Re: ARENA: Critique

From: etxaha@eua.ericsson.se (Anders Hallberg)

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 11:26:52 +0000

equils@phakt.usc.edu (The Equilizer) writes:

Eq> I've seen a 1 str(epee) do more damage than a 8 str (2-handed
Eq> sword) .  The sword was doing inconsequential strikes. The epee
Eq> was doing tramendous blows.
How many fights do you base this statement on? I had a high STR,
2-handed-sword fighter who made his fair share of tremendous blows, he
had two kills before I retired him.  Nothing in the rules say that
high STR = high damage.  What they do say is that high STR is needed
to wield heavy, high-damage weapons.  I also think that STR affects
how much you can carry.  If you want to use heavy armour you need to
have the STR to carry it.

Eq> Also I definitely think that warriors learn too slowly.
I can agree with that.  As Scott pointed out, this is worked better
with the old ARENA.  I like the idea of giving extra points faster in
the beginning that someone mentioned.

Eq> Also armor SUCKS!  If anyone wears it they collapse prematurely.
Eq> I had a 4 str 4 con 4 stmna wearing woven cord (tactic barbarian 4
Eq> 0) and I collapsed in one minute.
Weird, this doesn't seem like much too much armour for STR 4.  Which
weapon did you use? What was the total weight carried?

Eq> Another warrior with 2 str 5 con 5 stamina wearing brigandine
Eq> (tactic parry 0 4) was to tired to do much of anything the whole
Eq> fight but stand there.
Not very surprising, STR 2 is far to little to wear heavy armour.

Eq> Well what I'm upset about is I spent alot of time on this game
Eq> before the problems started to surface and I just want to let
Eq> others know of this waste of time PBEM.
Well, spending the time was your decision.  There is a lot of people
spending time on ARENA who doesn't consider it a waste of time.
  It was easier to experiment earlier when you could do many more
fights per turn.  Perhaps there could be a "Practice ARENA" with
another mail address and database and slightly changed parameters (one
turn per hour, one fighter per user, CHALLENGE *, no limit on the
number of fights per turn and auto retirement after some number of
fights (10 for example)).  This should be enough to try out new
concepts fairly fast.
--
\Anders Hallberg - + )

References

ARENA: Critique
equils@phakt.usc.edu (The Equilizer)
Fri, 11 Feb 1994 06:04:05 +0000