(Sorry for the rash of delayed, marathon responses lately. I had a big RL project going on.)
Re: Alternate Food Results for Failed or Superior Cooking Rolls [ . . . ]You could make several "spoiled" recipes and have them apply in various situations. For example, you could have "charred steak" which could work for overcooked hound, rat, and durzog (as well as kagouti and guar, depending on what other mod-provided ingredients you end up including). [ . . . ]
I concur that this looks like a good way to handle it. We can work out the details later, though the suggestions made (yours and tetchy's) sound like a good start.
I am pretty well open on the ideas of total failure on cooking - when I initially suggested it I didn't mention total failure as a small departure from realism to provide player leniency. If people are in favor of it though, I am all for it being in
As for better foods, my only sentiment here is, again, a departure from realism to some degree for player benefit. Again, though, I am 100% open on this as well, and bend to community will on it.
I concur here as well. I personally, in play, despise total failures, and, though that's my taste, I definitely agree that it would be preferable to keep a a quite low rate of total failure.
As for better foods...
[ . . . ] With some imagination, you can organize all your meals into various categories and have a single failed item for each category. Less categories means less new low-quality meals and less work, but less flexibility as well (and at some point, less believability) as more foods get lumped into a single failed item. So someone is going to have to make a judgment call on how much grouping is enough and how much it too much.
[ . . . ] Does the extra flexibility offered to the player justify the extra work on the part of the modder or modding team? Also, presuming the effort required by the modding team is approximately equal, is it likely that a person would prefer to have twelve different food items, six with two quality levels (poor and normal) or four with three quality levels (poor, normal, and superior)? Which one is more conducive to role-play (considering that's the entire point of the mod)?
As I said, I agree that suspending realism to improve the enjoyment of the mod is fine. I'm just not sure that a superior class of foods would actually do that. Perhaps a poll would help resolve the problem.
[ . . . ] One could work around this in some ways, but when thinking of them in more detail (I have been piddling over this for a few days now on and off), I don't know if it would come out right in the end (as the compromise would end up looking piece-meal at best, the more I debate on it with myself).
[ . . . ] In the end, not so sure it merits a poll, as I don't know in all if there is enough in favor to pursue that avenue yet (was merely tossing it about, as it were, looking for potential pitfalls). As stated, though, the more I debated this in my own head (before it came back up in the thread), the less and less I liked the idea.
For general foods, I'm in agreement that it would not likely be worth it to do high-quality versions of most foods, from either the player end or the modder end. But I don't think we have to choose between abandoning the idea or being haphazardly piecemeal about it: have most foods with generic low-quality versions, and the place for the fun special stuff is the advanced dishes (i.e. higher cooking skill req. and conqequently higher chance of total failure) that carry the special modest bonuses. These would be the ones that, in some or all cases, have specific failed versions. If we're fairly methodical about it, I think it'll retain its believability.
Re: Tisanes This, though, brings me to think on an area of NoM I never seem to personally use (so know little about it in any aspect) - tisanes. Should they be maintained or not in an update? From what I have seen they seem like some kind of magical drinks that can sate various needs for a time - this may be inaccurate though (due to my lack of playing with them).
Herbal teas! Actually, I really like them. Plus, it's the only way, as far as I know of, to magically reduce sleep deprivation (the Sentinel's Eye tisane). I think it might be worthwhile to adjust it a bit, but I like them. Any other thoughts on it?
Re: NoM Roadside Food Traders and Other Similar Additions I am also curious about how people felt about some of the game world additions NoM added in previous forms (Imperial Food Routes, Food Stores, Wells, etc). [ . . . ] Food Routes and Food Stores, [ . . . ] I do not see as being 100% needed. Food stores can be handled via the existence of Tradehouses, Taverns, and Traders in the existing game world economy and cultural structure. Removing these additions could further reduce conflicts that could be encountered with other mods as well.
I kinda have to agree here. With all due respect to Taddeus and other who worked on them, some seem outright sore-thumb inappropriate.
I think we should have them here and there, but much toned down, and much more in tune with the game's base atmosphere. One thing that really bothers me are things like an Imperial soldier (guard) whose duty station is what? The lady selling fruits in the Fields of Kummi. I mean, I understand the technical point of having them, but it could be better accomplished in other ways, like having a special commoner non-merchant "guard" own non-sellable items to keep the player from absconding with them.
So, for example, instead of her stand, with its barrels and imperial guard and all, have a dunmer merchant with pack guar to the side and a blanket, on which are placed baskets of fruit and other foods. Merchant containers could be worked a variety of ways to keep them inobtrusive or hidden.
Re: Inns, and Problems with Entertainers mods In another note, I think the Inn functions need to be kept in tact (rental period options and more inns available) so as to compensate the need to sleep (beyond the addition of the bedroll, which should still be prevented in towns I feel).
Another thing to think of, I know the Entertainers and Entertainers Expanded mods had some issues with NoM before, these should be included in initial patches for people who use these mods.
Agreed on the former, and don't know much about the latter. But if there are incompatibilities, yes, we should be obliged to patch them.
Re: Remove Curse Eating MethodologyI've done a little bit of testing, and here's what I did and what I discovered.
[ . . . ]
I created more remove curse spells with magnitudes of 60 and 80 respectively. Neither one of them broke all scripts like the 100 magnitude did, but after casting them, drinking any of the 3 food potions removed all curses.
Just to be sure, are you saying that, in a fresh game in which you have not yet cast RC at magnitude 100, casting RC at magnitude 60 still caused all subsequent RC castings at magnitude 0 to fully remove curses?
I had a thought which might get me yelled at, but here it is. The script could be altered to filter by two effects... perhaps something like restore skill and cure paralyzation that are not likely to be used together. [ . . . ]
[ . . . ] So, open question for any and all, what do you think?
That definitely seems like a good option if RC turns out to be unusable in the long term for the purpose.
Hmm... I was wondering about another potential pitfall that your comment about the 60- and 80-point castings brought up. If the answer to my question above is yes -- that lesser-than-100 magnitude castings cause the switch even if a 100-magnitude casting has not been done...
Could it be possible that there is some cumulative tracking of Remove Curse effect duration or magnitude? For example, in your test, Toccatta, you used all those 200-some food-potions, but, if I read your post correctly, most were done in a few inventory sessions. Do we know for sure that the 0-magnitude food potions, eaten one-or-two-at-a-time as they would be in normal play, would not eventually trigger some cumulative effect counter that would make them now remove all curses? (Say, at the 100th separate usage of one, if it counted even 0-magnitude castings as magnitude 1, or the 200th, or whatever.)
(Example scenarios of what I'm thinking about and hoping is not the case: Game tracks cumulative effect, so that 100 1-point castings, or 5 20-point castings, add up to the requisite amount. If this were true, 0-magnitude castings would either not increment the counter at all, or would be counted as some amount larger than 0, making it so, at some point, the same would change in the effect of all RC castings would occur.)
» Fri May 27, 2011 5:42 pm 
