CF: Crossfire playbalance

["Mark Wedel" <mark@icp.siemens.com>]

On Mar 8,  3:00pm, Peter Mardahl wrote:
> Subject: On bizarre contortions of crossfire to fix "abuses", was Re: CF:

> 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".

 But is there really a great need for maps for level 50, level 60, ... people?
 If you sort of follow the theory that you might gain a few levels for any
quest/map series, than to have good coverage (multiple choices), you need a lot
more maps to cover the level 50->100 range than to cover the level 10-20 range.

 I personally would like to have a huge number of choices to get up to level 30
or so (I can try path X,Y,Z,... and then I can try each of the paths with a
different class for a completely different challenge, etc), compared to having
just a few paths that go all the way up to level 100.

 In some sense, maps for high level characters are only needed because
character can become high level.  the high level maps tend to also start to
create problems (since this map is for level 50 people, we need to have some
really good items in it (better than that level 30 map over there), and so on.
 When a bug then happens where someone can get that item easier than they
should, balance gets a little messed up).  I also miss the days when you could
have at lease some debate of what was the best artifact weapon or the like.  I
think now days, that honor clearly goes to some of the special quest items.


> 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.

 Note that the current stat maximums are 30.  Since characters racial maximums
at 20, that means to max out every stat, the character needs +10/stat.

 Some of this is probably caused by new artifact items I alluded to above
(armor that gives you stat bonus, shields, helms, ...).  As it is now, a
character could probably max out any specific stat he wants to, but not all of
them.

 One thing to change would be to make the improvements much more linear.  For
example, from living.c:
static int sp_bonus[MAX_STAT + 1]={
  -10,-10,-9,-8,-7,-6,-5,-4,-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,15,20,25,
  30,40,50,70,100
};

 Go from a 29 to 30 is a 30 point bonus, and even 28 to 29 is a 20 point bonus.
   Going from 19 to 20 is a 1 point bonus.  So as it is right now, maxing out
some of the stats makes for a major bonus - if they are evened out, then it is
more a tradeoff (I can increase my grace of maxsp by a minor amount - no I can
improve my maxsp a major amount by my grace a minor amount).  That change would
reduce the idea of maximizing stats from (and if it was pretty much linear,
then the tables could be replaced and use a simple formula).

> (much about having skill a a variable total % of exp removed)

 One note about this idea - it is likely to get opened up to abuse unless done
cleverly - character wants to improve magic exp, so he uses that skill in safe
situations/wimpy stuff to adjust that percentage.

> 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...."

 I certainly don't like the idea of forced retirements.  I don't see a problem
letting that level 30 character run around and do what quests he wants to do
(as long as he doesn't spoil the games for others on the server, but that can
happen no matter what level the character is).  However, I don't see a big
problem limiting the max level to 30.  You could still let exp go up, so that
maybe given time, that character could even get to level 30 in all the
subsidiary skills.  For this, you could even put out some decent maps so
characters can still play them.

 Note that level 30 right now is an arbitrary value, but seems pretty
reasonable to me.  If we get to a point where there are so many maps leading up
to level 30 that there is little point to adding more, then I can see extending
the level total to maybe 40 and fill up that gap.

 Other loose ends:

1) Exp reduction for using good items could be done, but unless the reduction
is pretty high, probably wouldn't make a big difference.  I could certainly see
characters softening up tough monsters with the really good items, and going in
for the kill with the crappy stuff.  Since most of the higher levels tend to
involve fewer but tougher monsters, such a tactic would work pretty well.

2) In reality, most of the really great artifacts should probably be
counterbalance with something bad - most fiction tends to do that.  I believe
most of the newer custom artifacts on the maps only gives postives with no
negatives, so they are items you use all the time.

3) Having a database tracking item/artifact creation and limiting creation of
new ones probably won't help the problem.  Now, the good characters on the
server get the good artifacts, and don't leave anything else for other people.
 Limiting artifacts only really comes into play if you have several people at
roughly the same level trying to hunt down the artifacts.  But as it is now,
most of the best artifacts are in known locations anyway.

4) Other areas in which players power has been increased over the versions is
the addition of rods/horns (unlimited charged items), and just more spells,
which give players more options/ways to kill stuff.  I personally don't mind
the horns much, because they are rare enough and come in few enough flavors
that they don't shift things to much.  Even the addition of the artifacts file
has increased player power (better rings now fairly readily available).  All of
this stuff isn't necessarily bad, but is one of those things that does make the
player more power than they once were.  I think a lot of this adds some nice
color, but does still give more advantage to the player.


-- 

-- Mark Wedel
mark@pyramid.com
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