Combat System with no levelling cap

[ItHadToComeToThis]

Could it work in SL?.

Iv been thinking for a while that I would like my system to not have any kind of cap and just keep allowing the player to progress. The combat levelling is very...organic?....you simply use something or get damaged to become stronger. What I would like to avoid is there becoming a large gap between players where new players are unable to kill anyone and old players can one hit them.

At the minute the levelling is simple. 200 levels, each level giving 0.5-1% more of the base damage/health they started with.

What I would rather not have to do is make a whole new hud in a year after everyone’s maxed out.

How do you think I could balance it. Fair fighting across the levels, no level cap, no ridiculous gap in fighting capabilities

[Mollymews]

a way is to level up the junior combatant to within say 10% (pick some % suitable for your game) of the higher ranked senior combatant for the duration of the match

Combatant 1.  Rank 1000

Combatant 2. Rank 500

Combatant 3. Rank 100

1 vs 2: 1 vs 3: Level up 2 and 3 to Rank 900

2 vs 3: Level up 3 to Rank 450

The higher rank player always has an advantage (some %) but the junior still has a reasonable shot at winning a match

New /junior players get to have a go at playing at a higher level, which hopefully/usually encourages them to come back and try to get the higher rank powers for all the time.

Combatant 1 will still be on top of the all-time leaderboard, which is what they are usually/typically wanting, to be No. 1 on the board

[Nova Convair]

You need to put a logarithmic function into the calculation of the abilities.
That way the increase per level will slow down the more the higher you get.
That will prevent godlike charakters.

[Mollymews]

in a unlimited top ranking value game (unlimited meaning up to MAX_INT) we have to be careful in selecting logarithms, when a goal is to give new players some reasonable  chance of beating the top ranked player.

Example LogN table:

 

 Rank   LogN  Scale Disadvantage
 1,000  6.91  1.00  0%
 500    6.21  0.90  -10%
 100    4.61  0.67  -33%
 50     3.91  0.57  -43%
 10     2.30  0.33  -67%
 5      1.61  0.23  -77%
 1      0.00  0.00  -100%

in the LogN table a Rank 10 player has only 1/3 power/strength of the top ranked player. Which in most games means the newish Rank 10 player is going to get wasted by the Rank 1,000 player

[Rachel1206]

Logarithmic functions are used in general with statistics, economics, social science etc, where you want a trend to increase, but have diminishing returns.

Using base 10 logarithm is a handy way to calculate the factor and is used general in game design. Combined with shield, health etc, quite advanced combat mechanics can be made simple, in LSL with the function llLog10().

[Mollymews]

Log10 table

1000  3.00000    1.00000    
500   2.69897    0.89966    -10%
100   2.00000    0.66667    -33%
50    1.69897    0.56632    -43%
10    1.00000    0.33333    -67%
5     0.69897    0.23299    -77%
1     0.00000    0.00000    -100%

level 1000 senior player has a 2 to 1 advantage over a level 10 junior player in power/strength. The junior will get wasted by the senior

is not until a junior player is at half or more the level of the senior player does the log10 difference in advantage/disadvantage become 10% or less

some comparisions for the lower levels

level 10 vs level 50 = -41% disadvantage
level 5 vs level 50 = -59% disadvantage
level 5 vs level 10 = -30% disadvantage

for sure we can use a logarithmic scale to assign power/strength to a level. What we shouldn't do is expect this all by itself to stop the higher level players from wasting the lower levels

my experience is that on a match-by-match basis we are best to level up the juniors for the duration of the match.

for example: Level 1000 player receives 10 hits to die. Any opponent less than Level 1000 receives 9 hits to die. 10% advantage/disadvantage

[Nova Convair]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

level 1000 senior player has a 2 to 1 advantage over a level 10 junior player in power/strength. The junior will get wasted by the senior

No that's not a problem. If you have a 1v1 combat system in mind - leveling is crap completely. You need a class system then (class1, class2, ...) Duels within same classes.

In a group combat 2 to 1 advances don't matter. Synergy of the powers and teamwork will win if the groups aren't too different in numbers and levels.

For the formula - you don't need to limit on logN or log10 although log10 looks good I think. But that can be taylored as needed.

[ItHadToComeToThis]

3 hours ago, Nova Convair said:

No that's not a problem. If you have a 1v1 combat system in mind - leveling is crap completely. You need a class system then (class1, class2, ...) Duels within same classes.

In a group combat 2 to 1 advances don't matter. Synergy of the powers and teamwork will win if the groups aren't too different in numbers and levels.

For the formula - you don't need to limit on logN or log10 although log10 looks good I think. But that can be taylored as needed.

I do have a class system in place. However I need the players to at least feel like they are achieving something. Victories are all good but there needs to be a reason to progress besides victory. An endless levelling system to me gives that little bit extra progression. The Log10 looks good, I haven’t played around with that too much so going to give it a try later.

Im trying to make the system more about skill but I also need that gratification to keep people playing.

I have been trying to make a sword fighting aspect using llCastRay with more accurate rays the higher your skill but...I keep detecting myself 😑

[ItHadToComeToThis]

It’s finding the right distance that doesn’t hit me but will also still damage people who are close

[Mollymews]

19 hours ago, Nova Convair said:

For the formula - you don't need to limit on logN or log10 although log10 looks good I think. But that can be taylored as neede

16 hours ago, ItHadToComeToThis said:

I do have a class system in place. However I need the players to at least feel like they are achieving something. Victories are all good but there needs to be a reason to progress besides victory. An endless levelling system to me gives that little bit extra progression. The Log10 looks good, I haven’t played around with that too much so going to give it a try later.

as Rachael and Nova mention Log10 is easy to work with. Is a LSL function

suggest that if you go with Log10 then start Level 1 (new person) at not less than the midpoint 0.5 on the scale 0.0 and 1.0. Where 1.0 is the highest level that could be achieved.

for example when the highest achievable is Level 1,000,000 then the beginner level is 1,000

Log10(1,000,000) =  6.0. Log10(1,000) = 3.0

what this does is that the best player in the game (level 1,000,000) will never be more than twice as powerful as the newest player (level 1,000)