Re: What is a fair formula to calculate NPC combat exp rewar
Posted: 01 Jul 2011 07:29
Ultimately, I think this boils down to "What should be encouraged (rewarded) in combat with NPCs?"
I think that first and foremost, player skill and it's close cousin, luck, should be rewarded, such that over time investing thought and energy into being good at fighting pays dividends over simply spending time fighting. This means that the reward for reasonably risky combat needs to be large enough to cover the average player's losses from death and still give an acceptable growth rate; one notably higher than can be achieved by only engaging in safe combat. We need to shift the paradigm from a steady grind, to something more like "two steps forward, one step back" or "puke and rally". The overall growth rate need not be any higher than we see today and in fact should be much lower if players continue risk-averse patterns, but should rather be punctuated by exciting advances and lamentable setbacks.
Outside of role playing, which I think would require overly convoluted calculations to attempt a universal role-based bonus system, players tend to initiate combat with NPCs for the 3 Gs: gold, gear and growth. Experience calculations should account and adjust down for these other rewards, especially for rare magical weapons.
Somewhat tangentially, between encumbrance and a small on-going need for money, trails of loot are often simply left in people's wakes. I wonder if it wouldn't be interesting if loot left in corpses when they decay began to rust or be otherwise devalued, if not picked up and perhaps wiped with a hardware shop clean cloth. It might be overly taxing on the system to use so many heart beats, so it could just be calculated when picked up and simply crumble if it has been too long. This would leave some interesting edge cases, like dismembered corpses or ingot caused rapid decay.
Even if they gave no other reward, there are some NPCs who would still be killed simply for their equipment. It has been noted here that some of the best gear in the game is not all that well defended. In addition to adjusting experience to account for other rewards, there should be guidelines regarding the power of gear relative to its ease of acquisition.
The suggestions here regarding what could or should go into describing how difficult an NPC is to kill are solid. I might also increase the level based on the spectrum of damage types inflicted and possible counters required for the NPC, as well as for the possible variation in configuration for that type of NPC. It seems to me that these factors might be best used to calculate a challenge rating or difficulty for the NPC on spawn and that experience should given based on a comparison between the character and that number to properly reward based on risk.
Something that has not yet been mentioned in this thread is teams and as a MUD, I think that Genesis needs to reward teaming. Now, teams have some natural advantages, with increased attacks, more hit points, more heal points, etc., that allow them to simply kill more NPCs. Further, depending on how the team's strength is calculated, their ability to take on much larger NPCs should provide each member with a better than linear increase in experience granted.
That does raise the question of how teams should share experience. I've known systems where every team member got the full experience granted from any encounter, others where it was divided between the members, others where experience is granted by criteria like getting the killing strike, and still others where the experience is granted based on proportional size and projected contribution. There are certainly arguments for and against any of these or some hybrid system.
Now, I would like the system to limit the explosive growth of small characters for simply being teamed up while much larger characters fight foes the former should reasonably immediately panic away from. On the other hand, I would like to see even non-combatant support characters get some share of the experience. This could perhaps be done by having preparatory buffs link back to the character providing them and any NPC lingering effects carry some portion of the experience pool, such that providing a heal or poison removal can be rewarded as part of the combat experience granted.
I think that first and foremost, player skill and it's close cousin, luck, should be rewarded, such that over time investing thought and energy into being good at fighting pays dividends over simply spending time fighting. This means that the reward for reasonably risky combat needs to be large enough to cover the average player's losses from death and still give an acceptable growth rate; one notably higher than can be achieved by only engaging in safe combat. We need to shift the paradigm from a steady grind, to something more like "two steps forward, one step back" or "puke and rally". The overall growth rate need not be any higher than we see today and in fact should be much lower if players continue risk-averse patterns, but should rather be punctuated by exciting advances and lamentable setbacks.
Outside of role playing, which I think would require overly convoluted calculations to attempt a universal role-based bonus system, players tend to initiate combat with NPCs for the 3 Gs: gold, gear and growth. Experience calculations should account and adjust down for these other rewards, especially for rare magical weapons.
Somewhat tangentially, between encumbrance and a small on-going need for money, trails of loot are often simply left in people's wakes. I wonder if it wouldn't be interesting if loot left in corpses when they decay began to rust or be otherwise devalued, if not picked up and perhaps wiped with a hardware shop clean cloth. It might be overly taxing on the system to use so many heart beats, so it could just be calculated when picked up and simply crumble if it has been too long. This would leave some interesting edge cases, like dismembered corpses or ingot caused rapid decay.
Even if they gave no other reward, there are some NPCs who would still be killed simply for their equipment. It has been noted here that some of the best gear in the game is not all that well defended. In addition to adjusting experience to account for other rewards, there should be guidelines regarding the power of gear relative to its ease of acquisition.
The suggestions here regarding what could or should go into describing how difficult an NPC is to kill are solid. I might also increase the level based on the spectrum of damage types inflicted and possible counters required for the NPC, as well as for the possible variation in configuration for that type of NPC. It seems to me that these factors might be best used to calculate a challenge rating or difficulty for the NPC on spawn and that experience should given based on a comparison between the character and that number to properly reward based on risk.
Something that has not yet been mentioned in this thread is teams and as a MUD, I think that Genesis needs to reward teaming. Now, teams have some natural advantages, with increased attacks, more hit points, more heal points, etc., that allow them to simply kill more NPCs. Further, depending on how the team's strength is calculated, their ability to take on much larger NPCs should provide each member with a better than linear increase in experience granted.
That does raise the question of how teams should share experience. I've known systems where every team member got the full experience granted from any encounter, others where it was divided between the members, others where experience is granted by criteria like getting the killing strike, and still others where the experience is granted based on proportional size and projected contribution. There are certainly arguments for and against any of these or some hybrid system.
Now, I would like the system to limit the explosive growth of small characters for simply being teamed up while much larger characters fight foes the former should reasonably immediately panic away from. On the other hand, I would like to see even non-combatant support characters get some share of the experience. This could perhaps be done by having preparatory buffs link back to the character providing them and any NPC lingering effects carry some portion of the experience pool, such that providing a heal or poison removal can be rewarded as part of the combat experience granted.