The Elder Scrolls

[Aesthetic Liminal Pool]

If there was something like Legacy of the Dragonborn for Morrowind you better believe I would have every compatible mod and be ravenously looking for all them ancient crystal eggs no matter who I had to rob or murder, but because of Morrowind's more free form I don't have any other mods that add collectibles.

Found it here, can't think of any other major collectible mods, but also this reminds me to save stuff off of Nexus before it changes hands. Also tried to check some other old mod sites only to realize they've all shut down. Sad.

 

[Mage Killer]

View attachment 7521040
If I had a nickel for every time I've seen a Bethesda whipping meme...

I get it, it's a job, but isn't game development ultimately just sitting at a desk? And don't pretty much all of these dudes LIKE 3d modeling, programming, whatever. I get that that can be tiresome but this is way different then other harder jobs. Seriously, it shouldn't take bethesda nearly 8 years to make a full mainline game. Do you want to know how long the gap between skyrim and fallout 4 was? 4 years. Going by that, what, will elder scrolls 6 come out in 2031?

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

A pretty good argument for killing Paarthurnax on r/teslore - https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/1lapets/why_you_should_kill_paarthurnax_a_modest_proposal/

It is really neccesary?
Basically, if you want some control of dragons, Paathurnax had the way of the voice.
If you really want to kill him by being tyrannical at the end, it's your decision.
But you know what? That quest in vanilla suck ass a lot. Better putting some mods. There's one when you want to kill him, 4 dragons fighting against you at the same time. Fucking insane but fun.

I get it, it's a job, but isn't game development ultimately just sitting at a desk? And don't pretty much all of these dudes LIKE 3d modeling, programming, whatever. I get that that can be tiresome but this is way different then other harder jobs. Seriously, it shouldn't take bethesda nearly 8 years to make a full mainline game. Do you want to know how long the gap between skyrim and fallout 4 was? 4 years. Going by that, what, will elder scrolls 6 come out in 2031?

Considering how Daggerfall has rushed in two years and anyways had a fucking big functional map. In 1996.

 

[HTTP Error 404]

Wait.

Wait. wait wait wait.

... They added both Oblivion and Skryim's maps to Morrowind?

https://modding-openmw.com/lists/total-overhaul/

Holy autism, Batman!

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

Wait.

Wait. wait wait wait.

... They added both Oblivion and Skryim's maps to Morrowind?

https://modding-openmw.com/lists/total-overhaul/

Holy autism, Batman!

>569 mods
What the actual fuck.

 

[HTTP Error 404]

>569 mods
What the actual fuck.

It's up to 40 gigs and still downloading, too. Probably has another 70 gigs or so to go.

 

[King Murchad Big Groypers]

Wait.

Wait. wait wait wait.

... They added both Oblivion and Skryim's maps to Morrowind?

https://modding-openmw.com/lists/total-overhaul/

Holy autism, Batman!

>569 mods
What the actual fuck.

Total Overhaul is the modlist I used for my most recent MW playthrough. It's incredible. With lowered skill xp gain and the expanded PTR worldspace, you can really play MW like classic D&D where gold = xp. The game stayed fun for me into the late endgame because I had that giant gold sink, and it made every dungeon even the ones that were below my tier worthwhile due to their loot. I would recommend changing the NCGDMW attribute weights for major/minor/misc skills from 100/100/50 to 125/75/50 though, to make classes more distinct. There's also a bunch of hacky combat improvement mods that add things like dodging and parrying that I'd recommend you disable.

 

[HTTP Error 404]

Total Overhaul is the modlist I used for my most recent MW playthrough. It's incredible. With lowered skill xp gain and the expanded PTR worldspace, you can really play MW like classic D&D where gold = xp. The game stayed fun for me into the late endgame because I had that giant gold sink, and it made every dungeon even the ones that were below my tier worthwhile due to their loot. I would recommend changing the NCGDMW attribute weights for major/minor/misc skills from 100/100/50 to 125/75/50 though, to make classes more distinct. There's also a bunch of hacky combat improvement mods that add things like dodging and parrying that I'd recommend you disable.

Wait, what gold sink? And is there a list of these mods to disable?

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

I get it, it's a job, but isn't game development ultimately just sitting at a desk? And don't pretty much all of these dudes LIKE 3d modeling, programming, whatever. I get that that can be tiresome but this is way different then other harder jobs. Seriously, it shouldn't take bethesda nearly 8 years to make a full mainline game. Do you want to know how long the gap between skyrim and fallout 4 was? 4 years. Going by that, what, will elder scrolls 6 come out in 2031?

I've seen several behind-the-scenes blog posts from the Truck Sim guys. I swear 4/5 of the "map modellers" are women with no prior experience in gaming. I seethe imagining the passionate life-long aspiring devs who were passed over to give Emma a funny story of 2 years 'that time she made video games haha'. It makes sense: The best creators are those who want to create something, not just learn the tools and hope it comes along. How do you get into cinematography? You got a vision you need to make happen. Imagine reading 50 books on the skill and then go "uh so what do I make now?".

At this point no game releases at 90% completion, so I can see why crunch at the last moment can help in some manner, but ultimately it's a marketing move now. Reap the benefits of "no crunch at CuckSuckStudios" or get those few extra quests in? The next TES is so fucking far away and has been so long underway it'll get the Elden Ring treatment. No amount of success can make the waiting worthwhile. People went back to DaS2 within a month or two. People want nostalgia, simplicity and something understandable. If the next game drops with karma, honor, reputation, law, factions, subfactions, 50000 quests, a lot of people will break their neck on it.

 

[Asian tech support]

People went back to DaS2 within a month or two.

Spoiler: completely irrelevant to the thread

I've seen you make this point several times and there's absolutely zero evidence to back this up, or at least none that I've seen and none that you've provided. Every Souls title took a playercount hit after the release of ER and the only one that's crawled its way back is DSR, which is now averaging higher playercounts than it was befoore Feb 2022. Even that's marginal. I still do some DS1 pvp from time to time and I'm recognizing names. It's not that active.

Yes, a couple hundred die hard DS2 players went back to their crappy pvp after finishing ER. I'm sure the tens of thousands of ER players noticed. Drangleic has fallen, hundreds must grief. ER has better pvp than DS2 or 3.

 

[King Murchad Big Groypers]

Wait, what gold sink? And is there a list of these mods to disable?

Mainly training, I forgot to say. Various other mods in the list make Mercantile more significant for travel and selling/buying items, blunting the gold snowball a bit. Some people like to amass collections of items, but I've always disliked that sort of "in-your-head RP" solution to problems of game balance. Gold = xp is lindy, it aligns the player's mindset with that of their adventurer character and is more immersive IMO.

Most gameplay-affecting mods can be tweaked and disabled in the in-game MCM.

 

[Rick The Stick]

If the base game had a "become high king" option, killing partysnax would act as a pretty fun yin to his yang. But then that would open up too many fun story possibilities and bethesda doesn't put that sort of effort into their stories nor do they do branching paths or consequences very well.

 

[HTTP Error 404]

Mainly training, I forgot to say. Various other mods in the list make Mercantile more significant for travel and selling/buying items, blunting the gold snowball a bit. Some people like to amass collections of items, but I've always disliked that sort of "in-your-head RP" solution to problems of game balance. Gold = xp is lindy, it aligns the player's mindset with that of their adventurer character and is more immersive IMO.

Most gameplay-affecting mods can be tweaked and disabled in the in-game MCM.

Doesn't Morrowind have some exploit where making potions make you better at making potions so you make better potions (repeat forever)? I am guessing that modpack has a fix for that?

 

[Caddo Cobgang]

Spoiler: completely irrelevant to the thread

I've seen you make this point several times and there's absolutely zero evidence to back this up, or at least none that I've seen and none that you've provided. Every Souls title took a playercount hit after the release of ER and the only one that's crawled its way back is DSR, which is now averaging higher playercounts than it was befoore Feb 2022. Even that's marginal. I still do some DS1 pvp from time to time and I'm recognizing names. It's not that active.
View attachment 7526638 View attachment 7526639 View attachment 7526640
Yes, a couple hundred die hard DS2 players went back to their crappy pvp after finishing ER. I'm sure the tens of thousands of ER players noticed. Drangleic has fallen, hundreds must grief. ER has better pvp than DS2 or 3.

I mean honestly arguing steamcharts for a singleplayer game where you dont need other people for the matchmaking pool is retarded, pretty much any singleplayer AAA game is going have at least four-figure playercount at all times, Dark Souls is no exception

 

[LovisXVI]

Doesn't Morrowind have some exploit where making potions make you better at making potions so you make better potions (repeat forever)? I am guessing that modpack has a fix for that?

No, it is making potions so you have a better intelligence so you are better at enchanting, which you then enchant objects with fortify Alchemy and so forth. You can also fortify Enchant directly, but there is no alchemy effect to buff a skill directly like Enchant/Restoration does.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

I mean honestly arguing steamcharts for a singleplayer game where you dont need other people for the matchmaking pool is retarded, pretty much any singleplayer AAA game is going have at least four-figure playercount at all times, Dark Souls is no exception

How did we get to talking about DaS in an ES thread?

you can really play MW like classic D&D where gold = xp.

That's actually interesting, wouldn't mind giving it a go, anything else notable that you found?

 

[King Murchad Big Groypers]

That's actually interesting, wouldn't mind giving it a go, anything else notable that you found?

I'm pretty hardcore into GMing OSR sandbox play, and so I was surprised at how much Morrowind, especially when PTR's landmass extensions are added, matches pretty closely OSR design philosophy. In the ACKS II Judges Journal it talks about how to create proper compelling sandboxes, going into detail on how much POI content like dungeons and lairs you should place in your sandbox so that your party can reliably advance from 1st level to 14th. You should include some redundancy as well because people like having options and not feeling railroaded, and also because party wipes are always a possibility. It also talks about dividing the map into lawful (Ascadian Isles), neutral (West Gash, Bitter/Azura's Coast, Grazelands), and chaotic (Molag Amur, Ashlands, Red Mountain) zones, to give texture and the feeling of adventure. (Skyrim and Cyrodiil are too flat in terms of danger and mystery. You never feel like you're leaving civilization because the settlements are all evenly spaced and each county/hold is equally safe.)

This probably sounds like obvious game design 101, but I see a lot of GMs and game devs fail at basic sandbox design like this. I love Skyrim, but it's always bugged me how badly it's paced from a leveling point of view. It's difficult to play a "pure" one-faction playthrough from level 1 to ~60-80 max level, you'll invariably have to dip into other questlines sooner or later. Replayability is hampered because every character will have to go through the keystone dungeons like Bleak Falls Barrow, Ustungrav, Saarthal, etc, and it's made worse by the fact that they're more detailed. I feel like I can draw an accurate map of Bleak Falls Barrow from memory by now, with all its stupid setpieces like the frostbite spider nest or the spiral staircase with skeevers.

The only real keystone dungeon I'd say there exists for Morrowind would be Addamasartus? After that you'd have to go out of your way to repeat dungeons on playthroughs. My last playthrough was as a Breton Nightblade doing hybrid Mages/Thieves guild. In vanilla Morrowind if you wanted to play a faction it was pretty much guaranteed that you'd end up doing most of its content, since there was just the three House cities (Balmora, Ald'ruhn, and Sadrith Mora) and Vivec. But with PTR, since the mainland factions aren't separate, it means that there's redundancy and you can do multiple wholly different playthroughs with the same character class/specialization. My Breton Nightblade did Ajira's intro quests in Balmora but then did Old Ebonheart's Mages Guild -> Firewatch -> bit of Narsis. My next mage playthrough as a Spellsword I'll try out Bal Foyen -> Almas Thirr -> full Narsis, and might do either Legion or Fighter's Guild as well. Point being that the sheer abundance of content and variety is just very exciting. Each new release only multiplies the possible combinations. Modded PTR Morrowind for me is the ultimate dungeon crawler.

I really liked a QOL mod that was included that gave you a book that auto-updated with the names, skill levels, and locations of trainers that you met. The whole meme of "games where keeping a journal/notes is necessary" I feel got a bit too contrarian and reductive in reaction to modern guided open-worlds. Having tedious things that don't require any mental effort be automatic is fine IMO, that's stuff that every PC would logically be doing. Where there's a natural chance of failure, like with navigation or putting together quest clues, then I think that you shouldn't be handheld by the game.

Some of the quest mods in Total Overhaul were shit, though. Would not recommend Lord of Rebirth or that Peryite quest in Caldera.

Can't think of anything else, really. It speaks to how good vanilla Morrowind's fundamentals were that "basic" content addition mods like PTR fit so seamlessly and enhance it so smoothly. It's good and all, but part of me is a little bit resentful that mods for a 20+ year old game is all we really have for this subgenre. Not a single proper Bethesda-like competitor has been made in all this time.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

GMing OSR sandbox

but I see a lot of GMs and game devs fail at basic sandbox design like this.

God where were you 7 years ago, the passion in the rest of your post is nice to see.

 

[Lammy]

Doesn't Morrowind have some exploit where making potions make you better at making potions so you make better potions (repeat forever)? I am guessing that modpack has a fix for that?

Most modpacks that rebalance usually hit the Fortify Intelligence potions loop.
In this case, Total Overhaul includes "Alchemical Hustle", which removes Fortify Intelligence and Luck effects from Alchemy.

No, it is making potions so you have a better intelligence so you are better at enchanting, which you then enchant objects with fortify Alchemy and so forth. You can also fortify Enchant directly, but there is no alchemy effect to buff a skill directly like Enchant/Restoration does.

Nah, the Alchemy/Enchant/Smithing shuffle is Skyrim's version of it.
Intelligence and Luck are directly part of the Alchemy formula in MW.

from UESP:
BasePotionStrength = (Alchemy + (Intelligence / 10) + (Luck / 10)) * MortarQuality / (3 * EffectBaseCost)

Combined with vanilla Morrowind's ability to use infinite potions at once, you can go to insanity even with just one batch of potions.

 

[HTTP Error 404]

No, it is making potions so you have a better intelligence so you are better at enchanting, which you then enchant objects with fortify Alchemy and so forth. You can also fortify Enchant directly, but there is no alchemy effect to buff a skill directly like Enchant/Restoration does.

I thought what you're describing was the Skyrim one. Make a potion to make enchanting better, use enchanting to make alchemy better, make a better enchanting potion, make a better alchemy ring, repeat until you're invincible. There's IIRC some magic value you have to have already reached before you can start this cycle (before then it peters out reaching an infinite loop) but once you do there's nothing stopping you from making a ring that gives you infinitely strong potions and infinitely strong smithing and just making a bow that causes 2 billion damage or whatnot.

Morrowind I always hear was something like you can make fortify intellect potions which directly improve alchemy but there are no guardrails or limits, so you fort int, drink it, make a better fort int potion, drink it, repeat endlessly. Plus apparently there's some NPCs that sell infinite amounts of the fort int potion ingredients, and superpowerful fort int potions have equally super sell prices, so you can repeat this endlessly with a single go once you get to that NPC.


Edit:
Bringing it back to previous topics...

ESO is interesting. I'm not sold on it. I'm running around as an Arcanist, they apprently redid the tutorial then re-redid the tutorial so it's the original tutorial again just, not as clunky. Apparently you can just go anywhere and do anything right away as everything scales to your level, which doesn't really matter anyway cause it's an Everquest situation where your level is not as important as your AA advancement grind? It's a bit weird getting to the world map and seeing like 50 places I can teleport to. It's still early in the process but I'm basically just spamming light attack with my staff or hitting my basic spell. I have a feeling this will become more involved once I get past the early levels or start trying to do dungeons.

Morrowind... that total modpack might be a bit much. Sure is pretty tho. I'm looking at the other modpacks they have, you can peek at the mods and see what modpacks have them in them. The mods that add Morrowind's mainland, Skyrim, and Oblivion's maps are in several smaller packs that don't have 70 gigs of graphic asset downloads. Some ones that are interesting now:

• I Heart Vanilla -- adds just a few QoL stuff, no new content apparently. Meant for new players?
• I Heart Vanilla Director's Cut -- It's IHV with those massive landmass mods + cut content + mods from morrowind team members. New Players+?
• Just Good Morrowind -- "IHV but not for purists" I guess? The big change I see here is it adds some combat mod that adds dodgerolling and the like?
• Just Beautiful Morrowind -- This is JGM with some of the cut content / content / city redesign mods included.
• Morrowind Starter Pack -- Adds some graphical improvements but no rebalance mods, city/map remakes, NPC mods, UI mods, etc etc.

I think IHVDC or the Starter Pack is the sweet spot. Adds a ton of new content but not stuff like the combat rebalance or a 70 gig 8k AI upscaled texture pack.