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

Sat Sep 29 01:29:58 CDT 2001

On 28-Sep-01 Mark Wedel wrote:
>

       the nice thing about getting information on the attacktype that did the most

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      damage is that the messages now provide a little more information.  If you

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      have

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      a weapon that is say physical | fire, and the damage messages say you are

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      doing

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      physical, you can pretty much know that the monster has high fire resistance,

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      so

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      maybe switch to that phys | cold weapon, and certainly don't cast fire spells

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      at

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      it.

So.. I reread the code around there, and I see what you are saying now.  With a
minimal amount of work to what my current patch entails, I think I can do
exactly what you describe here.

>

       Yeah - the problem is that skills are not unique experience collectors, but

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      rather are grouped in pools of categories.  So the current code is such that

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      if

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      a thief started with slashing weapon and gots gobs of exp in that, and then

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      learned bludgeon weapon, he would be just as good in that, presuming that

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      both

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      use the physical experience category).

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     >

       The other problem is that the restrictions would only exist by lack of those

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      skills not be avaiable - currently, if you can find the appropriate skill

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      scroll, you can find any skill - there is no way currently to say 'this

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      class/race can not learn this skill'.  So if weapons get broken out into a

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      bunch

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      of skills, that cleric could eventually learn slashing weapons if he learns

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      the

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      skill.

So.. thinking about this..  I've had a few ideas:

We break the weapon skils out from under the physical category of skills, which
is an interesting problem in itself, as it would render that category
~useless.. but whatever.  Anyhow.. we break the skills out into the different
weapon types, so you can learn slashing, crushing, piercing whatever as an
individual skill.

By breaking each one out, away from the general physical category, you enable
two things:

1) I can know slashing better than crushing, and if I use slashing more than
crushing, I excel at it.

2) By making more skill experience categories, you start to whiddle down the
ability for a player to become a master of everything. So in essence, yes, a
priest *could* learn a slashing weapon, and thats not totally unreasonable, as
a priest of an evil god might prefer slashing, but if a player wishes to be
good at every skill, he can't max them all out.

It's also more realistic.  I might be good with a dagger, but when I pick up a
warhammer, I'm unlikely to do well.

>

       Now all of this could be changed - weapon skills could be modified such that

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      each one has its own experience category (effectively).  And you could add

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      something into the class/race infos that contain skills that can not be

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      learned

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      (although that isn't very realistic - learning a skill should always be

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      possible, using it may be a different story).  One problem I see with

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      seperation

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      of the weapon skills is that is now is very important to learn/use the weapon

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      we

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      plan to use the rest of the game.  OTOH, until level 10, exp needed isn't

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      very

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      high, so a  character could fairly easily switch at that point to whatever.

I agree that learning a skill should allways be possible.  I guess what I
really meant was that priests wouldn't default to starting with slashing, they
would start with crush/bludgeon.  They could opt to learn whatever, and perhaps
certain gods would grant different skills, like when you become a follower of
lythander, you would recieve the bow skill.

>

       At some level, I think having too many skills gets annoying.  Currently,

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      crossfire is more an action game than true RPG, and as long as it remains

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      that

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      way, you don't really want too many complications (I don't have a problem

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      with

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      it moving more RPG like, and I think that is slowly happening, but is a lot

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      of

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      work)

perhaps it does, but I really like the concept of having a vast array of skills
to choose from, and being able to basically tailor my character to fight the
way I prefer to fight.  The classes can be thought of not as limiters, but
instead as starting points.  This is the general direction I want to take this
character in, but I want to customize it more in this direction..

I think it adds alot to the game in the field of character development, and
attachment to one's persona, without taking away the action side of it.  You
still rampage through rooms and kill, it just allows you to create a character
that does it in the way you prefer.  Making this a slow, RPG would be silly..
the fast paced action is what makes it fun.  But I don't think having multiple
skills will slow it down.. what they allow you to do is really fine tune
yourself, you become good at what you do the most of.

>>

      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.

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     >

       Problem with many of these are potential balance issues.  If a player KO's

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      that

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      dragon (ignoring for the fact that the player could probably not reach its

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      head), that now may become an easy kill.  IMO, there are already lots of

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      problems in the code that treat multi part monsters special (can't have this

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      or

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      that happen to them).

True, they would have to be planned out and fiddled with, but for example
KO'ing a dragon, yes.. you might do it, and lets say I put it to sleep.  At
that point, if I attack again, it wakes up instantly, and I've accomplished
nothing.. but maybe instead it lets me escape, or plan something devious.

>

       Attacking with two weapons has been discussed before.  Biggest problem is

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      that

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      weapons are generally the best items in the games (as it is one of the few

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      items

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      players can improve), thus being able to use two of them becomes very

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      powerful. 

I agree.. but it depends on how it's done.  For example, lets say we did allow
two-sword fighting.  You would balance it out in different ways.  The first
sword, your primary weapon, would be less likely to hit, and you wouldn't get
the DAM bonus from the second sword when you did hit.  Your second sword would
be even less likely to hit.  So essentially, you miss alot more, and get comabt
speed.  By tuning the values around, I think it could be balanced out. 
Basically the idea would be that you have a 10 or 20% chance of getting a
second hit, with your offhand weapon, you trade that for a -5 to hit in
general, or some number that balances out.. these are just off the top of my
head.

>

      I wouldn't mind seeing two handed weapons in which you can't use a shield

I think this would be an incredibly good idea.  it might even be possible to
use certain weapons with multiple hands, trading the shield for more damage,
like with a spear.

---
Tim Rightnour <

     root at garbled.net

     >
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