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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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LDones
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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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LDones
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Curate
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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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LDones
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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
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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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LDones
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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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Horatio
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Disciple
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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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LDones
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Curate
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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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wakim
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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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wakim
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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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wakim
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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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wakim
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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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