[crossfire] race/class lacks distinctions

[Alex Schultz]

Wim Villerius wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-06-30 at 20:29 -0700, Mark Wedel wrote:
>   
>> Alex Schultz wrote:
>>     
>>> Mark Wedel wrote:
>>>       
>>>>   For example, there may be 4 different skills of sorcery - basic, expert, 
>>>> advanced, mastery.  However, these all tie in with the same skill.
>>>>
>>>>   The sorcery class starts with the mastery skill.  Some of the other classes 
>>>> (if they get several casting skills) maybe get those at advanced.  Skill scrolls 
>>>> would give you basic skill, and perhaps quests or other harder to do things give 
>>>> you expert.
>>>>         
>>   yes - getting advanced skills should not really be possible.
>>     
>>>>   What exactly these differences mean would have to be worked out.  At a most 
>>>> basic level, it could determine the rate of exp you gain in the skill (basic 
>>>> gets 25% of normal or something). There could also be level caps - mastery caps 
>>>> at 110, advanced 75, expert 50, basic 25
>>>>         
>>> This seems like a good idea to me.
>>>       
> Well, this certainly makes sense for magic skills. Restricting a warrior
> to lvl 25 magic skills doesn't hurt much - he wont use them often.
>   
See below, about how the level of various spells needs adjustment.
> On the other hand, restricting a mage to use at most lvl 25 one/two
> handed is a BIG pain and an unfair restriction.
>   
Again, see below, this time, about magic vs. melee balance.
> I have no clue how long ago you tried to kill certain powerfull
> monsters, but being a mage it is literally impossible to kill
> Lorkas/Gothwolthe/...
> Magic is fine for normal critter - even up to grand titans and cyclops -
> but it is simply _impossible_ to kill the bosses with that (granted,
> Lorkas can easily be killed with diseases, but Gothwolte cannot - he's
> an undead force)
> In summary: this proposal makes it impossible for a mage to do really
> interesting things for that requires weaponery at lvl 100+ (need a good
> wc)
> (note that this does not YET apply to charm monster)
>   
Gothwolte can be easily killed with a heavy rod of banishment of gaea
currently. In my experience, I have only been able to kill the first
evil master by meteor swarm. I have only been able to beat the second
with earthwalling and using heavy rods. For the third I have only been
able to kill it by high level banishment of gaea, and the fourth only by
high level banishment of gaea. Conventional magic may not work against
these things, however when one's melee is limited to acid, fire, cold,
and poison (i.e. dragon), then one cannot defeat these things WITHOUT
making use of arguably cheap magical tactics. That said, yes, magic
can't kill high level things easily, and this I feel is an issue with,
how magic scales as one gains levels, as well as the resists used in
monsters, so see below about damage type balance.
>>>> (however, the fact there really aren't 
>>>> many spells above level 20, this may not mean a lot).
>>>>         
>>> This I believe is a separate problem, personally I think that both more
>>> spells are needed, and the level on many of them needs to be increased
>>> very significantly (i.e. meteor swarm I would put at level 50 to 60 or
>>> perhaps even higher, and would put comet around 30 or 40). Also, I think
>>> this is a rather important problem to deal with, though being a separate
>>> one from the rest of this post.
>>>       
>> Yes, and also one that sort of breaks compatibility - you almost need to do a 
>> fresh server start.
>>
>>   However, this reshuffling is still a little tricky.  IIRC, the quest for the 
>> comet spell is a level 15 quest.  If the comet becomes a level 30 spell, that is 
>> sort annoying - you do the quest, get a new spell, but can't use it for a really 
>> long time.
>>     
> That quest is ok for lvl 8-10 players.
> Putting Meteor Swarm at lv 60 or even higher is - from the perspective
> of the player - insane. It is very hard to become lvl 60 pyromancy. 
> Using burning hands or even dragon breath just doesnt bring you at lvl
> 60.
>   
Hmm, that is an understandable point. Personally I believe that either
the quest for comet should be harder, or the spell less powerful. In the
case of meteor swarm, I believe that perhaps make it level 30, but make
it weaker at lower levels and scale up well, and I also think the
problem you mention, is a problem that low level spells don't scale up
with level in a useful manner.
>>> Also, I personally believe, that the skills need to be rebalanced such
>>> that there is not such a desire to want every skill. I believe these
>>> things would make classes actually matter, however I believe that too
>>> many maps and monsters, are vastly easier to do by spellcasting, or in
>>> some cases, vastly easier to do by melee. I believe there should be some
>>> variation, however I believe the variation currently would be too
>>> extreme once classes were made to matter.
>>>       
> As I wrote above, only low lvl monsters are easily killed with magic. If
> someone believes that a lot of maps&monsters are much easier to do
> complete with magic, I'd love to suggest them to start a new character
> and to try it.
> It's just the opposite. You're always running out of mana way too fast
> and once all mana is used, you're an easy prey.
>  (And I'm not even talking about treasure that's usualy destroyed by
> magic.)
>   
Well, I was mainly referring to, with magic, high level rods, meteor
swarm, comet, banishment, charmkilling, and earthwalling while casting
numerous spells (possibly from high level heavy rods). Those ARE things
that often end up being the only practical way to kill certain things.
>   
>> Some of this could probably be fixed by balancing the resistances of the 
>> monsters more - there are some monsters virtually impervious to melee because it 
>> can only be hit by one attacktype (you may be luck to have that attacktype in a 
>> weapon).  However, spellcasters can almost have every attacktype, so it is just 
>> a matter of choosing the right spell.  Monsters should get balanced better so 
>> sure, it may be easier to kill them via spells or weapon, but shouldn't be 
>> impossible to do so by the other method.
>>     
> Au contraire! Usually the best attack types against monsters are
> weaponmagic, chaos and death (the last works only against low lvl
> monsters)
> Now chaos and weaponmagic are almost not available to spellcasters.
> Comets do weaponmagic damage, but only 5 to 10 hp each comet... Now that
> makes it almost inpossible to kill anything with it.
> A high lvl player can do 200 weaponmagic damage each hit with
> weaponspeed > 10
> That same high lvl player will have weaponmagic, fire and electricity
> attack by equipent and a few others, depending on his gods blessing.
>
> Given these numbers the only reason one would use spells are diseases.
> They slow monsters down a several magnitudes and a combination of
> several diseases is almost always extremely lethal.
>   
However there are many monsters vulnerable or non-resistant to a type of
damage that can be magically delt. It is true that this does leave
dragons/fireborn/monks at a disadvantage against such things that do
resist their melee, and leave spellcasters at a similar disadvantage,
however this is as was said above an issue of rebalancing the resists. I
would agree with you though that the choice of damage types that
spellcasters have is not very helpful to them against most things, and
with a few swords melee can have more choice.

Alex Schultz