BTB's Game Improvements & The Raiders of the Lost Topic

Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:03 pm

Yeah, but there's a whole bunch of heal companion spells, so I did my best to stagger them out in terms of cost/magnitude. The cheapest one (Veloth's Gift) cures 30 health, the next one in line (Zenithar's Gospel) cures 60, then 90, then 120, then 180.

Oh, I forgot those... then I'm ok.

Well, bear in mind that one thing I didn't take into account when I made these values initially was stackability

Good point, I forgot that too. Maybe Hrnchamd will finally come up with a "fix" for such abuses.

An exclusive potion is 250. Previously, bargain potions offered way, way too much bang for the buck, whereas quality and exclusive potions were pretty much vendor trash.

True. Selling exclusive potions has always been profitable, maybe too much.
Once you reach a certain level you start finding a plethora of such potions which provides easy money.

By the by, with regards to the Marksman thing, I'd like to point out that even though I'm slowing it down along with the melee weapons, the growth ratio remains the same (i.e., it grows 50% faster than melee weapons do). Unless you were trying to say that your Marksman skill grows slower than all of your *other* skills, which I'd find hard to imagine.

I was speaking about your first suggestion, now I think 0.75 is just fine.

By the way, I will also be going through every spell and determining whether or not it's as readily available as it should be (i.e., certain spells are only sold by one or two NPCs that may refuse service to you), so there should be a few more additions of spells, particularly the low-level ones, to more accessible merchants in the coming update.

Good idea. Early in the game, I always spend a *lot* of time and money traveling across Vvardenfel looking for the only merchants who accept to sell me one of the few vital spells for my adventures.
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joseluis perez
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 5:41 pm

Good idea. Early in the game, I always spend a *lot* of time and money traveling across Vvardenfel looking for the only merchants who accept to sell me one of the few vital spells for my adventures.


Well, I have my list made... were there any spells in specific you wanted me to look at?
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priscillaaa
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:57 pm

All righty, I am now officially done with everything except the "Equipment" plugin and deciding how to handle the new spell merchants issue in the "Spells" plugin.

Here's the changelog at the moment:

Very nice changes. :celebration:

I'm very pleased that you've beefed up the damage health spells.

Are you going to add some lower level restore magicka potions to vendors like we discussed?

Also, you said you made it so you can't camp without getting attacked. Will this happen even in places, like interiors, where there are no enemies? I liked being able to purge a crypt or something of enemies then resting in it before going back outside.

Edit: By the way, I just recently started using the Madd Leveler, and it's pretty nice. For ever 3 skill levels you get 1 point to its governing attribute. It also gives you a maximum of 1 point per attribute at level up to balance that. I only wish the Morrowind GUI allowed me to allocate 3 points all to one attribute if I wanted. Is anyone else familiar with this mod and have an opinion about it?
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jesse villaneda
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 8:12 am

I fully agree. But I as I follow BTB's principles, I just try to find a way to "to discourage the spamming/grinding of skills as much as possible while promoting their growth through regular use". If there is a way to grinding it can be really tempting.

Considering my experience, what you say is true for melee weapons, but I'm generally frustrated with marksman which improves at a slower pace, which systematically ends up grinding a long time until I get a decent chance to hit.
As BTB is suggesting to lower the growth rate, I'm afraid it'll get worse.

To be honest, it's not a big deal to me as there are a lot of other things I'm much more concerned about. It just seems like a minor difference in level growth and I'm fine with whatever the consensus is on it I think. That said, I usually end up attacking from range more than anything else so my personal experience is for Marksman to rise quickly. My chance-to-hit is usually never that poor even if I take it as a minor skill though I do use Dunmer every time and take Agility+Stealth when making my class so that can make a big difference.

I'm pretty sure it does. I might actually reneg on this change, since I made it at the last minute when I was redoing the resist disease spells and kept thinking to myself that I still couldn't envision myself ever using them.

I suggest toning down the disease rates because under vanilla values you can still catch diseases fairly often if you are out in the wilderness a lot and they can be annoying to cure. On the other hand, needing to always keep Resist Disease potions around is kind of interesting. Actually, this is just another argument in favour of slowing Marksman progression.
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Alyna
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 11:13 am

Well, I have my list made... were there any spells in specific you wanted me to look at?


Here is the spells I usually look for early in the game:

Spoiler

Very important:
- Restore Attribute
- Cure Common Disease
- Restore Health (ok with Arrille or potions)
- Restore Fatigue (ok with potions)

Important:
- Cure Poison
- Resist Blight Disease
- Mark
- Recall
- Levitate (ok with potions)
- Jump (ok with potions)
- Water Breathing (or eating mushrooms)
- Telekinesis (for traps if I have no thief abilities)

Less important:
- Water Walking
- Invisibility
- Sanctuary
- Detect Enchantment
- Feather (ok with potions)
- Night Eye (ok with potions)
- Almsivi Intervention (ok with scrolls)
- Divine Intervention (ok with scrolls)



On the other hand, needing to always keep Resist Disease potions around is kind of interesting. Actually, this is just another argument in favour of slowing Marksman progression.

If you spend time traveling in the wilderness, you'll encounter a lot of potentially diseased creatures, so if your strategy is to prevent diseases with resistance potions, you'll need a lot of them. The problem is it's hard to buy and carry that much potions. And with MCP 2.0, hand-made potions will be as heavy as merchant ones.
So I'm not convinced of the usefulness of resist disease potions yet.
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Mackenzie
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 9:31 pm

If you spend time traveling in the wilderness, you'll encounter a lot of potentially diseased creatures, so if your strategy is to prevent diseases with resistance potions, you'll need a lot of them. The problem is it's hard to buy and carry that much potions. And with MCP 2.0, hand-made potions will be as heavy as merchant ones.
So I'm not convinced of the usefulness of resist disease potions yet.

Well, just set up Temple merchants with lightweight, cheap Resist Disease potions kind of like how some organizations like to give away cheap condems for the same reason.
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James Hate
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:32 pm

Well, just set up Temple merchants with lightweight, cheap Resist Disease potions kind of like how some organizations like to give away cheap condems for the same reason.

Sorry, I don't get what you mean (sorry for my "cheap" English :unsure: )

I think the way I would handle the BoBS is perhaps 50pts Athletics/50pts Blind for maybe a shorter duration and adjust the charge cost so it's somewhat more prohibitive to use.

I would like to answer here to this comment: I agree with you on the fact the Boots of Blinding Speed have been nerfed too much.
As they are a reward, I feel they have to be useful in some situations. Cutting the blind value in half seems fair.
However I don't know what happens if you replace +50 speed with +50 athletics.
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Code Affinity
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 8:06 pm

If you spend time traveling in the wilderness, you'll encounter a lot of potentially diseased creatures, so if your strategy is to prevent diseases with resistance potions, you'll need a lot of them. The problem is it's hard to buy and carry that much potions. And with MCP 2.0, hand-made potions will be as heavy as merchant ones.
So I'm not convinced of the usefulness of resist disease potions yet.
It seems to me that something like a disease resistance potion should last for quite a long time, something like ten minutes.

I just think there are certain cases where effects like disease resistance or night-eye should be long-lived enough where you only need to take the potion once, maybe twice, when going into a dungeon or traveling a bit. The Witcher is a good example of this. Potion effects last for hours, but you're limited in the amount you can take by the toxicity of the potion. This could maybe be expressed in Morrowind with potions and spells by a drain fatigue effect. Naturally, that is only going to be effective if MCP changes Resist Magicka to only apply to external forces.

Edit: On the matter of the Boots of Blinding Speed, how about a script that only makes them work while not in combat? So you can't use them to run away from a fight unless you're fast enough to escape under your own power. Though I can't use them anyways since I'm Argonian. They probably would have been more useful to travel with when combining them with water walking and the like than using Wild Levitate so often.
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Mylizards Dot com
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 3:43 pm

It seems to me that something like a disease resistance potion should last for quite a long time, something like ten minutes.

Agreed!
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Lyd
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 4:29 pm

Sorry, I don't get what you mean (sorry for my "cheap" English :unsure: )

Just put some restocking Resist Disease potions in Temple locations so the player has easy access to them.
I would like to answer here to this comment: I agree with you on the fact the Boots of Blinding Speed have been nerfed too much.
As they are a reward, I feel they have to be useful in some situations. Cutting the blind value in half seems fair.
However I don't know what happens if you replace +50 speed with +50 athletics.

Well, 50 Athletics will likely still allow you to make a hasty retreat. If Resist Magicka is not a problem, then we should halve the Blind effect so they're not so hazardous to use but still live up to their namesake.

It seems to me that something like a disease resistance potion should last for quite a long time, something like ten minutes.

Sounds good.

I just think there are certain cases where effects like disease resistance or night-eye should be long-lived enough where you only need to take the potion once, maybe twice, when going into a dungeon or traveling a bit. The Witcher is a good example of this. Potion effects last for hours, but you're limited in the amount you can take by the toxicity of the potion. This could maybe be expressed in Morrowind with potions and spells by a drain fatigue effect. Naturally, that is only going to be effective if MCP changes Resist Magicka to only apply to external forces.

If the potion prices are appropriately increased, it would probably work much better if they simply lasted for a long time.

Edit: On the matter of the Boots of Blinding Speed, how about a script that only makes them work while not in combat? So you can't use them to run away from a fight unless you're fast enough to escape under your own power. Though I can't use them anyways since I'm Argonian. They probably would have been more useful to travel with when combining them with water walking and the like than using Wild Levitate so often.

I like the idea but I'm kind of opposed to using scripts for things like this... From a gameplay perspective, this would probably be the ideal solution but it might be a bit immersion-breaking when you suddenly slow to a snail's pace the moment a Cliff Racer spots you.
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Melung Chan
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:35 pm

I like the idea but I'm kind of opposed to using scripts for things like this... From a gameplay perspective, this would probably be the ideal solution but it might be a bit immersion-breaking when you suddenly slow to a snail's pace the moment a Cliff Racer spots you.

I think your problem is that you don't consider the boots themselves to be immersion-breaking. ;)
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Jason Rice
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:19 pm

Yeah, I'm really not a big fan of scripts. I resort to them when I absolutely have to but that's it.

And what I'm hearing here is that I should increase the duration of resist disease potions. I can do that.

Bargain = 60
Cheap = 90
Standard = 120
Quality = 180
Exclusive = 600
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Fluffer
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 7:40 pm

Yeah, I'm really not a big fan of scripts. I resort to them when I absolutely have to but that's it.

And what I'm hearing here is that I should increase the duration of resist disease potions. I can do that.

Bargain = 60
Cheap = 90
Standard = 120
Quality = 180
Exclusive = 600

I was suggesting that all of the potions have a long duration of about 10 minutes. The level of the potion would apply to the magnitude of resistance.

But if you really want to have the potion level affect the duration, then I would suggest 2 minutes for bargain with two additional minutes per level.
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!beef
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 7:17 pm

I was suggesting that all of the potions have a long duration of about 10 minutes. The level of the potion would apply to the magnitude of resistance.

But if you really want to have the potion level affect the duration, then I would suggest 2 minutes for bargain with two additional minutes per level.


Remember that I'm also having to take stackability into account. Giving all five potions the same duration would make ten bargain potions the equivalent of one exclusive.

If those numbers *still* aren't enough, I may bump them up some more, but bargain will most likely be capped at 60 seconds.
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Annick Charron
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:08 pm

Remember that I'm also having to take stackability into account. Giving all five potions the same duration would make ten bargain potions the equivalent of one exclusive.

If those numbers *still* aren't enough, I may bump them up some more, but bargain will most likely be capped at 60 seconds.

Ah, in that case, how about: 60, 120, 240, 480, 960
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Tasha Clifford
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 5:21 pm

I think your problem is that you don't consider the boots themselves to be immersion-breaking. ;)

Heh, well they can be a positive element in the game if they are properly adjusted.

I'm in favour of extremely-long-duration Resist Disease potions even if you have to modify the pricing scheme but I'd understand if you didn't want to touch prices. I don't think a 5 gold Bargain potion really needs to last that long but I feel that magnitudes should start out fairly high maybe even at 100 but I guess potions do stack...
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lucile
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:17 pm

Ah, in that case, how about: 60, 120, 240, 480, 960


'eh, 960 may be a bit too much for exclusive potions. They give *full* immunity, so 600 seconds is actually already pretty high.

60, 90, 180, 300, 600 perhaps?

Heh, well they can be a positive element in the game if they are properly adjusted. I'm in favour of extremely-long-duration Resist Disease potions even if you have to modify the pricing scheme but I'd understand if you didn't want to touch prices. I don't think a 5 gold Bargain potion really needs to last that long but I feel that magnitudes should start out fairly high maybe even at 100 but I guess potions do stack...


25/50/75/100 seemed the best scatter for the magnitudes, and I gave 10 to bargain potions just because I needed a fifth number. Plus, again, these are *bargain* potions. If nothing else, you can stack them on top of better ones.
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RObert loVes MOmmy
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:13 pm

So how much do you have left to do before release?
'eh, 960 may be a bit too much for exclusive potions. They give *full* immunity, so 600 seconds is actually already pretty high.

Ah, I didn't know they gave full immunity.
60, 90, 180, 300, 600 perhaps?

That was actually my first thought.
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GEo LIme
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:08 pm

So how much do you have left to do before release?

Ah, I didn't know they gave full immunity.


Yep. The magnitude spread is 10/25/50/75/100

I have to use both magnitude and duration effectively to make each potion actually worth its stated value, and so that you can't just get the same effect of an exclusive potion by stacking two standards together (which you could definitely do with a linear progression).

Of course, this means that the hardest potions for me to work with were the ones where magnitude was removed as a factor (slowfall, water walking/breathing), hence the ridiculously large durations of the higher ends comapred to the much more normal ones of the lower ends.

EDIT: and now that I mention that, I realize that 300 is too high for a quality potion, since cheap ones can be stacked on top for full immunity. So, back down to 180 they go

EDIT 2: ok, new durations are set to 60/90/120/180/600. In addition to the resist disease/blight potions, I've also applied this format to Feather and Swift Swim potions.
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Wayne W
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 7:22 pm

Oh, right, you also asked me how much I have left to do.

Well, I'm about halfway through updating the "Equipment" plugin, and then I just need to go back over the new merchants in the "Spells" plugin.

The "Equipment" plugin is a huge pain in the ass, though. Updating it usually ends up taking me back to both the "Alchemy" and "Spells" plugins yet again to tweak stuff, so it's a fun balancing act (not really). Have I mentioned that I really hate updating the "Equipment" plugin?
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Ashley Hill
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 9:22 am

I really like the duration changes on the potions. I always skip spells or potions with short durations, even at low levels, because they seem pointless (if they're combat oriented). I've always thought that the first 10 seconds or so are a throw-away, because I usually drink potions or cast buff/protection spells before a fight, and rarely during, except for healing or magicka if I'm desperate.

Anyway, thanks for the great work BTB, this looks like it'll be a major release!
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Carlos Rojas
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:58 pm

Yeah, those 10s potions are just ridiculous. It just seems like shoddy work by the devs unless I'm missing something. Well, they do stack.
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Ownie Zuliana
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:38 am

It just seems like shoddy work by the devs unless I'm missing something.


I feel that way about most of the game, to be honest.

Try going through the "Spells" or "Equipment" plugin changelogs sometime and reading all of the original settings from the right column; any sane person would feel the same way as me.

My changes to the "Equipment" plugin are still putzing along, btw.
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Tanika O'Connell
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:31 pm

It happens with a lot of ambitious projects like Morrowind. Originally people set out with sky-high ambitions but since they most likely had a project deadline and less-than-sky-high budget they ended up cutting corners and it definitely seems playtesting certain values was definitely an area that they could have put more into. Yet they still put together an excellent experience and gave players the opportunity to modify much of it which is really what makes Morrowind a great game so at least we aren't forced to stick with those silly vanilla values. Also, fixing things can be entertaining in its own way.
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Beulah Bell
 
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Post » Sun Aug 08, 2010 11:46 am

It happens with a lot of ambitious projects like Morrowind. Originally people set out with sky-high ambitions but since they most likely had a project deadline and less-than-sky-high budget they ended up cutting corners and it definitely seems playtesting certain values was definitely an area that they could have put more into. Yet they still put together an excellent experience and gave players the opportunity to modify much of it which is really what makes Morrowind a great game so at least we aren't forced to stick with those silly vanilla values. Also, fixing things can be entertaining in its own way.


I don't think that has anything to do with it, really. The game balance in Morrowind seems much less of an issue of "they just didn't have the time" and much more of an issue of "they just didn't care".

I'm a very vocal opponent of the modern video game, and I firmly believe that things like gameplay and challenge took a backseat to pretty graphics and a product that can appeal to the lowest common denominator a long time ago. Morrowind is unusual in that it's the only game I play (excepting the fact that I haven't actually *played* it yet) that was made after 1999. Everything I else comes from a day and age where designed right the first time, and players weren't treated like unpaid beta testers who would end up spending more than twice as long as the developers did fixing up a shoddy product.

If I had my way, Bethesda should be paying *me* by this point, and I'd have long since turned Morrowind into the RPG equivalent of I Wanna Be The Guy >.>
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Juanita Hernandez
 
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