[crossfire] Project: Slow down combat

[Kevin R. Bulgrien]

> Newbie tower's kobolds are seemingly not possible with him even at second
> level even trying to use hit and run tactics...  and this is even with a
> priest who can regen grace by praying.  We do not want to bore people to
> tears at the beginning of the game, or no-one will stick it out.  I'd hate
> to think how a mana magic user would fare with their limited mana regen.

Once I got up to level 2 praying, I was finally able to take out generators
near the door, so I was able to figure I was making headway, but this took
a long time... maybe over 15 minutes.  Now I am no expert crossfire tactician
but I cannot buy stuff because the guy doesn't have any money, so not much
to be done, and he has died a couple of times already without hope of being
able to get a potion to restore stats.

> This strengthens concern about the feasibility of looking at physical combat
> only.  I think it might be tough to keep disciplined at checking how stuff
> affects all characters.  Testing with a character that uses primarily physical
> combat is going to tend to off-balance those that have to use physical combat
> as a backup because they are going to be affected even more than the warrior
> class.

Remember that combat speed isn't all about how fast I hit them.  The more I
play, the more I realize that mostly what changed is I can't hit as fast.  I
am still extremely vulnerable to buffered keystrokes... maybe even more so
now because action is so much more slow.  I have to play "very fast" to avoid
death.  I can't say that I think this is an improvement.  I don't want to be
slower on one hand, I want to be able to be faster at saving my life.  OTOH,
regarding balance of physical combat vs. magic, yes, there is an element of
wanting to be slower so I can really play a magic user without always having
to defer to saving myself with physical combat.

The player should not always be on the edge of death due to things like
buffered up keystrokes...  Michtoen seemed to address this in his comments on
being able to interrupt the incoming commands when a monster was beside the
player, but I didn't really find out what all he was talking about when he
reviewed what was done with Daimonin.  This, to me, was a lot of what was
behind my vote for slowing down combat.

Kevin