Give custom critters a variable xp reward
By
Clebstein,
Posted on: 2009-06-05 18:38 in Suggestions and Ideas
About 5 posts down:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post13585792
Good idea, I like it. 
131430 Starfare: First Contact
178774 Tales of Croatoa: A Rose By Any Other Name ( 2009 MA Best In-Canon Arc ) ( 2009 Player Awards - Best Serious Arc )
Except that we know people would then just load an enemy down with so many useless attacks that it's not even remotely difficult (because they just load them down with so many attacks that half of them are never used thanks to animation restrictions). It would happen like crazy. People would just make enemies with as many crappy attacks as possible so that they can get an enemy with a high xp mod for very little risk.
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Except that we know people would then just load an enemy down with so many useless attacks that it's not even remotely difficult (because they just load them down with so many attacks that half of them are never used thanks to animation restrictions). It would happen like crazy. People would just make enemies with as many crappy attacks as possible so that they can get an enemy with a high xp mod for very little risk.
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Which is why the "crappy" attacks are rated to give a small threat rating, as detailed in my post. You load a mob with nothing but light attacks - it will give little reward.
131430 Starfare: First Contact
178774 Tales of Croatoa: A Rose By Any Other Name ( 2009 MA Best In-Canon Arc ) ( 2009 Player Awards - Best Serious Arc )
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Except that we know people would then just load an enemy down with so many useless attacks that it's not even remotely difficult (because they just load them down with so many attacks that half of them are never used thanks to animation restrictions). It would happen like crazy. People would just make enemies with as many crappy attacks as possible so that they can get an enemy with a high xp mod for very little risk.
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Which is why the "crappy" attacks are rated to give a small threat rating, as detailed in my post. You load a mob with nothing but light attacks - it will give little reward.
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I doubt you could ever make it so that it's impossible to create a high-reward enemy that someone won't be able to take down easily.
For example, an enemy with tons of ridiculously strong melee attacks and lots of regeneration would still be easy for a controller with -regen powers. Just immobilize it, stay away, and sap their regen.
Even if you also required them to have strong ranged attacks for the high reward, it would really just require a tanker to taunt them and keep them away from the controller. Then you just get six blasters to mutilate them from a distance. Easy farm.
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Except that we know people would then just load an enemy down with so many useless attacks that it's not even remotely difficult (because they just load them down with so many attacks that half of them are never used thanks to animation restrictions). It would happen like crazy. People would just make enemies with as many crappy attacks as possible so that they can get an enemy with a high xp mod for very little risk.
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Which is why the "crappy" attacks are rated to give a small threat rating, as detailed in my post. You load a mob with nothing but light attacks - it will give little reward.
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The problem is that if you load an NPC with so many attacks that only a small portion of them actually get used (which is one of the reasons why attack/attack custom critters are ridiculously squishy), you're going to be getting credit for fighting a high threat enemy when it's not even remotely close to being a threat. Examples would be Battle Axe/War Mace custom critters. Give them everything from both sets. The only attacks that are even a remote threat are Clobber and Cleave, and only one of those is ever going to be used because of the weapon redraw issue.
Players are going to do stuff like this. Creating a system complicated enough to actually account for all of the variables would be crazy. There isn't a simple algorithmic way to calculate when a player has overloaded an NPC with attacks. Players should never be able to control how much experience an enemy gives, just like they shouldn't be given control over the minimum strength of an NPC either. It's better to simply assign a flat (preferably sub-average) amount of experience based around the forced minimum level of danger. Any danger above that is only rewarded psychologically/socially.
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Except that we know people would then just load an enemy down with so many useless attacks that it's not even remotely difficult (because they just load them down with so many attacks that half of them are never used thanks to animation restrictions). It would happen like crazy. People would just make enemies with as many crappy attacks as possible so that they can get an enemy with a high xp mod for very little risk.
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Which is why the "crappy" attacks are rated to give a small threat rating, as detailed in my post. You load a mob with nothing but light attacks - it will give little reward.
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The problem is that if you load an NPC with so many attacks that only a small portion of them actually get used (which is one of the reasons why attack/attack custom critters are ridiculously squishy), you're going to be getting credit for fighting a high threat enemy when it's not even remotely close to being a threat. Examples would be Battle Axe/War Mace custom critters. Give them everything from both sets. The only attacks that are even a remote threat are Clobber and Cleave, and only one of those is ever going to be used because of the weapon redraw issue.
Players are going to do stuff like this. Creating a system complicated enough to actually account for all of the variables would be crazy. There isn't a simple algorithmic way to calculate when a player has overloaded an NPC with attacks. Players should never be able to control how much experience an enemy gives, just like they shouldn't be given control over the minimum strength of an NPC either. It's better to simply assign a flat (preferably sub-average) amount of experience based around the forced minimum level of danger. Any danger above that is only rewarded psychologically/socially.
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Given that any mob can only use 1 attack at a time, I would take the *average* threat rating of all attacks instead of a simple sum.
So, if you have 2 high threat attacks like Clobber and Cleave, then a bunch of weak attacks, all you will accomplish is to reduce the threat rating of the mob, since the average will be lowered. I'm sure a more sophisticated algorithm could be formulated, but this should be the basis.
131430 Starfare: First Contact
178774 Tales of Croatoa: A Rose By Any Other Name ( 2009 MA Best In-Canon Arc ) ( 2009 Player Awards - Best Serious Arc )
all i can get from this is break something so noone uses it.
/unsigned. this would take up to much precious development time and we wouldn't get any new content for quite a while.
For all the tweaking you could do, it would be pretty tough to design a system that didn't allow me to design enemies with weaknesses tailored to my characters' particular strengths. We already see this with non-MA mobs.
Abilities like mez resistance might make the mob give a larger reward, but they don't help any if it's a brute killing them. Strong melee attacks don't help against flyers, etc.
@Dysc, on virtue:
Virtue blues: Overnight (DP/MM), Kid Ridiculous (FC/rad), Panorama (Ill/time)
Virtue reds: Block Party (SS/SD), Goldcrush (earth/fire), Deadwire (claws/elec), Snowcrush (ice/kin)
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For all the tweaking you could do, it would be pretty tough to design a system that didn't allow me to design enemies with weaknesses tailored to my characters' particular strengths. We already see this with non-MA mobs.
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Gah... the number of people I know of that create enemies specifically because they'll be crazy easy for them to kill/survive astonishes me. I know so many Fire/Fire Scrappers that can solo AE AVs with no because designed them with all fire damage and no resistance (re: fire melee, fire assualt), which they're resisting with no problem at all times. They fall over with no effort as well because there's nothing to make them harder to kill. All that this player would have to do with this system is give every attack to the AV and rake in even more experience.
Totally exploitable for reasons listed above. /unsigned
I'd like to see a more complicated xp reward system for AE. I think it help end the exploitative farming, and remove the restrictions placed on the writer in terms of what powers to give his customs.
Instead of having the custom critters give the standard xp reward, they should give a reward that varies based on the powers that they have.
You should be able to create a custom critter that only buffs or debuffs, or has no melee or no ranged attack, but the xp given for defeating a mob should be tuned to that. Instead of the system in place for assigning powers, the writer should be able to assign powers on power by power basis. The more powers a mob has, the more xp it gives. Assigning the easy/medium/hard categories would give a baseline of xp, and the particular individual powers selected would be multipliers.
Like a Hard Boss would give (base boss xp+10%hard). No melee attacks on him? XP x .01=reward xp. No attacks at all?
XPx0.001=reward xp. (I think you should get a reward for a boss that has massive buff/debuff but no damage potential, just not an exploitable amount.)
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