MS:S leveling.

[Orochi]

Speaking as the person who is actually in the process of constructing an inventory and stat system, I have to say that some of you have really nice ideas, others have very impractical ones. However, it should be noted at at the end of the day, we're not going to be able to please everyone.

The idea the MS:S team is running with now is to use a singular base "level", as in you will be able to level up and apply points like in many other MMO games, with a single exp total, etc. This will still allow for JoaTing, but you won't be able to master absolutely everything. MS:C is more "Master of Everything" than JoaT anyway. It may be a little plain and overused, but we feel it will work somewhat better. It will also make XP awarding and such less complex from a technical point of view.

 

[Thothie]

Self adjustment thread brought this to mind but...

It might be wise, to do what some MORPG's have done (Borderlands, Rifts, and many of the free-to-play MORPG's come to mind), where you have a FIXED amount of XP to get from one level to the next (eg. always 100,000 XP to get between any two levels), and monsters are worth less XP, based on how many levels you are above them... Usually, something like 20% XP less XP per level beyond them, to a minimum of one, and/or +20% XP per level higher.

This requires you be able to determine monster level on a fixed formula though, so you can "add levels" to monsters, to keep the higher level players occupied, for instance -this usually entails a special adjustment for boss mobs.

 

[Deantwo]

Self adjustment thread brought this to mind but...

It might be wise, to do what some MORPG's have done (Borderlands, Rifts, and many of the free-to-play MORPG's come to mind), where you have a FIXED amount of XP to get from one level to the next (eg. always 100,000 XP to get between any two levels), and monsters are worth less XP, based on how many levels you are above them... Usually, something like 20% XP less XP per level beyond them, to a minimum of one, and/or +20% XP per level higher.

This requires you be able to determine monster level on a fixed formula though, so you can "add levels" to monsters, to keep the higher level players occupied, for instance -this usually entails a special adjustment for boss mobs.

interesting ^^ i like that idea... also if the monsters's levels can be changed depending on area or maybe even randomized... you won't get the feeling of "moving from rats to boars" ^^;

 

[Thothie]

Yeah - there would have to be some static monsters, or an upper level limit for some monsters in some areas, or you lose the "domination" benefit of leveling. Most of these games work that way. Occasionally spawning an "Elite" or "Badass" when stronger players are about. (It'd also be good to have scale and submodel effects to reflect such variations.)

ONE OTHER IDEAR: In order to eliminate the "OMG he's stealin' all the XP!" effect... Share XP globally, and equally (coupled with the leveling above), whenever a monster dies, regardless of who kills it or how.

That, might even be an idea for MSC... Although it'd require some coding work. (We'd also have to eliminate/nerf the Bravery exploit fix, for bosses are far too likely to off you - but IIRC, said fix is already disabled for bosses.)

Only problem I see with this, is PL exploits, and AFK players. MSC has an AFK flag to deal with the latter... As for the former, either a) you live with it, or b) have a damage point system, and require that to get XP (or more than 1 XP) you have to have at least half the average dmg points, or some such. Hrmm...

It would also save the overhead of having to track all the hits on all the mobs.

 

[Deantwo]

well... getting EXP for the % of work you have done does make sense to me... but yeah you do kinda get into the "he's taking all the exp"... but then if your not doing an equal amount of the work... why should you get a equal share?

the only place i can see that this is bad... is when we have healers/support characters... cause as MSC is right now... being a healer is a total no-go... the idea of only damaging the enemy yawing EXP has always bugged me cause i like to be the support kinda guy... but MSC isn't that friendly for that ^^;

so yeah at least a way for earning EXP while not dealing damage is needed... ^^; maybe just have it something like... everyone near the fight get EXP?...

one other thing i'd like to ask about is... well... i kinda really liked the idea in Oblivion... that you had to sleep before getting all the new things from your level up... maybe also a little like in WoW where you have to go to a kind of trainer to learn some things...

 

[Thothie]

so yeah at least a way for earning EXP while not dealing damage is needed... ^^; maybe just have it something like... everyone near the fight get EXP?...

Within X units of the kill - that thar be an idea - and I can think of at least one game that handles it that way already. Could still PL sploit, but it'd at least be risky. A player might get robbed if he died, and the monster was slain shortly afterwards, but not a big deal in most cases, nor an outrageous penalty. Might drop the range requirement for bosses though. Might also have to tweak it for snipers (bows / ranged spells).

 

[Deantwo]

so yeah at least a way for earning EXP while not dealing damage is needed... ^^; maybe just have it something like... everyone near the fight get EXP?...

Within X units of the kill - that thar be an idea - and I can think of at least one game that handles it that way already. Could still PL sploit, but it'd at least be risky. A player might get robbed if he died, and the monster was slain shortly afterwards, but not a big deal in most cases, nor an outrageous penalty. Might drop the range requirement for bosses though. Might also have to tweak it for snipers (bows / ranged spells).

yeah... well... you can look at it like this... if your either dealing damage... or is at risk in anyway... you should get EXP... but being at both risk and dealing damage should yaw the most EXP :- /

my old D&D GameMaster at least did it more at the... if the fight is tooooo easy... you only get like a small % of it... (like throwing rocks down at zombies that couldn't reach us)

but how to determent if someone is at more risk then someone else wouldn't be easy... but the idea of gaining a lot of EXP with out risk isn't good

 

[DarkWasp]

Yeah - there would have to be some static monsters, or an upper level limit for some monsters in some areas, or you lose the "domination" benefit of leveling. Most of these games work that way. Occasionally spawning an "Elite" or "Badass" when stronger players are about. (It'd also be good to have scale and submodel effects to reflect such variations.)

ONE OTHER IDEAR: In order to eliminate the "OMG he's stealin' all the XP!" effect... Share XP globally, and equally (coupled with the leveling above), whenever a monster dies, regardless of who kills it or how.

That, might even be an idea for MSC... Although it'd require some coding work. (We'd also have to eliminate/nerf the Bravery exploit fix, for bosses are far too likely to off you - but IIRC, said fix is already disabled for bosses.)

Only problem I see with this, is PL exploits, and AFK players. MSC has an AFK flag to deal with the latter... As for the former, either a) you live with it, or b) have a damage point system, and require that to get XP (or more than 1 XP) you have to have at least half the average dmg points, or some such. Hrmm...

It would also save the overhead of having to track all the hits on all the mobs.

Guild Wars 2's system:

- Rewards all players who participate in a kill fully.
- Rewards all players who participate in a dynamic event based on Bronze, Silver and Gold Participation.
(Anyone who stayed non-afk to fight most of the battle will get Gold)
- Handles loot and material nodes mostly the same.
(Basically any node, chest or corpse behaves like an MS:C individualized chest. Everyone always has an equal chance to get the uber rare item, not just one person in the party)
-Dynamic events scale up and down based on the number, skill and level of active participants.

The basic idea is that everyone benefits from at least trying, and no one is burdened by other participants being newbs. The game isn't out yet so it can't be "tried and true" yet, but I think the mindset is a good one for cooperative RPGs.

For MS:S I think the most important thing is to remove the aspects that penalizes players for trying to help. No more foes gaining health from people dying or losing from a point system for dying.

That said, we don't want it to be better for a low level player to level faster by suicide rushing high level maps with high level friends than doing to appropriate maps instead.

 

[FER]

How about "boss rooms"?

I mean, having to go trough a gate before the boss fight, gate closes and people inside the room spawn there when they die. Of course this might mean also a life/retry based system to compensate bosses not healing.
It could be a set amount of retries per player, lives you can buy at shops with a reasonable cap or keep the score system and leave it so that after 100k points you get an extra life.

Of course this is considering that monsters are balanced, gameplay is dynamic and other stuff like monsters hitting at normal speeds.

 

[Orochi]

Gauntlet maps are going to be specially constructed in MS:S, with special rules and on-screen HUD elements telling you what's what as far as time/life limits are concerned. We're looking to move away from the ease of "Dying is easier than trying to stay alive" that has plagued MS:C for so long, with significant ways to avoid death and get back into the game, and penalties for doing so, especially in gauntlet maps. Also, no Armor of Bravery here lads, at least not until VERY late game.

As for exp sharing, keep discussing this. As this is a coop game at heart, something like borderlands where exp is always shared might not be a half bad idea.

 

[Deantwo]

As for exp sharing, keep discussing this. As this is a coop game at heart, something like borderlands where exp is always shared might not be a half bad idea.

but the problem with that is that what if it's a level 1 newbie that join a server/map with a group of high levels? then he should just get an equal share of the EXP too?
that's mostly the thing...

in zOMG (a flash MMO on GaiaOnline.com) that have it so that you get maximum amount of loot/EXP when everyone in the "party" is of the same level (you can repress your level)

so what if we made it so that... if the players on the server/map/area are too far from eachother level wise... everyone would get a penalty?
it would make a little sense in RP too i guess... cause the high level have to watch the newbie...

but if so... then maybe maps should be derived into smaller areas... or just the local area around the fight... so people can't be in the other end of the map and get EXP... but should still get EXP if they had been there doing at least some of the fight i guess

 

[Toyoka]

Hello! A newcomer here. I'd like to chime in on this XP scaling business:

Perhaps in order to limit XP exploitation, have it so that the amount of XP given is based in relation to your level. For example:

-An enemy within 2 levels around your level (2 levels below; your current level; and 2 levels above) will give you 100% of their XP.
-An enemy within 1 additional level around your level (ie. 3/4/5/... levels below, and 3/4/5/... levels above) will give you -25%/+25% of their exp, respectively... up to a maximum of 0%/200% of their XP.

Bosses are an exception to this rule in that they should give a set amount of XP, but still limit players based on level (see below)

You can further divide the amount of exp. gained by the player's current exp cap. So that the player cannot gain past a certain amount (say a hard-cap of 5% of the player's current exp cap.) per kill of a monster/boss that's level (7+ levels perhaps?) and rewards are much higher than the players'.

Ideally, you'd want players fighting bosses that are around their level. I guess the only real exception to most of these rules would be "Elite Bosses" (or in other words, raid-type monsters, requiring a whole lot of people). But the implementation of those are not for me to decide

 

[Orochi]

Necropost much? We're not even to the point where levelling mechanics are an issue.

 

[Thothie]

Necropost much? We're not even to the point where levelling mechanics are an issue.

Then why'd you... Oh, nvm, it was Vomica. :\

Although it does relate directly to the gameplay thread, which was official.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

And it was also a great suggestion. I wouldn't mind a system like that in MSC or MSS.

 

[Toyoka]

Yea, sorry for necro-ing. But I figured since there aren't (m)any posts in this section of the forum as of late, I decided to revive (at least one topic concerning) the section. I am aware you guys are hung up on code, but regardless of what stage you guys are on - concerning the source mod - I think you will appreciate any sort of suggestion or feedback. I probably should have in fact posted in the official thread concerning additions to MSS, but I digress.

P.S. Sorry if my words above seem rude, I did not intend them to be that way