[crossfire] Spell rebalancing notes/thoughts

[Nicolas Weeger]

>   But even with that, I found that I was waiting for mana to regen a lot. 
> I suppose this isn't really any worse than fighters waiting for hp to
> regen. Since by the very nature, these are range spells, the wizard should
> ideally kill the creatures before they get next to him, and if they get
> close, fall back, cast again, and so on.

Yes, assuming fall back is possible. The harder issue is that sometimes when 
you exit the map monsters get on the exit too, or around, and when you enter 
they just kill you straight.

>   But there are also a couple key points here - one actually needs the
> space available to fall back.  In the newbie tower, once I started making
> progress, I could basic remain beyond the monsters detect range and hit
> them with spells (and once the kobolds are dead, gives an outer circle to
> move in.  But the difficult time was initial assault - after opening the
> doors, kobolds come out eliminating much space to move about.

Meaning the map is bad, maybe? :)
Also, I'm not sure monsters obey the LOS rules, they often seem to spot the 
player behind wall.
That should probably fixed so we can see the global effect of combat reduction 
(like: fire some bullets, flee around some corners, monster forgets you, you 
can regen sp).

>   Another change I made was to give the pyromancer a spell regen bonus -
> this helps reduce the waiting some more.  Rather than that being a force
> (how I instituted it), doing it as a ring may make more sense - player can
> upgrade it, but it also means that they don't really get a bonus if they
> choose a wizard and play it as a fighter (at some point, they'd likely find
> a ring more suitable for a fighter, and thus loose that sp regen bonus)

What about small mana regeneration potions, like minor healing ones?
And keep mana regeneration for "medium" level items?

>   I'm thinking some defensive spell may be in order, so if creatures do get
> close, they get killed.  OTOH, maybe that is part of being a mage - you
> really don't want to be close to monsters.  But many maps don't give much
> choice - go through the exit, and monsters are behind door 2 spaces away.

Combat rebalance could mean to rebalance many maps, something that could be 
interesting to do (with doors you can actually close, and so on), introduce 
things more interesting than "rush and bash".

>   Another change I'm thinking of is item destruction.  The firebullet
> doesn't destroy items, but the bolt does.  I'm thinking that maybe bolts
> shouldn't destroy items either - as I see it, bolts are maybe a 1' diameter
> bolt that is 3' or so off the ground as it travels - as such, things on the
> ground shouldn't be destroyed.  Otherwise, especially I think at lower
> levels, using bolts is a pretty big disadvantage because of all the
> treasure it destroyes.

*nods*

>   It may be that instead of defensive spell, giving them burning hands
> (cone spell), but with very limited range would work.  But then, I'm also
> not sure how many spells we should/want to give out at first level - we
> need to keep some new spells for players to get as they gain levels.

IMO, it could be interesting to have classes really differentiated. One with 
offensive spells, one with mostly defensive ones, medium ground, and such.


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