[crossfire] race/class lacks distinctions

[Nicolas Weeger (Laposte)]

I won't comment on everything on this thread, just give my 0.2€ on some 
things :)

> - Pretty much all the skills are learnable, so what skills you start out
> with are not very important - you can learn everything else later.
and
>   For the skills, my thought would be there should be different levels (for
> lack of better term) of skills.
>
>   For example, there may be 4 different skills of sorcery - basic, expert,
> advanced, mastery.  However, these all tie in with the same skill.

What about limiting skills in which you can get over level 20 (or 30, or 
whatever)?
So if you're fighter you can get one/two handed weapon and punching to 50, 
smithery to 40, use magic item to 30, but can't have sorcery/pyromancy over 
20?
Of course that's arbitrarily limiting skills one can use. But this thread is 
about that, I think ^_-
That'd also require quite many balance changes.

More global idea, limit player to having p high level skills in a group of p + 
n (ie: 2 of one/two handed weapon / karate / sorcery / pyromancy / evocation, 
2 of smithery / alchemy / bowyer), the remaining having some cap or penalty.

>   In terms of these issues, I think the first could be fixed by adding new
> items and a little code - use a key/value to store what class/race can use
> an object, and add some code in the apply logic to check for it.

For races it sure makes sense (the armor is designed for a human, how can a 
troll think about wearing it? size issues!).

Another idea is to add a skill requirement. Using eg Chaos Sword would require 
level 40+ in one handed weapon. Complements item power, and if spellcasters 
can't reach 40 in one handed weapon, well, they can't use CS, which seems 
reasonable - you're a spell caster ;)

>   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 (however, the fact
> there really aren't many spells above level 20, this may not mean a lot).

Ideally, here's how I'd see the separation.

All players would have access to basic versions of healing, word of recall, 
town portal, some spells here and there (identify, let's say "useful non 
combat spells"). Higher versions would be reserved to specific classes (if 
you're a fighter, don't except to be able to cast "regeneration" or "party 
healing" or "meteor swarm", or with big disadvantages).


But as Mark said, players should be able to do most of maps alone, whatever 
their class.
Of course we can still have class-specific maps (quest to become an expert in 
one handed weapon), or maps requiring 2+ players.

Nicolas