[CF-Devel] [Fwd: Crossfire bugs and suggestions]

[Mark Wedel]

webmaster wrote:

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      Well, I don't think so, but everyone has his own point of view. And that's
     
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      the
     
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      general point of view, it's okay.
     
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      My arguments:
     
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      If I'm a warrior and I kill a dragon, all items survive and I collect them.
     
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      Lot's of treasure.
     
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      If I'm a mage and I kill a dragon, often only very very few items survive.
     
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      I'd have to kill the dragon with missiles, bullets or destruction to get all
     
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      items.
     
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      If it is a group of mages, the picture changes, of course: Imagine 5-10
     
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      mages invoking destruction like wild!
     
     
 The counter is that mages can kill from a distance, so in many cases it is much
safer than the fighter (which you need to be right next to the monster).

 Whether or not either one is more powerful, I would really like to see the
prohibition of spellcasting removed from quests except where it does protect
treasure chambers or the like.  IT should not be used to make things more
difficult.

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      By the way, I've seen there is a spell "regenerate spellpoints". Is it
     
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      possible to be learned (quest, praying or whatever), or is it only available
     
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      to the DM? (I don't want to hear the complete answer, just "already possible
     
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      in a quest" or "DM")
     
     
 I believe this is not generally available.  IT wouldn't make a lot of sense
would it - use some relatively small amount of sp to get many more back.

 Potions (at least code wise) are basically treated as spells contained in a
bottle.  The magic power potion basically uses that spell to do its job.

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      I really agree to nospells being used to often.
     
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      Perhaps dimension door should be modified to be at higher level, cost more
     
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      sp and be a quest spell?
     
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      If I'm a mage at level 100, I don't see a reason why I should be unable to
     
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      dimension door through the border gate in publand.
     
     
 OTOH, if your level 100, chances are you might already have the information you
need.  I'm not sure how often dimension door is really used.

(low level characters with 30 stats really high sp)

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      That's the typical "second character" of a bored level 110 player, who
     
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      equips his "child" with tons of artifacts and potions, including an amulet
     
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      of the Magi, two rings of Elrond, a Midnight robe, a wizard hat, a staff of
     
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      the Magi and a talisman of Wizardry...
     
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      By the way: I like being attuned to Missiles as a low level mage: magic
     
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      missile and magic bullet cost no spellpoints ;)
     
     
 I'm not sure how much this is really a bug.  A low level figter equipped with
relevant artifacts probably would not have a damage rating much lower than that
of the high level dude.  The simple fact is, items and stats are very important
to the power of the character.

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      >  Matter of balance.  If the useful priests spells are also
     
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      > available for mages,
     
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      > it diminishes the usefulness of the priest.  You can always pick
     
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      > up the scrolls
     
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      > to give you the protections.
     
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      Perhaps it's just my style of play. You know what I do with scrolls?
     
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      I sell them! ;)
     
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      But, you're right, if I'm on a shopping trip, I'd perhaps better use my sp
     
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      inscribing some scrolls of destruction.
     
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      You need to cast a huge lot of destruction to kill red dragon...
     
     
 destruction is generally not an especially useful spell (IMO). If you want to
kill that red dragon, ice storms or snowballs are much more effective.  I don't
know if there is anyone out there that uses destruction really often.


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      > > 12. Special kind of spellbook
     
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      > > What about a new kind of spellbook, that doesn't vanish when
     
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      > learning a new
     
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      > > spell? It could be much much more expensive...
     
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      >  Usefulness of this is for a party to share or to keep retrying
     
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      > if you have a
     
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      > low chance to memorize?  Reasonable idea I suppose.  Just curious
     
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      > as to what
     
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      > purpose this is there for.
     
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      I did not think about "keeping trying" for low int characters.
     
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      A character trying to learn a spell from such a book and once failing
     
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      should only be able to retry if he either gains a mental level or more
     
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      intelligence. But I see, it is currently impossible to integrate such
     
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      a feature in crossfire. It is similar to the identification. If player X
     
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      identifies an item and drops it, and half an hour later player Y picks
     
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      it up, it's still identified...
     
     
 So what did you think of?  a party sharing a spellbook?

 You are right - in fact, there is actually no tracking when a player learns a
spell.  At least with items, we can record that someone tried to id it.

 The problem more on items is that there are quite a few skills that can operate
on items (magic, curse, id).  Recording who did what could be pretty difficult. 
You could record the level of the last person to attempt to id it, and only if
the new person is higher level coudl they attempt it.  However, if you have
several people in a party with id type skills, that then means you need to order
it right (lowest level people try first).

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      > > 17. Alchemy (again)
     
      (able to make artifacts)

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      If for real artifacts enough rare items are required, this would be no
     
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      problem, I think,
     
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      but I agree, it is difficult to find a good balance.
     
     
 This really only works if the rare items are randomly generated treasure.  At
high levels, I would think most players would know where they can go to get the
body parts they need.  if you need to start with a long sword +4 for example,
and you can't make it, that could make generation more difficult as those just
don't pop up all over the place.  But if it gets too hard, then no one will use
it.  Right now, I'm not sure how many people use alchemy.