[crossfire] Class change summary ideas
The discussion on the previous thread has died out, so I thought I'd draw some conclusions and move the discussion forward. While not a lot of responses, the most votes seemed to come in on the idea of classes play an important roll - there are exclusive skills, a fighter can never be as good as a wizard as a straight wizard, etc. From a game perspective, this probably isn't a bad stepping point - it moves away from the current system some, but is not as radical. And as I think about it, a system with strict classes could basically start with this, and then just remove any ability (skill scrolls, quests, whatever) which grant skills in the game (different discussion, but it would perhaps be interesting to have conditional treasure lists based on settings in the game file). These are some ideas I have on making classes important, but still have ability to learn most skills in the game. Note that I do not mean to suggest that all these ideas be adopted - rather I'm putting some ideas I have out there that could make this happen and am seeking thoughts of others, as well as other ideas. - The characters starting skills have a good exp gain ratio (100%), and any learned skills have less good ratio (maybe 50%). In this way, a fighter which learns wizardry is at a pretty big disadvantage. - Put level caps on learned skills. Maybe level 50. For this to have much effect, skills must have meaning at all levels - for example, right now, the highest spell level is around 20, so if you could still get to level 50, you would have all spells. So putting caps in would presume that skills gain abilities up to level 100 (I have more ideas on this below) - Put level caps on learned skills based on starting skill. Eg, the skill level that fighter has in wizardry can not exceed one half the level they have in their best combat skill. - Add more abilities for all skills to higher levels. For spell casting skills, this may be spells at higher levels. For combat skills, it may mean certain special actions happen at higher levels (stun opponent, disarm, etc). Some of these could give stat bonuses - they would clearly give bonuses in the relevant stats (so combat skills would raise str, con, magic skills pow, int). Imagine for example a level 75 fighter getting +3 str and con from his combat skills - that is a pretty nice buff that makes it harder for mages to do as good. - Change sp/grace/hp starting values. Right now, all classes start with same values, except for any adjustments based on stats. But maybe barbarians should get +20 hp at start and -20 sp, reverse for wizards. This makes it more difficult to switch classes at low levels. - Change hp gain values. Right now, hp gain is based on total level - this means a high level wizard has just as many hp (given same con) as a fighter. At one point an experiment was done where hp was based on highest combat level (just as sp is based on highest mana level) - that made things too difficult, since wizards wouldn't have a high combat level. But one could do something like every combat level counts as a level for hp, but every 2 spellcasting levels counts as level for hp. Thus, a pure mage will will have fewer hp (otoh, as I type this, this doesn't seem like a great idea, as it now gives more reason for the mage to pick up combat levels) - Clean up/redo weapon skills. Right now, all classes start with the same weapon skills, so that wizard can pick up that 2 handed sword at first level and become a fighter. Wizards (and other classes) should get some lesser weapon skill that gives them fewer weapons they can use. Even classes like clerics get all weapons. A problem this creates is that spellcasting classes are good choices at first level (you get spellcasting skill + weapon skill). Changes I made a while ago allows a list of skills to be used, so one could add a bunch of different weapon skills (axe, hammer, sword, simple weapons) to limit the weapons some classes can use at first level without adding a bunch of new weapons to cover this. Another example here could be elves, which right now get missile weapons (every missile weapon) where as they should perhaps be limited to just bows. - Related to above, coming up with a description of each class and then figuring bonuses/skills may be in order - a lot of skills right now are given out for legacy reasons (everyone used to be able to do this, so everyone can do it now). An example of this would be barbarian - a savage non magic using class. As such, it probably should not start with use magical items skill - coming up with concepts for the classes and then balancing them may result in more interesting classes than trying to come up with a balanced class and saying that's good, but doesn't have any real flavor. - For class/races, it would be nicer to have a list of skills which are disallowed than hard code values. For
[crossfire] Attributes/Stats
Never saw any response, but had some other musings. Changing subject to use attributes, since that is a bit less general than statistics, which can mean almost anything. I was thinking there is some disparity in the different classes and how many/what starts are important. These are my quick thoughts on the different attributes: Strength: used for hit bonus, damage bonus, as well as carry capacity. First to are only important in combat, later one is useful for everyone. Even spellcasters are likely to resort to combat once in a while, so this is a fairly important attribute for everyone. Dex: Gives AC bonus and speed bonus. These are equally useful to everyone. Con: Gives HP bonus for first 10 levels. Equally important to everyone. Wis: Major factor in amount of grace character has (Wis is 66%, Pow is 33% in terms of bonuses) for first 10 levels of characters life. Important for praying at altar can casting spells. As such, only folks using pray skill use this attribute a lot. Cha: Used for shop pricing and a few secondary skills (singing, oratory). While the shop pricing is equally important to all classes, overall this is a fairly unimportant stat. Int: Important for wizards. it is 33% of the bonus for sp (pow being 66%), used in stealing chance and learning spells. Important stat for wizards. Pow: Used for sp/grace bonuses, as described above. If not a spellcaster, stat holds no importance. If one looks at these descriptions, one can see that spellcasters have a tougher time on stats than fighters - for fighters, pretty simple - Str, Con, Dex, Cha, Wis, Int, Pow, and the last 4 could be 1 and it wouldn't hurt the fighter much. For spellcasters, this is tougher - there are more stats they care about. For a wizard, Pow, Int, Con, Str, Dex, Wis, Cha is probably the order. But because of penalties, a 1 Dex is a bad idea. The other thing to note is the relative unimportance of Cha here. For most characters, only real effect is on shop pricing, as a lot of characters probably do not use singing/oratory. Other than making some other skill use Cha as its key value, I'm not sure what can be done there - I'd almost be tempted to just drop Cha. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Attributes/Stats
Mark Wedel wrote: The other thing to note is the relative unimportance of Cha here. For most characters, only real effect is on shop pricing, as a lot of characters probably do not use singing/oratory. Other than making some other skill use Cha as its key value, I'm not sure what can be done there - I'd almost be tempted to just drop Cha. This won't make a huge difference, but... I believe these days monsters are pretty much always either friendly or aggressive, there is no middle ground? How about having charisma affect how neutral monsters act towards you? How about the charm monsters and/or pacify spells, are they affected by this? PS. Now that I have your attention, could someone take a look at /pup_land/nurnberg/hq_training -- it seems there is something wrong with normally aggressive monsters, they seem to be asleep or something, making parts of these training levels surprisingly easy. Is this intentional? -- /* * * Otto J. Makela o...@iki.fi * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */ /* Phone: +358 40 765 5772, FAX: +358 42 7655772, ICBM: 60N 25E */ /* Mail: Mechelininkatu 26 B 27, FI-00100 Helsinki, FINLAND */ /* * * Computers Rule 0100 01001011 * * * * * * * * * * * * */ ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Quest system - Error reporting needs work
On Mon, 10 May 2010 22:45:03 -0700 Mark Wedel mwe...@sonic.net wrote: Since the quest system (and some other core functionality) is using python/other plugins, should the configure check be changed so that configure errors out if the python libraries are not available (eg, will be unable to compile the plugin) I think I would prefer that to happen, or at least require it to be specifically disabled if the server wants to run without it. (ie if a server admin wants to run ./configure --without-python, then I'd consider that to be ok, they can either ignore breakage or disable/replace maps. I don't think knotwork is making much use of python in his crossciv mapset for instance) Most of the plugins add functionality that is not 'core' (for lack of better term), but I would put quests into a core functionality area (especially if these replace the mechanisms currently in the game that do not require plugins). As it is, even ignoring the quest system, there are a number of maps in the standard set that don't behave sensibly without python - the mad monk in scorn, the banking system and the post offices are all obvious examples. Brendan ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Attributes/Stats
On 05/11/10 01:02 AM, Otto J. Makela wrote: Mark Wedel wrote: The other thing to note is the relative unimportance of Cha here. For most characters, only real effect is on shop pricing, as a lot of characters probably do not use singing/oratory. Other than making some other skill use Cha as its key value, I'm not sure what can be done there - I'd almost be tempted to just drop Cha. This won't make a huge difference, but... I believe these days monsters are pretty much always either friendly or aggressive, there is no middle ground? How about having charisma affect how neutral monsters act towards you? How about the charm monsters and/or pacify spells, are they affected by this? I don't think the spells really affect it much. One could do more with charisma - NPCs offering/not offering quests, rewards, etc based on Cha also. But as I was thinking about this more, there is also a sort of odd situation with stats. When you create your character, you are going to try to maximize your stats for the class you are playing (so if a fighter, you put your best stats in Str, Dex, Con, and worse stats in other abilities). What this typically means is that your stats for your class are fairly close to their maximum values, but the other stats are not. So as you find potions, your character ends up improving stats that don't help their primary class much, but rather help them pick up other skills/classes, so probably not a big surprise on why many characters will pick up other classes. Now presuming random distribution of potions, it means that they will likely stock up on potions for their class and probably make an item out of them, so all is not lost, but that is a harder way to improve stats (needs more potions). ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
