[CF-Devel] Change in equip method.

Tue Jun 4 21:32:46 CDT 2002

Mark Wendel said:

>

      If bows were overused, this may be something worth considering.

     >

     But it seems that bows are generally underused, so I don't really think

     that making them even
>

     harder/less worthwhile to use would necessarily be a good thing.

I agree that bows are underused but I don't think that making them two
handed would be too bad.  There is a bigger problem with missile combat in
general (see below).
Also there could be bows that incorporate defensive or resistance bonuses to
compensate for this.  Same as making two handed swords more powerful
for the same reason.  It is just weird having a bow and a shield equiped is
all.

>

        If you just had arms, there would be nothing preventing someone from

     using 2
>

      shields.  This is odd, but I don't consider it too much a problem.

     >

     >

        Much more a problem is using 2 weapons, because weapons have the most

     >

      enchantments (And the fact that players can enchant them), and that would

     really
>

      mess up the balance.

I would have thought the problem with multiple weapons would be
multiple attacks (and all associated with that - seperate chance to hit,
seperate damage) not so much balance since most really powerful swords could
be
designated two handed, or creatures would also have the advantage of
multiple weapons as well or a similar method would address balance.
The same issue you mention could be applied to all items, a fourlegged
fellow could wear two sets of magic boots which would upset balance or
otherwise mess something up.  I think however that not allowing multiple
weapons
would be a good thing for the time being because it would have a large
impact
on combat.  For monsters, game balance from weapon bonuses is not a problem
presumably so if a 9 armed monster could use swords and had  'weapon_arm 7'
the only issue would be multiple attacks presumably.

>

        Note that the real enforcement is having different types.  For example,

     humans
>

      would have 'feet', but horses/centaurs should have 'hooves' - they

     obviously
>

      just can't put on human boots.

Yes, I think it would be better to make a distinction between
locomotion method (noped, monoped, biped, quadraped, septaped...or maybe
none, feet2,
hoves2, claws2, hoves4, paws4, hoves6, paws6 or something) rather than count
the
number of feet, then create items for those other kinds of locomotion
(horseshoes of levitation, spider shoes +2, dragon spats of havoc)  If you
don't
have two feet you can't wear normal boots.  This saves creating singular
boots and counting feet- and mixing boot types which might be messy or
unbalanced (a centaur player would have an advantage with two sets of boots,
and
what if those sets interfere with each other. Having types allows you to
change the boot objects to special boots just by changing their
location and the name, but otherwise they work the same.
Then you can go in for 'feet', 'hooves', dragon feet, spider legs or
whatever. You could of course eliminate this and say that all boots fit all
types (magically or thorough an off-shore instant boot exchange program),
but it might not be as much fun although it would simplify things greatly.

>

        Note that hands would be be a type - you would have fingers and

     weapon_hands
>

      and shield_hands.

      > This, for example, means you could have a race with 6 fingers/hand, which
may
>

      give a minor advantage (See previous messages).

As for rings, it would be simpler to say one per 'hand' instead of
worrying about counting fingers.  This does not confuse with arm (as in
weapn_arm, shield_arm, and can be applied liberally to mean any 'active'
appendage or
(fireborn have 4 'hands' or something.)  By active appendage it implies that
rings would not work if worn on toes or other protruding apendages...

>

      > I think that ranged weapons are undervaluated in the game since there

     are
>

      > not real terrain factors (no_fly_pass flag and an update to the monster

     >

      > attack target routine anyone?) to encourage their use.  It should be

     fairly
>

      > hard to get by without ranged weapons of some sort (either as a backup

     to
>

      > spells or as an alternate attack method to avoid closing with monsters).

     >

      > Perhaps heavy fighter types could get away without them, but themajority

     of
>

      > classes should find them indispensible.  You can put monsters in little

     >

      > rooms to prevent them from all rushing at the players, but this isn't as

     >

      > good as having actual terrain (water, barrels, tables, low walls...)

     that
>

      > would allow missile weapons through but block movement (except special

     >

      > movement like flying).    It also might give players more time to equip

     a
>

      > bow or whip out that horn or wand if the monsters didn't always rush at

     them
>

      > but attacked and could be attacked from a distance, which might make

     upfor
>

      > having only one ranged slot and the loss of that shield.  Ranged weapons

     >

      > really expand the possibilities for combat and a great ranged combat

     system
>

      > should include some terrain factors.

     >

     >

     >

        The problem on this goes back to cases where there were monsters

     constrained
>

      in ways that using range weapons made sense.

     >

     >

        The problem is that unless the monster has a range weapon to return fire

     with,
>

      it amounted to a safe kill for a player.  And this causes various

     problems.

I would say this would not increase this problem but could be a solution for
many cases
where this exists now.   Maps are evaluated for this sort of problem
and good maps would avoid this and this is already too common in the way
monsters are constrained now (especially with monsters in rooms and
seeking weapons).  It would actually allow more ways to avoid this issue.

>

     >

        There is also the problem that if you try to make the maps multi player

     >

      accessible, the hallways sort of need to be more than 1 space wide.  But

     this
>

      also makes the range weapons harder to deal with.

Again this is reversed, since this change would allow maps with  larger open
spaces and less hallways and  actually give more options and elbow room for
multiplayer tactics.

>

     >

        I think some of the problem is that there is a tough balancing act.  You

     >

      pretty much always want that melee weapon to do more damage, with

     theadvantage
>

      of the range weapon the fact you have some distance/safety.  The problem

     is
>

      movement on many monsters is fast enough that your not going to get too

     many
>

      shots with that weapon before the monster closes anyways.  The fact that

     most
>

      combats in crossfire last in the seconds greatly limits that amount of

     tactics
>

      that one can employ.

That is the current problem, which makes ranged weapons less useful.
Melee weapons should and will remain more powerful, but by building in a
pass flag
for some objects allowing flying but still blocking creature movement you
can create scenarios where the monsters do not/cannot close on the player(s)
but remain at a distance, or can attack with arrows oe spells while they
file through a narrow opening (coming across a bridge or down a stair) to
provide some pacing to the fight.  You can have the bridge of death scenario
where narrow walkways work to the players disadvantage rather than their
advantage.  You would have to modify the monster code to check if there
is a path for flying so the monster that are able to can still attack or
this
wouldn't work.  As you say this is the biggest part of the job.  I have not
gotten far enough in my learnin to really understand the code (but I have
been looking).
It ceratinly wouldn't replace melee weapons as the power items,
but it would make missile weapons much more useful (also flying, and
jumping).