Re: [Adonthell-devel] Thoughts on character implementation

[Kai Sterker]

On Sat, 08 Mar 2003 12:02:08 +0100 Nils Fohrbeck wrote:

> This sounds like a good idea. Actually Ben and I had had some thoughts
> along that road as well (as far as combat is concerned anyways).
> Because only the player characters can gain levels and use items, they
> are the only only ones using all the properties, while the monsters
> would only need very few of them (as you said the combat stuff).

Actually, I would suggest that all creatures can "gain" levels. Think
about random creature generation. Instead of saying we want a human or
wolf with those attributes, we could simply say we want a level 4 human
or level 5 wolf, and the generator would then calculate the actual
attribute values by randomly increasing (levelling up) attributes
according to the rules.


Which makes me think about another issue: currently, an attributes like
health for example is calculated from hardness by multiplying with a
factor that is the same for every character. That means a wolf with
hardness 4 would have as much health as a dwarf with hardness 4.

I think that makes only sense if it is much harder for the wolf to gain
a hardness of 4. Say a wolf needs to spend 6 points for a rank in
hardness, a Dwarf only 3. That way, a level 10 wolf might for example
match a level 5 dwarf. Which might be appropriate.

The same could be applied to all races and attributes. Like an Elf could
increase willpower with 2 points, while a dwarf might need 4. OTOH, the
Elf could need 4 to increase hardness and strength. I think that way, we
would further distinguish the different races.


You might ask why we should do all that. I think balancing the game will
be much easier if we work with a table for each type of creature. If we
want to make a creature stronger or weaker, we'd simply change one or
two values in the table. No need to rewrite code or stuff. Also, it'll
be much easier to let the computer generate creatures than assigning all
their attributes manually. If we did latter, and found the game too hard
or too easy, we had to change all the creatures we've created. The other
way, we'd simply had to change a few values in a table or two.

The only exception would be "boss" monsters. I guess they need to be
created manually.


Another benefit is that randomly generated creatures could easily be
adapted to the player's strength. Their level could be created from a
range [player_level - 2; player_level + 2] for example. That way, they'd
neither be too hard nor too easy to deal with.

We could also easily implement different levels of difficulty by simply
adjusting the above interval. Like 

    easy:   [player_level - 4; player_level]
    medium: [player_level - 2; player_level + 2]
    hard:   [player_level; player_level + 4].

Even our boss monsters (i.e. those that aren't randomly generated) could
be adapted to the player's level. At least to a certain degree. That
way, the game would be less boring for players that are strong, and less
frustrating for weak players.


If we'd implement this, that table specifying what attributes a creature
has would now contain two values. The maximum rank a creature can gain
and the points required to raise the attribute by one rank. That's only
a minor change to our rules, but will bring much benefit. What do you
think?

Kai