Re: crossfire problem/idea

[Frank Tore Johansen <frankj>]

Happy new year to all!

Kjetil Torgrim Homme writes:

> Pascal Molli writes:
> 
> 	In crossfire (and others games), all the monsters want to kill
> 	you, that's too simple.  For exemple, in litterature, dead
> 	monsters want to kill undead monsters, not you especially.  So
> 	you can use basic instincts of monsters to kill others.
> 
> I think this is mostly a CPU problem. Or maybe it is a Gauntlet
> problem, since it is Gauntlet that has so great many monsters in the
> first place. Maybe we should have fewer and slightly tougher monsters
> (one kobold would be a challenge even at level 1).

I agree, and I'm trying to stear the game in that direction without
slowing it down too much.  Monsters are growing more intelligent
all the time.
Thanks to creativity turned into source by three people in Sweeded,
monsters can now pick up and use several items.

This is listed in the end of the TODO file (which is hopelessly large
by now...) :
- Some levels should contain a few tough monsters instead of 1000
  easy monsters.
I guess that was a understatement...

> 	I think all monsters must possess a weakness that make them
> 	vulnerable, but dragon, demon lord and titan seems to be
> 	really strong.

I think there should always be a monster that is stronger than the player.
The large beholder, the large dragon and the titan was a step in this
direction, but all these can be killed in single-combat by a strong enough
player.
If you are no longer afraid about what could be lurking behind the next
corner when exploring a new map, then the fun of playing the game is immensly
reduced.

>         A way to kill these monster may to draw them towards natural
>         traps. For exemple if you have a levitate spell you can fly
>         other a pit or you can shut dragon in place magic bullet wall
>         but this action must increase your EXP points.

It doesn't have to.  Treasure is also a valid award.

> Perhaps we should do away with EXP altogether. I would prefer treasure as
> the chief award, it's easier to split among players, too.

Sounds nice, but I can't see quite how to do that.
Currently a players power mostly depends on experience, then stats, then
items.  Maybe it would be a good idea to turn this around...

But believe me when I say it's not easy to split treasure, at least not
without shouting 8)

> 	It may be a good thing to have memory of killed monster, so
>         you can have extra-damage bonus during a second fight.
> 
> I like the monster-memory in nethack (or is it moria? I've only
> watched others play those games), but is it really worth the effort to
> do the extra-damage thing?

I don't want any extra-damage, but some monster-lore should be obtainable
by players somehow, maybe by asking npc's about monsters.

> 	It may be a good things to have for each generator a max limit
> 
> I agree, I suggested this to Frank a long time ago. I can't remember
> why he didn't put it in, though.

I'll add it sometime.

> 	There is a problem when you take transporters and starting
> 	rooms is full when you want to come back.  Perhaps that's a
> 	feature, perhaps that's a generator problem, perhaps spell
> 	should operate throught transporter, perhaps it's a map
> 	construction problem ???

The problem with teleporters is that I can't allow it to put monsters
atop of eachothers (because a combination of a generator and a teleporter
would be able to put 1000 monsters on top of eachothers).  Therefore
a teleporter only works if there is a clear space where it leads to.
(This applies only to the random teleporters (those without specific x/y
coordinates).

> 	What do you think about spells to turn handles througth
> 	gratings ?  or magnetic repulsion so monsters can't use
> 	metallic weapons against you ? or more classic stone skin ?
> 
> I think things like these are forthcoming (the stone skin for sure).
>
> 	Why can't we use bow, crossbow, spells throught gratings ?
> 	What do you think about the avabaility to turn handle whith
> 	arrow throught grating ?  or to throw item upon a pit to a
> 	button that open a door ?
> 
> Good ideas :-)

There will be new features in the future, very possibly including these.
Though I'm not so sure about what order they will arrive in...

> 	In Ultima, each town possess its own personnality, magic shop
> 	of this town make great bracers, armour shop of that town
> 	produce enchanted mail ...
> 
> Nice, but how should it be done?

It would encourage exploration of unknown places, so I'll try to think
out a way to do it.

> 	I don't try to understand the code of crossfire but it seems
> 	to me that you keep visited maps in /tmp.  Why don't you
> 	consider this like a persistent state of the game. Suppose you
> 	keep them in the user directory and you don't clean them at
> 	the end of the session.  When the user restart the game you
> 	ask him for which game he wants to play and like that you can
> 	restart a game in the state you leave it ...
> 
> Someone else (sorry, can't remember who!) on the list suggested
> something like this, he called one set of maps a campaign. There could
> be many characters in a campaign, but a character could not be in many
> campaigns. I think this is a *great* idea, but it will use quite some 
> disc space...

It can certainly be done without too much work, but there are some
other things I want to do first, like making a simple client which asks
a server for a window.

Thanks for the input!

-Frank.