SBURBDEV Forum

[The Cool]

So yeah.

Are we going to make it title-based, like in canon?
Or a simple level number?

Should it be based on experience for defeating enemies, or based on events?
I see it working three different ways:



Event=Level
First level up at slaying first imp
Second level at slaying third imp
...
Twentieth level at first activation of class abilities
and so on

Experience=Level
1x prototyped imp = 20 points
2x prototyped Giclops = 200 points
and so on

Event=Experience
First imp slain=20 points
Third Imp Slain=70 points
...
First Giclops slain=300 points
One Hundredth Imp Slain=350 points
...
First activation of class abilities=2000 points
and so on




Personally, I prefer the third.
It allows for level grinding, and also leveling up for stuff like ectobiology and The Windy Thing.

Everyone else, throw in your ideas!

[AgentPaper]

We could potentially have a "first time killed this enemy type" bonus, but beyond that, it seems a bit silly to try and give each kill number of a specific enemy a specific experience value. The first option also brings in problems: What if they skip a bunch of enemies and kill the first biclops (event for echelevel 4) before they kill 20 imps (event for echelevel 3)? It seems a bit pointless over a more standardized experience system, and I don't think that's how it works in the comic anyways.

[Oxide]

I think what he means is having them as global quests that follow the player disregarding the area.

Those quests would be relatively distant like this:

Kill a total of 1 imp: 100xp
Kill a total of 10 imps: 100xp
Kill a total of 50 imps: 500xp
Kill a total of 250 imps: 1000xp
Kill a total of 1000 imps: 2000xp
Then have the same thing for giclops with a 3x experience gain factor for example. Rince and repeat with each enemy type.

In that case, since they behave like quests, you work against grinding because killing monsters doesn't give you xp per se. Killing 1000 imps is something that the average player should eventually accomplish during normal gameplay.
It also allows killing monsters to still have value, so they're not worth grinding for, but they're not so worthless that you won't even bother killing them.

[The Cool]

Now that I think about it more, it seems like XBOX achievements, but the gamerscore is your XP
And there's a LOT of achievements.

[Interloper]

I would use a Fallout New Vegas style system, where you have levels and XP, then killing things grant XP, certain achievements (kill X imps) grant repeatable bonuses - so if you kill 2X imps you get another XP boost, then you also get XP from quests. (in Fallout New Vegas achievements give you gamerscore AND XP)

People will expect killing an enemy to generate XP, which it should. Additionally, quests would be expected to give an XP bonus. The "achievement" based bonuses would provide extra incentives to play certain ways or repeatable goals to work towards. It just makes sense this way.

Ladder naming might occur in such a way that you have say 100 levels (maybe 50 would also be a good cap, but it has to be high, albeit attainable), and then of those 100 you get randomly selected themed titles based on:
-Interests (Like how Jade is interested in nuclear physics, she gets radiation themed titles)
-Titles (ie, Heir transparent)
-Quests (doing significant plot based quests might yield titles, like ectobiolobabysitter)
-Domains (the most obvious one would be puns based on that, like how John gets all the windy levels)
-Height based (Greentyke being the most obvious, then higher titles get more experienced sounding names)
-Strife Specibus (Certain rungs are based on the weapons you wield)
And then those could be matched up with descriptors based on how high you are, so low levels get juvenile titles, high levels get more adult sounding ones.

Practically you could segment off every group of say five and have a set series of puns to use, that are then applied in random order:
So from levels 1 to 10 you can use only synonyms for little kids to describe the height on the ladder.
Two puns from the string table regarding each category are added, then paired with a random height synonym, then arranged in essentially arbitrary order.
Check to see if any can be replaced with quest relevant or other "milestone" levels, if so, do so.

[Khosan]

I think, for the time being, we should skip the echeladders' named levels and just stick with the name and a number for now. So Boy Skylark - 1 and whatnot. And, yeah, I'd agree with the idea of experience from 'achievements' and the other normal sources of experience.

Another issue is what do the different echeladders actually do. There's the obvious stuff like grist capacity, boondollars and gel viscosity (which is basically constitution/damage reduction), but Man Grit's kind of a mystery. It's probably another stat bonus like gel viscosity, but for damage/strength instead of health.

[Interloper]

I assume it's basically strength, yeah - so a boost for melee weapon damage and/or speed.

[immortius]

Without any other references, I would guess Man Grit is John's main and only stat, and each character has a similar but differently named stat (Rose possibly has Lass Wit).