[Nikki Hype]

It is not a matter of "spell management". The spell is literally useless. When that extra 50 HP wears off, if you have taken 120 damage, you will have a nice -20 HP, and drop dead. This means that mathematically, the spell did nothing. It added 50, then took it away, leaving you with a net effect of 0.

So in the end, the spell didn't help you survive anything, because even though you survived that 120 damage, when the duration ends, you will still drop dead with -20 HP.

The spell serves no purpose as it is in it's current state. The only POSSIBLE use that it can have is allowing you survive one shot kills from super power attacks, and even then, this will only happen if you manage to heal yourself a sufficient amount before the duration wears off. This makes the spell even more of a hassle because now you can't safely use it without coupling it with a suitable restore health effect.

I hope I can make you understand. This effect is nigh useless, and quite desperately requires this change.

No, it's not useless. It gives you buffer health for a short time, but doesn't let you go getting sliced and diced. I actually greatly prefer the current way over any of your suggestions; it seems silly that it would magically turn into a percentage of your health. It seems much more game-balancing, logical and fun to have to heal yourself before the spell wears off and not make it some kind of quick-tank spell. That would make it useless.

Considering that health is a numerical representation of how much blood/limbs/skin you've lost compared to how much you should have, it makes a whole lot of sense that the spell gives you a bit more, but it doesn't stick around forever. You can take more damage while the spell is active, but once it wears off, your body doesn't have the magic supporting it and can only handle a limited amount of damage. If you took more damage than you can usually handle, you die. Similar to an adrenalin rush where the consequences don't catch up to you right away but you're going to feel it later. I think there's even precedent for that sort of fortify health in RPGs.

So, obviously, I voted that it should be left out. Sure, it's not a problem if it's optional, I just won't use it, but I think it's a waste of time implementing. It doesn't make sense, where the existing system does and offers a bit of a challenge, makes you think before you use the spell. Elaura's version makes more sense than this percentage thingy, but I'm not sure which I'd prefer. For the moment, my vote goes to "don't go breaking things"/no.

[x_JeNnY_x]

I like Eluara's way best. It makes it very useful because you actually gain health you can freely lose. Your suggestion, Brodie, basically turns it into a form of shield spell, because in the gran scheme of things it does little other than reduce your damage taken.

[ashleigh bryden]

No, it's not useless. It gives you buffer health for a short time, but doesn't let you go getting sliced and diced. I actually greatly prefer the current way over any of your suggestions; it seems silly that it would magically turn into a percentage of your health. It seems much more game-balancing, logical and fun to have to heal yourself before the spell wears off and not make it some kind of quick-tank spell. That would make it useless.

Considering that health is a numerical representation of how much blood/limbs/skin you've lost compared to how much you should have, it makes a whole lot of sense that the spell gives you a bit more, but it doesn't stick around forever. You can take more damage while the spell is active, but once it wears off, your body doesn't have the magic supporting it and can only handle a limited amount of damage. If you took more damage than you can usually handle, you die. Similar to an adrenalin rush where the consequences don't catch up to you right away but you're going to feel it later. I think there's even precedent for that sort of fortify health in RPGs.

So, obviously, I voted that it should be left out. Sure, it's not a problem if it's optional, I just won't use it, but I think it's a waste of time implementing. It doesn't make sense, where the existing system does and offers a bit of a challenge, makes you think before you use the spell. Elaura's version makes more sense than this percentage thingy, but I'm not sure which I'd prefer. For the moment, my vote goes to "don't go breaking things"/no.

However, it already is broken, and needs to be fixed.

Let's look at it from a game design point of view.

Healing effects in this game are already near instantaneous. You either spend 1 second casting a spell, or can go to your inventory and drink 3000 potions with no limit.

The current method implemented with the MCP, while allowing for a health buffer, also makes it MANDOTORY that you use some form of healing BEFORE the effect wears off. Not optional, we are talking necessary. If you do not take enough damage to make healing necessary, then the spell didn't accomplish ANYTHING for your character.

This basically forces the spell into one role:

It helps you survive one shot-kill attacks. And this is something EXTREMELY rare in Morrowind, especially past the beginning of the game, when you don't even have that much access to significant sorces of Fortify Health.

If the attack isn't going to one shot you, then why not just heal the damage as you receive it? Why use the Fortify Health effect, which in the end, will give you 0 net effect?

Is this concept really so hard to understand? This buffer, as stated before, without extreme durations, is virtually useless, unless you go through ridiculous measures to ensure that you always have some form of healing. This doens't always happen though, and sometimes you receive damage from an unexpected source.

All in all, the current way just makes the spell too dangerous for practical usage.

[Brandon Bernardi]

I like Eluara's way best. It makes it very useful because you actually gain health you can freely lose. Your suggestion, Brodie, basically turns it into a form of shield spell, because in the gran scheme of things it does little other than reduce your damage taken.

The problem with Eluara's method is that you are basically defeating the whole purpose of the spell. It is basically just turning the spell into something it is not:

A preemptive heal that has a limited duration. I mean, is it an instant regeneration ability? This way makes it more like the mutant ability of Wolverine.

The spell is supposed to fortify your health. By increasing your total health and ability to receive punishment. Following through with basic logic, this would mean that any punishment received would remain relative to the amount of endurance currently possessed by said character, thus supporting my system of percentage based damage.

The worst thing, however, is this:

Elaura's version creates an unavoidable exploit:

Equiping and unequiping constant effect equipment that possesses a fortify health effect in combat will allow your character to constant re-apply a preemptive heal, basically making your character immortal.

[Sammi Jones]

In case you haven't noticed, playing Morrowind creates an unavoidable exploit:

Opening the console and typing "tgm" puts you into god mode, basically making your character immortal.

[/sarcasm]

But really, there are three ways taking damage under Fortify Health could work:

1. Damage is taken from your natural health, then the fortified portion (Current)

2. Damage is taken from the fortified portion, then your natural health (Elaura)

3. Damage is taken from both types of health in proportion to their contribution to your total health (Brodie version, if I've interpreted it correctly)

All of these "make sense" and may be "the purpose of the spell" from some point of view, with 2 & 3 making more sense to most of us. Whether any of them "defeat the purpose of the spell" depends on one's interpretation of how the spell is supposed to work -- and with so much disagreement about that, it doesn't seem like "the purpose of the spell" is agreed upon.

The available exploit may sway some away from the Elaura version, but honestly I don't see why it's any more of an exploit than a CE effect of Restore Health -- which is easier to use anyway because you don't have to equip / unequip to make it work. Sure, sometimes Restore Health doesn't act quickly enough, but sometimes Fortify Health #2 won't give you enough of a pre-heal, either.

[helliehexx]

Good point and I agree with you aqualectrix.

[Wanda Maximoff]

However, it already is broken, and needs to be fixed.

In your opinion. It's always worked perfectly fine for me, done its job, so in my game, it's not broken in the least. I like it how it is. :shrug:

Healing effects in this game are already near instantaneous. You either spend 1 second casting a spell, or can go to your inventory and drink 3000 potions with no limit.

Considering I don't spam potions, instead enjoying a wee bit of roleplaying experience, and most of my healing spells are long-duration/little-effect this point is completely null.

The current method implemented with the MCP, while allowing for a health buffer, also makes it MANDOTORY that you use some form of healing BEFORE the effect wears off. Not optional, we are talking necessary. If you do not take enough damage to make healing necessary, then the spell didn't accomplish ANYTHING for your character.

Uh-huh, as it should be. Add a bit of duration to the spell, and it gives you a health buffer. Makes you harder to kill for a short time, but your wounds still kick in eventually.

Your proposed "fix" is an easy-tank spell making health useless. The current implementation makes infinitely more sense. Consider that health is stored as an integer, or appears to be from a quick look (I have my doubts, but that's a different topic).

If an enemy does 10 damage a hit, and I fortify my health to 1500, then it'll be 1490 after a hit. The spell wears off and my health goes back to it's original 70 points, and the 1490/1500 (99.3%) becomes 69.53/70. Which happens to round up to 70, so I took no damage.

Now, that's a rare case, but it shows that such a method is fundamentally flawed.

If the attack isn't going to one shot you, then why not just heal the damage as you receive it? Why use the Fortify Health effect, which in the end, will give you 0 net effect?

Cause you're fighting and you heal up after the fight? My characters aren't capable of holding a Daedric Dai-Katana in one hand, a tower shield in the other and drinking a potion with their toes while tap-dancing around a Golden Saint. Yours might be, but I don't play like that, and this spell is both helpful and logical for my style of play. It's not easy to spam, no, and it can kill you, but it's both useful and challenging, and that makes it fun in my book.

All in all, the current way just makes the spell too dangerous for practical usage.

Not if you're paying attention! The current version of the spell just adds a bit of strategy; you have to kill your enemy before it wears off, with enough time left to heal. Forces you to make tactical decisions, and maybe not cast the spell, because you can't heal quick enough.

It's simply a matter of casting responsibly.

The spell is supposed to fortify your health. By increasing your total health and ability to receive punishment. Following through with basic logic, this would mean that any punishment received would remain relative to the amount of endurance currently possessed by said character, thus supporting my system of percentage based damage.

It does fortify your health. You get more health while the spell lasts. It does increase your health and ability to receive punishment.
But, like bursts of chemicals that do the same, when the spell/chemicals wear off, the punishment you took doesn't go away, but you now have to handle it with your natural ability. If you're injured too badly to naturally handle it, you may very well pass out or die. I think you're reading too much into the spell and turning it into a math problem, not a kinda-sorta representation of an actual person being injured. If you think about it as the magical equivalent of a chemical boost to your endurance, the behavior makes sense.

Obviously this is all opinion, but the current spell works great for me. I suggest that if you feel so strongly about, you sit down tonight with a disassembler and just fix it yourself, then send a diff patch over to Hrnchamd. That may be a better solution than trying to convince us our games are broken, when my most certainly isn't. If you don't have a disassembler, I know of a few goods ones and can give you some pointers on the basics of patching Morrowind with them. :foodndrink:

[Anna Kyselova]

I'm absolutely fine with the current implementation of health/fortify health. No need for a change.

[Chris Ellis]

If an enemy does 10 damage a hit, and I fortify my health to 1500, then it'll be 1490 after a hit. The spell wears off and my health goes back to it's original 70 points, and the 1490/1500 (99.3%) becomes 69.53/70. Which happens to round up to 70, so I took no damage.

Now, that's a rare case, but it shows that such a method is fundamentally flawed.

This depends on your interpretation of what that health number represents.

Let's imagine that health represents your characters endurance, fortitude, ability to dodge attacks from experience, or just plain toughness from years of scars that make you as tough as a bar of iron. Whatever the interpretation, if you are able to cast a spell so powerful that this number reaches 1500, then that 10 damage, relative to your current health, is almost non-existent. It should remain logical, therefore, that when your magic wears off, and you return to your normal state, that the same amount of damage that you received, i.e. non-existent, should remain the same.

Damage is relative. If I use a spell to make myself tough as a piece of iron, then I am going to receive very little damage. Why would I magically gain damage when my spell wears off? This makes absolutely no sense.

Your earlier reference to an example of using chemical substances to increase resistance in real life is completely off.

Chemical substances do not allow me to absorb damage. They merely allow me to ignore it through absence of recognition of the pain that I have received. During this drug induced state, I could still very well die of blood loss.

However, this is all ridiculous. It is a game, involving magic, not real life. In a fantasy setting you can do whatever you want. If you want to play Morrowind with a flawed game mechanic, or want to create personal role-playing rules for yourself to increase your own personal enjoyment that is fine. But don't let it ruin the gaming experience for many other players. This is a change that would add a lot of versatility and raw benefit to the spell, and if coupled with retroactive health, adds many options of ways to increase your durability temporarily, without giving you a potential death sentence.

People should be able to play a game with practical, logical game mechanics. You should be looking at this from a game design point of view, not role-play with personal rules of "balance". In the reality and the world of games, morality, fairness, and such don't matter. All that matters is what is legitimate in the context of the rules. Opening the console doesn't count as this is blatant cheating outside of the game as intended to be played. Fortify health, despite what the developers might have intended, serves very little purpose. This aspect of "spell management" detracts from the gaming experience and is completely unintuitive and obstructive. I don't recall there being a warning in the name of the spell that tells me that it has 0 effect, and can potentially kill my character. After all, it is called "Fortify Health", not "allow me to survive a one hit kill then heal before the duratoin wears off so that I don't drop dead from a mysterious heart attack".

[Rachyroo]

The way I see it, the current implementation is flawed, and needs fixing.
I prefer Elaura's approach, as it feels about right for gameplay balance.

With the percentage-based approach, it gains a sort of "percentile buffer" against most cases of one-shot death.
This is good, but it may not be of interest to the strict purists.

Regardless, as it stands, the spell is pretty much pointless...
(You might as well just cast shield, or something.)

As for the argument that it shouldn't be changed because it makes the game less challenging:
It still needs fixing, because it's not "fun", it's a death trap.
"Fake Difficulty" as it were, rather than something that improves gameplay.

[Siobhan Wallis-McRobert]

The way I see it, the current implementation is flawed, and needs fixing.
I prefer Elaura's approach, as it feels about right for gameplay balance.

With the percentage-based approach, it gains a sort of "percentile buffer" against most cases of one-shot death.
This is good, but it may not be of interest to the strict purists.

Regardless, as it stands, the spell is pretty much pointless...
(You might as well just cast shield, or something.)

As for the argument that it shouldn't be changed because it makes the game less challenging:
It still needs fixing, because it's not "fun", it's a death trap.
"Fake Difficulty" as it were, rather than something that improves gameplay.

Quoted for truth and support.

[Flutterby]

I do feel that BrodieSWR has pretty much "hit the nail on the head", though.
Perhaps it could be made optional, with a choice for either way, or the original.

That would make everyone happy, and let us all customize Morrowind whichever way we prefer.

[Blaine]

I agree with Peachykeen. The spell is NOT broken. It's very similar to many spells (I've mentioned a few).
You have to be prepared for the end when you decide to use it.
If you aren't prepared for Levitate to wear off, you can die. (Yes, you have a few seconds to go oops with levitate! Out of mana? Out of luck!)
If you aren't prepared for FH to wear off, you can die (you may well have no time to go oops! Out of time? Out of luck!)

It takes a little skill and planning to use at present, which is a good thing.

[IM NOT EASY]

Fortify health should do precisely that, though. Increase your health.
If you have 100 health, and it gives you 25, and then you lose 25, you should still be left with 100, right?
The original way not only doesn't make sense, it cheats you. (It gives you 100+25-25=75!)

That is what I call "Fake Difficulty", as the game is literally cheating against you.
To see where I get the phrase from, look here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

[Natalie Taylor]

Gaius Atrius, certainly. As all who use MCP know, all the patches are optional. I assumed this thread was intended to see if there was enough interest from the community for hrchmd to take time to fix it again. As far as that goes, it's proabably up to him to make that determination.

BTW, I've given exploitation some thought and since I've been playing Diablo 2 lately, I'll share my thoughts. In D2 if you are wearing something (everything is constant effect in D2) that increases vitality by 10 points, you get a maximum health boost of 5 points. That extra five points is not filled automatically. It is up to the player to take a potion to fill that gap. If the player takes it off, that extra 5 points of health is gone, no more, no less, because it only affects the max HP. If the player is injured in battle, actual HP are lost, but MaxHP is left unchanged.

This doesn't look like an exploit to me. Now, with the Fortify Health spell, the max HP should go up, but to prevent exploitation, the player should have to take a potion to fill that gap. Personally, I feel the same about Fortify Magicka, but it's simply my interpretation that Fortify doesn't mean "and give you the health and mana too". When the spell wears off, if the player still has HP over normal, he/she loses it and goes back to normal. If the player has lost more than the fortification, then their health should reflect only what was actually lost over and above the extra health they had.

I don't feel like the player should lose the health twice. He/she shouldn't lose five points of the extra health and then another five points after the spell wears off, whether actual points or percentage points, that's double jeopardy. I look at fortify spells as vessels. You can "carry" some extra, use what's in the vessel, and even refill it, but when the spell wears off, if you've used more than what was in the vessel, you have that much taken away.

The sad truth is that the temporary Fortify Health spell is just a pre-emptive measure. Unlike the Fortify Magicka spell, which can allow you to cast spells beyond your natural ability, all the Fortify Health spell really does is give you an extra bottle of blood to spill before you have to open a vein . . . so t speak.

[Robert Jr]

This depends on your interpretation of what that health number represents.

I don't think that's open for interpretation, it's pretty well defined.

Damage is relative. If I use a spell to make myself tough as a piece of iron, then I am going to receive very little damage. Why would I magically gain damage when my spell wears off? This makes absolutely no sense.

That's a shield effect, not a fortify health effect. We already have shield, and it shields you. Transmute self and fortify health are entirely different classes of spells, you're comparing Fargoths and nix-hounds here.

Your earlier reference to an example of using chemical substances to increase resistance in real life is completely off.

Chemical substances do not allow me to absorb damage. They merely allow me to ignore it through absence of recognition of the pain that I have received. During this drug induced state, I could still very well die of blood loss.

Have you ever seen, or fought, someone on PCP? Ever had a significant adrenalin rush? Chemicals allow your body to go far beyond its natural limits for a period of time, but when they wear off, all the injuries you took during that process remain. And they catch up with you, in a major way. You can die, sure, but you're far less likely to keel over from a bump on the head or a flesh wound. I see fortify health as the same deal.

However, this is all ridiculous. It is a game, involving magic, not real life. In a fantasy setting you can do whatever you want. If you want to play Morrowind with a flawed game mechanic, or want to create personal role-playing rules for yourself to increase your own personal enjoyment that is fine. But don't let it ruin the gaming experience for many other players.

It's not flawed, and I'm advocating not ruining it for the masses. If you want to change it because you don't like it, then go change it! But at least a few of us, a significant number it seems, don't think it needs "fixed." Your time would be better served fixing it than telling me you think it needs fixed. We disagree, this is obvious.

This is a change that would add a lot of versatility and raw benefit to the spell, and if coupled with retroactive health, adds many options of ways to increase your durability temporarily, without giving you a potential death sentence.

There are other ways of increasing your durability. Shields, resistance to weapons and increased agility all do that. The spell has benefit as is, but it also has a side effect that requires you to think.

People should be able to play a game with practical, logical game mechanics. You should be looking at this from a game design point of view, not role-play with personal rules of "balance".

I shouldn't consider this from the point of balance? Well then, allow me to go add 9 million gold to every merchant and swap out the tutorial dagger for Trueflame.
I am looking at it from a game design point of view, and it makes sense. You just don't like it. The spell never says it does anything like "increasing your health while keeping the percentages constant", it says it fortifies health. I think you're reading more into it than is there.

As I keep saying, go fix it then! That's what Morrowind is all about. If you think it's broken, you take an evening, sit down and make it work how you want. You'll never convince me my game is broken, because it surely isn't. If yours is, then you can fix it for you. :facepalm:

I've made my point, and unless you'd like to debate it in some logical way instead of accusing me of wanting to ruin the game, we'll have to agree to disagree. Obviously I'm not the only one who doesn't mind it. If you want to fix it and release your work, go right ahead. Best of luck.

Fortify health should do precisely that, though. Increase your health.
If you have 100 health, and it gives you 25, and then you lose 25, you should still be left with 100, right?
The original way not only doesn't make sense, it cheats you. (It gives you 100+25-25=75!)

It makes sense if you consider it as 25 points of damage on the 100 health. When your health goes back down, you still have the same amount of injuries/damage as you did before. If you call it 25 points of wounds on 100 max health, then the only thing that changes is your max health. Which is the whole point of the spell. If that changed, the spell would somehow be magically healing you, not just fortifying health. My biggest point is that this kind of change takes the effect above and beyond its description, it's changing the mechanic and expanding a spell, not fixing a bug.

[LADONA]

But then there's no real point to the spell, in that case.
It's just wasted magicka, frittered away to gain nothing but a few moments, and an unharmed enemy still attacking you.

[matt oneil]

Speaking of which... What's wrong with slightly expanding the spell, anyway?
The original bug is already fixed... But the spell still remains useless.

[electro_fantics]

But then there's no real point to the spell, in that case.
It's just wasted magicka, frittered away to gain nothing but a few moments, and an unharmed enemy still attacking you.

But if you boost your health to survive their attack, kill them, then heal, you've survived something you couldn't have otherwise. I see the fortify effects as temporary buffs, not cheap ways to tank up your character. The fact they have side effects like this keeps them balanced.

Speaking of which... What's wrong with slightly expanding the spell, anyway?
The original bug is already fixed... But the spell still remains useless.

Just cause that's not what the code patch is for and the OP keeps claiming it's a bug. I think there was some debate on this a while ago and Hrnchamd said that fixing bugs is one thing, changing things for fun is another, and the latter isn't going in the patch.

There's no bug here, it's just not to some folk's taste. Hence my suggestion that the OP fix it and release their own patch. That solves everything quite neatly, without undue burden on any MCP developers.

[clelia vega]

Meh, you know, whatever. I'm like, kinda meh.
Meh.

[Mark Churchman]

I agree with peachy, this isn't a fix, it's a different implementation. I do find the current mechanic logical, so I voted no.
If Hrnchamd agrees though I wont complain, you asked for opinions though and I just don't think this is needed.

Well, it seems like this topic will be putting pressure on Hrnchamd, not sure if I like that myself but I guess that's the intent.

[Antonio Gigliotta]

There's a reason he's petitioning Hrnchamd to do it, though.
This is hardcoded in the EXE. Not just anyone can change it.

If anyone can, it's Hrnchamd. Besides, it would go in well with the other optional features the MCP has.

[Sammi Jones]

Yep, good point there.

[sally coker]

i agree with peachy. it's putting pressure on someone when it hardly needs fixing.

if u dont like the spell dont use it. i like it, means i can have an "adrenaline" rush to stop myself dying, and then i have to find a way to heal myself quickly, it's pretty good for my thief char.

[Amy Masters]

I need to agree that the spell is flawed as it stands. I know more than once i might fortify my health, There's a good chance I'll still be in the middle of battle when it ends. That becomes an issue if i suddenly drop all the temporary points i had. I don't always have time to monitor the effect icons to see when it starts fading out, so i have to hurry and heal. Worse is if you happen to only have a healing magical spell and you happen to be hit on the ground, not much you can do till you get up, and if the spell runs out before then, your [censored] out of luck.

Let's take your example(s) and compare them with another one.

Later i get my HP to 200, Fortify Health bumps to 250/250
I take 30 points of damage, so I now have 220/250
Later the effect wears off. HP drops down to 176.

Now you've only blocked 20% of the damage rather than 30%, so it becomes less effective as you get stronger. Sounds like how it should.
Assume i have my health boosted twice from two separate spells/effects, for 25 each instead.
both effects: 220/250
1st effect ends: 198/225
2nd effect ends: 176/200

Still follows the same percentage rules, so it sounds good.

Having damage removed from the temporary first. never changes effectiveness. you stop 100% of the damage for x hitpoints.
150/150 - 30 = 120/150 Spell wears off, 100/100
250/250 - 30 = 220/250 Spell wears off, 200/200

Although D&D follows this rule, it has a limit morrowind doesn't. For balance reasons you can't have any one bonus effect stacked, the stronger one takes precedence. So getting your health boosted by 100 from two mages (or potions, scrolls Ect), you only get one of the 100. The only use the second one would have, is to overlap time and keep it going longer, basically buying time till you can heal them properly.

Honestly, either fix would be an improvement, but I'm leaning toward percentage, since it sounds like how it should work.