No, that's with the patch... but remember, the character has an enchant skill of 5 and an itel of 40. It's amazing that he had any success at all.

Everything seems to be working correctly for me. I haven't delved into enchant balancing though.


Well, not obvious if you come from Oblivion first. I kinda like the way Oblivion handles it more. In Morrowind, I have never had a situation where I couldn't hit something because I didn't have a weapon with the right material. And, there is that damaged silver staff just laying in Arrille's Tradehouse after all, and a couple of guaranteed daggers in Balmora.

When I stroll into Arille's and pick up that staff at level 1, I am immediately attacked by every NPC in the place... If I run, then I have a bounty and I can't go back into arrille's for supplies.

Unfortunately, I have found myself fighting something I could only hit with bare hands... and no skill in it. It's happened either because I had no capable weapon or it had unequipped itself due to damage. Ancestor ghosts come to mind in vanilla, but I play with MCA so...

Again my point - a low level character stupid enough to get themselves into such a stuation with an insubstantial weapon deserves to get their ass handed to them on a plate, with or without ability to recharge items. :rolleyes: As to "stumbling" on artifacts needing such high-level recharging, if low level characters are able to do that then there's something very wrong with the game. If they are sufficiently strong in combat or stealth to take such powerful items from their current owners (or be awarded them through faction quests) then ergo (surely) they cannot be low-level... This is a reductio ad absurdam argument.

I see no issue with low level characters using lower-powered magic items learning to recharge them gradually with lesser gems and souls, and gradually gaining the skill needed to handle bigger souls adequately with less risk for recharging greater artifacts. That seems to me to be a perfect mechanism. A greater soul in a gem is (even patched) one of the most valuable things a PC can carry. I like the idea of them as precious things that should be treated with respect and hoarded until skill levels are higher, otherwise it devalues the whole skill training process. Else, if they are considered mundane because the PC is capable of soul-trapping powerful creatures reliably, then they should by then have developed the complementary enchant skill to to use them properly.

Ultimately, discussing the "need" of low level characters to reliably recharge high level items with greater souls just seems ridiculous. They should fail, often. Why bother to have levelling and skill training otherwise?

What do you believe is the ideal way to go about it?

Personally, I am pleased with how it works under vanilla settings except for the bug that make it counterproductive to exceed level 65 in enchanting. However, I have auto-recharge modded to not function so I rely entirely on recharging with gems. If auto-recharge were functional, I would likely not bother with using soul gems. In the years I've played the game with auto-recharge on, I rarely if ever bothered to try to recharge an item. Since MCP does not touch auto-recharge afaik, I have to look at this through the eyes of a player who doesn't NEED to use a soul gem and in that scenario I am not entirely sure if they have any incentive there normally.

The only thing wrong with your logic is that, well, it's wrong. Immediately after character generation I can take you to a very nearby artifact, and in fact with an orc character you can run in and get back out with the artifact... unless of course you're using MCA, then it's an entirely different story. As to being dumb enough to get into a situation like that, I suppose that you of course know what lies behind every cave and tomb door in the game before you ever enter them, eh? Really, with that kind of logic, perhapthe character should stay in town and find employment as a bar maid....



I could have sworn we were talking about a low level character recharging gems with skeletons... even then failing some 60% of the time, and only getting an average recharge of 8 even when it works. Where in that mix is a high level soul? You might also consider that while a grand soul gem is expensive, you can also end up with a rat in it. It's a waste of the gem and the money used to buy it... assuming that you can. And... wait for it... if you get a scrib in it, you may never get the bugs out....

No, but I wonder what sort of game you are playing if you expect a low level character to survive in a cave full of Daedroths. That is the logic flaw. Either they run or die. If not, then discussing finer points of game balance regarding whether they can recharge a weapon between despatching some of the most powerful in-game creatures is a joke.

Let me share a vision with you. This is not really off-topic, because I see MCP as a huge part of it, and I believe that the concept of MCP coupled with the vision of the modding community will make something truly remarkable.

As it stands, I almost never play a character beyond level 17 or 18 because I know that they are essentially unbeatable at that point. I used to play Diablo in hard core mode, but that's really not viable with Morrowind. There are just too many bugs and issues that result in wierd deaths or other things that require a reload to solve.

I enjoy the game immensly at low levels, because there is really no such thing as a certainty of character survival until level 9 or 10. May be not then.I'm not alone in that feeling, and you can see it in the popularity of various mods like BTB's Game improvements. My issue with most of these mods is that they feel the only way to make the game challenging is to tie the hands of the player by reducing or eliminate huge chunks of PC ability or making creatures have higher health or do more damage.

The problem is that there is very little that is more boring than taking your very nice steel or silver longsword and beating on a creature for half an hour until you have worn out your weapon. Turn up the difficulty slider on Morrowind, and you will soon get the idea.

Here is my vision... I can see a far more dangerous and exciting Morrowind... it's laying just around the corner. several of MCP's fixes are going in that direction... no trap warnings for instance. I could never figure out why bother having a trap if it's going to be advertised in a pop-up before you fall in. I don't believe we need to tie the players hands to have a better game, but we needthe game to support more versatile traps, and more dangerous monsters in higher numbers.

If you want to haefv fun, get yourself into combat with multiple opponents with varied capabilities, fight and run and fight some more, finally get clear and notice that you have no healing potions and one health point left... That my friend, is fun. That is what we can have if we move toward more ability not less, because you'll never survive if you're wearing shackles.

IAs to the game I play, I use mods to increase the danger and opponents, and by modding make things to suit myself. In my world orc females are fat and tattooed, leveled lists are used to completely randomize encounters so that even if I make the mod, I don't know what is or is not going to attack nor how many of them, nor what they will be armed with.

When you get hit with a basilisks gaze, you are stoned permanently You have to carry a reflective device to survive. Reload or learn to enjoy that particular view. Anyway, I have fun with it, I think others would too, but things have to be better not just more limited.

Never said that you had to steal it. It is more than affordable with the money you can get around Seyda Neen.


I just made a new character. A level 1 Altmer mage, Atronach. So he has an advantage. Not terribly important. All of the money available around Seyda Neen, should be enough to buy what's needed. I just gave myself 1,000 gold though. You can get that much from the quests and loot in the area easily.

Bought the Paralysis and Poisonous Touch spells from Estirdalin over at the Balmora Mages Guild. I can easily make an Open spell at 100 points with a chance of 43. Buy a few potions to restore magicka, or just take the ones from the Mages Guild supply chest. Preparations done with plenty of money left, so you could certainly buy more stuff like restore health potions, though I didn't. Head on over to Venim Ancestral Tomb. Pop the 100 point lock. Absorb the traps on the other doors. Buff with my crummy shield and sanctuary spells. Paralyze Goris and his friend. Poison them to death all the while casting Hearth Heal when needed. Walk out with the Bow of Shadows, and a ton of other valuable crap. I could even heal long enough to survive the trap on the chest on the table. I didn't even have Mentor's Ring.

A level 1 mage just destroyed two level 8 NPCs. I'm not at all a power-gamer. I did have to reload a few times, but it was a fairly painless operation. No mods. Difficulty slider at 0, that is, default. Obviously there is some imbalance here, but that isn't the point.



Some test results:

A quick test of around 30 petty gems with skeleton souls at 60 intelligence and 30 enchant, and I never failed, getting around 20 charge each time. Setting my intelligence to 30 and my enchant to 5 allowed me to fail only most of the time, but not by a large margin. Seemed to be a little more than half. Here I got around 10 charge. The skill raises with almost every attempt though including failed attempts, but still, it seems like too much success.

All recharge testing was done with the patch.

Looks like I missed some things during my adventure.


Well, since there is no recharge service, I think a character should have a decent chance to recharge. Enchant levels fast at low levels though, so a lot of failing isn't really a problem. You should be able to get the max charge at a high stat/skill level, and that is that. And you should still have some risk of failure until a very high level. I guess. A low stat/skill character should be have a high chance of failure ( higher maybe, if my test results continue like that ) and low return ( again, lower at the test levels given if possible. 1/3 of a gem is a lot at that level if you ask me ).

@neildarkstar - I don't think we are disagreeing at all. I share your vision. I think the problem is in the definition of "low level". All I am saying is that straight off the boat in Seyda Neen, level one or two, there should be extremely limited chance of recharging anything successfully until you've made the effort to train your enchant skill. As Arrille tells you - practise the skills you want to learn. Soultrapping mudcrabs, rats, slaughterfish or whatever will raise combat/magic skills too, so it's not as if it's a useless process.

I'd also agree with you that the recharge formula should weight the enchant skill directly more. When you think about the weighting of the create enchanted item formula (where intelligence is very low compared to enchant) a 2x bonus at least compared to intelligence seems better to me too.

@IanB2

After reading your post, I can see where you're coming from, and you're right we are not essectially in disagreement. I also don't think everyone shold be able to use soul gems successfully every time when they have little or no enchant skill. I do think that a 50/50 chance is not unreasonable for a recharge, but I'm a bit concerned about the leveling thing. Arsuru's test was really not much different than my test with the Breton, so level doesn't really count.

Anyone with an intel over 50 at the start is likely magic oriented, and it follows that the enchant skill will usually also be 20 or better. I don't really see that as so much of a problem thiugh because enchant is, after all, a magic skill. I wonder a bit about those who create custom classes and leave the enchant skill in the minor skill column by default.

@Hrnchamd

Last night I went to a fresh Morrowind install I had on a different drive. I noticed that that install was also running MCP 2.0 though I never put MCP on it. In one way it's nice, because I enjoy the changes made by MCP, but it's also kind of an issue... I'm working on a new mod using that install, and I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to actuaslly feel the mod as it will be for those who don't run MCP. Is there any way short of removable drives to keep MCP to one install?

The launcher uses the Morrowind.exe from the install location in the registry but runs it in the current directory. You have to launch Morrowind directly to get it to work right.

Thanks. I had used the launcher to tick the new mod... I must have run into this or similar before, because I only have the exe in a desktop folder for this drive.

Could someone confirm the detect life patch is working properly now?


For the enchant skill there are two ways of making a minimum cap on charges restored for a cap k. Either clamp the restore value to at least k% charge, or alter the the probability distribution function to restore in the range k% - 100%. It may be better to switch to the second option. You really need to make some numerical situations and expectations. I don't want this patch to rule out combat specialized classes from recharging their weapons properly.

Hrnchamd, I really like what you are doing with Morrowind. Could you change the leveling of the magic skills from casting x spells to casting x amount of magicka worth of spells as is atempted in the Magicka Based Skill Progression mod of Hotfusion?

I tested it quite a number of times in a new character right off the boat. In Seyda Neen everything appeared to work perfectly, although the number of NPC's might have hidden something I noticed later on.

In a more remote spot wouth of the town there are two NPCs placed by a mod. The detecf spell showed the NPC that was farther away but not one that was perhaps 30 feet from me. I walked up and stood beside that second NPC and recast the spell, and it still didn't show him but it did show the other one that was much further away. Is ther a percentage of failure on the spell?

At any rate, the NPC markers all faded away as they should each time.



I find the 50% fail rate for low enchant to be perfect, and those with higher enchant skill at chargen are no doubt expecting improved ability to enchant and recharge commensurate with their skill. I don't think the level or "newness" of the character matters, only the abilities of that character. That being said, perhaps the rapid increase of enchant skill is the deciding factor in the end. I'm not certain that rewarding a failed enchant by a character with an enchant skill of 5 with an enchant skill increase is particularly desirable.

It seems to me that an enchant skill of at least 40 should be required for 100% success, and perhaps a loss of 25% success for each 10 levels below that. If percentage of recharge is tied to that same number, it would be equitable, I think... ah, but what do I know, eh?

I said everything was working fine for me, if you missed it. I must have walked around for a good twenty minutes, through different cells, casting that spell.

I was wondering if the enchant skill could be used 1:1 for percentage of charge returned. Maybe that's too strict for melee? Maybe still a range value with enchant capping the max at 1:1?



I've never tried the mod, but it does sound interesting. Does mercantile do something like that? It always seemed I gained more experience ( and lag ) with a larger transaction.

And since we are on the topic of magic, ( though I hate bringing up the same thing over and over, I only do so because there was never an answer ) how about magicka cost scaling? Is it even possible to implement?

Is it possible to make running in reverse slower than running forward?

Also, are there any plans for changes to pickpocket?

It's possible, though it won't necessarily work out well as player magicka and skill experience per level grow at disproportionate rates. It will need a lot of work to avoid too fast early levelling or too difficult late levelling.



The second way is stricter than the first, what do you really mean?


The amount you move via haggling is where most of the experience comes from. There is a spell cast cost reduction mod already that does what you ask for on PES somewhere.



If you edit the RunBack animation, you can make running backwards as slow as you want. Pickpocket changes are already in the beta and are turned on by default.

Totally slipped my notice!

Is there a simple way to modify this for those with no experience doing animation stuff? I'm guessing not...

You could copy the WalkBack animation over the RunBack animation, and edit the animation text keys with NifSkope to rename it to RunBack.

I mean one point of enchant would allow 1% of possible charge to be gleaned from the gem. The low skill would raise pretty quickly to something reasonable, say 25. So at 25 enchant you get a quarter of the gem's charge, with the second option allowing 1-25% instead of a fixed amount.


I know the mod you are talking about I believe, but it requires that you have enough magicka to cast the base cost of the spell, and then refunds the rest. So for high cost spells that you don't have the magicka to cast, you're still out of luck because they can never benefit from the pseudo-scaling even if the scaled cost would normally allow it. Spell cost would need to be adjusted for sure. It was nice in Daggerfall and Oblivion, and I can only imagine that it should have been in Morrowind.

@Hrnchamd
After a good deal of further testing of the detect life fix, there have been no more "ghosts"who don't appear on the map, and everything seems to work fine.

One other thing I noticed though... When I play Morrowind on the M: from the .exe, all of the bink movies play just fine. However, when I use the launcher, the movies stutter so badly that they cant really be watched or listened to. That would be the Bethesda opener, the game beginning movie,and two movies that involve Azura. I actually noticed that the movies weren't playing some time ago, but since I had gotten a new vid card about that time, I thought it was connected to the card or its drivers. This is the first time I have played without MCP since then, so now of course, I notice the difference.

Is this a known issue, or am I the only one with this happening?

I can't say this occurs much. Which version (from the bottom of the main menu) plays smoothly and which doesn't?

It's 2.0 ( and I know the binks stopped playing correctly quite a while ago, perhaps MCP was about 1.8 then,,, but the only way the movies play is without MCP at all.