XP rewards

[HumanSteak]

Now that I can see the XP values of monsters, I can now complain about these with numbers to support my opinions! Isn't that great?
Seriously, some monsters gives really crappy for their difficulty. I'm making a list of the things I have noticed. If any of you notice unfair XP values, come on and share them! Ok, here I go.

Giant cobra gives no XP at all.

Cursed snake gives 5XP, not even worth the annoyance.

Enraged Skeletons gives 50XP while same hp and twice more damaging Fragile knights gives 40.

Hungry skeletons gives 50XP, a bit too much in my opinion. (Because I can't stop farming them since they are the only good source of XP yet)

350 hp Fallen knights gives only 50XP, they are just not worth killing IMO.

Marogar ice warrior (lesser ice blade ones) gives only 75-90 xp while Blackhand warriors gives more! Means you get more XP killing the daragoth orc camp than the Morc camp...

Maiscaleus araneus gives same XP as Araneus. (16)

Giant polar bears... they have 2k hp I think and takes a while to kill for only 200 XP...

I'll add more as I notice things!

So far, I conclude that hard monsters aren't worth the XP neccessary to gain levels, since it pays more to keep killing weak enemies...

 

[Thothie]

Giant cobra gives no XP at all.

Fixed

Cursed snake gives 5XP, not even worth the annoyance.

That's about an XP per hitpoint, giving them the highest ratio in the game.
Issue is Slithar spawns these things infinitely, if they were worth any significant XP, it'd be an issue. They die as soon as they get a successful bite off you, being basically summoned for a single attack.

Enraged Skeletons gives 50XP while same hp and twice more damaging Fragile knights gives 40.

I'll reduce the standard enraged skels XP value. All the other "on crack" enraged skels are worth more than 100-250xp, so I wasn't sure what you were on about at first.

Hungry skeletons gives 50XP, a bit too much in my opinion. (Because I can't stop farming them since they are the only good source of XP yet)

*sigh* Fine, I'll nerf them. I suspect they were built with some old XP ramp in mind (they are an old script).

350 hp Fallen knights gives only 50XP, they are just not worth killing IMO.

I can raise it a tad... But they are pretty bloody common, and don't do anything really threatening.

Marogar ice warrior (lesser ice blade ones) gives only 75-90 xp while Blackhand warriors gives more! Means you get more XP killing the daragoth orc camp than the Morc camp...

Blackhand warriors are only worth 60xp. Marogar Ice Warrior's are worth 90. There are also lesser Marogar warriors that are only worth 60, but they have slightly less than HP the blackhand and have no freeze attack (just the frost resistance).

Maiscaleus araneus gives same XP as Araneus. (16)

There's not much difference between the two species. I can raise the former's XP value by maybe 2.

Giant polar bears... they have 2k hp I think and takes a while to kill for only 200 XP...

Pretty damned high for something with no special attacks. It's a bag of HP, goes down far too easily to be worth anymore. The gigantic boars that tend to hang around it maybe worth a bit more for their spec attacks.

So far, I conclude that hard monsters aren't worth the XP neccessary to gain levels, since it pays more to keep killing weak enemies...

XP value does not relate direct to HP, and as discussed the HP to XP value gets worse on the higher monsters, so yes, XP farming is more efficient on weaker monsters. However, beyond a certain level, that too becomes hopeless, and you are forced to hunt bigger game and use larger weapons to kill said bigger game expediently to compensate. In addition, the larger game, invariably, drops and/or guards better stuff.

Also remember XP is screwy. Sometimes you'll get different amounts of XP from the same creature depending on how many times you hit it and what you hit it with. So these numbers aren't 100% consistant, particularly among the skeletons.

 

[HumanSteak]

In an attempt to get monsters to give more XP, I lost my precious hungry skellies XP.

 

[BioRage]

The cursed snakes gave me an Idea.

For the staff can yu make them not die so dam freaking fast please? make them like a pet ^^

 

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

In an attempt to get monsters to give more XP, I lost my precious hungry skellies XP.

k thanks...

ruined it for the rest of us lawl...

Move on to stronger monsters!

 

[Vomica7]

**puppy dog eyes**


Thothie...
could you release an xp chart?

Pwease.

**/puppy dog eyes**

 

[Thothie]

I don't have one myself. I have to open the individual scripts and look. I'd have to come up with some VB app to gather all the XP values... Granted I've been meaning to make something like that, that would gather all the various monster and weapon attributes so I can have said bloody table.

 

[ceriux]

i think leveling takes a little too long maybe we could double XP rates for a test? and possibly a treat if its too much? "ya know for the players who are sticking around?"

 

[Thothie]

People leveling way too fast. Seems Foutpost is the only thing that stands even a remote chance of providing a challenge for any group of players who've been around more than two months (and maybe the end of ms_snow). :\ I'd be more likely to reduce the XP to 10% of what it is and see what happens.

 

[Gaz]

I think we need more low level stuff, as well as some High level stuff, its fine keeping the needs of the HLs, but we need more players, and should not forget the LLs

Grow the fanbase, as well as support the current

 

[Thothie]

I think part of the issue with the low end stuff, is that there is far too much of it that is, essentially, on the exact same tier. Getting the aforementioned table together might help me figure a way to spread it out more.

People seem to outgrow the low end stuff far too quickly, might help if it was spread around the level ladder. Have people wearing leather armor for more than an hour, make scimitar and katana useful, etc.

 

[kray1091]

Try playing msc for 2 years .. playing maps over and over and over...

 

[ceriux]

People leveling way too fast. Seems Foutpost is the only thing that stands even a remote chance of providing a challenge for any group of players who've been around more than two months (and maybe the end of ms_snow). :\ I'd be more likely to reduce the XP to 10% of what it is and see what happens.

not me... iv been playing since msc came out and... uhh... im still lvl 14...

 

[evilsquirrel]

you havent been playing much at all, then.

it took me under a day to get to level 20, its not that difficult.

 

[elfstone222]

There's definately a gap in the scaling around mid-late 20's where you hit the high level slow down. In my opinion you hit it too early though, but I'm one of the guys who thinks specializing in one or two weapons should be made useful, instead of being considered foolish. Things are close to okay for needing to level everything up to get the most out of your character, but some changes would have to be made to make weapon specialization a viable alternative.

 

[Thothie]

Takes 7 hours playtime for me to get to level 22 from scratch (last time I tested this was last month). But I've an unfair advantage since I know the inner workings of the game. If you've been stuck at 14 that long, you've either done some insane specialization and/or hardly ever play.

There's no way to make specialization viable without axing the whole system. Generalists should be better off in any case, having a wider array of experience. Specialists just do more damage in one weapon faster, tis about their only advantage.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the dynamic title system in so people can have their precious shadow weaver title, or what not, and lock it, regardless of what they train in afterwards.

 

[HumanSteak]

I agree with that, leveling first levels is kinda too fast. But after level 23-24 it takes a while and at level 30 it's pointless and boring to level up. I guess the required XP to level up is weird. If low level requirements were raised and high levels lowered it would be perfect.
And about specialisation :

 

[Gaz]

Are completed quests recorded in the player data?

Im guessing not.

Otherwise, XP for completion of quests would be wicked

 

[Thothie]

There's a quest_data thing, but it doesn't seem to work right, and it increases the character size, which is problematic.

 

[Gaz]

Shame, recording what quests were complete would be nice

 

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

There's a quest_data thing, but it doesn't seem to work right, and it increases the character size, which is problematic.

so our character file size become bigger with the more quests we complete? yet it doesn't do anything?

 

[The Man In Black]

I think it COULD do something, but none of the quests check to see if they're done. Besides, taking them out of the char file would probably require OMG CHAR WIPE

 

[Crow]

(Thothie shrinks this so people can still read the forum)

 

[Thothie]

so our character file size become bigger with the more quests we complete? yet it doesn't do anything?

Meh, there were just one or two quests that attempted to use the quest_data, and I axed them when I realized what they were doing. They only add data to your character the one time, so it's not like your character has been growing every time you've completed those quests.

I think Olaf is still setup to "read" character data from his quest, but not set it. If you have an older character, he may occasionally turn to you and ask if you've found his ring yet. This is because the quest data has been set on your character.

There's also a bit of quest data the determines whether or not you were sitting recently that causes issues.

I tried to automagically strip the quest data from all the characters, but it didn't work, just generates an error (if you go up to the Master Priest Sembelbin in Edana, and say 'unquest' you can see the attempt). I'm going to have to go into the hard code and attempt to figure what's wrong with it, as for the most part, it's an undocumented feature.