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Re: CF: play balance

> > It's easy to get physique & magical xp, but hard to get wisdom xp
> I see no problems with that.  No reason to think that all skills should
> be easy to gain exp.  Though, I wouldn't mind if modest wisdom exp was
> granted for completing some quests.

On game difficulty:

This is another example of a point we've made:  IF YOU ARE EXPERT AT
THE GAME, IT IS EASY, IF YOU ARE NOT, IT IS HARD.

I can gain wisdom exp EASILY enough.  At higher levels I can gain Wis
exp even faster than any other sort.

Some are advocating making the game MUCH harder.  To those advocating this:
none of us on this list are objective about the game's difficulty.
What we need to do is recruit some neutral people to tell us whether it
is too hard or easy.  Best:  some maps are hard, some are easy, so everyone
can find something fun to do.

On Wis advancement:

It is to make it possible for Wis advancement that I made the FireTemple
suite of maps, to provide the opportunity, at least for those who may
banish/damage demons.

Perhaps similar maps for other religions are called for.

> Alchemy needs to be integrated into the game.  Materials need to be found
> in maps (salt near the ocean, minerals in mines,,,).  Alchemy books
> (containing rare formulas) need to exist as artifact items.

Have you seen my FireTemple suite of maps?  It is an alchemy-aware set
of maps!

> There does need to be an artifact tracking system.  It would be a
> database limiting the number of artifacts in the world.  I think it

I think this is a bad idea:  what if you're on a busy server?  Those who got
there first could hoard artifacts.  Considering the lack of public servers,
I don't think a DM could be found willing to tune this.

> about the character which impairs natural recovery.  It is a very common
> theme that powerful items are also a bit of a curse due to their side
> effects.

This is an interesting idea.  At one point I had plans to make Power
Crystals do things of their own accord:  possibly beneficial, possibly stupid,
depending on that Crystal's "personality".  Never got round to it though.

> rarely used by monsters.  In fact, if monsters aggressively used the
> best spells then we might finally reach agreement that some spells are
> too powerful.

The REAL PROBLEM here is this:  monsters have 1000's of HP, players
have hundreds.  If monsters used spells with the same deadliness as
players, then players wouldn't have a chance.

> I think a key game balance measurement is that difficult monsters are
> always difficult.  There should be no way to be so good that a powerful
> monster is not a threat.

Why not?  I think it makes the game more fun.  If I perpetually must slog
through monsters I've seen before, and which bore me, because I'm too
weak to get through them to the INTERESTING monsters, the game's less fun.
If a player likes to do things like battle weaker monsters all the time,
and never take on ones which challenge him, that's his problem, not ours.
We cannot fix this.

> And while map designers like to create new items as part of new maps,
> no new items should be significantly better than existing items.  Items
> with special abilities should have balancing negatives.  For example, the
> BoneCrusher isn't such a great weapon since it is so heavy.  I think
> PeterM's maps are notable (among other reasons) for creating new items
> that are useful, but they aren't really any better than previous items.

I somewhat disagree here.  I think nearly all the "specials" I put in at
the end of my maps are "better".  In the Tower of Demonology, for example,
the end of the quest is rewarded with the Demonslayer, a better weapon
than any other non-"enchanted" weapon that I know of.  The balance is this:
if a player can GET that weapon, he's already strong enough that the nice
weapon is a convenience, not a revolution.


Regarding unbalancing spells:  I made the spells of "Face of Death",
"Meteor storm", "ball lightning".  Of these, I only placed "ball lightning"
in a map.  Face of Death is sort of self-limiting:  I really think the
spell is only useful to those who don't REALLY need it:  it only kills monsters
which are much weaker than the player.

Meteor storm, though....  I find myself using that spell very often when
I have it.  THIS spell may need to have something done about it.  An increase
in level?  A necessity for SPELL COMPONENTS?  Increasing the level to say,
25 or 30 might be in order.....

PeterM
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