ACR Leveling and Dying during playtesting

[Mayhem]

Indio asked me to re-post this here from teh 003 Beta forum:

Got a new character to L2, and got the following messages:

"1016 of your XP was granted without the proper scripts. Your XP is being corrected for this error. Please contact the staff of the server where you suspect this XP may have come from.

Lost:1016 xp
Gained: 1016 xp

You have not been validated for the next level, and cannot level up without DM assistance"

That last bit is going to make playtesting even more challenging

Especially now that the Morgue is working

[indio]

Thanks.

It would be good to reach an agreement over what works in a test environment. AL has said he'll be implementing a mechanism in the mrogue that will resurrect your PC. So that will take care of player death.

The level validation shouldn't kick in till lv3, or maybe that's changed. Either way, removing the need for validation until Beta 3 perhaps might also benefit testing significantly.

That said, it's great that these systems are working.

[ç i p h é r]

Interesting problem. It may be a result of the quest scripts not using ACR XP scripts.

There are two XP functions available in the ACR, which would work in this case (include acr_xp_i in the XP awarding scripts):

XP method:

Code: Select all

//! Gives nXpAmount to oCreature.
//! This function, and none other, must be used whenever XP is directly given to
//! a PC. Any other function may not work reliably, if at all.
void ACR_GiveXPToPC(object oPC, int nXpAmount);

CR method:

Code: Select all

//! Awards XP to oPC for completing a static quest of some sort.
//! fRealHoursNeeded: The approximate amount of real-time this quest should take, in hours.
//! fLethalCR: The CR of the lethal challenges encountered.
//! fNonlethalCR: The CR of the nonlethal challenges encountered.
void ACR_AwardStaticQuestXP(object oPC, float fRealHoursNeeded, float fChallenge, float fNonlethalCR);

The latter script is more sophisticated computing XP based on the given CRs. Nonlethal CR XP is currently 10% of lethal CR XP. Quest XP using this method is currently capped at 80xp per hour. I'm not sure where these numbers originate from, but I don't recall a discussion about them off hand.

[AcadiusLost]

Guessing that's an unexpected quirk of the ACR XP system, which I believe is still incomplete, but was included in this release to get some initial observations in.

My guess is, that the ACR is trying to enforce the stricture that all XP must be awarded via ALFA-specific functions, to make sure things like ECL and multiclass penalties are accounted for universally, not just here and there when builders/scripters remember to do it.

Not entirely sure on that, though- Cipher or Ronan would probably know more.

[ç i p h é r]

It does, but having centralized XP functions also allows us to log and track XP awards.

[HEEGZ]

Guessing that's an unexpected quirk of the ACR XP system, which I believe is still incomplete, but was included in this release to get some initial observations in.

My guess is, that the ACR is trying to enforce the stricture that all XP must be awarded via ALFA-specific functions, to make sure things like ECL and multiclass penalties are accounted for universally, not just here and there when builders/scripters remember to do it.

Not entirely sure on that, though- Cipher or Ronan would probably know more.

That was how Ronan explained it to me the last time I discussed XP awards with him. I think it was back in January though. There is a thread somewhere about the new XP wand, but not sure what the status is on it these days.

[Mayhem]

Another couple of observations:

It might be nice to put a delay on the "move to morgue" script - so that the plater can actually see his PC hit the ground.

In the fight that killed my test PC, he was still upright when suddenly the screen went black.

I presume that either the bleeding system isn't in place yet, or that the creatures attack you even when you have fallen, or that one of the kobolds got a critical that took me from upright to dead in a single hit - but if they did, I didn't see it since the screen was blank before my toon hit the floor.

***

Secondly, at the moment a server reset rescues PCs from the morgue, albeit devoid of any equipment (which is all locked in the cooler).

[AcadiusLost]

Yes, the instadeath is a temporary measure until Cipher's bleeding script goes in with next update. Preferable on the whole to your character standing around, paralyzed permanently at negative HP while you wait for someone to finish you off. (which is what happens when there is no bleeding script at all) Items carried at death will be on your PC's corpse, though currently corpses aren't persisting across server resets as they were intended to. We have quite a few decisions still to make about how we'll handle persistancy aspects in the end.

You should still be able to see what "hit" you, so to speak, in your chat window log, as it no longer clears when you transition (thank you 1.05).

[Mayhem]

Even so, it would be nice if the port to morgue was time delayed, so you could at least see the death blow.

[ç i p h é r]

I'll see what I can do.

[Mayhem]

You should still be able to see what "hit" you, so to speak, in your chat window log, as it no longer clears when you transition (thank you 1.05).

Just occured to me that this is, in fact, not the case. Thanks to the monster-anonymiser, you won't have a clue what hit you.

[AcadiusLost]

Well, technically- yes. You'd be able to see how much they hit you for, presumably you'd have had the chance to see them coming before getting blackscreened, though it does currently remove the leisurely chance to ID and examine the creatures that killed you, or watch your companions battle your foes while waiting to bleed out or be stabilized.

In any case, the current system is a stopgap, intended to allow testing of other systems. Rather than scripting a temporary workaround to the temporary workaround, I'd rather just get Cipher's bleeding code in- last I heard it was finished and in the testing stages. I'll start a thread to track what's going in with the 0.02 release today, so we can get organized with it. Let's keep the focus on what can and should be done with our ingame systems, rather than getting caught up on the shortcomings of incomplete ones. This initial release is mostly aimed at builders, to allow them to start to lay down spawns and connect their areas in order to transition to Beta1 servers, it's more about getting a framework in place than making a smooth and optimal playing experience.

In this light, I would think what we can take away from your commentary is #1: you have not grown any fonder of the monster name hiding thing, since you last voiced your opinions on it, and #2: you would prefer not to see a reduced-vision effect or blackscreen applied to a dying/bleeding out PC (as it's important to watch your dying PC?).

[ç i p h é r]

I'm happy to say that everything is now complete, including Mayhem's request for a little extra dramatics OnDeath. I've given you 3 seconds now to give your last rites before transitioning away.

On the issue of black screens while dying, I really struggled with this one. On the one hand, while a PC is unconscious, the player shouldn't be able to tell what's going on around the battlefield (or room if they've just been assassinated or burglarized). On the other hand, it can be horribly boring to stare at a black screen while your character slowly dies. So I erred on the side of gameplay and lifted the black screen while "dying" runs its course. Easily reversed if need be.

AL, I may need you to commit the files for me as I can't access the repository atm. Also, on further reflection, we need a unique tag name for the morgue cooler to avoid storing things in some other sarcophagus in the module. I've changed the definition in acr_death_i which means we'll need to update that container as well in the next release.