be counter to that if we begin to add in other bits to the system. It is a needless complication to a simple by design department.

I really agree with this! It is just going to be another point of critique on the showcases of future modders.

[Yeti]

I’m glad to have introduced so much controversy to this thread

[Not]

Well yes, but what I'm saying is Notling seems to be arguing for a "let's not force anyone to do anything at either of these stages; I volunteer to do all the pathgrids during my initial reviews of interiors if the pathgrids are not already done", which is fine if Notling is the only one doing initial reviews, but that is not the case.

What I've been saying is as far as pathgridding is concerned; leave it up to the department heads. They can decide whether or not a claimant can pathgrid or not, I don't really care either way.

In the case of interiors, Samir has said no, and I can't really blame him, considering the reasoning behind it.

Both you and mwgek are right, I can't initial all of them, but I do agree that reviewers can start pathgridding, infact, that should be a skill that a reviewer needs to have under their belt, so to speak. So yes, I believe reviewers should in fact start pathgridding the interiors. Otherwise, we'll leave it up to the questing department, which is what I thought we always did anyways. Either way, I'll probably be pathgridding a ton no matter how you look at it.

My point is that we need to specify a stage before NPC claims where pathgrids are required additions.

I wasn't aware that you wanted to make something official so to speak until that last post, so I apologize for that. If you want something set in stone, again, you'll need to get with the department heads, that's not my call to make.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

I am in favor of interior reviewers adding pathgrids.

[SamirA]

I will support that TF.

[arvisrend]

Yes, that's a good idea.

[Haplo]

I can agree with that.

Otherwise, we'll leave it up to the questing department, which is what I thought we always did anyways.

I wasn't aware that you wanted to make something official so to speak until that last post, so I apologize for that.

Yes, the main point of this discussion, from what I gather, was to see if we could take that huge load off of the questing department

[Thrignar Fraxix]

Actually no, the main point of the thread was to figure out levelled lists for heartland and give explanations to aid the NPC claimers.

[Haplo]

I said the discussion, not the thread. I was referring to the most recent discussion at hand.