[CF-Devel] race/classes notes/thoughts.

[Mark Wedel]

Andreas Vogl wrote:
>
     
      Just for the record: Stat potions have been entirely banned from
     
     >
     
      shops, but skill scrolls are still quite common.
     
     
 Ok.  I've looked a few times, but haven't been able to find any. I know the
library always stocks a literacy scroll.


>
     
      Immunity postions? They grant godlike powers at any level.
     
     >
     
      (Hope this will change with partial resistances.)
     
     
 So far, the only really useful immunity would be physical - so far the quests
I've done haven't include spellcasters.  And as it is now, at least in the ogre
quest, I was rarely threatened (my one death happened on a trapped door
actually).  I think I really need to look for a good ring/amulet, since those
are very hard to find.

>
     
     
     >
     
      I also feel that it would be much more fun if travelling on the
     
     >
     
      worldmap was less secure.
     
     >
     
      Did you know that we already have this "random encounter" thing in
     
     >
     
      the code? I never tested it but maybe we could dig that out again.
     
     >
     
      Random encounter means that with every step you take there is a
     
     >
     
      small chance to get teleported on a little map with a few monsters.
     
     >
     
      This "random encounter map" is encircled by (invisible?) teleporters
     
     >
     
      that lead to the player´s original position. We could create a flag
     
     >
     
      for the map-struct to turn that feature on/off seperately for each map,
     
     >
     
      so we can make it happen on worldmaps only.
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      *If* people would like this, the random encounter code should probably
     
     >
     
      be re-done to take advantage of existing random-map features and stuff.
     
     
 It has long been a TODO list thing to make the scale of the world map much
larger (I really wanted to wait until i got automatic map tiling done, as that
would then make that task much easier).  At that point, having monsters out
there would work better.

 The random encounter code has several problems IMO:
1) it takes a 3x3 map space area and turns that into the random encounter.  All
the terrrain types in that area need to be the same - mixed types don't work, so
if you stay on the roads (since none of the roads are 3x3), you are always safe.
2) For characters of high enough level that don't care about the encounters,
they become a real pain, as you now have to exit the area, and chances are, you
will run into another random encounter not too far away.
3) They map over the existing squares on the map, so those squares are not
accessible.  This can be a problem is there is some important feature on one of
those spaces.


 Now even with large map scale, there will be a little trickery - for example,
you probably don't want the monsters from the mountains (those being tougher
monsters) going into the plains and hanging out around a city (perhaps a
travelling character saw one of those monsters and ran as fast as they could to
the city, so that monster is now waiting for the next person, who may be even
lower level (planning on a shorter journey), and gets killed by that monster). 
So perhaps some form of terrain type is needed for the monsters, or some form of
starting place where the monster won't wander more than X squares from it.

 Even then, there probably needs to be some way to mark the areas of the map -
some of the low level random quests of scorn are in the outside mountains, so
you probably don't want big nasties in those mountains.  Perhaps invisible
objects in the map which describe the encounter areas would be the way to go.