When I'm playing openglad, my characters tend to be powerful or weak when I get to later levels. I know spending more time with slimes and respawn creatures helps. Character success shouldn't depend on whether players spend time expoliting the XP system.
Any other factors?
Also, in multiplayer mode, the most powerful team player gets an XP momentum which the other players can't keep up with. (not fun/fair)
A simple way to stabilize XP buildup would be to assign a cash and XP value for each maplevel. No XP or cash for killing creatures. Cash pickups around the level would still be fine. That way, level
designers would know exactly how much XP, cash (and power) a team has before they start the next maplevel! Not to mention how much easier it will be to balance the class and XP system.
I'm not sure exactly how the xp should be divided among the team. Maybe divide 2/3 of the XP evenly among the surviving players, and 1/3 of the XP evenly among the surviving npc's.
Pool team cash normally.
A number representing fair share should be displayed on the cash allocation screen, but not enforced.
If you didn't have collision detection with your team, you could stack your characters which would allow you to hide smaller characters. For example, if you hid a smaller character inside the collision box of a fire elemental, there could be instances where an enemy would not be able to attack the smaller character while they could freely attack the enemy.
Decreasing the collision boxes of your teammates would just be a workaround since it wouldn't really be addressing the issue directly.
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Good point about hiding characters inside other characters.
Decreasing the collision boxes of your teammates would just be a workaround since it wouldn't really be addressing the issue directly.
I guess the issue is that it's no fun to get stuck as a player. Kill me outright, but don't make me paralyzed / trapped while I'm forced to watch my guy die because my teammates wouldn't get out of the way.
It would be nice if all of the npc's on your team would, in a coordinated fashion, let you pass freely,
but if simple workarounds help things along, I'm all for them. (unless it's a scientific simulation)
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The better solution to crowding out, imo, is the ability to choose which members of your team visit which scenario.
There are times when you need a large team and there are times when you need a small team.
The idea of hiring out a large team, but having the ability to pick which members of your team visit each scenario gives you the best of both worlds.
For example, When going through Telvido's the Labryinth, ideally, you would want only 1-2 people from your team in the maze so that you don't get crowded out. But if you go through the last one of telvido's set, you will want a very large, well experienced team. That helps solve the problem of your own team mates blocking your path (and gives you an easy way to build up experiences for certain team members without building up others).
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I'm likin' these ideas, and I think all 3 could be combined:
1. per-scenario team picker reduces crowding and controls XP distribution
2. smaller collision boxes for ally-ally collisions
3. Scripted AI could be tweaked by users/modders so that NPC's would make way for PC's better
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The big reason I want to be able to limit which characters go through which scenarios is liability. If you have a thief on the field, you can't leave him unattended without losing health points. Ditto with mages, archmages, skeletons, ghosts, elves, and fairies. The best team to go through my "Hedge Maze" is a single thief who can keep himself invisible the whole time. If you're going through Telvido's stairs, all you really need is a single character so your own teammates don't get in the way. If you're going through my "Weakest Link" scenarios, you want a large team.
The other big thing is printable maps. I've worked on that with Jesse, but not as far I really wanted to go. The best I can do is thumbnails until I understand vb graphics more. Ideally I'd like a printable view of an entire map, the same way it looks in the scenario editor, but I got spend some time studying to do that.
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When I'm playing openglad, my characters tend to be powerful or weak when I get to later levels. I know spending more time with slimes and respawn creatures helps. Character success shouldn't depend on whether players spend time expoliting the XP system.
Any other factors?
Also, in multiplayer mode, the most powerful team player gets an XP momentum which the other players can't keep up with. (not fun/fair)
A simple way to stabilize XP buildup would be to assign a cash and XP value for each maplevel. No XP or cash for killing creatures. Cash pickups around the level would still be fine. That way, level
designers would know exactly how much XP, cash (and power) a team has before they start the next maplevel! Not to mention how much easier it will be to balance the class and XP system.
I'm not sure exactly how the xp should be divided among the team. Maybe divide 2/3 of the XP evenly among the surviving players, and 1/3 of the XP evenly among the surviving npc's.
Pool team cash normally.
A number representing fair share should be displayed on the cash allocation screen, but not enforced.
fair_share = total_cash_from_level / #_of_team_players;
also, If a character is player controlled, he should not be blocked by players of the same team.
Another solution: For characters of the same team, they have smaller collision boxes relative to each other.
I think those solutions could possibly have adverse affects during multiplayer games.
I am sure the AI could be overhauled so that your team would do a better job getting out of your way.
[quote]I think those solutions could possibly have adverse affects during multiplayer games.[/quote]
How so? Can you think of a couple of examples?
If you didn't have collision detection with your team, you could stack your characters which would allow you to hide smaller characters. For example, if you hid a smaller character inside the collision box of a fire elemental, there could be instances where an enemy would not be able to attack the smaller character while they could freely attack the enemy.
Decreasing the collision boxes of your teammates would just be a workaround since it wouldn't really be addressing the issue directly.
Good point about hiding characters inside other characters.
Decreasing the collision boxes of your teammates would just be a workaround since it wouldn't really be addressing the issue directly.
I guess the issue is that it's no fun to get stuck as a player. Kill me outright, but don't make me paralyzed / trapped while I'm forced to watch my guy die because my teammates wouldn't get out of the way.
It would be nice if all of the npc's on your team would, in a coordinated fashion, let you pass freely,
but if simple workarounds help things along, I'm all for them. (unless it's a scientific simulation)
The better solution to crowding out, imo, is the ability to choose which members of your team visit which scenario.
There are times when you need a large team and there are times when you need a small team.
The idea of hiring out a large team, but having the ability to pick which members of your team visit each scenario gives you the best of both worlds.
For example, When going through Telvido's the Labryinth, ideally, you would want only 1-2 people from your team in the maze so that you don't get crowded out. But if you go through the last one of telvido's set, you will want a very large, well experienced team. That helps solve the problem of your own team mates blocking your path (and gives you an easy way to build up experiences for certain team members without building up others).
I'm likin' these ideas, and I think all 3 could be combined:
1. per-scenario team picker reduces crowding and controls XP distribution
2. smaller collision boxes for ally-ally collisions
3. Scripted AI could be tweaked by users/modders so that NPC's would make way for PC's better
The big reason I want to be able to limit which characters go through which scenarios is liability. If you have a thief on the field, you can't leave him unattended without losing health points. Ditto with mages, archmages, skeletons, ghosts, elves, and fairies. The best team to go through my "Hedge Maze" is a single thief who can keep himself invisible the whole time. If you're going through Telvido's stairs, all you really need is a single character so your own teammates don't get in the way. If you're going through my "Weakest Link" scenarios, you want a large team.
The other big thing is printable maps. I've worked on that with Jesse, but not as far I really wanted to go. The best I can do is thumbnails until I understand vb graphics more. Ideally I'd like a printable view of an entire map, the same way it looks in the scenario editor, but I got spend some time studying to do that.