[CF-Devel] Archetypes, New maps, Idease?

Thu Sep 30 08:53:22 CDT 2004

This bronze thing is sure one great example of a
"good-idea-tho-dunno-what's-goin-on-anyway".
Low lev. players do not get much money selling pussy nonmagical trash
anyway. They simply not worth it. Besides why should one make harder to
get money and/or xp, anyway? To make it much more fun? Geez, just say it
loud, listen to to it, then think a little...
"I'll make it harder, so everyone will love it!"
In fact CF is _not_ an easy game, at least not at low-level and
middle-high level. (At middle-lvl and at very-high lvl it _is_ easy, but
as you can see, there are at least 5 categories of hardness in the game
depending on the players lvl. Balancing them all out is almost
impossible, and the question emerges: is it really important to be the
game everytime equally hard?)
It's that simple: Xp--Money--Monster's_hardness
That 3 (and nothing more!) what's important in the balance of this game.
At low-mid lvl, money _is_ important, tho with some tricks it's not too
hard to get enough -- but it has nothing to do with things like iron
sword. (The thought that low-lvl players will need only 2 gp for
upgrading/replacing their weaponry is --I'm really sooory, I don't want to
be too rude-- simply ridiculous. 2 gp? C'mon!)
Making more real or making more challanging the game is really honorable.
But check it out! The system itself is almost complete. There are weaker
and stronger weapons and armours, shileds, spells, etc. And the game
isn't too easy either.
Once I've played a LOT with this game, and saw almost everything that one
could have seen about 6 months ago. And this includes players as well,
not only the game itself. Believe me, only one thing really matters in
this game. And that's how you can manage yourself in the game. Everything
else is secondary. You can get lotsa money? So what? Others give you great
magical items? Is that something? If you want to _know_ things about this
game, you have to do it yourself. And you'll need all your
skills, bravery, ingenuity, cunning and composure to see really
interesting things in the game. And these things are meant to be acquired
by experience. Noone can give them to you. (Unless there's someone who
tells you every possible threat and every solution for all the troubles
you might encounter.)
But that's one thing you can _never_ influence in _any_ way. I could
log in, and make any other player an owner of a _very_ powerfull character
by simple telling him things. To prevent that, you would have to pay an
unpayable price. (Meaning changing the quests and lotsa things in the game
regularly, which would make the whole game entirely unenjoyable.) But
believe me, pro players never do things like that.
And the other ones... they can get lotsa money with alchemy, get some xp
in the TCs, etc., but they won't disturb any balance, that's for sure.
That doesn't mean I don't like players whit that playing style, no.
There's no problem with it, that's why I'm trying to protect them in a
way. They enjoy playing, and that's what really matters!
As in any other muds, non-pros and pro-s should be equally important.
All I'm saying, I can't see any balancing issues at that lvl.
About the TCs, they are simply "dungeons in town", which may seem to be
ridiculous, but their only purpose is to grant a fast way to get levels
back. (As for me, as far as I know, I still have a lvl 103 char. on
metalforge, and have been to the high-lvl TCs once or twice. And that's
because I died once or twice as well. The point is, had I died more, I
had been there more as well.)
And the xp-loss=time-loss for players is just a strong enough penalty.
Time is the most precious thing we can have!

Let me finish with this:
(I'm trying to tell you this every time with different words, I hope one
day my voice will be heard.)
Please, devs, don't think about CF as a game with players! Think about it
as players in a game! You have an idea, think about the players, not the
game itself.
There is a huge difference beetween "This way the game would be much more
balanced." and "This way the players would play in a much more balanced
game."

Xenon

PS.: Forget money already! Really, there's NO problem AT ALL with money
in the game!! (Maybe it' better this way, that almost noone concerns
about money in CF. At least it's much-much nicer than in the real world.)

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004, Mark Wedel wrote:

>

     >

        I agree that we shouldn't get bogged down on what is a metal or not (although,

     >

      bronze is a metal, it just not an element :) or necessarily the realism of

     >

      objects, etc.

     >

     >

        I'd note that one possible indication of poor quality of workmanship is for

     >

      objects to be -1, -2, etc, but non cursed.

     >

     >

        I'd also note that in my findings, it isn't all the misc non magical items

     >

      that are really worth much - its the fact that you collect everything, identify

     >

      the stuff that is magical, and find that +1 sword of lythander, or other magical

     >

      items that basically covers everything - something like that could be 100 pp.

     >

     >

        Now reducing the value of the objects helps out - that value is basically

     >

      determined as a multiplicative effect, so if items are 25% value, what was once

     >

      a 100 pp combo is now only a 25 pp combo.

     >

     >

        I do wonder however on some of the potential strangeness - one could seriously

     >

      ask why/how would a +1 bronze longsword of lythander get created for example (if

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      you're going to make a magical item, start with a decent base weapon at least).

     >

     >

     >

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