Re[2]: Balance/Perception (was BackStab)

From: Gary Barnett (gbarnett@polarnet.com)
Date: 02/06/97


At [Thu, 6 Feb 1997 18:14:03 -0500 (EST)]
Walter Goodwin <jgoodwin@expert.cc.purdue.edu> wrote:

>  > 
>  > While this system will work well for high levelers, a method of making
>  > low level players find high level equipment to be a major drain (either
>  > time or money I think) is needed. I haven't fully solved that issue, and
>  > it's one of the main ones I'm still considering before implementing the
>  > final balancing act on the mud. 
>  > 
>  > Any ideas? Other than OOC ones like eq-limiting, level-limiting, etc?
>  > 
>  
>  What do you consider OOC about eq-limiting? (and exactly what do 
>  you mean about eq-limiting?)  Afterall, there definately are NOT
>  a group of mages that do nothing other thans pump out swords of
>  ultimate annhilation.  Some items should be extremely rare just due
>  to the sheer cost of producing such items.  (thats one of the things
>  missing in a lot of D&D games I've played, DM's not assuming that
>  there would be only a limited number of items due to demand/cost.

Well. 1) No magic.. so no magical sword makers. 
Rarity of items is handled via quests.. If the item is rare, it's sitting
_somewhere_ waiting to be picked up, quested for, or what have you.. and
those quests are designed to be difficult, and not doable by all players.

>  for instance, I could honestly say that having 2 cloak's of the magi
>  in the entire world would be Perfectly realistic)

True. I figure in that case that only a couple people would be able to
figure out how to get such a cloak.. and by the time someone else did,
someone would have met their death in a nice DT :-)

This of course requires a rule.. Don't give other players quest related
information.. Of course this will be ignored.. But, at least most of the
players can be counted on to at least not give the quest info out to
first time players that they don't know. 
>  
>  Sure, minor wands should be relatively common, (stress relatively)
>  while major magic items would only be made for a specific purpose,
>  and not be made anymore.  Afterall, the legendary dwarven smith
>  Mron could only forge so many enchanted swords before his passing on
>  his 300'th birthday.  (ie. if you do it properly, limiting eq is
>  actually Perfectly in character, and actually opens up quests. ie.
>  someone finally brings down Drax the conquerer and takes his sword,
>  then you can have all sorts of fun quests to return the sword to the
>  dwarven kingdom from which it was stolen, etc.)

I agree. Killing a mob shouldn't give the best items in the game. Solving
a particularly hard quest (that might involve killing several hard mobs)
should be the way to get rare objects and equipment. In addition making
such quests only doable by a character once (unless they DT WITH the
item on them.. and then only for some items.)
>  
>  Also, I wanted to find out about your 100 point stat system. I
>  was also thinking about imping something like this.  I was going
>  to break it down into general categories, like a Supra-human range,
>  god-like range, a normal range, etc.  This way some races could
>  be Faaaaar more powerful than others.  (Giants getting +1 str. is
>  slightly ridiculous :)   I was jsut wanting to find out how you
>  handled things like, str_app, int_app, etc arrays,  I was planning
>  on having a formula and have a function calculate it, but if someone
>  has a better way.... :)

I actually used the formula approach. I created a set of defines
that include all the different tests and have a function that
handles the calculations. This seems to fit well for my approach
in that with over 300 skills to implement, it keeps all the
relevant code in one place. Of course there is the obvious
drawback of having a huge switch statement.. but then speed
was never my primary design goal, seeing as the target hardware
will handle even my less than effecient coding style. (I'm
actually running the mud on a 486/33 now.. when it opens it'll
be on a P-166.. more than enough extra speed to handle the
100 player limit I'm arbitrarily setting.) .. and no, I don't
compile code on that machine.. that'd be a huge waste of time :-)

--Mallory


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