Looking for Hellfire programmers

[Jarulf]

Looking forward to reading your bard\rogue notes.  Thanks again for the info.
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Ooops, forgot :o

The idea was, for various reasons, to make he even more than the rogue "good at everything but best at nothing". Here is a cut and paste from a mail I made. Note that all this was before the existance of my Guide and hence I did not have as much information about many details of the game. I think it realy wasn't as much changes I did propose in the end though, my memory have never been that good :)



> Lets go through her the same way I did with the barbarian though.
>
> Stats:
>
> Str 120 (20)
> Mag 120 (20)
> Dex 120 (25)
> Vit 100 (20)
>
> Can't be more well balanced than this :)
>
>
> Mana and life follows the exactly same equations that the Rogue and
> Monk do:
>
> Life: 25+Vit(base)+1.5*Vit(items)+2*(level-1)
> Mana: 15+Mag(base)+1.5*Mag(items)+2*(level-1)
>
> Only difference is a bit more starting mana. You wrote in one mail
> that she had 1.75*magic. Would that be from items? That might be a
> good idea. What she really lacks in the magic department is mana. A
> little more than the Rogue but way less than the sorcerer. With a bit
> more mana she could be a bitter better at throwing spells AND using
> mana shield. After all she will go into more close combat than the
> Rogue or bard. I have no real other idea or objection in this area
> BUT, she also have the mana bonus (75% of mana cost unless already at
> minimum). I first thought she should not have it as it would leave the
> mage alone with the warrior (and barbarian of course) to pay full mana
> cost. It made it almost look like a penalty to the mage. But what I
> like more is to keep the mana reduction (the 75% for casting spells)
> on the "mixture" characters, Rogue and Bard, and just changing so the
> Monk pays full mana cost. I never really understood why he should only
> pay 75%. It makes it over all more "balanced" and motivated and I
> don't think it would really hurt the Monk. Perhaps such an alteration
> of the Monk is out of the question but I think we can't have the
> situation where most characters _except_ the mage pay reduced mana. In
> that case the Bard should pay full mana cost.
>
> AC is good, will end up somewhere between warrior and rogue (due to
> 120 dex) and that will compensate somewhat for the lost AC from shield
> when using 2 weapons compared to a warrior. As for ToHit see below.
>
> Before we look at damage formulas lets see how she handles weapons.
> Basically she can use a one handed weapon in her shield hand too. I
> have not figured out if it has any difference in what hand she carries
> the weapons bit at least for the graphics she appears to be left
> handed (left hand weapon type determines if she is shown with sword or
> club). This raises the interesting question how damage is handled
> against monsters types were damage is changed (for example skeletons
> and swords) when she carries a sword and a club at once. From what I
> have heard from people, the quarter damage only works when both
> weapons are the same. Otherwise the damage just seem to be added and
> treated as one weapon. One interesting thing I noted was that Flails
> and War Hammers are treated like the two-handed weapons when wearing
> at least one of them. Might it be due to occupying 6 slots or?
>
> OK, on to damage:
>
>
> Basic (two-handed bare-handed (or with just a shield): Str*level/100
>
> Just like the warrior
>
>
> With one handed weapons (except flail and war hammer):
> (Str+Dex)*level/200
>
> Like the rogue. But notice that when maxed out her base damage will be
> less than the Rogue due to max Str+Dex being lower. So with sword
> shield she will not be very good at all. She is "doomed" to use two
> weapons at higher levels. In the first few levels she might be better
> of with a shield though. What about ToHit? Should she share the
> warriors ToHit bonus? When maxed she will end up some 30% higher than
> the warrior due to higher dex but still way behind the rogue. Add the
> warriors +20% bonus and they are about equal. Let it be that way. She
> does not need higher ToHit so no such bonus.
>
> Bows: (Str+Dex)*level/200
>
> It used to be /300 and you once wrote me it was changed to /250. I
> think it should be /200 (same as Rogue). She will still be worse off
> than the Rogue due to firing slower (see below and I also think you
> have written you already made her slower with bow). This will make bow
> an alternative at least in lower character levels, especially in the
> caves where monsters can be out of reach behind lava or fences (I even
> tried a bow with my warrior there but it was just to slow and to
> little damage). Yes she could use magic but with this damage she has a
> bit of an alternative. I don't think many people will use a bow with
> her even if the damage was even higher. In the long run she will again
> do less damage than the rogue due to lower max Str+Dex and many people
> already thinks the rogue does almost to little damage with a bow at
> high levels. So I can't see any danger in having the bow damage the
> same as the rogue. What about here ToHit. I don't know really how
> ToHit is calculated with bows and what influence it. Is it just the
> same ToHit as for melee but with some other hidden ToHits? If so, she
> should have a bit less than the rogue but better than others. Remember
> her max Dex is lower than the rogue so she will later on be even more
> behind the Rogue but more ahead of the others.
>
> Now for how quick she swings the weapons. Again I included all other
> characters for comparison:
>
>
> Weapon Warrior, Rogue, Sorcerer, Monk , Barbarian - Bard
>
> Swords/Clubs:
> Normal/Readiness 0.45, 0.50, 0.60, 0.60, 0.45 - 0.50
> Swiftness 0.40, 0.45, 0.55, 0.55, 0.40 - 45
> Speed/Haste 0.35, 0.40, 0.50, 0.50, 0.35 -40
>
> Same as rogue. No other alternative actually as she can't be faster
> (same as warrior) or slower (would just be to slow)
>
>
> Axes:
> Normal/Readiness 0.50, 0.65, 0.80, 0.70, 0.50 - 0.60
> Swiftness 0.45, 0.60, 0.75, 0.65, 0.45 - 0.55
> Speed/Haste 0.40, 0.55, 0.70, 0.60, 0.40 - 0.50
>
> I increased it one step. A bit quicker than rogue (she is a bit more
> physical and combat type) but still far from a warrior or barbarian.
>
> Staves:
> Normal/Readiness 0.55, 0.55, 0.60, 0.40, 0.60 - 0.50
> Swiftness 0.50, 0.50, 0.55, 0.35, 0.55 - 0.45
> Speed/Haste 0.45, 0.45, 0.50, 0.30, 0.50 - 0.40
>
> Quicker than both warriors and rogues but far from the monk. Notice
> that she is quite a bit quicker than the mage. Perhaps someone would
> like to try her out as a "battlemage" and use some arch-Angel staffs,
> who knows. After all she shall be good at most stuff.
>
>
>
> Bows:
> All 0.55, 0.35, 0.80, 0.70, 0.35, 0.80 - 0.45 or 0.50
>
> Slower than the rogue. This is where she in the end will be worse than
> the rogue at bows even if the damage formula is the same. Even with
> same stats she will be worse off. Together with worse ToHit also she
> just isn't as good but still better than any other class.
>
> Other:
> Shield 0.45, 0.50, 0.45, 0.45, 0.50, 0.50 - 0.45
> Bare-handed 0.45, 0.50, 0.60, 0.45, 0.50, 0.50 - 0.50
>
>
> Just like the rogue
>
> Spell 0.70, 0.60, 0.40, 0.65, 0.60, 0.80 - 0.50
>
>
> This is quite fast although still a bit behind the sorcerer. Again I
> have not really any idea how ToHit for magic works but I think that
> magic is the determining factor here. Is it? Are there any hidden
> modifiers? She should be better than Rogue at hitting but worse than a
> sorcerer. A sorcerer seem to hit about anything a warrior misses
> anything (don't have a clue for the rogue as I have not played her
> much). Anyway, make sure she does miss sometimes both on normal (lower
> character level and not yet maxed) difficulty and hell difficulty
> (high character level with maxed magic).
>
> So now lets look at some other parameters:
>
> Critical Hit. As far as I know warriors can do it with melee weapons.
> Can any one else do it? Is it possible with a bow? With magic? She
> should in my opinion have the possibility with melee weapons. If
> possible with bow, she should also have it. Same goes for magic.
>
> How about blocking. I understand everyone have the same blocking
> ability. But warriors can do a fast block. The bard should block
> normally with a shield, like a rogue and sorcerer.
>
> She already have the ability to do quarter damage with two swords.
> Does it work with two clubs? Should do. With one club and one sword?
> Should not as one should be forced to use equal weapon types (if one
> want clubs more of an alternative, give it to the bard when she uses
> one of each too).
>
> Hit recovery/Stun. I think every character (except possibly the
> Barbarian see below) works the same. So should the bard do.
>
> I might have missed some areas but can't think of any. Now lets look
> at general things and compare a bit to other classes. I compared a
> warrior, bard and barbarian at different levels (took what seemed to
> be OK weapons and stats for the level and also checked how a maxed
> level 40 person with max damage weapons do). The bard does about the
> same damage as a warrior except at around 20 levels when she does
> more. The reason I think is that her base damage is less than the
> warrior and all the time the gap gets larger to end up at about half
> when all stats are maxed. Weapon damage on the other hand start at
> about the same but for the bard ends up at about 4 times the possible
> damage. This weapons damage climbs faster at lower level meaning the
> bard will go past warrior in mid levels and later on when the base
> damage from a warrior catches up they end up about equal at level 40
> but later on the warrior will probably get higher. Not that the bard
> can compensate for this by better magic. The warrior will have a bit
> better AC from shield (although higher dex somewhat compensate) and
> can block which the bard can't with two weapons. The barbarian will
> (with an axe) always do way more damage. This also is compensated for
> by the bard by way better magic and also by better AC (see some
> additional comments about barbarian below). In all calculations I
> compensated for weapon speed as well. Note though that this is all
> theoretical, no real game experience as I don't have barbarian and
> correct bard. I noted though that when I started up Hellfire today to
> play the bard a bit, that I had great problems. I first tried
> Nightmare/Hive, I could almost not hit anything (had about 105 ToHit
> though). So I went for normal/Hive and normal/crypt. Still quite hard
> to hit and monsters took an amazing number of hits to kill. I did
> about 40-50 damage and yet Bone demons could take some 8 hits to kill
> !!! I thought that maybe using the command.txt messed things up some
> way (almost thought I was still in nightmare) so I deleted it and
> restarted a new game. Now I noted that all my number of monsters
> killed was gone !!! A bug? I still though I should hit monsters a bit
> more often as it was nightmare and although I had 180 AC monsters hit
> me surprisingly easy. Are there something strange with the bard I
> started to wonder? I then experimented with different weapons
> (club/club, sword/club and sword/sword). I noticed that with
> sword/sword I killed most monsters quite easily with 2-3 hits (satyr
> lords, rats, devil kin brutes, biclopes). The I changed to sword/club.
> The satyr lords now took about 4 but sometimes up to 8 (!) hits to
> kill. Devil Kin Brutes 3-6 hits and so on. Changing to club/club
> seemed to be a bit better but far from sword/sword. This arouses a few
> questions.
>
> Does the rogue get penalized when using sword/club? As opposed to
> club/club and sword/sword?
>
> Is clubs really that much worse against most monsters? If so, the
> damage for clubs on the Barbarian must be increased a lot to be an
> alternative to swords.
>
> I can't seem to recall having any such strange behavior with the Monk.
> And having 180 AC in Crypt (should be equivalent to the caves right)
> in normal should make you almost untouchable. Am I missing something?
> Is it really the missing blocking ability that makes so much
> difference? Some other strange things I noticed. While holding two
> weapons, when you then wanted to switch one weapon for another one, if
> you clicked to the right the left weapon changed and if you clicked on
> the left one the right one changed. Shouldn't it be the other way
> around? I also notice that it was the left hand weapon that determined
> what graphics that was shown. I final notice on the Crypt. I have seen
> NO monster that open doors. You should add that ability to many of the
> monsters in my opinion. On other thing. When Satyr Lords die, a small
> part of their body graphics ends up about one or two squares up to the
> right.
>
> Back to the Bard. I then compared the Bard with the Rogue and found
> that except for using a bow, the Bard was better at everything! Except
> for a bit lower AC and ToHit due to lower max Dex. She have more mana
> and life too. Perhaps there should be some other drawback. I just
> can't figure anything out to change about her though.
>
>
> Some more comments on the Barbarian. I really think that there should
> be no bonus AC at all for him. It is much better tweaking with the
> stun/hit recovery if necessary. I do also think that the barbarian
> should have a possibility to do a critical hit with melee weapons but
> (and this might be a big but), it might produce a to big damage with
> axes together with quarterdamage also. Have to be tested though.
>
> Well. This mail about the bard was not as structured as the one about
> the barbarian and doesn't have so many new ideas but to some extent
> the Bard is already quite finished in my opinion. Can't really see
> many new things to add (especially not bad things). And I don't think
> she need more advantages, rather the opposite. It would be nice to
> hear what you think about this and my other follow up to the barbarian
> I posted yesterday evening. If I can think of more things I will mail
> you again. Perhaps I can find more small things to change if I hear
> how the other changes are doing when you play test them.
>
>