[crossfire] New Quests

[Mark Wedel]

Daniel Daxler wrote:
> Balance is the key!

  Much about using built in functions (and not map values) to calculate exp and 
item power removed...

  IMO, trying to enforce this in the code is not the right way to go.  In terms 
of experience, if map makers are intentionally trying to provide these 
loopholes, they'll still find ways.  They can read those functions just as well 
as we can.  Past experience has shown that trying to enforce it by code will 
pretty much always come back to bite us - the first time a map maker comes up 
with some method to work around the function, if you go and modify the function, 
then it becomes difficult to know how much other stuff you break (item power for 
existing objects could all change, both up and down, etc, really screwing things 
up).

  The difficulty field of maps is a perfect case - it becomes hard to make a 
function that can really say how difficult a map is, hence why it is a field the 
map makers can set.  And in fact, there is a bug right now saying that lots of 
maps are not setting it, with the fix (which I agree with) being to update the 
maps, not try to write better code to deal with this.  No matter how good code 
we write, it will never be as good as someone looking at the map/item/creature 
and saying these are fair values.

  So I really think the correct fix here is in the maps.  Such map abuses should 
be fixed.  After all, crossfire is distributed with a fixed set of maps - we 
control that content, and can fix it.  If some servers run their own map sets 
with bad items, that is their choice.

  Right now, there are various scripts that check maps for certain things.  I 
think the better approach is to modify those scripts to check for apparent 
abuses (exp for monsters, item power in objects, perhaps other things like a 
large amount of treasure in general, etc).  Before any new map is added, it gets 
run through these scripts - if the scripts find problems, they either get 
corrected, or a knowledgeable person says those values seem fair, given the 
specifics of the map.

  Lastly, I'll note that people often talk about these abuses, but seldom do 
they get officially recorded.  These abusive items/creatures are not there 
because the developers don't care, but more likely because the developers were 
never informed of them.