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

[Mark Wedel]

  Quick notes:

Magic needs more rebalance work, and the note about destroy objects is too true. 
  Changing how often (if at all) magic destroys item is one of those things to do.

Magic should probably destroy items on occasion, but that might be limited to 
things like fireball or other large area effect things, and not from things like 
bolts, which are more directed.

  SP regen is still an issue - that said, as a fighter, I often found I'd hop 
off the map and wait for half a minute to regain HP, so I'm not sure if it that 
much difference.  Maybe it is in that a mage can expend all of his SP much 
faster than a fighter can typically lose all their HP (for a mage, it could be 
hop on the map, blast all your spells in just a couple seconds, and hop off 
again.  If a fighter is losing all their HP in that time, they are in serious 
trouble).

  One thing I tried out is giving mages a 0 cost spell - it is a fairly limited 
low damage spell (sort of like firing an arrow), but point being that it lets 
them do something even when they have no SP.  I sort of prefer that vs making 
spells have long casting times or something so that it takes longer for a mage 
to burn up there SP.

Archery is a little harder to balance - at some level, you don't want it too 
powerful - the character using it has some advantage in that they are some 
distance away from what they are attacking, so ideally not taking damage.

  What probably some of those skills need is some extra benefit that is unique 
to those skills - maybe for archery, it means that at higher levels, the 
character can slow/paralyze opponents or something.  There are different arrows 
that do that, but managing arrows can be tricky.

  Throwing was never balanced at all, and probably has no real use, except for a 
few special items (dusts) which can be thrown.

  That said, I'm not sure if there is necessarily a requirement that all skills 
be balanced.  I'd say that the core class/races should be balanced (in that they 
have usable skills), but if someone wants to try to make a character that relies 
on throwing as their primary skill, good luck to them.

  The misses thing is a bit odd - at some point, you sort of want some feedback 
you are attacking (Vs paralyzed or doing something else random) - with spells at 
least, you get some visual indication - for melee, you really don't other than 
those messages.