[crossfire] Priority feature list

Tue Jul 24 13:30:09 CDT 2007

> How much parties do you see on servers which will do something else than
> leveling up lower level character(s) with a high level character?

Partying is "essential" for multiplayer games, at least some rudimentary
support either with or without xp sharing. Multiplaying is the sole
reason I prefer CF over things like Wesnoth.

BTW, another multiplayer game we might learn from is Widelands. It does
not do interactive battles, but it does have very nice graphics (in 2D!)
and it manages to fit stunning amounts of info into a 800x600 window!

> Having a hard start as a mage turns up into an impossible mission on
> higher levels.  That's not fair.  If it's hard in the beginning, it
> should become easier later on, not harder or impossible...

I think everyone has agreed on this. Is it ok to list this in wiki?

> Your fireborn is able to wear a cloak?  The fireborn definition is this
> one:

Perhaps I was thinking of a dragon at that point, sorry.

> 6 items vs. 12 items; not 7 vs. 11.  Having a single fireborn race-slot
> for an item which needs to be as powerful as 6 human body part items
> makes this item very powerful, too much.  But it's a good start.

I never specified the number of race-slots, but Mark's (?) idea of
putting the who-can-use-this info into the item instead seems even
better, *though* we still need some way to determine how many items and
of which types a character simultaneously equip. This means Mark's idea
does not solve the problem: fireborn would still only be able to apply 6
items against human's 12. Of course, there *could* be some extremely
powerful fireborn -item, but I'd rather give fireborns a couple of
"fireborn tentacles" or something like that to wear the fireborn stuff at.

> And that a skill with a grade of "Expert" is better than one with
> "Novice" can't be called confusing, right?

Is 10th level Expert better or worse than 100th level novice? And what
the heck does a 100th level novice mean anyway? Suppose you are 100th
level novice carpenter. Does that mean you can only chop logs into pieces
and nothing else, but you can do that extremely well, while a 10th level
expert can sculpt beautiful statues, but is not as good at chopping logs
as the other guy?

>     That is girdle of Valriel of the Crusade
> (Str+3)(Dex+3)(Con+3)(Wis+5)(Cha+2)(ac+2)(item_power +1)(grace+3)

Does this actually exist..?

> I would like to see a formula for almost every item in CF.  Who made
> those stuff if it can't be made? ;)

Me too, and with my "generalised" formulas we would not need to
separately invent a formula for every single item, since ring ac +1 and
ring ac +5 would have the same ingredients, just different amounts and
difficulties.

> As I said, meteor swarm is doing weapon magic damage, not fire damage.
> And no character race / class is immune to weapon magic nor get the
> chance to increase the resistance against weapon magic.  Visit hanuk
> as a fireborn and see what happens...

Meteors do weaponmagic, the fire does not. The fire from an impacting
meteor does simply fire damage. Unless someone has chaged this since
April. Visiting Hanuk with a fireborn is not a problem unless you get to
the path of Hanuk's meteors - the fire is not a problem. If the fire did
weaponmagic damage, how could you stand in it as a fireborn with impunity?

> beginners with a lvl 1 fireborn sorcerer (magic only, no melee, not as a
> monk - no meditation) and the same with a troll warrior (melee only, no
> magic).

Been there, done that, many times. Not a problem, but true, the troll
probably cleans the place faster - that's as it should be. The problem,
as everyone has agreed, comes at higher levels, where it is STILL easier
and faster for the troll.

> If you have luck and you got small fireball with pyromancy skill.  If
> not, you may start with detect magic or slow.  And now?  How to play a
> sorcerer unwilling / unable to do melee?

That might be troublesome. I've started quite a lot of sorcerers and
never had useless spells at first level. Is there such a spell in level 1
sorcerer treasure list? The fireborn always gets pyromancy and there are
only killing-spells in pyromancy. Non-fireborns might get to trouble,
though. This could, however, be fixed by letting sorcery gain xp from
non-fatal spells as well, like slow, detect magic etc. But how to prevent
their abuse, then..?

> Prove it.  Try it out, feel the difference.  Again, not playing a monk,
> playing a sorcerer!

I won't be starting new characters at the moment, but I've played quite a
few fireborn sorcerers before I realised how useful monks are. You just
need patience. (And lots of food.)

> I know Mark don't like this idea, because it's lots of work.  But you
> just said, you disklike it.  What are your reasons?

It's an artificial limitation into what a character can do in a world. I
dislike those. I even dislike the fact that I cannot simply break any
wall I choose (but realise that it is something that can not be changed
without huge amounts of work). Segregating players into different areas
is something that is not necessary in my opinion. I believe there are
other ways to prevent abuse as well.

> Having regions for the same level will increase the fun for the players.
> I saw so much newbies unable to find suitable dungeons.  Some got their

That's a totally different thing. It would be difficult to find dungeons
even with level-based segregation if there are not enough clues around.
If there are enough clues around, there should in no case be any
difficulty. Warnings when entering a too difficult dungeon, otoh, would
be nice to have for players how, for example, get lost or simply want to
try to take it to the limit.

> fun spoiled by high level characters boosting them ten or more levels by
> a short party at a high level map.  I think xp sharing in a party is
> very bad and should be disabled.

Two things here: 1) joining a party is voluntary, so if someone
voluntarily spoils his game, why should we care? 2) sharing xp in a party
is paramount, especially if we move towards "healers stand back and cast
cure wounds and do not kill monsters" -type of play. Xp sharing can be
tuned, however. It would be, for example, be possible to not give any xp
to party members who are 10 levels lower than the guy killing the monster
is. Or, we could figure out other ways to prevent people from spoiling
their gameplay.

> And did you never saw a character above level 100 harvesting in raffle1?

Raffle1 is generally accepted to be a map that should not exist. Not with
all those generators around.

-Juha

-- 
		 -----------------------------------------------
		| Juha Jäykkä, juolja at utu.fi			|
		| home: http://www.utu.fi/~juolja/		|
		 -----------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.metalforge.org/pipermail/crossfire/attachments/20070724/c8c8ddcb/attachment.pgp 