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"This approach requires that you gain 20 minor skill points and 10 major skill points per level, in the three attributes you want to raise"
Which makes sense as a concept.
What it does not say is how you divide up those 20 minor & 10 major skill points, other than to say "in the three attributes".
For Major, can you raise one skill by 8 and two others by 1 point each (as long as those three skills were on a different attrib) , or what ?
Similar for Minor.
For some reason this is explained nowhere that I have founded so far.
When you level up, you now have 3 attributes you can increase, at base by 1 point each, or +2, +3, +4 or +5, depending on how many skill increases you got during that level that are governed by the attribute (including minor skills).
In order to get +5 on an attribute, you need to increase any mix of skills that are governed by that attribute 10 times. So in order to get 3 +5s, you need to level up at minimum 30 skills in that level up (10 for each attribute).
In order to level efficiently to the max, you would level up your majors 10 times for one attribute, and then 10 minors for another attribute, and 10 minors for another attribute (as leveling up more majors will contribute towards your next level and if you leveled up 30 majors, you'll level up 3 times in a row and the bonuses will go to the next level - you'd only get 1 +5 every level and 2 +1s).
To be honest, efficient leveling is a massive waste of time and accomplishes nothing except appeasing one's ocd. This is a conversation we have at least once a week around here, but attributes do very little in this game, it's not worth IMO playing the game like you're doing chores. I recommend just picking what skills you want to use, and leveling up naturally, you may only get 3 +2s, or a +3 maybe +4 in there.
It does sound like a bit of a chore. I guess I'll wait until i dive in and decide. Thanks for your time.
It might be worth it if it was an online game and you're competing with other players, but in a single player game it's not necessary.
As an example for why it's not necessary, strength attribute (which contributes to damage and carry weight) does very little. If you had 20 strength and used an iron long sword (lowest tier weapon), and increased your strength to 100 (so 16 levels worth of +5 increases), your damage will increase by 2.5 points (on a base damage of 10). By comparison, simply getting a steel sword (second lowest tier weapon), you'll increase damage by 3 points. A steel sword can easily be obtained at level 1 and are super cheap. It would take 10s of hours to grind out 16 levels of 10 strength skill increases for that damage increase, compared to 20 minutes of playing and buying a steel sword in the first city right out of the sewers.
Endurance is the only attribute that somewhat important, because it increases your health by 1/10th of endurance per level. But even then, min maxing for +5s compared to +2s isn't a make or break for your character, starting endurance at character creation is far more important as your starting hp is 2x starting endurance score.
Intelligence is also your max Magicka, so for a pure mage that's important too. But it's just based on overall intelligence score, it's not like endurance where it's cumulative increases. And there's 3 different birth signs that increase max Magicka that are IMO more important for pure mages.
As I said, it's mostly ocd thing and people thinking about what their attributes -could- have been increased on a level up, rather than what they actually contribute towards your character.
Knowing how to make a good enchanted weapon or playing a character that relies on spells rather than on weapon damage helps, as does relying on enchanted clothing or defensive spells/potions rather than armor, but even so Oblivion really starts becoming a slog beyond maybe level 25.
First off, damage isn't usually the thing I care most about when I want to boost Strength - carrying capacity, and more specifically effective carrying capacity, is. A character with 20 Strength has a maximum encumbrance of 100; a character with 100 strength has a maximum carrying capacity five times greater - and if you're looking at effective carrying capacity, i.e. your maximum encumbrance minus all the stuff (weapons, armor, consumables) that your character needs to carry around in order to explore dungeons effectively as well as anything else you're carrying around 'just in case' or for whatever other reason, then the difference in favor of 100 Strength is probably even greater than that.
Secondly, your example is seriously flawed, for several reasons:
1. Assuming a combination of weapon and skill such that the product of base damage and skill multiplier is 10, a character with 20 Strength nominally does 8.5 damage per hit while a character with 100 Strength does 12.5 damage per hit. This is a difference of 4 points of damage, not 2.5.
2. The absolute difference in damage per hit doesn't actually matter that much; far more important is the effect that this has on the number of hits required to kill, or if you prefer on the time to kill, the opponent. Ignoring the effects of weapon condition, it takes 12 hits to kill an enemy with 100 HP when you're dealing 8.5 damage per hit, but only 8 hits to kill that same enemy if you're dealing 12.5 damage per hit. It's a difference of "only" 4 damage per hit, and yet it reduces the expected time to kill by a third.
3. You're ignoring that Sneak Attack and Power Attack multipliers are applied on top of everything else affecting a weapon's physical damage. With a 6x Sneak Attack multiplier, 8.5 damage becomes 51, 12.5 damage becomes 75, that "insignificant" difference of 4 damage is suddenly a difference of 24, and the number of normal hits you need to kill a 100-HP enemy after landing the sneak attack is now six for the 20-Strength character against just two for the 100-Strength character.
4. If you're still using the same weapon after leveling up 16 times, you're either a masochist or so far into high-level play that a Daedric weapon - not an iron one - would be a far more appropriate basis for comparison, and for that you're looking at something more like a 10-point difference in nominal damage per normal-attack hit (still a ~50% relative difference in damage output or a ~33% relative difference in TTK), given that both the 20-Strength and the 100-Strength character have the same weapon and the same skill level. If it's Iron weapon at 20 Strength versus Daedric weapon at 100 Strength, the difference is more like 20 points of damage per hit, or roughly a factor of three, again assuming that both characters have the same skill level.
I will however grant that, for the purposes of combat damage, Strength can become relatively unimportant if you lean into enchantments or poison, but even so it's not useless or entirely irrelevant - it's a bit inconvenient to recharge a weapon enchantment or reapply poison mid-combat, especially if whatever stacks of soul gems or poisons you had hotkeyed runs out, and maintaining enchantment charge becomes more annoying when fighting NPCs since Azura's Star can't be used to capture black souls while some enemies are resistant/immune to various damage types (e.g. each of the atronachs to its associated element or Argonians and undead to poisons of all types).
Also, as to other attributes, Speed has some pretty significant quality-of-life benefits and makes it easier to duck in and out of melee range or dodge projectiles, Intelligence and Willpower are both very useful for a spellcaster if you don't want to constantly hit the magicka potions, and Agility certainly feels like it impacts stagger chances even if nobody seems to have been able to quantify how. The only attributes I'd call largely irrelevant are Luck and Personality - and for Luck that's mostly just because it's essentially a multiplier on your skill level, but effective skill levels are capped at 100 for most purposes.
And how's that supposed to help with aggressive level scaling?
But these two extremes will never compete in the same situation, moreover you'll probably never see 20 strength in game.
And more importantly nobody denies equipment plays big role in damage calculation - the point of argument is strength.
I did the math for a few different conditions:
Strength has the least role in damage calculation and by far.
The actual reason efficient leveling suggested on UESP works isn't the +5 bonuses, but that it makes you take time and level skills
What?.. it's the same thing. 8.5 as a number is also approx a third less than 12.5. How's that supposed to reveal anything
More seriously: How is this discussion supposed to help Redrick understand "how leveling works" (OP)? I'm afraid it's rather overwhelming and confusing new players. Do you expect them to do learn / look up / use all the algorithms influencing leveling before playing this game?
@Redrick: The leveling system may be different from others you know, but it's not "convoluted" (and thanks for not calling it "broken"). if at all, there are players who use it (or think they have to use it) in a "convoluted" way. And worse, tell others that it's is the only way to use it.
I'd like to encourage you to (as you say) "dive in and decide" yourself.
I myself have always found it easy to understand and to use (for myself). You use your skills, and when you're ready to level up, you're given the choice to level up 3 attributes by a number of points (maximally +5, but I don't think I ever got more than +3). Skills are linked with certain attributes (and some of these links could really be questioned, but it's the way the game works), and the 3 attributes you can improve are the ones whose skills you used most. What the attributes do is explained in-game (or in a manual). Examples: Strength lets you carry more, Endurance gives you more hitpoints, Intelligence gives you more magicka, etc. You can look up the details, formulas etc in UESP, but I think they serve to optimise your games once your more familiar, but don't help new players much.
The other side is that your enemies level up, too. Again, you can question the way this is implemented, but it's how the game works - and in my opinion it works reasonably well, as long as you observe what's going on, and adjust the choices you make when leveling up to the way your enemies get stronger.
Yes, you can make mistakes, and it's not impossible to get in a situation where your character simply can't cope with the challenges. But most of the time you can correct your mistakes by leveling up more appropriately, by improving equipment / skills / spells, or by simply playing differently (for example, you don't have to defeat every enemies you meet - you can avoid them, run away from them, use other means, or get stronger and come back later).
The biggest mistake you can make is to expect the game to work as you want it to work or you're used to from other games. If you don't like the way the game works (which is legitimate), don't play the game - but don't blame the game.
Oh Dear, you have woken up, once again, the hot debate between those who do and those who don't like the levelling system and those who think attributes are pointless and those who don't. Ouch. This thread is going to become a convoluted and irreconcilable debate.
Your last question first. In my opinion; No, don't go for this mod, you do not need it however you choose to play. In my opinion with any game you should not introduce a mod until after you have played long enough to know exactly how that mod affects the game.
If you want to use efficient levelling then do so. If you don't, the game can be beaten if you are sensible and you make intelligent choices when levelling without any attempt at efficient levelling.
The levelling system is different and therefore, initially a bit challenging. But, if you are using a PC there is a very simple way to observe it in action. You can then use your better understanding to play the game without excessive monitoring or you can go on using the method below to monitor efficient levelling. The choice is yours and nobody else should tell you that your choice is right or wrong. (Many players also use simple pen and paper rather than the method below. And, many very successful players have never used the method below either.)
Using a PC to turn on the page which shows your level progress:
Open the console (normally the Tilde key above the Tab key on your keyboard) and type:
SDT 10 [return] (SetDebugText 10 (ten))
TDT [return] (ToggleDebugText)
To remove this overlay type TDT [return] again. You do not normally have to use the SDT 10 command again though there are some actions, such as deleting the configuration files which will reset it. Turn the console off to continue to play.
Obviously the above is for information only. Doing the above, and/or how often you do it is your own choice. There is no right or wrong. I found it a very easy way to see the levelling system in action and I personally find seeing something in action makes it easier to understand.
The following is an example of how Efficient Levelling works:
Each Attribute has three associated skills.
To level efficiently you need exactly 10 points in any major skill in order to level (your final major point must be a Major skill point as it is the tenth major skill point which triggers the level).
You also need exactly 30 skill points chosen from Attributes. So 10 points for each attribute.
So for example:
If you have Blade and Light Armour as Major Skills
and
Hand to Hand, Athletics, Block and Armourer as Minor Skills
You could increase:
Major - Blade 5 points. (Strength)
Minor - Hand-to-hand 5 points. (Strength)
Major - Light armour 5 points. (Speed)
Minor – Athletics 5 points. (Speed)
Minor - Block 5 points. (Endurance)
Minor - Armourer 5 points. (Endurance)
The above combination will provide +5 Strength +5 Speed +5 Endurance to these attributes when levelling up.
You can upgrade one, two, or three skills in any Attribute to gain ten points and gain +5 to the corresponding Attribute. For example: Alchemy 2 points, Sorcery 1 point, Mysticism 7 points in order to achieve +5 Intelligence when levelling up.
To do this exactly would, in my opinion, take a great deal of dedication. To make it a rough aim, not so much. Even with Efficient Levelling you can afford to lose a few points of over-levelling.
As I already said, choosing to do this or not or how much is most definitely a personal choice.
To level up you need to get 10 levels in major skills, you could level 5 major skills twice which all have different attributes and you'll get the option to +1 three of the 5 attributes.
In the end you'll need to get at most 10 total levels in 3 major skills for different attributes and make up the rest of the levels for those attributes in minor skills.
Example; Gain 3 levels in heavy armour, 3 in athletics, and 4 in blade major skills. Those would be endurance, speed, and strength.
You'd then need to gain 7 levels in another endurance skill, 7 in a speed skill, and 6 in a strength skill minor to get +5 in those 3 attributes.
Total of 30 levels across 3 attributes. 10 in major and 20 in minor.
P.S you need to get the minor skills done before you finish the major ones, once you've done the final major you cannot affect the attribute bonus for that level up any further.
I never said the level system was convoluted, I said what's convoluted is people picking opposite majors than what their class actually uses in order to prevent level ups. It's a completely unnecessary and convoluted way to do what simply not sleeping in a bed will do (until you gear up or skill up appropriately) without making your character the opposite of what they're supposed to be.
And then of course grinding out for hours to get nominally more increases on a level up.
My current character, who you most certainly would consider a wrong'un is precisely what it is supposed to be. And, without trying, I level well each time precisely because my "completely unnecessary and convoluted" (sic) character is what I decided works best for me. I have absolutely no idea what you mean by "And then of course grinding out for hours to get nominally more increases on a level up". I get the increases I am happy with and I put in extremely little (first few levels) to absolutely no effort to achieve them. Interesting
To suggest "simply not sleeping in a bed" to control level ups seems to me to be the worst possible option for anyone. But, if that is your preferred choice then by all means go for it but to me that option seems illogical and would be a sure fire game-breaker.
Not sleeping in a bed is much easier and much more logical than making a custom class that uses the complete opposite skills as what your class actually uses.
For a new comer who's already confused, it's a lot easier to tell them to delay leveling up by not sleeping than it is to tell them to scrap their character and start over this time picking skills they don't use and creating a class opposite of what they plan on playing.
And yes, to get 3 +5s, one has to grind because that's a minimum of 30 skill increases, 10 major and 20 minor increases, and you can only pay for training for 5 of those increases per level. So you absolutely need to grind out skills you don't necessarily use to achieve that every level - and the benefit to doing so is so little when translated to gameplay it's not even noticable.
The only tangible benefit here is that you stay at a level longer than you normally would, opening up more opportunities to increase combat skills and/or find better gear and resources (money, potions, etc) before moving up tiers of enemies - to which you can get that same benefit and control your level the same way by simply not sleeping in a bed until you're ready to level up (you can even grind out the 20 minor skills for those +5s if you really want to this way as well).
Trying to mathematically outplay HP sponges is not the play here.