[crossfire] Gameplay notes

Sat Aug 28 02:24:47 CDT 2010

Hello.

I've been playing on Invidious, so here are some notes and opinions on the 
leveling up and gameplay experience :)

I've been using the following characters:
* Kismar, Fenx, priest, Gorokh ; level 13, praying 12, dam 11, wc 18, arm 39, 
ac -1
* Kaori, dragon, monk, Gaea ; level 56, praying 54, dam 26, wc 6, arm 38, ac 
-20
* Ghusta, wraith, paladin, Devourers ; level 65, praying 60, dam 34, wc 14, 
arm 56, ac -16

Ghusta received some help from Khaleh, to reach level around 10 in many 
skills.

Skill-specific notes
===========

One handed weapon (Ghusta)
-----------------------------------------

Not too bad to level, but the life stealing from Devourers is a real life 
saver. Many monsters hit badly, doing like 30 or 40 damage (earth elementals, 
for instance), which is hard when you have 80hp.
Ghusta uses a Devourers broadsword, and is level 26.

He can kill wyverns and various dragon hatchlings, but not chinese dragons in 
the dark - the 5 wc penalty is bad.

Given the level, it's starting to be nice to have death attacks.

Two handed weapon
---------------------------
Kismar is level 2 two handed weapons, and can at overall level 12 take and 
kill three air elementals (summoning traps are bad, or good to fight such 
monsters) provided he can flee to another level to heal many times.

Ghusta is level 10 only, and uses a Flametongue of Devourers, giving life 
stealing which comes in handy.

Clawing (Kaori)
---------------------
Didn't yet level up much, but shouldn't be hard since I have 3 elemental 
attacks already (working on cold).

Praying
----------
Easy for Kaori (undead pit in Wolfsburg) and Kismar (Valriel's church in 
Scorn), though they don't have yet banishment (seems hard to find).

Ghusta had a bad time, denied turning and holy word. So he used cause minor 
(then medium then major then many from Devourers) and base diseases (leprosy) 
to gain enough gr to get special prayers.
Then red death and cause many wounds, which will happily destroy many things, 
as well as finger and face of death.
Command undead could have been an alternative, but didn't really use it.

Summon cult monster and avatar (level 20) didn't offer much. The summoned 
monsters, at level 6, couldn't hit much. Didn't try at higher levels.

Summoning (to get create earth wall and create food)
-----------------
Only Ghusta leveled up, using the various golems and elementals. It's a real 
pain.
The main issue is that golems are weak, and they don't resist much. So to 
really fight tough monsters and gain decent experience, your own character 
should be able to resist hits during casting the golem again and then having 
the golem hit.
Other option is to use a safe leveling map like Raffle, which takes ages to 
reach high levels.

Dancing sword, at level 12, is really nice on the other hand, and can kill 
many monsters rapidly. Though it suffers from the golem syndrom, in which you 
have to be overall tough to resist monsters while casting your golem.

Sorcery (to get town portal)
-------------
Again only Ghusta leveled up.
He only used magic bullet, against wyverns in dragon nest (after some 
nightfall to have'em be quiet).
Being denied steambolt (wraith can't use fire spells), the other only option 
was animate weapon (level 7). But it requires many weapons in inventory, and 
it doesn't seem that powerful.

Maps used
=======
I'm quite conservative, and didn't yet experiment many maps - fear of instant 
death isn't a strong motivational factor :)

Kaori probably started in Scorn (this character was created months ago, not 
used much at first), then rapidly moved in Wolfsburg for the undead pit.
Once equipped with a ring of Free Action courtesy Ghusta, then an amulet of 
Shielded mind (bought in a shop), the undead pit is a festing place for Gaea 
followers.
Makes for decent items too.

Kismar just started, and only went to Valriel's church. He got some equipment 
(ring of Free Action) from Ghusta, and mostly uses praying spells.

Ghusta started in Scorn, and did Resir's house, bloodwell, and Raffle.
He then moved to Navar, from where he did slave pit 1 and 2 and twin towers 
(Wolfsburg), elemental quest (fire part is supposed to be for 2 players but can 
be done alone) and Raffle 2 (Darcap), then Dragon Nest (road from Scorn to 
Navar, easy to reach using levitation to go fast).
He did two times dark temple, to get glowing crystals.

Future maps I'll visit are the Wizard tower in Lake County (to get some 
Luggage for map looting), maybe some Zorn maps in Brest, and then I'll 
experiment various maps.

Overall, many maps could benefit from an overhaul, and being included in some 
quest, if only to inform the player of their existence. Knowing a map exists 
can be a challenge.

Small bugs or fun things found
===================

One disease-related bug: when a monster is infected, and you leave the map, it 
will swap to disk after a few minutes, preventing the disease from actually 
having any effect. Even reentering doesn't seem to make the disease "run" 
again.

Another swap-related bug: cast an earth wall, exit the map, wait a few minutes 
for it to swap, come back into it - the wall disappeared. Not confirmed, but 
seems to happen.

Navar claims to reject undead (at entrance), and still has a necromancer 
tower. Also Ghusta can enter all he wants.
Killing guards at exit doesn't prevent you from exiting either.

Nicolas
-- 
Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org
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