[crossfire] xp gaining

[Juergen Kahnert]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 10:43:40PM -0700, Mark Wedel wrote:
> Juha J??ykk?? wrote:
> > With hard cap, players get bored when they hit the cap and the
> > character can no longer improve. With impossible-to-reach maximum
> > level, there is a gap *below* the hard cap: if level 100 is
> > "impossible" to reach, it simply means level 99 is the cap! And
> > players still get bored when their characters no longer advance.  So
> > even without a hard cap, just impossibly difficult-to-reach levels,
> > people will get bored exactly like they would with a hard cap.
>
>   That's exactly my thought - to me, having no cap but impossible to
> reach exp totals is basically the same thing as a hard cap.  So why
> not do a hard cap then?

First of all, having level 100 aimed to be unreachable doesn't means
that level 99 is reachable and leaves a BIG gap between level 99 and
100.

Check out line -E- of the xp table:

http://wiki.metalforge.net/lib/exe/detail.php/dev_todo:exp_table_log2.png

Making level 100 nearly impossible to reach won't make level 99 much
easier to achieve.  In fact, in such a xp table even level 80 is
unlikely.  You'll never ever collect all the players at level 99,
because level 100 is the "unreachable cap".

But there are no longer such frustrating gaps between two levels.  And
still leaves room for extensions without tuning the xp table.


>   Now I'm certainly open to the idea that there is no cap on exp, just
> a cap on level.

I would understand to set a cap on a level to avoid an overflow of the
data type used to store xp.  But what's the idea of having a level cap
and keep xp raising?

My idea is to produce a better felling for the player, having more
motivation playing on higher levels without becoming bored due to a hard
cap.

Your idea is to set a hard cap because you can't imagine that there will
be more.

I say, let it run.  Make it more fun for newbies may increase the player
number which may increase the number of map makers which may solve your
extension problem.

If not, people may become level 101 or 102.  So what?  Does this hurt?
I don't expect to see much level 80, so really no big deal.


>   IMO, adding new regions when characters reach the cap is completely
> unrealistic, so I dismiss it as an option.

Keeping this option won't hurt.  So why do you like to cancel this
option without offering the chance to let it happen?


> Sure, it sounds great, and could happen, but past experience shows it
> won't happen.

Isn't one of the goals to make the game more attractive?  Won't that
increase the player number as well?  And the more player you have, the
higher the chance to get new map designers.

Show the newbies that their work is welcome.  Don't stall thinking.

Just because you can't imagine that there will be any extensions,
doesn't mean that there never ever will be any.  Same for me with a
working party support.  Just because I can't imagine how this will work
with CF doesn't mean it's impossible to implement. ;)


>   But how is this for another method:
> Whenever a character gains exp through any method, some portion (<10%)
> goes into a reserved pool - these exp don't go into any specific
> skill, but do count for overall level.
>
>   The player is then able to move exp from this reserved pool into
> skills to increase their level.

Hmmm, that sounds like pen & paper version of xp spreading.  After
finishing a quest every member of the party gets some xp to increase
skills.

That's for making it faster and easier without the need to calculate the
xp for every skill role.

But a computer based RPG doesn't need this kind of simplification.  Here
the computer just counts every skill role and adds xp for that specific
skill.

This would make it to easy to level up skills.  I wouldn't implement it.


> > Can we make the map reset delay character specific?
>
>   Not possible - maps are global attributes, so very hard to make
> things on them per player.

But it should be possible to deny a player to enter such a map, right?
Sorry, dungeon closed, already solved.  Whatever, not nice but keeps
them available for those who didn't solved them, yet.


> > > Just reduce the xp gained by a monster if you're higher.  Don't
> > > give out more xp if you killed a monster on a lower level.  The
> > > monster xp is the maximum you can get from it.
> >
>   If the boss monster may give between 10K and 100K exp depending on
> level of character, very hard to know what is fair.

Needs some testing, but should be possible to make it fair.  If you stay
in the region for your level, you always gain the full xp.  Just if you
go to lower level regions, you get less xp.  Don't calculate it for each
map / monster, just for the region.  It's unfair against low level
characters to harvest their maps.  It's not unfair aginst high level
characters to reduce their xp gain in lower level regions.  They have
other options, the lower level characters not.


>   But this also goes back to above - if you're level 50 and only get
> exp for killing level 40+ monsters, once again, skills you have
> neglected are basically useless - you're not going to kill level 40
> creatures with level 1 evocation spells (or level 1 punching)

Hey, aren't we searching for ways to have more distinction between
classes?  That's something which will help reaching this goal.  So
what's the problem with this?  I think this is a good option.


>   This also I don't think completely fixes the problem - it just
> forces characters to figure out the minimum creature necessary to get
> exp.

They should always get some xp.  The option to train low level skills
should be kept.  Just make it less attractive to leave the path of your
class choice.

So you still have to option to change the class, but it's harder.

"Class distinction" is the keyword here...


>   The exponential crossfire exp tables makes it pointless to kill low
> level creatures - the number of orcs a level 50 character would need
> to get to level 51 is a huge total.  Yes, unlike AD&Dv3, he would
> eventually get to level 51.  But that is what the exponential table
> does - makes killing lower level things virtually useless.

I disagree.  There is no need to increase the overall level with orcs.
You always train specific low level skills with low level monsters.  And
this will never be useless.


>   But if you're level 50 and have 6 skills at level 30, you're in bad
> shape - you probably can't kill level 50 creatures, so maybe you kill
> level 40 creatures instead.  But now you're getting less exp for each
> creature you kill than you normally would, so that much harder to
> improve skills and overall level.

I know what you mean and we need to balance that, yes.

We could also add some low level random maps at higher level regions
that high level characters are still able to train their low level
skills against low level monsters without disturbing low level
characters at low level regions.

If we match on the region and not the monster level, this may work to
keep low level maps clean from high level players.

It always depends on the goal we like to reach.  Should high level
characters stay out of maps for low level characters, this should work
well.

If we like to have more class distinctions, we need to pay more
attentions with the levels and the balance as you said.


>   And maybe the game should be that way - really focus on just a
> couple skills per character.  But that really has to be clearly
> documented - I find it really frustrating to have played a game for
> quite a while only to find out I didn't do the correct thing, and thus
> the character is basically messed up and I should start a new one.

This won't be the only change in the game.  So you need to see that in
combination with the class guilds.  And the guilds will lead you the way
to develop a character which looks like the class you've choosen in the
beginning.

You join a guild to become a sorcerer, and the guild will make you a
strong sorcerer.  You shouldn't be upset at level 50 that you're not
able to kill big monsters with melee.

I wouldn't say this character is messed up because the sorcerer decides
at level 50 to become a mighty warrior.  It will still be possible to
train it, but it's a much bigger pain to reach that goal than someone
who played as a warrior from the very first beginning.


> I much prefer games that are forgiving - maybe you didn't make ideal
> choices, but what you did before doesn't have a huge impact now.

We can't say that we want more distinction between classes and than make
it easy to become a sorcerer out of a barbarian or vice versa.

I guess most players already have more than one character.  I can't see
a big problem with that.

And who knows, maybe we found a way to make party playing more valuable.
So far nobody needs a party, everybody could become expert for everything.
This will change.  I wouldn't say that's bad.  It's different, yes.  And
yes, you need to know about it from the beginning.  And this job will be
done by the guilds introduction.


We should define the goals we like to reach and discuss about the ways
to implement it.  A discussion about several features without the big
picture is exhausting.

Like this one.  Complaining about that we don't have class distinctions
on higher levels leads to the discussion how to change that.  And than
in that discussion complaining about the lack of freedom to learn every
skill as easy as the main skills won't help, right?

What's the goal, what do we like to reach and than let us discuss how to
make it.

    Jürgen