It should be noted that, despite everything I've done to the enchanting system in this mod, there's a lot more that I couldn't do due to the limitations of the Construction Set and the fact that the worst of the system's problems are hard-coded into the game. And that's where the Morrowind Code Patch comes into play. What few conessions I've actually made in the midst of my no-holds-barred beatdown of the game's horribly broken enchanting system I never would have if not for the fact that the MCP's author is currently working on a fix to address the growth rate of the enchant skill itself. Not only does the charge cost per use/enchant point ratio it offers beyond a level of about 70 or so become ridiculously low no matter what you do to it otherwise, the charge cost per use is just way too low overall.

Again, I should probably explain. Remember that enchanted items have both a zero-percent failure rate and an instant casting time, meaning that the only limitation to how fast you can dish out the pain from your enchanted codpiece of hellfire is how fast you can spam the "use" key. Many players don't really seem to appreciate the monumental significance of these features except by universally crediting them for the fact that the enchant skill essentially replaces spellcasting about an hour into the game.

Another motive to increase the charge cost per use overall is to make the enchant skill behave more like the magicka skills and less like your one-way ticket from ridiculous to ludicrous. A character with a skill level of 5 in Destruction, for example, has absolutely no chance in hell of successfully casting God's Frost, so why in the [censored] shouldn't a character with an enchant skill of 5 be equally inept at casting the exact same spell from an enchanted item? The argument that any player good enough to acquire the necessary items and souls to pull off such enchantments deserve whatever they can make out of them is [censored], because even a level 20 character is still going to svck at whatever skills he or she hasn't put any effort into developing, regardless of whatever equipment they've found.

One other interesting effect of the proposed changes above is that paying to have paper enchanted into scrolls becomes a viable, or more specifically, your only option for achieving spell effects that are too far beyond your skill level to otherwise use. Thus, in anticipation of the forthcoming release of the next version of the Morrowind Code Patch, I've raised the enchant capacity for paper so that the only (reasonable) limit to what you can get out of it is how much you're willing to pay for it.

A question.
How can I see which version I used?

I'm not sure if I got the latest version or not.

"A character with a skill level of 5 in Destruction, for example, has absolutely no chance in hell of successfully casting God's Frost, so why in the [censored] shouldn't a character with an enchant skill of 5 be equally inept at casting the exact same spell from an enchanted item?"

BTB, I don't mean to quibble, and of course, nobody is forced to use your mod... unless you manage to convince Hrnchamd to do things your way, in which case we may find there is little or no choice if we want to use MCP.

Perhaps I misunderstand but, by that logic, because I can't distill petroleum into gasoline, I shouldn't be able to propel myself down the highway at 60 miles per hour. Or, closer to home, since I can build a computer but absolutely not from a pile of raw ore, silicon, and petroleum, I shouldn't be able to communicate on the internet.

As far as enchanting itself is concerned, I have lost a fortune in grand soul gems filled with golden saints that I killed and trapped myself to a failed enchantment because my ability to cast a particular spell was inadequate... even at skill of 40 or 50, and what I try to enchant the most often is simply a constant effect nighteye.

To be sure, these days I am more interested in modding in many ways, so I don't often take a character beyond level 14 or 15, so maybe there's something I'm not seeing here.

See, your problem is that you're thinking with actual logic instead of game logic. And speaking from a certain degree of experience, real-world logic is the ultimate bane of any game designer's existence.

Yes, it would make more logical sense that one would be able to use an enchanted item rather than a spell. But it makes far less sense for game balance that someone would be able to far more easily use an enchanted item that in and of itself possesses more advantages (again, 0% failure rate and instant cast time) over a spell that requires more skill to successfully cast.

The MCP version appears in the lower left-hand corner of the screen once you're at the Morrowind in-game menu. It will always show whenever you press esc to bring up the menu.

You may very well have more experience than I at game design, it wouldn't be hard to do. However, for some of us, a fairly high degree of logic breathes realism into the game and adds dimensions to the experience that are very enjoyable. Logic may be the bane of the designer, but meat and potatoes to the player.

I understand that game balance is necessary, a game that is not challenging will not be playable for long. However, the difficulty is not absolutely the essence of what makes a game enjoyable, but only a single facet of the whole.diamond. Perhaps more creatures and opponents who are magic resistant or have spell reflection abilities would restore the balance as well...

As far as money is concerned, we can open the console and immediately have as much gold as we care to spend. We can open the construction set, and with a mere modicum of knowledge, create spells, weapons, enchantments, and armor to make ourselves unbeatable in any fight. Hell, just toggle god mode, eh?

What I'm saying is that if a player wants to cheat, he can... but he'll only cheat himself with that fortify intell spell you're talking about. The trick and the enjoyable experience as well, is in beating the game within its own rules.

Some rules are indeed illogical and unrealistic, and in fact those are the rules that most players complain about, whether they benefit the player or the beast. If I am playing a mage/enchanter, I guarantee you that I want to be able to enchant things, eh? Logic says I should be able to... even game logic, if you think about it.

BTB:

I doubt we'll ever see eye to eye on this, and in any case it will be up to Hrnchamd what to with enchanting in MCP. I think it's good that we have had an opportunity to give Hrnchamd a look at more than one viewpoint, but we are kind of hijacking the thread.

If you would like to discuss this further, perhaps you could start a thread on the subject, and a poll might be nice to see if there are other opinions out there, eh?

Well, I don't want to be critical, but I think a more succinct explanation of your position with a little less rant might be a good start.

Maybe a poll could offer choices like A. Remove player ability to enchant weapons and items B.make it much harder for a player to use enchanted items if their enchant skill is low. C. both A and B. D. Leave as is.

Maybe other options as you see fit.

Or we could go on here a bit, if you think it's appropriate.

I do know the parts of the patch are modular in design so I could just reinstall the older patch and reapply the new one without the enchanted arrows option, but I no longer have the older 1.6 patch at all on my computer.

(snip)
...Well, thing about option A is that it's not a function of the MCP, but rather a function of my mod, and thus probably doesn't belong in a discussion of the code patch. I think all we're really discussing here is the magnitude by which the Enchant skill's growth calculations will be altered, since we're pretty much all in agreement that it's going to be altered by the nature of making its progression linear.

"He cannot and never will have the ability that is shared by about every third mage or priest you encounter to create spells without paying someone else to do it for him."

There is least one mod that implements this (via a book). The technique works really well.

Well, we'll see what Hrch says when he comes back around. I'm sure he's up for pleasing both halves of the debate, as I'd imagine that making things an either/or option wouldn't be much work.

As for the fact that there are things that other NPCs can do that the player can't... well, yeah, there's lots of things NPCs can do that you can't, just like in the real world. The player is special, yes, but it's not like the player is a GOD or anything >.>

On an entirely separate note, I have yet another issue to bring to the table... is there a way to address the fact in the game's coding that multiple soul trap effects can be used to harvest multiple souls from the same creature.

When you install new options with MCP, the first thing it does is to either verify your Morrowind.exe code is unedited or it restores an unedited version. I don't believe you could simply change the enchanting and then install the new patch and hope to mix-and-match the features, because the feature you added with the first patch would be eliminated the moment you tried to patch it the second time. I know that isn't the answer you wanted to hear, but if that's the case, it makes your search for the older version somewhat unnecessary.

Personally, I also prefer the older method and think it would be an excellent idea for Hrnchamd to offer both options in the patch so you could select the original method or the newly balanced one. This isn't so much an issue of "choose to use it or don't" because the feature is entirely new. You can't simply choose to not patch the new limitation, because the limitation on the enchanting is part and parcel of the entire feature, meaning you're stuck with a "take it or leave it" option (accept the ammo enchanting with the new limitations or none at all). Everything else about Morrowind Code Patch is written to eliminate the "take it or leave it" aspect of patching, so it would make sense to do something similar with this one as well.