[crossfire] Gameplay

[Mark Wedel]

Nicolas Weeger wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> Currently, Crossfire is the kind "many monsters, much loot, fast gameplay".
> 
> Wouldn't it make sense to change that?

  Yes - in fact, the combat changes I made many months back did that a bit for 
combat - in general, just normal combat is slower than before.  However, there 
are stills gobs of monsters (and I still need to redo spells)

> 
> Have less monsters, with combats not so fast, so strategy/tactics do play a 
> role - put a trap, try to lure the monster? use a dagger for close combat, 
> versus a sword for long distance? Think of where to drive monsters so only 
> one can hit you, and such?

  Yes to all of those.  Some are certainly easier than others.  It is a little 
less clear where close vs far come in - I'd think that both dagger and sword 
would be close (vs bow being far) - with the granularity of one space, distance 
is a little odd in that regard.

  But one could clearly extend things beyond what they are - able to increase 
your chance of hit but you do less damage.  Or another method to increase your 
damage, but maybe you're AC is worse.  Or maybe various combos.

  This actually could be useful in many ways - when rebalancing combat, sorting 
out AC for monsters vs WC for players can be a challenge.  When the random 
element is from the range of 1-20, figuring out what the correct value is gets 
hard - I generally targeted it at about 10-15 range

  If it is too low (say 5) then player is hitting most of the time, and things 
that improve your chance to hit don't have much impact (the number of additional 
hits you get isn't that great).

  If it is too high (say 18), then player hits pretty infrequently - makes for 
long combat, but also means attacks that don't have to hit the creature (like 
spells) are much more useful.  It also means that other characters that maybe do 
not have the right items or stats, and thus need a 20, hit only 1/3rd the time, 
and the monster is that much tougher.

  If player can give up damager to hit better, it helps that out - player who 
needs an 18 can use that attack form to need a 15 (lets say) and hit twice as 
often, but maybe at only a 25% decrease in damage.  But if the player needs a 5 
to hit, reducing that a 2 may not be a worth while tradeoff - it does put more 
strategy in to best ways to kill monsters, and give more choices for monsters 
that may seem too tough.

  But improved monster smarts is also needed - the monsters right now all think 
individually (what can I do to hurt that player).  Most games have the group of 
monsters actually work together - some may sit back casting spells while others 
engage the player.  And they may actually cast beneficial spells on the other 
creatures - right now, the monster logic doesn't even look at that possibility.

> 
> 
> As for loot, wouldn't it make sense to drastically reduce it, and let players 
> create new things (items, spells, buildings maybe?) quite freely? But with 
> some limits, probably.

  Yes on both.  Perhaps the basic flaw in the crossfire logic is that all 
equipment a monster may attack with ends up as loot to scavenge.  So you fight 
those 20 orcs, and get 20 long swords.

  But I'd be more tempted to do the reduction of monsters first, and see how 
loot looks after that.  If a level only had 20 monsters and not 100, that a big 
reduction right there - maybe much more isn't needed.

  The other big problem is that crossfire doesn't have much to spend money on - 
presumably some of those other points (making new things) is a money sink. 
Another may be more consumable objects that players would actually want to buy.

> 
> Also, wouldn't it make sense to really improve in game building, so players 
> can have a real impact on the world, really change things?

  Yes, but also trickier.  In game building has been discussed (and even 
developed) many times, but that is a hard problem to solve.

  By my above comments (hard problems) I don't mean in any way to say that they 
shouldn't be done - just trying put the problem in some degree of difficulty.

  Of that list, reducing monsters is probably the easiest to do - that just 
means going through maps and removing monsters and generators.

  As an add-on to that, I'd still like to see a quest management system that 
also provides rewards in exp or spells or the like, so that the only way to get 
that isn't by killing monsters (this can also be done now just by updating maps).