Elder Scrolls Let's fix Morrowind

[Rincewind]

...Which is extremely important for keeping the scale of Morrowind feeling as it should be. Morrowind looks completely wrong when rendered at view distances obtainable on modern PCs.

Yes, I'm always dying a little inside when I see people crank up the view distances to the max... You should not fuck around with original view distances *at all*, that completely ruins everything.

Same in Gothic 1-2, btw.

 

[Hace El Oso]

I just want this water back in OpenMW.

Ahh yes, I remember when I upgraded to a Radeon 9800 XT:

When I booted Morrowind up for the first time after the upgrade I couldn't believe my eyes when instead of the flat grey HL1 style water I saw that.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Indeed, OpenMW is lacking the water ripple effect. It's actually a 1.0 release blocker issue because it was a marketing feature of morrowind and therefore considered required for a faithful reimplementation.

 

[oscar]

Just make mid-late game combat a lot harder. Make some foes who you will need to use those crazy broken ass custom spells and insane enchanted gear to beat.

 

[tentanz]

VitruvianGuar's lua mods are required.

 

[luj1]

Ok, guys!

Per recommendations from specifically Funposter luj1 whydoibother , I have put together a NEW first proposal, for our frankenstein vanilla-engine morrowind monster.

THE MODS I propose are as follows:

1: ECONOMY

HARDER BARTER
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/46188
BUYING GAME
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/50574
WARES
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/49205
SILVER TONGUE
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/49086
Morrowind Anti-Cheese
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/47305

----------------------------
EXPLANATION: Harder Barter reduces item's values proportional to the inverse of the log of their original value, the effect being it drastically reduces ridiculously overpriced item values, while basically maintaining original item values of normal items. Buying Game, combined with Wares, adds regional prices for items essentially allowing for a traveling merchant playstyle and expansion of the 'mercantile' skill. Silver Tongue overhauls the 'speechcraft' skill, making it much more interesting and worthwhile. Morrowind Anti-Cheese is a blanket-style (rusty_shackleford ) solution to 'random cheesy crap' present in vanilla (examples being broken boots of blinding speed, and easily obtained/unguarded super valuable items)
----------------------------

2: WORLD REBALANCING

LIMITED RESTING WAITING AND REGEN
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/49191
MULE - Mort's Ultimate Leveling Experience
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/47452
The Morrowind Randomizer
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/44989
MDMD - More Deadly Morrowind Denizens
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/48745
Beware the Sixth House (Sixth House Overhaul)
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/46036
Immersive Corprus
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/44961
Tribunal Rebalance
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45713
Bloodmoon Rebalance
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45714

----------------------------
EXPLANATION: Limited Resting Waiting and Regen is a configurable addon that gives you control over when, where, how, and how often resting is allowed in game. For me, this means resting will only be available on a bed, but it's very configurable. MULE overhauls leveling so that attribute points are automatically granted based on the skills you level, instead of being chosen at 'level-up' screen (which is removed). The Morrowind Randomizer randomizes the locations of a number of legendary items (non-quest related), which should enhance thrill of exploration.

MDMD - More Deadly Morrowind Denizens customizes some 230+ important NPCs, essentially adding variety in combat and especially boss battles. Beware the Sixth House makes sixth house creatures extremely challenging and high level, as they should be. Immersive Corprus allows you to catch corprus disease from certain sixth house creatures, makes it 'impossible' to cure

Spoiler

outside of main quest

, and puts a hard timer on curing it, ending your game if you fail to cure it in time. Tribunal Rebalance and Bloodmoon Rebalance do as they say, rebalancing respective expansions in line with Beware the Sixth House.
----------------------------

Let me know thoughts on these, and if you have any additions/changes to suggest

not bad

but generally look to use as few mods as possible

preferably small mods that make good changes and expand gameplay in meaningful and logical ways (ill give u some recommendations later)

when modding Mw, your best friend is moderation trust me

 

[Rincewind]

VitruvianGuar's lua mods are required.

Vaguely interesting looking, but the problem with such mods is that people mix'n'match them all the time based on what seems interesting, and then who knows what will exactly happen to the game balance in the end... Technically, for any combination of gameplay mods you'd need a few dozens of hours of playtesting at the very least. Who does that? Unless your idea of a good time is becoming playtester for random modder content...

Same goes for quest mods, especially if they're not completely self-contained.

Total overhaul mods are a completely different kettle of fish, though, if done well. Those are adequately playtested (if done by a team of people who have some minimum standards), so you can be reasonably sure you won't get a broken mess by installing a bunch of random mods from different authors.

 

[luj1]

...Which is extremely important for keeping the scale of Morrowind feeling as it should be. Morrowind looks completely wrong when rendered at view distances obtainable on modern PCs.

Yes, I'm always dying a little inside when I see people crank up the view distances to the max... You should not fuck around with original view distances *at all*, that completely ruins everything.

Same in Gothic 1-2, btw.

designers used fog and terrain in brilliant ways

makes a small island like Vvardenfell seem huge

also very atmospheric with Silt Strider howls. They really did a lot with little

anyway definitely wasnt designed with large view distances in mind.

 

[luj1]

I enjoy Morrowind Watercolored for just a nice easy blanket texture replacer
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/43375

To me stays true to the atmosphere of Morrowind

Not at all imo

most faithful global retex is VanillaPlus textures

 

[luj1]

Are there any mods that overhaul the sidequests (well, at least the faction ones) to not be painstakingly boring?

I did a RP mod for Hlaalu, adding dialogue choices like a normal CRPG. And for Morag Tong

since that is something Mw desperately lacks

and has dialogue rolls

I believe someone did the same for Fighters Guild and Imperial Cult, but I havent been following the scene

Generally (speaking about guilds and sidequests) anything by Caeris and Gavrilo is great, great

 

[luj1]

Everyone recommends Better Heads and the like.

Find me a single person who in 2022 doesn't just recommend Mackom's Redone heads or Facelift/Familiar Faces with upscaled textures. Maybe you'll find some people who still swear by Westly's heads.

All head replacers are shit

There is a new one which is the best one yet, use that or Westlys

Mackoms heads are blocky and all look the same (cause they use the same base mesh unlike vanilla). I will never understand why people think it fits Morrowind. Makes it look like some bum german RPG. Many people dislike Mackoms actually but its very popular with plebs

 

[ferratilis]

I've never completed a modded run of a Bethesda game, because there's always a moment when you'd like to "fix" just one more thing, and you add another mod that breaks everything or you start from scratch, thus spending more time modding than playing. Just install OpenMW and play it as God, I mean Todd, intended.

OpenMW already has stuff that's necessary: sneak toggle, permanent disposition change, swim animation fix, better follower reactions etc. That's all you need. By trying to fix vanilla problems you're just setting yourself up for a disappointment (of your making).

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

True. But you seem to mostly have a problem with the "greatest" part.

Here is how to fix Morrowind:

Remove cliff racers

There, it is fixed.

That would be the Saint Jiub mod:

 

[luj1]

Lua mods are for homosexuals

Coming from a literal MFaggot

 

[Funposter]

Everyone recommends Better Heads and the like.

Find me a single person who in 2022 doesn't just recommend Mackom's Redone heads or Facelift/Familiar Faces with upscaled textures. Maybe you'll find some people who still swear by Westly's heads.

All head replacers are shit

There is a new one which is the best one yet, use that or Westlys

Mackoms heads are blocky and all look the same (cause they use the same base mesh unlike vanilla). I will never understand why people think it fits Morrowind. Makes it look like some bum german RPG. Many people dislike Mackoms actually but its very popular with plebs

I used Familiar Faces last time and that suited me fine, but I've finally gone the route of not even using upscaled textures, instead opting entirely for vanilla meshes+textures in order to maintain absolute visual consistency between vanilla and modded content (mainly TR).

VitruvianGuar's lua mods are required.

Vaguely interesting looking, but the problem with such mods is that people mix'n'match them all the time based on what seems interesting, and then who knows what will exactly happen to the game balance in the end... Technically, for any combination of gameplay mods you'd need a few dozens of hours of playtesting at the very least. Who does that? Unless your idea of a good time is becoming playtester for random modder content...

Same goes for quest mods, especially if they're not completely self-contained.

Total overhaul mods are a completely different kettle of fish, though, if done well. Those are adequately playtested (if done by a team of people who have some minimum standards), so you can be reasonably sure you won't get a broken mess by installing a bunch of random mods from different authors.

I will continue screaming for the millionth time that Harder Barter fixes the game's most egregious balance issues, and so all that remains is the ability to get powerful loot at predetermined locations, at which point you are simply metagaming if you don't encounter them diagetically. Quest mods aren't really messing up game balance in a game where the vanilla balance normally has you OP and steamrolling content at level 10, assuming a competent build. Even if the curve with some of the modded content is a bit wonky, it usually leans towards making the game more difficult and therefore preserving the fun part of the game, which is actually becoming powerful, rather than being powerful. Your opinions on modded content here are pretty much bunk, since you seem to have not even engaged with it at all.

 

[Jarmaro]

Look upon these and tell me AI upscalling doesn't blow everything out of the water. 'Improved Argonians*' could have been enough back when there was no AI, but now it's just dated. 'Wey's Argonians' were added to the image only because the mod is the most popular Argonian replacer for some unknown even to God reason, it looks absolutely horrific.

*It was supposed to be 'Improved Argonians', not 'Better Argonians.'

 

[luj1]

there is a sick unreleased Argonian head mesh replacer

done in zbrush

will show u guys later

 

[Lemming42]

^^ That does look good, and easily the best option available. Does it handle human/elf faces as well? In my experience AIs drop the ball on human faces, since they either turn into weird watercolour paintings or creepy photorealistic things where you can tell it's tried to use an actual photo of a real human.

Everyone recommends Better Heads and the like.

Find me a single person who in 2022 doesn't just recommend Mackom's Redone heads or Facelift/Familiar Faces with upscaled textures. Maybe you'll find some people who still swear by Westly's heads.

Are these Mackom's? The Nexus page for the original seems to be down, this one's for TR:

Heads

While it's obviously better than having a photo of Halle Berry stretched across the mesh of Eldafire's head, they've still siphoned the personality and character out of the heads and mdae them look like Sims 2 characters. It's tricky because the original heads obviously can't really exist in "realistic" form, they're too stylised, but when all environment mods focus on trying to make the world look realistic as opposed to cartoonishly fantastical, the heads have to match, I suppose.

With regards to complaints about the game itself:
I've been told by people I trust to not have shit opinions that the tamriel rebuilt mod is actually very good.

I tried it based on your recommendation in the other thread. It's good and definitely a cut above vanilla, quest-wise, and has more reactivity (for example, there's a slave market where people will actually react to you killing the slavers, unlike the plantations in vanilla). The world still feels quite empty and static but I suppose that's more or less unavoidable.

I did a RP mod for Hlaalu, adding dialogue choices like a normal CRPG. And for Morag Tong

This is exactly what the game needs, especially if people can add alternate outcomes and wider consequences for quest choices and things like that.

 

[luj1]

only downside to OpenMW is no vanilla water shader.

yeah

in Disneyland

the other downside is having to read posts by morons

 

[Rincewind]

Your opinions on modded content here are pretty much bunk, since you seem to have not even engaged with it at all.

I have, and I regret the day that foolish notion entered my mind... I hit weird issues after a while, and how do you exactly determine what conflicts with what exactly when more than a single gameplay/quest mod is installed? The Official Advice (TM) is to install one mod at a time, test it thoroughly, then when you're sure that it's working as intended, move on to the next... Um, hello, how do you exactly do that when any single mod can break the game 10-20-30 hours later? Unless you're willing to play through the game at least N times, where N is the number of gameplay changing mods installed, you can never be sure. And even doing that isn't a guarantee because you could take different paths during playthroughs, visit different places, thus trigger different issues.

At some point you'll realise that you've unwillingly became a beta tester instead of, you know, just playing the damn game which was (hopefully!) your original goal.

To put things into perspective: for quite a few older RPGs there are fan-made fix packs available that *only* aim to fix problems present in the original content. The original content that had been tested by groups professional playtesters, over and over, as a fulltime job... How does that compare with putting your faith into a bunch of random mods written by some teenagers from Croatia (whose only coding experience might be writing mods) and hoping that things will be just peachy?

Anyway, I've learned my lesson; these day I'm not touching modder-content with a ten feet pole. The only exceptions are conservative bugfixes for the original content (without the "unfinished business" style restoration crap), perhaps some self-contained fixes for very specific small problems, and maybe graphical enhancements that respect the original vision.

Overall, fucking around with mods is a massive waste of time and effort. If a game cannot be enjoyed without extensively modding it, it's just a shit game.

 

[Jarmaro]

^^ That does look good, and easily the best option available. Does it handle human/elf faces as well? In my experience AIs drop the ball on human faces, since they either turn into weird watercolour paintings or creepy photorealistic things where you can tell it's tried to use an actual photo of a real human.

As I see it, the AI handles humanoid faces just as well, if not better. It's absolutely terrific. I don't see why anyone would not use it, aside of people who cannot handle the graphical requirements, it's just enhanced Vanilla. And all of that in one mod that upscalles every texture in the game, even the smallest rock. No bullshit 1000 mods for every object. if you see very closely, you can see that in some places it looks a bit like a watercolor, but it barely noticable even on a zoomed picture. Very unlikely anyone would be able to see it in game (i.e. the dragon symbol on the guard's helmet)

 

[Funposter]

Your opinions on modded content here are pretty much bunk, since you seem to have not even engaged with it at all.

I have, and I regret the day that foolish notion entered my mind... I hit weird issues after a while, and how do you exactly determine what conflicts with what exactly when more than a single gameplay/quest mod is installed? The Official Advice (TM) is to install one mod at a time, test it thoroughly, then when you're sure that it's working as intended, move on to the next... Um, hello, how do you exactly do that when any single mod can break the game 10-20-30 hours later? Unless you're willing to play through the game at least N times, where N is the number of gameplay changing mods installed, you can never be sure. And even doing that isn't a guarantee because you could take different paths during playthroughs, visit different places, thus trigger different issues.

At some point you'll realise that you've unwillingly became a beta tester instead of, you know, just playing the damn game which was (hopefully!) your original goal.

To put things into perspective: for quite a few older RPGs there are fan-made fix packs available that *only* aim to fix problems present in the original content. The original content that had been tested by groups professional playtesters, over and over, as a fulltime job... How does that compare with putting your faith into a bunch of random mods written by some teenagers from Croatia (whose only coding experience might be writing mods) and hoping that things will be just peachy?

Anyway, I've learned my lesson; these day I'm not touching modder-content with a ten feet pole. The only exceptions are conservative bugfixes for the original content (without the "unfinished business" style restoration crap), perhaps some self-contained fixes for very specific small problems, and maybe graphical enhancements that respect the original vision.

Overall, fucking around with mods is a massive waste of time and effort. If a game cannot be enjoyed without extensively modding it, it's just a shit game.

did you step out of a time warp from 2005 or something?

 

[Rincewind]

did you step out of a time warp from 2005 or something?

What's that even supposed to mean? Are you implying that the skills of modders have been improving with time, just like fine wine? Or that mods written by completely different authors combined together will just work fine now (without proper extensive playtesting) because it's 2022?

 

[luj1]

Harder Barter fixes the game's most egregious balance issues, and so all that remains is the ability to get powerful loot at predetermined locations, at which point you are simply metagaming if you don't encounter them diagetically.

There is a mod which randomises their locations

+ makes daedric materials super rare (only 1 item of each type existing)

 

[Jarmaro]

Or that mods written by completely different authors combined together will just work fine now (without proper extensive playtesting) because it's 2022?

That's a bit silly. You need to really install anything you see to create such problems, any person with above average knowledge of games should be able to avoid that. Addiotionally, new mod managers such as Vortex (which I use) by default inform you of any conflict between mods, make your load order sorted out and allow to choose an option for each mod conflict. I've recently installed over 220+ mods to Skyrim and experienced only 2-3 crashes within 20 hours of playing.