[crossfire] Priority feature list

[Mark Wedel]

Juha Jäykkä wrote:
>>> First, most quest-reward and artefact items are weapons. This makes
>> Scripting, scripting. Of course need to design quests for that
>> particular reward :)
> 
> Cannot we alter some existing ones as a first aid? Inventing dozens of
> new quests is quite a big task.

  I'm sort of mixed on the idea of having random quest rewards.  I'm certainly 
for having more quest rewards that are not weapons.

  A problem with mixed quest rewards is this adds a definite incentive for a 
player to repeat the same quest over and over again, until they get all the 
random awards that quest may give.  If it is a static reward, once you do it 
once, probably not much point to do it again.

  And from the flip side, if you're a monk, looking for the good monk item that 
quest gives out 10% of the time, it could be really frustrating to do that quest 
10 times to get that item (or more if unlikely).

  So I'd rather there be static quest items, but more variety.

> 
>> There will always be a maximum level. It can be 112, it can be 200, it
>> can be 1000000. But there will always be a maximum :)
> 
> Using arbitrary precision arithmetic library (like GNU MP) makes that
> limit limited only by the amount of digits the server can store in its
> virtual memory - which will probably be growing faster than any character
> gains levels, so in practice there would be no limit. Even a less radical
> method of using 64- or 128-bit integers to represent experience, I think
> we could increase the "bitness" of the experience-variable faster than
> anyone can consume the bits.
> 
> Anyway, this is not what I was after. I was after the fact that there is
> a hard-coded value "MAX_LEVEL" (or MAX_64BIT_INTEGER, for that matter)
> used in the code. Is *this* doable? In that case increasing the maximum
> level would be very easy, no matter how it is represented.

  Changing max level is actually quite easy - just modify the exp_table file. 
experience values are 64 bit - yes, they could overflow, but unless there were 
changes such that you could get 20 billion exp/monster, unlikely to ever be reached.

  That said, a huge number of games have some maximum level, and there are lots 
of good reasons for this - it is easier to balance things if the range of levels 
isn't so great, you don't don't need as many spells, etc.

  If we rebalance everything else (which includes have spells that go all the 
way up to level 110 or so), and a server set max level to 1000, once characters 
started getting to some point, they'd probably start saying the game is too 
easy, that there is nothing more to do - I've learned all the spells, etc

  So from the mainstream point of view, we have to aim at there being 100 levels 
(or thereabouts) in the game - different servers can change it, but like any 
customizations they do, that is their own choice with it's own set of consequences.

> 
>> My opinion: let's keep things as they are for level, but rebalance how
>> you gain experience, maybe.
> 
> That's otherwise ok, but what about old characters at 110th level? At the
> least we'd need to give them some new levels to achieve.

  When 2.0 is released, IMO characters from the 1.x series will not be 
compatible, so characters will need to be started anew.  This is probably a good 
thing for many reasons.

> 
> Something needs to be done about generators, however. It is currently too
> easy to sit around, letting a generator spawn a map full of monsters,
> kill them but not the generator and repeat until 110th level. This is
> particularly easy in Hell, where the monsters give zillion XP, there is a
> grate behind which to recuperate and numerous generators spawning more
> and more cannon fodder.

  IMO, pretty much every generator could be removed from the game and it would 
probably make things better.

  As things stand now, only if you are very marginal at taking on the creatures 
the generators spawn does it provide any sort of difficulty.  Once you get to 
the point you can kill them with little danger (which in many cases, is just a 
level or 2 above the point where it is marginal), it just provides a way to get 
lots of exp, and lots of loot.  Having generators also really does make it a 
game where high damage rate is important - if rooms are constantly full of 
creatures, the only attack method is to hit them with up front damage.

> 
>>> Fourth, the spell system needs rebalancing. First, meteor swarm and
>> That's part of the whole game balance.
> 
> Isn't it all? =) I thought we were discussing specific points of concern
> with regards to whole game balance.

  This thread was supposed to be about very broad issues, not into specific 
design changes - that comes later.

> 
>> My opinion is to totally rebalance combat / spells / speed. Reduce
>> speed, add more "strategic" elements to the game. Make it so you can
>> actually use rune/trap writing to lure monsters, and so on.
> 
> That's fine. It is also huge task... sounds like a challenge, I'm on!
> BTW, runes are essentially single-shot devices, so they might well be
> significantly more powerful than currently (or, rather, more powerful
> *compared to other spells* than currently). Traps are more difficult
> because they can contain arbitrary spells. But what works for traps works
> for runes as well - and runes still need more power imho.

  One general problem, which is really hard to sort out, is the hp disparity 
between players and monsters.  the problem this results in is that if a rune is 
even marginally deadly for a monster, it is probably totally deadly for any 
player that happens to wander into it.