[CF-Devel] Just some idle thoughts

[dnh]

I feel the current biggest problem concerning general game play, is that
we tend to focus to greatly on one or two things (probably those things in
which we are currently playing, or most favour) and forget the rest.

For example, It is clear, just by looking at the current lists of
monsters, that demons and giants are favoured why is that? Simply because
when those map makers were adding them they were probably mostrai and
valriel followers. I know for a fact this is true of the demons, smiles at
Pete.

Recently a new player came into #crossfire (puff) and said he
favoured rogues when playing. What strikes me, is how useless most of the
theifs skills are, stealing? hardly ever works.. and exp is practically
worthless. Not only that, but if you fail the monster attacks you (ouch,
watch out level 1 players). Hiding is also pretty much useless I can see
its uses but the way crossfire is played it simply isn't worth the time.

This of course extends beyond monsters, for example artifacts. There are
heaps of warrior items, some what less, but still large numbers of wizard
items, and then there are items for generic use. What about all those
other classes? the Monk, the Priest (I suppose could be considered mage),
the Theif. 

Now of course this is all generalisations, I know for a fact that peterm
has spent some time organising new angels simply for balance, and new
items are always being added, but I feel we should start thinking about
these issues. They are alot more tricky than they may at first seems;

a) Skills tend to be deep rooted, if we change something the effects may
cause some unforseen unbalance thus causing more and more problems

b) Most of the problem areas tend to be in code which hasn't been touched
for quite along time.

c) Most of the weapons etc are buried throughout maps, and new maps take
along time to make, and even longer to make fun and balanced.

d) Sometimes something may look broken, but on closer inspection may turn
out to be the only possible way to do it without redoing crossfire!

For mapmakers, all I can do is plea to who ever is busy working on maps to
consider ALL the characters not just your current one =). For server
developers I wonder if we can start a thread discussing problems areas and
possible solutions. While I am currently busy fixing images, I think the
discussion can occur, I hope to have all the problem images done withing a
month or two, then I can start working on these problems. As a possible
example, should we consider changing items in current mapsets? I recently
changed a few but they were minor changes, and just things like an extra
+10 to resistance caused quite abit of checking with everyone to make sure
it is fair and balanced. If we start changing this sword to a new glove,
it may upset players who have come to enjoy the prize for the challenge,
it may also upset the author and it may upset other maps that require a
weapon of that type. Therefore should we just leave items as they are?

And what about skills? what about that stupid singing? and stealing?
should we improve them? think of better ways to implement them? 

Where do we stand people? What are our problems? What are our choices?

This is where my thoughts have led me, and I hope to hear some better
ideas that what I have had, 

dnh