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Re: Misc thoughts.



From: Philip Brown <philb@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>

> If you want to make a game that gives balance, instead of relying on the
> map makers, I make the following suggestions.

I agree with your ideas in principal (even not proposed implementation),
but _maps_ are the most important and hardest part of it. You can't make
balanced game with unbalanced maps. And current high levels maps clearly
support spellcasters.

> Make experience for killing things go WAY down, for levels less than you.

It currently goes down, but I don't know how big effect is somewhere
10-20 level players killing high level monsters.

> Similarly, if you kill of a cloud of monsters with one spell.. in my
> opinion, you should not get much more than the experience from killing
> ONE of the beasts.

Implementing this is hard and seeing that one spell can kill many monster
is new information and so it also experience :). And if one spell kill many 
monsters, they much low level monsters and experience for them isn't so much.

From: Peter Mardahl <peterm@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>

> >Basic problems:
> >Spell casters (especially level 10+) tend 
> >to have many advantags over fighters.
> 
> This is inherent.  Throwing a hand-grenade into a room is always going
> to be quicker and safer than going in and chopping everything to pieces.

I have to disagree. When you have thrown that grenade and missed then that
sword should be useful. But that is where the current maps comes in the 
play. There are so many maps where players can kill big room full of 
dragons just casting fireballs through one square width door. Fighters 
would have enourmous advantage over wizards if it would be fight with one 
chinese dragon in room in which there aren't any safe spots.

Making more monsters protected from magic and vulnerable to physical
damage could help also. Or maybe spells are too powerful?

> Gee, how about a 4-class split?  :)  We can then balance the game
> easily by making it very hard to advance as a mage (takes a LOT of exp
> from killing with spells to advance) and relatively easier for
> fighters.

I don't like a 4-skill system. It's not so flexible or easier implement
than different skills for different things (fighting/casting/healing/
searching/using bows/using wands/etc). The different classes could
have different starting values and other parameter telling how easily
they learn it better. This could be used even for each spell or 
spell-path.
Isn't there already variable telling how much experience is needed
to next level? It could made already so that wizards needs twice
as much experience as fighters to advance levels.

> It's simple enough to rationalize making it difficult to have such
> an improved weapon AND cast spells around it.  

If there is weapon which is meant to wizards to use, then this don't
make sense.

> I don't think lowering the maximums for weapon improvements is the way
> go to.  Rather, making it very much harder to achieve....

I think that there is need for maximum for different enchantments if
you want to get balanced game. Maximum value don't needed to be fixed
but it can be practically impossible to archive (success < 1..5%)

> You complete a quest, for example, and the
> gods improve your weapon for you, OR SOME OTHER ITEM, and it's random.

But once you have solved the quest then it's easy to solve again. And
if you drop all other items then the god have to enchant that only 
item what you have left. Also you probably would be quite upset if 
your god destroys your weapon after you have killed all monsters and
finished the quest.

I think it's not good way to balance the game make 'home made' weapons
better that very rare artifacts.

> It'd be really nice if some other armours were also done.  The improve
> weapon scrolls should be the result of quests, not purchases....

Removing most powerful items (scrolls/spellbooks/rods/armors/potions/etc)
from shops and keeping them in random treasures would make them more
valuable, but it also reduces the meaning of shops. And if you 
get same item always in same spot then it makes it easier available.
It not so big problem with weapons since player only need one
weapon but potions/scrolls are always useful.

Some idea what could be done with improve weapons. 

  - All weapons/armors have maximum magic bonus which is randomly
    generated like current magic bonus. Enchant weapon could be
    used quite safety for this limit. After this limit change of
    succees decrease rapidly (e.g. 1/magic^2 or something similar).
    Idea is that you could repair rusted (cancelled?) weapon.

  - Maybe similar limits for damage and weight, but much more
    restricted values than currently. It really doesn't make
    sense that weapon like bonecrusher doesn't weight anything.

  - For stat bonuses should be left the real artifacts. If you
    really want to make some quest which rewards as stat bonus
    for your weapon, then total stat bonuses should be quite small
    (1..5). Other special abilities (protected/immune/speed/etc) 
    belongs to the same category.

One thing about balancing is player levels. I'm not sure but
I think there are 100 levels for players. But is there anything
interesting to do after 20-30 levels? First 10 levels are
important ones for getting hp/sp and 10-20 levels you can
learn few spells but what after that? It might good limit levels
somehere 40-50 and make some goal for high level players. What that
could be? Maybe they could retire and buy their own house or
win the by solving some quest or something other interesting.

 -Tero