In the interest of being accurate, could people research the actual precise meanings of exponential and linear functions, instead of the colloquial ones which are less than useful for anolysis. Only Toccatta seems to use them correctly so far.

I envision soul gem sales as an acceptable source of income at any level if you have sufficient mysticism skill, or do the legwork for a soultrap weapon, but with earning power similar to other things you can do at that level with the right skills. It's easy to look relatively balanced compared to the original's excessive pricing, which is why "it looks reasonable to me" isn't a good critique. At level 5 you're not going to see more than a flame atronach around ruins. Looting a suit of steel would earn you about 400 septims, but the atronach soul is worth 4200 unpatched, and 551 patched. In this case it's about parity, but what about at level 2, 10, 15, etc.

As a user of magical items, rat souls have some use in recharging lower end items, so I agree they should be worth a bit more than at the moment. I am concerned about proper pricing at mid range, as anything worth over 2000 isn't as liquid an asset and only gets brought out for trading for expensive services. You can sell things to Creeper if you feel lazy, but there's not much point balancing around that. Toccatta's looks a bit closer to how it should be, but still, think about possible player situations. You go to a ruin and trap five daedra, you are now worth more than all the traders in the continent? Just one city's worth? More than the guy with the stall selling muck shovels?

I ask because everyone has different mods and ideas. Think more about the prices and less about the formula.

I managed to get NPCs to recognize zero magicka spells/powers are castable, it wasn't too easy. Vanilla powers are a bit unbalanced to have the option just stand as it is. Any ideas how to make it usuable, or should I point people to Power to the People and forget about it?


That's correct for an upper body bone.


Okay, at the base level all bones use a controller to play animation sequences, one controller for one bone. The bone groups are for simple animation combining, such as walking + left arm covering eyes, based on the character state controller (facing storm, turning, knocked out, swimming, etc.). The states are limited to what the game knows about. I guess secondary things like head turning, and spine bending when aiming, are run by functions directly setting the bones. They are simple calculations, just changing one rotation matrix. General physics is not nearly as simple, and the big problem is (precise) collision which the engine doesn't even try with NPCs. If you want simple hair simulation it would be slow in Morrowind's bad script engine.



Okay, fixed. You might want to disable double width main menu buttons, it's for a localization only and offsets the main menu. Any idea what I should call it to make it clear to people who might not read everything?

Why do you say that the Vanilla powers are too unbalanced?

Imagine you just started the game, you picked some combat class and walk into Addamasartus. First bandit you see casts some green spell. You can't hit her for 60 seconds with your amazing 30 axe skill. Same thing for the next 2 bandits. Why. Has. Hrnchamd. Ruined. My Game. I could put more thought into it to avoid that, or I could just ship it like a fool would.

Or you could leave the balancing to mods, which is probably a better method of balancing the game anyway, since "balance" is such a highly subjective term. Actually the term "balance" isn't subjective, but the word "balanced" is. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that "balanced" (the adjective, not the noun) is an illusion, since every time I've heard anyone use the term "balanced" what they actually mean is "configured in a manner which suits my preferences". But everyone's preferences are different, and most people that use mods that claim to make the game "balanced" are just accepting someone else's ideal configuration because they're either unwilling or unable to configure the game to suit their own. There is a certain amount of hubris in presuming one has a morally superior sense of fair play exceeding that of the Bethesda developers and everyone else in the Morrowind modding community.

That isn't to say that there's anything wrong with adjusting the balance... just that it's a bit arrogant to change the game and then proclaim it to be "balanced".

I apologize if that sounds snarky to anyone... I just don't think the executable is the best place to adjust the game balance since it's something that the vast majority of players (read "everyone except Hrnchamd") are pretty much incapable of modifying. Changing it in the game engine locks it in so that it either runs according to Hrnchamd's preferences or according to the decisions of some group that Hrnchamd accepts as being representative of the community as a whole, but isn't configurable via the construction set for anyone that disagrees with either the person doing the editing or the people advising the person doing the editing.

Obviously, that doesn't apply to issues that normally couldn't otherwise be reconfigured by the construction set (such as attribute/skill capping or pricing for custom enchanted objects), but should (in my opinion) apply to other things which could easily be adjusted by editing game data instead of game engine. Like overly powerful racial powers and abilities, for example.

I probably just managed to single-handedly offend the entire world. I hope not. I certainly meant no offense or insult to Hrnchamd or anyone else that has offered opinions on how the game should be changed. I just want to remind people that everyone has a different idea of how the game should work, and any time those changes *can* be adequately made through editing the game data instead of the game engine, that's probably a better solution.

This is not really a "fix" per-say, but is it possible to make it so that the player can be completely invisible in third-person mode, rather than partially transparent? Then I wouldn't have to see the bald head of my character through hair, helmets, etc. I'd imagine it could also be useful to some mods too, which is honestly why I thought of this in the first place, but the before mentioned reasons have also always bugged me.

Anywho, this is an amazing project, many thanks to your work on it. :foodndrink:

Hey, someone who actually cares about this stuff!


I previously meant that adding the recognition of zero cost spells (which someone asked for previously) would change the balance away from vanilla significantly. i.e. un-default gameplay or 'not a bug fix'. Of course what you say about preference is true, but the corollary is someone has to design reasonable defaults or limits, so people can focus on what they care about. I was wondering if there was a way to redesign when zero cost spells are acceptable, not change Ancestor Guardian or other racials. Snarky example from me aside. You may notice I have a policy of not touching the game data.


Everyone who can click on the option buttons in MCP can modify behaviours, I make the lock and give you the key. Someone did want it after all, I'm just trying to make it reasonably useful for as many people as possible.


I'm down with it. Back there I did recommend Power to the People (a birthsign mod) if we couldn't come up with anything. In the end I have to choose one of the different ideas to implement, I'd rather ask about what would appeal to people and not just their personal taste, but what they know about other people's tastes as well.



If you mean with chameleon? Not everyone has a full head of hair; it's also a bit niche. I do have an idea though, full chameleon is a bit disconcerting. Just this week, someone had a problem with alpha transparent robes disappearing with chameleon. If we reverse the fix, maybe it will make the head disappear under the same conditions. Load your head NIF into NifSkope, select the bald part of the head and add a NiAlphaProperty to it. Edit the flags, turn off alpha blending, turn on alpha testing, set it to greater than 192. It should disappear if it becomes transparent, but it won't do much for your facial complexion.

Hmm... good point >.>

Decided it might be better to take this private.

The player character's background specifies that s/he is born "fortunate in their aspects". I wouldn't expect this to be the case with all of the NPC's in the game, just with a few notable exceptions, for both racial and birthsign powers and abilities. So, a baseline of lesser versions of these abilities would be fine. Selecting who gets the full-powered abilities would be firmly in the territory of a plugin, I think, as would be the balancing of the lesser versions of the abilties and powers. I expect, for example, that Umbra should be allowed to Berserk at the start of his fight.

I agree with this in theory, and I completely agree that the Nerevarine (being god-touched, or at least Azura-touched and the object of prophecy) should have those fortunate aspects that the average NPC lacks. However, don't NPCs already lack birthsign powers? I didn't think they got them anyway. On the other hand, racial powers and abilities are the great equalizer between the various forms. It makes sense that a race born to extreme cold would resist it naturally, or that a race evolved in a swamp filled with venomous creatures and toxic plants would be resistant to poisons. I wouldn't think it would be a good idea to strip most NPCs of their racial abilities and leave them only to certain select individuals. The usual limiter for racial powers is that they can only be used once per day. This already prevents an NPC from using a power multiple times in any single combat, and considering that an attacker usually kills the player or dies by his or her hand during the combat, the chance to use that power on successive days is already pretty much non-existent. That means that racial powers for NPCs are already significantly less useful for NPCs than for the player (except for NPC companions). Perhaps giving the average NPC a toned down version would be reasonable solution if it turns out that allowing all orcs to berserk has unintended consequences. And that solution would, naturally, be best implemented via the construction set rather than the MCP. One possible solution which could NOT easily be accomplished in the construction set would be to give every 0 point racial power a particular random chance of being unavailable in any given combat (as if the NPC had already used it that day). That might even make NPC companions more interesting, since it would prevent them from always using their racial power on the very first combat of any given day.

Of course, giving some Birthsign bonuses to select NPCs sounds like a very intriguing idea and an excellent way of making certain encounters more interesting, but it really doesn't address the issue of racial powers, since birthsigns don't normally apply to NPCs anyway. Or am I wrong on that?

Not unless you manually add them to the NPCs. I've decided to leave it in beta so people have time to develop mods for it and see if it needs refining.

There's still a long list of things that need testing from beta 4. My priority is the improved animation code, and the spell deselection fix. These have the potential for side-effects like glitching movement and need checking on with different setups.

Well, I'm off shift for the weekend, so I may give the fog of war fix a checking out.

That's kind of the main one I'm interested in right now. I've been considering getting a new game going, and the fog of war thing has always really bugged the hell out of me.

Naja, I need some time to “digest” this.

:unsure:

I've asked for this before, then someone else did. I don't think many people realize the usefulness of this. The problem is that the game can't recognize scripts on statics. Short of patching the CS, the only way to even add a script to a static is with the Morrowind Enchanted Editor. However as the game can't recognize it there is no way to make it work. I tried, and either the game crashed or it just ignored it, I don't recall. I'm leaning towards ignored.


This was brought up before, with the same example. I'm pretty sure Hrnchamd didn't find a real solution, but I'm glad he has decided to give it another look. Unless I'm thinking of the way that reflect and spell absorption still wouldn't be 100% with two effects of 50%, for example... I did a quick test, and reversing the order of the enchantments allows both to happen. So, if it's not reflected, it's absorbed. It did get absorbed more often though, but I only tested for a few minutes.


Awesome, congratulations, and thank you.


I think you should leave it up to mods to change the way the powers work. I can walk into Addamasartus with the default game at difficulty 100 and clear it. I haven't used "Power to the people" yet, but I have no problem with the difficulty being significantly more. The whole idea was to allow NPCs to use their powers without affecting the way the PC uses its powers. One point of magicka might not be significant for an NPC, ( who has more magicka than the PC anyway ), but for the PC, it could make the difference between life and death if they can't cast their power because they don't have one point of magicka.


I have been working on a birthsign mod of my own that would expand birthsigns much like the existing options, but also add them to all NPCs.


I will begin testing as soon as I post this reply. I'm sorry to missed the other betas again, I didn't expect so much development so quickly. Then I started to play Oblivion again. This is the first I have checked in a week or so.

I feel I should bring up two other old issues now. The issue with how drain and other negative effects, namely burden, continue to affect you beyond the designated magnitude when applied as Abilities. Drain Attribute 10 points would drain 10 points each frame until you were at 0, instead of draining only 10 points from the maximum. That would be nice to see fixed, and it would allow us to stop using curses, which, might I remind you, can be healed by other methods than the Remove Curse effect.

Oh, I don't suppose you want to give another go at making Fortify Stamina Fatigue and Fortify Magicka to behave like the change to Fortify Health? The inconsistency with the other effects feels so strange. Inconsistency bugs me, and you seem to be on a roll with 0 magicka fix and all.

Any luck on altering the ingredient window for potion making?

Oh, coolness. I'll be sure to try this out when I have time to figure out NifSkope. Thanks. ^.^

Personally, I don't think fortify fatigue SHOULD work like Fortify Health. The fortify health is just supposed to give an actor extra health, while giving someone extra fatigue, considering the way that it automatically regenerates anyway, is something of a waste of time. On the other hand, having artificially boosted fatigue (such as 350/300) is quite useful. Just as the chance of successfully accomplishing something goes down when one is tired, it goes up similarly when one has "bonus" fatigue. Since the player is effectively at a stamina exceeding 100%, it allows a person to perform beyond their normal capabilities. Think of it as the equivalent of adventuring while using magical stimulants. (or Popeye on spinach)

On the other hand, if fortify fatigue was changed to act similarly to fortify health, then both the current and maximum values would increase for a while, giving an almost meaningless increase to something that regenerates automatically anyway, and having a stamina value > 100% would be impossible.

Because of the way the patches are set up, it would obviously be something that people could either choose to activate or choose to ignore, but I'm having trouble seeing why someone would actually WANT to activate it, since it seems to have virtually no practical application, and would eliminate just about the only useful features of the magical effect.

mainly for abilities and constant effects. +10 fatigue permanently would still be a boon if your stats were drained for instance. currently, fortify fatigue as an ability or constant effect doesn't work as intended.

I have not tested the animation patch, but so far everything else seems to be working. However, there is a small issue. When the Bound weapon expiry fix is used in conjunction with the Spell deselection bug fix, the currently selected spell is always removed when the Bound Weapon effect ends. They work fine on their own though.

If anyone wants to easily test the Spell deselection bug fix, slap the fireball_en enchantment on a new copy of a chitin dagger and give it to Tanisie Verethi in Addamasartus. Without the patch, your active spell should disappear after she uses the enchanted version and switches to the unenchanted version.


Well, if at least it could prevent the effect of draining the same amount that was fortified, it would be great.


Do abilities affect anything except Fortify Maximum Magicka as intended? Even if it's intended, the way that the birthsigns fortify attributes isn't what you would expect, as it still can't go over 100 with them.

Reversing the order makes it work properly. Checking the code, effectively the first one it sees wins. After a successful reflect it stops checking for absorb, after an absorb the target is null and the spell effect can't be reflected (although it can display an erroneous reflect visual). uesp.net is somewhat wrong on this and should be updated, perhaps you could submit it to MPP as well.


This doesn't seem to happen with a Drain Attribute or Burden ability on testing, but it behaves just like any other spell and can be cured with Restore.


Magicka and fatigue are autocalc stats. To retain the fortified difference when a base stat changes there needs to be some way of remembering the old value for comparison. None of the 2189 places that change stats do that, and changing them all to jump to function .. well I can't even identify them all.


Wow, that's weird. Good find.


While this does work, the intention of the fix was to fix random deselection you get when you are wandering around in Vvardenfell. I guessed it was something equipping something on spawn from the equip noise it made, but it's hard to tell.

Yes, I had thought about doing that. Think you can make Spell Absorption stack correctly so that it doesn't do separate rolls for each source?


Really? I know that once I realized that the NoM penalties could be cured with regular Restore Attribute methods, I tried changing them from curses to abilities, and it took them to zero. I'm pretty sure I've read that Burden is affected strangely also, as well as possibly Feather, when used as abilities.

Edit: I just tried it with Drain and Damage, and it works as I described with Damage. Well, it damages every second, not frame. I remember it going much faster before. I think there is still some kind of issue with some spell effects and Abilities though. It shouldn't be able to be cured, for example.

Maybe the issue with Drain was that it could still be restored, then.


So there really is no way to change them? I don't even really use Fortify Health/Magicka/Fatigue because of the way they work. I wish all of the effects could behave normally, increasing only the current, just changed to not subtract anything when the effect ends. Then, if you don't take damage beyond the fortified amount, you're fine. Of course that way it's useless for enchantments, because once the fortified amount is consumed it can never get to that amount again without re-equipping the item. These effects annoy me...


That's what I'm here for.


Well, I just did something to test based on the bit of info in the MCP launcher description. I had no idea what actually caused it.

I guess that that's a "No", for the expanded ingredient window?

It's unlikely given how the code is set up, it involves moving the spell effect level code up to the spell level.


Ability drains wouldn't show up as red on the character sheet and may be subject to oddness if a stat hits zero. The point where it makes fortify ability into a base stat mod is pretty hacky and not easy to add new effects to, I'll see how it goes.


Can't do much with it I'm afraid. Need some documentation for the UI functions.

Bound weapon / spell deselection work together now, since you pointed out that weirdness.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26348

Changes:

- Bound weapons shouldn't deselect spells on expiry. Test it works.
- AI casts zero cost spells. Staying in beta for this round.
- Soulgem value changed again. Documentation reads better I hope. Check prices are reasonable.

- Animation patch still needs testing.
- Random spell deselection still needs testing.

What kind of problems would it cause?


Good luck. Just stopping Drain from being able to be cured would be fine. It'd make it a more viable option than curses for adding penalties, even if curses were to only be affected by remove curse.


Oh well. That one seemed promising.


Good to hear.

Oh, just curiosity, nothing really in need of a fix, but do you know anything about the strange behavior of the arrow that shows your position? When you set the map to always show, and it's the local map, sometimes the arrow stretches about as you move/turn. It's especially easy to see in the Balmora Mages Guild as you take the corridor to the lower area.

Now Imma go to bed. I'm falling asleep at the computer again.

One thing I don't understand and never select when using this utility is the reducing the spellmaking maximum. Why would I want the limit to be half of what it is in vanilla Morrowind?

"Spellmaking max. magnitude. New magnitude limit changed from 1000 to 500"