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Elder Scrolls seriesOne similarity between Dungeon Master and Morrowind(6 posts)(6 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 24, 2020
Dungeon Master (which I have been playing lately) and Morrowind, while very different games, do have one rather interesting similarity:
* Making potions is possible in both games (though the mechanics of doing so are different).
* There is a stat that affects the strength of such potions (Wisdom in Dungeon Master, Intelligence and Luck in Morrowind).
* It is possible to make a potion that temporarily boosts that stat.
* With the stat boosted, it is now possible to make stronger potions.
* Making such potions is a quick way to get your skill up, as doing so will give you large amounts of skill experience (for Priest (acthally the hidden Heal sub-skill) in Dungeon Master or Alchemy in Morrowind).

With that said, there are still some differences that are quite significant:
* In Dungeon Master, you can try to create a stronger potion than you're capable of by casting the spell at a higher power level; that can fail, and is likely to if your Wisdom isn't that high. (At least Dungeon Master, unlike Morrowind, gives you some (albeit reduced) skill experience when this happens.) In Morrowind, the power is fixed by your experience, skills, and tools used.
* In Dungeon Master, you are limited in the number of potions you can have at a time by the number of flasks you have (as each potion spell requires an empty flask to cast). There are only finitely many of them, though they're at least reusable once you drink the potion. In Morrowind, by contrast, the only limit on how many potions you can find is how many ingredients you can get, and most are restocked by some merchant; some even have other renewable sources (like the Racer Plums that a certain common enemy likes to drop).
* In Dungeon Master, there is a limit to potion strength; once you can make potions of the highest level, there is no way to make even stronger potions. In Morrowind, there is no such limit; you can keep making stronger and stronger potions until integer overflow occurs (requires a stat of over 2 billion), though the game has been known to bug out when certain stats (like Speed) get too high. With the stat growth from potions in Morrowind being exponential without limit, it's easy to break the game this way.

Thoughts on this rather interesting comparison?
Posted March 21, 2020
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dtgreene: Thoughts on this rather interesting comparison?
At its core it is a common phenomenon I believe: People tend to repeat the same stuff, even if they aren't aware that it has been done before. No doubt You became better and better at seeking out the cracks at the seems - because You like doing so, "peeking behind the curtain", but also because there's similar cracks even in very different games.

*Another thing that stands out imo is the wisdom of generic limits: Whether or not there is a way to increase stats beyond Your expectations it is wise to simply block the supposedly impossible path anyway - just to be sure. At least I'd expect that DM's limit for a highest quality made sure the effect doesn't break the game, despite being exploitable. Is that right? Haven't played it tbh.

Anyway: History repeats itself.
Especially mistakes often stem from 'the impossible direction' where one does not dare looking (in this case: irregular gameplay that wasn't meant to exist). People now and then simply had the same ideas and the same blind spots. Exponential developments (like potions boosting Alchemy) are known to be a generic human blind spot, usually escaping our perceptions. You on the other hand not only dare looking, but actively seek the impossible direction. One might go as far as to call You (perhaps the only one true) "Historian of Glitches", so to You it became plain as day. No surprise there ;)

Good to have You here.

Offtopic: I'll let You in on "a secret". The Wizardry 8 "void" beyond the wall can be entered by bouncing between walls that form arms of a narrow angle. That much is known among selected veterans at least.
So far nobody seems to have drawn the right conclusions however! Now I believe it is the same effect that occurs in Doom. It should be possible to exploit almost everywhere I reckon, for instance by using opponents as "walls". Perhaps a few people know as much, but so far nobody mastered it fully it would appear. Likely because there are only a few very specific uses for it, not counting sheer curiosity.
Post edited March 21, 2020 by Zadok_Allen
Posted March 23, 2020
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Zadok_Allen: *Another thing that stands out imo is the wisdom of generic limits: Whether or not there is a way to increase stats beyond Your expectations it is wise to simply block the supposedly impossible path anyway - just to be sure. At least I'd expect that DM's limit for a highest quality made sure the effect doesn't break the game, despite being exploitable. Is that right? Haven't played it tbh.
The limit is more due to the way Dungeon Master's magic system is structured. To cast a spell, you need to click on symbals. There are 4 sets of 6 symbols each, and you can have one symble from each set, in order. For example, a basic torch light spell is LO (1st symbol of the first set) FUL (4th symbol of the second set). The thing here is that the first symbol represents the power of the spell, and there are only 6 symbols in this set, so while you can get a stronger torch light spell by using MON (6th symbol) as the first symbol, there is no way to get any stronger than that. (Well, there *is* a different spell that produces a stronger light, but you don't see this happening with any other spells in the game.)

As for how this relates to potions, in Dungeon Master you create potions by casting spells. There are no direct healing spells; instead, you get the spell VI (2nd symbol of the second set) which will create a healing potion, as long as you have an empty flask in hand (the flask can be re-used after you drink the potion). Hence, there are 6 discrete levels of healing potion that you can create, and similarly there are 6 levels of Wisdom potion that you can create; no matter how skilled and wise you are there's no way to create a potion beyond MON level.

Dungeon Master also has another couple of mechanics that limit the power of such potions. First, if the stat is 120 or higher, the potion effect is greatly reduced; second, if the stat is at least double its base, the stat will decrease faster with time.

By the way, Dungeon Master does do a few things better than Morrowind when it comes to experience; in Dungeon Master harder tasks award more XP (so MON VI gives more XP than LO VI, assuming both are successful); also you get at least some XP for failed tasks, albeit less than if you're successful. (Note that Wizardry 8 is again different here; I believe Wizardry 8 actually gives you more skill XP when you fail than when you succeed.)
Posted March 31, 2020
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Zadok_Allen: Anyway: History repeats itself.
Especially mistakes often stem from 'the impossible direction' where one does not dare looking (in this case: irregular gameplay that wasn't meant to exist). People now and then simply had the same ideas and the same blind spots. Exponential developments (like potions boosting Alchemy) are known to be a generic human blind spot, usually escaping our perceptions. You on the other hand not only dare looking, but actively seek the impossible direction. One might go as far as to call You (perhaps the only one true) "Historian of Glitches", so to You it became plain as day. No surprise there ;)
I am not the only one who loves glitches and likes to study them.

There is, for example, pannencoek, who has intensively studied Super Mario 64, to the point of making videos of glitches that have no practical use, like this recent one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT2bTYf1fdU

(I could also mention that it's apparently possible to beat the Wii Virtual Console version (only) of SM64 without ever pressing the jump button, but doing so requires waiting a long time in one stage for floating point errors to accumulate.)
Posted April 01, 2020
Of course You are not the only one, but if I had to look deeper into any game's glitches You'd be the most suitable person to ask, since You are the most knowledgeable here I'd know of.
In fact my own interest is increasing, alongside my interest in more specific gaming challenges. I'd say it a general phenomenon, the rising interest in glitches. That's a good thing in my book, because it simply looks deeper into games. An old game can be seen anew on every playthrough when looking at it this way - I like that.

Specifically the exploration of a games depths does a game better justice imho and can be seen to stand in contrast to a hasty desire for ever-new games / patches / etc. The latter can easily exchange quality for quantity, which I perceive as a typical problem these days.

*Awesome btw, the 2.3y softlock xD
Post edited April 01, 2020 by Zadok_Allen
Posted April 01, 2020
By the way, speaking of glitches, playing OpenMW I got into a situation where the game would not let me use the Breton's racial Dragon Skin power, claiming I don't have enough magicka.

(Starting with 6 Magicka, fortify magicka 100 points, then cast a 30 point spell (Fortify Speed 100 for 5 seconds), let the fortify magicka wear off (leaving me with -24 magicka, though it's displayed as zero), try to cast Dragon Skin, and I don't have enough to cast a 0 cost spell.)

Incidentally, I am reminded of a Wizardry 8 glitch; if you cast Remove Curse from the inventory screen, the spell backfires (resulting in the caster being hexed), and the hex lowers the character's SP below zero, the game will crash with an assertion.
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Elder Scrolls seriesOne similarity between Dungeon Master and Morrowind(6 posts)(6 posts)
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