Adren Masters and XP stuff

Dru: As your goal appears to find ways for AM's to do things that don't directly deal damage to monsters (or at least do it from a distance), here's some ideas in how to get them the XP they might loose from this change in play, as well as additional AM ideas:

XP for giving away maxed * weapons
Whether it's something they've maxed, or something they've created/spawned with and maxed, maybe they should get a little XP for these items. Now, the obvious abuse of this would be that you'd have to track how they got the weapon ... if they're thrown something from someone, don't do anything to it, and throw it back (or even to another person), that shouldn't net them any XP. Also, if they're thrown a maxed weapon and max it, they shouldn't get any XP for that either. Dru, you might want to reevaluate what is a * weapon and what is not - or introduce a third class of weapons - 1. Cloneable. 2. Not clonable, no xp. 3. Not cloneable, xp.

Weapon Swap
Say you have two weapons, like a plain shock and an vorp 10 avril, and you'd rather have a plain avril and a vorp 10 shock. AMs could get an additional artifact to give them this ability.

Damage Boost
This one just came to me ... basically, let an AM with a link gun link up with anyone who has any weapon, and boost that weapon ("energizing" even physical damage weapons). If they've got an Inf Link, they could well help someone run the map! I know you get XP when you link with someone, so they'd get some of the xp when they linked ... maybe even allow such boosted weapons to have some kind of addtional "Force" factor (or heck, a couple of levels of this available where the link gun imparts both faster shots as well as additional damage).

Shield Boost
Let AM's somehow boost people's shields like Medics boost health. XP? Dunno about that ... probably not to the degree that Medics get for health.

Well, that's a start anyway ... more ideas on this topic later, probably ... and folks, feel free to contribute your own!

Oh yeah ... the obvious one that a lot of folks have said they wished was possible:

Adrenaline Transfer!

AM's could facilitate the movement of adrenaline from one player to another.

BotFodder wrote:

Oh yeah ... the obvious one that a lot of folks have said they wished was possible:

Adrenaline Transfer!

AM's could facilitate the movement of adrenaline from one player to another.

If not that, then how about an artifact that allowed them to "absorb" the adren from someone. Like, if I came to you with a vanilla flak and wanted it maxed, you would take the wep and max it for me, but take all of my available adren at the same time (that way, lets say I had 99 adren. I believe it takes 150 to max something, you would suck up my 99 first then only have to spend 51 of your own to max the wep.) Or maybe, to link one of your other ideas, the adren you suck from me turns instead into xp, thus "paying" you for the help with the flak.(at a different rate of coarse, say 10%. 100 adren suckage would gain you 10 xp) <shrugs>

Oh, thought of another twist on that, kind of. How about an artifact that popped out of monsters for anyone to grab, but is really only used by another player. it would transfer all of your adren when you tossed it to another player. That way, you have controll of who you want to get the adren. If so and so is going to max my wep, i toss this little caplet arty to him and it transfers my adren to his pile. A healer gives me a hand with the hole in my head from that titan rock, I toss them my aren arty so they can spend it on their mwm to get rid of a neg wep they picked up.

I like the idea of experiance from doing somthing besides killing with the AM. especialy because DRU would like them in more of a support role.

This would change some of the balance of the game from competitive to cooperative.

Gee. How many freaking times have I said the same thing Fodder said below??? If Dru wants us to get away from fighting monsters, doing the MWM, maxing, and the triple, then we should bloody well get something else to do for XP. But until he does, EVERYONE should just quit griping (the polite word/way for what I really want to say) about things like the Flak +5/RL+5 and the triple. Indeed, I have about gotten to the point where the whole idea of nerfing that combination...YES, that is yet another current HOT BUTTON...well anyways...

One other suggestion I made elsewhere was the idea of giving us the ability to create artifacts. So rather than coming to a adren master and asking them to max your weapon, the adren master would instead create a single use max artifact, which would appear on the ground in front of them. Of course, the artifact would need two flavors, with one requiring 150 adren and the other requiring only 100. The latter would require only a TBD amount of adren to create and would grant a certain XP to the artifact master, while the former would require an additional 50 adren and grant even more XP. Of course, we could expand this out to even the MAX+1 artifact, with much higher adren and XP being granted for lovelies like this. Of course, the adren master could also create things like the MWM, and lesser artifacts which can be picked up, with lower adren requirements and XP granted for them (and I would say we should lower the bug drop percentages at the same time). But right along with this is the fact that THE ADREN MASTER SHOULD NEVER DROP ARTIFACTS UPON DEATH!!!

One important thing to note here...there are different ways we could grant the XP. We could defer until the artifact is used, but then the adren master could get the shaft when things do not get used, or if they exit the game before it gets used. Another possibility is that the granting of the XP would occur when the created artifact is picked up. Of course, this means that the XP could be lost if the artifact could not be picked up for some reason. This leaves granting the XP when the artifact is created. Yea, it is a bit like granting the medic XP for shooting the air, but the adren master does not have infinite adren, and so there is a minimum cycle time involved here.

How much XP and how much adren? Well, by my figuring, a medic would gain 45XP in less than 10 seconds by taking *BEL*_e from near death to max. You can add in roughly an additional 20XP per level of experienced healing (up to a max of 245XP total at lvl

. So, with this and the fact that it takes time to get the adren needed in mind, I will pull some numbers out of my hat as a suggested starting point (we might find the ballance point higher or lower). We might require 25 adren to make a basic artifact like the boots, electromagnet or teleporter, and grant say 50xp for this. For a standard MWM or a breakable triple (say 10% chance), we might require 50 adren, but grant perhaps 100 or 150XP. Moving up from there, a one use MAX which requires 150 adren might cost 100 to make, granting say 250XP, while its more powerful version, which only requires 100 adren to use (great for those beginning players), might cost 150 adren to make, but grant 400XP. For something like a one-use MAX+1, we might have versions requiring 250 or 200 adren to use, with costs of 200 or 250 to make, but grant 500 and 600 XP to the artifact master when they are created. As for some of the suggested artifacts which I have see in glancing at the threads, those would perhaps remain the sole realm of the artifact master.

Now, I mentioned some changes would be needed to help this. First, the artifact master should never drop artifacts when they die. Secondly, the frequency of bugs dropping artifacts should be reduced. Now, beyond this, my thoughts are:

a) If the artifact master is to become less a fighter and more a "do other things" class, well, then perhaps the limit for adren drip needs to go up, while the levels for energy leach might be capped lower.

b) People have been complaining about the flak+5/rl+5 and the triple...well, here is a way to do something about them, and benefit the artifact master as well. Perhaps we can have weapons like where the base % of additional damage is below some threshold (lets say +20% for now) but the current weapon is above that same threshold act like this. You can toss it, and the tossed weapon retains its current +, but unlike the * weapons, you pick up the same type of weapon, at the highest + which would put the additional damage below the threshold. So, we would have something like this...

* Energy +3 (+9%), toss it and pick up the same.
* Piercing +6 (+12%), toss it and pick up the same..
* Normal +1 or +2 (+10% or +20%), toss it and pick up the same.
* Normal +3, +4 or +5 (+30%, +40% and %50%), toss it and pick up a +2 (+20%).

Note that vamp, vorpal and rage weapons could remain the same. Or, we could just have that threshold be +10%, and do like the following:

* Energy +3 (+9%), toss it and get another.
* Piercing +6 (+12%), toss it and get a +5 (+10%).
* Normal +1 (+10%), toss it and get yet another.
* Normal +2, +3, +4 or +5 (+20%,+30%, +40% and %50%), toss it and pick up a +1.
* Vamp +3, +4 or +5 (+6%, %8% or +10%), toss and pick up no higher than a +5.
* Rage +5 or higher (+50% or more), toss it and pick up a random.
* Vorpal +6 or higher (+60% or more), toss it and pick up a random.

Has anyone noticed that the * effect on some weapons like Rage and Vorpal is now due to the fact that you tossed a weapon which has a minimum damage bonus more than the threshold?? If it were me, I would say that perhaps the ranges and damage bonuses on all the present * weapons should perhaps be bumped so that the weakest one of that type does more than that threshold (e.g. a vamp weapon would still start at +3 and do +4% per plus). The only way I might vary this is to perhaps make some of the lowest level poisons, healings and vamps fall just below this threshold. Of course, if we made changes like this, we could also do things like have XP given for tossing away some weapons, perhaps based on the surplus over 2x the threshold. (so anyone might get perhaps 30xp for tossing that +5)

BotFodder wrote:

Dru: As your goal appears to find ways for AM's to do things that don't directly deal damage to monsters (or at least do it from a distance), here's some ideas in how to get them the XP they might loose from this change in play, as well as additional AM ideas:

XP for giving away maxed * weapons
Whether it's something they've maxed, or something they've created/spawned with and maxed, maybe they should get a little XP for these items. Now, the obvious abuse of this would be that you'd have to track how they got the weapon ... if they're thrown something from someone, don't do anything to it, and throw it back (or even to another person), that shouldn't net them any XP. Also, if they're thrown a maxed weapon and max it, they shouldn't get any XP for that either. Dru, you might want to reevaluate what is a * weapon and what is not - or introduce a third class of weapons - 1. Cloneable. 2. Not clonable, no xp. 3. Not cloneable, xp.

Weapon Swap
Say you have two weapons, like a plain shock and an vorp 10 avril, and you'd rather have a plain avril and a vorp 10 shock. AMs could get an additional artifact to give them this ability.

Damage Boost
This one just came to me ... basically, let an AM with a link gun link up with anyone who has any weapon, and boost that weapon ("energizing" even physical damage weapons). If they've got an Inf Link, they could well help someone run the map! I know you get XP when you link with someone, so they'd get some of the xp when they linked ... maybe even allow such boosted weapons to have some kind of addtional "Force" factor (or heck, a couple of levels of this available where the link gun imparts both faster shots as well as additional damage).

Shield Boost
Let AM's somehow boost people's shields like Medics boost health. XP? Dunno about that ... probably not to the degree that Medics get for health.

Well, that's a start anyway ... more ideas on this topic later, probably ... and folks, feel free to contribute your own!

Perhaps I'm wrong, but a medic would have to have a maxed out experienced healing stat to get 45 XP for healing 450 health. Perhaps the AM would either have to buy a skill to get more XP for making artifacts, or they would get maybe 10, 30, 60, and 100 XP for the varying artifacts. I realize it takes time to get adrenaline, but 500-600XP should only be mentioned if AM became STRICTLY mages, otherwise they would be getting XP like crazy.

well, i dunno how to explain this or give exact reasoning but LA players getting xp for handing out maxed weapons makes more sense than ever to me. i mean the obvious idea is to have a slightly more incentive for LA players, but it's really not just that. even if it was something very small (10-15xp per wep maybe, dunno) i would still be glad. and i'm not bragging or speaking for my interests, it would be better for everyone. i max everyone's weps, but it's such a situation that some ppl just wanna be polite and not ask for it because they dont wanna make me spend 150 adern for nothing. (don't misunderstand what i'm saying, i'll still max a wep for whoever's asking)

again, i'm not trying to get a share of the cake but i'm pretty sure the number of players asking for their weapons maxed AND the LA player's incentive to do it will raise. the size of the XP given is not that important. I usualy ignored this XP idea but today i realized that it's a simple "win-win" situation, so doing it maybe a good idea. and it seems to folow Dru's general ideas about artifact masters and gameplay.

but it's all theory on my part. i, like most other LAs, will max a wep, or hand out a mwm to whomever asks, so do we really need this? i feel like it might make things slightly better for all.

(the adren transfer might be good enough, but it sounds like a lot of work to get it right)

Mach10 wrote:

Perhaps I'm wrong, but a medic would have to have a maxed out experienced healing stat to get 45 XP for healing 450 health. Perhaps the AM would either have to buy a skill to get more XP for making artifacts, or they would get maybe 10, 30, 60, and 100 XP for the varying artifacts. I realize it takes time to get adrenaline, but 500-600XP should only be mentioned if AM became STRICTLY mages, otherwise they would be getting XP like crazy.

Per the description of the healing weapon...you get 10% XP for healing. So 10% of 450 is 45, and the extra was for the additional 5% per level on exp healing. As for the numbers, as I said, I was just pulling some out of my hat, in part based off of that and the time taken to get that XP through healing vs. waiting on adren and using it in one quick pop. And for that 500-600, that was for a MAX+1 artifact, which right now, is totally unavilable to anyone other than the highest of LA players like Chy or Ooo.

BTW...before I switched somewhere around level 72-75, I was probably averaging 800 or so with my LW player, with some maps being 1500 or more. When I get back into the mindset for LW and don't have to go up against the folks who are like 150+, I can do that now with my lvl 24 player, or I can do it with my lvl 98 LA.

Spacey wrote:

Mach10 wrote:

Perhaps I'm wrong, but a medic would have to have a maxed out experienced healing stat to get 45 XP for healing 450 health. Perhaps the AM would either have to buy a skill to get more XP for making artifacts, or they would get maybe 10, 30, 60, and 100 XP for the varying artifacts. I realize it takes time to get adrenaline, but 500-600XP should only be mentioned if AM became STRICTLY mages, otherwise they would be getting XP like crazy.

Per the description of the healing weapon...you get 10% XP for healing. So 10% of 450 is 45, and the extra was for the additional 5% per level on exp healing. As for the numbers, as I said, I was just pulling some out of my hat, in part based off of that and the time taken to get that XP through healing vs. waiting on adren and using it in one quick pop. And for that 500-600, that was for a MAX+1 artifact, which right now, is totally unavilable to anyone other than the highest of LA players like Chy or Ooo.

BTW...before I switched somewhere around level 72-75, I was probably averaging 800 or so with my LW player, with some maps being 1500 or more. When I get back into the mindset for LW and don't have to go up against the folks who are like 150+, I can do that now with my lvl 24 player, or I can do it with my lvl 98 LA.

Each level of experienced healing only gives 1% more XP (9 Levels), and I don't think the medic gun alone gives XP. I have Experienced healing 7 and i definitly don't get anywhere near 45XP for 450 worth of healing.

Mach10 wrote:

Each level of experienced healing only gives 1% more XP (9 Levels), and I don't think the medic gun alone gives XP. I have Experienced healing 7 and i definitly don't get anywhere near 45XP for 450 worth of healing.

Well, would not be the first time something was "wrong" our "out-of-date" on the web pages (Shan has more important things, like her PhD to worry about), and there is no way to see what sort of XP other players are getting each game, so there is an informational vaccuum here. But right now, the important part is the general concept, and not the numbers. Since I know the coding would be a real bear (grizzly or polar, not the brown or black varieties we have here east), I figure we would be looking at several months before something could be playable. And what with other priorities such as family, work, and such, I am not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

BTW...to get good, meaningful numbers to achieve that sort of balance, there is no real way to do it short of turning on some form of UTStats-like logging that records at least per-game level information (if not wave-level), and can reveal things like how long someone has played, along with their level and XP gained. Only then can you remove the influences of the high levels or that of those folks who play 6-8 hours/day vs. 2-3.

Well, I need to get off to the Radio Observatory for our staff meeting. I may be in tonight, depending on my mood and such. Or I may just decide to do some work on bringing up the UN*X OS on a CPCI CPU I purchased some time ago... With the recent announced changes to the LA class, I just donno. But if folks want to chat me up, you can IM me, using the info on my profile.