Re: CF: Direction, maps and balancing

[David Sundqvist <>]

On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Mark Wedel wrote:

> David Sundqvist wrote:
>  Right now, a players weapon speed is a derived stat and only the player has a
> weapon speed.
> 
>  If there is a desire to still keep weapon speed, which there probably is, it
> should probably be added to objects at large.  So an item could be determined to
> have a bonus weapon speed or a bonus movement speed (or both).  So you could
> have bracers of speed, which increase weapon speed, and boots of speed, which
> increase movement.

Yes, and it should be added to monsters too. Again, it should be pretty
much the same as players; an average goblin should be able to move at
about the same speed as an average lowlevel player, and attack with about
the same speed. This will, of course, make them a lot more dangerous, but
that could be balanced with more exp and fewer numbers.

>  Currently, there is a max movement speed based on armor.  However, bonus speed
> items can go beyond that.
> 
>  Also, movement speed is calculated by how much you are carrying - so picking up
> 10 kg slows you down.  It may make more sense to determine a max carrying
> capacity based on strength, and instead have definate points where speed changes
> drastically.
> 
>   For example, if you are just carrying a little bit of stuff (maybe up to 25%
> of your capacity), speed is not affected much at all by it.  For the next 25% of
> the carrying capacity, speed goes down a bit faster, and so on.  I would have to
> double check - the current mechanism may use something similar to this.

IIRC, it does. Apart from the speed bug, I think it's fairly well thought
out as is. The problems are mainly in the actual speed which allows for
too many attacks for the player and outrunning things they shouldnt be
able to, and the actual speed of most monsters which make them almost
incapable of hitting players, unless they can surround them. 
 
>  I think a little more thought out battles would be nice.  The problem is that
> time is sort of tricky in crossfire - if you are wandering accross cities or
> whatever, 8 ticks/second (fast paced) is sort of nice.  However, when fighting
> tougher monsters, than can be a bit fast.

Indeed. It's difficult to strike a good balance here. One possibility
would be to have a 'run' control actually make the player 'run'. This
could be limited in some way by a switchover time, like you have to
unwield your weapon to run or something, to avoid it being used in combat. 

Another possibility would be to be able to buy horses or such for
travelling. 
 
>  Note that one problem is that most weapons do enough damage to kill first level
> players in just a couple blows.  And there is a definate disparity between
> player and monster HP (tough monsters have thousands of HP, tough players may
> only get in the hundreds).

Yes, that would be easier if it were balanced too. Again, an average
newbie should have the ability to survive at least a couple of blows from
a sword. I think I brought this up earlier; players should start with some
more hp, allowing them to survive a few blows, but gain more hp slower
(especially since actual effective 'hp' is increased through armour too).

Actually, weapon speed should be tied to weapon type too, and most normal
weapons should be inside a relatively close damage/time ratio. A
longsword would do more damage than a dagger per blow, but it would be
slower (do we do this already?).

>  I think the following are the key differences:
>  1) speed
>  2) armor
>  3) ac
>  4) hp.

I think monsters regenerate HP a lot faster too. They should probably have
a regeneration rate (and a slower one) just like players too; again
different things means different things for players and monster objects.
Currently it creates a kind of point where you either cant do enough
damage to keep up with the regeneration rate or you can do enough damage
and the monsters will pretty soon be 'easy'. There are both advantages and
disadvantages with that; you cant just locate a semi-trapped monster and
kill it by shooting arrows at it 'til it dies as a lowlevel character.
Then again, monsters shouldnt be trapped anyway (unless the player does a 
smart thing and traps it somehow). 

>  Players tend to have more of the first 3 than monsters, while monsters tend to
> have more of the last than players (to I guess balance that out.)  Players can
> pretty easily get up to 50 armor (reducing damage in half) - not a lot of
> monsters have that.  Players can also get very good AC early, making it
> difficult for monsters to hit the player.  And player thac goes up relatively
> quickly, so a tough to hit monster at first level becomes pretty easy at fifth
> (better thac, and likely a magical weapon)

Yes, and with the slowness of many monsters it's unlikely they hit, they
dont get many chances and if they do hit they dont do much damage. 

Modifying all these things will make monsters a lot tougher one on one,
but if we increase exp gain and change maps over to have far fewer
monsters that should be possible and it would move the game towards an
adventure/exploration/tactics type game. 

>  One thing that probably needs to be done is a definate heirarchy of speed. 
> Something like:
> 
> speed 2.0 - lightning bolts, arrows.

Probably even higher; 'outrunning' doesnt just mean 'running faster', it's
also possible to sidestep the lightning bolts and arrows, especially if we
increas game area size. It should be possible for a good character to
sidestep an arrow, but only if he's very good and if he sees the arrow a
fair bit away. 

>  Perhaps also have all players start with a movement speed of 1, with strength
> determining how fast that speed is reduced to lower values, and agility only
> increasing weapon speed.  So higher strength means it is more likely you can
> stay at high speed while still carrying stuff, and that high agility means you
> can attack faster, but does not mean you will actually move faster.  Since this
> would keep players actual movement speed a bit more constant (save for magic)

Hmmm, maybe dexterity should be split into deterity and agility, with
dexterity affecting lockpicking and chance to hit and weapon speed and
agility affecting movement, ac and similar... or that might be redundant. 

/David

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