[crossfire] Spell rebalancing notes/thoughts

[Mark Wedel]

Juha Jäykkä wrote:
>>>   If a fighter has a tactic to defeat a monster and take no damage, that
>>> is no problem, as long as he can't do it a lot faster.  For example,
>> I'd rather see different classes meaning different tactics and possibly
>> different time...
> 
> I tend to agree with Nicolas here. It is not a problem if it takes longer to 
> gain a level as an X than as an Y. But that would need to be balanced by a 
> high level X being more powerful than high level Y, otherwise I don't see 
> many people playing X at all. OTOH, perhaps even that is not a problem: in 
> many fantasy worlds, being a powerful wizard takes decades of study, whereas 
> becoming a powerful fighter is much faster. It's also quite logical: a 
> 60-year fighter won't be quite so agile and enduring as a 30-year old, 
> whereas in a wizard, the age is not so much of an issue. But since we do not 
> have character ages in the game, I'm not sure how applicaple this is.

  A lot of this is balancing act.

  My own thought is I'd much rather a level 50 fighter be same power as a level 
50 priest which is same power as level 50 mage.

  I think balancing that is going to be easier than a level 50 fighter is same 
power as level 30 cleric which is equal to level 40 mage.

  And when comparing power, it means these characters are going into the same 
dungeons, fighting the same monsters, etc.  If the mage is limited to dungeons 
not as tough, then clear that comparison doesn't hold

  There are lots of reasons I think have equal level is good.  Some of the quick 
one is HP (which is tied to level) - becomes tough if some characters have 30% 
fewer HP than others to balance things.  In theory, if the characters are going 
into the same dungeons, the equipment should be comparable, but there are still 
some things that limit it.

  I do agree that the classes should be more distinct.  I also think this is to 
some extent also part of a visible reward system - from a first impression, if 
someone played a class than took 2 hours to gain their first level, and someone 
else played a class that took 20 minutes, the person who played for two hours 
would think 'boy, this class really sucks' because probably not directly obvious 
that they may be more power than that other character, but it is directly 
obvious it took a lot longer.