[Crossfire-wiki] [Crossfire DokuWiki] page changed: user:saru:balance

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Date        : 2014/10/08 09:13
User        : saru
Edit Summary: 

@@ -186,42 +186,45 @@
  ==== Equipment====
  Equipment refers to items players use such as weapons and armour.
  
  ===Method of finding equipment===
- Items of value can be found in 5 ways:
+ The current Items of value can be classified in 3 ways:
  ==Generic==
+ Generic items exist in the archetypes are get handed out via monster loot, treasure chests, or placed by random loot generators. Currently these loot tables specify individual items that are included in the drop chance such as broad_sword or buckler. In the case of chests this is a very large loot table. These items can have random enhancement modifiers added to them such as +1 or of Mostrai.
    - generic monster loot
    - generic Random Treasure
    - treasure chests
    - map placement
  ==Skill granted==
+ Skill granted items are obtainable only by meeting specific requirements of the skill such as maximum number of grace points or particular materials to craft from. This equipment should usually be 'god granted' items to avoid farming items out. These items are currently all exactly as specified (no variation)
    - crafted items
    - god granted items
  ==Map specific==
+ Map specific items are items that have been modified inside a map to grant new features (both positive and negative) to greatly enhance the speed and diversity of map making. These items present the biggest challenge in balance as they are more difficult to track. Some of these items should probably be 'god granted'. These items only vary by how map makers design them (no random variation)
    - specific map based items
    - specific monster drop
  
- Generic items exist in the archetypes are get handed out via monster loot, treasure chests, or placed by random loot generators. Currently these loot tables specify individual items that are included in the drop chance such as broad_sword or buckler. In the case of chests this is a very large loot table.
+ Each of these mechanics needs to provide useful items whilst not making highly powerful items easily accessible. 
  
- Skill granted items are obtainable only by meeting specific requirements of the skill such as maximum number of grace points or particular materials to craft from. This equipment should usually be 'god granted' items to avoid farming items out.
+ Items can appear quite similar but provide vastly different levels of power. One important aspect of crossfire is the diversity in equipment value. Players should be forced to make decisions about equipment based on strengths and weaknesses as they perceive them. For example the use of negative resistances on items is a fantastic way to make that uber item still have situations where an alternate item is a better choice. The down side to this is that analyzing item value is extremely difficult for anything other than basic or simple items (e.g. a weapon with 10 damage is better than a weapon with 5 damage, when damage is the only attribute).
  
- Map specific items are items that have been modified inside a map to grant new features (both positive and negative) to greatly enhance the speed and diversity of map making. These items present the biggest challenge in balance as they are more difficult to track. Some of these items should probably be 'god granted'.
+ Items should flag what the means of access is intended to avoid including items in random treasure when it is only intended to be offered upon completion of a specific challenge. It is probably simply whether the item is 'generic' and can be included in standard systems or is considered an 'artifact' and should only be used for specific applications such as completing a map or completing a complex crafted item. Artifacts should probably generally be 'god-given'.
  
- Each of these mechanics needs to provide useful items whilst not making highly powerful items easily accessible. 
+ ===Generic monster & random treasure loot===
+ Currently the game offers a specific set of items with various likelihoods for each to drop based on the treasurelist of that monster (or chest etc). This approach does allow for interesting diversity in what items players may encounter for some examples but also means that:
+   - collecting particular items can be very simple, bonecrushers off Titans for example. 
+   - some monsters are completely uninteresting to kill due to lack of reward.
+   - some monsters extremely profitable to kill. 
+ To add to this, the requirement to list every possible item that a particular treasurelist may drop is very time consuming and would be extremely difficult to update. Secondly it doesn't work at all for modified creatures so map makers must instead either create whole new archetypes (and the associated even longer treasurelist)
  
- Items can appear quite similar but provide vastly different levels of power. One important aspect of crossfire is the diversity in equipment value. Players should be forced to make decisions about equipment based on strengths and weaknesses as they perceive them. For example the use of negative resistances on items is a fantastic way to make that uber item still have situations where an alternate item is a better choice. The down side to this is that analyzing item value is extremely difficult for anything other than basic or simple items (e.g. a weapon with 10 damage is better than a weapon with 5 damage, when damage is the only attribute).
+ While each of these problems could be addressed individually, I want to propose a more general approach to fixing this effect that should be more tune-able, more easily.
  
- To enable developers to provide consistency, items should use the level value to inform other developers of where the creator intended on allowing players access to their weapon (obviously, trading between players can overcome this). Items should also flag what the means of access is to avoid accidentally including items in random treasure when it is only intended to be offered upon completion of a specific challenge. A similar system to attacktype could be used to implement this such that:
+ I propose that generic treasurelists for classes/groups/types of items should probably be maintained (such as what currently exists in treasurelist for chests). If we factor in a 'is_artifact' flag to avoid handing over specific items, then the most obvious generic treasure list would probably be each item type. With generic treasurelists, instead of listing each possible item, we can now simply list axes, maces, shields, body armour, food, body parts and money. We can set each generic treasurelist for the orc to have different probabilities (e.g. 5% chance to drop (95% chance not to drop) each type of equipment, a 10% chance to drop food, and a 50% chance to drop body parts). This makes it far easier for developers to add new generic items to the game without requiring extensive time adding them to each monster treasurelists.
  
- ^ Method of acquisition ^ Flag ^
- | generic equipment | 1 |
- | skill granted equipment | 2 |
- | specific map based items | 4 |
- 
- ===Generic monster & random treasure loot===
- The current treasurelist system allows for interesting diversity in what items players may encounter. However the requirement to list every possible item that a particular treasure list may drop is very time consuming and would be extremely difficult to update. Secondly it doesn't work at all for modified creatures so map makers must instead either create whole new archetypes (and the associated even longer treasurelist) Instead generic treasure lists for classes of items should probably be maintained (such as what currently exist inside the chests treasurelist). If we factor in a method of acquisition flag to avoid handing over specific items, then this list is probably just the item type. Now we can simply say that orcs should drop axes, maces, shields, body armour, and occasionally food and the treasurelists can automatically include any items from within those set. We can also set each set of items with different probabilities for example orcs might have a 5% chance to drop (95% chance not to drop) each type of equipment, a 10% chance to drop food, and a 50% chance to drop body parts.
+ The potential downside to this is that without knowing which items within a generic treasurelist are more or less valuable, generic treasure would be far more consistent in what dropped (boring) and players would be exposed to a wider quality of items from smaller variety of monsters making powerful items less valuable. To overcome this, I propose that we start using the level attribute of equipment to denote what the target audience (player level) should be. If we use the item archetypes to provide a target level, crossfire can then use the ratio between the item level and the level of the drop mechanism (monster, chest etc) to determine a sensible probability for the player to receive that item. This probability can be based off of a distribution (normal or poisson) with the standard deviation used to set how much variation from the monster level there is (And +luck could influence the standard deviation). We might consider adding an upper bound value such that items higher than monster level + upperbound are disregarded to avoid players getting too lucky.
  
- The problem with this would be that far more consistency in what dropped would occur (boring) and that players are likely to be exposed to more items sooner meaning they will quickly determine the better items (boring). To avoid this, we could consider the item level against the level of the drop mechanism (monster, chest etc) and determined a likelihood. For example when a level 8 orc is killed, the first roll occurs and determines that the orc has successfully dropped an axe type item. The new system would then roll to determine which axe from within the treasurelist of axes it drops. For example the axe treasurelist might have 3 axes in it; a stone axe might be level 5, an axe might be level 8 but a Battle Axe might be level 15. Using a normal distribution, we can use standard deviation to set how much variation from the monster level there is. This limits orcs from dropping too many very low or very high level items. For example with a SD of 4, the likelihoods would be:
+ ==Example==
+ A player kills an orc. The first item roll for treasure determines that the orc has successfully dropped an axe type item from the generic axe treasurelist. The new system would then roll to determine which type of axe from within the treasurelist it drops. The axe treasurelist might have 3 axes in it; a stone axe might be level 5, an axe might be level 8 and a Battle Axe might be level 15.  With a normal distribution and a standard deviation (SD) of 4, the likelihoods would be:
  
  ^ item type ^ item level ^ likelihood ^
  | stone axe | 5 | 22.7% |
  | axe | 8 | 73.3% |
@@ -233,9 +236,9 @@
  | stone axe | 5 | 0.0135% |
  | axe | 8 | 98.6% |
  | battle axe | 15 | 0.0003% |
  
- A similar process can then be applied to determine if it is a magical item (+1, +2, of mostrai etc.).
+ A similar process can then be applied to determine if it is a magical item (+1, +2, of mostrai etc.) and which magic property it gets (levels are added to magical properties along with the existing probability rates (Really good items are very rare)).
  
  ===generic armour===
  Currently:
    * generic body armour sits around +1 - +5 AC - (chainmail, platemail, leather armour etc)


IP-Address  : 59.167.121.117
Old Revision: http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/user:saru:balance?rev=1412775474
New Revision: http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/user:saru:balance

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