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

Mark Wedel mwedel at sonic.net
Sun Sep 3 17:27:20 CDT 2006


Raphaël Quinet wrote:

>>> 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.
> 
> But again, that would be the wrong way to limit the number of levels
> lost: if a server admin does not want players to lose more than 1
> level per death, then the admin should modify the exp curve or lower
> the death_penalty_percentage.

  But it seems like you are deciding server policy for server admins, who may 
not agree with that policy.

  I agree with Alex here - keeping that option around doesn't do any harm - it 
can be set to a high value such that it effectively does nothing.  But if a 
server admin does want to set it, who are we really to say that you can't?

  IIRC, the reason that was added was that at high levels, a characters death 
could amount to losing quite a few levels.  Sure, at high levels it may not be 
hard to regain them, but the point was that losing a whole bunch was considered 
excessive.  I have a feeling that removing it may cause several complaints, as a 
character that dies loses more than they expect.

  (another issue related to this is overall level, which dictates items you can 
wear, etc).

  But this actually has more issues related to death.

  If the death penalty is not very high (in terms of whatever penalty, be it exp 
or stat loss, etc), then players are more likely to play aggressively.  If a 
death costs me 15 minutes, but agressive playing more than makes up for it 
because of faster exp gain, you play agressive.

  OTOH, if death penalty is very high, players would play much more cautiously, 
because a death may mean several hours of lost work.  In this case, playing 
slower/safer may make up for it, even with the slower exp gain.

  I'm not sure what the perfect balance is, but that is just some food for thought.




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