On bizarre contortions of crossfire to fix "abuses", was Re: CF: getting rid of too powerful characters

[Peter Mardahl <peterm@langmuir.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>]

I very strongly disagree with many of the measures proposed to "fix"
crossfire.  We will never be able to fix all the possible abuses,
holes, cheesy ways to get exp, etc.  Some of them we can reasonably
fix, without imposing rules which are worse than the problems
we're trying to address.

Everyone should bear in mind that we are the world experts on the game,
and therefore, of course it is easier for us.

> Several people on this list have mentioned (and I agree with them)
> that Crossfire was designed for characters up to level 20 or 30,

You mean the current mapset is designed for up to level 20 or 30.

> and it does not make sense to allow a character to gain more levels
> beyond that.  Sure, you can play with a character that is level 50
> or more, but then you are not playing the same game anymore.

If we put a limit on advancement, then when people get around to
making appropriate maps, we'll have to hack crossfire to remove
these "fixes".

> 1) Have a maximum value for the total of all stats, which is lower
>    than 120 (6x20).  In the current game, a character is created

How about forever removing stat maximums?  This will enforce your
policy of "trading off" stats.  A person will never be able to
"maximize" stats, because there will be no maximum.  Omega works
this way:  there's a formula for the bonus per stat over a certain
amount. One thing though:  leave in the "intrinsic", racially defined
stat maximums, unchanged.

I support stat bonus maximums for any single ITEM, however.  A
taifu +20 with +5 to every stat is just ridiculous.

> 2) Like someone mentioned a few weeks ago, instead of having some
>    experience for each skill and adding these in order to get the
>    overall experience, we could have one overall experience value
>    together with percentages for each skill.  These percentages
>    would constantly decrease over time and would only increase when
>    the corresponding skill is used.  It would then be impossible to
>    get 100% in each skill, because the time spent improving one
>    skill would cause the others to decrease.

I don't think I'd enjoy constantly having to worry about each skill.
I'd want it to be there when I needed it and I'd get annoyed if it
weren't.  I don't think this mod would make the game any more fun,
rather the reverse, it'd increase frustration.

Also, you have a bias here:  if a player can't be reasonable in
all the skills, then he can't play alone.  Most of us don't play
crossfire multiplayer:  bear that in mind.

> 4) The game could end at level 30, period.  A character reaching
>    that level would get a big congratulations message with lots of
>    fireworks and everything, would be remembered forever and blah
>    blah blah...  and would have to start again from scratch.  Not
>    very nice, IMHO, but some games are working like that.

If a person has fun running around with level 30 characters, why not
let him?  Why mandate (via lots of code) that people have to play the game the way
we intend the game to be played?  If a player likes to go through
easy maps with a strong character, why should that concern us?  He'll
get bored of it soon enough, or maybe he just likes exploring maps for
their aesthetic appeal and finds it more convenient to do with a strong
character.

Making "getting that level 30 character" challenging should be our
concern, not what is done with it after it is made...  And if we get
complaints that crossfire is "too easy", we should say, "here's
the map editor...."

> 5) We could make it pointless or dangerous to keep on gaining levels
>    after some point.   After level 25 or 30, each level gained beyond
>    that would cause one permanent stat loss for Con, Dex and Pow,
>    like if the character was getting older.  This means that if the

If we HAVE to have a limit on level ( which I oppose because who knows
when the map set will get extended?) I'd favor this method.


PeterM
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