Oblivion talk:Leveled Lists

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Difference in loot[edit]

Any difference in loot as a character passes level 30? 40? approaches 50? Rare magical loot? Rare spell tomes or scrolls? — Unsigned comment by 71.235.92.83 (talk) at 01:13 on 12 February 2008‎

Basically no. Most leveled lists top out in the mid 20s so you're not going to get anything better beyond that point. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 01:56, 12 February 2008 (EST)

NPC Inventories[edit]

One remaining mystery is how leveled lists work to generate the inventories of non-random NPCs (i.e., not the random bandits and conjurers who get regenerated every three days, but the named NPCs who are alive from the start of the game). How do those NPCs get their new, improved loot? When does it happen? What happens to the old, obsolete loot? And, what's really driving this: what glitches are there in the process? Because it turns out the process is behind a few long-unresolved oddities reported by players.

What we know: There are a few things that have already been tested:

  • The level used to generate the loot is the minimum of the NPC's level and the character's level [http:/cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/How_Oblivion_engine_deals_with_NPC_levelled_equipment CSwiki]
  • NPC inventories are upgraded when the player's character levels up (tested for the case of Oblivion:S'thasa)
    • The upgrade happens independently of cell resets, i.e., the inventory changes even it's been less than three days.

Reported problems: There are more than a few cases that have now been reported where an NPC's inventory just seems to be wrong. The reports are scattered, and at times have been provided by belligerent editors whose information was therefore discounted. But there are enough to say there's something strange going on:

  • Leveled list problems
    • >5K gold on NPCs
    • Dozens of arrows
      • S'razirr can have hundreds of Daedric arrows... but should have at most 5.
      • The other Camonna Tong thug (see Oblivion_talk:Walker Camp), found with nearly 300 arrows, should have at most 21 arrows.
    • Many potions
      • The necromancers in Howling Cave (for Meridia's quest). It's never been reported as a bug, but they do have a lot of potions, even though each one should only have 3 potions
  • Unrelated problems

Looking over all these notes, there seems to be something strange going on. It can't be related to third-party mods, because several of the reports are from Xbox and PS3 players. In the cases of Astante and Merildor, the only possible way for these NPCs to get gold is the leveled lists: these two NPCs are not part of any script (they can't even be accessed by any scripts). So leveled lists have to be the source of the problem.

Testing Convinced there's a problem, I decided to check the gold for a few of these NPCs. I took a shortcut with the testing (a fortuitous choice, in retrospect). Instead of killing and looting the NPCs, or instead of even finding the NPCs, I just used the console. For example, prid 59d30 then getitemcount f tells me how much gold Astante has. I started by checking some of my archived saves for various characters:

NPC Maximum
expected		 Olana
(level 20)		 Nenya
(level 22)		 Kharag
(level 33)		 Nephele
(level 12)
Eyja 6 (+ 150)* 77 82 (+150) 133 51
Astante 745 1766 2347 6055 414
Merildor 745 1565 2560 7030 458
Thug 1 765 3206 2354 11089 815
Thug 2 3 31 11 51 17

* The +150 is only if Helping Hands is complete, during which the player gives Eyja 150 gold; only one of the test characters had completed that quest.

Conclusions:

  • For all of the saves, all NPCs had more gold than they should (at level 12, Astante and Merildor should have at most 295 gold).
  • The range of different saves examined means the problem occurs on PC and on Xbox 360, in completely unpatched games, and in fully patched games.
  • The problem happens for leveled NPCs and non-leveled NPCs: Eyja is fixed at level 4; the others all level up with your character
  • The problem is very widespread (probably affects all NPCs with gold in their inventories)... but it's generally not remarkable, because 51 gold doesn't seem like much unless you know that the NPC is only supposed to have 3 gold. Astante, Merildor, and Thug 1 are the only NPCs in the game with gold leveled lists that go as high as 745 gold -- so they're the only ones who end up with thousands of gold. After that, the next highest NPC gold leveled list is the one used for all nobles, which goes up to maximum 25 gold (with this glitch, 600-1200 gold is what high level characters are likely to find on nobles).

Next, I tested what happens when my character leveled up. Olana happened to be a power-leveled character used for alchemy testing. In other words, she's level 20 but she's never gone anywhere or done anything. She also happened to have already done enough power-training to be able to advance to level 30. So I was able to level up (completely without cheating) just by activating the bed and sleeping: no traveling, only an hour between levels, so basically no changes happening other than my character's level. Results:

NPC LLists level 20 level 21 level 22 level 23 level 24 level 25 level 26 level 27 level 28 level 29
Eyja LL0NPCGoldMiddleClass 77 82
Δ=5		 85
Δ=3		 89
Δ=4		 92
Δ=3		 95
Δ=3		 100
Δ=5		 103
Δ=3		 106
Δ=3		 111
Δ=5
Astante LL0GoldLeveled50 1766 2260
Δ=494		 2654
Δ=394		 3123
Δ=469		 3122
Δ=-1		 3122
Δ=0		 3767
Δ=645		 4411
Δ=644		 5105
Δ=694		 5104
Δ=-1
Merildor LL0GoldLeveled50 1565 1960
Δ=395		 1959
Δ=-1		 2529
Δ=600		 3073
Δ=544		 3072
Δ=-1		 3667
Δ=595		 4186
Δ=519		 4705
Δ=519		 4704
Δ=-1
Thug 1 LL0GoldLeveled100+
LL0GoldChange100+
LL0GoldChange50		 3206 3634
Δ=428		 4081
Δ=447		 4607
Δ=526		 4607
Thug 2 LL0NPCGoldLwerClass 31 32
Δ=1		 33
Δ=1		 34
Δ=1		 34
  • At level 23, I coc'd to Walker Camp and did three level-ups in the Walker Camp bedrolls. I then coc'd back to the Chorrol Mages Guild and did one more level-up. I waited 96 hours (4 days; long enough to reset cells) in the Mages Guild, then did two more level-ups. From the time I traveled to Walker Camp, the gold of the two NPCs located in Walker Camp never changed again.

Conclusions:

  • Leveling up is what increases the NPC gold
  • Upon leveling up, the gold is generally increasing by the magnitude of the leveled list entry, instead of being set equal to the magnitude of the leveled list entry
  • Once you interact with a given NPC, the gold becomes frozen, apparently permanently.
  • From the exact magnitudes of the gold increases, I can also theorize more specifically about what is happening. Upon levelup, the game tries to first remove the previous leveled list item, then adds the new leveled list item. But the "removal" is the strange part:
    • It always sets the magnitude to 1 for removal, whether the leveled list magnitude was 1, 15, or 495.
    • But, it does keep track of whether or not an item was added. So, for the "50" lists, there is a 50% chance that gold is added each time (and 50% chance that nothing happens). Whether or not 1 gold is removed is always based upon whether or not gold was added the previous turn.
  • Checking corpses of permanently dead NPCs (such as the Dead Scholar in Sideways Cave) shows that dead corpses are not affected (at least not if all patches have been installed).

Testing with arrows Just to complete the story, let me also report on some tests that rpeh did -- I hope rpeh doesn't mind me borrowing the results ;) And I hope I scribbled down the information accurately. Rpeh tracked S'razirr's arrows as his character leveled up. S'razirr has 5 instances of the LL1NPCWeaponArrowLvl100 leveled list, plus a single non-leveled iron arrow. Each instance of the leveled arrows should produce:

  • At level 1: 20 iron arrows (75% chance)
  • At levels 2-3: 18 steel arrows (75% chance)
  • At levels 4-5: 16 silver arrows (75% chance)
Arrow type level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 level 5
Iron 81
1+(4*20)		 80
-1		 80 80 80
Steel 0 68
+(4*18)
-4		 134
+(4*18)
-6		 133
-1		 133
Silver 0 0 0 57
+(4*16)
-7		 120
+(4*16)
-1

After level 5, rpeh's character met S'razirr but did not talk to him. At that point, the inventory of arrows became frozen.

So, it looks like:

  • At each level-up it is adding the new leveled arrows. (4 sets because there's only a 75% chance for each of the 5 sets)
  • At the same time, it is deleting one of the arrows added the previous level-up, and then deleting 4-7 of the arrows added this level-up
  • What is controlling the number of arrows being deleted is unclear.

What else is affected

  • The problem apparently occurs for any leveled list that generates multiples of items. It also only affects leveled lists that are used in NPC inventories, and even then only NPCs that are not randomly generated. So there aren't too many items that get afffected.
  • Gold: nearly all NPCs, although for the vast majority the amounts of gold are too small to be remarkable. The lists that can spawn 1000 gold or more are:

Summary

  • Any leveled list that generates multiples of items will not work properly for inventories of permanent NPCs.
  • These leveled lists will generate far more items than they should (adding more items each time your character levels up). The items will also preferentially be the higher quality items on the leveled list.
  • At the point when your character meets the NPC (presumably close enough to be seen the NPC or interact with the NPC, but they don't necessarily need to talk to each other), the NPC's inventory becomes frozen. Level-ups after that point do not change these leveled list items
    • What event specifically triggers the inventory freezing has not yet been established.

--NepheleTalk 23:35, 11 June 2008 (EDT)

Will lower level enchanted weapons stop appearing?[edit]

The same way iron and steel weapons will stop appearing in loot/enemies at level 12 according to the leveled lists table? It seems to imply that since the type of weapon (iron/steel) would stop appearing, the enchanted versions of those weapons would also stop appearing. Is that right? DTM 04:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

They become less likely to appear as you level, but many leveled lists can potentially give you iron/fur items even at high levels. rpeh •T•C•E• 07:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Which leveled lists do you speak of? The only one I really know of is the one on the "leveled lists" page and at the bottom it pretty much says in the table there that starting at level 12, iron/steel weapons will stop appearing in loot. Are you talking about armor/apparel? I mean, there are other tables stating when certain armor qualities start to appear, but I can't find the "leveled lists" table for armor stating the probabilities of finding each quality at each level the way it does for weapons. DTM 13:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant the enchanted lists, such as LL1LootWeapon0Magic100 and its variants. Those always look at all possible items in the list, at least, I think they do. Playing with it in the CS I couldn't get it to make anything lower than elven at level 50, so I honestly don't know. rpeh •T•C•E• 13:23, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Well that makes sense since the leveled lists for normal weapons says that at the highest levels, the lowest quality to appear is elven. So since the enchanted weapons are simply based off of those qualities and appear somewhat during the same time, I guess that enchanted weapons of lower qualities stop appearing too. Is there a leveled list table for armor/apparel that states the probability of each quality of armor appearing at each level the same way there is for weapons? Shouldn't there be one to mirror the weapon's table here? Oblivion:Leveled_Lists#Random_Item_Lists DTM 13:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Feel free to add the necessary info. rpeh •T•C•E• 15:01, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Sorry I only play on the xbox. I really regret not having a PC to run this since I can't get the benefits for the unofficial patch. Just thought it would be something useful since this site already has one for weapons. DTM 18:42, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I am looking for an armor list as well--Candc4 17:33, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
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