Tweaked experience...

[David E. Gervais]

Hello,

I have been using/testing this new Classes.txt file. I have modified the experience to have a smoother level-up effect and increased the number of levels that are user-defined to 22.

You will have to start new characters, but I think in the long run, this is a good thing. (it may be safe to import an old character, but I haven't tried this yet!) leveling after level 22 is the same as before (+200,000xp/level)

Here is the file..
Classes.zip

Try it out and let me know what you think. (Personally, I don't think I'll ever go back to the old xp system.)

Cheers!

[Rollo]

I haven't tried this, yet, but it looks interesting . From first glance it looks that characters will advance more rapidly now. Which is of course not a bad thing.

One thing that has bothered me always about DO, is that is takes forever to reach high levels (8 and above). I think this has improved much after the 1.06 patch, but now the stagnation seems to set in around levels 12-14. You mod will certainly change this, good job.

But still there is one problem IMO. Everything in DO is nicely balanced by the game against the starting level of the character. Except one thing: experience for quests.

This was one of the reason to make Hack and Slash. Before the 1.06 patch charcters that completed the Crown of Magis were about 8th or 9th level, if I recall correctly. So I set up the quests in HnS according to that. But the problem is that if your characters level is too low, the quests yield too much. And if you start with a high level chracter, say 14th, the quest EXP don't yield enough. Just like with 8th level characters and Crown of Magis before.

I think it would be a great improvment to DO, if experience for quests would be calculated at game start just like everything else. This way modules could be used by any level of character. Along with a smoother curve for levels, like you propose, it would make the game a lot better IMHO.

I guess it would mean a minor change of the data files or maybe 'Experience for Completion :=' in the quest.txt file could be interpreted by the game as 'Experience for Completion per level :=' (starting level of course, just like everything else).

For example that would mean that a character that started the Crown of Magis at 10th level would get 500,000 EXP for completion, instead of the meager 50,000.

What do you think?

Rollo

PS: Have you tried, yet, if old characters can be imported?

[David E. Gervais]

I agree with your idea on experience.

As for the importing old characters, Yes I tried and had no problems importing old characters. The exp balance is tipped between level 8 and level 9 characters. The characters I tried importing were all lower than this (ie level 5, level 7, and a level 4 chr!)

I didn't have any higher level characters to try importing. But I suspect that all that will happen is when you kill your first monster you would gain the alloted # levels based on your experience points. I suspect that the big bad apple would occur when reverting back to the old xp system. Your new character could be at say level 22 and in the old sys he/she would only be level 16. I don't know how the game would handle the 'loss' of skill/spell and exp points!

That's what I know right now.

Cheers!

[ April 10, 2003, 03:12: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

[Rollo]

okay, I'll suggest that to Aaron. hmm, come to think of it, I already did a long time ago...

maybe it is time to suggest again and send along an updated bug list.

Rollo

[Rollo]

Originally posted by David E. Gervais:
...snip...

I didn't have any higher level characters to try importing. But I suspect that all that will happen is when you kill your first monster you would gain the alloted # levels based on your experience points. I suspect that the big bad apple would occur when reverting back to the old xp system. Your new character could be at say level 22 and in the old sys he/she would only be level 16. I don't know how the game would handle the 'loss' of skill/spell and exp points!

That's what I know right now.

Cheers!

okay, I will give that a try later with one of my high level testmonkeys. Somehow I doubt that big bad apple, when reverting to the old system, though. I assume there will be no problem.

The way I understand it, the game keeps track of your level and your current EXP, not the total EXP. But I could be wrong.
Will tell you later how the test went...

Rollo

[ April 10, 2003, 14:23: Message edited by: Rollo ]

[Rollo]

okay, I did the testing with a 14th Thief, who had a couple of hundred thousand EXP. As suspected he immediately jumped to 16th level after killing the first monster and he had 64k EXP leftover.

After that I exported him and opened a new game reverting to the old system. Good news . He remained 16th level and kept his current EXP.

Rollo

[David E. Gervais]

Good news indeed. I'm currently boosting my level 6 char again before exporting him to try your new mod. I've died about 12 times now. When I get swarmed, the monsters really pack a wollop!

But I'm sure I'll succeed eventually.

Cheers!

[Rollo]

I have given some thought to this (for what's that worth, LOL). While I totally agree with David that a smoother and flatter curve is much better for the later levels, I also feel that another change would be good.

IMO the lower levels are too cheap. I mean it is just too fast to get your character to, say, 8th level. Heck, just kill one or two monsters in the wilderness and you are already 2nd... slay a group of flies in the City and you are 3rd, find Little Billy and you are 5th...

I propose that the early levels should be more expensive. I worked on a system that is close to David's. I haven't put them in a new class.txt, yet. But here are the numbers. I have also included DO_standard and David's system for comparison. Thoughts/comments/flames..?

edit: ack, tabs are not working here. Here is a text file: 1050257772.txt

edit: ack again, the tabs are somehow screwed up. there, that should be viewable now...

On a somewhat related note, if we are using an altered classes.txt file anyway, how about some changes to abilities or even a new class or two? But I'll open another topic for that.

Have fun ,
Rollo

[ April 13, 2003, 19:22: Message edited by: Rollo ]

[henk brouwer]

--BUMP--

I finally started working on my mod again, and I was wondering if I could use the tweaked classes file. It seems to make things a lot more balanced compared to the default Version. (credits given in the credits.txt file ofcourse)

Henk (mod 80% finished)

[ August 25, 2003, 18:49: Message edited by: henk brouwer ]

[David E. Gervais]

Sure thing, feel free to use it to your hearts content. (In fact if you do use it, you'll save me the trouble of having to insert it myself. )

Cheers!