[CF-Devel] Re: Sorry

[Mark Wedel]

Peter Mardahl wrote:

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      I would rather not reduce bonus with boots, gloves, and cloaks.
     
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      Boots and gloves right now traditionally give very moderate benefit.
     
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      [AC, levit, speed, stealth], and [protection, stats, armour, but not AC]
     
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      ... unless "enchant armour" is used on them.
     
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      I would not REDUCE the benefit of boots and gloves:
     
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      I would just withdraw the ability to use "enchant armour" on them.
     
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      This seems to me a more minimal and elegant solution than other
     
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      proposals.
     
     
 Note that the levitation and speed boots are artifact items, and quite rare.


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      But we should think of some issues before doing reductions:
     
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      are we seriously screwing fighter chars by doing these reductions?
     
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      Remember, these characters are going up against high-level demons,
     
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      undead, and things like Jessies.
     
     
 However, mages can also use cloaks, gloves,  and boots without any real
problem, so it really helps both classes.

 If you want to help fighters and not mages, I think you really need to beef up
shields and armors - things that cause significant spell point regen penalties
and spell fumbling chances.

 But that is still a very hard call - even if the mage isn't in direct hand to
hand combat, those items that help with spell casting give them benefit.

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      On enhancing shields:  well, we can add more AC to them.  Honestly,
     
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      though, i'd still be using a +5 enhanced taifu instead of a shield:
     
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      doing extra damage is better than 2-3 AC points, and I think putting
     
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      more than that would be wrong.
     
     
 Arguably, for taifu's, only the base bonus should be given to AC, and not all
the magic bonus.  I think in most cases, a +5 taifu might currently be better
than most shields - just the fact you already have a shield sort of reduces the
need of taifu's.


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      I understand your point on levels,
     
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       and I don't really have strong arguments against the cap.  However,
     
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      I don't have a problem with a non-existence of maps for players > level 100.
     
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      Just because we allow the possibility doesn't mean we have to realize it.
     
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      I can't think of anything I would do with a level 200 character, nor
     
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      do I have any ideas on maps for such a char.
     
     
 But you will get some user base saying 'hey - I'm level 150 and there is
nothing to do in the game?  Whats up?'.  And if there is no point to those
higher levels, why allow it?

 If you want to make things interesting, cap the level and instead have some
very tough dungeons - tough enough that the player needs the right items and use
them properly.  With removal of immunity potions, this is a much more real
possiblity.

 I've also made this point before - if there is no limit on levels, people will
start making level 150 or 500 or whatever level maps.  I would much rather map
creation be concentrated in a more narrow range.

 It does seem that in terms of level, most things will keep scaling (damage for
spells, hp and sp the player gets, etc), and improved items.  


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      Well, what would we need to test in this case?
     
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      path_attuned compared to 0,
     
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      magic compared to 0,
     
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      ac compared to 0
     
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      resistances compared to 0.
     
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      Well, that IS a lot of stuff to check.
     
     
 But my point is more, than using flags allow for greater flexibility.  Sure,
you don't want the character to be wielding two artifact weapons, but do we
really want to prevent a dragonslayer and say a dagger +1?  In terms of balance,
except for the taifu and perhaps a few other very special weapons, wielding an
artifact and a normal weapon, even if magical, probably is not unbalancing.  And
I would really have to question if a +4 long sword would be that much better
than a dragonshield if you could use two weapons.

Jan Echternach wrote:

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      IMHO monster's level should be removed from the formula for calculating
     
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      experience gains.  Right now it's difficult to see how much experience
     
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      a monster actually gives.  A few high level monsters make it very easy
     
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      for players to get to high levels, even though they have the same "exp"
     
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      value as other low level monsters that are not so much easier to kill.
     
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      This would make the level limit difficult to reach.
     
     
 I thought the simple exp system does this, but I then notice that
calc_skill_exp does not use this, and it appears that is used when killing
another creature.

 That is easy enough to change - should that also be changed for more than just
combat?  I sort of think perhaps it should - I know a low level character lucky
enough to disarm a difficult trap can gets tons of experience.