Re: CF: suggestion for Exp system (damage vs. kill)

[Christian Stieber <stieber@informatik.tu-muenchen.de>]

Stefan Reich (reich@informatik.tu-muenchen.de) wrote:

> > you do not succeed in killing the monster, you become more experienced
> > in casting these spells because you can successfully hurt the troll.  
> 
> Always you have to KILL and HURT someone for getting exp.
> Why not getting exp just for USING your skills ?
> 
> In real life you can train archery by shooting at trees or targets,
> and you don't have to shoot people for getting better :)

:-) It would be rather difficult anyway --- I don't even know exactly
when I met my last dragon or troll or even orc. Haven't seen one of
these in ages :-) [ Note that in some RPGs you receive some sort
of punishment for killing peaceful/"good" people, so it's not an option
there --- you really need to find "bad" monsters ]

> Hmm...maybe some differentiation between SKILL and EXP would be
> needed (like in Tibia...).

And you would get the same playing style ("oh, no monster here. Who's
going to whack me?" (to train "sword fighting" and/or "shielding").
Or people running around casting "light" all the time, even though
it's not dark at all. Luckily one can only shoot arrows at monsters
(or players), so at least people don't stand in the town shooting
arrows at the houses...)

I guess just using the same system is not a good idea, but it could be
a start. The idea for shooting arrows would be something like this:
with a low skill you can still pratice by shooting arrows at whatever
you want. Later you need to shoot arrows at some real target to learn
something new. Later you need to shoot arrows at something that
moves. Later you need to shoot arrows at something that hurts you
(after all, there is a difference between shooting arrows at some
artificial target, and shooting arrows in a battle).

Of course all this could be made even better: if you don't use
something for a while, you get worse at it. It will be more
complicated (need more practice) to use a higher level spell, or to
control a powerful weapon. Basically a complete rewrite of the whole
skill/kill/exp/casting/damage/etc.  parts of crossfire :-)

The spellcasting is way to easy anyway: a better magic system would
have "teachers" or something like that, and it would take a long time
to study a spell like "meteor swarm" --- and even longer to get enough
practice in it to use it properly...

This would also solve the "class problem": if it takes a long time
to study magic or fighting, and if you need to practice all the time,
you just don't have the time to become an excellent wizard and an
excellent fighter at the same time --- you can become either one of
them, or an average fighter+spellcaster combo.

Christian


-- 
Christian Stieber        http://www.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~stieber
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