[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point...

[Acius]

Caliban Darklock wrote:
> On 8/2/07, John Arras <johnarras at gmail.com> wrote:
>> What if you did this as an ELO system where the monsters or tasks
>> are given a dynamic level and your gain/loss is based on this?
> 
> To get just a little insane...
> 
> What if the level and stats of a monster were dynamically scaled to the player?
> 
> Imagine an orc wandering outside the city gates. (Use of AD&D terms is
> not intended to be restrictive.) Two characters, one first level and
> one eighth level, see the orc. If the first level character attacks
> it, the orc has 6 hit points and a THAC0 of 20. If the eighth level
> character attacks it, the orc has 40 hit points and a THAC0 of 14.
> Whoever deals the first blow sets the stats.
> 
> The XP don't change. The orc is worth 4 XP no matter what. As the
> players figure that out, the higher level characters simply stop
> screwing with the little stuff. It's harder to kill, takes more time,
> does more damage, and you still only get 4 XP.
> 
> Essentially, every mob has a lowest level which sets its XP value. If
> you're higher level than that, and you attack the mob, the mob scales
> its power to match your skill, but the XP don't change. If you're a
> lower level than the XP bar, the mob doesn't get any easier. You have
> to earn the XP. But you can't slum around the newbie areas to earn
> easy XP. There are no easy XP. Indeed, the same XP get harder all the
> time.

This seems to partially defeat the point of leveling up. To wit: As I 
level up, I get progressively *more awesome*. Part of being more awesome 
is that stuff which used to kill me (oh, those mean and nasty orcs!) can 
now be bulldozed over with ease (Aha, foolish orcs! Take that!). I'm 
completely OK with getting a pittance in experience points (or even none 
at all) for bulldozing the peasants, but there's something inherently 
unfair about 'my low level friend has to hit it first so that it doesn't 
get the magic buff'.

Even worse: It becomes heavily to my advantage to carry around a low 
level alt player (playing off the laptop, perhaps?) whose job it is to 
give monsters the magic debuff before I squish them with my main's uber 
leetness. As long as he gets the first hit off on everything, my main 
can grind his low-to-mid level xp with ease. And supposing you hand out 
experience penalties when the low level guy dies from aggro-ing 
something too hard for him? Actually, we call that the experience bonus, 
because it would destroy his purpose if he were to gain any levels...

Note that the apparent fix (switch to the strong player's scale as soon 
as they hit the monster) is also a highly entertaining method of 
griefing (no, no, it's your kill, my mistake....).

That was a fun "what if," but I think there are a few flaws in the model 
that would have to be addressed ;-).

-- Adam Helps