[DEVLOG] June 11, 2010

[zunath]

Time for another devlog! This time I will be going over some of the plans I have for revamping the skill system. Note that none of this is set in stone and subject to change. Comments, suggestions and criticism are all welcome!

Skill Revamp

Many of you have noticed you are only awarded weapon skill experience for the weapon you have equipped at the time of your target's death. This is a major design flaw.

Take this situation into consideration: Oftentimes players will use a firearm to draw the attention of a monster towards them. During the time it takes for the monster to reach the player, several shots have been fired.

Once the creature reaches the player, the player swaps out a broadsword and finishes the enemy off. The problem comes when the player earns experience. They receive experience for the broadsword but all the work gone into shooting their target is not rewarded.

However, with a few changes experience can be given more fairly. Here's what Xan and I have come up with.

Combat Points

Combat points are invisible indicators of how much a skill has been used during a particular fight. Every time a player attacks an enemy with a greatsword, they get points towards heavy blades.

The same is true for all combat ethers. If a player heals a party member during combat or attacks the target with Fire II they receive combat points for white ether and black ether respectively.

Combat points serve as a way to distribute experience to all participants of a fight for all skills utilized during the battle.

Experience Distribution

Earning skill experience will remain the same as it is now. When you defeat an enemy you are awarded experience for all skills used in combat. That part won't be changing. What WILL be changing is how much experience is awarded.

Take this situation for example.

A certain player earns the following combat points during a fight:

Longblades: 7 Points
White Ether: 2 Points
Medium Armor: 3 Points
Total Points: 12
Monster experience: 400

The monster's experience is used to determine the experience for each skill. The amount of experience awarded is as follows:

Longblades: 232 EXP (58%)
White Ether: 64 EXP (16%)
Medium Armor: 100 EXP (25%)

These numbers don't mean much to the player because you have no idea how the numbers are actually used. I just wanted to have a way to express the concept to you.

There are a number of benefits to using this system. Some of them are as follows:

• Ether users, ranged fighters, and melee warriors all fall under the same system. No longer will casters receive experience for every use of an ability. This system is much more fair for everyone.
  
• You are capped by the monster's experience. The amount of experience you earn for every skill does not increase, it just gets distributed differently.
  
• Hybrids are not penalized for using more skills - it just takes them longer to increase all of them. Players who focus on a few skills will progress more quickly but will be limited to a specific role. It's all about choices.
  

Now, there are a few downsides to this change. These are the ones that come to mind:

• Non-combat abilities will no longer award experience. That means resurrection, gate, stat buffs and so on will help you but they won't progress your skill level.
  
• Experience will no longer be gained outside of combat. So this means healers will not receive experience for healing their party members between combat. This is slightly less of a problem if you take stim packs and essence packs into account.
  

So, to recap:

What Will Be Changing

• Experience distribution for combat skills
  
• Per-use experience rewards for black and white ethers will be removed
  
• Several non-combat ether abilities will no longer grant experience
  

What Will NOT Be Changing

• Manufacturing and utility skills will not be modified by this change
  
• The total EXP will still be divided by the number of participants in the battle.
  
• Dual wield will continue to receive a percentage of the experience earned. This amount is subtracted from the total experience earned (I.E: Dual wield will lower the EXP earned for the other skills used in combat)
  
• All of your current skill levels will remain the same. There will be NO skill level or experience loss.
  

That about sums it up! I'm planning on having this done in about a week but may take less or more time depending on how busy I am.

Have fun!

[Xan]

Just a reminder of what we talked about, all armors should have a flat percentage of the exp if the characters were participants of combat. This ensures casters don't have to be participants of whack-a-mole with mobs. And I say across *all* armors to make sure tanks don't get too much or too little by working heavy armor on a different system.

EDIT:

To balance the generation of points for exp distribution, automatic weapons should gain 1/4point per hit as they attack 4 times per round, handguns should gain 1/2point per hit as they attack twice per round, and Ether cast during combat should gain a number of points equal to its AP cost because casting tends to be slower and less frequent than attacks. If matching exp distribution points to AP for Ether is not balanced, then a flat rate of 2 points per Ether cast should do the trick.

[zunath]

Righto!

Oh, also a side note - I'm messing with some NWNX tools which will allow me to update the server scripts on the fly. If there's a bug with the code I should be able to update the server instantly without needing to reboot.