Bringing back drain-intelligence glitch

[PalThunder]

I rolled an Astronaut expecting to use the exploit where one drains intelligence to 0 in order to restore magicka. I was disapointed that OpenMW removed it. I think it should be an option. After all why allow us to loot summoned golden saints if you were not trying to replicate the bugs in the original game?

[Greywander]

Try this instead:

Buy Frost Salts from Nalcarya (in the Balmora alchemy shop, just West of the Temple), and Comberries from Ajira (Balmora Mages' Guild). These two vendors restock these ingredients, so they will never run out. Mix them together to make a Restore Magicka potion. Frost Salts are a bit pricy at a 75 gold value, but if you've invested even just a little into alchemy then money shouldn't be a problem. Just buy Scales and Kwama Cuttle from Nalcarya and make Water Walking potions, and sell them back to her. Again, these ingredients are infinitely restocked by her.

[kuyondo]

looting summoned creatures is not a bug its an exploit. restoring magicka by draining intelligence is a bug. you could find out why yourself.

[Jemolk]

looting summoned creatures is not a bug its an exploit. restoring magicka by draining intelligence is a bug. you could find out why yourself.

Two issues with this. Number one is that it is not a bug to have changes in int leave you with the same percentage of magicka. Number two, I really don't care if you think it's a bug. It's an exploitable bug at the very worst, and quite well known. With the original engine plus MCP, I actually always toggle that 'fix' off, as I would with any and all exploit 'fixes'.

[BlueFootedBooby]

looting summoned creatures is not a bug its an exploit. restoring magicka by draining intelligence is a bug. you could find out why yourself.

The way I've always used the terms, a bug is unintended behavior, irrespective of whether it's the result of a programming error or an oversight in design. An exploit is a player action that takes advantage of a bug, so saying there's an exploit is the same as saying there's a bug (or possibly more than one). Lol semantics.

In any case, I'd say the behavior is so perverse--you're literally restoring magical ability by draining the stat that provides magical ability--it can't possibly be intended, and that zero magicka is a special case not appropriately handled by maintaining percentage magicka remaining. The purpose of development pre-1.0 is explicitly to replicate vanilla behavior except it cases of obvious bugs, so, uh...

Like, I sympathize that this destroys a build you (OP) enjoy playing, but if you don't think it's reasonable for the bug to be fixed in the release version and un-fixing it left to modders then I don't know what to tell you.

[Greywander]

My definitions are that a bug is explicitly unintentional behavior, while an exploit uses intentional behavior to get an unexpected result. An example of an exploit would be the Alchemy-Intelligence loop. Higher Intelligence allows you to brew stronger potions, and you can brew potions that increase your Intelligence. Individually, these behaviors are both intentional, but when combined, they allow players to exploit the game and boost their Intelligence to godlike levels and brew mega-powered super potions.

I suppose another way to define it would be that a bug is a programming error (i.e. unintentional) while an exploit is a design flaw (i.e. intentional but not fully thought out). That said, I'm still likely to use the terms "bug" and "exploit" interchangeably in casual conversation. (And since not all bugs are beneficial to the player, I could also see a case for defining an exploit as making use of a bug to benefit the player.)

For the Drain-Intelligence glitch, it's obvious that the programming considers having 0/0 Magicka to be 100% Magicka, so when the drain wears off you're still at 100% Magicka, fully refilled. I can't see any reason why this glitch would have been intentional, so I believe it's a bug rather than an exploit.

As for looting summons, in my mind this is also a bug. If summons were meant to be lootable, they would leave corpses like any other creature. It would seem that the programmers didn't disable looting on summons, possibly because they thought that since the summon disappears when it dies, it wasn't necessary.

After the 1.0 release, it will hopefully be possible to create mods that either fix or allow these bugs/exploits.

[Jemolk]

Beyond making the case that the definition of exploit should include purely beneficial bugs, I think there is something else that makes Drain Int an exploit rather than simply a bug. To me, a bug is caused by faulty code, whereas an exploit is caused by forgetting to close a loophole. I would argue that Drain Intelligence and looting summons both fall into this latter category along with the alchemy-intelligence exploit, whereas Blind increading your chance to hit rather than decreasing it is in the former. I also think loophole-closing should come from plugins or config settings following the Great De-Hardcoding to come.

[Chris]

Sometimes those loopholes are caused by bugs. Such as checking the wrong variable (training checking your current skill level vs base skill level, allowing the drain'n'train exploit for reduced training prices and being able to train with lesser skilled trainers that you'd otherwise need). Other times, it depends on implementation details of the original code that act a certain way, and as OpenMW is a completely new code base, may not implement things the same way. Whether or not buggy or unintended behavior is replicated needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis, depending on how much work it would be to purposely replicate unintended behavior, taking into consideration how difficult it would be to maintain purposely buggy code along with re-fixing it later on, vs how integral it is to the Morrowind experience, taking into consideration how badly it can break the game.