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Re: CF: Stupid: strange ring



On Feb 18,  2:00pm, Steve Yegge wrote:
> Subject: CF: Stupid: strange ring

>  > So how about removing the stupid strange ring from the list of random
>  > artifacts? After all, it's on top of the most useless artifacts list...

 Just because it is useless hardly means it should be removed.  Should we
remove dragon armor from the list of random artifacts because there is now
power dragon armor?  What about most of the artifact weapons?  There are
certainly a few which are useful, and many which are curiousities.

 Plus, having found a strange ring of electricity once, that was pretty neat.

> 	- fix it so that the maximum experience you can receive from
> 	  ANY monster is 15,000 experience, or whatever is needed to
> 	  take you to the next level, whichever is less at the time
> 	  you kill the monster.

 Might actually make more sense to just add a secondary experience table for
each level which lists the most exeperience you can recieve in any one time for
a particular level.


> 	- implement a working "unique-artifact" system, so that you
> 	  can *never* see two of the same unique artifact together
> 	  on the same system.  Make sure it checks saved player files,
> 	  or better, prevent people from saving with artifacts in
> 	  their possession.

 I will if that can be reasonably done - it is not a trivial task.  And if you
can't save with an artifact, then you just get a point where a player hides it
someplace until they return (maybe that is reasonable, maybe not), but with the
huge number of maps out there, hiding stuff is certainly pretty easy for
someone to do.

>
> 	- make more of the artifacts (strange ring, ring of life,
> 	  bonecrusher and so on) unique.

 I am not sure if that really fixes anything - it seems to me, that the first
person on the server to get those various things is in good shape, and everyone
else is left to scramble for the various leftovers.


> 	- lose the "trade 50 scales for this shield"-type artifacts.

 I think some of those have been fixed.  There are still the anvils where you
can get armor/shield by bringing in scales, but still need to pay for it.  Are
those considered unbalanced?


> 	* the progression up to 30th level should take a very
> 	  experienced player at least 2 months of round-the-clock play.
> 	  For inexperienced players it should seem to be an almost
> 	  unattainable ideal.

 Certainly, there are problems in progession - if I start a new character, I
can get to 3'rd level in about 15 minutes - after that, it starts to slow down.

 The first few levels are easy, as you just kill the huge numbers of orcs,
goblins, kobolds that are around - not a lot of exp for each one, but there are
a lot, so you just retreat when hp get low, and kill some more.

 I actually tend to start really slowing down around level 10-15 - can kill a
lot of stuff, but most things are not available in the huge numbers.  However,
if we change the exp award so that for any level, you need to kill at least 100
monsters, that might slow down progression.


> 	* the experience of finding ONE artifact should be so
> 	  exhilarating that it actually breathes life back into the
> 	  game.

 There are at least a few problems in the current setup, without any real easy
fixes:

1) As the number of maps increse, so do the number of random artifact in those
maps.  As such, artifacts start becoming more and more accessible.

2) As people play and get all these artifact, new map designers come up with
even tougher maps that contain even better artifacts.  Repeat this step a few
times, and some very powerful artifacts are created.

3) After playing a while, people tend to know what artifacts are good and what
they want.  The good artifacts are useful for all classes.  What would be nice
to see is more artifacts that are race/god aligned, so if you start a new
character, there is an entire new set of artifacts that you would now find
useful to use.

 What might be useful is some idea of what the absolutely best artifacts should
be allowed to do/have (ie, an artifact should never have an AC better than
this, armor better than that, etc).  Right now, there is no criteria, so when
+8 dragon armor is added, or a +3 weapon that add +3 to 3 stats, they are not
immediately recognized as non balanced.

 On a seperate point - is high levels as much a problem?  Does the skill system
make high levels better or worse compared to the old system?  Do people think
some maximum level should perhaps be applied (let score (exp) rise as high as
you want, but limit level advancement?)


-- 

-- Mark Wedel
mark@pyramid.com
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