New values look great, thx

Glad to hear it.

Now, back on the subject of Alchemy... and a few other things, actually.

This update, probably more than any other will demonstrate just how much each individual aspect of the game depends on all the others for balance. Lowering the qualities of alchemy apparati allows me more control of alchemy effects globally, since I'm no longer having to so harshly adjust affects to keep them balanced in the higher end. Lowering the alchemy-related GMSTs will let me bring several spell effects back into play spell-wise, namely sanctuary, reflect, and spell absorption, as their costs had previously been set high on the sole basis of keeping them balanced in potions. I'm quite excited, actually.

On the other hand, there's paralyze. Making it a sufficiently nasty negative spell effect in potions can be resolved through one rather simple measure: tank the effect cost. The downside of this, of course, is that I'd have to take it out of play for custom spells and enchantments. This, then, would require me to make sure that the effect is readily available enough elsewhere - pre-made spells, enchantments, etc. - that removing it as a custom effect won't hurt too badly. It also actually demonstrates the "proper" use of paralysis as compared to other effects. Paralyze can *completely* debilitate your opponent, allowing you to hack away at them without fear of retaliation, but it doesn't last very long. On the other hand, take burden or drain.damage speed, both of which my mod makes much more viable. Both of these can be used to similar effect, but your opponent can still act and hurt you if you come within range. All in all, I think it makes the game more interesting.

But that's just my thoughts at the moment. My brain is literally exploding as I type this. It's... quite a rush.

Concerning Paralysis, did you take in consideration the more magey approach?
For example, my sorceress regularly used this spell: Torment, Paralyse 3 sec on touch + Damage Health X damage on touch. (X increased along her mana pool)
If you remove Paralysis from custom spells, this sort of combination will disappear as well. I think you should keep it available.
Just thought I'd share my opinion on that matter.

I understand the reasons you lowered the quality of alchemy apparati, but what will you do with the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1156182-repairing-the-cogs-of-morrowind-23/page__view__findpost__p__16935084 which will calculate the weight of potions based on the alembic quality? Using your plugin will result in heavier potions as soon as the player uses an alembic.

Yeah, that thought had crossed my mind, and the one thing I can't really take into account is what custom creations people like to throw paralyze into outside of the pre-made spells with the straight-up effects.

I can always expand the pre-made pool if need be, but anything less than 5 seconds seems a bit... not worth it to cast.



EDIT/EDIT: I really need to learn to read a whole thread before posting about it.

At any rate, it looks like you guys are still working on the formula.

Yes we are, and whatever the final formula, the alembic will certainly reduce the weight of potions.

The reason is, according to Hrnchamd:

Now I realize your overhaul on ingredients already "fixed" the useless of negative effects as a many hand-made potions have now one negative effect, making alembics useful at last.
So you and Hrnchamd offered two different solutions to the same problem, and his conflicts with your new tunings on potion effects.

So long as crappy alembics don't actually make the potion *heavier*, then we should be okay. I'm fine with just seeing a less pronounced effect with my edits, but I'd rather not see them become counter-productive.

EDIT: Switching gears again, I just wanted to go ahead and say that the Daedric value and damage edits will be the only ones going into the "Equipment" plugin for the next update. I will most likely address the leveled list issue later by updating my personal version of Morrowind Advanced, which is where an edit like that probably belongs, anyway.

EDIT 2, REVENGE OF THE EDIT:

Got pretty much all the edits I was planning on taken care of, along with the documentation. I still have some testing left to do, but barring any problems I have what I hope is my final release candidate all packaged up and ready to go.

If anyone wants to go ahead and grab it now: http://btb2.free.fr/temp/morrowind_btb.zip

Here's the (hopefully) final changelog:

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Version 8.0 (January 11, 2011)

"CHARACTER" PLUGIN:

? Fixed problem with the Level-Up Birthsign Remover script caused by an error in my cleanup from a previous update where birthsigns were being removed, but not added back.

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"SPELLS" PLUGIN:

? Removed spellmaking and enchanting privleges for paralyze effect because the effect cost has been lowered from 60.00 to 5.00 to balance alchemy effects. To accomodate this change, NPC-only spells have been set from "on touch" to "on target" and have had their effects repeated multiple times in order to artificially inflate their costs.

? Lowered effect costs of reflect, spell absorption, and sanctuary from 6.00 to 2.40.

? Lowered effect cost of water walking from 4.00 to 2.00 and lowered cost of titular spell from 9 to 5.

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"ALCHEMY" PLUGIN:

? Added edits to the values and qualities of (almost) all alchemy apparati.

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"EQUIPMENT" PLUGIN:

? Added edits to damage of most Daedric weapons. This includes the following unique weapons: Boethiah's Walking Stick, Gravedigger, King's Oath, Mephala's Teacher, Veloth's Judgement, and most bound weapons.

? Lowered Daedric Mace value from 2,500 to 2,000.

? Lowered Daedric War Axe value from 2,500 to 2,000.

? Lowered Daedric Warhammer value from 2,500 to 2,000.

? Lowered Daedric Longsword value from 2,500 to 2,000.

? Lowered Daedric Wakizashi value from 5,000 to 2,500.

? Lowered Daedric Long Bow value from 5,000 to 2,500.

? Lowered Daedric Katana value from 5,000 to 2,500.

? Lowered Daedric Battle Axe value from 5,000 to 2,500.

? Lowered Daedric Claymore value from 7,500 to 2,500.

? Lowered Daedric Dai-katana value from 7,500 to 2,500.

? Lowered Daedric Gauntlet value from 2,500 to 1,000.

? Lowered Daedric Fountain Helm value from 3,000 to 1,000.

? Lowered Daedric Terror Helm value from 4,000 to 1,500.

? Lowered Daedric God Helm value from 5,000 to 2,000.

? Lowered Daedric Boots value from 5,000 to 2,000.

? Lowered Daedric Pauldron value from 5,000 to 2,000.

? Lowered Daedric Shield value from 5,000 to 2,000.

? Lowered Daedric Greaves value from 5,000 to 2,000.

? Lowered Daedric Tower Shield value from 7,500 to 2,500.

? Lowered Daedric Cuirass value from 7,500 to 2,500.

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"SETTINGS" PLUGIN:

? Added edits to fPotionStrengthMult and fPotionT1MagMult, which lower the magnitude and durations of self-made potions.

? Removed edit to fWortChanceValue GMST.

? Removed edit to experience gain to mercantile skill per successful bargain.

? Fixed problem with the restocking filled soul gem scripts caused by an error in my cleanup from a previous update where bad syntax was causing errors for some users. Also consolidated the individual scripts into one global script so that the script doesn't have to remove the item that it's attached to.

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Actually they will.
The new formula doesn't reduce the original weight, but it recalculates a new weight based on the summed ingredients weight and the alembic quality.
The goal is to find a formula which generates weights similar to those of merchant's potions (0.25 < weight < 1).
The formula is being designed according to the range of the values of the original alembic qualities.
So if you alter these values, the weights won't match the expected values.

I guess the part I still don't get is that, even with my edits, all of the Alembics except the Apprentice's are still within the range of Alembics in an unmodded game. Thus, your proposed formula would likely penalize a player just the same for using a crappy Alembic, whether he was using my mod or not.

Last version of the new formula is (total_weight + 0.4) / (alembic_quality + 1).
So the greater the alembic quality, the lighter the potion.
Since your quality values are lower than the original ones, then your potions will be heavier.

Just so we're on the same page, what I meant was that I'm okay with my edits so long as using a crappy alembic doesn't make your potion heavier than if you had used no alembic at all. By this formula, using even a bad alembic is better than none at all, even if my alembics aren't as good as the ones in the base game.

Or are you trying to say that using my alembic values with the MCP formula will result in heavier potions than if you weren't using the MCP formula?

Sorry for the confusion :-/

My comments are only for MCP 2.0.
Your changes on alembic qualities will make will not change potions created without MCP or with MCP 1.9 or older.

With MCP 2.0 and your changes, potions created with an alembic will still be lighter than without one.
However, they will be heavier than without your changes.

Forgive me again, but I notice that while using the Alternative BTB Settings mod and the leanGCD that misc skills have been going up at quick rates. For example, it only takes 4 successful attempts at speechcraft to raise a level.

Is this a known problem already?

Post limit.