[crossfire] xp gaining

[Juergen Kahnert]

On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 01:10:57AM +0300, Juha J?ykk? wrote:
> > > The problem here is feature (or monster toughness) creep.  It is
> > > easy enough to say 'max level for any monster should be 100'.
> > The level 100 should be practically / nearly impossible to reach.
> > So having level 150 characters is unlikely.
>
> Increasing levels, perhaps even by adding new areas to the map or
> whatever, is probably the only way around this problem.

Yes, that's right.  Why we don't just aim for this way instead of
setting caps?


> Another would be if the capped characters would be able to advance in
> some other way: in pen-and-paper RPG's people often start building
> their own kingdoms etc.  Although I have no idea how THAT would work
> in cf. But it definitely is fun.

Yes, but what's working with a pen & paper RPG doesn't necessarily work
for a computer based RPG, too.  You need algorithmn and functions for
the computer, and just an imaginative dungeon master for the pen & paper
version.

CF has the problem creating new higher level regions, which is less work
than adding a completely new game system.

Nice idea, would be fun to have.  But we should keep realistic.  And
adding new regions is hard enough to aim for.


> > A high level dragon with clawing level 100 decides to level up
> > sorcery will block a low level map for a very long time until the
> > sorcery skill is on a desired level.
>
> Immediately after reading this, I got a great idea (at least I think
> it is great): make the skills more like D&D 3rd ed.

CF is not a pen & paper RPG.  You can't just pick parts of the rules
from such a game and implement it into a computer RPG.

With a pen & paper RPG you're always part of a group with different
character classes.  Thus you can have a strong diversity of the classes.
This won't work with CF.  So we need to find our own rules.


> This has the added benefit of making classes matter!

Classes should matter, but not that extreme.  Here we have the party
oriented RPG vs. a more single player oriented like CF.  I don't think
we should change the rules to enforce party playing.

If we manage to add party support, great, but changing rules to make
parties inescapable will alienate some (maybe most) of the current
players.


> It would no more be practically possible to have all skills leveled up
> to 50th level.

With the guilds, you won't or you'll become ostracized by your guild.


> One such modification might be, that M=3 *but* you can only advance in
> each of those three skills if its accumulated xp between the two
> levels accounts for no less than 10% of the total xp between the two
> levels. I.e. 1 xp for evocation, 399999 for pyro and 400000 for
> sorcery only advances pyro and sorcery, you need at least 80000 to
> advance any given skill between those two levels. This still means
> 16000 kobolds...

I've proposed something similar for the capability values of the skills,
see http://mailman.metalforge.org/pipermail/crossfire/2007-July/011596.html

But this won't prevent players from learning this skill, just they won't
become masters in all but their primary class skills.


> Can we make the map reset delay character specific?

With party support (even this rudimentary one of CF) this will lead into
some problems.  But may be worth to think about more. :)


> > Fix that.  Don't make high level items equipable for low level
> > characters.
>
> Apart from rods, they aren't: they have item power specifically to
> prevent low lever characters from using high level stuff. The item
> powers are quite strange for some items, though.

That's what needs to be fixed.  For example:

    girdle of Valriel of the Crusade (Str+3)(Dex+3)(Con+3)(Wis+5)(Cha+2)(ac+2)(grace+3)(item_power +1)

Shouldn't be hard to equip for a level 1 character if this character has
a body part to use it...


> > Making level 100 as hard to reach as level 115 is right now, won't
> > make level 101 characters more likely even if the xp table is more
> > linear.
>
> D&D 3rd ed has [...] linear xp tables, crossfire does not. Crossfire
> has ~exponential xp tables.

Sorry, my fault, I meant linear on a logarithmic scale.  Check out line
-E-:

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

All others produces this big gaps between two levels at the end.  Only
line -E- will let enough room for extensions if players really hit the
maximum.


> I think woodsman gives the same amount of XP for all food, a
> reflection of the fact that it is equally easy to identify an
> orc chop as a dragon steak,

No, you'll get totally different xp, depending on the xp of the
monsters.

That's ok, but needs to be modified, too.  If you collect some
unidentified hill giant parts and bring them to a level 1 character with
woodsman skill, this level 1 character will quickly advance in levels...

These flesh parts needs levels, too.  For example, you won't be able to
identify a level 10 flesh part with a lower level woodsman skill.  This
way you prefent that level boosting but still keeps the option to level
up this skill on a exponential xp table.


> whereas brewing a very complex potion (level 10 potion, say) is harder
> than brewing a simple (level 1) potion, so the former should give such
> an amount of XP that it advances you equally towards 11th level as the
> simple potion advances you towards 2nd level. If we always follow the
> method of "completing a task that has difficulty level N gives M% of
> the XP needed to advance from level N to N+1", it never matters what
> the XP(level) function looks like.

I wish every xp gaining would be implemented in that consistent way. :)

We should discuss that for each skill - see above for woodsman with
level on the flesh.


> I'd say exponential table is easier

Yes, you're totally right and it was my fault to choose an unclear
explanation of my train of thoughts.


> > > > No, it's not.  But don't make monsters getting a higher level
> > > > than the maximum of the xp table.
> > > Sure we should. High level (150) monsters you can only kill with 4
> > > 100+ level players.
> > No, we shouldn't.  ;)
>
> Err... I do not quite agree here. It is a very intriguing idea to have
> monsters that are simply too powerful for (practically) any character to
> kill. Whether the xp table goes up to the level of the monster is
> irrelevant, though. What does it matter if there is 100 lines instead of
> 150 in the exp_table file?

In one case the monsters are part of the game rules, in the other case
not.  Nothing more.  It won't hurt to have 50 more values in the exp_table
file, so why not?  Especially if they're generated by a function...

Besides that, just setting the level of a goblin to 150 won't make it
immutable.  Making strong monsters depends on other things than the
level.  So what?  Having monsters outside of the exp_table means nothing
more than having monsters outside of the game rules for players.  That's
not consistent and won't help in any way.  Ok, won't hurt either. ;)

I just like consistent game engines.  Same for the formulas, how could
items exists if there is no formula to make them?

What's wrong designing the game engine in a way that the object of the
world fits into the rules the players have to follow?

    Jürgen