[crossfire] Priority feature list

[Mark Wedel]

Juergen Kahnert wrote:
> 
>> I'm not saying never reward a monk with a sword, but make it much less
>> likely than rewarding a fighter with a sword.
> 
> No, why should I ever start / solve a quest if the payment is worthless
> for me? I don't want to get useless rubbish as a "reward".

  But you can never completely fix that.  It may not be rubbish, but could still 
be something of no real value - for example, the girdle you have is better than 
the one you just got.  Better can be a subjective term, but I think in many 
cases, characters will quickly be able to make those calls.

  There could be lots of reasons this happens - you traded with someone else to 
get that item, or you did some other quest to get that girdle before this quest, 
or maybe you just found a nice girdle in random treasure (I think that most of 
the quest items should be near the best for the level of the character that does 
them, but at the same time, I think characters should be able to find really 
nice equipment in random treasure now and again.  This also helps give some 
incentive for players to do things like random dungeons, etc.

> 
> 
>> There can be a quest with a story of the evil X, who stole King
>> Arthur's Excalibur and keeps it in his Luggage - it's pretty obvious
>> one's going to find an excalibur and a luggage on this quest.
> 
> But Excalibur won't be the quest reward! King Arthur just wants it back.
> So you have give it to King Arthur to receive your quest reward. And
> this won't be Excalibur, isn't it?

  Good point - a lot of the quests in the game are of the nature that you talk 
to someone in the tavern and he says there is some nasty creature.  You go kill 
it, and it has some unique item.

  It certainly makes more sense that someone in town may want that creature 
killed, and once you kill it and return, will give you something in return for 
that task.  And that could even be something like 'You have a choice of 1 of 
these 3 items...', so the player can choose the item they want.

  This also works well in the "can't repeat a quest" type of thing - the above 
model does not prevent a character from going into that same dungeon multiple 
times and killing that same creature, but does prevent them from getting the 
nice item reward more than once.  I don't think it will be feasible to prevent 
players from going to the same dungeon (to many ways around it), but certainly 
feasible to prevent them from getting rewards.

  And this method also works good for parties - it is unclear if a party should 
get more reward than a single character doing a quest.  But presuming they 
should still only get one item, the entire party could go to that NPC, see the 
offerings, and try to figure something else (I'll take the sword he is offering 
and give you this girdle, etc).


>> but I personally like the idea of making more race-specific items; add
>> body parts like "dragon tail" and "fireborn tentacle" to the races and
>> create objects that consume these.
> 
> I like that idea, too. :)

  It's an implementation detail, but I'd rather there be some certain tags in 
objects for race/class/god allowability than to use the body part stuff. 
Otherwise, you get questions like 'the serpentman also has a tail - shouldn't he 
be able to put the same stuff on his tail like the dragon' and so on.  I think 
it is better to say something like 'that item can only be used by dragons' vs 
"you don't have the body for that object", simply because the later would cause 
lots of confusions for lots of cases.

  And it goes beyond that - taking from other games, you often have things like 
armor or swords that can only be used by certain races - adding things like 
'dwarf_arm' to use a weapon gets weird, or 'elven_body'.  And that can lead to 
more complication, like people wearing two suits of armor, etc.


> On Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 08:07:36PM +0200, Nicolas Weeger wrote:
>> 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 :)
>> My opinion: let's keep things as they are for level, but rebalance how
>> you gain experience, maybe.
> 
> Sure, but you're able to make the limit unreachable as long as the
> player isn't immortal. ;-)
> 
> Make level 100 very hard to reach (like 115 now), but don't set a hard
> cap.  Make it all but impossible to reach.

  Just a note - looking at metalfore, only 2 characters have reached the high 
score/level limit.  And I suspect even without retuning the exp table, if we 
re-adjust other factors (and fix bugs) it may not be possible to do that again 
with CF2.

  But as previously said, it is trivially easy right now to increase level cap, 
so I consider this a non issue.  If a server decides to have a cap, that is 
their choice, if they don't, that is another choice.

  Yes, you have to modify the exp table, but if you don't want to fill out exp 
values by hand, one could easily enough write a 2-3 line program that calculates 
and prints out the values into the form expected.

  Now, for CF2, it may make sense for the level gain to start increasing 
dramatically after level 100 (instead of 110 like it is now), and if you had it 
double every level, then even if you only list to level 120, I doubt anyone 
could ever reach it.  So yes, you have a cap, but if it no one ever gets to it, 
is it really a cap?


> 
>> Also, some god-speciality spells kill anything, like divine shock or
>> red death.
> 
> Also for lower levels. Ever tried to level up praying as a level 1
> Ruggilli priest?
> 
> Can't be the rule to be forced to change the cult just to get some
> starting levels in praying.

  Some new spells are certainly needed, and a redistribution of existing spells 
(more to cover the broader level range) is also needed.  There are very few 
spells above level 20 right now, dating back to when there were not that many 
levels.  If we say that 100 levels is the range we aim for, then there should be 
a few level 90 and 100 spells.


>> Fifth, at high levels, spells are useless. It's almost always easier
>> and more effective to simply karate chop or weapon slash everything
>> you bump into.
> 
> Not only on high levels, especially for low levels.

  I'd disagree with that - I've found spells very useful at high levels.  If you 
have the mana, and a large room full of monsters, blasting the room with spells 
is often a safer and faster method of killing them all than running about with a 
weapon.

  But certainly if there is just 1 or 2 monsters, certainly better to go melee.

  I think some of this goes into balancing the monsters, and not the spells.  A 
lot of monsters have really high protection to magic and other attacks - 
basically they were designed in a sense so that the only way to kill them was 
with melee.  That isn't the correct approach - if players are clever and can hit 
monsters with spells from a distance, that shouldn't be punished.  The monster 
AI should perhaps be improved to make it harder for that to happen, but I've 
found that a lot of maps are designed with a 'you must kill this monster, and 
you must kill it this way'.


> On Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 08:07:36PM +0200, Nicolas Weeger wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> If you rebalance the combat / spells / speed system, you need to check
> every single map if it still works.  If not you have to change the map.
> And if this backfitting starts, I would like to remind to the
> "reorganizing the entire world" thread:

  I see no basis on that assertion - that is almost like saying that if I add a 
new weapon,  I need to check every map to make sure they still work.

  Some maps may become considerably harder - probably not a bad thing.  I'd also 
say that the proper check would be to play every map and see how it plays - you 
probably would learn virtually nothing looking at the maps in an editor - you'd 
have to play it to see how hard it is now.

  And if it is a case that there may be objects/creatures in maps that need to 
be updated, very easy to write scripts to check for that type of thing.  In 
fact, there are already several out there that do that.

  I think I've stated it previously, but IMO, the effort needed to redo the 
entire would could better be spent elsewhere.  I'd like to see a lot more new 
maps/quests/etc, and those should be arranged so that it makes sense (put the 
tough maps in areas that already have tough maps,etc)


> On Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 10:57:22PM -0700, Mark Wedel wrote:
>>   I'm sort of mixed on the idea of having random quest rewards.
> 
> Same for me.  Quest rewards should be deterministic, but race / class
> specific.

  Problem then is how many combos do you get if you do race * class - does a 
dwarf fighter get something different than an orc fighter?  What about dwarf 
cleric vs dwarf fighter, etc.  But the idea of there being some number of 
deterministic rewards that you can choose from works really well IMO.  Sure, it 
may not be especially realstic that people would end up having 4 different 
things they could give you.  OTOH, even if the player doesn't get the choice, 
effectively the NPC does have 4 different things they might give - it is just 
hidden from the player.  Until they talk with other players and find out they 
got different things from the same NPC.  So at that point, what not give the 
choice to the player.

> 
> 
>>   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).
> 
> I'm still a friend of having quests only solvable once for each
> character.  No rerun possible.  How often will King Arthurs Excalibur be
> stolen by the same crowd?

  See notes up a ways.  But you get into the general problem of how do you 
explain things in a world where a map resets?  Apparantly a new ogre chief 
constantly moves into that dungeon near scorn (you'd think they'd learn :)  But 
it seems completely reasonable that the NPCs would remember that they gave a 
character a reward, and not give it again.


>>   IMO, pretty much every generator could be removed from the game and
>> it would probably make things better.
> 
> Yes, or make them run out of monsters.  And hidden.  Or how do you
> explain a "monster generator" in the real world? ;-)

  of course, crossfire isn't the real world.

  I don't think making them hidden, or turn into ruined caves really fix the 
problem. Even a limited number of monsters isn't likely to change things - if 
that is the case, then it is really a waiting game (if I kill these giants one 
by one, eventually they'll stop coming and I can get the treasure).  If that 
character is able to kill the giants, all you are giving him with a generator 
that produces 30 is a bunch more treasure and experience.

  If you want the room full of monsters, start the dungeon with the room full of 
monsters - don't rely on generators to fill it up.

  I think hidden generators (where the player can't get to them) doesn't fix the 
problem either - a general problem with generators is that it now becomes very 
easy to script something where the player just stands on some spot and kills 
anything that comes near him - hence lots of exp and treasure.  IF generators 
get removed, it would reduce both exp and treasure, which should slow 
advancement in mid to low levels.

  Few high levels maps make use of generators, because the maps are already 
using custom monsters (and are probably better designed).  Generators I think 
really date back more to when the game was an action game like gauntlet - it 
makes a lot less sense with the transformation into an RPG