[CF-Devel] poisoning & demonologic tower

[Mark Wedel]

Andreas Vogl wrote:

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      > Note that draining resistance actually reduces effect.  90% resistance
     
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      > means you lose only 10% the amount of experience you would if you had
     
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      > no protection.
     
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      This will be true when draining is adjusted to be fairly harmless
     
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      with 90% resistance. As things are now, it definitly is not.
     
     
 I think a lot of the problem here is the same as with death - the experience
totals needed for levels becomes fairly linear at some point, so losing 10%
amounts for a lot more than it does at low levels.

 If you had 90% resistance, it would mean each hit you take with a drain attack
would take 1% of your exp total.  At low levels, this isn't that big a deal -
even at half a million exp, that means a hit takes 5000 exp - thats just a few
monsters to kill.  I could see at higher levels where even 1% is 10 really tough
monsters - monsters that just can't easily be found.

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      > Just brainstorming here, but it seems to me that if draining is so nasty
     
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      > that any experienced character wants drain resistance 100, then draining
     
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      > seems to be a too powerful attacktype.  It also means that drain attacks
     
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      > on monsters pretty much become meaningless (if all the characters its
     
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      > going to attack are immune to drain, then that attacktype has no effect.
     
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      > And this may be what leads to more monsters having drain developer/
     
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      > tester sees it as not  big deal because the player will be immune).
     
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      >
     
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      > But I think some of this is also good map design [...]
     
     
 I think I mistated what I really wanted to say.

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      *Good* map design?
     
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      What you described above is what I call:
     
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      "the revenge of the mapmakers". =)
     
     
 agree here.

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      Sometimes developers create things that are real ugly/horrific in the
     
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      players' eyes. Like the irreversible acid corrosion or the
     
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      "worse-than-dying" draining attack.
     
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      Since players don't like these but also don't like to war with us
     
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      developers, people start to create artifacts with immunities to that
     
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      stuff. Then *every* player gets these artifacts - And soon mapmakers
     
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      design maps in the assurance that players are always immune.
     
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      What is the outcome in the end? - Pretty much like the original hazard
     
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      (acid/draining) would have been removed in the first place.
     
     
 agree.

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      I'm not trying to judge on anything here. But maybe we should listen
     
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      more to the players' preferences in such cases.
     
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      Either we remove the whole thing, we do nothing and stick with the
     
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      immunities, or we tone down the hazard till players can accept it.
     
     
 Note that some players preferance might be something like 'virtually impossible
to be killed'.  So we have to take some consesus and common sense.

 I personally think the third choice is the way to go - tune things down so they
are acceptable.

 Depending on the attacktype may determine how easy/hard this is to do.  For
drain, it would not be really hard to reduce the amount that a drain hit takes
(instead of 10% by default, maybe 3% or the like) as well a put some upper limit
(100,000 or something) for high level characters. 

 For acid, the first thing should be that the number of acid using monsters be
severely limited.  Rust monster, green slime, and black pudding are good.  I
think if acid had only remained with those monsters, acid immunity probably
would not have been added - those monsters are infrequent enough and typically
most uses have good warning (or they move slow enough) that youu can get away. 
Plus, you could kill them somewhat easily with range spells/missiles.  But then
some really tough monsters started getting acid attacks, and that really opened
things up of needing real protection because fighters at least could not kill
them via bow, but need to go hand in hand.

 The other factor is that most all artifacts are immune to acid.  I've been
playing a character recently and thinking 'hmm.  wonder if acid attack is broken
- it keeps hitting my helm'.  Then I realized that was the only item I had which
was made of metal.  mithril chain, dragon shield, leather gloves and jackboots
are all immune to the effects.  So at some point, you don't even need to worry
about acid protection for your equipment, as all the good stuff is already
protected.

 It has been sugested that items should have quality ratings and thus get
repaired.  Being able to repair acid damage could be reasonable addition (not
sure how to do this so that is balanced, however - if its too easy, then once
again, then the acid attack only becomes slightly annoying).  I don't know if I
like the idea of general weapon quality, having it break, getting it repaired,
etc as a standard feature - that seems more annoying than useful (in fact, the
might & magic games have items get damaged, and the only effect is that it is
annoying, as typically at least one character in the party can repair it, so it
just becomes a matter of noticing the item is damaged, moving it to the repair
character, moving it back, equipping it, etc.  Worst part is that this takes no
game time, so you can do it in the middle of combat with no bad effect).



re confusion, slow, ...
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      No, it is correct. Unless either the offending monster gets killed
     
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      or the player hides, the player will be "infected" again and again.
     
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      Duration has no effect. As I said, if the player *can* be infected
     
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      he will be -> the effect is ON. If the player is immune, he goes
     
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      unharmed -> the effect is OFF. Partial resistance is an illusion here.
     
     
 It is still useful.  A lot depends on the spell casting frequency of the
monster.  If you just have a couple of the spell casting monsters, this reduced
duration may be useful enough that you can get out of danger and do something
reasonable (like drink the potion that gives you full resistance).

 Paralyzation is really tough, as that is really an on/off effect.  And if your
paralyzed, chances are you'll get pegged by an incoming damage spell.

 One problem may just be the spellcasting of monsters - they can cast much
faster than the player can recover, so you are correct - if you get hit once,
your probably in trouble.  Another problem is how fast damage can kill a
player.  a lightning bolt cast by most monsters can take out a 90 hp player in
about a second, so if a bolt comes out, you need really fast reaction time to
get out of the way or your toast.

 But what I'm really arguing against here is the items that give permanent
immunity.  As youu say above, once those are given out, the attacktype becomes
meaningless.  And that is the case for confusion, paralyze, and slow I believe -
you get the amulet/ring of free actiion (or the speed +1, immune to
paralyze/slow/confusion), and never worry about those attacks again.  And those
attacks are so deadly, that you really need a relatively high degree of
protection.

 idea for fixing at least some of these:
confusion: If you have a resistance, then perhaps give some chance based on
resistance for the player to move the direction they want.  Thus, if you are 50%
resistant, you will still wonder around somewhat, but basically move in the
direction youu want to, and hopefully get away from the creature.
slow: amount of slowdown could be affected by resistance.  So if you are 50%
resistant, you are only slowed by 50% of what youu would have been otherwise. 
Once again, this should let you get out of danger.
paralyze: No good solution.  This is really either an on/off effect. Perhaps
just do away with paralyzation as a monster attack, and leave it for players? 
Currently, players beyond a certain level are immune anyways because they get an
immunity item for it.

 Note that my argument isn't that 100% immunity is bad.  My argument is that
items that give 100% immunity permanently are bad, and these should instead be
replaced by potions (or blessings from god) that do so.  So given that basis,
the idea that if a player is mostly protected (say free action gives 90% instead
of 100), the player, once seeing big nasty monster, still has a chance to get
away and drink relevant potion.