- Admin
- #51
Single Player Mode
As it is, most new level 30-35 characters have files with creation dates made less than six months ago (half that, in many cases). Even then, the wall seems to be pretty pliable, with the number of characters going just beyond that (the parry cap deflating artificial levels by 5-10). The largest group of characters in the archives, however, have every major in the item in the game by level 20-25, and quit soon after, without even having visited the maps where some of the best items in question are, judging by their map history strings.
My record for reaching level 20 is about 6 hours of actual play time, but that's using every dirty trick in the book. Last time I brought a smurf up to 20, it took me about 12, but I messed about a bit on that one. The one before that took 8.
It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but you do level much faster with more players about - even if they outstrip you in level - even barring the extra loot and hand-me-downs. Reason being is that two characters of equal power take down monsters much more than twice as fast as one. This is in part due to all the debilitating effects they can inflict (stun, freeze, etc.) and the aid they can provide one another, but also due to the somewhat faulty method by which XP and damage is sometimes calced. In the case of monsters that regenerate (all bosses), or any monster that manages to make a kill, this increases. If you do as much damage required to kill a monster, you get the full XP for the monster, even if it regenerated most or all of that damage (meaning multiple players can get full XP for one monster). The other route, hitting monsters that far out strip you in power a few times each, while more powerful players rapidly take them out in four to five blows, getting you a smidgen XP for each, adds up very quickly. Much more quickly than chewing on skeles and spiders on your own.
I've been considering making that a bit more intuitive by rigging it so that any player that does 25% or more of a monster's HP damage, gets the full XP for that monster when it dies.
That having been said, I do regret not having implemented a single player mode. I've no interest in working on a SP version of MSC, but I put the framework for it in, and a cvar, with the intention of setting it up if/when I leave the project in peace, or the game world was completed. If, however, I wind up leaving the game in a rage (which seems more than likely), don't expect me to set aside the time to setup the rather hefty scripting alterations required to implement it.
Under the planned system, you'd be able to take your FN character from an archive and play in that mode, but it would flag your character so you'd never be able to get it back onto FN afterwards. All chests would be loaded as if there were 4-8 players present - showering you with more equipment than you could possibly use, and bosses hp and dmg output would be reduced to 25% of their norm - so they'd be more adapted to presenting a single player of their level with a challenge, instead of four. A few monsters, designed to be impossible to solo via dirty tricks, would have to have their scripts tweaked when in single player mode as well.
Well, before I started "nerfing" everything, it took the average player about a year to reach level 20 and 8 SC, and that was pretty much a brick wall, so things can and would be much worse for you, if not for "team nerf's" efforts.ceriux said:
As it is, most new level 30-35 characters have files with creation dates made less than six months ago (half that, in many cases). Even then, the wall seems to be pretty pliable, with the number of characters going just beyond that (the parry cap deflating artificial levels by 5-10). The largest group of characters in the archives, however, have every major in the item in the game by level 20-25, and quit soon after, without even having visited the maps where some of the best items in question are, judging by their map history strings.
My record for reaching level 20 is about 6 hours of actual play time, but that's using every dirty trick in the book. Last time I brought a smurf up to 20, it took me about 12, but I messed about a bit on that one. The one before that took 8.
It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but you do level much faster with more players about - even if they outstrip you in level - even barring the extra loot and hand-me-downs. Reason being is that two characters of equal power take down monsters much more than twice as fast as one. This is in part due to all the debilitating effects they can inflict (stun, freeze, etc.) and the aid they can provide one another, but also due to the somewhat faulty method by which XP and damage is sometimes calced. In the case of monsters that regenerate (all bosses), or any monster that manages to make a kill, this increases. If you do as much damage required to kill a monster, you get the full XP for the monster, even if it regenerated most or all of that damage (meaning multiple players can get full XP for one monster). The other route, hitting monsters that far out strip you in power a few times each, while more powerful players rapidly take them out in four to five blows, getting you a smidgen XP for each, adds up very quickly. Much more quickly than chewing on skeles and spiders on your own.
I've been considering making that a bit more intuitive by rigging it so that any player that does 25% or more of a monster's HP damage, gets the full XP for that monster when it dies.
That having been said, I do regret not having implemented a single player mode. I've no interest in working on a SP version of MSC, but I put the framework for it in, and a cvar, with the intention of setting it up if/when I leave the project in peace, or the game world was completed. If, however, I wind up leaving the game in a rage (which seems more than likely), don't expect me to set aside the time to setup the rather hefty scripting alterations required to implement it.
Under the planned system, you'd be able to take your FN character from an archive and play in that mode, but it would flag your character so you'd never be able to get it back onto FN afterwards. All chests would be loaded as if there were 4-8 players present - showering you with more equipment than you could possibly use, and bosses hp and dmg output would be reduced to 25% of their norm - so they'd be more adapted to presenting a single player of their level with a challenge, instead of four. A few monsters, designed to be impossible to solo via dirty tricks, would have to have their scripts tweaked when in single player mode as well.
<--- A pathetic joke made at midnight.
