Monster/Level System Suggestions
Posted: 04 Sep 2007, 19:12
Similarly to most other games out there, and for a certain thrill and more dose of 'realism', I'd suggest having different levels not only for playable characters, but for so-called 'monsters' as well.
First off, certain beasts would be 'ranked'. Supposedly, the type 1 foes could be small maggots abundant in the spawn town, some scorpions, and so forth.
In this manner, the type would imply the average HP of a creature and it's base attack etc.
So for example type 1 creatures would have to have between 5 to 50hp, and make attack rolls with say d4. (so 1-4). The idea of type would not even have to be passed to the client; it could be a dev-only way to rank monsters, to ease new monster development.
Feel free to replace the word type with anything according (not level, mainly to skip confusion with the word level currently used and associated with player character experience).
Another idea is to introduce monster level. Those would range from 1 to say infinity, limited by monster type, and could be marked with say stars or so underneath the name of the creature, once it were targetted.
Type 1 monsters for example could not exceed certain levels. In case of maggots, a type 1 maggot at level of say 10 could become a giant maggot. Same goes for scorpions (and other fitting creatures), we would need a giant scorpion for that.
Preferably three stages would be acceptable for the above (maggot, youth maggot, giant maggot, taking maggots as example).
A higher level monster would give more XP and a higher chance of a costly/rare item drop than the lowest level of the particular type and species, yet would have higher stats as well and would naturally be more difficult to dispose of by the players. To avoid having players attack stronger monsters by mistake, these could also be marked graphically, by say stripes on the back, or different colours - the darker a monster, the higher it's level. Now black scorpions could make more sense, and become just a scorpion, only tougher because of levelling up, and hence their colour.
The experience points of monsters required for particular levels would be granted gradually based on time, and on their kills.
Lower monster levels (1-3) would appear randomly on the map, monsters levelled above that would appear only through leveling up of lower-level ones.
The XP gained in battle would come from battles:
1. Against the same or different species of monsters. Monsters could sometimes break into fights between eachother, because of invasion of their territory (spawn area + area in which a particular creature currently existed in higher amounts than other creatures) by other monsters, and because of their hostility levels.
2. Against players. If a monster kills/wounds(to be discussed) a player, he/it gains XP. To make the leveling up fair, in fights say weak monsters against tough players, the monster should get XP just by making a hit, more XP the higher the difference between levels of player/monster.
The XP gained due to passing time
* we have to bear in mind monsters are semi-intelligent creatures, and therefore should gain XP based on their sole existance, just like players do quests, so would creatures in their creature world. this would be simplified and mean if a monster spawns and remains alive for the required period of time, it gains an extra level in say one game week - see my other thread about game time.
This would probably require some new variables, such as, monster_age, monster_xp, monster_lvl. The monster_type could be derived off of it's HP/AP by the client, and the monster_lvl could be derived from the monster_xp by the client as well. This could perhaphs be doable with a script and not require in-server implementations. I don't know enough (yet;)) about how the new server works to claim more than this supposition.
Regards
First off, certain beasts would be 'ranked'. Supposedly, the type 1 foes could be small maggots abundant in the spawn town, some scorpions, and so forth.
In this manner, the type would imply the average HP of a creature and it's base attack etc.
So for example type 1 creatures would have to have between 5 to 50hp, and make attack rolls with say d4. (so 1-4). The idea of type would not even have to be passed to the client; it could be a dev-only way to rank monsters, to ease new monster development.
Feel free to replace the word type with anything according (not level, mainly to skip confusion with the word level currently used and associated with player character experience).
Another idea is to introduce monster level. Those would range from 1 to say infinity, limited by monster type, and could be marked with say stars or so underneath the name of the creature, once it were targetted.
Type 1 monsters for example could not exceed certain levels. In case of maggots, a type 1 maggot at level of say 10 could become a giant maggot. Same goes for scorpions (and other fitting creatures), we would need a giant scorpion for that.
Preferably three stages would be acceptable for the above (maggot, youth maggot, giant maggot, taking maggots as example).
A higher level monster would give more XP and a higher chance of a costly/rare item drop than the lowest level of the particular type and species, yet would have higher stats as well and would naturally be more difficult to dispose of by the players. To avoid having players attack stronger monsters by mistake, these could also be marked graphically, by say stripes on the back, or different colours - the darker a monster, the higher it's level. Now black scorpions could make more sense, and become just a scorpion, only tougher because of levelling up, and hence their colour.
The experience points of monsters required for particular levels would be granted gradually based on time, and on their kills.
Lower monster levels (1-3) would appear randomly on the map, monsters levelled above that would appear only through leveling up of lower-level ones.
The XP gained in battle would come from battles:
1. Against the same or different species of monsters. Monsters could sometimes break into fights between eachother, because of invasion of their territory (spawn area + area in which a particular creature currently existed in higher amounts than other creatures) by other monsters, and because of their hostility levels.
2. Against players. If a monster kills/wounds(to be discussed) a player, he/it gains XP. To make the leveling up fair, in fights say weak monsters against tough players, the monster should get XP just by making a hit, more XP the higher the difference between levels of player/monster.
The XP gained due to passing time
* we have to bear in mind monsters are semi-intelligent creatures, and therefore should gain XP based on their sole existance, just like players do quests, so would creatures in their creature world. this would be simplified and mean if a monster spawns and remains alive for the required period of time, it gains an extra level in say one game week - see my other thread about game time.
This would probably require some new variables, such as, monster_age, monster_xp, monster_lvl. The monster_type could be derived off of it's HP/AP by the client, and the monster_lvl could be derived from the monster_xp by the client as well. This could perhaphs be doable with a script and not require in-server implementations. I don't know enough (yet;)) about how the new server works to claim more than this supposition.
Regards