[CF-Devel] Okay here goes... my thoughts

[dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au]

Okay, this might turn out to be alittle long... sorry.

I have been playing crossfire for awhile now (about half a year) and a few
questions, and a few ideas have popped up which I thought you guys might
like to hear.

Gods
Firstly, diseases, I have never actually managed to get one (I have three
chars all about level 110) althought I have never really spent much time
trying. Does devourers give the plagues? (i really hope so =) I have been
praying for quite awhile with a wisdom of 30 and level 40 wisdom, all I
have gotten is face of death.

Retributive strike.... WOW! that spell is, sorry to say it, rubbish.
Firstly, i cast face of death a few times and my key accidently sticks,
bang im dead, no chance to run, no chance to heal. Secondly I cast it at
something and if I manage to survive everything else is dead in seconds?
what the heck is that? It doesn't even have to be an enemy of the god.
perhaps taking the damage down a few hundred notches? Mostrai confuses
you, Sorig and devourers whip you out in seconds. (This is expecially true
for me, playing in Australia on the voldsboks server
(Carrot/Articous/Darth_bob).

Mostrai... I pretty much no negative god (except maybe the slaying =).
Wall of thorns is a pathetic spell but I can live with that when I have a
holyword that can clean an entire room of wizards in seconds, and even
kill elite dread knights with one cast (that is over the top). The holy
posession is abit stupid too (I have used it once), perhaps it can work by
+ing to your current stats... ie if you have an ac of -20 it will +5 ie.
-25 instead of not doing anything unless you have a mega high level?

I feel Sorig is well balanced, although i haven't really played around
with plague so i am ignorant there. Perhaps the suggestiong of instead of
plagues giving elec spells? (hint: CHAIN LIGHTNING /hint)

Most of the other gods are abit tame for my tastes, Ruggillis avatar
rawks.. but no armour really means only my dragon has any use for it at
all.

lastly, cult monsters are abit of a stange thing.. devourers gets all
these, while mostrai gets the crappy things i ever did see.. even the arch
warrior of mostria is gay. They creatures have about as much brains as a
pack of tuna and the damn vampires reak HAVOK if they get into you
apartment.. I tell you what.. the first (and last time) I let them in..
one read a scroll of fireball I had in there... Kaabooom there goes all my
cloaks, scrolls, books and POTIONS. Perhaps a cult/pet free zone could be
made in the apartment? wouldn't have a clue how though.. perhaps a new
attribute to an area? (like no magic zones)


Characters.

Well my only few gripes are, Quetzecoatls get REALLY jibbed at high
levels. I got to level 110 by killing the balrogs in Mwizard and using the
lavaslasher which I did actually manage to find on my own with abit of
help from a certain someone. But i feel there really needs to be some
evening up there, there are some quests which Qs just can't do without a
few million potions and alot of knowledge about what is coming (volcano).
Perhaps it would be fair to allow girdles, bracers, maybe cloaks to be
worn? ps. the image for the Q is abit stuffed, it always wants to point to
the left making it very slow to move without actually running, you press
move it turns steps then turns around again (lag hurts for this alot).

I feel the half orc gets alittle over balanced with the prot poison. later
on most if not all characters will not be worried about poison so taking
so many points of stats is alittle unfair.

Wraith is neat, perhaps immune to disease would be nice in there?

the other characters are all goodish, barb, wiz, dwarf and some warriors
are by far the prefered.

now for my BIG point (which I am very willing to have a shot at
implementing), protection/immunity.

I admit I know where the WDSM is and i did have help in finding it and i
think it would be easy to balance it out, just remove immune cold from
there (leave prot cold). I think without that the game is alittle silly,
no matter how much protection from something, it is always just protection
half damage. that is CRAZY! surely there is absolutely no reason no to at
least make them multiplicative. DRAGONS (red) are stupid and so are all
the big demons, without 5 million potions and no lag they are doom past
level 50. I can't do a thing without the armour. I walk into a room, if
there is a dragon I am dead, fairly simple. With this multiplicative
protection maybe some of those special weapons may become used again? I
think I would rather have the extra resistances with the sword than have a
few extra stat points.

This, I feel wouldn't be a massive change, but a very fair one. it would
reduce the gap that appears after someone gets WDSM, and allow those of us
with lag to at least be able to run.

perhaps.. perhaps even a new improvement? resistance? x 1/4 something
better than pro but no immunity.

Weapons.

Obviously the sword should be godarised after it has the damage types not
the slaying, this I feel would allow the devourers abit more chance in the
pantheon and stop those
(weaponmagic)(elec)(fire)(death)(depletion)(drain)'s from popping up?
ps. could someone tell me, if you get slaying then those damages only
attack the creature that is slayer correct? ie if the aforementioned
additions to a weapon were added onto a mostri sword, then only goblin
and giant would be attack with them? Is this also true for weapons that
already have slaying? (I thought the Kobold dagger would REALLY rawk until
i remembered that might be the case)

My first idea (I don't really like calamity, I feel it is not pretty and I
like my weapons to look pretty... GO THE SHOOTINGSTAR!! =)) was to add
mostrai to a dagger of paralysis. I prepared it and used a few potions
(alot actually) then went and started praying.. silly me. I think this
weapon is considered the same as a dagger of sorig? correct? so you can't
add your god to it? bahhhd. I understand a Darth_bob's dagger of sorig of
Mostrai would be stupid.. but I rather liked the idea of Darth_bob's
dagger of paralysis of Mostrai. ps If that weapon were to get slaying,
then would the paralyse only work against the slayed creatures?

Again, with multiplicative protection, prepared weapons wouldn't be as
powerful.... *grin*


Armour.

A too heavily counted on item I think. Dragons and fireborn get completely
jibbed, no armour and crappy stats. The only way to get immunity to fire
is through armour which is also silly. Enchant armour scrolls make the
stuff god like, ac - 57 and arm of 99... nothing touches you except
lightning the major magic and disease. either making it get heavier
faster.... with WDSM it stops getting heavier after 6.7 because it has
already got +90? that seems to be a bug to me cause you can keep
enchanting and get the AC higher without the weight restrictions.

I am thinking of designing abit more map... perhaps including some nice
armour... much like the great winter mail but for fire.. I thought perhaps
with enough minus.. even immunity to fire could be balanced abit =)
(thinks.. okay vun: magic vun: physi -5 pow -5 magic =))


Enemies/creatures

I love fighting everying in Crossfire and it is hard to grow tired.. even
after getting to the stage where Balrogs and Greater demons are just cool
to look at... It really bugs me about how demonlords though, for example
can fire lightning out there shoes (crazy shoes). It kinda removes abit of
the strat from an attack.. perhaps smacking a demonlords feet might be its
weakness for example? This to me sounds like real strategy.

All the big fire things IMHO are overpowered, sure a chinese dragon
hurts.. but at least you can fry them, dragons are strong enough that you
cant attack them in time, and baby dragons.. those things are worse than
dragons... immune fire and resistant to both magic and ice??? they die
after all the dragons... what is going on there...

which reminds me.. another question, if a creature is big does it take
damage from every square? ie wizards get a total 9x the damage from a holy
word than a goblin or demilich would? cause I think it sucks how the big
things all die first, and the little toots survive. perhaps / the damage
taken by the number of sqaures the creature is? that would make wizards
for example.. slightly dangerous even to mostrai users =) of course that
would me if you don't completely hit something it wont take nearly as much
damage... but think of that as STRATEGY =)


final notes.

I have been reading through the arguements in this mailing list about
balance.. I feel alot of it is rubbish.. I personally find it very
difficult to start some new characters.. and I know alot of newbies who
are STILL having real problems at level 20 or >. I feel the Gods are abit
gay with half being almost "non commital" to the users and giving pretty
much nothing really cool or really bad, and the other half (Devourers and
Rug especially) getting way to much of the old Neg.. no armour for Rug is
not balanced fairly...
I feel there is a real lack of mid danger creatures... wyverms and nice..
they are abit of a challenge for along long while... I think more
creatures like that should be added.. not more demi-super-killer-nasties..
perhaps I should focus my map making attention on the low 20s to 50s
level? make something similar to mwizard for those levels.. (ie not so
nasty.. but similar kind of skills and similar kind of prob solving)
Newbies come in.. they have a GREAT time killing orcs etc.. get up to
ogres (which is a big step) then that is it... hill giants are alittle to
nasty, skeletons are pretty nasty but quite rare/hidden from most newbie
areas. So there is nothing... the only way to get past here is often to
lend some weapons.. of give a LARGE number of hints out which may spoil
the game for some.

Since I am still praying to devourers to give plague.. (hoping they dang
well will.. I read somewhere they because they don't have attuned wounding
they wont... that worries me somewhat) I can't really comment to much on
plague.. but if it is nearly as stupid as retributive in its balance I
don't think I need to comment =).

Partying up is good fun.. perhaps making sure that how ever something is
killed.. that area of skill is shared and that only.. (so that you can't
just party up and let one char sit there and build wis while the other is
phys attacking etc..(even though this is still quite slow)). Perhaps abit
more levels where partying would be good? ie. giving the warriors areas
where magic isn't as powerful. maybe... and this might be abit
contraversial... having no friendly fire? ohh hooo.. =)

anyway.. I can't be bothered thinking of anything else to say right now,
so I wont. But I would like to congrat the whole team, from beginning to
end for making a fine game with some BRILLIANT ideas.. (I like diseases..
never played with that sort of thing before). There is heaps of room for
improvement, refinement which is also good. Making sure that a team
doesn't get hung up on something (like immunities) is important.. I have
seen with the freeciv team that something might come up and everyone will
just jump and and throw stupid things into the debate, anyone who wants to
do this... remember.. if you want it, maybe you should try and do it
first.... before asking others =)

dnh (aka Darth_bob the Tall, Articous the Strange and Carrot the Suicidal)