Re: CF: Successful experiments - commit to CVS?

[Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>]

David Andrew Michael Noelle wrote:

> 1) attacktype: psionic
> 
>     This one isn't quite ready.  I still have to go through the monsters and
> set some of them vulnerable, protected, or immune to this, althourh many
> already have vuln/prot/immune to the various side-effects.  Also need some
> monsters that naturally use this.  There are a couple working spells, and
> one artifact weapon, though.
> 
>     Psionic Blast - cone-type spell
>     Psionic Bolt - bolt-type spell
>     Psionic Strike - similar to Finger of Death (not implemented yet)
>     Mind Blade - very light, very fast katana, attacktype: psionics
> 
>     Psionic attacks do half of their damage directly then apply confusion,
> slow, fear, and paralyze effects, each of which can be seperately
> vulnerable, protected, or immune.  They cut the damage in half, rather than
> simply doing less damage in the first place, so that in mixed attack
> vectors, the actual full damage can come from the physical part of the
> attack.
>     When updating creatures, I intend to make all non-intelligent creatures
> immune to psionics.  Slimes and such don't have a mind to attack.  Highly
> intelligent creatures, like elves, wizards, and demons are protected from
> psionics, as are elementals, who do have minds, but are so alien that mental
> attacks are only half as effective.  Anything undead is automatically
> immune.

 I'm still not convinced this is a needed/desirable feature.  There are already
23 different attacktypes (although, some are fairly specialized.  Ghosthit
should probably go away (or get renamed), since it more describes an effect
(attacker disappears) than the actual attack.

 While I don't really have anything against new attacktypes, I would like to see
something new/interesting they add.  Currently, from the description you give
above, it just seems like sort of a composite attack.  But furthermore, with the
restrictions of what is actually affected (either too stupid or too dumb), it
seems like the overall usage of this spell would be quite limited.

> 
> 2) raw mana spells
> 
> 
>     Mana Blast - cone-shaped area of effect
>     Mana Bolt - bolt-shaped area of effect
>     S/M/L/ Mana Ball - fireball type area of effect.

 I think the mixing of different monsters is something that certainly will go
away, whether or not we go to a less frequent monster setup (mixing monsters is
just a bad map practice.)

 I personally think there are already enough spells, but a few more won't hurt. 
I would think the implementation of these should be pretty trivial.

> 
> 3) grenade spells

>     Another way to balance this extension of priestly attacks to general
> damage would be to make it a particularly slow spell to cast, as the priest
> must count three before throwing the grenade.  Ye must not count four, nor
> two, but that thou goest right on to three.  Five is right out....

 Still not really sure these are needed either.  The holy handgrenade sounds
very powerful.  Plus, it seems like a very close version of the mage spells,
which also seems duplicate.

 I think casting speed foris not a good balancing effect, because as of now,
many servers probably have that feature disabled.

> 
> 4) holy word of elemental or demihuman god vs. undead

 This change sounds OK to me.

> Animated weapons are agile, sturdy, and tough, in addition to receiving
> significant bonusses from the magical attributes of the weapon.  Magical
> weapons are much faster, stronger, and tougher.  A bonus to Str translates
> into an additional +5 damage.  A bonus to Dex gives the weapon +3 wc.
> Constitution and regeneration bonusses give the weapon golem many more hit
> points, making it last a lot longer.  The only problem with this is that the
> mage must be wielding the weapon when he casts the spell.  Not many mages
> can animate a Bone Crusher, and if they could, it would be remarkably slow.

 If it is a spell animating the object, I don't necessary see the players
skill/stats adjusting the weapon.  It more likely should be magical power (high
level caster == more powerful animated weapon) Otherwise, if those stats do
adjust it, then the experience should probably be split be magic and physical or
something.


> 6) overgeneration
> 
>     I removed the 1 point/tick maximum on sp/hp regeneration, but I'm
> thinking of either reinstating that maximum and raising the basic
> regeneration rate for spell points, or setting a new maximum of two points
> per tick.  Powerful mages with enough +Pow and +Magic items, and unlimited
> spell point regeneration speed, can be seriously unbalanced.

 2 points/tick is probably reasonable.  That should be less controversal than
increasing the regen rates.

> 
> 7) damage descriptions
> 
>     Just out of curiosity I changed the descriptive text for attacks to pick
> an adjective based on the percent of damage done rather than the straight
> number of points of damage.  I'm not sure yet whether I like this any
> better.

 I don't like this - many monsters have huge number of hit points (in the
thousands).  Under a percentage system, I have a feeling many attacks on tougher
monsters will result in the same generic messages.

 Although, to be honest, I don't bother to look at most the messages it prints
out. (only time I really notice is if I see 'You missed' scrolling down the
side, which means it is immune to my weapon.


 The other fact is the stuff you have for less than 1% damage by default isn't
going to show up very often, if at all.  And the things in the 0.001 to 0.009 is
likely to never show.

> 8) pouches in shops

 Don't see a problem with that proposed change.
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