CDV12: Character Strength

[Tim]

V11 was great that dueling started getting more attention again. But the extra focus shined light on a few things that need adjusted. Players should be rewarded for beating tough opponents, but the character's level isn't the only indicator of how tough they are and while there was an "Equipped" level that had a minor effect, it really didn't tell the whole story either. One the other hand, I don't want to drive people into purposefully lowering their strength before they log off as to avoid giving their enemies a good target. So yay for more balancing.

With that in mind, I am replacing the "Equipped" Level that player had with a "Strength" rating.

Strength is combination of a the percentage of equip points used by a character and the percentage of the characters remaining stamina. Since your equip points play a bigger factor in the outcome of the battle, they a weighted 3 times as much as stamina. Here's the formula:

Strength = (((Equipped Points Used)/(Max Equip Points))*3 + ((Stamina)/(Max Stamina)))/4
or
Strength = ((Percent of Equip Points Used)*3 + (Percent of Stamina remaining))/4

Instead of just "Heavy", "Average", and "Light" of equipped level, there will be 6 different levels to display your Strength:

Strength Levels
85-100: Heavy
70-85: Strong
55-70: Fair
40-55: Light
25-40: Damaged
0-25: Broken

These levels will be used to show about where your character is on the Nearby page. However, the actual number will be used for calculations. Your Strength will be used as a factor in both the experience you gain from battles and for points earned for things like clan battles, tournaments, and the Last Battle. However, since points formulas are changing in other ways, I'll save discussion about those for another post. Let's just focus on experience for now.

Here are the new formulas that will be used for earning experience in V12 battles.

Experience Calculations:
LevelDiff = AttackerLevel - DefenderLevel (Cannot be greater that +5 or less than -15)
StrengthDiff = AttackerStrength - DefenderStrength
(Note: All NPCs & Hordes use a Strength of 75).

NPC Experience = 15 + LevelDiff - (StrengthDiff/15)
Duel Experience = 20 + LevelDiff - (StrengthDiff/15)
Horde Experience = 50 + LevelDiff - (StrengthDiff/15)

So for those of you that are too lazy to do math, what does that mean? Well, if you're at 100% Strength and your opponent is at 0% strength, you get 7 less experience for fighting them, regardless of level. On the other hand, if you're at 50% strength and your opponent is at 95%, you'll gain 4 more points than normal. So if a level 100 player intentionally weakened themselves to 0 strength and let a level 90 player at full strength beat on them, that level 90 player would be earning the equivelent of what beating a level 88 player at full strength would earn them. So they'd be better off beating someone at their own level (or a little higher) who's better equipped.

This isn't to say that this completely solves the problem. Sure, players can still intentionally weaken themselves to make it easier/harder to earn good experience against them. But hopefully this will at least make it harder/less useful to do. The attacking player can weaken themselves too before attacking players to hopefully earn more exp. It's just a matter of finding the sweet spot with different players: How weak can I make myself and still be strong enough to beat my opponents? In most cases, I'd argue the best strategy is still to log off as strong as possible.

[almordre]

So, high level duel, where moderate equip damage and 8-10 stamina loss are handed out every duel, how does XP look after 2-3 duels? I'm concerned about this translating into only being able to duel someone 1-2 times a day because of the XP drop - potentially a problem when higher levels get stretched out and only have one or two dueling opponents... (Yeah, too lazy to do math, and also at work )

[Tim]

Effectively for every 4% of your stamina you lose, your strength goes down by 1. So you'd have to drop them by 60% of their exp to be guaranteed to lose an xp. Could happen earlier depending on your strength compared to them. The diffence of hitting someone who's at full stamina vs someone at 0 stamina is only 1-2 experience. But if your targets are beat up, you could try hitting them with weaker gear. Same as the current situation where you can lower your "Equipped" to Light to get a little better XP.

[Felic]

what is the reason for having a maximum level you can fight upwards of your level?
what happens if the opponent is more than 15 levels higher? will it not let us duel or will the thingy be capped at -15?

[Seitaarin]

How is this rounded? eg A player hits at theoretical capped gear (100 str) and stam (100%), compared to an NPC with 75 str and 100 stam ... so you end up with 100 vs 81.25 for your standard NPC battle ... NPC'ers are getting stung 1-2 xp per fight for keeping their gear up to date, while duellers are only getting stung 1-2 xp once they beat an enemy down to 60% stam, and with a higher base xp reward? I'm all for duelling and all, and understand that more losses have to be accounted for in duels, but that seems like it's putting non-duellers at an xp disadvantage? Unless there's numbers I'm not seeing, of course

Of course, while NPC'ing, you can always work out how much % of your total gear score you should actually be using, or have food available to keep your stamina at a particular level, to not lose exp, but that seems like a bit more math than the casual gamer should really be expected to do in order to not be at a disadvantage ...

EDIT:

How is this rounded?

Clarification: Just meant is it 1 or 2 exp in the 28.75/15 calculation

[Seitaarin]

Also, have you crunched the numbers on xp for duel losses using that formula?

With 50% of xp gained for a loss, on a 0 strength lowby fighting a 100 str +15 level character

... base 20 xp ... let's say +15 for level diff ... - (-100/15) .... x 0.5 = ... 20.5 exp for stripping down and losing to a +15 lvl player ...

o.O

[Tim]

Felic: The level cap stuff stuff mentioned here doesn't say anything about restricting who you can hit. It just limits the bonus/penalty. So I can hit someone 20 levels above me, but the xp bonus is still just +5. That limit is in the current version as well. The limit is there so 1) to stop players from farming intensionally easy higher level players for easy xp and 2) prevent the highest level players from being at a big XP gain disadvantage (no one higher up to hit. I will say that I am considering limiting players to only dueling players within 15 levels of them (up or down). We'll see though.

Seitaarin: Actually, strength includes stamina, so it would be 100 vs 75 in your example, not 81.25. 75 was just a number I pulled out of my head that logically seemed good, but now that you make me stop and look at it I agree it seems a little low. I'm thinking up it to 90 for NPCs. All the numbers will need played with a little once things start getting tested.

Based on the current formula and using your example of a full strength player vs an NPC of the same level (most are), you'd earn 13 exp.
Exp = 15 + 0 + (-25/15)
= 15 - 2 (1.67 rounds to 2)
= 13

While most players usually use most of their points, it's hard to use exactly all of them. I would guess that most do use at least 90% though, especially at the higher levels when you have 1000+ points to use.

So if it was 90 strength for NPC and you were at full strength you'd earn 14 points. But as soon as your strength hits 97% instead of 100, you'll be up to 15 again and if you drop yourself even lower you could inch closer to 20 (if people can beat NPCs with no gear equipped and at near 0 stamina, I'll need to up their difficulty...).

I hadn't stopped to think about losses, but the most you can gain for level diff is 5. So that would be
=20+5+(100/15)/2
=25+7/2
=32/2
=16
Still too much now that you point it out, though a with the current setup a Light player losing to a Heavy player 5 or more levels up would be getting 14, so not a big difference from the current situation.

*sigh* I guess more tweaking needs to be done. Granted, that's part of the reason I put this stuff out there ahead of time: So you guys can poke holes in it verbally first instead of in practice during the official version.

[Seitaarin]

I poke, therefore I am

Sent from my HTC One X using proboards

[Shylah.Sedai]

Mar 3, 2014 15:23:44 GMT -6 Tim said:

While most players usually use most of their points, it's hard to use exactly all of them. I would guess that most do use at least 90% though, especially at the higher levels when you have 1000+ points to use.

I, actually, only had 1 equip point left unused. That is because after I had the armor I wanted, I spent my skill points on upping my weave strength. So, it's not impossible. Hard? Yes, and expensive on the skill points, but I did it.

[Jenlyn]

Awesome. This should help, once it's all tweaked.

[Seitaarin]

Mar 3, 2014 15:23:44 GMT -6 Tim said:

Felic: The level cap stuff stuff mentioned here doesn't say anything about restricting who you can hit. It just limits the bonus/penalty. So I can hit someone 20 levels above me, but the xp bonus is still just +5. That limit is in the current version as well. The limit is there so 1) to stop players from farming intensionally easy higher level players for easy xp and 2) prevent the highest level players from being at a big XP gain disadvantage (no one higher up to hit. I will say that I am considering limiting players to only dueling players within 15 levels of them (up or down). We'll see though.

Seitaarin: Actually, strength includes stamina, so it would be 100 vs 75 in your example, not 81.25. 75 was just a number I pulled out of my head that logically seemed good, but now that you make me stop and look at it I agree it seems a little low. I'm thinking up it to 90 for NPCs. All the numbers will need played with a little once things start getting tested.

Based on the current formula and using your example of a full strength player vs an NPC of the same level (most are), you'd earn 13 exp.
Exp = 15 + 0 + (-25/15)
= 15 - 2 (1.67 rounds to 2)
= 13

While most players usually use most of their points, it's hard to use exactly all of them. I would guess that most do use at least 90% though, especially at the higher levels when you have 1000+ points to use.

So if it was 90 strength for NPC and you were at full strength you'd earn 14 points. But as soon as your strength hits 97% instead of 100, you'll be up to 15 again and if you drop yourself even lower you could inch closer to 20 (if people can beat NPCs with no gear equipped and at near 0 stamina, I'll need to up their difficulty...).

I hadn't stopped to think about losses, but the most you can gain for level diff is 5. So that would be
=20+5+(100/15)/2
=25+7/2
=32/2
=16
Still too much now that you point it out, though a with the current setup a Light player losing to a Heavy player 5 or more levels up would be getting 14, so not a big difference from the current situation.

*sigh* I guess more tweaking needs to be done. Granted, that's part of the reason I put this stuff out there ahead of time: So you guys can poke holes in it verbally first instead of in practice during the official version.

Hate to necro, but I think this needs to be brought up ... NPC dependent of course, but this is the case. NPCs are simply too easy, which is allowing people (myself included - not the worst offender, but definitely in the club) to exploit these mechanics.

I think NPC's need to be a little less predictably easy to defeat - an increase in the currently existing stats to simply enhance as they are is not enough - certain NPC types are just plain easier due to their stats, and enhancing as-is would simply mean cherry picking fights to be able to do this would become more rampant.

That said, thinking on a solution this is the best offer I have at the moment - 3 different varieties of each NPC with different builds, each with a different name variant of the central NPC type theme. When an NPC is fought, one of the 3 variants is randomly selected as the opponent. This is on top of making NPCs more competitive in stats as well so it's not so simple to just downgear and still guarantee a win.

[Jenlyn]

Maybe that should work on a gradient. I have had trouble with certain NPCs in the first couple of days of an age before as it is. I don't think guard dogs need to be any tougher for a level 1-7 character.

[Seitaarin]

and/or set up as player characters ... base 1-20, AC1 @ lvl 20, AC2 @ lvl 40 etc

[King Richard]

I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate here. I'm only half way serious. I believe making NPCs 'tougher' won't help the game. My comments from TAR, really should have been here, so I'm gonna repeat some of it, and add more thoughts.

There are some people in this game who don't care about exp. I am one of them. I don't care. I don't care if someone wants to strip naked and whoop on NPCs so they earn more exp than me. If that's what they care about, and that is what makes the game fun for them, well, I'm happy for them and am excited they are playing. Everyone CAN do it right? They aren't exploiting a bug that no one else knows about are they? Nope. They read the wiki and used their math nerd skills and figured out how best to get what they want from the game. Should EVERYONE be kicked in the chods so a few people can't dominate the exp ranks? Is it that big of a deal that it needs to be "fixed?"

I love murdering NPCs. I don't like to just kill them, I want to MURDER the little punks. I want to move through them, like crap through a goose! I want to rip out their guts, and use them to grease the treads of my tanks! Uh, sorry, I slipped in to my inner Gen. Patton (NSFW) there. (actual even lessSFW text) There are a few reasons I like this. I've played so long I sometimes dread having to run turns. "Oh man, do I have to?" Yeah, it's messed up. I love it when it gets to the point that I can burn 100 turns in just a few mins because I can pretty much kill them with 2 hits. I don't play this game so I can be challenged by NPCs, I play to relax. I like stepping into this world and pretending I'm an unstoppable Juggernaut. Losing to lowly NPCs, even a little more often, just so exp whores can't climb the ladder does not appeal to me. I don't want to have different sets of gear for different types of NPC. Don't get me wrong, I can handle losing. I'm not going to quit because I lost, or because the game got a little harder. I just won't have as much fun.

However, let's look at some things. Everyone in the top 25, and even most everyone in the top 50 exp characters has a kill rate of at least 98% of NPC battles. Most everyone in that top 50 are still actively playing the game too. Look at the next 25 people on the list. The 3rd page consists of mostly corpses and people who started late. Only a couple of them have higher kill rates than 96%, most are less than that. Yes, yes. I understand that most of them would have had a higher kill rate had they stuck around as long as the rest of us. But, they didn't stick around. Why? Most likely, the game didn't appeal to them for some reason, or they didn't have time to play. Or, they didn't want to put forth the effort required to be competitive. Maybe some of them didn't like losing to NPCs. I hear this a lot from new players, and even some vets. "Hey Dr. KR, I can't seem to win against NPCs. What am I doing wrong? You are clearly the most awesome player in the game, so can you please help?" At which point I send them my Guaranteed Fail-safe Plan to MURDER NPCs. (Patent pending.) I don't know if anyone has actually quit because they couldn't beat more than 9 out of 10 NPCs, but I DO know that those who MURDER NPCs typically have more fun than those that are asking for help because they can't seem to beat them.

So what if some people gain more exp than others? Should we make it harder for everyone to get a high Net Worth because two of us are way ahead of everyone else? Climbing the exp ladder is not the only way to play this game, and to be honest, I don't see how they are hurting anything. I probably can't duel them and win from 10 levels down, but let's face it, I don't care about dueling. They might be able to MURDER better than I can because they are higher level, but honestly, is there that much difference in a level 105 player over a level 100 player?

Anyway, now you all know how I feel. I will accept whatever the community/mostly Tim decides.

[Seitaarin]

All good points, can't fault a one. It's a matter of opinion I guess ... I play all games through first time on hard difficulty. I might play later down the track on easy or normal to 'MURDER' it for fun, but that's a short term novelty thing that gets old real fast for me. I think being honest I was really just grasping for an opportunity to turn the difficulty up, and remembered that old quote from a ways back. The disparity of levels is not really such a big issue for me as perhaps I projected initially, though I maintain the stance against it on principle, but then anyone can do it so meh. Again from that same point of view I much much much prefer hitting up as my playstyle. It takes some serious gold bait or strategic reason to make me hit someone lower level - if I am at an advantage, then it's not a real win, lol, it's that simple. Thus why I wanted more challenging NPC's.

Your words have forced me to assess my own position on the matter in depth in order to come to that conclusion, bravo for that. I certainly do not want to make the game harder for new players - I recall my own losses during those first clueless days/weeks, that is very much not what I would wish to happen. At the same time that uncertainty at lvl 1 when you hit your first NPC as to whether it might be a level or 2 up and hand you your ass disappears far too quickly for my liking. At the stage we are at in our current age there is no uncertainty, just hit the I win button and wait a few seconds to collect, then hit the 'win again' button to repeat.

What about making Find quest NPC's more difficult again then as a potential solution for adding a bit of NPC spice? Or another type of 'Boss' quest that pops up (rarely or only once completable even?) that is a super-NPC, or super-NPC-group or some such with bonus non-standard class stats or some such. Make this a quality vs quantity choice for gear hunting, with loot drops from only your current level tier group maybe rather than all, or only dropping single TAs or something, but no bonus exp.

EDIT: adding a potentially very unpopular idea here, but the thought occurs ... make that THE quests where clean TAs are found, rather than have them drop willy nilly all the time. I find TAs in general far too common in loot ... but then there's then economy to think about balancing, all kinds of horrible things like that - not a thoroughly thought out idea by any means, but thought I'd throw it out there and see what stuck.