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"How does it work?" Part 3: Experience Level[message #195604]
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Mon, 01 September 2008 17:37
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Headrock |
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Messages:1760
Registered:March 2006 Location: Jerusalem |
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There are many speculations about what effects our Experience Level has on our merc's capabilities. Some of the effects are so obscure that they are hard to discern. But, thankfully, we can read the code and find out for ourselves. So the third part of my research will uncover the mystery about Experience Levels.
The following is a list of all (or, hopefully all) of the effects of higher experience levels. Once again please note that the actual calculations are often very complex, so ExpLevel factors in differently with each effect.
- Increases Doctoring rate.
- Increases Repair rate.
- Increases Militia Training rate.
- Increases priority for character's items to get repaired first in the squad.
- Decreases chance for the squad to be ambushed by enemies.
- Increases chance of merc to go on another assignment, or to get another contract before his service to you is done.
- Increases chance of merc to gain points in skills, through experience or practice.
- Decreases chance of merc to improve his skills while available for hire (I.E. not working for you or for someone else).
- Decreases chance to get killed while working for someone else.
- Decreases chance to fire unwanted "extra" bullets in autofire mode.
- Increases the difficulty level of this merc's planted bombs/mines.
- For enemies and militia - increases chance to carry Heavy Weapons (like rocket launchers, mortars, GLs).
- When the merc dies or is captured, a higher Experience Level means a more severe hit to the player's reputation.
- Above level 3, the merc's hearing range is increased by one tile.
- Helps reduce noise made while moving.
- Increases resistance to Suppression Fire.
- Increases chance to pick locks (both electronic and normal).
- Increases chance to succeed in planting bombs.
- Increases chance to succeed in disarming traps.
- Increases chance to notice an enemy firing (silent) darts at the merc (assuming you haven't been hit and passed out! ).
- Increases chance to succeed in attaching together electronic items (Not sure which items those are).
- Increases chance to detect traps.
- Increases base APs to spend per turn.
- Decreases noise made when screaming due to bomb explosion. Means the enemy is less likely to hear you stepping on mines
- Increases medical skill when bandaging wounds.
- When using the Soldier Tooltips - increases the range at which you can view enemy soldier tooltips.
- Increases chance to interrupt enemy.
- Increases chance for merc (if holding the robot remote control) to make the robot interrupt enemies.
- When attacking an NPC that is not currently hostile, helps your merc be able to shoot first.
- Increases CTH with rocket-launchers.
- Increases maximum attainable aiming bonus from extra aiming APs.
- Increases chance to Dodge Bullets (Yes, dodge bullets. This effectively decreases the CTH of the attacker... but not by much).
- Decreases enemy's chance to dodge bullets (Errrr....)
- Reduces the penalty to CTH caused by injuries. (That's a good thing)
- Increases base damage with Melee attacks.
- Increases CTH with Melee attacks.
- Increases chance to dodge Melee attacks.
- Increases chance to steal.
- Increases chance to prevent stealing.
- Increases CTH with high-arc launched weapons (Mortars, high-arc Grenade Launchers)
- Reduces the penalty to CTH of Thrown/Launched weapons caused by injuries. (That's a good thing)
- Increases profile - enemies will want to shoot at a higher-level merc first.
Enjoy!
[Updated on: Mon, 27 April 2015 23:41] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254292]
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Sat, 19 June 2010 06:52
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DakaSha |
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Messages:49
Registered:June 2010 |
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How "powerful" is level? Thats the most important thing for me right now.
When i look at the wildfire mercs you have mercs that cost MUCH more then mercs with better skills/atttributes.. but they DO have a higher level.
Now im trying to change the merc profiles to my liking and i just dont know how powerful the experience level is.
Is Somebody like Lynx (level 4) with 99 Marksmanship and decent physical attributes worse then someby like Len (level 7) with pretty crappy attributes and (i think) 83 marksmanship???
Obviously lens role is more for teaching etc.. But still the price difference is huuuuuge.
Another example would be Magic with extremely good attributes/skills all around. But hes only level 5. Is that worse then somebody like Henning who has overall crappier attributes but is level 7?
[Updated on: Sat, 19 June 2010 06:55] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254294]
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Sat, 19 June 2010 10:01
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P.Val |
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Messages:72
Registered:May 2010 |
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@DakaSha: For higher exp levels, there is always a bonus to nearly every chance check, and minor bonuses to other things like AP costs and CTH. The exact values can be found in the other "How does it work" topics, where exact formulas are given. From my personal experience, I use the high exp level nearly only for getting interrupts in close combat: when I have to storm a building or a covered position, I send in the high level merc equipped with quick carbines, PDWs, SMGs or pistols, while the rest of the team supports them from afar.
So far, as I've noticed, the most noticeable impact of a higher exp level is the higher chance to get interrupts.
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Corporal
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254296]
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Sat, 19 June 2010 10:29
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DakaSha |
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Messages:49
Registered:June 2010 |
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If anybody would take the time to look ill show you what i mean. These are 2 mercs from wildfire:
Lynx
Health: 81
Strength: 77
Agility: 82
Dexterity: 86
Wisdom :78
Marksmanship: 99
Explosive: 50
Leadership: 46
Medical: 14
Mechanical: 32
ExpLevel: 4
Daily: 3600
Weekly: 22000
BiWeekly: 38000
Henning:
Health: 79
Strength: 78
Agility: 86
Dexterity: 82
Wisdom :96
Marksmanship: 92
Explosive: 42
Leadership: 76
Medical: 28
Mechanical: 32
ExpLevel: 7
Daily: 8800
Weekly: 58000
BiWeekly: 111000
Henning is arguably the better merc stat wise.. But barely (also with HAMSTOMP im giving lynx the Sniper trait which will make him an even better shot.) But does the 3 level difference in experience level REALLY warrant that absolute huge price increase?
with my current understanding (which is extremely rusty) it really does not. Ill take the way cheaper better shot (at least attribute wise) any day. In fact i could buy almost THREE if him for the same price!
Im trying to "balance" the mercs of wildfire. And this is pretty crucial ^^
[Updated on: Sat, 19 June 2010 10:33] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254321]
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Sat, 19 June 2010 17:13
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silversurfer |
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Messages:2793
Registered:May 2009 |
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Hey I just created a new spreadsheet very easily. I used a freeware tool called XML2CSV -> http://www.a7soft.com/downloads/xml2csv.zip
With that tool and the help of this small file for field definitions:
uiIndex,zName,zNickname,bLifeMax,bStrength,bAgility,bDexterity,bWisdom,bMarksmanship,bExplosive,bLeadership,bMedical,bMechanical,bExpLevel,bSkillTrait,bSkillTrait2,sSalary,uiWeeklySalary,uiBiWeeklySalary
this command line:
xml2csv.exe mercprofiles.xml profiles.csv fields.txt
I could import the profiles.csv to Open Office and got this:
Isn't that cool and easy?
With that data you could do anything to balance the mercs more. You could easily add more information to the spreadsheet or leave something out which is not interesting to you. Most important - you can add formulas to calculate the salary for you!
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254350]
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Sun, 20 June 2010 02:58
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DakaSha |
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Messages:49
Registered:June 2010 |
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I was actually worried about that too...
The problem is that the system itself is flawed. You would think that a trained merc WOULD have good skills from the get go (but that they improve slower). Of course in game terms thats not as interesting sadly.
Perhaps the Experience Level should have a more profound effect on game play. That way there really would be a nice difference between a merc with alot of experience and just a merc with some decent stats..
Do you recommend raising the points needed to gain in attributes/skills/level?
Right now its: 50,25,350
Should double it?
Anyways just in case anybody is interested what im trying to do now is make every single merc "interesting" (except maybe some of the MERC mercs). This means balancing costs and providing more variety. I think STOMP helps here as it makes mercs more specialized by default
currently it seems to me like some mercs are "must gets" while others are "get if you just want to use somebody else for a change"
Again.. Things like all sniper having night ops is really sad to me
[Updated on: Sun, 20 June 2010 02:59] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254351]
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Sun, 20 June 2010 03:36
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Headrock |
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Messages:1760
Registered:March 2006 Location: Jerusalem |
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Quote:Do you recommend raising the points needed to gain in attributes/skills/level?
Well, like all my other features, I externalized those values for personal use first, public use second, so you can imagine that I don't play with the default values
Quote:Right now its: 50,25,350
Should double it?
I use different levels for each skill and attribute. I actually sped up improvement on some things (like health) which are way too hard to raise, and slowed it down on others (like marksmanship) where it usually goes up too fast. If you want I'll see if I can post the exact numbers I use. However, do note that I haven't actually finished a campaign in at least a year, so I don't know how well these numbers hold up past 3 cities or so.
Quote:currently it seems to me like some mercs are "must gets" while others are "get if you just want to use somebody else for a change"
Very true.
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254355]
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Sun, 20 June 2010 06:25
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Never Darktide |
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Messages:88
Registered:July 2009 |
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Nice job on the XML -> CSV thing by the way silversurfer, I used it to figure this next part out.
After the whole discussion about hired mercs being too powerful, I decided to analyze with the spreadsheet. I added a few extra columns: physical (hea, str, agi, dex, wis), skill (mrk, exp, ldr, mec, med), and total. I'd post the spreadsheet but have no real place to put it, but here is an overall estimation of what I found:
- Most mercs have high physical stats. The average total physical score among 69 mercs (AIM, MERC plus UB mercs, and all RPCs) was 378/500, which is a little less than 80% progression. Magic had a score of 464 and Scully a score of 454 (over 90% progression), with Thor, Ivan, Trevor, Danny, and Shadow having scores of 439 or more. Shank had the lowest score of 263 (is anyone surprised?) being one of only three mercs in the 200s (Flo and stoned Larry).
- Skills are a lot lower. The average total skill score among the 69 mercs was 194/500, just under 40% progression. Gus is king here, with 404 points and 80 points over the next closest: Scully with 325 and Biggins with 323. Trevor was the only other merc in the 300s, and it's worth noting that most mercs' skill scores are boosted by the fact that they have high marksmanship. Flo, Razor, Shank, Haywire, and Biff were the worst in that order, having a score below 100. Poor MERCs.
- Overall, the average total skill for the 69 mercs was 573, although the total skill for AIM (where many of us get our mercs from) is undoubtedly higher. In addition, we have pros like Flo (353) and Shank (352) bogging down the numbers, but I guess you always get outliers. The "top" mercs, on the other hand, were Gus (804), Scully (779), Trevor (748), Magic (716), Thor (700), and Len (697).
So what can we learn from this? Some mercs probably should be toned down a bit, although I hardly think it'd stop some people from still going all out and destroying everything. Trevor and Thor come to mind for skewed mercs, though; I think level should be a lot more indicative of your skill. While your mercs' skills will limit you somewhat, in the end, it's going to depend a lot more on the skill and intelligence of the player, your equipment, and (unfortunately) luck. Keep in mind that a highly trained merc, depending on their armor, etc. may only take a few more shots to kill than a rookie (and the rookie will last longer if it's Steroid, hahaha).
Interesting fact: I did see a thread on, I believe, a German board where somebody started with six IMPs with very low stats (like 35 in everything, I think) and had them incredibly powerful by the end. Finding it would be a pain in my Firefox history, but if anyone does happen to find it...
I would like to see the progress of your work DakaSha, as I've started gaining interest in a similar project (whether or not I go through with it is another matter, though...) I agree that STOMP is a very useful mod, as the traits in the original game just didn't have much flavor or usefulness to them (well, they probably did, but I rarely noticed the difference).
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Corporal 1st Class
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254420]
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Mon, 21 June 2010 04:46
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DakaSha |
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Messages:49
Registered:June 2010 |
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PValI hope this will be only to correct the huge imbalance introduced by Wildfire mercs (never played them, just read the description of level 6-7 mercs costing over 8000 daily), and not a full redesign of mercs in a normal game. What you find "useless" might be very useful to others, and the standard mercs are already very well balanced. The small unbalances add to the atmosphere of the game: why would the choices matter if everyone were equally powerful?
Btw my goal isnt to make everybody equally powerful.. I dont know how you get that idea
[Updated on: Mon, 21 June 2010 04:47] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254422]
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Mon, 21 June 2010 06:23
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Headrock |
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Messages:1760
Registered:March 2006 Location: Jerusalem |
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The problem is that currently, many mercs ARE equally powerful, or at least largely indistinguishable. One reason for this is the fact that the skill system is screwed up - most skills go up very quickly, especially since they can be freely trained up, the effective difference at high levels is negligible, and most mercs start with many high attributes. The result is that most mercs are relatively on par with one another when it comes to field performance - except the ones who are specifically terrible or specifically good at something. That has more to do with traits, rather than attributes.
Unfortunately, there's no real easy solution to this, especially not one that could satisfy both realism and gameplay at the same time. But in the meanwhile, going for gameplay benefits by adjusting skill levels downwards across the board could work.
I'll drop one idea before I go to sleep:
Attributes (STR, WIS, DEX, AGI, HLT) are set on a scale of 0-100. In theory, this should mean that the average attribute for humans should be 50. In JA2, using this scale most mercs are basically superhumans, with elevated levels across the board. In other words, if you study current merc backgrounds compared to their stats you'll find that the average for humans would be around 65-70. The solution would be to normalize all attributes towards 50. Or perhaps find an individual average for each attribute.
Note that increasing the number of sub-points required to level up in these attributes would also be necessary - otherwise it won't take long to raise a merc back to his/her original stat levels.
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254425]
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Mon, 21 June 2010 07:12
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Never Darktide |
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Messages:88
Registered:July 2009 |
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Well, the rule of most RPGs is that your heroes tend to be above average, if not a bit more than above average, which often slides up to outstanding...heh.
I tried to come up with a scale for each particular attribute earlier tonight, what each trait would mean if you had it, etc. Didn't get very far.
Bear (haha, bear, bear's pit, haha) with me while I explain: I think the baseline for physical attributes would probably fall around a 60, meaning anything much below that would indicate serious deficiency in that area (or lack of conditioning, whatever - it's possible to run around all day and have no arm muscles, or to do nothing but lift weights but break a horrible sweat if you go for a jog). On the other hand, physical attributes in the high 80s-90s would mean you conditioned every day (which I can see the hardcore guys like Magic and Scully doing). Skills would be a bit different, as some people obviously don't train in them; below 35 would indicate "no significant training in this general area". High marksmanship would mean, in the words of Ivan, "gun, all gun, like finger on hand" and the accuracy to match. High aptitude in other skills would indicate a great deal of training and focus on the activity in question.
Traits (and I'm thinking STOMP here, because ever since I started using that mod, I can't give it up) open up a whole other bag. (Side note: I actually went through and modified a few STOMP traits based on what I thought was more appropriate for some mercs; if anyone wants to confer, I would be happy to.) Now, you've got the people who train a lot with guns, and you've got the people with the patience, calm, and steady aim to pull off good headshots - marksmen, and, even better, people who can perfect that - snipers. You also have the people who just "know" how to deal with weapon kickback - machinegunners. Looking at different skills, there are people who study medicine and know how to apply it in the field; this would mean a high medical skill. There are also people who take it to the next level with their own innovations, getting specialized training at the exclusion of other opportunities, which are paramedics and doctors. I could go on here for awhile...heh...but I can totally understand why some people (myself included) would be interested in changing things up, to provide a more unique gameplay for each merc, hopefully not at the cost of balance.
Or something like that.
Fun facts, the average stats among the 69 recruitable mercs (correct me if I'm wrong in this number, but I think I got everybody) are as follows:
Level: 3(.26)
Health: 81
Strength: 73
Agility: 73
Dexterity: 76
Wisdom: 75
Marksmanship: 76
Explosives: 33
Leadership: 25
Medical: 27
Mechanical: 33
Edit: Headrock, I would like to see your progression settings for each attribute as well. Thanks
[Updated on: Mon, 21 June 2010 07:13] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal 1st Class
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Re: "How does it work?" Part III: Experience Level[message #254452]
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Mon, 21 June 2010 15:25
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Headrock |
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Messages:1760
Registered:March 2006 Location: Jerusalem |
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Quote:Although this would require some fundamental changes (if 50 agility were average, then with the currant system everybody would be so slow it would prob get on peoples nerves. The pace right now is very good IMO)
Meh, I think people have become too pampered
I wanna see the average merc moving 50APs per turn, with only the best of the best doing 100.
Quote:Also if everybody shot as bad as a merc with (current) 50 the mercs would def not seem like trained mercenary's. The game would turn into a game of attrition (if thats the right word).
LOL well, with HAM Suppression turned on, that is already the case - lots of bullets fired, and you either need to close the distance to get a kill or use a marksman.
Also NCTH will have roughly the same effect - more shots, less hits.
So, reducing the marksmanship would fit right in with everything else. :vader:
Also, most of our mercs aren't supposed to be great shots. They just know how to operate a gun, and probably have a little experience with shooting, but that doesn't make them marksmen. And in this game, 80 MRK (just a bit over the average) is deadly accurate. We need more mercs with "bearable" shooting skills, like 30-60ish. As with everything else, if all mercs have high MRK, then the difference between their shooting skills is minimal. Diversity would be more interesting.
Quote:Well, the rule of most RPGs is that your heroes tend to be above average
But here most characters aren't supposed to be "heroes", they're supposed to be a ragtag band of misfits, many of whom are specialists rather than seasoned combatants.
Quote:Headrock, I would like to see your progression settings for each attribute as well.
Here:
HEALTH = 25 (note that some facilities in HAM tend to reduce health)
STRENGTH = 60
AGILITY = 40
DEXTERITY = 75
WISDOM = 65
MARKSMANSHIP = 45
EXPLOSIVES = 35
LEADERSHIP = 45
MEDICAL = 50
MECHANICAL = 45
EXP_LEVEL = 500
That's the settings I used for my latest game. Again please note that I haven't actually gotten very far in the game with these, since I tend to have to restart my campaigns often for testing purposes.
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