[crossfire] combat notes

[Mark Wedel]

  I have adjusted basically all monsters up to level 20 or so on my server - 
adjustments vary, but mostly it relates to HP, speed, exp.  I recorded my 
progress as I went along.

The first 5 levels went by quickly - most of the case I only needed 5-10 minutes 
to get the exp to gain a level.  IMO, this is still much too fast - my thought 
is that 30 minutes would roughly be right (and this time would apply for most 
all levels - takes 30 minutes from level 1 to 2, and 30 minutes from level 50 to 
51).  This of course presumes a fairly competent player who knows what to do.

  Two real ways could be done to adjust this - amount of exp needed per level, 
and/or amount of exp monsters give.  If 2nd level needs 5000 exp (and not the 
2000 default), that basically doubles the time.  Reducing amount of exp for 
monsters also fixes this a bit (instead of 15 exp for an orc, if you get 5 exp, 
that should in theory triple the time).  There is some ripple effect to both of 
these - if 5000 exp was 2nd level, then it would probably go something like 
10,000, 20,000, 40k, 80k etc.  Most of these times do not include the 
housekeeping tasks, like collecting the loot, getting it identified, etc.  But 
at the lower levels, that is fairly quick.

  I spent most of the low levels in the dry well, as that provided a fairly nice 
progression of monsters.  One thing that aids in leveling rate is the generators 
  - simply because I'd often go out and rest to gain hp and then go back in, I 
fought a lot more creatures than would otherwise fit on the map.

  The character didn't die until level 6, and that was really carelessness. 
After doing dry well and clearing it out, I headed into the undercity.  That in 
itself was interesting.  While things like kobolds and orcs really didn't pose 
any danger, they still slowed things down enough to impede movement, so when I 
got to something dangerous, harder to run away unless I cleared them out first. 
  Also, monsters that spawn on themselves (likes the snakes) are perhaps even 
more a pain, because it is that much harder to clear out an infestation - I 
think that is probably a bad thing.

  Level 6 and 7 were gained much slower, but I think there are a few things. 
Going into the undercity meant fighting a lot of monsters worth really no exp - 
if I had went to the ogre cave (nobility quest), probably would have gained 
things much quicker.  Also, looking at the monsters, at some point, there just 
starts to be gaps of where there are not monsters of certain levels suitable in 
real numbers anyplace - it is easy to find large numbers of ogres - not so easy 
to find large number of panthers or serpent men (level 5), or gnomes and 
pyromaniacs.

  I did use a bow a little bit - quite effective.  It does shoot really fast, so 
can easily burn through a large number of arrows.  I think it may be more 
appropriate to lower fire rate of bows and increase their damage, just so 
characters don't need to carry around 1000 arrows (which at low level can be 
hard to find or actually fairly expensive to by).  Maybe a quiver of infinite 
arrows is needed.

Other thoughts:

- The dry well, and probably other maps, order monsters in difficulty.  But at 
least in the dry well, pixies are set as the toughest monster on that level, but 
clearly are not (and the exp and other factors they are worth tend to reinforce 
that).

- I had previously adjusted things so that you gain hp faster when 'resting' 
than when in combat.  I'm thinking that maybe making things so that you gain 
hp/mana/grace at a very slow rate when not resting, and faster rate when 
resting, may be interesting.  Not sure effect, but it would seem to make it more 
difficult to wander into heaps of monsters and regen at near the rate they do 
damage.  Rings of regen would still help out regen rate while in combat.

- Had a couple nice battles that lasted long enough (and creature doing damage 
to character), which gave me time enough to wonder who would run out of hp first 
- my character or the creature - I think that is a good addition (of course, if 
character hp started getting really low, would probably run away)