[crossfire] Melee / Projectile / Magic / In-progress re-balance observations

[Kevin Bulgrien]

Starting a new character on 2.x I still feel physical combat is over-powered at
this time for low levels.  It is too easy to wear a bunch of armor, load up on
protection and go after it.  Magic recharge is way slower than health recharge
especially when considering healing magic availability.  I have even gone to
the extent of deliberately slowing down pace of playing so I could remove
all armor that slows recharge rate, wearing low-level available rings, etc.
It took a looooong time to clear a relatively low-level dungeon while trying
to keep from destroying money making stuff.  In some difficult maps it was
very hard not to avoid death at the point magic ran low in the presence of
poison and other non-melee incoming attacks... Not that this is bad, its just
not the same for melee.  This character happens to be a paladin with praying
(wounding denied) and sorcery.  Magic/melee levels in the 10-11 range with
overall level somewhere about 17.  I do recognize I am not a very good player.
but then the community is small enough it seems reasonable to assume even if 
it seems a minority, the percentage of active players isn't that insignificant,
and the issues I face are the ones newbies will face if they choose not to
spend days in raffle and such.

The observation holds for a variety of dungeons... ranging from raffle to the
various royalty quests, and many more.

One spends great amounts of idle time waiting for recharge, or, one switches
to physical to while away the time ... and ends up with a physically strong
character even though that is not really what one wants.

An aspect to this that is particularly important is that many magic attacks
ruin loot, or make it hard to get too (ice).  A disproportionate amount of
loot is completely destroyed.  As low-level money is way out of balance with
high-level money, this is a double-whammy for low-level magic users.

Praying is somewhat better perhaps because you can control recharge.

I don't have a feel for the class that can ?recharge magic? as I don't ever
recall playing with it.  I'm thinking more of the ones that have to charge
over time.

I recognize re-balance is in progress, but feel this data point might be good
to consider.

BTW, I'm not sure about the argument about if it takes n minutes as a magic
user to get to level x and the same for melee combat.  If the magic user is
falling asleep due to charging boredom... haven't thought much on it.  What
sounds good at the front might not be so fun at the back.  The money factor
seems not to be considered in this argument.  The melee guy will have way
more money and resultant growth and character development opportunity at
this time.  Level is not the only measure.

Not even sure what to say about archery.  Its very slow.  Not sure about
overall balance, but gets quite hard for the level character I am talking
about even with a couple of wc +2 modifiers and hill giants.  Without
a large quantity of magic arrows (expensive), it seems worse than
magic even.

Throwing seems like a joke added only to amuse oneself with... Throwing
desks and the like.  Surely not used seriously.

Not sure what value these comments might have... or even how typical.
The only 2.x server seems very lightly played.

BTW, the spamming "you miss the" is... well... annoying?  Magic misses
don't spam you.  Is there really value to saying you missed repetitively?
How hard is it to say it once and defer saying again until a hit?  Other
opinions out there on this?