Re: CF: strategy -- SPOILER

[Christian Stieber <stieber@informatik.tu-muenchen.de>]

Mark Wedel (mark@icp.siemens.com) wrote:

> > Polymorphing is more like a funny extra to play with in crossfire,
> > not a useful spell.
> 

> Polymorph could be useful (change that rust monster into something
> less dangerous).  The problem with a real time game like crossfire
> is that it takes too long to actual find that polymorph wand, and
> use it on the monster.

Keybindings? They used to be very useful on servers with the polymorph
bug.

> It works much better in nethack, where you have as much time as you
> need, so you can make a more calculated decision.

IMHO the differences are more subtle than that. Crossfire has an
unlimited supply of items, and no goal to reach other than exploring
all maps, getting all items and getting the full score. In nethack
people use polypiling to get the items they want. This is very
complicated in crossfire since items can, bascially, only get worse
(less valuable, actually --- but usually that also means worse). In
nethack a cheap helmet could turn into a helmet of brilliance.

Of course, in nethack you actually risk loosing a whole bunch of items
that you've collected before you get the items you want --- in crossfire
there is no problem to feed an virtually endless supply of helmets
or any other item type into the polymorphing process. There is also the
problem of identification in nethack --- you need to somehow identify
the items, which is much more difficult than in crossfire.

Concerning monsters --- I'm not sure whether we ever get better
monsters from polymorphing, something that's is definitely possible in
nethack. Of course, a lowlevel character probably doesn't want to
produce demiliches or evil masters, so their goal is to change a
monster into a less powerful one --- which is very dangerous in
crossfire as well as nethack, since you might create that rustmonster
out of a skull or something. Or you might create something with
stealing abiltities. One has to carefully consider the pros and cons,
both in nethack and crossfire. However, in crossfire there's no
or fewer pros :-(

The noteable exception, of course, is polymorphing fog --- this can
create very dangerous stuff.

Christian



-- 
Christian Stieber        http://www.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~stieber
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