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Enderal vs. Health Regeneration

Verfasst: 02.04.2019 15:41
von Unedjis
Hi everyone,

as we all know, Enderal has disabled "natural" Health Regeneration to force the player to eat and also make combat harder by disabling in-combat regeneration (except for that one perk).

Now, to preface the rest of this, I would just like to say that I do not mean any of it as Enderal-bashing in any shape. I love it, but I can also see its imperfections. And if I spot imperfections that even I would be able to change, I want to do that to make it even more perfect.

The implementation of Enderal's zero-regeneration paradigm is flawed at the core and makes any true regeneration items broken. Have you ever consumed a Health Flux Potion? BOOM, instant regeneration (well, capped at 100hp/s because apparently that's what the game does) instead of tripled health regeneration, as the 180% bonus would indicate.

But why is that? Let me explain. This involves maths, I hate maths. Disclaimer: Please read through the entire post and try to understand the formula before interpreting what I'm trying to say here.

There are three values that govern health (or any) regeneration: HealRate, HealRateMult, and CombatHealthRegenMult. [Replace "Heal/Health" with "Stamina/Magicka" for those stats.]

1) HealRate

This is a flat percentage value of your maximum HP. In Vanilla Skyrim, this is set to 0.7, so if you have 100 HP, you will heal 0.7 HP per second (in combination with HealRateMult - see formula).

In Enderal, HealRate is set to 0 - unless you consume food. Food sets HealRate to 160. (This is where the broken-ness comes in.)

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2) HealRateMult

This is a percentage-based multiplier. In Vanilla Skyrim, this is set to 100 as a default value (for 100%).

In Enderal, HealRateMult is set to 1 to counteract the high HealRate from food.

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3) CombatHealthRegenMult

This value only applies while the player is in combat. In Vanilla Skyrim, this value is 0.7.

In Enderal, it is set to 0 to completely negate any combat regeneration.

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All of this gives us the following formula to determine the actual Health Regeneration per second:

((HealRate*MaxHP) * (HealRateMult/100) * (CombatHealthRegenRateMult)) / 100 HP/s

CombatHealthRegenRateMult only applies, well, in combat, so for our calculations it does not play a role - yet.
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Examples:
1) You have 100 HP and haven't eaten anything: ((0*100)*(1/100))/100 = 0 HP/s;
2) You have 100HP and have eaten something: ((160*100)*(1/100))/100 = 1.6 HP/s;
3) You have 500 HP and have eaten something: ((160*500)*0.01)/100 = 8 HP/s.

Looks good so far, right? WRONG!!!! Enderal is getting there the wrong way. Why tho?
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Introducing enchantments and potions. In Vanilla Skyrim, all regeneration items modify HealRateMult by a percentage determined by the effect's Magnitude. So if the tooltip says "Increases Health Regeneration by 40%" that means that the item increases HealRateMult by 40 (because 100 is seen as 100%). No item or ability other than the Argonians' special power touch HealRate. Why? Because modifying a base value of 0.7 by even 0.1 is already a huge change, while a value based on 100 can be fine-tuned.

Now this is where Enderal got lazy. (Sorry, don't kill me for my blasphemy!)

But first, one thing has been done RIGHT: By making Health Potions heal over time, a regeneration effect has been simulated, and at the same time a RestoreHealth effect does not care about any multipliers. It's just a flat value of x HP/s. So no conflict with the no-natural-healing-in-combat paradigm.

However, instead of really tackling the issue of true REGENERATION by fully understanding the mechanics or the formula, actual REGENERATION items have been made very scarce - and remain broken.

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Exhibit A: The Silent Step of the Rat Catcher. The tooltip for this item says it increases the wearer's Health Regeneration by 6%. That does not seem like much, right? WRONG!! It makes a HUGE difference because it actually increases the HealRateMult by 6 points from 1 to 7.

Formula for 300 HP with food eaten WITHOUT those boots: ((160*300) * (1/100)) / 100 = 4.8 HP/s
The same WITH those boots: ((160*300) * ((1+6)/100))/100 = 33.6 HP/s

So in fact, those boots increase regeneration by 600% instead of 6%.
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Exhibit B: The RANCID Health Flux Potion says it increases Health Regeneration by 180%. Again, it increases HealRateMult by 180 points, resulting in the following INSANE regeneration:

300 HP, food eaten, potion imbibed: ((160*300) * ((1+180)/100))/100 = 868.8 HP/s

Now, I believe the game caps health regeneration at 100 HP/s, but still.
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Why is any of this a problem? If anything, those regeneration items just make gameplay more fluent because you don't have to wait for your health to catch up after combat and can just jump right into the next battle because instant regeneration is great.

Well, yes. And also no, because there is a perk that enables in-combat regeneration: The Vandal's "Fury Driven" perk, which increases CombatHealthRegenMult from 0 to 2. Sounds harmless enough, right?

300 HP, food eaten, perk active: ((160*300) * (1/100) * 2) / 100 = 9.6 HP/s
This is double the amount you would regenerate outside of combat (makes sense, CHRM has been set to 2), but it's alright.

300 HP, food eaten, perk active, RAT CATCHER: ((160*300) * (7/100) * 2) / 100 = 67.2 HP/s
Already broken, right?

300 HP, food eaten, perk active, HEALTH FLUX: ((160*300) * (181/100) * 2) / 100 = 1737.6 HP/s
Yeah, words, I am at a loss for them. Good thing it's still capped at 100 HP/s (I think).
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The simple solution here would be to just change the perk and never have any items or abilities that enable in-combat regeneration. However, I would consider this a loss, as being able to kite enemies while regenerating might be an interesting combat style for some players. So instead, wouldn't it be nice to fix the system in a way that would allow for a simpler modification of any type of regeneration.

Introducing: SIMPLE VALUES
- HealRate = 0 --> Food sets this to 1
- HealRateMult = 0 --> Food and Magic changes this instead of HealRate!
- CombatHealthRegenMult = 0

Of course, that would mean going through every single item and ability that has real Regeneration effects attached to it, and rebalancing all of them according to the new numbers. However, looking through the CK those really aren't that many:
- Food items (that's the largest share)
- Less than 10 Alchemy items
- Less than 10 armor pieces
- Maybe some enemies???? Although if the initial values have only been changed for the PC, then that wouldn't even have to be done.

And guess what: I volunteer! :thumbsup: No, seriously, I want to make this so I can make my Armor Set Overhaul, and possibly a Food Overhaul (to diversify the foods a little). My goal here would be to get to similar regeneration values as they are now, just through a cleaner formula that works better with auto-generated tooltips.

BUT here is my question to the devs: Would this break anything major in any quests or cutscenes?

Soooo yeah, this was my essay. Thanks for reading!
Unedjis

Edit: Changed the suggested alternative values because I realized if HealRate was always at 1, there would be no difference between Food and Magic. Now you need to eat food to enable regeneration in the first place, no matter how many artifacts or potions you have active.

Re: Enderal vs. Health Regeneration

Verfasst: 02.04.2019 18:08
von urst
you lost me at "this involes math" and had me back at "I volunteer" :thumbsup:

to answer your question-
an Overhaul like this shouldn't break any quests/scenes :)

Re: Enderal vs. Health Regeneration

Verfasst: 02.04.2019 19:06
von Unedjis
Wohoo! Then I'll get to work. Thanks! :)

Edit: here's the result.

Re: Enderal vs. Health Regeneration

Verfasst: 27.08.2021 00:17
von Kutzulu
Was there a patch for the fury driven perk? I tried out entchantments and they didn't affect the healrate in combat. At +200 health regeneration, I didn't notice any difference when fighting with a 2h weapon. It just buffed up the healrate you get through food.
Well, yes. And also no, because there is a perk that enables in-combat regeneration: The Vandal's "Fury Driven" perk, which increases CombatHealthRegenMult from 0 to 2. Sounds harmless enough, right?
I think this is outdated? It seems to be a fixed number (like 2hp/sec), not % based. The perk was really useful earlygame, but now (level 60, 600hp) it is not doing much.