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Re: improvement scrolls



On Oct 23,  5:55pm, Brian Thomas wrote:
> Subject: Re: improvement scrolls
>
> > frits@chemde4.leidenuniv.nl (Frits Daalmans) writes:
> >
> > Since I was not very pleased noticing that weapon improvement has been
> > severely crippled, I have added a couple of spiffy new scrolls in
> > server/apply.c in the new improvement code, and a couple of archetypes
> > for them too.

 With new enchantment code, weapon enchanting is certainly weakened, but before
it was way too powerful.  The new code probably still is not perfect, but does
make a lot more sense.


>
> 	Overall, I think the enchanting of weapons throws off
> 	game balance. Consider that now, a 20 level character
> 	can have a +4 weapon that delivers 100+ points of damage
> 	w/ every hit! :P

 It is true very powerful weapons can be created (note that with the new code,
you ahve the disadvantage that the weapon can just be really high hit/damage,
old system they could be that plus immunities and other special abilities.)

 At least one problem is that it seems that fighters almost need to be able to
do this in order to keep up with spell casters.  At high levels, the mage
wanders in and casts a dozen icestorms, and can have killed several of the
large dragons.  A character with a weapon that does damage+80 can at least get
close to doing something similar - in fact, it seems some monsters are such
that you almost need to be able to ahve such a weapon.

>
> 	My opinion is that enchanting weapons (like above or better)
>  	should be:
>
> 		1) harder to enchant,

 At high levels, this will probably never be any issue - under the old systems,
characters could get tbe thousands of diamonds and other gems needed,and the
dozens of potions.  Note that the definition of high might vary, but once you
are the point where you can kill big dragons, you can get the money to do this
relatively easily.

> 		2) never create weapons better than
> 		"unique" artifacts, or difficult quest items!
>

 Problem here is the how you relate better.  At best, under current code, you
can create more damage and perhaps more stats, but you certainly won't get the
other special abilities (protections, immunities, regeneration, etc.)  Many of
those can be very useful.

> 	I am not opposed to having more functionality in the game
> 	(heh, I remember one person stated here that there were
> 	"too many spells already in the game". Never!). But I think
> 	your improvement will just carry on a trend -- namely to
> 	unbalance the game more. Someone should revise the enchanting
> 	weapons code to make it more balanced IMHO.
>

 Best way to do this might be to limit the number of enchantments that can be
done on an item - instead of basing it on level, perhaps limit it to 10 or 15 -
can still get some pretty nice items, but certainly not great items.

 At some point in the future, I hope to have it so that crossfire reads a
config file at startup, to get many of the options/values from.  Has the
advantage that you don't need to recompile if you just want to change behavior,
but also should actually make the code easier to maintain, since it will always
be compiled in, just not always executed.



> 						b.t.
>
>
>-- End of excerpt from Brian Thomas



-- 
 --Mark