What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

[Anteros]

If you're relying on 50/50s going your way in XCOM, that's generally a sign you're making tactical mistakes. You can and should be relying on guaranteed damage from rockets/swords/grenades, cover destruction, or just flanking to get shots that are much better than that. Five 50/50s in a row is 3%, but five 80%s in a row is .03%. To the degree that you can lose to pure RNG, it only really happens in the first couple missions, which means that the overall impact is fairly low.

Exactly. If you're continually putting your troops in situations where you need rolls to go your way to not get them killed, that's not a RNG problem, it's a strategy problem. Sure you can re load whenever the dice don't come up your way until they do but that doesn't mean you have good tactics or that you improved. It just means your strategy relies on getting lucky, or cheating until you do.

[Zevox]

Exactly. If you're continually putting your troops in situations where you need rolls to go your way to not get them killed, that's not a RNG problem, it's a strategy problem.

In the early missions? BS. I am well aware of how to handle those optimally - trouble is, your resources are very limited in the early phases of the game. One grenade per soldier on four soldiers isn't going to blow up every enemy/cover that you come across, and with the limited range on grenades with non-Grenadier units they're not even always an option. And again, even when you do, it is entirely possible to have the RNG just say "no, you missed that shot against the enemy with no cover" - did so plenty of times to me. The trouble is that the numbers at that phase of the game are so precarious that you will frequently end up in situations where one thing not going your way means an enemy lives to get a shot at you, and at that point, that's often all they need.

You don't have squadsight/long watch snipers at that point to cover your advance. You don't have grenadiers with extra grenade uses and more range/AoE/damage on them. You don't have Rangers able to one-shot half of the enemies you face with a sword swing that has almost no miss chance, then move again to cover. Your specialists are barely more capable than rookies. Your units generally can't take a hit unless they get lucky, and even then they usually panic. You're just extremely frail all around for the first handful of missions, until you manage to accumulate enough research, supplies, and experience to upgrade your troops. Once you have a few ranks under most of your troops' belts, the ability to use 5 or 6 instead of only 4 (and enough to never need to deploy less than the max), your first armor upgrade, and maybe your first weapon upgrades, the RNG becomes less of an issue, because you have more abilities to even the odds and more room for error. Before that? A few bad rolls can turn an otherwise fine mission into a disaster quite quickly.

[factotum]

Once you have a few ranks under most of your troops' belts, the ability to use 5 or 6 instead of only 4 (and enough to never need to deploy less than the max), your first armor upgrade, and maybe your first weapon upgrades, the RNG becomes less of an issue, because you have more abilities to even the odds and more room for error. Before that? A few bad rolls can turn an otherwise fine mission into a disaster quite quickly.

To be fair, though, losing due to RNG a couple of missions in doesn't hurt anywhere as much as it happening after 15-20 hours. Given the amount of time I have to play games (apart from weekends), the latter could easily mean an entire week of gameplay gone up the swannee, which would be the difference between "Oh, sod it, guess I'm starting again" and "Oh, sod it, I am *never playing this crappy game again*".

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Broke down and bought Monster Train, rather than continue to wait for a sale... and to my delight, it is on sale! Just hadn't noticed the notification yet.

Good deckbuilding fun, and the new update adds a new champion for each faction, as well as new bosses. Just made it past Covenant 5, and unlocked the Melting Remnant in the same run, which I'm looking forward to trying out.

[Cazero]

To be fair, though, losing due to RNG a couple of missions in doesn't hurt anywhere as much as it happening after 15-20 hours.

It still happens until the very end.
Archon king shows up and does his piledriver thingie, you have to take a potshot from where you're standing or your guy dies, the mission snowballs in your face and your A-team is wiped out. Now you can't field a team strong enough for the big mission you need to do to delay Avatar. Game over.

[factotum]

I seem to have been on a JRPG binge recently. I've played through Persona 3, 4 and 5 (albeit not in that order), and I've now moved on to The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. I've never really been able to get into JRPGs before, and I think the reason I was able to in the case of the Persona games goes back to what we've been talking about--namely, they're rather easier than your average JRPG and don't require endless grinding up of levels to do well.

[Zevox]

To be fair, though, losing due to RNG a couple of missions in doesn't hurt anywhere as much as it happening after 15-20 hours. Given the amount of time I have to play games (apart from weekends), the latter could easily mean an entire week of gameplay gone up the swannee, which would be the difference between "Oh, sod it, guess I'm starting again" and "Oh, sod it, I am *never playing this crappy game again*".

True and fair. Personally I find it quite frustrating for that to be a possibility at any stage of a game, but it would certainly be worse to have it happen later than earlier.

It still happens until the very end.
Archon king shows up and does his piledriver thingie, you have to take a potshot from where you're standing or your guy dies, the mission snowballs in your face and your A-team is wiped out. Now you can't field a team strong enough for the big mission you need to do to delay Avatar. Game over.

Eh, if you're far enough into the game that you're facing enemies I've never even heard of and yet only have one team that's good enough for the hard stuff, you might have made a mistake in not using the rest of your troops more often, I'd say. I've already got enough troops to field two teams I'd trust fairly well with a tough mission, and I've only recently seen a couple of Archons (no "king" in the name) for the first time.

[Thomas Cardew]

True and fair. Personally I find it quite frustrating for that to be a possibility at any stage of a game, but it would certainly be worse to have it happen later than earlier.


Eh, if you're far enough into the game that you're facing enemies I've never even heard of and yet only have one team that's good enough for the hard stuff, you might have made a mistake in not using the rest of your troops more often, I'd say. I've already got enough troops to field two teams I'd trust fairly well with a tough mission, and I've only recently seen a couple of Archons (no "king" in the name) for the first time.

Alien Rulers are a dlc you may or may not have. Also it depends on if you're playing WotC or base version. WotC introduces a willpower system, which essentially means the every soldier you take on a mission is lightly wounded no matter what and potentially seriously wounded despite taking no actual damage. Actions they or an enemy take reduce their willpower. Taken a shaken (low will power) soldier on a mission and they're more likely to get seriously wounded or develop a bad trait and be out of commission. The pacing of the missions means you need a 2-3 decent teams even if you swap equipment around. Wiping with your B team can force you to bring in your A before everyone's ready. If you lost the weapons too, you might really be screwed.

[Zevox]

Alien Rulers are a dlc you may or may not have. Also it depends on if you're playing WotC or base version. WotC introduces a willpower system, which essentially means the every soldier you take on a mission is lightly wounded no matter what and potentially seriously wounded despite taking no actual damage. Actions they or an enemy take reduce their willpower. Taken a shaken (low will power) soldier on a mission and they're more likely to get seriously wounded or develop a bad trait and be out of commission. The pacing of the missions means you need a 2-3 decent teams even if you swap equipment around. Wiping with your B team can force you to bring in your A before everyone's ready. If you lost the weapons too, you might really be screwed.

I have no DLC for the game whatsoever, and from that description, I don't think I want any. Jeez, as if the wounds system in this game wasn't punishing enough to begin with...

[Corlindale]

Been playing a bit of Spelunky these past couple of days, in anticipation of Spelunky 2 right around the corner. I never managed to beat Spelunky back in the day, so I felt I should perhaps give it another shot. I didn't have any real expectation of success, but much to my own surprise I actually managed to beat it yesterday! The secret turned out to be lots and lots of bombs - lucked out and found a bomb shop in the Ice Caves while I had almost 70,000 gold, which let me enter the Temple with 40+ bombs and 8 life (thanks, Kali). It was still a close thing, as I ended up tanking a Tiki trap and an arrow trap in quick succession, but by playing like a true coward and bombing my way through walls whenever I could, I reached Olmec and finally took him down.

Guess I should try for Hell next, but I'm not sure I really have the skills or the patience for that.

[tonberrian]

I have no DLC for the game whatsoever, and from that description, I don't think I want any. Jeez, as if the wounds system in this game wasn't punishing enough to begin with...

Alien Rulers is the only "bad" dlc. War of the Chosen is pretty good, actually, the Chosen are multi-battle bosses done right, and the new system for gaining extra perks above and beyond levelling is pretty neat.

[warty goblin]

Alien Rulers is the only "bad" dlc. War of the Chosen is pretty good, actually, the Chosen are multi-battle bosses done right, and the new system for gaining extra perks above and beyond levelling is pretty neat.

I dunno, War of the Chosen is sort of where they jam so much stuff into the game that it starts to split at the seams. The game ends up with so many progress bars and fatigue bars and bond progression and loyalty bars and enemy progress meters and somehow two XP counts per soldier plus a global XP pool and secret this and random that it just ends up a borderline incoherent mess.

There's some good ideas in there to be sure, but a lot of it strikes me as the video game equivalent of a book that was one very firm editor away from being exceedingly excellent.

[Zevox]

Alien Rulers is the only "bad" dlc. War of the Chosen is pretty good, actually, the Chosen are multi-battle bosses done right, and the new system for gaining extra perks above and beyond levelling is pretty neat.

You know, I was going to say that the price tag of it is more than enough to keep me away from it, but it turns out that it's actually on a big sale on PSN right, so for the moment it'd only cost me $14 (normal price is $40), which might be okay, depending on how much is in it. Still, I definitely don't want to add it on while I'm in the middle of a run. I could buy it now and just download it later I guess, but... I don't know, I'm not sold right now. The willpower thing Thomas Cardew was talking about sounds absolutely awful, after all, so I don't know what could be worth putting up with that for.

[tonberrian]

You know, I was going to say that the price tag of it is more than enough to keep me away from it, but it turns out that it's actually on a big sale on PSN right, so for the moment it'd only cost me $14 (normal price is $40), which might be okay, depending on how much is in it. Still, I definitely don't want to add it on while I'm in the middle of a run. I could buy it now and just download it later I guess, but... I don't know, I'm not sold right now. The willpower thing Thomas Cardew was talking about sounds absolutely awful, after all, so I don't know what could be worth putting up with that for.

Willpower isn't THAT bad. As long as you keep at least an A team and a B team you'll be fine. You have to be doing back to back missions, faster than they are randomly generated (eg, a story mission right after an ill-timed guerilla targets retaliation 2 day combo) for it to actually have an effect, and that's only if the troop in question managed to avoid getting wounded. A wounded trooper heals health slower than willpower recovery.

[Thomas Cardew]

So alien rulers doesn't add the will power system. It adds a couple of weapons which are mostly side grades, with the exception of the melee axe, that you can give your soldiers. It also adds some story missions about what happens to Vahlen from the first game. It also adds 3 super powered alien rulers which you encounter randomly on missions. Rather than alternate turns, they get an instant and free action after you take a visible action to them. Which means you really have to change your tactics and focus on them when you encounter them. After you kill them you can make their corspes into very powerful armors, with free action abilities.

WotC does add the willpower system which is annoying but it adds more than enough crazy stuff on your own side to counter. You'll get the ability to do send soldiers on side missions for extra resources and xp. You get access to 3 resistance faction 'heroes' which give you either a (semi)permanently concealed sniper with only 1 square detection radius by the enemy who can blow up cars for massive area damage. Or a psionic templars which acts like a SC2 zealot dashing around and meleeing aliens before getting a free damage block. Or a soldier with a grappling hook that jump around and uses his hook to yank enemies out of cover. You also get the ability get extra skills on all your soldiers. For example, you can get rangers with the sniper skill that refunds action points after a kill, making your rangers in literal gods on the battlefield capable of killing 12 enemies in a turn. The willpower system IS annoying. But they had to add something to slow you down. I still don't like it but it does help counter all the extra stuff you get.

Edit: And more. WotC really does through in a whole bunch of stuff and is probably worth the money. I wasn't trying to make an exhaustive list.

[NigelWalmsley]

Personally, if you're looking for more XCOM content, I recommend the Long War mod for EU2012. Personally, I found that was way more replayable than WotC. It's also free. You'll want to turn the difficulty way down with Second Wave settings though.

Willpower isn't THAT bad.

Willpower is basically just Fatigue from Long War 1. It encourages you to keep your roster deep, and it adds some complexity to missions that happen in quick succession. Again, it's annoying to have a soldier freeze up two or three times on a mission, but if you're putting yourself in that position it's either a calculated risk, or a result of poor planning.

[Rakaydos]

Personally, if you're looking for more XCOM content, I recommend the Long War mod for EU2012. Personally, I found that was way more replayable than WotC. It's also free. You'll want to turn the difficulty way down with Second Wave settings though.



Willpower is basically just Fatigue from Long War 1. It encourages you to keep your roster deep, and it adds some complexity to missions that happen in quick succession. Again, it's annoying to have a soldier freeze up two or three times on a mission, but if you're putting yourself in that position it's either a calculated risk, or a result of poor planning.

Long war expanded the size of the sky ranger, making the early missions have a bit more margin. What does that mod have?

[Zevox]

Personally, if you're looking for more XCOM content, I recommend the Long War mod for EU2012. Personally, I found that was way more replayable than WotC. It's also free. You'll want to turn the difficulty way down with Second Wave settings though.

Again, console player, mods aren't an option. Also, my understanding is that the main point of Long War is to significantly increase how long the campaign takes, and I don't think I really want that anyway.

Willpower isn't THAT bad. As long as you keep at least an A team and a B team you'll be fine. You have to be doing back to back missions, faster than they are randomly generated (eg, a story mission right after an ill-timed guerilla targets retaliation 2 day combo) for it to actually have an effect, and that's only if the troop in question managed to avoid getting wounded. A wounded trooper heals health slower than willpower recovery.

WotC does add the willpower system which is annoying but it adds more than enough crazy stuff on your own side to counter. You'll get the ability to do send soldiers on side missions for extra resources and xp. You get access to 3 resistance faction 'heroes' which give you either a (semi)permanently concealed sniper with only 1 square detection radius by the enemy who can blow up cars for massive area damage. Or a psionic templars which acts like a SC2 zealot dashing around and meleeing aliens before getting a free damage block. Or a soldier with a grappling hook that jump around and uses his hook to yank enemies out of cover. You also get the ability get extra skills on all your soldiers. For example, you can get rangers with the sniper skill that refunds action points after a kill, making your rangers in literal gods on the battlefield capable of killing 12 enemies in a turn. The willpower system IS annoying. But they had to add something to slow you down. I still don't like it but it does help counter all the extra stuff you get.

Edit: And more. WotC really does through in a whole bunch of stuff and is probably worth the money. I wasn't trying to make an exhaustive list.

Okay, so here's the thing: from the way you've described it, it sounds to me like this willpower system is rather redudant with several mechanics that are already in the game, and already on the annoying side. Namely the wounds system, the panicking status, and the "shaken" status that characters who panic tend to acquire. All of which, from current experience, seem to disproportionately be an issue in the early game. Even if a soldier survives a shot there, they'll probably be out of commission for 2 weeks or more, have maybe a 50/50 to panic and be useless for a turn, and if they do will likely end up shaken and more likely to panic in the future until they perform well enough to get their confidence back. Later on, it seems like wounds keep you out for less time - perhaps it's based on the percentage of your health you're at or something, that would make sense given the much larger health pools higher ranked troops with better armor have compared to the damage most enemies do - and panicking and shaken almost never happen.

So what I'm worried about here is that this mechanic will make what is already the most miserable part of the game, that very early period, even worse. You say that as long as you keep at least two teams of troops you can manage it fine - but early on, you might not be able to do that. You start with only eight troops, it's quite hard to avoid losing at least some at that point in the game, and you do get to upgrade to using five soldiers per team earlier than you get any upgrades that make it easier to keep those soldiers alive, so you'd probably need to do a lot of recruiting early, except money is very tight at that point in the game - you see where I'm going with this? I already don't like that early game experience where everything is significantly stacked against you, you have very few options to work with, and any little thing going wrong can lead to disasters, so a new mechanic that makes that element worse is one of the last things I'd want, even if it can ultimately be managed.

Do any of the new, beneficial things kick in early enough that they might help counterbalance that fear, perhaps?

[Thomas Cardew]

So what I'm worried about here is that this mechanic will make what is already the most miserable part of the game, that very early period, even worse. You say that as long as you keep at least two teams of troops you can manage it fine - but early on, you might not be able to do that. You start with only eight troops, it's quite hard to avoid losing at least some at that point in the game, and you do get to upgrade to using five soldiers per team earlier than you get any upgrades that make it easier to keep those soldiers alive, so you'd probably need to do a lot of recruiting early, except money is very tight at that point in the game - you see where I'm going with this? I already don't like that early game experience where everything is significantly stacked against you, you have very few options to work with, and any little thing going wrong can lead to disasters, so a new mechanic that makes that element worse is one of the last things I'd want, even if it can ultimately be managed.

Do any of the new, beneficial things kick in early enough that they might help counterbalance that fear, perhaps?

Yes. If you don't play the tutorial/story missions you get a faction hero in your starting squad. Otherwise you get it in a 2nd tutorial mission which should be like the 3rd to 4th mission in the campaign, it's been awhile since I've done that path but it's very early. I highly suggest the reaper start. The reaper is permanently concealed unless you specifically make the reaper shoot from concealment. By rank 3, the reaper can blow up any environmental explosive (while concealed!) wiping entire pods, gain permanent vision of any enemies, and carries a high damage 4x4 explosive. Willpower is mostly an annoyance because it stops me from taking the reaper on every mission until I get a second reaper which is in the mid to late-mid game. Willpower means you might have to miss 1-2 missions with that soldier, while being wounded means you'll miss 2-4.

The other features are unlocked in things you need to build in the first months anyways like the resistance network. Soldiers are easier to recruit and rookies are easier to level since you can toss them in covert operations to get exp instead of dragging down your active squad. There are new VIP missions which give you the chance to rescue 2 bodyguards which will join xcom afterwards as leveled soldiers.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I find the willpower/fatigue system annoying. But you're more than compensated by other fun toys that the expansion gives you.

[warty goblin]

So I usually avoid springing for reasonably large games back to back, but Iron Harvest just dropped, and the sheer audacity of somebody releasing an honest to gods RTS in Earth Hell Year 2020 is the sort of thing I will support simply on principle. So Wasteland 3 is shifted to the back burner while I set Eastern not-Europe on fire with various big stompy robots.

Good news is that Iron Harvest is actually good! It definitely draws a lot from Company of Heroes, but since CoH is the best RTS ever made* I'm not complaining. Is Iron Harvest that good? Not quite; the cover system isn't quite as rich, there's a bit more jank, but it's a very solid version of the Basic CoH Axioms: namely

1) Terrain and positioning are vitally important
2) Infantry is versatile
3) Defeating armor requires special weaponry and positioning.

So far I've been farting around with the campaign, which is remarkably enjoyable. I'm generally not enamored of RTS campaigns, on the basis that playing with a fraction of a toolbox is never as fun as playing with the whole thing, but this is solid work. The mission design is good; things flow pretty smoothly from one stage into the next - attack this point, defend that point, and so on. All very familiar pieces of the RTS mission design set, but executed pretty well, with an eye to towards constantly changing things up. Plus it's been a long time since I micro'd a horde of dudes between different objectives, so the slightly more gentle pacing of Ye Olde RTS Campaigne is rather appreciated by my terrible reflexes. The story is pretty solid and contains characters with detectably human emotions and motivations. Also impressively for an RTS, it manages to avoid reducing the various factions to one-note caricatures, and gives a fair amount of characterization to your army grunts, some of whom even have different views on things! On the flipside, some of the voice work is rough as hell in a sort of adorable way, and the villain appears to be very much cut from the one-dimensional cloth of bog standard mustache twirlers. This isn't exactly a work of immortal genius, but it's engaging, and the narrative does a pretty good job of justifying the mission progression.

Overall I'm very much enjoying this completely without reservation. I'd been missing a good RTS for a while, and this is just the thing to scratch that itch.


*This is the hill I will die on. Behind my sandbag wall, barbed wire and minefields, with a couple anti-tank guns all lined up. Fight me.

[Zevox]

Yes. If you don't play the tutorial/story missions you get a faction hero in your starting squad. Otherwise you get it in a 2nd tutorial mission which should be like the 3rd to 4th mission in the campaign, it's been awhile since I've done that path but it's very early. I highly suggest the reaper start. The reaper is permanently concealed unless you specifically make the reaper shoot from concealment. By rank 3, the reaper can blow up any environmental explosive (while concealed!) wiping entire pods, gain permanent vision of any enemies, and carries a high damage 4x4 explosive. Willpower is mostly an annoyance because it stops me from taking the reaper on every mission until I get a second reaper which is in the mid to late-mid game. Willpower means you might have to miss 1-2 missions with that soldier, while being wounded means you'll miss 2-4.

The other features are unlocked in things you need to build in the first months anyways like the resistance network. Soldiers are easier to recruit and rookies are easier to level since you can toss them in covert operations to get exp instead of dragging down your active squad. There are new VIP missions which give you the chance to rescue 2 bodyguards which will join xcom afterwards as leveled soldiers.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I find the willpower/fatigue system annoying. But you're more than compensated by other fun toys that the expansion gives you.

Well, alright, it's cheap enough right now, I suppose I'll give it a go. Bought it, just going to wait to download after I finish my current run, then I'll do one with that installed.

Which should be pretty soon. I'm 99% positive I'm just before the final mission/endgame period, just waiting on doing the final research project for it until I've fully trained my preferred Psi Trooper. Because if I've named her after a goddess, she is going to be godlike, damn it. (I've made all of my troops on this run into Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters after they got promoted from rookie status. Figure my final team will be Byleth, the three house leaders, Sothis, and whoever I feel like tacking on for a sixth. Probably a grenadier, two grenadiers has been my preferred way to run.)

[tonberrian]

The only problem with starting with a reaper is that you don't start with a Templar, and thus can't have two templars, and thus cannot field two templars that each summon a copy templar for four templars swording people to death on a single map.

[Anonymouswizard]

Just started Geneforge (after a failed attempt to start Avadon, which I'll probably go back to with a different class), playing a Shaper to of course get the most out of the Mons aspects. Not that I've got there yet, only just finished the starting area because it took me hours to get it running, but it's nice to be playing a classic RPG. Go around, loot everything, realise I've probably made things a bit difficult by putting all my starting points into Shaping instead of stats or magic, and it looks like combat will be a classic turn based system, which will be fun to get to grips with.

[LibraryOgre]

Made the holy grail of Morrowind items last night: The Ring of Levitation. Simple item, not much charge, but makes maneuvering so much easier.

And I've also combined levitation with the Boots of Blinding Speed for rapid cross-country travel. I do not have magic resistance... I just fly blind, using the mini-map, then fly down, since I am invariably scraping the stars by the time I get there.

[GloatingSwine]

P. sure you can get an amulet of levitation almost as soon as you start the game. You may need a scroll of it or of jumping to get it but there are some in the cave the glass sparksword is in near Seyda Neen.

Get a couple of hundred septims and take boats/striders around anticlockwise to Vos, walk to Tel Vos and there's a quest giver in the tower at the top, they just want you to walk inland a bit, talk to someone and come back, they give you an amulet of levitation for doing it.

[Cespenar]

Made the holy grail of Morrowind items last night: The Ring of Levitation. Simple item, not much charge, but makes maneuvering so much easier.

And I've also combined levitation with the Boots of Blinding Speed for rapid cross-country travel. I do not have magic resistance... I just fly blind, using the mini-map, then fly down, since I am invariably scraping the stars by the time I get there.

My favorite design combo:

Pants of the Titan: Jump 100 for 2 seconds (or 1-5 secs, depending on ease of use vs. cheapness)
Ring of Cushioning: Levitate 1 for 1 second

Just started Geneforge (after a failed attempt to start Avadon, which I'll probably go back to with a different class), playing a Shaper to of course get the most out of the Mons aspects. Not that I've got there yet, only just finished the starting area because it took me hours to get it running, but it's nice to be playing a classic RPG. Go around, loot everything, realise I've probably made things a bit difficult by putting all my starting points into Shaping instead of stats or magic, and it looks like combat will be a classic turn based system, which will be fun to get to grips with.

Geneforge is awesome the first time around, but the sequels just look too similar for me to gather any interest, despite having gotten them all pretty cheaply in a steam sale.

[LibraryOgre]

P. sure you can get an amulet of levitation almost as soon as you start the game. You may need a scroll of it or of jumping to get it but there are some in the cave the glass sparksword is in near Seyda Neen.

Get a couple of hundred septims and take boats/striders around anticlockwise to Vos, walk to Tel Vos and there's a quest giver in the tower at the top, they just want you to walk inland a bit, talk to someone and come back, they give you an amulet of levitation for doing it.

Yeah, I don't know where either of these. Plus, since I'm still playing Cana, I start with Blunt Weapons.

[GloatingSwine]

The sword is in a cave like right on the path to Seyda Neen from Balmora, it's one room with a nonhostile NPC in and a ledge you have to levitate to that has a glass longsword on it with a minor spark enchantment.

I think I found it on my first ever Morrowind character and it was forever the first thing I went to do. P. sure you can get potions of levitation in the first shop too.

Because Morrowind is a more handcrafted world than later Elder Scrolls games it does just have those random top tier items lying around in fixed locations for you to just pick up if you know where they are.

(Sometimes pick up means steal).

[Resileaf]

I love that about Morrowind, it really allows itself to just be broken in whatever way you want by finding OP items way earlier than you should reasonably be able to get them, or letting you craft ridiculous magical items.

[Lord Raziere]

I'd love to play morrowind, but the sheer jank of its movements and the graphics repel me from it every time I try. I've heard of its lore and I think its awesome, I just wish that either that skywind project gets finished or a remaster is done so that I can enjoy it, because Morrowind needs and deserves one.