[crossfire] combat notes

[Mark Wedel]

Kevin R. Bulgrien wrote:

> Don't know if you thought about it, but another option might be to limit how
> many mobs a generator can produce, and keep the number quite low.  I have no
> idea how difficult that would be... but the quantity might be set in the arch
> and adjustable in the map.  That might reduce the impact to existing maps to
> the point where rework becomes less of an issue.

  From a brief look at the code I did last night when I disabled it, it does 
seem like it is possible to limit output.

  First of course is deciding that removing generators is the right thing to do. 
  I'm not 100% sure if that is the case or not (or maybe not removing, but 
greatly changing them).

  If it is, I'm not sure if a 1 size fits all change actually works.  For 
example, a case would be made that the newbie tower could just have those 
generators removed and map is fine - if they produce monsters, really isn't much 
point.

  Some maps perhaps have more limited uses - in the dry well, at least given the 
number of generators and size of the room, if the generator only made 2 
monsters, it would fill up the room and be fine.

  But in the case of the undercity, in some cases there are few generators in a 
large space, so if those generated 10 monsters each, they may be appropriate.

  I _think_ generators are much more prevalent at lower levels - there are 
certainly higher level maps that have generators, but not in the same volume.

  If redoing/removing generators is decided the right thing to do, I think 
fixing up the maps wouldn't be that hard - its much easier to fix content on 
existing maps than make new ones - in the case of the undercity, wouldn't be 
that hard to go through, remove the generators and add appropriate number of new 
monsters based on space available, etc.

  One other argument in favor of removing generators is that it makes the maps 
more predictable - in some maps, based on how long it takes, you may find that a 
room deeper into the map is full of a huge number of monsters, and another time 
if you make a bee-line there, find it is relatively empty.  Thus, map difficulty 
can be highly varies depending on how one plays the game - it perhaps make more 
sense to come to the decision that if that room should be full of monsters, 
start the map that way.  If there should only be a few, just put a few there. 
Using generators just changes things in unknown ways.

  And as said, there are likely to be some cases where generators are still 
needed - just not that many.

  It might also be more interesting to make things more realistic/dynamic.  For 
example, instead of having wyvern generators, having the wyverns lay eggs after 
some amount of time, and then after some amount of time those hatch into baby 
wyverns, and then after some amount of time, those grow up to be adult wyverns, etc.

  The time should be considerable - perhaps long enough that one could grab a 
wyvern egg and get it back to town to do alchemy on it or something.


> 
> Just a thought.
> 
> Kevin
> 
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