New gameplay idea

[Stoned]

I thought of this while walking on my way to school. What if we had a system that would change the monster's HP, damage, XP, etc, when there was a lower amount of players and the player's HP? Lets use Bleg was an example, he is 603 HP and he wants to solo Thanatos. But Thanatos currently is way to tough for him to solo easily. So thats were the new system comes in. It could lower all the monsters HP/XP/DMG by 1/3 or a half. Thus making it easier to solo.

Now you may think "well thanatos has Envenomed plate and it pretty much always spawns. He could get envenomed plate a lot easier now." there are required HP or player count on just about every item in MSC, this could be fixed by just editing the script a tad to make it so he needs at least 600 HP or at least 2 or 3 players. Oh and I forgot to mention difficulty scaling (kind of conflicts with my previous sentence :roll: ) as the player count increased, the more HP/DMG/XP the monsters have to offer. So basically, the more players (and HP amount does affect the variables) the stronger and more rewarding monsters are. This concept would support more of the Teamwork aspect but I think it would be a rather cool idea. Oh and you may be wondering "how much XP/HP/DMG would be added to the mobs when there are more players?" could just do the same if there were a smaller amount of players, +1/3 xp or half the XP added.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

I'll ask Thothie to go back in time to implement a monster ramping system.

 

[Stoned]

I'll ask Thothie to go back in time to implement a monster ramping system.

I take it that there was a previous system like this?

 

[Echo717]

yea, I heard from various sources that it went horribly horribly wrong

 

[Stoned]

really? story time possibly....?

 

[Thothie]

Meh, I took a lot of flack for taking it out, but it never was working right.

Looking back on it now (that is to say, now that we've discovered this script duplication bug) I suspect I know what some of the problem was, but it was leading to all sorts of strangeness. Monsters would often wind up multiplying their HP/DMG/XP several dozen times more than they should. System was also adding a lot of new lag on monster spawns - to the point where three monsters spawning would block up even an HLDS server for several seconds. Can't remember if that was before or after we came up with staggered spawns though.

Truth be told, given the wide array of monsters and monster abilities, there's no reliable formula, even factoring diminishing returns, to multiply XP, damage, or even HP by. It really needs to be done on a case by case basis - especially when you get into situations where the monster's surrounding environment or location on the map is also a factor, as it often is.

Since Sgt. Rehab went AWOL, I've been considering taking his Orc_For map and setting up self adjusting monsters specifically for that map, each with it's own four sets of tiers, pre-set in their individual scripts. That way there's at least no global system involved, but each monster would be fully customized, and thus easier to more accurately balance.

Also considering scattering the map with L4D style "special" goblins and trolls that will require players to work together and rescue one another from in a pinch (only dangerous if you ignore your friends, or visa versa), but that's another topic...

 

[Dridmar]

I remember the Cleicert run that took over 3 hours to beat (if I remember correctly).
Fun times.

 

[Stoned]

Man this sounded like an awesome system to bad it didnt work from what Thothie said. Oh well, was looking forward to that the_wall run that would be unbeatable

 

[zeus9860]

Oh well, was looking forward to that the_wall run that would be unbeatable

That will never happen, unless the creatures do insta-kill hits when they target an enemie at distance.

 

[jon50559]

I remember Thothie saying several times that this game is meant for co-op play, and not solo grinding play. Whether or not this will have an effect in his decision, I don't know.

 

[Stoned]

Oh well, was looking forward to that the_wall run that would be unbeatable

That will never happen, unless the creatures do insta-kill hits when they target an enemie at distance.

What I ment by unbeatable would be the mobs would do so much damage with a lot of players in a server (the difficulty scaling) that it would just be unbeatable.

 

[zeus9860]

What I ment by unbeatable would be the mobs would do so much damage with a lot of players in a server (the difficulty scaling) that it would just be unbeatable.

It would still be beatable, it just takes more time... you know. :roll:

 

[Age]

What I ment by unbeatable would be the mobs would do so much damage with a lot of players in a server (the difficulty scaling) that it would just be unbeatable.

It would still be beatable, it just takes more time... you know. :roll:

Yeah, only a few wasted hours.