Re: [crossfire] Gameplay notes
Maybe, but that can be hard if one still tries to keep within those boundaries of the skill - sorcery is a bit easier since many misc things can go there, but summoning is trickier - one can add more summoning spells, but it may just be that summoning itself is going to be less powerful than shooting up a fireball. For summoning, maybe a fix would be to make base monsters tougher, so they can really help the player kill things, and not just hit 2 times before being destroyed... Maybe increase hp a lot, like tenfold? Trying to run all ticks at load time would likely create performance problems, as now you have to do all that processing at once. A better (and simpler solution) would just be to increase the map swap out time to something like 10 minutes - most likely, if a player doesn't return within 10 minutes, unlikely to do so (or if they do, that is probably still long enough any spells/diseases they created have run their course). For low level diseases like leprosy, it can easily take 20 or 30 minutes to kill a monster... So a player casting that and exiting the map to be safe could not use the disease to kill. That would also have some performance impact - more memory and cpu time to process that map while in memory, but that is probably not a problem for most modern systems - the amount of memory systems have has gone up dramatically - the cpu one might be more an issue. I really don't think it'd be that bad, but maybe experiments are in order. The first step could be to move swap time to a settings, so admins can experiment. Nicolas -- Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Gameplay notes
Agree on both of those - I think paralyze would be acceptable if the duration was much shorter (say for 1-5 ticks) - confusion could perhaps last a little longer, but same thing, if it was a short duration, that might be OK. Paralysis can be as long as is it now, provided it isn't used by low level monsters. I mean, a gnome level 6 paralysing (that's now removed) is bad for low level players :( Another option could be to have temporary immunity, like you get paralyzed 100% of the duration the first time, and if hit in the next 5s only 50%, then only 25%. This would avoid the getting paralyzed when you're paralyzed issue. I suppose the fact you need scrolls adds some use for inscription :) Yes, but that's actually weird - if I'm confused, what's ensuring I'm reading the correct scroll? :D I also think that there are 'issues' in the way spells also move - it isn't like your character has to make one saving through and is set - because the way cones move, you probably get hit by the spell many times, so are almost sure to be affected. There could be a small immunity / resistance if you avoid the first time. Yes - the amount of damage it does, and/or the fact that there is no way to repair them. I think experienced players know the monsters to look out for and use other methods to kill them - but this is probably a real annoyance for new players. Yes, especially for newbies. Solutions could be to have reparation, but that would downgrade the acid's value. Another option is to use that only on high level maps, or after the player has been warned (you smell something acid). I've found in many cases, if you have some amount of healing (or potentially enough food), you can outlast it that way also. It really depends on how many hp you have when you get hit by it, and how quickly you can get to someplace where you want take any damage other than that of the poison. I don't think that's an issue. Though poison could be made more violent for higher level monsters - like lose 100 maximum hp and 5 speed, things like that. Nicolas -- Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Gameplay notes
For summoning, maybe a fix would be to make base monsters tougher, so they can really help the player kill things, and not just hit 2 times before being destroyed... Maybe increase hp a lot, like tenfold? I think I agree to this... though I have never claimed to be a games master. Summoning is unreasonably difficult to use at low levels. This seems like a reasonable way to start making it more usable. Kevin ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Gameplay notes
The current spell stuff isn't great - the split of of one 'spellcasting' skill into 4 made a couple of the skills unequal - summoning and sorcery. I had mulled the idea to redo those skills again - perhaps into fire/air (electricity)/water (ice)/earth - not sure if that would be better. In practical terms, probably is, since there would pretty much be damage spells for the 4 elements. Or there needs to be more damaging spells in those skills :) Both of those are likely related - any spells/objects which are 'owned' by the player (in terms of using get_owner()) are cleared on map save. That's not necessarily bad, but maybe some workaround could be thought of. Note that even if the disease was somehow restored, it would have to run its course for all missed ticks at once... I'm not actually sure how good it would be to restrict certain races from various towns - I'm not sure if there are enough about, such that blocking out an entire town would remove a lot of play opportunities for the character. I would turn that into a quest. If you're an undead, and wish to enter Navar, then you need to prove you're worthy entering, by doing some chore - go kill bad monsters somewhere? My take on Navar having a necromancy tower and that check at entrance is that they are related - a necromancer (in that tower) did all sorts of terrible things, so they don't want any more about. I can't remember for sure, but I thought the townhall had a basic 'quest' (in the old term of quest in that an NPC tells you it exists) to go remove that necromancer/track down that problem. Time to convert to the new quest system, then :p Nicolas -- Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
[crossfire] Gameplay notes
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
Re: [crossfire] Gameplay notes
Complement about attacks and diseases :) Confusion is really bad for a character. You can't use the cure confusion spell (since you'll cast a random spell), so you need to have scrolls or wands/staves/rods. If you're immune, that's fine, of course :) If the confusion casting monster also uses other spells, you can get in a bad situation you have issues escaping since confused. Paralyzis is bad too, since being hit when you can't move isn't nice, of course. Acid is damaging to items. Diseases aren't too unbalanced. Minor ones like eggs or vomit don't matter much. Kaori caught leprosy many times (lich are bad for that), and that one is nasty. She didn't have any cure spell, so just had to endure - until finding a book ;) Poison is bad generally, but Ghusta is immuned, and Kaori being a dragon regenerates enough to fight it. Ghusta, wraith, had a -20 fire resist, but that wasn't too bad with the life stealing weapon. Cold issues weren't a problem either. Kaori just gained natural resistances to many things. Nicolas Le samedi 28 août 2010 09:24:47, Nicolas Weeger a écrit : 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
Re: [crossfire] Gameplay notes
On 08/28/10 12:24 AM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: lots of good info removed Summoning (to get create earth wall and create food) - snip Sorcery (to get town portal) - The current spell stuff isn't great - the split of of one 'spellcasting' skill into 4 made a couple of the skills unequal - summoning and sorcery. I had mulled the idea to redo those skills again - perhaps into fire/air (electricity)/water (ice)/earth - not sure if that would be better. In practical terms, probably is, since there would pretty much be damage spells for the 4 elements. The idea behind the initial switch was the number of spells kept growing and growing, making mages better and better to play (since there was no limit to number of spells one could have). I've had other idea for level/skill advancement, but that is outside this discussion. 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. Both of those are likely related - any spells/objects which are 'owned' by the player (in terms of using get_owner()) are cleared on map save. The reason behind this is that the ownership is a pointer to another object, so at first glance, not a good way to save it. One could look up the player name of the object, and save that out, and look up that player when the map is reloaded. If that player is no longer on-line, something would need to be done for these objects. Note that one can also do weird exploits with this design - a character of moderate level creates a bunch of disease spells on map, wait for it to swap out, then delete that character and create a new character with same name, and have that map swap back in and get a bunch of exp - so one needs to do more than just check for name. I also vaguely recall that the objects owned by players were removed (instead of becoming owned by no one) because players were doing things like setting up bullet walls or other things to kill new players, then log out, resulting in PK'ing without any good way to track down who created the object in the first place. 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. The gate at Navar is really on the honor system - if you say you won't do necromancy, good enough for them IIRC. I'm not actually sure how good it would be to restrict certain races from various towns - I'm not sure if there are enough about, such that blocking out an entire town would remove a lot of play opportunities for the character. My take on Navar having a necromancy tower and that check at entrance is that they are related - a necromancer (in that tower) did all sorts of terrible things, so they don't want any more about. I can't remember for sure, but I thought the townhall had a basic 'quest' (in the old term of quest in that an NPC tells you it exists) to go remove that necromancer/track down that problem. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Gameplay notes
On 08/28/10 12:59 AM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: Complement about attacks and diseases :) Confusion is really bad for a character. You can't use the cure confusion spell (since you'll cast a random spell), so you need to have scrolls or wands/staves/rods. If you're immune, that's fine, of course :) If the confusion casting monster also uses other spells, you can get in a bad situation you have issues escaping since confused. Paralyzis is bad too, since being hit when you can't move isn't nice, of course. Agree on both of those - I think paralyze would be acceptable if the duration was much shorter (say for 1-5 ticks) - confusion could perhaps last a little longer, but same thing, if it was a short duration, that might be OK. I suppose the fact you need scrolls adds some use for inscription :) But I think that is also the reason that immune to confusion/paralyze items are so popular, because they are so annoying (and potentially deadly). I also think that there are 'issues' in the way spells also move - it isn't like your character has to make one saving through and is set - because the way cones move, you probably get hit by the spell many times, so are almost sure to be affected. Acid is damaging to items. Yes - the amount of damage it does, and/or the fact that there is no way to repair them. I think experienced players know the monsters to look out for and use other methods to kill them - but this is probably a real annoyance for new players. Poison is bad generally, but Ghusta is immuned, and Kaori being a dragon regenerates enough to fight it. I've found in many cases, if you have some amount of healing (or potentially enough food), you can outlast it that way also. It really depends on how many hp you have when you get hit by it, and how quickly you can get to someplace where you want take any damage other than that of the poison. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Gameplay
Nicolas Weeger wrote: As an add-on to that, I'd still like to see a quest management system that also provides rewards in exp or spells or the like, so that the only way to get that isn't by killing monsters (this can also be done now just by updating maps). Yet again I'll remind you: YOU CAN ALREADY GIVE EXPERIENCE FOR SOME EVENTS See http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/dev_todo:experience_rewarder But of course no one is actually using it, not like it's useful is it Yes - I know about that - but there isn't any mechanism to actually manage quests in any way. What quests is my character working on? Status of those quests (granted, vast majority of crossfire quests are simple quests - you get the quest, go out and do some single item, and return for reward). Better quests are more sophisticated - several steps to go through before completing it. The experience rewarder is a piece of good quests that is done - but still nothing there to manage/track quests. A problem I think this results in is very linear/directed gameplay - once I learn about something, I'm going to go off and do it, because I don't otherwise have a good way to track different things (other than copying them to out of game mechanisms). I remember a quest management system was written, and then removed with something better to replace it. That better thing to replace it hasn't shown up yet. And I think that would be one of those things to improve gameplay, which is what started this discussion. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Gameplay
As an add-on to that, I'd still like to see a quest management system that also provides rewards in exp or spells or the like, so that the only way to get that isn't by killing monsters (this can also be done now just by updating maps). Yet again I'll remind you: YOU CAN ALREADY GIVE EXPERIENCE FOR SOME EVENTS See http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/dev_todo:experience_rewarder But of course no one is actually using it, not like it's useful is it? Also, I'll YET AGAIN tell on the list that, if map makers actually need scripts, I'm ready to write them, or help when needed. BUT I WON'T WRITE SCRIPTS FOR THE SAKE OF IT, IT MUST BE FOR SOME SPECIFIC NEED - I'm fed up writing things for the sake of it that no one will use. Nicolas, pissed off -- http://nicolas.weeger.org [Petit site d'images, de textes, de code, bref de l'aléatoire !] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Gameplay
Nicolas Weeger wrote: Hello. Currently, Crossfire is the kind many monsters, much loot, fast gameplay. Wouldn't it make sense to change that? Yes - in fact, the combat changes I made many months back did that a bit for combat - in general, just normal combat is slower than before. However, there are stills gobs of monsters (and I still need to redo spells) Have less monsters, with combats not so fast, so strategy/tactics do play a role - put a trap, try to lure the monster? use a dagger for close combat, versus a sword for long distance? Think of where to drive monsters so only one can hit you, and such? Yes to all of those. Some are certainly easier than others. It is a little less clear where close vs far come in - I'd think that both dagger and sword would be close (vs bow being far) - with the granularity of one space, distance is a little odd in that regard. But one could clearly extend things beyond what they are - able to increase your chance of hit but you do less damage. Or another method to increase your damage, but maybe you're AC is worse. Or maybe various combos. This actually could be useful in many ways - when rebalancing combat, sorting out AC for monsters vs WC for players can be a challenge. When the random element is from the range of 1-20, figuring out what the correct value is gets hard - I generally targeted it at about 10-15 range If it is too low (say 5) then player is hitting most of the time, and things that improve your chance to hit don't have much impact (the number of additional hits you get isn't that great). If it is too high (say 18), then player hits pretty infrequently - makes for long combat, but also means attacks that don't have to hit the creature (like spells) are much more useful. It also means that other characters that maybe do not have the right items or stats, and thus need a 20, hit only 1/3rd the time, and the monster is that much tougher. If player can give up damager to hit better, it helps that out - player who needs an 18 can use that attack form to need a 15 (lets say) and hit twice as often, but maybe at only a 25% decrease in damage. But if the player needs a 5 to hit, reducing that a 2 may not be a worth while tradeoff - it does put more strategy in to best ways to kill monsters, and give more choices for monsters that may seem too tough. But improved monster smarts is also needed - the monsters right now all think individually (what can I do to hurt that player). Most games have the group of monsters actually work together - some may sit back casting spells while others engage the player. And they may actually cast beneficial spells on the other creatures - right now, the monster logic doesn't even look at that possibility. As for loot, wouldn't it make sense to drastically reduce it, and let players create new things (items, spells, buildings maybe?) quite freely? But with some limits, probably. Yes on both. Perhaps the basic flaw in the crossfire logic is that all equipment a monster may attack with ends up as loot to scavenge. So you fight those 20 orcs, and get 20 long swords. But I'd be more tempted to do the reduction of monsters first, and see how loot looks after that. If a level only had 20 monsters and not 100, that a big reduction right there - maybe much more isn't needed. The other big problem is that crossfire doesn't have much to spend money on - presumably some of those other points (making new things) is a money sink. Another may be more consumable objects that players would actually want to buy. Also, wouldn't it make sense to really improve in game building, so players can have a real impact on the world, really change things? Yes, but also trickier. In game building has been discussed (and even developed) many times, but that is a hard problem to solve. By my above comments (hard problems) I don't mean in any way to say that they shouldn't be done - just trying put the problem in some degree of difficulty. Of that list, reducing monsters is probably the easiest to do - that just means going through maps and removing monsters and generators. As an add-on to that, I'd still like to see a quest management system that also provides rewards in exp or spells or the like, so that the only way to get that isn't by killing monsters (this can also be done now just by updating maps). ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
