Renee's Modding Thread Options

[Renee]

Mod-making thread basically, which focuses heavily on quest-making. The first two tutorials (How to make a fetch quest and how to make a kill quest) are very hand-holdy. They are designed for those who are just starting to learn the art of quest-making. Other tutorials get more advanced, as my wacky ideas have pushed their boundaries.

Just click on any of the links in the post below this one.


Bethesda Units. (How distance compares in-game to real-life).

Xpadder Walkthrough page. Xpadder is a site which allows gaming controllers to mimic the key & mouse functions. Xpadder, or similar programs such as Joy to Keys, are absolutely crucial to get the most out of older games such as Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion, for those who prefer controllers. They can also be used for newer games (Fallout 3/NV or Skyrim) to provide alternate controlling scenarios during times when a game's native D-pad arrangement needs to be shut off.




This post has been edited by Renee: Apr 16 2024, 06:27 PM

[Renee]

Manipulating Leveled Lists

Here is how to change the leveled lists which reside in any Elder Scrolls or Fallout game made by Bethesda. This helps a lot to manage when certain enemies show up, whether stronger enemies replace weaker ones, and so on.

Do you want Minotaurs to show up in the game even though your character's a total Level 1 weakling? Make it happen. And for those who already have a mod which introduces leveled lists (such as MMM), these lists can be changed as well.

One of my only pet peeves with Oblivion when I was new to that game was the way it would replace weaker enemies with stronger ones, all due to our character attaining a certain level. I don't have a problem with stronger enemies eventually showing up, but what I didn't like was the way a lot of the weaker ones disappeared from the game entirely.

An example: Wolves are in the world of TES4 right away. But once we gain Level 6, ALL of the Wolves vanish, and now we have only Timber Wolves, which are stronger. To me, this seems unrealistic. Even a fantasy world such as Tamriel's should feature weaker and stronger opponents, with weaker enemies outnumbering the stronger ones. 🐺 Alpha monsters basically are at the very top of the food chain; that's Darwinism, baby!

Anyway, here's how to manipulate these lists. It's so easy, too. I am going to manipulate the way skeletons show up in Morrowind for this example. Because lately I notice that we're not seeing any plain Skeletons in my Level 14 character's game if she's in the majority of Shrines; her world is only populated by Skeleton Champions.


OBJECT window
1). Find the area of the window where Leveled Lists are posted. So in Morrowind, this is in the Leveled Creatures tab.

2). Now, find the proper list. So... I am trying to change the list for Skeletons, and there are three lists in the Leveled Creatures page: in_tomb_skele_lev+0, in_tomb_skele_lev+2, and in_tomb_skele_lev-2. 🦴

Selecting in_tomb_skele_lev+0, I can see right away in the list's Creature Name window it looks like this.

1 Skeleton
1 Skeleton Archer
7 Skeleton Warrior
10 Skeleton Champion

The number on the left is our character's level. So from levels 1 through 6, Skeletons and Skeleton Archers are prevalent. From 7 to 9 we've got Skeleton Warriors, and from Level 10 there are Skeleton Champions. No wonder I'm not seeing any weaker variants in my gal's gameworld.

Here's how I'm changing it.

3). Note that every game does this part differently. Let's say I want ordinary Skeletons to show up at any time, along with the stronger variants. For Morrowind, click on the Creature tab. Find Skeleton, and drag this choice over to the Leveled Creature window. Here's what it looks like now.

1 Skeleton
1 Skeleton Archer
7 Skeleton Warrior
10 Skeleton Champion
10 Skeleton

Perfect. Now when my characters go delving into an area where this list is featured, Skeletons Champions are arranged at Level 10, but so are ordinary Skeletons.

4). And to change the Level modifier, left-click on whichever choice is desired, and press F2. I just dragged a second Skeleton into the window, clicked F2, and changed the number from 10 to 7. Now the list looks like this:

1 Skeleton
1 Skeleton Archer
7 Skeleton Warrior
7 Skeleton
10 Skeleton Champion
10 Skeleton

Overall, I came up with this when I was completely done with the in_tomb_skele_lev=0 list.

1 Skeleton
1 Skeleton Archer
7 Skeleton Archer
7 Skeleton Warrior
7 Skeleton
10 Skeleton Champion
10 Skeleton
10 Skeleton
10 Skeleton Archer

I've basically nerfed the lists for skeletons, because to me I'm after overall realism, not overall challenge. Some folks might want to make lists stronger, of course. Sure, this is possible as well.

I'll include guides for some latter games, as well. Each game does things a little differently.

This post has been edited by Renee: Jun 25 2023, 05:05 AM