[crossfire] What about a gameplay revolution?

[Kevin Bulgrien]

> Hello.
> 
> Here are some propositions to make CF a different but hopefully funnier 
> game :)
> 
> 1) Don't give out stats to players. Don't give HP/SP/GR/ whatever. Only give 
> hints about the health ("you feel very bad", "you bleed a lot") and such 
> things ("with great effort you take the armor, but fall on the ground trying 
> to put it on")
> Rationale: we're doing a game, not some financial computation. Also, players 
> should feel whether they are ready to tackle dragons or are doing damage to 
> an opponent, not merely check stats.
> Of course, internally, the game could (should) still use numbers/stats.

The idea has merit as there are definite aspects of the game that could use
this sort of thing.  One might ask oneself if adventure/role players are more
"feel/mood" oriented as opposed to numbers-oriented.  I'd be surprised if the
answer came back that role players typically prefer environment to the point
of removing numbers.  (And sure, CF does not have to be one more of the same
kind of game, but the numbers do personally help me play the game to the
point where if they were gone I would personally get frustrated with the game.)  
On the other hand, I suspect that crowd would find feel/mood/environment
content a big plus.  There is no doubt improvement on these "feel" hints would
have a positive effect, and that this would be a good point to work on in the
early stages.
 
> 2) Make attack/defense and other things just numbers with the rule "the higher 
> the better". Attack 50 vs defense 50 => 50% chance to hit (or something like 
> that). No "is it wc which is better lower, or ac?"). In the same way, make 
> weapons +1 just give some attack bonus, that's all.

This seems more workable than removing the numbers altogether.  I rarely know
what these numbers do anyway, and personally do already prefer the simplicity
of higher is better.  On the flip side, what does it hurt to have the formula
generally known outside of the game?

> 3) Don't give so many powerful items. Have players actually create such items, 
> with difficulty, so they need to take time (or buy it from other players). 
> Makes a "craftmanship" or even alchemy skill much more interesting.
> Want a sword with fire damage? Go find a rare stone of fire or harness the 
> power of a volcano to make such weapon.

"So many powerful items" is not something I have experienced, but, I do
find that the unlimited map replay in CF is annoying. (Plug for feature
request on limiting, but not eliminating replay).  I am in support of
finding a reasonable way of to do this (replay/limit powerful artifacts),
but I do think that the restrictions should not completely eliminate
replay, especially when large periods of time elapse between playing
spurts.  I personally love the fact that I can come back to CF after
months and optionally "start over" playing long sequences that take many
hours of gameplay.  I am not in favor of making CF a game where you must
burn 100's of hours to gameplay to attain anything cool.  That said, the
idea of using craftsmanship and "ingredients" is welcome.  I personally
never played with alchemy, but have found games that concentrate on
resource collecting and craftsmanship have been fun.

Note that care needs to be taken... the royalty quests in Scorn tend to
be a bit too vague on how to get to the next stage.  Not that I am at all
a typical CFer, but I've never gotten to the Dragon Lord quest, and the
ones before that are way too hard for those not familiar with smallworld.

> 4) Reduce loot a lot. Don't put chests everywhere just waiting to be opened. 
> Have stuff randomly grow on trees or plants, fish from sea, mine ore to build 
> items, find stones to build buildings, whatever.

I am certainly in favor of the later proposition.  The prior is unclear.
People seem to think that loot is too prevalent in CF, and this is a mystery
to me.  I NEVER have enough money in CF, but I also have never gotten higher
than lvl 30 something.  When I was that high, the bigworld reset killed that
character, and since then I have never broken 30.
 
> 5) Remove map reset. A player destroyed a map? Well, another needs to rebuild 
> it ingame - or let an NPC do it. That costs money and time, that's fine. And 
> no need to rebuild it the same way :)

No.  Replay limits instead (penalty to loot/experience to the point where if you
replay enough, there is absolutely no value to the map except exploration and
taking in the scenery).  I don't care if there are maps that work the way this
is described, but it should not be the norm.  This smacks of being a playground
for people to spoil the game for other people.  I see no good reason to make CF
a game where the first guy there is the only one who can play the game at the
expense of everyone else.

> Just some random thoughts.

Good thoughts as usual!

-- 
Kevin Bulgrien <kbulgrien at att.net>