[crossfire] stat loss and highly specialized players

[Mark Wedel]

  Various quick notes:

  The target release varies depending on the change.  For exp tables, I'd say 
that it can be put in 1.x as a commented out value, and if desirable, make it 
the default in 2.0

  One thing to keep in mind in all these discussions is the relation of this 
lost with permanent exp.

  I think right now, whatever permanent exp you have earned does not affect the 
loss - it just means you can never have less than your permanent value.  But if 
you die several ties relatively quickly, you can get down to that value pretty 
quickly.

  One change in this area could be to to base the experience loss based on the 
difference between current exp and permanent exp.  Thus, for practical purposes, 
it would be very difficult to ever get all the way down to your permanent exp. 
But then I'm not sure if that would make any real difference (what could be 
interesting is having different permanent exp ratios for different skills).

  I think there will always be some issues with skill inequalities.  Lets 
presume that under a revised system, you basically loose 1 level in each skill. 
  That is certainly a lot better than it is now, but if you are level 80 in one 
handed fighting and level 10 in literacy, loosing that level in literacy will 
seem much harsher (in terms of actual character power/importance, level 79 vs 80 
in fighting won't have a huge impact (in terms of percentage of actual level 
less, 9 vs 10 is bigger than 79 vs 80).  Not sure how to fix that.

  One thing to keep in mind for the original tables is that they were done 
before we had 64 bit experience values.  This put the limit at around 2 billion, 
which is why the hard table has that as the max exp.  When the level array was 
increased to 115 with 64 exp values, the last 5 levels had a lot steeper curve 
because it could be done and to make it hard for people to max out their 
character.  The old values were not changed for compatibility reasons.

  Because of that, as far as I can see, as long as the new exp total for level 
115 is above that of the old value, there doesn't really need to be a big change 
in the curve for the final levels.  I think under a revised system, you'll 
actually see fewer people at max levels, since it will be just as hard to get 
that much exp, so you are more likely to see characters sprinkled out amongst 
several levels when 100+