[crossfire] Project: Slow down combat

[Mark Wedel]

Nicolas Weeger wrote:

>>   Maybe, but I think it would be very boring to play a mage in that case -
>> cast a couple spells, maybe not kill anything with them, have to rest to
>> regain mana, cast some more spells, etc.  One goal is to balance things
>> such that mages and fighters are both fairly equal at all levels, so I
>> think low level mages need to be effective.
>>
>>   With the changes, it may be some different spells are needed - maybe 1st
>> level firebolt and the like.
> 
> My opinion is that we have too many spells, actually. Small, medium, large 
> fireball? I'd rather see one fireball, maybe with possibility to adjust it in 
> real time - cast for 1s get a small fireball, cast for 3s get a large one?
> Note also that currently, for some spells, it gives a weird delay - it's 
> probably faster to cast 5 small healing spells than one medium healing, and 
> you get roughly the same amount of hp.

  This is perhaps getting ahead of discussions related to hand to hand combat, 
but I do agree, refining the number of spells will be needed.

  This is especially true because there is the goal to have meaningful spells 
from level 1 to 100 (or thereabouts).  That would then equate to something like 
10 different variety of fireballs.

  Being able to tune spells is interesting idea.  the hardest part is figuring 
out correct balance (how much more should the large fireball cost vs small, 
etc).  If in the end, there are archetypes for these different versions, that 
doesn't really help things out.

  You want to be able to do something like 'cast fireball (radius=5, dam=20)' 
type of things.  You obviously can not cast a spell of higher power than you're 
allowed (for example, based on your level, maybe maximum damage you can do is 
15).  Adding this change in wouldn't be hard - but balancing it would be (in 
terms of mana cost and speed).

> 
>>   I also wonder how much long term impact it has - it seems that at a
>> fairly low level, characters will have weapons that do non physical damage
>> (eg, fire, cold, electricity, whatever), and at that point, the distinction
>> on physical attack types is lost.
>>
>>   Maybe as part of this, all weapons that do extra attacktypes needs to be
>> redone some, so that the damage of the attacktype is minor extra damage. 
>> For example, that firebrand may still do mostly physical (slashing) damage,
>> but also do some  amount of fire damage.  This greatly changes weapon
>> combat, but once again, maybe not a bad thing.
> 
> Well, I guess the 'attacktype' can be seen in 2 ways:
> * 'absolute' value, ie 3 phy dam + 5 fire dam
> * 'proportion' value, ie 5 phy dam + 5% fire + 10% cold, or something like 
> that
> Ideally, we could have:

  Right now, code has been added so you can do things like:

dam_physical 10
dam_fire 5
dam_magic 3

  in the objects/archetypes, so damage for weapons can be tuned in any way. 
However, I think very few objects have been adjusted, so it comes down to a 
question if most weapons should be adjusted to have mostly dam_slashing (or the 
like) and minor amounts of the elemental damage.  Otherwise, if I can get a 
'dam_fire 20' weapon, adding slashing/piercing/blunt damage types really doesn't 
do much.

> * damage dependant on overall level difference, or 'attack' vs 'defense' 
> difference? ie you're highly skilled against a low level monster, you'll aim 
> for weak spots and do high damage ; you fight a higher level monster, you 
> have issues hitting correctly, opponent defends nicely

  In theory, this should amount to ac vs wc - if something has a high AC, it is 
difficult to hit.  Some game systems do use the method that based on how much 
you hit by determines how much damage.

  For example, using a d20 as a basis, if you need to roll an 18+ to hit the 
creature, you'd never do much damage (at best, you can hit by 2).  But if you 
need a 5+, then if you roll a 5, you still hit but don't do much damage, but if 
you roll a 18, your hit and do a lot of damage.

  I don't think I'd really like that with crossfire - adjusting damage based on 
how well you hit, and then adjusting it further based on resistances of the 
creature would in many cases meaning doing virtually no damage.  I think with 
this, it would also make it harder to tune monsters.  The game systems that do 
use this relative damage based on how well you hit tend not to have damage 
reduction/absorption like crossfire.

> * damage dependant on 'monster's type', ie mace against skeleton gives high 
> damage, sword against skeleton isn't that great

  That is easy enough to do based on resist values - skeletons would probably 
have something like resist_slashing 90 and resist_piercing 90, and probably 
resist_blunt 0 (or maybe even negative).

> * 'elemental' (fire, cold, ...) damage could be either a proportion of dealed 
> damage (ie you hit the monster for 15 phy and 10% fire), or a random value 
> (you hit the monster for 12 phy, and randomly for 5 fire). This could lead to 
> a greater variety of items.

  So you're then saying that if you have a weapon that is 'dam_physical 10' and 
'dam_fire 5', if the creature is largely resistance to physical, then the fire 
damage also go away?

  Or are you supposing that the attacktypes are not split apart, so you only 
have a 'attacktype fire|physical' to work with, and thus you need to adjust damage?