Kill XP gains

[Lord Mephisto]

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I think there is a problem with the experience gained from kills.

At this point, you get almost nothing for killing characters the same level as you or near. Only when killing characters of 3-4 levels higher than you gain a lot of experience.

The problem with this system is that people tend to target higher level characters and don't fight with characters their own level if they can avoid it. This especially hurt classes which have a hard time against lower levels if they attack in great numbers. And even worse, it advocates cheesy play. Surely, experience gained must be greater for killing a high-level character, but the amount of experience for killing others the same level or near needs to be improved.

We would like to see more good fighting and less lameness on this server. Please make it so you gain more experience for fighting characters near your own level. Makes it more interesting and worthwhile as well as less cheesy.

The amount of time needed to level also seem to be a little too high. Sure, it is possible to gain a lot of experience in a short time when there are many people logged on, but this doesn't really help those of us who can't play at peak hours.

It would be a good idea to scale the experience gains in an intelligent manner such that the amount of expereince is increased as the player number is reduced. Otherwise, it takes ages to level if you play with less than 7-8 people online. Not fair, and not fun.

[Casas]

This especially hurt classes which have a hard time against lower levels if they attack in great numbers.

Isn't that the point? Lowbies have to use team strategy to bring down high pointer for team XP and more points.

The amount of time needed to level also seem to be a little too high.

That's how it's supposed to be. Rary wants the server slow level up. As do I. Servers that let people level up too quickly get boring, too fast.

but this doesn't really help those of us who can't play at peak hours.

The only way, I can think up, to fix that - is to increase the amount of XP if the game is under 9 players. Which becomes a dragon problem.. ~Server above 8 players XP returned to normal~ NOOOSE GET OFF YOU STUPID NUB!

I don't see it as script fixable.

Do note the Xp was increased earlier, it's now doubled for whoever takes the kill (up to a certain level).. Which is a lot of XP.

How quickly do you want to make L20? Before all these new XP boosts (Back before happy hour - which is fantastic, and the extra-extra xp for kills were implemented) I could make a L20 in 24 hours logged on the server.

[Lord Mephisto]

Regular as clockword with critique, aren't we?

Casas

Quote: LM
This especially hurt classes which have a hard time against lower levels if they attack in great numbers.

Isn't that the point? Lowbies have to use team strategy to bring down high pointer for team XP and more points.

Gang hopping on characters high above their level just because they are near death and give them greater xp than those around their level has little to do with stratigy.

This server is about PvP, not who can munchkinize the maximum of xp out of kills. That leads to quite another game. The "who gets the last hit" game. And that game is no fun.

Have you ever seen battles where higher level characters damage a low level character and then waits for a lower level character to "finish" him? Not a very fun game, is it? And that is what happens too often with these experience gains for killing characters in your range.

Casas

Quote: LM
The amount of time needed to level also seem to be a little too high.

That's how it's supposed to be. Rary wants the server slow level up. As do I. Servers that let people level up too quickly get boring, too fast.

The game is supposed to be fun. Not leveling up too quickly is fine. But the current system makes it too slow when there isn't a lot of people on, especially at the earliest levels. Playing with 5-6 people leveling a level 7 characters legally takes ages.

You also took the above quoted line out of context. You have to look at the quoted line below.

Casas

but this doesn't really help those of us who can't play at peak hours.

The only way, I can think up, to fix that - is to increase the amount of XP if the game is under 9 players. Which becomes a dragon problem.. ~Server above 8 players XP returned to normal~ NOOOSE GET OFF YOU STUPID NUB!

I don't see it as script fixable.

It doesn't need to be like that. And a script fix is possible.

It would be a bad idea to do what you suggest. It would be better to scale it not in "stairs", but linear using some kind of formula. For example, everything from 10 players and up get "normal" xp. Everything from 9 players and below get scaled xp by player number. For example a +10 % bonus per player below 10 to a maximum of +80 % or something like that.

People would still want others to join because the amount of increased kills from more players would increase the total xp gained. But it would still be possible to get some scaled xp for those who want to play when there are few online.

Anyway, this was an example formula. A better one could most certainly be made, but you get the general idea.

Casas
How quickly do you want to make L20? Before all these new XP boosts (Back before happy hour - which is fantastic, and the extra-extra xp for kills were implemented) I could make a L20 in 24 hours logged on the server.

It is not easy to make a level 20 in 24 hours. Not everyone can do that, and certainly not everybody has 24 hours to spend at peek hours. Not even within a week if they wanted to spend all their free time playing NWN.

And if such speed-leveling would become too common, it would be easy to put in a restriction. Max one level per 12 day or something like that. The possibilities are endless, so don't bring up too quick leveling for a few people as a problem.

I don't want it to be too quick. Not at all. But I feel it is too slow, especially for the levels from 7 to 12. From 12 and up, the dynamics of the game change and leveling is quicker.

[T3hRedMage]

I disagree. I think that levels 12 and up are slower than 7-12. More and more people are leaving the server and taking their higher level characters with them. You'll find most of the players on the server have a majority of high level characters already. The only reason you'd fight anyone levels 15+ is if they think they can get good XP off your character.

[Casas]

Gang hopping on characters high above their level just because they are near death and give them greater xp than those around their level has little to do with stratigy.

When you have a strong enemy.. and nothing but weak powers scattered, you unite and attack. That's from sun tzu's art of war, just modified a bit. That is strategy. Strategy is any an elaborate plan - of which that is.

Have you ever seen battles where higher level characters damage a low level character and then waits for a lower level character to "finish" him?

I do it all the time. It's called winning.

It's not 24 consecutive hours, it's 24 hours logged on the server. I've seen people level faster then myself back in the day. And that was well before all these new extra XPs were being given for free.

I do not like low population games, less then 10 people is terrible XP, normally we would PL when the server got to 5 peeps or so.. but that got banned and Dragons were put in. But since dragons give no XP they aren't that fun to fight, and more of a time waster and people log out.

And I agree with Gee on that.. it is much more difficult to get the last few levels. 16+ is extremely difficult to get, because no one logs 20's anymore. There's no point since they only get crap XP for killing <5 pointers. I recommended they get 75XP for 1, 100 for 2, 125 for 3, and 4 yields 150, then 5 is the usual 300. Anything better then what they get now. :-/

Well a 10% bonus to a below 10 player game would be a 55 XP kill for 5 points at 9 players. Don't see the extra 5 XP curing the low level games. The more you increase it the more Dragon factor you get.

[LittleLostThief]

I try to make it a point to log on higher level characters that aren't necessarily the best against players that get around 15+, in an effort to spread it around. Nobody here got to 20 by killing someone for one time and then having them log out because they didn't want to die for 9 points. It happens, it's okay, you don't have to dominate. You don't have to log on characters specifically to utterly destroy an opponent every time without them having a chance or hope of retribution. I think we all need to be a little less anal about it and a little more friendly to those who are up and coming. Spread the exps. We all deserve them.

[Lord Mephisto]

Gang hopping on characters high above their level just because they are near death and give them greater xp than those around their level has little to do with stratigy.

When you have a strong enemy.. and nothing but weak powers scattered, you unite and attack. That's from sun tzu's art of war, just modified a bit. That is strategy. Strategy is any an elaborate plan - of which that is.

Are you serious? This is the same thing you said in the last post.

I don't think you really have difficulties understanding this problem, I think you just don't want to.

Have you ever seen battles where higher level characters damage a low level character and then waits for a lower level character to "finish" him?

I do it all the time. It's called winning.

It is not the same as winning. It is lame play.

Do you really want the battles to be all about who "finishes" a character? Do you really mean this stuff? I don't think so.

It's not 24 consecutive hours, it's 24 hours logged on the server. I've seen people level faster then myself back in the day. And that was well before all these new extra XPs were being given for free.

I know it is consecutive. And I expect you to have understood that too.

The problem is, not everybody can be present at peak hours during a weak. For starters, we do live on different sides of this world. And we work or study. We have friends and family.

24 hours spent on the server is very different if you play with 5-8 people or 30.

I do not like low population games, less then 10 people is terrible XP, normally we would PL when the server got to 5 peeps or so.. but that got banned and Dragons were put in. But since dragons give no XP they aren't that fun to fight, and more of a time waster and people log out.

So what you are saying is that it should be allowed to cheat and powerlevel? But not to try fixing the low-player number problem?

And I agree with Gee on that.. it is much more difficult to get the last few levels. 16+ is extremely difficult to get, because no one logs 20's anymore. There's no point since they only get crap XP for killing <5 pointers. I recommended they get 75XP for 1, 100 for 2, 125 for 3, and 4 yields 150, then 5 is the usual 300. Anything better then what they get now. :-/

This is actually supporting one of my suggestions, you are aware of that?

Well a 10% bonus to a below 10 player game would be a 55 XP kill for 5 points at 9 players. Don't see the extra 5 XP curing the low level games. The more you increase it the more Dragon factor you get.

I think you must reread my post.

[Casas]

Do you really want the battles to be all about who "finishes" a character? Do you really mean this stuff? I don't think so.

Well how do you propose to fix THAT? Whoever gets the last kill, will get the points. It is impossible to script who did the most damage gets the kill. That's human nature, sorry. I don't see what else could help, open to suggestions.

This is actually supporting one of my suggestions, you are aware of that?

Aye captain, only for highbies though. Low levels are pretty fast.. you just get jacked on times you login man. Hard to help that.

I did read your post, if you increase the %age you increase the Dragon factor. Low %age won't help much at all. You can't increase the amount of XP large games get, it's so high as it is.. I've made 8k in a single legit round before. ( 20 online ) So you will have to start that stair step %age somewhere. Give me more info to go on please.

[Rary]

XP has been increased so much since the begininning of this game. The game has more than doubled on XP given than before. I increased all kill XP, you get an effort XP and sometimes happy hour.

Making the script give more XP for lower numbers. You'd have to make a loop script just to see how many people are on everytime someone died.

Maybe I could use the 'count players' loop script when they log in and log out..

Maybe less for kills XP and more for team winnings. Then ganging on the high level player will only be worth it if he couldn't kill the 5 pointer faster.

But the object of the game that I want is a team play, not an individual play which will happen if you increase XP per kill.

In non-peak time? Get your friends to play then.

Keeping level 20's to play is hard because their isn't a goal for them. I've been searching for that goal for years. Everyone has their next level as a goal. Or help level 16+ players play by giving more XP depending on how many levels over 20 you are by gold.