Experience potions -> based on player's level

[fph]

I also like them as they are. The occasional game in which one propels you to CLVL30 is odd, but it is just a different challenge (and a memorable one); there are many things in the game that feel more un-fun than this experience to me.

[Pete Mack]

@Sky--
Who cares if the extremely rare OOD !Experience is unbalancing? Rare unbalancing finds are fun! They lead to a different kind of game. It's randarts (and similar issues) that are a real problem: they are unbalanced in every game they are enabled.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Sky

well, they could be modified to add 1 level or 100k, whichever is less. Probably sucks for people who are 1xp away from levelling up, although that's very much a typical Angband thing. In my opinion, 10k xp is plenty to make people happy, but not be too overpowered.

They were probably balanced in a Angband where you still had potions of explosions and winning was more gambling than tactics.

To avoid the "1xp away from levelling up" issue you can define the 1 level as "xp milestone difference between @'s current level and next level".
So the given xp would depend only on current level of @, not the actual xp it gained so far.

[whartung]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

@Sky--
Who cares if the extremely rare OOD !Experience is unbalancing? Rare unbalancing finds are fun! They lead to a different kind of game. It's randarts (and similar issues) that are a real problem: they are unbalanced in every game they are enabled.

I don't even think it's that unbalancing. it's one thing to have a rush to CL30, it's another to have the gear, resists, etc. to survive at the lower levels. You still have to go through that.

You still don't have the high level spellbooks, etc. You have more mana, and more health, which, while not nothing, aren't the only things needed to run the lower realms.

If anything, you are now overpowered and overconfident enough to be apt to do something stupid that gets you killed, so it may balance out in the end.

[emulord]

I think the old version was fine. The mood whiplash of gaining 25 levels is too crazy. Plus 1 or 2 levels is a noticeable bump in power

[Angdrim]

If you want to avoid the problem of giving a players only 10 exp if they're right by the next level, you could make it so that if they're X points away from level Y it pushes them up to X points away from level (Y + 1).


"They were probably balanced in a Angband where you still had potions of explosions and winning was more gambling than tactics."

Well, back then you didn't drink un-ID'd potions.

[Sky]

everyone here is posting solutions which are totally viable both in gameplay and in coding - but nobody is approaching the question from a holistic point of view:

what is the problem with XP potions?


i'm not implying that "there's no problem" - but i see that different people view !xp differently.


As i already stated, i think !xp give too much xp when you are at their native depth. And at DL98 there is rarely a level that doesn't have at least 1 !xp on it. When you gotta do 600k xp to go from 49 to 50, most of it will come from !xp rather than from mobs.
At CL49 a greater wyrm is generally around 20k xp. And they are less common than !xp potions!! Your typical dungeon level will have maybe 5/6 wyrms and 1-2 potions.

Obviously you got your balrog pits and wyrm cities, but those are not farmable *as easily* and will likely get ignored, destroyed or banished.

[mrfy]

I would argue that there is no problem with how they are currently. Sure, finding one early can overbalance your character by advancing it in levels, but You still need to find the gear to survive. And finding them later on it has little effect.

Finding one early is like finding the One Ring, imo. Amazing and rare, and makes the game fun. But there's no guarantee you're going to win. Keep it like it is, please.

[archolewa]

Originally Posted by Sky

When you gotta do 600k xp to go from 49 to 50, most of it will come from !xp rather than from mobs.
At CL49 a greater wyrm is generally around 20k xp. And they are less common than !xp potions!! Your typical dungeon level will have maybe 5/6 wyrms and 1-2 potions.

Why is this a problem? By the time you're going from level 49 to 50, experience is no longer important. Maybe if you're a pure caster and that level gets you a few more spells at 0% failure,but even then its not *that* important. Gear and consumables are much more important at that point, something that Wyrms drop a lot of (how many experience potions have you found that dropped half a dozen items?)

[Thraalbee]

I vote for keep them as they are. Only very rarely is my game much impacted by these and it is fun when you find one early. And they are still less useful than equally rare early BoS or RoS or PDSM or ...