Current thread: Mythic forums > Technical > random levels
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| Author | Message |
Dragon Masters
4/9/2012 11:41:32 PM | Why make it so you might have a different level of adventure then the one you picked? I thought that was what the random button was for. Now with this randomizer, did you make it so monsters dont start on top of the party? Some of us are happy with running the lower adventures until we get the stuff needed to survive higher levels. As it stands now, you could very well kill a promising clan with a single encounter that they did not even come close to choosing. If this is the case, just have people take random damage as they adventure and get it over with. |
WarWorld
4/10/2012 12:07:21 PM | Question, whick xp payout level is used? the one for the one that was picked or the one that was randomized? |
WarWorld
4/10/2012 12:08:54 PM | An explaination as to why this was done would be appreciated? Also what levels are considered more difficult? Or is running normal ones acceptable?
Is this locked out on the lower level character adventures? |
Legion
4/10/2012 2:52:23 PM | The xp payout is from the one picked; xp rewards are given to those who choose harder adventures.
The random button is always random, while standard adventures are the selected level 9 times out of 10. Randoms also do not allow you to select your party and for this reason they give tremendous rewards.
The actual adventure level is always correctly displayed so you will always know from the outset what you are dealing with. By adding occasional variability to the level of the adventures, it reduces the monotony of running too-easy adventures over and over and over. It has never been my intention to make mythic warfare predictable or formulaic and dropping characters in over their heads from time to time will help players keep their edge. It may also threaten to kill high level characters.
The difference between easy and hard adventures at level 1 is not really that substantial. It is usually a difference of the number of encounters or the number of monsters per encounter. The actual monsters themselves are more or less the same and the ability to back off and flee safely is almost identical across low level adventures. A careful player already flees from difficult encounters regardless of adventure level. At higher level, however, the difference between easy and hard can be dramatic. One of the effects of this change should be an increased rate of character death across all levels, but percentage-wise, the effect on high level characters should be much more dramatic than the effect on low levels. Have a look at the following chart:
| level | death ratio |
| 1 | 12.25 |
| 2 | 3.70 |
| 3 | 2.56 |
| 4 | 1.81 |
| 5 | 2.04 |
| 6 | 0.59 |
| 7 | 0.61 |
| 8 | 0.41 |
| 9 | 0.33 |
| 10+ | 0.08 |
This table shows the "death ratio" of each level. It represents the number of dead character compared to the number of living characters at each level, and it is pretty interesting. What it says to me is that almost everyone dies at level 1, which is not news to anybody. But there is more. For those who make it to level 2, their survival rate goes way up, which is nice. In an ideal world, this gap between 1 and 2 would probably exist (but perhaps be a fair bit smaller) and the death ratio would then remain almost constant for all levels above 2. Indeed we see that the game is relatively consistent from levels 2 through 5, and in fact the drop from 2 to 3 is kind of nice to see too I guess. But look past that. Basically once a character reaches level 6 his chances of dying drop off massively, and stay low from there on. In fact, they keep getting lower as he gains levels. I guess to revisit my "ideal" we'd see something like a 8.00 value at first level, 4.00 at second level, then 2.00 at every level beyond that.
What is definitely unacceptable is the almost unkillable status of level 6+ characters. One contributing factor is the fact that by that level people have enough hp to absorb a lot of variance in adventures and in battle. For example, if you have a group of level 6+ characters and you never do anything more challenging than a "normal" adventure, there is almost no chance that you will die unless you are horribly careless or extraordinarily unlucky. But by tossing in an adventure from time to time that is of an unexpectedly high level, we can increase the chance that a player will make a fatal mistake or simply be caught in a starting scenario that makes it difficult to extract everyone safely.
Admittedly there are many ways to make the game more deadly for high level characters such as more powerful monsters with deadlier special attacks, but the careful player would simply continue to step down the difficulty until reaching that point where the monsters found were less threatening. Mythic Warfare was designed with one overriding goal to make it stand out from other adventure games: success should be dependent on player skill and never simply be a function of hours played. But when characters become almost unkillable at level 6+, that founding principle begins to get lost. I want every character to be at risk each time you click "begin adventure" and I want the most powerful clans to belong to the very best players, not simply those who played long enough to collect enough level 6+ characters so they don't have to worry about dying anymore.
As a footnote, gathering the data for this post I have noted how high the level 1 death ratio is. I will strive to make it a bit easier for level ones going forward. |
Canuckistan
4/10/2012 8:10:29 PM | i don't think you have to make it easier for level 1 characters to survive - the number should be high since many of take whatever new recruit pops up and see if they can survive to level 2 and higher. Due to the randomness of the skills/attributes, there will be a fair number that will die as fodder :)
Would be nice though if i could get more of the spellcasters (mystic, wizard, necromancer) to live long enough to be able to learn spells but it will happen!
I am one of the players that tends to play at "normal" level but that is because i outfit from the treasure picked up so don't get a lot of high quality items - and weapons for a character of 6/7/8 strength aren't always very useful against the monsters :) Will be very careful now with this random factor for levels! |
Dragon Masters
4/10/2012 11:15:05 PM | well a few suggestions on this. One, make it so high level characters cannt enter an adventure below x amount of thier levels. Two, limit or even eliminate xp/items for anything under that same level limit. Now another question. What will prevent the same people from just fleeing the odd adventure and starting a new one at a lower level? Unless the monsters start on top of them, they will not risk that adventure, though lower level characters would probably die in a hit or 2 from the higher levels. Now with the stats, level 1 deaths will always be high since a character just made and alone will more likely die from a few encounters, maybe even just one, especially if its a new player. |
4/11/2012 11:40:55 AM | Thank you sooo much for the random adventures. Lost my only cleric as well as another character due to being stuck in a level 9 dungeon with 3 sets of monsters on top of me. This is right after a level 5 dungeon that I got out of. Nothing like taking 6 rounds to flee. Not a single character past level 1. |
4/11/2012 11:42:54 AM | Turn 8
adventure level 9
base XP 0
completion multiplier 0% (0 of 10 encounters completed)
difficulty multiplier x 0.6 (introductory)
rookie learning bonus x 3.0
total xp 0.0
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WarWorld
4/11/2012 1:22:31 PM | Thanks for the explaination. Also I would suggest you need the data to run a bit more to see the immpact of less lift skill for chars. I am also willing to bet that the chars that don't die have a cleric or 2 with old level of life skills. |
killertofu
4/11/2012 2:41:42 PM | Over the past 3 days I have been trying to write a post about the recent change but i have been haveing troubles making it sound like anything other then an insulting rant. So instead of telling you why the change is bad i'll tell you how I have been playing and some game changes that would make my clan survivable.
For me... I just die. There is no other way to say it. Even a normal is a big risk! I run my guys in xp sets. I care about there + to att and def but I dont have the people to run them in good groups. So I take the best set of 4 with about the same xp and do a easy and hope for the best. Im now loseing alot more guys then I get and money. Over the past weeks and months I have seen the difficulty of the lower level increase.
When i frist started the game I could do hard and even a dangerous dugeon, with my best guys, and have hope to make it to the next level. Now days it is hard to get a guy to level 2 doing easy dugeons.
Most monsters I can just walk thru but I often find an odd monstes like a kobold with 10a 70d d6. Im not likely to hit. He can hit often and hard. I dont get any thing more from a -10a 50d d1 so i just run when i can.
Most of my guys just suck. I would take onley the good ones but with the death rate a hell of a lot more 12. I have to take every one I can. My average attack is 2.7 defence 56 damage 3. With 22 at max and -21 at min.
There are alot of things that can be done to make my clans more survivable.
- Make the weeker guys stronger
- Have monster strength range smaller
- Allow us to recruit more guys at a time
- Items should have less -x to attack
- Less xp to level!!
- more items that i can use. It is hard to find a full set of cloth
- More coins as little as 10 would help alot
- Give us some thing when we lose a high level guy.
- Clans should Progress and never be lost. When you lose your last guy you clan det if any is gone and you should keep property and any clan land.
- On the top bar change clan members to show the max number you can have.
- Change xp and items from set to be from how strong the monster you are fighting is. So if I find a 10A 70D D10 rat it will be worth killing!
Out side of me that is, Who is "routinely avoid the more challenging adventures"; and why? |
4/11/2012 11:16:38 PM | Sorry, just realized I didnt explain that completely. I did NOT use the random adventure generator, but the simple start button. First adventure put me in a level 3 dungeon. Second one was a level 5, while the third was the level 9. This all came from the 10% chance of having a harder/easier adventure tweak. It was supposed to be a level 1 introductory adventure. |
Dragon Masters
4/12/2012 9:42:05 AM | Ive got 2 level 3's, 3 level 2's and the rest are level 1 in this clan. I do the low level adventures, but tend to run the higher levels with the lower ones to avoid too much death of the lower level characters. The down side is, you dont get much in the way of equpiment for the lower characters, though occasionally you do get something for them besides death. It is frustrating that the next adventure, that item seems to be destroyed. I agree with most of the suggestions that notan has posted. A minimum of like 5 hp should be there for recruits. Would like a minimum for some stats for all recruits, but then I havent spent any funds on recruiting, so not sure if that is why I get alot of damage absorbtion characters. One thing I would add is a little more intellegent distribution of items. Nothing like someone that can use a bow picking up a sword, while the person that can use the sword, picks up the bow. I have not gotten clan lands yet so couldnt comment on that. |
Dragon Masters
4/12/2012 9:42:07 AM | Not good. Had the post repost a few times. Think its the anti virus i got in my system. Guess that is something that might need to be tweaked. The post area not reposting the same message more then once. :) |
Dragon Masters
4/12/2012 9:42:08 AM | Maybe a delete message feature would be nice as well. |
Dragon Masters
4/12/2012 9:42:08 AM | And now fixing the last of the multi post of the same message. Sorry for the spam, but dont think you want to see the same thing a few times. |
Canuckistan
4/12/2012 3:42:54 PM | hey Dragon - the stats do improve with a bit of money spent. I find i'll get useful characters spending .03 on recruitment every few recruits (i try to keep my clan gold above 10) and it also increases the odds of getting the more rare types (like paladin, ninja etc) |
Legion
4/13/2012 11:40:04 AM | A couple things. First, yes, the characters improve a lot with money spent. Part of the satisfaction of building a good clan will be the fact that as you progress your new guys will get better and better. It also somewhat tempers the pain of losing your highest level guys, since they will generally be far inferior to your newer guys who were recruited at higher rates.
But secondly I want to remind everyone about fleeing. I was just looking over level 0-5 adventure stats. Looking at my own clan, for instance, I saw that I complete about 80% of my level 0-5 adventures, and flee or exit the other 20% without killing everything.
Now I KNOW you're not all using recruits as good as mine (8gp) and I also know you're not all playing as carefully as I am, and I definitely know you don't all know the ins-and-outs of every monster like I do (obviously).
So how can we explain that fact that some of you don't even flee half as often as me? Silverlode completes a crazy 97% of his low level adventures. Granted, he uses good recruits too, but still that is insane in my opinion. And some of you using poor recruits still have flee rates less than half of my own, with PiGuys completing 91% or Dragon Masters 90%.
Clappendectomy seems to have more success than anyone, in my opinion, and he completes 84% of his level 0-5s, and he uses recruits around 4gp normally.
So these numbers are curious and might explain why some of you may feel that it is too hard to succeed at level one. If I were using 0gp recruits I might try to complete around 50% of my level 0-5s. In fact, once in a while I get a bad recruit even at high-gp rates and I suspect they probably only complete around 20-25% of adventures.
My point, I believe, is that some of you guys who are having a hard time getting a high % of your guys to level 2 are probably pushing them too hard. I am EXTREMELY careful when I adventure, scouting every monster carefully, using corners and swapping weapons and backing off all the time, or moving through/past many monster groups to find the exit without fighting them. Even with my knowledge and careful play I would never dream of finishing 80% of my level 0s with 0gp recruits, so seeing you guys with 90%+ completion rates is really strange. I think you might find more long-term success if you flee more. Don't try to kill everything! This game is not one of those games where every scenario is winnable, as you well know. Remember, the successful player will adjust his strategy to the game, not try to force the game to fit his strategy. I don't mean to say you should all copy me or that I have the best strategy (in fact, I know that I do not!). And many of you have no complaints about a high-death playing style and I applaud you for it. But for some who consider the game too hard to get to level 2 but who try to kill every monster they see, it might be worth considering expanding the range of monsters you flee from. As always, best of luck to everyone and enjoy the game.
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Sardonic
4/13/2012 1:13:15 PM | I am a fan of the new additions, plain and simple. I love this game for its sheer randomness in difficulty and rewards. This new addition only heightens that.
Thumbs up! |
WarWorld
4/13/2012 2:00:16 PM | Since I was mentioned, yes I use good recruits but I also push for completion since you get the exp bonus. Also my low level adventures (which means what by the way?) they get to the end and usually that is the only adventure they do. For the most part I do normal adventures with level 3 or higher characters. But since survival rates are low for level 1 and 2 chars I do run them at lower risks. But I probably lose more level 4 and up characters than others do. |
WarWorld
4/13/2012 2:02:10 PM | Also, unless I am doing something wrong, seems I get more cash from doing 2 normal adventures than I do from 1 hard adventure. |
Canuckistan
4/13/2012 2:24:39 PM | cool - i finish 91%! lol
I do tend to maximize how many will be in a group and then as the adventure progresses, the more injured back out of the group and exit. I try to flee as little as possible in order to get the experience points and bonus (like silverlode) but have no qualms about taking an exit sign (if i have found one) when too many are injured and it looks like it may be a dangerous monster ahead.
I like the difficulty and don't mind having the weaker ones killed off - rather them die early than invest loads of time for them to get killed quickly against higher lvl monsters, although i am still puzzing how one of my yeoman has managed to make it lvl 4 with only 3 willpower - the others must drag him through the adventures! |
Dark Realm
4/13/2012 2:25:07 PM | i like the change(at least until i lose a guy hehe) it will add to the experience though i do shudder at the thought of having one of those really insane starts and a random mythic....ive seen some of the starts where clappy and legion sit for a few days trying to figure out best way to actually flee a really unlucky start. |
4/13/2012 9:12:25 PM | Have you looked into the using the normal start button and having 100% of the adventures (for the last time I ran them) and having it come up with a level 3 dungeon, then a level 5, and finally ending in a level 9, using the lowest setting? If this is gonna be standard for using the normal start button with characters with less then 30 xp, please tell me now so I dont bother anyone anymore. |
Dragon Masters
4/13/2012 9:41:17 PM | Ok so what decides a completion? The full extermination of monsters, or finding the gray square that has the exit? It is easy to send someone thru monsters you are fighting to get to the gray square. Now as for the fleeing, Legion has said he wants more danger for people, yet is saying he flees more then twice what I do for low level adventures. He wants more characters to die, especially at higher levels, but yet is saying we should flee more. Is it just me, or does this sound backwards? |
Dragon Masters
4/13/2012 9:44:12 PM | And by the way, thanks for the info on the fleeing. I thought I was just having problems with the game and realize, Im doing better then I guess I should be, even with the cruddy characters. :) |
4/21/2012 9:28:51 PM | adventure level 9
base XP 0
completion multiplier 0% (0 of 7 encounters completed)
difficulty multiplier x 0.6 (introductory)
rookie learning bonus x 3.0
total xp 0.0
Sooo nice to run 3 adventures and on the fourth one get tossed into a level 9 adventure with no one over 30 xp. Lost the only person in this clan to have any healing skills without even a chance of running, though it took 6 rounds to finally die after telling them all to flee. Sooo glad you put in the randomizer for the normal every day start button to kill off high level characters. So far I have only seen 1st level characters die from it. Thanks. Really has made the game not worth even playing anymore. |
Legion
4/22/2012 1:00:57 PM | Two thing. First, any adventure of exclusively level 1 characters will be excluded from the variable-level adventures. Secondly it looks like we may, unfortunately, need some sort of forum rules and oversight. That last post was not constructive and is downright mean-spirited. That type of comment has the potential to turn people off to the game in a big way, and as a community we may need to brainstorm a little to think of ways for keeping these public messages from becoming unfriendly. |
killertofu
4/22/2012 2:15:30 PM | From time to time we all need to vent. I feel the same way as Night Riders. His post is not that bad. Night Riders is just trying to say how frustrated he is with this game. Alot of players feel this was, Thay don't post in the message bord or login more then 1 or 2 times.
You have made your decision on the course of the game. It is the wrong one! That is picking the best game for you, over a a game for everyone. You would make alot more money if you think face book people when making the game.
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Dragon Masters
4/22/2012 6:40:33 PM | You want constructive posts. Thats cool. You say it is mean spirited to say the game has had something implemented that kills characters by throwing them into adventures that are not even selected. Losing characters after 6 to 8 rounds of fleeing, because they were thrown into a level 9 adventure by some random fluke, that should never have seen the light of day, and then tell you it blows. Granted it wasnt sugar coated. Seriously. This particular 'upgrade' has made it less fun to play the game, since the game loves to start you off on monster groups, and when they are 4+ monsters in the group that do more damage in a single shot then a character can have, and cannt flee makes people really not want to play. I take it you have not had characters die from starting on top of monster groups and couldnt do anything to flee. Well if you did, then you know what is being discussed. Risk is always in a random number generated game. There is a point where it becomes too much unnecessary risky, then becomes more of redundant boredom. As it seems the game is playable only if you run from everything but the weakest monsters. I, for one, dont think thats much fun. |
Legion
4/22/2012 8:39:20 PM | Dragon, vitrually every character I've lost has been due to starting in bad situations on top of monster groups. Its not quite literally the only way to get killed, but it feels like it sometimes. Certainly all the high levels I've lost have been due to bad starts. This is precisely the reason that those starts are needed from time to time. Without them, high level guys simply would not die much.
And I agree with NotAn 100% as well. If I made this game with "face book people" in mind it could be a lot more popular. My goal has never been to make this game something a broad audience would like. It has been to make a game for hard-core gamers, if you will. To make the hardest game out there, for people who play everything in ironman mode and never restore saved games. Oh, one more thing, Dragon I've lost more level 5+ characters in the last 6 months than any other player, including those who ran way more adventures over that time span than I have. So its not that I don't understand how hard it is, or that I don't suffer the losses others suffer. In fact my clan has steadily slipped from its lofty #1 rankings and shrunk in size as my top guys have died off.
That is the game I want this to be. Something where you can't just grow indefinitely but rather hit some kind of plateau where you'll have to improve your game somehow to make any progress whatsoever. Am I making the game I want, rather than a game for everyone, as NotAn says? You bet I am. I'm trying to make the best game I can without worrying about whether it will "make alot more money" or appeal to the masses. I know there are a lot of other people out there with a more or less similar taste in brutally challenging games, and I'd hope that someday they will find and enjoy Mythic Warfare as I do.
As the warnings say when you start playing, all your characters will die in the end. This means that even with flawless and brilliant play your characters must ultimately die. Logic dictates that if perfect play must still result in an occasional death, it follows that death must occur from time to time in a manner that you simply cannot avoid no matter how careful you are.
All that said, as I mentioned in my last post I have excluded level 1 characters from the 10% random-difficulty rule, since new players generally lack the game experience to recognize hard adventures before its too late. And as some of you have pointed out, the game is hard enough for level 1 characters. I agree with you.
Finally I'd like to address the appropriateness of Night Rider's post again. Maybe I'm just overly sensitive. But I took that post really personally and to be honest, it really hurt my feelings. Maybe some of you don't mind being talked to that way, but I do. It made me feel really bad, and defensive, and just plain sad. I know everyone won't like this game and I know not everyone is kind, but please, think about what you're writing. Think about how you would feel if you put a lot of work into something and got that kind of feedback. You're not writing to some faceless corporation or professional PR personnel. Its just me here, doing this in my spare time, and that level of sarcasm can be hurtful. And I know it wasn't nearly as negative as it could have been, but that doesn't change the fact that it kind of ruined my morning today and made Mythic Warfare a little less enjoyable to work on and think about. Its not what was said, its how it was said that bothered me. I'm spending a lot of my own time and money each month to bring this game to you guys, and the truth is that its time and money I should be spending elsewhere. I'm certainly not looking for praise or sympathy, but I don't think a little courtesy is too much to ask. I try to treat all players and new ideas with respect and I expect the same in return. |
Clappendectomy
4/22/2012 9:22:30 PM | I have to agree with Legion about tone and respect. One of the great things about this small community has been how respectful and helpful everyone is. It's frustrating to lose guys (I'm pretty sure I hold the all time record for most guys lost in a single adventure with like 8 level 5's getting massacred in a botched flee) and you may not agree with every change that is made, but in the end the game keeps getting better, the clans keep growing and getting stronger.
The truth is Legion's judgement seems to be better than pretty much everyone else's about what will improve gameplay over the long run. His terrible ideas often end up being pretty good, and he's constantly recalibrating things to keep them challenging but not impossible. If it feels too easy or too hard, just hang in there because chances are it won't be for long.
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Dragon Masters
4/25/2012 9:09:48 PM | The owner of night riders is my room mate. They also own the ass clan. Once the game pull a level 9 random dungeon on the ass clan with the death of his healers, he waited about a week to even try the night riders clan. Same thing happened in that clan as well. It seemed that it is was over 40% chance of a higher level for the start button, and really pissed them off. Yes, they can be an ass, so dont take it personally. Tact has never been a strong point. Now having programmed another game we know and love to hate, I would have figured you would have taken comments like those and put them in the enraged moron file and left it there. Sorry if you didnt. On a side note, maybe forcing random dungeons on higher level characters that dont run in an appriopriate dungeon levels might work better then forcing all characters into one. Even scouting every last monster you still run into those that do not wanna die until they do massive damage to your party because rng loves playing with people at times. Had more then a few d3 rats nearly kill my level 2/3 characters and wouldnt die when it had only 4 hp. |