[CF-Devel] town portal (RE: CVS commit: maps/city/misc)

[Tim Rightnour]

On 27-Feb-02 Yann Chachkoff wrote:
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      I suppose you imply that monsters got an infinite amount of mana. Did I ever 
     
     >
     
      said they should ? (Unless, of course, the spells are "natural abilities", 
     
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      like the dragon breath)
     
     
No.  I imply that monsters are infinite, and don't care if you kill them. 
Players however, have feelings, and frustration, and tend to react poorly when
they think you've made something un-fun for them.

Making all the cool spells backfire, does indeed accomplish what you might
desire.  The spells become uncool.  Nobody likes to use them anymore.  Look at
scrolls and wands.  Nobody uses them, they are neat, and they are there, but
they have no advantage to players.  When I said that each spell should be
considered and tuned for specifically.. what I meant is, we should decide if
the spell is really that bad after all, and if we will make the game less fun
by removing it, because thats what you essentially do when you add a drawback.
The players learn quick.  "Don't cast that spell, it will blow your arm off",
turns into "don't bother learning that, it's useless" and "it's too bad they
ruined that spell".

I realize everyone has thier balance issues, and it's a very complex thing to
wrap your head around completely.  But if I learned one thing from running a
mud for so long, it's that players hate balance.  And far far more than they
hate balance, they hate it when you change the way something they've done for
years works.  All these things that we are encountering now... I encountered on
the mud.  And I implemented systems very similar to the one you are proposing..
and I regretted it, sourly.  I'm just trying to pass what I learned along. 
It's just MHO, so, take it for what it's worth.

---
Tim Rightnour <
     
     root at garbled.net
     
     >
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