[crossfire] Balance changes

[Mark Wedel]

Anton Oussik wrote:
> On 31/12/2007, Mark Wedel <mwedel at sonic.net> wrote:
> 
>> 2) Since the rebalance here includes scaling things up to level 100, it strikes
>> me we can not give out new spells every level.  Maybe every 5 or so, so at level
>> 5 you get a small exploding ball and small bolt spell (maybe not at exactly same
>> level, who knows)
> 
> Sure you can. Make old spells have old strength until player learns
> new level of the spell. i.e. to cast lelvel 2 bullet you need to find
> and learn a level 2 book, and until then you will cast a level 1
> bullet. This also allows to fine-tune each spell for each level,
> however you would want higher level versions to replace lower level
> versions, to keep the spells list from getting too large.

  But I'm not sure if there is much point to that.  If there are sufficient 
different spells to cover all the levels, that is fine.

  But having a level 1 bullet, and level 2 bullet, etc, in which the spells are 
really the same except for a minor damage variation seems a bit excessive.  The 
damage variation can be handled by increase in the caster level itself - a new 
spell at every level isn't needed.  Sure, it puts more spells out there, but if 
they are really the same spell, they are not different spells.

  And as a player, I'm not sure if i would like that idea either - having to 
upgrade all the spells each time you gain a level would seem more annoying than 
fun if all the difference is something minor.  In fact, it would likely create 
even more spell book hunting as your try to find spellbooks of not only 
appropriate spell, but also of appropriate level.

  You also get weird issues with death.  Imagine my character has 'upgraded' all 
his spells to be his current casting level.  He dies, and loses a level in that 
skill - now he has a bunch of spells he can't cast.


>> Item creation classes - if someone wants to play a blacksmith and make weapons
>> all day, who am I to say no?  But with other balance changes, we can know how
>> this works - that blacksmith needs raw ore, and the facilities and time.  Maybe
>> there is a mine near by he can go to get the ore - but if it takes 5 minutes
>> realtime for him to get a load of stuff, that help factor out exp gain.
>> Likewise, if he gets 50 exp for making a sword, it means he has to make a lot of
>> swords to gain a level, and if an actual time delay is put in there (lets say it
>> takes 10 seconds realtime to make a sword), it probably means that such a
>> character will not gain levels any faster than any other class, so IMO would be
>> considered in balance.  The only issue here is that I think such long time (10
>> second) actions need to be interruptible - in a sense, it is almost like the run
>> on stuff - the character keeps making the sword unless he chooses to do
>> something else.  And there is some chance at failure - a first level blacksmith
>> maybe only has a 50% chance to successfully make a sword for example.
>>
>>   I think clerics/priests are basically OK.  Any other thoughts out there?
> 
> Do what is already done for mages - make alchemy-like things use mana.
> It means the blacksmith will need rest sooner or later. If using
> actual mana is too unrealistic to drain by alchemy (as not strictly
> magical), perhaps a new type of fatigue could be introduced... However
> using mana would be easier for the players IMO.

  But using mana doesn't really work for non spell skills.  A person doing 
smithery gets no increase from mana for smithery skill, which basically limits 
the ability to do smithery a great deal.

  and I'd bet a character that is serious about alchemy doesn't have much impact 
from the mana cost - if you max out mana regeneration items, you can get mana 
back really fast.  In the dungeon, you may not do that for general adventuring 
(other rings better for that), but if all you are doing is alchemy and need to 
get back mana, can suck it back up pretty quickly.

  Doing something like fatigue works.  But the real balance here IMO is the time 
it takes.  Using mana for alchemy sort of does that - the actual act of alchemy 
takes no real time, the time it takes to regain the mana limits it to some extent.

  IMO, how exactly this is limited isn't as important - it could be each action 
takes quite a while, could be that you have something like fatigue you need to 
recover from, it could be that many actions are needed to make a sword (need to 
first refine the raw ore, then make a bar, than make rough sword object, then 
make finished (normal) sword, then make better weapon).

  It does mean that a player could short cut some of this, but if we presume 
each of those stages gives some amount of exp, the player doesn't gain much by 
skipping the refining the phase - he makes the sword faster, but may not get exp 
any faster.  A character could then melt down his swords and make items again 
(to get exp), but that isn't the problem - the balance here is how long it takes 
him to make the items.  Clearly, if other players bring him piles of weapons (or 
ore for that matter) to work with, saves the weapon maker some time from making 
those objects, but that is also true with most anything else - if players 
cooperate, some characters can gain exp faster than if they worked alone.