Thoughts

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OK, this is my third time through and I've read a lot of the posts. Here are my thoughts.

I think that you get more experience points for lower levels. I think that this is based on the average level of your party. I don't think this takes into account how many are in your party; but the larger the party, the smaller the share for each member.

If the above is true, then think about the ramifications.

Completing not required quests are redundant. You get the extra experience points over time from killing the enemy. This seems to penalize the better players.

I think that a player should get X amount of points (always the same, no matter what level) for killing a certain level and type of enemy.

What if I took my level 16 character and added newby level 1s. And the next battle, I have new newby 1's or I have really good 1's with 4-12 hps.

The guy who wrote about making level 30 by Shaengarne [sic] Bridge by not leveling up makes a really valid point. Again I say, why not get X amount of points all the time for killing the same level/type of enemy. In a normal game, for a normal player, he might make level 16: why not level 18 for a better player?

IaaA

 

Yes, I don't like the 0 xp either, so I found a patch that gives some anyway (not much, but enough to take your party up by around 1 level by the end of the game).

As for squatting at level 1 until Shangarne Bridge, then getting 30 levels, I find this a bit hard to believe. You need around 500,000 points to get to level 30. Even for a solo player, you'll never get 500,000 points by that times from killing monsters. If you have 2 players, you need 1 million points.
If playing HoF, you *may* get 500,000 points by then if you're really level 1 all the time, but I don't believe any level 1 solo can reach that stage in HoF.

 

Quint. You are right a solo character can't do it, but level squatting with a party and only 1 character levels up...

Getting that much xp is easy because you get 21000xp for the maralite priests and that is just the beginning...

 

21000 for a malarite?!
So at an average xp of 10000 per monster, you'd need to kill 300 monsters to get the 3 million points required for any one of them to get to level 30. I suppose it's possible to find 300 of those monsters in HoF by the time you get to the bridge. Hell, there were around 100 goblins prelude alone, although they were worth only 1000-2000 each IIRC.

[ December 20, 2002, 06:14: Message edited by: Quint ]

 

I find this incredible but still interesting and won't pass a judgement until I know.

Here are a few figures which needed correction:

Level 30 = 435,000 xp

Killing Goblin in HoF with a level 1 character= 3,600 xp

 

I'm using the Weir patches.

Getting 0-10,000 pts for a goblin seems utterly stupid to me. I read a post yesterday where a guy talks about a bug by getting the quest points multiple times for prisoners by dancing back and forth to the exit of the ice palace. I wonder what kind of dancing you have to do to get 21,000 pts for a malarite priest. Is this fun? So, if 5 of your number 1 guys die doing a priest, all you have to do is keep generating newbies and pick up their gear. I wonder how many times you have to do this before you kill a priest.
The point is that we are doing some of these kinds of things (but at a smaller scale) because we want to get to higher levels than 16 (for a normal game) and we want to have better strategies when we fight the end battles with higher-level party members. But to get to that point ... it seems to me that "the game" or the "rules" should be more rational or we should have more choices from the config.exe menu. Especially -- the "quick load" option should be included in the game menu as it is in the start menu.
Sense? However, to be consistent, why don't the game managers/rule mangers also give 0-8.5 million points for the quests. The quests are always the same number of points -- why not the kills?
How about this for another thought? Do the goblins in the prelude for 10kX100=1,000,000/6=167,000 which gets you to about level 16-17 and then get 0 XP for the rest of the game. Fun?
I think this is a big strategy hole in the rules. The rules' makers cannot make rules to try to level the better/smarter/more experienced players with the mediocres. This ruins the playability of the game ... the results are pre-determined.
IaaA

[ December 20, 2002, 07:25: Message edited by: IaaA ]

 

The HoF Goblins are not Goblins as we know them, so 3,600 xp for killing one is not wrong.

The multiple quest award is cheating and as always if someone wants to cheat they can do so, but they can't then complain about the game being too easy.

 

Of course 3600 XP for the HoF goblin is not wrong. But if I start with my party from finishing normal, I get 0 XP for the same goblin. You get 3600 XP for the goblin until you reach a particular level and then you will get less so that by some point in the game (HoF) my party and your party will be at the same average level. If I have 6 in my party and you have 4 or even 1, it will be tougher for you than me ... but our averages will be the same. If I do all the quests and you do 0, we will still have the same average level.
If the guy "cheats" as you define it by getting multiple quests points, it won't do him any good in the long run -- his average level will be the same as ours.
OK, I'm using the Weir addon so that I get 100 XP for the goblins and I can advance, hopefully, to level 30 (finishing up ch.2 in HoF). HoF is very hard BTW. What happens to my game when Interplay fixes their bugs? And better playability should be built into the game as opposed to using addons.
Say, there were two different modes for HoF. One for starting at level one and the other for carrying on from a normal finish with level 16 party members and you got a standard, fixed XP per kill for each variant of starting HoF and then got that standard for the entire game.
IaaA

[ December 20, 2002, 08:13: Message edited by: IaaA ]

 

I completely agree with you that the XP award system for killing monsters is very, very bad.

 

I am the "guy" that found the bug about İce Temple but I never said I used it for getting more exp...

About the topic, I also agree that it sucks having "0" exp for killing monsters, just because my party is high in levels. While my first run I didn't level up my party from Fields of Slaughter to Iyachtu Xvim thus enabling my druid and wizard to reach lvl 17 to cast lvl 9 spells.
I could advise anybody to keep from levelling up until he/she can't advance further. But then, when you level up you have to put all your levels to one class which makes hard to multiclass characters.

 

I reread the stuff from Dan Solomon (DnD 3 rules) related to the "Challenge Rating" system.
It doesn't take into account the size of your party or how many monsters are in the group you are fighting.
Example: HoF Wandering Village, party of 4, level average 23.5. XP for Dire wolves is 125.
So I added two level 1 characters to reduce my level average to 16. The same wolves are now valued at 1125 and the battle is a lot easier with the two extras shooting bolts.
N.B. I tried level squatting to continue to get the good XP -- now this is not cheating as defined by the good Ms. Earl Grey because my party average remains the same, the battles are fought with a legitimate level average against quality opponents. I carried this theory on to rescuing the children from the witch and the trolls. Now the trolls were always doing in the range of 50 damage to my original party of 4; but because of the wandering problem (no pun intended related to the Wandering Village), my two new characters (1s) got in the line of fire on 3 occasions and got wacked by those meanie trolls; however, the first hit was less than the 10 or 12 hp, respectively, for my two newby chars and they never died in the two subsequent troll battles.
The way the Challenge Rating (CR) system is implemented in this game is hugely flawed in the play of the game. The dire-wolf battle of always 8 (total of 16-24, they keep regenerating) is a very hard battle; yet, you get 125-250 XP per kill; whereas, for a party of 6, you get 1100-2500 per kill and the battle is easier. The CR should be battle based and the total XPs given should be divided among the total enemy slain.
Example: 1 dire wolf against my party is easy, yet 8 all-the-time dire wolves is very tough and worth a lot more than 8X 1 wolf or 1000 XP (per group of 8 and double for the ferociouse dire wolves) especially if the size of my party is small. (I really feel for Quint trying to do a solo in HoF --and the boredome this is going to create.)

I bought a baseball game in the not too distant past and the programmers had a philosophy that all dice throws were displayed to show the fairness of the game and how a result was determined. (BTW I am a senior at university in CSCI.) I think that the logic and gameplay (or engines) of these games would drastically improve if this philosophy was added to these games. Off the cuff, I would say that WCIII would suffer the most.
IaaA

 

@IaaA:
About Quick Load and Quick Save during the game:
Q - Quick Save
L - Quick Load

 

Thanks Quint (and for the slowdown patch)
I guess this forum is drying up, only 4 posts today.
Happy Christmas all.
IaaA

 

I think there should be a CR system. But also I think that I should get some exp for each kill but absolutely not "0". Knowing that you won't get any exp for killing those relatively weak monsters make me bored while fighting with them. Those fights are completely useless and boring.
I think there shouldn't be any weak monsters in the later stages of game. By this way I will always get some exp for my hard fight.

 

Well, this topic dropped out of the top 20. So, I thought I would add a reply so that if any new players (over Christmas) would like to add their thoughts related to the logic of the game play, they might do so.
Also, I understand that the new game, NeverWinter Nights, is using the Aurora Engine instead of the one that this one uses. Also, is the wandering better, worse, or the same?

IaaA

Edit:

Well, now I understand the game better. Also, this might be in reply to Mr. Grey as I have been told that he is male as am I male.

Today, I started hOf over with a new party of ones. Yes, you get 3600 XP for the goblins. However, there are less than half as many as when you are level 16. When you get to level 4.5, the XP's are 3200. However, I found the actual battle significantly tougher at level 16 where you get no XPs for a kill or 100 with the Weimer addons. This is a really good example of how screwy the Challenge Rating system is (to me anyway). And, this seems to me to really validate my point that it is grossly unfair and unrealist getting no XPs for a tougher battle when the system gives out XPs per kill based on the average party level, yet, the game makes the battle significantly tougher for a higher-level party.

IaaA?

[ January 01, 2003, 07:29: Message edited by: IaaA? ]