Playing with permadeath on ailesse recently has been very enlightening. I have a very hard time keeping characters alive, so I've finally become so frustrated that I have been trying out different characters. Those experiences are making me have a different viewpoint on slowing down combat than I had during the vote since I've had to play many low-level characters.
In short, magic use is terrible. If you choose to play a magic-use only player, you are totally and completely disadvantaged. A magic-only user will die very, very easily, and will level very, very slowly compared to a physical combat character. > > Maybe large area spells will be used for fast monsters, so you're sure to > > hurt > > them? Or for monsters less powerful than you? > > If the change is such that large area effect spells are not so useful, that > may not be bad. > > Larger effect spells, like fireball, will still have their uses. If > monsters > are far away, things like fireball still quite useful (the cone spells have a > more limited range). Also, so long as each space of a big monster takes > damage, > large spells still have some advantage there. > > I'm sure these changes will require rebalancing of spells, but that is also > on > the list of things to do, so I'm less worried about spells right now, but > just > trying to keep it in mind. They already need re-balancing. > >> So if the hp disparity between players and monsters is sorted out, and we > >> say it is reasonable to cast 10 spells to kill tough creatures, that means > >> it would take 10 spells to kill a same level player. That to me is quite > >> reasonable. > that's always the potential. However, it also depends on difference of HP > based on level. If say a level 10 character has 100 hp, and a level 50 has > 500 > HP, that is only a difference of 5, so even then, unlikely 1 hit will kill a > character, since target would be 10 spells for 500 hp damage (or 50 > dam/spell). > That said, things like resistances, slaying, etc, can all mix things up. > that one of the interesting things about giving characters more starting > hp. > If characters start at say 50, and at level 10 have 150, that is a 3 times > improvement, so would still generally take 3 spells from that 10th level > person > to kill that level 1 person. > > > > >> I think if hp is adjusted, grace and mana would have to go up also. > >> Simply because if creatures have 50 hp, and we say the target is 10 spells > >> to kill a creature, a player will need to have the grace/mana to cast those > >> 10 spells. > > > > Possibly, yes, else you run the risk of making spells harder - unless they > > are > > compensated later on with really powerful things? No! Do not make them harder. They are already harder. The more I see in this discussion, the more I agree with other sentiments on thread by Juha Jäykkä <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, and on an IRC commentary by Michael Toennies. I am thinking more and more that any change here needs to be looked at with a system perspective first, and not tackled piece by piece. At the same time I say that, I do not know how one pulls that off very well with a distributed development team where only e-mails, irc, etc are the available ways of communicating, so, then I wonder how possible suggesting such a thing is. > Maybe, but I think it would be very boring to play a mage in that case - > cast > a couple spells, maybe not kill anything with them, have to rest to regain > mana, > cast some more spells, etc. One goal is to balance things such that mages > and > fighters are both fairly equal at all levels, so I think low level mages need > to > be effective. > > With the changes, it may be some different spells are needed - maybe 1st > level > firebolt and the like. I really think I would vote differently today, and if work on one thing or another had to be done, rather than a rework of the entire system, I think I would now say that magic should be adjusted before attempting to slow down combat. > > Yes, of course, but we're talking of redoing the whole combat system in the > > first place ;) > > Right - I'm open to this, but would like to hear more discussion on this - > do > people generally think it is a good idea? I believe I agree that looking at all the combat is critical, and, that magic is severely handicapped at the moment (for low-level characters at least, which is all I know since in all these years I don't think I've every topped level 40). Ok, Ryo, you can stop complaining by at least one increment... I commented... ;-) and stopped lurking. Kevin _______________________________________________ crossfire mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
