Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

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

Post by onionland »

wareya wrote: 19 Dec 2017, 06:10 If the vanilla behavior is not available then there are a lot of people who will never use OpenMW.
I doubt a noticeable number of people would even be affected by how openmw tackles a certain bug / what is to be considered a bug.
Personally I am completely neutral on the subject. Let the devs tackle it how they would like and then maybe create an option for the vanilla behavior post 1.0 when dehardcoding if enough people make some noise about it.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by AnyOldName3 »

Where the intended behaviour is debatable, sometimes a specific solution is chosen because it results in much cleaner code. I imagine that it's easier to reflect all of a spell instead of just certain components of a spell, for example.
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Jemolk
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by Jemolk »

wareya wrote: 19 Dec 2017, 06:10 If the vanilla behavior is not available then there are a lot of people who will never use OpenMW.
Agreed. I'd be in that camp myself if the vanilla engine worked adequately in Wine. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate OpenMW and all the amazing work that's been done...but sometimes things get just plain infuriating. Like right here.
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Jemolk
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by Jemolk »

AnyOldName3 wrote: 19 Dec 2017, 14:58 Where the intended behaviour is debatable, sometimes a specific solution is chosen because it results in much cleaner code. I imagine that it's easier to reflect all of a spell instead of just certain components of a spell, for example.
That would be fine if the difference didn't have a severely detrimental effect on certain character builds. Again, I'd be happy enough with changes to reflect post-1.0 to make it less of an "Oops, you made the mistake of rolling a pure mage. You're dead! Sucks to be you!" effect, but in the mean time, I'm really not happy with our one major out being taken away, even if the result of having that out is that Absorb Health is an overpowered effect or somewhat finnicky code.
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wareya
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by wareya »

onionland wrote: 19 Dec 2017, 09:15 I doubt a noticeable number of people would even be affected by how openmw tackles a certain bug / what is to be considered a bug.
It's unlikely for a large number of people to care about a single particular difference in balance behavior, but these changes start to add up a lot considering how many weird design decisions in the original engine there are, ones that affect balance a lot. The birthsign behavior is another great example. There was someone who vocally called OpenMW "useless" to them because it deviates from the vanilla behavior for permanent birthsign buffs. Have enough of these minor behavioral differences and a lot of people are going to be unhappy with OpenMW, no matter how much it brings to the table, because the particulars of balance balance are one of the most important aspects of experienced players playing a game.
Schwerpunkt
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by Schwerpunkt »

1. Is OpenMW going for a completely vanilla emulation or is it not? Seems like a that question should have a simple answer.

2. I don't see how reflect would reverse the spell completely. If I tie a ball to my finger and throw the ball at you, and you reflect it back at me, you're not suddenly the thrower of the ball. You're just reflecting it. The ball is still tied to my finger, it isn't magically tied to yours instead.

If I cast an absorb health spell on you and you reflect it back at me, you don't suddenly become the caster -- again, you're just reflecting it. It's still "tied" to me because I'm still the caster of the spell. What you're reflecting is the mechanic of the spell that drains health, you aren't gaining the mechanic that absorbs it. That mechanic is still tied to the original caster, just as the string is still tied to the finger of the original thrower of the ball.

So the fix doesn't even make sense, and it goes against the stated purpose of OpenMW pre-1.0.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by AnyOldName3 »

It only doesn't make sense as a fix when specifically described like that. You could just as easily come up with a metaphor that only works the other way. As, however, we can't prove it's a bug, the only justification I can see for not having the true vanilla behaviour (whether intentional or not) available, at least via a setting, is if it creates ugly code. That means that unless Zini, Scrawl, or another god-tier OpenMW developer wants to step in and handle this thread, the only way to settle this would be if someone who likes the vanilla behaviour created a PR to make it an option. I'm busy working on shadows, so am not going to do it myself.

If you feel that you could try implementing the requested behaviour and care about the presence of the requested behaviour, try making a PR to make it an option. If the code is up to OpenMW's standards, there's little to stop it actually being merged once the work is done.
Schwerpunkt
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by Schwerpunkt »

AnyOldName3 wrote: 20 Dec 2017, 23:11 It only doesn't make sense as a fix when specifically described like that. You could just as easily come up with a metaphor that only works the other way.
No metaphor to explain it the other way works because that isn't how the concept of the spell works.

The basics are simple: you have the caster, the target, and the spell. The spell is meant to affect both the caster and the target. Reflecting the spell doesn't mean the target becomes the caster -- they're just reflecting the spell back at the caster, making them the target instead. The new target is still also the caster. The reflector doesn't become the caster.

Absorb health can only affect the target and the caster. Since the reflector doesn't become the caster (the caster doesn't change) and is no longer the target, then the reflector shouldn't be gaining any health because they're no longer relevant to the equation: caster, target (now the caster), and spell.

It seems people are wrongly assuming that the act of reflection means the target becomes the caster -- that isn't how it works. There's no metaphysical process occurring that swaps the roles of those two actors by reversing time or rewriting history and making it so. The caster is always the caster. Only the target changes.

So when you have a spell that affects both the caster and the target, reflecting the spell will only ever change the target. The effect of the spell that affects the caster doesn't change, nor does the caster. It can't change. It wasn't directed at the target to be able to change and the target isn't the caster.
Last edited by Schwerpunkt on 21 Dec 2017, 00:47, edited 2 times in total.
kuyondo
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by kuyondo »

that solves it, your explanation is logical and straight. some people may feel a need to 'fix' it because its 'overpowered', or because they felt it just doesnt work right(personal preference), but that should not be the case for openmw. its not a bug too.. it doesnt cause any problems for the game. id say we should stick to vanilla for now.

by the way, a pr was just merged that aims to mimic vanilla behavior eventhough it could cause balance issues. but this issue eventhough reported was instead not accepted. should we revive it? https://bugs.openmw.org/issues/4135
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AnyOldName3
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Re: Undo the alleged MCP "fix" for Absorb spell reflection

Post by AnyOldName3 »

Schwerpunkt wrote: 20 Dec 2017, 23:22
AnyOldName3 wrote: 20 Dec 2017, 23:11 It only doesn't make sense as a fix when specifically described like that. You could just as easily come up with a metaphor that only works the other way.
No metaphor to explain it the other way works because that isn't how the concept of the spell works.

The basics are simple: you have the caster, the target, and the spell. The spell is meant to affect both the caster and the target. Reflecting the spell doesn't mean the target becomes the caster -- they're just reflecting the spell back at the caster, making them the target instead. The new target is still also the caster. The reflector doesn't become the caster.

Absorb health can only affect the target and the caster. Since the reflector doesn't become the caster (the caster doesn't change) and is no longer the target, then the reflector shouldn't be gaining any health because they're no longer relevant to the equation: caster, target (now the caster), and spell.

It seems people are wrongly assuming that the act of reflection means the target becomes the caster -- that isn't how it works. There's no metaphysical process occurring that swaps the roles of those two actors by reversing time or rewriting history and making it so. The caster is always the caster. Only the target changes.

So when you have a spell that affects both the caster and the target, reflecting the spell will only ever change the target. The effect of the spell that affects the caster doesn't change, nor does the caster. It can't change. It wasn't directed at the target to be able to change and the target isn't the caster.
That's circular logic as far as I can tell. It doesn't say in-game at any point that reflection only changes the target of a specific component of the spell or whether or not the effective caster changes. (I say effective caster because the original caster's magika is what gets used.) Both options make sense as game mechanics (and they could even conceivably be in the same game, perhaps with Morrowind's behaviour called Lesser Reflect, and MCP's behaviour called Greater Reflect, available as a higher-level upgrade to the other version) and there's no detailed in-world explanation of the mechanics of the spell.
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