Re: [crossfire] Spell path balance - Summoning
On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 14:05:55 -0500, Kevin R. Bulgrien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One is that I wonder if I do not know how to play a summoner, Probably not. :-) and the other is whether summoning is completely out-of-balance. Yes, but probably not in the way you think. It seems like it is extremely difficult to level a summoner. What sort of game playing style is needed to make a summoner level the same way that the other path players can. If killing monsters with summoned creatures is the primary way of getting experience, then the path is completely unbalanced as it takes eons of mind-bendingly boring snooze, summon, attack, snooze until summoned character is dead cycles. Am I just missing the point of this path, or is it really not very well balanced? It is not well balanced. Gaining the first few levels is difficult but after that, gaining levels in summoning is far too easy. In fact, I usually try to create balanced characters and level up several skills at the same time instead of focusing on a single one. And I find it difficult to _avoid_ gaining exp in the summoning skill. If you want to know how to use the summoning skill, here is a little *SPOILER*: - Gaining the first 2-3 levels in summoning is rather boring because you have to rely on your golem or lesser golem. Gaining exp with these takes time. In (very) old versions of the game, summoning pet monsters was also useful because you could summon some monsters that were able to kill other monsters faster than you, but this is not the case anymore so you will have to rely on golems and be patient. Make sure that you use your golems in narrow corridors so that they only fight one monster at a time. - Once you reach levels 4, 5 and above, you can start summoning elementals. Here again, the cost in mana compared the speed at which you gain experience is not really good but you have to be patient and keep on killing lots of low-level monsters with your elementals until you can gain more levels. - After a while, you will have learned the spell charm monsters. This is what changes the game completely: at first you will only be able to charm a few low-level monsters so you will not much exp with that. You may have to continue practicing killing monsters with a fire elemental. But after reaching level 10 or more, you will be able to charm more and more monsters and gain a lot of exp. - Gaining exp by charming monsters is so convenient that I have bound a key to invoke charm monsters; killpets. I have also done the same for invoke command undead; killpets for the praying skill. You will probably find that it takes you as much time to go from level 15 to level 107 in the summoning skill than it took you to go from level 1 to level 15. This shows that the skill is not well balanced: it is too hard at the low levels (the mana cost vs. exp gain per time unit is too high) but it is too easy at the high levels (the the exp gain is several orders of magniture faster for roughly the same mana cost). When you reach level 100+ in that skill, you can kill a dozen dragons or big wizards instantly by casting charm monsters once and spending less than 100 mana points. Something needs to be done to re-balance this skill (and also some other skills). However, some of the solutions that have been proposed so far would only make charm monsters useless or dangerous to use, which would not solve the other part of the problem: this skill is too difficult to use at low levels. -Raphaël ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Spell path balance - Summoning
On 8/21/06, Alex Schultz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Raphaël Quinet wrote: Something needs to be done to re-balance this skill (and also some other skills). However, some of the solutions that have been proposed so far would only make charm monsters useless or dangerous to use, which would not solve the other part of the problem: this skill is too difficult to use at low levels. Well, note though, that past level 20 or so, summoning is *completely* useless *except* for charm monster. Summoned monsters are far too weak to have any use at level 30 and up, and sure there's animate weapon, however the only things strong enough to be worth animating are not worth the risk of loosing. Personally I think there are four things that could be done to balance summoning properly: - Make charmkilling not so powerful without completely making it useless. (personally I think requiring line of sight and limited range might be a good method, possibly in addition to making 'killpets' not always work) Agreed. For modifying killpets, I'd change it to dismisspets. Then code it so summoned monsters are killed and charmed monsters are set to be peaceful. However, this doesn't address the issue of what happens when a monster is charmed, then taken to another map. - Add more powerful types of summoned creatures at higher levels (Possibly just more things for 'summon creature' or possibly (a) new spell(s) like 'summon greater creature') There is Magehound, but I think it was added more as an example. Someone would have to check for balance issues before it is actually made available to players. - Make the first few levels more practical to use it with, possibly by making the summoned creatures faster or more powerful. Agreed. - Not as needed to balance as the other notes, but somehow reducing the risk of loss of a weapon used with animate weapon. Can't think of anything other than giving it temporary immunity to being damaged (burnt up, icecubed, etc) or making the weapon come back to the player after the spell's effect ends. -- Andrew Fuchs ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Spell path balance - Summoning
Mark Wedel wrote: Andrew Fuchs wrote: Can't think of anything other than giving it temporary immunity to being damaged (burnt up, icecubed, etc) or making the weapon come back to the player after the spell's effect ends I don't think the temporary immunity would really help out. From what I've seen is what happens is that the weapon is fine as long as the spell is going on. But when the spell ends, the object on the ground is now hit by some attacktype the destroyes it. So any addition of immunities would have to last beyond the length of the spell, and that gets tricky, as if the player picks it up and wields it, they shouldn't really get those immunities. Well, to make an object immune to being damaged on the ground, there are ways other than resists. In particular material tricks could allow it, and wouldn't have the drawback of giving the player the immunity. However there is still another issue to deal with, which is it still wouldn't be good to make it permanent. A solution to that would be: -allowing forces to give material traits to their parents and -making subtypes of forces that can do things like disappear when the container of the force is picked up or moved. That could allow the weapon to be immune to destruction until picked up. Having the object return to the player when the spell ends or is destroyed is probably the best/safest thing. It'd be a little odd to explain why. Despite what I said about though, I would personally favor just returning the object when the weapon is no longer animated, due to simplicity. Alex Schultz ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Spell path balance - Summoning
On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 14:05:55 -0500, Kevin R. Bulgrien wrote: completely unbalanced as it takes eons of mind-bendingly boring snooze, summon, attack, snooze until summoned character is dead cycles. Am I just missing the point of this path, or is it really not very well balanced? Generally, I think summoning needs high-level spells that summon strong critters, rather than just relying on pets becoming stronger and stronger with level. best, Lalo Martins -- So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. -- personal: http://www.laranja.org/ technical:http://lalo.revisioncontrol.net/ GNU: never give up freedom http://www.gnu.org/ ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
