[CF List] Too stupid...

[Mark Wedel]

     pc-crossfire at crowcastle.net
     
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      What about having a flag that indicates whether abilities are level-based
     
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      or progressive?
     
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      How about armour that gives you +level resistance to certain attacks?
     
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      (Implemented by setting it to +100 with progressive usability to level
     
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      100.)
     
     
 As discussed in a previous message, this can be done.  It certainly works
better for resistances than for stats, simply by the size of the numbers being
used.  But unless done in a script, it would be very hard to do this on a per
ability basis in the item (ie, resistance fire is incremental, where as resist
physical is incremental)



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      I haven't looked at the new scripting; could that be used to have a
     
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      scripted object that gives out bonuses based on the details of the
     
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      character applying it?  If so, then there could even be a Ring of the
     
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      Fireborn that only gives the full bonuses to a Fireborn player (or gives
     
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      the bonuses at a lower level).
     
     

 From what I have seen, the scripting is actually quite powerful.  But IMO, we
probably don't want to use scripting for 'simple' things (simple things being
values that do not change).  Some of this is efficiency - the scripting code
certainly has more overhead than doing an equivalant check in C, and second is
in terms of simplicity - if the check is a value in the object structure itself,
presumably the map editor can present a nice field that the player enters some
value into, instead of needing to write a script for it (now certainly that
editor front end could say 'enter minimum level', and then write a script and
link it in appropriately). 

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      If the server has enough flexibility, then the real issue is what the
     
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      characteristics of existing items should be.  This would mean a review of
     
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      artifacts, both randomly-available and quest-based.
     
     
 Note that a hybrid could also be used - you could make some artifacts with a
simple min level check, and others be incremental.  Ones that give stats really
won't work very well incrementally (at least for the stat portion, simply
because if the stat is say +3, being level 29 out of 30 means its still only
+2).

 One problem I do see with the script approach is knowing the full bonuses - the
script knows what the full bonuses are, but if you examine an item, you will
only see what bonuses were last given or are currently in use (with a level
dependent thing, presumably the bonus would be set when the item is applied, and
something else happens when unapplied).  Which then gets the problem that
players won't know the true bonuses until they are full level to use it, which
could be annoying, or at minimum gives an even greater advantage to longer term
players or those who go to the spoiler.

 ie, newbie finds artifact that gets better with level, but has no idea what its
full power is.  But experience pro knows what it does, and knows it isn't worth
keeping, so sells it right away.

 If this is done on a limited basis, this may be OK.  I just think it would be
pretty annoying to have a pile of 30 items and not really know the full strength
of any of them until you are of appropriate level.