Necrolesian Posted November 5, 2021 Share Posted November 5, 2021 View File Class-Conscious Character Progression (CCCP) Class-Conscious Character Progression (CCCP) Summary CCCP is an MWSE leveling mod that implements most features of Galsiah's Character Development, with a few adjustments. GCD is a very well-designed, well-balanced and very complex leveling mod that many, including myself, would consider the best of its kind. Unfortunately it has not aged well. It's clunky and bloated (pretty much necessarily, because it uses mwscript), can be buggy, and is performance-demanding. This mod uses MWSE-lua to implement most of GCD's features in a simpler and more performance-friendly way. Important Notes: In order to experience CCCP as intended, starting a new game is strongly recommended when installing the mod, whether installing for the first time or upgrading from 1.0. See below for a more detailed explanation. Also, using Quest Skill Reward Fix alongside CCCP is recommended. See the Recommendations section for more info. Description CCCP radically transforms Morrowind's leveling/progression system in a number of ways: - Attribute gains are no longer derived from levelups. Instead, skill increases lead to attribute gains directly. - Skill gains now contribute to increases for multiple attributes, to varying degrees depending on the skill. - Your class (i.e. your starting skill levels) now has an influence on your starting attributes. - Your class and race both have an influence on attribute progression; you'll find your strong attributes increase faster than weak attributes. - Luck will now automatically increase depending on the progression of your other attributes. - The levelup screen has been eliminated entirely. Levelups are perfectly seamless, and now depend on attribute increases rather than the other way around. - Your class now has a much greater influence on the development of your character. Different characters, and in particular characters of different classes, will now be much more diverse, with definite strengths and weaknesses. - Your class, current skills and endurance contribute to determining your health, with skills having varying degrees of influence on health. - Maximum magicka is determined not only by your intelligence but also by your skill levels in the magical disciplines (and the extent to which your class focuses on those skills). - Magicka will regenerate over time, with the rate of regeneration determined by your initial and current skills in the magical arts and by your willpower (fatigue also plays a role). - Each skill will start taking longer to increase once it reaches a certain threshold, which varies by skill. All of the above mechanics are highly configurable in the Mod Config Menu. The below sections will describe the progression system in basic terms. Starting Attributes The first thing you'll notice that's different is that, once chargen is complete, your starting attributes (strength, intelligence and so on) are different than what your race alone would give you. Your starting attributes are now a combination of your conventional racial attributes and your "class-based" attributes, values derived from your initial skill choices. Your "racial" attributes are the normal values determined by your race, sex and choice of favored attributes (plus any birthsign bonus). The mod then calculates your class-based attributes, based on your starting skill values and the "skill factors" of those skills (see below). If you have a lot of heavily strength-based skills among your major and minor skills, for example, you'll be stronger because your class-based strength will be high. Your racial attributes and class-based attributes are then combined according to a configurable percentage set in the MCM. By default this setting is 50%, which means your starting attributes will be a simple average of your racial and class-based attributes. If this setting is set to 100%, your starting attributes would be determined entirely by your race (as in vanilla Morrowind). If it's set to 0%, your starting attributes would be determined purely by your class, and your choice of race would have no influence on them. Another configurable setting called "attribute spread" also plays a role in determining your starting attributes. The higher the attribute spread, the more different your starting attributes will be (i.e. the greater the difference between your highest and lowest attribute). This setting also influences the increase rate of attributes (see below). This feature is fully compatible with mods that add or change races or birthsigns. Whatever your racial attributes are, whether they're affected by mods or not, they'll be combined with your class-based attributes as described above. By the way, if you're paying attention you might have realized that the fact that birthsign attribute bonuses are applied to (only) your racial attributes means that the birthsign's influence on your starting attribute(s) will be lower than advertised. This is correct, but it will be balanced by another mechanic: your racial attributes also help determine your rate of attribute progression (see below), which means you'll find the attribute(s) boosted by the birthsign increase faster over time, and have greater potential than they otherwise would. Skill Factors Each of Morrowind's 27 skills has 7 skill factors, one for each of the main attributes (i.e. not including luck). These skill factors influence a number of things, including your starting attributes and the rate of attribute progression (in conjunction with your initial skill values). The skill factors are also directly responsible for determining how much progress is made toward increases in each attribute on skillup. For example, the default acrobatics factors are: STR 10, INT 0, WIL 0, AGI 6, SPD 5, END 4, PER 1. This means that each time your acrobatics increases, the variable the mod uses to record progress toward a strength increase will receive a base increase of 10 (modified by other factors). Progress toward increases in four other attributes will receive smaller boosts, while no progress at all will be made toward intelligence or willpower. So if you increase a lot of primarily strength-based skills like acrobatics and axe, you'll find your strength increasing faster than your other attributes, all other things being equal. If you focus mainly on magic skills, your intelligence and willpower will be the attributes to benefit most. All 189 of these skill factors are configurable in the MCM. The defaults are sensible, but you can tweak them to your liking. (Be aware that radical changes, especially significant changes to the total factors for each skill or each attribute, can have undesired effects, so tread carefully unless you know what you're doing.) Skill Increase Factors Each skill also has an "increase factor" that determines the relative degree of influence that skill has on attributes as a whole, compared to other skills. These increase factors are determined by the skill's initial value compared to the average of your starting skills. This means that skills that start out higher will cause the attributes they influence to increase faster, on the whole, than skills that start out lower. Your attributes will rise faster from working on your major/minor skills than they will when training misc skills that started at 5. These increase factors are influenced by a configurable setting in the MCM called the "initial skill offset." The higher the offset, the less difference there will be between the skills' increase factors. The lower the offset, the greater this difference between skills' influence on attributes will be. Attribute Increase Rates In addition to skills influencing attributes at different rates, each attribute (again, not including luck, which is handled differently) in CCCP will increase at a different rate depending on a number of factors. Your racial attributes play a role in determining attribute increase rates. The higher your race's attribute is (including favored attributes and birthsign bonuses) compared to the average, the easier it will be to increase. Your initial skills and the skill factors also contribute to a significant extent, so if your major/minor skill lists are heavy with skills that influence endurance, your endurance will increase faster than your other attributes. Fighters can use their magic skills and increase their intelligence and willpower, and magic-focused characters can eventually become pretty strong, but it takes a lot more work. Your mage is clearly much better off focusing on their magic skills. Several configurable settings influence attribute increase rates. First is the setting "attribute increase rate," which is just a universal multiplier applied to all increases. The higher this setting, the more total attribute gains you'll receive. Attribute spread also contributes. The higher it is, the more your attributes will tend to spread out over time, with your strong attributes increasing faster than your weaker attributes. There's also a setting called "influence of race on attribute gains." Your race and class both influence how quickly your attributes increase. The higher this setting is, the greater influence your race will have on growth rates as opposed to your class. (This is not a true percentage, as your class will always have some influence.) Luck Luck is a special attribute in vanilla Morrowind, and so it is in CCCP. No skills have a direct influence on luck. Rather, your luck increases along with your other attributes, according to a configurable setting, "luck increase rate." By default the luck increase rate is 70%, which means that luck will increase 70% as fast as your other attributes do on average. This means luck will end up a bit lower than most other attributes. This setting also can have an effect on starting luck, but only if your racial luck is different than 40 (which usually means you've selected luck as a favored attribute). In this case, the difference from 40 is affected by the luck increase rate. So if you select luck as a favored attribute, making your racial luck 50, your starting luck will actually be 47 (with default settings). This eliminates what would otherwise be an incentive to always pick luck at the beginning, because either way it will only have a percentage of the increase of other attributes. Level Rather than receiving multipliers for attribute gains on levelup, as in vanilla Morrowind, in CCCP you make progress toward a levelup with each attribute gain (other than luck). After a configurable number of gains in your main attributes (6 by default), you'll gain a level. There's no levelup screen; the process is completely seamless. By the way, if you're using the "level-up skills tooltip" feature of Morrowind Code Patch, you'll notice some different numbers in the levelup progress tooltip. Normally this MCP-added tooltip displays the number of skill increases for each attribute since your last level. This information would not be useful with CCCP. Instead, this tooltip now displays the progress that each attribute has earned toward an increase, and the increase threshold for that attribute. It will be something like "Strength: 80/125". (Remember, the increase threshold is not the number of skillups needed, as you'll generally gain several points of progress toward multiple attributes on each skill increase. CCCP also includes "levelup messages" displayed when you gain a level. These messages are very slightly tweaked versions of those from the mod Inspirational Messages Expanded (which includes modified versions of the vanilla levelup messages, plus 49 entirely new ones). Unique messages up through level 69 are included, plus a new message for levels 70+. The levelup messages are optional; they can be disabled in the MCM. Health Health in CCCP is determined by your skills (both their current and starting values), your current endurance, and a number of configurable settings, including two health factors for each skill. A typical character's starting health will be roughly similar to vanilla, though over time there will be a significant divergence between character classes. Mages, for example, will end up with much lower health than they would have in vanilla, with default settings. Each skill has a "background factor" and an "in use factor" that contribute to the health calculations. A skill's background factor represents how useful that skill is in avoiding damage for all characters, even when they're not actively using the skill. For example, acrobatics has a high background factor because anyone would be better at avoiding damage at all times if they're skilled at acrobatics. When a skill increases, that skill's background factor will contribute to your health gain. A skill's in use factor represents how much that skill would help a character avoid damage when the skill is actively being used. For example, magic skills have a background factor of 0 because they wouldn't be helpful to all characters in avoiding damage, but they have higher in use factors because more skilled magicians can more easily avoid taking damage while using magic. Armor skills have high background and in use factors, while mercantile and speechcraft have background and in use factors of 0. In use factors also contribute to health increases when you raise your skills, but the degree to which they contribute is modified by the "in use proportion" for that skill. The in use proportion represents (an estimate of) how often that skill will be in use compared to other skills, and is determined by each skill's initial value compared to the average. This means that the in use factors of skills that start out high will have a greater benefit to health when those skills increase than an equal in use factor of a skill that started out at 5. Health is state-based in CCCP; any change to your current endurance (including any fortification or drain/damage of the attribute) will have an immediate impact on your health. However, with default settings, your endurance being drained to 0 will not be instantly lethal. Any Fortify Health magnitude is taken into account; the calculations will always result in the correct max and current health for the circumstances. In addition to the health factors, there are a number of additional configurable settings which influence health. "Health base" represents the approximate starting health of an average character, while "health bonus" is a pool of health added after the mod's other health calculations are complete (health bonus is what your health will be if your endurance is drained to 0). There are also percentage multipliers applied to the health factors when they influence health gains on skill increase, one for background factors and one for in use factors. In addition, there's a setting called "health in use offset," which contributes to the way skills' in use factors influence health on skill increase. The influence of a skill's in use factor depends on how high that skill started compared to the average, and this ratio is modified by the offset. A higher offset will mean that skills' initial values will have less influence on health gains, while a lower offset means that your starting skill values are more important in determining health increases. Finally, the MCM includes an option to disable CCCP's health management entirely. As the in-game description for this setting says, do not do this unless you're using another mod like MWSE State-Based Health that manages health without relying on the vanilla levelup mechanic. (CCCP bypasses the mechanic that's responsible for vanilla health gains, so if you were to disable CCCP's health management without using another mod that handles it, max health would never increase at all.) Max Magicka Your class and skills also influence your maximum magicka. Specifically, your current and initial skills in the magical disciplines (the six schools of magicka, plus alchemy and enchant) play a very significant role in max magicka calculations. Each time you gain a point in any of the eight magical skills, your max magicka will increase (though you might not see a difference since the increase can be less than 1), and the higher your magic skills started, the greater your potential max magicka at high levels. With default settings, an average character will generally start with roughly similar max magicka to vanilla, with non-magically inclined characters having less and mages having more. However, for magic-focused characters, max magicka will increase faster (potentially much faster) than in vanilla, based on magic skills in addition to intelligence; heavily magic-focused characters can have very high max magicka. Like in the vanilla game, max magicka in CCCP is state-based, and will be immediately adjusted whenever your current intelligence changes (including any fortify or drain/damage effects). The ratio of your current to initial intelligence is a straight multiplier to max magicka, so if your intelligence is drained to 0, your max magicka will also be 0, as in the vanilla game. Any Fortify Magicka effect is taken into account in the calculations; the correct ratio between current and max magicka will be maintained when your max magicka is recalculated. (The mod is also compatible with Fortify MAX, which causes Fortify Magicka to increase max as well as current magicka.) Fortify Maximum Magicka also works basically the same way it does in the vanilla game. It acts as a multiplier for max magicka, though it applies to the full magicka calculations, not just intelligence as in the vanilla game, so the amount of magicka multiplied can potentially be much higher for heavily magic-focused characters. There are a few settings in the MCM that influence max magicka calculations. First is the "max magicka multiplier," which is a simple percentage multiplier to max magicka. The "initial magic skill offset for max magicka" functions similarly to the other "offset" settings in CCCP. The higher the offset, the less difference there will be between high and low starting magic skills in terms of max magicka, while the lower the offset, the more influence your class (the initial values of your magic skills) has on max magicka. "Max magicka progression" determines how quickly your max magicka increases as you raise your magic skills. "Unaffected magicka" is the portion of your starting magicka pool that is not affected by most of the mod's max magicka calculations. This setting serves as a minimum max magicka value (under normal circumstances) for even the least magically-inclined characters. The lower it is, the more significantly max magicka in CCCP will diverge from vanilla. Finally, CCCP's max magicka handling can be disabled in the MCM if you prefer to have vanilla max magicka based solely on intelligence. Magicka Regen Perhaps even more significantly, magicka regenerates over time with CCCP. The rate of magicka regen depends on several factors: your class (specifically, your starting magic skills compared to the average), your current magic skills, your current willpower (including any fortify or drain/damage effects), and your fatigue ratio. Your current magicka will increase very slightly several times per second when regenerating. In addition, when a significant amount of game time passes (e.g. from waiting, resting, fast travel or training), your magicka will regenerate depending on how much time has passed, so you don't have to just stand around forever while your magicka slowly regenerates. Magicka regenerates relatively slowly in general, though the regen rate can vary significantly for different characters. Highly advanced, heavily magic-focused characters can potentially regenerate several points per second with default settings, though typical characters will regenerate magicka much more slowly (and non-magically inclined characters very slowly). CCCP's magicka regen respects the Stunted Magicka effect (e.g. from The Atronach birthsign in vanilla). A character affected by Stunted Magicka will not regenerate magicka; to make up for this, such characters (at least those affected at the beginning of the game due to their birthsign choice) will receive a bonus to their max magicka. Several MCM settings affect magicka regen. The "base magicka regen rate" is a straight percentage multiplier to regen rate. The "initial magic skill offset for magicka regen" works just like the other offset settings, while "magicka regen progression" works like the similar max magicka setting - it determines how quickly your regen rate increases as you raise your magic skills. The "neutral willpower value" and "neutral fatigue ratio" are values for willpower and fatigue, respectively, that will result in a "normal" regen rate; when your willpower/fatigue are above these values, magicka will regen faster, and the opposite is true when willpower/fatigue are lower than these values. "Willpower influence on regen rate" and "fatigue influence on regen rate" determine the extent to which willpower and fatigue, respectively, influence magicka regen rate. Finally, like max magicka handling, CCCP's magicka regen can be disabled in the MCM, if you prefer to use a different mod for that or just don't like magicka regen. However, mages tend to be more squishy and less effective in physical combat with CCCP than they are in vanilla, and magicka regen along with higher max magicka can help compensate for that. Skill Slowdown Once your skills reach a certain threshold, they will begin taking longer to increase. This threshold, the "slowdown point," varies by skill, and is determined by two MCM settings. The "slowdown start point" is the base skill level for the slowdown system. Skill progression will never slow down before this point. For each skill, a certain percentage (the "slowdown spread") of the initial value for that skill is added to the start point to determine the slowdown point for that skill. By default, the slowdown start point is 60 and the slowdown spread is 80%, which means the slowdown point for each skill will be 60 plus 80% of the skill's initial value. A skill that started at 5 will have a slowdown point of 64, while a skill that started at 45 will have a slowdown point of 96. When a skill reaches its slowdown point, progression in that skill will be slowed to 1/2 its normal rate. After a number of additional increases, progression will slow again to 1/3 the normal rate, then 1/4, then 1/5, and so on. Skill progression gets slower at an exponential rate the higher the skill is increased, at a rate determined by the "slowdown rate" setting. If you don't like the skill slowdown system, it can be disabled by setting the slowdown rate to 0. Skill slowdown also applies to paid training, by multiplying training price by the same multiplier applied to normal skill progression (when a skill progresses at 1/3 the normal rate, training that skill will cost three times the normal amount). Unlike GCD, CCCP's skill slowdown system does not apply to skill books. (It also does not apply to the few scripted skill increases you can receive through dialogue as quest rewards.) In theory, skills can be increased indefinitely, but beyond a certain point, significant additional increases will be prohibitively time-consuming. (Note that in order for skills to progress beyond 100, regardless of this mod's slowdown settings, you need to enable the "skill uncap" feature of Morrowind Code Patch.) ----- It is *strongly* recommended that you start a new game with CCCP, rather than installing the mod with a character in progress. Many of the mod's calculations are derived from your initial skills and attributes. These values can only be determined and the calculations performed at the beginning of the game, immediately after chargen (MWSE has no way of determining the initial value of a skill or attribute after the fact). If you start using this mod mid-game, the calculations will assume that you started with all skills and attributes at average values. This means there will be little or no overall difference in attribute increase rates or in the overall influence different skills have on attributes (though the skill factors mean individual skills will still influence certain attributes more than others). It will also significantly skew calculations related to health, magicka and skill slowdown. This also applies to upgrading from 1.0. CCCP has changed so much from 1.0 that it can no longer make use of 1.0's saved data, so the same problems will apply. For the mod to work as intended, start a new game so the proper values can be saved. If you want to know more details about how the mod works, the code is pretty extensively (and in some places voluminously) commented. You should be able to look through main.lua and figure out what it's doing. The archive includes modified versions of GCD's calculator spreadsheets, adjusted to use CCCP's config values. A few errors in the spreadsheets have also been corrected. They should be very close to being correct. The archive also contains all the original documentation from GCD. Requirements This mod requires MGE XE and the latest version of MWSE 2.1. Just install MGE XE and run MWSE-Update.exe to download the latest build. Recommendations As always, Morrowind Code Patch is highly recommended. To experience the mod as intended, I recommend using the "skill uncap" feature, which will allow your skills to be increased beyond 100. It doesn't matter whether you use the "attribute uncap" feature or not; your attributes will be able to go over 100 regardless because attribute increases are handled by MWSE. MCP also has a feature called "level-up skills tooltip." This feature is not needed, but if you're using it, the added tooltip will now display the progress that each attribute has earned toward an increase, and the increase threshold for that attribute. I also strongly recommend using Quest Skill Reward Fix alongside this mod. Quest Skill Reward Fix enables CCCP to detect scripted skill increases gained through dialogue (as quest rewards) and apply progress toward attribute increases appropriately. Otherwise (without using Quest Skill Reward Fix), such scripted skill increases will not be detected and will earn you no progress toward attribute gains. Magicka Based Skill Progression is another recommended mod. MBSP makes magic skill progress when casting a spell depend on the spell's magicka cost, so you can't just repeatedly cast cheap 1-magicka spells and get full experience (and this is even more important with CCCP's magicka regen). This is perfectly compatible with CCCP's skill slowdown system. I do recommend lowering MBSP's XP-per-magicka value from the default of 0.2 (vanilla skill experience per 5 magicka expended). I think something like 0.0667 or 0.1 (vanilla skill experience per 15 or 10 magicka expended, respectively) is more reasonable. Fortify MAX works well with CCCP; it causes Fortify Magicka (and Fortify Fatigue) to increase the maximum as well as the current stat. Finally, if you want to be *really* class-conscious, you can also use the mod Class Conscious, which eliminates the ability to generate a custom class. Compatibility CCCP is generally highly compatible, being an MWSE-lua mod. It obviously should not be used alongside GCD, MULE, MADD Leveler or any other leveling mod. It will also generally conflict with mods that manage health. However, if you prefer the way another mod handles health calculations, you can disable CCCP's health management in the MCM and use the other mod instead, as long as the other mod does not rely on the vanilla levelup mechanic which CCCP bypasses (MWSE State-Based Health is one such mod.) If you don't like CCCP's max magicka system or magicka regen, you can disable either or both of these features in the MCM and use the magicka mod of your choice. CCCP should be compatible with Proportional Progression, since both mods have a multiplicative effect on skill progression rates. You should be able to set skill-based multipliers in PP, for example, and both mods' multipliers should apply. CCCP is compatible with mods that change races and birthsigns. Your "racial attributes" for the purposes of the mod's calculations are just whatever attributes you have at the end of chargen (granted by race, favored attributes and any birthsign bonus), and CCCP will work with mod-affected attributes just as well. As of version 2.0.1, the mod is now compatible with Nimble Armor. And, as of version 2.0.2, it is compatible with Fortify MAX. There was previously a conflict with a beta version of Ashfall, but with the current Ashfall version there appears to no longer be a serious conflict, or at least I haven't noticed any in my playtesting so far. The mods should work well together, but if you notice any conflicts when playing with both, please let me know. This should go without saying, but this mod is not compatible with OpenMW. Version History Version 2.0.5 - 2021-07-14 - Fixed more weirdness when health/magicka would have been exactly 0 if not for Fortify Health/Magicka, and was then recalculated. - Added option to disable health management. (Do not do this unless you're using another mod to manage health.) - More minor coding improvements. Version 2.0.4 - 2021-07-08 - Fixed a bug where weird things could happen if health/magicka was damaged to less than your Fortify Health/Magicka magnitude and was then recalculated. - Fixed a bug where Fortify Health/Magicka abilities (which should always affect max health/magicka) were not properly taken into account. - Fixed a bug where magicka ratio could get out of whack if intelligence and Fortify Magicka magnitude both changed, in that order, during the same frame. - Minor coding improvements. Version 2.0.3 - 2021-05-26 - The optional "levelup messages" are now from Inspirational Messages Expanded, with very minor tweaks. Version 2.0.2 - 2021-05-21 - Added compatibility with Fortify MAX. - Fixed a number of bugs where magicka could be reset to vanilla under certain circumstances. - A messagebox will now warn you if you install CCCP mid-playthrough. - Various coding improvements. - Safe to update from 2.0 or 2.0.1 mid-playthrough. - Requires an up-to-date MWSE build. Be sure to update MWSE! Version 2.0.1 - 2021-01-20 - Max magicka handling and magicka regen can now be disabled separately. - Fixed a conflict with Nimble Armor where unarmored skill could stop progressing entirely once it reached the slowdown point. - Minor coding improvements. - Safe to update from 2.0 mid-playthrough. Version 2.0 - 2020-07-26 - Major update. The mod is now very close to a full MWSE-lua implementation of GCD, with a few adjustments. - Implemented GCD's health system. - Implemented GCD's magicka system (for both max magicka and magicka regen). - Implemented GCD's skill slowdown system. - Modified MCP's "level-up skills tooltip" to display the progress and increase threshold for each attribute. - Added optional "levelup messages" from the vanilla game and from the mod Level Up Messages. - Fixed an issue where the first luck increase required one more non-luck attribute increase than intended. - Disabled skill gain during chargen, to avoid skewing the mod's initial calculations. - Added an optional "debug mode" with extensive logging. - The MCM is vastly improved, with detailed descriptions for each setting (and there are now many more settings). - The archive now contains modified versions of GCD's calculator spreadsheets, adjusted to use CCCP's config values. - Many coding improvements, large and small. Version 1.0 - 2020-05-22 - Initial release. Contact Feel free to contact me on the Nexus or Moddinghall with any comments or suggestions. You can also find me on Discord as Necrolesian#9692. Submitter Necrolesian Submitted 11/05/2021 Category Overhauls & Expansions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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