Re: CF: Direction, maps and balancing

[Peter Mardahl <>]

> On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Mark Wedel wrote:


There've been a lot of objections to the imbalance between monsters
and player characters, with talk of bringing players and monsters
to more of a parity level.

I actually prefer the current system:

1)  It would be very frustrating for me to play with characters who move
    slowly all the time.  When I press a key, I pretty much want my
    character to move right then.  I don't want to:
    press a key
    wait
    character moves
    press a key again
    wait....

    This doesn't strike me as fun.  Play with a character which is
    heavily loaded:  it's very frustrating.

2)  Monsters which can move as fast as a player could POTENTIALLY move
    are too fast for a human to react reasonably to.  Anyone been up against
    a speed 1.0 monster which moves does run-hit?  They're damned hard to
    fight.  By the time you can react, they've dodged....  you end up
    flailing about uselessly.

So just for playability reasons, you'd like fast player response 
(no annoying delay) and slower monsters, so that you have some time to
hit the computer-controlled enemy.

This sort of naturally requires that the monsters have more HP and/or
numbers, like the current system.

It doesn't bother me that a strong player can dogmeatize kobolds:  that
same player gets little to no reward for doing that, so I believe it
is balanced.

> 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. 

How about a slight mod allowing for a monster to instantly try to hit a player
who steps into a square next to them, say, perhaps if they have more than
half their speed?

> >  I think a little more thought out battles would be nice.  The problem is t
> > time is sort of tricky in crossfire - if you are wandering accross cities o
> > whatever, 8 ticks/second (fast paced) is sort of nice.  However, when fight
> > tougher monsters, than can be a bit fast.

I have no problem with crossfire's scales.   The game can be somewhat symbolic
rather than realistic:  it IS only an RPG after all.

> Another possibility would be to be able to buy horses or such for
> travelling. 

Yet another hoop for players to jump through.  *sigh*

> 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).

Well, players CAN survive a few blows right now.  When I'm using a new char,
I go up against kobolds, and I can usually manage to not get killed, even
using a wizard in dagger-slash mode.

> 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 disagree strongly with this.  Swords are MUCH more effective weapons
overall than daggers:  damage/time should be higher, reflecting this fact.
Otherwise, I'll use my +4 dagger of rule instead of a sword.

> >  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

Not that much faster.  In fact, most monsters don't regenerate at all.
I changed this awhile ago.  Con can take values from 1 to 128
(or was it 100?  I forget),
with 1 being slow regeneration, and 100 (or 128?) being fastest.
Pow does the same thing for sp.

> > Something like:
> > 
> > speed 2.0 - lightning bolts, arrows.

Maybe spells and projectiles in general need to be sped up.  However,
things past about 1.0 are practically impossible for players to dodge.


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