[CF List] levels & exp

[Steven Lembark]

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       There are some very deep random dungeons.  The problems I have with some
     
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      of them is that since they only use 'standard' monsters, the difficulty
     
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      can jump pretty good.  The giant race dungeon comes to mind - you start
     
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      with things like ogres, then small trolls, hill giants, and then goes to
     
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      trolls.  There is a pretty big gap (I find) between the hill giant and
     
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      trolls - I might be able to slice my way through the hill giants without
     
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      much trouble, but once the trolls show it, it becomes quite difficult.
     
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       The real solution is more dungeons.  I don't necessarily think that the
     
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      entire series should necessarily go from level 1 to 30 - by series, I
     
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      mean something like the set of quests you get in scorn.  Most of the good
     
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      commercial games I have played have good side quests to fill in some
     
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      level and exp you may need.
     
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       but realistically, the amount of maps in crossfire have not increased
     
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      much in recent time, and thats probably the bigger issue - having more
     
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      maps, even if not part of a larger quest, but rather something like
     
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      'there is a cool item at the end of this (which the raffles basically
     
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      are))' to fill in for more of the levels would be most useful.
     
     
But the monsters aren't the only part. Well-designed dungeons
can be physically harder even with the same monsters due to
fewer places to hide/escape or combinations of monsters and
traps. Random dungeons can help with the monsters being well-
scaled, but the really interesting parts come from dungeon
layout itself.

Catch there is that we need people to do the careful design.
If this were a commercial product we'd be paying people to
do that part. Since we aren't, the next best thing is to make
the process fun to plan && well-streamlined. Emphasis there
would be on allowing people to lay out "effective" dungeons
[whatever definition we come up with] with minimal overhead.


--
Steven Lembark                               2930 W. Palmer
Workhorse Computing                       Chicago, IL 60647
                                            +1 800 762 1582