I don't see the problem, the target takes fire damage and gets the burden debuff...

The flame has a shape, an area of effect, that causes fire damage to all who enter said area. Allow the burden effect to cover the same area.

The flame does damage over time for all in its path, with perhaps some lingering damage after the flame dies. Allow the burden effect to work over time, maybe the magnitude of burden would increase, maybe the duration would increase, maybe the magnitude would be constant and any duration count started only after the target leaves the are of effect or the spell casting ends.

Am I missing something?

Let's try to stay civilized. I appreciate that you edited the last ending



I see your point but wouldn't all of this just turn Skyrim into "Magicka" .. Yes it was fun for a few hours, but... At the end of the day when you've figured out the combinations there's no replayability there.


I like how this thread hasn't been overly flamy. Let's try to keep it that way. Calm and civilized.
A search for solutions and common ground.

The problem is with that is that we are making a single spell, thus it does not multiply, or even add, spell casting types. It simply uses a single casting type. So you don't have to change or toggle anything on the burden or the fire spell. If you just press "cast" then it will cast the burden and fire as a single projectile. If you hold it then it shoots a cone out with both of the effects.

They're part of a single spell, so there is no need to have the different toggles for the different casting types. It would be just like in Morrowind; whatever you set the ENTIRE spell as is what all the effects cast like, so they would all be on touch or all on target.

Now, we DO run into issues is separate spell effects have different sets of casting styles. What if Burden could be cast as a curse that needed a ritual, but fire couldn't? Then we run into issues. I think, however, that we're going to see the same 5 casting types for all spell effects. Thus, when you combine them, they will simply use THOSE five.

Not at all. It does the same thing you can do in previous TES games, combine spell effects into one spell.
Its just a way to limit conflicts between different "ways" a spell can be cast.

A fire spell can have a flamethrower effect, or a fire rune trap, and its assumed there will be others (I don't remember the other few that were confirmed)
All this does is have 1 spell effect decide what "versions" of the spell that can be cast.



Each spell has a list of its "effects". So a fire damage spell would have a fireball effect, a flamethrower effect, and a fire rune trap effect. The game can easily compare what each spell effect has in common, they don't need to hand code each combination...

Oh [censored] you crack the mystery! Those fools at BGS, how could they not see your solution! It's so simple, makes me wonder why they ran into problems to begin with...

Do you think BGS just cut spellmaking because their mean? They ran into problems and they didn't want to throw something in that wasn't polished. Same thing with spears, they know we want them, but if it conflicts with their time and resources they have to cut it. I'm sure someone on the team is looking for a solution, but clearly they haven't found one.

What your missing is, your not working on the game. You don't know how effects clash. You don't know how much resources they have to spent fixing spellmaking.

Oh... you. The thing is, this is programming, not writing it all down on paper. All spellmaking is, is taking effects out of a database. Each effect in the database has individual properties. All the spell effects already have a harmful effect are tagged as "Hostile" so coding a system where you can't mix harmful and beneficial effects would be extremely easy. The same with how they are cast. If, like I said before for Fire Damage (Projectile, Spray, Rune, Touch for example) already has those effects in the database. So once again, all it would take is a few simple lines of codes.

A number of systems already do something like this outside of games like customizing a PC at Bestbuy.com or ibuypower.com. All the components have properties so making a system that tells you what items can or cannot work together is childs play for a programmer. How do I know this? I do some programming myself.

Apparently not enough...

So you cannot tell me what possible conflicts you were talking about and somehow this is now my fault?

Affects like that can be done inside a program.
How do roguelike games generate random content? Someone didn't hardcode well over 1 million possibilities, they gave the program the ability to do it it self.

Same goes for how the game could determine what spells would be compatible...

You ever heard of a nice little concept called "theorycrafting"? You might wanna look it up, because teleporting people in real life or carrying the moon on your back are both incredibly simple things to do. And yet, for some weird fantastic reason, nobody has ever been able to do either of those two things yet. I wonder why...

You ever heard of "bugs"?
You ever heard of "memory leaks"?
You ever heard of "deep magic"? (no that's got nothing to do with Elder Scrolls)

Btw, I think you got "random content" wrong if you think this has anything whatsoever to do with that.

Thank you. There is no reason for someone flamebaiting us because we have an idea. Besides from what Todd said in the interview where he mentions it it isn't so much the programming aspect, it is more about that he wants it to not be "spreadsheety". Which worries me because I can't think of a more efficient way to do this or smithing or alchemy (Omg I forgot about Alchemy. It is a system that uses the same basic database concepts I was talking about previously), than a menu.

Edit: @Malavok: Look at Alchemy. This isn't theorycraft this is programming. Only allowing certain items with certain effects is the basis of alchemy and doing it with spellmaking is the exact same thing.

Your missing the point of my first post and my reply. BGS had problems implementing spellmaking. They wouldn't of had problems if there weren't conflicts with spell effects. All I'm saying is who ever says "implementing spellmaking is easy" is clearly missing something.

This isn't my opinion, it's what BGS have said. Their not mean people who want to ruin your experience.

Its not too difficult to program a system to detect wether certian conditions are met.

And your examples aren't done in reality because, as far as teleportation goes technology isn't advanced enough, and even then the theories behind it are really shaky. And carrying the moon on your back is a terrible example of something physically impossible...

Yet there is nothing physically impossible about programming a system that checks for conditions to be true.

And you should really consider not attacking people because you don't think its possible

Posts have gone away. Stop with the flaming/flamebaiting one another.

Lest I warn you all. :toughninja:

This does become complicated, not because of the underlying code but because you now need some way of conveying to the user what can and cannot be combined or once combined which casting types are valid and which are not. Much easier to allow Projectile, Spray, Rune, or Touch for all spells that can be combined, I'd remove the limitation on harmful and helpful too, but I'm a lazy programmer

Thank you kind moderator. Back to the point at hand we should be focusing on a way to implement Spellmaking that isn't spreadsheety. That is the main thing keeping them from implementing it, according to Todd. If I can find the quote I will post it.

Edit:


This also seems relatively simple (to me, I could be off base). The one thing that everyone should do when buying a game is read the manual. Step one: Just do the same thing with Alchemy (If an effect can't be used, don't show it). Step 2: If they put an explanation in the manual about how spellmaking works than it is really only the individuals who are confused fault because they didn't read the manual

(Post erased for redundancy, moderator feel free to delete.)

What I mean is that by combinding the "Burden" spell with a "fire spell" you get a fireball which makes them stay in place. If you Flamethrower it they'll walk slower.
And that's it. You can't cast a fireball which slows them down, or a flamethrower which stops them dead. Which are just 2 more examples of a million ways these two spells can be combined.

Yes combinding spellmaking with the charge and combine spells would be awesome. But I dont believe we're at that level yet.

With spellmaking you can pre-script spells to do anything you want.

With spell-combo's you'll have a combo-list just like Tekken.

Yes tekken was fun, but morrowind was legen... wait for it... Well you know the rest



Awesome valueable post!

Tell me oh great master of programming, then how DO these rogue likes pull this off? How did Morrowind pull this off.

The difference here is that I'm actually a programmer.

It seems you're completely ignoring my previous point. If all spells have the same 5 casting types, then there WONT be any casting issues, since they will just combine together (a cone of burden and fire, a touch spell of heal and restore attributes, whatever). There will be no conflicts.

You sure that I'm the one who's trolling here? But I agree, I just erased my previous reply because if I'm not the troll, then I'm feeding the troll. Both are bad, so I'll concede.


As opposed to the people who work for Bethesda? Sorry strike that, let's just agree to disagree and hope for the best as far as the game goes.

I remember that comment.

Even if there is a technical challenge involved in their decision it should not necessarily end all discussion, we'd lose 90% of the threads here. And for a proper discussion we need to be aware of all sides, dreamers and pragmatists, all are welcome

If we added spellmaking we could change the magnitude of the burden effect, and we could achieve both.

The "spreadsheety" feel is a problem, for Todd at least.
Anyway, we've proven it can be implemented, should we move on to solving the spreadsheety feel?

I've got nothing on this, honestly if we took out everything with a "spreadsheety" feel we would lose half the game. Alchemy, armorer, enchanting, items...

But the "spreadsheety" feel could refer to the feeling that different fireball spells don't feel different, the bland feeling of spells. In which case I don't see where removal of spellmaking would change this. Adding the new system would change it, but removing spellmaking doesn't.

Indeed. We need everyone to contribute so we can try and please everyone. But before this becomes a hippie drum circle where we spout off our heartsongs maybe we should think of non spreadsheety ways to do this. I for one draw a blank here.

Edit: Arg everyone always says something while I am saying something

If they used the idea I mentioned for making spells compatible, then whatever the first effect is in the spell should govern what the spell looks like. Still have no idea on fixing the spreadsheet thing -.-

Pick 1 spell effect from around the side of the screen, say fire and a fire icon appears around a cauldron/flask/crystal ball/frog . Pick another effect, say burden and a burden icon appears around the cauldron, next to the fire perhaps, or below or... Doesn't matter.

Beside each icon there is a vertical slider, this changes the base magnitude, the brightness of the icon changes wrt the slider.

Optionally the base duration of the effect could be selected by a horizontal slider below the icon. Maybe the icon gets fatter

The cost in gold and base mana is shown on the side of the cauldron.

best I can do at such short notice.

Well, I've already mentioned a concrete issue with adding it, but if people are just gonna ignore the cold, hard truth, then I don't see why there's even a point in discussing anything. Living in a fantasy isn't gonna solve the issue, neither will calling me a flame, troll or just generally pessimistic.

THAT SAID... I'll try to see it from your side:

It's a very nice thought that, for instance, Fire + Burden could be two simple effects and that, when working together, it's not gonna be that many possibilities. If that was the case, then spellmaking wouldn't be a problem for the exact reasons as the "programmers" among us are stating. The problem I'm bringing up, has nothing to do with this, and I'm sorry if I'm the one at fault for not bringing that out in a comprehendable way.

The idea is very simple. We'll likely have 2 buttons for attacks, one for each hand. 1 button will be right hand, the other left.
2 buttons simultaneously could create a more powerful spell.
Charging up the 1-hand version could have 1 effect, charging up the 2-hand version could have a different effect.

With the new spell "Furden" (Fire+Burden), it's obvious that it's gonna be both effects simultaneously and both effects will hit the same target, or the "Fire" effect 1 (with its own target) will be fired simultaneously with the "Burden" effect 1 (with its own target). My issue with this was the following:

You're free to cast either Fire1/Burden1, Fire2/Burden2 or Fire3/Burden3 (depending on what button or key you pressed, and whether or not you charged it up).

BUT:

What happens if you want to cast Fire1/Burden2? You essentially need to insta-cast the spell, but wait, you need to charge-it up at the same time, or else the Burden2 outcome won't happen. But wait, insta-casting the spell and charging it up at the same time... it's becomes a paradox!

This is what I meant by certain outcomes becoming mutually exclusive. Spellmaking would still work, but it would be limited to that one form of execution. If you wanted to cast Burden2, you'd have to either cast the burden spell itself or the "Furden" spell with the "Furden2" outcome (the charge-up outcome, for instance, which would force a Fire2 effect too, which you might not always want). What you guys are doing is that you're debating the issue as if there was only 1 way to cast the same spell - which was true for Oblivion. Todd Howard has already stated otherwise in the podcast. A single spell houses multiple spell effects depending on how you cast it.

A possible way to solve it, would be to allow the spellmaker to set the following permutations of the same spell combo:

"Light Furden Flamer" Fire1/Burden1
"Heavy Furden Flamer" Fire1/Burden2
"Light Furden Blast" Fire2/Burden1
"Heavy Furden Blast" Fire2/Burden 2

And this is only 2 casting methods per spell. Now imagine that each spell had 3, 4 or even 5 casting methods. This wouldn't be a problem if the spell system was like Oblivion and all spell effects was their own individual spell. But they aren't!

That's how it looks from my side of it anyways.
Anyways, this is all I have to say about the issue. My posts have been perfectly legit, the thread is also a perfectly fine thread that asks a good question. But sometimes things aren't as simple as it might immediately seem. I'm just trying to challenge your perception of a "simple system". Because it isn't, from my point of view.