Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu!news From: smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Stephen M. Smith) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games Subject: Re: RPG opinions (was Re: Programmer...) Message-ID: <1990Nov13.013631.1774@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu> Date: 13 Nov 90 01:36:31 GMT Sender: news@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu Organization: The Ohio State University (IRCC) Lines: 44 Nntp-Posting-Host: hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu Matt Rollefson writes: >What would be nice to see in these games is a bit of a reality-check in >terms of monster vs player strength. The power scale is simply not as >steep as most games model it. That is, the difference between a typical >monster (orc, say) and a high-level adventurer should not be that huge. >Sure, the high-level adventurer should be able to beat the orc in almost >any one-on-one confrontation. But he shouldn't have 20 to 30 *times* >the life-expectancy, and armor that is orders of magnitude better. Here's another thought: Why should all the monsters have predetermined strengths, agility, "HP", etc.? If your elf fighter or dwarf fighter can range from "level 1" to "level 20", why does an orc always have the same HP and the same AC? Sure, every now and then you get an "orc leader" but this is rare. The reason this is done is twofold: 1) Since you have about 2,000 encounters in the average game you can't make them all different unless you have a random generator roll the monster's stats each time. But this would not be creative and might even make battles annoying. 2) Easier to program. Every monster X will have class A characteristics, every monster Y will have class B characteristics, etc. Solution: Reduce the the number of encounters to around 300 (?) and make each monster different from the next even within the same species. You might think that a reduction from, say, 2,000 encounters down to only 300 encounters is too drastic. On the contrary, in my opinion that is still too many. If you play 6 hours a day, 7 days a week, and encounter a monster (or a group of monsters) once each hour, it would still take you over 7 weeks to finish the game. I would probably make the game so that you would fight about 100 battles, one every 3 hours of real time. This would still barely give you time to prepare yourself, learn where the monster(s) is(are), find all you can about your foe, plan your battle strategy, etc. Plus the game would not be designed around simply fighting battles--fighting would be one element of the gaming world's environment. S. "Stevie" Smith \ + / ,,@ ircc.ohio-state. \ + / {7%*@,..":27g)-=,#*:.#,/6&1*.4-,l@#9:-) " edu> \ + / BTW, WYSInaWYG \ + / --witty.saying.ARC