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AlexScherr
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 04 May 2002
Posts: 48
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| Game too easy? Start out naked, poor and unskilled |
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We've heard a lot of very fair complaints about how easy it is to ramp up into a powerful character, and have seen a number of different efforts at increasing the difficulty later in the game, at higher levels. I personally don't find this all that troubling, since more power allows me to attend to the story line without the distraction of logistical problems. But it IS easy to ramp up to high skill and attribute levels, whether or not you have a lot of stats.
In the course of writing another thread on levelling, I wondered what it would be like to play a low-power character in the early going, one that had almost nothing going for him or her. So I wrote a small mod that started me in a race, class and birthsign that eliminated any initial bumps or biases. My Eden character starts me without clothes (other than scivvies), without money, with all skills set at 1, with all attributes set at 10, with the game tweaked to eliminate difference in the rate of increase of major, minor, miscellaneous & specialized skills and with skills allocated not to develop the primary attributes at all.
Starting out this way really changed the game dynamics. First off, as a surface matter, you are reviled for far longer by the NPC's; and until you get clothes, you get a lot of huffiness from the more moral NPC's and leers from the less moral ones. Second, the dynamic of exploration, theft, combat and conversation really changes; you're scratching for your very life, fleeing a lot from fights, choosing carefully who to compliment or bribe, since merchants barely talk with you, and refuse to deal with you at all if your rep with them drops below a certain level.
Third, you will level up very rapidly at first, and then slow down as you go; but even so, by the time your skills and attributes get back to the game's default starting levels of skills and attributes, you'll be at an overall level where the game starts throwing the harder opponents at you: a consistently hard challenge.
All this is by way of saying that the game supports an amazing experience of being poor and cast out. You can do the rags to riches route this way (or even without the mod, by using the console commands to reduce your stats at the start): and it will really give you an eye opener on scratching for survival. If you combine this with the increased difficulty mods, or with the mods that limit merchant (especially the creeper's) cash, you will find a whole new game to play.
So you don't have to ramp up difficulty at the later stages to have a hard game: you can also do it at earlier stages. For those complaining that the power-up curve is too easy, maybe you need to start out with less, and fight your way for longer to get to the minimum that everyone else in the Morrowind world starts out with.
Alex
PS-the mod is named Eden, and can be found at:
http://www.morrowind-mods.com/ |
Mon Jun 03, 2002 7:08 pm |
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada |
Sounds like a nice challenge for those who are ready to take it! All I can say is Good luck to ya!  |
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Mon Jun 03, 2002 7:21 pm |
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Rawis
Gorthaur
Joined: 01 Apr 2002
Posts: 1861
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I think the game is too easy becouse you can get money to fast... like, you can get 60 000+ in Balmora!  And then at the Dren Plantation like 100 000+! You can train your character up to like level 30 for this! |
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Mon Jun 03, 2002 8:15 pm |
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Guest
Guest
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Only if you are a thief. just because they are there, doesn't mean you HAVE to take them. |
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Mon Jun 03, 2002 9:50 pm |
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AlexScherr
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 04 May 2002
Posts: 48
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Yes, there's a lot of cash, and it's made worse by the ability to convert loot into cash through the creeper. But, as the poster just before said, you've got the choice not to do this, and in fact can alter the game to reduce the creeper's cash to more stingy levels. |
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Mon Jun 03, 2002 10:12 pm |
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Rendelius
Critical Error
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 16
Location: Austria |
I briefly tried out the Eden mod, after the author sent it to me. And I find it most entertaining. It isn't perfect, since you have no problem to get dressed within the minute (just collect some ingredients, buy a robe for 4gp and there you go. Still, you have these low skills, of course, but even for a non-thief it's easy to get them raised at trainers - all you have to do is collect herbs and such and sell them.
THE ULTIMATE challenge would be the Eden mod plus the inability to train skills at trainers (or make them so expensive that it is obscene to buy them, let's say train from 1 to 2 for 5.000 gold).
But if you can get hold of the Eden mod, try it out. It's a nice idea. 
_________________
Rendelius
former Senior Editor RPGDot
now at http://www.theastronomers.com |
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Tue Jun 04, 2002 3:35 pm |
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AlexScherr
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 04 May 2002
Posts: 48
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Thanks, Rendelius: I'm glad you liked it. For those who might want to try it out, feel free to e-mail a request to me (if you can't get it off the link), at lyra@negia.net.
And I agree: given the easy cash you can earn from collecting herbs and selling them, not to mention stealing stuff, you can pretty easily level up and equip. The ultimate challenge would be to lower the cash available to the island's economy by some significant percentage, and as you say, to raise the price per purchased skill increase: both of these have been done in other mods, and could be done in this one.
Another way to restrain the ability to level up is, of course, to further restrict the starting attribute: since you can't level up a skill past the level of its associated attributes, I could drop the starting attributes from 10 to 5 or even 1. I didn't do that in this design, because it felt like overkill, but perhaps that's another good way to create a truly innocent character. (That said, I sort of like the ability to train: I think it actually matches our ability to rely on the expertise of others in real life . . . not that this is real life.)
Even with those weaknesses, though, (whiich after all are built into the default game for all races), the mod builds in a developmental delay between skills and levels. Let's assume that the average default race starts with an average skill level of around 25 and an overall level of 1. By the time that character reaches level 20 (the start of 'easy' for some people), a default race would have a significantly higher skill average.
Not so with an Eden character, who will face Level 20 monsters and opponents with a skill average much closer to the starting point for other races: an Eden character should be developmentally delayed. It should be persistently harder for longer for the Eden character to fight high level monsters. That is, assuming the game produces more difficult monsters in response to levels rather than skill or attribute averages.
Thanks again, and feel free to ask for a copy at my e-mail. |
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Tue Jun 04, 2002 8:58 pm |
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