[crossfire] Progressive exp table and removal of a bad hack: death_penalty_levels

[Alex Schultz]

Raphaël Quinet wrote:
> <snip>
>
> But this created two problems:
>
> 1) Contrary to what was expected, it is not very difficult to gain a
>    lot of exp near the high levels.  Due to the availability of high
>    level monsters and deep dungeons with a lot of monsters, the player
>    can still collect points almost exponentially while the exp curve
>    becomes almost linear.  As a result, it takes less time to go from
>    level 50 to level 100 than it takes to go from level 1 to level 15.
>   
One little note on this, I would say the levels 95-100 are fairly tricky
actually (of course not as much as 100-115 of course), and that your
statement might be a more accurate with level 50 to level 95, but yes,
despite the nitpicks I agree with your point, I might even say level
40-95 might more accurate for the range that is too quick to gain levels in.
> 2) The death penalty was still 20% of the exp points (plus a stat
>    loss).  Because the ratio between levels was increasing only by
>    about 1% near the high levels, losing 20% of the points meant
>    losing a lot of levels: a level 100 player could drop down to level
>    85 by just dying once.
>   
Well, with both default and metalforge exp tables, the situation with
that improves after level ~107, however yes, with the exception of that
minor nitpick I would agree with assessment of the problem.

> <snip>
>
> Proposed solution:
> - Get rid of death_penalty_levels.  This option hides the real problem
>   instead of solving it.
>   
I'm personally more inclined to leave the death_penalty_levels option,
but set it's default to unlimited, so server admins could do things such
as make their server do something like a 1 level per death max if they
wanted to.

> - Switch to a new experience table that uses a constant ratio between
>   levels for most of the table.
>
> Yesterday, I mentioned that designing an experience table before
> having reliable measurements aobut how much time is really spent for
> levelling up was like putting the cart before the horses.  But I have
> changed my mind since then.  I am now convinced that instead of trying
> design the "perfect" experience table and adjust the curve according
> to how experience is gained in real games, it would be better to start
> by selecting a new curve that is based on a constant ratio for most of
> the table and then adjust the parameters of the game (exp given by
> some monsters) to this curve.
>   
This makes sense to me.
> We still need to measure how experience is gained.  But this data will
> be used to increase or decrease the sources of exp points in the game
> in order to ensure that a reasonable amount of playing time is
> necessary for each level according to the new exp_table.  Doing the
> opposite (trying to adjust the exp_table according to how exp is
> gained) will never solve the problems associated with player deaths
> and the differences between high- and low-level characters.
Measuring exp gain gives me an interesting idea. It might be interesting
to devise an algorithm to have the game adjust the exp given by monsters
according to how easily players kill them, perhaps analyze how much
different traits affect the exp, and automatically change how much exp
such monsters would give. Perhaps too much effort/trouble than it's
worth, but it's an interesting idea anyways, making the game
self-balancing (within limits).


Alex Schultz