Nicolas Weeger wrote: >> But even with that, I found that I was waiting for mana to regen a lot. >> I suppose this isn't really any worse than fighters waiting for hp to >> regen. Since by the very nature, these are range spells, the wizard should >> ideally kill the creatures before they get next to him, and if they get >> close, fall back, cast again, and so on. > > Yes, assuming fall back is possible. The harder issue is that sometimes when > you exit the map monsters get on the exit too, or around, and when you enter > they just kill you straight.
Yes - that can be a problem. Typically not so much- players move faster than monsters, so if they run back to the exit, the monsters will be some spaces behind, and give a small gap. Once you leave the map, monsters will likely just stand still. But per your other message, being able to close door behind you, etc, would be good. > >> But there are also a couple key points here - one actually needs the >> space available to fall back. In the newbie tower, once I started making >> progress, I could basic remain beyond the monsters detect range and hit >> them with spells (and once the kobolds are dead, gives an outer circle to >> move in. But the difficult time was initial assault - after opening the >> doors, kobolds come out eliminating much space to move about. > > Meaning the map is bad, maybe? :) > Also, I'm not sure monsters obey the LOS rules, they often seem to spot the > player behind wall. > That should probably fixed so we can see the global effect of combat > reduction > (like: fire some bullets, flee around some corners, monster forgets you, you > can regen sp). Not positive if that is a good example - if a character is popping around the corner, firing a spell, and going back around, most monsters should be smart enough to either come to who is doing damage, or duck around a corner themselves to avoid being killed. > >> Another change I made was to give the pyromancer a spell regen bonus - >> this helps reduce the waiting some more. Rather than that being a force >> (how I instituted it), doing it as a ring may make more sense - player can >> upgrade it, but it also means that they don't really get a bonus if they >> choose a wizard and play it as a fighter (at some point, they'd likely find >> a ring more suitable for a fighter, and thus loose that sp regen bonus) > > What about small mana regeneration potions, like minor healing ones? > And keep mana regeneration for "medium" level items? The problem is you'd need a lot of those to be useful - and unless they are basically free, I'm not sure how many folks would buy them - it is a tradeoff of time vs money, but regen is generally fast enough that I'm not sure it is that much a bother (each cycle isn't that long) - the issue is more that there are a bunch of these cycles - this is also why you'd need a bunch of potions - in the newbie tower, it may be something like 50 rest periods, but each one is only 15-20 seconds. > >> I'm thinking some defensive spell may be in order, so if creatures do get >> close, they get killed. OTOH, maybe that is part of being a mage - you >> really don't want to be close to monsters. But many maps don't give much >> choice - go through the exit, and monsters are behind door 2 spaces away. > > Combat rebalance could mean to rebalance many maps, something that could be > interesting to do (with doors you can actually close, and so on), introduce > things more interesting than "rush and bash". I was thinking something like fire/frost/lightning/whatever shields. Those spells could do some damage to adjacent creatures, as well as provide protection to certain attacktypes. >> It may be that instead of defensive spell, giving them burning hands >> (cone spell), but with very limited range would work. But then, I'm also >> not sure how many spells we should/want to give out at first level - we >> need to keep some new spells for players to get as they gain levels. > > IMO, it could be interesting to have classes really differentiated. One with > offensive spells, one with mostly defensive ones, medium ground, and such. Sort of tried that with the evoker/sorcerer/pyromancer/summoner. They were quite different, but some were hard to play, not well balanced, etc. Another problem is that defenses spells is a tough way to gain exp. _______________________________________________ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire