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wakim
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Adept
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Turning my attention to the spell effects available in Morrowind I was struck by the plethora of available effects and the paucity of use I could find for them. For instance, Disintegrate Armor - a nice concept, but it costs more magicka to disintegrate 100 points of armor health than it does to cause 100 points of fire damage. Similar disparities can be found throughout all the spell effects: It costs the same per second to cast jump as it does to cast levitate, poison damage is almost twice the spell cost per point of harm inflicted as fire damage, damaging fatigue costs virtually the same as damaging health and critters have more fatigue than health (as a rule).
Thinking that I must be missing something, before I retune the costs of the available spell effects in the hope of finding use for such things as burden and feather, I wanted to solicit opinions from others who may have caught a circumstance, use, or value to a spell effect that I may have overlooked.
Here is a short list of what I consider to be questionable effects and why. Please offer any opinions that you may have.
Burden: Useless against creatures due to their lack of encumberance from armor. Limited value
against NPCs: only heavy armor types. Spell cost for a decent duration prohibitive to use.
Detect Enchantment: Spell cost for range of effect prohibitive.
Detect Animal: Spell cost for range of effect prohibitive.
Detect Key: Spell cost for range of effect prohibitive.
Damage Health: 50% more costly than Fire or Cold damage.
Damage Fatigue: Virtually the same cost as doing damage to health from Fire, does not cause creatures to fall
unconscious as advertised (at lower fatigues they just become less effective).
Damage Magicka: 50% more costly than inflicting Fire or Cold damage, not as useful as silence and costs more.
Damage Skill: 50% more costly than inflicting Fire or Cold damage, only hampers critters.
Disintegrate Armor: Attacks armor (and if an NPC has armor, odds are he has alot of it, with a total armor health
value in the 1000s) and costs more than Fire/Cold damage.
Disintegrate Weapon: Reduces the effectivness of opponent's weapons, but as an example daedric weapons
can have healths of 4000+, but the creature's real health will be lower and Fire/Cold damage
is 50% cheaper to inflict.
Drain Fatigue: See Damage Fatigue above, and drains are only temporary.
Drain Magicka: See Damage Magicka above, and drains are only temporary.
Feather: One of the worst offenders. Feather costs the same magicka as fortify attribute - strength.
One point of strength will allow you to carry five additional pounds. One point of Feather
allows you to carry one additional pound, and strength allows you to do more melee damage.
Fire Shield: Does anyone actually use these? Hundreds of magicka for a few seconds of a small increase
in armor rating, a slight increase in fire resist, and a tiny amount of fire damage inflicted
when someone hits you. Great concept, too expensive to cast.
Frost Shield: See above.
Jump: Same cost as levitate.
Lightning Shield: See Fire Shield.
Poison: Almost twice as much magicka per point of damage inflicted as Fire or Cold. The worst
choice for doing damage to an opponent.
Shock Damage: About 40% higher cost than Fire or Cold damage.
Slowfall: Only useful if you chose to Jump rather than Levitate.
Sound: Nice effect, but the cost prevents it from being used.
Swift Swim: If you use this rather than water breathing or water walk then you have more Magicka than
you know what to do with.
Blind: High cost, slight impact on critters.
Shield: High cost, slight effect on armor class.
Weakness to XXXX: This line can cause your spells to do more damage, but it costs more to double your spell
damage by casting weakness first than to simply cast a fire/cold damage spell twice.
Command Humanoid: If you can cast this spell without fizzling it to affect a creature higher than level 5, then
you have a character above level 60 with maxed conjuration skills.
Command Creature: See above.
Resist Common Disease: It is cheaper in magicka to cure it than to try and resist it.
Resist Blight Disease: See above.
Weakness to Disease: Someone would want to cast this?
Summon Golden Saint: You'll be sleeping for 12 hours after you cast this, if you don't fizzle it with about a 50 percent
chance at conjuration skill 95.
Summon Winged Twilight: Sleep for 8 hours after fizzling this one.
Spell Absorption: You can get 25% absorption for 5 seconds. Better hope that you absorb that incoming
spell or you are out of Magicka for an offensive attack.
Resist Fire/Cold/etc.: Cheaper in Magicka to heal the damage than to try and resist it.
I have a feeling that alot of these effects could find a niche for use if the casting costs were properly adjusted.
As it stands now one is better off with a three spell line-up: Fire damage, Cold damage (incase your opponent is resistant to fire, such as a Dark Elf), and Heal self. Oh, and for utility: Levitate, Open, and Invisibility. I would say that some spells are over-powered, such as Open, Bound Weapon, Frenzy, and Calm, but perhaps that would be best left for another thread (ever notice that a bound dagger does more damage than a non-summoned daedric dagger?).
If anyone actually uses any of the spells I listed above, if you could briefly explain to me the situational value that I missed I would greatly appreciate it. Conversely, if I missed a spell that you feel is useless in its current incarnation, please post as well. Ideally I would wish that the spell effects would be balanced such that every spell was an efficacious tactic in its proper time and place.
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Horatio
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Disciple
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certain balancing plugins (adventurer's plugin off the top of my head) have attempted to rectify the poorly balanced spell situation. i find the overpowered spells (calm especially) to be a bigger problem than the underpowered ones.
anyway, i think that certain effects, such as spell absorb/reflect are meant only meant to be available for powerful enchanted items and not for casual casting (the fact that enchantment makes spellcasting a total waste of time is a topic for another thread).
i agree with most of your points except:
Damage Health: 50% more costly than Fire or Cold damage.
as it should be since magicka resistance fairly rare amongst crits.
Command Humanoid/Creature : it's too powerful an effect to make it easily cast. reserve for powerful enchants like reflect/absorb.
also, you seem to missing out on the fact that some spell effects are meant only to be cast on the PC rather than used by the PC (damage stat/skill, damage magicka, weakness to disease ).
i'd like to see any spell balancing mod you create. looking at your work on Flee AI, i have every confidence that it will be great.
also, since you seem to have a keen interest in improving gameplay/balance, one change i've been using is disabling recharge (except via soul gems) on all enchanted items. it makes spellcasting less of a waste of time.
cheers
h
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Balor NG
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Adept
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Reged: 07/28/02
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Well, lightning damage is harder to resist then other ones ( really few races posses one, and not much of it anyway).
Damage health - the same, only bretons possess resistance, and only 50%.
While fire damage - Dunmer has 75% res, and its majority of Mor, and Frost - Nords are Immune to it!
Poison - remeber Argonian and Redguard.
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NG Balor. One of a kind 
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wakim
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Adept
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Let me relate an anecdote about a friend of mine (no, really it wasn't me) who started playing Morrowind a few months ago. He wanted to play as a wizard. He choose his Majors and Minors, got himself a robe and bought a few spells (probably including Burden of Sin, since about every spell vendor sells some form of the useless Burden spells). He played for some weeks, made it to about level 10 or 13 and came upon an NPC named Umbra. Now, as he related to me, he took about fifteen or twenty tries to beat Umbra, but beat him he did and Umbra's sword he now carried.
Off our brave hero went, still wanting to be a wizard, but he encountered a critter and decided to hit the critter with the sword. The critter died and our wizard's life wasn't ever the same. You see, our wizard then thought to himself, "Hey, this works pretty well!" and he proceeded to smack more critters with the sword. Soon the wizard wasn't a wizard anymore as he had discovered that in Morrowind magic is a second tier skill and cold steel (or cold ebony, or cold daedric ....umm... daedric stuff) is the weapon of choice for those who want to kill stuff.
Offering a brief analysis reflecting my experience with spells: the highest damaging spell I can make and cast at 100 Destruction is about like this: Fire damage 10-40 for 10 sec on target, radius 20. This costs about 120 magicka. NPC's do sell a better version called God's Fire which is 11-60 fire damage for 10 sec on target, radius 10. This costs slightly less. Let me err on the conservative side and call it 100 magicka to do an average of 35 points of fire damage for ten seconds, or 350 points of damage. The most magicka that a PC can have (without intelligence enhancing items) is 100 (base for intelligence), 200 added for Atronach sign, and 150 added for High Elf. This is a total of 450 magicka. Let's add in the Necromancers Amulet (+25 int) and Drake's Pride robe (+10 int) and Mentor's ring (+10 int). That yields 653 magicka.
A wizard can therefore do a maximum of 2100 damage over a time period of six casts, generally taking one minute (spell stacking is possible if you make slightly different versions of the same spell). During the same sixty seconds a warrior wielding sunder (10-70 damage) with a strength of 100 (2x damage) swinging at less than once per second (sunder speed 1.35 (higher is faster)), but assuming once per second to be conservative, will do 4800 damage.
Steel does more than twice the damage of magicka, and I neglected such things as spell resists, items that add a strength bonus (2 percent increased damage per point), critters that reflect (Dremora, Winged Twilight, etc.) or dispell (Golden Saints). Not to mention that our warrior friend is collecting the items off the dead critter and moving on while our poor wizard is now fast asleep for 10-20 hours to regain his magicka (oops, he is Atronach sign, he is now gathering herbs and wondering where he put his alembic). To me, this is a situation that cries out for improvement.
And I suspect others see this as well. Almost every mod that attempts to improve the gameplay in Morrowind tries to address this spell disparity; either by adding more magicka to starting characters (fPCBaseMagickaMult), or by adding script for magicka regen, or in whatever inventive way it can be done.
Let me pause to address one point that may be in some people's minds: "Hey, I was able to play through the game, kill Dagoth Ur and had no trouble. Besides, what creature has 2000 hit points that I need to dish out that type of damage?" I would respond that the ability disparity between wizards and warriors exists at all levels (see my introductory anecdote) and that with the growing number of high quality mods that are seeking to challenge players of the 40+ level, and to extend the gameplay value (and often employ creature hitpoints in the 1k+ range), that the game will soon wither if it is reduced to a Diablo style click fest.
Improving the opportunity of players to apply novel and inventive tactics through the application of the myriad of available, yet unused due to correctable flaws, spells I think would bring alot of diversity to the game, and the styles of effective gameplay that it can support.
Okay, now you know my motives for seeking to improve magic in Morrowind.
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Horatio
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Disciple
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well, i don't think anyone was really questioning your motivation. everyone is well aware of the fact the spellcasting is a total joke compared to melee. and if that weren't bad enough, spell effect costs, as you have pointed out, are fairly arbitrary given their strength.
yet at the same time, certain spell effects such as calm are MASSIVELY overpowered. you can pretty much kill anything in the game with a calm 1 duration 120 spell. 'open' makes security a waste of time (or we could point out that having a security skill > 50 is also a waste of time).
anyway, try throwing together a nifty magic balancing plugin. use a mixture of effect revaluing, base magicka tweaking, enchantment nerfing and other more esoteric things (like using a global script to make high level chameleon - aka permanent invisibility - impossible).
cheers
h
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wakim
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Adept
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Yeah, the overpowered spells are a problem too, but aside from the calm line I think that most can be rectified by adjusting the cost. Calm may need removing, however I simply choose not to exploit it as a no magicka cost paralyze. It is incredibly useful if you pursue a less violent gameplay style. However, if the fatigue damaging spells are adjusted to be magicka efficient, it then becomes a viable tactic to drain a creatures fatigue, punch him once and move on as he lies unconscious on the floor. My feeling is that it should be more efficient (or at least equally so) to disable a critter as to kill him. Currently that isn't the case.
Command is a powerful line of spells, however I feel that it is unusable in its current form. The best that you can do with 100 conjuration is to command a level 5 or so critter for perhaps 30 seconds. At the level you are when you have 100 conjuration you don't care about commanding a level 5 critter, and don't even try to enchant this effect into an item. With about 1000 intelligence I can relibly enchant an effect cost of about 60-80. Command demands over 120 in item enchantment capacity to work.
I agree that typical creature resistance should be considered when evaluating spell casting costs. Damage Health, being resisted by magic tends to be a more effective spell line. However, it is rare to see a creature resistant to both Fire and Cold lines, generally allowing one to pick one of these rather than Damage Health. Damage Health costing exactly 60 percent more per point of damage inflicted than Fire/Cold seems excessive to me.
The Absorb/Reflect lines are strong effects also, but currently both uncastable and un-enchantable by PCs. Actually, to my mind, any sort of defensive play style in Morrowind is almost unthinkable. Best defense is a good offense. Cold steel wins again. I would think that defense should be encouraged as a viable option, seeing as it naturally provides poorer returns if it is effective (critter is still alive and a threat, even if you are temporarily invulnerable).
Reducing enchantment recharge speed is a great idea. I recall seeing an entry for it in the gameplay settings. I'll play around with that immediately. 50% seems like a good starting point for that, although I can see the appeal of disabling it entirely.
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SC_Wolf
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Disciple
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Then of course, there's the fact that using Levetate to get yourself off the ground confuses the game AI no end, and you can simply rain down spells or ranged weapons upon them.
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wakim
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Adept
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My goal was to balance the relative power of the spell effects: to allow for a wider diversity of effective strategies, to expand the flexability of gameplay, to balance the existing effects in such a way that all those spell effects no one ever uses become valid alternatives. All without eliminating any effective current stratagies or unbalancing any aspect of the game. Since I don't have a web site to post stuff at, and since I assume that anyone interested in balancing spells in Morrowind will want to deconstruct the changes anyway; here are the values. I'll follow up with a brief post on the effects of these changes.
Absorb Attribute: From 2.00 to 1.35
Absorb Fatigue: From 4.00 to 2.75
Absorb Health: From 8.00 to 8.00 (unchanged)
Absorb Magicka: From 8.00 to 8.00 (unchanged)
Absorb Skill: From 2.00 to 2.00 (unchanged)
Almsivi Intervention: From 150.00 to 150.00 (unchanged)
Blind: From 1.00 to 0.54
Bound Battle Axe: From 2.00 to 4.50
Bound Boots: From 2.00 to 2.00 (unchanged)
Bound Cuirass: From 2.00 to 2.00 (unchanged)
Bound Dagger: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Gloves: From 2.00 to 2.00 (unchanged)
Bound Helm: From 2.00 to 2.00 (unchanged)
Bound Longbow: From 2.00 to 4.00
Bound Longsword: From 2.00 to 4.50
Bound Mace: From 2.00 to 4.50
Bound Shield: From 2.00 to 2.00 (unchanged)
Bound Spear: From 2.00 to 4.50
Burden: From 1.00 to 0.18
Calm Creature: From 1.00 to 3.50
Calm Humanoid: From 1.00 to 3.50
Chameleon: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Charm: From 5.00 to 5.00 (unchanged)
Command Creature: From 15.00 to 10.00
Command Humanoid: From 15.00 to 10.50
Corpus: From 2500.00 to 2500.00 (unchanged)
Cure Blight Disease: From 2000.00 to 2000.00 (unchanged)
Cure Common Disease: From 300.00 to 300.00 (unchanged)
Cure Corpus Disease: From 2500.00 to 2500.00 (unchanged)
Cure Paralyzation: From 100.00 to 100.00 (unchanged)
Cure Poison: From 100.00 to 100.00 (unchanged)
Damage Attribute: From 8.00 to 9.25
Damage Fatigue: From 4.00 to 2.00
Damage Health: From 8.00 to 6.00
Damage Magicka: From 8.00 to 2.50
Damage Skill: From 8.00 to 4.00
Demoralize Creature: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Demoralize Humanoid: From 1.00 to 1.00 Changed school to Illusion (error in original file)
Detect Animal: From 0.75 to 0.35
Detect Enchantment: From 1.00 to 0.50
Detect Key: From 1.00 to 0.50
Disintegrate Armor: From 6.00 to 1.50
Disintegrate Weapon: From 6.00 to 2.00
Dispel: From 5.00 to 5.00 (unchanged)
Divine Intervention: From 150.00 to 150.00 (unchanged)
Drain Attribute: From 1.00 to 0.36
Drain Fatigue: From 2.00 to 0.25
Drain Health: From 4.00 to 3.25
Drain Magicka: From 4.00 to 0.25
Drain Skill: From 1.00 to 0.75
Feather: From 1.00 to 0.17
Fire Damage: From 5.00 to 5.00 (unchanged)
Fire Shield: From 3.00 to 1.25
Fortify Attack: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Fortify Attribute: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Fortify Fatigue: From 0.50 to 0.50 (unchanged)
Fortify Health: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Fortify Magicka: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Fortify Maximum Magicka: From 4.00 to 4.00 (unchanged)
Fortify Skill: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Frenzy Creature: From 1.00 to 2.25
Frenzy Humanoid: From 1.00 to 3.50
Frost Damage: From 5.00 to 5.00 (unchanged)
Frost Shield: From 3.00 to 1.25
Invisibility: From 20.00 to 20.00 (unchanged)
Jump: From 3.00 to 2.00
Levitate: From 3.00 to 3.00 (unchanged)
Light: From 0.20 to 0.20 (unchanged)
Lightning Shield: From 3.00 to 1.25
Lock: From 2.00 to 2.00 (unchanged)
Mark: From 350.00 to 350.00 (unchanged)
Night Eye: From 0.20 to 0.20 (unchanged)
Open: From 6.00 to 8.75
Paralyze: From 40.00 to 40.00 (unchanged)
Poison: From 9.00 to 6.50
Rally Creature: From 0.20 to 0.20 (unchanged)
Rally Humanoid: From 0.20 to 0.20 (unchanged)
Recall: From 350.00 to 350.00 (unchanged)
Reflect: From 10.00 to 4.00
Remove Curse: From 15.00 to 15.00 (unchanged)
Resist Blight Disease: From 15.00 to 2.00
Resist Common Disease: From 2.00 to 0.25
Resist Corpus Disease: From 5.00 to 5.00 (unchanged)
Resist Fire: From 2.00 to 1.00
Resist Frost: From 2.00 to 1.00
Resist Magicka: From 2.00 to 1.50
Resist Normal Weapons: From 5.00 to 5.00 (unchanged)
Resist Paralysis: From 0.20 to 2.00 (decimal point error in original)
Resist Poison: From 2.00 to 1.00
Resist Shock: From 2.00 to 1.00
Restore Attribute: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Restore Fatigue: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Restore Health: From 5.00 to 5.00 (unchanged)
Restore Magicka: From 5.00 to 5.00 (unchanged)
Restore Skill: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Sanctuary: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Shield: From 2.00 to 0.80
Shock Damage: From 7.00 to 5.75
Silence: From 40.00 to 35.00
SlowFall: From 3.00 to 2.00
Soultrap: From 2.00 to 2.00 (unchanged)
Sound: From 3.00 to 0.78
Spell Absorption: From 10.00 to 7.30
Stunted Magicka: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Summon Various Stuff: Unchanged
Summon Golden Saint: From 55.00 to 52.00
Summon Winged Twilight: From 52.00 to 48.00
Sun Damage: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Swift Swim: From 2.00 to 0.50
Telekinesis: From 1.00 to 1.00 (unchanged)
Turn Undead: From 0.20 to 0.20 (unchanged), (currently does not work)
Vampirism: From 5.00 to 5.00 (unchanged)
Water Breathing: From 3.00 to 3.00 (unchanged)
Water Walking: From 3.00 to 3.00 (unchanged)
Weakness to Blight Disease: From 4.00 to 3.00
Weakness to Common Disease: From 2.00 to 1.50
Weakness to Corpus Disease: From 4.00 to 4.00 (unchanged)
Weakness to Fire: From 2.00 to 1.50
Weakness to Frost: From 2.00 to 1.50
Weakness to Magicka: From 2.00 to 2.00 (unchanged)
Weakness to Normal Weapons: From 2.00 to 2.00 (unchanged)
Weakness to Poison: From 2.00 to 1.50
Weakness to Shock: From 2.00 to 1.50
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wakim
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Adept
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Reged: 10/02/02
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Here are what spell effects cost after applying the changes in the above post, grouped by effective result:
Spell Name Magnitude Duration Magicka Cost
Spells that prevent creatures from moving:
Absorb Attribute 100 for 20 203
Damage Attribute 10 for 10 69
Drain Attribute 100 for 20 54
Paralyze * for 20 60
Burden 100 for 20 27
Fortify Attribute * 100 for 20 100
Spells that incapacitate:
Absorb Fatigue 50 for 10 103
Damage Fatigue 50 for 10 75
Drain Fatigue 100 for 20 38
Fortify Fatigue * 100 for 20 50
Restore Fatigue * 50 for 20 25
Absorb Skill 100 for 20 300 (N/A as a castable spell)
Damage Skill 10 for 10 30 (N/A as a castable spell)
Drain Skill 100 for 20 113
Fortify Skill * 100 for 20 100 (N/A as a castable spell after patch)
Spells that Damage:
Absorb Health * 50 for 10 300
Damage Health 50 for 10 225
Drain Health 100 for 20 488
Fire Damage * 50 for 10 188
Frost Damage * 50 for 10 188
Restore Health * 50 for 10 125
Shock Damage 50 for 10 216
Poison 50 for 10 244
Weakness to xxxxx 100 for 10 113
Fortify Health * 100 for 20 100
Spells that prevent spell damage:
Absorb Magicka * 50 for 10 300 (N/A as a castable spell)
Damage Magicka 50 for 10 94
Drain Magicka 100 for 20 38
Fortify Magicka * 100 for 10 100
Reflect 100 for 20 400
Resist Fire, etc. 100 for 20 100
Resist Magicka 100 for 20 150
Resist Paralysis 100 for 20 200
Silence for 20 53
Sound 100 for 20 117
Spell Absorption 100 for 20 730
Disease affecting Spells:
Cure Common Disease * 15
Resist Common Disease 100 for 20 25
Cure Blight Disease * 100
Resist Blight Disease 100 for 20 200
Weight carrying/Movement Spells:
Fortify Attribute * 20 for 20 20
Feather 100 for 20 17
Levitate * for 20 30
Jump 10 for 20 20
Slowfall 10 for 20 20
Spells that prevent damage:
Fire/Frost/etc. Shield 100 for 20 125
Shield 100 for 20 80
Sanctuary * 100 for 20 100
Complete Set of All 5 Bound Armor Pieces *
for 20 11
Blind 100 for 20 81
Spells that do other stuff:
Command Creature 10 for 20 150
Command Humanoid 10 for 20 158
Demoralize Creature * 100 for 20 150
Demoralize Humanoid * 100 for 20 150
Summon Winged Twilight for 20 51
* Means that spell is unchanged and can be used as a reference for Magicka cost.
The groups are presented in categories that lend themselves to the easiest comparison, and with spell effects set at comprable levels. If you want to stop an opponent from casting, you can Silence him, Drain his Magicka, Damage his Magicka, use Sound, Damage his Intelligence, etc. If you want to carry 100 pounds of equipment you can fortify your strength by 20 or feather for 100. Note, that Drains, unlike Damage spells, are not cumulative; viz. Damaging Fatigue 50 points for 10 seconds results in your opponent losing 500 Fatigue, Draining Fatigue 100 points for 20 seconds results in your opponent losing 100 total Fatigue for 20 seconds - at which point he will recover it. Absorbtion spells I felt should be comparable with the cost of casting both a Restore on yourself and a Damage on your opponent.
Also, obviously, spells that do less should cost less. It should cost less to resist a commoon disease than to cure it, less to damage fatigue than to damage health, resisting damage should be equivalent to restoring it. ANd where I had any doubt, I tried to err on the conservative side. I also spent time testing the spell costs on enchantment values, specifically constant effect items, to check for unbalancing possibilities, and I don't think that any are egregious.
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Umm whats the best way to do this in the editor?
qwert
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My Mods:
http://thelys.free.fr/qwert.htm
http://angelfire.lycos.com/games5/qwert_44643
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are you saying go in the editor make an esp call it balanced spells and then just change the cost values?
man you should make a mod of all your work its really good.
If you dont want to il do it but when you update your work could ya send it to:
qwert_44643@mybluelight.com
qwert
so far ive cut and pasted the above and your ai settings ,is it cool to release a mod called wakims improvements?
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My Mods:
http://thelys.free.fr/qwert.htm
http://angelfire.lycos.com/games5/qwert_44643
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Leadfoot
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Curate
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I don't mind a little work. Let me go into TES:CS and input these.
Thanks, wakim. I really love the work you've done in testing and tweaking things that seemed daunting or impossible to other people. You must do this kind of thing for a living. If not, you REALLY should. Bethesda, you need to snatch this guy up. Really!
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[green]So Sayeth Leadfoot, Professor of Thaumaturgy
Center of Thaumaturgical Studies
Solitude, Cyrodill[/green]
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wakim
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Adept
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Yes, open the construction set, click the Gameplay tab, click Magic Effects and enter in the twenty or so changed values, click save and it will prompt you for a mod name, enter Balanced Spells (or whatever) and you are done. All the auto caluclated spell in the game will have their effects updated, as will the auto calculated spells you have bought (but not spells you have custom created from an in-game spellmaker). Some non-auto calculated spells that specific NPCs use will remain as aberrations, but the effect should be minimal (i.e. The big six Ash-Vampires all have custom spells, most of which they weren't given enough magicka to cast by the designers).
By all means, try out these settings and see if you like the diversity of spell effects that are now possible, if you can develop new tactics based on drains and burdens and whathaveyou that wasn't possible before; and most importantly, give some feedback if some spell cost change adversly affects the game or is overpowered. I did my best, but I could have easily overlooked some spell side effect that lets one walk all over every challenge. The goal is to enchance the fun, improve the gameplay, give players the tools within the game to be inventive and develop unique (and balanced) idomatic methods of conquering challenges.
I'll send the above posted changes in a .zip to the e-mail you listed. If you want to post the file on a web page you are welcome to do so, however I would ask that you test the changes and see if they are copacetic first. Consider this a "beta".
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Horatio
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the changes look excellent. just wondering if you've checked constant effect enchantments to make sure that none of the lowered spell effect values can result in uber enchanted items. looking briefly at the changes, i'd say no, but i could be missing something.
cheers
h
edit:
also, you may want to increase the power of some of the basic spells to compensate for the decreased effect cost (e.g. default disintegrate armor/weapon are so weak as to be totally ineffective, making hungers an essentially useless opponent since you'll probably kill them before they're finished casting pointless disintegrate spells at you).
also stuff like the default burden (i think it's 20) and whatnot should be amped up.
Edited by Horatio (10/10/02 12:27 PM)
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Hey Wakim,
Is it cool to release the plugin with your flee ai settings combined with the spell balancing as well?
qwert
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My Mods:
http://thelys.free.fr/qwert.htm
http://angelfire.lycos.com/games5/qwert_44643
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Just for the record, several of the effects you question are present mainly to provide racial bonuses or birthsign bonuses, particularly the "Weakness to XXX" and "Resistance to XXX" effects, and for use in artifacts. As far as the different elemental damage types go (Fire, Frost, Shock, Poison), the costs are related to the percentage of races and creatures who are resistant to that elemental type. You can kill almost anything with poison. But Dunmer are 75% resistant to Fire, and they're the most abundant race on Vvardenfell. Not to say that everything is perfectly balanced, but in many cases there are reasons for effect types and/or costs that you may not have accounted for.
But please, feel free to make your mod. I'd be very interested to get peoples' impressions having played with it for a while. 
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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Horatio
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>You can kill almost anything with poison<
...except for maybe argonians, redguards (i think) and almost anything you'd meet in a tomb or dwemer ruin. which is a good chunk of the encounters in the unmodded game.
you CAN kill almost anything with shock, which is strangely cheaper than poison.
>Just for the record, several of the effects you question are present mainly to provide racial bonuses or birthsign bonuses, particularly the "Weakness to XXX" and "Resistance to XXX" effects, and for use in artifacts. <
i don't understand. why not balance them for both spellcasting and birthsigns? it's not like they're mutually exclusive.
cheers
h
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wakim
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For the record, a short sampling of Morrowind critters and races:
Name Immunities Resistances
Ancestor Ghost poison, frost, disease
Fire Atronach fire
Forst Atronach frost
Storm Atronach shock poison 75
Bonelord shock 75, poison 75, frost 75
Bonewalkers shock 75, poison 75, frost 75
Centurian Spider poison
Centurian, Steam fire 75, shock 75, poison 75, frost 75
Golden Saint fire 75, frost 75, shock 75
Hunger shock, poison, frost, fire
Scamp fire 50, frost 50. shock 50, poison 75
Skeletons frost, poison shock 50
Winged Twilight shock 50, fire 50, frost 50, poison 75
Argonian poison
Breton magicka 50
Dark Elf fire 75
Nord frost shock 50
Orc magicka 25
Redguard poison 75
As for the weakness and resist line of spells:
Note the plethora of versions of these spells sold at vendors with such names as weakness to xxxx or resist xxxxx which are prefaced with variant names such as: Greater, Dire, Wild, Lesser, Weak, and what have you. These spells are in the game and available to a great extent, just that there hasn't been a reason to either buy or use them at their current costs.
Looking at the critter list, I would say that Poison is actually one of the weakest lines of spells for inflicting damage, despite Morrowind pricing it as the most costly. Just about everything is resistant to it. The Damage Health line, being resisted by Magicka, seems the most unresisted. I currently have Damage Health being about 20% more costly than Fire or Cold, which seems right to me, but Poison being 30% more costly seems unjustified (do recall that the original value has Poison being 80% more costly than fire (almost twice as much) - I did try to err on the conservative side when adjusting values).
On the basis of this feedback I would recommend dropping Poison cost from its original 9.00 past my earlier value of 6.50 and lower yet to 5.50. This puts it lower than shock, but above fire and cold (which are unchanged and serve as my baseline). Considering how much stuff is resistant to it, or immune to it, it could be argued for an even lower value.
This would leave Fire and Cold as the cheapest damaging spells, with Drain Health as the situational king, Damage Health as the most expensive (but most blindly effective if you don't know what your fighting), and Shock and Poison inbetween (and good for spell effect stacking).
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wakim:
nice refutation. far more thorough and elegant than my own.
cheers
h
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wakim
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I liked the brevity of your refutation, though. And, I value any and all feedback. It is impossible for me to consider every application of every spell in every situation. If a change can't be reasonably argued for, then it shouldn't be done. "First, do no harm" is a wonderful maxim for modding.
With the spell value changes I have suggested, I am quite fond of Drain Health. It is, situationally, the most damaging spell. It works like this: You create a spell that drains 100 health for 1 second on target. This is the most magicka efficient way to deal 100 damage, but, if the critter has more than 100 hit points then the spell has no effect, as the spell will wear off in 1 second and the critter regains the 100 hit points. If it had less than 100 hit points then the critter dies.
To my mind, this is a balanced effect as it allows Magic centered characters to deal with annoying pests like Cliffracers efficiently, yet has no effect on tougher encounters. And, remember, that one hit from Sunder by a character with 100 strength does about 140 points of damage. Balance maintained and a diversity of tactics encouraged.
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wakim:
while your effects balancing is admirable, i still find that enchanting is so overwhelmingly powerful compared to magicka based spellcasting as to render the whole aspect of the game essentially pointless. there are no spells you cannot replicate in a more efficient manner using enchanting. the only barrier is cost, and given how easy it is to accumulate huge sums of money (even w/o cheap play), is it nowhere near enough of a disincentive.
furthermore, in the early parts of the game almost all restoration and alteration effects are available through cheap, commonly available enchanted items. these items also recharge constantly (6 charge/hour) as opposed to only when resting. as a result, only destruction/conjuration is actually useful at this point in the game. later on it is rendered obsolete due to the reasons outlined above.
so essentially what i am saying is no spell balance mod would be complete w/o corresponding changes to the enchantment system.
cheers
h
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wakim
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Believe it or not I haven't turned my attention to enchanting yet. It is so easy to refrain from exploiting the balance issues in enchanting that I haven't bothered with it (yet), i.e. just don't put chameleon on all your armor pieces, just don't make a ring of 10,000 fire balls. With the spell effect magicka cost values this isn't the case (spell balancing); you didn't have a choice of using, for example, poison to do damage, or resist fire in deference to restore health. Although the flip side is that I tend not to enchant anything when I play, since it is a game killing skill. I normally throw night eye and restore stamina on a couple of pieces and call my enchanting endeavors finished.
I considered internal equilibrium of the spell effects to be a prior requirement to tackling enchanting. However, having said that, I do think enchanting is fixable. Off the top of my head I would consider these ideas:
1) severely limiting or eliminating natural recharging of enchanted items (although this does hurt cast when strikes items hardest, and I think unfairly so).
2) Reducing the soul value of all creatures so that player created items don't have a seemingly infinite number of charges. In conjunction with soul value changes the soul value required for constant effect would have to be lowered proportionally.
3) Reducing the ability of powerful (unbalancingly powerful to the exclusion of other strategies) effects to be placed in enchanted items. No one wants to play a game where you just click a key and everything dies. Well, maybe someone does, but my recommendations for gameplay improvements aren't intended for them (player->ModHealth 10000. Player->additem "Sword_of_kill_everything"1).
I can recall seeing a myriad of gameplay settings that affect enchanting: all sorts of multipliers for all types of enchanting effects, including (from memory) multipliers for chance to create constant effect items, multipliers that affect cast once, cast when strikes, cast when used, multipliers for recharge time, multipliers for the amount of enchantment an item can hold, and so on. I just haven't taken the time to experiment to determine the effects of all these elements.
TESCS, sadly, didn't come with a .doc file to explain what these settings do, nor what formulas these values plug into. Altering them intelligently requires much trial and error. And, unfortunately, the zero cast time of enchanted items is something that is hard coded and has to be worked around.
Would changes to the enchantment system improve gameplay? Undoubtably.
Are balanced changes to enchanting possible? I think so.
Will I do it? Probably. I had intended to turn my attention to rebalancing existing NPCs next, then existing creatures, but I may turn to enchanting instead. I am anticipating more feedback on the spell balancing adjustments, as people try them out and get a feel for them, before calling that project completed.
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Horatio
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>I had intended to turn my attention to rebalancing existing NPCs next, then existing creatures<
NPCs are a very difficult undertaking since you're more or less guaranteed to conflict with mods. it also takes forever - although you could accelerate the process by writing simple applications to say...multiply all NPC magicka by 3.
Existing creatures have been done in various mods (although not terribly well i might add). this would be easier than NPC rebalancing. i would stay away from altering too many physical stats (although more HP would be nice for a lot of creatures) in favour of adding more interesting spells and abilities. Mods like GIANTS 2 and MW_Advanced (although the latter's high level additions are rather unimpressive) do a good job of fleshing out the creatures. i'd also like to see more creatures that use marksman style weapons.
anyway, i'd recommend rebalancing enchanting, because a) it only involves manipulating gameplay settings and perhaps altering effect availability, b) no one has really tried it yet (other than my coarse, turn off recharge solution) and c) IMHO you'd do a better job of it than anyone else.
and disabling recharging doesn't really nerf cast-on-strike that much. you just have to remember to maintain a steady supply of soul gems. furthermore, your enchanting skill increases incredibly fast if you're recharging a lot of items w/ soul gems (even failing counts towards it) - which means less charges are used when you strike and your recharging improves. it makes the enchant skill useful rather than a total waste of time.
cheers
h
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wakim
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Actually, I already re-balanced all the NPCs once. I simply started a new character, played through the game by doing all the quests for all the guilds and noted every NPC I encountered who was pathetic (who wasn't meant to be pathetic). I then opened TESCS and changed each of those NPCs, adjusting level, hit points, stats, and/or spell selection as required. Then I replayed the encounter to test them. I was often surprised that some encounter I blithely walked through was meant to be entertaining (like your story with Chrysemere). However, that was months ago, and I learned alot from that experience and feel I could do it better this time around.
I also did all the critters as well, but again, using what I learned I can improve on that (and with inspiration from many of the other mods that are addressing this). It took me a while to realize that, when given the choice, critters will cast spells that "debuff" first and damage second; viz. a critter, if it can, will cast weakness to fire before casting a fire ball. Having learned how critters use their magic allows me to tailor-make spells that they can employ effectively (and aids in making them look smarter). I even designed a few critters that have surprised me (using custom designed spells, critters can effectively employ those "useless spells" such as blindness, burden, and various other effects rather well).
As a further aside, I had amusement to no end when I saw a Dremora Lord I had altered blind a player who was using my mod. One second the player is joyously hacking away at this demon, and the next he was stumbling blindly and fell off the stairs. The encounter was decided against the player not by beefing up the amount of damage the Dremora did, but by an effect that did no harm to him at all (and could have been dispelled, had the player decided to buy that "useless" spell or carry those useless potions). I still get a kick out of walking through a Daedric Shrine and suddenly "the lights go out".
One thing I have noticed by changing the spell costs is that most NPCs now seem more intelligent. Before, I suspect, they were wasting all their magicka by casting that 5 second 10% reflect spell they had. Now they seem to be acting a bit more wisely in their spell choices.
Oh, and as an aside, I think everyone should be aware of this item, "daedric_dagger_mtas". Although I use Sunder as an example of the ultimate weapon in Morrowind, it actually isn't. The Black Hands Dagger (given as an early Morag Tong quest reward) is the most powerful weapon in the game, doing 300-750 damage (and healing the user for the same) per strike. It will, in one hit, kill anything but Vivec, who requires about four hits. Try changing the enchantment on it to 5-15 duration 5 seconds instead of 10-25 duration 30.
Yeah, I've played with weapon balancing as well (anyone ever use a Daedric Club, Mace, or Spear? Anyone? Bueller?). Ever notice that a Daedric Staff does the same damage as an Ebony staff? That an Ebony Staff has a decimal point error in the enchantment value? That a Daedric Dagger does less damage than a summoned Daedric Dagger? That they forgot to put enchantments on Auriel's Shield and Auriel's Bow? That Mehunes Razor does less damage than an Ebony Short Sword? That the durability of bows is so low that a lightly armored marksman is required to carry 50 lbs. of armorer's hammers?
And, as a further, further aside; in Daggerfall (if I recall) I think that enchanted items did not recharge, that they used the caster's magicka to cause an effect, and only when the caster was out of magicka did they use their own charges. Despite Daggerfall's virtually unplayable amount of bugs, the game concept may have many ideas that are worth emulating.
But anyway, spell balancing is the issue at hand. A firm foundation is required to build a solid structure. Spell effects are a core element of Morrowind.
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Horatio
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blind is indeed a very fun effect to play with.
here's some other spell stuff:
Damage Armor & Damage Weapon before Paralyze - from hungers.
casters will almost never cast a spell you are already being affected by (even though the effects will generally stack). this is generally a "good thing (tm)" since it means Dremora Lords will melee you while you are being affected by Fire Storm (5 seconds). as a result you should avoid 1 second duration spells if you want the opponent to engage in melee.
NPCs will NEVER use fortify attribute spells.
Bound item spells take priority over everything. this has been used to fairly good effect in MW Advanced - Dremoras, Dremora Lords and Golden Saints use bound weapons with a backup silver weapon. this deprives the PC of unlimited expensive weapons.
poison seems to be favored by NPCs over other effects (perhaps because it costs more?), which provides endless amusement for my argonian.
cheers
h
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To everyone who sent me direct messages: I just discovered what the flashing envelope on the top of the screen means. I wasn't ignoring anyone, just ignorant. My apologies.
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Hi folks,
Just a few thoughts to the discussion regarding the relative merits of battle magic vs hacking away with a sword.
As far as I can see, the two skill sets are like apples and oranges, even taking the pure damage spells into consideration only. They are both just as powerful as each other (maybe with magic having an advantage even) when used to their fullest potential; A spells fullest potential is not against a single target, it's against a room full of critters.
Bear in mind that the cost to give a damage spell full Area Effect (50 ft) only raises the difficulty by 10, and the spells cost by not much more.
Yes, against a single critter that doesn't matter, but when you can take out ten Dremora Lords in the time it takes a warrior just to walk into the room, you know you're onto something a little bit special...
So, to change the example of a wizards damage vs a warriors damage, let's throw a group of critters into the room. Say 10 for ease of multiplication.
In the given sixty seconds, the warrior has still only managed to do a (paltry) 4,800 damage; he can only hit 1 thing with each swing after all.
The wizard on the other hand (I lowered the damage a little to take the AoE cost into consideration) has hit each and every monster with his spells, for a ridiculous 20,000 damage distributed amongst those critters: 4x the warriors effort.
Looking at things this way, it's easy to say that magic is Waay over-powered and close combat isn't worth bothering with. But, like I said at the beginning, it's comparing apples and oranges.
The rest of it though, I agree with completely; the spell costs are completely off the wall when compared to their effects. I'll definitely be giving your alterations a bit of a try
- J
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true. but after the wizard finishes clearing out the room, he/she has to rest for 48 hours or drink several restore magicka potions. the warrior can keep on hacking until his sword breaks (i.e. a long time). also, large group encounters in morrowind are rare and even then it's very rarely more than 3 or 4 at once.
anyway, you do raise a good point.
cheers
h
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LDones
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Wakim - I hate to bother anyone for time, but I have yet to aActually play through the game an entire time - I've been too busy searching for the 'perfect' Morrowind experience and modding and tweaking and revising, etc. I'm in the uinque position of trying to do all this without ruining anything for myself - (HA).
Would you be kind enough to post some lists of your changes to weapons and creatures, for those of us with a not-quite-so-broad view of the big Morrowind picture? If it's easier to post mods of it, I've got webspace to put them up, but I'd love it if you'd be willing to post lists of changes so we can nitpick and add to existing mods (like Morrowind Advanced, etc.) as we can. You've obviously got a lot of research information on this. If you've got the patience, I'm sure many of us would be hugely thankful, not least of all me.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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One more thing - Horatio - What's the setting for Enchantment recharges? - There's a few in the Game settings menu, but they all seem to be for enchantment chance and cost, etc.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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LDones:
'fMagicItemRechargePerSecond' is probably the one you're looking for.
cheers
h
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fEffectCostMult = 0.5 is the setting for all magicka costs for all spell effects. Changing this will change what all spells and enchantments cost. Everything. Linear change. Doubling this makes all spells cost twice as much magicka, all enchanted items cost twice as many charges.
fEnchantmentValueMult = 1000.00 is the setting for the price you pay at an enchanter to enchant an item. Linear.
fEnchantmentMult = 0.1 is the setting for how much enchantment an item can hold based upon the value set in each individual item's property file. Linear, if an item in TESCS shows an enchantment value of 1200 (i.e. an equisite ring) multiply it by fEnchantmentMult to get the actual enchantment you'll see in the make an enchanted item window.
iMagicItemChargeOnce = 1.0 is the setting for the number of charges an automatically calculated cast once effect enchanted item will have. Formula is BaseSpellEffectCost x iMagicItemChargeOnce. Linear. This way an item with a cast once effect will have exactly the number of charges needed to cast the effect upon it.
iMagicItemChargeStrike = 10 is the setting for the multiplier for automatically calculated charges for cast when strikes effect enchanted items. Same formula as above. This setting means that a cast when strikes item should have enough charges to strike 10 times (at enchant skill 50) before it is out of charges.
iMagicItemChargeUse = 5 is the setting for the multiplier for charges for automatically calculated cast when used effect enchanted items. See above for explaination.
iSoulAmountForConstantEffect = 400 is the setting for the minimum soul value to toggle the constant effect button in the enchantment creation window.
fMagicItemRechargePerSecond = 0.05 is the setting for the amount of charges restored to a charged magic item per second of game play. Linear. 0.05 x 20 seconds = 1 charge restored.
Currently unknown gameplay settings:
fEnchantmentChanceMult = 3.00 I assume this a multipler to your base chance to succeed at making an item.
fEnchantmentConstantChanceMult = 0.50 I assume this reduces your chance to successfully create a constant effect item by 50 percent.
fEnchantmentConstantDurationMult = 100 I assume this sets constant effect items to duration 100 percent.
iMagicItemChangeConst = 10.0 I assume this sets the auto calculated charge value for constant effect items. Probably used for internal game mechanics book keeping.
fMagicItemConstantMult = 1.0 On all of these I don't even have assumptions, yet.
fMagicItemCostMult = 1.0
fMagicItemOnceMult = 1.0
fMagicItemPriceMult = 1.0
fMagicItemStrikeMult = 1.0
fMagicItemUsedMult = 1.0
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LDones
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Horatio, thanks. Again, you're the man. This whole thread kicks ass....
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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In reply to:
fMagicItemConstantMult = 1.0 On all of these I don't even have assumptions, yet.
fMagicItemCostMult = 1.0
fMagicItemOnceMult = 1.0
fMagicItemPriceMult = 1.0
fMagicItemStrikeMult = 1.0
fMagicItemUsedMult = 1.0
I'm assuming that each of these multiplies the individual enchantment cost PER USE of an enchanted item, but I can't be sure (The PriceMult figure is the one that throws me. I'm going to fiddle with this right now and see...
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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I'll keep this really brief. In summary, I downgraded bound weapons by ten percent in their damage to allow for "real" daedric weapons to be superior (also considering that bound weapons are always full health and do full damage, while "real"weapons degrade and do less damage). I upgraded the daedric dagger to make it better than ebony but worse than a daedric tanto. I suspect this was just an oversight, as some enchanted daedric daggers have vastly different base damages. I upgraded the unused daedric weapons, corrected the daedric staff being the same damage as an ebony staff, tried to hit the enchanted weapons that use daedric weapons as a base (i.e. Boethiah's Walking Stick) for consistancy, added enchantments to Volendrung al la what it says in Tamrielic Lore (in game book) and based on the item's effects in Daggerfall and Arena. I also tried to consider a weapon's speed when comparing damage done... Okay, in brief:
Bound Longsword damage from 2-32, 1-44, 4-40 to 2-28, 1-40, 4-36
Bound Battle Axe from 1-80,1-60,1-8 to 1-72,1-54,1-7
Bound Mace from 5-30,5-30,2-4 to 5-29, 5-30, 1-4
Daedric Mace from 5-30,5-30,2-4 to 5-32,5-34,2-4
Daedric Spear from 2-9,2-9,6-40 to 2-9,2-10,6-44
Bound Longbow from 2-50 to 2-45
Bound Dagger from 9-20,9-20,10-20 to 8-12,8-12,8-12 (this is a starting spell, remember)
Daedric Dagger from 8-12,8-12,8-12 to 8-15,8-16,8-18
Daedric Staff from 2-16,3-16,1-12 to 3-20,4-22,2-15
Ebony Staff, enchantment from 900 to 150
Boethiah's Walking Stick to same base damage as daedric staff
Daedric club from 10-12,4-8,4-8 to 10-20,8-18,4-12 (I still don't think anyone would ever use this)
Daedric Dagger Soultrap from 8-12,8-12,8-12 to same damage as daedric dagger.
Daedric club tgdc increased to same damage as daedric club
Dwarven Warhammer Volendrung from 1-39,1-33,1-2 (this is an artifact? It is exactly the same as a regular Dwarven Hammer. Someone overlooked this) to 1-50,1-42,1-3. Health to 6000 from 5000, value from 600 to 50000. Added enchantment: Absorb Strength 15-15 for 30, paralyze for 2, absorb health 1-2 for 10, charge 250.
Ebony Tower Shield exactly the same as ebony round shield, changed AR from 60 to 65, weight from 30 to 35, health from 1200 to 1400.
You know, this is getting longer than I thought. Give me your e-mail and I'll send ya the file. I really haven't had enough time to test out all these changes, so most are pretty conservative, a 10 percent addition or a ten percent subtraction, except where I see an obvious error or inconsistancy.
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>fEnchantmentConstantDurationMult = 100 I assume this sets constant effect items to duration 100 percent.<
you assume incorrectly, wakim.
this wonderful setting is the multiplier for constant effect cast cost as compared to a 0 duration spell. so restore health 2-2 for 0 secs, which costs 0.50 to cast as a spell, costs 0.5 x 100 = 50 as a constant effect.
so changing this value would radically alter the balance of enchanting. i changed it to 10 and enchanted a ring with constant effect restore health 40. quite amusing.
cheers
h
Edited by Horatio (10/11/02 01:18 AM)
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In reply to:
fMagicItemConstantMult = 1.0
fMagicItemCostMult = 1.0
fMagicItemOnceMult = 1.0
fMagicItemPriceMult = 1.0
fMagicItemStrikeMult = 1.0
fMagicItemUsedMult = 1.0
I was dreadfully wrong about the above settings. Tried multiple
enchant runs on a daedric dai-katana using a 50 sec./5 area Soul Trap enchantment, different mixes of Cast When Strikes/Cast When Used - Stuck w/ Touch as effect setting.
Tried it un-modified and the item charge cost was between 1 & 2 each time for both strikes and Used. - Did it again with the above settings at 10.0, and then 100.0, each time the same.
So I'm stumped for the moment...
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-LDones
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Ohhhhh, that fEnchantmentConstantMult is a nice setting! I can see this one is begging for tweaking. Raising this just slightly would have a large impact on the overpowering constant effects that can be stacked on the ten or fifteen different wearable armor/clothing pieces (such as regenerate 30+ health a second, or chameleon 100%, or spell absorb 25% (stacked with atronach and necro's amulet = 100%)), and possibly let me move the values of reflect and spell absorption down a mite further to make them valid as castable spells.
I think I have discovered a very unpleasant fact about enchanting, and very disturbing since I can't seem to affect or alter it.
Go into the TESCS and call up the enchanting tab. Select new enchantment and choose:
Fire Damage on Target duration 3 seconds magnitude 100 to 100, cast when used. The cost is: 112
Now, open the spell making tab. Select new spell and choose:
Fire Damage on Target duration 3 seconds magnitude 100 to 100. The cost is: 112
Okay, that seems copacetic. Don't save anything, exit TESCS and fire up the game. Go to any mage's guild and visit the enchanter (or drag a soul gem over your character). Select these options:
Fire Damage on Target duration 3 seconds magnitude 100 to 100, cast when used. The cost is: 112
Now go to a spellmaker, have them make a spell for you with these options:
Fire Damage on Target duration 3 seconds magnitude 100 to 100. The cost is: 150!
Is it just me, or are identical spell effects 1/3rd more costly to cast than to enchant, and then only reflected in the game and not in the construction set? This would mean that not only do enchanters have about an infinite supply of magicka as supplied through items, but lower casting costs for the same spell.
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fMagicItemConstantMult = 1.0
fMagicItemCostMult = 1.0
fMagicItemOnceMult = 1.0
fMagicItemPriceMult = 1.0
fMagicItemStrikeMult = 1.0
fMagicItemUsedMult = 1.0
These are still baffling me after another few hours of playing with 'em. Nor can I find the skill effect variable for enchanting; I'll post about that tomorrow when I am clearer headed, but it is giving an exponential increase in enchanted item charge cost reduction due to its linear scaling factor. I was hoping there would be a variable for it, like there is for weapon damage due to strength, but it too is eluding me. I hope it isn't hard coded.
Oh, to add more fun to the mix, don't forget these variables which may, or may not, have a bearing:
fTrapCostMult = 0
fSoulGemMult = 3.0
fConstantEffectMult = 15.0
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In reply to:
Is it just me, or are identical spell effects 1/3rd more costly to cast than to enchant, and then only reflected in the game and not in the construction set? This would mean that not only do enchanters have about an infinite supply of magicka as supplied through items, but lower casting costs for the same spell.
The above may be true, unless there's a setting no one's noticed that's causing that to happen (though I've no idea where to even begin on that). If there isn't a way to bring the spellcasting cost down, then I'm inclined to think there IS a way to bring enchanting cast-cost up.
If not, then it seems to me the intelligent thing to do to balance out enchanting is to take Horatio's example and remove recharges - or drastically reduce it (Say, 10 pts. (fMagicItemRechargePerSecond = .007, roughly, I think...) per game day, or even lower, though at that rate, might as well cut it off totally). It'd make enchanting a damn useful skill, rather than an overpowering one.
To counterbalance that, one could bump up the autocalc settings in iMagicItemChargeStrike, iMagicItemChargeUse. Don't know if there's a way to make CastOnce items cheaper for Service-Enchanters as a result....
Just saw that last post about the fSoulGemMult, etc. and my head's starting to hurt. I'll check back in tomorrow night...
Wakim and Horatio, you guys are awesome, by the way. I can't add much but my observations, but you two are certainly moving the understanding of this whole game along at a rapid pace. Yeeha.
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-LDones
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Enchanting is an unbalanced ability included in Morrowind. I have a wonderful proof of this, however the margin is too small to contain it. Levity aside, here are the difficulties as I perceive them:
1) Identical magic effects cost 1/3rd more to cast than when placed in enchanted items. For example: 100 magnitude fire damage for 3 seconds on target costs 150 magicka when cast, but only 112 magicka when placed in an enchanted item. In other words, the in-game spellmakers artificially inflate the cost of casting player make spells.
2) Enchanted items carry their own pools of magicka, rather than using the caster's (I believe this was not the case in Daggerfall). This allows enchanted items to increase the user's store of magical effects, and effective magicka, only bounded by how many items he wishes to carry, and at 0.1 average weight for a ring or amulet this is quite vast.
3) Enchanted effects have no cast or re-cast time - they can be "spammed", resulting in damage amounts that are only limited by how fast the user can click the mouse.
4) Enchanted items re-charge at a default value of one charge every 20 seconds, unlike a caster's magicka which only recharges when he sleeps (unless Atronach birth-sign, when it doesn't recharge at all).
5) Player enchanted items derive their total charges from the value of the soul gem used to create them (default capped at 400 as highest soul value). This gives each player enchanted item an effective magicka pool of 400. Contrast this to a player's intrinsic magicka pool of, by default, a value equal to their intelligence or approximately 100 (before racial and birthsign modifiers). Each enchanted item therefore has the capacity to be four times more effective for casting a spell than a player.
6) Enchanted items cannot "fizzle" when used, unlike a player casting a spell. This makes them more reliable when the chips are down.
7) The ability to save and load games means that a failure rate when creating an enchanted item is about meaningless, the process can simply be repeated until the item is enchanted.
8) The ability of the inventory menu to effectively stop game time means that players can use enchanted items to briefly, but effectively, increase their intelligence to astronomical levels to allow them to enchant any item to the maximum capacity it can hold.
9) Enchanted spell effects do not check the caster's skill in the effect's appropriate school of magic, either when cast, or when created. This allows one school of magic (enchanting) to effectively "trump" all the other schools. If you know enchanting, you know it all.
10) Azura's Star eliminates any type of effective limitation on how many or how often an item can be recharged or enchanted with a soul gem through a finite supply of gems, since it can be used to turn every creature's death into a usable soul.
11) The enchantment skill exponentially decreases the charge cost of using enchanted items. A magic caster always has the same magicka cost for a spell, his skill affects his ability to cast it successfully. The exponential decrease in charge cost is shown in the table below using the Ring of Equity as an example:
Enchant Skill Value Charge Cost per Use
100 152
90 305
80 458
70 611
60 764
50 917
40 1070
30 1223
20 1376
10 1529
Note that from enchantment skill 10 to enchantment skill 60 the same magical item can now be cast twice as much as before. Increasing one's enchanting skill by the first 50 points doubles the efficency of enchanted items. However, the next doubling takes place in only 25 points, from 60 to 85. And doubles again in the next 12 points.
Note that at skill level 100 an enchanted item is twice as effective as at skill level 90 - a doubling in only ten points. If one increased their enchanting skill to 110, theoretically the increase would be infinite: that it would be free to cast an enchanted item. I assume that the skill reduction would be capped at a minimum of 1 charge, so that would only be a reduction of 152 times, rather than infinite. There are currently, in game, a few items that increase enchanting skill. I'll test this out to verify the result of enchanting values above 100.
Now, the down side of enchanting that balances out all these bonuses:
1) Items now glow with a hideous plastic sheen that will be pink if the enchantment comes from the school of alteration.
Edit: Using Akatosh's ring to boost my enchanting skill to 110, all enchanted items now cost 0-1 charge to cast, regardless of their spell effects.
Edited by wakim (10/11/02 02:22 PM)
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wakim,
well, most of that i already knew or suspected, but it is nice to have it methodically laid out like that. the whole save/reload thing with enchanting is a bit of a non-issue, since it's effectively impossible to enchant powerful items no matter how potent your enchant or intelligence. besides, IMO the real use of enchant is in recharging and minimizing charge use.
the fact that 110 enchanting results in 0 or 1 charges being used is interesting, though.
i'm curious, for comparison, how fast does magicka recharge while sleeping? is it dependent on anything?
as i mentioned above, i use 0 recharge per second in my game. i find it does compensate to some degree for the overwhelming power of enchanting.
another improvement might be to reduce the value of soul gems and perhaps remove the ability from all enchanters to barter for weapons. this would reduce the option of using an enchanter to make an incredibly expensive enchanted item and then selling him/her a whole bunch filled soul gems or excess daedric weapons to recoup your cash.
cheers
h
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I suspect that the only way to balance enchanting is to make everything that is player enchanted glow pink, irrespective of the school of magic that the enchantment derives from.
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Horatio
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sadly this would not work as most people use glow eliminating or reducing plugins to remove the whole "christmas tree wrapped in plastic bags" effect.
cheers
h
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Glow reducing plug-ins then seriously unbalance the game! That is the only thing holding enchanting in check!
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i think i'm gonna redo the enchant glow textures with an animated paisley motif. psychadelic enchanting, baby!
now if only someone could do an afro mod.
AFRO MOD!
cheers
h
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The solution to enchanting.
The only thing that I can see worth manipulating for game play settings that affect enchanting is fEnchantmentConstantDurationMult and fMagicItemRechargePerSecond. Toying with these variables will potentially reduce the amount of constant effect enchantment that can be placed in any given item and the amount of charges items regain per second (currently 1 charge per 20 seconds) respectively. The ConstantDurationMult will prevent abuses like Chameleon 100 percent constantly.
Sadly, this is a poor Band-aid. Reducing charges regained per second is easily off set by creating an item of summon <insert creature name> and soul trapping it in Azura's Star and recharging your items. Infinite magicka through enchanting returns.
The real solution to this problem is hard coding. My recommendations are simple and easily coded. They are:
1) Add the spell casting animation to effects cast through enchanted items. This prevents both Uzi-like spamming of enchanted effects and the ability to enhance one's intelligence into the thousands in order to be able to enchant anything to its highest value. The spell casting animation duration means that items cannot be effectively created that boost one's intelligence 100 points for 3 sec, and then stacking them through the time stopping device of the inventory menu. Each enchanted item cast would cost about 1 second, capping artificial intelligence fortifying to about 300. This stops the worst cases of the most powerful (and unbalancing) player enchanted items.
2) Change the coded value that reduces the "spell cost" value of enchanted effects to be significantly less than normally cast spells. There is no valid reason why the same spell should cost 1/3 more to cast than to enchant. If anything, it could be argued that it should be the other way around.
3) Change the formula for charge use reduction based on enchanting skill. I suspect that currently the formula is:
Charge Cost = (Spell Effect Cost x (110 - Enchant Skill))/100
If this formula is worth saving, then change it to:
Charge Cost = (Spell Effect Cost x (150 - Enchant Skill))/100
This would make enchanted spell effect's charge cost 1.4 times the spell effects actual value at skill level 10, the spell effects actual value at skill level 50, and half its value at skill level 100.
Being able to cast a spell effect from an enchanted item (with its own magicka pool independent from, and probably greater than the caster's own) at one thirteenth (1/13) the charge cost of the spell effect as when cast by a player in the form of a spell is absurd. The difference is over an order of magnitude. Increasing the charge cost per use of enchanted items also addresses the error of having them recharge faster than a caster's magicka, as they would, at best, be using five times as many charges per cast. This also addresses the enormous magicka pools the items have, as again, they would be using five times more charges per cast.
In other words, a fireball that "should" cost a caster 112 points to cast (but actually costs 150), an enchanter (100 skill) can currently trigger off an enchanted exquisite ring at a charge cost of 11 points. The ring will have 400 total changes. The enchanter can cast this spell 36 times in less than two seconds (only bounded by how fast he can click). With these three changes the caster remains constant, but now the same enchanter has the same fireball costing 75 charges and he can only cast it 5 times from this item and it would take normal casting times (about 5 seconds for 5 casts, I assume). To express in damage per second, the enchanter has gone from 5400 dps to 300 dps. A change of an order of magnitude.
Three easy coded changes. To summarize:
1) Add spell casting animation to "cast when used" and "cast once" effects cast through enchanted items.
2) Remove the hidden penalty from the in-game spell maker, or add it to the in game enchanting window.
3) Change the constant value in the charge per use reduction formula based on the player's enchant skill from 110 to 150.
Now, those are probably the easiest steps to bringing enchanting from being so far out of line that it is unbalancing to a point where it can be argued what should be done to fine tune it. For instance, should enchanting check your skill in an appropriate school of magic when you use or perhaps when you enchant an item? Should enchanting check against its own skill value to successfully use an enchanted effect? But fine tuning questions are the fun points to argue. Enchanting needs to first be brought back into the ball park before it can play the game.
These three changes, along with the values that can be edited in TESCS for constant effect items and recharge rate (or no recharge rate) should allow enchanting to be an enjoyable, and not a game killing, skill to practice.
Until then, just say no to enchanting (excepting minor constant effects on items, such as restore stamina four points, night eye 20%, and possibly water breathing... oh, and fortify strength 10 points for the heavy armor types). Currently, I don't see how enchanting can be used without being abused.
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i think the gameplay settings need to be examined in more detail.
perhaps there is one that corresponds to the "inflation factor" for creating spells through spellmaking. also, the amount that enchanting reduces charge use or the base charge use for enchanted items maybe be tied to yet another obscure gameplay setting.
not abusing the 0 cast time for enchanted objects is fairly easy through self-discipline. i believe it's just the result of an oversight on the part of the developers. if they had intended for instantaneous enchanted item use, they wouldn't have included the casting animation.
cheers
h
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I'd be willing to bet that, in coding, all enchanted effects were lumped into the same category, and to avoid a casting animation on 'cast when strikes' and 'constant effect' items they just pulled the animation. But this is pure speculation and not constructive.
If you can find a player alterable gameplay setting I'd be happy to tinker more. As it now stands I can't see any value in it, as TESCS is not giving me the tools I need to address the core issues of enchanting, nor can I Band-Aid it sufficiently with what I have. All it needs is two values changed and an animation flagged for it. This is too easy to fix in coding for me to tinker for hours trying to wrap gauze on a wound that simply needs three stitches to close. My mantra is add forty to the charge cost skill reduction constant, flag the animation, remove the hidden spell maker penalty multiplier of 1.33.
In the meantime I'll consider it unrepairable, unless shown otherwise, and simply not use enchanting. If you have any luck finding a value in TESCS that can affect the core issues of enchanting I'll change my tune quickly. But 400 charges on a ring that can cast a 100 point fireball at a cost of 3 charges in zero effective time is too absurd to even consider. It makes a mockery of ever bothering to cast a spell from one's own magicka reserves. If I want a click fest I'll play Diablo.
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You know, this may be a good thing to send to the devs - either for a request on clarification of settings, or as a possible request for an .exe/.esm update to jam into Tribunal before it's released.
Last minute, to be sure, but it's a pretty serious game balance issue that MANY folks would like to see addressed - and with a great deal of hard data behind it...
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-LDones
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fMagicItemConstantMult
fMagicItemCostMult
fMagicItemOnceMult
fMagicItemPriceMult
fMagicItemStrikeMult
fMagicItemUsedMult
The above are all unused.
fTrapCostMult -- multiplied by the spell cost of a trap and then added to your chance of disarming it. Since it's set to zero, the trap spell's cost is not incorporated into the chance. So basically it's also unused.
fSoulGemMult -- a soul gem's monetary value is multiplied by this value to determine the soul capacity of a soul gem. Creatures with a soul value less than or equal to that capacity can "fit" in the gem.
fConstantEffectMult -- unused.
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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Thanks for the clarifications Mr.SmileyFaceDude. I hope these and other game mechanics you are privy to will help in the adjustments being made by Wakim and others!
Cheers,
Simon
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MSFD:
thanks for clarifying the purpose (or lack of purpose) of those settings. i was wondering if you could perhaps elaborate a little more on the fTrapCostMult setting.
you said:
"fTrapCostMult -- multiplied by the spell cost of a trap and then added to your chance of disarming it. Since it's set to zero, the trap spell's cost is not incorporated into the chance. So basically it's also unused."
does that mean that if we set this setting to a positive value traps with strong spells would be easier to disarm? so we should set it to a negative value if we want powerful traps to be harder to disarm?
also, in general, is trap disarming difficultly currently identical to the lock difficulty on the container? or is it always the same?
btw, is there a setting that controls how much spellmaking inflates the magicka cost of spells?
cheers
h
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Many thanks for clarifying a few of the obscure mysteries of the Construction Set.
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In reply to:
"fTrapCostMult -- multiplied by the spell cost of a trap and then added to your chance of disarming it. Since it's set to zero, the trap spell's cost is not incorporated into the chance. So basically it's also unused."
does that mean that if we set this setting to a positive value traps with strong spells would be easier to disarm? so we should set it to a negative value if we want powerful traps to be harder to disarm?
After a quick test-run on a 100-lock door w/ a Hand of Dagoth Trap (39 mana), and an fTrapCost Mult of 1000, it's very obvious that the higher the fTrapCost value, the harder it is to disarm a trap, something that I've always found far too easy.
I'm still unsure whether normal Trap disarm chance is based off of Lock Level or Trap Spell Cost (I'm going to test that in a minute).
Now, there's a setting called fPickLockMult, set to -1.0000 - I'm wondering if this is what accounts for the lack of necessity of a Security skill higher than 50. Gonna play with that now, too...
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Okay, real quick follow-up/recap of what my findings are telling me.
- fTrapCostMult - Initially set at 0.00 - The higher the number the harder it is to disarm a trap.
- Chance to disarm a trap is based off of the Trap Spell Cost in the editor, NOT off of the lock's level, which I and many others had previously thought.
- fPickLockMult - Initially set at -1.000 - The lower the number the harder it is to pick a lock (Strange disparity with the above, but it's concrete.) - The multiplier sensitivity is on a per-skill-point basis (I think, could use more testing...) - (example - with an fPickLockMult value of -1000.0000, a 100-Level Lock requires a 100,000 level security to unlock on the first try.) - However, now that I think about it, it might be on a Lock Level value multiplier rather than skill, which would make more sense - Though I'm not sure how to test that...
What this reveals, is that the rather unelegant previous method of making locks and traps more difficult (simply decreasing their effectiveness) is unnecessary, although the detailed, incremental specifics of these changes are still up in the air.
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Actually, I once played around (and was extremely satisfied with the "feel" of it) with *negative* recharges. Really small values, like -0.0005, meaning that all those items you have in your inventory while bartering in balmora are veeeery slooowly losing magical charge. Meaning that the player would have to guarantee he is fully charged up before going on long expeditions, and that he takes a supply of empty sould gems with him
willing to try something like this?
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Although I admit to more than a passing interest in both traps and locks, telekinesis and open spells almost make it a moot point. If telekinesis casting cost is severly increased to make disarming a trap by hand worthwile, then it eliminates its usefulness in picking things up at a distance: which I assume many classes and play styles use in a reasonable way. Open spells I keep bumping the casting cost upwards, but still I find myself almost never prefering to pick a lock by hand (and have to dig in inventory for a pick, and have to worry about another skill, and have to carry picks in all their different qualities and "charges").
However, I do like the idea of having tougher traps and locks, but I think the ideal implementation would to have had both mechanical locks (which are not affected by spells) and magical locks (which are only affected by spells). This would differentiate the two abilities and make them both erstwile.
By the way, TESCS help file states that a lock level of 100 will require a security skill of 100 to open it (I believe they describe a 100 level lock as "unopenable". Since this is in error, yet probably what was intended (and makes sense - "Oh, Hi Mr. Vivec... you live here?"), what value of fPickLockMult would address this? I can see bumping open spell casting costs higher if there was a parity with the difficulty of using a pick to open a similar lock. In other words, what value of fPickLockMult gives a message of "This lock too complex" on a lock level 100 door at a 90 skill level, but not a 91 skill level?
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Negative enchanted item recharging, that is novel! Like a leaky battery! I like the idea. Do items make that little "tinging" noise when they discharge, like they do when they recharge? Although I suspect that this will again "hit cast when strikes" items the hardest. This is something that I may play around with, although I haven't set my own enchanted item recharge rate to zero yet, as I haven't had the opportunity to "play" Morrowind in a few weeks. My time has been spent in the Construction Set - only loading Morrowind to test a change. Long term affects such as re-charge rates I haven't got around to playing with on my own to get a feel for... you really can't spot test a recharge rate, ya just gotta play for a while and see how it feels. The version of WGI that is released has that rate decreased, but it is something that I haven't spent enough time tweaking to have really gotten a handle on the value that feels right to me. But I like the idea. Or, does it just turn into an inventory management nightmare as you sort through all your items to see what your Azura's star gets to recharge next?
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Locks - As I typically play a roguish type, I'm looking forward to whatever this research leads to. I'd love to see locks and traps a little more difficult, but at the same time the open and telekinesis spells make it pointless. I do understand the need for the latter two, as not every one plays a character with roguish abilities, but I still feel they downplay the rogue's skills. My initial solution to this was to double the number of uses on lockpicks and probes, and also increase the spell effect costs of Open and Telekinesis by 2.5x or so.
Enchantments - My solution here was to reduce the rate of recharge to 1/3 normal (meaning you'll only recharge 1 charge per minute), while changing the iMagicItemChargeStrike setting to 25 (2.5x normal).
Negative recharging - An intriguing idea, although this would make enchanted items useless rather quickly. Perhaps if this was balanced by the addition of a vendor selling only low-quality soulgems (for recharging purposes, mainly)? Although again, this would still hit hardest those items with "cast on strikes". I suppose you could stop recharging entirely, and then add scripts to all enchanted items with "cast on strike" effects so they'll slowly recharge. You might run into some problems with some legendary items whcih already have scripts, though, not to mention player-enchanted items. Hrmm...
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wakim
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The WGI I am testing now has recharge rates at down by 60%, and open spells increased by 60%. I tend to get conservative once I get close to doubling or halving an established value. My thought is that I must be missing something if I am tweaking a value that much. But with values at these levels I really haven't noticed a difference, to be honest, so I am inclined to go further, but I would like to play more at these values before doing so.
I have never had a play style that relied on enchanted items, mainly because I hate going to the inventory window, then scrolling down to the bottom of the spell list to find what I wanted. I have played thief-types, and I enjoyed using telekinesis with its low magicka cost for my low magicka character. But low magicka types should naturally gravitate towards picks and probes rather than spells, no?
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Just dropped in to say hello and 'thanks for your work' Mr. Wakim
One sugestion - seeing how you manged spell balancing, how about some weapon balance? Not the damage actually, but range... seems silly that dagger has the same range as longsword...
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[white]COËN[/white] a.k.a. [red]HAVOKK[/red]
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Yes, all weapons have the same range.  Weird, isn't it?
There's actually two mods that do balance weapons (including range), although how well I cannot say. One just modifies the range, speed and damage, while another goes much further modifying names, types, and, in my opinion, too much. Like Wakim, I much prefer more subtle tweaking unless I can't find a better alternative. Then again, I haven't tried the latter, so who knows, it may be good. I would like to see Wakim's suggestion on this sort of thing eventually, though.
For the life of me, I can't remember the name of either mod...
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Just another pemmy sidekick
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Pemolis Underfoot
Druid Galore
Former EQ addict
I need a Hug!
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wakim
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Say it aint so, Joe! Seriously? I thought I saw (and I admit to being more concerned with weapon speeds (when I was looking at skill increase rates) and weapon damage (when I was laughing at the daedric club and staff)) that spears had a substantially greater range than other weapons. I can't recall any of the others... but really? I was watching a wizard ealrier today who had Burdened me past my encumberance limit, while I was testing some spell changes, melee me with a glass staff and I couldn't touch him with my katana. I'll take a look.
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wakim
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I looked at Daedric types only, as representative of their class. Spears and staves have a range of 1.80, warhammers 1.50, and umm...everything else from a claymore to a dagger is 1.00.
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I just wanted to compliment horatio, MSFD, and wakim for all their work in this subject, and i had something to add.
I do think that telekinesis should perhaps be rebalanced but not completely, i play a warrior/mysticism/illusion sort of type...i basically tried to model my race class etc. after myself in real life in a sort of symbolic way...willpower is basically me..
i dont know if any of that made sense
but just to add an angle to the discussion...
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While it's true that the magicka system as implemented in the game is very much out of whack, a good chunk of the problem is dependent on how other, non-magical systems are implemented. No matter how much you change the spells you're still going to run into problems based upon these other systems.
An example: hit points increase markedly with each advance in level, and leveling up is way too easy in the game. Find a few daedric weapons, hunt down Creeper, and soon you're training so fast your main problem is running back to a bed before having another go with your local trainers. In my first game I took quite some time to reach level 14, then discovered the islands off of Hla Oad with their string of ruins. The cash gains here were so great I went from level 14 to level 30-something purely through training, and after this point I had so many hit points (and goodies) that no mage in Morrowind could seriously threaten me.
Furthermore, I found that using the game's spell-making system I couldn't create a spell that could do more than 100 points of damage in a go, much less cast it more than once or twice before running out of magicka. Even if the NPC mages were packing my super-fireballs and super-shockbolts and so forth, they had no chance of surviving long enough to take me out before I hacked them to itty-bitty pieces. And they weren't using my spells, they were using much weaker versions which barely did anything to my health bar - assuming I failed to resist the spell in the first place.
So, the magic problem is compounded by a) super-expensive items you can sell to get cash for training, and b) big increases in hit points. In order to make magic truly powerful you not only have to change the spell system but also these two things as well. I'd suggest the following as examples:
- eliminate creeper and reduce the worth of all enchanted/ebony/daedric/glass/whatever items by a huge amount. A factor of 10 in the case of daedric items wouldn't be too much (that longsword is still worth 4 or 5 thousand gold, even if the price is cut to a tenth, and that's a nice bit of training). If your Mercantile is low then that sword is worth quite a bit less, even doing the buy-sell routine with your local merchant (the side effect being that Mercantile now becomes a far more useful skill than it currently is).
A counter-argument would be that these weapons would be too easy to buy. Well, that would be a counter-argument assuming you could actually buy them anywhere, but you can't - except from merchants you sell them to. If you buy them back later, so what? You've just used the merchant as an expensive storage system, nothing more. Next time try a crate. If you want to rationalize it, the mere weight of the daedric weaponry would make them virtually worthless except as the conversation pieces of rich merchants and nobles.
- reduce hit point gains for leveling up. Once you've got 250-300 hit points the odds of anything doing enough damage to kill you are extremely small. No spell-caster is going to take you out, that's for certain. If the system were reduced to, say, Endurance + 2 points/level then spell-casters with an altered spell-using system suddenly become dangerous again. Even at level 25 with an Endurance of 100 (not very likely unless you've pumped up your endurance at every level-up) you'd have 150 hit points. A couple of good damage inducing spells and you'll soon be seeing the 'would you like to load your last saved game?' message. Mages become nasty critters and you suddenly see value in spells that resist magic, fire, frost, and shock - assuming these spells are altered so you could actually cast them, of course.
This is just all one very long way to say that the spells are only part of the problem. To truly fix magic you have to fix the other elements it's dependent on, at the very least the overblown hit point gains per level.
Max
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wakim
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I set up a test dummy: a permanently paralyzed Dremora with 9000 hit points, and did some testing on weapon ranges. Here are my results:
-Any weapon whose range is set to less than 1.00 defaults back to 1.00. This means that no weapon in Morrowind can have a range less than 1.00. I tested this by setting the ranges of bound weapons to various amounts (0.10 to 1.80), summoning the various weapons and stepping closer or farther from my test dummy to determine the weapon's range.
-Visually, a range of 1.80 is about twice the range of 1.00 (maybe exactly 1.80 times the range, hard to tell by eye-balling it).
-Visually, from first person perspective, the range difference of a spear (1.80) and a katana (1.00) look/feel about right.
-Visually, from third person perspective, a spear looks like it is hitting something from a mile away.
Since a range of 1.00 feels about right for katanas and swords, it would seem ideal to reduce the range of daggers and shortswords. This cannot be done. However, the larger two handed weapons (dia-katanas, claymores, battleaxes) can be increased in range to allow them to fit between spears and staves (1.80 range) and regular swords.
A formula I developed to gauge the "value" of a weapon is this:
2/3*(avg damage*weapon speed) + 1/3*(avg damage * weapon speed * weapon reach)
This formula weighs the raw damage of a weapon (avg damage * speed) as being two thirds more valuable than the reach, which is of use only in certain situations - since most enemies will close to short range most of the time. Also, weapon speed seems to be a direct proportional multiplier in a weapon's damage, in that a weapon of speed 2 is twice as fast (strikes twice as often) as a weapon of speed 1 and hence does twice the damage (although the value of a fast weapon can be considered situationally better or worse, I will neglect that aspect for this assumption).
In summary: there are no "short ranged" weapons in Morrowind, nor can there be, there can only be medium and long ranged weapons.
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wakim
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"... a good chunk of the problem is dependent on how other, non-magical systems are implemented." Yup. I agree. My goal in magicial effect balancing is to make the magic system balanced within itself. When it is (by default) almost 10x easier to heal damage than it is to resist damage, when it is more expensive to damage fatigue than to damage health, when it is more expensive to burden than to paralyze, then there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Once the magic system is consistant and rational, then it can be adjusted to be on par with other elements of the game simply by throwing some multiplier at the whole thing: say by increasing total magicka, or overall reduced casting costs.
While the in-game spell maker will not let you increase magnitudes beyond 100, you can easily, in the case of raw damage, multiply this by the duration to get increased damage beyond 100 (but over a period of time). Or, you can multiply it by a weakness to xxxx effect to do the same. Also, TESCS allows one to increase effects well beyond 100 - something I took advantage of in WGI to create a purchasable burden series that exceeds 100 magnitude and thusly be effective beyond what a player could create in game (and since one needs 250 burden to stop an unarmored 50 strength mage, this is a required alteration to make that line useful).
The selling value of weapons being so high (120,000 for a daedric dia-katana) really means that they can't be sold for cash, unless you are willing to hold the mouse button on the decrease offer value for minutes on end. However, the ease of obtaining very high damage weapons in the game is a problem. One gets the feeling that Morrowind was designed so that no matter what you did you couldn't fail to become god-exceeding in power. Correcting these elements are also possible. Removing the dremora's daedric weapons is a large step towards this, and one that quite a few mods do.
Really, Morrowind was not designed for challenging play after level 20, yet the game was set up so that you couldn't help but exceed level 20 before you "completed" the game, let alone 10% of all the content it offers. Many mods address this by introducing new critters for post 20 challenge (Giants 2.0) or by slowing advancement (see "more morrowind" thread for the Turtlewind mod), some remove Creeper (MW-Advanced). You are not alone in seeing the problems, the question is what is the best means of correcting them?
Ultimately can Morrowind be made perfect? Naw. Can it be made better? Yup. Without access to the hard coded formulas of Morrwind the changes that can be made are finite in scope, but they can make a difference.
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In reply to:
In other words, what value of fPickLockMult gives a message of "This lock too complex" on a lock level 100 door at a 90 skill level, but not a 91 skill level?
After more than a bit of testing and general arse-ing about with the fPickLockMult setting, I've come to some key conclusions about making Security a skill worth pumping above 50.
- An fPickLock value of -1.3000 APPEARS to be ideal.
- At this value:
- With a lockpick quality of 1.00, it requires a Security skill of 91 to even attempt to pick a 100 Lock Level door. (i.e. to not get a 'Lock Too Complex' message) - A lockpick quality of 1.30 can attempt it at Security skill level 67. Thus making a thief with a Security skill of 100 a very cool guy.
- Starting characters with a Security skill of 15 and a lockpick quality of 1.00 can still open locked doors in towns with a Lock Level of 25 or lower (though with some effort).
The problems I think are inherent in this kind of change:
1. There is a distinct lack of under Lock level 20-25 locks in the game. There are some, but they are very few in number. With any major tweak to the fPickLockMult setting, one runs the risk of making Security a useless skill unless chosen as a Primary/Major Skill. With an fPickLockMult value of -1.3000, you can't open a level 20 lock unless Security is chosen as a minor skill. Which would require characters that didn't do so to train their skill up to 10-15 to open just about anything at all.
2. While these changes make the security skill far more satisfying to develop, they make magic unlocking/probing significantly more desirable than they already are. I'm of the opnion that anyone seeking to tweak their lockpicking settings like this would find it in their interest to up the cost of open spells and decrease the quality/increase the cost of available open spells/scrolls significantly. I think it should cost a point of magicka per Lock Level door to open, at LEAST (not counting area effect mult's on the spell, though I'm not sure how to tweak the cast cost of that), and a 100 lock-level opening spell should only be available through personal spellmaking.
3. There are a lot of very important things behind heavily locked doors with no keys, the designer and even modmaker's assumption being that unlocking a door is essentially child's play. This could conceivably be a problem, especially for melee characters, who are unable to bash down doors in Morrowind as they were in Daggerfall.
I'm interested in the long term repercussions of a change like this, and will more than likely play through the entire game with it at some point, to see what happens.
As for the fTrapCostMult setting, and making trap disarming more difficult, I'm still a tad conflicted. As stated previously the Trap disarming difficulty is based on spell cost, not lock level, and there are a number of disabling/offensive spells w/ casting costs well over 100, essentially making them completely undisarmable. They are, however, in the minority. So in other words, compensating for them makes other traps too easy to disarm, ignoring them makes a small percentage of traps completely untouchable, and I'm not sure how to remedy that at all, or even if it should be remedied.
It seems like the most intelligent move in that area is to just decrease the quality of low-end probes and increase the quality of high-end ones, but I don't have any hard data. I'll get to that soon.
I think all of this will end up in some sort of Thief-experience overhauling/enhancing mod, with all of these changes and considerations put together. My only worry is that it cripples melee characters in the long-run (amusingly enough).
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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wakim
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Don't forget to try it with variable values of agility. Although Intelligence is the "governing" attribute for security, the value of your agility stat is actually more important than your security skill. Agility of 160 (Ring of Wind, and umm.. Marara's ring?) allows me to pick a 100 lock with an apprentice probe (quality 1.00) at security skill 50. At agility 50 I was able to pick a 50 lock at security 25.
I like fPickLockMult -1.300. I can't see a reason not to change to this setting, pending further testing for finer tuning. Also, in the latest WGI Open spells are set to yield a magicka cost of 97 for an open 100 (as made from an in-game spellmaker), and 47 for an open 50 (as made from in-game spell maker). This value is 9.75 in the magic effects file, up from default of 6.00. Currently no NPCs sell an open above magnitude 50, except for wild open 1-100 (which has only a 1% chance of opening a 100 door).
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LDones
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All above tests were done w/ an Agility of 50.
With fPickLockMult at -1.300:
At 100 Agility w/ a 1.00 quality pick, it requires a Security skill of 80 to attempt a 100 lock.
At 160 Agility w/ a 1.00 quality pick, it requires a Security skill of 69 to attempt a 100 lock.
Intelligence values curiously seem to have no effect on these numbers.
I think that's the biz. I'm going to stick w/ -1.300. And the
On the traps end, Adventurer's mod seems to decrease the quality of probes to a satisfying level, but I'll investigate that a bit more. I'm still a bit thrown by the discovery that MW seems to disable traps above a certain spell cost or effect magnitude. I'll arse with that right now.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Odd that our numbers don't jibe. I wonder.... if Luck has something to do with it...
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LDones
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Forgot to take Luck into consideration. I didn't tweak with it at all.
All of my tests were done with a Luck value of 40. I know most folks dont think it does much, but it has a dramatic effect on gameplay.
In my game, with fpicklockmult at -1.300:
At Luck 100 and Agility 50, a 1.00 quality pick requires a Security skill of 85 to attempt a 100 lock-level door.
At Agility 100 it takes a Security skill of 75.
At Agility 160 it takes a Security skill of 63.
Maybe something's weird with my game. I'm going to have to take a crack at this with a fresh save, wonder if any stray settings have found their way into my lockpick testing save...
Be back with more numbers in a minute...
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Just double-checked and retested all my above numbers - They seem to hold true - I thought trapped doors might mess with a lock's level, but no, still the same numbers over here.
With coinciding Luck level's are you still getting different numbers?
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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I see that luck did decrease the security skill required, but not enough to account for our difference, I'll retest my numbers as well.
By the way, I made three Lock spells at a spell maker which I am using to lock the doors (25, 50,100), not doors that are locked as set in game to a default value.
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I can verify your numbers, LD. I blame sloppy testing on my part, I suspect that I lost track of one of the variables that affect lockpick (luck, agility, security, pick quality, fPickLockMult, door lock value) when I did my quick run through.
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Just to nip this topic in the bud on one last point for myself:
Looked at the trap-disarming settings & situation, and I don't feel I've an elegant way to tackle the relative ease with which most traps are disarmed.
The main reason for this is that there is no easy way to see what spells have been used on doors or containers as traps (checking references in 'Info' doesn't show Ref Data, which means it doesn't show if a spells been assigned to a door or chest) and therefore no way to see the 'spread' of low to high cost spells assigned as traps, (though, from playing experience, we can assume there aren't too many high-cost spells assigned as traps). Therefore, I'm unable to get a good, big picture of the the potential benefits/problems with altering the fTrapCostMult setting.
The Adventurer's Mod reduces the quality of Bent Probes to 0.15, Apprentice's Probes to .3, and Journeyman's Probes to .65 (Master (@ 1.00) and upward are left alone). I don't know if I agree w/ the values implicitly, but it's on the right track.
To summarize - If someone's looking to make trap disarming more difficult (since the system doesn't appear to be tweakable on any logistical level), editing probe quality looks to be the 'cleanest'/safest way to do so, at least with the information I have.
It's always kind of deflating when you hit a dead-end & can't problem-solve your way through tweaking something like you want to. <sigh>
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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>>reduce hit point gains for leveling up. Once you've got 250-300 hit points the odds of anything doing enough damage to kill you are extremely small. No spell-caster is going to take you out, that's for certain. If the system were reduced to, say, Endurance + 2 points/level then spell-casters with an altered spell-using system suddenly become dangerous again. Even at level 25 with an Endurance of 100 (not very likely unless you've pumped up your endurance at every level-up) you'd have 150 hit points.<<
True. The hit point system is too powerful.
"Endurance + 2 points/level" is a good idea but a hit point system similar to the magic point system can be better:
Hit point= ("Actual" Endurance*Racial Endurance Modificator)+("Actual" Endurance/50)*Level.
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<<<But low magicka types should naturally gravitate towards picks and probes rather than spells, no? >>>
I'm playing an Atronach-Breton-Battlemage with 300 Magicka who *never* uses spells to disarm traps or open locks. She always uses picks and probes.
What does that mean? I have no idea.
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Using that formula, my lvl 9 argonian should have 2990.3 hitpoints... unless I'm doing something wrong here:
Racial endurance: 35
Actual Endurance: 85
lvl: 9
The formula: ("Actual" Endurance*Racial Endurance Modificator)+("Actual" Endurance/50)*Level
With my numbers it looks like this: (85+35)+(85/50)*9 = 2990,3
Don't know if I misunderstood your formula?
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My plugins:
Racial Abilities
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Wakim said " telekinesis and open spells almost make it a moot point."
For Telekinesis, there's a list of items that can be activated within the "bonus range" -- that is, the range beyond the default reach distance but within the total telekinetic range. Originally you could only pick up items, but I thought it'd be useful for those with low security skill to be able to telekinetically activate containers and interior doors, so they could disarm traps from a safe distance.
This is a great thread, I have it bookmarked. I forwarded it to Todd Howard, and he said "This has renewed my love of fans. Awesome thread." So keep it up, I'm taking notes
By the way, just for background if you're not aware, I programmed much of the magic system. Designers were responsible for all the TESCS work -- that is, setting the magic effect costs in the Magic Effect window, creating all the spells, enchantments, items, etc. I'll keep checking this thread so let me know if you have more questions. I cannot get TOO specific on the exact formulas, but I'll help where I can.
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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>>Using that formula, my lvl 9 argonian should have 2990.3 hitpoints... unless I'm doing something wrong here: <<
Well… It's "Racial Endurance Modificator" not "Racial mininum Endurance".
I was thinking of something like the Int Multiplicator used for Magika.
With a "Racial Endurance Modificator" of (let's say)1.5, your argonian should have near 143 hit points:
85*1.5+(85/50)*9= 142.8
With 100 in Endurance the formula will be 150+2*Level
The "Racial Endurance Modificator" values are totally debatable but for example:
Orc, Red Guard= 2.0
Dark Elf, Breton,Imperial,Argonian = 1.5
Kajhit, Wood Elf= 1.25
High Elf= 1.0
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Traps:
"...it'd be useful for those with low security skill to be able to telekinetically activate containers and interior doors, so they could disarm traps from a safe distance." It is very useful, and anything that increases the diversity of tactics and options available is always welcome. The problem with telekinesis is that it is an appropriate costing spell for picking up those little objects, but when it is used to trigger traps is has just defeated the usefulness of an entire other skill. To price the casting cost of telekinesis to be appropriate for one activity is almost exclusive of the other.
To toss an idea out for LD to play with: rather than decrease the quality of probes to make traps more difficult (since there is a fear that by playing with the global traps variable may make some traps un-disarmable), why not change the eight or so spells listed as "trap_xxxxxxx01" in the spell file to have a magicka cost appropriate to the difficulty to disarm them? Also, if these trap spell effects were given an area of affect, then telekinesing them from a low magicka cost short range telekinesis spell may result in setting them off while the player is in range. This would encourage players to use higher costing longer range telekinesis spells, or to value disarming them with probes more.
Have you played with the trap's magicka cost vs. the security skill needed to disarm them to draw a relationship to trap spell cost and security skill needed? I would think that the only side-effect of AoE traps would be that perhaps a monster or two might die...or perhaps enrage the shopkeeper in the building where some chest was trapped... I think I could live with these side effects.
Hitpoints:
Yeah, players quickly reach a point where they have just too many hitpoints. This is a general failing in most RPG genre games. It is often rationalized by saying that hit points reflect a character's ability to avoid damage, or somesuch; but it never plays out that way because our expectations of reality say that no matter who you are - a WWF wrestler or Woody Allen - you should be just as dead when you jump off that 100 foot cliff. Massive hitpoints, while allowing for a simple approach to approximating increased acumen in combat, always have undesirable side effects. I would think that an exponentially decreasing formula would be the best application: viz. a player quickly gains hitpoints to reflect that he is a rough and tumble sorta guy who has become inured to hardships and used to pain, but beyond that he has to rely on other avoidance skills to prevent damage within his field of speciality (i.e. shield blocking, arcane magicks that resist, weapon skill for parrying, etc.).
Furthermore, dropping maximum hitpoints may have an effect that the creature type mods that address level 20+ difficulty may suddenly become overwhelming for low hitpoint characters, again leaving players without challenges past level 20.
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"...our expectations of reality say that no matter who you are - a WWF wrestler or Woody Allen - you should be just as dead when you jump off that 100 foot cliff."
LOL! Agreed, and excellent discussion. But remember, John Rambo jumped from a cliff taller than 100ft in First Blood and survived with only a gash on his arm, so it must be possible, at least with trees to cushion your fall. And guess what? It works in Morrowind--I fell off the lighthouse in Seyda Neen once and didn't hurt myself too much due to the tree nearby breaking my fall!
-Simon
PS: No, I'm not insane, I just thing Rambo is great comedy--the man throws brick-sized rocks at helicopters for goodness' sake!
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In reply to:
rather than decrease the quality of probes to make traps more difficult (since there is a fear that by playing with the global traps variable may make some traps un-disarmable), why not change the eight or so spells listed as "trap_xxxxxxx01" in the spell file to have a magicka cost appropriate to the difficulty to disarm them? Also, if these trap spell effects were given an area of affect, then telekinesing them from a low magicka cost short range telekinesis spell may result in setting them off while the player is in range. This would encourage players to use higher costing longer range telekinesis spells, or to value disarming them with probes more.
My only reservation about the effectiveness of this is, again, that I don't actually know how often/where the trap-specific spells are used. It probably wouldn't hurt to mess around w/ them as area-effect, but I wouldn't have a way to really know what effect it had in-game.
In reply to:
Have you played with the trap's magicka cost vs. the security skill needed to disarm them to draw a relationship to trap spell cost and security skill needed?
Not to the extent of lockpicking, as above, but marginally, pretty much solely to test the "Does lock level dictate trap difficulty or not?" hypothesis. I'll probably mess around with that tonight, but I'll have to do a lot of potentially tedious in-editor trap checking to get a picture of different values. I'll more than likely have some numbers tomorrow on different trap difficulty variables.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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MrSMileyFaceDude: That's awesome that you're checking in here and offering info - You've helped raise a damn fine, brilliant, growing young game. Fine parenting.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Wakim, do these spell value modifications appear in WGI 6, or do I need to follow your instructions for modifying it in the editor myself? I would love to try them out, so let me know if I can do it easier with your WGI 6.
Thank you!
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Back to the spells for a sec....
I like your changes to the spells, although I think I'm going to tweak them a bit more and remove some spells from the game altogether (e.g., anything Calm-based).
My question: have you seen the Spellmaker mod? I used it in one game and rather liked how it reduced the magicka-cost of many made spells to be comparable to bought spells. The only problem is that it didn't accurately reflect certain spell types (e.g., restore attribute). It seems to me that a combination of your changes with an updated Spellmaker would put magic back in the running as something to be feared.
I'm also toying with (in my test mod) giving every PC and NPC a x4 magicka, again to make magic more than a nuisance. Things seem to work nicely so far - mage NPCs are quite deadly if you aren't protected by Resistance, especially in combination with my HealthMod script. And with a 4x magicka they toss costly spells with impunity, making it harder to 'dodge' spells until the NPC runs out of magicka. Of course, with a 4x magicka the PC actually has a chance of casting a decent Resist spell without running completely dry, which lends a bit of balance.
Max
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AAARGH! Either I'm insane and my game is behaving the same, or I've just learned that there is NO variation in trap difficulty - regardless of spell cost or lock level - the chance to disarm a trap is always the same, only varying w/ probe quality and Security Skill (give or take agility and/or Luck).
Trapping 6 doors, w/ varying states of Lock Level, trapped w/ Thunder Fist (Cost: 0), Hand of Dagoth (Cost: 39), or Charming Tough (Cost: 225) yielded precisely the same results: Even with a Security skill of 1, using a 0.50 quality probe, it took between 1 and 15 tries to disarm any of these doors.
They were all in_velothismall_ndoor's - I'm not positive that the type of trapped door/container has no effect on trap disarm chance, though that seems drastically unlikely.
At first I thought this meant it would probably be safe to modify fTrapCostMult (which, as stated above, takes spell cost and adds it to the chance of disarming a trap - NOTE: My above post stating that the higher the value on this the harder to disarm a trap was WRONG. I am a dumbass. It functions like fPickLockMult - the lower/more negative the number, the harder to disarm.)
But then I got a look at the spread of spell cost values (thank small gods for TESCS export to Excel):
Spell Cost/Number of Spells
---------------------------------------
1-4 pts - 272 spells
5-9 pts - 105 spells
10-15 pts - 94 spells
16-20 pts - 72 spells
21-29 pts - 40 spells
30-39 pts - 151 spells
40-49 pts - 61 spells
50-59 pts - 48 spells
60-69 pts - 13 spells
70-79 pts - 44 spells
80-99 pts - 24 spells
100-124 pts - 17 spells
125-149 pts - 11 spells
150-200 pts - 15 spells
200-720 pts - 13 spells
Ridiculously high cost - 10 spells
Bear in mind that these are raw spellmaking figures - many of these spells are not available as traps, OR to the PC - but I figured it would give a fair picture of spell costs across the board.
SO - with the bulk of all stock, castable spells lying under a 40 spell point cost, any alteration to fTrapCostMult would more than likely be arbitrary or/and unbalancing in some fashion.
Wakim or anybody - Any thoughts?
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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OH! - One more thing:
Does anyone know what fSeriousWoundMult does? - It sounds snazzy and it's set to 0.0000.
Also, I wonder what the iFlee setting does in reference to fAIFleeMult and fAIFleeHealthMult - It, too, is set to 0.00. Hmmmm....
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Guys,
Thanks for the great thread. I will soon play a mage, and I'd love to see a more balanced magic system in place before I start. Feel free to slap me if I have missed it, but are Wakim's (and everybody else's) changes available for download or playtesting? Sorry if I have missed the link.
Thanks,
Lewis
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fSeriousWoundMult -- unused. probably replaced with critical strike stuff.
iFlee is also unused.
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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LDones:
was this occuring with fTrapCostMult at 0? because spell cost isn't supposed to affect lock difficulty unless fTrapCostMult is set to a non-zero value.
i'm surprised to hear that the lock level has no effect on traps. so i guess they're all the same difficulty to disarm...that's a pretty lame implementation you should probably test more to make sure that this is the case.
i'd just start trying out various fTrapCostMult values and seeing what kinda results you get. i could write a quick program to scan morrowind.esm and build a list of traps used on doors/containers if you're interested.
cheers
h
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Yes, all of the above numbers are with an fTrapCostMult of 0.000.
I loaded and re-loaded the test save a number of times to check everything out, and neither Lock Level, nor spell cost appeared to have anything to do w/ trap difficulty (As in the above results, it's possible to disarm a 225-cost spell on a Lock Level 100 door in one try - with a Security skill of 1, and a probe quality of .5). It's the same all across the board, unless, as stated above, I or my game have gone insane. It is possible that PlayerLevel has something to do with it...
In reply to:
i could write a quick program to scan morrowind.esm and build a list of traps used on doors/containers if you're interested.
If you were willing to do something like that, and it's not a hassle for you, that would be awesome as hell. Just the info on spellname/trap and # of instances would allow a much better picture of the potential effects of an fTrapCostMult alteration. Again, if it's not a hassle, it'd be a fun tool to have.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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"...John Rambo jumped from a cliff taller than 100ft in First Blood and survived with only a gash on his arm...". Yes, but his skill in doing that was balanced since his speechcraft was zero...
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"...do these spell value modifications appear in WGI 6...?" Yes, they are available on TheLys site and also Dragonsight. TheLys hosts WGI as a complete package, Dragonsight has it as six packages. Choose which ever suits your preference. Both are small downloads. The spell cost changes, posted much, much earlier on this thread, appear in both of them (the download content is identical, just presented differently).
The spell cost changes are slightly different than those posted earlier, as I have updated the .esp files as a result of more tweaking and testing and feedback, but I can no longer edit that original post. That post does give you a good idea of the direction I have been headed with the magic effects balancing. The .txt files included will detail the changes. Enjoy.
Edited by wakim (10/22/02 04:51 PM)
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ldones:
cool. time permitting i'll throw it together tonight. should just be a matter of searching for one specific tag, recording the spell name next to it and then spitting out the results into a text file.
i just can't believe that all traps have the same disarm difficulty. how spectacularly pitiful. well, at least we know it can be fixed. 
MSFD:
many thanks for the continuing clarifications. do you think you could just list all the settings that don't do anything? it'd probably save a lot of frustration.
cheers
h
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Well I have to search the code for each specific setting & just see if it comes up in the search or not, and there are so many game settings... so I'll do it piecemeal if you don't mind 
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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Thanks, Wakim! I am already using WGI 6, but was just curious if this was in addition to that. You have done some fine work. It makes everything much more interesting.
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Max,
I am unaware of any way of changing spell maker costs without also changing enchanting costs. To my knowledge, any change in the cost of a spell from a spell maker will also mean that it is also changed at the enchanter. Consulting my scribbled notes, I believe the variable is fEffectCostMultiplier and I have it noted that it defaults to 0.5. So any global reduction in spell maker spell magicka costs will mean a corresponding reduction at the enchanter.
WGI does address some purchasable spell deficiencies by re-tooling certain whole unused or unusable lines (i.e. Burden, Resist, Sound-type lines (earwig, noise), Demoralize, etc.) to be more appealing spells. Hopefully that means you won't be buying a spell for an effect to take to a spellmaker, rather than because you'd like to buy the spell.
WGI also increases the base NPC Magicka by about 75% (fNPCBaseMagickaMult, default 2.00). Default is that they have 2x magicka, WGI increases that to 3.50. The rational for this is just that they use it so poorly they need more of it to squander. WGI also increases PC base magicka by 50% (from 1.0 x Int to 1.5 x Int).
The combination of the reduced casting costs of spells, the re-tooled spell lines (which NPCs can cast at you also - no more Burden 10pts for 10 secs.), and the increased PC and NPC magicka I think has improved the feel of the game for me. I tend to try to err on the conservative side, as it is generally easier to tweak something a bit more than to over compensate and then try to bring it back in line.
Also, any change can have an iterative effect that can cascade: viz. any change to spell costs affect which spells NPCs will choose to cast, as they tend to pick spells based heavily on magicka cost alone (higher being better, in their little minds), so if one reduced, say the cost of a fireball, then it can quickly turn out that NPCs just stop casting those spells.
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MSFD, you have no idea how much of a boon it is to know the unused variables. I played with iFlee for hours before I concluded I couldn't determine what it affected. It doesn't take much testing to figure out a variable that has an effect, but one which does nothing makes one keep testing, and testing, and testing, and even then the best one can say is that they don't know what it does, not that it does nothing.
It makes my mind rest easier to know that I didn't miss anything with iFlee.
Edited by wakim (10/22/02 05:05 PM)
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LD, if I understand correctly, you imply that nothing, so far, has any affect upon disarming traps? Not spell cost, not lock value, not fTrapCostMult? That any trap can be disarmed by anyone with any probe?
Edit: Just re-read you post(s), you are meaning at an fTrapCostMult of 0.00 all traps are the same. Don't mind me.
Edited by wakim (10/22/02 05:08 PM)
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Oh, believe me, I have a pretty good idea wakim! Just list ones you have questions about and I'll let you know -- but there are far too many for me to check every game setting -- 1460, in fact!
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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"Yes, but his skill in doing that was balanced since his speechcraft was zero..."
I keep discovering the effects of your modifications all the time Wakim. Recently I ventured into a mage's cave near tel branora (sp?) and was thoroughly decimated by a combination of drain strength and endurance, summon bonewalker and a large enchanted sword : )
I managed to get him on my fourth (and final) try--it was great fun!
I wonder if Bethesda has any plans to include some of the best 'purist' mods that have been released in the Tribunal CD, along with authors' credits. It would be a good way to publicize the value of the game's modular nature to most of the general public, who might not find this site.
Cheers,
Simon
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In reply to:
LD, if I understand correctly, you imply that nothing, so far, has any affect upon disarming traps? Not spell cost, not lock value, not fTrapCostMult? That any trap can be disarmed by anyone with any probe?
As the game stands, in 'vanilla-mode', trap difficulty is a fixed value.
Any trap can be disarmed by anyone with any probe (except perhaps a Bent Probe, didn't test with those), though the higher the security skill, the easier it is (a skill of 100 disarmed all traps on the first try) - That is, unless there is an unseen variable in my tests that I have not taken into account (such as different container or door types having invisible difficulty modifiers - which, again, seems unlikely). All my tests were performed with 50 Agility and 40 Luck, w/ a Security skill of 1 or 100, and a probe quality of 0.50.
fTrapCostMult DOES indeed have an effect, a very similar one to fPickLockMult with different dependent variables - I haven't tested many values with it yet because I'm unsure where to even begin.
Setting it to -1.000 seems to be about fine, but as I stated above, most spells (and traps, from the look of it) are 40 cost or under, and it takes a Security skill of only 21 to attempt to disarm a trap w/ a 39 spell cost - so I'm unsure of the effectiveness of this value without a better picture of in-game trap use.
Apologies for the jumbled and/or confusing nature of my above posts, my mental faculties are somewhat scattered this week.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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"...and was thoroughly decimated by a combination of drain strength and endurance, summon bonewalker and a large enchanted sword..."
It pleases me to no end that those usless drain spells are finally being put to good use! Now try blasting a few back at him and see how fast you can cripple an opponent with a well placed (and I hope a now magicka-efficient) drain. Drain Int works well against casters, Str against most others, and of course drain agility makes em flop onto the ground like a fish when you hit em. Unlike fireball that can face an opponent's health of 100+, drains are nearly always facing an opponent of less than 100 in a particular stat. Used wisely I hope that they can be efficacious in allowing for "combo" attacks, where you cripple em for 20 seconds and use something else to finish 'em off.
"I wonder if Bethesda has any plans to include some of the best 'purist' mods that have been released in the Tribunal CD, along with authors' credits. It would be a good way to publicize the value of the game's modular nature to most of the general public, who might not find this site."
No one has approached me with any offers, but I haven't brought the mail in yet today. Besides, the modular aspect of the game allows it to be tailored to specific audiences. As is readily appearant from a different, but recent, forum topic: some people enjoy very different aspects of the game. What you or I may find to be un-balancing another may enjoy. I am always surprised by the variety of approaches people take to Morrowind. I know someone who plays MW who would be aghast at any idea that it is "un-balanced" at all. 67th level and he still enjoys watching a Guar die with one swipe of his sword. Quot homines tot sententiae. Personally, I still enjoy just looking at the landscape with its regional and reasoned variation in flora, fauna, and architecture.
LD, no apologies are necessary, my mental faculties are more than a bit scrambled after wrestling with my PCI bus for a day. I was ready to call tech-support (a thing which anyone whom has ever dealt with anyone's tech-support knows is to be avoided) when I looked in the product manual and saw this: "Please also remember that for many of our technical support team English is a second language, you will have a better chance of getting a helpful answer if your question can be understood in the first place. Be sure to use very, simple, concise language that clearly states the problem, avoid rambling or flowery language..." Needless to say I couldn't call for support after reading that.
I eagerly await the results of your testing. In the meantime I'm going to return to a bit of TESCS dialogue wrestling. I wrote a little mod that I've been testing the last few days and it is really causing me much joy. However, when I wrote it I was forced to copy dialogue to get the dialogue entries to accept the modifications I wanted, and I deleted the old dialogues. Although it works perfectly, I understand that to be a modder's no-no. I am enjoying it so much I thought I'd see if I could re-write it to be more publically palatable so others could enjoy it too.
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oh no you don't. Hinting and other such underhanded tactics are anathema to me. Go right ahead and explain whatever it is that brought you joy, from what I've seen with WGI I will probably be similarly affected
Astro
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In reply to:
Go right ahead and explain whatever it is that brought you joy, from what I've seen with WGI I will probably be similarly affected
I second that. What's this dialogue wackiness of which you speak?
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Well, it's always bothered me that NPCs could be so capricious. They tell you one thing, then do another. NPC dialogues often run like this:
NPC: "No, I won't speak to your kind!"
Player: "Services"
NPC: "I'd be happy to tell you of the services available in Balmora..."
or
NPC: "Curse you Vampire, away!"
Player: "Latest Rumors"
NPC "Have you ever wondered, for all its proclaimations about slavery..."
or
Trebonius: "Why yes, you meet our pre-requisites to be Arch-Mage of Vvardenfall, since you have met our requirements of 35 intelligence and 35 willpower. Yes, I know those are below most character's starting stats, but times are tough here..."
or
Master Ayron: "I know you are a member of House Hlaalu and I'm House Telvanni, but let me show you some spells for sale, or maybe a nice robe, after all, that talk about us being rivals...Bah! Who believes it? So you freed a few slaves and we keep slaves, can't we all just get along?"
or
Seyda Neen Resident: "Get away from me, you have Corprus! That can't be cured! Get away!"
Player: "Latest Rumor"
Seyda Neen Resident: "Yes, Processus Vitellius has been missing for several days, perhaps you could help me find him?"
or
Balmora Caravaner: "You're a notorious outlaw, I want nothing to do with you!"
Player: "Travel"
Balmora Caravaner: "Yes, we make a special trip, just for you, same low price."
So I have a little mod that addresses these dialogue issues by not changing the dialogue, but by making NPCs react; live, die, fight, or flee, by their words. The problem is that some dialogue entries simply ignore the script placed in the "result" box. This is true with some default dialogue, where what is scripted to happen, doesn't.
I, originally, had deleted dialogues because I had had to copy these dialogues (often exactly), whereupon they would suddenly work. There were only a handfull of dialogues that TES wasn't executing the script for (that I have come across). I deleted the old entry, since I had made a new, often identical one above it. But, as has been pointed out, dialogue is sorted in a descending manner, so when a dialogue condition is met the search stops, so the old dialogues can remain in their original inactive state without deleting them, which modders object to. However, I don't know how to edit a mod: TESCS seems to like to save every change ever made to a plug-in, so I'm re-writing it. And with thanks to LD for pointing out the Excel export function, it is going fairly fast.
So soon, vampires can terrorize towns, criminals will garner appropriate disdain, lepers will become pariahs, the mentally infirm will not be wizards, and Poindexter will not be ruling as his Highness, Head Nerd in a guild of brawling fighters (all dependant on race, faction, and level of course). Oh, and I threw in 24 rumors for Dark Elves to occasionally recite when asked about "latest rumors" that reference the traditional festivals and holidays of Tamriel (dependant upon the proper month and day, of course).
But it I figured it would be good for a kick to see a townsperson, when confronted with a vampire, not only say, "Curse you vampire, get away from me!", but to actually run away. The settings were mostly there, but since a combination of NPCs not actually fleeing based upon their AIFlee, and some unexecuted dialogue script, it wasn't happening.
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Jesus, that sounds cool. All of this is so cool...
You know, I'm almost tempted to wander away for two months, come back and observe the state of Morrowind alterations and just be blown away.
I have a personal Laundry List of stuff for the game I'm waiting for or working on before I turtle up and play like crazy until my eyes bleed. This whole dialogue tune-up and other awesome things I keep encountering just make my list longer and longer. At this rate I should sit down and play MW all the way through sometime in 2005.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Absolutely amazing, Wakim! Yes, I'm sure many folks here would love to see this -- I know I would. I recall something Qwert said a short time ago, about how adding your game modifications make Morrowind feel brand new again. Those words come to mind for me, thinking about this NPC modification.
As for the changes TESCS makes, which you can't delete -- You do know about TESAME, right? (As a mod-maker, I couldn't live without it!) Just making sure. Of course, I think I heard someone say that it's common for folks to delete the wrong dialogs by accident.
In any case, I can't wait to see this when you finish the rework.
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I love the changes in the drains as well. Ordinators (who hate me... damn armor of theirs...) used to be relatively easy picking for me.. just run through their useless spells and attack them before they draw their deadly mace.
But now... no such thing as 'running through spells'... Oh no now if they hit you with that spell, you're on the ground begging for mercy... that is if you were awake! LOL I've died twice now by having ordinators beat on my unconcious body.
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"No don't play in the muddled, you'll get a dirty mind!" - Din
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nice nice nice nice
I can see one problem with it, tho: if it is so easy to make NPCs flee, won't that make thieving a bit easier? I mean, the placement of some NPCs is all that stands between you and aaaaaaall that armor and weapons...
Astro
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I just wanted to speak up and say I have had the same experiences, NPCs who I used to think were way to easy for a character to kill are suddenly not very easy to kill at all. I started up a new character a couple days back and let me say that a level 2 character of the thiefish/assassinish persuasion may want to wait a while before joining the Morag Tong, that first victim, who I used to feel sorry for, now soundly stomps me flat I went and spent a nice some of gold on the best fire shield, absorption, reflection, and health fortification potions I could find and managed to kill him, barely, on my fourth or sixth try. I'm loving this, can't wait to see your dialogue changes.
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hehe yep. Hell, I'm being trounced horribly by Foryn Gilnith!!!
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LDones
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Curate
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Reged: 10/09/02
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Ugh. Gonna be off the boards for a week. Moving.
Horatio - If you do whip up that report/utility, toss it at goons@hiredgoons.net. I'll test trapness over the next week if I see it.
Wakim and Horatio and MSFD and everybody else: You guys rock.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Wakim,
I believe you're right in that the enchantment cost decreases, but as is it's rather difficult to enchant anything useful in the game without loading a third-player plugin - especially with respect to the almost-useless pieces of armor, like pauldrons and greaves. The logic behind this baffles me but there you have it.
So I actually don't see this as a problem. Reduce the cost of making spells until they are roughly the same as casting spells and this is goodness for the player; if it also reduces enchantment costs somewhat then enchanting actually becomes useful (note: I don't use 'cheat' enchantments like Uzi fireballs or whatnot, so I can't address any of these issues).
For the NPCs the fix would be something along the lines of what you've done right now: create a class of NPC spells and replace what the NPCs currently have. I've done a bit of this in testing (e.g., fireball 50-50, area 50) and lord, does it change the effectiveness of NPC mages. Try dodging *that* spell.
It would be a massive undertaking to go about checking every NPC, erasing useless spells, and adding in NPC-only spells. But I actually don't see any other way to *really* fix the NPC problem with magic other than doing this. And this is, in fact, a step in my current project to revamp the game from the ground up (right now I'm tweaking stats).
The only problem I see with the current Spellmaker mod is that while it's highly accurate for certain classes of spells (Fire, etc.) it's highly inaccurate for certain other classes (Restore, etc.). But the combination of that mod with yours seems to me to be the best of both worlds, the side effect being that enchantment is also more useful.
Max
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By the Gods Wakim, you never fail to impress in your game-improvements! The NPC response idea is inspired and I can't wait to see this joy for myself. Though I agree that the beauty of Morrowind is in its adaptability to diverse playing styles, I am happy and grateful for your sound insights of the game mechanics and the wonderful mods they produce.
I'll keep playing and relating interesting findings--I wish I had more time to play, there never seems to be enough time to do all you want. Also, good luck with your hardware wrestling--I've had my share which is why I now use a Macintosh for work, though the PC is obviously needed for Morrowind!
Cheers,
Simon
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wakim
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Adept
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Reged: 10/02/02
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I'm glad that the spell changes are working out well for everyone, and providing fresh challenges, and I hope fresh tactics to overcome those challenges.
LD: you can't wander away for two months for trap reform will wait for that two months also. While you're moving, be wary of traps on those boxes. Keep your probe handy.
Fox: I have heard of TESAME, but I haven't downloaded it. I check my mods by hand and double check with the details tab. Since I am not a programer I tend to trust my own eyes (which I know how they work) instead of a program (which I may not know how it works). I'm just a skeptical guy.
Astro: Fleeing NPCs really doesn't make thieving easier. Most NPCs that are set to run from combat require combat to be initiated first, so you now have the crime of attacking someone instead of the crime of theft. Crime is crime. If you are refering to NPCs fleeing from players with corprus and vampirism and bounties; NPCs fleeing doesn't negate their ability to become "alarmed" over theft. If you wish to use your festering sores as a way to drive shopkeepers far away from their wares, you can. I don't see anything wrong with that. The NPCs who will flee from the outcast and the contagious are based upon race, level, disposition, occupation, and faction. You may be able to to grab something by clever use of your infirmities to frighten others. I kinda think that is a good thing (it encourages diversity of tactics and rewards clever play styles), but I don't think the advantage will outweigh the disadvantages. Play with it and let me know what you think. If there is some side-effects from these changes I didn't foresee I'll see about correcting it.
SG: a Mac? You N'wah!
Max: I don't understand: "Reduce the cost of making spells until they are roughly the same as casting spells..." Do you mean the price in gold, or the casting cost in magicka?
About enchanting: It would be nice if magic effect could have seperate fields for their spell "base cost" (the number that determines the magicka requirement for casting or the enchantment value required to place in an item) so that they could have different values depending upon their use. To explain by example; a magic effect such as reflect could be an incredibly useful spell, but it has a base cost set very high to prevent someone from enchanting all their armor and clothes with variable levels of reflect which could then sum to exceed 100% (and hence make the person immune to spells). Having just one base cost for a magic effect means that spell absorption, which could be a useful spell to cast, isn't; only so as to prevent enchanting abuses. If you peruse the message boards you will see the enchanting abuses that lead to invincible characters, such as 100% chameleon and so forth.
As for replacing useless NPC spells, any NPC marked as "auto-calc" stats will choose their own spells, so by introducing those NPC_xxxxx spell lines I used the games existing AI to hand them out, without having to go through and change every NPC by hand. Some NPCs I have hand modified (not a released mod), such as those that guard artifacts. But it can quickly become overwhelming to do this and test every one. Often NPCs will not emply the spells you think they should be casting, and the result can be a weaker opponent, rather than a stronger one.
Area effect spells I try not to go overboard on, except on hand placed NPCs. There is always a risk of a 50 foot fireball wiping out an entire guild or shop if you inadvertantly anger the wrong NPC. But yeah, NPC spells are too easy to dodge. They do try and predict your motion, but they aren't great at it.
Where can I find the spellmaker mod? I'd like to have a gander at it.
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Wakim:
I'm referring to the magicka cost, not the gold cost. The gold cost is fairly irrelevant since gold is so easy to acquire in the game.
As for enchantment I have no easy answer since it's so easy to cheat in Morrowind. Most enchantments with the current system are useless; others are game-breaking. There is no happy medium, nor can there be one without a major overhaul of the system. My hope is that there's a way to cobble together just such an overhaul through kludgy setting alterations and scripting.
Spellmaker can be found at: http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods.asp
The author is someone named Blackmoon. He released the beta but never anything after that.
Max
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Horatio
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Disciple
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Reged: 06/04/02
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here's the trap distribution ( # of occurences || spell name ):
TOTAL TRAPS: 457
TOTAL TYPES: 82
48 || trap_shock00
42 || trap_fire00
38 || trap_frost00
35 || trap_health00
35 || trap_poison00
21 || trap_paralyze00
17 || potent poison
15 || deadly poison
15 || trap_silence00
11 || five fingers of pain
9 || blind
8 || burning touch
7 || ironhand
7 || armor eater
6 || shockbite
6 || wounding touch
6 || shocking touch
5 || curse fatigue
4 || thunder fist
4 || exhausting touch
4 || paralysis
4 || spider touch
4 || dread curse: health
4 || black hand
4 || fire bite
4 || sting
4 || dread curse: strength
4 || SP_HVaultTrap
3 || misfortunate touch
3 || curse health
3 || curse strength
3 || flay spirit
3 || magicka leech
3 || hornhand
2 || stormhand
2 || curse intelligence
2 || woe
2 || burden touch
2 || touchdrain security
2 || curse agility
2 || sp_glyphofweakness
2 || clumsy touch
2 || spite touch
2 || weapon eater
2 || fuddle
2 || dread curse: fatigue
2 || Ghost Curse
2 || freezing touch
2 || firefist
2 || dread curse: speed
2 || blood sacrifice
2 || heartbite
2 || dread curse: intelligence
2 || crushing burden touch
1 || drain blood
1 || tempting touch
1 || weakening touch
1 || curse luck
1 || flame
1 || touchdrain mercantile
1 || hand of decay
1 || alit bite
1 || heavy burden touch
1 || dread curse: willpower
1 || alad's caliginy
1 || viper
1 || frostbite
1 || strength leech
1 || hand of sleep
1 || poisonous touch
1 || burden of sin
1 || gash spirit
1 || touchdrain block
1 || doze
1 || soul trap
1 || cruel noise
1 || curse willpower
1 || spirit knife
1 || curse speed
1 || noise
1 || soulpinch
1 || curse spell points
really i think only a few of these are interesting traps (the poison and damage attribute ones are ok). stuff like trap_silence00 (silence for 30 secs) are pretty useless unless you're a mage opening a chest in the middle of a fight. silence for 3600 secs would be far more interesting.
anyway i'm gonna leave it up to ldones to do the trap work.
cheers
h
Edited by Horatio (10/23/02 11:53 PM)
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Wakim (and others):
I went over your changes to magic effects and tweaked them, with reasoning below. I'm looking for anyone who's interested in the topic to attack my changes and point out potential flaws, e.g., why Wakim's values are more useful than my own. If my values are different then Wakim's are listed to the right in parentheses.
Absorb Attribute: From 2.00 to 2.00 (1.35)
Absorb Fatigue: From 4.00 to 0.50 (2.75)
Absorb Health: From 8.00 to 5.00 (8.00)
Absorb Magicka: From 8.00 to 1.00 (8.00)
Absorb Skill: From 2.00 to 1.00 (2.00)
Almsivi Intervention: From 150.00 to 200.00 (150.00)
Blind: From 1.00 to 0.50 (0.54)
Bound Battle Axe: From 2.00 to 4.00 (4.50)
Bound Boots: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Cuirass: From 2.00 to 3.00 (3.50)
Bound Dagger: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Gloves: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Helm: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Longbow: From 2.00 to 4.00
Bound Longsword: From 2.00 to 4.00 (4.50)
Bound Mace: From 2.00 to 4.00 (4.50)
Bound Shield: From 2.00 to 4.00 (3.00)
Bound Spear: From 2.00 to 4.00 (4.50)
Burden: From 1.00 to 0.10
Calm Creature: From 1.00 to 3.50
Calm Humanoid: From 1.00 to 3.50
Chameleon: From 1.00 to 1.00
Charm: From 5.00 to 2.50 (5.00)
Command Creature: From 15.00 to 5.00 (6.00)
Command Humanoid: From 15.00 to 5.00 (7.50)
Corpus: From 2500.00 to 2500.00
Cure Blight Disease: From 2000.00 to 2000.00
Cure Common Disease: From 300.00 to 500.00 (300.00)
Cure Corpus Disease: From 2500.00 to 2500.00
Cure Paralyzation: From 100.00 to 100.00
Cure Poison: From 100.00 to 250.00 (100.00)
Damage Attribute: From 8.00 to 8.00 (9.25)
Damage Fatigue: From 4.00 to 2.00
Damage Health: From 8.00 to 10.00 (6.00)
Damage Magicka: From 8.00 to 4.00 (2.50)
Damage Skill: From 8.00 to 4.00
Demoralize Creature: From 1.00 to 0.50 (0.65)
Demoralize Humanoid: From 1.00 to 0.75
Detect Animal: From 0.75 to 0.25 (0.35)
Detect Enchantment: From 1.00 to 0.50
Detect Key: From 1.00 to 0.50
Disintegrate Armor: From 6.00 to 1.00
Disintegrate Weapon: From 6.00 to 1.50
Dispel: From 5.00 to 2.50 (5.00)
Divine Intervention: From 150.00 to 200.00 (150.00)
Drain Attribute: From 1.00 to 0.50 (0.36)
Drain Fatigue: From 2.00 to 0.10 (0.13)
Drain Health: From 4.00 to 2.00 (3.25)
Drain Magicka: From 4.00 to 0.25
Drain Skill: From 1.00 to 0.25 (0.75)
Feather: From 1.00 to 0.10 (0.17)
Fire Damage: From 5.00 to 4.00 (5.00)
Fire Shield: From 3.00 to 1.00
Fortify Attack: From 1.00 to 1.00
Fortify Attribute: From 1.00 to 1.00
Fortify Fatigue: From 0.50 to 0.25 (0.50)
Fortify Health: From 1.00 to 1.00
Fortify Magicka: From 1.00 to 1.00
Fortify Max Magicka: From 4.00 to 4.00
Fortify Skill: From 1.00 to 1.00
Frenzy Creature: From 1.00 to 2.25
Frenzy Humanoid: From 1.00 to 3.50
Frost Damage: From 5.00 to 4.00 (5.00)
Frost Shield: From 3.00 to 1.00
Invisibility: From 20.00 to 20.00
Jump: From 3.00 to 2.00
Levitate: From 3.00 to 8.00 (3.00)
Light: From 0.20 to 0.10 (0.20)
Lightning Shield: From 3.00 to 1.00
Lock: From 2.00 to 2.00
Mark: From 350.00 to 400.00 (350.00)
Night Eye: From 0.20 to 0.20
Open: From 6.00 to 10.00 (9.75)
Paralyze: From 40.00 to 40.00
Poison: From 9.00 to 5.00 (5.50)
Rally Creature: From 0.20 to 0.20
Rally Humanoid: From 0.20 to 0.20
Recall: From 350.00 to 400.00 (350.00)
Reflect: From 10.00 to 4.00
Remove Curse: From 15.00 to 15.00
Resist Blight Disease: From 5.00 to 0.50 (2.00)
Resist Common Disease: From 2.00 to 0.25
Resist Corpus Disease: From 5.00 to 5.00
Resist Fire: From 2.00 to 0.50 (0.66)
Resist Frost: From 2.00 to 0.50 (0.66)
Resist Magicka: From 2.00 to 1.50 (1.25)
Resist Normal Weapons: From 5.00 to 5.00
Resist Paralysis: From 0.20 to 0.50 (2.00)
Resist Poison: From 2.00 to 0.50 (0.66)
Resist Shock: From 2.00 to 0.50 (0.66)
Restore Attribute: From 1.00 to 1.00
Restore Fatigue: From 1.00 to 0.25 (1.00)
Restore Health: From 5.00 to 5.00
Restore Magicka: From 5.00 to 5.00
Restore Skill: From 1.00 to 1.00
Sanctuary: From 1.00 to 0.75 (1.00)
Shield: From 2.00 to 0.50 (0.80)
Shock Damage: From 7.00 to 5.00 (5.75)
Silence: From 40.00 to 50.00 (35.00)
SlowFall: From 3.00 to 1.00 (2.00)
Soultrap: From 2.00 to 5.00 (2.00)
Sound: From 3.00 to 1.00 (0.60)
Spell Absorption: From 10.00 to 7.50 (7.30)
Stunted Magicka: From 1.00 to 1.00
Summon
- Ancestral Ghost: From 7.00 to 5.00
- Skeletal Minion: From 13.00 to 10.00
- Scamp: From 12.00 to 10.00
- Bonewalker: From 13.00 to 15.00
- Greater Bonewalker: From 15.00 to 20.00
- Bonelord: From 25.00 to 20.00
- Clannfear: From 22.00 to 25.00
- Flame Atronach: From 23.00 to 25.00
- Frost Atronach: From 27.00 to 30.00
- Dremora: From 28.00 to 30.00
- Hunger: From 29.00 to 30.00
- Daedroth: From 32.00 to 35.00
- Storm Atronach: From 38.00 to 35.00
- Winged Twilight: From 52.00 to 40.00
- Golden Saint: From 55.00 to 50.00
Sun Damage: From 1.00 to 1.00
Swift Swim: From 2.00 to 0.25 (0.50)
Telekinesis: From 1.00 to 2.50 (1.00)
Turn Undead: From 0.20 to 0.20
Vampirism: From 5.00 to 5.00
Water Breathing: From 3.00 to 2.00 (3.00)
Water Walking: From 3.00 to 4.00 (3.00)
Weakness to Blight: From 4.00 to 2.00 (3.00)
Weakness to Common: From 2.00 to 1.00 (1.50)
Weakness to Corpus: From 4.00 to 4.00
Weakness to Fire: From 2.00 to 1.00 (1.50)
Weakness to Frost: From 2.00 to 1.00 (1.50)
Weakness to Magicka: From 2.00 to 2.00
Weakness to Weapons: From 2.00 to 2.00
Weakness to Poison: From 2.00 to 1.00 (1.50)
Weakness to Shock: From 2.00 to 1.00 (1.50)
Absorb Fatigue: fatigue values tend to be large in the game, so these spells have to be cheap to be at all effective.
Absorb Magicka: if the value is returned to the target at the end of the spell, then I assume that the full value is subtracted from the caster's pool. I've never used this spell but if that's the case then it's of limited value since if you don't kill your enemy then he'll suddenly have all of his magicka back while you'll be tapped out when the expires.
The various teleportation spells: personal preference, I think it's too easy to teleport about once you get the spells, especially as a quick escape from danger. I think I'll probably set these even higher.
Charm: too expensive to cast for it's limited duration and usefulness, lowered the cost so you could use it in lieu of Speechcraft when pumping sources for information.
Calm: I'm going to remove these spells entirely from my game. They're cheats.
Cure Poison: thought this should be closer to curing a disease.
Damage Health: since this is the hardest of the damage-causing spells to resist I thought it should also be the most expensive. It makes elemental/poison spells the primary choice.
Dispel: lowered cost to make it more useful, especially in combat. As is it's rarely used in a fight.
Drain Health: this is a 'cheap kill' spell. I'm definitely removing it from my game. The cost is meaningless except in comparison to absorb/damage.
Elemental damage spells: reduced cost slightly to make for less costly, more powerful NPC spells, especially since characters can dodge slow missiles relatively effortlessly.
Levitate: another too-cheap spell which allows the average character to easily escape danger. Jacked up the price so that mages can cast it and still have spell points left over, but non-mages may find it of limited usefulness (as it should be).
Light: Night Eye is more useful than light, so cut the cost of light to half that of Night Eye. It should now be the preference for low-magicka characters in dark environments.
Resist Blight Disease: as it stands you have no idea if a creature is blighted or not until it's on top of you, which makes this spell too expensive without modification.
Resist Paralysis: with the exception of the scrib you have no idea if an enemy is using paralyzing weapons until they attack. Lowering the cost makes it somewhat more worthwhile to cast when entering combat if you suspect such weapons might be used.
Silence: this spell is a mage-killer, hence the increased cost.
Jump/Slowfall: an attempt to make these more cost effective than levitating.
Soul trap: I think this spell is too easy to cast for long periods of time. Really, only mage characters should be able to soul trap regularly.
Sound: another mage-killer at high values.
Various Summons: I changed the costs slightly to reflect my perceived value of those creatures in combat. Some have the same summons cost because they seem to me to be of equal value depending on what kind of creature you're up against. That is, if fighting a choose x, if fighting b choose y.
Swift swim: of limited value, overly expensive
Telekinesis: too cheap, makes Security valueless when it comes to traps.
Water breathing: useful only in limited circumstances.
Water walking: too easy to cast for long periods of time, makes swift swim valueless in most circumstances (e.g., traveling between islands).
Various Weakness spells: really only useful in combination with other spells, lowered the cost so that the weakness could reasonably be combined with the effect.
And a final note: frankly, I think summoning spells are too powerful given that you generally only fight one opponent at a time. It's too bad that scripts can't be attached to spells so that, for example, a mage would have to 'beat' his summoned creature in a willpower battle before that creature would fight for him.
Critical comments most welcome.
Max
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wakim
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Adept
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This is quite a bit to reply to. I almost don't know where to begin. First, let me thank you for taking the time to look at the spell costs and to respond with criticism. Allow me to start alphabetically.
"Absorb Fatigue: fatigue values tend to be large in the game, so these spells have to be cheap to be at all effective." I agree, this is also true because fatigue damage does not kill an opponent and fatigue is regained every second. Fatigue spells are useful as deabilitators. A fatigue damaged opponent will not successfully cast spells or successfully make a melee attack. A very useful spell line, when magicka appropriate. However:
"...if the value is returned to the target at the end of the spell...", absorb spells do not work like this. An absorb spell is like a damage spell and a heal spell combined (sometimes, note: attributes can exceed their maximum value (so it is a fortify spell then), health and fatigue do not exceed base maximums). Absorb spells must be balanced against the casting cost of casting a damage spell on the enemy and a restore spell on yourself (or drain and fortify, as the case may be). Also, Absorb Magicka isn't in the game as a player usable spell. So (with WGI values in parenthesis):
Absorb Attribute: From 2.00 to 2.00 (1.35) - I can't comment on this one at the moment, my notes imply it acts as a drain spell, in which case it should be balanced against drain spells in cost.
Absorb Fatigue: From 4.00 to 0.50 (2.75) - you have restore fatigue at a cost of 0.25 and damage fatigue at 2.00. Again, this very low value for absorb fatigue negates the efficacy of those two spells, which this is a combination of.
Absorb Health: From 8.00 to 5.00 (8.00) - reducing this to 5.00 makes restore health, at value 5.00 a useless spell to cast, since this will damage and restore health all in one. Restore health is one of my baseline spells, which I use to measure other spells against.
Absorb Magicka: From 8.00 to 1.00 (8.00) - not in game as a player castable spell, number should therefore be balanced for enchanted items which use this effect. Or just ignored, really makes no difference.
Almsivi Intervention: From 150.00 to 200.00 (150.00) - I didn't play with these values. Is it too easy to escape from danger? Hard to say. I tend to use this spell for travel, and not as an escape, since I would then have a long walk ahead of me to get back to whatever I needed to escape from and now wanted to try again to successfully over come.
Blind: From 1.00 to 0.50 (0.54) - nothing to argue about here.
Bound Battle Axe: From 2.00 to 4.00 (4.50)
Bound Boots: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Cuirass: From 2.00 to 3.00 (3.50)
Bound Dagger: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Gloves: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Helm: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Longbow: From 2.00 to 4.00
Bound Longsword: From 2.00 to 4.00 (4.50)
Bound Mace: From 2.00 to 4.00 (4.50)
Bound Shield: From 2.00 to 4.00 (3.00)
Bound Spear: From 2.00 to 4.00 (4.50) - bound cuirass at slightly higher that other bound armors? I can see that. They are all still very low for their usefulness, and cuirass is the most useful piece (although gloves are very good too). The bound weapons I would say you and I are still undervaluing. These are damn damaging spells. A bound battle axe does about 1-80 pts per hit, hitting once per second.
"Charm: too expensive to cast for it's limited duration and usefulness, lowered the cost so you could use it in lieu of Speechcraft when pumping sources for information". Charm only has to have a duration of 1 second to be useful, since the NPC interaction menu stops time. Consider this spell's casting cost when cast at a 1 or 2 second duration at a useable magnitude when evaluating it.
"Calm: I'm going to remove these spells entirely from my game. They're cheats." - Yes, they are currently broken. I upped the magicka cost on them, but no matter what is done, they are still broken. Your choice to exploit them or not, no casting cost is gonna change that. It is a fair choice to remove them from the game.
Command Creature: From 15.00 to 5.00 (6.00)
Command Humanoid: From 15.00 to 5.00 (7.50) - I would argue that command humanoid is more useful since it works as a charm (for disposition), a calm (for melee), and a summons (NPC fights for you). Against a creature, instead of a humanoid, the charm component is not pertinent. This should be balanced against the cost of summoning an appropriate creature of that level vs. what you can command of equal level, bearing in mind that it also works as a charm spell for disposition. My values may still be a touch high, but I hadn't lowered them further barring more testing.
Cure Common Disease: From 300.00 to 500.00 (300.00) - common diseases are just nuisances. At 300.00 it costs 15 points to cure 'em: within the realm of a non-magic specialized character to cast. At value 500.00 it costs 25. Not much difference, really.
Cure Poison: From 100.00 to 250.00 (100.00) - Well, this spell doesn't do what it should do. The spell descriptions imply that poison cannot be dispelled, only cured. But, it can be dispelled, so this spell I consider useless. I'd have to look at it more to figure out the appropriate use for it.
Damage Attribute: From 8.00 to 8.00 (9.25) - If anything, I am too low on this value, not too high. Damage Strength at magnitude 10 for 10 seconds will leave any opponent unable to move. Permanantly. It costs 69 magicka to do this. Paralysis costs only 60 points to hold an opponent for 20 seconds.
Damage Health: From 8.00 to 10.00 (6.00) - Yes, this is the hardest to resist, which is why I have it priced as the highest damage spell. However, Absorb Health is just as hard to resist, and costs 8.00 magicka to cast and acts as a restore health spell, too. Also, absorb health cannot be reflected back at the caster (it can, but it does no harm, as you absorb your own health). Also, when balancing damaging spells, consider their usefulness against melee weapons. Don't make it preferable to use a daedric (or bound) longsword over a spell. They should, ideally, be equal.
Damage Magicka: From 8.00 to 4.00 (2.50) - This is balanced against spells like sound and silence and damage/drain attribute, since both prevent casting. Damage Magicka at magnitude 25 for 10 seconds will drain about any caster's magicka pool: this costs 47 magicka at base cost 2.50 - less than paralyzation, which also prevents spell casting, and also prevents everything else. I could be argued even lower on this cost, but I want to test more before doing so.
Demoralize Creature: From 1.00 to 0.50 (0.65) - I may agree, I stopped at 0.65 to do more testing. Demoralize currently can cause strange things. Sometimes whole cells become immune to this spell; viz. you cast this once and a creature runs, when it wears off every creature in the current cell becomes immune to demoralize affects. Buggy coding causes great difficulty in testing this one.
Detect Animal: From 0.75 to 0.25 (0.35) - Maybe, I don't know why anyone would use this spell, you can hear creatures for miles. Not sure the application for this.
Dispel: From 5.00 to 2.50 (5.00) - This spell is very very very very useful at its current cost of 5.00. I would never lower this cost. Any spell effect on you (except diseases) is instantly eliminated. Most high damage spells have a damage over time component, dispel prevents that. 5.00 is just right for this one, balanced against restore health at 5.00. Costing about 60 magicka to cast, this really prevents all damage that has a duration over 1 second.
Drain Attribute: From 1.00 to 0.50 (0.36) - Drains are temporary, victim recovers quickly. Drain attribute should be balanced against paralysis. Draining 100 strength for 20 seconds costs 54 (at 0.36), paralysis costs 60 for 20 seconds.
Drain Fatigue: From 2.00 to 0.10 (0.13) - No real difference.
Drain Health: From 4.00 to 2.00 (3.25) - My note to myself next to 3.25 for this spell reads as this: "Do Not Lower!". The reason is that this is the most damaging way to deal up to 100 damage. Try this spell at magnitude 100, duration 1 second and see the results on cliff racers. This spell should not be used at any greater duration than 1 second. Balance it appropriately against a character with a daedric weapon doing average 80 damage in two seconds at no magicka cost. A great nuisance (read cliffracer) handler. Exactly zero use against high hit point creatures, maybe as a finisher.
And I'm only at "D" so far....
Drain Skill: From 1.00 to 0.25 (0.75) - I could be persuaded to lower this one more. I would tend towards 0.38 as the next step.
Feather: From 1.00 to 0.10 (0.17) - At values less than 0.20 this spell is useful. Why go to 0.10?
Fire Damage: From 5.00 to 4.00 (5.00) This is my baseline spell, against which all other damage spells are compared. I would be interested in your rational for lowering the cost of it. Note; that at your value of 4.00, against a creature with 50% fire resistance, this is still more magicka efficient to cast than damage health at your value of 10.00. See Frost Damage also.
Fortify Fatigue: From 0.50 to 0.25 (0.50) - I can't think of the application for this, so I left it be.
Frost Damage: From 5.00 to 4.00 (5.00) - Same question as fire damage, this is my baseline spell. Why lower this? Is it only for NPCs? And if so, then why not give them more magicka if you want NPC casters to nuke more, rather than change a baseline player spell for magicial damage.
Levitate: From 3.00 to 8.00 (3.00) - Well, this is really a question of exploitatory use versus normal use. The magicka cost for 20 seconds at magnitude 10 is 30 magicka. A good cost for a utility spell. If you are pricing it to avoid exploitation for its AI defeating characteristics, then you are right. But if I am going to exploit this it is much easier to grab a Wizard's Staff, so pricing to prevent exploitation doesn't make a difference here. Price it for utility and leave it to the player to choose not to exploit.
Light: From 0.20 to 0.10 (0.20) - I'd have to experiment more, you make a good point.
Open: From 6.00 to 10.00 (9.75) - umm..I can't argue about a 2.5% difference.
Poison: From 9.00 to 5.00 (5.50) - See Fire and Frost damage.
Resist Blight Disease: From 5.00 to 0.50 (2.00) - It costs 100 to cure a blight disease, 200 to resist it... hmmm, 2.00 is probably still too high.
Resist Fire: From 2.00 to 0.50 (0.66)
Resist Frost: From 2.00 to 0.50 (0.66)
Resist Magicka: From 2.00 to 1.50 (1.25)
Resist Normal Weapons: From 5.00 to 5.00
Resist Paralysis: From 0.20 to 0.50 (2.00)
Resist Poison: From 2.00 to 0.50 (0.66)
Resist Shock: From 2.00 to 0.50 (0.66) - 0.66 or 0.50, I don't know. I have dropped these spells four times (after testing), down to a quarter of their previous values, and started to get conservative in my changes. Maybe further is better. I disagree in resist paralysis. Paralysis is one of the few spell attacks that a high level character fears. I didn't want to give the shop away here, so to speak.
Restore Fatigue: From 1.00 to 0.25 (1.00) - at 1.00 it only costs 25 magicka to restore 500 fatigue. Dropping it further makes it almost free.
Sanctuary: From 1.00 to 0.75 (1.00) - After some testing, I still don't know what this spell does. However, I feel about invulnerable with sanctuary 50 at a magicka cost of 50 points for 20 seconds. I don't think it needs to be lowered to encourage its use.
Shield: From 2.00 to 0.50 (0.80) - Maybe, need to test more. Alot of the shield type spells fall into the category that would require statistical testing to evaluate the effectiveness - hence I got conservative in the changes.
Shock Damage: From 7.00 to 5.00 (5.75) - See Fire/Frost damage comments
Silence: From 40.00 to 50.00 (35.00) - paralyze costs 60 magicka for 20 seconds, Silence at 35.00 costs 53 points for 20 seconds. Which is better? I would argue that silence could be dropped slightly more.
SlowFall: From 3.00 to 1.00 (2.00) - Maybe.
Soultrap: From 2.00 to 5.00 (2.00) - Good point. I'll look at the casting costs of different types of traps.
Sound: From 3.00 to 1.00 (0.60) - Costs (at 0.60) 90 points for 20 seconds. This is a tricky one. Mages will still try to cast when sounded (under the influence of sound), thus wasting their magicka. This is better than silence, where they stop trying to cast and preserve their magicka. But, it is still more costly than paralyze. I can see lowering this, but that means re-tweaking drains, silence, damage magicka, etc. A large iterative process to re-balance all these. Also, sound can be very effective at levels lower than 100, so Sound 50 for 20 seconds only costs 45 magicka. 0.60 I am comfortable with, but I could see slightly lower.
Summon
- Ancestral Ghost: From 7.00 to 5.00
- Skeletal Minion: From 13.00 to 10.00
- Scamp: From 12.00 to 10.00
- Bonewalker: From 13.00 to 15.00
- Greater Bonewalker: From 15.00 to 20.00
- Bonelord: From 25.00 to 20.00
- Clannfear: From 22.00 to 25.00
- Flame Atronach: From 23.00 to 25.00
- Frost Atronach: From 27.00 to 30.00
- Dremora: From 28.00 to 30.00
- Hunger: From 29.00 to 30.00
- Daedroth: From 32.00 to 35.00
- Storm Atronach: From 38.00 to 35.00
- Winged Twilight: From 52.00 to 40.00
- Golden Saint: From 55.00 to 50.00 - well..... I'd have to re-look at these to speak on them.
Swift Swim: From 2.00 to 0.25 (0.50) - maybe, you didn't think putting it at 1/4 of its original value went far enough?
Telekinesis: From 1.00 to 2.50 (1.00) - maybe, again, I'd have to re-evaluate the range, duration, use sorta thing. I haven't really played with this too much, since a bent probe will disarm any trap at skill level 1. Really waiting on LD to do more trap research to look at this.
Water Breathing: From 3.00 to 2.00 (3.00)
Water Walking: From 3.00 to 4.00 (3.00) - Water breating I thought was a good cost for its duration at 3.00. great utility spell, not replacable with anyother spell when diving. Walking, well, maybe, again, I need to look at it again to speak on it.
Weakness to Blight: From 4.00 to 2.00 (3.00)
Weakness to Common: From 2.00 to 1.00 (1.50)
Weakness to Corpus: From 4.00 to 4.00
Weakness to Fire: From 2.00 to 1.00 (1.50)
Weakness to Frost: From 2.00 to 1.00 (1.50)
Weakness to Magicka: From 2.00 to 2.00
Weakness to Weapons: From 2.00 to 2.00
Weakness to Poison: From 2.00 to 1.00 (1.50)
Weakness to Shock: From 2.00 to 1.00 (1.50) - at value 1.50 I was balancing the spell's ability to increase the damage of the parent spell. At 2.00 it was never useful to cast weakness. At 1.50 it became a situationally useful spell. I would be worried that at 1.00 it would always be better to cast weakness before casting an elemental spell.
Okay. End of list! Just when I thought it was safe to play Morrowind again you send me back to the Construction Set. Let me add this: please consider my comments in the spirit of engendering dialogue, devil's advocate and all that.
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Thanks for the quick response. I was specifically hoping for critical comments so I could find flaws in my logic. My testing has been limited so far, but I've added more observations today based upon some problems I've run into trying out the spells.
The Absorb line: I think this line is broken. At the very least it's hard to balance. The spells seem to veer wildly from useless to overpowering. My thought at the moment is simply to remove them altogether.
Bound items: the weapons are too low-cost, I think. I'm also not certain at this point whether NPCs actually use them as I've never seen one cast the spell. I think this is because the cost is so low in comparison to other spells, although immensely useful for mages who otherwise lack fighting skills.
Damage attributes: I agree. The values are too low. I changed the base to 12.00.
Damage health: I reset this 8.00, which is twice the cost of fire to counter the lack of resistance. In game I used to enchant my weapons with this spell rather than elemental spells because so very few creatures could resist it.
Dispel: again agree here. I changed it back this morning.
Drain Attribute: changed that to .25 this morning. It now seems to be somewhat useful.
Drain Health: I think I indicated earlier I put in a point cost just for reference to the whole drain/absorb/damage progression. This spell type no longer exists in my game because, like Calm, it's a cheat.
Drain Skill: I actually removed this series as well. The effect is either too specific (and other spells are better in combat), or far too effective.
Feather: I set this to 1/10th the cost of boosting Strength. I never used Feather because temporarily boosting strength was so easy. With this low cost it's now possible for a non-mage character to cast the spell for an effective period of time.
Jump/Slowfall: with the current ease of casting Levitation these spells fall by the wayside. In upping Levitation I lowered these two to make them more attractive to non-mage characters (e.g., to reach otherwise unreachable heights, like those damned mushroom towers).
Elemental changes: I don't really see them as that big; I use 4.00 for a baseline for other effects while you use 5.00. And yep, they're to make NPCs slightly more effective *without* boosting spell points beyond what a player could achieve. I'm trying to make NPCs more deadly without using too many NPC-only hacks, like raising spell points past normal values.
Resist Disease (Common and Blight): in testing I still found the spells to be useless since you didn't know if the creature attacking you was diseased until it was already up close and personal. I lowered the values yet again, this time to 0.25 for Blight and 0.10 for Common (which are the only values I'd consider casting these prior to combat). At these values getting a 100 resist to blight for 30 seconds still costs 38 magicka - and I'd still prefer just to enchant an amulet with the same effect and forget about casting altogether.
Resist Paralysis: the only reason I lowered the value is because, like disease, you have no idea if an opponent is using a paralyzing weapon until he actually starts beating you with it. To be effective you have to cast it before he closes - and there are other spells that could be considerably more useful (e.g., demonic armor and axe). This is another spell I'd just rather enchant an item with and forget about.
Sanctuary and Shield: both seem somewhat effective, although not as effective as I thought they'd be. The algorithm is either screwy or I'm getting some odd effects.
Silence: I never compared this to paralyze - good point. Although I'm inclined to remove this spell as well and let Paralyze take its place. Frankly, mages have a tough enough time without having to deal with two spells specifically aimed at their spell-casting abilities (Silence and Sound). The fact that a non-mage could get an item enchanted with these and then go to town also makes me leery of keeping them.
Swift Swim: nope, I didn't think 1/4 of the value was enough. The spell is extremely situational; there are very few areas you actually need to swim through at any speed (especially when you can levitate or water walk or take a boat....). It wasn't the spell but the fact that there are so many alternatives of broader value. Perhaps now a non-mage character might actually be inclined to swim rather than water-walk or levitate.
Telekinesis: without the changes even non-mage characters can stand back and open trapped items with impunity. Kinda defeats the purpose of getting up close and personal. But then, the only time I've ever 'accidentally' set off a trap is when I clicked on a container without bothering to see if a trap was present, so whether this spell is useful or not is unclear. If there's no penalty for disarm failure then the spell is moot so long as you're packing enough probes.
Water breathing: this spell is very useful and generally one of the first things I permanently enchant. I wanted to lower the cost so that non-mage characters would be more inclined to cast it when needed rather than enchant a ring and just swap it out when the situation required it.
Water walking: to encourage non-mages to swim, combined with swift-swim.
Weakness to X: at 1.00 it is better to cast the weakness before casting the element. Assuming that you have the time to do so before the enemy closes, of course, and that he doesn't resist your spell.
Don't worry about damaging my ego; it's large enough to withstand any amount of critical commentary. :-)
As an aside, I decided to entirely revamp the available spells to make them all useful and also easier to identify. I got tired of trying to remember which spell did what and how effective it was. The names are cute, I guess, but after a couple hundred hours of play I'm no longer interested in 'cute'.
For example:
Blindness is separated into two categories: Blindness (which is ranged) and Blinding Touch (which is not). Each set has four different versions - Minor, Lesser, Major, and Greater, like so:
Minor - dur 30, mag 25-25
Lesser - dur 30, mag 50-50
Major - dur 30, mag 75-75
Greater - dur 30, mag 100-100
Now, instead of hunting through my spell list trying to find the various blind spells and their effects they're all in the same place and if I know the dur/mag for one I know the dur/mag for them all based on the progression above. No doubt this will kill the mood for some players but it's sure nice to be able to scroll quickly through the list, look at one spell, and know how all the others work based on that one spell (and they're all together alphabetically, thank the gods).
Even better for me I also know what my NPCs are grabbing when I autocalc them.
Max
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wakim
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After review of a few spell effects, I am agreed on the logic of, or diagree because:
Bound Cuirass to 3.50, agreed (I had already had it set to this).
Bound Shield to 3.50, agreed, this allows you to block in addition to its armor protection, so more valuable than, say, bound boots.
Command Creature to 5.00, agreed. Note: This now costs 50 magicka to command a level 10 creature for 20 seconds. It costs 28 magicka (default) to summon a dremora (level 9) for 20 seconds. But, since command both removes one opponent from combat (like paralyze) and provides you with an ally, I would not see the logic in going lower. Situationally it can be better than paralyze, sometimes it won't be. This is a big boost to conjuration-style players. (note: TESCS values used for magicka cost)
Also, on Command Creature, this spell can fail; since you may have misjudged the creature's level, you may have to lead your new ally into battle; eating up the spell's duaration for travel time, you may not be able to use it for any effect if you are only facing one opponent (quite common). Situationally, better than a summons. Situationally not. Depends. It would be cheaper to summon than to command against one opponent, cheaper to command against two. 50 magicka is the equivalent to about 150 fire damage. A level 10 opponent should have (real rough approximation of 50 + 5/level) 100 hit points, so perhaps not as good as just blasting 'em, but more competitive now.
Command Humanoid to 6.50, note: this is more useful than command creature so hence the higher cost (due to the charm component).
Cure Poison. It cost about 9 points to cure poison, 25 points to dispel the same effect (TESCS values, not in game spell maker). Cure poison is over twice as efficient, but only against one type of damage. 9 points is almost a freebie. Against a spell like poison bloom, cheaper than healing the damage, which costs 12.5 to heal 50 points. Against any other damage type - useless. I agree that it shouldn't be free to avoid damage, but with dispel so cheap, and healing cheaper, I wouldn't open the inventory screen to pick it. I can't see increasing this cost.
Light to 0.15, note: this is brighter than night-eye at cost 0.20, but when configured to be a targetable spell rather than self, it quickly costs much much more magicka to cast. I agree with a reduction, but feel that 0.10 is too low, since it is brighter at equivalent magnitudes.
Resist Blight to 1.00. Agreed. It now costs 100 magicka to cure or 100 magicka to resist blight (100% for 20 seconds).
Soultrap to 5.00. Agreed. At duration 30 seconds, even at 5.00 effect cost, it only costs 7 magicka to soul trap (TESCS value). Still very very cheap to cast.
Swift Swim to 0.20. Agreed. Unlike Water Walking, Swift Swim needs a high magnitude to be effective, the further reduced cost makes these spells more competitive now.
Water walking to 4.00. Agreed. You can water walk about anywhere and you avoid nearly all critter encounters. It is free travel, it should be higher than water breating.
Further notes on weakness spells. 1.50 is perfect for their cost. At 1.50 it costs exactly the same magicka to double the damage of an elemental spell. This means that under certain circumstance it is cheaper to cast weakness to xxxx than to cast an elemental spell twice for the same damage effect. It depends on how the elemental damge spell is configured - for initial damage, or damage over time.
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Bound items: Yes, NPCs do use them, but they stop picking them after the NPC gets past about level 10 due to the spell's low magicka cost.
Drain Health: You feel that this spell over powers mages? I felt that it was a great equalizer between mages (with limited magicka pools) against fighters (at no cost damage), especially in the nusicance critter department.
Slowfall: At slowfall magnitude 0 or 1 the player takes no damage from any fall of any distance. The cost for casting this, based on singular magnitudes seems in line. You don't need this spell to have a magnitude to be effective, just duration.
NPC Magicka pools: By default NPCs have 2x Int as a magicka pool, players have 1x Int. NPCs already have a boost in magicka to make up for their poor AI (and lack of birthsigns). I increased this to 3.5x Int to make up for NPCs wasting their magicka on initial casts of, say reflect duration 5 sec, rather than useful spells.
Resist Blight Disease: Now don't go changing your values after we agree!
Spell naming conventions: I too went through and re-valued the spells for consistancy in naming, but I kept the exotic names like cruel, dire, wild, etc. I just wanted to know that dire was always better than cruel. The capriciousness in naming bothered me as well.
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Command line was bothering me, now I remember why I had it set as I did: Commanded creatures will often continue to attack your opponent after the duration has exipred. I returned those two spells to higher values. They are effective at much shorter duartions. A Command for ten seconds is comparable to a summons for twenty seconds (or longer) as your ex-commanded creature continues to fight for you (if it was attacked by your opponent). Evaluating Command level 9 for ten seconds compared to summon dremora (level 9) for 20 seconds is a better comparison.
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*bump* Hey wakim, can't wait for those NPC improvements. But a bit of warning, be careful with the dialogue... you can screw up the entire game if you're not careful.
But I trust you. As I am willing to bet alot of people do.
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"No don't play in the muddled, you'll get a dirty mind!" - Din
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Um, I tested command and see your point. Cast once and let the NPC's duke it out while you sit back and take bets. I reset this back to 7.50 (though I left creatures at 5.00).
I wasn't aware that Slowfall counteracted all damage at any magnitude. Another spell I haven't tested or used (why Slowfall when you can levitate?). Blast it then, what's the point of having magnitude for the spell???
For my own testing I've set all NPCs to have a magicka value of 4x INT. To counter this I've developed a character mod which also allows a character to (eventually) get 4 x INT in magicka as well (the NPCs have this as a default, the PCs do not - I base my magicka calculations on Willpower and not birthsigns).
This is just my personal preference as I've an aversion to trying to make things 'challenging' for a player by throwing uber-monsters at him. It doesn't concern me that NPCs have 4 x magicka so long as a PC can eventually acquire that as well. But if I were to set magicka to 10 x INT for NPCs then the game would lose interest for me - then I'd wonder why I just didn't give all fighter NPCs a 200 STR and AGI? To me this smacks of lack of imagination on the developer's end, and since I'm now a developer with respect to my plugins I need to come up with something better than just jacking stats.
One of the problems is that it doesn't appear to be possible to give NPCs 'preferences' for spell casting, e.g., cast a then b then c. I have a spell - Demonic Armor (Lesser) - which'll equip the NPC with the bound armor set, and in conjunction with say Demonic Sword (Lesser) the NPC could become a nice little engine of destruction once his spell points run down to the point where it's time to engage in hand-to-hand. The only way to simulate this, I think, is to non-autocalc NPCs (or to autocalc them and then add/subtract spells by hand). Even then it might be necessary to combine the two spells above and then eliminate any spell which might drive spell points below the cost of casting it and hope the NPC actually uses the set instead of blowing his remaining points on something else.
It's rather too bad the AI is so brain-dead when it comes to combat. It makes balance all that much harder to achieve.
Max
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wakim
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DarkDragon, my NPC dialogue and Faction mod is available on TheLys and Dragonsight. I haven't heard of any problems with it yet. No one even complained about the guide guides being faction tied...
Max, NPCs are fairly stupid, but they do exhibit prefrences that can be exploited to make them seem smarter. I don't know the specifics of what you are trying to get the NPCs to do, but here are some trial and error observations I have noted with regard to their behavior (presented as rules, but probably not verities):
1) NPCs tend to favor spells from their top school. Different classes of casters (Battlemage, sorcerer, necromancer) have different rankings in their various magical schools.
2) When picking spells NPCs will pick spells that are the highest magicka cost they can cast with a 50% chance or better of casting. This means that they often auto pick spells they cannot cast, such as command humanoid, simply 'cuz it is a high magicka cost spell.
3) NPCs will begin by "buffing" themselves with resists and reflects and absorptions. Normally this is just a waste of their magicka.
4) After the buffing spells, NPCs will lead with summoning spells - creatures and bound items. (3 and 4 may vary in order with an NPC's class)
5) When spell casting on the player, NPCs will always start with weakness spells and debilitaters (sound, silence, blind) then they favor destruction school spells, including disintegrate weapons, drains, and damage. They will stop casting damaging spells to re-apply weakness type effects if possible.
6) NPCs will not re-cast the same spell at an opponent if that spell is still affecting the opponent.
7) NPCs will dispel themselves if a deleterious spell is affecting them.
8) NPCs do not prefer casting paralyzation, but will cast it if left with limited choices.
9) NPCs will not use defensive spells, unless they are wounded, this includes sanctuary and shields.
10) NPCs will not engage in melee unless they are out of magicka, or so low that they can't cast offensive of defense spells.
11) NPCs will not heal themselves unless they are wounded down to 20% life remaining (generally they have no magicka left at this point).
12) NPCs will use some potions (restore health) and enchanted items. They will not spam enchanted items, but tend to cast them once.
One of the tactics I used to make NPCs seem smarter was to write a few simply spells for them to auto select based upon magicka cost. Quite often higher level NPCs stop picking "good" spells because the pre-written spells that are useful in combat cap out at about 30 magicka cost. This is the point where the player goes to a spell maker and creates his own fireballs or what have you. NPCs don't have this oprion, so they start to grab high magicka cost spells with "questionable" or situational use, that they can't use well. Since spellsellers are not marked as auto-calc, the player never gets these spells, but by throwing in some 40-60 magicka cost spells marked as auto-calc cost into the spell list the NPCs can grab them. You may want to experiment with this to see if you can achieve the effect you want.
A tactic I've seen used is to attach a script to NPCs to add and remove items and/or magicka based on various factors (player's distance, player's resists, etc.). This style script could be used to add and remove spells from an NPC's spell list as well.
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Wakim,
I pretty much came to the same conclusions by writing some spells and testing the autocalc on a variety of NPC mages. Since I'm revamping the spell list and throwing out all the 'useless' spells I'm now seeing NPCs pick spells which are functional in combat.
However, it seems as if the best way to simulate intelligent tactics is to write several different spellcaster scripts based upon the primary magic schools of the various mages. The generic script you outlined would work decently with some and not-so-decently with others. E.g., it would be of little value to cast 'demonic arms (axe)', which equips a mage with bound armor and axe, unless that mage intended to enter combat. This is where a script would be useful (if magicka < 70, try to cast demonic arms (axe), otherwise exclude spell from choices).
On another note I've played around a bit with various damage attribute spells with the cost set to 12.00 (yours is 9.75, I believe). For a measly 60 magicka I can lower any attribute of the target 100 points, permanently. If applied to strength this is a death sentence for any humanoid NPC and most creatures. A spell of half this value will freeze most regular NPCs (even if STR is greater than zero, they become overburdened).
Drain I don't have a problem with since it's timed; but the damage attribute spells are incredibly effective if the target doesn't resist. I'm thinking an even higher cost would be appropriate here since very few creatures have STR's near 100, much less higher than 100. An equivalent paralyze spell only lasts 30 seconds for the same magicka cost.
Over the next couple of days I'm going to experiment with removing the entire damage attribute spell class and seeing how drain attribute works in its place. Diseases and certain creature attacks would keep the ability to damage attributes (non-autocalced), I'm just removing the ability to do this as a spell.
So far, though, I've been surprised at the test outcomes. In some cases the NPCs are downright devious; in others almost comical. I think this has more to do with their school and class than anything else, a situation would could at least partially be remedied by making sure that there are a few deadly spells associated with each school of magic. Oh, and by *not* adding high-cost spells to the spell list which are overkill or not useful in combat (which I did and have now undone).
Max
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An additional note:
The 'demoralize' class of spells don't seem to be balanced considering their limited usefulness. Even with my values a 30-second demoralize creature with a magnitude of 25 costs 28 magicka. Assuming the creature doesn't resist, and assuming that the creature is affected enough to actually run, the spell wears off in 30 seconds. Using your fire damage values I can craft a spell that does 75-75 fire damage which I think is of far greater value.
And after testing disintegrate....
Disintegrate armor works for light armors, but isn't cost-effective for anything heavier. Disintegrate weapon turns out to be valueless as even small weapons like daggers have high health ratings. I'm not sure why anyone would use these spells, actually, as the magicka could be better spent on other activities.
Of the drain spells, drain strength seems to be the most potent of the lot. If you set the cost too high, then it's better to use paralyze; too low and it's better to drain. It also makes the burden line less than useful as draining strength is more cost-effective and has a broader impact; damage fatigue is also affected adversely as a spell of choice.
The whole 'mess with attribute' concept, regardless of drain/absorb/damage, seems to upset the worth of other spells if set too low, and become worthless if set too high.
Max
Edited by maxpublic (10/25/02 07:15 AM)
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wakim
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Most creatures have strengths of either 50 or 100, so damage attribute can be very effective at less than 100 magnitudes. This is one of those spells that I wanted to test more before changing the value even higher. Most NPCs carry about zero weight: a robe, shoes, and a sword or perhaps twenty pounds of light armor. If your opponent has a strength of 50, then damage attribute costs less than paralyze, but it also does less, in that your opponent can still cast spells or use items or defend himself (albeit poorly). If your opponent has a 100 strength, then it costs more than paralyze, and also does less (since they can cast, etc.). I assume that this spell would be most effective when used against strength, but it can also attack intelligence and therefore act as a sound/silence style spell. It can be effective at values less than 100, it might require values of 100 on some creatures. I don't know if it can be dispelled or not. I would tend to think that 9.75 is too low, but at least it is moving in the right direction.
I am just a tad conflicted on where to place this spell compared to paralyze. Paralyze stops 'em dead for a limited time. Damage attribute will stop one aspect of their abilities, forever. If one assumes that combat lasts approximately 20 seconds against any given opponent, then the added duration of damage attribute is meaningless. If you aren't the sort of guy who has to kill everything, then why not encourage just dropping their strength to zero and leaving the NPC? Is this spell more powerful than an equivalent health damage spell? Is it really better than paralyze? If I had strong opinion about what the most effective way to use damage attribute is, then I'd know where to set the cost. I don't know. It is a powerful spell, but alone it won't kill anything. If directed at strength: NPC can still cast, if directed at intelligence: NPC can still melee, if directed at agility: much slap-stick comic relief ensues.
Demoralize I may still have too high. Demoralize should never need a magnitude of higher than 60 to be effective. A running opponent isn't as easy a target as a paralyzed one, so it should cost less. Off-hand I can't think of a way to exploit demoralize that makes it better than paralyze, so I would agree it should be less. However, demoralize should be effective against most humaniods at lesser magnitudes - 30 or 40. Lowering the values of demoralize to 0.50 for creatures (doesn't affect daedra, undead, or dwarven machines - the really tough stuff) means that it would cost 45 magicka to make anything run for 20 seconds, and 23 magicka to make most stuff run: always cheaper than paralyze. And, since most things flagged as "creatures" are fairly low level, this is an excellent way to deal with cliff racers without worrying that some 1000 hitpoint behemoth will become trivial at 1/3rd the cost of paralyze.
At values of 0.65 for humanoid, it would be 59 to make anyone run, and 29 to make most run. Still just slightly preferable to paralyze (1 point), and situationally one-half the cost. Demoralize also can't be reflected back at a player. Also note, that demoralize requires smaller and smaller values to cause fleeing behavior the more damaged an opponent is. If an opponent is damaged to 50% health, demoralize of magnitude 20 is almost always enough. However, uness you have memorized every AI Flee setting for every creature in the game, you will never know how much is needed, so this is the type of spell where you will generally cast too much of, rather than too little. Also, in my opinion, more non-violent solutions should be presented in MW. It shouldn't always be the easiest to simply blast and hack away at everything. I feel that these values should now be fairly close to optimum. It can cost only 1/3rd as much as paralyze to remove an opponent from combat, it can cost about the same. Situationally better or worse dependent upon opponent type, health, and individual AI settings.
Distintegrates I have at about 16% of their original values. That seems like a large reduction. A steel long sword has 900 health. To disintegrate that weapon would require disintegrate at 100 magnitude for 9 seconds at a cost of... 101. This clearly needs to go lower. A steel suit of armor is health 1650 (including shield), but I believe disintegrate armor attacks (randomly) one piece only per cast; a steel cuirass is health 450. Bumping disintegrate weapon down to 0.50 and armor to 0.40 would then cost 34 and 48 magicka respectively (or 15 magicka to attack only the cuirass). These values are 8.3% or less of the spell's original cost. 34 magicka to remove a steel long sword may still be high, let's not talk about attacking a daedric weapon of health 3000+. Chopping a spell's cost by over 90% makes me think I must be missing something.
And finally, I do agree that it is tough to value all the similar spells such as burdens, drains, damages, absorbs; attribute or fatigue or skill or magicka, silences, sounds, and so on. I have a table I've set up (similar to the one posted many pages earlier on this thread) where I have spells grouped by effect type and listed by effective magnitudes and durations to their magicka cost to compare. This way I can quickly see that burden at magnitude 250 for 20 seconds costs 38 magicka and drain strength at magnitude 50 for 20 seconds costs 27 magicka (similar effect). However, drain intelligence at 50 for 20 is still 27, and drain magicka at 175 for 20 costs 32. I don't expect the results to be perfect, I do want them to be better than before. And, I would rather err onto the conservative side when making changes than go too far and have to back up.
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"Also, in my opinion, more non-violent solutions should be presented in MW. It shouldn't always be the easiest to simply blast and hack away at everything."
Completely agree. We have to keep in mind that Morrowind must provide for a wide variety of characters, including 'peaceful' and 'sneaky' types. So far my experiences with Wakim's mod show a vast improvement over the original game. I'm sorry I can't elaborate further right now, I will when I have more time.
Cheers and keep the discussion going Wakim, Max et al!
-Simon
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I've removed the entire 'affect attribute' line of spells from my mod and am fairly sure, after testing, that this will be my ultimate solution to the problem. As is it doesn't adversely affect the behavior of spellcaster NPCs (in fact, if anything I'd say it improves some of them); the only real result, I think, is removing options from the player when spell-making. I can live with this as the useful effects can be simulated with other spells (burden, paralyze) and the cheats/uberspells are eliminated in the process.
Plus, it makes balancing the remaining effects against each other a heck of alot easier.
The effect still exists as creature powers/diseases, but not as a castable spell.
I've also done the same with Silence/Sound (mage-specific spells in a world that seems hell-bent on penalizing mages) and the damage weapon/armor line. The last I could easily live with leaving in, but I see no practical value in it's use unless set so low it's almost a gimme.
Demoralize I'm testing at a value of 0.25 now. For a 30 second magnitude 50-50 terror spell it costs 28 magicka, which will send most PCs running if they fail to resist. Now, if you're a thiefish type looking to bypass the guards so you can loot the bandit cave this is effective at achieving your goals without slaughtering everyone and their brother; but if you're using this as a combat tactic get ready for some Three Stooges action. I've tried this and it's more frustrating than anything else; the target takes off at full speed zigging this way and zagging that way, making it damned near impossible to run him down and get in a good swing unless in very close quarters. In several cases the fleeing enemy ran into other areas with non-affected NPCs and triggered them into combat as my breathless PC charged after him.
Demoralize - good for the thief. Good if you want to make an escape. Bad for combat unless you feel the need to jog all over the landscape roaring in helpless frustration until the spell runs out.
Overall, rather balanced and a nice alternative to becoming the biggest mass murderer Morrowind has ever produced. I wonder if the spell can be used against a PC?
I also removed 'detect key', mainly because I can see using magic as a radar for living objects and for sources of magic (enchantments) but not as a search tool for...what? Key-shaped objects? Why not another spell that searches for pantaloon-shaped objects? Or things that look like blue pots? What, is magic intelligent now? Hey, while you're looking for the key tell me how many folks are in the next room and what kind of weapons they're carrying, eh?
The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous this spell seemed. End of spell. Next.
My approach isn't as minimal as your own. As you can see I've no problem eliminating spell lines which I see as too powerful, too useless, or too ridiculous. My end goals are to
a) make NPC spell casters something to be feared *without* giving them uberstats, special powers, or band-aid bonuses;
b) eliminate PC cheats; and
c) streamline the spell powers by modifying or deleting those things which offend my sensibilities.
So far, so good.
I do have one question. Up to this point I've been keeping the original Morrowind spells for reference on the primary spell list and just removing them as NPC choices. Now I'm trying to delete them and, well, the 'delete' function doesn't actually seem to be a delete function. It simply marks the spell as deleted but in reality it keeps it on the list and uses the 'delete' tag as an 'ignore' tag. Exiting the CS and restarting it with the save mod makes no difference, nor did it in a test mod where the only thing I did was 'delete' one spell.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong? I want to clean the list of all the old spells and marking them as ignored isn't what I had in mind.
Thanks,
Max
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wakim
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Demoralize Humanoid: I do have a concern that this spell can be overpowered in certain unique circumstances. The best example I can think of is Dviyth Fyr (sp). Here is someone with 1k health and an AI Flee rating of 0. He will run for 20 seconds at demoralize 60 at 59 magicka. I assume then he will run back to you for 20 seconds. Demoralize has, in this case, "deactivated" an NPC for 40 seconds for very modest magicka. No, it hasn't hurt him; No, it hasn't weakened him; but it has by-passed 999 hit points and 150 strength and full daedric armor and a level 65 NPC by hitting him where he is weakest: his AI. Also, sometimes fleeing creatures will do really strange things: try to run into walls, just stand there one step out of weapon range, fall into water, fall off cliffs...
What I envision for this spell is exactly what you describe: NPCs zig-zagging off into the gloom while the Nightblade slips by them and grabs their loot. What I fear is that there is some unforeseen side-effect that makes this a freebie hack-on-his-back-while-the-NPC-tries-to-climb-a-sheer-cliff spell. It should be cheaper than paralyze, but how much so depends on how buggy NPCs get when they are demoralized. I don't want to see all the Telvanni counselers die from falling to their deaths while trying to leap from their towers. Actually, I sorta do, but it is just that demoralize doesn't distinguish between a lvl 1 humanoid or a lvl 40 humanoid, it only cares about the individual's AI Flee setting. Let me know how your demoralize setting plays out for you as you get the chance to wander the lands spreading fear and terror.
Removing detect blue pots from the game would seriously upset the balance of blue pot collector classes. The ability to find and collect blue pots is an integral part of this class and should not be taken in jest. Blue pots are particularly important to House Redoran faction members, as they have limited access to anything but "redware" - which causes very drab surroundings. I can't see changing the cost of detect blue pots. Detect pantaloons is not a very balanced spell as alot of NPCs are female and hence favor dresses or skirts. This should be considered when looking at the balance of that spell. And, don't forget beast races who are often found without benefit of pantaloons at all. Look at Donald Duck, he hasn't worn pants for over 40 years. Think how a spell of this nature could benefit him.
Marking as "ignored" is probably the only solution available to you, since deleting would imply changing the master .esm file. And yes, I recognize we have different goals. Mine is to make every spell fit into this equation; whereby in some specific situation m cost in magicka = k value in result, where m and k are constants. So that in the appropriate situation some spell, inventively applied, will yield the desired effect at a magicka appropriate cost, and, that no spell is left without some circumstance where it is preferred. Turn Undead is the exception to this rule, since it is hardcoded to not do anything to anyone at anytime. Magic is suppose to be the thinking man's game, but the smart man quickly realizes that hacking and slashing is where it's at in Morrowind. I wanna see NPCs burdened and blinded, silenced and sounded, drained and damaged, reflected and resisted, fortified and feathered, paralyzed and poisoned, shielded and summoned, dispelled and demoralized.
The first time I played through Morrowind I had these hotkeys: 1) Heal, 2) Fireball, 3) Frostball, 4) Paralyze, 5) Levitate, 6) Chameleon, 7) Invisibility, 8) Open, 9) Almsivi Intervention. Wow, what a diverse selection! I toyed with about all the spells, but for one reason or another nothing measured up to these. I'd like to be able to play through Morrowind again and have an equally valid line up filled with Demoralize, Drains, Sound, Command, Shield... Does anyone even know what effect the elemental shield spells have? Frost Shield, Fire Shield, Shock Shield? They have a damage return component when struck in melee, is it based on damage done or shield strength? Do they really add to resists? They don't seem to add to armor rating as advertised...
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I have been following this post for awhile now and I really like what has been discussed. I've had problems with the magic system ever since I first played it. I have one idea that may shed some light on the balancing aspect of spell casting within morrowind.
First the casting of spells should be more level specific. What I mean by this is as a character goes up in levels he should be able to do more damage with the same spells, and also use less magicka to cast them. A wizard with a destruction of 100 should be able to do the maximum amount of damage with a basic fireball and only use one magicka to cast it, where as a begining char with a 35 in destruction should do the least amount and have to use five magicka to cast it. Basicly I suggest that the spell casting system have a minimum and a maximum magicka cost and also have spells that do more damage for less. This would in effect cut down on the number of spells in a spellbook as well, as the spell fireball will be used all throughout the characters adventures simply because the spell increases in strength each time he increases his skill with it. Other such spells like 'Greater Fireball' would become unneeded as the greater your caster gets the greater the fireball. This would also work for durations as well, for an invisibility spell would last longer for someone who is a master of illusion, not simply because he bought the longer lasting spell from the spell vendor down the road.
Another point is in the type of spells available. Any wanna be spellcaster can pick up the best spells in the world and use them given time. This is utterly stupid. It is well known that making spells require a lot of time and effort, and in my opinion so much time and effort that many wizards would be reluctant to just give them up to any would be buyer. There should be rudamentary spells that many people know and use, but some of the more insidious spells should be kept tightly under wraps by high level npc's, including commands and other assorted 'overpowered' spells.
My last problem with spell casting is the arbituary use of utility spells like open, levitate, telekinisis, recall, etc. These types of spells shouldn't use magicka, it should be used a number of times per 24 hours equivalent to how high your skill in the school is, like many of the ability spells work for races. Say for instance you have a 100 in mysticisim and you have mark and recall, you could use both spells 10 times per day. Whereas a charater with a 50 could use them 5 times per day,etc. this would give more of a reason to increase the mysticisim skill beyond what is needed to cast them. I found myself only needing about a 55 in mysticisim to cast the spells I wanted without worrying about percentage loss due to fatigue. If you do not use the spells in that 24 hour period they do not stack. The same should go with open, levitate and all the others. Only having a number of times to use levitate and other spells make characters think twice about when to use them, even at high levels.
There are many other things I could go on about but I will end this for now and maybe I have given some good thought on this subject for all you to think about. Even though I know its not possible to do what I suggest without totally reworking the game mechanics. Any comments are welcome.
KC
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I could've used spells like 'detect blue pots', 'detect tankards', and detect 'silverware'. At one point one of my characters was running all over Morrowind collecting this stuff to decorate her house with. She had crates and crates of it...somehow she never got around to actually doing the decorating part. ;-)
I upped demoralize a bit and searched in vain for any way to either a) make it level dependent, or b) to exempt certain NPCs the way Daedra are exempt. Nope, no such animal. I'm starting to wonder just how much actual playtesting there was when it came to the magic system.
As for the fire shield, sanctuary, and shield spells I'm having difficulty determining if they actually work as intended. Anyone who wants to chime in with their own experiments concerning these spells is most welcome.
The inability to edit object lists (or actually, just a plugin's ability to reference object lists) is baffling. Plugins don't change the .esm file anyway, so there's no reason a 'delete' command couldn't delete the .esp file's ability to add a now-unreferenced object to a list. Ah, well. I'm rebuilding my magic changes file by overwriting existing spells - if I can't delete the references, I can instead replace current objects with my modified spells (which has the same effect, when all is said and done).
Overall I don't see the difference between many of the magical effects, other than their potential for exploit or abuse. Sure, there are certain very discreet circumstances where spell x might be useful, but does that justify keeping an entire line of spells that don't play nice with others? Not for me it doesn't. So out the window they go.
I doubt many other folks would agree with me (players seem fascinated by shiny things with neat names) but ultimately my mod is for me - if anyone else wants to use it fine, if not then that works just as well. Either way the changes I want will be in my game and in the end that's all I really care about.
Max
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Alastor,
I can't say I agree with any of your suggestions. One of the things I like about Morrowind is that it doesn't use some idiotic D&D-like system dependent on levels. I depise D&D and the stupidity inherent in such a poorly-designed game system and would be appalled to see anything like it brought to the Morrowind universe.
Of course, to each his own. If you want to build a more D&D-like system, go right ahead. But this puppy won't help you build it and won't use your mod when it's released.
Max
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I heartly agree with you Max that morrowind should never become like D&D, but I do not see any reason for the level increase in morrowind. I could just raise all of my skills and attributes and those have effects on the things I can cast, use, etc., but level is nothing but a label in morrowind because it has no relevent bearing on anything. I was proposing that morrowind be a little more level dependant on certain things, like demoralize and what have you. Maybe if the command spells were a little more useful in the magicka department character level would matter to some degree, but other than that what does level really have to do with the game? I think making level something that factors in certain spells would solve most of the problems with certain spells.
On another note I hate the enchanting and spellmaking services. Why cant I enchant anything I want with an enchant skill of 100? I can't even make something worth my time with my skill all the way up, and I think its a bit stupid and combersome to have to use intellegence increase and luck increase just to make a worthy item. Spellmaking is utterly useless as well. Anything you create will incur alot more magicka than a regular bought spell, even with the requisit high skill in the school of magic your using to create the spell. Why so many useless spellcasting utilities and so many useful melee combat utilities?
I think someone hates mages, and they sure do make it evident! (Or they didn't put enough time and effort into it.)
KC
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Alastor,
Leveling is actually very relevant in two ways:
- it increases your hit points (often to ridiculous levels, just like D&D)
- it increases your stat points (*very* important)
Actually, in my game it only does the second thing now as I have a plugin which makes health 2 x Endurance. So leveling doesn't add health per se, but it does do so indirectly because leveling allows you to increase Endurance - which increases Health.
If I had my druthers I'd get rid of the concept of leveling for spell use altogether. Instead I'd base the effectiveness of command/charm/demoralize/etc. on the target's Willpower. E.g., cast the spell and if your Willpower + the spell's effectiveness fail to defeat the target's Willpower, then the spell fails. Unfortunately it doesn't appear possible to add a script to a spell so this is merely wishful thinking. The same thing means that it's not possible to incorporate level as a modifier just as it isn't possible to incorporate Willpower as a modifier.
Now if we actually had access to the spellcasting functions this wouldn't be a problem, but Bethesda in it's wisdom has decided not to provide us with this ability. Just as we can't modify the leveling-up function or the mercantile function or the combat-related functions or...you get the picture.
The only work-around I currently see is to come at it from the other direction: modify effective willpower based on level in a script, much the same way I've done with health. Unfortunately this affects *all* resistable spells, which means that beyond a certain point characters would almost automatically resist everything that could be resisted.
If you can think of some other scriptable alternative I'd be eager to hear it. So far I've run into a brick wall.
Max
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Well, just a note on modifying the spell list:
The replacement of spells seems to work until you reload the mod. At that point it simply appends the original Morrowind list to your own, essentially adding all the spells you 'overwrote' back into the master list.
So there is no way to remove the spells from the spell list, either by delete (an operation which doesn't work) or by replacement. It also appears you can't rename Morrowind spells with something like a 'zzz' prefix in order to get your spells to sort alphabetically apart from the game spells.
I'm starting to feel like my character chasing after a demoralized opponent, rushing about the landscape in pursuit of the target, screaming in frustration at my inability to actually hit the bugger. Time to whip out Carmaggeddon and pretend all the little pedestrians are Morrowind programmers....
Max
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wakim
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Max, I'd encourage you to try out the values for some of the spell lines you have altered. I wasn't implying that demoralize at lower values would upset the game, just that I had a concern that such a possibility may exist; I don't know if that possibility would be borne out in gameplay. I'd really like to see demoralize be set alot lower that I current have mine set at, but me terrorizing Balmora or some guars isn't the same as trying it out (and I hate to use this phrase in this context) in a real world circumstance. I'm the conservative guy here, erring on the side of caution - trying to think up the worst possible case scenario.
Alastor, We share a gripe with MW in the area of magic versus melee balance. I tend to think of it as the sleepy mage syndrome. Conan comes charging in swinging his daedric blade and clears a room grabs his loot and marches off. Gandalf unleashes his fireballs clears the room, then sleeps for 18 hours. Conan has his abilities enchanced by increasing his stats: strength increases his damage, agility his ability to hit, endurance his ability to sustain damage. He picks up a new bigger badder sword and is now more potent. He gains skills in his weapon, his defense, his blocking. On the otherhand, Gandalf can cast higher powered spells when his skills go up, but that is checked by his available magicka, which only increases as his intelligence goes up, and then only one point per point of intelligence (modified by race and birthsigns). After Gandalf has 100 intelligence he can never be more potent than he is now. Also, it can be argued that casting higher powered spells (higher magicka cost spells) is actually a detriment, as multiple casts of a lower powered spell do the exact same amount of damage (per magicka) and increase the caster's skill more.
The magic system is bounded by alot of checks and balances. Gandalf quickly reaches a point where he cannot be any better than he is. He has 100 intelligence so he has his maximum magicka (this can be reached at level ten). His spells never get any better, he just gets to cast fewer of them as a reward for being higher level (or more experienced, or whatever term is suitable). Some spells are an exception to this, but they are few (the fixed cost summoning spells) and the exception, not the rule.
Morrowind allows a character to diversify, to pick up a sword if they want, to change mid-stream and decide that the stealthy occupations are preferable, or whatever suits the player's taste. However the game mechanics tend to encourage players towards melee due to its effectiveness in overcoming obstacles. As a player, there is no mandate thrust upon you to succumb to this temptation, but the game mechanics do make it so very tempting. Greater supported diversity of efficacious tactics within the game will extend its longevity, for the same reason that players in Diablo II will start a new game and character to try a new skill tree. People will grow tired of downloading new Morrowind mods and creatures if the gameplay devolves to just clicking the same mouse button and getting the same results.
I tried to play a non-violent thief-type, based on stealth and avoidance, but it is just so much easier to kill 'em than to avoid 'em, especially when they are smacking you around. At the time I did this, demoralize was not an option since AI Flee was not working, command cost 225 magicka to cast, distintegrate weapon cost more than fireball so neutering my opponents wasn't an option either. As I saw it, if I wanted to succeed at stealth and avoidance, I had better be prepared for a plethora of tedious saves and loads. The choice was chameleon 100% (which I won't do) or change tactics. I chose neither.
Still, Gandalf is languishing a bit. 1000-year old Telvanni wizards just don't strike the fear into a player that one would imagine they should. Their arcane magicks are used up in ten seconds and they pull out a fearsome glass dagger and melee without armor. A player is little better off. Conan can swing his blade through anything and perhaps quaff a few potions out of the fighter's guild equipment chest. Gandalf is generally either conserving his magicka and relying on his blade, or sleeping. Maybe that's how the Telvanni wizards live to be so old, they sleep alot.
I don't have any answers here. I've seen mods that add real-time magicka regeneration to the game, but that I think is more akin to recognizing that the imbalance exists rather than solving it. Ideas for consideration might be (as you mentioned) reduced magicka casting cost based on skill in a particular magic school, magicka pool increase bonus based on level to give mages something to look forward to after level ten, more efficient spell results based on skill - sorta like how luck works now - but only affecting spells and proportional to skill. Also note that I am using the term mages here to define a play style, not a class. I don't want to see a rigid class frame work in Morrowind: that is what has always been defining of this series. But I do think that within Morrowind's current system a little hardcode tweaking could bridge the gap between magic skills and melee, and bring magic from a great utility skill for opening doors and levitating and teleporting to something equal to just grabbing a daedric weapon and going to town. The Construction Set can only go so far, and the alternative is desine fata deum fiecti sperare precando.
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Wakim,
No, your point about demoralize was right. I still haven't tested it against luminaries like ol' Divith but if he runs like a frightened kagouti then that line, too, becomes a game breaker. Wizards, of all folks, should be the least susceptible to any magic.
If I had some clear idea how willpower is used to resist spells, and exactly what spells are resistable, I *might* be able to script a work-around to give mages an effective higher willpower score when resisting magic. Maybe. Perhaps. But I can't even begin to guess what the algorithm is and Bethesda doesn't seem inclined to provide the formula. My only experience has been that my starting characters get knocked around by all and sundry while my later-game characters seem able to resist everything under the sun.
And does demoralize even work on player characters? If it doesn't then all it does is add yet another mage-breaker to the game since pcs can use it against mages, but mages can't use it against pcs. If so it's a cheap trick, a good idea too poorly implemented to keep around.
My (partial) solution to the pc mage inability to increase magic points was to remove the birth sign nonsense altogether and script adds based on Willpower. So you increase in level, which allows you to add points to Willpower, which increases the multiplier used to determine magicka. Since non-mages are likely to choose to boost Willpower last while mages consider this a primary ability the mage-like pc will go up in magicka faster than the fighter - at least until you reach the mythical levels where everyone shoots for jack-of-all-trades (and at this point there are no class differences anymore).
I'm now starting to consider 'messy' fixes for existing mages in the game. Most of these mages have few enchanted devices and a good many of these are relatively useless; perhaps creating a few decent items and adding them to the NPCs would be of some value. For example, why isn't that master wizard wearing a ring which boosts his Unarmored by a constant 25 points? Why doesn't he have an amulet which allows him to cast Sanctuary 50 for 60 seconds? He is a mage after all - what do they do in their spare time? Stand around and yak magical philosophy? Read copies of 'Bound Vixen Elf Maidens'?
The downside to this is that the player can collect these items if he kills the mage. Fortunately items can have attached scripts so perhaps mages can make 'personal' items which only function as designed when they're wearing them and become useless for anyone else. Maybe 'Divith's Ring' and 'Divith's Staff' only work for Divith and are simply curiosities to anyone else.
Dunno about this. I think it'd require alot of testing to get this right and I'm not sure I want to put quite that much effort into trying to balance the system.
I don't even want to think about enchanting. That system is so broken I'm not sure what to do about it.
Max
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I think your efforts in spell balancing is fruitless. Not to say it can't be done, its just I think the whole(and I do mean WHOLE) system needs to be redone and rethought out. Mages just seem to be unable to go any further than a certain level to me, and I don't expect the system to be forgiving. I personally beleive that mages should be the most powerful of characters in morrowind(remember this is my opinion, not complete truth) once they reach a certain point, and when it seems I have reached that point, I come to find that I still can be beaten by anything out there.
Its things like going to the grazelands and not even being able to kill a golden saint at 50th level with a gods fire or gods frost simply because it gets reflected at me everytime, but a 20th level warrior can kill it in little less than 5 hits without even getting a scratch. Whats wrong with this picture?
I think the D&D system is great, and maybe the morrowind developers can learn a thing or two from it. But overall I don't think morrowind was created with the magic user in mind, I think the warrior type is dominant and any other charater is second best no matter how higher in level he is. All you need is a 10th level warrior a stout skill in longblade, and goldbrand and your set to destroy the Island of morrowind and all its inhabitants within the year.
Excuse me if I am missing something...like a wizard taking out whole armies with but a word and gesture, turning people to stone, destroying items within seconds by disintigration, and lets not forget; controlling the weather and other assorted 'Wizardly" like acts of Magick.
I see only one solution to the magic system:
More Flashy High-Damaging 'cool as [censored]' spells
More LEVEL_DEPENDANT Spellcasting
More Efficiant Ways to Deal with a situation then deciding to use either Fire or Frost.
KC
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Excellent work, Wakim.
Under the items that can't be implemented on the editor, does anyone else wish that Bethesda had incorporated the magical negative effect compensations? Back in the interviews, they were making comments about how one could create a powerful fireball, but compensate by perhaps casting a silence spell upon the caster for 15 seconds as a result. Similarly, I personally find it rather annoying that one can sell Potions of Paralyze, Burden, Drain Fatigue, etc for the same price one might get for potions that actually increased stats.
They probably either ran out of time to implement it or ran into abuse issues (Cast the spell of fireball/silence, then immediately drink a potion of Dispell) but it would have been nice.
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The solution to me would seem to be an almost exponential increase in the magicka pool, by level. I was thinking something like
magicka=(Int x racial modifier)+(lvl^2)
in this way, low level mages maintain a relatively similar magicka pool to what they currently have, but by the time they start to hit level 10 you see a real upturn in the magicka pool increase with level. Think about the pool your 1000 year old telvanni(with appropriate level) will have now. Also, you can make the high level mages do more impressive things simply by adding multiple spell effects to one spell, if you want a buff spell that they will actually use, put several different buff effects in one spell all with the same duration. Go ahead and give the telvanni mage a huge area effect huge duration huge magnitude fire spell, what the hell does he care if he burns some people. Any spells you wanted to be careful with you'd obviously have to add to NPCs by hand rather than autocalc, but I'm thinking you'd only want to give them to some of the really high level really impressive ones anyways(like the previously mentioned telvanni) On another note, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe any effect that the NPC can't use on a PC shouldn't just be taken out entirely. It just doesn't seem fair to me at all.
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Once again, I *do not* want to see Morrowind turned into a D&D wannabe. The D&D system is downright horrible, based upon onion-like layers of silliness in a vain attempt to 'balance' a game which was awful from the get-go, and exists today only because it was the first such RPG to catch on.
No, a 50th level mage *should not* be able to cream any other 50th level character without breaking a sweat. Forget that. Any system which makes one 'class' (although there really isn't such a thing in Morrowind) that much more powerful than all the others is broken. What is needed is a way to make the outcome of such a battle uncertain.
And let's put aside all this talk of level, shall we? Level doesn't mean much in Morrowind, nor should it; what counts are your stats and skills and how you use them. If I could I'd get rid of leveling altogether and focus on skill/stat improvement without the drawbacks of such an archaic concept.
If you want an example of an RPG that worked incredibly well without levels and experience - much, much better than D&D ever did - take a good look at RuneQuest. That system had no need whatsoever for levels and functioned nearly flawlessly. Morrowind is far more like RuneQuest than like D&D (although Morrowind isn't nearly as well balanced as RQ).
I believe you can bring some balance to the mage vs fighter equation and have already taken steps in that regard (as has Wakim). By making substantial alterations to magic effects, crafting new spells, deleting old worthless ones, and changing creature/NPC powers/spell picks you can turn a laughable magical opponent into something to be feared.
The remaining problem, once you make magical spells worthwhile and NPCs more fearsome, is that magic points don't increase over level while hit points do. There are only two ways to fix this: either make spell points increase with level as well (an easy fix, but ultimately resulting in ridiculous spell point totals), or cap hit points. I've done the latter; now your maximum health is 2 x Endurance, forever, unless you're wearing some sort of constant effect Endurance or Health boosting enchantment.
This means that my spell fire lance (minor), which does 100-100 damage over 2 seconds, will kill any character in the game that fails to resist and who is stupid enough to go up against a mage without some sort of elemental or magical protection. Seems pretty fair to me.
But that, I think, is the solution. Pump up the mage within current game constraints, but don't do silly D&D god-like things. Balance the mage against the fighter by capping Health just like spell points are capped. Life is good, and no matter what your 'level' parts of Morrowind are still going to be challenging. Take the golden saint and give it the very same fire lance spell and see how long you last against it without protection.
Max
Edited by maxpublic (10/28/02 01:02 AM)
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"...and not even being able to kill a golden saint at 50th level with a gods fire or gods frost simply because it gets reflected at me everytime..."
One of the things I keep bumping up against as I have continued to tweak magic effect costs is the limitations of MW's AI. The AI can handle standing and hacking away; it even puts the NPC through a little avoidance dance circling around your character. Contrast that to the great difficulty the AI has in handling even the simplest of magical effects; viz. levitate and the game is befuddled. I finally had disintegrate weapon at a magicka cost I thought was perfect and what do I find? It confuses the hell out of the AI. Distintegrate the weapon of a guard and he is utterly offenseless. Now, go off doing Nereverine-type things and come back to that guard a month later and guess what? He still hasn't repaired his weapon. Distintegrate weapon turns out to be better than paralyze. This guard, for the rest of his life, will be trying to hit me with his bare fists at an unarmored skill of probably 5 or 10. In a whole month he hasn't stopped by the armorer shop next to him and repaired his weapon, nor does he carry a back up. This is just one example of one spell used to typify a difficulty in MW.
The problem isn't the magic system so much as the AI. The magic system being shackled prevents the AI from looking confused. However the magic effects in MW are quite diverse and inventive, and can be used to great effect, using only the existing AI and the tools of TESCS. To give you an example: Using WGI as a plug-in I had the pleasant explerience of seeing a random Ashlander witch-woman type, whom I encountered while roaming on the East coast, open combat by stacking two types of burdens on me. Being a heavy armor wearing character I had no choice but to stand hopelessly over-encumbered while she finished up her casting. I could not close the range to simply swing goldbrand (or whatever) a couple times and finish her off. I've been affected by sounds, so I could not cast heals; hit with weakness to frost and then attacked by frost so many times that I went and bought resist spells - same with poison. I had a wonderful firefight with the challenging wizard and her band of retainers outside of Therana's tower: must have lasted five minutes, and the last retainer I had to chase down all the way to the boat (I think he was planning on booking passage out of there). If it weren't for the ability to drink an infinite amount of potions in an infinitesimal amount of time I'd of lost that battle.
My intention isn't to "plug" WGI, but to provide examples of how the magic system in MW can be better. I recognize that no tweaking of spell values will overcome the limitations of hardcoding. I too would like to see a hardcoded change in the magic system. My preference would be a reduction in the magicka cost of spells based upon the caster's appropriate skill - but nothing to the extreme that enchanting currently reduces item charge cost based upon enchanting skill. A magicka cost reduction would simply eliminate my largest concern in MW's magic system: that a sorcerer's apprentice, fresh off the boat, can do the exact same amount of magical damage as a Telvanni magister if given equal amounts of magicka (or restore magicka potions).
And to reply to the opening quote: Saints are only vulnerable to poison or magic attacks. Try some of these spells next time you see one: Burden (if carrying daedric weapon and shield), disintegrate weapon (if carrying glass), or damage attribute strength, absorb health, weakness to posion, poison, and don't forget to have dispel hotkeyed for those reflects. If you are a conjuration expert forget all that and summon a Saint to fight the Saint. The Saint should be dead and you should never have been touched. Of course, you will be sleeping after that, but that is why mages live so long.
Oh, and I always liked the idea of adding negatives to balance out poistives in total cost (like fire damage on enemy, silence on self). Problem was it was always too easy to choose things like "weakness to were-rats" or something that made the negative meaningless. But it did make the spellmaker and enchanting windows alot of fun.
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<<< Once again, I *do not* want to see Morrowind turned into a D&D wannabe. The D&D system is downright horrible, based upon onion-like layers of silliness in a vain attempt to 'balance' a game which was awful from the get-go, and exists today only because it was the first such RPG to catch on.>>>
So, is this thread really an excuse to toss out comments like this willy-nilly?
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A warning that I am entering into this as a friendly debate, and while I may state things as being facts, I am indeed stating my opinions.
Ok, the anti level thing I can understand, and the health cap thing would seem to make sense, but why a set 2 multiplier? Wouldn't it make more sense to use a racial multiplier? IE with the same amount of training and work, shouldn't an Orc still be able to take more punishment than a Bosmer? I'm not talking about a huge multiplier difference, .25 would seem to be about right to me. 1.75 for frail races, 2 for typical human types, and 2.25 for strong races, or are you adverse to this idea for some reason as well? I just can't imagine my little lady wood elf assassin ever being able to take as much damage as a Redgaurd, or an Orc. I can see yes, there are men weaker than elves, elves stronger than orcs, etc, but at the pinacle there should be a difference, IMHO. There's only one problem I see with your idea, low level spells become much more dangerous, a relatively weak poison spell with a fair duration will kill just about anything that doesn't have some kind of racial defence against poison, or carries around tons of the too heavy potions. I'm not saying that your idea is not an elegant solution, especially compared to my sledgehammer of a solution, but altering it in the way you suggest suddenly makes a mid level mage character potentially much nastier than warrior style characters, it's only at high levels with more magical resistances and magical armor, etc. that warriors start to regain ground. In effect, once your mage character can cast damage health 100-100 duration 2 what's the point of learning any other offensive spells? You say it seems fair to you but shouldn't balance occur at all levels? All I'm saying is that my idea gives high level(i know you hate that word, so let's say experienced) a chance to cast more spells before they have to resort to something other than magic, your idea makes magic much more deadly, wich kind of makes advancing in magic past a certain point pointless. Your thoughts?
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The comment wasn't willy-nilly but right on target. The original poster wanted to see a more D&D-like Morrowind magic system and I do not; I made my opinion on that idea quite clear.
That is just my opinion but in the context of this thread - improving the morrowind magic system - I don't think that making it more 'D&D-like' is an improvement, but rather a huge step backwards. Morrowind is defined by *not* being D&D, a concept Bethesda gambled on and, for all of my criticism over their decisions not to release certain game functions to the public, I'm quite happy to *finally* have a system which isn't predicated on an ancient RPG that's always struck me as one of the worst designs one could possibly come up with. I haven't seen a game even remotely like this since Betrayal at Krondor.
Willy-nilly? Nope. Perfectly in context. If I ranted a bit on my loathing over D&D well, to each his own. I would point out, however, that attacking a game system isn't at all the same as attacking a person who likes that game system. Saying "I hate golf" (true) is not the same as saying "I hate Tiger Woods" (not true, I don't even know the guy).
Max
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I'm not at all averse to using a racial multiplier, but in order to do that and keep things balanced that means the races who get something other than the highest multiplier need compensation of some sort for having a lower hit point total. So, what do humans get to balance against the Orc advantage? What do elves get to even them out against both humans and orcs?
The way I have the system implemented now is that Orcs start out with a higher endurance than humans or elves. Which means early game they have a definite edge in personal combat. The breakdown as I've got it set goes something like this:
Argonian - END 40 (80 health)
Breton - END 30 (60 health)
Dark Elf - END 40 (80 health)
High Elf - END 40 (80 health)
Imperial - END 40 (80 health)
Khajit - END 40 (80 health)
Nord - END 50 (100 health)
Orc - END 60 (120 health)
Redguard - END 50 (100 health)
Wood Elf - END 30 (60 health)
So if you pick the two extremes - the brute Orc fighter and the Breton mage - the Orc starts out with twice as much health.
In Morrowind you can start as a certain 'class' but as time goes on everyone advances to 'jack of all trades'. Once you get past level 50 or so the mage is maxed out in magic skills and is now rapidly advancing in combat skills, while the Orc is doing the opposite. Eventually there's no difference between the two. This is true both in the unmodified version of Morrowind and my version; my version only attempts to make magic more powerful.
And sure, a good spell that gets past resistance is going to kill someone without magical protection. But you can do the very same thing in the unmodified Morrowind game to anyone of less than level 25 - that is, with 200 hp or less. Using the spellmaker you can build the very spell we're talking about and it'll cream almost every NPC in the game. Take a look at the CS stats for the NPCs and you'll see this is so.
Why should this be true for a player vs NPC but not the other way around? If you can make such a spell and use it with abandon, why can't a master mage? Part of the problem in the current game is that NPC mages pick bad, high-cost spells that have little effect on PCs and don't have any really powerful magic available to them for use - even though the game allows PCs to create just this kind of magic. And the number of NPCs past level 25 is tiny, while PCs advance well beyond this in a very short period of time. PC hit points climb to astounding levels while NPC hit points do not, with a very few exceptions.
Fortunately there is a built-in game mechanism for controlling the use of these kinds of spells: skill level. Unless your Destruction is quite high you'll find that casting the fire lance spell has a low chance of success, or none at all. Only mages with high skill levels can use this spell effectively. In essence, you have your 'level requirements' expressed through skill stats, since advancing skill stats also advances level.
But even if your fighter-type decides to brazenly charge the master mage without a thought for protection against the magical hell that's about to be unleashed in his direction, you also have the effects of resistance to deal with. I have no clear idea how resistance works but it seems to be primarily based on Willpower; and the higher your level, the higher your willpower (unless you invest nothing in it). In my own games low-level low-willpower characters resist practically nothing, while high-level high-willpower characters are rarely affected by magic at all. So if your level 30 fighter charges that mage, the mage is gonna sweat bullets while he waits to see if the fire lance skewers you with magical doom or you just shrug it off and beat him to death with your daedric axe. This would be the equivalent of 'making a saving throw' in a D&D system.
But if I were that fighter I'd get something enchanted that upped my resistance for the length of the battle. Gold is easy to come by and enchantments take nothing more than money and a decent soul gem. With cash and a little foresight you can dramatically reduce the chance that the fire lance is going to kill you outright before you close the distance with your opponent. Your NPC opponent, on the other hand, almost never has any decent enchantments to protect *him* from *you*.
So far, in my tests, this has worked rather well, and sometimes quite brutally. Even my Navarine character has been killed in battle, a big surprise the first time it happened. Now my adrenaline starts pumping every time the sh*t hits the fan, something that stopped happening in the original game once I shot past level 25.
And this is what I, personally, want. If the battle has no other outcome than I meander on up to the nasty, whack it once or twice, watch it die, and then loot it, this is boring. Why play? Might as well invoke 'god mode' from the console. It's only interesting if you can *lose*.
Max
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So, have you released a plugin with your new health stuff in it. I'd like to try it out since as I said my side was all conjecture. I still have a feeling that it may make mid level mage characters too nasty, but I'd like to try it out. Actually, I'd pretty much like to play Morrowind at all, but it would seem that my Radeon 9700pro hates it at this point...
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wakim
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Adept
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Comparing: The magicka cost of the following auto-calculated spells as they appear for purchase in-game (with WGI magic effect plug-in mod) versus the magicka cost of making the same spell from an in-game spell maker in the same game (i.e. all magic effect costs are constant). Purchased pre-made spells are in yellow, purchased spellmaker spells in red, the percentage difference is in white when aberrant:
Cure common disease on self (restoration)
Rilm's Cure: 15
Spellmaker Cure: 37
difference: 247%
Restore health 20-80 for 1 second on self (restoration)
Hearth Heal: 13
Spellmaker heal: 25
difference: 192%
Restore fatigue 10-30 for 30 seconds on self (restoration)
Stamina: 30
Spellmaker stamina: 31
difference: negligible
Resist fire 75% for 30 seconds on self (restoration)
Strong resist fire: 51
Spellmaler resist: 52
difference: negligible
Invisibility for 30 seconds (illusion)
Hide: 30
Spellmaker Hide: 31
difference: negligible
Fire or Frost damage 2-40 for 1 second in 10 feet on target (destruction)
Greater Frost or Fireball: 10
Spellmaker Fireball: 17
difference: 170%
Drain Fatigue 20-80 for 60 seconds on touch (destruction)
Exhausting Touch: 20
Spellmaker drain: 19
difference: negligible
Dispel 100% on self (mysticism)
Dispel: 25
Spellmaker dispel: 50
difference: 200%
Almsivi intervention (mysticism)
Almsivi Intervention: 8
Spellmaker intervention: 18
difference: 225%
Burden 100 for 10 seconds on target (alteration)
Burden: 6
Spellmaker burden: 6
difference: negligible
Open 50pts on touch (alteration)
Ondusi's Open Door: 24
Spellmaker open: 48
difference: 200%
Levitate 1-50 points for 30 seconds on self (alteration)
Wild levitate: 115
Spellmaker levitate: 118
difference: negligible
Summon skeletal minion for 60 seconds (conjuration)
Summon Skeletal Minion: 39
Spellmaker summons: 39
difference: negligible
Bound longsword for 60 seconds (conjuration)
Bound Longsword: 14
Spellmaker longsword: 13
difference: negligible
Conclusion: there exist hidden spell effect multipliers for each specific spell effect for use by the in-game spellmaker.
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I was actually looking at something else when I stumbled upon the spellmaker's inconsistancy. A quick formula to support the idea of re-calculated magicka cost of spells based upon skill:
New magicka cost = 1+Current magicka cost formula^(1.215/(skill in spell's school^0.05))
This yields an 18% increase in magicka cost at skill 25, identical magicaka cost at skill 50, 14% reduction in magicka cost at skill 100, and a 47% reduction in magicka cost at skill 1000 (unlike the current enchanting charge reduction formula which makes all enchanted items cost zero or 1 at skill 110).
The only thing that magical skills currently do is to reduce failure rate by 2% per skill level. So not only would this formula be a reduction in magicka cost at higher skill levels, but also increase the maximum amount of magicka that could be cast without failure. Of course, the constants could be played with to change the curve as desired.
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Wakim I am starting to really like what your coming up with...but I have something else I'd like to throw at all you guys coming to see the next step in spellcasting in morrowind.
I really and truly think the only problem I have with morrowind is the lack of spell 'effects' and not the spells themselves. I know that the developers intentionally made the effects we see now, but I think my whole problem is based around not being able to do more than cast something on myself or shoot a bolt like magicka attack. This obviously should be considered for another elder scrolls game if (in my opinion) they are to truly make spellcasting worth while.
Now that I have said my peace I think I would love to download the mod you are doing wakim, can you tell me where to get it, if it is done?
I'm not sure if Max is entirly certain on which D&D I speak of. I am not advocating a system like second edition, I am going on third edition done by Wizards of the Coast. But if indeed he is speaking of third ed, then I must say the system cant be 'that' bad now can it? The system it is based on is called the d20 system and many different generes of games have been done on this system, including star wars and modern. But of course it is done with dice and imagination, not on a computer. Therein lies the restriction to morrowind.
If anyone would be willing to tell me how to make magicka go up like health does even with my intellegence at 100 please let me know, I would so love to have that as a plugin, not to mention wakims modification.
By the way, I know there are more than two ways to defeat a golden saint, I merely used it for effect. Besides reflection dosen't really matter when your immune to what your casting at it.
KC
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Except, how do you script an alteration to a spell's cost? This seems to be set via a hidden function that's dependent on a manipulation of each individual spell line (the guy who originally made the Spellmaker mod said just this, but wasn't interested in the extensive testing required to come up with the actual formula for each line). I can't even think of a way to script such a change.
In fact, the only way I can think of getting even close to what you want (more effective magicka as skill in a school increases) is to average the skill levels in all five schools and then apply the inverse of your formula to increase spell points. This is quite crude, though, and doesn't actually differentiate on any particular school or spell.
Max
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Re a health mod....
I was thinking of releasing it as-is, but in order for it to be effective I had to also tweak the health of all in-game creatures and NPCs. I finished the creatures and am working on the NPCs now, but as this project is quite comprehensive I decided to add in my magical changes while I was doing it (new spells, altered spell points for PCs, cleaned up spell lists for NPC mages who don't sell spells).
So there is no longer just a 'health' mod. It's graduated into the beginnings of a complete Morrowind overhaul and even now is probably incompatible with at least half of the mods out there. If you combined it with other mods it'd probably ruin your game, or wouldn't make the necessary changes, depending on how things loaded.
However, if you just want to add in the health modifications for your PC, personally, without making any changes elsewhere you can do this and it'll conflict with virtually nothing (maybe the fatigue/mana regeneration mods, depending on how they work). My test works off the main script, but you can initialize the script from an object placed just about anywhere you please. Below is how to modify the main script to make it active:
In the main script where it says:
;if ( GetPCSleep == 1 )
;endif
change this to:
if ( GetPCSleep == 1 )
StartScript, HealthMod
endif
Now make a new script and cut and paste the following into it:
begin HealthMod
short CurrentHealth
float CurrentHealthRatio
short NewHealth
short DamagedHealth
if ( GetPCSleep == 1 )
set CurrentHealthRatio to ( Player->GetHealthGetRatio )
set NewHealth to ( Player->GetEndurance * 2 )
Player->setHealth, NewHealth
set CurrentHealth to (NewHealth * CurrentHealthRatio)
set DamagedHealth to ( CurrentHealth - NewHealth )
Player->ModCurrentHealth, DamagedHealth
endif
end HealthMod
save that script out with the name: HealthMod
Now save the changes as a new plugin (like 'healthmod') and make sure to load the plugin the next time you start the game. The changes should be immediate; if not, rest for 1 hour and they should take effect from that point on.
I have no idea if this will permanently muck up a saved game, especially if you're running other mods. I'm not working for compatibility but my own personal satisfaction.
Max
Edited by maxpublic (10/29/02 12:51 AM)
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Scripting a spell point change dependent on intelligence, willpower, level, whatever is easy. It just depends on the formula you want to use. The process would only be slightly more complicated that what I've outlined for my healthmod script which I posted elsewhere in this thread.
Max
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"...the lack of spell 'effects' ...". I think I understand what you are implying, and I agree that more choices is more interesting. It was my hope when I started altering the spell costs to create more viable options from the existing effects, as I had more hotkeys than spells I wanted to cast. However, I think alot of people (myself included) would cast more spells regardless of their cost if there were more nifty graphics - hurricanes, flying boulders, rains of fire, lingering clouds of poison... It is the sizzle that sells the steak. Put me down for desiring "damage" skins on critters to indicate their state of health, too.
My mods are available at TheLys and Dragonsight. They may also be available elsewhere, as I have bumped into them on other site's download sections. If you can't find them on the web, give me your e-mail and I'll send 'em out to you. The .txt files listing the contents of my mods are listed in this forum, if you search, as Qwerty has posted those when he (she? Qwerty, if you read this, which pronoun do you prefer?) sends them out.
As for additional magicka per level, that sounds like something very doable in the realm of scripting, but I readily confess to not being a scriptor, beyond cutting and pasting existing examples. Horatio's dodging mod is an excellent example of tackling and creatively solving the enormous imbalance in the unarmored skill by concise scripting.
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wakim
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The formula is just an idea. I know of no way to implement it using TESCS.
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Well Wakim, I'm curious as to your opinion. Which is a better solution, to increase the volume of magic by increasing magicka, or to increase the strength of magic by decreasing health? Maybe a combination of both?
max: Thanks for the script, I'll probably just tag it onto the dodge script, since I figure fewer scripts looping cuts down on cpu usage. So NPCs all have to be altered by hand? No writing a script to change their health on the fly?
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Max,
About the spellmaker mod you mentioned four pages back (sorry for the delay in responding, I downloaded it and lost it when I changed hard drives): The spellmaker mod recognizes the problem, but doesn't correct it. From the readme.txt file in the spellmaker mod, where the author is explaining his solution, "...I selected all the auto-calculated spells in spellmaking and turned off auto-calc." I doubt the author realized that this would have the effect of depriving all the auto-calculated NPCs in the game (about 90% of all NPCs) of being able to cast any spells whatsoever, since they draw their spells from the auto-calculated spell list. "...I changed the fEffectCostMult variable in the gameplay settings window." In my testing fEffectCostMult has the effect of reducing the cost of every spell effect used at a spell maker and an enchanter - everything. The author's lowering of this value would exacerbate the already awful window called enchanting.
The author's presented solution will actually cause more problems than it solves, especially since many spell effects aren't inflated in the spellmaker's window. However he does deserve enormous credit for recognizing the capriciousness of the spellmaker window way back in June.
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Shogakusha, I have to admit my preference for non-linear things. A linear system is not self regulating and is difficult to keep in equilibrium. One of the reasons that high level Morrowind lacks challenge is due in no small part to the enormous pool of hitpoints that characters can have. The rate of hitpoint gain actually increases if you build your endurance. That Flame Atronach that did 50 points of fire damage when you were level 10 probably represented damage of half of your health. That hurt. At level 20 that is closer to one-third your health, at level 30 only 25% of your health (assuming you never put a single point in endurance). Couple the increasing health with the aquisition of shiny trinkets that add resistance, regeneration, reflection (not to mention your resitance based on willpower) and there is no challenge. The Flame Atronach is now a mosquito. Magic, represented by an Atronach's fireball, has remained constant. The amount of relative damage it is doing has decreased dramatically.
For magic to remain effective past level 10 or so either it must keep pace in damage (represented by reduced magicka cost per point of damage inflicted - not implementable or by increasing the total magicka pool to simulate this) or not face ever increasing hitpoint pools. There is a third alternative: it can be valued for its secondary effects; the non-damage causing effects, viz. burdens, sounds, resists, drains, and so on.
If you are using mods such as Giants, then reducing your hitpoints might prevent you from effectively facing critters designed to challenge those massive hitpoint pools. If you are playing more-or-less normal MW, then I would guess that around two times endurance would be all the hitpoints you'd ever need. I don't think there is a better solution, just one that may be appropriate for the style you are in the mood to play. I think I'd be more interested in seeing how reduced hitpoints work out, as increased magicka pools tend to make mages sleep for days on end. Heck, try 'em both and post back about how they make the game feel to you.
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I haven't tested this; I just whipped it up in response to the 'how to' discussion. I've commented the script so you can see how it works. You can set this to begin from an inserted object or from the main script (like my test health mod).
begin SpellPointMod
; start the running script, then initialize all the variables we're going to be using.
short CurrentMagicka
float CurrentMagickaRatio
short NewMagicka
short DamagedMagicka
short PlayerLevel
short PlayerIntelligence
short CurrentSpellPoints
; this script runs during sleep, which is when magicka is regenerated or when leveling up occurs.
if ( GetPCSleep == 1 )
; here as an example I set player spell points to be equal to INT plus
; 4 additional points per level. You could modify the third line down
; in any fashion you please, or base it off any stat you want, or any
; combination, or any formula, etc.
set PlayerLevel to ( Player->GetLevel )
set PlayerIntelligence to ( Player->GetIntelligence )
set NewMagicka to (( PlayerIntelligence + ( PlayerLevel *4 ))
; next up we find out if the pc has less than his full spell points
set CurrentSpellPoints to ( Player->GetMagicka )
set CurrentMagickaRatio to ( NewMagicka / CurrentSpellPoints )
; now we apply the formula, then reduce magicka by the number
; of spell points the character has used for spells. Following the
; application of this formula regeneration during rest will occur.
Player->setMagicka, NewMagicka
set CurrentMagicka to ( NewMagicka * CurrentMagickaRatio )
set DamagedMagicka to ( CurrentMagicka - NewMagicka )
Player->ModCurrentMagicka, DamagedMagicka
endif
; and now we end the script!
end SpellPointMod
Max
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Nope, the NPCs use the autocalc function to figure out their health (based upon how they'd distribute their stat points with each level-up depending on their class). We have no access to the autocalc function so there's no way to change all the NPC health ratings en masse, at least not within the game. You might be able to do some kind of hack using hex editing but that's far beyond my interest level.
In any event my race changes have resulted in discrepancies with some of the autocalced NPCs (e.g., they no longer have a high proficiency with the weapon they're carrying) so going over them by hand is necessary anyway. Add to this the fact that I've set all minimum armor skill ratings to 50 and that I'm making the trainers have a max skill score of 80 (no more training up to 100) and I have to do it the hard way regardless.
As for using my health mod script it has *not* been extensively tested. I've run it with my Navarine, pre-Navarine, and several beginning characters and everything seems kosher, but that doesn't mean it won't irreparably break down under certain circumstances I've yet to encounter. Once I have my overhaul complete I plan to start a brand new character and play the game through all over again for more thorough testing but just be aware that terrible things could happen, and you have no warranty. :-)
Max
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Wakim,
You are indeed correct that the spellmaker mod was a crude hack for a broken system. My intention here was to show how one mod maker approached the problem. You could, for instance, calculate the disparity in bought vs made spells (as you did in your example), change the magicka costs of bought spells, un-autocalc them, and then alter the NPCs by hand to give them a decent spell selection. From this point on the game would be relatively normal except that any made spell would have roughly the same cost as an equivalent bought spell. It's a lousy way to solve the problem (and breaks almost instantly if you apply another mod that affects NPCs or magic), but it might be the only way to set made spells to the same magicka cost as bought spells.
The author essentially took a step in that direction and said 'screw it, it's too much work'. I agree. The brilliance lies in the fact that way back he recognized what might be the *only* solution to the spellmaker problem before there was any real discussion on the issue, and showed how it could be done.
Other than getting Bethesda to release the functions as part of a patch to the CS, that is. But I'm convinced that will never happen, under any circumstances, no matter the player demand.
Max
Edited by maxpublic (10/29/02 03:42 AM)
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Thanks wakim, and maybe in the next elder scrolls series we will see some more interesting spells effects.
Perhaps some different spell effects were a part of what was left out of the game do to system specs, and maybe they will implement them later. I remember seeing something as simple as rain not falling through the roofs as something that was intentionaly left out, and I think they are keeping many things secret that could have been possible in the game for another time and game considering the advancment of the 'average' gaming PC.
KC
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Do you mean visual effects, or actual spell effects, like "Levitate" and "Fire Damage", when you say you want to see "more interesting spell effects"?
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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Fond memories I have of Wizardry 8 were Death Cloud (that flying screaming spinning red-eyed skull), Tsunami (the vivid blue frothing wave filling the screen), Quicksand (the waves of dirt pouring over and encompassing the opponents), Terror (more flying skulls), Nuclear Blast (don't look at the light!), and so many more. I found myself casting spells just to admire the visual effects. Oh, and Crush (giant boulder falling on opponent, always good for laughs), Boiling Blood (the languid sizzling bolt ever so casually seeking out its foe), Whipping Rocks (flying spinning rocks), Slow (the giant pocket watch spinning backwards like an old Twilight Zone), Earthquake (don't adjust the horizontal hold on your monitor), all the cloud and fume-type spells (although they could have lingered a touch more for my taste), Ego Whip (a whole new meaning to "being whipped"), Insanity (hope you're not afraid of clowns), and my all time favorite: Eye for an Eye (Death Cloud goes confidently streaking towards your opponent when suddenly the screaming flying spinning red-eyed skull trailing a dark cloud comes streaking back at ya).
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insanity and crush were my all time personal favorites from that game. i'd love an insanity effect in morrowind.
i think that game was the only one i've ever played where defensive spells were actually more important than offensive.
cheers
h
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I think it's a combination of both, we would all always like more speel effects. I would personally have liked to see command, etc work on the PC. NPC casts charm on you and you find that you just can't seem to make yourself attack them for a while, etc. Visual effects would help to make the magic less boring. A fireball 5-15 damage should be far less impressive than a 100-100 fireball, and area effect should have a visual effect all it's own. I'd like to see more ways of delivering spells too. Now we have touch and ranged. I'd like to see spontaneous ranged, energy bolt, fall from sky, charge weapon(ie, effect will be used the next time you swing your weapon, like a oneshot enchantment that doesn't destroy the weapon) etc. All with their own advantages and disadvantages. A huge area effect rain of fire spell would be something truly awesome to see.
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Ala Final Fantasy, that sounds to me. Those games always had great magic systems, with tons of totally unique spells. Of course you can't really compare FF and MW, but having played so much FF I can't help but feel that MW has only second rate magic VFX and that the magic system, while complex, is not as well thought-out as it may initially seem to be. I thought that a lot of magic effects would guarantee diverse spallcasting, when I first started playing MW, but it turned out rather differently. I think these spell-cost changes will definitely improve the situation though.
One spell I'd like to see (one that always made FF games very challenging towards the end) is a spell or family of spells that damage the PC's health by a percentage of their current health - like the 'demi' spells in FF where you could stand to lose 6666 of your 9999 hitpoints in one attack. Never lethal, unless you only have 1 hp left, but great for getting hurt and putting hurt on monsters/NPCs quickly.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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The main difference with Morrowind is that spells are made up of combinations of spell effects, and new spells could be created in-game and in plug-ins. Everything had to be written for the general case. Plus, there are a LOT of spell effects in Morrowind, and combining that with the delivery types (self, target, touch), area & duration & magnitude variations, a virtually limitless variety of spells is available.
Balance is achieved as described in this thread, by tweaking effect costs, tweaking autocalc'd spells, modified racial bonus & birthsign spells, that sort of thing. And before you say "We shouldn't have to do that", remember that "balance" is in many cases in the eye of the beholder, which is why Wakim's mods have several variants, and which is why many people consider the game to be balanced already. If you're not one of those people, more power to you -- have at the TESCS and enjoy.
There's nothing stopping people from replacing the visual effects, either.
Of course, you can't add new spell delivery types, and you can't add new spell effects, but I think the game presents plenty of variety as it is. Also, the problem with Final Fantasy-type spell effects is that you have to watch them, every time you cast. Pretty, but repetitive. So while gorgeous effects are desireable (and I'd like to see more unique and cool visuals for each effect too), it's still important to balance that with not having to sit & watch a 10 second spell 1000 times during a game.
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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i've never actually played any FF games, but from watching my friend play them, i noticed the only ridiculously drawn out spell things were the summons. i believe they allowed you to skip the movies in FFX.
it'd be nice if some of the broken spell effects - turn undead, calm and demoralize ( or does it work now with Wakim's flee AI changes? i haven't tested extensively ) were fixed in tribunal or something.
cheers
h
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While there appears to be a variety of spell effects in Morrowind I'd say that this isn't really the case. As the game stands most are, for all practical purposes, quite useless; and some are completely outclassed by other spells, so they never get used.
I can think of quite a few effects that aren't incorporated into the game. Here are just a few examples off the top of my head:
- a spell to steal health/fatigue/mana from the target. And no, absorb isn't what I'm talking about. Absorb only does so temporarily, then gives it back.
- common spells in other games like 'speed' and 'slow'. Increasing/reducing the speed attribute in Morrowind does *not* have the same effect.
- any spell which affects a specific type of creature, like the broken 'turn undead' spell.
- a 'homing' version of elemental spells, for all those poor NPCs that can't hit the broadside of a barn.
- spells which confuse the target or drive the target temporarily insane.
- a 'mask' illusion spell which allows you to travel in crowded areas without being recognized by NPCs, or speak to NPCs without being recognized.
- any spell which targets on sight without having to be thrown like some magical rock.
- a spell which affects the weather, at least locally.
- a real magical lock spell, one that can't be picked (how do you 'pick' magic, anyway).
- any sort of 'wall spell', like 'wall of fire'
- any sort of force effect spell, e.g., something which prevents movement or the passage of missiles.
I could go on here for quite some time. My point is, however that there definitely is not "a virtually limitless variety of spells available." Anything but, actually.
In Morrowind 'balance' has very little to do with the eye of the beholder. Without tweaking many of the spell effects are either completely worthless or aren't worth the cost in comparison to other, more effective spells. The system unmodified is terribly out of balance and desperately in need of a fix. If it weren't this wouldn't be a persistent topic which has been explored in a number of threads since the game was released.
And yes, more visual effects would be dandy as well. If I cast a fire 100-100 50' radius I rather expect to see the target area and everything within 50 feet consumed in flame. All I see now are little zaps of flame hitting the enemy and that's it. For a game that has such a visually stunning environment it's rather odd that the magic is on par with games put out years ago (even Betrayal at Krondor had some more interesting visuals than Morrowind does).
Max
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Here Here Max,
I agree that the lack of spell 'effects'(as in the effect produced besides a magickal bolt) is a real pinch on the atmosphere of spellcasting in morrowind.
Really that is my only annoyance with the system, I would like to have more options. Of course this is impossible to change, as the designers must implement these things.
Perhaps always using a magick 'bolt' wouldn't be so bad, as long as something happens when it contacts with a barrier besides blasting in a radius. casting a 'wall' spell could at first be a bolt and then change into the wall when it contacts something excluding vertical walls, otherwise it fizzles.
I think this thread has long went past 'balancing' spells and into a total re-modification. Which I think is cool, cause it shows some possiblities for the elder scrolls games in the future.
But perhaps we should still be thinking on terms of the already existant spell system.Maybe they should think about a different type of targeting system for the spells, or even keep the ones they have now, just make it to where a different 'effect' happens when it contacts something. I could see shooting a bolt and as the bolt hits it's target instead of blossoming into an orb a lightning bolt strikes from the sky and hits its target doing damage in a radius that way. the same could be done for many other 'types' of effects, but the overall targeting for all of them could use the 'bolts'.
KC
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MrSmileyFaceDude:
I think I may have sounded a bit harsh in my last post. I know you worked on game, so I think you should know that MW is my favorite game of all time!
While I have my own ideas about the perfect magic system, I'm not at all dissatisfied with TES magic. It has had the potential for great gaming all along. Some people, as you said, already found it to be a balanced system anyway. Personally, I want a real challenge from NPCs and from the game in general, having kicked the crap out of just about every RPG I ever played, except Daggerfall =). I look for a tactical AND strategic challenge. By making it easier for NPCs to cast more spells, I feel that the game has greatly improved. Not everyone wants what I want of course.
I also realize that you can't compare FF to the layered system MW uses. The layering is one of the real strengths anyway, and something I would hate to find removed from the series.
I really only have one major issue with MW magic, and that is that the game has been styled so as to allow you to do most everything WITHOUT really focusing on magic. I think you ought to pay the price for not picking a magic-oriented character, just as I think there should be a steep price for not picking a stealth-oriented or combat-oriented character. As it stands, the discrepancies fade away after you hit level 20. Again, this is my personal preference speaking, and I think that I can achieve what I want sooner or later through the TESCS, which you all so thoughtfully provided us with.
Horatio:
I hated FF summoning spells. REALLY repetitive. Also, it's a genre that is more directed at younger players, and I have grown rather tired of it lately. It was however one of the first really successful and playable console RPGs there was (the original Finall Fantasy for NES), and it has had it's impact on me and my expectations.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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Alastor,
The only problem is that you can't change how spells behave. Spells can't have attached scripts so even attempting to script a work-around is out of the question. Just about the only thing you can change at the moment is the graphic exhibited by the spell when it's cast (and this graphic still has to work the same way as the graphic it replaces).
An example would be the replacement shield fx posted on this forum sometime in the last couple of days. Note that the graphic for the spell is different but all it really is is a different 'skin' of the spell. Though a very nice skin and one I'm going to use to replace the Bethesda version in my game.
Combination spell effects can be made which are different from current spells but they're only useful if you pretty much disable PC spell-making altogether. For example, I could craft a spell that does 50 points of damage to the caster and in return increases his magic points by 100 for 60 seconds (call it 'blood magic'). But this only works if I disable the player's ability to make spells using the 'damage health' effect and the 'fortify magicka' effect. Otherwise the player will just go out and buy a spell that has the 'fortify magicka' effect without the 'damage health: self' effect.
There are some interesting things you can do with the combinations, as limited as they are - at the expense of depriving the player of making his own spells.
Max
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> The only problem is that you can't change how spells behave. Spells
> can't have attached scripts so even attempting to script a work-
> around is out of the question. Just about the only thing you can
> change at the moment is the graphic exhibited by the spell when it's
> cast (and this graphic still has to work the same way as the graphic
> it replaces).
Eh... I'm going to have to beg to differ here. I know that there were mods that ran a script with a spell, such as the Bound Shortsword / Bound Arrows mod. Cult of the Clouds at least supposedly had spells to wind up changing the weather.
I regard to combination effects:
IIRC, only the first effect in a spell can be used in the spellmaker / enchanting. So long as the Fortify Magicka is not the first effect, the player can't exploit it.
Secondly, there's some kind of flag as to whether an effect can be used in a spellmaker or enchantment, right? Within the editor?
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Yeah, there's an option to have effects available for enchanting and/or spellmaking under 'GamePlay' -> "Magic Effects".
Changing weather has nothing to do with spell effects. Weather is a completely different thing altogether for which there ARE some script functions/commands. There is also some TESCS script functionality for placing objects into the game and for checking whether the PC has certain objects equipped, etc. These functions/commands were used, if anything, for making new bound weapons. There is, however, nothing that could really change the way spells work in the game. Effects like targeting can't be scripted and can't be created by replacing existing VFX, and are pretty much out of the question without actually knowing what's hard-coded. Maybe Bethesda can do some stuff like that next time around, but TES3 isn't gonna see it.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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Yeah, I've done some of those spells as well to change the weather. The key is that while spells can't run scripts, scripts can check if spells are cast on something (such as casting a specific spell that has a self target, and have a script change the weather if it detects the spell is cast on you).
- a spell to steal health/fatigue/mana from the target. And no, absorb isn't what I'm talking about. Absorb only does so temporarily, then gives it back.
No it doesn't, it's permanent. One of my spells that I really like is an AOE absorb health over time, cast it in a large group of enemies, and you continously get health from all of them while the spell is in effect, and it's certainly not temporary from any of my experience.
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It is very understandable that what MSFD refers to as "the general case" for spell effects is one of the developmental guidlines for determining how graphic intensive the spell effects would be. This isn't a situation where the game can "know" what graphic to assign to a specific spell since, in theory, the spellmaker gives the player access to a myriad of permutations of effects. Therefore the game was built around fairly generic effects that could be used to represent both "Firebite" and "God's Fire". If it is desired, one who has sufficient computer graphic skills could replace any spell effect in game. I lack those skills so I can't speak on whether there exist limitations to what is possible for a person to achieve graphic-wise for spell effects. The recent screenshot I saw of a new graphic for the "shield" spell effect was quite visually impressive.
Referencing the concept of balance: I would be reticent to say "we shouldn't have to do that". I played through Morrowind and had fun, and I can say that I did get much more than my $40 worth from it. For enjoyment per dollar Morrowind has to be one of the best computer games released. And to go one step further, I have immensely enjoyed playing with the Construction Set: something that was included virtually gratis. I have no complaints about the product and wouldn't hestitate to plunk down money for future TES titles.
However, balance is not in "the eye of the beholder". Beauty may be termed as such with poetic license, but only existing in the most egalitarian of concepts can one say that five grams in one pan of a scale and ten grams in the other pan qualifies as balance. A confusion of semantics is occurring. The substitution here is the term balance and the term fun. It is true that many people consider the game fun already. I doubt that anyone who takes the time to post in this forum would disagree. However, it would be erroneous to say that many people consider the game balanced already.
The firing of passions over the confusion of these two terms can be readily seen by posting in a general Morrowind forum the topic of "camp a scamp". Creeper is not a balanced addition to Morrowind. Yet once the term fun and balance are confused people will read that "Creeper is not a fun addition" to Morrowind and disagree vehemently. There can be no argument that Creeper is unbalanced, but there can be much disagreement about whether Creeper is fun. The former is empirical, the latter is not. The availability of the .esp files I have created in modular format is simply recognition that fun is a very subjective thing, not that balance is whimsical.
Morrowind lacks parity between the abilities of magic effects compared to their cost. Similarly, there is a vast disparity between the abilities of what is termed the combat arts and the efficacy of the magic arts. While I started this thread with the hope of engendering discussion on the former topic, it quickly progressed to the latter. The former is within the purview of TESCS to correct (with exception to hardcoding, i.e. Turn Undead). The latter is not. As a result there has been alot of velleities posted; some have expressed frustration, some even call for an ombudsman. This is understandable, although a touch fanciful. There are hardcoded formulae which simply beg examination under the auspice of balance. The fact that there is enough enthusiasm on the part of Bethesda customers to care about such triavlities as magicka cost speaks volumes about the admiration we hold for the product.
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Just because I want to argue right now (please don't take me too seriously):
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't you a little off in asserting that 'balance' is an empirical...thingy. I mean, balance seems to me to be almost more subjective than fun.
We could say that balance in this case corresponds directly to what is most fun. If it isn't fun, it isn't balanced is it? And fun is, in turn, is dependant on style of play, personality, etc. I think it is too much to say that there exist 'disparities' in MW's systems. The objective of the creators was, after all, to provide the highest level of entertainment possible to the largest number of potential players/buyers possible. That means they chose a middle path of making it not-that-tough for some of us who might desire a more challenging game. Sure, some things were not given as much consideration as they deserved and there were some plain old oversights, but by and large I think it came out the way they wanted it to.
If we call the game unbalanced, and then go on to say that this is fact and not opinion, we are overlooking something: the relationship between 'balance' and our own unique expectations and desires. Balance then is a perceived thing just as fun is.
Personally, I have some issues with balance in MW and greatly appreciate your knack for detail and the efforts you have put into creating a different sort of game experience. I will not say that balance does not exist for others though. Inversely, there are people who don't like MW at all, and will never find a balance that suits them.
MW was definitely worth the money for me, not least because the TESCS gives me the ability to alter a lot of things to suit my wants and to create the balance that I desire.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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Balance is not subjective because it is not defined to be a subjective term. Balance is defined as an equilibrium, an equality, or if you wish, a symmetry. An equality cannot be subjective measurement; it must be objective. Mathematically 2 = 1+1 is an equality, monetarily a quarter and two dimes plus a nickel are equivalent quantities. Within the framework of what is being measured this is balance. If I choose to measure mass then perhaps two pennies and three dimes are balanced.
Balance does not correspond in any way to fun. A quarter and two dimes plus a nickel isn't fun, yet they are monetarily balanced. Morrowind is fun, yet it isn't balanced within the game's defined framework. To provide a simplified Morrowind example; if Feather costs 10 magicka to cast and allows one to carry 10 pounds more, yet Fortify Strength costs 10 magicka to cast and allows one to carry 50 pounds more and to increase melee damage and to increase total fatigue, then there is no balance between these effects. This is not subjective.
The framework one chooses to measure within can be allowed to be subjective. If one chooses to weigh the fun value of Morrowind against the internal inconsistancies and decide that the scales are weighted onto the side of fun, then I will agree with you. I think Morrowind is fun, but that is a subjective opinion since I cannot measure fun; there are no units applied to fun. One cannot have sixteen grams of fun or twelve ergs of fun (although perhaps the unit of monkey barrels could be introduced). I can measure magicka cost. This is an objective unit and therefore something that can be measured and compared to its value. I can measure, say, damage output per second of a daedric katana under certain circumstances, this also is objective. Something that is provable by experiment is empirical. Balance is empirical since equivalence can be experimentally shown. Fun is not empirical because is cannot be measured and thus cannot be experimentally shown.
It is not my intent to imply that a balanced game is a fun game. Nor to imply that Morrowind must be balanced to be fun, as that isn't the case. Playing chess against yourself is a balanced game, but not something widely considered fun. The error I see is the confusion of the two terms. Balance is not synonymous with fun. Oft people will complain about blood sports because they are not "fair" or balanced: The bull does not have a lance to match the picador, the deer does not have a thirty-aught-six to match the hunter. These are games - sports and not intended to be balanced. If they were balanced then it would not be sport, but rather survival.
Games are trivialities and should be viewed in that perspective. The goal of a game is fun, not balance. The relationship between the internal consistancy of a game and what an individual requires to find fun in that game is dependant upon that individual's unique expectations and desires. That is subjective. The internal inconsistancy is not.
I agree that any game creator, if they are responsible about their work, has the goal of providing "the highest level of entertainment possible to the largest number of potential players/buyers possible." I am just one guy in that large number and I feel that I have been thoroughly entertained. Having balance or internal consistancy does not equate to entertainment, but they need not be mutually exclusive.
However, when all is said and done, balance is an empirical thingy.
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ummmm,yeah what wakim said.
qwert
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My Mods:
http://thelys.free.fr/qwert.htm
http://angelfire.lycos.com/games5/qwert_44643
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Horatio
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yeah, i agree with qwert. this semantic hair-splitting is getting to be a trifle excessive. but wakim, your writing style is so entertaining that i forgive you.
cheers
h
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Aww... shucks. Thank ya'll.
If "brevity is the soul of wit", then I aint got none.
(My shortest post, ever.)
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Oh yeah hey wakim you compiled enough for another update yet.....if so get in touch.
qwert
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My Mods:
http://thelys.free.fr/qwert.htm
http://angelfire.lycos.com/games5/qwert_44643
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So much to reply to....
I'm willing to bet that part of the objection to what I've said in my posts lies in Wakim's observation that 'balanced' and 'fun' are confused. The magic system is not balanced, nor is magic balanced against the alternative of simply hacking one's way through a combat situation. This can be shown in an objective fashion to the satisfaction of all but the most rabid fans. And for those folks this thread isn't for them anyway as fans are, by their very nature, irrational about whatever they happen to be fans over.
The game, while wildly unbalanced, is quite fun - at least until you get to level 25 or so. After this point for some the fun decreases; to them a game that presents no challenge becomes boring. To others, specifically those who invoke 'god mode' whenever they load up a new game, their fun increases. They like the fact that nothing can, nor ever will, challenge them and can spend hour after endless hour playing through combats that have only one outcome.
I admit I do not understand the second class of folks. The rationale behind playing a fixed game that you're always going to win is beyond my comprehension. I can't even begin to imagine why they'd bother in the first place. No doubt the fact that the magic system is broken and that they can tear right through the likes of Divith Fyr without breaking a sweat is a source of great joy to them. For me it's an utter disappointment.
But as I said before, this thread isn't for them. If that's the way they like it then this entire discussion isn't directed towards their satisfaction. They're already satisfied so they should just move on and leave the first class of people to pore over the details to see what changes they can make to the game to increase *their* enjoyment. To each his own.
I have been quite critical of Bethesda at times, but over two very specific things:
- the decision not to release critical in-game functions as part of the TES, a decision which has zero to do with copyright, law, or protecting 'intellectual property'; and
- the fact that a very specific part of the game - the magic system - seems to have been 'rushed out the door', indicated by the utter lack of balance and the less-than-impressive spell effects. You can tell that the design team spent *years* on the environment, while the magic system and effects seem like a hacked add-on that some poor programmer was tasked to do all by himself 6 months before release. I pity the guy or guys this was dumped on (having been there myself I can feel their pain).
As for the rest of Morrowind I got more than my money's worth. Heck, it was worth the $50 I paid for it just for the initial walk through Seyda Neen thinking to myself "holy sh*t! this is amazing!" And the first half of the game was quite enjoyable, even if the second half devolved into 'hack this, take its loot, next' without there ever being a chance that something would hack back sufficiently hard to kill my character.
So my $50 was well-spent, especially in comparison to some of the dreck I've plunked money down on in the past. But by no means does that require me to stifle my criticism of the broken game elements or Bethesda's decisions re game functions. My accolades have been expressed in concrete monetary terms far more valuable than the words 'good job!' already.
And if I want to work to fix that broken system to increase *my* enjoyment - and I do - then no one can gainsay me. So long as I do not insist that *you* use my system as well then everyone is happy.
If anything Bethesda should see long threads like this, as well as detailed critical commentary, as a positive thing. After all, if I didn't care about the game at all it'd be gathering dust in a corner some place until I decided to give it to some kid who might find it enjoyable. Neverwinter Nights suffered just such a fate and you won't see trying to 'fix' that game system because I simply do not care about it enough to waste any more time on that 'game' than I already have. The fact that I've wasted *so* much time on a trivial pursuit of no real-world value speaks volumes about how entertaining I find it in the first place.
But that still doesn't mean that the magic system is balanced, nor that efforts shouldn't be undertaken to fix it.
Max
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Fuzzy: open up the CS and take a look at both magic effects and spellmaking. There is no way to attach a script to either one. The best you can do is run a global script which attempts to simulate this by constantly checking to see if the character casts spell 'x'. And even so, there are a number of things this simply doesn't work for, and it's extremely difficult to apply to NPC spell-casting.
Your mod might *look* like there's a new spell or spell effect, or that some effect has been changed, but this isn't the case. Someone did a clever bit of sleight-of-hand, and under very particular circumstances.
Soralis: according to the magic effects listing for absorb fatigue:
"This effect transfers fatigue from the victim to the caster, wearying the victim and invigorating the caster. The caster may exceed his maximum fatigue for the duration. When the effect ends, the caster loses the borrowed fatigue, and the victim regains drained fatigue."
and for absorb health:
"This effect transfers health from the victim to the caster, injuring the victim and vitalizing the caster. The caster may exceed his maximum health for the duration. When the effect ends, the caster loses the borrowed health, and the victim regains lost health."
This is listed for all absorb effects: at the end of the spell, the absorbed points are given back to the target.
I do not use absorb and have eliminated the line entirely from my mod. I suppose I could go test it out to see if absorb works differently but if it does work as you describe it then the description for the effect is clearly wrong. Worse, absorb now becomes more useful than the 'damage' line since in essence you're applying damage while fortifying your own attributes, at a lesser cost. If so, then the absorb line is way out of whack with the rest of the system.
Max
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But back to balancing spells....
In testing I can see no point to graded damage spells. That is, a spell which does 100 points of damage in 1 second costs the same amount of magicka as a spell which does 10 points of damage each second for 10 seconds, and has the same chance of being cast successfully. The graded version of the spell is actually worse since it leaves your enemy alive for an extra 10 seconds. My test mod now includes no graded damage spells of any kind (except for those that cause more than 100 points of damage, to comply with the PC spellmaker).
I thought that perhaps I'd been a bit over-zealous in giving all of my NPCs 4 x INT in magicka. After all, using my spell effects a fire lance (100-100 for 2 seconds) costs 75 magicka and will kill any PC or NPC who isn't a special case (e.g., Divith Fyr or Vivec). However, my initial suspicions were correct:
- since spells are either bolt or touch effect, dodging bolts is easy unless you're up close and personal. If you are, you have a fair chance of interrupting the mage's casting by clouting him repeatedly with your weapon even if you take no defensive measures against his spell casting.
- high level characters (or high willpower characters) often resist spells entirely.
- the application of defensive spells or enchantments reduces the success of enemy spell casting significantly. The mage, on the other hand, is less likely to resist the effects of being gutted like a fish (I'm still not sure about the sanctuary/shield spells - sometimes they seem to work, and sometimes not).
In other words, even the dumb, rash warrior has better than even odds of winning the battle against an equal-level opponent at mid to high levels. At low levels the NPC mage wins more often if you're in an enclosed area that makes dodging difficult, but usually 'runs dry' in open areas.
And then there's the consideration of why any group of folks should fear a mage. After all, it takes something like the fire lance to assure death assuming you get past the enchantments/resistance/dodges. That means that even the most feared wizard can kill exactly six people before he runs out of juice. Hardly the stuff of legends.
And if those six people are all using bows, the mage will never, ever get a spell off. If you want a taste of why, load up the Firemoth plug and charge willy-nilly into the groups of bow-using skeletons and see what happens.
The blast effect spells are good at reducing the ability to 'dodge' spells, but they're of extremely limited usefulness (primarily bandit cave complexes where all the guards are strung out so far from one another they don't even know their buddies are being hacked to pieces). These spells *cannot* be applied to a mage that's in any crowded area; the NPC mage completely ignores everyone else and casts the spell, killing everyone in the area (except, usually, the PC).
In my game I've made the top blast spell a 50-50 deal over 25 feet, and have only given it to mages who aren't likely to butcher their friends with wanton casts. So, oddly enough, none of the premiere wizards in Wolverine Hall have a blast effect spell - I think you can imagine why.
Overall, though, I can honestly say that my test games are much more interesting. I have been killed, repeatedly, for acting like an ass and charging into battle confident that my sheer heroism would carry the day. The magic effects changes combined with the new spell list at least give NPC mages a chance, and require the player to actually think before acting like a berserk Orc on PCP.
The only problem now is that to tweak the NPCs I have to change them all, by hand. Except for the test NPCs I've already changed, I'm currently on the F's....
Max
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wakim and maxpublic both said that "balance" is not subjective. wakim even said that it is erroneous of me to say that many people consider the game balanced. This is not erroneous, because I have seen and heard many people say that exact same thing. But it IS semantics -- because it's clear that different people have different ideas of what "balanced" means. Personally I think that "fun" must be part of the equation -- it's not entirely empirical. But that's just my opinion. 'Nuff said about that.
Some background for you. I am the magic system programmer. I joined the Morrowind team in April of 2001 (although I've worked for ZeniMax since June '99), joining with another programmer who had written most of the system already (that person has since left the company). A third programmer also helped out a bit with it. The visual effects were created by one person. For future games I will be in charge of programming all things magical, so believe me I find this thread in particular VERY valuable.
But let's get something straight -- the programming of the magic system has very little to do with how it is balanced, or not. Yes, the formulas themselves are hardcoded, but many of the variables that go into them are either game settings or are modified by game settings. The formulas have a long pedigree -- they've evolved since Arena was first developed. I really don't think there's any need to modify them, except perhaps to provide additional game settings to modify their parameters. No, balance in Morrowind's magic system is primarily governed by how those game settings are set in the TESCS. How spell costs are set. If that wasn't the case, Wakim's mods wouldn't do any good. Anyway, I have this thread marked as a favorite, and am going to make sure the designers all take a good long, hard look at it.
As to the other suggestions -- new types of spell delivery, new effects like homing projectiles, weather alteration, etc. -- that's all great stuff, and I have been thinking along similar lines with much of it. Keep it coming, I -AM- taking notes. And I would also like to see hugely better visual effects, stuff that takes more advantage of the latest graphical hardware too.
So keep making your mods, keep making suggestions, keep the thread going. I read it every day.
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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Balance can be examined in an empirical fashion; fun cannot. Some people will like a more balanced magic system, others will dislike it; this doesn't change the fact that the system will be *more* balanced than it was prior to the changes, but how that impacts anyones 'fun' is entirely subjective and will vary from person to person. Confusing the two and calling it 'semantics' is, I think, an indication of a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue.
And sure, you can change the magic system to make it more balanced. Wakim has done that, and so have I in my own mod. That doesn't alter the fact that a certain amount of imbalance is inherent in the system and can't be touched by us, the players, who aren't satisfied with how things are set up. As an example, the spellmaker system has it's own formula for each spell line which artificially inflates the cost of certain player-made spells in comparison to autocalced bought spells, and yet there is no way, game settings or not, to bring that system into balance. The same goes for enchantments, the process of enchanting itself, and the fact that spell effects aren't fired with enchantments so you can make yourself an 'Uzi fireball' ring and pound a regular mage into the dust.
None of this is balanced. None of this can be changed by us.
The fact that we don't have access to the autocalc function also complicates things greatly as we can't employ changes universally across autocalced pcs. There is no way to alter how NPCs pick spells, in order to keep them from taking spells which are worthless to them but useful to the PC. There is no way to alter NPC spell points other than a gross, system-wide change based on a single variable. There is no way to make NPCs use blast-effect spells in an intelligent manner, or at least tell them *not* to use spells if a friendly target would be within the calculated blast radius, a big advantage for the player. There is no way to tell spell-selling NPCs to sell certain spells but not actually use them in combat.
There are plenty of things critical to the magic system that we cannot change in order to balance how things work. Others require, since we aren't given access to certain functions, to do it the hard way via workarounds or hand-altering every bloody NPC in the game. And still others are just plain broken (e.g., Turn Undead) or work on NPCs but don't work on PCs (e.g., Command, Demoralize, Frenzy).
I think the spell system is a step in the right direction. It's a far sight better, at least conceptually, than systems which use D&D-like spell systems. I have to say, though, that games like Icewind Dale have a more balanced magic system than Morrowind. It pains me to admit it given my loathing for D&D but objectively I can't deny it.
That doesn't mean that Icewind Dale is, for me, more fun than Morrowind - it isn't. Because, you see, 'fun' is an element apart from 'balance' as both Wakim and I have pointed out.
Max
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MSFD:
one tiny suggestion for future implementations: make magicka resistance cut both ways so that things like healing will have a chance of failing. in general, more effects with inherent drawbacks would be cool. stuff like "fire form" where you become immune to flame, do fire damage to anything you touch but become incredibly sensitive to cold. likewise with "ice form" etc.
cheers
h
cheers
h
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"an indication of a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. "
That may well be the case -- the people whom I have seen or heard say that they think the game balance is fine may not understand the empirical nature of game balance. I won't dispute that. The point I was making is that it wasn't erroneous of me to say that many people think the game is balanced, because many do, whether they understand what you think of as balance or not. That's why I said "'nuff said about that." Let's not argue in circles
Sorry the game isn't as customizable as you'd like. You have to remember that we made alterable game settings so that WE could tweak the game -- we have just enough to do the things that WE have needed to do, added as needs arose. There was no need to make the formulas alterable outside of code, because the programmers could do it. Same with the auto-calc functions, and the enchanting and spellmaking procedures. Whenever we ran into an issue that we needed to be able to adjust on the fly, we added a game setting or two. But there was simply no need to have some sort of Excel-like formula editor, so that designers could plunk any old formula they wanted into the game. First, because like I said, the game system formulas are part of TES, and have evolved since Arena was first developed. Second, because we could change the formulas in code if needed. Maybe these are things we can think about doing for the future.
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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Horatio:
You could script such a spell yourself right now within the system. Example of 'Fire Form':
Resist Fire, Self, 60 seconds, 100 - cost (my system, not game): 75
Fire Shield, Self, 60 seconds, 100 - cost (my system, not game): 150
Weakness to Frost, Self, 60 seconds, 100 - cost (etc.): 300
Clearly the game doesn't distinguish between a deleterious spell effect cast upon an enemy and cast upon yourself. This means you'd have to make the spell non-autocalced, otherwise to make yourself weak to frost would require an additional 300 magic points.
So we could make sure we don't check the autocalc box and set the cost ourselves depending on how useful we thought this was. The spell is very useful - it makes you immune to flame, increase AR by 100, and heavily damages anyone who gets near you - while the weakness is only applicable under very specific circumstances. So I'd say that the positive effect benefit, normally costing 225 points (again, my system - the cost is too high in unmodified Morrowind), should be reduced to perhaps 200 points (the enemy can't tell, after all, that you're now a pushover when it comes to frost spells; there's no way to detect what spells are cast on the target).
The problems:
- you have to add it by hand to whatever NPCs you want to use it or sell it;
- you have to change the spellmaker to remove the PC ability to make spells using Resist Fire, Fire Shield, and Weakness to Frost. Otherwise the PC will make a spell without the weakness component.
But if you're willing to live with doing the hand-alterations and remove the PC's ability to make spells then your spell can be crafted right now.
Max
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Well, my other point applies then - if you think the system is fine as is then this thread isn't for you. Folks who're satisfied with the magic system need to hie their asses off to another thread, like the one where you can get that wonderful head that Rhedd did.
This thread is for the folks who think that the balance issues need to be addressed. It's irrelevant to anyone else.
As for the functions, simply making them editable would be enough. It doesn't need to be scripted for simplicity or even documented; the code would be beyond 99% of the people who open the CS and they wouldn't touch it, or if they did then the risk is theirs. As a programmer myself, however, it would prove invaluable to making the changes that I want to see in the game, and I could in turn release these changes to non-programmers in a mod.
The functions are certainly there; we just can't touch them. You can't imagine the frustration of knowing you could alter a few lines of code to make sweeping changes to autocalced NPCs, whereas right now my only choice is to hand modify all 2500 records. I can *taste* the code taunting me just outside of reach.
Um, okay, perhaps that's a bit over the top, but as a programmer yourself I think you probably know what I mean.
Max
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Mr. SmileyFaceDude:
There's a question you can answer for me, since you have access to the code. In order to script in my changes to the magic system (which require changes to health as well) I decided that I had to hand-alter all 2500 NPCs. Unfortunately this essentially makes my mod unusable with a number of other mods. Also, as much as I like Morrowind, I found upon completing the 'F's' I don't like it *that* much. My fondness for the game isn't quite obsessive enough to complete this monumental task.
I've found crude work-arounds for most of what I want to do keeping autocalc as-is (e.g., the spells that don't work for NPCs are now non-autocalc and I'll add them in by hand to spell-sellers). However, in order to boost NPC initial health I thought to make two versions of every race, one PC-playable and one not, and give the NPCs a power of 'fortify health x points). It isn't as streamlined as 2 x Endurance but it's close enough for me.
When I add in an ability to the Breton race called 'breton health adjustment' with a Fortify Health effect of 30 (effectively doubling initial Health values) it shows up on a Breton NPC as an ability in the spell ist. All well and good. But when you autocalc the NPC the power isn't used, i.e., 30 points *aren't* added to health. They are for a PC, but not for an NPC. On the other hand, all skill bonuses *are* added in for both PCs and NPCs.
This makes no sense. Why would skill values change when you change a race, but powers remain inactive for NPCs? Can you shed some light on the subject?
Thanks,
Max
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So you're saying that you run the game with your health-boosting ability, and when you click on a Breton in-game with the console up and type "gethealth", the health has not been boosted by the ability? Or are you just talking in the editor?
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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Since it has been mentioned twice, I'd like to apologize for my lack of clarity on the point of "many people think the game is balanced". It was not my intent to impugn MSFD: if that paragraph could be read that way then I again apologize. I did not mean to say that MSFD is in error when he wrote that people have said that statement to him. I have no reason to doubt MSFD's veracity. My intended meaning was that the speaker of the statement, "I think the game is balanced" is using a semantic substitution that results in an erroneous statement. The tenor of subsequent posts makes me believe that my statement is understood for what I intended it to mean. I hope it is also clear that I am not striving to proselytize.
Yes, it is semantics. However, without agreement upon the meaning of words then communication is impossible. Semantics is not synonymous with triviality, quite the opposite. Without meaning, what point in using words? Again, my apologies for any misunderstanding.
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't - till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean a 'nice knock-down argument,' " Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more or less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
-Lewis Carroll, "Through The Looking-Glass".
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i'm more concerned with the fact that the last few pages of this thread have been totally clogged with really verbose posts discussing balance as a concept rather than sticking to earlier discussions of game mechanics and possible changes to the magick system for those of us who feel it needs tweaking.
while i have no inherent problem with discussions on the various meanings of the word balance i feel as though the original purpose of this thread has been totally buried underneath the balance related dialogue that you, maxpublic and MSFD have been having.
oh well. it was a nice thread for the first 12 pages or so.
cheers
h
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My bad. It didn't occur to me that abilities would only be applied once the character is activated. It works as it should.
Max
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Let me add another observation, then:
Reducing spell costs in some cases significantly reduces the skill level required to cast high-effect spells. This means that someone with a Destruction of 60 or so could cast the fire lance (100-100, for 2 seconds) if fire damage is set to 4.00. That includes most of the spell-casting NPCs in the game.
What this means is that incorporating lowered costs also makes the lesser versions of certain spells (e.g., crush/burden, whatever you call it) things that NPCs won't autoselect. They'll just take the best of the lot since even their low skill scores will allow casting.
The alternative is to boost the spell point costs back up a bit to scale them with skill scores. I don't really think anyone with less than an 80 or so Destruction should be able to cast the above fire lance spell with greater than a 50% chance of success. On the flip side upping the magic effect price reduces the number of spells an NPC can cast - unless the available spell points are increased yet again to compensate.
Another observation is that allowing NPCs to autoselect spells without modifying the schools attached to those spells results in NPC mages picking a smattering of each effect type. So the mage will pick, say firebolt (greater); but she'll also pick frostbolt (greater), shockbolt (major), and poisonbolt (major). This reduces the utility of casting resistance spells since, while the NPC might've cast a firebolt at you the first time, the next time it might be a shockbolt, and the time after that a poisonbolt.
My workaround for this 'jack of all magics' problem is to separate out the damage effects and assign them to different schools, like so:
Destruction - Fire
Alteration - Frost
Mysticism - Shock
Restoration - Damage Health, Poison
Doing this means that the NPCs tend to 'specialize' in their best school and choose more spells of the same type. For balance I think that's necessary as otherwise the PC will have a hard time developing counters. A side benefit is that all those NPC mages who specialize in Mysticism (great for the PC, pretty useless for the NPC in battle) now have a spell of their own which inflicts damage.
Max
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wakim
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Adept
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Reged: 10/02/02
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Posts: 245
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I concur, Horatio. But twelve pages and 2000 views isn't such a bad run, is it?
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Hoghead
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Curate
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Reged: 09/06/02
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Posts: 802
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Loc: NC, USA
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MaxPublic:
Sorry to go off topic here, but I think is also related to the magic system/overall 'balance' or 'fun' or whatever.
I'd like to boost the health (and magicka) of NPCs too, but your work-around has the disadvantage that dialog gets all messed up when you change race IDs (or can you make two races with the same ID and not have the game confuse them?). The 'voice' greetings in particular are mostly linked to race IDs.
To me it still looks like I'm stuck with changing single NPCs. Any other ideas?
--------------------
__________
Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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I'm going to post something that I really feel is a major concearn of mine and its a concearn that I feel really needs to be addressed.
Why in the world is the majority of 'useful' spells that I have come across in the editor not readily available to buy in the game? I have made a plugin that allows more people to sell previously unbuyable spells and I feel it has greatly improved my liking of spellcasting. Such spells as Flamebolt and Frostbolt are unbuyable in the game, and they are the two most 'efficiant' spells that I have seen in the game. 10-50 Fire or Frost damage over 2 seconds isn't bad for only 24 magicka. Doing this same spell in the spellmaker would make the magicka cost around twice as much, and this is something that needs to be addressed as well.
Mr.Smily: Can you tell me why exactly the spellmaker puts extra magika costs when you make a custom spell? I feel like I've been raped at times when something as simple as a spell that does fire, frost, and shock damage costs more than a spell that does damage health, fire, frost, and shock that many ( and I do mean 'many') other NPCs can use? Why in the world do the NPCs get to have so many better spells than the PC? And regarding that why cant the PC aquire these spells in the game somehow?
I feel like I should have access to any spell an NPC can cast so long as it is a spell that isn't completly individual to the NPC. How do you feel the system compensates for the lack of available spells?
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Hogshead:
No, the voice greetings won't work properly in some instances with a custom race. In my last game (where I explored every square inch of the map) my character was a custom race called a 'Northron' and every once in awhile I'd get some funny results. However, most of the greetings defaulted to 'outlander' (so often I was itching to kill everyone who called me that) and the text messages actually use the race name - so in text at least my character was called 'Northron'.
It had no other effect on the game, however.
If you create two versions of a race, say Breton and Breton (PC playable) you need to make absolutely sure that the 'original' race is the NPC race, else you'll screw up all the autocalced NPCs in the game that rely on that race. The second version needs to be the PC-playable race. If you do this you can add things to the NPC race like 'fortify initial health' and so forth in order to increase balance.
I've run some tests against this to see how wildly PC health varies and here are some examples:
Breton Mage:
Level 01: End 30, Health 30
Level 10: End 35, Health 64
Level 20: End 41, Health 102
Breton Warrior:
Level 01: End 40, Health 40
Level 10: End 62, Health 122
Level 20: End 88, Health 208
Imperial Warrior:
Level 01: End 50, Health 50
Level 10: End 72, Health 127
Level 20: End 98, Health 213
Redguard Warrior:
Level 01: End 60, Health 60
Level 10: End 82, Health 132
Level 20: End 100, Health 214
Now, I wanted health to be based on 2 x END - period. But hand-modifying all 2500 NPCs turns out to be beyond my interest level. Worse, it essentially makes the mod incompatible with most of the other mods out there. So the NPC/PC race idea seemed like a good idea, a way to fortify the health of NPCs without running out of interest and minimizing conflicts with other mods.
Unfortunately if you add any significant amount of health to the NPC versions then the imbalance that moves in the other direction after level 10 becomes more pronounced - assuming you have the same concerns that I have, which is to essentially cap Health at 200 or as close to it as possible, excepting cases like Divith Fyr the Demi-God. If you don't care about a cap then hey, it'll work just the way you want it to - have at it!
My conclusion, as unsatisfying as it is, is to run my health mod for PCs and leave the autocalced health of the NPCs alone. While this royally screws any NPC below level 10 all the NPCs of this level or higher will rapidly move to 2 x END for Health, or slightly better (significantly better for mages and some classes of Wood Elves). In other words, the system performs well enough for me after level 10 that I'm willing to give the shaft to everyone under level 10, if only to avoid the work of hand-modification and the compatibility problems that come with it.
As for spell points you can either do the brute-force global change or you can fortify magicka just by making an ability and adding it to the NPC version of the race. The downside is that if you limit Orc NPCs to 1 x INT, thinking of Orc warriors and berserkers, this same affect is applied to Orc mages - and you can't give NPCs birthsigns, or further modify magicka within character class. I just picked the crudest of changes and set *all* NPC magicka to 4 x INT, although I think it's rather silly to see a 19th level Knight that has 300 magicka and no spells.
What this long-winded post boils down to is apart from hand-modifying the NPCs and courting death by boredom in the process, the only real alternative I've been able to come up with is modifying the race, then making a copy of that race without the modifications for the PC. It's crude but it works, at least somewhat, and it has the advantage of being compatible with other mods (at least those that don't mess with race themselves). Any weirdness you encounter in dialogue is purely cosmetic and won't affect actual gameplay.
Max
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I wonder if anyone's noticed I have the day off....
In any event, here's an updated list of modified spell effect costs and charges, with rationale. Criticism most welcome - it saves me playtesting!
Absorb Attribute: not used
Absorb Fatigue: not used
Absorb Health: not used
Absorb Magicka: not used
Absorb Skill: not used
Almsivi Intervention: From 150.00 to 1000.00
Blind: From 1.00 to 0.25
Bound Battle Axe: From 2.00 to 4.00
Bound Boots: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Cuirass: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Dagger: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Gloves: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Helm: From 2.00 to 3.00
Bound Longbow: From 2.00 to 4.00
Bound Longsword: From 2.00 to 4.00
Bound Mace: From 2.00 to 4.00
Bound Shield: From 2.00 to 4.00
Bound Spear: From 2.00 to 4.00
Burden: From 1.00 to 0.10
Calm Creature: not used
Calm Humanoid: not used
Chameleon: From 1.00 to 1.00
Charm: From 5.00 to 2.50
Command Creature: From 15.00 to 5.00
Command Humanoid: From 15.00 to 7.50
Corpus: From 2500.00 to 2500.00
Cure Blight Disease: From 2000.00 to 2000.00
Cure Common Disease: From 300.00 to 1000.00
Cure Corpus Disease: From 2500.00 to 2500.00
Cure Paralyzation: From 100.00 to 250.00
Cure Poison: From 100.00 to 500.00
Damage Attribute: not used (except special powers and diseases)
Damage Fatigue: From 4.00 to 2.00 (now Restoration)
Damage Health: From 8.00 to 8.00 (now Restoration)
Damage Magicka: From 8.00 to 4.00
Damage Skill: not used
Demoralize Creature: From 1.00 to 0.50
Demoralize Humanoid: From 1.00 to 0.50 (now Illusion)
Detect Animal: From 0.75 to 0.10
Detect Enchantment: From 1.00 to 0.10
Detect Key: not used
Disintegrate Armor: not used
Disintegrate Weapon: not used
Dispel: From 5.00 to 6.00
Divine Intervention: From 150.00 to 1000.00
Drain Attribute: not used
Drain Fatigue: not used
Drain Health: not used
Drain Magicka: not used
Drain Skill: not used
Feather: From 1.00 to 0.02
Fire Damage: From 5.00 to 6.00
Fire Shield: From 3.00 to 0.50 (now Destruction)
Fortify Attack: From 1.00 to 1.00
Fortify Attribute: From 1.00 to 0.50
Fortify Fatigue: From 0.50 to 0.10
Fortify Health: From 1.00 to 0.50
Fortify Magicka: From 1.00 to 1.00
Fortify Max Magicka: From 4.00 to 4.00
Fortify Skill: From 1.00 to 0.50
Frenzy Creature: From 1.00 to 0.50
Frenzy Humanoid: From 1.00 to 0.50
Frost Damage: From 5.00 to 4.00
Frost Shield: From 3.00 to 0.50
Invisibility: From 20.00 to 20.00
Jump: From 3.00 to 1.00
Levitate: From 3.00 to 8.00
Light: From 0.20 to 0.10
Lightning Shield: From 3.00 to 0.50 (now Mysticism)
Lock: From 2.00 to 2.00
Mark: From 350.00 to 500.00
Night Eye: From 0.20 to 0.20
Open: From 6.00 to 10.00
Paralyze: From 40.00 to 20.00
Poison: From 9.00 to 6.00 (now Restoration)
Rally Creature: From 0.20 to 0.20
Rally Humanoid: From 0.20 to 0.20
Recall: From 350.00 to 1000.00
Reflect: From 10.00 to 2.00
Remove Curse: From 15.00 to 15.00
Resist Blight Disease: From 5.00 to 0.25
Resist Common Disease: From 2.00 to 0.10
Resist Corpus Disease: From 5.00 to 5.00
Resist Fire: From 2.00 to 0.25 (now Destruction)
Resist Frost: From 2.00 to 0.25 (now Alteration)
Resist Magicka: From 2.00 to 1.50 (now Mysticism)
Resist Normal Weapons: From 5.00 to 5.00 (now Mysticism)
Resist Paralysis: From 0.20 to 0.50
Resist Poison: From 2.00 to 0.25
Resist Shock: From 2.00 to 0.25 (now Mysticism)
Restore Attribute: From 1.00 to 10.00
Restore Fatigue: From 1.00 to 2.00
Restore Health: From 5.00 to 10.00
Restore Magicka: From 5.00 to 20.00
Restore Skill: From 1.00 to 1.00
Sanctuary: From 1.00 to 0.75
Shield: From 2.00 to 0.50
Shock Damage: From 7.00 to 5.00
Silence: not used
Slowfall: From 3.00 to 1.00
Soultrap: From 2.00 to 5.00
Sound: not used
Spell Absorption: From 10.00 to 2.00
Stunted Magicka: not used
Summon
- Ancestral Ghost: From 7.00 to 5.00
- Skeletal Minion: From 13.00 to 10.00
- Scamp: From 12.00 to 10.00
- Bonewalker: From 13.00 to 15.00
- Greater Bonewalker: From 15.00 to 20.00
- Bonelord: From 25.00 to 20.00
- Clannfear: From 22.00 to 25.00
- Flame Atronach: From 23.00 to 25.00
- Frost Atronach: From 27.00 to 30.00
- Dremora: From 28.00 to 30.00
- Hunger: From 29.00 to 30.00
- Daedroth: From 32.00 to 35.00
- Storm Atronach: From 38.00 to 35.00
- Winged Twilight: From 52.00 to 40.00
- Golden Saint: From 55.00 to 50.00
Sun Damage: From 1.00 to 1.00
Swift Swim: From 2.00 to 0.20
Telekinesis: From 1.00 to 1.00
Turn Undead: broken, not used
Vampirism: From 5.00 to 5.00
Water Breathing: From 3.00 to 2.00
Water Walking: From 3.00 to 4.00
Weakness to Blight Disease: From 4.00 to 0.50 (now Restoration)
Weakness to Common Disease: From 2.00 to 0.25 (now Restoration)
Weakness to Corpus Disease: From 4.00 to 2.00 (now Restoration)
Weakness to Fire: From 2.00 to 1.00 (now Destruction)
Weakness to Frost: From 2.00 to 1.00 (now Alteration)
Weakness to Magicka: From 2.00 to 1.50 (now Mysticism)
Weakness to Normal Weapons: From 2.00 to 1.50 (now Mysticism)
Weakness to Poison: From 2.00 to 1.00 (now Restoration)
Weakness to Shock: From 2.00 to 1.00 (now Mysticism)
not used lines: I've already made up my mind on these, for reasons already outlined in previous posts days past.
intervention/recall: these 'escape' spells now cost 50 magicka to cast. I want them as a last resort, and only if you haven't already blown all your magicka on other things. I've also made it impossible to enchant intervention/recall devices and will change the in-game ones to have some other effect (since NPCs won't try to escape).
cure common disease: now costs 50 magicka. Potions become a viable alternative now.
cure paralyzation/poison: increased the cost to make it non-trivial to shrug these effects off.
damage fatigue/health: made these part of the school of Restoration to 'balance' the schools (primarily for mage picks). Also because these spells seemed just like healing, in reverse.
dispel magic: increased it one point to make a dispel, targeted, 100 cost 40 magicka.
fire shield/resist fire/weakness to fire: moved these to the school of Destruction to 'group' certain spell types (in this case, Fire).
frost shield/resist frost/weakness to frost: moved these to the school of Alteration to 'group' certain spell types (in this case, Frost).
shock shield/resist shock/weakness to shock: moved these to the school of mysticism to 'group' certain spell types (in this case, Shock).
poison: moved to the school of Restoration to give this school a damage-producing ability somewhat less expensive than damage health.
fire/frost/shock/poison damage: with the various changes no one effect is now significantly better than the other. They all now cost 6.00 points.
resist magicka/resist normal weapons: this seemed more of a Mysticism ability than a Restoration ability.
weakness to blight/disease/corprus: these are listed but aren't available for spell-making or as spells. They're worthless in combat but useful for certain creature types that also deliver blight/disease/corprus.
levitate: I've removed the ability to enchant levitate. It seems damned silly to me to have warriors galavanting about the skies because they're wearing some silly ring. Mages can still cast the spell and potions are still available; it's the constant effect thing that I've gotten rid of. No more 'flying the friendly skies'.
Max
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A suggestion for future games:
Currently there's no value to spreading out damage effects over time. Whether you do 50 points of fire damage in 1 second or 5 points of damage over 10 seconds it costs the same magicka and has the same chance of success.
To make spreading damage out over time and giving the target the opportunity to counter the effects (or at least exact some measure of revenge), I'd like to see something along the following lines: for every second past 10 that a fire/frost/shock/poison/damage x spell lasts, the cost is reduced by 1%, to a maximum of 50% (at 60 seconds). Anything less than 10 seconds doesn't give the target time to counter the effects, while reducing the cost to less than 50% is a gimme.
So, if you had a fire spell that did 60 points of damage:
- over 1 second it'd cost x (60 points in 1 second)
- over 30 seconds it'd cost 80% of x (2 points per second)
- over 60 seconds it'd cost 50% of x (1 point per second)
And since a reduction in cost also increases the chance of casting, you'd see more low-level mages casting timed spells in order to get an opportunity to do more damage than they'd otherwise be capable of. Damage over time goes from a bad thing to a viable alternative.
Max
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Not sure if anyone's said this yet, but... had noticed the increase when playing the first time, and having destruction as a major skill, no fortified max. magicka, etc...
You'll notice the difference in spell costs were negligible when the spell had a long duration, and the spellmaker cost was nearly twice as much with a duration of 1 second. (I'd guess that "exhausting touch" spell wasn't autocalculated, or my lil hypothesis is snot.)
The spellmaker calculates the cost of the spell as if it lasted <b>1 SECOND<b> longer. ... so any self-made 'fireball'-like spells automatically cost, oh, about twice as much as they should. The only way I've found in-game to reduce the extra cost is to make spells that last longer. If a spell lasts for 10 seconds, it's only about a 10% or so increase in cost. Making the spells in the CS also works, of course... bleh, stupid glitches...
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I personally hate damage over time, It gives what I'm fighting too much time to chase me down with that daedric dai-katana its wielding before it turns to ashes. Granted you will probably still kill it after the durations done, but whats the fun in that if you don't get to live to see it?
But more power to you in that venture, although I don't recommend it.
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I don't want to erase instant damage - in fact, in my mod that's the *only* kind of damage that's done by spells at the moment. I just want to add the option, in the spell maker, of reducing total magicka cost by spreading out the damage over periods longer than 10 seconds. So sure, you can cast a more powerful version of that fire spell than you otherwise would be able to - if you're willing to live with the fact that the target might dispel it, or kill you before it runs its course.
More options - that's all I'm promoting.
Max
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I think the idea is awesome, but once again it can't be implemented with the tools we have. I had a thought the other day, and yes it would upset some people, but just take out spell making. If you don't set any NPC to be able to create spells then the fact that it screws up the values doesn't mean anything. You then of course have to make a bunch of new spells in the CS to reflect the kinds of spells that people are likely to make. What do you think? It then becomes viable to create spells with negative effects and reduce the cost because they can't use the effect in a spell maker that they can't access.
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You can turn the spell maker off but that's one of my favorite parts of being a mage character - being able to make my own spells. I didn't consider that an option because that would kill half the fun for me when playing a wizard.
I did think about non-autocalcing NPCs and actually started working on that. The effort required, however, is absolutely enormous. I like the game, but I'm not obsessed with it. Also, it makes the mod imcompatible with any other mod that changes or adds spell-using NPCs (unless you fix those as well).
Max
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What a great thread! Kudos again to Wakim and Horatio, gosh I love reading your posts.
Wakim, on melee ranges, I wouldn't go too gungho on adjusting these. It's one thing to talk about MAXIMUM melee ranges, it's another thing to talk about EFFECTIVE melee range. I understand, yes, that a player can move about and close and so forth. However, on many machines, the npcs just are much more maneuverable than the player. In addition, some plug-ins and I would suspect the game and Flee AI (yes I read your thread on that also) use a default range for melee etc when running away. Lots to consider.
But my main point is that in general melee combat it was possible for anyone from say Katana range on down to dagger range to basically have a crack at taking on the other, again assuming sufficient skill and maybe assuming they have also a shield or a main-gauche. I'm no expert on this at all, but I do know that certain fighting styles, especially those using a weapon in each hand, had good chances in such engagements, although i've heard the eastern styles had the advantage because their methods of smithing allowed for superior strength one-handed defensive weapons that could survive a counter to a powerful sword swing.
I guess what I'm getting at is the weapon range here had better best be looked at as an effective range or gameplay setting and not as a reality setting for maximum range. As you've stated in several posts on enchanting, this game is too much all or nothing. You either hit or miss with a weapon, it does it's random damage, I doubt it's range influenced with arrows etc , and definitely not with range of the melee weapon. And enchanted spells never fissle. Let's not overwork things, personally I wouldn't mess much if at all with the range of melee weapons unless you want to add another class of melee or semi-ranged weapons and can justify that the combat AI is truly aware of the consequences.
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I'm always shocked by how much I continually agree with just about everything Wakim says, I've been lurking for a week or so often reading his posts.
One of the great problems with Fantasy RPGs especially, to further support Wakim's remarks, are that you are constantly gainings skills, powers, spells, items containing all of the previous, etc and then on TOP of all that you have increasing hit points. On some level this is simply a sign of habitual thinking by developers.
I mean I agree with Wakim theoretically about increasing hit points by an exponentially decreasing amount as you level, but even that is a bit much given the other factors.
I mean consider. In order to get into the field as a soldier, adventurer, general nutcase fool who is likely to die, you have to be already fit as heck or become so within the first month of your gingerly taken first steps adventuring. I'd realistically assume that any chronicle of a true hero doesn't REALLY begin at the point they chose impulsively to become a hero.... yes I think I'll become a hero today even though I should be dead in three days max. No, you got to have some considerable guts, will, dexterity, strength , etc already to be heroic enough to attempt the stuff these games assume. Morrowind is a bit less extreme on that, it actually does kind of start with you at nothing, but remember you are actually here on a mission from the Emperor, so how did you get that job? Because you were capable already is my assumption.
So a case could be made for NO INCREASE IN HIT POINTS AS YOU LEVEL. And guess what, when you take that out of the equation, you begin to make play balancing easier. Play-balance for fantasy RPGs is already a mind-numbing and ridiculous task. Put in the variety that Morrowind has and you really begin to lose it.
Again, consider what this adventurer/hero is ... a capable athlete/spellcaster who simply survives, acquires, learns, braves things gaining superior equipment, spells, lore, combat techniques, resist equipement, etc. There really is no need to increase hit points per se, the real need is to simply increase the powers or equipment that modifies or multiplies those hit points (shield spells, armor rating, etc) or that increase his ability to take out the enemy quicker (lowered average survival time of the enemy is less chance he can take you down). This is why the power of enemies in all these RPG games becomes so ridiculous. It's because the protagonist player simply has his powers becomes astronomically more capable, one might say much faster than even exponentially in some cases.
Two more things come to mind on this subject, and sorry again about the long posts , if you happen to read this. Dungeon Siege and Morrowind's Enchanting items.
Let's take the Morrowind Enchantment concept first. As Wakim has said, it is paramount to correct this if Bethesda is serious. The idea of having items that can add to virtually any character any spellcasting ability or skill with a separate mana pool and that has a fire rate that is virtually unlimited (more like an submachinegun than a revolver in fire rate), and that has effects where each charge used can STACK onto the other to up attributes which then unlock other capabilities or spells, is ... to put it simply ... utterly ridiculous. A.K. A. Morrowind is broken.
Likewise the point about Telekinesis is also true. Telekinesis is basically manipulation at range. Without limits it will certainly eliminate risk from Traps. Another game also comes to mind there, Arcanum. In Arcanum, there was this spell that was basically like Morrowind's Open but usable at considerable range. It's disadvantage to normal lockpicking was that it made noise. But since the guards only checked for you within the sound range and the open spell range was beyond the range they checked (you didn't I think even need line of sight so could hide behind corners and use it, etc), it basically was a get out of jail free card. It defeated the whole locked doors and guarding AI. Now what was the point then in putting in lock ratings, keys, lockpicks, and guards associated with protecting certain objects in the game IF you could circumvent the whole thing with that one spell. May I suggest there was no point then in going through the whole hassle? How about just having all chests unlocked eh? Sounds like fun ? No.
The strength of Morrowind is it's extreme flexibility and it's somewhat more straightforward magic system, when compared to a game such as Diablo where you had limited pre-made spells to choose and where the powers and abilities on items were actually at some level a complete mystery (thus the bugs and strange interactions that made sense only to experts in that game itself and would sound ludicrous in any other fantasy novel or game). In order to offer the flexibility that a game such as Morrowind does, which is the ability to do anything six ways to Sunday, the gaming system must be very disciplined. I think this is exactly where the game is lacking, but almost to a level of lack that is impossible to understand.
Wakim's observation about enchanted items costing less mana in charges when embued or used in a enchanted magic item versus casting the same spell that a character has learnt is an extreme confirmation of this lack of discipline. It also might just be an oversight/bug but it's too obvious and crucial to simply be that in my mind. Another similar strange example is that a scroll of such and such spell so far always costs more to buy for me in the game than a ring of such and such same spell, even though the ring can be used more than once (the scroll can't), the unenchanted base item (ring) costs more than paper (base item of scroll before enchantment), the ring can recharge while the scroll cannot, and so on. The whole oversight is mind-blowing to tell you the truth. And there is no way it's an oversight either, since all of us the first time we see it go WHOAAA and if our character is underpowered at the time make note of this as a way to get back to a competitive level.
Well, this is beginning to border upon a rant, but what I'm really wanting to say is that the ideas in this thread to rebalance or revamp the gameply are not only very good, they are natural and just.
Before Dungeon Siege was previewed I had imagined a game that did away with the constant need to travel back and forth from stores and sell stuff. That was makework, so take it out of the game. Likewise repairing items. In a Diablo type game there was no point to it, you just get a newer item or make money less readily available. Now in Morrowind there is a point to repairing items. Well, at least there seems to be. It can up your armorer skill, you don't have to always go back to the smith to repair, and hopefully the item is rare and very useful, so you have to repair it. The truth is that to some extent, the rarity and unique usefulness of some of the items in all these RPGs comes under severe attack and is highly questionable. There is always a spell that does the same thing, always another item around the next dungeon bend, and always ... and this really irks me the most ... always another merchant selling a similar item. Now I know that's an exaggeration but it points to another major concern and then I'll desist.
I mentioned earlier in this post the problem that a game that allows you to gain capabilities six ways to sunday doesn't need to allow your hit point to inflate as well. But it's the mindset of developers, historically. They are afraid to break or surrender a proven system. (proven to bore you to death after a while I'd say, but that's another story). But having the ability to use money to also gain items and power produces another game balance issue, problem, or loophole. This is true in games as varied (or similar) as Baldur's Gate series, Arcanum, Bethesda's games, Dungeon Siege, or Diablo series. I'm not against money, but the discipline to contain that and the other avenues to in-game power require extreme discipline. I submit that it is impossible to have a game that allows a character to be able to purchase, create, or find ANY item, power, skill, or ability AND balance it. Not if these powers are multithreaded, can be substitutes for more than one other capability, and of high power. You have to put a limit on things.
So let me clarify by illustration if I may here and take Morrowind as an example. Morrowind allows for enchantment. If you learn to enchant, you can take any base item that is unenchanted and create a magical item of extreme power. Now given that capability, why does any store have pre-enchanted items? Is it more fun? No. Can it give you ideas for making items? Yes. But so could recipes or the books all over Morrowind (which would be better than so many ridiculous background items on Gods you'll never meet). Buy the way they never did implement recipes in Daggerfall, so maybe they don't understand what it might have done for them in Morrowind.
Instead, cash is readily available in Morrowind, or should I say items to be changed into cash. Morrowing provides plenty of quests, which are a source of cash and power. The schizophrenic reality of this is that the flexibility results in cludges which clearly are there to make up for play balance. Merchants have limited cash, this is fine and dandy and supposed to be based on reality. Actually, it's not that real. Any merchant should have a line of credit available for the purchase of at least 1 major major magic item, simply because he's able to resell it as soon as another adventurer comes in. Or if we say that isn't so, that there really is only one such adventurer, or that item is so valuable that no merchant could readily afford to buy it, then why allow the player to sell it for cash, or why have merchants at all? Or just tell the player that only certain merchants in a certain Association of Enchanted Resellers can buy and/or sell these. End of problem. Instead the Enchanters have limited cash themselves, and we are constantly made to assume that the items they have on hand are either enough to attract us in trade (doubtful), or that they never keep a sufficient reserve of cash on-hand to purchase useful items for their store. In the end, not realistic at all, nor a play balance solution, nor adding to long-term fun experience for the player.
I guess again I'm ranting. But what I'm saying here is that there were other ways to do all this. If you allow enchanting as a separate power pool that require no training in other magic skills or skill checks, you've basically created a very powerful loophole or road to success. If you allow players infinite speed uses of practically inexhaustible mana for enchanted item spells that do everything the spellcaster would otherwise have to train for and spend hours sleeping to recharge, you've caused a loophole.
Well, enough, I'm trying to make too fine a point of a shotgun complaint. I'm very interested in the attempted solutions you all are trying to develop. Godspeed to you all.
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Sheesh, after that long one a quick suggestion:
How about a mod that would require that any enchanted item be worn when purchased, acquired etc or it cannot be used. In other words, we are limiting the ability of the player to 2 rings, one cuirass etc, unequip the item other than to sell it and it vanishes from your inventory (or perhaps like a soul gem can be used to recharge another item or your mana bar but is destroyed in the process).
This would keep enchanted item inflation down to a minimum.
Another idea I had a while back was to have some sort of Enchante Police Guild. Basically, this guild collected a tax on all enchanted items, from the people who used them , wore them, sold them, whatever. It could even be that your faction rating with them was influenced by how often you used enchanted items, how many you had, how many you sold them to , etc. This again would be an attempt to play balance and also engage more deeply into the milieu of the game. After all, would an emperor allow such a powerful skill to go unchecked without having some say in the matter?
The biggest problem there would be not simply ending up providing additional cash or magic items by having the Police end up as so many more conquests for the adventurer (cool another treasure chest coming up, dead Enchanted Policeman coming right up!) and not having to make the Enchanted Policeman uber. I'd guess using the faction rating and making all stores that sell/buy enchanted items influenced by it would provide that sort of check and balance. It would be possible to create quests to raise and lower the faction, and otherwise might not be unlike the risk in having stolen items when you are arrested.
Anyway, just thought I'd pass along one of favorite ruminations of a couple weeks ago.
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My apologies for posting on issues very old in this thread as I've been reading this thread for over 3 hours working from the beginning and still only at 10/25 and it's 11/12 date now.
But Max I agree with the idea of eliminating many of the damage and even drain attribute spells. The reasoning is like yours and for me it's pretty simple. First of all the spells are easily abused. The Drain ones, I think, are time limited. Big deal, easy to enchant and spam or to spell spam in 20 secs duration you can fire off 10-20 iterations on the enemy. End result the attribute is at zero. Not sure if they can be resisted or restored or if the NPC AI can know when or how to do so. Too many questions, and they duplicate other spells while often doing more damage or effecting other things.
But let me put it another way. Spells should be about effecting capabilities or processes, not about defeating the underneath game mechanics. Or put another way, what makes an ogre an ogre? It's extreme strenghth and what it wears, it's attitude etc. If you demoralize it you take away it's ogre attitude (and you trick the AI which makes it ogre), if you damage it's strength you take away it's main trait of being as strong as an ogre, if you zap away all it's armor (disintegrate spell) you remove it's unique style and how experienced it is (how much it has acquired) in it's travels (Low Ogre, Medium Ogre, Hunter Ogre, Thief Ogre, Ogre's Ogre, etc). So basically, it's no longer combat in such cases it's annihilation of a creature type AND it's a trick that the AI can't really handle (at some point).
So, I'd guess I'd eliminate any damage or drain attribute spells almost on principle, saving a lot of AI trick issues in addition, provided those spells are somethign the AI requires to get the job done or to calculate what it should do. Same with disintegrate. Disintegrate also has other problems, what if you destroy an item that is a unique item or part of a quest etc, which either the game or some modder might be tempted to try. Although I do believe in the idea of consequences to one's actions as a player in a game, given the state of Morrowind non-bugginess, I'd be very wary of allowing anything of the kind in any game. Of course, perhaps disintegration, which I've never used, just lowers the current repair state of the item, making it useless and so making it unequipped. Beyond this, there is WAY too much duplication of capabilities in this game. Is it possible to resist disintegration? What type of resist is it? The whole concept defeats the idea of having spell damage types (fire, cold etc) and having resists etc, and having mage specialties or breed specialties (fire daedra or atronachs or fire dragons, etc). Personally, I'd nuke disintegration.
By the way there used to be an old saw (adage) that went like this in game development: Never allow the gamer access to the fundamentals or don't let them mess with the core.
I think that allowing anything more than minor temporary attribute buffs or improvements or reductions is problematic. Basically, you are changing the very substance of your foe or your player class when you do so and that defeats the purpose of specialization and advancement decisions in the first place. It likewise makes a fire dragon just a clannfear and so on.
I think this sort of game with its extreme flexibility in how to do things would be wiser in allowing ways to enhance or diminish other powers, so called multipliers, than in allowing the fiddling with basic core numbers that are part of initial player creation. Otherwise you get this sort of uh oh I can do THAT! crap.
So for example a spell like Weakness to Fire makes a lot of sense, it's temporary and effects the Fire Dragon making him now weaker to fire attacks BUT it should still remain that a Weakened to Fire Fire Dragon is less susceptible to a fire attack than a Weakened to Fire Ice Cube would be. If you can make a Fire Dragon as weak to fire as an Ice Cube with the single stroke of one spell (one might say any spell) and especially with the same spell then you simply aren't playing as a character any more but as a substitute virtual God. The result is not going to be fun because there is no longer any call for strategy or tactics.
Anyway, I'm too much of a generalist, i'm really more interested now in the mechanics of spell selection as I read this thread and so on.
But I'd make the case, at least for now , that similarly Slowfall and Jumping and Levitation are redundant to a large degree. Yes non-mage characters who roleplay might want to use Jumping then, but if so they should seriously have no access to Slowfall then. Or if you get Slowfall (which not suprisingly seems to be broken if the value is not important only the duration -- by the way that's a historical problem also and a sign that the spell concept ran into a conceptual problem, one of purpose of the spell) you should have no access to jump. Besides that, Jump is not a spell per se, it's more like a potion that boosts your agility or jumping ability or attributes (depending on the game you wish to play). Otherwise it's flying or strapping an alchemical rocket on to your behind and trying to survive the ensuing enema (ha, couldn't resist, it's late). Under such conditions it really falls more under levitate. What I'm saying is that Jumping and Slowfall put together are basically levitate, they should be mutually exclusive or accomplished by other means. Anyway, those are obviously great candidates for enchanted items, wasting mana on such spells would be impossible to defend to the Master Wizard come inspection and review.
But then caring enough about a game to spend hours reading threads and discussing ideas is also similarly hard to defend especially when some guy who tooling around pushing a cart in K-mart comes up to you and reminds you that you could "have had a V-8". Oh, brudder!
Since Morrowind allows you to learn skills and improve attributes by the actions you use, it seems terrible that they also allow spells to manipulate these fundamental attributes, attributes that one might even say are the very signature of a roleplayed character and the very consequences of the unique choices the player has chosen to play. I find that disturbing. It doesn't surprise that in the end that very loss of game focus leads to problems in game balance.
I wish sometimes that Morrowind was a bit more focused and streamlined. It's a bit much when you have 20 different ways to cause 50 hit points of damage in one second. Usually 4-8 is plenty. Likewise for other things.
Waterwalking is just a limited form of Levitation. What's the point of having water if you don't look for the sunken treasure etc? Worse you can kill creatures in the water if their fins stick out (well you get the idea Sandcrabs etc). That's taking advantage of boundary issues. Waterbreathing in comparison makes sense likewise swift swim.
Likewise, I find Demoralization a problematic one. As Wakim mentioned, you effectively can take a placed NPC out of the picture for 40 secs, you also can't be sure he won't fall over a cliff or otherwise get hung up on some corner somewhere. Very risky to take that chance. And you can take him out of the picture in so many other ways, take his fatigue to zero, use stealth, invisibility, chameleon, or find another route in via perhaps levitation or an unguarded entrance, or run up real fast while he is going to attack use the door and teleport away from him if it's another cell, or use the door if in same cell and close it on him if he doesn't open it after you, or if he can (not sure they can think I saw a caster do so once), then lock spell it, or if that doesn't work, then hit a mark spell , then Divine Intervention out, recall back in later or after having distracted him more.
End result: Demoralization doesn't add to thief roleplay, it reduces it. It's buggy and risky to use. So what's the point?
So my initial reaction, nuke it. Demoralization of monsters, creatures, or NPCs should be based on their courage level (Flee AI) , current damage or faction, and purpose (script). Not based on some concept of mind-control that is not well thought out and implemented perfectly in an AI.
Sheesh, I get too outspoken, sorry about that.
Anyway, my usual two cents, I'm just trying to give feedback that is more related to game design. Bethesda games always have so much potential but almost always disappoint on some scale. I better not go into why now here or I'd go insane.
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I"m posting too much and not in a practical manner, but I just wanted to say to MaxPublic that I do understand/agree with this:
"Overall I don't see the difference between many of the magical effects, other than their potential for exploit or abuse. Sure, there are certain very discreet circumstances where spell x might be useful, but does that justify keeping an entire line of spells that don't play nice with others? Not for me it doesn't. So out the window they go. "
That's because technically there really isn't any difference, or that the differences are sort of makeshift if any. To elaborate, how many ways does causing 50 hit points of damage make it anything but 50 hit points of damage? The answer is how situational and practical each way is and also how much it adds to the roleplaying for factional quests etc, and finally how much it fits for totally different styles of play, for example fighter vs thief vs mage. After that it gets a bit ridiculous. So yes disintegration is just excess. Sound and silence are too similar, just choose one and nuke the other. This allows you to begin to debug or playtest or balance the game by purpose. In effect, it's much easier to design and finish the development of a game when each purpose fits to one algorithm. You can then define much better when each spell is used in the AI, because each is very specific as to it's use and application , aka it's timeliness as a choice. Otherwise, you've simply added chrome.
One of the reasons I believe that the Morrowind AI is suspect and simplistic is that the driver behind improved AI is not there. It's simply too confusing. It's also why the effects are working as supposed. We are rightly amazed that Turn Undead doesn't seem to work. But then how would any playtester really know for sure? A weak excuse but then also consider that the playtester would simply have said, hmm resisted or too high level , I'll try demoralize instead, hmm how about charm, hmm how about command, hmmm how about weakness to fire, etc etc.
And that's where I think partly Max is heading off them at the pass. Especially when you consider that the hot keys are only 10 and you may have a list of 50-250+ spells and enchanted items to choose from at any one time. That's freaking ridiculous, but in Daggerfall you had to keep the original Open spells to solve certain quests, same with Heal etc, or they didn't work, so "historically" , you get scared as a Bethesda fan to delete any old spells, especially the npc provided ones. Given all that, it's suprising that Bethesda doesn't simply provide a damage slider for each spell. That is , hey I can put in the minimum mana or a multiplier of that. Twice as much fine, set it up, save , fire at will by pressing the button or choosing it. Want to change it's power on the go, bring up the mana control and adjust, exit menu, fire away.
I mean the Spellmaker hints at that already. Spells have characteristics, the rest is all magicka input or mana input. The name of the spell is more chrome than anything.
Anyway, another ramble, dang it!
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Granted, I also understand that Wakim wants to just rebalance the numbers more for gameplay and leave the flexibility in there for the players to decide, for now at least. But then again, how many of them are going to know for sure that Turn Undead doesn't even work, or that Damage Attribute is permanent while Drain is temporary, or that Absorb is permanent and doesn't revert, and so on and on.
To some extent what people think they want and what they'd rather enjoy playing because the experience would be more packed with fun and still retain almost all the flexibility is another. This was my reason for bringing up Dungeon Siege earlier. Not to compare it really with Morrowind, I think they are on opposite sides of the spectrum, but to make the point about making a game about playing the game not about crunching the latest database to understand it.
Diablo was about crunching the database at some point because there was no "transparency", you didn't really know how the game's spells worked, weapon speed etc. All that was trial and error. In Dungeon Siege how you feel the game plays is how the game plays. The interface is simple etc. But the magic is all pre-defined. It's all about items and pre-defined spells, it's about acquisition and the experience of the game.
Morrowind of course if more about the world, being there, trying this etc. But some of the variety is truly cosmetic. Most of that is due to the incomplete or faulty implementation. I know I'm sounding idiotic and maybe like beating a dead horse. But there are so many spells and you can combine all of them , right? So why do you need a pre-made spell called Waterwalking? Isn't Levitation able to handle that? Would have been better to have some limitation like, only works over water as a modifier then. Most of the morrowind spells are about defining a clear cut capability. Allowing those capabilities to substitute for each other is very dangerous. It will cause all sorts of hassles in game balance and other issues. Why not stick to what it originally was called ... spell EFFECTS.
To harp again, if I want to have a JUMP spell, I'll create it from either my upping at attribute (like Agility or strength, whatever controls the strength of the legs to jump) or I'd use the flying effect, which is levitation here. The idea of a specific JUMP spell espeicially when jumping is agility trained is really really really gambling.
All that would only be a semi-theoretical consideration if it weren't for the extreme capabilities of spells. The result is that in some ways it makes no sense to have your jumping ability attached to your Agility attribute since any spell can bring you up to superhuman jump ability albeit temporarily.
This reminds me of something I've read many times about the Bethesda games and that irks me, well really too things, which in effect are quite contradictory.
It's often said about Bethesda games that you can do anything, be whatever you want, etc. But it's likewise almost always said that the game assumes you will make some use of magic as well. There really is no point to being melee/thief only, the magic is more capable and readily available. In real life, if a Morrowind existed, there is no doubt that an adventurer in the player's situation would do the same. But that brings us back to the first sentence. Can you really do anything or be whatever you want? When you also are assumed to use magic as well? Or to be competitive in such a long game it de facto has to be done?
Anyway, simply put, with the variety this game offers, a player is often overwhelmed with choices and capabilities, chiefly in the spell department. As much as we want the flexibility to look at what we may do, we find that it isn't worth the doing. Part of the difficulty is attacked by what Wakim is doing to the betterment of the game. That is he wants to make all the choices equally valuable, within limits. To some extent that Holy Grail is simply impossible, because the various spells either don't work as they should in process or they overlap other spells. The result is that some spells simply aren't worth having as choices. But the larger issue, from my way of thinking, is what Max is trying to attack or eliminate, albeit based on a similar fundamental work that Wakim does. And that is simply that the burden of having to choose from 50 choices where 15 will basically do the whole panorama of things I not only might want to do but can basically dream of doing, is simply easier to deal with, allows for more gameplay per minute, and is more fun.
I could understand if flying wasn't possible someone saying, hey at least give us a jump spell. I could understand having a bastardized short term levitation effect called jump, requiring you to come crashing down. I'd prefer a time based duration only controlling attribute boost, say it's agility for the moment. Why? Because that's what jumping IS. But if magic is meant to replace that for the mage option, then there is no way in heck anybody would create a jump spell when they have the levitation effect as an option UNLESS they also through in the slowfall effect. Well almost no way. I think I know why JUMP is in the game. I think it's in to basically make up for the slowed travel of levitation. I think it's there because they don't want to allow a flying spell. I think they don't want to allow a flying spell because the ground AI is screwed up. But I don't really know.
Anyway, again another rant. I should just be quiet. It's not like anybody is really going to read this. It's just a shame that this game isnt' a little more focused. But then if it were, I'm sure we'd be able to play it in 16-bit color and get much nicer framerates as well. They sort of go hand in hand, discipline in design tends to lead to discipline in implementation. If your focus drifts too much you get a Utopia or highly touted panacea. Even in a game, that's a design for the impossible quest.
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Holy Crapoly!
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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Wakim, you certainly are an amazing fellow. How you can devote so much time to such beautifully written posts I can't imagine. Anyway ...
My sentiment is with Alastor, I can't decide with my limited knowledge if I fully agree with his plan.
But I have a problem with what you seemed to suggest about Mage types being underpowered, not that you are necessarily wrong though, just an observation.
See, first you haven't included enchanted items into that calculation. I'll assume you are taking those off the table, and that you are taking off the table the fact that Mage Guild members are at a slight advantage training up enchant and so on.
I'm guessing you just mean using spells with the basic mana pool or magicka pool that the player has. Well, there you also have some problems. I mean, a breton with the atronach sign and some summoning spells, and he can go to town a long time. Use a set of absorb spells and opponent magicka and health no longer are much of an issue. Well unless the enemy was smart enough to cast paralyze or silence, but then if the AI did that all the time, we'd have a whole different game, safe for neither player-fighter or player-mage.
I guess it's true that the tried and true form of winning battles in Morrowind and/or Daggerfall was with weapons. Hey, they don't get resisted, and they are often enchanted. But once again there is that enchantment factor and there is that AI (choosing resists) factor. If the npc mages cast summons early on, how is it that they aren't more feared by meleeing players?
What I'm saying is, most of the imbalances in the standard unaltered game, I believe, come from the overpowered magical abilities, chiefly the enchanted items. I'm assuming then that you mean after your mod is in, how it feels? Well, then maybe you are right I haven't tried your mod yet, I wanted to, but currently and fooling with the Giants Mod and didn't know if they were compatible.
I think that the reason that melee abilities are so key, if you are right, is more a question of the enemy AI, specifically the firing off of useless spells, the not fleeing when designed, and most importantly the firing of spells into walls or other blocking terrain or getting the feet hung up on edges. Sure it isn't as bad as Battlespire, but it's amazing how many of the concerns are absolutely the same. And fondly looking back, I sometimes wish for Battlespire now instead.
One of the bugs in Battlespire, at least I assume it was a bug, but a very useful one that in a well balanced game might have led to some great ideas, was that you could prepare a spell from a magic item and then cancel it. When you did the mana charge on the magic item was reduced, but the magicka was added to your own personal magic pool.
Now bear with me as to the benefits. The benefit would be what if you could design it so that Enchanted Skill level allowed not just how much each charge is used of the item but how much you could replenish your own mana. No more Breton's with Atronach Sign doing the summoning hula, no we'd interconnect two of the three main branches of magical abilities: enchanting and spellcasting, leaving only alchemy (temporarily) out of the loop. Although technically alchemy already is in the loop. Alchemy provides a way to create restore magicka potions and other effects that substitute or improve spells. What it doesn't do, for some strange reason, is allow you to fire off attack spells by using the potions as spell grenades (drain magicka, weakness to fire, firebomb etc). At least I don't think it allows it.
This goes again with my idea of how to balance a game, in my mind. Basically magic is a universal template. Each branch, Alchemy, Enchanting, Spellcasting should have access to a set of effects, I don't know if they should have overlapping effects or not though, but certainly if they do they should be comparable in cost etc. But there you run into the game balance brick wall. You find a free ingredient and all you need is time , time to learn how it works (eat a lot), time to make the potion (train in alchemy by use or by ruse er cash recently acquired) etc. There is no way to balance such options, not really.
The same goes with the Persuasion tree or the dialog options. Disposition only temporarily goes down when I barter? I exit and start conversation again and the disposition is back to the base amount, omigawd no! That's simply pathetic, it's a backing away from the whole disposition concept. Yet if I give a bribe or persuade via intimidation or compliments , the base disposition is now PERMANENTLY effected. That is simply absurd. Hey, where are the extorters in the Thieves Guild .
Player: Here's 100 gold, like me now?
NPC: Sure who loves ya baby. But tomorrow is another day (wink, wink).
I mean come on! Of course he wants the next fix of his allotted bribe, of course he wants another blow on the skooma pipe once the money runs dry, of course he needs the money to fund his purchases of cool items from me , can't you see game that he's almost broke from my last haul?
Yeah, this borders on being as bad as the whole "wait until the store close and rob the Daggerfall merchant blind while he's still there buying them from me" routine. P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C.
Realistically, faction ratings and disposition rating should almost reflect on each other, and I mean both ways. And all disposition changes should be permanent. Otherwise, here we go again, what's the point of the whole implementation?
A lot of these design decisions can't be just bugs. What they really seem to be are a decision that maybe the developers thought , we better leave the player an out because they won't like our implementation if we stick to it, or it has bugs in other ways that we can't fix so we better leave them the option etc.
So what we get is not just a very flexible game, we get an unbalanced game. We get that because money is easily had, items are just too readily available, AI is just too weak, enchanted items are imbalanced , etc etc. Except that they aren't really broke, the choices are. Finally, each of these decisions effects the others in catastrophic ways, design decisions mind you. Decisions the player makes in game, in contrast, seem to have very little long-term impact. Yes, the factions care about your rating with them. But there is no similar implementation with the whole merchant fleet.
That's my point on things being "universal". When you put something in a game, like "factions", money, enchanted items ... you name it ... it should have impact on everything else, and with purpose. Unfortunately here they are well thought out impacts nor universal, but they are wide-ranging enough and interrelated enough to warp the whole balance.
Access to funds or powers that are extreme are just too readily available at too cheap a cost. It's difficult to get around that anyway since such balance is sometimes relative, depending on what class you play and how you play the game.
This is why I believe as many consequences as possible should be attached to every action. It is why I jokingly talked about something I really take seriously, the so-called Enchantment Police Guild, a sort of tax-collectors of rich guy's mana . After all, who was that Procellus guy really anyway? Did he really just die for nothing? And why was he normally carrying restore potions except on that fateful day? Could it be that he simply was on to something. I like to think so.
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Wow thats a whole book you just posted. I hope your a writer by profession.
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WebSite for TES Plugin Conflict Detector
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Alastor, I'd now have to disagree on that last, of course, I haven't played the game as far as you into the Grazelands, so I could be way off base.
But, you mentioned the enemy reflecting spells back at you. So why can't you have reflection or absorb on as well, wouldn't that make YOU immune to that?
I'm also not that big a fan of the highest level D & D spells, although I'm interested in the 3rd Edition adjustments. I got a bit tired of trying to identify and react to most of the Baldur's Gate 2 high level spells. Breach, Breach, this and that, after a while I just said, sheesh 50 items with so many spells to choose, and I love to hoard, and then this. Make one mistake and goodbye baby and reload. Just seemed much to me. Still it was fun up to level 8 or so.
I'm more a fan actually of the game Thief, to be honest. What I mean is that you take a basic athlete and you give him very well-defined and limited access to magical augmentation. In Thief, you use your abilities chiefly, using the shadows, and you use your bow chiefly to provide not only your ranged physical damage, but to alter the situation or terrain. Want to sound stealth, fire a moss carpet arrow. Need to be like a chameleon or invisible, fire the water arrow and put out the nearby torches. Need to teleport the heck out of dodge, hmm, how about a rope arrow.
Notice what has happened when you do that. You make the adventurer not a god but capable. You restrict the powers to the minimal effects that may be needed to get the job done. A game that allows for teleportation and return is fine if the enemy heals and the AI resets perfectly, if not, omigawd what a reverse kludge -- one to quick-fix the player.
You also gain improved AI because it's well defined. You don't have a rope arrow and a rope grenade and a rope spell, and a rope sword and so on. And you don't have multiple levels of rope ... that would only lead to a square knot, slip knot, Occam's Razor knot, Game-Knot.
It probably sounds like I'm against variety and so on. I'm not. I'm talking focus here. A game like No One Lives Forever 2 or System Shock 2 allows for considerable variety. And they could be done with much less technology. Both allowed for skill branches to be chosen and direct your play. They both felt very immersive and real in a sense also, the decisions you made in-game to approach and overcome an obstacle seemed to have immediate impact and ramifications. Half of the time in Morrowind I have no idea how my choices are working or going to do. I just reload if I fail and try something else.
Gosh, I just realize how so much of this has to do with the pathfinding and the LOS for the enemy AI that I guess the rest of the game is just a nice idea that ends up looking like a kludge fit on just to retain the promise of flexibility and achieve the reality of confusion.
I'm getting depressed, I really shouldn't post.
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Now I go on to read that Wakim has already said, in much greater depth what I just vaguely posted at. Why does meeting someone who is so greatly my superior in every aspect and yet as correctamundo as I am on every question (er ... stop laughing) .... somehow NOT depress me.
Hmm, I think I'll crack it up to my superior ability to crack up. Anybody for popping a wheelie.
But in support of Alastor .. that's much the same as saying that spell rebalancing is fruitless.
Ok, so time for another rant. This is why I'm so dissappointed by most of the reviews of Morrowind. Granted seems like a great game, lots of great ideas. Hmm, yes. But all these ideas and the magic system and the spelllmaker etc, yadda yadda were in Daggerfall, were in Arena, heck were even in Battlespire. And yes it seems less buggy than Daggerfall and even than Battlespire. But is it really? Only to degree I think. You still can rip off merchants easily. Hey did you know that if you buy 12 silver arrows singly they cost less at times than buying a whole pack of 12? Pitiful. You want to break into that store by just staying inside past closing, nah sorry. BUTTTTT , you can avoid any trap using a bent probe if you have enough of them. Hmm.
And goddang it if the creatures and npcs still get caught on corners, if the objects still block spells that aren't that close to them, and if all that doesn't make the enemy AI, even if it were up to snuff, futile.
Oh and then all the reviews talk about the great graphics. Hey they are interesting and nice, but hey they are laggy, and they are seamed , and rocks sometimes have gaps with the ground, and the models are strange. Clothing clips through other clothing, the faces are among the least attractive I've seen in the last ten years, everything is green, brown, or grey terrain, the characters often keep walking into walls for 30 secs at a time, npcs often end up under bridges for a while. Yes you can ignore it. But hey, the graphics are not superior to Carnivores 1 or 2, and that was years old made by one guy. Trespasser was a cpu hog but it's graphic might now be as good with the settings on high detail, and it was prettier. You coudn't jump on every plant, and unlike Morrowind most plants weren't containers, but how important is that, and how difficult is that to implement given another 5 years of improved technology and time. It's not like the games I are all that recent. I think that reviewers gave Morrowind a bit of a free wide because they had to hammer a bit on Daggerfall which they also gave a bit of a free ride. I also think it's because most of the fatal game errors are gone this time and that it's hard to really playtest Morrowind, you really don't know what's a real error and bad design choice or implementation until you've played it for over 30 hours minimum, I think, although I play very slowly and conservatively.
It's enough to make you blow a fuse. So much promise and yet with all that you still can't make headway because of implementation. Spellmaker spells cost more, but enchantments cost less. What is up with management? Who's in charge of the Airbus that wants to pop a wheelie?
I dunno, it's very humbling. IMHO of course. But then, if I thought the opinion that humbly worthless, I'd have never posted it would I? Shucks.
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cool idea
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GreyWolf
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LOL , you guys are unbelievably entertaining, especailly Wakim, it's like dealing with some exquisite Jesuit, it's marvelous.
The question I think isn't a matter of fun being a substitute for balance, that simply wouldn't stand, but to put it to the point, it's over choosing what we measure when checking for balance.
As Wakim points out there is a comparison at issue here. The game provides options, allows for a symmetry of capability in the various lines or approaches to achieving the objective, make them about equally difficult, and you have balance. Well, at least you can play at saying you do. Fun on the other hand has nothing to do with options, not if you already like the limited approaches you have available to you. I'm a car and train guy, airplanes may be faster but I'm perfectly happy with going flat out in a car, or relaxing and reading while the Engineer does the driving for me in a train.
But that's where the whole fun vs balance and emotional preference or opinion versus stated factual relationship goes down the drain. What do you measure on the scale? In order to do that you again have to be extraordinarily well-versed in the whole of the game, in how it works and how it interrelates. The processes also have to work. The problem is that reality is mostly like that but games aren't. Especially this game. It doesn't really work as designed and it isn't really designed to work. In some sense this game is designed to be kinda fun but not designed to be measurably accurate. It is designed to be balanced in so far as it balances ineptitude in programming with difficulty in implementation given limited resources, or something to that effect.
Ballpark, the issue is not how much the frank weighs or how much it costs, but whether or not hitting a home run will allow your stomach to cook or churn with equal satisfaction.
Did I just say ballpark?
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There was a suggestion a while back by Horatio, I believe, that said magic resistance should cut both ways, that is if you try to heal yourself you'd have more difficulty with higher magic resistance.
I normally like and agree with Horatio's comments, and granted I'm an idiot overall, but I'm going to make some comments on this one.
First of all, "historically" -- I like using that term, just think of me as the old senile guy when I use it who seems remarkably to luck out on finding something closely akin to the truth -- "historically" I can think of two games that actually did this, one was by accident and the other by intention. The intentional case would be Arcanum, and in many respects it works. It also can be a minor hassle sometimes because if you are highly technological in that game, healer npcs or followers can't really heal you well, but then since those types are really not that interested in helping you generally speaking and since the game PLANNED for this eventuality, it's no sweat. On the other hand I believe that one Bethesda game and one of the Infinity Engine games actually had this as an unintended issue until it they were patched. In both those games having resistance to healing spells caused unintended problems.
You got to remember also that many people are sort of used to the current magical system in Bethesda games. Although this leads to hereditary problems, like not fixing what is consistently broken and considering it a feature, the idea of having a healing spell that is resisted has to be planned for and well thought out. In addition, if resistance is based on willpower or some other function of the mind that can be controlled by the will of the recipient or target, then it's a bit dubious to have magic resistance of heal spells or potions. If you mean however reducing the beneficial effect by a certain percentage based on resistance or some other trait, that might work. But I woudn't push hard for it, it's simply not worth the programming time or the trouble it may inject into the system for the time involved.
And to me that neither spells balance or fun. Otherwise, more ppower to you.
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"it balances ineptitude in programming with difficulty in implementation given limited resources"
Why is it that when discussing the balance (or lack thereof) of various aspects of Morrowind, you feel compelled to insult its developers? If you really want to offer constructive criticism, please do so, but there's no need to result to name calling. Limited resources? Definitely. Inept programming? You have no idea what you're talking about, because you weren't here, and you don't know the qualifications and experience of the people who worked on it, and you haven't seen the code.
Now back to the discussion of balancing the magic system.
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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GraveVoice:
I certainly can't reply to every point, mainly because I've forgotten 90% of your comments. Old age, you know. But I'll blather on about a few points:
Fixed HP: It's an unfortunate fact that most computer RPGs are heavily influenced by D&D, with its hit points, levels, and general bent towards utter carnage. I could list a number of reasons here why a D&D-like system sucks the high hard one, and how such a system can never be truly fixed, but as much as I'd like to vent a little vitriol in that direction I'll pass for the moment.
D&D players like the fact that you become god-like compared to normal mortals over time. The increase in HP is just one very obvious measure of their 'heroism'. These sorts of folks aren't the kind that appreciate games like Thief, or fantasy heroes like Fafhred and the Grey Mouser. They want their uber-characters with their uber-powers and their uber-weapons!
But the fact is that a game system can be made with fixed hit points and work *very* well, much better than D&D ever could. The prime example is RuneQuest, which featured a game system far more logical than any D&D wannabe - assuming, of course, that you actually were inclined to apply a little grey matter when it came to adventuring, rather than just wading into 100 orcs and killing the lot of them with your super character. But how many D&D players want to play a game where getting attacked by 4 orcs at the same time was pretty much tantamount to a death sentence even for very powerful characters? Realistic to be certain, but it doesn't appeal to the 10-year-old mentality that thrives on virtual godhood.
I've found two ways to limit the massive hit point gains in Morrowind, to make it less D&D-like: the first is a mod which alters health to be equal to 2 x Endurance - period. Works great for the character, impossible to apply to the NPC. Sigh.
The second is to limit gains per level to .05 x END. Even pumping Endurance the average character should have something like 250 health at level 50, rather than more than 500 points. If level 50 weren't so bloody easy to reach this would be an acceptable solution.
I like the first idea better - semi-fixed health (since END can increase with level). But since I can't apply it game-wide to all NPCs I'm currently testing the second in my mod.
Too much money: Well, this one proved to be easy to fix. The prime offenders were magical items of immense value, easily-obtained daedric items, and Creeper.
I set the price of all magical items via a formula I came up with off the top of my head, which lowered the high end items quite a bit (Chrysamere is now worth 14, 675 gold) while increasing the value of low-end items (those little magic rings which cost a pittance are now worth a couple hundred gold). The end result is that the total worth of all magic items in the game is, I believe, about 1/5 of what they were prior to the change.
As for the Daedric weapons, I revamped the entire weapon/armor system and set the prices according to the actual value of the item to the character, based on weight, damage done, health, and the enchantments it could hold. Here's a table (of sorts) for your viewing pleasure:
Material
Weight/Health/Damage/Cost
Chitin
0.75/0.75/0.75/0.50
Iron
1.00/1.00/1.00/1.00
Silver
1.00/1.00/1.00/3.00
Steel
1.00/1.50/1.25/2.00
Glass
0.50/1.50/1.25/6.00
Dwarven
1.00/2.00/1.50/10.00
Ebony
1.25/2.50/1.50/25.00
Daedric
1.25/4.00/2.00/50.00
An example war axe:
Material
Weight/Health/Damage/Cost
Chitin
9.00/750/1-15,1-8,1-4/25
Iron
12.00/1000/1-20,1-10,1-5/50
Silver
12.00/1000/1-20,1-10,1-5/150
Steel
12.00/1500/1-25,1-13,1-7/100
Glass
6.00/1500/1-25,1-13,1-7/300
Dwarven
12.00/2000/1-30,1-15,1-8/500
Ebony
15.00/2500/1-30,1-15,1-8/1250
Daedric
15.00/4000/1-40,1-20,1-10/2500
Note that 'iron' is considered the baseline for all weapons (and armor in my mod as well). I fix the statistics for any iron weapon and all other weapons are calculated off the iron statistics. Take a look at the daedric axe; quite a change, eh? And yet compared to the other axes the price is about right (it also has twice as many enchantment points as an iron axe, which is why the price is somewhat higher than the progression would otherwise indicate).
Believe it or not, this single change - cutting the cost of daedric weapons - reduces the in-game gold count more than any other change I could make.
Moving on to Creeper, well, something has happened to the little scamp. And the talking mudcrab tasted quite good, thank you. So now if you want to sell those nifty items you have to do so at a regular merchant who'll shaft you well and good unless you have a high mercantile skill. Mercantile skill suddenly becomes useful.
Now, combine the massive gold reductions with training that costs 3 x normal, no training above 80, and combat/magic skills which advance at half their normal rate and...level 50 seems nearly unobtainable. *As it should be*. No power-leveling in *my* mod, thank you.
Spell Fixes: I've already detailed what I've done with the spells and effects in previous posts. NPC mages are much more deadly now.
Two other things I've added are that many spells are non-autocalced, so NPCs don't pick them up (they're useless to the NPC); and I've altered the mage character classes so that NPC mages 'specialize'. E.g., the Battlemage specializes in Destruction, which means he mostly picks up fire-related spells; the healer picks up healing spells and the poison spells; and so forth. In essence I've taken the broken autocalc function for NPC spellcasters and fixed it, insofar as it can be fixed, and it now works rather well. In my limited playtesting the mages generally wipe the floor with my low-level characters; when I'm (finally) done with this mod and do some real playtesting I'll see how well it fares past level 25.
Enchantments: the enchantment system is broken, plain and simple. There's no way to hack a fix. The only options are to use it and bear the pain, not use it (i.e., eliminate most items and make many effects non-enchantable), or replace it through scripting completely.
Right now I'm mixing the first and second. A number of effects are non-enchantable (e.g., mark, recall, intervention, levitate) and you won't find any magical items of this nature in my game. Unfortunately the machine-gun enchantments are still around but the solution is extreme - make all damage-type spells non-enchantable. I could live with this, certainly, if I could somehow keep a system for the limited enchantment of items (e.g., flaming sword) - which I can't. Like I said, the system is broken.
However, I do think I could replace the enchantment system with scripting. Basing it off an old modification I made to RuneQuest back when I was a wee one, there would be several types of enchantment:
- spell point enchantments. Essentially batteries for the aspiring wizard. You store spell points in an item for later use. Easy enough to do. Completely useless to the non-wizard.
- spell point multipliers: constant effect items which act as a multiplier to your spell points (INT characteristic). Rare things, highly prized.
- items with specific spell enchantments: exactly like the Morrowind item except that the item can't be spammed *because it adds its spell to your spell list*. So you have to cast it just like you would any other spell. Could be combined with the first effect above so it comes with its own limited battery. The only problem I'm having here is that I can't raise the chance of casting any one particular spell to 100% while leaving the rest of the spells alone. What good would this be? Well, if your Destruction isn't high enough to cast that 100-point Firestorm spell, a ring of Firestorm would come in quite handy, now wouldn't it?
- Constant effect items: the flaming sword, the ring that adds +25 to Sneak, etc. Easy to script.
Adding this enchantment system isn't as hard as it sounds, except for trying to get the third effect to work correctly (raising the cast chance to 100%). Allowing the player to enchant these effects is a bit harder but can be done; in essence, it means that I have to create the various combinations of items and then do a subtract/add from inventory. (If anyone wants to chime in with a way to add a script to an existing item that doesn't have one while the game is running I'd love to hear how it's done).
Ramble, ramble. In any event, some partial solutions.
Max
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I find it very annoying that someone would judge based on a preferance.
D&D Third editon, (and thats Pen and Paper not any of the terribly horrible video games they have produced) is one of the greastest systems I think is out there. This is not a video game I am speaking of, it is the pen and paper edition, which means it is very very different in respect to what can be done and what can happen.
I love morrowind and the expansion, despite the problems that 'I' might have with it, it is still the greatest RPG 'computer game' out there.
I hate god-like characters because its not realistic and it doesn't present any challenge for me. Making a god-like character just takes all the fun away and besides all it takes to make such a character is cheating, but if my character earns what he earns and others consider him god-like, then maybe I ought to start thinking about god-hood.
Now that thats done I hope you wont blatenly make rude comments about someones preferance when the subject is supposed to be about balancing spells.
I really have nothing further to say about Balancing spells unless something comes up. Wakim has more than demonstrated what should be corrected in my eyes not to mention what I have added previously, but those are just specifics I thought he either didn't think of or forgot to mention.
Take Care, and don't feel bad Mr. Smiley Face Dude, I love your game and I don't think you all deserve any kind of insult, but you do deserve much admiration for the ground breaking excellent game you have created.
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Hey Gravevoice, I love your enthusiasm......
But hey man take it from me....you need to calm down!
Think things through before posting so it makes it easier for us to make sense of where your coming from and not to mention save space on the thread so it dosen't end up like Dwem a little dwemer of me ok?
Thanks and don't take this as an insult, I'm just giving harmless advice.
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wakim
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Adept
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Reged: 10/02/02
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I am consistently surprised by the thick skins of the Bethesda employees who read and moderate the Bethesda boards. Many pejorative comments are thoughtlessly tossed off, which is the nature of overstatement intrinsic to internet message boards, which are magnanimously accepted by those whom they are directed at. The vitriol is, I suspect, more an expression of frustration than intentional insult.
GraveVoice has posted so much that I have no idea what to respond to. I suppose that it is therefore appropriate to simply respond to the general tenor of some of the posts. I am finished with changing the spell costs to balance them amongst themselves, and the results of my experimentation are available from various sites. I'm not going to post my final numbers here as long tables have interest only to a very few. I am comfortable that my final numbers are close enough to what I would call ideal in that the cost of a spell is a good reflection of the value of its effect.
Two reasons that I stopped playing with the numbers: 1) I reached the point where I was losing my baselines; viz. I was beginning to see that I was no longer balancing spell costs against themselves, but rather wanting to balance them against the game as a whole. 2) The value of the spell was becomming controlled by factors beyond my ability to alter; viz. game mechanics. Oh, and 3) Tribunal was going to be released and I didn't want to spend time doing changes that might be negated by the expansion.
Since discussion about spells seems to, for some reason, devolve into discussion about game design and mechanics; a few thoughts on that. Most games that are sold as "role-playing" are actually "character-building" games. The goal is to build your character into something powerful. Morrowind doesn't provide challenge for the strength of the characters you can build. Tribunal does, to a greater extent, but still is operating within the mechanical limits of a system that wasn't designed to cope with the excesses of character-building allowed. What would be next for an TES III expansion, fighting uber-gods? uber-uber-gods? Guards with 10,000 hit points and reflect 200%?
Players want to have many opportunities to build their character's aspects, yet they also want to be able to be faced with challenges that provide a sense of reward to overcome. Not too easy, not too hard, but the Goldilockian "just right". When the porridge is too hot for one person may be too cold for another. TES series has a history of mechanical flaws. In Daggerfall one could absorb their own spells for infinite magicka - this was removed from Morrowind. In Morrowind the ability to use alchemy and enchanting are the new uber abilities, based on infinite uses in infinitesimal time. It is impossible to be killed when one can drink ten or 100 or 1000 potions of restore health, and they all stack their affects simultaneously yielding a health regeneration of mind-numbing quantity. This negates the challenge that is the ostensible goal of the game to provide.
For many people fun equates to reasonable challenge. For some fun equates to no challenge - they'd enjoy pulling the wings off of a fly. A game, any game, cannot reasonably provide both. Ya can't please all the people all of the time. Any endeavor, game or not, has finite resources and must define a limited scope. That is why there exist marketing people (marketing department motto: Welcome to marketing - three drink minimum) who want to see products ship out the door rather than let them be developed forever.
Much as I would like to disagree with Max about what he writes, because of the pejorative language he favors, I tend to agree with quite a few of his points (and admire the difficulity of the task he is attempting to turn Morrowind into something that it isn't). The influence of "D&D" in defining what is thought of as a "role-playing" game is enormous, and not all of it is good. To my knowledge D&D can be credited for most of the mechanical systems that virtually all fantasy games are based on; including, but not limited to concepts such as: hit points, armor class, levelling, experience, character defining statistics, weapon damage systems, magic effects, and more. One of TES' significant breaks with this system is in not linking character advancement directly to critter's dying violent deaths, however, the entrenched minset remains that something has to die for the player to advance. This tends to lead to the inexorable spiral of tougher player - tougher critters. Challenge doesn't have to be limited to being created solely by this. When the challenge is gone (no matter how that challenge is created), the game is over (leave that fly alone!).
My personal favorite in fantasy genre games is Wizardry 7. The puzzles are what caused me to return to it time and time again. Navigating a maze, solving a riddle, determining cause and effect in linking events, divining NPC motives, forking story paths, coupled with a diverse system of character building that made one strive to try disparate combinations to achieve effectivness and perhaps even survival.
Anyway, a long way from spell effect balancing this thread has come; and I don't think there is much left to say on that. Waxing philosophic on game design and mechanics is just velleity.
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Everyone judges based on a preference, Alastor.
I despise D&D and make no bones about, nor will I refrain from vilifying the system simply because you don't care to hear a negative thought about the game. If that bothers you, well, too bad - welcome to the world, kid.
Max
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This is a post about balancing spells, not about what you do and do not like.
I'm not a child. I think you need to wake up yourself and get rid of that ego.
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SC_Wolf
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Disciple
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Reged: 08/11/02
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MrSmileyFaceDude wrote:
In reply to:
You have no idea what you're talking about, because you weren't here, and you don't know the qualifications and experience of the people who worked on it, and you haven't seen the code.
You're right, we haven't seen the code. It'd be nice if we could. I realize that it wouldn't be prudent for Bethesda Softworks to release the source code at this time, but perhaps once TES III and it's subsequent expansions have reached the effective end of their retail life, it could be open sourced? If it were, it would become "put-up-or-shut-up" time for the more vocal coders in the community who say that it could have been made better.
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To give the devs a break nothing that is wrong with mw magic was right about daggerfall magic either;/
In reality you arnt playing the game they devised as a mage if you dont have at least 3 perm max magica boosters;/
Heck unless im off your helm alone... if you use the right helm to start can net you 10x max magica boost.
The problem I think is that the magic system was made with the enchanting system and alchemy syetem too heavyily in mind or should I say they were combined into one magic syetm all along and never realy separated.
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Methinks we need a shrine to Gary Gygax somewhere in Morrowind. I'm certain we'd see more than a few PCs prostrating themselves before it.
But to relate this to spell balancing, the D&D magic system is even more out of whack than the Morrowind one. We can balance it by simply not using the blasted thing in our computer games.
Guess that's pretty much on-topic.
Max
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intelligentsia
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Disciple
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Reged: 08/06/02
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The thing with TES that *everyone* misses out is basically all characters are multiclassed.
How many mages have no armor skill, no weapon skill etc.? Even one with all 8 magic skills has unarmored and probably a weapons skill and a stealth skill.
I also bet there's a lot of fighters out there with good restoration skill, or thieves with good illusion skills. Come to think about it even 'pure' mage classes have high unarmoured and blunt weapon skills.
Also a 'pure' mage has the alchemy skill, which is hugely potent in the right hands. Funnily enough, it removes the constant sleeping problem, and can give the mage great combat powers etc when his magicka is drained.
'Pure' mages also have the enchant skill and combined with....mysticism(?), which 'pure' mages have, and thus can economically enchant a huge amount of rings etc with backup spells.
Any mage who doesn' have this thus isn't regarded as 'pure' and thus, unless they have (for some bizarre reason) skills such as armorer they have some fighting or stealth skill.
Surely a mage with illusion and mysticism skills, with sneak as a minor, could enter a tomb and lift that skull whilst avoiding combat with most enemies?
However the general amount of magicka points is a distinct issue, and I agree with WGI 9's changes.
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If you think D&D 3rd edition is out of whack what about BG2: Throne of Bhall (expansion) 's ridiculous system replete with uber powers etc.....
Remember? The one where your archer (totally uber in BG2) suddenly can't hurt half the monsters, yet your sorceror can wipe pretty much everything out of sight without a scratch, except for the uber hard bosses, who, ingeniously, required the most ludicrous combination of breach/khajit's warding whip/insert obscure dispel spell here......
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Class is really only a useful distinction at low levels. Everyone moves towards the jack-of-all-trades as they progress towards higher levels.
But I see this as a good thing. We don't need to deal with arbitrary rules that attempt, and quite poorly, to 'balance' classes. The player him/herself does that, and any imbalance they suffer from poor initial choices is fixed over time.
The problem isn't one of 'classes', which really don't exist in Morrowind, but specialization. If you specialize in magic, especially before level 25, the unmodified magic system makes everything much harder; walking in and beating everything to death is the more logical (and rewarding) choice. Perhaps Bethesda *intended* that no one try to be a pure mage, but that certainly isn't much fun for those who wish to play one.
Max
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wakim
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Adept
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Perhaps a misnomer when using the phrase "magic is underpowered" in Morrowind is that it can be assumed that the magic being referred to is inclusive of enchanting and alchemy. Enchanting and alchemy are so vastly overpowered that they often obscure the flaws of what I have been calling magic: casting spells from a caster's own magicka supply. With the presence of enchanting and alchemy it is really a bad choice to do this. Enchanting and alchemy are both infinite in their power; they have no checks on their ability to provide effect, although alchemy is primarily limited to defensive magic. Enchanting I wrote about much earlier in this thread in exhaustive detail, and I don't think alchemy warrants more than pointing out that it employs the "time stop" effect whenever it is generally used, therefore one can consume and stack a theoretical infinite number of potion effects in zero time. If one eliminates enchanting and alchemy from discussions of Morrowind magic (since they cannot be significantly altered through TESCS to alleviate their egregious flaws) then I would be interested in the anecdotes of people, who have used Morrowind magic, to the question of magic's efficacy.
I have never, as long as I have read these boards, heard anyone say they have played a character who specialized in magic who didn't use alchemy or enchanting or beating-it-to-death-with-a-stick (melee), be able to survive and prosper in the lands of Vvardenfall, let alone Tribunal, where they would be likely caught, tagged, and released back into the wild. Tribunal compounds the problem because a great deal of its quests are not go here, get that, but rather go here, kill that. Anyone want to take a crack at killing Almalexia by using stealth or magic (sans potions, melee, and enchanting)? Anyone want to try and kill Salas Valor (Her missing hand) in the same manner? Or Gaenor? Anyone want to try just taking a stroll through the Mournhold sewers using only these same tactics?
There are vast demonstrable deficiencies with the viability of many skill choices in Morrowind. Walking in and beating anything to death is always the better choice, casting a spell from your own magicka supply is never the better choice. This doesn't exactly encourage diverse tactics and inventive gameplay.
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Wakim you are truly an intellegent man, I myself play a character (that can obviously be seem by my signature) that soley and utterly focuses on casting destruction spells. Perhaps this is a folley, but I also master alteration, mysticism, restoration, and shortblade. I never use enchanted items that I myself have created, I mainly use artifacts when it comes to enchanting. I only use store bought potions, as I never felt it useful to spend the time to make them myself when I can buy them anyway.
Now under this pre-tense I mainly use my own spells to get me through most situations (as a mage should be played), which most of the spells in these schools give you many options like damaging opponents, levitating, recalling and the other assorted utility spells. When it comes down to the majority of your character's resources being cast out of your own magicka pool, it suddenly becomes much much harder and rewarding to defeat many opponents that were once cake-jobs with my nord warrior, or my dark elf assassin.
I found myself wondering why it was so much more difficult and began to find what I thought to be answers on this thread and others. I downloaded wakims mod #5 and I enjoy the game much much more with any character I play with, as it is more challenging and realistic. This is of course my own opinion but I encourage anyone who have a problem with the balancing of magic and melee to download his mod...its gauranteed to please.
Now I'm under the pretense that if your character uses his own magicka pool to cast spells that would readily be replaced by potions and enchanted items you would be a bit more adept at casting these spells than others. It seems so many people out there make a character based off of what enchanted items they can get to enhance the character without going through the 'trouble' of gaining such power on their own. I have seen some really rediculous characters on websites that have virtually all the artifacts in the game and use which ones compliment their character the best. Simply put if you take such items away there character wouldn't be able to do much else then stand there.
The interesting thing that I like most about mages is that you could give them a number of basic spells and nothing else and they could still be able to do some amazing things, yet this is not so with other types or 'classes' of characters. Take away that Goldbrand and give a warrior a plain longsword and lets see how much of a powerhouse he really is. Take away a thiefs lockpicks and lets see how much he can steal. Take away a mages spells...well you really can't do that can you?
Perhaps I am a bit sympathetic towards the magic classes but I don't think any type of character could come close to a mage in respects to what the character is capable of.
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Well, I tossed off both a never and an always in the same paragraph (sentence? I'd have to go back and look) to see if anyone would take the easy bait and disagree with me. I played a mage through about 30 levels under the rules I outlined above and finally gave up. I was sleeping so much that cliff racers were re-spawning faster than I could travel past 'em. Defensive spells did not make up for my lacking in hitpoints or armor. My offensive prowess was laughable compared to steel. It was quite a challenging experience, but I stopped playing him because of this experience: I found myself out of magicka and unable to rest because of a creature nearby. It was a cliff racer, so with no spells and a 19 or 20 in blunt weapon I smacked him with my staff and killed him faster than I could have with my 91 skill destruction. I was chagrined.
I admit a prejudice, similar to yours, Alastor, that I like the arcane arts. My opinion is that they should represent a bastion of gameplay opportunity for those who wish to delve deep into the arcane secrets: the harder path, but one that is rewarding. Melee may be hack and slash, but magic is suppose to be where the finesse is.
I ran into a web site that had actually laid out most of what I have railed against in this thread, but posted long before I thought of it: http://home.austin.rr.com/shakti/morrowind/mwguide.htm
Here is a short excerpt (bold mine):
"With the proper creative enchanting techniques (which I'll describe below) you can create horrifically unbalancing enchantments by the time your enchant skill hits the 80 - 100 range. For instance, you can make a 100% chameleon amulet that lasts for 20 or 30 seconds, which is plenty of time to steal anything right under guards' noses or to critically strike an opponent several times without counterattack from them. Even at lower skill levels, you can easily make weapons with 3 seconds of paralyze on strike with hundreds of charges, which can easily take down much more powerful foes.
Perhaps more unbalancing is that enchanted items work 100% of the time with zero failures, they don't use magicka from your own magicka pool, they let you cast any spell from any school, and they recharge magicka at a fairly fast rate. My first character has an enchantment for everything, usually with at least 20 uses before it would run out of magicka. I never had to cast a "regular" spell for anything. I was an ubermage with a constantly full pool of magicka, who never failed a single casting attempt.
Way powerful. Way not fun."
I spent all that energy analyzing Morrowind's magic and I was just reinventing the wheel. I vaguely recall a very long thread on Morrowind's General boards back when the game was first released that dealt with enchanting and gameplay balance and diversity. I don't think that anything will be altered in the mechanics of TES III to bring the situation to resolution, nor can TESCS address the core issues: something as simple as adding a casting animation to enchanted items and alchemy to prevent the infinite amount per unit time issue. Anytime a value approaches an asymptotic infinity or zero that should be a point of concern. C'est la vie.
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The only method I've found so far of dealing with enchanted items is to simply remove the possibility of player enchantment altogether. Once a character learns a spell of line x she can enchant that spell on an item, resulting in incredibly powerful artifacts. Worse yet, she doesn't actually have to do the deed herself; she can just go to any enchanter (regardless of skill) and with enough gold have a 100% chance of getting her goody.
One of the changes I came up with (although I've yet to implement it) is something I recycled from a game I made 20 years ago: an enchanted item gives you the ability to cast the spell the item is enchanted with. That is, the spell isn't spammed from 'charges' but instead is added directly to your spell list - and you have to cast it normally. This can be done via script when an item is equipped, with the spell removed when the item is unequipped.
The only problem I've run into here is that it doesn't appear possible to raise the cast chance of any one specific spell to 100%. If I can't do this then what's the point? You might as well buy the spell from your local mage, or not if you can't cast it anyway.
The other option I've considered is to make most enchantments of a 'generic' sort, like:
- add to spell point total
- multiply spell point total
- increase magical skill by x
which would be useful for a mage and mostly useless for a non-mage.
Of the current game effects that seem to be enchantable without too much abuse I can only list the following:
- skill/stat increases
- magicka increases
- feather
- cures
- detects
- shields/sanctuaries (perhaps)
- night eye/water breathing/swift swim
- restores
- resists
Note that these enchantments are solely those which boost the users abilities in some fashion and have no effect at all on other creatures. *These* can be balanced, assuming that something can be done to get rid of the 'always successful' in-game NPC enchantment. Anything else is far too easy to abuse.
And on a side note: it appears that the demoralize/frenzy spell lines are just too darned powerful. I've incorporated them into my upcoming test of my mega-I-must-be-insane-to-put-this-kind-of-effort-into-a-game mod but I'm 95% certain that I'll be eliminating these lines as well.
Max
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As a result of this thread I have installed WGI9 and I must say I am very happy with it so far. It has definitely made my gaming experience more enjoyable! However, I want to make a suggestion or two.
I think you are beating yourself up a bit too much over the relative balance of magic to alchemy to enchanting. I would speculate that enchantment and alchemy are in fact working as intended, and that the issue is the willingness of the player to circumvent the built-in deterents to "abuse."
Enchantment is supposed to be quite hard to employ effectively. Raising the skill through use is tedious and impractical, and the master trainer requires special care to actually use. In fact, if you don't read message boards you would probably kill him. The average gamer will never see 100 skill in enchantment; further, the average gamer will never employ much in the way of self-enchanted items throughout their entire first game. (as an aside, no one reading this is an average gamer - we are all motivated enough to seek out a message board devoted to the game we play, which by default elevates us to above average, or perhaps obsessed
If you don't raise your own Enchant skill, you are limited to what you can buy. And remember, the designers built the entire game under the premise that MONEY IS SCARCE. Of course, we all know there are any number of ways to gain obscene amounts of money, but again average gamer does not. Average gamer will never amass the gold necessary to create a 100% camo suit, let alone get the souls necessary (because he doesn't know about Azura's star, nor does he carefully hoard his grand soul gems).
The point being, the game is designed so that enchanted objects ARE more powerful than spells, because in theory such objects will be created rarely. Meeting the requirements to cast a spell is relatively easy, whereas jumping through all of the requisite hoops necessary to create an uberitem is, to the average player, quite hard. Once you have successfully created such an item, the game rewards you by making it more useful than actual spell casting. In the traditional fantasy context this is not unheard of - magical items are usually more powerful and more desireable than spellcraft in most of the literature I can think of offhand.
Alchemy has similar asumptions made when it comes to average gamer. The average person will not grind potion after potion just to max the skill quickly. The average person will not map out the location of all ingredients and utilize something like the Dwemer Potion Machine (that site rocks!) to build super potions. The average gamer won't think to stack potion effects and raise their intelligence into the 1000's.
Anyway, all of this is to say that enchantment and alchemy are in fact more "balanced" than we give them credit for. It is just that when you start thinking outside the proverbial box it becomes too easy to "exploit" the system. But then since it is a single player game, I doubt the development team lost too much sleep over how people would "exploit."
I think your efforts to balance the spell effects against each other are nothing short of brilliant, and I hope you will continue with similar projects. But I wouldn't worry too much over "fixing" enchantment - the real solution is for each player to police themselves as they see fit. Almost all of your changes in WGI9 seem to address the idea "this is probably what they MEANT to do," and I would contend that enchant and alchemy are working exactly as they were meant to.
Again, great work!
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Hmm... I have always seen this thread on the top of the forum but never actually looked at it... the reason for this is that I gave up on the idea of magic a long time ago. I have posted long posts about these same things discussed here only to later realise that they served no purpose whatsoever. I will do that one more time... I know that many of these things are probably already mentioned and thoroughly discussed.
I played a Breton mage with the Apprentice sign from day 1. Personally , I leaned towards Destruction from the beggining. Now at level 42 (I have been at that level for the past months...)with Destruction 100 from level ~30. I use 90% of the time a Long Sword and wear almost no armor at all. The most dissapointing moment for me was with the Firemoth plug-in. I alsmot burst in tears with frustration when I found out that the only way of dealing with the lich was the console tgm command (Toggle God Mode). Destruction now is the less used skill of my (Destruction oriented) mage. I rarely even cast a destruction spell , at all , any more. Is this not striking you as wrong?
What can I say about the magic system? The fact that the only thing that changes in resopnse to your ability to cast spells is the chance to cast them succesfully? The fact that it is only good as a means of support? The fact that a warrior , with the right enchanted items , can become most fearsome as a mage than any mage can become? The fact that the starting ability of my race needs 1/2 of my Magicka pool to be cast as a spell? I can go on and on about this... I have thought about it too many times and I always become frustrated as to why the brilliant people who builded this amazingly groundbraking game were so blind in this matter...
Balance? Balance is not a simple matter of mechanics... it is the whole concept of the game that defines balance. Every NPC should have the potential to reach the PC in terms of raw ability , and the PC should have the potential to reach even the most legendary NPC in terms of raw ability. The potential... even if it is highly improbable. Only the knowledge that everything can be done gives the players a whole different approach to the whole concept of the game. I do not refer to power gaming, I refer to that unlimited freedom to actually do everything you want to. And the knowlegde of that freedom.
But to get to the point... balance with enchantment is simple with the above in mind. Simply make the NPCs , as powerful as a PC... those NPCs that offer you enchanting services should have a real enchantment score that affects them. The apprentice at the Balmora Mages guild , suddenly became a god of enchantment? No , she is an apprentice that struggles to climb the first ranks of the guild... and her abilities should mirror this. So , a mage NPC with a normal intelligence score (not exceptional) and a normal enchantment score should be able to achieve everything the PC can achieve with the same scores. But that leads us to another problem... potions. With potions , someone can boost extraordinarily his intelligence , and will create vastly more powerful artifacts. This is very much dependant on the fact that potion effects stack. Remove that ability and everything will become realistic again.
Another fact that slips everyone's attention is that 100 in a score (be it an attribute or a skill) represents the maximum possible point of knowledge/power. So , with that in mind we can ask ourselves , is really the maximum ability that low? Why are destruction masters are so feared then? This extends to every single skill , not just magical ones. I want my thief with 100 sneak be able to vanish right in front of the eyes of a crowd in broad daylight , I want my swordsman to be able to cut down buildings with a single strike. I want the earth that I tread on tremble by the power that my destruction mage can command! I realize that these examples are extreme but that is intentional. If what you see is power-gaming , you can stop reading (too late!) because I will not bother clarify this more. In a truly open ended game , these things are of utmost importance. In Role playing games , character development is a key feature. Morrowind takes character development to another level , but stops abruptly , leaving us with a strange sweet disapointment...
In order for mage players to have the rewarding experience that comes with the class , spells must be affected in every way by the PC's skill to cast them... the more skill you have , less cost to cast spells , faster casting rate , more damage/effect , more duration , you can overcome spell resistances (inluding absorption , reflection) etc.
And in order for everyone to have the best experience out of their character , the hole item dependance thing should be lost , and the power cap should grow considerably , just as the dificulty with which you will develop your skills.
Money are also very poorly thought out... the fact that not everyone can have thousands of GP to spare is perfectly logical and acceptable , but the fact that NO ONE has money to spare is absurd. Also , the fact that you can train so easily essentially "buying" levels is a perfect example of the poorly implemented money structure... if money is to be scarce , then everything should cost less... there should be no Sword , magical or otherwise that costs more than 5000 GPs , diamonds and precious stones should be much less valued in order to have the desired effect. Right now the whole money concept is not efficient.
I realise that almost everything I proposed cannot be implemented with the CS , I also have much more suggestions and observations to make but this post is already ridiculously big. What I hope to achieve is to actually make some people that are responsible for the game and the CS think about this... I apologize for the enormity of my post and the fact that these things are probably already mentioned. Also a big thank you goes to wakim who had the patience to balance the spell effects.
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Agreed. Without the internet how many people seriously come across a lot of the balance issues?
Also, a 'pure' mage as Wakim describes still has 4 other useful skills.
Each pool of magic is itself as useful as most other skills, perhaps with the exception of any of the weapon skills.
But cramming up on combat skills is useless, as you can only wield one weapon at a time, and run a bit and repair your weapons. You can fight, but expect yourself to be useless in all other situations. Thtaawesome weapon in the shop is by far the hardest to acquire as a fighter, as he can not steal, or even get a good price for it. His lack of wealth and personality affects his ability also to acquire hefty enchantments.
Cramming up totally on magic skills is not necissarily as useless, as you can easily steal the coolest toys (better than most thieves), and charm magics are more powerful than personality and merchantile combined. You have trouble in combat situations, but much can be avoided with judicious use of mark, recall, fast transport, levitate, sneak. And I haven't once mentioned enchant or alchemy.
Cramming up on stealth skills is perhaps the most useful of all skills, as you have weapon skill, armour skill, sneaking skill and the ability to make a packet of money out of people. It's sort of the 'jack of all trades, master of none', and probably the best balanced skill pool, with no really overpowered stats and no major weaknesses either.
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Agreed. Destruction stinks. Enchanted rings with destruction magic are another matter.
Conjuration, on the other hand is greatly powerful. Bound weapons and summons (the latter only for the most magicka toting mages, however).
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Alot of interesting ideas. First, Max, have you tried using the "always succeeds" box for the specific spells, to avoid the skill check when casting added-through-script enchanted item granted spells?
Second, the idea that we have lost touch with the "average" gamer is an interesting one, and perhaps very valid. So I went to test it. I went to the Balmora mage's guild and had the annoying wood elf gal enchant something for me. Cast when used, fire damage on target, 100 points for 1 second, area 13 feet. This took 37 enchantment units and cost me about 17 charges to cast at my enchanting skill of 64. This cost me 21,000 gold. Using a Golden Saint for a soul gem (400 charges) I can now crank out 2300 points of fire damage from this item, 100 points at a time as fast as I can click, like a medieval uzi. Barring resistance, this will kill anything but Vivec in original Morrowind.
I would think that an average player would have this amount of money available to them before they had climbed the ranks of one of the guilds. The use of a Golden Saint was what I had handy, any lesser valued soul gem would simply reduce the total charges, I think that the Winged Twilight soul gem which is begging to be stolen by any level 1 mage guild initiate would grant 300 charges. Alot of NPCs train enchanting skill, getting it to 100 through the secret trainer isn't necessary to demonstrate abuse, nor is Azura's star, since items like this can be made lesser total charges; such as a level 9 dremora soul which would grant 100 charges to the item. It is harder to argue that enchanting can be used at all with out abusing it to destroy the challenge of the game.
Restore health from alchemy can be made with the simplest of ingredients: saltrice, wickwheat, resin, marshmellow, corkbulb, and perhaps others. Virtually every player realizes that they can infinitely stack these effects the first or second time they flip to the inventory screen and drink them down. High grade restore health potions are available for free in the ever-replenishing guild equipment chests, even if the player choses not to make their own.
I agree that enchanting and alchemy are working as intended, well possibly not enchanting. Have you noticed that when you cast an enchanted spell effect in 1st person view that the "casting hand" graphic hiccups, yet in 3rd person view it does not? Odd behavior that. My supposition is that what is intended can be subjected to review and improvement.
Even if one chooses to not create their own enchanted items, then they will be handed the amulet of shadows (80% chameleon), the ring of unity and the amulet of flesh made whole and Aryon's helper, the wizrad's staff, vampire's ring, and who knows what else. It just feels odd playing a game where one has to ignore the rewards given out (ostensibly the reason for playing the game) and conscientiously chose not to perform so many multiple actions. Rather than strive to excel within the frameworks of the game mechanics, in order to play Morrowind one has to conscientiously strive not to excel.
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'Always succeeds'. Staring at me right in the face. Here I was trying to figure out some sort of work-around via scripting and never thought about that little check box I've never used.
Well, then, it now appears I can make *all* of my new enchanting system, assuming I want to disallow the player ability to enchant. Got to think this one over. Thanks for the heads-up, Wakim.
As for the poster who claimed something along the lines of 'for the average gamer getting lots of cash is hard', I find this quite difficult to believe. I discovered this the very first time through, zipping from level 14 to 30+ simply by collecting a nice assortment of Daedric weaponry from the isles along the Bitter Coast and selling them to Creeper. And at the point I had yet to read a single post on this board.
During my last run-through I had more than 3.8 MILLION gold sitting around and I had stopped collecting anything but supergoodies long before reaching this insane amount of cash. In fact, I went back to Creeper and bought back *every single daedric, ebony, glass and dwemer weapon and piece of armor* just to decorate my home - primarily because I was getting bored and this represented the height of entertainment at the time.
I can't imagine that the average gamer, well-known for being able to exploit even the most fool-proof system, wouldn't quickly discover how to amass mounds of cash - or convert that cash into super-items using the 'always succeeds' NPC enchanters. Add to this the items that are basically handed out without much effort and the enchanting system completely unbalances the game.
So, as Wakim says, in order to keep things semi-enjoyable you have to basically exercise self-restraint and pass up on a number of opportunities. Rather than 'be all you can be' it's 'be about 10% of what you could be or things are going to get very boring, very fast'. Well, unless you're a power gamer, I suppose.
I think the magic system can be tweaked to make mages quite a bit more powerful - and, in fact, have done it in my own mod. Well and good. But no hack I've employed so far has done anything to fix enchantment; the only alternative I can see is to abandon the in-game system altogether and craft a new one from scratch via scripting.
Which is probably what I'll end up doing.
Max
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I fully agree that there are too many powerful items on Vvardenfell. I know this was done to give a sense that anything can be found to compliment a character, but when a veteran of the game can find these items without effort by going somewhere and looking it up or getting info from various NPCs.
I find myself giggling at the power that can be achevied by strengently aquring tons of powerful items and no challenge is presented to aquire them. Some NPCs don't even use them effectivly when they have them. I would like to see some of those 'powerful' items dissappearing when the user becomes too powerful through its use, just like the tamrielic lore book seems to suggest, yet I can get all the artifacts on the island ( which numbers around 30 I think) and hoard them in the middle of balmora and no one will even think to touch them let alone take them.
What I'm getting at is that there are other people who would give a leg and an arm to have even one of the items you may posses, yet no one ever seems to want to come and get it. Have various powerful NPC's attack you in the middle of rest for a powerful item and you would think twice about carrying it on you at all times. Keep an item laying around unguarded or not locked up and it should get stolen sooner or later (which would give use to the various 'lock' spells), etc. etc.
I know this really can't be done, but I find myself wondering why no one would raise a finger to aquire an item I had just laying around gathering dust, and then I tremble to think how powerful someone would have to be to have the balls to come and take my wraithguard or Staff of Magnus.
My point? We need more encounters of people 'coming to you' instead of you always going to the people when you get high in level.
Any points or suggestions? Did I miss something?
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I think Rogues (if I have the name correct) mod adds random level generated thief types sneaking up on the player to liberate those wonder trinkets.
I did a quick scan of the Bethesda general forums, looking for that old multi-page enchanting thread and I couldn't find it - just too many posts to sort through that contain the word enchanting. Oddly enough this quick search lends credence to the idea that the average player does use enchanting in a challenge eliminating fashion. For a non-melee character to prosper I think that game mechanics require them to use enchanting, and I don't think that enchanting can be used without destroying any vestige of challenge and therefore fun.
If I recall Daggerfall accurately one was not given artifact quests unless they did not already possess an artifact; in theory limiting players to only one powerful item at a time. The work around quickly discovered by astute players was to drop your current artifact on the ground, ask for another artifact quest, then to pick up your current artifact and go off questing.
I think it is safe to say that Bethesda did not expect nor design the game for the type of player who really wants to devour and enjoy the whole meal in a sitting: join every guild, do every quest, explore all the world. Most guilds send the initiate to recover, or grant, one significant artifact: Mage's: necro amulet, Fighter's: Marara's ring, Temple: ebony mail, Legion: Chrysamere and Lord's mail, Thieves': Skeleton key, etc. Morrowind is an enormous undertaking, but those that consume it all in one sitting are left with a bad case of indigestion. The official expansion is dessert after eating a whole duck in sauce, there just isn't room for it.
Mechanically Morrowind can't loosen its belt to encompass the gluttony served up. The console, through the use of the "t*s" commands (where *= k, c, m, and other letters for "toggle * statistics"), will show what a player's chance of hitting, being hit, resisting, being resisted, etc. is. A high level character can no longer miss his opponents (chance to hit is 100+%), yet opponents are still opening combat by trying to cast dispel upon themselves (!?!). The vampire ring is stealing 300 health per click, sunder is doing 100+ damage a smack, the necro amulet and atronach birth sign make the player 75% immune to spells, marara's ring makes the player 40% immune to physical damage, daedric armor is absorbing virtually all physical damage, drake's pride is reflecting the rest. How can you balance magical spells against this? In this frenzy of Dionysian excess enchanting chameleon 100% seems at home and casting magical spells is the shy one at the orgy.
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I know that one thing I'm surprised at is how fiercely people cling to one character, and never even THINK about creating others. Given things like the ability to join only one of the great houses, faction rivalries, etc., and all the various character choices you can make, I had always thought people would play the game with a large number of characters and try different paths and tactics and skillsets with each. But instead, it seems that a large number of people make ONE character and play the entire game with it.
I'm not sure how the game designers planned it out; I presume they expected some would play it that way, but to me personally (a programmer as many of you know), it's a surprise just how many people took the one-character route.
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When I play any RPG game, my tactics are usually governed by a simple commandment:
DO ALL WITHIN THINE POWER TO SUCCEED!
(Excluding cheating.)
It's just how I have been educated to play I guess.
This, of course, leads me to fall into the very pitfalls being discussed here. The problem is, that I don't think that this is a bad approach at all. I mean, if the whole point is to win, then I think the game should be set up so as to provide resistance to my emerging triumphant - as much as is necessary to keep the challenge alive, and at an ever increasing level of difficulty.
I do not want to have to exercize conscious restraint when playing an RPG (like not using enchantments or certain spell FX). What is the point in playing to win, if I have to hold myself back. Yeah, I could play just for the 'role playing' experience, but that just doesn't fulfill my childish inherent need to vent my real-life frustrations in a game.
So, when I play MW, I have a tendancy to do everything I can in that one game. This is not to say I don't play again with a different character, but I like to go all-out. I like MW because of the diverse approaches it allows for, but it's weakness is that while it allows you to choose what you want to attempt to do, it does also not really penalize you for trying things that are not your strengths. This is really my greatest qualm with the game. I don't mean to say that you should not be able to attempt these things and potentially succeed (like picking complicated locks or casting cryptic spells, when you are a hairy barbarian character), but I think that it ought to be a whole lot tougher to do.
I think it is because it is so easy to 'cheat' your way around any class limitations that so many people are not trying different characters. I can do everything with my jack-of-all-trades that any specialized character can do, even at relatively low levels. Where is the incentive to play as different characters at all, or to play beyond lvl 30 with any of them?
Sure, it's an aesthetic thing, right?
Excersize restraint, grasshopper.
Not for most players. Most players think about what specific type of character they want to play through the game with, or what type can most easily defeat Dagoth Ur. When they find that they don't have to worry about class limitations, they think, "Awe what the heck, I'll just do everything I can this one time around with this character...because I can."
Now the run-on sentence of the week:
If the point of a game and it's 'balance' are to be 'fun', and if the game centers on conquest, and if conquest requires the utmost resourcefulness, and if the game's 'balance' can dole out resouces at a rate that keeps the challenge alive, then 'fun' it will be. Otherwise, nein, nix, nada.
Oh, and MSFD...I want to apologize. I posted some nasty stuff about the spell VFX somewhere in this thread, only to find out you designed them. Sorry. I'm a jack-@ss, I know. I really do love MW, in every aspect, including the spell system in its entirety. It's a truly revolutionary RPG. I only have anything critical to say about it because I hope to offer some (very few I'm sure) useful suggestions for the next time around.
I bought MW, and I'm gonna buy Tribunal and whatever is next for TES. That's my opinion right there.
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Hmm, good points. I thought it would cost more to make the damaging item you describe. And I completely agree with the idea that the game was not designed for the player who wants to do it all. The game was designed to be appealing and provide some nice rewards no matter what the player does. If you do it all, you reap more rewards than you know what to do with. It has been said elsewhere, the player basically cannot help but become super powerful. Which is part of the allure of an Elder Scrolls game.
And maybe I am underestimating the average gamer; still, I think from a development standpoint a designer has to plan for the "least common denominator" as it were, which means making sure joe blow has a good time even if he never figures out how to turn on all the best bells and whistles. I'd guess this is why some features seem "dumbed-down," like faction exclusiveness and disease shunning - makes the game easier for the no attention span crowd. Unfortunate for those of us who relish the challenge, but then their goal is to reach the widest possible audience, not cater to my niche. But fortunately they provided the CS, so we can have conversations like this and "fix" the game to our liking.
I think enchantment and alchemy provide important roles in the life of a "pure" mage (or any character), and I would not want to get rid of them. The issues seem to be that A) they "invalidate" casting by being far superior, and B) they make the PC too powerful. I suppose if I really wanted to rework enchanting so that it didn't invalidate casting and wasn't too powerful, I'd probably do something like this:
1. Restrict each magical effect to certain classes of objects. For example, offensive magics can only be enchanted into weapons/staves; defensive magicks only in armor/clothing; utility magicks in rings/amulets. Then you would be using the item enchantment levels to regulate some of the abuses, since most weapons don't excede 20 enchantment points.
2. Make it so the magnitude of your enchantments cannot excede your base score in the relevant skill. That is, if your Alteration is only 20 then you can only enchant alteration effects up to a magnitude of 20. Alternatively, instead of magnitude you could apply this to overall enchantment value - I'm not sure which would be more restrictive.
3. NPC Enchanters can only enchant certain schools of magic, based on their faction; Mage guild does destruction/alteration, Temple does Mysticism/restoration, etc. Enchantment services are reserved for higher ranks. This only has "teeth" if you are running WGI9 or something similar where you can only get services if you are in the faction.
4. Individual NPC enchanters are capped to enchantments of, say, 40-60 points total. Only the player can create enchantments beyond 60.
5. Grant some sort of motivation to raise casting skills above the bare minimum. Having 100 in a casting skill should do something other than ensure casting success. Bonus damage, duration, reduced mana cost, less chance of being resisted by target, anything to make it more competitive against an equivalent charged item. Of course this idea is nothing new.
6. Player created effects cannot stack, ever. The most powerful effect of a type takes priority over all other similar effects. So you could stack a game artifact with one of your creation, but you can't stack two self-made items or potions.
Speaking of potions...
7. All player made alchemical healing effects are capped at 10/second - once the 10/second barrier is reached, improvement only increases duration. Although even just 10/second is enough to make you invulnerable in most situations.
8. Base the value of player made potions off of the cost of the ingredients, rather than the level of the potion. Then you can't generate infinite money by buying 2 ingredients for 2 gold and selling the potion made for 150 gold. (and in the same vein, only NPC enchanters should buy filled soul gems, to help rein in gem/creeper money pump).
9. Ultimate magnitue and duration for certain potion types should probably be capped. This is really more a side effect of running WGI9 because of the spell balancing efforts. As an example, under WGI9 at 100 alchemy I can brew a potion of feather that reduces my burden by 345 pounds and lasts for over 10 minutes. Not that I'm complaining; I find that preferable to buffing my strength an equivalent amount which has the side effect of obliterating things with a single swipe of my staff.
So there are some ideas. Of course, I imagine most of them are not actaully possible to accomplish with the construction set. 
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Agreed. The amount of enchantment points on exquisite rings is ludicrous, the amount on bows pitiful.
The moral of this debate:
Roleplay, don't powergame. Create a realistic, well balanced character that suits you and you can't fail to find MW's system enjoyable.
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I think the apologia re Morrowind and appealing to the 'common denominator' is unnecessary. It's quite possible to get ever-increasingly-powerful characters and still continue to have challenges. A very good example of just such a game is Diablo: you start out with a wimp and find a few skeletons challenging, eventually turn into a demi-god (after a godforsaken amount of play) and still run into things which will kill you if you aren't careful. This despite the number of nastily powerful artifacts available as you level up.
You could say "Morrowind isn't Diablo" but that isn't the point. The concept is the same regardless of the game - keep the challenge alive by providing obstacles that equal or exceed the character's current power.
This Morrowind does not do. After level 25 you're essentially untouchable, unless you consciously restrict yourself - and where's the fun in that? If I have to provide my own challenge by consciously limiting myself in a multitude of ways I might as well just sit on the couch and *imagine* playing the game - it's certainly cheaper.
The weaknesses, to reiterate for the umpteenth time, are:
- a poorly laid out spell system and weak NPC mages. This can be fixed *within the framework of the current rules*. I've done it, although some of my choices might appear drastic (e.g., eliminating all Absorb line spells). So here the system isn't at fault, but rather it's implementation in the game. Not enough playtesting, I think.
- enchanting. Just plain broken. Can't be fixed. Needs to be scrapped and reworked.
- alchemy. Mostly works, but it's too easy to make good potions or use them during combat. Lowering the effectiveness of alchemy skill, making ingredients more scarce, and simply *not allowing the player to quaff potions during combat* would fix this. Again, the alchemy system is pretty much a decent one, it's the in-game implementation which allows for abuse.
- massive amounts of easily-available gold. This too can be fixed, and I've done it. All one has to do is lower the price of things like ebony, glass, daedric, and uber-magical items. And get rid of Creeper. The game system works, but yet again - just not well implemented. A tweak here and there and players no longer wrack up millions of gold. Now cap training to a max level and increase its cost and you won't get any more power leveling from loot.
- no scaling challenges. Unfortunately this one is hard to fix. Diablo scales challenges according to character level, which always keeps that game interesting. Morrowind doesn't. It scales *rewards*, but not challenges, and this is a back-asswards way of doing things. What makes more sense: getting more in terms of rewards if I manage to clear out the bandit cave at level 5, or level 30? In Morrowind the level 30 character gets better goodies, even though the cave presents no challenge; the level 5 character will mostly get barrels and crates of crap.
I partially fixed this last by removing leveled goodies altogether and making what's inside the random crate/barrel/whatever a crapshoot. If a dwemer axe shows up at level 5 your pc can jump for joy and think about buying that new iron cuirass he's been drooling over; if it shows up at level 30 (and in my system has the same chance of doing so) you sigh and think "just 30 more of these puppies and I can get that item enchanted - groan".
Fixing the enemies, however, is a much more difficult proposition. And this final thing is the key to keeping the challenges coming without adding silly things like "10 dremora lords suddenly appear in the shrine and attack you!".
Max
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If the leveled ninja-monkey lists were filled up with creatures that actually became progressively harder, all the way to lvl. 100, all my worries would be gone.
Luckily, I have been able to put a whole crap-load of new monsters into the game myself, but reworking the lists entirely is beyond my interest. I just don't have enough monsters for one thing. Although, I must say those uber-dragons I put around Red Mountain will certainly keep my @ss away from there 'till I'm about level 40 for sure.
I also jacked Dag Ur's Hp to like 20000.
I just want a good challenge is all.
So we'll see. I may find the that the enchantment system is under-powered after all.
As for not 'power-gaming'...for me, there is no fun in just pretending to live in some other world. Hero stuff. (Or utter villainy, of course.) That's what it's all about. I have enough problems restraining myself in real-life.
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Personally, I don't really see the point in power-gaming in an RPG. If I want to power-game I can play something like Diablo, or an FPS, or something along those lines. Power-gaming generally precludes role-play, which is kind of the point of a CRPG - otherwise you might as well take out the 'role play' altogether.
These two things aren't incompatible, though. You can put both into the same game, assuming you make it *very* difficult to get to the level of demi-godhood. This satisfies both camps; the role-players can enjoy the fact that their heroes are very much mortal for most of the game, while the power folks can eventually, with enough time and effort, reach the point where they can take a dragon one-on-one and have some chance of living through the encounter.
One of the things I don't like about power-gaming is that it essentially requires no thought. This in and of itself isn't a bad thing - I still play Doom precisely because it doesn't tax my brain cells, and it's great fun killing scads of beasties - but this isn't role play. This has nothing to do with role play.
Games like Thief are more my bag, and much more along the lines of actual roleplay. You need to *think* about what you're doing; you can't just run over everything in sight and hope to accomplish your mission. Thief, a most excellent game, is always tense and always challenging just because of this reason, and it's more roleplaying than most so-called roleplaying games (e.g., Baldur's Gate, or "D&D Fed Ex").
A good example of a CRPG which manages to combine both elements would be Fallout (both games). For most of the game you're very killable by quite a few things; after a looooooong period of time you become less and less vulnerable, until at the end you can pretty much slag anything you want. But even at the end there are still challenges which can waste you if you take a Doom-like approach to your missions.
Max
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Well, like I say: I WANT a challenge. It's not that I want to be powerful, really (although I don't mind, so long as things stay balanced). I don't really give a rat's @ss about getting more hp, for example. If it makes the game too easy, then what's the point?
As for thinking about what you are doing... for stealth-type characters, who rely neither on might nor magic, I think the game should have a whole other set of rules available...for those who really want to play that way. Puzzles, tough locks & traps, unique guarded loot only attainable by stealth, etc. These are the traditional paths a thief would take, avoiding the confrontations a mage or a warrior would engage in. This obviously calls for a whole other facet of gameplay. MW makes some attempt to provide this, but comes up short. If I play a thief in MW he/she quickly becomes something else, because you can't really avoid confrontation very well. In fact, the only faction that doesn't want you to go out and kill all the time is the Thieves Guild, and that simply is not enough to make it as a thief. An assassin also has similar problems, because like it or not, he/she will also consantly be forced into open combat. One critical hit does jack-smack to an Ogrim, when you are using a short sword or a dagger at approx. lvl. 15 with a real stealth-specialized PC, btw. So fight you must.
Then, of course, you get ahold of some uber stuff, and there is no more need to sneak around anyway.
As for thinking about your actions with regard to other classes...I think that there is already much of an improvement made to the magic-specialized characters, in this regard, by Wakim's improvements. You have to think a bit about what you are casting now. Else you might end up dead. That is a very good thing.
The real problem, the one which can't well be tackled with the TESCS, is the lack of tactical diversity for combat-specialized classes. There are already a good number of variables used, I think. However, one problem lies in that the tactical advantages and disadvantages of the weapon types are not nearly 'balanced' and diversified enough. (Then there's the AI bug with levitating, which totally annihilites the necessity of thinking, if you choose to use the spell...but that's another ball of wax.) Another issue is that melee combat turns into a click-fest. What else is there to do? Blocking is also automated. If there was perhaps a bit of variety in the possible attacks, each with its own unique qualities, and if blocking could at least be toggled to manual control, then melee would have the variety required to give the player pause to think about his/her tactics:
Maybe a low blow for the guy with no greaves on. A spear-thrust to the head from above from safe distance, for the enemy climbing up to meet you sword in hand, with no helmet. But woe to you - the attack is blocked. Now the spear is useless at close range (as it rightly should be). Better pull out that shortsword quick, while backing up, all the while holding your shield ready. No use for a bulky claymore at ultra-close quarters...
Well, you get the idea.
Decisions. I want to be able to make more of them, and to be rightly slaughtered if I make bad ones.
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On the same lines....
One thing we all want is 'epic' combats. 'Epic' in this sense doesn't mean one would-be god duking it out with another; it means a combat between two relatively equally-matched foes where the outcome is in doubt.
A good example of that would be any of the older swashbuckling movies (Eroll Flynn style). The two opponents match off in a sword fight that makes for great movie viewing, and although we all know the ultimate outcome of the battle in the movies, in our games this wouldn't be predetermined.
One thing I don't like about Morrowind is the requirement for me to click-click-click my own combats. I'd much rather issue orders to my character and watch the action unfold in third-person view. When I need to try new tactics I issue another set of orders and again sit back to enjoy the view.
NWN did this pretty well. Using the freely-available camera hack you could take any point of view and spit out orders to your character, changing tactics as the situation required it. But your character actually carried them out - no need to tap-tap-tap the mouse button. And the combat routines were pretty neat at times; multiple thrusts and parries, the clash of parrying weapons, grunts of pain, etc. Some of them were so good you wished you had a 'record movie' button so you could watch it again after the fact.
In Morrowind we could get something of the same effect if combat were dealt with in a different fashion. Take this as an example:
You and your arch-nemesis both have a 90 in longsword and are facing off for The Big Duel (TM). Your chance of hitting the other guy is, well, 90%.
But if you manage to score a hit, the opponent gets to check for parry. His odds of doing so are the same as his skill score - 90% (hard code an upper/lower limit of 5%/95% in this case). That means your odds of hitting *and* getting past the parry are now 90% x 10%, or 9%.
Lo! There's more! If you manage to hit and slip by the parry, the sneaky devil might just dodge that blow of yours anyway. Say his dodge is 70%, this means that your odds of hitting *and* getting past the parry *and* outwitting his evade are 90% x 10% x 70%, or 2.7%. That means that on average you'll exchange 37 blows in a rousing, climatic sword fight before one of you draws blood. Now *that's* epic.
But this leads to more interesting possibilities. What if he's calling for the guards? Can you slay the Black Hat before reinforcements arrive? Or will you have to, Flynn-style, beat a hasty retreat and come back for another try some other day?
And note: numbers count. Alot. Four guards - bad news. Mayhap it'd be best to hit them with a fireball and forget the sword-play. Or sneak around them and avoid a confrontation altogether. Our hero is challenged with a situation which requires him to make a decision: which tactic is most appropriate to overcome the obstacle.
Grand stuff, really.
Max
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Actually, combat already works very much like you describe it. Whenever you click to swing that weapon, your skill, fatigue, strength, as well as the opponent's blocking skill, agility, armor rating, etc. are all factored in to determine how much damage, if any, is done. You're objecting to the mechanics of combat, where YOU have to click to make these things happen, and where any movements you make don't make much difference. I think the game system is fine, it's the mechanics of combat that are the real issue. And I won't disagree with that.
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Well, the thing is that this sort of combat realism could actually be implemented in a 1st person game of this sort, along with all the already awesome features that distinguishes MW from other games. I really can't wait to see what Bethesda cooks up in the next TES (provided they plan to do another one). Hopefully I'll have beaten MW by that time, since I've been so busy modding and assimlilating mods for my own ends, that I haven't even played 10% of the game yet. I'll need at least another two years to really get tired of this game!
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MSFD:
Absolutely. I have no problems with the existing formulas used by the game...so long as we have the ability to alter variables used in the computations to our liking, which can already do to a great extent (more would be better though).
I was talking about the monotony of click, click, clicking, and not having the option to take diverse approaches. Maybe some key-combos or something (ala Streetfight?) could allow the dextrous keyboarder to pull off some special moves or something. It would be a start.
I like the current system of calculations pretty well, but I also think that more factors and somewhat tougher disadvantages uncer certain conditions would help achieve what I'm looking for. The part about the tougher rules is also very applicable to the other two specializations, magic and stealth, and just to the game in general. Maybe I'm asking too much. Do-what-you-want-when-you-want style gameplay, AND tough situational, combat and class-based handicaps? I dunno. I think they are not incompatible, although surely hard to fuse together smoothly.
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The point is that you, the player, never see any of the incorporated elements in play. It all boils down to 'click until it's dead', with little variation on theme.
NWN *didn't* incorporate all of these elements, and yet the end result is much prettier and more interesting. It isn't what I'd ultimately like to see and there are certainly problems with how it's done, but it's a step in the right direction - doing with our characters what we see in the movies, or in our heads when we're reading a decent novel.
Don't get me wrong here - excepting a few certain things (combat routines, 3rd person view, scripting) Morrowind beats NWN all to hell. No doubt about it. NWN was *the* most boring RPG I've played in recent memory. But it does have Morrowind whipped on these few accounts.
A way to add more variation to combat in Morrowind would be to allow the player to make 'combat routines' and order her character to carry them out, with the routines having real and different effects. For example, you could 'press attack' (higher hit, lower parry) combined with 'flurry of blows' (lower hit, more chances) combined with 'aim low' (going for those non-armored legs) combined with 'mobility' (dance back and forth to increase dodge). Take a dozen elements and a player could make literally a hundred or more different routines, assuming that each item actually did something worthwhile.
Of course, all of this would require the 'issue orders and watch' sort of play that I favor, probably along with 3rd person so you could fully enjoy the combat. But combine this with 'record combat' and ah, the beauty!
Max
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I don't really want to revert to the 'order the move, then wait' scheme. I like real-time combat just fine. Not to say that it is totally necessary in all games, but in MW real-time combat is the modus. Always has been.
Remember Daggerfall? You could swing your weapon at certain angles. Now what if there were like 8 angles in total that you could swing the weapon you are holding, where a body-region is assigned to each angle. For example:
thrust= chest
left to right slash= opponent's right arm
right to left slash= opponent's left arm
chop straight down = head
diagonally chop down left to right = opponent's right shoulder
diagonaly chop down right to left = opponent's left shoulder
diagonally slash up L to R = opponent's right hand
diagonally slash up R to L = opponent's left hand
Now, notice how these regions all correspond to armor parts. This could allow the player to make an attack based on where the weaknesses in an opponent's armor pieces are. There are still more armor parts though, so simply by adding a toggle key, like holding the shift key (crouch button maybe) for instance, the target body parts could be switched to the lower half of the opponent. So you would now have the following areas to attack when holding the toggle key:
thrust = groin
left to right slash = right knee
right to left slash = left knee
chop straight down = chest (redundant, I know, but the chest IS the biggest target, so why not)
diagonally chop down left to right = opponent's right thigh
diagonaly chop down right to left = opponent's left thigh
diagonally slash up L to R = opponent's right lower leg
diagonally slash up R to L = opponent's left lower leg
Viola! That's a lot of options. Add specialized body-part bonuses to weapons (e.g., 2H swords get chop or slash part bonuses and spears get thrust part bonuses), and add a manual blocking feature, and combat is lookin' GOOD.
And if the opponent has his back to you (rotated away from the PC beyond a certain angle), then the body parts are reversed and you get your little critical hit bonus, and so on and so forth.
Considering the other existing variables, like range and armor durability, you could really get specific in terms of how you want to take someone on. It would seriously beat turn-based combat and would allow for much of the existing stuff in MW to be integrated.
Man would I love to see this happen.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
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Get the mod here:
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Edited by Hoghead (11/15/02 06:45 PM)
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Too bad they don't have those Rites of Eleusis in public anymore eh?
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LDones
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Just a quick, tiny note to let everyone know I've got the trap settings & will probably have some hard data early this week on what appears to be the best solution for scaling trap difficulty throughout the game.
Then I'm going to catch up on mods from the past 3 weeks and play Tribunal like crazy.
Javohl.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Nice work. This sort of data will undoubtedly be valuable. I've been waiting for a mod that tweaks the stealth-specialization stuff for a while now...not sure how much you can accomplish without having to alter tons of objects though. Well, I don't think there are many other mods change traps out there, so it's at least feasible, if pretty tedious, to go about it that way.
Hmmm...anyone have any info. on how the quality of picks & probes affects success rates? I always sucked at math, so I ain't gonna try to figure it out. It would be cool to know what to set the qualities at for a reasonably dfficult challenge. (I'd say it should still be a little tricky to crack a lvl 100 lock at max. security skill, even with with a secret master pick. At mid level skill it should be damn near impossible.) Just my opinions.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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I've occasionally wondered about the possible effects that extending defensive capabilities to weapons might have had on combat. In the Construction Set there appear to be a few different settings relating to the Block skill, including "iBlockMaxChance" which is set to 50. If this indicates what it seems to (that at best there is a 50% chance of blocking a successful attack when one has a shield equipped), an interesting addition to the current system might have been to increase (or replace, with only a weapon and no shield equipped) that percentage by an amount based in equal parts on one's Blocking (up to 25% at 100 Block) and current weapon skills (up to another 25% at 100 in the appropriate weapon), and multiplied by a different defensive value for each weapon category (ranging perhaps from 0 for MarksmanThrown to 1.5 for BluntTwoWide and SpearTwoWide) if not each individual weapon, but ONLY while not preparing or executing an attack.
The above could have introduced some additional strategic elements into combat (at least against highly skilled opponents) including "looking for openings" when attacks were being made (perhaps with an accompanying AI tweak to allow NPCs who were being blocked excessively to compare the health of their weapon against the health of their opponent's weapon and/or shield, with a degree of accuracy determined by their intelligence, and attempt to time their attacks more carefully if it seemed likely that they would break their chitin shortsword against their opponent's Daedric staff, or just hammer away merrily on an opponent's Imperial broadsword and shield with a dwarven warhammer) and generally increase the viability of different weapons, spells (the disintegrate armor and weapon spell effects) and possibly even play styles (where a highly skilled character would not be forced to kill or use magic or stealth for defense).
In regard to some of the other ideas presented in this thread, I agree that adding delays (ideally with accompanying animations, particularly for potion-quaffing) to certain actions would help the balance issues a bit, and would go so far as to suggest adding delays for equipping/unequipping wearable items (if multiple items were equipped in inventory, the delays/animations could be "chained" together once the inventory window closed and cancelled mid-chain by a return to inventory), and possibly include other penalties (such as being unable to move while changing pants, greaves, skirts, and footwear), at least while in combat.
On a somewhat related note (actually, I suppose it's more closely related to the thread topic than the rest of this), one other thing I would have liked to see included in the game is a drain/absorb enchantment spell effect.
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MrSmileyFaceDude wrote
In reply to:
Given things like the ability to join only one of the great houses, faction rivalries, etc., and all the various character choices you can make, I had always thought people would play the game with a large number of characters and try different paths and tactics and skillsets with each. But instead, it seems that a large number of people make ONE character and play the entire game with it.
I'm not sure how the game designers planned it out; I presume they expected some would play it that way, but to me personally (a programmer as many of you know), it's a surprise just how many people took the one-character route.
A good game designer once said that "Game Mechanics drive Player Behavior", and I think that's the case here. Players end up joining the Fighters' Mages' and Theives' Guilds with the same character because they can. At the point in the game where such oportunity arises, there hasn't been much oportunity to discover all these intricate interfaction rivalries, so it comes down to a simple question of "Will they take me?"
In the stock game, more often than not, the answer is yes.
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I agree that it makes no sense to only allow blocking with a shield. Perhaps a hidden 'parry' skill could (not in MW of course) be calculated based on the weapon skill and agility of a character. Obviously it should not be as effective as having a shield equipped, but parrying IS (in the real world) a part of melee combat, be it with whatever weapon type. I think that a max 25% chance sounds reasonable, vs. a 50% chance with a shield. This adds the versatility of allowing the player to chose whether he/she wants the added protection and encumberance of a shield, or the freedom of unencumberance and the reduced protection associated with not using one.
And yes, being able to 'hit' an opponent's weapon would add another level of tactical intrigue, with regard to durability, as well as another reason to carry a shield...in order to avoid damage to your own weapon.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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The added weight of a two handed weapon cancels out the added weight of a shield.
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First person combat might have been the rule in MW games to date, but that doesn't really mean a hill of beans. Which works better for most players? An NWN-style combat where interesting exchanges occur, or a Morrowind click-fest? Some folks will go with the latter, but I'm willing that most will choose the former, especially in a game where practically all of the weapons are hand-to-hand and not projectile-based.
But there's nothing to stop you from doing the 'issue orders' thing and watching it all from first person. With the camera hack in NWN you can 'seat' yourself just behind your PC's eyes and watch all the action up close and personal. What's the difference between that and Morrowind? Well, I don't have to beat on the mouse constantly and my character is *much* better at pulling off intricate routines than I am - which only makes sense given that she's the professional with the sword and I'm not.
I give the orders, she executes them - a perfect relationship between player and PC.
Max
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Well, you're talking about rewriting code now. This is something for the next Elder Scrolls game.
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Yeah, but alot of the conversation in this thread revolves around topics that need a rewrite of the code, or at least certain functions. Enchantment, for example.
Max
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<<<I give the orders, she executes them - a perfect relationship between player and PC. >>>
The kind of "ideal" you seem to want exists in Dungeon Siege - I mean, you can literally have the game play itself by setting the characters' AI and changing as needed. At least, if it's not the ideal, it's certainly the logical extension of it. What you seem to want to do is put a layer between the player and character - and the more layers of whatever, the less immersion you get. Dungeon Siege has impressive and pretty fight scenes, but receives extremely harsh criticism for this trait you seem to feel is a great thing to have.
Admittedly, Neverwinter Nights isn't quite that far along in terms of separation between player and character, and this is almost certainly for the better.
As far as Morrowind goes, I find that the combat system presented gives me far more options than NWN ever will, and I think this is a feature. Yes, it could be better. No, I don't think what you're describing is "better."
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I don't think that MW would be nearly as popular as it is with such an interface. The reason that it is such a universally appealing RPG is because of the highly immersive real-time system currently in use. It is sort of like a first-person shooter in this regard, only that it is not as focused on only that one aspect of play by necessity. I can't really complain though, because although the melee combat system is not as highly developed as that of pure FPS games, MW does offer much, much more. If the game were to be turn-based (or similarly configured) it might as well be Wizardry 8's big brother.
I liked Wizardry 8 very much, but not as much as MW, for sure. If the first-person system in MW can be improved (which I'm sure it will be), the next installment will be a huge success, IMHO. I mean, with all the potential for improvement with regard tactics and strategy already inherent in the magic system (it really just needs to be tweaked and made more easily customizable), it would basically boil down to giving combat the same potential. Right now every fighter is basically is forced to adopt a mindless barbarian's berserker mentality, and this needs fixing.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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'in order to play Morrowind one has to conscientiously strive not to excel. '
For me, it's not so hard to just shelve those "uber" items and think of them as grand prizes. Heh I'll give a cheesy analogy: In "The Fellowship of the Ring" Tom Bombadil holds in his hand The One Ring, and jovially toys with it. The item, as powerful as it may be, doesn't hold any meaning for him. So, for some people, overpowered skills and items may not be such a problem. I don't intend to make any full suits of 100% CE chameleon, so I won't.
As for spell balancing, I love the ideas you've all put forth here, especially Wakim. Underpowered utility lines (with spells like feather, burden, detect, stat decrease/skill decrease, etc) are the reason playing a mage is so lackluster for me. I'd rather RP and have a pure mage, who didn't resort to whacking stuff with a stick because its the only viable way to win.
Heh I'm having some difficulty actually FINDING the "WGI" mod everyone keeps mentioning though. Could someone be a little more specific about what its name is, or provide a link to its location?
-----Edit: nm that; I've found "Wakim's Game Improvements." Silly me for not seeing it earlier. I guess I'll have to play it to find out if I agree with ALL the changes. I glanced through the readme's and I'm not sure If I agree with all the NPC changes, but I'm prone to set the bar a bit low for myself They might make the game immensely more fun.
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DAoC escapee number 39348. Tagged for release into the wild.
Edited by LonelyWanderer (11/17/02 07:47 AM)
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Morrowinds' 1st person angle has caused endless amount of complaint.
In NWN when your archer misses you think nothing of it.
In MW you can sneak up right behind someone and line up on them and still miss. You can aim for their head and cause little damage, aim for their arm and cause masses, and all because of random variables.
Immersion........or not. Random values work in 3rd person party games, as they create the illusion of you being a spectator of your hero(es) being human, imperfect.
1st person games create the illusion of it being 'you'. 'You' know about vital body parts and odds of hitting based on distance. 'You' know that if you sneak up on someone and put an arrow in their head that they will die.
Turn based 1st person games break this illusion of reality, and create an almost frustrating tension to the combat.
In this respect MWs combat is like playing D&D dressed up as Quake. It makes no effort to immerse the player in it's system.
Sure, Deus Ex utilises RPG skills. But it more heavily relies on player skills. Headshots etc count, and if you take your time you can still shoot very accurately. As a side note it's interesting that Ion Storm Austin have ditched skills (which arguably were too useless at the start, considering you are this uber-agent, and too inhumanly imbalanced at the end) in favour of a considerably improved augmentation system.
And as to the magic..........well, I was thinking, the TES magic system is just lazy.
Where's all the different forms of magic casting? Fire and ice damage raining from the skies? Poison cloud damage centred on the player and spreading? Shock damage called from above? Earthquakes shattering the landscape and closing again a la Final Fantasy? GIVE us spell effects you lazy [censored].
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In reply to:
1st person games create the illusion of it being 'you'. 'You' know about vital body parts and odds of hitting based on distance. 'You' know that if you sneak up on someone and put an arrow in their head that they will die.
Turn based 1st person games break this illusion of reality, and create an almost frustrating tension to the combat.
I've got a friend who won't play his X-Box Morrowind anymore for precisely this reason.
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Bump!
Would anyone with WGI care to comment on it for me? I need some opinions about whether or not the changes are conservative enough.
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DAoC escapee number 39348. Tagged for release into the wild.
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I've been reading this thread for days now, and I've finally caught up to the end here. I've got a lot of new things to try now, so thanks everyone for your work.
I have a suggestion for balancing spells, a partial solution, something I've been experimenting with that seems to work well. I would like to know what everyone thinks; I don't think I've seen this tried before.
How do you 'control' spell effects that can potentially be 'cheap' and 'unbalanced', like calm creature for instance? What if you make certain spell types too expensive to enchant or make with the spellmaker, so that their effects are available only through pre-made items and spells?
For example, I've raised the cost for 'levitate' spells from 3 to 100. There is no way you could afford to make your own levitate spell or enchant an item with levitate like this. So, the player is forced to use the pre-made levitate spells and enchanted items that are not auto-calculated.
I've also been testing this with the following effects, which in my opinion have potential for 'misuse':
- chameleon
- absorb health
- paralyze
- calm
- drain health
- bound weapon x
- open
- drain skill
Was also able to make some fun spells based on comments I've read here, like a mass death spell (drain health duration 1, mag 90, area 15). Again, the PC cannot make his own version of this spell, he must use this one (which would hopefully be hard to obtain).
The success of this method would partly depend on the quality of pre-made spells. I haven't found any otherbugs with this method yet. What do you think, would you use a mod like this?
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'The Adventurer's Guide to Morrowind' is at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/adventurers/
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In reply to:
not sure how much you can accomplish without having to alter tons of objects though. Well, I don't think there are many other mods change traps out there, so it's at least feasible, if pretty tedious, to go about it that way.
Hmmm...anyone have any info. on how the quality of picks & probes affects success rates? I always sucked at math, so I ain't gonna try to figure it out. It would be cool to know what to set the qualities at for a reasonably dfficult challenge. (I'd say it should still be a little tricky to crack a lvl 100 lock at max. security skill, even with with a secret master pick. At mid level skill it should be damn near impossible.) Just my opinions.
All of this has been covered earlier in this thread. Read back and you'll see what we were up to a few weeks ago. This thread was primarily devoted to discussing game settings and their effects on gameplay - probes and picks are covered under those settings, and I believe at least the lockpick setting tweak has been included in Wakims Game Improvements.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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In reply to:
How do you 'control' spell effects that can potentially be 'cheap' and 'unbalanced', like calm creature for instance? What if you make certain spell types too expensive to enchant or make with the spellmaker, so that their effects are available only through pre-made items and spells?
For example, I've raised the cost for 'levitate' spells from 3 to 100. There is no way you could afford to make your own levitate spell or enchant an item with levitate like this. So, the player is forced to use the pre-made levitate spells and enchanted items that are not auto-calculated.
That's possibly a good idea (It'd make those Travel-Stained Pants a helluva lot more desirable), if potentially a little tedious in testing and refinement. But wouldn't changing the effect cost potentially mess up the Auto-Calculation of spells? I know Wakim stated that he had to uncheck-and-recheck the AutoCalc'd spells to put his effect cost changes into place, but it sounds like it might get screwy w/ NPC/Stock spells. Keep us posted as to how your tweakings come along.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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The kind of combat system I'm talking about is exactly the one implemented in NWN. You don't hear people who play that game complaining about the 'layers' between themselves and their characters - whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.
As compared to the 'immersive' Morrowind system where I essentially click on the mouse, watch my sword swing in one of three different ways, and hit the bad guy. Real immersive, that.
In NWN my character will engage in complex combat routines that I can't even begin to duplicate in Morrowind. They're much more in line with 'fantasy' sword fighting than what we see in Morrowind, which essentially amounts to two idiots bashing at each other like drunken college boys with hunks of metal.
Hell, Thief has a more immersive combat system, and combat is a minor function of that game.
Still, you could satisfy all camps simply by implementing the routine system I described earlier. For those who like acting like drunken college boys - probably quite a few of you, I'd imagine - you can keep the original system. Those of us who think that a poor-man's version of fantasy Quake is best left to drunks and college boys can use our routines and orders and watch the action unfold. Everyone is happy, drunk or not.
Max
Edited by maxpublic (11/18/02 01:33 AM)
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Why bother making them too expensive to enchant or spell-make? Just go into the CS, call up the 'Magic Effects' menu, and make sure the boxes for 'spellmaking' and 'enchanting' are unchecked for each of the effects you're concerned about. Pricey or not, if the effect doesn't have the appropriate box checked it can't be made or enchanted.
I did that with certain spell types in my own mod (Mark, Recall, Levitate, Almsivi/Divine Intervention, etc.). Levitate, Mark and Recall can be made but not enchanted (although why you'd want to remake Mark and Recall is beyond me). The Interventions can neither be made nor enchanted, but must be bought.
And as for the NPC mages, if you change the magic system and the alterations are extensive then yes, you must go to every non-autocalced spell-casting NPC and re-autocalc them so they'll pick up the new and useful spells. I deleted almost every in-game spell and added a couple hundred new ones and had to do this - although ultimately it was worth it for the increased effectiveness of the mages.
Max
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Thanks, max, I'm glad to hear that this has worked for someone else.
I did notice that you could uncheck the boxes for 'spellmaking' and 'enchanting', which would do about the same thing. Raising the values rather than turning them off helped me identify the spells easily in the game that needed recalculating, and I found that helpful. Also, I just liked the way it looked when you tried to enchant with one of these effects.
It doesn't look like too many spells have to be redone yet, but it is still a lot of work. The result is fun, though, I think.
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'The Adventurer's Guide to Morrowind' is at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/adventurers/
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Adam1:
With *alot* of effort you can turn the wimpy Morrowind NPC mages into powerhouses. I've just started the real beta of my mega-mod, looking for all the things that I broke or implemented incorrectly or didn't foresee, and my 3rd-level character has found that her skill with magic is far more useful than her skill with the longsword or bow.
That is, until she walked into a bandit cave last night (Mannammu?) and encountered a mage. It took me five reloads to finally kill that guy without getting wasted in the process. Afterwards I looked at the NPC's stats and found out that he was only a 10th-level Battlemage whose strongest spell was a 50-point firebolt! An easy kill compared to many of the other mages in the game, and yet I couldn't even close to HTH range before dying. Only a combination of electrified arrows and firebolts of my own (exchanged in a very cool-looking slugfest) finally did the trick.
So as daunting as the task was (easily the most time-intensive and boring part of my mod) it was worth it in the end, and I think you'll find the end results of your own tweaks equally as satisfying.
Max
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Question:
Does anyone have any knowledge of that the game setting fSeriousWoundMult does? I have set it to 0.5 (default - 0.0) to see if I have any effects, but I have not yet tested it. It seems, by the name and placement in the settings tables, to have something to do with how serious a serious wound is, but as far as game effects I am stumped.
Here's to hoping someone knows something about it.
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[green]So Sayeth Leadfoot, Professor of Thaumaturgy
Center of Thaumaturgical Studies
Solitude, Cyrodill[/green]
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In reply to:
Does anyone have any knowledge of that the game setting fSeriousWoundMult does?
This was answered earlier in this thread by MrSmileyFaceDude. The fSeriousWoundMult setting is unused in the game.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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In reply to:
Leadfoot: Does anyone have any knowledge of that the game setting fSeriousWoundMult does? I have set it to 0.5 (default - 0.0) to see if I have any effects, but I have not yet tested it. It seems, by the name and placement in the settings tables, to have something to do with how serious a serious wound is, but as far as game effects I am stumped.
Here's to hoping someone knows something about it.
From what I can tell, it doesn't look like it's even used... It had no measurable effect when I set it into high numbers or negative...
-- Daerk (workin) Ildatch
*.sig file incomplet
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LDones, good to see you back. The lock pick changes you researched are incorporated WGI. For whomever had questions about WGI and NPC changes: WGI doesn't change NPCs, it only adds some generic new spells that some NPCs will grab and cast at ya. Send me a message if you have any specific concerns that I can clarify. As for questioning if WGI may not be conservative enough for you, be assured that no one has ever before accused me of not being conservative.
I've enjoyed reading the posts on the last few pages: some wonderful thoughts and ideas being bantered. I especially liked the idea that game mechanics drive player behavior. If one either suspends disbelief and considers a game world as real and accepts its logic or considers a game world as a construction for amusement, then one recognizes that games are in abeyance of the paraphrase of Copernicus' law of planetary motion (Copernicus said, to paraphrase; "The world doesn't revolve around you"). The laws of a game universe determine the behavior of the players, as much as gravity determines the behavior of a falling apple.
Much of the reason that players fall into the "power-gamer" category is that they simply want to figure out the mechanics of the game; to determine the governing laws. Curiosity should be a trait encouraged within a game (at least to hold my interest), not punished by the removal of challenge and fun. Mindless repetition of a task should not be the path to reward, whether it is mindless clicking for combat or mindless repetition of casting for skill increases or any other action. Neither should random action yield anything but random result. The precise application of ability to achieve an end is what should get results, if one extrapolates from reality to game logic.
In other words: A Phillips head screwdriver should not be efficacious in loosening a flat head screw, chopping down a tree, filling out tax forms, eating soup, opening a wine bottle, calculating square roots, or travelling from New York to San Diego, no matter now many times one tries to use it for such actions. A Phillips head screwdriver, if one recognizes it for what it is, can be applied with great effect only for use on Phillips head screws (and Pozi-drive screws with some rounding). Perhaps there are other inventive uses as well for this screw driver, once one can see what it is; it may be used as a dowel pin, a punch, or even a tool for heinous injury. But if in some alternate universe, or fantasy world, the laws of physics said that this same screwdriver would perform all these tasks, then wouldn't you expect to see people eating soup with screwdrivers instead of spoons? If a screwdriver could be used to cure cancer or provide unlimited electrical power would you expect people to react negatively to these uses with accusations of "exploiting" the poor screwdriver, whose design intent was only to turn one type of screw?
A question of: "What is this thing designed to do?" or as Marcus Aurelius asked in Meditations (circa 180 A.D.): "What is this thing, in and of itself?" reveals what actions within any framework are causal for any desired effect. A game that wishes verisimilitude in its universe would do well to consider this dogmatic for design.
Adam1: First, since your mods were the largest single inspiration for WGI, I want to proffer a word of thanks. Second, as for spell effects that can be abused in enchanting; that is all of them. None can be singled out as being less egregious. An effect as innocuous as fire damage with an enchantment cost of 27 points can destroy any creature if enchanted into an item and then spammed Uzi-like at an enemy. Turn undead is the only exception. If you try to balance spell effects against their potential for abuse based on enchanting, then you would be wise to remove all spells from the game (except turn undead). Simply checking the box, under spell effects, that prevents a spell from being used in an enchantment would be the best way to disable enchanting abuses. Morrowind enchanting isn't a Phillips head screwdriver looking for a cross head screw to turn, rather Morrowind mechanics make enchanting into some marvelous Swiss Army knife that solves any problem to the exclusion of all other tools, it is implicit in the game's design that enchanting is both a cure for cancer and a source of infinite electrical power.
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About enchanting... in DF the system was even more broken, as bugs allowed the player to get the good effects of some souls without their usual drawbacks (if the "disadvantages" column was already full when adding the soul). Furthermore, the magicka pool of target spell enchanted items could be used to resplenish the player's, simply by cancelling the spell.
But magic items didn't recharge themselves automatically, and could be repaired only using specially crafted items if you modified the ini file after patching.
No automatic recharging of magic items could be nice, except for weapons with cast on strike effects. It's hard to see how to get around that problem in a future game... Ideally, cast on strike enchantments should not have a number of charges, but rather affect the durability of the weapon or something (and your enchant skill would lower that loss of durability as it increases). That way, even if you can create enchanted weapons more powerful than the artifacts you find here and there, the durability of such weapons would be bad enough to make artifacts and bought magic items interesting, as they should have more durability.
Repairing magic weapons is already more expensive and harder to achieve by yourself, I believe... Maybe enchanters could refill your item's charges for a fee in TES4 ?
Also I do miss the good and bad effects automatically added by some souls. I understand there's less creature variety in MW, but maybe in a next game...
And of course the casting time of spells through enchanted items shouldn't be zero, but then again it's the same for potions...
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Been looking at spell costs and the list of traps that Horatio was amazing enough to throw together for me (thank you, SIR), and I think it's gonna take some more work than a settings change to make a difference - fTrapCostMult set to -1.000 seems to make a good deal of sense, but it still doesn't satisfy me.
This may require some trapxxx spell tweaking, to make them meaner and tweak their costs/disarm difficulty, so I'll put some time into it this week and hopefully have some results.
(Note: I've been playing NWN for the past week, and I enjoy that the traps can actually hurt/mess with you pretty badly - I may do some of that if I tweak the spells around, but we'll see)
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my two greatest RPG experiences are Planescape: Torment and FF7. FF7 is naturally a powergamer's game, but it's designed that way at least. But it gradually introduces a whole new system, and it's rewards are both brilliant and balanced. More to the point, it is linear, and thus and at no point can the player be powerful beyond belief at the relative stage of the game. Brilliant materia system too.
PS:T is D&D, sure, but it doesn't half make an effort to hide it. I played PS:T before Baldur's Gate and I am greatly glad I did......the general disorientation and lack of knowledge of the gameplay system only enhanced the gameplay. All characters are born equal and shape to your gameplay choices. Unlike BG2, which inflicts the rolling system upon us, plus +- sliders, leaving you to generate the most uber character possible.
Thus I believe Morrowind is broken by it's own non linearity, and a bad case of RPG cliches. For example, *why* do you start at level 1 and weaker than a little old lady? At least in Planescape you arrive confused and disoriented, but capable of handling yourself in that stupid fight you got into. And *why* do we *have* to become uber-powerful. It's like BG: ToB, where you become so ridiculously powerful they have to put new stuff into the rules. So OK, you're a demi-god. But what about your fellow party members?
So IMHO in terms of linearity, plot and balance Bethsoft need to take a serious look at work by developers by Black Isle and Squaresoft.
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Planescape Torment was incredible. It's the only 'D&D' game that managed to take that game system and make it virtually irrelevant to play. What mattered was the *story*, not leveling up or getting experience or killing thousands of beasties.
I love that game. I still own it. It was even better than BAK in terms of a real RPG experience.
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A question for Wakim if he still reads this:
I have fAIFleeFleeMult set to 1.2 and fAIFleeHealthMult set to 56. NPCs do flee if they're badly hurt but they tend to only go a short distance and then begin to wander - until I hurt them again. Sometimes they flee, stop and wander, flee again, repeat. I'm assuming that fAIFleeFleeMult needs to be set to a higher number in order to get the NPCs to flee farther than they do now?
Max
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yup. 800,000 words of text i seem to remember. ok, morrowind has loads, but how much is remotely relavent.
the last game i finished was PS: T........for the third time.....
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Planescape is one of the few worlds that'd convert well to the Morrowind system, I think. Although the process of conversion boggles the mind...as well as all the new models that'd be needed.
Max
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Max, I do still read and enjoy this thread. I think it has evolved into some of the most interesting and well-thought gaming discussion on the web. I haven't been posting much because, well, when one agrees with what is said there simply isn't much to add. I have enjoyed reading the supported opinions and ideas of others, but my aversion to brevity prevents me from posting somehting like: "Yup, good idea" or "well said".
The fleeing behavior you are seeing isn't related to the AIFlee settings, but rather to the larger AI hard code, I presume. Fleeing creatures run until they are out of range of your current weapon (fleeing NPCs will tend to run further than creatures and seem to have different rules). Equip a bow in your hand and they will keep running, switch to a sword and they will stop running. This confirms the current-weapon-range-dependent-flee-distance theory.
The gameplay AIFlee variables you are using simply control which creatures will flee at all, based on their individual AIFlee setting, and the health level at which a creature will begin that behavior; there are no gameplay settings, that I know of, that influence what a creature does once they have decide to flee - that is hard code and the subject of criticism, but not change. Take a look at the AIFlee thread on the TESCS help board (a long buried thread, I suppose, by now) for detailed tables on what settings yield what flee points.
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As far as AI and fleeing is concerned, I was pretty much impressed by Arx Fatalis. Weaker enemies tended to flee and bring back help quite often... And in Morrowind even weak enemies can be tough when the come in as a huge group, like the cliffracers do sometimes... I'd love to see such an AI for the next TES game
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I agree that removing the ability of enchanted items to recharge over time, with the addition of a recharging service offered by NPC enchanters (for a reduced fee if one supplied their own filled soul gems) might have made an interesting alternative to the current system.
The price-per-charge ratio of the service could have been balanced against scroll prices (perhaps so that up to a certain level of Enchant skill, it would be more cost effective to purchase a scroll than pay an enchanter to restore enough charges for one use of an item with the identical spell effect), and then the monetary-to-recharge value ratio of filled soul gems (at least the petty variety, which would probably be the type most often used for recharging rather than new enchantments) balanced against that (so that recharging one's own item with a given soul gem would yield more charges than selling said gem and using the gold to pay a service provider to do it).
Enchanted items (with the exception of those with constant effects) would have become most useful to those with a developed Enchant skill who could then maintain them in the field, followed by those with less skill in enchanting but who were able to fill soul gems, and a more limited resource for those who could do neither.
Edited by The other Felix (11/22/02 09:00 AM)
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Here is my opinion on why enchanted items recharge in time in the regular game.
In DF, magic items couldn't be repaired, but had a really huge number of charges. Plus, they could be "spammed" like in MW, making even the slightest fireball-throwing item an uber weapon.
In MW, the number of available charges in an enchanted item has been drastically reduced, in order to compensate the problem. You can no longer clean up a whole dungeon with a single magic item, as the charges deplete much faster. The enchant skill can compensate for that, by letting the player use the items up to 10 times more, and the regeneration rate is kinda slow and there to help the total newbie in enchant and mysticism, as I guess it would be hard to introduce a magic item recharge service for lack of unique ID of many standard magic items... Or maybe the devs felt like it wasn't fair, as players not proficient in magic were likely to be the ones depending the most on magic items at all times, and thus would need to have that slow recharge...
Maybe there should be a skill for using magic items, and another one for making magic items ? But this doesn't really make sense. There is no skill to be able to USE potions (well, if you have alchemy up to at least 15 that is), there is no skill for being able to MAKE spells as the spellmaker never fails and is not available to the player at all without the help of NPCs. Maybe the player shouldn't be able to enchant items like that either, after all I'm sure it's harder to enchant an item than to design a new fireball spell (the cost of those 2 things have nothing in common either). In DF, buying magic items was possible only for pretty high ranked people in the mages guild... and it made sense as the items you could buy there were really quite powerful. Enchanters selling wares to the general public should still exist outside those guilds but propose only utilitarian items, like alteration or some mysticism (like detect and teleport) enchanted items rather than destruction, conjuration, illusion or restoration items (which can be sold as mildly powered scrolls and potions at this point)
Making magic items was pretty much broken also... I guess it's hard to think of nice compromises. Added effects depending on the soul used is not a bad idea (I guess I'm the only one who likes items with both advantages and disadvantages)... Costing a lot of gold is nice too I guess, but mayube it should also cost some time ? I think that powerful items should take a few days at least to be made... Now it seems like you can enchant an ebony staff into a weapon deadlier than anything in the world in mere seconds if you have the money. Of course if the player is enchanting the item himself, I understand it would hurt the gameplay much, but anyway that's also why I believe the player shouldn't be able to do it on his own...
Maybe in an ideal next TES game there wouldn't be automatic recharging, and making items could be done like that :
you go see an enchanter, select your enchantment according to the ENCHANTER's knowledge and give your full soulgem. You'd be then given an estimate time and cost (which you could tweak, in order to affect the chance of success)... And this would unlock some RANDOM quests given by the enchanter to retrieve items to increase the chance of success (like books on enchant, better reagants or tools, or teaching him a thing or two if you're good at magic yourself...), reduce the time spent on the enchantment (like making the deliveries of the enchanter for him so that he can spend all his time on making the item you requested, or other minor services), or increase the potency of an effect (like waiting for a special celestial alignment or whatever), or decrease the potency of a bad after effect (a special symbol, or a quest to appease the soul you plan to put on your item (like kill many cats if you plan to use a rat's soul...) or whatever.
This could make object making much more fun. And for basic magic items, like utilitarian alteration and mysticism ones, or moderately powerful anything, you could always find the right enchanter, use an appropriate soul without bad after effects or have the enchanter compensate them by spending more time on it, and give him a lot of money, and wait a couple of hours until the enchantment is done without thinking much about it at all...
And the PC's enchant skill would then be used to determine your ability to recharge items yourself (as enchanters would offer a recharge service as well... Maybe automatic recharge could be acquired for some items through enchaters quests or extra cost or using a particular soul ?), the number of charges you use up when using the item once, the % of the total enchantment potency you're able to draw from the item (which would depend also on the enchantment and maybe on the kind of item as well), and the time it takes for you to cast a touch or target spell from a magic item... This should be enough to get players to choose that skill as a major or minor one.
I'm not sure my ideas are actually doable in a game, but it surely would be worth playing such a game IMHO
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One great idea in that.......paid enchanters aren't infallible. Failure would just be annoying, but limits to their abilities would be greatly useful, encouraging you to boost you skill yourself, as only you and the master trainer could make the most powerful artifacts/weapons......
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only one ? damn :P
For the fact that enchantment may fail for paid enchanters it's just common sense. But my ideas also suggested the player shouldn't be able to enchant items himself though...
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ohhhh. no, it's good. i was referring more to the TES system. failure would do your head in, but lessening their skills would really limit the use of uber enchanted items to mage characters. tis something of a major balance issue.
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I see, you actually mean the Morrowind system
I'm well outside that system for now that's why I misunderstood
Also, to make a point about how my ideas (with random quests and all) could make more sense in the actual gameworld... It could explain why powerufl artifacts are so rare (takes time and effort to make one, and you have to find a skilled enough enchanter too), and why powerful but not so adventurous mages stick to using spells : easier and faster for them. With my system crafting a powerful magic item is almost like getting to the top of a Daggerfall guild
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Here's an idea I'm playing with for player enchantment. This doesn't use the Morrowind system.
Chance of enchanting effect x on an item (assuming you have all the necessary materials):
( Enchant Skill as a percentage x Magic School Skill for Effect ) / Spell point cost of effect.
An example:
You wish to make a flaming sword which does a certain amount of damage on strike. Your Enchant is a 50; Fire Damage is from the Destruction School and your Destruction is 80, so your modified success score is 50% of 80, or an effective 40. If the spell point cost of the spell is 40 or less you'll have a 100% chance of success. Say the cost is 60 and you get:
40/60 = 66.7% chance of success.
The highest-costing spell in my game is 300 points. If you wanted to enchant this on a ring and you had an Enchant of 100 and a Mysticism of 100 (it's from the Mysticism school) the odds of success would be:
( 100% x 100 ) / 300, or 100/300, or 33%.
So even if you were the premiere mage in Enchant and Mysticism in all of Vardenfell you're still going to fail two-thirds of the time, wasting (in the case of my test) the materials and soul gems invested.
Certain effects simply cannot be enchanted, e.g., any 'target' class spell. Although I am playing with the concept of items which, when equipped, add a certain spell to the PC's spell list, with that spell having a 100% cast chance (you'd still have to cast it normally, no Uzi action).
By far the hardest part of implementing such a system is that there is no way to add a script to an unscripted item in-game, unless Tribunal allows for that.
Max
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No idea if anyone still cares, but I figured I'd post what I've learned in tweaking with the traps:
First off, what we already know, and some conclusions based off of that:
1. Trap difficulty is a static value, and a low one. A Lvl 1 character
w/ a 5 Security skill is capable of disarming any trap in the game with an
Apprentice's Probe, right off the bat.
2. fTrapCostMult - This setting takes the spell cost of a 'trap' and adds it to the
difficulty of disarming, giving traps a variable difficulty.
a. This means a negative value would make traps more difficult to disarm.
b. This would also mean that at a value of -1.000 any trap w/ a spell cost
over 100 would be virtually undisarmable. However, there are only 3 traps, by
default, in-game that are over this value (one of them barely so), and they're
supposed to be very mean. (Wakim's Game Improvements changes this, but
we'll get to that later)
3. There are 82 Total 'Trap Types' In-Game (From Horatio's #'s)
a. Meaning 82 different spells used for traps in the 'vanilla' game.
4. There are 457 Total Trapped Doors/Containers In-Game
219 of these are normal/average spells
238 of these are specifically designated as 'Trap' spells (ie. trap_fire00,
SP_HVaultTrap, etc.)
There are 8 types of these, and they make up just over
half of the in-game traps.
5. Area effect trap spells do nothing to stop/hinder a mage's ability to use
telekinesis to get around pretty much any trap. (If a player uses telekinesis
to set off a trapped door/container, the area effect simply doesn't occur - If
the trap is set off manually, the area effect still kicks in)
Based off of that info, I came to the following:
1. An fTrapCostMult setting of -1.000 appears ideal for scaling trap
Difficulty across the board.
a. It gives a good spread of spellcost/difficulty, with most traps being 20
or under difficulty, w/ a decent amount filling the gaps from there upward.
The amount above 30-40 cost is still fairly low.
i. Wakim's Game Improvements alters this scale quite a bit (there's
a good spread up to 45 spellcost, but nothing above in the list of in-game traps),
w/ the altered spell costs, but the trade-off in playability is worth it to me.
2. To compensate for the sparse numbers of traps above 30-40 spell cost, it
seemed a good idea to make the 8 types of dedicated trap spells significantly
meaner and more difficult to disarm(higher spell cost).
Here are the defaults for these 8 trap spells (None of these are auto-calculated) (WGI does not change these):
Name Count Cost/Dif Area Dur. Dam.
-------- ------- ------- ------ ----- -------
trap_fire00 42 3 1 3 2 - 20 d
trap_frost00 38 3 1 3 2 - 20 d
trap_health00 35 10 1 3 2 - 20 d
trap_paralyze00 21 13 1 10 N/A
trap_poison00 35 16 1 60 1 - 5 d
trap_shock00 48 5 1 3 2 - 20 d
trap_silence00 15 37 1 30 N/A
SP_HVaultTrap 4 108 1 1 50-150 d (shock)
Curiously, 2 NPC’s were given the Poison Trap Spell…
Here’s what I did to them, and why
Name Count Cost/Dif Area Dur. Dam.
-------- ------- ------- ------ ----- -------
trap_fire00 42 45 5 3 10 - 50 d
trap_frost00 38 75 5 2 15 - 70 d
trap_health00 35 85 10 4 15 - 60 d
trap_paralyze00 21 65 1 20 N/A
trap_poison00 35 50 5 60 2 - 5 d
trap_shock00 48 60 5 3 5 - 50 d
trap_silence00 15 70 10 1500 N/A
SP_HVaultTrap 4 100 10 2 50-150 d (shock)
All of these spells have been intensified in damage/effect, and given higher spell costs to fill the gap of over 30-40 difficulty traps. All of the damage traps are capable of killing. I rationalized this because the other half of the in-game traps are almost embarrassingly weak/easy to disarm. Even with the severity of the new traps, warriors can absorb most of the damage – thieves can disarm them, and mages can set them off from a distance.
The Silence Trap lasts for just over a day. I thought about making it 3 days, but that seems a bit much - As it stands, a character can't just rest for 24 hours right afterward and then get back to casting spells - he/she has to wait a bit.
All of them (save for the paralyze trap) were given a slight area effect – partly because it looks/sounds cooler, and partly because it pisses off nearby NPC’s/Creatures.
I’m curious as to opinions/feedback. I haven’t tested the security skill levels required to disarm different traps under the new setting(s) yet (I’ll get to that over the weekend), but it seems to be pretty good for spicing up in-game treasure-hunting/dungeon crawling. When I see the ‘Trapped’ message on something, it makes me nervous now, especially as a low-level character (It could be a weak-ass 5pt Fire damage trap – But it could be an evil, life-threatening Poison Trap…)
As always, its all up to personal preference as to what anyone ends up altering their settings to, I just wanted to get my findings out so people could play with them. Personally, I altered the Paralyze Trap in my game to drain 500 fatigue for 20 sec in addition to the 15sec Paralyze, knocking the player down after he/she comes out of it. Personal preference – Many men, Many minds, etc.
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You might want to rerun the data with Tribunal installed. Tribunal adds 4 new traps of the trap_xxx type, and one proj_trap_spell, 5 types of proximity mines spells and a very neat script: trapProjScript.
And thank you for the research on this and lockpicking....looking forward to the finished tests and the plugin
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All that other stuff sounds great but I think there are thee things missing
FIrst, unidentified magical items like in DF. It's kinda silly that we can recognize exactly what magical properties a weapon has just by looking at it. In addition, we would have a % chance of recognizing spell effects related to the magic groups we know.
The second is cursed items. They'd really suck but you couldn't let go of them. This would be good for bound items too.
And number three. Adding negative effects to spells/items to reduce the cost rather than increasing it. I suppose I could just make the item/spell in the editor but that feels like cheating.
Of course MW probably couldn't support my ideas. But I wanted to post something.
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I would very much appreciate if someone could throw together a single mod that incorporates all this trap/security stuff, from lock pick quality values to tweaking the traps to messing with multipliers, etc. I really want to increase the difficulty of thievery in MW, but I don't want to have to implement all these changes on my own, for various reasons. If the mod were somewhat conservative it would be alright with me, but ideally variations should be avaliable depending on what difficulty one is looking for. Of course, whatever the mod-maker comes up with, and is willing to invest into the mod time-wise, will be fine with me anyway.
And I think any such mod should be made to stand alone, apart from WGI. Any conflicts with regard to the two mods altering the same objects are not going to be serious, and by changing the order in which the game loads them the player can always give one or the other precedence.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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LDones
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Yeah, I forgot to add that notation to the beginning of the post - all of the above data is non-Tribunal. Tribunal doesn't change anything that I've modified above, but the new traps are awesome (Not sure what dictates a trap as a projectile trap, or if it's hard-coded as just the one trap-type - regardless, it's awesome, as are the new proximity mines , even if I don't wholly understand the scripting behind them yet). (Oh! I just figured out how the proj_trap_spell works, nevermind...)
The new Trap spells are about twice as deadly as my above modified original spells, most doing about a maximum of 300 damage, which works out fine to me - I would only change the new trap_spell costs to higher numbers to coincide w/ the fTrapCostMult setting, but I'd be hesitant to do so w/out more data.
I'll put in a plea to Horatio, see if I can snag the trap info from the tribunal.esm from his asskicking tomes of knowledge.
And thanks for the heads-up, Iudas.
Oh! And quick question for anyone that's playing Tribunal - I haven't encountered a proximity mine - Do they show up as traps/'Trapped' or no?
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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E'galem wrote
In reply to:
All that other stuff sounds great but I think there are thee things missing
FIrst, unidentified magical items like in DF.
snip
The second is cursed items. They'd really suck but you couldn't let go of them.
snip
Of course MW probably couldn't support my ideas.
Actually, these first two are quite do-able with the changes that Tribunal adds to the scripting capablities.
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LDones:
Do you have an actual list of the spells used as traps in Morrowind? I deleted about 95% of the in-game spells in my mod and now find myself painstakingly reactivating them as trap spells whenever I run into a cell error (e.g., "cannot find 'poison_touch'...."). With a list in hand I could fix all the broken traps in an hour without having to run into every interior cell in the game.
Thanks,
Max
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Back to spells and such, some thoughts after running my mod with a character that's now level 15:
- magic is her primary offense now. Magic is *very* powerful. The character is far more effective with spells than with weapons, despite the fact that her highest skill is Longsword and she uses an enchanted claymore. My game has gone from 'fighters rule' to 'wizards rule', so much so I'm wondering if I haven't overbalanced it.
- certain previously useless spells have become necessary. The 'feather' effect is the spell I've cast most often by far, simply to haul loot around. A more interesting side effect of this spell line is that by casting a spell like 'Ease Burden (Lesser)', which has a feather effect of 200 pounds for 120 seconds, effective encumbrance on a normal character who isn't burdened down drops to 0 - which markedly increases speed. I've used 'Ease Burden' to suddenly speed up my character and run away from NPCs/monsters who were beating her to death.
- and oh yes; the modified NPCs and creatures are far more dangerous. I've died more times in this one mod than in all of my previous games combined. I've run away many times. I can't even get close to a daedric ruin, or enter a dwemer one - I'll get squashed like a bug, even at level 15. What a shock it was, to enter a tomb at level 12 and get consistently whacked by a warrior skeleton...and the tomb with a Hunger in it was nearly instant death (paralyzation followed by multiple claw hits).
- The 'swift swim' spell line is also quite useful, although water walking still beats it for island travel. However, a fighter-type is far more likely to cast 'swift swim' successfully than a water walking spell, so it remains a better choice for non-mage types. Those sharks, though...seeing a great white cruising through the water starts the 'Jaws' music rolling through my head....
- even with a Mysticism of 40-something I still fail quite often when casting Mark/Recall/Intervention. As escape spells these aren't very valuable to me; it's much better to run away some place safe and then try to cast when I'm not getting smashed upside the head with a mace.
- I haven't noticed any effect at all when casting a 25-point blind on creatures and NPCs. I've yet to try a harder blind spell because a) my Illusion skill sucks, and b) I'm usually inches from death if it gets to hand-to-hand and the pumping adrenalin interferes with my desire to playtest. Has anyone successfully blinded an opponent with any effect?
- On a similar note, I've hit NPCs with fatigue-damaging spells and they don't fall over. It could be they're resisting the spells; I need to playtest more. But so far I'm not sure if fatigue-damaging spells affect NPCs/creatures the same way they do the PC.
- mage NPCs will effectively cast weaknesses on my PC and then follow up with a spell that capitalizes on that weakness. They'll also cast magicka-draining spells, which really puts the hurt on my mage.
- Speeding up magical projectiles has made dodging them quite difficult. Very nice.
- My most interesting battles to date were first on a bridge in a bandit stronghold, trading fireballs with another mage (survived only with the aid of many potions), and another 'dance of death' atop Hlolmaren stronghold on the Bitter Coast. The latter one took four or five reloads to finally win.
- resist x and x shield are very good spells to have now. I only wish there were some way to see what the mage specializes in prior to the enemy casting something nasty at you. These spells have save my PC's ass a number of times.
- Sanctuary works, as does shield. Shield now seems to be operating as it should, whereas in my other playtests it seemed to only work about half the time. Odd, that. Everything is good now. Shield is my friend.
- I created a spell called 'Glow', which is simply a 'light' spell cast on self. Funny, it works as well as, or better than, the Night-Eye line since it brightens everything up and moves with you. It doesn't seem to affect Stealth, unfortunately.
- Open spells. Security is one of my skills, yet with the decreased effectiveness of lockpicks sometimes the only way to get those bloody chests to give up their goodies is through a good spell. Even so my best Open is 50 points so there are a few unopened chests here and there.
- Summoning. Can't count the number of times that summoning something as simple as a skeleton has meant the difference between living and dying. Anything to block the NPC/creature from getting to me. In Hlolmaren some blasted Orc took me out again and again until I resorted to the tactic of summoning up skeletons, then using enchanted arrows to knock him down to size. Before I never summoned anything, except to fill soul gems.
- potions and scrolls. Far more expensive in my mod than in the original game, and therefore more lucrative to sell. However, I've sold very few since they're *so* useful. In the unmodified game I never used them because of their near-worthlessness, and later on didn't even bother to loot them because stacked they weighed too much and gave me too little gold. Now I can sell them for a nice chunk of cash...but I almost never do. In fact, for the first time I've actually *bought* potions (restore magicka) and scrolls (Almsivi Intervention, until I found a priest willing to teach it to me).
And for some non-magical thoughts.
- Level 15, and 71 hit points. Man, is that a change! Talk about challenging.
- the highest gains in my mod for skills are x 3 at 9/10 points, x2 for everything else. I gain about 6 points per level. That means that my 15th level character who started with 320 attribute points now has a little over 400 attribute points. In the old Morrowind I often swung 12-15 points per level, so she's advancing less than half as fast as before.
- training costs x 5 seems to be about right. I gain more than 50% of my skills through actual usage rather than through training. My Destruction has increased 15 points entirely through usage, even though I've cut the advancement rate in half.
- the new armor values combined with minimum armor skills of 40 (built in as a racial characteristic for all races, and therefore affecting all NPCs) has done wonders for making NPCs more survivable. Previously many NPCs wore armor with little protective value which when combined with low armor skill scores made them easy to hit. Now that chitin has a value of 20 and iron 40 (steel 50) most of those NPCs are very difficult to actually hit. And as I've changed the classes to make the armor specific to that class a favored skill NPCs will pump points into their armor, jacking up their ARs. Example result: I spent nearly 5 minutes in a sword fight with a bandit in a cave, neither of us able to land an effective blow on the other. He finally cleaved me in half with a mighty axe blow (alas), which convinced me that using one of my treasured scrolls after reloading was the better way to go. My first 'epic' swordfight.
- the studded leather armor combined with Rhedd's female head looks *very* cool. :-) Can't wait to see what she looks like in Clannfear Hide....
Max
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Max:
This sounds wonderful... I've been attempting in my spare time away from the Middle-Earth mod development to create a mod such as you're describing, so far it has been best to simply use Horatio's mods and wakim's mods with some slight modification by me to achieve this, however the uber-spellchanging mod you're describing would merge perfectly in my own mind as being the definitive mage-mod. If I had the time, i'd do this myself... however I unfortunately don't... the Dune mod and the Middle-Earth mod as well as work take up all my time :/
I look forward to seeing your mod as a download option on a site soon, even if only a beta version is released that simply allows you to poll for responses...
As far as the "blind an NPC" question goes, I successfully used a custom-made (via editor) blind against an NPC that combined sound and silence with blind, however blind was in the uber-high range of 400
The result was an NPC that couldn't see me, couldn't hear anything but staticy noise, and couldn't cast any spells. He automatically went into the Flee AI pattern and the audio files for his voice played even though he was silenced, he exclaimed something similar to 'Aaaaghhh!! Oh No!!! Please don't kill me!!!' and attempted to run away but running into things and being caught on items in the room. Another sign that he was blinded was when I went to speak with him... his dialog used the same dialog of 'Who's there??' with the only option of 'Goodbye' able to be chosen, as if he couldn't see the completely nekkid moogle in front of him. Might have been the combination of sound and silence along with blind, but it did the trick... I pummeled him til he passed out on the floor and then robbed him blind. He couldn't see me, and no-one else was around, and I didn't get reported for kickin his arse, stealin him blind, or anything.
And a note: Rhedd is a god. All bow and proclaim his mad model-skillz awe-inspiring. I use his models exclusively when I create a character of the race his models presently support... I even created my own race that uses his vampire head as the default race head, allowing me to look evil as hell and still be your normal Morrowind character without Vampirism.
I'm presently using another god's race models... Ian's Moogle race
-- Daerk (workin) Ildatch
*.sig file dead. Presumed roasted alive over slow flame and eatten by starving Matrix-dwellers. Soylent Green is EVIL!!!
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The Middle-Earth Mod
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Also, just a note on preference:
I personally prefer the modular design for wakim's game improvements as found on Dragon Sight... I wish more modders would release their mods in this manner, this way a small change in one field of classes, spells, etc could be bypassed by my own judgement and yet the main portion of the mod remain completely active and usable, with a mere click of a checkbox... this allows me to eliminate a bunch of compatibility issues between mods by simply unchecking the offending feature or editing the much smaller and easier to manage plugin to enable the plugins in conflict to operate smoothly with each other. Of course this wouldn't work on a lot of things, however the layout is simple and usable on most aspects of current mods... I presently have some 200 odd plugins loaded in my normal Morrowind install...
-- Daerk (workin) Ildatch
*.sig file tired. Goin to sleep now. Been workin 18+ hour shifts for the past 9 days. :/
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The Middle-Earth Mod
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Daerk:
I do plan to release the mod for beta-testing if anyone wants to try it out, but first I want to tweak it a bit (I need to add a few more spells to various spell-selling NPCs, fix all the traps I accidentally disabled, make the merchants sell merchandise and the smiths sell weapons/armor, etc.). I'm hoping that some folks will download it and try to break it, to see where the weak spots are.
I modularized it as much as possible when I built it (altered weapons.esp, altered armor.esp, etc.) but so many things are interdependent that there came a time when I had to merge them all in order to continue. Magic, for instance, affects game settings, NPCs, the spell list, enchantments, potions, scrolls, weapons, and armor - all of these had to be loaded in order to do the final set of changes.
As it stands there are some mods that it'll work with perfectly (Weathered Signs, Shrine Text, etc.), some that had to be incorporated in order to work (Potions, Bethaliz's Drow Race, LeFemm Armor, etc.) and a great many it won't work with at all (Giants, pretty much any player-built adventure). For that reason I don't think my mod will be terribly popular. Depending on how it loads it'll either break the other mod or be broken by it - nothing I can do about it.
Now, besides tweaking, I'm thinking about adding my armorer beta, scroll-making beta, and herds. All of these are so much work though...not sure if I have the time. I already added what I call 'Mighty Hunter', which adds hides/meat to various creatures in proportion (sort of) to their weight, allowing you to hunt, kill, and haul back the carcass for sale. Har har! Well, it certainly seemed like it might be fun until I got trampled by an annoyed guar....
And making all the plants/kollops a one-spacebar deal has to be one of my favorite changes. No more 'opening' plants, thank the gods. Spacebar the plant, collect depending on your Alchemy skill, and plant disappears until next month.
Ramble, ramble. Off to do some more playtesting.
Max
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Hey Max ,
Could you tell me how to change it so training cost x5?
I know the editor but have never messed with the stuff you guys are talking bout.
qwert
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My Mods:
http://thelys.free.fr/qwert.htm
http://angelfire.lycos.com/games5/qwert_44643
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I think the prox mines are found when you take on the quest to find the slightly crazy lady under GodsReach. Not labelled as trapped, come near them and they attack you. Haven't hit the projectile trap yet or if I did it missed.
Have you made any modifications to the existing probes or lockpicks?
And do you have any suggestions as to how LUCK factors into the ability to disarm traps and pick locks? While it is not a logical number, one of the characters I have has a luck of 106.
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Qwert:
Open up Game Settings, tab Gameplay, and find the variable labled iTrainingMod. It's currently set to 10 (100%). Set it to 30 and training will cost 300% of normal, 50 for 500%, etc.
Iudas:
My lockpicks have values of 0.50/0.75/1.00/1.25/1.50, and yes, you can find secret master lockpicks in my mod, although the chances are incredibly low. Using the apprentice and journeyman lockpicks there are quite a few locks I can't pick; I need a master or better, or an Open spell.
As for probes the values are in the same range but the whole disarm trap thing doesn't work very well so you can disarm any trap with any probe. However, someone just posted some research on traps and it appears that altering one of the game settings might increase the difficulty a good amount. The post is a half-dozen or so above this one if I recall correctly.
An alternative to the Morrowind trap system - I have notes but haven't had the time to try it - is to attach a script to a container that checks against the security skill of the opener. If a success is made the character detects the trap and is asked if she wants to disarm it; otherwise the trap goes off. This would have two benefits:
- mousing over a container won't tell you that it's trapped; and
- you could set 'trap difficulty' ratings for both detection and disarming, actually measuring against the skill of the character and the probe.
I believe these scripts would be easy to write but again I haven't gotten around to it. You could write, say, 40 or 50 different trap scripts and then just attach them to various containers. Or actually just one script, modified for various settings (cut 'n paste).
Max
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Thanks Max, I have added LDones changes into the personal mod I use. I like the idea of trap scripts added to specific containers as well as leaving some of the trapped containers visibly marked as the game does it. Adds a bit of anxiety to the theif. Looking forward to having a go at your mod when you decide to release it.
In my personal tweaks mod I have "borrowed" AutumnFoxes' armorer settings. Ups the cost of having weapons repaired by 400% and also ups the value, and number of uses of hammers and prongs....makes Armorer a bit more useful as a secondary skill for theives and mages.
One of the things that can be done to make the game a bit more balanced is to extend the amount of time it takes merchants to refill their money supply.....the game defaults to 24 hours a game setting tweak that makes this refill time 7 days is a bit more realistic and cuts down a bit on the overly powerful alchemy and enchant lines. Also reducing the base barter amount and increasing the disposition penalty for failed barters again ameliorates some of the alchemy and enchant imbalances. I think MW defaults to a 50% base offer and then mods that for faction, personality, dispostion etc etc. 33% is closer to real world offers for most competitive goods and higher % for less common goods ( I don't think MW is flexible enough to allow variable base barter%) And in the real world, Merchants seldom like a buyer who squeezes every last penny out of them when buying and selling.....which is probably why you cant really barter with spellmakers and enchanters--- so I am thinking of testing a bit with the succeful barter mod dispostion setting set to 0 or even -1 instead of +1. Thus the more the PC hammers a seller the less the seller will offer next time around and the more the seller's base prices will be to buy from him. Merchant's also dislike "Tire Kickers", people who ask prices and then don't do the deal, so leaving the failed barter mod disp at -3 seems a good idea. And while on this idea, Bribery is way overpowered given the current supply of money in the game. If merchants are modded so that less money is available then bribery would be more reasonable at its current levels, but with the current level of money supply, a 1000 bribe is almost guaranteed to make the recipient dance naked in Macy's window. Just a thought, but cutting the fbribexxxmods by 50% would bring them more into line with the MW realities.
So anyhow here are some numbers you might want to fiddle with on the economics side:
fBarterGoldResetDelay=168 ( 7 days, default is 24)
fBribe1000Mod = 100 (default = 150)
fBribe100Mod= 50 (default = 75)
fBribe10Mod =22 (default = 35)
fDispBargainFailMod = -3 (default = -1)
fDispBargainSuccessMod = 0 or -0.5 or -1 (default = +1)
iBarterFailDisposition = -3 (default
= -1)
iBarterSuccessDispostion = 0 default = +1)
fBargainOfferBase = 33 ( default is 50)
fBargainOfferMulti = -3.5 ( default is -4)
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Iudas:
I've actually already incorporated the 'merchant recharge' rate into my mod, although it's 5 days instead of 7. I'm not sure this makes a real difference (I just stand there and hit 'wait 24 hours' five times instead of one), but at least the passage of time seems more realistic. I'm now on day 480-something in the game and have only explored the Bitter Coast west to Balmora, and rural Vivec north to Caldera. No real game difference, but personally more satisfying.
I've also changed the following stats:
fBargainOfferBase - 40.0
fBargainOfferMulti - -5.0
I've left the bargain disposition modifiers alone primarily because my character, with a Mercantile of now 23 (I don't have the gold to increase my skills like I used to), generally fails quite often when bartering. This means that most merchant dispositions haven't increased. I desperately need to increase both Speechcraft and Mercantile, but I was quite successful at reducing gold and making it sooooo easy to spend every last penny that I have to be careful what I choose to purchase. So far other forms of training (and spells, and some potions, etc.) take precedence.
I like your ideas on Bribery changes. I rarely used Bribery since it was so easy to jack up Speechcraft with training; in fact, I actually forgot it exists as an option until you mentioned it. I've now incorporated the following changes to my mod:
fBribe1000Mod - 100.0
fBribe100Mod - 25.0
fBribe10Mod - 10.0
I'll see how those work out (if ever I have the gold for this).
Finally, I can't see reducing prices below 40% because the game engine itself makes further reductions based upon your level. Last night I managed to pick up 4100 gold worth of weapons and could only sell them for 1400 gold. And this ony gets worse each time you level up.
Max
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True one can just hit rest for 24 hours enough times to invalidate any setting for gold recharge rate; doing that makes the play a lot less realistic.
As MW ships, it is an inflationary economy with too much gold and too many resources creating more gold......the changes suggested here probably turn it into a deflationary economy. In theory, Morrowind is a province or unincorporated territory only recently opened to foreign influences by treaty..... a third world type of situation. That usually implies a bit of an inflationary economy.
On the bribe settings, there are some tweaks I am looking at trying to incorporate based on faction and rank and especially race. For example it should be almost impossible for an argonian or a khajiit to bribe sucessfully a dunmer, but conversely it should be very easy to bribe a khajiit or an imperial. Likewise it should be very difficult to intimidate a Nord or Orc or Redguard, but easy to intimidate a Bosmer. or a Breton. Hllalu should be much more bribeable than Redoran, again given what MW sets up as the generic character of those races and houses. So if economic tweaks that reduce the money supply are used, then bribery should not also be modded down, but if money supply is kept close to the same as default, then bribery should be much less effective just because money is not scarce.
As Sotha Sil says in one of the ingame books. "NightMother, everyone bows to supply and demand"
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In reply to:
Do you have an actual list of the spells used as traps in Morrowind?
Max:
Horatio was kind enough to put a list together of all the 'trap' spells in the game earlier in the thread - Here's a link to the specific post:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=UBB7&Number=845899&page=3&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=14
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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In reply to:
Have you made any modifications to the existing probes or lockpicks?
And do you have any suggestions as to how LUCK factors into the ability to disarm traps and pick locks? While it is not a logical number, one of the characters I have has a luck of 106.
There's a lot of info in some of the earlier pages of this thread on the subject. Here's some quick numbers
In reply to:
In my game, with fpicklockmult at -1.300:
At Agility 50 and Luck 40, using a 1.00 quality pick, it takes a Security skill of 91 to even attempt to disarm a 100 lock-level door.
At Luck 100 and Agility 50, a 1.00 quality pick requires a Security skill of 85 to attempt a 100 lock-level door.
At Agility 100/Luck 100 it takes a Security skill of 75.
At Agility 160/Luck 100 it takes a Security skill of 63.
Oh, and pick quality has remained at default throughout my tests/lockpick modding, though I always reference numerical pick quality rather than in-game classification, so anyone using modded values can still get a clear picture of the difficulty scale.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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In reply to:
fDispBargainFailMod = -3 (default = -1)
Maybe it's just my game, but in whenever I've hammered a merchant for an absurd bargain by repeatedly clicking Offer until it works, leaving the merchant's disposition at roughly 0, I just leave the store and come back - the merchant's disposition is always returned to the way it was pre-barter, without fail, even if I wander off for a few days.
Is it like that for anyone else, or am I breaking the normal setting by hammering (though that doesn't seem likely)?
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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There are two settings that work together on this. from my limited play with it. The fDispBargainFailed and the fDispBargainFailedMod.
One of them reduces the current dispostion during the bargaining session, the other controls ( I think ) how long the dispostion remains reduced. In another thread I asked for some definitions for some of the other gamesettings because I think there is a third setting at work here also. More trading is necessary before I have exact answers and better settings to detail. And there is yet some other setting that controls how much the merchant reduces his prices for each failed attempt during a session ( I think ). As with all things economic there is confusion.
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LDones:
Thanks. I'd forgotten about the list. That'll save me quite a bit of effort.
Max
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Further observations on spells:
Damaging a creatures fatigue has no discernable effect, even when the fatigue damage is greater than the creatures current fatigue. This is rather puzzling since you can give a creature or NPC a magic item with a constant fatigue drain spell and he'll fall over and 'can't get up'. I've tried a number of combinations, and have many times gone hand-to-hand to see if a few good hits would knock the target over - no dice.
That means that my entire 'damage fatigue' line (exhaustion, exhausting touch) is useless in-game. Wish I knew what the heck was going on here. Why bother with the 'damage fatigue' magic effect if it does nothing? Seems like a case of 'Turn Undead' to me (although it works just fine on the PC).
As I suspected, the spell 'Jump' is also useless in most cases. The 'jump' effect alters how high and far you can jump, based upon your current values - which is directly dependent on Acrobatics skill. So a Jump 100 will double your jumping ability, absolutely great if you have a high Acrobatics and hardly noticeable if you don't. It makes more sense to simply Fortify Acrobatics than cast a Jump spell. Using this as an alternative to Levitation, especially for fighter types who don't bother with Acrobatics, just doesn't work.
Unfortunately you can't set different magic effects values for different skills. It's clear that fortifying Axe 100 points is far more effective and useful than fortifying Acrobatics 100 points, but any change I make to the second also effects the first. My partial solution has been to decrease the Jump effect from 1.00 to 0.50 and to re-craft the Leap spells (my version of Jump) to include a fortify Acrobatics. So now a Leap (Minor) is a 10-second Jump 100/FAcrobatics 25, a Leap (Lesser) is a 10-second Jump 100/FAcrobatics 50, and so on. I'll try this out and see how it works.
Although I've altered all daedric weaponry/armor in-game to make them mundane, along with their bound counterparts, bound weapons and armor are simply too cheap to cast at values of 3-4. There's little incentive to rely on normal, even enchanted weapons, when you can easily summon up a bound weapon which dishes out far more damage. I've doubled these values as a result.
Max
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>That means that my entire 'damage fatigue' line (exhaustion, exhausting touch) is useless in-game. Wish I knew what the heck was going on here. Why bother with the 'damage fatigue' magic effect if it does nothing? Seems like a case of 'Turn Undead' to me (although it works just fine on the PC).<
disturbing. and here i've been using my "star of the east" power before big fights.
you should email bethsoft about this, since it definitely sounds like a bug rather than a feature that never got implemented ( i.e. Turn Undead ).
cheers
h
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Turn Undead was implemented, it's just broken
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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my impression is that anything that has a basis on creature "type" (i.e. undead, daedra, etc ) doesn't work properly. so turn undead doesn't work at all, and calm works against everything when it's supposed to be ineffective against daedra, undead and artifacts.
cheers
h
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Well, it's clear that 'Drain Fatigue' has an effect on the NPC, but only if it's a) constant, and b) the drain exceeds the NPC's fatigue value. The 'Damage Fatigue' might work under the same constraints (and I believe it will, given the fact that it works on the PC just as it should).
I think what's going on here is that NPC's are entirely unaffected by fatigue-damaging spells of any kind unless their fatigue is brough to 0 and kept there. From my purely anecdotal observations smacking something with a couple of big 'damage fatigue' spells has no appreciable effect on their ability to fight. They still hit just as often as they did before. In other words, NPCs aren't affected by exhaustion unless they're completely tapped of stamina and kept at 0.
And although I *know* I've knocked some NPCs down to 0 fatigue, when I go hand-to-hand they show as if they have all of their fatigue points - as if the spell was never cast.
The ramifications are that 'damage fatigue' is only useful when cast against a PC. Because of this I'm thinking about disabling yet another spell line (sigh).
Another note: I had fAIFlee set to 1.2 and got some odd results, e.g., 'harrassing' behavior by undamaged NPCs at the start of a fight. Changing it to 1.35 made this behavior disappear. I think the 1.2 setting is the 'sweet spot' for many NPC brigands who have a particular morale value, which confuses them into starting a fight with harrassing behavior rather than going into harrassment mode when hitting a certain damage level.
Max
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Damage and drain fatigue do work within Morrowind, in that they seem to inflict demonstrable skill penalities on creatures and NPCs due to low fatigue. Also, creatures and NPCs will fall over exhausted when at negative fatigue values. However, the spell effects don't work as you would expect them to by their descriptions. From memory, damage fatigue effects will not reduce an opponent below zero fatigue, meaning that they will not fall over, however drain fatigue effects will. So to make your opponent fall down one would first cast damage fatigue to remove the hundreds of fatigue points the opponents have, then follow up with drain fatigue to reduce fatigue values below zero.
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Max, if you are using the console display and commands while in-game you should be seeing exact numbers for statistical calculations performed by the game engine for combat mechanics.
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Wakim:
This would explain why my damage fatigue spells have no observable effect. Although again, from my limited experience playtesting:
a) NPCs sapped of all fatigue don't seem to be affected in terms of combat skills (they still hit me just fine); and
b) when I go hand-to-hand with an NPC I've walloped with 'damage fatigue' they act as if the spell wasn't cast at all.
I'll continue to test to see if I can get any other result, but so far this is what I'm seeing. Perhaps 'Drain Fatigue' will work as I think 'Damage' should, especially with respect to b).
Max
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Post deleted by maxpublic
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If I recall this is the ritual you need to perform:
1) press the "~" key to call up the console.
2) type "tcs" into the console and hit return.
3) click (right or left, can't recall) anywhere on the screen outside of the console box to continue game time while leaving the box displayed and active.
That's it. There are other variants on the "tcs" command, such as (but not limited to) "tks" and "tms" which all stand for "toggle xxxxxx statistics" where xxxxx is: c = combat, m = magic, k = kill, or what have you. I believe TESCS help file documents available console commands that may be used in game.
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Silly me, I should've run my tests in debug mode.
It appears my previous results were atypical. The 'damage fatigue' spells work exactly as they should. After setting my HTH to 100 it now appears (here, let me wipe the egg off my face) that the reason I couldn't knock the NPCs down before was because I was entirely incapable of inflicting fatigue damage faster than they regenerated it.
So ignore everything I had to say on the 'damage fatigue' line. It's rather clear I had no idea what I was talking about.
Edit: okay, things get a bit weird here. A couple of days ago when I tested the fatigue spells they seemed to have no effect at all. Today they work.
Also a couple of days ago I tested the Jump spells. They also didn't seem to work (I certainly couldn't tell any difference). I assumed this was because my Acrobatics is something like a 12 or so.
Now, today, I test the fatigue spells and they work just fine. At first I thought it was just general stupidity on my part. But now I just tested the Jump spells - and they too work as they should. I'm leaping all over the landscape with wild abandon. Blast it, perhaps all this adding/subtracting/testing mods has done something strange to my game. Or maybe Windows was having a bad day.
In any event, the spells that didn't work on Friday (?) work today.
Max
Edited by maxpublic (11/26/02 03:22 PM)
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Turn Undead was the victim of two late changes. The first, to how the code was supposed to determine if a creature was undead. The spell was implemented, and then the method to access the information was changed without the spell code being updated. So the spell failed because it always thought the target was not undead. The second change was to the a flee-related game setting. Basically the game setting's job was to cause an NPC to flee if their health got down to a certain amount, based on their flee setting. This value was changed to 100, meaning that only if the flee setting was 100 would they turn tail. Since the standard Turn Undead spell only added 50 to the target's flee rating, they'd never run away. The code part has already been fixed, the game setting/spell definition has not. If there's another patch, Turn Undead will work just fine.
As far as Calm goes, all it checks is to see if it's a creature for Calm Creature, or if it's a human for Calm Humanoid. There are no additional checks. That's either an oversight or a design change.
In other words, there's no systemic malfunction of creature type detection -- just one instance of "missed" code changes.
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{TES Russia} My loved-fayrboll with a radius of 2km dies everyone
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I beseech the God(s) and Goddess(es) of the Halls of Dev-dom in Aetherius to release a quick and easy patch to fix turn undead, as there is a birthsign devoted to the code that presently doesn't work, and my character (Dark Moogle Necromancer) would praise the Entities of Dev-dom endlessly for 3 days out of the week to be able to use the proper class/spell/abilities of Turn Undead.
*Daerk chants*
Patch Turn Undead!
Patch Turn Undead! Patch Turn Undead!
Patch Turn Undead! Patch Turn Undead! Patch Turn Undead!
Patch Turn Undead! Patch Turn Undead! Patch Turn Undead!
Patch Turn Undead! Patch Turn Undead!
Patch Turn Undead!
*Daerk awaits, breathless*
-- Daerk (chantin) Ildatch
*.sig file waitin for a kindly Dev to throw together a very small very quick patch...
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The Middle-Earth Mod
MEMod Forums
Bite Me!
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I have come up with a way to make MW more realistic, to reduce the amount of gold available, to bring enchanting, alchemy, mudcrab and creeper in line so they are no longer game unbalancing money pumps and to frustrate the PC immensely. A small mod, basically two scripts, that implements the IRS.
Using the mostly underused and underappreciated Census and Excise office Faction, one merely needs check the players gold versus his previous gold when the player either changes cells, or 24 hours have passed in game time. If the players gold has increased by some serious amount, immediately enable behind the player a C&E officer, with a forced greeting and the immediate removal of some sliding % of the increase of the players gold since the last check...followed by the immediate disabling of the C&E agent......Nothing can add more realism than the IRS. The approach from behind and the forced dialogue prevents the PC from dropping his inventory and avoiding his taxes. And C&E agents would have powers and abilities far beyond moral man so they could see through 100% invisibility and could not be whacked nor bribed and would not give discounts.....basically the C&E agents would have a dispostion toward the PC of 0. PC could not run away or teleport anywhere because that is a cell change and voila the C&E person is right there waiting to collect. And just in case, if the PC does find a way to hit or run from the IRS, the PC gets a crime penalty at least as harsh as he would get if he murdered the whole city of Vivec. The C&E is not now and would not become a joinable faction.
This idea is only slightly tongue-in-cheek.
If you already earn an income IRL, you already know the IRS, if you have yet to reach the rank of IncomeEarner, ask someone who has about the IRS, and if you work for the IRS.....I hope you are not reading this on the job.
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I feel a wonderful sense of closure at knowing all of this Turn Undead Info. Thank you, Sir MSFD.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Curate
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I just learned something a tad disconcerting about trap mechanics in MW.
Probe quality has nothing to do w/ the chance to disarm a trap. No effect at all.
I was testing the disarm difficulty values against Security Skill/Agility/Luck, etc. in-game w/ the new trap settings I've been fiddling with, using a 1.00 Quality Master's Probe (1.00's a nice round #, easier that way).
W/ Agility & Luck @ 50, there was about a 14 skill pt window to disarm a trap of a particular difficulty (ie. a 100-cost trap required a Security skill of 86 to attempt a disarm, 85 returned a 'trap too complex' message.
For kicks, I decided to repeat all of the test w/ a 0.50 Quality Apprentice's Probe. Exact same results. Tried it again w/ a .15 Quality Bent Probe. Same results.
Tried unloading my ftrapcostmult changing plug-in, to test old-school static trap difficulty w/ different probes, to see if the new ftrapcostmult setting somehow arsed with the probe quality effects.
But it's still just as easy to disarm a trap w/ a Bent Probe as it is w/ a Secret Master's Probe.
Now: there may be a possibility my game is functioning oddly. But I unloaded all my plug-ins except for my collection of trapped doors outside Seyda Neen, and got the same results.
So now, faced with the prospect of properly scaling trap difficulty in-game, I find that all probes are equal, as it were, and different quality ratings and prices are meaningless. Why buy a Master's Probe @ 100 gold when you can get a bent one for 2 Gold that does the job just as well. This is mildly upsetting.
Can anyone at Bethesda comment on this? Can anyone else verify my findings?
I think if I'm going to continue w/ trap overhauling, I'm going to have to make a rather drastic item change, making all probes look identical, w/ identical stats, or replacing all levels of probes in-game, w/ one generic probe-type. Either way feels kind of cheap/drastic and not a particularly ‘seamless’ alteration of the game, but it does seem a bit dumb having all these different probe types of varying looks and costs if none of them do anything different.
I suppose I could attach a script to the probes that adds to or subtracts from your security skill when a particular quality probe is equipped, but that seems a bit cheezy/sloppy/unclean/ungraceful.
Curious as to anyone's thoughts on this subject...
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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LDones
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Actually, upon reflection, this doesn't derail my efforts too significantly.
I could simply alter the Uses?Cost/Weight for each quality type pick, to create an interesting scale. Say:
Bent Probe1: 1 Use -- 5 Gold
Apprentice's Probe: 5 Uses -- 25 Gold
Journeyman's Probe: 10 Uses -- 50 Gold
Master's Probe: 25 Uses -- 100 Gold
Grand Master's Probe: 50 Uses -- 300
Secret Master's Probe 100 Uses - 1000 Gold
Make all Probes weigh 1.00 Units. (All probes would have a uniform quality of 1.00 (unless entering 0 eliminates the display of probe quality, in which case that's what I'd do)
Not sure if the Uses are too low, or if the Gold Values should be altered. The balance seems about right to me in an environment where probe Quality makes no difference, but I'm curious as to your collective thoughts.
The low-end probe uses are fairly conservative, but I wanted to be sure hoarding lower-end probes wasn't too favorable of a practice, and I also wanted probes to be looked at as a valuable resource. They're not too scarce, but they're not terribly easy to hoard, either, so these numbers seemed about right.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Hmmm...that is wierd stuff, and it's pretty funny what you will do when you don't know the difference. I was always totally adverse to carrying low quality probes and went out of my way to procure the good ones. Your idea regarding uses makes a lot of sense, but I think that just one use for a bent probe is too few and 100 is too high, especially considering that at the beginning of the game you will need more tries to disarm a trap than you will when you have a high skill level and a good probe later on. How about this:
Bent Probe1: 3 Uses -- 5 Gold
Apprentice's Probe: 5 Uses -- 25 Gold
Journeyman's Probe: 10 Uses -- 50 Gold
Master's Probe: 15 Uses -- 100 Gold
Grand Master's Probe: 20 Uses -- 300
Secret Master's Probe 30 Uses - 1000 Gold
I know these use-values do not follow a perfectly uniform progression by means of a universally applied formula, but my rational is this: the bent probe has a dispropertionately high number of uses because it is (a.) very rare, and (b.) the beginner's tool for newbie characters.
The Secret Master's pick has a disproportionately high number of uses because it is, uh well, the 'secret master' pick. You won't even get ahold of these until you are a thieving guru anyway, and they cost a disproportionate amount more than the other picks.
I think this way you will have to invest a lot of loot into buying picks, especially if you are picky and don't like inferior quality ones. A good way of liberating some of that not-so-hard-earned stolen moola that MW supplies in such generous amounts.
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__________
Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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"Trap too complex?" That is not a message I, nor anyone else I imagine, had ever seen before. You tread on virgin ground, LD.
A change to the number of uses on probes seems an acceptable solution as a substitute to the ineffectual probe quality value. However, you may wish to leave the numeric values of the varying probe qualities intact (since they appear meaningless) in the hope that if they do mean something, operating under a future patch, then a trap difficulty adjusting mod would not require immediate retuning.
Out of curiosity, if a trap's spell cost increases a trap's disarm value above 100, can the trap be disarmed by someone of suitable skill and statistics? Or, in other words, does the game continue to calculate past the displayed values, or simply cap trap disarm values at 100? If traps do exceed 100 in difficulity, can a player of 100 luck, agility, security, and a (ahem) master's probe disarm any and every trap?
As for the Census and Excise Office (CEO) taking a player's money, that is pure unadulterated evil: Evil I say, evil! Imagine, instead of roving bandits attacking the player, roving CEO agents trying to collect taxes on money earned, or placing a lien upon Sunder and Wraithguard until the player's financial obligation is fulfilled. Morrowind has death, why not taxes?
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It is claimed by the unknowledgeable that a certain form of enterprise is the "oldest profession", in truth, TaxCollector/Extortionist is the oldest profession.
In seriousness, it is the monetary imbalance in the game that serves to make alchemy and enchanting overpowered. The money supply to the PC is constantly increasing, but the values of the goods available for purchase stays constant. In an economy where the money supply constantly increases at a rate above the productivity increase of the society, prices charged for goods increase at a rate above the increased value of the goods. Thus Inflation.
We can extend the gold respawing time for merchants, we can use the HerbalismMod to decrease the available supply of alchemy products by increasing their respawn time after they are plucked, we can eliminate creeper and mudcrab, increase the cost of enchanting and decrease the amount of enchantments and on and on, and we can use something like the IRS to remove from the player some of that inflationary increase in money.
I think this ever expanding money is one of the reasons people complain that the game loses its appeal at higher levels and as you progress.....you start with 36 gold and things are tough to buy and hard budgetary decisions must be made, within a few hours of playing you are sitting on 40K of gold and there are no decisions to be made about buying or budgeting your resources. So yes it is evil to introduce taxation into MW, but it just might have gameplay value and gamebalance value.
One other thing, since stealth characters ( theives) are basically criminal types, the IRS mod could be used to balance the current imbalance against the theif types much as your work has reduced the imbalance against mage types. As an example, Fightertypes would have a 100% chance of having their taxes taken, theives might have a 20 to 50% chance of avoiding taxes ( true the reality is closer to 85% In the Real World).
And I truly have not yet introduced the real evil into MW but I am working on the outlines of a LawyerMod. Personal liability claims against the PC for all the Pain and suffering he causes, tort claims, Admiralty claims against those evil PC's who rob shipwrecks, contingency fees, bought judges, insurance scams, 3 strikes and you are out laws against skooma users and MoonSugar dealers. DUI laws applied to PC who own and travel with PackGuars. FICA deductions for PC's who use companions or mercenaries of Slaves
And what will be the favourite change: the addition of random strip searches and cavity probes by Ordinators and Imperial Guards. ( LDones work on the bentprobe issue will factor heavily into this)
All in the name of gamebalance and additional realism.
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Truly, introducing the IRS is a twisted and evil thought.
But it's also not necessary. I've done what you've outlined (reduced the prices of most items, increased training to x 5, etc.) and now, at level 16 with about a fifth of the map completely explored I'm still flat broke.
Let me give you an example:
Last night I cleared out a fortress just north of Gnaar Mok (sp?). I forget the name of it, but it proved to be a tough nut, requiring potions, scrolls, and quite a few reloads (the ultimate cheat). Combined with the gold I acquired in Gnisis from a few discrete murders, the total haul was just in excess of 10,000 gold. Woohoo!
So I went to Balmora and spent nearly every penny of my ill-gotten loot on improving Speechcraft. You see, I'm part of the Mage's Guild and I'm still on that mission where I'm supposed to go to Silly-Putty and convince someone to join the Guild. But as I recall that place is full of mages so fighting is a Really Bad Idea (TM). To do things peacefully I figure I need a nice chunk o' cash for bribery along with a Speechcraft of 50 or so.
My Speechcraft prior to looting the fortress and reducing the population of Gnisis was 21. After spending just about everything I had it's now a 31. 10,000 gold for 10 points of training, all in a skill that's cheap because I'm so miserable at it.
And I'm broke again. And I still don't have the Speechcraft I need to convince those blokes at Silly-Putty that joining the Guild is doubleplusgood, or to improve the attitude of those nasty merchants who keep stiffing me huge sums when I bargain with them. Bastards.
So, really, the IRS isn't necessary. We don't have sex in Morrowind, lets keep the nasty tax collectors out too.
Max
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Many ways to defur the feline.
I was/am trying to accomplish the economic balance with 5 small scripts and some game settings, global variables and dialogue tweaking and as few changes to items, spells npc's etc as possible.
I think it might be possible to do this without touching any in game items at all and only modifying one unplayable faction.
My motivation here was to not incapacitate other mods and to not miss items introduced by other mods and to have a mod that doesn't worry about what its postion in the mod load pecking order is. The results would most likely be very comparable to what you have done, just arrived at by a different route.
Now if we had sex in MW, we could find a way to tax that also....a few new animations for the during and after and at least one digital salute animation to aim at the taxman.
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In reply to:
Bent Probe1: 3 Uses -- 5 Gold
Apprentice's Probe: 5 Uses -- 25 Gold
Journeyman's Probe: 10 Uses -- 50 Gold
Master's Probe: 15 Uses -- 100 Gold
Grand Master's Probe: 20 Uses -- 300
Secret Master's Probe 30 Uses - 1000 Gold
The problem I have with these numbers is that it then makes no sense for a player to buy apprentice's probes if he can buy bent probes - For the same Gold amount as one Apprentice's probe @ 5 uses, he/she can buy 5 Bent Probes @ 15 uses - same gold, three times the utility. Same thing w/ Master's Probes, no point in buying them.
There are only 11 instances of GrandMaster probes in the game, and NO instances that I can find of Secret Master's probes, but I think the player may come upon them in dialogue somewhere - unsure.
So the 100 uses and 1000 gold for the Secret Master's Probe seemed about right - Then again, since the player more than likely isn't given the opportunity to 'buy' them, a lower pricetag might be in order. Looking back, the # of uses for Grand Master's Probes might be too high for the availability and price of them. 40 uses seems more reasonable.
In reply to:
at the beginning of the game you will need more tries to disarm a trap than you will when you have a high skill level and a good probe later on
You have a good point there. My thoughts went towards the idea that a player would be disarming a helluva lot of traps late in the game with a lot of confidence/skill, whereas early on players will have to be very selective about what traps/treasures they take on. Makes treasure hunting more interesting in the early game, and more rewarding late in the game (the high-use probes/seeming uber-ness of the Secret Master Probes being part of the reward for making it that far, since it's not very easy to get ahold of anything above a Master's Probe early in the game.
In reply to:
Out of curiosity, if a trap's spell cost increases a trap's disarm value above 100, can the trap be disarmed by someone of suitable skill and statistics?
Wakim:
Yes, but only so far. MW seems to give numeric difficulty values a ‘window’, at least w/ locks and traps. With traps, and ftrapcostmult @ -1.00, and Agility and Luck @ 50, the window is 14 skill pts away from the spell cost(At -1.300, the window appears to be 9) (ie., it takes a character w/ Security @ 86 to attempt to disarm a 100-cost trap. So a PC w/ 100 Security and 50 Luck/50 Agility can disarm a trap of up to 114 spell cost, but just barely. A character w/ 100 in both of these could probably go further, but I haven’t tested the figures.) But as stated, there are few touch/trap-available spells above 100 or so spell cost, and only two traps, w/ one instance each @ such a value. (WGI changes this, so with WGI there are no un-disarmable traps in the game.)
I still feel that changing the existing quality of probes to a uniform level is important, as it might lead to some confusion, otherwise. UNLESS, one were to tailor available uses to the quality number scheme, but then you run the risk of the above, of the player never wanting higher level probes because they can just pick up more low-end ones.
Still fiddling…
After this whole trap thing gets sorted out I’m going to get on to Sneaking. I’m already experimenting w/ the GetArmorType function for making armor effect sneaking ability, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Try these:
Bent probe 1 use 20 gold
Apprentice 5 Uses 90 gold
Journeyman 10 uses 170 gold
Master 15 uses 250 gold
GrandMaster 25 uses 400 gold
SecretMaster 50 uses 750 gold
these steps will obviate the possibility of hoarding lower level probes
and since probes are much less necessary than lockpicks they should have higher prices than the comparable pick....lower demand = higher prices. Remember it would only take 20 GM probes to open every trap in the game. And many of the trapped containers have items worth less than 20 gold in them. So picture the happy thief who just untrapped a chest in one of those dunmer tombs, picked the lock and found he had gotten a cheasy common ring worth 10 gold for his now useless bent probe and depreciated lockpick
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Ok, in light of your analysis, here is my revised suggestion:
Bent Probe1: 3 Uses -- 9 Gold (you can' buy but one or two of these anyway)
Apprentice's Probe: 5 Uses -- 25 Gold
Journeyman's Probe: 10 Uses -- 100 Gold
Master's Probe: 15 Uses -- 225 Gold
Grand Master's Probe: 20 Uses -- 400 Gold
Secret Master's Probe 30 Uses - 900 Gold (I like the idea of never being able to keep enough probes on hand, forcing you to spend, spend, spend)
(Formula: price = uses^2)
Ok, so not much has changed...but, I mean, this is a difficluty mod right? If the only variable we have to make probes vary is the number of uses, then I say their should be pretty harsh restrictions on how many uses you can get.
Look at it this way: for every 3 lockpicks I used up in MW, I would only use up about 1 probe (and that is a conservative estimate). So looking at it from the perspective that traps should be at least as important an aspect of theft-prevention in MW as locks are, it stands to reason that the player should have to spend about as much on probes as on lock picks.
Since, in standard MW, players (by my estimate) spend about three times as much on picks as on probes, cutting the number of uses for probes by about two thirds (at most anyway) should suffice to even things out.
That's IMHO anyway.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
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Remember that weight can also be used to make a probe more attractive, regardless of it's cost/value. That is one of the reasons why I always preferred the lighter, high-quality ones.
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Read a review of the Vivec Expansion mod at:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/motw.asp
Screen-shots:
http://thelys.free.fr/vivec_expansion_screens.htm
Get the mod here:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp
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LDones wrote:
In reply to:
W/ Agility & Luck @ 50, there was about a 14 skill pt window to disarm a trap of a particular difficulty (ie. a 100-cost trap required a Security skill of 86 to attempt a disarm, 85 returned a 'trap too complex' message.
For kicks, I decided to repeat all of the test w/ a 0.50 Quality Apprentice's Probe. Exact same results. Tried it again w/ a .15 Quality Bent Probe. Same results.
Before you guys get too deep into the science of balancing probes based off of only weight and number of uses, has anyone gone back to examine the basic assumption?
LDones talks about a "Skill window" below which you get a "Trap too complex" message, and how it's the same across the board, regardless of probe. This in and of it self doesn't mean that probe quality has no effect.
Say we have a hypoothetical setup where there's a 5 point skill window from 95 to 100, below which, you get the "Trap too complex" message. Consider the follwoing two probes:
Crap probe
Skill Success Rate
94 Too Complex
95 10% successful disarm/90% disarm failed
96 20% successful disarm/80% disarm failed
97 30% successful disarm/70% disarm failed
98 40% successful disarm/60% disarm failed
99 50% successful disarm/50% disarm failed
100 60% successful disarm/40% disarm failed
Uber Probe
94 Too Complex
95 40% successful disarm/60% disarm failed
96 50% successful disarm/50% disarm failed
97 60% successful disarm/40% disarm failed
98 70% successful disarm/30% disarm failed
99 80% successful disarm/20% disarm failed
100 90% successful disarm/10% disarm failed
Now these are just made up numbers, and don't reflect any actual research, but you can see one probe is clearly better than the other, wasting less of it's uses on failed attempts, even though they have the same skill window.
I've got a gut feeling that if you test this in game out by sampling the success/failure rate of different probes at a single skill level you find that probe quality does matter.
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LDones
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In reply to:
Crap probe
Skill Success Rate
94 Too Complex
95 10% successful disarm/90% disarm failed
96 20% successful disarm/80% disarm failed
97 30% successful disarm/70% disarm failed
98 40% successful disarm/60% disarm failed
99 50% successful disarm/50% disarm failed
100 60% successful disarm/40% disarm failed
Uber Probe
94 Too Complex
95 40% successful disarm/60% disarm failed
96 50% successful disarm/50% disarm failed
97 60% successful disarm/40% disarm failed
98 70% successful disarm/30% disarm failed
99 80% successful disarm/20% disarm failed
100 90% successful disarm/10% disarm failed
Now these are just made up numbers, and don't reflect any actual research, but you can see one probe is clearly better than the other.
I understand the idea, but it doesn't make mathematical sense, and it essentially can't be tested. Precedent for my understanding of the numerical scheme exists in the lockpicking system - The lockpicks multiply your security skill by their quality, and the 'window' for a successful attempt changes based on what type of pick you use.
And my statements about the 'window' aren't an assumption, in case anyone wondered. Every value of the trap_xxx spells was tested, and every one returned a 14 pt. window, from 45 to 100.
Nevertheless, I'm going to investigate further, certainly. I'll change Bent Probes to have a 0.01 Quality (0 won't work) with 100 uses, and I'll have Master's Probes be 100.00 Quality w/ 100 uses and see what happens.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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LDones
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Oh, and for anyone that's interested, I posted my findings on the GetArmorType function in relation to applying Armor Sneak Penalties at this post.
For any who don't want to check it out here's the short of it: It works. I'll have it put together soon for anyone that wants it (Tribunal only, due to the function availability).
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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LDones
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SC_Wolf is right. Probe Quality does affect chance to disarm once past the difficulty skill window. There are a few reasons I didn't catch that, but it's kind of hard to explain, and also fairly stupid on my part for that particular test (It involves Fatigue, and using high-quality probes @ low fatigue - dumb of me not to notice).
So Probes are fine. My folly is forever etched in this thread's last page or so. <sigh> And thank you, SC_Wolf, for questioning that 'base assumption'. Well done. I'll certainly be more thorough in the future. Back to work on stealth stuff on on to more balancing pursuits, etc.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Show me the researcher who has not gone down a wrong path, followed an incomplete hypothesis, drawn an incorrect conclusion, or examined an incorrect theory and I will show you a non-researcher.
I see no folly etched anywhere, just a path taken that was based on an incomplete model.
In miniature, what these last two pages show and what much of this thread shows is the process of science with peer review. A much faster peer review than in most sciences and much more civilized too.
What I do see is damn good work on your part and on SC_Wolf's part. Congrats to both of you.
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Anyone here know if:
iMonthsToRespawn
also controls how quickly a merchant restocks items set to a negative value (e.g., -5 potions of Standard Restore Health)?
Also, iNumberCreatures - does this set the actual number of creatures that spawn at any particular spawn point?
And finally, does anyone have any solid idea on exactly how the variables dealing with alchemy and enchant work?
Max
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In reply to:
Also, iNumberCreatures - does this set the actual number of creatures that spawn at any particular spawn point?
This one I experimented with a great deal, to no discernible effect. It definitely doesn't control the number of creatures at a spawn.
There's a lot of info on the different enchant settings earlier in the thread, although we didn't spend much time experimenting with them.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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In reply to:
What I do see is damn good work on your part and on SC_Wolf's part.
I feel this is a gross misrepresentation. LDones is the one doing the work. I'm just some lazya** wag who came along and said are you you sure it's not this instead, with absolutely no hard facts to back up my reson for questioning.
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You presented an alternative hypothesis that fit the available facts and gave a possible explanation for them... that is part of the research process. No one else presented that alternative, and with the alternative before him LD's work came to a different and it appears more correct answer.....that's the research process as she is IRL. Only IRL it would have transpired over lunch at the commons or over a brew at the local or in emails between colleagues or on a whiteboard in a conference room or lab or office.
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It may be part of the research process, but I still don't call what I did work.
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This is a very informative thread people keep it going.
I also have to compliment MrSmileyFaceDude for the game balance for mages. Its a great sacrifice for me to complement a dev because they may get lazy but well i have to admit it.
My current character is a high-elf atronach with weaknesses of 75% to 50% in several magik areas, and a health of 50points.
I have to use all the magik schools including enchanting and alchemy to survive. I have to avoid direct fighting and become a hit and run assassin style, and its being an amazing experience to overcome the difficulties.
However there are some spoilers i hopefuly avoided in time like the quest in Balmoras Mages guild that gets me a free grandsoulgem or the other items that can be picked freely.
I am having great fun trying to manage budgets of money of less then 2000 gold to buy soulgems, and to get the minimal working spells for this powerhouse character but thats what this game is all about. Playing a character.
I disagree with those folks that say that wizards should match the power of fighters in direct confrontation. Thats one way to balance it but not the only way.
In some games like AD&D wizards were allways much more powerful than warriors by designer choice but a bunch of loosers to play with. But thats ok because it means more vareity to play.
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The problem with the unmodified game is that 'wizards' (as much as a class applies here) don't *ever* match a fighter in any way, shape, or form. I can take my 20th level Morrowind fighter and beat your 20th level Morrowind mage to death without working up a sweat.
In my own mod, and from what I hear in Wakim's mod as well, wizards become a much more viable option. You can actually *rely on magic to get the job done*, without knowing in the back of your mind that you could always just pick up a magic sword, a few enchanted items, and tank your way through any situation far more effectively and easily.
Mages are indeed more powerful in my game and are a match for a fighter of equal level. In fact, more than a match in a single player game. But this is a limitation of the AI, which doesn't use potions, scrolls, or enchantments effectively.
Even so, with the advantage of brain power, playing a mage character I've died more times than I can count. A fighter that closes with me *will kill me*, a fact that has many times been beaten into my head when I revert to 'old-style' play and try to duke it out. They have many, many hit points and great skill with weapons and armor, and I do not. Trying to outmatch them in this arena is just plain suicidal.
Of course, the same thing applies to higher-level mages. Last night I decided to try to wipe out Punabi after collecting the Guild dues (just to see if I could do it at level 19). I believe I reloaded approximately eight times due to death and used up something on the order of 15 potions and 8 or 9 scrolls. It was a bust overall because I invested more resources than I got out of the situation. And this despite the fact that I actually escaped out to the Mage's Guild once to rest and pick up some more potions.
So, the mods discussed here make a mage viable and useful, although it certainly requires more thought to play one effectively than it does to play a fighter. But these mages are not D&D-style mages who can cast 'kill everything in 50 feet', or 'stop time', or 'conjure Lord of Hell'. Not even close.
Max
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I play this way. Never confronting a warrior face to face, using stealth magik to backstab (gives 3x damage) with enchanted weapons to boost even more damage. Recall out of the battle when they dont die on the first strike and attack another guy somewhere else safe in the dungeon where i made a mark.
Since i am atronach i just need to do a divine intervention into a nearby temple and use a shrine to replemnish my mana then teleport immediatly back to the war zone.
In cases where i need or wish for a face to face figt i just reforce my skills to match a warrior. With potions its possible to overcome any situation (see the [url=www.m0use.net/~uesp]www.m0use.net/~uesp[/url] for the alchemy cheats).
The guy claims that he was capable to raise his attributes so high that he could "kill" (yes he said kill) the harth of Lorkhan with a single blow. Which makes impossible to end the game.
If youre trying to measure things in relation to damage points then its clear that weapons are better for because they dont have limited uses like spells, and they dig much more damage than destructive magik.
But have you guys checked for the alternatives ? Like the mar/recall/divine intervention unlimited mana trick, regenerative offensive magik that heals you and damages the oponent at the same time, chameleon blind and other stealth magiks combined with that backstabing trick, the immense power of enchanting and alchemy, and of course combinations of all the magik skills into a single objective.
There are also many notable alternative balance tricks in other games like Fallout, where a completely non-offensive character could complete the entire game only by using henchmans and clever dialog options activated by a high charisma attribute.
Like in one of the alternative Fallout endings, sometimes a word is more effective than 10000 points of damage.
PS: I forgot to mention in my first post that the idea of giving the foes enough mana to cast all the spells in they know its brilliant. Keep it going.
Edited by orzog (11/30/02 02:20 PM)
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I come back to the thread to see 4 or 5 post titles praising my coding skillz. My coding skillz are WACK, I've just got some time on my hands, some critical thinking skills and a love for this game.
On to BIDNESS.
I've completed the script(s) for sneaking penalties while wearing armor. After some serious time experimenting, the whole thing works like a dream. (It requires Tribunal - no way to do this without it)
Penalties are cumulative for each piece of armor, and different for each type (Medium or Heavy or Shields). There are no sneak penalites for wearing Light Armor.
-Maximum sneak penalty for wearing Medium Armor is 18 pts.
-Maximum sneak penalty for wearing Heavy Armor is 40 pts.
-Light or Medium Shields induce a 5 pt. Sneak penalty.
-Heavy Shields induce a 10 pt. Sneak penalty.
-Bracers register differently than Gauntlets, and do not incur a Sneak penalty
-(nothing covering the hands, so it makes sense).
One Question for everybody:
Does encumbrance effect jumping ability? If not, I was toying with the idea of an additional Acrobatics penalty for Heavy Armor. Nothing severe, but enough to put Heavy Armor wearers at a bit of a disadvantage when jaunting/climbing about like gymnasts. I'll test different Acrobatics values, see what happens, but input is welcome.
After Acrobatics considerations and possibly another series of Sneak Tweaks, I'll have enough solid stuff to release the whole Thief-experience balance overhaul mod/group of mods. Only the Sneak tweaks absolutely require Tribunal (though I'll need to 'De-Tribunalize' the other .esp's).
More tomorrow.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Orzog:
Some changes I've made:
- there is no Atronach sign
- recalling/intervention require a Mysticism of around 60 to be 100% effective, and cost 50 magicka each
- there is no magic which heals you while hurting the enemy
- both alchemy and enchanting have been reduced in effectiveness
- a 30-second 100-point chameleon spell costs 150 points to cast and cannot be enchanted.
In short, your tactics will not work in my mod.
Max
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Quick Update - Weight affects jumping, so I won't arse about with Acrobatics penalties. More later.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Max, are we ever going to see a copy of this mod? The more I here you talk about it the more I want to try it out, even if it does mean leaving some of my other beloved mods behind, atleast as long as I have it loaded up.
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Is there no way to alter sneak simply based on encumbrance?
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Shogakusha:
I've been playtesting it and making tweaks as I go. I've had to revamp a number of things to remove 'player cheats', most recently another go at enchantments (alas and alack, but I've beaten that system to death).
On the brighter side I'm redoing weapons and armor this morning. After that everything is 'bonus' stuff that I'm putting off until I incorporate Tribunal (smithing, scroll-making, a new enchantment system, etc.). Once I'm done with that and have cleaned up the release notes I'll send it to a couple of sites for beta.
Max
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In reply to:
Is there no way to alter sneak simply based on encumbrance?
I'm certain there's a way, but the armor itself seemed more interesting. Encumbrance has a huge (albeit mostly invisible) affect on the game. My thinking with Sneak was more along the line of the 'make' of the armors - Heavy Armor (no matter how unencumbered a player might be) is bulky, restrictive - it should be difficult to move around freely in it. In the version I'm testing now, a full set of Heavy Armor also gives a maximum 15 Agility Penalty.
I'm going to mess around with things a bit more, present the details on the 'finished' mod for comments, etc., and then put the thing up for download, along with a few other mods I've got lying around.
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-LDones
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Forgive me for being a smart a** but,
When did this turn into a General Modifications Post?
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In reply to:
Alastor Grimwald: Forgive me for being a smart a** but... When did this turn into a General Modifications Post?
It was probably due to the fact that wakim (original thread creator) created a general game improvements plugin, and due to the fact that balancing spells tends to tie in with enchanting and alchemy they were discussed, and then since it had become a multi-faceted discussion about gameplay balancing (and was related directly to WGI general realism settings) various other aspects of game enhancements were discussed.
-- Daerk (scriptin) Ildatch
*.sig file incomplet
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The Middle-Earth Mod
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More playtesting observations:
When all is said and done, I had to disable the following spell lines for enchantments in order to eliminate player cheats:
- all of the absorb lines
- all interventions/mark/recall
- all offensive magics
- all bound weaponry and armor
- all summonings
- all drains
- all mind-altering spells
- levitate, open, and paralyze
- sound and silence
- all restoration spells
The astute reader will note that this covers most of the spells in the game. However, it still leaves some rather nifty spells which can enhance or aid the player (e.g., feather, fortify ability, fortify skill, water breathing, swift swim, etc.). That seems to be the only way to utilize the current enchantment system without lending it to extreme abuse: to enhance player actions.
Even so, it turns out that even some of these spells can result in game-killing tactics if applied in certain ways. For example, enchant Chameleon or Sanctuary on every piece of clothing and armor you wear and nothing will be able to touch you. Bad, bad news.
My solution was to do the following:
- make rings and amulets the primary enchanting items; you can only wear three at a time.
- make clothes unenchantable by the player. I'm assuming that the clothes need to be enchanted during the process of making them, which is outside the purview of the game; so only the in-game pieces are available (at least until such a time as the PC learns the Weaving skill or finds a talented Enchanter/Weaver).
- make armor unenchantable as well. I've left in most of the interesting pieces and created a generic 'enchanted armor' class which improves the health and AR of armor while reducing weight. Once I have Tribunal included I'll put in a smithing mod to allow the player to make more tailored pieces (the idea being you have to be an Enchanter *and* a smith to create enchanted armor).
- made all weapons unenchantable except for glass, ebony, and daedric. Included two new 'classes' of weapons: ensorcelled (just like the regular weapon but can hit immune creatures) and enchanted (ensorcelled plus better stats). The up side is that the generic enchanted weapons no longer have charges, nor can their damage be resisted (it isn't based on any particular magic).
- left all staves enchantable for those enamored of the stereotype wizard
I'm not precisely sure why, but the intelligence of some spell-casters has markedly improved. In Punabi I had a spellcaster summon up a Bonewalker to distract me, cast Shield on herself, cast Lesser Daedric Armor, then hit me with paralyzation followed by Greater Deadly Touch (100 points to my 79 at level 19, instant death). It took four reloads to finally beat her, and I have to admit this was mostly due to potions and luck. Under normal circumstances I would've just run after the first reload but I was testing to see if I had any chance at all to clear Punabi at level 19. The answer was "only with alot of help and much use of the ultimate cheat"; spellcasters are just too hairy at higher levels, or in groups. I can't imagine taking on someone like Divith Fyr, and it appears that Vivec will always be beyond my abilities to kill no matter what my level is.
One thing I've noticed is that it helps to remove most of the enchantments from the game (i.e., by changing the tables and altering the leveled lists). Make Morrowind more mundane and less magical and things become considerably tougher for the character. When you do get something nice, however, it's certainly more gratifying (and you aren't nearly as likely to sell it). This also puts quite a bit more emphasis on potions and scrolls, which can be purchased and don't have the limitations that enchantments do.
And, of course, by shifting the magical burden to expendable items you suck up more player gold. Which means less power leveling. It's an odd thing, being broke all the time just short of level 20.
Finally, reducing the appearance of soul gems and instead making them part of the Enchanter Service inventory seems to be a good way to keep players from filling gems and selling them off. I didn't realize just what a destabilizing effect it had to collect a handful of soul gems from every bandit cave you clear out, but now it's evident.
Max
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Sweet. I hope you're going to make it modular, so I don't have to fuss about with TESAME......
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I've been toying about with racial stat limits to affect your play style somewhat. Limiting either stats or skills is easy for the PC, however I am yet to find a good way to balance the PC with NPCs and creatures, as > 100 values seem to be not achievable.
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Morrowind has four underlying intertwined models: combat, magic, stealth, and economics. None of them operate separately from the other three. As soon as you make changes to one you are making changes to the effects the other three have on the game. The game is inherently unbalanced if you are interested in "winning" the main quest and destroying the heart and Dag Ur. A Pure Mage ( no combat skills no weapons skills) cannot do it with magic, A Pure Thief cannot steal the heart and win the game.
Actually Bethesda did a more than adequate job, given the constraints of the story and the methodology required to destroy the heart and defeat DU, of making the game balanced between the four components.
Because of my background, I look at the economics part of the game and find it flawed and unbalanced and in need of reworking, LD has found flaws in the way that sneaking and lockpicking and traps work and is in effect balancing the stealth specialization. Max and others are trying to rework the magical components of the game to improve the biases they perceive the game has against magic users. But until a magician can conjure a bound Wraithguard, bound Sunder and bound Keening, a pure magician will not be able to "win" the game. Until the MAIN story is changed so that sneaking works in Dagoth Ur's Citadel and victory can be accomplished by stealing the heart and taking it outside the citadel, a pure theif is not going to "win" the game either.
Wakim's work on making creatures and NPC's flee or fight brought a huge improvement in realism to the game, His work on balancing the spell lines and the weapons and items and opening previously non-accessed parts of the dialogue tree added even more, and in doing so he opened the doors to a huge amount of realistic additions to the game.
And eventually all these efforts run up against things that modders can't change because the equations are hardcoded into the game engine. Enchanting, Alchemy, Mercantile, Speechcraft and dispostions, weapon depreciation: all hard coded. We can tweak the game settings but eventually we hit that brick wall of the equation models themselves and those we can't modify.
Mr Smiley Face Dude in another thread commented that many of the in-game equations are linear, of the form y=m*x +b. Straight line equations are just not the proper model for realistic economics, nor for realistic representations of how magic skills would advance with time and practice, certainly not for how weapons should degrade over time and use.
The research in this thread has helped to make the game more "realistic" and more "difficult" and maybe even eventually a bit more "balanced" and certainly a lot more fun.
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I seem to remeber weapon depreciation is proportional to damage, effectively meaning Daedric weapons don't break or something......
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I believe that is correct, a straight line depreciation. It is also not realistic. Realisticly, inept users should damage their tools much more per use than skilled users. So weapon depreciation should be directly proportional to weapon damage capability and inversely proportional to user skill. An inept archer should recieve damage from his bows ( I vividly recall the first time I did archery and watched the bowstring remove a layer of flesh from my forearm.) Likewise, smashing your dagger or shortsword into someones shield should in the worst case cause your weapon to shatter....not just to become unuseable until your repaired it but to become unrepairable. Conversely NPC weapons should be effected simarlarly if you have high block skill and are equipped with a stronger shield than their weapon.
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Iudas presents a wonderful summary by describing Morrowind as only four interacting models. Since it doesn't require mathematical modeling, the overlooked element would be the quests; which provides the impetus for the other four. Max opined, pages back, that Morrowind lacked "epic battles". This is valid criticism and efforts to improve aspects of Morrowind's four physical models helps alleviate this flaw. However, why has it become necessary, for every video game produced, to culminate in a battle of god-like proportion? This plot device is quickly becoming banal beyond tolerance, and it drives the inflation of every aspect of game models.
Perhaps most obvious in Morrowind, where formulae cannot encompass this inflation due to assumed linear mathematical design (for example, enchanted items cost nothing or one charge to cast at enchanting skill 110), but endemic to the genre. This naturally handicaps allowable actions when every player must spend the game preparing for the "last big fight," which is not only expected but inexorable. The player's prescience of the "last big fight" drives his actions throughout his game experience. The player must assume an equality of proportion to match his nemesis, which serves to trivialize the remainder of the game's content.
The creation of player characters who can not only dive without detriment fifteen stories to the pavement, but can exceed speeds of bullets and stop locomotives requires some device to hold the audience's interest: kryptonite or alternate universes or whole races of similar god like beings to challenge (read: Tribunal). This is an inflationary spiral. The desire for battles of epic proportion only requires evenly matched opponents pitted in a complex system of maneouvres (forgive the British spelling of maneuver, but how often can one string together three vowels in a row like that?).
The audience, to maintain interest, only requires the environment and opportunity to excel. Interest is lost when there is no such opportunity because no matter what the player does, he cannot fail to excel; he can pavement dive and stop bullets and remain unscathed. Where's the challenge, where's the fun? It is not necessary to force every RPG into this inflationary mold. Imagine how the mechanics of Morrowind would be if the final battle was cast in the lines of the Ministry of Truth quest? Stealth and guile were required for this quest, although the men of steel could simply fire up the lawnmower of Morrowind melee or enchanted item absurdities.
Character building does not have to equate to steroid inflamed inflationary proportion. It is a shame that it virtually always does. This rampant inflation does not lend credence to a game's versitility, originality, execution, or legacy. The all-too-easy plot device of the epic villian is the culprit causality.
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Indeed, while we labour to overcome the restrictions of the mathematical models as they impact our perceptions of what the in-game realism should be, the main quest line always leads our characters to behaving so as to meet the necessities of the "only one way to win the main quest" path.
Could the main quest have been structured to allow for more than one proper way to "win"? I think so.
Could the game have been structured to make the inevitable battle of Good vs Evil less inflationary, make the evil more mundane? Yes in theory, but I suspect no in terms of market acceptability, fanbase expectations, reviewer credence and competitive pressure. These games are supposed to remove us for a short while from the quotidian; supposed to let us destroy a single epic evil instead of trying to swat the always respawning horde of gnats that is complex realistic evil. I suspect we will see a War on Drugs game or a War on Terror game before we will see a War on Poverty game or a War on Ignorance game.
( I would have answered faceitously had I wanted to get all six vowels in an ordered row )
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Here's a concept. Shields with Cast when Hit enchantments.
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Indeed, epic battles are only proportional to your own personal strength. Planescape: Torment is one of the best examples of this, until the third disc, when you become incredibly powerful and fight all of like 3 things......
As to the main quest, well, if only Ion Strom Austin had made Morrowind. MW made by the creator of the Ultima Underworld, Thief, System Shock and Deus Ex series' (what is the plural for series BTW?).
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Series is a collective noun, already plural, the singular of series is series. The verb used is the indicator if you are talking about a series is/was or several series are/were, or a preceeding adjective can indicate singular vs plural meaning.
Not sure what Ion Storm has to do with MW or its main quest. The quests in MW are dialoque driven, and the dialoque engine has a load of variables available to control the flow and branching of quests.
What bothers me is that after setting up 3 specializations, 27 skills, 28 different classes, several hundred quests and side quests, several thousand NPC and creatures; when you get to the final steps of the main quest Bethesda allowed exactly one way to skin the cat. No matter what you wanted to play as or what style of character you tried to work with, you best have blunt weapon and shortsword skills or you will not destroy the heart. Other than Thief, I have no experience with the other series of games you mentioned.
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Fool. Thief was the most minor example of Warren Spector's genius. Ah well. Nevermind.
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From the tone of your response I suspect I just failed some sort of fanboy trivia quiz. Ah well. Thief1 was a good game, Thief2 was less impressive and, as I said, the other games you listed never got any attention from me.
Now back to balancing Morrowind.
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How can text have tone? That's the whole problem with the net......
Nevermind. Your loss. Incidentally UU2 is still perhaps the best RPG ever, if you squint to soften the pixels.
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"Orzog:
Some changes I've made:
- there is no Atronach sign
- recalling/intervention require a Mysticism of around 60 to be 100% effective, and cost 50 magicka each
- there is no magic which heals you while hurting the enemy
- both alchemy and enchanting have been reduced in effectiveness
- a 30-second 100-point chameleon spell costs 150 points to cast and cannot be enchanted.
In short, your tactics will not work in my mod.
Max"
Go forward Max. I hope you are able to create a new type of wizard class that is different to play and yet still fun.
I just think that you are concerning yourself with the possibility of players to abuse the game. A good balance is good for what it offers.
Players will allways find ways to abuse. If the game gets too hard then palyers will look for ways to cheat because they arent having much fun. However if the game becomes too easy then players will want more chalenge. This is a balance that is within each player not in the game itself.
Another game is to balance the game yourself and have fun doing it your way.
My prefered way to balance a game is to choose a character profile from a book then I make shure by playing the character that i get same feeling i had when reading the character adventures in the book.
But like Iudas noticed the linear formulas makes balancing a game precisely a very hard job. So if you want my advise dont try to think too much in terms of restricting the game, instead make the need of abusing unnecessary or too boring to make the player think twice for a legal alternative.
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Orzog:
Unfortunately unless some attempt is made to eliminate these abuses we fall back into the same trap discussed many, many pages ago: having to consciously restrict ourselves in a variety of ways in order to maintain the challenge. To strive to deliberately do 'less than our best' is certainly one way to go about it, but it's a method I find incredibly dull. If I have to do this, then as I said before so long ago, why bother playing the game? The artificial self-made challenge that comes from avoiding the dozens of 'cheat's that can be used to make a character into a demi-god just doesn't cut it.
I've managed to make the game harder, certainly, but so long as the enchanting system exists in any form (and to a lesser extent, an alchemy system that allows one to stack potions with abandon) the super-cheats will be available. One of the problems I've smacked into again and again is trying to implement the enchantment system in *some* form that allows the player to do at least a few things without breaking everything else.
It just ain't possible. I bloody gave up today and just decided to live with the thoroughly emasculated but still vaguely functional remains of the Morrowind enchanting system in my mod. And I'm still not at all happy with the results, nor do I think I ever will be. The only way to 'fix' the system is to throw it out with the bathwater and replace it with a scripted alternative written from scratch. This I can do and just might after I get the mod running with Morrowind and install Tribunal.
Or who knows? Maybe I'll just throw up my hands and go play Seadogs 2.
Max
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It seems that there are two elements missing from Morrowind that are the primary concern of this thread:
- a system that works in whole and not just in part. This might be achieved, but only if an enormous amount of effort is invested into overhauling the game.
Can this be done by us? Sure, I think so, but it's disheartening to consider that 95% of the effort involved could easily be eliminated if only we had access to certain currently-hidden functions.
Does anyone really want to try this? I'm not so sure; I've completely revamped the system - and I do mean completely - with the exception of enchanting and alchemy, and yet I think that what I've done so far is the easiest of the tasks I've set myself. If I can get the zip file size down to 20 MB or so I'll release the mod as an alpha, but given both the effort and frustration involved I'm not too sure there'll ever be a beta, much less a 'production release'.
- a style of play that doesn't cater to the kiddies. By this I mean the stereotypical tripe where someone becomes a superhero/god/whatever and goes forth to fight the ultimate baddie, usually in some silly one-on-one battle. How many of us over the age of 12 would be so stupid and so insanely egotistical to run off to fight Dagoth Ur on our own??? How many of us older blokes would recruit a massive army to march with us there and secure the citadel/drive off Dagoth Ur so we could lazily march in and take care of that troublesome heart?
Hey, maybe not heroic, but really - heroism is for kids, silly rabbit. Especially the sort of stereotypical heroism that sells teen fantasy novels, the kind that in any real-life counterpart situation would get you killed right quick. Here on Earth we call heroes 'corpses'.
Intelligentsia (I think it was) has it right: you can get heart-pounding tense action and the satisfaction of a job well done without becoming a god, or demigod, or playing through a storyline that's trite and over-used. The Thief series is an excellent example of this sort of game play, as is Deus Ex (my two favorite games). It may not appeal to teen egos but I think we've had enough games made to cater to young males with childish expectations.
Can this be done? Sure. And much more easily than point one. By 'easily' I don't mean 'without alot of work', but rather 'no need to reinvent systems from scratch'. Here what's required is imagination and the ability to deftly tell a story - game design coupled with the literary skills of an author who can do something more than a new version of one of those blah D&D novels (Forgotten Realms? Can't remember now). Through game design one can overcome many of the problems inherent in the first point by eliminating the opportunities that arise to exploit them.
I'll give you an example. My mod was originally meant to be a test-bed for a new rule set, the ground work to what I call 'Morrowind 2000' - Morrowind revamped and rewritten for a time 2000 years after the Nerevarine. While Morrowind is high fantasy my mod was going to be thoroughly Thief-like low fantasy.
Now a reworked Morrowind allows for the elimination of many of the old abuses. Elimination of enchantments, overpowered rewards, etc. You make it impossible to quickly level because the opportunities for doing so don't exist in the game.
Instead of focusing on fighting, focus on role-playing with no 'high-fantasy' overarching storyline. Instead, incorporate a couple dozen 'major' storylines that're independent on one another; if you play through the game doing a, then d, f, and j are no longer possible as options. Play through again doing b and now they are. Make most of the quests require thought and *don't give out blasted hints like they're candy!*. Talking, sneaking, the occasional discreet murder - *these* are the elements of adult low fantasy.
Heck, if you wanted you could even eliminate magic users altogether, along with enchantments, and *really* make a Thief-like system. Or do as I was thinking and make magic *much* more rare, with only two or three opportunities for 'training' present anywhere in the game.
You get the picture. Sounded like fun before I started on my mod, now I'm not so sure. My obsession with this game - and it has been an obsession; good job at getting a jaded old gamer like myself to invest so much energy into the game, Bethesda - is running thin. The point is, however, that even if I decide to put the game cd's into storage and go load up Thief or Deus Ex again, it's possible for folks here to rework Morrowind into an entirely different game geared much more towards adults than to little kiddies.
I'm sure I had some other points as well, but I'm old and have forgotten them. Damn good thing, given the length of this post.
Max
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You can solve this problem in two ways. Either by restricting the game to the degree you can control it precisely to your intents. Which could be possible by scripting. But then players will get frustrated if they cant cheat to pass those areas they just cant figure out how to past.
Or by adding solutions to make cheating not desirable, but leave the possibility for the player to win the game if he wants. This is the devs solution i believe. It can get players in trouble if they dont know how to roleplay.
I supose your solution is better for new rpg players, but old rpg players will feel at home with the second. None is better than the other or more hard to make than the other they just fit different players.
I noticed that its an assumed idea that wizards need to get more powerful to match warriors in combat. Why not make warriors less powerful, daedric weapons take much less damage instead ?
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Orzog:
The problem isn't actually daedric weapons, but enchantments in general. Enchantments turn fighters into super-wizards who never miscast a spell and never expend any spell points. Eliminate the problems posed by enchantments and your fighters become...fighters. Combine this with a reworked magic system (still Morrowind, mind you) and you get wizards that are effective in battle and who will kill the silly fighter who tries to tank his way through Greater Fireball spells without taking some protective measures beforehand.
As for daedric weapons, the danger in these babies isn't in the damage they do but how much gold they can be traded in for. Gold = training = power-leveling = bad. Reduce their prices and life is good.
Concerning the adventures/storylines/jobs, you're taking too linear of an approach to the idea, i.e., boolean success/failure. What I'm talking about is, say, a half-dozen different outcomes, perhaps only one or two of which are clear failures. The others are different kinds of successes depending on what you, the player, hopes to achieve, or what you thought were the options available.
An example, taken from my notes on what I was going to do with Morrowind 2000:
One of the petty kingdoms is having a banditry problem and it's getting out of control. Notices have been posted offering rewards for the heads of bandits turned in to local garrison commanders.
The PC thinks 'hmmm' and decides to go bandit hunting, or does so accidentally when waylaid on the road. After turning in a set amount of heads all garrison commanders now have a dialogue option along the lines of "hey, I've heard about you, I think you should talk to the commander of the guard at the capitol concerning a...job...you might be interested in."
PC goes to the capitol, talks to the commander of the guard, hears more about the bandit problem and the suspicions the commander has that they're being backed by foreign money and manpower. PC is given clues as to who to talk to to try to find out where some of the 'bases' for these bandits might be.
So, skipping ahead, PC delves into the world of smugglers and thieves and fences, finds all seven of the bandit strongholds, collects all seven heads. On the last he finds a letter which seems to refer to covert funding coming from kingdom B.
Here's the first possible ending. PC turns in letter implicating kingdom B, relations between both kingdoms sour, perhaps some minor villages along the borders are replaced with smoking ruins to represent a brushfire war.
But if the PC investigates the letter and goes to kingdom A, he finds out that the person funneling funds to the bandits is actually an operative of kingdom C trying to start trouble between kingdoms A and B. Now we have our second ending, with A and B now friendly and threatening C with retaliation.
Ah, but what if the PC goes to kingdom C? Now assuming he's smart and lucky he discovers that only a single noble family in C is backing the effort in order to foment war, to further civil unrest under an unpopular and brutal king. The PC can alert the monarch of kingdom C, resulting in the destruction of this noble family and a return to normal relations for all three kingdoms; or he can back that family's efforts in an attempt to unseat the nasty dictator; or he could report the situation to either or both of kingdoms A and B. All wins depending on the will of the PC, all with different outcomes. Heck, he could even try to blackmail the noble family who started the trouble, with another possible ending and a chance for future adventures (e.g., the noble family hires assassins to hunt down the PC to keep their political machinations secret).
Here we have an adventure that's mostly role-play after the bandit kills, dealing with the nitty-gritty of politics and back-room deals and a host of people who, just like real politicians, aren't very nice people. It's all low-fantasy, with multiple outcomes that effect what opportunities the PC might have in the future.
What happens if the PC misses the clues that lead past the first or second ending? Well, so what? The player would never know unless she went to a forum and heard someone talking about it; for that player the situation is still a 'win'.
Ultimately there's no need to impose restrictions of any kind.
Max
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Although I have to admit, in the hallowed Deux Ex it was possible to become a little on the uber side. Can't remeber exactly, but the projectile resisting aug, the speed aug and maximum rifle skill were a little over powerful. the funniest had to be aggressive defence system maxed out. leaving the big corporate place in Hong Kong soldier with GEP gun.........baboom. hehehe. nevermind.
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I agree with the hero-stuff and how godlike is not better. In Daggerfall IMHO they had it right. You start the game with a purpose (albeit quite vague, HOW exactly are you supposed to rid a city of a king's ghost anyway ?), and discover only much later the truth behind all this and what the actual issue is. By that time, random adventuring and guild jobs kept you busy enough to become powerful, but you did not need that much power to succeed in the main quest. You just needed luck and patience to deal with the labyrinths of death
Whereas in Morrowind, you're recognized as demi-god potential by almost everyone only after a few quests...
In both games, the Emperor cleverly dispatches the right operator in a touchy spot. Yet in Daggerfall he was more subtle about this...
As for the whole magic item issue, I gave some ideas in previous posts in this thread for enchanting... You could also re-introduce identification for magic items. Though in DF you could use unidentified magic items and guess what their effect was through use...
What I realize people also want is a REASON to cast actual spells rather than using magic items. Mmmm. Well if you get yourself back in this situation : enchant governs % of potency of enchantment available to the player, number of charges used per try and speed of casting through magic items, and chance and magnitude of recharging magic items with soulgems (as there's no automatic recharge). If you SUCK at enchant, then casting a spell yourself is faster and more efficient, even if it costs magicka. Warrior-type characters who want to use magic items a lot should consider selecting enchant as minor or major, that's it. Enchant could become an alternate way of getting access to magic, like Alchemy is... I don't see why a magic-dependant character should choose over those 3 ways of accessing to magic because one or the other is more efficient. I feel though that it would be good to give more specificity to each of those 3 ways of accessing magic effects. Enchanted items can provide the player with a very large potential magicka pool. Allowing them to be recharged only via service or soulgems would be the way to balance it somehow. Alchemy requires ingredients and apparatus. Powerful potions are also expensive to make, and some nice ingredients rare, so this can balance things out for this part. Making potion effects not this easily stackable would be a nice addition though (only the most potent effect would be active if several similar potions are used at one time, or maybe there could be a limited stackability like 1st potion 100% effect, second 50% effect, third 25% effect etc.). Instant potion gulping is not unbalancing as long as there is a slight delay between drinking 2 potions. When you need a rapid healing through a potion in any game you want it to work immediatly (so that it can be useful even for regualr spellcasters ). Gulping 10 potions at the exact same time shouldn't be possible though. Maybe a few seconds real time delay would make sense.
Finally, spells directly cast by the user should evolve as the player gets better at casting spells of a particular school. The maximum potency of the spells cast by the player are limited by his maximum magicka. THe chance % of casting a spell is what is used in Morrowind rather than a slightly decreasing cost for each spell when you improve your magic skills. This is actually the same thing. If you get better at magic in MW, you won't waste magicka anymore, so the cost of acutally launching a spell is much less The % chance of casting is a better approach IMHO as it gives a chance for fatigue to affect the spellcasting (good), and reduces the powerhouse ability of mages. But, to incite spellcasters to improve their skills with more than an increased chance of casting a spell, you could offer free spell improvement points during level-up (gained when using magic schools skills, and specific to them). You could spend those points at mages guilds or anywhere proposing spell editing (a new option, "improve spells"), to improve the magnitude, duration, area or chance of spells already in your spell book. It could be hard to balance that feature but I feel it's better than to power up all spells without distinction. In DF max level was 32 for about every character I guess, and +x-x per level slider was WAY overpowered. If such a slider were to be used with a leveling system like Morrowind's it would have dramatic results
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Lisez le FAQ en français !
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I really like what you have said here max and I wish more games ran along plolitical lines such as the ones you proposed.
Though I do feel it's just a game as well and shouldn't be made 'too' much like our current world in terms of the level of maturity and experience needed to pick up on what is going on and what to do in a situation like that. Though a mature rating would fix all that now wouldn't it?
Be the firt M rating I've ever seen because of 'Mild Violence and extremly obscure political in-fighting"
Excellent Ideas none the less.
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I second that...
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Ploud
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I read in this month's Joystick magazine (the n°1 French PC gaming mag) that the average age of a videogame players (according to a Brittish survey) is now... 28. Seems mature enough for me
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wakim
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"Be the first M rating I've ever seen because of 'Mild Violence and extremely obscure political in-fighting' "
This made me laugh harder than the "bent probe" comment a page or so back.
The idea of "low fantasy" versus "high fantasy" (may I assume these terms are clearly defined in this lexicon?) may simply be a plea for intricacies and complexities which are rife in complex systems (viz. the real world) and absent when a single fantasy avatar gathers everything into a simplified singular embodiment. Perhaps the concept of appealing to a less puerile audience is simply the penchant for a more appealing mechanical and thematic construct which is best compared with "real life", since that is the preeminent embodiment of complexity. Not that fantasy should be a mirror, but that complex elements can be ineffable without metaphor drawn from experience.
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And there's no reason we can't combine complex low-fantasy with easy low-fantasy. Yet another example:
Taking into account the previous complicated situation, another series of 'adventures' I was going to incorporate were ruined mountain strongholds, the remains of a 600-year-long orcish occupation. Simple, straight-forward dungeon-crawling with a reason for the 'dungeons' to actually be there. You could approach this in a 'try to kill everything' sort of way, or in a more Thief-like style (sneak in, grab the loot, screw fighting the nasties). Pretty straight-forward but still low fantasy. The player whose brain is hurting over the last adventure can take a break in this one, or just avoid the whole political thing and go on a hack-'n-slash slugfest.
What's perplexing is that the average gamer - the people who spend the most money (by far) on PC computer games - is over 25. And yet the games are all geared towards 12-year-olds, what I would call 'the lowest common denominator' - but only in the sense that these youngest of gamers like simple games primarily because that's the age they're at (very short attention span). You could make a game that appeals to all ages so long as you didn't have to have the simplistic Big Goodie fights Big Baddie ending, like taking out a boss in Doom.
Max
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intelligentsia
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Heh. The premise for those strongholds is kinda like Dwemer ruins when you think about it.
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Diviner
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I have followed this thread only infrequently and I freeely admit that I have not read nearly all of it. I have two things to comment:
1) You guys have been doing incredible work, and I am looking forward to whatever you come up with on the magic system. It sounds really good - I know I am gonna use Wakims improvements when I start a new character next time adn hopefully maxpublics changes to the magic system will also become available in one way or another. I am sure it will be a great and different approach to what Bethesda implemented. Kudos and cheers.
2) I hate the prevalent holier-than-thou tone in much of the posts here. Stop throwing dirt at people who dare to enjoy MW as it is or characterizing them as a 12 year old target group or questioning intent or dedication of game programmers. It serves no purpose and makes for unpleasant reading. Make your changes the way you like them follow your vision and let the user choose - there are no absolute truths, and if you finally come out with your own version of the perfect rule system the critics wil be just around the corner.
Sorry, had to get that of my chest. As I said, I love what you guys are doing.
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[red]Get "MW Scripting for Dummies 5" TES scripting manual[/red]
And all my Mods!
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As for the '12-year-old' characterization, for once - no offense intended. I speak from personal experience, having just wrapped up a three-year stint teaching computer science to hundreds of middle school students. They really do have a very short attention span and prefer games that are simplistic - it's just a matter of biology, nothing more (the hormones make it hard to concentrate for extended periods of time).
So, this isn't a jab at middle-school kids - I happen to like 'em alot (more than many adults, actually). It's just a personal observation borne out over several years and perhaps a thousand kids. There are, and were in my case, exceptions of course, but they are exceptions.
My original point is that you can craft a game both for the kiddies (straight-forward constant adrenalin sort of action) and for the older folks (less adrenalin, more roleplaying). The two aren't mutually exclusive. We already have many games geared towards the first, so it'd be nice if we had some that included both elements - especially since it happens to be us older folks that're supporting the game industry, and not the younger ones.
As for my mod, I'm just finishing up the last of the leveled lists. Now I have to clean out my data files and remove all the unnecessary images and .nifs that've been installed. If I just zip up the entire batch it's 120 MB, so clearly that isn't going to fly. But if I can get it down to 20 or 30 MB, I'll send it to Morrowind Files or Morrowind Summit as soon as I turn the release notes into something legible.
Max
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Horatio
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what are the specific contents of your mod?
is it a mega-morrowind/adventurer's plugin change everything kinda mod? is it modular?
cheers
h
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Horatio:
I'll put up a generic announcement sort of thing (just finished the lists - woohoo!), but it's a massive overhaul of Morrowind. The most noticeable features would be:
- slower leveling and more expensive training
- a massive reduction of in-game gold
- a completely redone magic system; mages now rock!
- sane AR rating values for armors, along with a base skill of 40 for all characters (NPCs now much harder to hit)
- a reduction in random encounters, with most creatures not dangerous unless provoked
- improvements like WGI, only more extensive (Wakim is trying to make his mod compatible with others, while I have no qualms about breaking everyone else's mods :-))
- the addition of things I happen to be fond of but have no real game effects (e.g., Rhedd's heads, studded leather armor, etc.).
- and as they say on late-night infomercials, much, much more!
What I noticed from playtesting is that on starting a new game things don't seem to be that much different. But as time goes on you get hit with just how much little changes matter. E.g., magic is effective, NPC mages are dangerous, you're broke all the time, many of your skill points come from use and not training, factions laugh at you when you try to join them or use some of their services, etc.
I'll post a more extensive list once I get the mod up. Have to my data files, then start one new game to make sure I don't get any errors (I modified enchantments - again - and haven't even alpha'd the alterations, so I gotta make sure things don't break right from the start).
One thing I do guarrantee: you'll master the art of running away. :-)
Max
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"...there are no absolute truths..."
GhanBuriGhan, it is unavoidable to perceive this statement as anything but a contradiction to itself; if you meant that there are no absolute truths except that there are no absolute truths, which is the absolute truth? Need more be said of this concise paradox? I hope that none of my statements drive your ire, as I strive for little more than to create pleasant reading.
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"there are no absolute truths"
Ayn Rand would have a field day with this one. Well, assuming she weren't dead, of course.
Max
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Horatio
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Disciple
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"I have no qualms about breaking everyone else's mods"
well, there's nothing wrong with that attitude per se, but it means that most people will not be using your mod. not that it matters...my impression is that this is more of a personal mod that you're making available to the public rather than a mod designed with the public in mind.
anyway, i'm sure i'll give it a look and extract all the features i find beneficial and not incredibly conflict prone.
cheers
h
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Horatio:
The fact is, it's quite simply impossible to do the things I wanted to do with Morrowind Redux without changing just about darned near everything. And once I do that, the mod becomes incompatible with just about every other mod out there.
On the other hand, there's nothing stopping anyone from using this mod to play one game, and then playing another game using other mods. That's one thing Bethesda did which is simply brilliant.
Max
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Yes Bethesda has finally given us the chance to be computer Dungeon Masters with almost the same vastness of potential realities as a board game version.
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wakim
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Adept
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Is it worthwile to read Atlas Shrugged? I haven't, yet, although I see Ayn Rand referenced enough to pique my interest.
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Iudas
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Yes.
And that is an absolute truth
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Yes, it is. Pretty much anything she writes is interesting. I'd also recommend "Introduction to Objective Epistemology", and "Philosophy: Who Needs It?".
Max
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Hey Max
Is there any gameplay setting thay you can modify to lower the value of certain materials or do you got to do manually?Im referring to your chart a while back.
qwert
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There's no game setting I know of to blanketly lower the value of particular materials. I did it by hand throughout the entire mod. Ick Ack, as Bill the Cat would say.
Max
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LDones
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Alright folks, most everything I've been babbling about since the olden days when this thread was bright-eyed and the world was new to it is finished and available for download.
This includes two main mods/packages, another little mod I threw together awhile back, and then a few other goodies tossed up for good measure.
So go check out this post for the details, grab the files, & let me know what you all think/how well the mods work. I spent the past three days figuring and refining and testing the hell out of everything, but there's bound to be some level of weirdness.
You can also just go straight to this page to pick up the files and eliminate the middleman. I've posted my mods and a few other things for kicks. (I put up a copy of WGI, Wakim, I hope you don't mind - It's significant enough of a step-up in terms of gameplay that I wanted to have it on hand for anybody who was sampling my mods)
Javohl!
And thanks everybody for the help & for generally thinking critically about modding this game and spreading that critical inspiration. I'm gonna chill out for awhile, and then find some new project to harp on. (I was thinking about re-wiring the main quests to be accessible and surmountable to all kinds of characters, but I don't want to get ahead of myself yet.)
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http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles
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Anyone who describes WGI as, "...making Morrowind a richer and more vibrant world for all kinds of characters to play in." can post my mod anywhere, anytime.
The Thief Experience Overhaul mod: Your research and experiments make this a must have addition to Morrowind, for any character class type, not just thieves; as it positively affects under-developed aspects of Morrowind mechanics. I like the armor effects mod as well, it adds a layer of realism and complexity to the pixels we shove in our character's equipment slots. Impressive mods, and a very nicely designed web page to complement them.
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WOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
qwert
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Awesome! I've been waiting for a mod like this for a long time. Great work.
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orzog
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maxpublic:
"What happens if the PC misses the clues that lead past the first or second ending? Well, so what? The player would never know unless she went to a forum and heard someone talking about it; for that player the situation is still a 'win'.
Ultimately there's no need to impose restrictions of any kind. "
A good quest can improve a game playability. Multiple endings like in that quest you described sound like good fun. And better yet the power balance can be much more realistic because the designer doesnt need to make the game less realistic in order to give the player a way to allways finish the game.
I think the problem with Morrowind is the age of the system. It still uses attributes and mathematical formulas to simulate the player skills. Even Fallout that had amazing quests and was created by one of the best guys in the RPG genre had a lot of unbalances because of the skills system. The DeusEx system is much better. There are not attributes or levels, only skills that can be learned to 5 different degrees. The only problem with DeusEx was that the player would not increase skills automatically in those he used most.
If i had to build an RPG right now i would only use modifiers. Everyone was a common joe or have a modifiers good or bad relating to his past. Then by using skills common joe would gain new modifiers on those skills or improve the old ones. After gaining a certain set of modifiers common joe would be considered a thief, warrior or wizard depending on what set he developed. I would not use formulas just scripts that could be attached to everything not only objects but every event in the game. Non-blocking dialogs and in-game scenes as complex as movie scenes that the player could interact with.
Just an idea. I think that DeusEx2 will be a little like this.
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Orzog:
Unfortunately the game companies that tend to do well in one area tend to suck in others. There's very little real talent and it's spread out all over the place. In order to get the game you and I are talking about we'd need to recruit the best and brightest from at least a half-dozen different places - and I guarantee that even if such lightning were to strike the clash of egos would leave us with nothing more than a room full of corpses.
There are some very few good game designers, followed by a great many who *think* they're great and won't hear any comments to the contrary. The game industry makes one huge mistake here: they assume that the designer must also be a programmer, and yet the ability to program and the ability to design a coherent game system and intricate plots are not the same thing - in fact, I'd say that in most instances they're mutually exclusive.
Imagine if you managed to snag someone like Steve Perrin, creator of RuneQuest, and made him petty dictator of a game company where the programmers did what they were supposed to and nothing more - that is, program. I suspect what you'd end up with is one hell of a CRPG.
Max
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Just to be informative, latest info on Deus Ex 2 says they will be dumping most of the skill system to focus more on augmentation. Apparently, the skills were one of the least popular parts of Deus Ex among many players. I believe I speak for the rest of us when I say I am dissapointed.
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intelligentsia
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I'm disappointed to see it go completely, however, it was totally unbalanced. At the start you are a pretty damn uber augmented agent who takes longer to aim a gun than I do in real life, yet at the end you can pick someone off with a sniper rifle from 200 yards without the scope.
Personally I'd have liked to seen it merely toned down.
It does make sense when you consider the caliber of your character, ie they would already have great combat skill. Thus an expanded aug system does make sense.
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There's no such thing, I know. But I'm sitting here thinking about how the current enchanting system could be changed to something that makes more sense and is more balanced. Forgetting for the moment what we actually can and can't do, what elements do you think would comprise a workable enchantment system?
My ideas on the matter:
- no intelligent enchantments. By this I mean no enchantments which require 'intelligent' action on the part of the enchanted object. I view the enchantment as a tool, used for a particular task; the tool can't see, hear, reason, or make decisions. Press the button and the toaster will toast; it doesn't care or know if it's empty, contains bread, or your fingers are stuck in the heating element. And it won't press the button on it's own.
- I never much cared for the 'scroll' concept, although it's part and parcel to most enchantment systems. I'd replace this with magical gems - actual mined gems capable of storing a certain amount of magical energy. You cast the spell into the gem and it's 'stored' just before the moment of release until used. Once used the gem is empty. This gives the aspiring mage the ability to cast spells under safe conditions for use later.
Implemented in the game, this would simply add an 'always successful' spell with a 0 point cost when the item is equipped, scripted to disable if the spell is used. Exactly like casting a regular spell, except that it only works once, will cost you nothing, takes the same amount of time (no spamming), and the object could be 're-imprinted' with another spell by a competent enchanter.
- another gem idea (which like the previous one could be mounted in an item): one that simply stores spell points, like a battery. When safe at home the mage charges it up; later on he can draw on the battery to replenish his own spell points. RuneQuest used items like this and they worked quite well.
- a third type of gem idea would be a 'catalytic' effect, i.e., it would reduce the cost of casting spells from a particular school of magic (or in rare cases, from all schools) by a certain percentage.
And for items other than the ones above:
- rings/amulets/whatever that give you an 'always cast' spell like the above, but are constant. So long as they're equipped you have the spell. But you have to draw on your own spell points in order to power the spell.
- no self-recharging items. An effect item (e.g., a Ring of Water Breathing) would be able to store x amount of spell points, and would drain these spell points while in use. Once it reaches 0 points the item is no longer useful until recharged. Who could recharge it? Anyone with a high enough enchantment skill.
- constant effects. These are rare, always work, and cost no spell points. E.g., a flaming sword.
How to restrict enchantments? My idea is based upon actual physical rarity; each type of enchantment takes a certain kind of gem capable of imprinting or storing magical power. These gems are mined just like any other and are very rare. Finding one able to incorporate a constant effect would be a major triumph, possibly even a quest.
I'm also of the opinion that already-made objects shouldn't be enchantable. If you want to enchant a shirt, you need to do so as you're weaving it; if you want to enchant armor, you need to enter the process while you're actually forging it. This means you'd need a decent Enchant Skill, a decent Armorer skill, a good skill rating in the school of magic you intend to use - and the right kind and amount of the aforementioned gems. Fail and you destroy your source material.
Thoughts?
Max
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It is my personal opinion that the whole enchantment problem can be solved with two things:
First off enchanted items should cost a 'whole' lot more to buy than regular rings, clothing, etc. The added cost will be worth it, as many items that used to have a 'cast when used' effect would instead be 'constant effect'. I think the various barrier rings should have had this in the first place, but cost more than 5 gold. I would say around 5,000 for a second barrier ring.
Second they need to reduce the 'amount' of magic items to buy. I can go to any enchanter or weaponsmith and they almost always have something magical to buy. Certain powerful items should be rarer than they actually are, and certain weak items should be more prolific. By increasing the rarity of enchanted items we will see that no matter what type of magic item you come across you will certainly keep it because of it's rarity. It seemed rediculous the amount of items that were magical just in morrowind, I'd cringe to see the total amount of items on the rest of the continent if this small island has the majority of major and minor artifacts I have read about.
I would also keep the costs for using an enchanter to enchant items, but I would also give someone who has the enchant skill a bit more power when it comes to how much enchantment can be put in items and how powerful those enchantments can get without having to use alchemy to raise all my stats high enough.
And the last thing I would consider would be making the various 'cast when used' items like ring of fireball to work only a certain number of times per 24 hours instead of having a charge cost.
I pretty much blabbered on about this so don't haze me for sounding like an idiot if I do. And if anyone would like to expand on this and give some opinions on the matter from a more 'modder' type of view go right ahead. I don't do mods, I just play and discover faults so I don't know how the TESCS works.
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Those are some good ideas. I, too, was put off by the plethora of enchanted devices; I normally like games with little magic so this was one of the 'down sides' of Morrowind for me.
I think that every magic item - and I mean *every* magic item - should be unique, with it's own back story. Someone obviously went to a lot of trouble to make the thing, unless there's an enchanter factory someplace in Morrowind stamping out 'cruel fire bolt' rings by the hundreds. If every item is unique, then the sum total of all items would be very rare - if only because the game designers would become bored to tears trying to think up yet another background for their newest, niftiest item.
And that would be fine. Every enchantment discovered/fought for/stolen would be an 'oh wow' experience rather than a 'ho hum, yet another item x' experience.
Max
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Just a few ideas of what I think would make the enchanting system better, most of it probably not useable but that just makes it similar to a lot of suggestions in this thread. I like the idea of making a difference between magic and enchanted items. Magical items would be magical by nature. Somebody, I think it was Max talking about his huge mod, said something about making most magical items just better than normal items with no powers other than the ability to effect weapon immune magical creatures. I'd like to see the vast majority of magical items be this, and there would be less of these, maybe half to a fourth of what's in Morrowind now. Then you have actual artifacts, which I think should be very rare, do something blatantly magical, and either be constant effect or cast once a day. All of these would be unmakeable by players, taking too long and could not be made from preexisting items, a magical steel long sword has to be made as a magical steel long sword when it's forged. Then you would have Enchanted items, which would be short term bewitchment, and usually destroy the object they were placed on once the enchantment was used up. Maybe allow magical items to be enchanted with impunity while mundane items crumble to dust from the stress of the magical energies after the enchantment has run it's course. I'm not sure I'm describing my idea very well, but it sure seems neat in my head. A gifted enchanter could turn a rusty dagger into something to fear but when the impressive enchantment ran out you'd be left holding a handful of dusty. Maybe give mundane magical items a small chance of exploding or giving way in some spectacular manner. I think it would be awesome, you swing that cheap little paralyzation knife at the bandit knowing that the damn thing is going to fall apart any second, and that you don't have a back up, and then not only does it give way but it gives way early and paralyzes you.
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Aragon_
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Layman
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Reged: 12/07/02
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I have just spend two days reading this thread and it was good to see that so many people try to balance Morrowind. In the end, it was disappointing to discover that most deficiencies can not be solved by plugins alone. I therefore propose to define a set of rules together with some plugins to make Morrowind a more challenging and fun game.
The plugins would be Wakim's excellent mod (especially nice for the mages among us), and LDones thief experience and armor mod. Possibly, we should also add the mana regen and mana cost mods to allow for a more enjoyable development of pure mages.
The rules are a bit harder. As said before in this thread, you want to excel in the game and not hold yourself back. However, I believe that a clear set of simple rules should allow you to play the game the best you can without feeling that your are held back -- you rather feel proud that you don't cheat!
Ok, here are the "pure game" rules dealing with economy:
1) Merchants never buy items that are worth more than their base amount of gold. This means that the most expensive item you can ever sell costs 10k gold.
2) Only enchanters buy soul gems.
3) Self made potions can not be sold.
I believe that these three rules make it much more difficult collect much gold. This immediately fixes the training problem. Still, I would add the following two rules to prevent power levelling:
4) A single skill can not be raised by more than 4 points per level, unless it happens naturally -- quite reasonable.
5) The Major/Minor skills can only be trained by at most 4 points total per level.
Ok, on to alchemy and enchantments:
6) (by Gyb) Player created effects can never stack. You are allowed to stack with game artifacts.
7) You can only drink one potion at a time, and you have to wait until the "effect animation" stops (about 2 seconds) before you can do anything else, like drinking another potion. This adds also some realism, since it suddenly becomes much harder to drink a potion during a fight!
8) In the same vein, you can only cast an enchantment once every two seconds, like spells. This prevents uzi style enchantment casting.
9) (by Gyb) Nor the magnitude of an enchantment, nor the enchantment points can exceed the base value of the relevant skill when creating an enchantment. When you create an enchantment yourself, these values should also be lower than your Enchant skill.
10) You can not buy enchanted items from merchants.
I believe that these rules are pretty simple and allow one to enjoy morrowind much more (and as it is). I wonder though whether there still aren't any exploits left, or whether these rules actually lead to a fair game.
All the best,
Aragon.
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If you just got done reading this thread I'd think you would understand that the whole point of this thread was that the player SHOULD strive to do as well inside of the environment presented by the game as possible. Self limitation in the way you mention is exactly what most of us have found ourselves doing and the thing most of us don't like. I can still remember my first morrowind character, made it up to level 32, had skullcrusher, maxed out most of my skills, was covered in constant effect restore health enchantments. I actually quit playing Morrowind completely at that point, no challenge and no fun means this trooper goes somewhere else. I'd say the thing that brought me back was Wakim's game improvements. They have made the game worth playing for me again. Now I admit I still have to restrain myself a little bit, but not nearly as much, mostly in regard to the enchantment system. I wish some of the more extreme ideas in this thread were implementable, maybe then I wouldn't have to hold myself back at all.
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Aragon_
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Layman
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Reged: 12/07/02
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I agree that the player should strive to do as well as possible, and not hold back. However, self-limitation could be acceptable if you define a clear framework, instead of deciding each time again whether to hold back or not -- to use this item or not, to buy this constant enchantment or not etc. With a clear set of rules, you create again an environment in which you can strive to excel, the only drawback here, although a severe one, is the inability of the system to automatically enforce these rules on you. The question that is left is: can we actually devise a simple and clear set of rules that allow one to play as well as possible without further unbalancing the game?
And of course, you are right -- it would be much better if the game would have been designed in such a way that we could fix this with plugins and enjoy it without ever thinking about these rules -- or be tempted to circumvent them.
All the best,
Aragon.
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In regards to self-limitation, I find it very un-efficiant to limit yourself just to have fun.
What needs to be done about this is an improvement to the AI. I know this is impossible, but I can't see any other reason more suitable to make this a more balanced game.
When mages are easily avoided by dodging their magic blasts, and warriors are easily avoided by levitating above them and raining down hell, this leaves little to no stratagy involved in defeating opponents who aren't 'smart' enough to carry around levitating potions, or to cast those area effect spells at your feet so you can't dodge them as easily.
Clearly if you had NPC's who will steal, bribe, lie, and kill their way to defeating you on a political level or using existing powers they have to different degrees in order to save themselves instead of just killing you, you would have a game that resembles more accurate behavior than assesing each encounter by killing the PC.
How many NPC's do you know that have used recall in order to avoid you and be better prepared next time? Or an NPC who is an expert at acrobatics and jumping who, instead of pulling out his dagger to fight you, runs and leaps over several walls you cannot possibly make without a 100 or so in acrobatics?
Once again this cannot be implemented with current moding options, but it certainly would make the game a bit more 'balanced' and 'real' considering what skills the NPC's excell at.
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wakim
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Adept
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Reged: 10/02/02
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I think Aragon's rules are good ideas, rule numbers 4 and 5 (referencing training) are great ideas I haven't heard before; I wonder if they could be enacted with inventive scripting? Actually, since Horatio was able to refund magicka based of a spell's school, I wonder if an enchanted item cast delay (Aragon's number 8) could be done in the same, or similar manner? Always try and do at least two impossible things before breakfast.
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Alastor:
You can reduce the chances of dodging spells by increasing the speed of the spells. I've doubled it (I think, have to go back and check) and have been hit a number of times, especially at close quarters (no chance of dodging, the spell is too fast).
Levitation should just be tossed altogether. There's no easier way to break the game AI. I would've eliminated myself in my mod, but trying to 'jump' up those Telvanni towers requires the skill of a 13-year-old Nintendo addict. I just couldn't do it reliably. If I decide to do Morrowind 2000 there will be no levitation of any kind.
As for NPCs using devious methods to eliminate a character, this could be scripted. In fact, I believe it'd be possible to declare a series of global variables determining the PC's 'threat status' to individuals and/or organizations, then running scripts based on that status that would result in random assassination attempts, or ambushes, or being framed for a crime, etc. I investigated this to see if I could set new 'crime levels' for the different kingdoms of Morrowind 2000 and it looked workable, though I haven't tested it.
You might be able to script an NPC to recall out of a bad situation to some other location. I'm sure it could be worked around (disable/enable); I'm not sure if you could actually teleport the NPC from cell a to unloaded cell b without getting some strange effects.
So you could implement several of these ideas through smart scripting or changing the game a bit. Work around the AI, so to speak.
Max
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Wow, I had no idea that it could be implemented in that manner, cudos.
While my opinions are meger I must say I hope to see some better improvments to the ES engine in the future games.
I also hope to 'not' see another expansion, considering that they spent too little time on Tribunal, I suggest they just begin TES 4 and go with that for another 4-5 years.
Although I'm sure a lot of wanna-be godlike ego-maniacs and certain monopolizing conglomerates would certainly not like to see the TES games on the back burner for long; since we all know these types prefer quantity over quality...what a shame.
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Iudas
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Adept
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Reged: 10/30/02
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This thread deserves a bump.
and I have bumped it.
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Wow, well, just to remove spells because they are too powerfu?
Yes, but.
There *are* ideas, how to balance such a spell (and here comes mine):
1.) There should be ongoing use of mana for each ongoing spell. Until now, once you have the mana, you are fine: cast, forget, fly and kill. An ongoing use of mana would either let you drop from the sky, once your mana is out (and balancing would mean: "Levitate" should suck mana like a jet sucks kerosin).
2.) Levitating should, or at least could mean "bobbling through the sky", that is, any action like further spellcasting or use of weapons (bows and the like) should bring grave penalties upon the desired action.
3.) Even more, you could define some spells as having "need for concentration", so that multitasking is either impossible, or brings risk of dropping, like, well, flying a jet 10 ft. over rooftops and peeling your banana at the same time.
Out of these, the mana-sucking would be easy to make by scripting, just have an ongoing global script that checks for magical effects on you, and eats mana then. Thsi could work for any spell, of course.
Just my 2 cents.
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Discussing with a fool makes you look like another...
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CoolDemon
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Adept
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Reged: 01/20/03
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Loc: the Land of Freadom: the Netherlands
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Ok, I know this is a old threat but I might have some input here:
instead of checking if spells are being cast during levitation, there is another way to prevent players from hovering in the sky raining spells/missiles on their foes, by simply crippling their ability to cast offensive spells.
It could be simply implementing by a global script that detect the activity of the levitation spell and cast a curse on the player if the levitation spell is affecting the player. so during levitation a player will be influenced by a curse that both lowers (drain skill) the skills marksmanship and destruction. once levitation ends, the script removes the curse and the player will be back to normal
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The more you know, the more you understand, how little you know.
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Bump for scripting so genetic.
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CoolDemon
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Adept
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Reged: 01/20/03
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Loc: the Land of Freadom: the Netherlands
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In my own quest for making a more balanced magic experience
, I have made a mod that will reduce the mana cost (but not their difficulty) of all spells. This mod called "Magic Mastery" will reduce mana cost depending on your fatigue percentage and your average magic skills mastery. This means a player focused on magic skills will be able to cast spells longer before running out of mana. and a player who is not will hardly notice ant effects.
This mod will in contrast to other mana regenerating plugins not cripple game balance by giving you a sense of an unlimited mana supply and never having to rest any more (due to the constand regenerated many supply). instead, the cost of spells will be reduced depending on magic skill and fatigue (concentration) up to a a maximum (maximised magic skills + fully concentrated (100% fatigue)) of 1 mana point cost. So a fully experienced wizard (maximised magic skills) with 200 mana points, will be able to cast up to 200 spells before he needs to sleep again.
This mod will not modify any global settings not spells. It all is based on a script that will give mana back to the player after a spell is cast. This script will give mana back if the player is being affected by drain, damage of absorb mana spell.
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The more you know, the more you understand, how little you know.
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