Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

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wareya
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Re: Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

Post by wareya »

Jesus christ, guys. Worry about it after 1.0.
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Jemolk
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Re: Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

Post by Jemolk »

wareya wrote: 22 Oct 2018, 08:01 Jesus christ, guys. Worry about it after 1.0.
I would, except I'm still playing Morrowind on the engine prior to 1.0, and I don't know how far out that will end up finally being. Ravenwing also makes some good points about not implementing stuff that'll have to be ripped out wholesale post-1.0.
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wareya
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Re: Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

Post by wareya »

If that "stuff that'll have to be ripped out wholesale post-1.0" is "literally how Morrowind is designed as a game" then it kind of has to be there for 1.0 to happen.
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Jemolk
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Re: Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

Post by Jemolk »

wareya wrote: 25 Oct 2018, 03:27 If that "stuff that'll have to be ripped out wholesale post-1.0" is "literally how Morrowind is designed as a game" then it kind of has to be there for 1.0 to happen.
It's not, though? It's a single, fairly shitty (in the opinion of myself and many others) design choice that I still believe was probably implemented as a hacky workaround to the inability to restore stuff to fortified levels, and causes at least as many problems as it solves from our current position. It has NO benefit to anything else, only detriment to modding. It hardcodes ALL ABILITIES with fortify skill/fortify attribute effects to function differently from any other type of spell effect implementation in an incredibly obnoxious, inconsistent and somewhat bizarre way. This is a singular, solitary exception not for birthsigns but for Ability-typed spell effects to the otherwise universal rule for all spell effects. AND, we can revert to vanilla with a mod exceptionally easily, and it is also exceptionally easy to fix any hypothetically broken mods from this (of which I'm fairly certain the actual number is zero), while it would be completely impossible to get back the behavior we have now with a mod. I dislike this idea to a great extent because it unnecessarily decimates modding potential now for basically zero gain full stop ever, even if it would be opened up again later. This is controversial, yes, and I'm VERY glad a mod has been made to fix the issue, it hadn't occurred to me that that would work before it was done. But it's FAR from a fundamental aspect of the game or a crucial feature, and it costs us functionality while gaining none, because the original engine's functionality can be restored with minimal effort now, while the functionality that can very reasonably be argued to be just better will be simply gone with this change.

We can already accommodate the people who want it to work like vanilla. What you're proposing is that we treat it as too much for people who already downloaded an entire new game engine to grab one additional mod to make this exactly as in vanilla, while tossing the rest of us, who have very valid reasons for thinking this behavior in general to be certifiably insane, out in the cold. We can already accommodate both. It frustrates me to no end that you'd insist we cut the accommodations for one side just so that this aspect will be identical to the vanilla engine out of the box, when you know as well that there's quite a bit that won't be as it is.
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wareya
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Re: Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

Post by wareya »

You're being willfully ignorant and we're going in circles because of it. They could have implemented the star sign bonuses any way they wanted. They chose to make them as abilities so that they display on the HUD, and changed how abilities work slightly to avoid causing other problems. It's not a hacky workaround for those other problems. They avoided introducing those problems in the first place. It's how the game was designed by its designers.

So far I haven't said a thing about whether or not there should be an option for this. If there was, the default behavior 100% has to be the vanilla behavior, and the vanilla behavior has to be there.

I know that saying you're being willfully ignorant is just going to cause problems but that's really the only way I can react to that wall of text.
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psi29a
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Re: Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

Post by psi29a »

Right... I think this conversation has reached an end.

@Jemolk: If you would like create a ticket to track this, feel free. If you would like to try to implement something and send a PR/MR, go for it. That being said, the reason that non-Vanilla things get introduced is because people put in the effort to do so. If you can't do that then your best bet is to convince someone who can but expect push back.

Vanilla behaviour (more or less), for 1.0, has to be default. That might change in the future.

We're creating an game engine that will eventually be 'game' neutral.
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wareya
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Re: Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

Post by wareya »

To make up for being rude, I'll put in the work to implement an option for it if the devs who have a say in things (I'm just a "contributor", despite being a member of the github group) say that it can go in.
Ferk
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Re: Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

Post by Ferk »

wareya wrote: 22 Sep 2018, 02:44the constant effect on the HUD was basically just a nice way of showing why my character started with more of some stat. If it's really bothersome, the solution is to display inherent-like effects in a different way than non-inherent-like effects, not to change how the game mechanics work.
I'd vote for doing that, imho.
Personally I find a bit annoying having the constant effect always there, it makes non-inherent fortify effects harder to notice when they stack up with it in the same icon.

Maybe having a standard and clean way to define/display inherent attribute bonuses (as in added up to base attribute and not to the modifiers) would be also useful for the de-hardcoding post 1.0 and possible future standalone games that make better use of base attribute modifications?
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Jemolk
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Re: Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

Post by Jemolk »

Ferk wrote: 28 Oct 2018, 14:42
wareya wrote: 22 Sep 2018, 02:44the constant effect on the HUD was basically just a nice way of showing why my character started with more of some stat. If it's really bothersome, the solution is to display inherent-like effects in a different way than non-inherent-like effects, not to change how the game mechanics work.
I'd vote for doing that, imho.
Personally I find a bit annoying having the constant effect always there, it makes non-inherent fortify effects harder to notice when they stack up with it in the same icon.

Maybe having a standard and clean way to define/display inherent attribute bonuses (as in added up to base attribute and not to the modifiers) would be also useful for the de-hardcoding post 1.0 and possible future standalone games that make better use of base attribute modifications?
That actually sounds wonderful.

Oh, and yes, sorry for my own rudeness in this topic, everyone. By way of explanation alone, I've been beyond stressed out for a while now. I should probably try to refrain from even commenting on topics like this for a while, since I know I can get somewhat unreasonable under these circumstances. Alas, that is in some ways easier said than done due to having quite strong opinions, but I'll try to not let my worst instincts get the better of me in future.
TamrielCitizen
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Re: Fix The Lady Lover and Steed Birthsigns

Post by TamrielCitizen »

I am among those who wish to see the Vanilla Engine behaviour in this case. As I wrote in a separate topic, I believe that OpenMW should always provide the player with an option to make it behave exactly as the Vanilla Engine. I also think it's a good idea to give those who prefer current OpenMW behaviour in this case an option to enable it when (I hope) the Vanilla Engine behaviour is restored.

I'd like to mention that, unless I am very much mistaken, in the Vanilla Engine Abilities not only change Base Value of Attributes, but also Base Value of Skills. Maybe someone can check it (I don't have access to my main computer currently) with a simple plugin that adds, say, a "Fortify Speechcraft 10" Ability to the Dunmer Race. When the character generation is complete, check the Stats Menu - if Speechcraft Skill number isn't shown in white, then I am correct. Or just use console to get Base Skill Value, I guess.

I also disagree with the opinion that such behaviour of Abilities was originally added to the game only to circumvent the bug with restoring Attributes up to their Modified Values. This behaviour basically makes the "Abilities" origin type of Magic unique. It also makes sense to me - Abilities are supposed to represent some inherent qualities of magical nature of the affected character, as opposed to some magic effect that influences the character at some point and has another origin entirely.

And I also don't understand how such behaviour of Abilities can narrow modding possibilities. On the contrary, having an origin type of Magic that is unique in terms of gameplay mechanics increases modding possibilities. Actually, I have a half-finished mod that relies on this Vanilla Engine behaviour of Abilities. I believe that Curses, on the other hand, do change Modified Values of Attributes and Skills, so if someone needs such behaviour they may use Curses instead. Although, it may have side-effects because of gameplay mechanics unique to Curses. But that's the whole point I am making - every origin type of Magic (Abilities, Curses, Deceases, Powers, Spells, what else did I forget?) has its own gameplay mechanics, which I consider to be a good thing.

Maybe post-1.0 OpenMW/OpenMW-CS will allow to add more origin types of Magic, each with separately customisable gameplay mechanics, as part of the de-hardcoding (that may actually have been in the stage 1 document, but I don't remember for sure)?
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