Suggestions!!!

Its quite a difficult job making the game challenging for high level players, yet keeping it balanced so low level players have a chance.

The automatic setting of monster level based upon the lowest living player level helps make the maps more difficult in the end waves, but only makes a difference once all the low levels have been wiped out.

Monsters when attacking set their sights on one target player. We could automatically adjust the skill of the monster based upon the level difference between itself and its target.
So, for example if the monster is level 20, and the player is level 10, it uses a 'skill' of 1. If the monster level is 20 and the player is level 200, then it could use a skill level of 7.

Just a thought.

I wouldn't mind seeing some of the present skills have their levels increased. I.E. Weapon Speed increased to 100, Health Bonus 300, Max Adrenaline 500, etc...

This would give up and comming playes a wider choice of their favorite skills and high level players something to spend their unused stats on. I see some of the players have nearly or fully exhausted their choices and now have nothing to use their stats on, I say the skys the limit, there's no reason to limit them.

Or use the same mod That is used by Vortex.
His server is incredibly cool with lot of waves and lots of different monsters.

Its actually very fast paced, and im sure it could be tweaked out to be used on DC.

Just a tough.

Fraggerman wrote:

I say the skys the limit, there's no reason to limit them.

Actually I disagree, if you have no limits on the stat caps, then the higher people get the easier it becomes. The monster adjust factor is always less than 0.5 on every invasion server I've seen which means as a player gets higher and higher the monsters fall farther and farther behind in how many points they are allotted for DR and DB stats. Granted on DC this wouldnt be as big of an issue but my points are still valid. Stat caps are used to set up a 'point of no return' at which higher level players really need to keep low level players alive to do well, otherwise they would have a harder and harder time staying alive when the monsters go 'up' to their level adjustment.

Alright, maybe the skys the limit is going too far, but what I'm suggesting is make each level progressively harder to get. I.E. cost more stat points.

In the case of dirty_deeds, he's been playing since 12/19/2004, which for those who don't want to count, that's coming up on a year and a half of playing. If all skills were doubled and the stat points to purchase those extra skills increased to triple, then we're talking at least another four and a half years (1.5 tripled is 4.5) before he would reach those goals. Thats a total of six years before a (good) player would run out of things to spend stats on.

As it is now, he hasn't been here playing in the past month or two, and I have a feeling it's because there's no reason to increase his character any, there's nowhere to go. He's moved onto other games. If given something to shoot for we may be graced with his presence again.

Fraggerman wrote:

As it is now, he hasn't been here playing in the past month or two, and I have a feeling it's because there's no reason to increase his character any, there's nowhere to go. He's moved onto other games. If given something to shoot for we may be graced with his presence again.

You are, sorry to say, incorrect.

First off, he has another character to play (a M/MM), if he were so bored with his WM.

The reason he's not around (and you'll find him saying so in the forums elsewhere) is that he got a gift from his wife of Guild Wars, and has been spending most of his gaming time playing that.

If we've lost him, it's not due to "no where to go", but more than likely we've lost him to another game. It happens ... I myself would be stuck (and have been for most of a weekend) in GalCiv2 if I kept starting new games in that.

BotFodder wrote:

If we've lost him, it's not due to "no where to go", but more than likely we've lost him to another game. It happens ... I myself would be stuck (and have been for most of a weekend) in GalCiv2 if I kept starting new games in that.

You are, sorry to say, not reading my post completly.

Fraggerman wrote:

He's moved onto other games.

Now, back to the topic, I just think a few more skills or a few more levels to the skills would be a nice reward for those who put in the time.

Fraggerman wrote:

You are, sorry to say, not reading my post completly.

Fraggerman wrote:

He's moved onto other games.

Now, back to the topic, I just think a few more skills or a few more levels to the skills would be a nice reward for those who put in the time.

True ... I missed that ... but you have apparently neglected to read Dirty's post:

dirty_deeds wrote:

my wife got it for me . my birthday ...
... i have to play it some or ann said ill get me a weedeater next year for my birthday.

And you are missing my point. There are other character styles to play. Dirty, if he wasn't playing his other game, would be playing a medic. And where you and I disagree is why he's off playing that other game. You say it's because he's bored. I say, that's not true and the truth is somewhat more complex than that. I have my suspicions, but until Dirty clarifies his situation we should both avoid putting words in his mouth, other than what he's posted.

The thing that gets me about this kind of topic is that I've seen it so many a time before in other multiplayer games ... "if there were more to do ... " But what you fail to account for is that there will always be a point at which (by the RPG design) someone will be "done". Adding more levels to skills or higher caps to stats really wouldn't change anything in the long run, aside from make it easier for higher level players to kill monsters. In which we change to the "It's too easy" arguement, and end up making it harder on newbies ...

You cite Dirty like he's the "average". He's put a lot more time into the game than anyone else ... I would suspect he just had more time to play than most people who stay here. In that sense, he's not average. And a year and a half is not chump change. How many of your games do you spend that much time playing, really? And I don't mean the starting all over and doing it again thing, but the first time through ...

Where he is average is how much he focuses on whatever he's playing. And since he started playing a game he got for birthday from his wife, he's focusing on that. Will he be back? I think so, unless he finds a community on GW that he's happy with. Even then, he's already been back for a visit or two. I don't think people come here just to level up their character. Ask FodderFigure. He's since surpassed Dirty, has two other characters he plays ... yet I still see him playing his Weapons Master.

Finally, I would hope that things don't change so drastically in the way that you suggest ... I like the idea that there is a point at which there's nothing more to buy, and that it's not so horribly far off as to seem unreachable (mind you I'm 110 right now ... it seemed unreachable at 40, but then I had so much to buy ...)

Besides, by the time anyone reached that point, we'd be at least two versions of the basic game later ...

Fraggerman wrote:

If all skills were doubled and the stat points to purchase those extra skills increased to triple, then we're talking at least another four and a half years (1.5 tripled is 4.5) before he would reach those goals. Thats a total of six years before a (good) player would run out of things to spend stats on.

There comes a point at which the skills you buy doesn't really effect how much xp you get during a map. (with my WM player) I gain anywhere between 1500 - 4000 xp a map. None of the new skills I have bought have really affected how much xp I've been able to get. It depends more on who's on, what map, mood I'm in, and what tactics I use. So, you'll be gaining the same amount of xp, but you'll need to work 3x+ more to get that next upgrade. It kinda takes all the fun outa leveling. Yippee, it took me 3 weeks, but I got the next level of power jump.

So, increasing mow much it takes to get that level doesn't make that much sense to me. Plus, I don't how many people will want to spend 6 yrs just to get every upgrade they can get. I've already been playing for about a year and a half, and I doubt that I'll be playing on this server for another year and a half. Something will take my time away, whether it's another game or life, but it won't be because I don't have anything else to buy.

Let's borrow an idea from a typical RPG game for a moment here.

In most RPG games, there comes a point where you reach a high level. At this point one of two things is happening.

1) You are so high that you have everything and can gain no more abilities. At this point in most RPGs you would go kill the end boss and win the game. True you could keep playing but most people wouldn't. Since this is a DM based RPG setup, people will probably keep on playing anyway since its fun to shoot stuff and we don't all have to play just to level up.

2) On the other hand, in some RPGs, no matter what level you reach, you cannot buy everything skill related. With stat caps in place this isnt likely to happen for RPG invasion. And if you added more and more skills to keep this possiblity alive, sooner or later a player would reach the point of having bought everything again. And then you would want more things to buy. Since UTRPG doesnt have a level cap, and Druid chose to cap the maximum experience required at 10k, theres nothing keeping people from just trudging on for hundreds of levels. If anyone makes it far enough, they would need to buy levels of skills that border on ridiculous. Imagine having to buy level 50 of Vampirism, or Resupply level 25.

I say we keep it like it is. Once you have bought everything you either play for fun or to get a much higer level number for bragging rights. Although if you are bragging about how much time you spent playing a game I don't know what that says about you.

Personally if I were to reach the point where there was nothing more left to do I would either switch classes and repeat, or just reset and repeat with the same class.

Maybe an end-game setting (like a special title) wouldn't be a bad idea. You can just play that character to hang out and help the rest of the team.

Anyone ever played the original "Moria"? (developed for VMS then ported to other platforms... character cell... etc, etc...) It had a great end-game although a bit too "iron-man" (your character "died" of ripe old-age and you got a nice tombstone "drawing" on your terminal). Well, something in between would be nice... you can still use the character but you are essentially "done" and you get the title of "<class>Master" (or whatever - you know what I mean).

Well it is possible to code a skill that can only be purchased at a certain level. Maybe there is a way to make a skill display something in your name or an icon or something above your head while you play.

The idea of a special icon above your head was brought up before either here or on the main RPG forums. Nothing ever materialized of it though.

I don't know if anyone else has suggested this.... sorry too many pages. I was wondering if there was any way to show on like a stat screen which monsters you have killed. It would be similar to the F3 screen where you can see how many kills per gun. There have been times espescially on the harder waves where I have wondered if I killed a titan or queen or warlord. And if so, how many? I don't know if this is even possible, but if so, I think it would be pretty cool.

The "nothing left to do" reason is why I brought back the Record thread.

But I realize that's not for everyone.

So the original question is how to keep it interesting to the high levels while still giving low levels a chance.

How about this idea? You take the average, or a weighted average, of the current players (players actively playing) and then shift the starting level up as appropriate. And you also tweak the difficulty upwards in the same way.

So instead of starting at level 5 with 28 skill points, you might, for example, start at level 15 with 28 + 70 = 98 skill points. So even though the monsters are gradually getting harder, Newbie guy gets more and more of a boost coming out of the gate. He'll never be in a situation by virtue of his low starting stats where s/he can't hang at least through the majority of waves.

At the same time, the high level player who wants to start a new char has greater incentive to do so since he won't be starting from absolute, total ground zero.

Obviously, starting skill points will never correlate perfectly to the game difficulty. Unless maybe you got that guy from the movie Pi to figure it all out...

rockgoddess wrote:

I don't know if anyone else has suggested this.... sorry too many pages. I was wondering if there was any way to show on like a stat screen which monsters you have killed. It would be similar to the F3 screen where you can see how many kills per gun. There have been times espescially on the harder waves where I have wondered if I killed a titan or queen or warlord. And if so, how many? I don't know if this is even possible, but if so, I think it would be pretty cool.

Yes, the mutator is called BattleStats. Check out this screenshot to see what it records for invasion.

http://img153.imageshack.us/my.php?image=002716lc.jpg

It's also great fun to have this mutator running for any DM related gametypes. So you can ignore the scoreboard and see how many times you and another person came out in a 1on1 scenario. (For real bragging rights)