Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

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XJDHDR
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by XJDHDR »

I just want to reiterate that I am not asking for MCP Reflect to be the only behaviour in OpenMW, I am simply asking that it be made the default, with an option to restore vanilla. The opposition to my posts shows that even this concession is not good enough for them. The massive exaggerations on the part of some pro-vanilla proponents and the failure to call these out (or even agreement) by other pro-vanillas also doesn't help.
Jemolk wrote: 23 Jan 2019, 23:15 Oblivion did a lot of things differently from Morrowind. Was it a bug in Morrowind that Absorb spells could be made on target? Because they took that out in Oblivion too. Was it a bug in Morrowind to not include map-based fast travel, going instead for Silt Striders, boats and guild guides? Was it a bug to not include Mark and Recall in Oblivion? Was it a bug that made all attacks in Oblivion hit rather than having a miss chance based on attributes? No, of course not. The design direction changed.
Again, the Fallacy of Division. We are comparing Oblivion's and Morrowind's magic (specifically Reflect Spell), not the games in their entirety. We're not comparing combat, travel options or any other topic you can think of. Comparing only magic, the two games are in fact very similar, with a few magic effects in Morrowind that don't exist in Oblivion being, by far, the biggest difference. And ironically, Bethesda did, in fact, remove Mark and Recall (and other teleportation spells) to fix bugs. In an interview, Todd Howard specifically said that those spells had to be removed because they kept breaking their quests. You can still find the remnants of Divine Intervention in Oblivion's Construction Set.

Also, you are Moving the Goalposts. Throughout this thread, the main argument for vanilla behaviour was the assertion that MCP's behaviour just doesn't make sense (especially Schwerpunkt, who seems to be the main proponent). This is evidence that the game's own developers believe the MCP behaviour makes perfect sense. So, in fact, Bethesda themselves disagree with the notion that it makes no sense. In fact, AnyOldName3 even wished that we could get hold of the game's devs and get their input on this matter. This is the closest anyone has gotten so far to finding such input and you're arguing that we must ignore it.

Finally, in a previous post, you specifically said that "A config file revert would be acceptable". I'm advocating for exactly this and you're still complaining, just because my proposed default is not your preferred option. Moving the Goalposts further.
Jemolk wrote: 23 Jan 2019, 23:15 "They did it differently in Oblivion" does not mean that the original functionality was a bug.
Doesn't mean it wasn't either.
Jemolk wrote: 23 Jan 2019, 23:15This isn't a bug fix, and I was more than a bit annoyed that MCP put it under "bugfixes." It's a design decision.
So are you admitting that you have an emotional investment in getting OpenMW's devs to do what you want?
Jemolk wrote: 23 Jan 2019, 23:15As for which is better, the explanation from hrnchamd for why the patch was included was that it makes Absorb overpowered. I happen to disagree, a low magicka cost is what could make an effect like absorb overpowered. Not to mention, something being overpowered doesn't make it a bug. This is about game balancing.
I'm not interested in Hrnchamd's reasons for including the patch. Hrnchamd arguing that it was for balancing reasons does not say anything about anything I've said.
Jemolk wrote: 23 Jan 2019, 23:15I happen to disagree, a low magicka cost is what could make an effect like absorb overpowered. Not to mention, something being overpowered doesn't make it a bug. This is about game balancing.
People keep claiming that the MCP did it to balance the game and not fix bugs. Assuming that balance was a motivation, which no one has actually proven, there is no reason it can't have been done for both. After all, an Exploit is a specific type of bug that players use to gain an advantage. If the motive by MCP's dev was to fix an exploit, this means it is still a bugfix. OpenMW's goal from the start has been that bugs in Morrowind will not be replicated. This means OpenMW devs are well within their rights to copy MCP's Reflect Spell and making this bug an option is a concession. You're welcome to try argue that this is not an exploit but you'll probably fail.
Jemolk wrote: 23 Jan 2019, 23:15Bethedsa chose a different balancing setup for Oblivion, you note.
I noted no such thing.
Jemolk wrote: 23 Jan 2019, 23:15Yeah, and? Why do we care?
Clearly, you do. Otherwise, you wouldn't be posting in this thread.
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Husaco
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by Husaco »

Can this thread just be locked or something? The option to have either behaviour is available, which is agreeable to everyone, and there’s absolutely no merit in having sporadic flame wars about which implementation of an obscure interaction between two game mechanics is “correct” and ought to be the default.
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Jemolk
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by Jemolk »

The question was, what is the purpose of comparing this effect in Morrowind and Oblivion? The games are rather wildly distinct in terms of philosophy, so the decisions made in one don't necessarily reflect the intent in the other. In fact, the team that worked on Morrowind largely left afterwards, so while the company name and a few well-known people (such as Todd Howard) were constant in both, the developers of Morrowind are not the same as the developers of Oblivion.

TBH I don't really care too much what the default is (though Wareya's argument that balance alterations should always have vanilla as default has a good deal of merit to it), but I do care that it's labeled a bug when it makes perfect sense categorized as a balancing/game design decision either way. I was annoyed that it was under bug fixes precisely because I don't expect to have to scour the bugfixes section of a menu or config file in order to locate any unwanted game balance alterations to disable. I do feel that balancing changes should be opt-in, not opt-out, but not strongly enough to make a big deal of it. However, I get very annoyed when things like this are categorized bizarrely, as this results in me not noticing them until I get bitten by a difference in behavior that I wasn't aware of and so couldn't plan for...meaning that, intentionally or not, I was sabotaged. I don't tend to appreciate that.

But you want to know why I don't consider it a bug fix at all? Here's why, then -- it's a perfectly sensible in-world understanding of the mechanic and does not produce weird or out-of-place behavior, and there is no indication that intent was otherwise. For example, the magicka cost overflow exploit in vanilla wherein you can make a spell so expensive it reverts to being absurdly cheap and easy to cast because vanilla uses an unsigned 16-bit integer for spell costs? Bug. How can you tell? Because of the bizarre, glitchy behavior. A spell with a casting cost of 65,542 magicka should not end up instead costing 6 magicka. That's insane, and there's no legitimate in-game or game balance reason for this to happen. This is without a doubt an exploit and a bug. Fortify Intelligence potion stacking is an exploit, but whether it's a bug is somewhat debatable, since it's the logical and expected outcome of deliberately implemented game mechanics -- intelligence makes potions stronger, and there are ingredients in vanilla Morrowind with the Fortify Intelligence effect. They're not even that rare -- ash yams and netch leather both have it, IIRC. With Reflect Spell, I am not sure categorizing it as an exploit even makes sense. This isn't some sort of tricky manipulation of game systems that you have to plan out like in the other cases mentioned, it's simply how these two things interact, whether you cast absorb on an enemy with reflect, or an enemy casts absorb on you when you have reflect. It is also far from clear that reflecting an absorb spell logically should invert the spell, rather than simply changing its target to its caster. In fact, as I tried to argue on a previous page some time ago, reflecting spells seems more like redirecting them so that they now target the caster, whereas inverting a spell like occurs with the change is more like taking control of the spell.
Husaco wrote: 24 Jan 2019, 05:06 Can this thread just be locked or something? The option to have either behaviour is available, which is agreeable to everyone, and there’s absolutely no merit in having sporadic flame wars about which implementation of an obscure interaction between two game mechanics is “correct” and ought to be the default.
You're...not wrong, I admit.
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psi29a
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by psi29a »

Locked. I think we've talked this to death and the above posts sums everything up.
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