Real Time Ascend Maling List Archive
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

CF: Direction, maps and balancing




There are several concepts of balance in the game; there is the
balance between classes/races, experience gain and artifacts and how they
affect the power of a character, and lastly the balance between monsters
and players. The maps and the future direction we wish the game to move
towards has a big impact on how crossfire can be balanced in the last
aspect.

In my opinion we should move towards making monsters more powerful, and
above all, more dangerous as their numbers grow. A firstlevel character
should be able to deal with kobolds on a one-on-one basis, as well as
birds, ants and mice. A fifth level character should be able to deal with
perhaps two goblins with just a small risk. The range through which
monsters may be dangerous should be extended, while the monsters would
also give far more experience. More hit-repeated-times to kill one
monster, less run-through-horde-repeated-times. Monsters and characters
should be more 'equal' in abilities and power. An orc chief should be
approximately as dangerous as a 7th level halforc player, you should gain
approximately the same experience as you would for killing either, and
there should be a 50-50 chance for either to win minus ordinary crippling
stupidity of game AI's :).

Currently, the wade-through approach is possible, I think, largely due to
extreme differences in speed. Lowlevel characters can manage feats that
would be beyond them, because the monsters wont even get a chance to get
in a hit before they're killed. Compare, for example, the speed with which
you can kill zombies as a lowlevel character with casting command 
undead and letting your pet zombies kill other zombies. The rate of hits
is rather low. This causes the effect where the only serious risk of
getting hit at all is when you're completely surrounded, and lined-up
monsters arent even a threat even if they're very dangerous.

Of course, such changes would affect playbalance in the extreme and render
most maps seriously flawed. All hordes-of-monsters maps would become
dangerous to the extreme, and you'd probably have to be level 20 to take
newbie tower, while single-monster maps would not change as much. Money
would be harder to get, since a good source of money is to kill
several hundred easy monsters with some amount of loot and sell it off.
Range weapons and magic would be more powerful, as well as tactical
playing, while fighting would be a lot more dangerous.

But I think the game would be much easier to balance in the long run, and
promote thoughtful mapcreation and playing in a better way.

What are peoples opinions? Should we go towards a more slow adventure-like
rpg with a main purpose of questing, or is the hack'n'slash approach 
wanted?

/David

-
[you can put yourself on the announcement list only or unsubscribe altogether
by sending an email stating your wishes to crossfire-request@ifi.uio.no]