INFO Ye Thread of XP Balancing

[Thothie]

Alright so as I've recently found out Cethin, or whatever she is called, the angry fire lady at the end of phobia is not considered a boss by my armor of bravery, why?

Also crocodiles are immune to vampyric effects, why?

She should be. :\

And they shouldn't be. :/

Although... In the latter case, it maybe that Rehab set the Croc to undead, for it to play nice with the skeletons - in which case, eh, it'd default to the undead "immune to vampire" rules.

If I find that's the case, I'll switch it up to demon, and make sure Cethin has a boss flag while I'm at it. I thought elder guardians defaulted to boss, but maybe not.

 

[Thothie]

Uber necro post, as I meant to address some of this, but made a wall of text of lament instead:

Orkat Forest (orc_for) - Boss has probably near 4k hp gives 4k EXP, 2 people give 12k EXP, seems to scale nicely to share, 1:1 ratio

Blarg... Pretty much nothing should be giving 1:1 XP at that level, though I suppose if you got the Fire Ogre, instead of the Bone Abomination, at just the right teir, something along those lines might happen, so I'll have to look into it.

Granted, that may change next patch, if I go ahead with the drastic +200% XP for FN + 50% per player beyond the first.

Actually, now that I think of it, the self adjust multiplier, combined with the boss flag, could easily cause that, as it's XP is multiplied per player beyond the first, on top of the self adjustment. Prob just leave that be then.

Jocky goblins, however, are worth an atrocious amount of XP do to the hazard they represent, and to compensate for some of the bugs involved with it.

I've been getting the impression that the bonus spiders have been made available without defeating the final boss on orc_for, but I've not had consistent access to Steam to check it. (Bloody thing only works in offline mode until restart or reboot - which comes up far too often when testing MSC in Win7.)

thunderbeaks are about 400 HP for 400 XP

I was a bit worried about this, but the reason this is one of the few exceptions it that the Trencherbeak does five attacks, at 200hp each, in less than a second (for 1000hp of damage), making them the single most damaging minion in the game, with speed and mobility to boot. But yes, they are also quite fragile, not ranged, have no specials, and there's damn near a hundred of them in easy access on the map.

The queen, too, is also too easy to access quickly, though it wouldn't be such a huge issue, if not for what is liable to become the new Umulak-level problem, given how long said issue has gone unpatched. *sigh* I do not, however, want to gauntlet the map to make it take longer to reach her - though maybe it'd be possible to make you wander about and find some stuff before accessing her lair.

The Oodlebeaks shouldn't be coming up with a 1:1 ratio (much less beyond it), unless there's some multiplier on them I missed (sometimes these get snuck in), though they are, at least, much rarer, in addition to tougher, than Trencherbeaks.

 

[MrJohnson]

Granted, that may change next patch, if I go ahead with the drastic +200% XP for FN + 50% per player beyond the first.

I would like that, especially because I finally found some guys to play MSC in the evening and I always have a bad feeling im stealing all the XP from the lowest level guy

 

[Thothie]

Meh, if it wasn't so complicated, what I'd like to do, is add a general XP pool, that all kill XP would go to, for all players present (regardless of who did the killing), that you could spend on skills of your choice.

Granted, it'd lead to mad power leveling, but also maybe a lot less hurt feelings in multi-player. Suspect it'd require a major assist from MiB, and our current menu system is so clumsy, it'd be hard to spend the points.

 

[zeus9860]

Meh, if it wasn't so complicated, what I'd like to do, is add a general XP pool, that all kill XP would go to, for all players present (regardless of who did the killing), that you could spend on skills of your choice.

Granted, it'd lead to mad power leveling, but also maybe a lot less hurt feelings in multi-player. Suspect it'd require a major assist from MiB, and our current menu system is so clumsy, it'd be hard to spend the points.

Holy sh!t, i actually like that plan but it needs a reasonable balance for both sides. It would motivate higher lvl players to play more often and help out newbies catch up to us. Though it might make things bad on the other end, people might leave earlier than expected or skip early maps...

Why not use the current map scaling system with some new additions to it? Instead of making maps harder than usual by adding more hp/dmg multipliers to enemies, make it so that every every 100 hp in the server gives 0.1 multiplier. Making it so that 15-1000 total hp is default multiplier. Every 100hp added after 1k, it would count 0.1 towards the bonus multiplier, all the way to 4.5x bonus (would make sense to be capped this far with the current level cap, boost it up with each new cap). Perhaps make this mixed with the current map minimum-maximum hp range (if map is limited up to 300-600 hp players, then only those with hp within those limits can contribute with extra multipliers to the party and perhaps limit contributors to the bonus xp earned, non contributors would get default values, less of a powerleveling issue with this). Lower level maps would hardly get any bonuses from this obviously but it would likely pay off later as they would level up...

So basically, total hp shouldn't effect on how hard a map might become, unless if it's extra/new spawns, in that case it's normal and acceptable. The current map scaling system works similiar to this but if you manage to do something like that with it for all the maps (plus lore maps) it would further allow players to play together no matter what map they are playing.

This is if that full xp -> all is actually something planned for the future. Also how would that work out with the current death penalty we have? If a person dies, it would still get full xp by doing 1 hit to the creature? I think the solution to this might be forcing the player to get no xp at all from that kill, even if he manages to hit it again before dieing and the player died at least once to the opponent. It may sound harsh but it actually doesn't break the current purpose of that death penalty system. People could get full xp if they stay alive through a mini boss fight (eg: giant fire beetle), so if a player dies to that thing once, he would get no xp at all from him if it was the last thing hitting him before dieing, if it was a minion fire beetle instead, the xp from the mini boss could still be regained...
In other words, the xp nullifying is only applied to the last enemy hitting the player before death.

 

[Thothie]

If a person dies, it would still get full xp by doing 1 hit to the creature? I think the solution to this might be forcing the player to get no xp at all from that kill, even if he manages to hit it again before dieing and the player died at least once to the opponent.

I dun have time to respond to the rest of that just now... But you just described how it currently works.

With the exception of boss flagged monsters, if you die, all records of hits from monsters you struck are erased. So if someone else kills them, or the mob dies by other means, you don't get any XP for it. On the other hand, if you manage to get back to the creature, and finish it off, you'll still get XP for the hits you put in upon your return - but not those before you died.

Creatures also get the max HP of the character they killed back in health when they kill a player (which is kinder than the old system, where the creature was healed completely). Again, with the exception of boss flagged monsters, which instead get a 5-10% damage resistance bonus against the player they killed (so folks don't yell at other players for "feeding" bosses - or at least, the non-vampyric/bloodrinker wielding ones).

 

[Thothie]

To get to the rest of this...

Why not use the current map scaling system with some new additions to it? Instead of making maps harder than usual by adding more hp/dmg multipliers to enemies, make it so that every every 100 hp in the server gives 0.1 multiplier. [...] So basically, total hp shouldn't effect on how hard a map might become, unless if it's extra/new spawns, in that case it's normal and acceptable.

Idea is to give XP for more players, not for stronger ones. So not much point in increasing XP/HP lest it is also going to make it more difficult. Plus there's the fact that you're supposed to level slower as you get stronger, not visa versa.

Adding more monsters would be nice, but it wouldn't make a difference if you already outclassed them, and if there were more varieties involved, it'd up the texture count. Plus, it'd involve map edits.

I'm not sure if I can actually pull this second XP pool without help from MiB, and I don't think even he could get us a better menu system to make it less clumsy to assign points, but maybe I'll get to look into it. Don't really need much more scripting done for a minor patch though - albeit, that's been true for months now. :\

 

[zeus9860]

Meh... i'm kinda clueless right now as to what to say. Perhaps a quest data that tracks all the kills done then you go to a town and meet a trainer npc to level up? Not sure if this would work out or if it's anyway manageable, but i do see a problem with the subskills in the end, i just wish all the xp was put together in 1 single value rather than split into 3...

This is something similiar to the xp rewards from those 2 maps we have now (btw orc shaman seems to be 100% fixed with the rewards, bandits are majorly broken, as you probably know by now), except that it would be tracked as a quest data and could be used at any given time when visiting a town.

Plus there's the fact that you're supposed to level slower as you get stronger, not visa versa.

But you know us higher levels are always calculating the best spots to grind. So it's like we usually stick with 1 to 3 maps at the very best and grind them untill something new comes or maps get nerfed. This is sort of wrong since it beats the purpose of exploring any of the higher level maps because some others are way more rewarding in xp/time, and these could even be lower level maps.

So in fact i think all maps should be almost equally balanced, i know some are better for loot and whatnot but i think that shouldn't effect the xp rewarding in the end.

Adding more monsters would be nice, but it wouldn't make a difference if you already outclassed them, and if there were more varieties involved, it'd up the texture count. Plus, it'd involve map edits.

First part could be either true or wrong, looking at hunderswamp for example, adding extra spawns with more total hp would make it more difficult, crocodiles/keepers in that map are nasty when in a group, plus the map layout is troublesome in the waters... It all depends on the current party of players anyways, if it's a mixed party or a high level party. The way it ends will be different since higher levels put together can overpower everything easily. The second part, yeah i can see the problem there, sucks tbh... :/

Don't really need much more scripting done for a minor patch though - albeit, that's been true for months now. :\

You know what i usually say about that, or have been saying lately at least. No need to rush out content, it's like throwing things away at us for us to play, shut up and leave a few weeks later, you should actually consider taking your time and plan stuff on the background and work with it!

Hell, i would even dare saying that the next patch should only come when oyster is done with is gauntlet with all the necessary scripting done, etc. Along with the dwarf race already playable with it's unique leveling system (if there is any plans for this).

[SUGGESTION]
Also would it be reasonable to add a nifty xp reward in the_wall/the_wall2? I think both npcs there could actually give xp rewards as secondary options, the elf perhaps giving a random xp reward within a certain range to any skill (also random), the dwarf giving either an item or a nice xp reward in any random skill (2 options in the interaction menu, plus xp value shouldn't scale unless it's given to more players, if it's just the top player, it should remain with a single value).

[SUGGESTION #2]
I've been thinking lately... whenever we get to see the dwarven race in the character creation menu, would it be possible to add 1 extra character slot with it's release? I mean, it's that most of us who beat everything hundreds of times, usually create alts and play with them. In my case i use 2 alts frequently to play aswell and i don't want to get rid of any of them to make a dwarf hero later on. It would even give me a hard task of removing everything from my alts just so that i could create a dwarf in its place... then the samething happening with the elven race later on.

So i would like to see an expanded character creation menu, with more than 3 slots (+1 slot per each race added at the time it happens).

 

[Thothie]

Meh... i'm kinda clueless right now as to what to say. Perhaps a quest data that tracks all the kills done then you go to a town and meet a trainer npc to level up? Not sure if this would work out or if it's anyway manageable, but i do see a problem with the subskills in the end, i just wish all the xp was put together in 1 single value rather than split into 3...

That was the appending thought, to add extra XP for various achievements (first time you slay Calrian or what not), but the idea was to have a menu that the player could use to spend the extra points at will (say, via the player menu, coupled with a pop-up reminding you that you have points to spend, every so often.)

Again, tricky bit is that the menu system is kind of clumsy for that many options - especially, yes, when you get into sub skills. I suppose it might not be so bad if it just pooled the points, and only had you spend them every 5 levels or so... Still... Messy. It'd be best if it did it at the character info screen, but that'd involve massive GUI work, something even MiB gave up on long ago.

On the subskills topic, another thought was to allow you to specialize in Balance (moar accuracy), Power (moar punch), or Proficiency (moar weaponz), but that'd also be complicated, both to interface and to explain. Also, both of these ideas favor newer characters over older ones.

First part could be either true or wrong, looking at hunderswamp for example, adding extra spawns with more total hp would make it more difficult, crocodiles/keepers in that map are nasty when in a group

Keyword being outclass. No one, really, outclasses keepers and crocs, but say, adding a bunch more boars to Thornlands just cuz someone with 1000hp joined, not helpful.

So in fact i think all maps should be almost equally balanced, i know some are better for loot and whatnot but i think that shouldn't effect the xp rewarding in the end.

While auto-balancing all maps ala orc_for's system might be possible (with a lot of work), having all maps auto-scale kinda defeats the purpose of leveling, after awhile. We could, and should, certainly, have more auto-scaling maps than we do - but they are hard to make.

Also would it be reasonable to add a nifty xp reward in the_wall/the_wall2

Do you really need another reason to grind The Wall? Damn thing has too many unique rewards as it is.

[moar character slots for dwarves]

Sadly, probably not... Again, even MiB has thrown his hands up at the GUI... I'm not sure how well the character save system would handle it either. :\ I think there's a central #define for the # of slots, but I'm not sure if it's shared by all functions, or if it gets fudged here and there.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Also, both of these ideas favor newer characters over older ones.

Screw the old characters. Reform the gameplay completely and then make everyone start anew.

We could, and should, certainly, have more auto-scaling maps than we do - but they are hard to make.

As far as I am concerned, enemy scaling should be something that is exclusive to raid maps and bosses. The rest of the game should be made up of freeroam maps with all of the spawns randomized.
Instead of having challenges be based on HP (booooring) make them based on events like rain or night time and randomize them(ex. 25% chance for bandits to ambush you in an outdoors map, but ONLY at night).

With the exception of raid maps, like The_Keep or Lodagond, maps should never play out the same way and they should never be linear, nor should they be pseudo-freeroam, like orc_for (which is really a linear map whose objectives can be completed in any order). Maps should also not be mere loot pinatas, like Hunderswamp and Umulak (only point of hunderswamp is to rush the boss, only point of umulak is to run it a million times for a single item), and GOOD maps should never be pointless (like aluhandra). Finally, all maps, be they raid or exploratory, need to be integrated into the gameworld in a logical fashion so that we have a stage for us to add quests all over the place.

Until something like this is done, we will never have an actual RPG on our hands.

 

[FER]

Screw the old characters. Reform the gameplay completely and then make everyone start anew.

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

Screw the old characters. Reform the gameplay completely and then make everyone start anew.

What she said.

 

[The Man In Black]

Again, even MiB has thrown his hands up at the GUI...

Uh, I did character selection GUI just fine (See: That Choose Race page I made that we never implemented and that probably got lost somewhere)

 

[Thothie]

Again, even MiB has thrown his hands up at the GUI...

Uh, I did character selection GUI just fine (See: That Choose Race page I made that we never implemented and that probably got lost somewhere)

That wasn't the issue (although despite your repeated assurances of that, I dun see it) - issue was adding a fourth character slot to make it easier to be a dwarf without sacrificing one of your existing characters.

The other being working up a fast skill selection GUI to make assignable stat points more viable. (Which would also be important for future races, that level differently.)

Screw the old characters. Reform the gameplay completely and then make everyone start anew.

What she said.

No plans to do that, mind ye. It's only that the plans suggested might favor new characters - though the assignable XP pool wouldn't be too bad in that regards (it might actually go up quicker for established characters). The sub stat specialty would favor new characters quite a bit more... Although I'm less reluctant to do that sorta thing, since the folks most likely to complain about it are long gone.

Reforming the game play completely would be something more for the MSS team, though tweaking it to extremes, I'd be more apt to go for. Been trying, all these years, to make sure the core game play isn't fuxed with to the degree where it's no longer the same game, though certainly am always pushing the envelope in that regards.

[Questionable definition term loaded rant]

Would have to be a LOT more specific, but also sounds like a lot of remapping. Not much point in spawning things based on weather or TOD, given that they can be switched with a simple console command though. Also not willing to suddenly drop level 30+ monsters in level ~10 areas. Helena's generated event is bad enough that way, but it at least takes into consideration the level of the player's present.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

The other being working up a fast skill selection GUI to make assignable stat points more viable.

If we simply stick with the power, balance and proficiency system, can't we just assign hotkeys for skill selection? We'd only need three, right?

The sub stat specialty would favor new characters quite a bit more.

I much prefer this substat concept to the other one. The MSC leveling system is unique, and this would preserve its uniqueness while still enhancing the system. The other concept is always workable, but it's also not an interesting system in the least. I say keep the current system and give players a choice over substat skills (except dwarves - dwarves should level like we do now; perfectly 'balanced')

Reforming the game play completely would be something more for the MSS team, though tweaking it to extremes, I'd be more apt to go for.

That is what I meant. Sorry if my choice of words are a bit off.

but also sounds like a lot of remapping. Not much point in spawning things based on weather or TOD, given that they can be switched with a simple console command though.

1) Very little, if any actual brushwork will need to be done. All we need to do is repopulate the maps using a fantastic spawn system that we already have in place but never use. I can be the one who does most of this work (after underkeep) if you are on board with 'tweaking [the game] to extremes'.
2) It's ridiculous that our weather system is at the mercy of console commands. Players should not be able to set the time of day or weather whenever they want. In order to have a game of any sort, there must be restrictions placed on the players. As a mapper I have almost no room to be creative because players have virtually no restrictions in this game whatsoever. This has to change.

Also not willing to suddenly drop level 30+ monsters in level ~10 areas. Helena's generated event is bad enough that way, but it at least takes into consideration the level of the player's present.

1) My maps are going to have numerous enemies geared for level ranges 15-25 randomly spawning in various places (and I hope they have better than average xp). Most of the monsters, however, are going to be geared towards a 30-35 level range. I hope to entice noobs into the map with rewards they wouldn't be able to obtain elsewhere, at the expense of far greater risk.
2)No, Helenas bandit and orc raids are absolutely perfect and they are exactly what this game needs more of.

 

[Charles445]

Gotta agree with the Helena raids, that shit is amazing. When you're under-leveled and everything is going to hell you have to think quickly and work with what you have. It's SATISFYING and most certainly doesn't hurt anything.

 

[zeus9860]

Helena raids are ok imo, i don't really like the catapult though, it's pretty annoying. The bandits raid is fun actually, bad thing is when the big boss comes along and join the party and ends up crashing the server for us.

Now, Old_Helena on the other hand. I f*cking love the way that map works and how you got there, we really need to use the last time travelling mage to do some more stuff like that, i'm being serious about this ladies and gents! I've been thinking, since nightmare maps are alternate versions of original maps, why don't we use that mage to travel around to nightmare maps and other possible "in the past" locations that people could come up with.

It would be awesome to limit nightmare maps to transitions only, no map votting. Use the mage to travel to nightmare_edana for example, then access nightmare_thornlands/nightmare_edanasewers via transition only and access other possible nightmare maps using the same method. Lock unwanted transitions in a map (transitions that would lead to non nightmare maps), we could even update said maps to use random spawns like hunderswamp does so it doesn't end up being too straight forward... Voilá, we got ourselves setup for massive exploring in the nightmare version of the game.

In a matter of fact i think maps should focus in random spawns now, it's much better that way since we have no clue on what could spawn exactly in that certain spot we are looking at... If spawns are always the same we get bored as we already know what comes from there and what we should do with it once it spawns.

It's SATISFYING and most certainly doesn't hurt anything.

Lies, how's that satisfying for the poor townsfolk that are stuck inside their merchant stands and get punished with death by the bandits/orcs or even the massive catapult projectile? :roll:

Keyword being outclass. No one, really, outclasses keepers and crocs, but say, adding a bunch more boars to Thornlands just cuz someone with 1000hp joined, not helpful.

Yeah... depends on the player in the end and how good he is and how geared he is too. But still tough times killing either of them. That statement you just said is actually wrong, adding more boars would indeed help newbies level up faster.
There is a huge difference between Chapel and Thornlands, Chapel is pretty small and the spawns are close to each other, plus there are way more spawns for rats and boars in there compared to Thornlands, which is a bigger map that could contain some extras here and there given that X factor came into play when a group goes there. In terms of beginner grinding you can easily see which one is more suitable to level up... Adding more spawns to Thornlands would actually be a good thing, there's this massive landscape and all i see in it is 6 boars, 2 rats and 1 archer or something along these lines.

Do you really need another reason to grind The Wall? Damn thing has too many unique rewards as it is.

Yes i do. Thing is, players could get rewarded with either additional xp or an item. Their choice. Now if you really want balance maps based on xp and rewards at the sametime, please don't do that. If you do that it will beat the purpose for us to go to any given map that plays out like that, the_wall is pretty much my "home" right now and it's affected by that, people will go there only to get items. You see, it's the map that gives the best challenge to me, along with hunderswamp, but hunderswamp is getting too "meh" right now, the_wall got old after like 120 runs, plus gathered too many items to trade away for potions, which also helped me grind even further back then.

I think maps should be xp balanced on the level/hq requirements they have. The harder the map, the more rewarding it should be on both sides (loot and xp). In fact i would even support the idea of removing most of the loot in some of the maps we have now to boost the xp into a greater extent, providing easier grinding to everyone and their mother while possibly questing for items. Like removing most of the uniques in the_wall, change them with quest ingredients to forge them instead, which once they are forged, could be forged again into something else, even stronger than the first forged item. This could give us an easy opening to future forge questing, set proper smith npcs with a smith skill, the higher their smith skill, the more stronger the forge items we could quest for using ingredients along with gold (gives it yet another use).

Example: "Edana/Helena/Deralia/Gatecity smiths, smith skill level 1, can forge tier 1 items for the player"; "A/B/C smiths, smith skill level 2, can forge tier 2 items for the player"; "D/E/F smiths, can forge tier 3 items"; "M/N/O smiths can forge tier 4 items"; "X/Y/Z smiths can forge tier 5 items, which could be the final tier of items we so call "apostles"".
Each tier represents a gap of 10 levels, so: Tier 1 = 10-20; tier 2 = 20-30; tier 3 = 30-40; tier 4 = 40-50; tier 5 = 50+ (apostles). Ms:c recently went over halfway tier 3 out of 5 as you can see, making quest ingredients to forge items in smiths would be something much better than doing the traditional ms:c way of beating a map and looting the new item from a chest/npc without doing much else to diserve it. It isn't too late to do something like this, i'm pretty sure it can be easily pulled off given that we already have 1 forge npc, all we need is quest ingredients scattered throughout many maps and scripts for them, voilá, we got a new system applied to ms:c which could change the future of our upcoming and currently existing maps (less dungeon raiding for uniques/loot, more ingredients, more xp, more fun).

 

[Charles445]

Now, Old_Helena on the other hand. I f*cking love the way that map works and how you got there, we really need to use the last time travelling mage to do some more stuff like that, i'm being serious about this ladies and gents! I've been thinking, since nightmare maps are alternate versions of original maps, why don't we use that mage to travel around to nightmare maps and other possible "in the past" locations that people could come up with.

That would pretty awesome, but I'd like to see the nightmare maps scale accordingly. For example, a nightmare edana that is made for people who can barely reach said mage (something like level 15-25). It'd be nice to have it for the below average players.

 

[DarkSnack]

I have a certain question regarding the Dragooncaves boss.
It gives too low XP even for a boss, if I am correct even the other npc's give more XP than him alone,
I wonder was this made on purpose?

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

That would pretty awesome, but I'd like to see the nightmare maps scale accordingly. For example, a nightmare edana that is made for people who can barely reach said mage (something like level 15-25). It'd be nice to have it for the below average players.

This is already made and I don't know why it hasn't been released yet.

 

[Thothie]

I don't seem to have a source for it.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Furion showed a bunch of us a working source more than half a year ago now. I actually thought it was going to be a special release for Halloween and was surprised when we had no Halloween patch.

 

[furion001]

The working source is indeed complete, but the mobs I made for it need more altering and fine tuning before it's ready.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

It should totally be released on Halloween.

 

[Thothie]

How about we get the current source for the dwarf model over here before Halloween, aye?