Experience and Powering Up

[MoLAoS]

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[Omega]

To be honest, I would think that getting levels from experience and those levels giving you set bonuses would be the best way to go. That was the original proposal I made a while back, is most similar to the current kill-count system (less difficult to adapt to), most likely easiest to implement (though you're the programmer, ultimately), less micromanagement (I never considered Glest to be the most micro-compatible game, and it'd be a pain keeping track of units to level up), and it would work best with a large number of units. The other two "leveling systems" might work with hero units, but not with the many other units we'd see in the game.

If it's possible to have more than one system available (for example, we could specify to use a level based system for regular units, and an upgrade based system for heroes), then that could allow modders to "get the best of both worlds". However, I think that may also be overcomplicating things, and neither of the first two options would work well at all for "minor units" (it's simply too hard to keep track of all your battlemages). If we go with the third option, experience based leveling, then it'd be possible to expand to allow multiple systems in the future (if there's demand for that).

So in short, I think it'd be best, for the moment, anyway, to just go with the third option, experience based leveling.


As for how I think that should be implemented, I like the concepts that were mentioned in my thread, a bit back. We could specify the experience points a unit would be worth (and not specifying so would default to the unit's HP). You'd receive experience points "real time" as you deal damage. If you dealt an attack that took off 50% of the foe's health, you'd gain 50% of their experience value (of course, this means that a unit with regeneration may give slightly more experience than one without). The leveling system would be the same as already existing, but would specify a total number of experience points needed to level up instead of a number of kills.

[John.d.h]

I feel like the D&D-style leveling system is less flexible than a "spend it as you get it" experience system, has been done to death, and creates weird situations where defeating a big boss monster puts you at 1,995xp but then killing his kobold butler puts you at 2,002xp, causing you to level up.  However, having explicit levels does make it easier to keep track of progress, easier to gauge a unit's strength at a glance, and gives more of a sense of accomplishment when hitting a new level.  Also, it can be easier to base game mechanics on a character's power if there is an actual number assigned to it.  For these reasons, I think it is better suited if you plan on having multiple hero units, or just hero units mixed in with a regular army.

If you have only have a few characters total, a non-leveling system may be better because it makes more sense and can allow finer-grain control over a character's progress.  This would be if you were to have perhaps one leader unit for your army (in the style of Warlords Battlecry 3, as you mentioned), or you were making a flat-out RPG conversion where micromanagement would not be such a problem.  If you've got a hundred units on the map and ten of them are heroes, you probably don't want to have to keep track of such things.

[Coldfusionstorm]

micro?, this have have 0 micro mechanics. Micro is individually controlling single units, or a small group of units to accomplish victory in a game where the enemy's army are supirior.

Wich glest SUCKS at.(altho, since MG and GAE have different interfaces i can't really say if GAE have better or worse UI mechanics).

[Coldfusionstorm]

TL:DR Interface is too cumbersome, i saw the post and wanted to reply but because its 2:30 in the night im dead tirred and im basically going to post a secod with a more awake and better description of my problem with glest and micro.

I miss the ability to select individual units in the menu individiually,

fx, starcraft 2, uses a way of grouping.

So imange you have 3 types of unit's in one available,

10 footmen
2 healers
3 archers.

by pressing alt your would psusedo select units. meaning you can't move individiual units, but if fx achers had a bombard ability, you would need to press the key "b" 3 times on a target location. if you then wanted the healers to heal two different areas, you could tab again and "move" the unit selection to the healers. Then press "e" and place one of the healers to the right, and and then "e" again to place the second heal area.

Couple of notes:i realise that some of the abilities im talking about dont really exist.