[crossfire] Spell rebalancing notes/thoughts

[Mark Wedel]

Nicolas Weeger wrote:
>>   What I really care about is not whether hp/sp/whatever goes down (because
>> as mentioned, a clever fighter could perhaps prevent that), but rather
>> total time it takes to gain a level.
>>
>>   The real time it takes for a fighter and mage to gain a level should be
>> the same.  If it takes the mage 3 times longer, that needs to be fixed.
>>
>>   If it does take the same time, and it means the mage is spending 25% of
>> the time gaining back SP, that isn't much a problem, especially if the
>> fighter is spending 25% of his time getting back HP.
> 
> Somehow, I don't like this definition of "fun"...
> But I admit I don't have many ideas of other definitions.

  I'm open to ideas to make this better.  Certainly waiting around for 
HP/SP/Grace to come back isn't fun, yet at the same time, we can't just ramp up 
the regen speed, as that effectively makes characters more powerful (if a 
character gets all their HP back in 2 seconds, it means you just have to avoid 
damage for that long).

  While potions of heal/power/whatever work, one can't really give them out in 
infinite supply.

  Now my quick thought is that it is less annoying to player for 100 seconds, 
wait 10 seconds to get HP back, repeat vs player for 1000 seconds and wait 100 
seconds.

  In the first case, maybe it means you do a quick chat with someone (irc 
channel or in came) or look at your items, etc, and buy the time you do that, 
you're ready to go.  In the second case, seems like a real painful pause.  But 
maybe that is just my play style, where I tend to multitask more.

  One thought I did have is maybe something like a 'rest' command.  In this 
mode, the character sp/grace/hp regeneration goes way up.  But at the same time, 
player is blind (eyes are closed - resting), so if monsters are about, this is 
really dangerous.  Perhaps put in some sort of time penalty to come out of 
resting, so a monster may get in a couple good licks.  And if you're damaged, 
you don't get a benefit of resting (so you can't rest if surrounded by wimpy 
monsters on the basis you get HP back faster than they are doing damage). This 
could actually add a use to all those chairs and 'normal' beds.

  You could still issue out of character commands (who, chat, maps) but any in 
game commands would end the rest cycle (apply, movement, etc).

  This could perhaps be pretty easily implemented by a basic force object (has 
blindness set, but also has high sp/hp/grace regen benefit).

  This basically fixes the problem - when it is boring to regain your hp is when 
it is safe to do so (in town, in a cleared out dungeon level, etc).  This 
basically reduces that time.  If you're actually about fighting creatures, you 
don't get any benefit.  And if you are in a dangerous place, really risky to 
actually rest.

  This does sort of make the monks mediation ability pointless however, but 
maybe the monk can get improved in other ways (rebalancing the monk is probably 
a project all in itself).

  And all of this is also basically game mechanics. IIRC, crossfire game time is 
roughly 10 times faster than real time (in terms of day/night, ett).  Don't know 
about you, but a 50 minute sit in a chair really doesn't do much good (OTOH, I 
can't eat a chicken leg in 1 second either), so maybe best to not try and think 
too much about the timings here.