Re: CF: Crossfire playbalance

["Scott D. Yelich" <scott@scottyelich.com>]

> > Another random idea, again probably too complicated to be practical:
> > give artifacts unique IDs and timers. A player can only possess (equip?)
> > a given artifact for a certain amount of time, then it teleports back

I wish the gate to [escape] scorn was on a person-by-person basis...
like a transporter vs a gate.  Each person had to finish a quest
(ie: randomly chosen?) to get a key/artifact.  If this artifact
is ever dropped, it goes back to the gods who watch over
such things.  Besides lag, the thing that I hated the most
about the few times that I tried to play over the net was
that there was *absolutely* nothing left to fight (for my
new char).


> > General question: what should be the overall goal of all this
> > playbalance-meddling?
> Well, I mostly wanted to get a discussion going, since there are a lot of
> opinions, and we should actually get some overall goals :). 

I think it should be unlimited, but the bonuses should be 
greatly reduced.  I also don't like the potion of stat increase -- 
I tend to *have* to use those to get my chars just to the point
where they don't die. 

> To reiterate; in my opinion, we should concentrate on prolonging the game
> within useful levels (current player power between levels 3 to 25), since 
> this is where the maximum payback will be.

I agree.  However, isn't there a random map thing in the works?  Why not
have the map baddies be generated by the level of the person creating the
map.  Voila!  Unlimited high level maps.  Wanna see a horde of green-guys
with 3000hp each?  *ouch*  And make the damage that they shell out
equiv.

> Otherwise, as far as public servers, I agree. No online game I've seen has
> been able to really deal with the problem caused by people into ruining
> play. The only real way to handle it is by providing a sufficiently
> balanced environment combined with really nasty sysadmins who whack those
> who misbehave. I think we should concentrate on the lower level
> playability issues, map expansion and server stability before trying to
> deal with the difficult reality of balancing high power characters on
> multiplayer online servers.


True.  Diablo had pk'ers.. cheats. etc.  I am now deviting my time to 
playing net versions of Baldur's Gate.  The game is wonderful as I feel
that there is more adventuring than just hack and slash.  Well, I opened
my server up for net play once, and the first guy who joined said it was
ok to play a new game.  He came in with a cheated/maxed char.  Mage --
with all spells, max stats, all artifacts.  Yup, I stopped the game.

Scott



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