First impressions: maggot xp and autoattacking monsters

[niels.ellegaard]

I just played a character up to the 20th level. This game is pretty cool and the other players are really helpful, so it was a good experience. But I do have a two comments on the game play

I think that the maggots should give less xp. The problem is that at 15th level I made more xp killing maggots than killing fire goblins I think that I could kill 2 or 3 fire goblins in a row, but then I didn't have the food to restore my health afterwards, so fire goblins ended up giving less xp per minute. In other words didn't feel that the game rewarded me for killing a monster that was large enough to be challenging. I did discover the reward master too late, and I must admit that the quests encourages you to kill big monsters, but still I think that the maggot XP-value should be decreased. (BTW I think that the xp-values in the monster reference is out of date http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/ ... _reference, but the link to svn is correct http://themanaworld.svn.sourceforge.net ... iew=markup )

It could be fun to have autoattacking monsters earlier in the game. This would force me to flee once in a while, and that would add some fun to the first 20 levels of the game. Perhaps scorpions and/or fire goblins could decide to attack you if it saw you fighting with a member of their species. This way the newbies would be left alone, whereas the levels between 10 and 20 would be more challenging. Of course autoattacking monsters should be slow and forgetful.

Anyway, I just wanted to say cheers and keep up the good work.

EDIT:
I plotted a graph of the xp-values of monsters in the game and it looks like the xp-value of a monster roughly corresponds to it's fighting strength divided by 300. In other words exp=hp*(atk1+atk2)/300, but this rule is not obeyed by low level monsters. According to the rule fire goblins should give 200*(15+20)/300=20 xp rather than 40. Maggots should give 50*(5+10)/300=2.5 xp rather than 10, and scorpions should give 100*(10+15)/300=8 rather than 25. So according to my rule maggots should give much less xp than the fire goblins.

[peavey]

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[trapdoor]

I would say its too easy to level with bats, they give 55 xp and rarely do any damage above 1, and are easy to kill even at level 18.

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trapdoor