[crossfire] Project: Slow down combat

[Nicolas Weeger]

>   The results of the vote were pretty overwhelming for this, so going to
> start some discussions.

Thanks for the vote handling :)

>   I'm also going to include the #2 point - "Balance magic & combat skills
> so they are more equal" a little bit - I don't think slowing down combat is
> going to make that all work out, but it does seem to me that if the speed
> of combat is radically changed, that is likely to have some effects in that
> balance, either for better or worse (seems unlikely it would remain
> completely the same).

Yes, both should be taken into account, because we're talking about 
potentially massive changes in hp/damage/speed.
I would also consider, even if later, the implications on map. If it takes 5s 
to kill a "middle-level" monster, we probably don't want a map with 500 of 
them, could be messy.

>   there is also this point on the TODO list
> (http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/dev_todo:change_player_speed_ - change
> player speed, but that is more related to movement speed, not combat speed.
>  I think that helps/contributes to the combat speed problem, but isn't the
> only fix.

That will also help, and should be considered. Also there is the "logic" 
factor: if I run really fast, it seems weird that I fight really slowly.

>   I'm going to formalize this a bit.  I'll also note that when talking
> about these things, everything should really be on the table - things
> should not be excluded because it is different than it is now, would result
> in incompatible characters (while this change could probably be made
> without requiring fresh characters, some of the other big points can't be),
> etc.  I think if we try to focus too narrowly we won't be able to find good
> solutions.

Agreed, let's consider the most things possible.

> SOLUTION (from a very high level fiew):
> Combat should take a real amount of time.  30 seconds to kill high level
> boss monsters does not seem unreasonable to me.  I think at lower levels,
> this time will be less (maybe a few seconds for most monsters?).  I don't
> think there should ever be case (except with maybe things like rats) that a
> player actually mows through creatures.

Well, maybe when the level/skill difference is real high?
But agreed on the concept, it should take some time to grind through many 
monsters. This could also introduce new fun spells, "repel"?

>   So one thing I quickly see is that perhaps starting weapon speed is just
> too fast, and goes up too fast.  If that got reduced to say .8 at first
> level, that quickly doubles time it takes to kill things.  Maybe even a
> lower weapon speed - if you look at some games, you can move quite a bit,
> but get limited attacks - so a weapon_speed of .2 could be interesting (if
> this was done, then weapon_speed_left would need to be added, and it get
> added up separately to see if the player can attack, etc).  And interesting
> thing here is that this may open up new tactics - fire a bow, run away for
> a bit, fire bow again, etc.  Or in party player, characters swapping
> position based on when their next attack happens.

Separating moving/attack speed could indeed help. It can be argued that it's 
easy/fast to move, but slightly harder to attack - must find weakness in 
opponent's defence, and such.

> The characters damage was 9, which means that pretty much every kobold (2
> hp) is killed in one blow, on average, orcs (4 hp) get killed in one blow,
> and gnolls (8 hp) need 2 blows.  The starting character WC was 16.  This
> means that the character will basically hit every time (mechanism is
> basically ac + d20 > wc means a hit, so tuning wc would also help.  Or
> maybe tuning creature AC.  If instead of hitting every time, the character
> hit only 25% of the time, that slows things down by a factor of 4.

That's a warrior, though, so that could be a reason.

>   I realize that my basic test here was just at low level, but I would
> think the correct approach would be to try and tune low level combat and
> then adjust the upper level combat, and not try to get level 100 combat
> balance then figure out how to do it at level 1.

*nods*

>   I think stat bonuses may also need to be tuned.  But I doubt adjusting
> this will still be enough.  It would also be nice to try to reduce the hp
> disparity some, but not sure how to do that.

Make all living things have the same magnitude of stats/skills?
What about we make monsters have skill levels matching the player's handling?
So a level 50 monster could have level 49 one handed attack, and 5 pyromancy 
(assuming the sum of experience makes it level 50 total), and corresponding 
hp/gr/sp.
Granted, it may limit some interesting combinations...

>   It seems to me that adjusting base weapon damage isn't really a fix -
> most starting weapons go from 1->10 damage, which seems reasonable to me -
> you can't reduce that too much without loosing meaning of weapons (if a
> dagger does 2 damage and sword 3, that would seem fairly meaningless). 
> Perhaps a lot more lower monsters should have better armor values, so not
> all the damage goes through.

Or more hp? One (partial) alternative solution is to up the maxhp of 
creatures. Even if you attack fast, you need time to kill due to high hp.

>   But adjusting monster kill rate from players is really only half the
> problem. The other problem is rate of damage that monsters do to players. 
> It may be that if it now takes several seconds for me to kill a monsters,
> I'll be able to watch my HP more closely, but there are lots of attacks
> that can kill players quick quickly - especially bolt spells if the player
> doesn't move out of the way quickly.  I suspect if that player to monster
> hp disparity is reduced, then the damage that things like bolts do to
> players would effectively be reduced.

Well, the bolt spell's speed could be reduced, maybe? And change based on 
casting level?
Note that, I think, the idea isn't to prevent an instant kill if the level 
disparity is too high :)

>   One idea, which is probably controversial, is to increase player HP. 
> Rather than trying to adjust all the monster HP, maybe we give players more
> HP.
>
>   For example, if players (and monsters) had 50 HP at first level, but
> damage and other things were unchanged, that effectively slows things down
> by a factor of 5 (5 times more hp than before).  It also means that unlike
> right now, where basically 2 hits may kill the player (which if player just
> gets unlucky and they happen right at the same time and not far apart,
> player can't do much about it), it would take many hits.

I'd say to adjust both speed and hp.

>   I think under this system, the number of hp gained after first would
> still be more modest, like in the range of 10.  But maybe also remove the
> cap, which right now at level 10 or so, means hp rate goes way down - maybe
> the level 110 people should have 2000 hp instead of the 500 they have now.

Depending on the various changes we make to monsters.
Also, maybe we should introduce more attacktypes for weapons, 
like "bash", "cut", so eg a mass against a skeleton is powerful, but a sword 
isn't?
There may actually be some support for that in the code.
But it will add much complexity to the game, of course - could be left for 
after speed rebalancing, so you'll have time to swap weapon for the skeleton.
In the same topic, there is an old patch for "advanced combat" (somewhere on 
the tracker, in request features, I guess), this may give ideas for more 
tactical things (slightly offtopic, probably).

>   Anyways, got a bit off topic, and don't have real solutions.  Relative
> easy first steps might be:
>
> 1) Reduce player speed & weapon speed.
> 2) Increase creature AC
> 3) Increase armor value of creatures

Don't forget to reduce monster's attack, or increase player's hp :)
Note that increasing player's hp will imply tweaking the various healing 
spells, and maybe meditation.

>   But before starting work, I'd like to see other peoples thoughts and
> ideas.  I think this may actually be a very good starting one, as at some
> point, I don't think doing the solution will be that hard - the harder part
> will be finding the solution.  This may also branch off into other areas,
> like if the stat adjustments are redone, we'd need to think about how that
> works if that stat range itself is redone.

I think the hardest part will be correct balancing of everything, whatever 
solution we use :)


Nicolas
-- 
http://nicolas.weeger.org [Petit site d'images, de textes, de code, bref de 
l'aléatoire !]
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