[DIS] Level cap - CR1

Content and general development discussion, including quest scripts and server code. TMW Classic is a project comprising the Legacy tmwAthena server & the designated improved engine server based on evolHercules.


Forum rules

This forum houses many years of development, tracing back to some of the earliest posts that exist on the board.

Its current use is for the continued development of the server and game it has always served: TMW Classic.

User avatar
Bertram
Manasource
Manasource
Posts: 1026
Joined: 07 Sep 2004, 14:55
Location: France

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Bertram »

Damnit,

I can't believe this proposal has been accepted :lol:
When n is the index of the skill in the list sorted on skill level
Do I understand well: A 0-index skill is a base skill, and a 1,2,n-skill is a 0,1,n-1 children?

If yes, there can be more than 1-skill for a 0-one?

I'm sure to understand.

Regards.
User avatar
Rotonen
TMW Adviser
TMW Adviser
Posts: 3154
Joined: 08 Sep 2004, 19:48
Location: Bern, Switzerland

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Rotonen »

It hurts less to rip things apart here than later on.

But in any case we're just trying to agree on minor details.

For further discussion: let's carefully and critically read through the current material in the wiki before getting back to this.
This message used to be meaningful.
User avatar
Bertram
Manasource
Manasource
Posts: 1026
Joined: 07 Sep 2004, 14:55
Location: France

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Bertram »

Hi,

Ok, Rotonen.

As level is set considering skills levels, then yes, the soft capping could be set by
gaining less and less SP while you're gaining skill levels, why not until the player reaches 0 gain.
That way, you would be absolutely sure of the maximum player level of each release.

(N.B. : I still don't get the skill indexes point. I'm only a dumb french person, remember ;) )

Regards.
User avatar
Crush
TMW Adviser
TMW Adviser
Posts: 8046
Joined: 25 Aug 2005, 16:08
Location: Germany

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Crush »

Rotonen wrote:I'm still vouching for grouping skills for calculating levels: battle strength - crafting skill. Any other groups come into mind? For me healing and such falls under battle strength and should hence balance things out a bit.

(LVL x combatant, LVL y craftsman)
This won't work properly in the TMWServ game system. The only thing level does is giving you character points to distribute on your character attributes. Separating this task on two different character levels just doesn't make sense and will do the opposite of what your intention seems to be.
  • former Manasource Programmer
  • former TMW Pixel artist
  • NOT a game master

Please do not send me any inquiries regarding player accounts on TMW.


You might have heard a certain rumor about me. This rumor is completely false. You might also have heard the other rumor about me. This rumor is 100% accurate.
User avatar
Crush
TMW Adviser
TMW Adviser
Posts: 8046
Joined: 25 Aug 2005, 16:08
Location: Germany

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Crush »

Bertram wrote:Damnit,

I can't believe this proposal has been accepted :lol:
It's not just accepted, it is already programmed. See Character::recalculateLevel() in the gameserver source for details.
  • former Manasource Programmer
  • former TMW Pixel artist
  • NOT a game master

Please do not send me any inquiries regarding player accounts on TMW.


You might have heard a certain rumor about me. This rumor is completely false. You might also have heard the other rumor about me. This rumor is 100% accurate.
User avatar
Bertram
Manasource
Manasource
Posts: 1026
Joined: 07 Sep 2004, 14:55
Location: France

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Bertram »

I'll do...
User avatar
Freeyorp101
Archivist Prime
Archivist Prime
Posts: 765
Joined: 04 Nov 2008, 09:17
Location: New Zealand

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Freeyorp101 »

As best as I can tell, there are two main ideas for affecting percentile gain of exp:
  • Leaving per mob exp as constant, dramatically increasing exp requirements with each new level and dramatically increasing exp rewards with difficulty of the mob
    advantages: players have a good idea of what exp they will get from a specific monster, exp observations at an early level aren't made obselete at later levels; disadvantages: later levels have exp requirements and rewards many orders of magnitude more even than what we have at present (which wouldn't be so much of a problem if the default was to show percentile increase only and leave the numerical increases to the people that are interested in working with such numbers and formulae :roll:)
  • Leaving exp requirement increases fairly linear, and altering the exp value on the fly with some formula based on relative difficulties of the player and mob
    advantages: exp requirements don't have to increase anywhere near as much; disadvantages: exp rewards become much less predictable for players, exp reward observations are obsoleted with every new level

thoughts?


---Freeyorp
(09:58:17) < tux9th> Freeyorp: your sig on the forums is kind of outdated
User avatar
Kage
Manasource
Manasource
Posts: 929
Joined: 02 May 2009, 18:12

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Kage »

hard cap++;
<Kage_Jittai> ... are you saying I am elite :D
<thorbjorn> Yes. :P
User avatar
Rotonen
TMW Adviser
TMW Adviser
Posts: 3154
Joined: 08 Sep 2004, 19:48
Location: Bern, Switzerland

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Rotonen »

So at the moment you can grind up a lot of attribute points in the beginning by doing the preliminaries of every battle and crafting skill? Sounds like a potential munchkin powerplay issue to me.

As I've been trying to say, I'd have only combat related skills count towards the (battle) level and give attribute bonuses you can allocate. The crafting skills and such could be also grouped together. In any case leveling up crafting skills shouldn't boost your attributes.

This is IMO a rather effective way to prevent omni characters. I do not want to allow people to grind everything to the max in the time between content releases.

If we significantly change something to balance things or just admit we were wrong, we can reset either attribute points or skills (or particular skill groups or skill trees, depending) for people for free upon the release of such changes. Other MMO out there do this too: I think it is nice for the players to not have their hard work wasted because of an unforseen change to how things work.

If we want to help new players avoid borking their characters, we can have attribute gain coming from leveling up certain skills add 2/3, 3/5 or any other fraction of their attribute points automatically to attributes supporting the skill tree in question.

If we can agree on the basics, we can move on to more advanced things like what a level cap means. Ultimately even into building the skill trees.
This message used to be meaningful.
User avatar
Bertram
Manasource
Manasource
Posts: 1026
Joined: 07 Sep 2004, 14:55
Location: France

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Bertram »

Hi Rotonen,

I agree mostly except on this:
If we want to help new players avoid borking their characters, we can have attribute gain coming from leveling up certain skills add 2/3, 3/5 or any other fraction of their attribute points automatically to attributes supporting the skill tree in question.
:arrow: I'm not sure to plainly understand what you mean:
Do you mean skill levels could to part/replace the point attribution?

Regards.
Last edited by Bertram on 09 Oct 2009, 13:39, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Rotonen
TMW Adviser
TMW Adviser
Posts: 3154
Joined: 08 Sep 2004, 19:48
Location: Bern, Switzerland

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Rotonen »

To try to clarify: for example if you get 5 attribute points per level gained, depending on which skills you have upped to gain the level, some number of your gained attribute points would be assigned automatically based on what skills you have upped since last levelup to support the gained skills.
This message used to be meaningful.
User avatar
Bertram
Manasource
Manasource
Posts: 1026
Joined: 07 Sep 2004, 14:55
Location: France

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Bertram »

Then I understood well,

A mixed levelling up:

Let's say the character levels up:
S/He gains automatically 2 points in X, and gain 3 other points he can freely attribute.

I like the idea, but only if the majority of points are set by the player, then 2 points max auto attributed
if max of 5 points.

We should define now, how the points are auto-attributed if this is voted.

Regards.
User avatar
Crush
TMW Adviser
TMW Adviser
Posts: 8046
Joined: 25 Aug 2005, 16:08
Location: Germany

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Crush »

Rotonen wrote:To try to clarify: for example if you get 5 attribute points per level gained, depending on which skills you have upped to gain the level, some number of your gained attribute points would be assigned automatically based on what skills you have upped since last levelup to support the gained skills.
Sorry, but this is a very bad idea. The problem with this is that it takes away the direct control of the player over the character attributes and replaces it with indirect control through the players behavior.

This might sound like an interesting idea at first glance, but don't forget what effect this has on the gameplay.

When the player wants to avoid attribute distribution which is contrary to his long term plans he has to avoid certain actions. This means that the range of activities the player can do in the game is artificially restricted.

Tl;dr: gameplay becomes more repetitive and boring.
  • former Manasource Programmer
  • former TMW Pixel artist
  • NOT a game master

Please do not send me any inquiries regarding player accounts on TMW.


You might have heard a certain rumor about me. This rumor is completely false. You might also have heard the other rumor about me. This rumor is 100% accurate.
User avatar
Crush
TMW Adviser
TMW Adviser
Posts: 8046
Joined: 25 Aug 2005, 16:08
Location: Germany

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Crush »

Rotonen wrote: As I've been trying to say, I'd have only combat related skills count towards the (battle) level and give attribute bonuses you can allocate. The crafting skills and such could be also grouped together. In any case leveling up crafting skills shouldn't boost your attributes.
This only works under one premise: That attributes are unrelated to crafting activities - or you force crafters to go fighting. Our plans so far were that attributes are supposed to affect crafting too, so it made sense that crafting skills also contribute to character level and thus attribute gain.

Not that I would have a problem with dropping attribute effects on crafting though. My attempts to come up with a concept which balances the effects of different attributes on crafting were not very successful so far.
  • former Manasource Programmer
  • former TMW Pixel artist
  • NOT a game master

Please do not send me any inquiries regarding player accounts on TMW.


You might have heard a certain rumor about me. This rumor is completely false. You might also have heard the other rumor about me. This rumor is 100% accurate.
User avatar
Kage
Manasource
Manasource
Posts: 929
Joined: 02 May 2009, 18:12

Re: [DIS] release1 level cap

Post by Kage »

Crush wrote:
Rotonen wrote: As I've been trying to say, I'd have only combat related skills count towards the (battle) level and give attribute bonuses you can allocate. The crafting skills and such could be also grouped together. In any case leveling up crafting skills shouldn't boost your attributes.
This only works under one premise: That attributes are unrelated to crafting activities - or you force crafters to go fighting. Our plans so far were that attributes are supposed to affect crafting too, so it made sense that crafting skills also contribute to character level and thus attribute gain.

Not that I would have a problem with dropping attribute effects on crafting though. My attempts to come up with a concept which balances the effects of different attributes on crafting were not very successful so far.
Lets drop attributes from crafting skills then.
<Kage_Jittai> ... are you saying I am elite :D
<thorbjorn> Yes. :P
Post Reply