Scaling NPCs

[Alexi]

Actually, I fear this is just a case of me being a bit overworked and confused. I didn't really think about this enough before that last response. Speaking to Lavellan, I was reminded why I felt so strongly about the former stance.

The problem with them becoming non-obvious is that then we will probably no longer see people exploring parts of the mud they normally would ignore. I suspect people would just return to their old grinding habits, finding imbuements when they pop up.

What is better, I wonder? A mud where people seek out the nooks and crannies looking for imbuements? or ... A mud where people just grind like they always did, and are pleasantly surprised when it yields an imbuement?

G.

Gorb, I don't think Imbuements will solve the "less travelled domain" issue. People will only travel to places if it holds some unique items that are "fun" to aquire, if its a good grinding area, or if their guild is around there.

This is why I'm so adamant that the "Scaling NPCS" be really looked at with a neutral eye, because then ALL realms are relevent for people to explore, grind/slay at, or call it their "favorite place" because the XP is just as good for them anywhere else.

All of a sudden you have people hanging out in Argos because they like the theme, SCoPs are flying through Raumdor Forest fending off undead for the City of Drakmere, People are battle in the Shire.

This makes sense to me, I'm sure there's some super formula that can be considered.

Once that happens your Imbuement strategy will work in my opinion. Until then there's going to be those people who hunt imbuements (Which right now they'll just collect the stones until they get the highest quality ones) and those who when they happen across them while grinding are like kids who just found the baby-ruth in their desk drawer.

[Rhaegar]

Alexi, the scaling NPCs don't really help that. For bigger players, if NPCs get scaled to their size it takes too much time and effort to kill them to be any reliable 'grind'.

[Alexi]

Alexi, the scaling NPCs don't really help that. For bigger players, if NPCs get scaled to their size it takes too much time and effort to kill them to be any reliable 'grind'.

Not true at all Rhaegar, in fact quite the opposite. Terel Goblin Caves, and Ribos already proved the concept. When it was introduced a few years back, those two areas became highly traveled by man of the realms "larger" players. Now that the concept has been reversed, Ribos is once again a dead city except for the occasional traveler and quester, and Terel Goblin sees some activity by people who are after the Goblin Eldar.

I still think making all areas a viable area to travel, or team-kill in results in all domains becoming well traveled, and the current imbuement system more pleasurable. (No more cherry picking through domains as Chanele aptly deemed it). Because its worth your time to clear a largely populated area in hopes of imbuement spawns.

Plus then Wizards could have a bit of fun to code against scripters (Roaming teams of NPCS like the dragon-army ones in Flotsam) who when they attack because of scaling, become formidable foes.

[petros]

I split this topic so that people can discuss scaling npcs here instead.

The logical extension of scaling npcs would be that if all npcs scaled, then there would be no effect on PvE no matter how much experience you got. The changes to stats, mortal levels, etc, would only affect PvP.

Scaling npcs are nice to have for grinding grounds. The newbie dungeon turns the idea on its head and instead of scaling the npcs, you scale the player instead. However, scaling npcs immediately get into a lot of issues once you have teams of people who are all different sizes. What size should the scaling npc be when you have a myth and a beginner on the same team? Make it too difficult, and the beginner gets lots of free xp. Make it too easy, and there's not enough xp to go around. Somewhere in between would seem nice, but there are other issues too with the more people that you have on the same team.

Scaling npcs would also assume that abilities would scale too. Let's assume that an npc hits 100hp per special. If we doubled their stats, they should then be doubly powerful, and should hit 200hp per special. But that's not how most npcs are constructed. Double their stats, and they'll give double the xp without actually making it doubly hard. There's a reason the goblin caves and ribos were so popular when they were scaling. The stats and experience scaled, but the difficulty never really scaled. NPCs are complex things. Balancing them involves a lot of factors beyond just stats and specials. Even the armours that they wear and the weapons they wield can be part of the original experience calculation. Scaling the difficulty across all the various aspects of an npc that contribute to the experience of fighting that npc would be necessary for it to be a proper scaling npc. Doing so across the whole mud is, to say it simply, difficult to do without people wizards who enjoy a lot of grunt work to understand every aspect of every npc.

Finally, there is a thematic element to the concept of scaling npcs that I believe doesn't necessarily jive with Genesis. Say you're a myth, and you can take down some of the more famous npcs of middle earth easily. Should you then fight a lowly goblin and expect to find a difficult fight before you? It's extremely difficult to justify the theme behind such a monster that can scale magically depending on who fights it. Granted, there are real playability reasons for this myth, but it's going to have to be a delicate balance.

[Alexi]

I split this topic so that people can discuss scaling npcs here instead.

The logical extension of scaling npcs would be that if all npcs scaled, then there would be no effect on PvE no matter how much experience you got. The changes to stats, mortal levels, etc, would only affect PvP.

Scaling npcs are nice to have for grinding grounds. The newbie dungeon turns the idea on its head and instead of scaling the npcs, you scale the player instead. However, scaling npcs immediately get into a lot of issues once you have teams of people who are all different sizes. What size should the scaling npc be when you have a myth and a beginner on the same team? Make it too difficult, and the beginner gets lots of free xp. Make it too easy, and there's not enough xp to go around. Somewhere in between would seem nice, but there are other issues too with the more people that you have on the same team.

Scaling npcs would also assume that abilities would scale too. Let's assume that an npc hits 100hp per special. If we doubled their stats, they should then be doubly powerful, and should hit 200hp per special. But that's not how most npcs are constructed. Double their stats, and they'll give double the xp without actually making it doubly hard. There's a reason the goblin caves and ribos were so popular when they were scaling. The stats and experience scaled, but the difficulty never really scaled. NPCs are complex things. Balancing them involves a lot of factors beyond just stats and specials. Even the armours that they wear and the weapons they wield can be part of the original experience calculation. Scaling the difficulty across all the various aspects of an npc that contribute to the experience of fighting that npc would be necessary for it to be a proper scaling npc. Doing so across the whole mud is, to say it simply, difficult to do without people wizards who enjoy a lot of grunt work to understand every aspect of every npc.

Finally, there is a thematic element to the concept of scaling npcs that I believe doesn't necessarily jive with Genesis. Say you're a myth, and you can take down some of the more famous npcs of middle earth easily. Should you then fight a lowly goblin and expect to find a difficult fight before you? It's extremely difficult to justify the theme behind such a monster that can scale magically depending on who fights it. Granted, there are real playability reasons for this myth, but it's going to have to be a delicate balance.

Appreciate the response but I was also trying to tie it into why people won't travel the realms searching for imbuements. Your points are very valid and I understand the reasoning you are laying out on the table. I understand also that the undertaking of actually accomplishing this realm wide would require a team of dedicated number-punchers who did nothing but sat there going over lines of code of each domain to "redo" it.

Honestly I wouldn't know how to begin to get people out adventuring in those seldom traveled realms (Cadu, Khakalor, Argos, Raumdor Forest for a few examples) without adding something there to draw in the player base.

If someone would suggest taking the teams Stat-Average and dividing it by the number of team members for a "happy medium" would only promote people of the same level teaming together for maximizing their XP, leaving those who are still growing by the wayside, which is counter productive to the current pursuit of the administration.

But that being said, what is the current bonus for teaming? 2 Myths can pretty much wipe out any of the XPing grounds in Genesis, with the exception of Icewall. Do you have any thoughts to team promotion Petros? I've heard "player rumour" that there's a team bonus for "grinding" together, but most people say that once you add 3 to 4 people in the group it outweighs the bonus you'd get for teaming. Perhaps if that was dispelled you'd see larger teams out there.

[petros]

But that being said, what is the current bonus for teaming? 2 Myths can pretty much wipe out any of the XPing grounds in Genesis, with the exception of Icewall. Do you have any thoughts to team promotion Petros? I've heard "player rumour" that there's a team bonus for "grinding" together, but most people say that once you add 3 to 4 people in the group it outweighs the bonus you'd get for teaming. Perhaps if that was dispelled you'd see larger teams out there.

Don't recall the formula, but I doubt that having more people in the team would make the teaming worse - assuming you had continuous source of npcs to bash on. Large teams typically find that they run out of things to kill - hence why it's sometimes not worth it to have a large team. I'll look into the team bonus and let you know if the rumours bear out reality.

[Rhaegar]

And how about the idea I introduced somewhere else, that is creating NPC templates for various monster types that share certain similarities (wraiths not leaving corpses, being able to see in the dark, can't be blinded or plexed etc.). Perhaps some of the templates could include scaling or better yet, an external object be created responsible for NPC scaling which could then be called by certain NPCs when necessary (say if someone above or below certain size attacks them only then they'd adjust).
Need to think more about it.

[Alorrana]

what about, scaling on one vs one, and then when in team, the npcs remain as they are.? still good grounds to haul around small folks, and would be able to give progress to the myths and legends that are soloing ?

Just a thought.

[Cherek]

Why do you want all NPCs to provide the same XP? And why do we want to spread out the population over all domains? Is there any reason we want people to travel to all domains?

I think this would happen:
People will find a remote place where nobody else goes that is perfect for scripting. Turn on the script and grow. No need to team, no need to interact. Just find your own little corner of the world to grow. And even if you dont have a script, its still a perfect way for endless grinding without having to bother about anyone else. I do not really believe in adding a place that is "made for scripting" and then try to add things to prevent it. I would rather see people didnt want to script in the first place because what you are doing is actually fun.

Personally I think scaling NPCs is exactly the opposite of what we need. I think we need to reward interaction and socializing, and I think we need to try to centralize our population so they actually meet up. Not spread them out. I am perfectly fine with that people dont travel to all places, especially with the number of people we have. With more players, people will spread out naturally since it will be too crowded in certain places.

If we want to make grinding more fun I dont think scaling NPCs is the way to go.

I think we need ways to grind that actually require attention, that are challenging and rewarding, and most importantly that are FUN.

For me that would be for instance:

Assault X. (team)
Join up with a friend on two and assist some army in assualting a fortress or something. An assult takes about 30 min - 1 hour to complete. If you succeed in storming the fort you get an addiation XP boost, making it a little more rewarding than normal grinding. And also more fun.

Defend X. (team)
Same as assault, but you try to defend a place from attackers instead.

Boss dungeons. (solo or team)
Enter a dungeon, fight your way through hordes of minions to reach the boss. Once killed the boss provides a boost of experience to the entire party. And perhaps some nifty item(s) too.

These types of things that require you to be alert, to team up, and that provide a certain amount of excitement is what I think could revolutionize the way gaining XP works here.

History also shows that people enjoy these types of things. Kroug raids, Vingaard Keep raids, Sparkle raids etc have always been popular, even though they dont pose much of a threat anymore, and even though they are not rewarding. I think these types of things would greatly improve grinding and make it much more fun, and with much more interaction.

Scaling NPCs would I fear just make people script more, and interact less.

[Alexi]

Why do you want all NPCs to provide the same XP? And why do we want to spread out the population over all domains? Is there any reason we want people to travel to all domains?

I think this would happen:
People will find a remote place where nobody else goes that is perfect for scripting. Turn on the script and grow. No need to team, no need to interact. Just find your own little corner of the world to grow. And even if you dont have a script, its still a perfect way for endless grinding without having to bother about anyone else. I do not really believe in adding a place that is "made for scripting" and then try to add things to prevent it. I would rather see people didnt want to script in the first place because what you are doing is actually fun.

Personally I think scaling NPCs is exactly the opposite of what we need. I think we need to reward interaction and socializing, and I think we need to try to centralize our population so they actually meet up. Not spread them out. I am perfectly fine with that people dont travel to all places, especially with the number of people we have. With more players, people will spread out naturally since it will be too crowded in certain places.

If we want to make grinding more fun I dont think scaling NPCs is the way to go.

I think we need ways to grind that actually require attention, that are challenging and rewarding, and most importantly that are FUN.

For me that would be for instance:

Assault X. (team)
Join up with a friend on two and assist some army in assualting a fortress or something. An assult takes about 30 min - 1 hour to complete. If you succeed in storming the fort you get an addiation XP boost, making it a little more rewarding than normal grinding. And also more fun.

Defend X. (team)
Same as assault, but you try to defend a place from attackers instead.

Boss dungeons. (solo or team)
Enter a dungeon, fight your way through hordes of minions to reach the boss. Once killed the boss provides a boost of experience to the entire party. And perhaps some nifty item(s) too.

These types of things that require you to be alert, to team up, and that provide a certain amount of excitement is what I think could revolutionize the way gaining XP works here.

History also shows that people enjoy these types of things. Kroug raids, Vingaard Keep raids, Sparkle raids etc have always been popular, even though they dont pose much of a threat anymore, and even though they are not rewarding. I think these types of things would greatly improve grinding and make it much more fun, and with much more interaction.

Scaling NPCs would I fear just make people script more, and interact less.

What you want to promote is teaming in Genesis. You want to make it rewarding enough that people are encouraged to take other players out with them, say Beginner to Expert level.

Say you are a grinder, you probably have no problem with this because for you and your teammate this is your daily activity and adding a little one with you will benefit him, but not really "slow you down". Or does it.

Well I can't take him to Terel Trolls one of my normal spots because they'll auto-attack the smallest in the team, and he/she is a dead man. I can't really take him to Qualinosti because the elves would slaughter him/her. Mithas can get dangerous if he assists to quickly and they troll one shots him. Icewall is definitely out of the question.

Now that being said, these situations are "what ifs" but still valid. Something that will make you think twice about the headache you'll get from worrying if the little guy is going to be dying, attacked all the time, whatever (Oh ya and you only can play 2 hours a night max because your a busy person).

So you can't hit any of the prime XP spots that will benefit you and your regular team-mate, but you also want to do your part for Genesis and try and help new players see content, and enjoy themselves. Where can you take him that will still benefit you cause "its your time, so should be your enjoyment" and let you do your part for helping the cause? If less hostile NPCS scaled you'd be able to contribute?

I'm not saying oh I want the world to be easy, I'm saying or attempting to resolve; How do we make people travel to all the domains and utilize more then 50% of Genesis's content, and how do I promote player interaction, while making it worthwhile for people to team.

And for people who think that grinding doesn't require one to pay attention (least at my size) I'm saying you don't grind often enough. Qualinosti, Terel Trolls and Mithas can all turn south fast if your not paying attention. I don't know how gaining combat xp can be "more fun" because if you put raids on Cities offering more XP, but there is more of a chance of dying, people are going to tend and go for the "easy XP".

If there's a team bonus and its significant (Thanks for checking Petros) then I think more people would actually take people out killing because maybe dropping down to Draconians and Centaurs for the little one, will still give you your CXP fix. If it doesn't, then the game isn't designed to promote team-playing. You can't really Quest as a Group. You can't Herb as a Group. That gives you walking around exploring and for those of us who have been around for 20+ years that's kind of redundant. That leaves you Combat Killing for XP.

Just my opinion.