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Monsters and quests

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:07 pm
by Lardmaster
Does anyone think the monsters are too hard for their level? I am level 10 and was just killed in two hits by a level 9 monster without even touching him (my pdef is just over 100 and he hit me for 68 on round one) and it often seems the way that I can rarely beat monsters of my level and never above it.

On the quests front, one of the quests is to kill 5 level 7 ice beasts (or something similar). I lasted one round I think. What level would you need to be to have a chance of doing that quest? Probably double the level of the baddies by which time the reward will probably seem too low to bother.

Any thoughts?

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:57 pm
by korexus
The combat formula is taken from classic WoK, ie you roll between 0 and your PATT while the monster rolls between 0 and its PDEF, then you swap round.

The twist is that instead of the higher roller killing one army, it does damage based on the difference between the rolls. Unfortunately, this means as the numbers get higher, so does the variance on hit points dealt, and a high PDEF isn't a sure defense against getting whacked. A roll of 0, while less likely is also more dangerous.

The obvious solution to this is with damage modfifiers, Your damage dealt is already multiplied by the damage rating of your weapon. What I haven't yet figured out is a balanced way to reduce damage based on the armour you're wearing. However, dividing damage by an amount which increases as your level does means hit points dealt shold get too extreme.


Can I ask what skills you've been training? If you don't have combat skills then you're likely to get beaten on by a warrior type, even if it is a lower level.

Quests.

The quest monsters are generated by players. If you get killed by a monster it gets added to the list. Depending on it's level and how many people it has killed, there is a variable reward on offer for it.

However then I thought it would be fun to let these infamous critters recruit friends, so every hour there is a small chance of another monster of the same type joining that square. Maybe I made the chance too high, or maybe not enough people are taking quests as some of the numbers are getting quite high.

The reward doesn't take numbers into account. Maybe it should, but that could discourage people from taking quests as they wait for the price to go up...

Finally remember that with quests, the critters are on there because they already killed at least one adventurer. That means that they're likely to be tougher than the average monster of their level.


Chris.

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:18 pm
by Lardmaster
I have trained as high as I can in double swing which means I also have some points in sword and shield also.

I get what you are saying re quests, (didn't realise the baddies went on there after they killed someone) but one of the quests now has 15 baddies to kill. Perhaps the small percentage of friends joining should be lower or there should be a max.

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:15 am
by korexus
You may want to push sword a bit higher, multiple swings are useless if you never hit anything!

As a rough guide, monsters will average 15 PATT and PDEF per level. This will tend to be higher than what a player has, but the player has more hit points and the ability to leave the square and recover. If I've got the numbers right (quite possible that I didn't!) A pure-warrior type will be able to beat these stats and so go toe-to-toe with monsters of his own level quite safely. If you train other stats, then your combat ability might not be up to fighting the warrior type monsters, but you'll have spells or more expensive items to help you out instead.

Quests: I think I prefer a maximum. No matter how small the percentage chance, if no one bothers taking the quest then the numbers could get out of control I can go for a flat maximum, say 10 or make it dependent on level, so you could still get a horde of level 1 critters, but a more managable number of tougher types.

Chris.

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:43 pm
by korexus
Lardmaster has made a good point, that when high level monsters kill high level players, they push the easy quests off the bottom of the table. This makes the questing system a bit boring for low level players.

I can fix this by only displaying monsters equal to or lower than your level, which sounds fair, although the name "deadliest monsters" is then slightly misleading. Should I also not display monsters below say 1/10 of your level, so high level characters don't clear out all the easy quests?



Chris.

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:21 pm
by Lardmaster
Sounds like a good isea to me.