[CF-Devel] patch for spell system

[Mark Wedel]

Andreas Vogl wrote:
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      Mark W. wrote:
     
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      > - IDEA: Make spells be objects.  One object for each spell
     
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      > you know. [...]
     
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      > In the above example, since all spells are just archetypes,
     
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      > tuning them is just a matter of changing the archetype, not
     
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      > a configuration file.
     
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      > If the code is abstract enough, it means that new spells are
     
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      > just a matter of modifying the arch on the map. [...]
     
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      Spells being objects sounds cool, but I don't think it
     
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      really is the big hit.
     
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      o Above all, it's a big amount of work and it's gonna blow up
     
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        and complexify the spell code.
     
     
 I don't think it really makes it any more complicated - instead of looking in a
spell params table (or list), you just look at the object attributes.  No doubt
that this is a bit of work, but a lot of it is fairly mundane work (eg, changing
references of xxx to yyy).

 
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      o Spell-objects won't make life any more simple for mapmakers.
     
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        Okay, the "sp"-values will be gone - but I bet the spell-objects
     
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        will again have a hundred attributes that no one ever truely
     
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        understands.
     
     
 Map makers only need to worry about this if they customize spells.  Of course,
good documentation is needed.

 However, if you take the above argument to excess (allow map makers to modify
attributes makes life difficult), the end result would be to let map makers
modify nothing.  IMO, allowing the map makers to modify as many things as
possible is I think the right approach.  It is up to the map makers to know
whaty they are doing, and certainly custom dialogues or whatever can be done to
make life easier.

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      o With spell-objects, spells can be modiefied in the maps.
     
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        Maybe that's just me, but I think spells should be standards.
     
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        There should be a finite amount of spells, so that players
     
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        can learn how they work and what to expect of them.
     
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        That keeps the game more simple and a lot more intuitive.
     
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        Is it really good to have hundred different versions of
     
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        the fireball spell? I think not.
     
     
 I agree to that to an extent - every map maker should not go and put custom
spells on their maps.  I would consider custom spells to be similar to artifacts
- put them in for appropriate rewards, but they still need to be balanced.  And
of course the standard spells would still exist to be generated for spellbooks
that are not customized.


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      Now if spells are standards (instead of objects), they should
     
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      still be fine-tuned and balanced. The perfect combination
     
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      of damage, speed and duration is often hard to find.
     
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      Therefore, the "spellbook"-approach by David Delbecq seems
     
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      like a useful thing to me.
     
     
 You could have the standardized approach with spell object.  That still results
in a bit of work for less potential gain (if your going to have spells be
objects, why not let mapmakers modify them)  IMO, spell being objects should
happen at some time - it would standardize things, and I expect make things
easier for other pieces of the code (perhaps things like scripts - it can now
look at an object for the spell).  Certainly, David's code would make this
easier (as the spell object would have a string like spell_callback that is
used).