Online talk:Molag Bal

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Difficulty[edit]

ON-misc-Molag Bal Difficulty.jpg

Just stating here for future reference: Molag Bal's infobox's difficulty parameter should say "1", not "3". This value has been changed several times over the past few years from 1 to 3, but this is incorrect. I have ESOlog data from my photography run and a screenshot to corroborate if anyone has any doubts.

I feel like this is bound to keep happening at scattered intervals over the next few years if I don't clear things up.

I know Molag Bal is a god and some people's first impulse is to think "well 1 tick doesn't seem right", but difficulty ticks are not indicative of lore: they're purely a gameplay element.


Here's a capture of Molag Bal's NPC data from ESOlog, including the coordinates he was standing at when the entry was recorded:

Sancre Tor cutscene:

[20854] = "event{TargetChange} difficulty{0} level{50} maxSt{0} gender{2} name{Molag Bal} reaction{3} maxHp{31967} maxMg{0} zone{Sancre Tor} x{0.42195373773575} lastTarget{Molag Bal} y{0.56011271476746} timeStamp1{1607666274} gameTime{7537248} timeStamp{4744529849077465088} lang{en} ",

In Sancre Tor, his difficulty is 0 because the instance of Molag Bal that appears has no combat data. I died sort-of-purposefully to Mannimarco several times (and unintentionally a few times during a few encounters before the final fight), so Molag Bal's friendly health value may reflect three deaths in this capture. I don't think it's necessary for us to record this health value, but it would be fascinating to see further testing done.

Because I love a good bit of trivia, I'd also like to point out that I don't think this entry was reflected in my chat messages like Mannimarco and his summons were: I have the setting that reflects ESOlog captures in the in-game chat turned on, but I've noticed (at rather inconvenient and occasionally distressing times, thank you Maelstrom Arena) that not every NPC capture gets mirrored to the chat, even when the data is recorded to the LUA file.

This is a long way of saying "the Sancre Tor entry surprised me while I was looking for his combat stats, and I'm including it here because it's fascinating and I can't think of any place I'll remember to bring it up".


Heart's Grief, God of Schemes (combat data):

[38883] = "event{TargetChange} maxMg{0} difficulty{2} level{50} name{Molag Bal} maxHp{6393480} reaction{1} maxSt{0} gender{2} lastTarget{Molag Bal} y{2.0939967632294} zone{Heart's Grief} x{1.0482751131058} timeStamp{4744536239850389504} gameTime{2581761} timeStamp1{1609189953} lang{en} ",

While I'm here, I'll corroborate my claim that his health has different values based on how many times the player has died in the instance:

1 Death:

[38570] = "event{TargetChange} reaction{1} maxHp{5114784} level{50} difficulty{2} name{Molag Bal} maxMg{0} gender{2} maxSt{0} x{0.47881639003754} zone{Heart's Grief} y{0.68693059682846} lastTarget{Molag Bal} gameTime{811488} timeStamp1{1609183704} timeStamp{4744536213640183808} lang{en} ",

2 Deaths:

[37080] = "event{TargetChange} maxSt{0} maxHp{4155762} gender{2} difficulty{2} maxMg{0} reaction{1} level{50} name{Molag Bal} zone{Heart's Grief} x{0.46574327349663} lastTarget{Molag Bal} y{0.74861121177673} timeStamp{4744535680598671360} timeStamp1{1609056617} gameTime{34972014} lang{en} ",

3 Deaths:

[37082] = "event{TargetChange} maxSt{0} maxHp{3196740} gender{2} difficulty{2} maxMg{0} reaction{1} level{50} name{Molag Bal} zone{Heart's Grief} x{0.47120583057404} lastTarget{Molag Bal} y{0.76479518413544} timeStamp{4744535680716111872} timeStamp1{1609056645} gameTime{34999907} lang{en} ",

Quick note on how to read ESOlog entries: the difficulty parameter for enemies with no ticks is "1" in the game files because no ticks is the lowest difficulty setting for enemies, and it would make sense for 1, the lowest possible value that doesn't indicate the lack of something/that a thing in code is "false" would be "1". In Sancre Tor, Molag Bal doesn't have difficulty: his value is set to 0, presumably because it indicates this copy of the NPC will never see combat, or that they're within a reaction group that is programmed not to engage in combat (Like Friendly NPCs). This is guesswork on my part: perhaps a difficulty value of 0 is just used for entities that only see use in scripted sequences.

In any case We use numbers from one to three to count the ticks present on a healthbar in the NPC summary template: the template doesn't reflect exactly how the data manifests in-game, which works for us because it's easy for editors to associate the number of ticks with a difficulty value to insert in the parameter.


To further illustrate the inner workings of difficulty ticks and the values recorded with ESOlog, here's the data for a Dwarven Spider with no ticks:

[44295] = "event{TargetChange} reaction{1} level{50} maxMg{0} difficulty{1} maxHp{34501} gender{2} name{Dwarven Spider} maxSt{0} x{0.18293690681458} y{0.44439342617989} lastTarget{Dwarven Spider} zone{Mzeneldt} timeStamp1{1609466108} gameTime{6011857} timeStamp{4744537398128410624} lang{en} ",

An elite enemy with two ticks (the boss from a Dark Anchor):

[48391] = "event{TargetChange} maxHp{247548} level{50} maxSt{0} gender{1} name{Dread Xivkyn Voidstalker} reaction{1} maxMg{0} difficulty{3} x{0.49537464976311} y{0.40289270877838} lastTarget{Dread Xivkyn Voidstalker} zone{Alik'r Desert} timeStamp1{1609798389} timeStamp{4744538791815938048} gameTime{1211300} lang{en} ",

And Vykosa the Ascendant, a dungeon boss with three ticks:

[12214] = "event{TargetChange} maxSt{0} name{Vykosa the Ascendant} maxHp{6114846} difficulty{4} level{50} reaction{1} maxMg{0} gender{1} lastTarget{Vykosa the Ascendant} y{0.28807631134987} x{0.65564388036728} worldzoneid{1052} worldz{66575} worldy{56322} zone{Moon Hunter Keep} worldx{71401} timeStamp{4744610165485993984} timeStamp1{1626815198} gameTime{12434086} lang{en} ",


And because I dealt with consolidating generic creature health and difficulty values earlier this week, I'm going to bring the titular bone colossus into the equation to illustrate how generic NPCs are all different, and shill for my handy dandy Generic Creature Health Value Table.

[163461] = "event{TargetChange} name{Bone Colossus} difficulty{1} maxSt{0} reaction{1} gender{2} maxMg{0} level{50} maxHp{58940} worldzoneid{678} worldz{28464} worldx{48369} x{0.49851632118225} worldy{50350} y{0.7220573425293} zone{Prison District} lastTarget{Bone Colossus} gameTime{1327150} timeStamp1{1632867785} timeStamp{4744635551875858432} lang{en} ",

Above is the data for a bonelord's summoned bone colossus from the Imperial City Prison. It has no pips on its health bar.

[1566] = "event{TargetChange} gender{2} name{Bone Colossus} maxMg{0} maxHp{117879} level{50} difficulty{2} maxSt{0} reaction{1} worldz{23765} worldx{32481} worldzoneid{130} worldy{11393} lastTarget{Bone Colossus} zone{Crypt of Hearts I} y{0.59383380413055} x{0.62900900840759} timeStamp1{1626303414} gameTime{8577006} timeStamp{4744608018908315648} lang{en} ",

This next one is a bone colossus from Crypt of Hearts I (probably the individual in the hallway between Death's Leviathan and the Ilambris twins): this colossus has 1 pip on its health bar. It's a low-tier elite enemy.

I hope this clears things up, and thank everyone for pitching in and attempting to fix what they thought might be an error: the effort is noticed and appreciated! Unfortunately, for this particular subject, the perceived fix does not match with game data.

Thanks for reading through this slog of text: my simple PSA ended up turning into NPC Show And Tell because I love talking about the things I do to record NPCs on the wiki, but I hope it wasn't terribly boring. I know not a lot of people care about the numbers and crowded strings of values, but I think they're neat, and I'd like to show them to people more often!

If anyone has any questions at all about recording or handling creature data (or wants to know some useless creature facts), feel free to ask! I'd love to drown you in numbers and ESO-specific record-taking jargon. -MolagBallet (talk) 20:54, 22 April 2023 (UTC)