[crossfire] Monsters balance

[Robert Brockway]

On Sat, 9 May 2020, Nicolas Weeger wrote:

> Hello.
>
>
>
>>   Totally true. I tried to balance them somewhat at one point, but it is a
>> big task, and hard to get right.  Also, because some monsters have
>> vulnerabilities, they still become easy to kill if the players know to use
>> the right spell/weapon against them.
>
> But that's also part of the fun, IMO.

Exactly.  That's not a bug, that's a feature!

FWIW I don't think 'balance' matters in the way some people argue it 
matters.

In early D&D (for example) classes needed to be balanced because most 
people played regularly as part of an ensemble team and in most cases 
people wouldn't choose classes that would clearly disadvantage them 
relative to other players.

But in Crossfire most play is solo and even on multi-player servers people 
don't usually adventure with the same group all the time.  If they are 
going to team up then it's probably in an adhoc fashion depending on who 
is on.  Also, unlike a single D&D group the players (PCs) may be of 
significantly different levels.

In the case of Crossfire I propose that it doesn't matter as much if some 
races or classes are better than others.  New players will gravitate 
towards the easier options.  More experienced players may choose a harder 
option for the challenge or just because it is exotic.  Unlike D&D we also 
have a 'stable' of characters so we don't have to commit fully to an 
unusual class/race choice either.

The fact that maps and monsters are highly variable in Crossfire and that 
even high level character are going to get plastered if they go up against 
the wrong monsters is part of the charm of Crossfire IMHO.

Rob