[CF List] Experience Categories

[erhard.sanio at gmx.net]

Playing Crossfire for a while, I consider the chances to obtain experience
in the different categories seriously imbalanced. As far as I see it, there
are six categories reflecting a number of skills. 

Three of them, namely physical, intelligence, and wisdom, are combat
oriented, while the other three, personality, agility, and mental, widely are not.

Now it is more or less easy once one knows the game and the foes, to gain
overall experience, mainly by fighting. Experience is scaling exponentially:
some 1000 for the first level gain, then 2000, and so on.
Later on, in level 40 or so, several million xp are necessary in order to
gain a new level.

Opponents are scaling exponentially, too, e.g. a kobold gives 1 xp or so,
while a dragon may give some 100,000 xp, a retributioner or balrog even more.
Weaponry, armament, stats, and general fighting Know-how are following this
scheme: once one is sufficiently armed and shielded, knows the opponents and
the methods of attack, defense, and flight, one is able to overcome the foes
most times.

The non-combat skills are scaling poorly if at all:

Personality:
singing: Ok, to some extent, it scales (first kobold, then goblins, ogres
         etc.). But i felt it virtually impossible to pacify anything above 

         those monster levels. I fail to see that it will ever be possible 
         to pacify even a fairy dragon or similar little beast - not to 
         mention angels, demons, or hill giants.
oratory: I never succeeded in orating to anybody


Agility:
disarm:  Ok, I disarmed a shitload of traps. But especially as a young
         player, I died often thus suffering a net loss rather than gain.
         In higher levels, I am succeeding now most time. Yet, the reward 
         is far too low to win anything with that: when you are level 42 
         slaying lots of retributioners, balrogs, or dragons, 5-50xp for a 
         disarmed trap are nothing less than a challenge. Much more, any    
     death will deprive you the gains of patient experience gain. So
         you will stagnate at best. 
stealing: Sure one may stand in the mid of a gang of monsters who use 
          to pickup thus carry lots of stuff, trying to steal from
          everybody in the adjacent tiles. This works fine in raffle1 
          with goblins, and may give some 5,000-10,000 xp per hour if 
          one is really busy. Fine though bit boring for low levels, but
          not being repeatable with even relatively harmless critters 
          such as trolls - not to mention dragons or retributioners who
          will roast, chill, zap, or beat you to a pulp before you have
          stolen anything.
hiding:  not yet tried intensely, but seems similar.

Mental:
literacy: For a low level character, literacy grants some steady flow of  
          a bit of mental xp, especially once the character obtained a 
          library card. Identifying and reading spellbooks also helps 
          a lot. So does identifying stuff with the literacy skill.
smithing, Identifying stuff using the skills listed beneath is a great 
alchemy,  help for general playing, and the gain of some xp is warmly
woodsman, welcomed. But again: As a young player, you profit a bit in 
alchemy,  terms of xp, but later, the gain is - in relationship to combat
et alii   gains - simply ridiculous. It is possible to gain some 10,000- 
          25,000 xp per hour by slaying, say skeletons in the raffle1, and
          identifying the remains and the loot. In the same time, a good
          player may have slain monsters with tens of millions of xp gain.

Though the situation for mental is slightly better than for the others, the
complaint still remains: xp does not scale. Identifying a winterblade does
not considerably add more xp than identifying an orc's dagger does.

As a result, you find level 110 players who are level 1 in personality, and
level5-10 in agility and mental at best. You will encounter better values
quite seldom.

What should or might be done? First, possibilities to gain more xp, and
especially gaining xp in an exponential scale as with fighting, seems highly
desirable. This does not mean or imply that xp gain should be easy or without
risk, on contrary. Yet, it should be possible to have a character with level 50
or more in mental, agility, or personality: a master bard, orator, thief, or
sage. Maybe, minimum values in the non-
combat abilities should be required in order to be possible to win further 
combat experience (and vice versa) once a scheme of better xp gain for 
non-combat skills has been implemented (e.g. one has to be at minimum 
level 20 or 30 in any categories in order to ascend to level 110).

just some ideas. If I missed something, and it is already possible to gain
noncombat xp better than i found out, forget my post.

regards, es 

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