What spell school is Free Action?

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Jay_H
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Re: What spell school is Free Action?

Post by Jay_H »

My bad comment :lol: I rush through these things sometimes! Thanks for being patient.

Mephilis78
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Re: What spell school is Free Action?

Post by Mephilis78 »

As far as the "where do we put this information about magicka schools" question goes. How about someplace really obvious? Like an ingame book.

If I remember right, creating an lore book is fairly simple, but I wouldn't know how to add it into the world. Preferably it would be added to the player inventory at start.

Actually, I've never modded Daggerfall unity, but I'm gonna have a look at the modding tools, and I may just do this myself.

Edit: Anyone have advice as to which tool would allow me to add a new text document to the item's list? I know I have modified an existing lorebook before, in Vanilla Daggerfall, and it worked fine. I also have completely added lorebooks to Morrowind with the creation kit. However, this is different. I don't want to alter any of the already existing books, and, in theory, modding Daggerfall Unity is probably very different from vanilla Daggerfall.

BansheeXYZ
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Re: What spell school is Free Action?

Post by BansheeXYZ »

Mephilis78 wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2019 4:53 pmAs far as the "where do we put this information about magicka schools" question goes. How about someplace really obvious? Like an ingame book.
You mean like... the spellbook? :roll:

Mephilis78
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Re: What spell school is Free Action?

Post by Mephilis78 »

No I mean an actual lorebook. Like "The Sage" "Gods and Worship", " A Rude Song", "Lusty Argonian Maid" or "The History of the Empire"

Except it would be written by one of us, titled something like "On Magic" or "The Schools of Magic" or something somewhat lore friendly. We could put literally any information into an ingame lorebook. Something like "Making Spells" by Mephilis of Camlorn.

The spellbook has a specific use already. It is a list of spells that you have acquired throughout your journey, and nobody seems to want to change it. I don't blame them really. I'm just giving an alternative, a lore friendly, one that doesn't interfere with the operation of the original game. Just writing a text file, and placing it into the world somehow.

Al-Khwarizmi
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Re: What spell school is Free Action?

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

I think a tooltip appearing when hovering over the spell should do the trick.

Or a scroll appearing when right clicking if we want more information, something like this:

Image

The lore book would also make sense as an extra, but to me it makes sense to make information about spells should be accessible from the spellbook. After all a caster that knows how to cast a spell should know what schools it comes from, they shouldn't need to read it from an external book in a library.

Mephilis78
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Re: What spell school is Free Action?

Post by Mephilis78 »

lol There's a reason the mages guild is lined with books.

But seriously the only reason I was going with the lorebook idea is because if fits with Daggerfall, and it's old school hand holding policy. It gives you the info, but you still either have to remember it, or pull the book out again. Kind of like not having quest locations pop up in a tool tip on the Overworld map lol.

BansheeXYZ
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Re: What spell school is Free Action?

Post by BansheeXYZ »

Kind of like not having quest locations pop up in a tool tip on the Overworld map lol.
Apples to oranges. Is it hand holding to give mana costs in the spellbook, too? Only bad game designers try to create a sense of accomplishment from artificial difficulty. Real difficulty comes from stategic decision making. How you build your character, how you equip him, tactics vs monsters, the routes you take, the people you befriend, preparations, health/time/resource management.

It doesn't come from hiding information, and most of that probably wasn't done on purpose. When something important to making a good decision is absent, it wreaks of simply forgetting(repair estimates,rep sheets, accurate skill/spell descriptions), or running into technical limitations (indoors qgivers not labeling questhouses outdoors). It's not some grand design philosophy against "hand-holding". If there's 9 fake doors and 1 real one, and you slam your head into 5 and then open the real one, are you going to vindictively revel in your painful "learning" and lord over everyone who came after you? Or are you going to realize there should've been a clue to what the real door was?

Al-Khwarizmi
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Re: What spell school is Free Action?

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

Mephilis78 wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 3:08 am lol There's a reason the mages guild is lined with books.
To learn about spells you don't know, sure.

But if a mage actually has learnt to cast Free Action, and can cast it without problem, I'm pretty sure he will know what school the spell is from without going to the guild's shelves.

This is not comparable to having an arrow pointing to a quest target, because that's knowledge that the in-game character wouldn't really have (so it's essentially "cheating" from a realism standpoint). But the spell school is knowledge that the in-game character would definitely have (unless you're playing an amnesiac or something like that) so making it easy to reach you are just improving the interface from the real-world player to the in-game PC, which is a Good Thing(tm).

Ommamar
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Re: What spell school is Free Action?

Post by Ommamar »

I think a way to implement things is have primers located on pedestals in the trainer room in guild halls and/or rooms with spell makers in them. You would get access to these upon joining the guild that gives a run down on the different schools and the common spells in them. After researching the different schools and spells you could copy them to your spell book much like you can copy conversations to your log book, once copied over you could see the information by scrolling over the spell in your spell book. An optional setting in the DFU menu would be to allow spells to be available only after you researched them. I think this would add some flavor to becoming a mage type character, of course you could toggle it off if you don't like the idea or you had already gone down that path.

NoobioDF
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Re: What spell school is Free Action?

Post by NoobioDF »

Mephilis78 wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2019 10:19 pm No I mean an actual lorebook. Like "The Sage" "Gods and Worship", " A Rude Song", "Lusty Argonian Maid" or "The History of the Empire"

Except it would be written by one of us, titled something like "On Magic" or "The Schools of Magic" or something somewhat lore friendly. We could put literally any information into an ingame lorebook. Something like "Making Spells" by Mephilis of Camlorn.

The spellbook has a specific use already. It is a list of spells that you have acquired throughout your journey, and nobody seems to want to change it. I don't blame them really. I'm just giving an alternative, a lore friendly, one that doesn't interfere with the operation of the original game. Just writing a text file, and placing it into the world somehow.
Absolutely, it's the easiest lore-agreeable way to do it in the interim. Why reinvent the Wheel? Mouseovers and all that are great, but if they were that easy and non-resource intensive, would they not have just done it that way by now? Or is everything a rhetorical question these days, much like the sentences preceding this one.

I'm sorry but Mephilis78 is right on here. Look, the most annoying thing with most of the Elder Scrolls Series of Games is that their books are, in the majority, confusing, irrelevant, disagree with each other, and do not form an encyclopedia of how to play the game, or how it works. But, we know in real life, that such books exist. They would exist in an RPG world as well. Cuz getting the job done right, always sells.

I'm tempted to suggest that we even give Mephilis of the 78th Circle (is that possible?!) the actual name of the author of the guide.

Especially if, and it is a big if, but if the game's books allow now any graphics at all. Either way, slap it in a very obvious place in the Daggerfall Mages Guild, and maybe the largest cities including the one nearest the starting dungeon, and bingo bammo we have our interim solution. Perhaps even add the custom non-lore friendly sound of a baby's behind being slapped when you click on the correct volume, that ought to make someone get the message. MuuHAHAHAHhahahahurhummm.

Otherwise, sure add new features to the game, like mouseover, or allow more text and graphics in the spell book, but aren't we asking for a lot then?

In the end, this really depends on Interkarma and what others developing this area of the game decide they want to attempt to achieve and what they can achieve.

But at the very least, an in-game book that actually is more useful than Daggerfall's idiotic tutorials in its self, would do much to aid those who care to aid themselves. And if a mage cannot foresee enough significance in a book that is entitled correctly, than let him die at that very moment from the very magical knowledge he deigns to despise.

"I shall not read, said Mercurial, as I believe in magic incarnate. And so he was incarnated as a summon into a book of potions by the most evil demon he had ever met, the one who keeps promises, the one who laughed last."

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