[MERGED] Restored Faction Relationships

Executive Summary:

1) The current faction relationships are very different from the original Morrowind Experience.  For example, if you join the thieves guild, all members of the Camonna Tong will attack you on sight.  Morrowind wasn't like this, but David doesn't want to change the main mod to put the original faction relationships in, so here is my mod.  This is all based on tbfam's original factions patch which called my attention to this issue.

2) This patch sets up faction relationships to the same behavior as the original game.  The 'best' Faction Disposition Adjustment (FDA) scores were determined using a mathematical model to determine best fit (sum of least squares, a.k.a. linear optimization a.k.a. linear regression). The result is very close to the way Morrowind works - all relationships are based on this table, and the NPCs responses should be very similar.

3) Files attached at the bottom of this post.

Details:

1) Morrowind's determination of whether or not a NPC attacks you on sight is based on their Fight AI characteristic, and is much more complex than Oblivion's system (see link)

• Fight is an integer from 0 to +100
• If Fight is greater than 70, the NPC will attack depending on distance to the player
• If Fight is greater than 30, the NPC will attack depending on disposition to the player
• If Fight is 30 or less, the NPC won't attack unless the player commits a crime
• If Fight is 0, the NPC will only attack in self-defense

Will the Morrowind NPC attack?

• Depends on the complex interaction between Fight, Distance, and Disposition
• In general, if the Disposition is less than 1/2 of Fight, the NPC will attack on sight
• Almost ALL in-town NPCs have a Fight of 30 (rarely a 40 or 50) meaning that they won't attack unless you commit a crime in front of them.  Therefore, Morroblivion should preserve this and different player-joinable factions should NOT attack each other on sight.  For the most part, they do, as NPCs have Aggression=5, the behavioral equivalent of Fight=30 in Morrowind.

2) Oblivion's determination of whether or not a NPC attacks you on sight is based on the NPC's Aggression AI characteristic and their Disposition with the player.

• Aggression is an integer from 0 to +100
• NPCs with an aggression of 5 or less will never attack, but will fight in self defense
• NPCs with an aggression of 0 will never fight, even in self-defense

Will the Oblivion NPC attack?

• If the NPC's disposition towards the player drops more than five points below the NPC's aggression, the NPC will attack.
• Almost ALL in-town NPCs have an aggression of 5 so that they will only attack in self defense (including defense of their property) - (equivalent to Fight=30 in Morrowind).

3) Morrowind's faction system is based on the formula:

Faction Disposition Adjustment = (Reaction * 5) * (0.5 + (FactionRank * 0.5)

where Reaction = an integer from -3 to +3 per this table
where FactionRank = an integer from 0 to +10 per this table

So if you just joined the thieves guild and are the lowest rank (1), the Camonna Tong's Reaction is -3. 

Faction Disposition Adjustment = (-3 * 5) * (0.5 + (1 * 0.5))
Faction Disposition Adjustment = -15 * 1 = -15

If you are the guildmaster:

Faction Disposition Adjustment = (-3 * 5) * (0.5 + (10 * 0.5))
Faction Disposition Adjustment = -15 * 5.5 = -82.5

Of course, that is just the faction disposition adjustment - the total disposition is set by your personality score, your clothes, whether your weapon is drawn, and your reputation score. 

4) Oblivion's disposition calculation is much simpler than Morrowind's:

Faction Disposition Adjustment = (Reaction * FactionRank)

where Reaction = an integer from -100 to +100 (this is the number entered in the CS under the Character -> Faction menu)
where FactionRank = an integer from 0 to +10

So in the current version of Morroblivion (v049), if you just joined the thieves guild and are the lowest rank, the Camonna Tong's Reaction is -20. 

Faction Disposition Adjustment = -20 *  1 = -20

So the Morrowind would have modified disposition by -15, Morroblivion modifies it by -20.  OK so not a huge difference.  But what if you're the guildmaster?

Faction Disposition Adjustment = -20 *  10 = -200

A lot more than -82.5 that Morrowind would have calculated.  And that is just one example.  Here are the graphs for the House Redoran and the Theives Guild relationships.

5) Obviously, we can't just plug in the old -3 to +3 numbers from Morrowind since the calculation steps for the Faction Disposition Adjustment are so different.  Likewise, we can't just make them up off the cuff however we feel like (which is what we have been doing).

Instead, we have to mathematically adjust the faction relationships to scale up so that the same effect is preserved in both Morrowind and Morroblivion.  This is no easy task, as the formulas are very different.

In order to do this, I set this problem up in Microsoft Excel and used Solver to determine optimality.  Basically, Solver determines what Oblivion Reaction (an integer between -100 and +100) minimizes the differences between Morrowind's calculation system and Oblivion's calculation system for the Faction Disposition Adjustment (across ranks 0-10).

The results are as follows:

*must be an integer between -100 and +100, actual calculated value in parenthesis

So anywhere where Morrowind used -3, we should use -9, and anywhere they used -2, we should use -6 and so on.  Thanks to this handy table, making the changes to tbfam's mod was fairly easy.

Due to the imperfect nature of linear optimization, differences are:

• At very low ranks in a faction, the other factions are slightly more friendly than Morrowind would have been
• At mid-level ranks in a faction, the other factions are almost exactly as friendly as Morrowind would have been
• At the highest ranks in a faction, the other factions are slightly less friendly than Morrowind would have been

You can see this in the graphs for the House Redoran and the Theives Guild relationships.

Graphs

Faction relationships in original Morrowind (-3 to +3 values)

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Faction relationships in My Restored Faction Relationships Mod (rescaled for Oblivion's different calculation of FDA)

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Faction relationships in default Morroblivion V49

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