[CF-Devel] 2x2 - Avatars

[David Hurst]

On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 09:41:52PM -0800, Mark Wedel wrote:
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      David Hurst wrote:
     
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      > Okay, regardless of your opinions I have posted a few updates to convert all the 2x2 avatars to 1x1 avatars. The 3 are:
     
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      > Gaea: Ent -> Panther
     
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       May be beter to have made this one of the small trees?  Or even just shrink
     
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      down a big ent into a single space monster just to keep appearances the same?
     
     
The small tree looks really evil actually, I don't think it looks appropriate.
Shrinking images is generally a bad idea, I would be more inclined to rework the whole image, but this takes time...

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      > This is for two reasons, firstly because they sucked and secondly because they were broken (or at least were on my server). Don't be alarmed, I have kept a full backup of the gods. If or when the bug is found, or it is found that my update is wrong, I will fix them np's.
     
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       Yeah - I recall previous discussions that multi part archetypes really suck. 
     
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      One reason being that so many maps are only single space wide (which suck for
     
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      other reasons).
     
     
This patch was actually put in because multitiled monsters seem to be broken abit right now. For example, you can hit a titan with an avatar of gnarg (friend of giants) if you hit on the right side, and the lower parts. If you try to hit its head it tells you that it avoids damaging the titan. Multitiled monsters don't seem to be hitting correctly, some monsters simply don't hit on some angles (see mich's post about trolls, or maybe that was irc.. hmmm). This meant that the avatar of gnarg was only hitting on certain angels, which coupled with the fact that gnarg's avatar can't hit most exp giving monsters in standard maps, and that multitiled avatars are harder to steer meant it was close to unuseable.

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      > In terms of changes I have edited the animation and face and _reduced their hp by half_. This means:
     
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      > Gaea: 1000 -> 500
     
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      > Ruggilli: 650 -> 400 (not half, but that avatar really sucked)
     
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      > Gnarg: 1000 -> 500
     
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      > Leaf if no one no one wants this changed back please update the webpage.
     
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       Note that I think some playbalance on the gods was related to how good/bad the
     
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      avatars were.  So at some level, all the avatars do not need to be equal - if
     
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      some gods have really good higher level spells, the need for a good avatar is
     
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      dimished.
     
     
This is certainly a good point. Firstly I tend to take the roll of fixing balance problems (see many additions of weapons, resistance changes etc.). I have been playing through all the less popular gods (and some popular ones). I have found that on the whole there is a large gap between the favorites, and the unpopular. Devourers for example is really bad right now, I simply didn't find any fun in it at all (vun to fire! and denied fire!). Anyway my point is that this change is part of that balancing process. I don't feel that gnarg, gaea or ruggilli players are getting a very fun experience because there is very limited options for what to use to kill things at many points throughout the game. The good thing about avatars is they tend to fix these holes, sadly the 2x2 avatars weren't.
Infact I am considering further changes to gnarg in particular (current god) to make it alittle more fun and playable.

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      > ps. Any thoughts on making fire repelled on wraiths? denied does make it very difficult, perhaps even attuning it to cold?
     
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       At some level, it is a player choice what race/class to choose.  Wraith is
     
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      definately one of those more special classes - at some level, I would prefer to
     
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      have some things more difficult just to make life a little more varied.
     
     
When was the last time you tried one out? =). It certainly isn't like a fireborn or Q, those two actually have some really nice positives, currently wraiths don't have a favoured god (like fireborns -> gaea, Q's -> ruggilli). In terms of making the game fun, it is important to make some things possible simply to be able to at very least complete maps. How do you kill a dragon, when you have no ice spell and vun fire? you have to wait. If there are enough negatives in key areas a player is effectively starved of any choices. I think for every character (not including god chosen) there should be a fairly balanced or close to balanced level in all races and classes. If players want a challenge above doing maps which a particular char may not be strong at, let them choose a new god, the ultimate challenge, devourers fireborn swashbuckler!.

The point is, something has to be fun, I suppose it is subjective as to what fun might be.

dnh

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