Question regarding 'Vanishing Magic Items'
Howard L. Ring
|> Have a question...My character...a 2nd Level Battlemage had a set of
|> Bracers of Intelligence...after constantly fortifying me, after every
|> rest...they vanished...The game reported to me that my bracers were
|> broken...but they were gone from my inventory...I guess my question is
|> whether or not this is just ANOTHER of the growing lists of bugs that
|> this game has or if its just part of the game...
That's how all my broken magic items have worked. They wear out after
so many uses, and disappear after they are useless. I don't think it
is a bug, I think it was meant to work this way.
Howard
--
============================================================================
Howard Ring Email: hr...@ford.com
============================================================================
Mcc
Howard L. Ring <ri...@cc1061.pd9.ford.com> wrote in article
<581u0f$l...@cc0042.pd9.ford.com>...
> |> Have a question...My character...a 2nd Level Battlemage had a set of
> |> Bracers of Intelligence...after constantly fortifying me, after every
> |> rest...they vanished...The game reported to me that my bracers were
> |> broken...but they were gone from my inventory...I guess my question is
> |> whether or not this is just ANOTHER of the growing lists of bugs that
> |> this game has or if its just part of the game...
>
> That's how all my broken magic items have worked. They wear out after
> so many uses, and disappear after they are useless. I don't think it
> is a bug, I think it was meant to work this way.
>
> Howard
This is true, all spell-casting items wear out if they are not repaired. My
workaround is to a)create items that don't cast spells, but directley
fortify attributes or skills, etc. These seem to never wear out but I just
became an enchanter yesterday so I might be wrong
Or b)create several repair items to fix up those deteriorating ones.
These won't help you at 2nd level, so be sure to remove the item from
active use unless you want it's effects.
craig
> > |> Have a question...My character...a 2nd Level Battlemage had a set of
> > |> Bracers of Intelligence...after constantly fortifying me, after every
> > |> rest...they vanished...The game reported to me that my bracers were
> > |> broken...but they were gone from my inventory...I guess my question is
> > |> whether or not this is just ANOTHER of the growing lists of bugs that
> > |> this game has or if its just part of the game...
> > That's how all my broken magic items have worked. They wear out after
> > so many uses, and disappear after they are useless. I don't think it
> > is a bug, I think it was meant to work this way.
> This is true, all spell-casting items wear out if they are not repaired. My
> workaround is to a)create items that don't cast spells, but directley
> fortify attributes or skills, etc. These seem to never wear out but I just
> became an enchanter yesterday so I might be wrong
> Or b)create several repair items to fix up those deteriorating ones.
All magic items wear out eventually if not repaired. The ones with the
most enchantments seem to wear out faster. The ones that cast spells
when
held or fortify an attribute when held wear out very fast. The ones that
fortify a skill seem to wear out a little slower. The ones that
cast when strikes wear out sort of quickly if you use the weapon, but
not
if you use it rarely. The ones that cast a spell when used wear out
quickly if you cast the spell a lot, but not if you use it rarely.
The repair objects enchantment stopped working with patch 191. A
Bethesda
programmer posted (to Daggerweb) that in looking into the source code to
check the claim that it failed he determined that it's failure was an
unexpected side effect of the the arrow counting problem fix. I take
this
to mean they will try to fix it in the next patch.
slink
craig <c...@pacbell.net> wrote:
Does he mean the arrows that under 191 weigh 15 kg per 60 in my cart
and still show up on my encumbrance, even when I put that character
into 179? That arrow fix?
I'd really consider that unexpected <giggling helplessly>. What in
heck does the arrow count have to do with the condition of an item. I
can't remember which variable they are sharing with number of arrows,
but I don't think it was HP. Anyway, IMHO reusing record variables is
a common but hazardous practice.
Sandra
G. Fischer
craig <c...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>Mcc wrote:
>>
>> Howard L. Ring <ri...@cc1061.pd9.ford.com> wrote in article
-----------------(snip)---------------------
>The repair objects enchantment stopped working with patch 191. A
>Bethesda
>programmer posted (to Daggerweb) that in looking into the source code to
>check the claim that it failed he determined that it's failure was an
>unexpected side effect of the the arrow counting problem fix. I take
>this to mean they will try to fix it in the next patch.
My God!! What a bunch of brainless idiots. Can't they get anything
right? I stopped patching after 175 and hope to be able to finish
with that (12th level right now and I would guess, about a bit more
than half way through the main storyline/quests)
craig
Well, it appears now that Bethesda is changing their story. The new
version is they were fixing the arrow count problem and saw the chance
to fix the "game balance bug" of being able to repair magic items while
in the code, so they did. They just didn't bother to announce it in the
official list of things they fixed.
Apparently Bethesda has taken to heart, in a very big way, the comments
made in the first month that the game lacked balance and that other
people were cheating and this was horrible game design that just had to
be fixed. It's too bad they did not and apparently will not listen to
those who actually feel that the reason they buy a game is to have fun.
For some of us this is building up an awesome character and then going
exploring (or maybe going on a beserk killing spree). Not having our
armor and weapons fall apart every second dungeon is part of having fun.
Most of us get enough difficult challenges at work or even in our
homelives and are playing games like this to escape. In the beginning
Bethesda said if you want an easy game play a spellsword or battle mage,
if you want a challenge play a thief. Okay that's great. They seem to be
backpedalling on that now trying to make the game more difficult for
everyone. While some might enjoy that others will find it a lot less
fun.
Bethesda may be working towards multiplayer in TES:3 and then balance
and cheating really will matter. Until then, they should be
concentrating on fixing the real bugs not the theoretical ones. Falling
into the void is a huge, irritating for most, useful for many bug.
Having the game crash in a myriad of ways is also a set of irritating
bugs. Not being able to save in some locations and instances is hugely
frustrating. Quests that because you did not choose the one right path
when they end leave you being hounded by monsters (Lord K'avar) for the
rest of the game are also irritating. (Aside: Bethesda should really fix
this. The guys following me all head Daedric paldrons, so every time I
enter a dungeon or town I get 3 more. Can you say 10's of millions of
gold? Seems very unbalanced to me. This became so ridiculous that I
restored to a previous offline save -- giving up two levels -- and
replayed it, this time "doing it right" and the assassins who this time
had Daedric cuirasses stopped when I finished the quest, so I only
netted 24 Daedric cuirasses...)
Bethesda should also be working on the advertised features that should
be trivial to fix, like END currently not having any effect on new HP
when you level up. Sounds like a simple case statement to me.
And how difficult would it be to check what kind of foe you were
attacking (after all the are allegedly already checking to see if you
are potent versus the type of foe you are facing) to see if you should
be able to pick its pockets -- and wouldn't it take only one line of
code to determine if the monster even HAD some treasure to pick?
I imagine someone will create an Item Repair utility, now. Seems there
must be something basically wrong if we need outside utilities just to
be able to enjoy playing the game (like the REP utility, the monster
edit utility and I understand there are a couple of quest utilities, and
not forgetting the FIXSAVE utility)...
Craig
Don Nalezyty
G. Fischer wrote:
>
> craig <c...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> >Mcc wrote:
> >>
> >> Howard L. Ring <ri...@cc1061.pd9.ford.com> wrote in article
>
> -----------------(snip)---------------------
>
> >The repair objects enchantment stopped working with patch 191. A
> >Bethesda
> >programmer posted (to Daggerweb) that in looking into the source code to
> >check the claim that it failed he determined that it's failure was an
> >unexpected side effect of the the arrow counting problem fix. I take
> >this to mean they will try to fix it in the next patch.
>
> My God!! What a bunch of brainless idiots. Can't they get anything
> right? I stopped patching after 175 and hope to be able to finish
> with that (12th level right now and I would guess, about a bit more
> than half way through the main storyline/quests)
Actually, the removal of the repair objects repairing magic items was to
conform it to the design decision made before releasing the game of
taking out the ability to repair magic items. The designers found out
there was no fair price they could charge that would make repairing
magic items a challenge for the players. So they removed it. Getting
replacement magic items is far more challenging than having to cheat
your way through $$$ to get it. This was documented in the last minute
notes and changes files which as instructed in the installation notes
can be read with the installer. However, they forgot about the repair
object item maker advantage when they removed it from the game. When the
routine was fixed to prevent it from reducing the number of arrows, that
loophole was closed.
BTW, since you're using 1.02.175, I'd like to again bring up the fact
that using the repair objects advantage before 1.03.179 will most likely
corrupt your game.
Hal - Daggerfall programmer
h...@bethsoft.com
William Van Fleet
Don Nalezyty <dnal...@mail.bethsoft.com> wrote in article
<32A72E...@mail.bethsoft.com>...
> G. Fischer wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
>
> Actually, the removal of the repair objects repairing magic items was to
> conform it to the design decision made before releasing the game of
> taking out the ability to repair magic items. The designers found out
> there was no fair price they could charge that would make repairing
> magic items a challenge for the players. So they removed it. Getting
> replacement magic items is far more challenging than having to cheat
> your way through $$$ to get it. This was documented in the last minute
> notes and changes files which as instructed in the installation notes
> can be read with the installer. However, they forgot about the repair
> object item maker advantage when they removed it from the game. When the
> routine was fixed to prevent it from reducing the number of arrows, that
> loophole was closed.
>
>
> Hal - Daggerfall programmer
> h...@bethsoft.com
>
Jeez, Hal, you've got to be kidding! Taking away the ability to repair
magic items was a "design decision" to make the game more CHALLENGING??!!
Did it ever occur to the whiz-bang design team that taking away the ability
to repair that Daedric sword your character just spent 75,000 gold to
enchant just might make an already aggravating game more FRUSTRATING?
If this was a conscious design decision, how about the "object memory
allocation error," falling into the void, etc. Am I to suppose that these,
too, were deliberate choices by Bethesda since they, too, make the game
awfully frustrating.
Bill
--
<<God save us from Ghosties and Ghoulies and Things that go Bump in the
Night>>
slink
craig <c...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>G. Fischer wrote:
>>
>> craig <c...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>
>> >Mcc wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Howard L. Ring <ri...@cc1061.pd9.ford.com> wrote in article
>>
>> -----------------(snip)---------------------
>>
>> >The repair objects enchantment stopped working with patch 191. A
>> >Bethesda
>> >programmer posted (to Daggerweb) that in looking into the source code to
>> >check the claim that it failed he determined that it's failure was an
>> >unexpected side effect of the the arrow counting problem fix. I take
>> >this to mean they will try to fix it in the next patch.
>>
>> My God!! What a bunch of brainless idiots. Can't they get anything
>> right? I stopped patching after 175 and hope to be able to finish
>> with that (12th level right now and I would guess, about a bit more
>> than half way through the main storyline/quests)
>>
>> Gayle
>> gfis...@indyvax.iupui.edu
>Craig
OK, I wrote one. It repairs everything, though. I could have it only
do magic items. Would that be preferable?
Sandra
craig
slink wrote:
>
> craig <c...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
[SNIP general ranting -- sorry I got carried away]
> >Quests that because you did not choose the one right path
> >when they end leave you being hounded by monsters (Lord K'avar) for the
> >rest of the game are also irritating. (Aside: Bethesda should really fix
> >this. The guys following me all head Daedric paldrons, so every time I
> >enter a dungeon or town I get 3 more. Can you say 10's of millions of
> >gold? Seems very unbalanced to me. This became so ridiculous that I
> >restored to a previous offline save -- giving up two levels -- and
> >replayed it, this time "doing it right" and the assassins who this time
> >had Daedric cuirasses stopped when I finished the quest, so I only
> >netted 24 Daedric cuirasses...)
I'm told that the way it is supposed to work if the Queen throws Lord
K'avar into prison (the wrong path mentioned above) is that a month
later
she sends you a note saying he has escaped and asking you to capture or
kill him, at which point you can capture or possibly kill him and the
archer assassins will stop. This didn't happen for me (they kept coming)
and when I had netted 30 Million in Daedric Cuirasses, I restored. I
admit
that was before 191. (It doesn't surprise me that it didn't work for me.
I have a friend who could not get the My master wants to hire you quest
to work -- the demon did not reappear when he got back from the dungeon,
but it worked perfectly for me...I guess some quests are just unstable.)
[SNIP more suggestions for Bethesda]
> >I imagine someone will create an Item Repair utility, now. Seems there
> >must be something basically wrong if we need outside utilities just to
> >be able to enjoy playing the game (like the REP utility, the monster
> >edit utility and I understand there are a couple of quest utilities, and
> >not forgetting the FIXSAVE utility)...
>
> >Craig
>
> OK, I wrote one. It repairs everything, though. I could have it only
> do magic items. Would that be preferable?
>
> Sandra
Thanks Sandra. I think it's probably better to repair everything, ane
easier.
Craig
Hal Bouma
> Jeez, Hal, you've got to be kidding! Taking away the ability
>taking away the ability to repair that Daedric sword your character
>just spent 75,000 gold to enchant just might make an already
>aggravating game more FRUSTRATING?
Actually, getting $75,000 in the game doesn't take much work
from what I read on here and at other places. If worse comes to worse,
you can always visit your old friendly store the Odd Blades. Some guy
sent in a bug report where he has 90,000,000 gold pieces. (And no, he
didn't sector edit/cheat that in) Add that to the fact that there is a
valid complaint that the game gets to be too easy after you reach level
25 or so, I think that the intent to take the repair magic items out of
the game was done with good intentions.
However, I am not a designer, nor did I have much say in the
design of Daggerfall. So beating me up on that issue isn't going to get
both of us very far. I at least took the time here to claraify and
inform you a little of the reasoning behind the decision to go with
that change. Lack of information has been a very vocal criticism of many
people on here and on other forums regarding Daggerfall.
> If this was a conscious design decision, how about the "object
>memory allocation error," falling into the void, etc. Am I to suppose
>that these, too, were deliberate choices by Bethesda since they, too,
>make the game awfully frustrating.
The invalid memory allocation error has been fixed in the 191
patch. I tried to get it in the 179 patch at the end because people were
running into that problem, but it didn't work out. At least I tried. But
usually what happened there was that people were hoarding a huge number
greater of items than we ever anticipated. Plus, exploiting bugs such as
the wagon weight limit didn't help matters much when you're toating
around 4,000 kgs of items in it. Thats almost a meg of items in your
inventory alone.
To be honest, I was concerned about the possibility of people
running out of map space, but since that problem never happened in beta,
my concerns were cooled. But Daggerfall already takes up 12 megs of RAM
and adding more would have a major impact on the 8 meg platform users.
But at least now in the 191 patch, 16 meg users get an additional 750k
of RAM and everyone can adjust the amount of space they have through the
OBJMEMSIZE setting in the z.cfg file.
Hal - Daggerfall Programmer
h...@bethsoft.com
William Van Fleet
Hal Bouma <h...@bethsoft.com> wrote in article
<32B104...@bethsoft.com>...
> > [Original post snipped]
>
> Actually, getting $75,000 in the game doesn't take much work
> from what I read on here and at other places. If worse comes to worse,
> you can always visit your old friendly store the Odd Blades. Some guy
> sent in a bug report where he has 90,000,000 gold pieces. (And no, he
> didn't sector edit/cheat that in) Add that to the fact that there is a
> valid complaint that the game gets to be too easy after you reach level
> 25 or so, I think that the intent to take the repair magic items out of
> the game was done with good intentions.
* * *
I think part of everyone's frustration with dropping the ability to repair
magical items in the game has been the perception that Bethesda has been a
bit disingenuous about the matter. First we were told that fixing magical
items was a "bug" in the first instance. That, of course, was obviously
wrong as I seriously doubt either that the original manual would refer to
the "bug," or that the Item Maker would list the "bug" on its menu of
enchantments. By the way, since this "bug" has been eliminated why is it
still listed on the Item Maker menu?
It seems to me that the concept of deleting the ability to repair magic
items because it supposedly makes the game too easy is rather akin to the
US income tax system. The harder you work, the more money you make, the
greater the percentage of your income goes to Uncle Sam. Since having more
money makes the game of life a whole lot easier to play, Uncle Sam just
takes it away from you. Sounds equally fair to me. . . .
* * *
>
> However, I am not a designer, nor did I have much say in the
> design of Daggerfall. So beating me up on that issue isn't going to get
> both of us very far. I at least took the time here to claraify and
> inform you a little of the reasoning behind the decision to go with
> that change. Lack of information has been a very vocal criticism of many
> people on here and on other forums regarding Daggerfall.
* * *
You're absolutely right. I was shooting at the messenger, so to speak,
with my rant, and for that please accept my apologies. I (and I'm sure
many others in the group) very much appreciate the time you have taken to
give us the information and insight you have (I, too, have noted Don's
absence from these parts for quite some time now). By the way, how did you
get elected to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous game players?
Parked in the boss' parking slot did we?
* * *
>
> > If this was a conscious design decision, how about the "object
> >memory allocation error," falling into the void, etc. Am I to suppose
> >that these, too, were deliberate choices by Bethesda since they, too,
> >make the game awfully frustrating.
>
> The invalid memory allocation error has been fixed in the 191
> patch. I tried to get it in the 179 patch at the end because people were
> running into that problem, but it didn't work out. At least I tried. But
> usually what happened there was that people were hoarding a huge number
> greater of items than we ever anticipated. Plus, exploiting bugs such as
> the wagon weight limit didn't help matters much when you're toating
> around 4,000 kgs of items in it. Thats almost a meg of items in your
> inventory alone.
>
> To be honest, I was concerned about the possibility of people
> running out of map space, but since that problem never happened in beta,
> my concerns were cooled. But Daggerfall already takes up 12 megs of RAM
> and adding more would have a major impact on the 8 meg platform users.
> But at least now in the 191 patch, 16 meg users get an additional 750k
> of RAM and everyone can adjust the amount of space they have through the
> OBJMEMSIZE setting in the z.cfg file.
* * *
Yep, and for fixing the object memory allocation error I am indeed
grateful as I can now play the game again. But I see that you haven't
mentioned anything about the void/clipping problem. Is this because, as I
suspect from reading other posts here, eliminating that problem would
require revamping most of the game graphics? To be sure, there are a
number of "void surfers" out there who would be greatly displeased if this
bug were eliminated, but I for one never got the hang of void crawling and
falling into it for me is just as bad as a crash as I have to reload my
previous saved game. Then again, I never got the hang of the afterburner
slide in Wing Commander, but my ten-year-old nephew sure did.
A final thought, Hal--as you have no doubt seen here in the group, the
vast majority of the criticisms about Daggerfall arise from its bugs, not
its design. Like Robyn, Jerry and Sandra (and others), I love the design
and the concept. I've never played any CRPG so open-ended and with so many
variables. Unlike any other game out there, it doesn't stop once you've
killed the foozle. And that's the part I really like--being able to
continue my character's advancement ad infinitum should I choose.
BUT quality control MUST improve. Saying that after four patches the game
now crashes only once every six or so hours is like saying that after four
recalls my car only falls apart every OTHER day. I truly believe that had
Daggerfall been released after just a bit more playtesting, and most of the
bugs dealt with in the patches had been removed (at the least the game
crashing ones), the game would have been the front runner for CGW's Game of
the Year award, and would have certainly attracted a lot fewer flames here
(except for Lord Marcus Dracon, of course, but then he's never played the
game and has an obviously severe need-for-attention problem).
Thanks again for reading our posts and responding.
* * *
>
> Hal - Daggerfall Programmer
> h...@bethsoft.com
>
Bill - Daggerfall Player and Sometime Ranter
Jerry Caveney
In <32B104...@bethsoft.com> Hal Bouma <h...@bethsoft.com> writes:
>...
> However, I am not a designer, nor did I have much say in the
>design of Daggerfall. So beating me up on that issue isn't going to get
>both of us very far. I at least took the time here to claraify and
>inform you a little of the reasoning behind the decision to go with
>that change. Lack of information has been a very vocal criticism of
many
> people on here and on other forums regarding Daggerfall.
Hal, thanks for "giving Bethesda a voice" on the net. Hope you don't
turn away because some folks flame you--they flame any and everyone. I
love the game, though it is sometimes frustrating (few crashes with
191--but some--but I have to give up music and sound to make it run for
more than a few minutes). I do have a "minimal" system, 486-66, 8 MB
RAM, 95 MB install. Anyway, a suggestion: I understand Bethesda's
concern that the game not be too easy--people complain about that very
quickly. But some of the things removed by the patches, perhaps most
notably the repair magic item ability (which only became available via
a previous patch), have upset some folks. Why not keep these options
under a cheat code, so they're not part of the straightforward game,
but for those who want a particular ability, they can hit some key to
get it--no different than using an editor in principle, but lots less
hassle.
Best of luck on TES3...and 4.
Jerry