From siegfried.eureca at gmail.com Thu Oct 1 00:42:01 2020 From: siegfried.eureca at gmail.com (Siegfried Eureca) Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2020 22:42:01 -0700 Subject: [crossfire] Advice for late-game gear: getting constantly one-shotted In-Reply-To: References: <20200929094931.5c7ebb36@ealexhome.local> Message-ID: Well, I'll have to bite my tongue on difficulty. I'd say the real problem was me not understanding the damage formula. Apparently, character level affects AC somehow, as I was able to waltz into Zorn castle with the same -31 AC as before (just as level 101 rather than 79 like earlier), and clobber pretty much everything. My one-handed-weapons skills were much higher (89 now versus 40 earlier), but my AC did not change. On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 at 19:26, Siegfried Eureca wrote: > Thank you for the help. For the longest time I just focused on > elemental/status resistances, and completely ignored AC.I think more recent > years of DnD and Monter Hunter made me realize how silly that was. I'm now > at AC-30 and cruising through Zorn castle. > > FWIW, I think it's cool to hear from devs, esp. when they last worked on a > map over a decade ago. I've played this game a long time it seems (and only > recently started learning how to play it well). > > :) > > On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 at 11:19, Siegfried Eureca > wrote: > >> I recall that now. It's just that I can't get in a clean shot with my >> attack unless I lure him outside his shop, and when he's close, he >> one-shots me. Maybe I can make a prayer-trap or something. >> >> On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 at 11:07, Poof wrote: >> >>> On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 13:26:09 -0400 >>> Preston Crow wrote: >>> >>> > On 2020-09-29 13:05, Siegfried Eureca wrote: >>> > > I've been gradually getting back into Crossfire, having played it >>> > > on-and-off over the years. One thing that has always frustrated me, >>> > > is seeing the Scorn Sale Shop littered with gear from Zorn's >>> > > castle, and I can't even beat Zacharus Zorn at the entrance to the >>> > > Zorn quests. I have decent gear, IMHO, but he just rams into me and >>> > > kills me in half a second, leaving me no time to react or heal >>> > > (i.e. "I hope this guy isn't another instant-kill enemy; time to >>> > > flip a coin and charge him"). >>> > >>> > Well, you don't need to kill or even confront him to get into the >>> > castle. There is another way. But if you really want his key, >>> > another approach is to get good enough with the stealing skill to >>> > just take it. Of course, if you aren't good enough, you'll anger him, >>> > and he'll kill you. >>> > >>> > _______________________________________________ >>> > crossfire mailing list >>> > crossfire at metalforge.org >>> > http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire >>> >>> Siegfried, >>> >>> I create the Zorn stuff. Unless someone has changed it, there is a hint >>> by talking to a NPC in the area near Zorn where you can find out how to >>> defeat him. Zacharus Zorn is not intended to be easy to beat without >>> knowing his weakness. However, once you know his weakness, you can get in >>> without much trouble. Be aware that Zorn Castle is not easy either. ;) >>> >>> Actually, the suggestion of the stealing skill is a good alternative to >>> exploiting his weakness. But you have to have a pretty high stealing skill >>> to do that without getting stomped by ZZ as I recall. >>> >>> Finally, the Zorn quest was an ambitious idea I had way back when I was >>> active in Crossfire. I moved, changed jobs, and really had / have no time >>> to continue developing it. So it is an unfinished quest, but is good for >>> leveling. >>> >>> Gene Alexander >>> >>> -- >>> Mailing List Subscriptions - subscriptions at eracc.org >>> _______________________________________________ >>> crossfire mailing list >>> crossfire at metalforge.org >>> http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire >>> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nkipps at gmail.com Thu Oct 1 08:49:21 2020 From: nkipps at gmail.com (Nathaniel Kipps) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2020 09:49:21 -0400 Subject: [crossfire] Advice for late-game gear: getting constantly one-shotted In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 1:12 PM Siegfried Eureca wrote: > Is there some play balance issue I'm overlooking, or did some code change years back suddenly make a level 40 dungeon into an impossible level 110+ dungeon? Yes, there have been play balances. Notably, sometime after Metalforge's branch, and before the current trunk, there was a massive melee combat nerf, which was aimed at not only slowing down a lot of combat, but also reducing the power of endgame players so that they did not massively overpower all content. One of the major changes was that you longer get as much wc as you used to, and there were also some type of speed changes (you can no longer cut through low level enemies without slowing down). > ac => -120 This ac value would indicate to me that despite the melee nerf, the character was never intended to be killed, especially if he also has hitback. Or, he was intended to be killed by spells, which have very high wc. However, If the intent of the quest is for teh player to never kill him at all, and that is difficult to figure out without hints, then maybe the quest maintainer should adjust things or add another hint or two to help guide players in the right path. (Everyone loves a good puzzle, but balancing the number of hints is always hard.) --DraugTheWhopper From nicolas.weeger at laposte.net Wed Oct 7 05:22:11 2020 From: nicolas.weeger at laposte.net (Nicolas Weeger) Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2020 12:22:11 +0200 Subject: [crossfire] Archetypes collection changes proposal In-Reply-To: <1906015.4M1vBobDh4@gros> References: <1906015.4M1vBobDh4@gros> Message-ID: <4204355.yFtWbnVaRI@gros> Hello. I've made good progress, with a global skeleton on which to add more files to read (right now I read .face & .png files). Right now, partial collect process takes approx 10s. It'll probably take more at the end, 'cause of more file processing. I'll just freely troll (to vent some frustration :)), but I have to do really similar stuff for many structure types (faces, archetypes, treasures, artifacts, and probably more), and frankly, I'm really tempted to "accidentally" switch to C++ just to reduce that duplicated code by using good old std::map<>... Best regards Nicolas -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. URL: From nicolas.weeger at laposte.net Wed Oct 7 05:25:10 2020 From: nicolas.weeger at laposte.net (Nicolas Weeger) Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2020 12:25:10 +0200 Subject: [crossfire] Windows server support Message-ID: <18237933.6WzLS3InpF@gros> Hello. After a discussion on the IRC channel, I wonder if anyone is currently compiling the server for Windows? Latest pre-compiled binaries are 7 years old on SF. It would be great to have a newer version :) Did anyone lately try to compile the server? With what toolchain? Ideally, we'd have night builds (of client & server for Linux & Windows & whatever we support), but well... Best regards Nicolas -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. URL: From kevinz5000 at gmail.com Wed Oct 7 13:51:29 2020 From: kevinz5000 at gmail.com (Kevin Zheng) Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2020 11:51:29 -0700 Subject: [crossfire] Archetypes collection changes proposal In-Reply-To: <4204355.yFtWbnVaRI@gros> References: <1906015.4M1vBobDh4@gros> <4204355.yFtWbnVaRI@gros> Message-ID: <484c754b-5b17-4190-356f-1790ee0ac012@gmail.com> On 10/7/20 3:22 AM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: > I've made good progress, with a global skeleton on which to add more files to > read (right now I read .face & .png files). > > Right now, partial collect process takes approx 10s. It'll probably take more > at the end, 'cause of more file processing. Is this code somewhere that we can take an early look at? > I'll just freely troll (to vent some frustration :)), but I have to do really > similar stuff for many structure types (faces, archetypes, treasures, > artifacts, and probably more), and frankly, I'm really tempted to > "accidentally" switch to C++ just to reduce that duplicated code by using good > old std::map<>... I would support code changes that reduce duplication and make code more maintainable. On the other hand, I'm not sure I have the same in-depth understanding (I like to tell myself) of C++ as I do C. If something inevitably breaks, I'm not sure I'd know how to fix it. I've run many C++ programs in a debugger to figure out what's going on, only to find that some constructor or destructor caused a segfault. I have a vague understanding of C++ name mangling, but am not sure I could fix a broken C++ build. Perhaps all that's needed is some C++ education on my part. Regards, Kevin