[CF-Devel] A brief introduction, and some thoughts

[Mark Wedel]

 Catching up on more old email..

Tim Rightnour wrote:

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      2) Anyone can worship any god.  A troll can worship lythander, an elf Gnarg,
     
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      etc etc.  I don't think we should restrict it completely, but there should be
     
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      some racial restrictions on what you can worship.  A human worshipping an elven
     
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      god is just plain bizzare.  (an elf wannabe?)
     
     
 I thought I saw code someplace such that if you worshipped a god that was your
enemy (or you were an enemy of the god), bad things would happen.  But maybe
that is just for equipping god named items.

 I don't have a problem with being able to worship most any god.  After all,
perhaps you are now a reformed troll who really likes elves and really hate
other trolls because they made fun of you as a kid.  I don't have a problem with
not being able to worship a diametrically oposed god, but would prefer that
beyond that you can still worship most anyone.  Note that some names for classes
may not be good - I believe a paladin could worship one of the evil gods no
problem, which isn't really a problem other than most people (and in fact the
webster definition) lists paladin as good people.  But certainly most all gods
should have fighter/cleric hybrids, so the only problem (and minor one at that)
is the name.

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      3) Weapon types.  Earlier someone on the archives had brought up the idea of
     
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      classifying weapons, such as bludgeoning, slashing, etc.  I think that is a
     
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      really good idea, and one I programmed into my mud.  Some benefits that we used:
     
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      a) When I attack with a dagger, and do lots of damage, it says "you smash the
     
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      troll"  How exactly did I "smash" him with a dagger?  We can have specific
     
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      messages for different weapon types, a knife might stab, dagger pierce, sword
     
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      slash, rapier slice, hammer crush, etc etc.
     
     
 These are hard coded, which is the real problem.  Plus, the code has no idea if
a weapon is a pointing tape or a bludgeon type, or whatever.

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      b) The above could be extended to attack types.  When I attack with fire, I
     
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      should singe, burn, ravage.  Acid might burn or sizzle.  This adds flavor to
     
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      the game.  You don't simply hit the monster, now you are clawing him, or
     
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      stinging him, or he is doing that to you!  It's not all hit/miss, it adds
     
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      character to the fight.
     
     
 Wouldn't be really hard to do - just set up a table someplace in the attack.c
file that lists the attack types along one grid and the damage potencies along
the other - then the code further down figures out potency message (based on
amount of damage), and looks up the right entry based on the weapon attacktype.

 This doesn't help with bludgeon/whatever, because that information currently is
not contained anyplace.  I think there could also be a problem with weapons that
have multiple attack types - ideally the message displayed should be from the
attack that did the most damage, and while the attack code further down figures
that out, I don't think it is passed back up, so the function that calls the
damage determination function only knows it did X damage, and not attacktype did
X damage.

 the nice thing about getting information on the attacktype that did the most
damage is that the messages now provide a little more information.  If you have
a weapon that is say physical | fire, and the damage messages say you are doing
physical, you can pretty much know that the monster has high fire resistance, so
maybe switch to that phys | cold weapon, and certainly don't cast fire spells at
it.

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      c) Certain monsters can be immune to certain weapon types.  A pudding might
     
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      divide when you slash it, but not crush.  A dragon might not care if you stab
     
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      it.  A monster might also take more damage from a certain weapon type, like a
     
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      slash might be really dangerous to a soft bodied kobold.  (stabs might suck for
     
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      beholders)
     
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      d) Classes can have weapon type restrictions.  Priests can't wield rapiers,
     
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      they get crushing/bludgeoning weapons.  Thieves can't carry warhammers, knights
     
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      don't use knives.
     
     
 This would presumably be done via skills (priests have bludgeon weapon skill,
thieves have stab/slash weapon, fighters have all, etc)

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      e) You can use weapon type as a skill.  (this is something I implemented on my
     
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      mud)  Every class/race starts out with an innate skill in N weapon types.  For
     
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      example, a quez might be *really* good at clawing, but not as good at
     
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      swordsmanship.  (looking at how skills are done, this might be difficult to
     
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      implement)  This means a thief could learn to use a hammer, but would have to
     
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      slowly work himself up to it.
     
     
 Yeah - the problem is that skills are not unique experience collectors, but
rather are grouped in pools of categories.  So the current code is such that if
a thief started with slashing weapon and gots gobs of exp in that, and then
learned bludgeon weapon, he would be just as good in that, presuming that both
use the physical experience category).

 The other problem is that the restrictions would only exist by lack of those
skills not be avaiable - currently, if you can find the appropriate skill
scroll, you can find any skill - there is no way currently to say 'this
class/race can not learn this skill'.  So if weapons get broken out into a bunch
of skills, that cleric could eventually learn slashing weapons if he learns the
skill.

 Now all of this could be changed - weapon skills could be modified such that
each one has its own experience category (effectively).  And you could add
something into the class/race infos that contain skills that can not be learned
(although that isn't very realistic - learning a skill should always be
possible, using it may be a different story).  One problem I see with seperation
of the weapon skills is that is now is very important to learn/use the weapon we
plan to use the rest of the game.  OTOH, until level 10, exp needed isn't very
high, so a  character could fairly easily switch at that point to whatever.


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      4) More skills, more uses for them.  Some of the skills are nice, but generally
     
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      not useful.  Take karate.  If I've learned karate, maybe every now and then I
     
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      might kick the monster while fighting.  Maybe thieves making an initial attack
     
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      against a peaceful monster might have a random chance of a backstab ocurring,
     
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      doing extra damage in the first hit (if you were hiding, perhaps you could
     
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      backstab an aggro monster).
     
     
 At some level, I think having too many skills gets annoying.  Currently,
crossfire is more an action game than true RPG, and as long as it remains that
way, you don't really want too many complications (I don't have a problem with
it moving more RPG like, and I think that is slowly happening, but is a lot of
work)

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      Maybe divide missile weapons into bows and crossbows.  Just because I'm good at
     
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      one doesn't mean I'm good at the other.  Add more missile weapons, like slings.
     
     
 Going to above, other than the difficulty  of needing to learn another skill,
this won't really have any effect unless these are different experience
categories.

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      Perhaps new fighting styles, like judo, where I might throw an opponent a few
     
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      squares away, or stun him temporarily.  Perhaps punching could randomly KO a
     
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      monster, and put him to sleep.
     
     
 Problem with many of these are potential balance issues.  If a player KO's that
dragon (ignoring for the fact that the player could probably not reach its
head), that now may become an easy kill.  IMO, there are already lots of
problems in the code that treat multi part monsters special (can't have this or
that happen to them).

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      Maybe a warrior skill that lets me fight with two swords, or a thief skill that
     
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      lets me fight blind with no penalties, or an evasion skill that lets me evade
     
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      attacks better when I'm not fighting back.
     
     
 Attacking with two weapons has been discussed before.  Biggest problem is that
weapons are generally the best items in the games (as it is one of the few items
players can improve), thus being able to use two of them becomes very powerful. 
I wouldn't mind seeing two handed weapons in which you can't use a shield (and
many artifacts should perhaps be in this category, like bonecrusher).  This then
adds more choices to the player - "I found this great two handed weapon, but is
it sufficiently better than the weapon I have if I take into account I can't use
a shield', etc.  IMO, one problem which a lot of people have worked on to make
better are the artifacts that are cleary the best - I think it is much better to
have multiple artifacts roughly usefulness in power, but some may be much better
in some circumstances, while a different one may be much better in others.