A Good Drop System

[Skeletor]

OH BOB SAGET

1- rats piercing armors aren't realistic

I think rats becoming more powerful is as realistic as the player character becoming more powerful. (I.e. both are not realistic, but since the second one is a RPG convention, you should not protest that the first one is not realistic.)

RPG convention? Not true, and by the way who cares, rats becoming dangerous to heavy armored adventurers are just something stupid, that's not much to talk about.

2- come on, it's cheesy

I see no problem... Although it would be possible to do it in a more interesting way than ADOM does (e.g. goblins advancing to goblin rockthrowers or whatever, instead of having two separate types of goblins which can advance independently)

Then just find a substitute for the monster you want to "level up" and call it in another way (like "bugbear", "gnoll" or whatever) so that as soon as the player see it he can start signifying the environment logically and consequencially to how much he's now stronger than before.

3- it doesn't reward the player to achieve new levels, because no matter how they grow strong there will always be a stronger goblin

I am not sure how ADOM does this, but if the player character of level P, on dungeon level D, finds goblins of level D-G (where G is the depth at which the goblins appear first), then your argument is false (if you do not achieve new levels, the goblins deeply in the dungeon will still be stronger, so you will have less chance against them).
(I suppose the formula in ADOM is rather something like (2D/3+P/3-G)+K/F where K is the number of goblins killed and F is the goblin frequency, and you have some point, due to this P/3. The last component is AFAIK what causes the uberjackal effect, since you kill a lot of them while ADOM thinks they are rare.)

Sorry I don't understand what you're trying to mean here.
All I know is that monster levelling is unfunny, cheap, unrealistic, shallowing (because it decreases the tactical approach diversification to the same monster as further the player grows stronger) and also easily avoidable (instead of making an high level goblin appear, just put 7 goblins in that room or an ogre or a well equipped goblin).

4- it makes the tactic aspect stable over time

But new types of monsters appear in the dungeon... and monsters like goblins stop being a nuisance, even if experienced.

If they have to stop being a nuisance, then why the hell do you need to introduce monster levelling at all!? ;-)

Just my 2 cents mate.

[Z]

RPG convention? Not true, and by the way who cares, rats becoming dangerous to heavy armored adventurers are just something stupid, that's not much to talk about.

You think it is realistic that a Level 1 character has 30 HP and a (naked) end game character has 600 HP? Only because he has killed lots of enemies? And that happens in most RPGs. Isn't it a RPG convention then?

Sorry I don't understand what you're trying to mean here.

In simple words: the fact that you can find stronger goblins on lower levels means that you should also try to get stronger (while you have said that since the goblins get stronger on lower levels, it makes no sense to become stronger yourself).

All I know is that monster levelling is unfunny, cheap, unrealistic, shallowing (because it decreases the tactical approach diversification to the same monster as further the player grows stronger) and also easily avoidable (instead of making an high level goblin appear, just put 7 goblins in that room or an ogre or a well equipped goblin).

I think it depends on how you view the game world. You can take an egocentric view, where your player character is something very special, or a "monsters are players" (MAP) view, where the player is just the same kind of entity as every other monster, just behaves more intelligently (due to being controlled by the player). In the egocentric view, it is indeed more practical to assume that everything named "goblin" is the same weak monster. But in the MAP view, assuming that only the player character can use equipment, or gain new skills after killing enemies, is not logical, and thus monster leveling is expected. And not logical means not realistic and not fun.

Also, some games try to simulate a living world, and some aim at being tactically interesting. MAP view is much better for simulation, but egocentric view is a bit better for tactics. Although I think a very well executed MAP view could be better for tactic. But I don't know a major game which does it very well.

Regarding the well equipped goblin: what's the difference between a well equipped goblin and a high level goblin? I think your arguments apply to the well equipped goblin to the same extent as they apply to the high level goblin.

If they have to stop being a nuisance, then why the hell do you need to introduce monster levelling at all!? ;-)

I don't know why Thomas Biskup has introduced monster levelling in ADOM, but I suppose the reason was to satisfy the MAP view outlined above. Also, you can have allies in ADOM, and the MAP view is especially important in this case. You want your allies to become stronger with experience, in the same way as you do. And you need monster leveling for that.

Note that all my arguments are generic. I don't know a game where monster leveling is done in an interesting way. In ADOM it probably causes more harm than good (for players who look at the game from tactical or egocentric point of view; in my MAP view monster inventories and monster XP are good moves). In e.g. IVAN monsters seem to behave exactly like the player character, that could develop into something interesting, but it needs some work - although IVAN has Skeletor's problem 3: a stronger character attracts stronger enemies, which means that you should try to keep your character not too strong, instead of using all the power you find. But I think it is possible to do it correctly.

[Bear]

Sigh.

You've stumbled into a long-standing argument here.  Keep in mind that a lot of the comments aimed at "monster leveling" are aimed at some of the worst examples of the game mechanic, and not at the way (whatever the way) you are doing it or intend to do it.

ADOM had a problem in early releases where characters would "farm" an easy monster like Jackals to level up.  Biskup "fixed" it by making Jackals, as a species, level faster than a single human being who's killing jackals.  Thus, by the time you've slaughtered enough Jackals to get third level, the Jackals have morphed into super-jackals who are more challenging to you now than the regular jackals were at first level.  This is about the point where you realize you're screwed if you slaughter too many more jackals, so you start actively avoiding them -- except you can't completely avoid them, and before long you have to deal with über-jackals which are death-on-wheels. If you run into a pack of those, even with an end-game character, you'll usually lose. 

The same is true of most (all?) species in ADOM - the more you kill them, the stronger the ones you haven't killed get. The effect is most pronounced with Jackals and a couple of other very common things you will wind up killing a lot of whether you want to or not.

A lot of players dislike this because it robs them of a feeling of accomplishment.  I've gained three levels, they say, I ought to be curbstomping the creatures that used to give me trouble.  I empathize with this one - these players are right.  If you level up, you ought to be fighting new challenges, not super'ed-up versions of the same old challenges.  I feel that a game designer owes the players at least that much of a sense of progress.  A lot of players dislike this because they don't have any winning strategies if there isn't something they can easily farm for infinite experience.  I don't really care about the opinions of players like that.  A lot of players, including me, dislike it because after a couple of über-jackals we discover that our disbelief needs some new shocks and struts.  These creatures don't move, act, or hit like the same species, it's absolutely nonsensical in terms of leveling because the ones who are leveling up are not the ones who've had any fighting experience, and I just can't suspend disbelief hard enough to go along with the fiction of large-scale evolution affecting a whole species, due to the actions of a single agent, happening in less than a single generation. Maybe it's just me, but being asked to swallow something like that feels downright insulting.

There are only two good things that can be said of it; First, it doesn't kick in so fast that players who don't actively seek out low-level monsters to kill for experience are likely to be badly affected.  Second, it achieves the game balance purpose that you can't farm low-level monsters to build epic-scale experience levels anymore.  But that purpose could have been achieved in a much simpler way, such as by having jackals simply go extinct as in Nethack, or having only a limited number of jackals you can get experience from killing (seriously; you're not going to learn anything new from killing your thousand-and-first jackal that you hadn't already learnt by killing previous jackals before then).

Bear

[guest509]

  Had trouble following what other guys were saying. I do understand how farming a weak creature for xp can be exploitative. Should fix that by assigning monsters a level and not giving xp for killing creatures 2-3 levels lower than the player. Fixed. That's how WoW does it.
  As for a drop system I use a list for each creature. Kill a bat. Roll 1d10. 1-9 you get nothing. Roll a 10 and get a batwing or some such. If it is too much work to make a table like that for each creature then you can make generic tables for each TYPE of creature and add modifyers by level or some such. So a Giant Bat (level 4) you will roll 1d10 + 4. With again 1-9 being nothing, 10-12 being a bat wing and 13-14 being a pile of guano.
  That's pretty basic. Probably didn't help. GL with your game man.

[Skeletor]

You think it is realistic that a Level 1 character has 30 HP and a (naked) end game character has 600 HP? Only because he has killed lots of enemies? And that happens in most RPGs. Isn't it a RPG convention then?

I agree, it's unrealistic.. but also almost necessary - unlike a level 30 rat beating the shit out of level 2 red dragon: unrealistic and unnecessary.

In simple words: the fact that you can find stronger goblins on lower levels means that you should also try to get stronger (while you have said that since the goblins get stronger on lower levels, it makes no sense to become stronger yourself).

Being able to stay alive just to find the old monsters/situations again and again is not what I call a reward. Progressing an adventure with an everchanging tactical environment is definitely a cooler experience.

I think it depends on how you view the game world. You can take an egocentric view, where your player character is something very special, or a "monsters are players" (MAP) view, where the player is just the same kind of entity as every other monster, just behaves more intelligently (due to being controlled by the player). In the egocentric view, it is indeed more practical to assume that everything named "goblin" is the same weak monster. But in the MAP view, assuming that only the player character can use equipment, or gain new skills after killing enemies, is not logical, and thus monster leveling is expected. And not logical means not realistic and not fun.

Then I prefere the egocentric view (possibly because of my predilection for tactics rather than simulation). I disagree with you last sentence: a couple of wisely selected little unrealistic assumptions aren't going to make a game unfunny, as many egocentric-view games show.
By the way don't get me wrong: other than moster levelling, I like every single aspect of the MAP view (monsters being influenced by terrain conditions, traps, equipment, etc!).

Regarding the well equipped goblin: what's the difference between a well equipped goblin and a high level goblin? I think your arguments apply to the well equipped goblin to the same extent as they apply to the high level goblin.

A goblin wearing that armor and that sword is something tactically interpreted differently than that almost offensive higher level goblin. His equipment is real, you can pick it up after you kill it. There could be a reason to justify his equipment.
But I agree with you: this is the least nice of the three alternatives I listed because it's the most cheap. It have to be used wisely, combining it with the other two to create new situations that are still challenging but tactically different from the previous ones.
What I like about roguelikes is that because of the many elements in a random world, to survive you have to use your brain in a quick way, and learning to give to each single element (corridors, traps, walls, every single enemy, every single type of terrain, etc) a single tactical value. This has to be single *and* stable because no 2 situations are the same.
Giving to any element of the environment a different importance is what could lead to deat or survival: if you (programmer) let those element change then you ruin the whole process.
Making things changing, you make them stable and vice-versa.

I don't know why Thomas Biskup has introduced monster levelling in ADOM, but I suppose the reason was to satisfy the MAP view outlined above. Also, you can have allies in ADOM, and the MAP view is especially important in this case. You want your allies to become stronger with experience, in the same way as you do. And you need monster leveling for that.

In ADOM monster levelling was meant to be an anti-scum prevention system, supported by bogus (troll?) logics.
About the allies thing: I agree, they have to grow, but this doesn't imply the world system has to be a MAP. It can be an Egocentric where not only the player, but also all the "personalities" have levels (this imply summoned creatures shouldn't progress, IMO: think a second about a first level bard managing to finish ADOM with a tamed killer bug).

Sigh. You've stumbled into a long-standing argument here.

Where's the problem.. we're here to discuss stuff, aren't we? By the way I have to say I couldn't agree more with the rest of your post.. but I don't like that exp limit a single monster can give. There are better anti-scum technics IMO (the nethack extinction being one of those).

Had trouble following what other guys were saying.

Can't blame hahah!

I do understand how farming a weak creature for xp can be exploitative. Should fix that by assigning monsters a level and not giving xp for killing creatures 2-3 levels lower than the player. Fixed. That's how WoW does it.

Man.. this is the ugliest form of anti-scum prevention I've ever seen (and also in a farming based game where the only way to proceed is to mindlessly kill the same monster over and over again.. what an oxymoron). No wonder we play roguelikes.

[RogueMaster]

Sorry I don't understand what you're trying to mean here.
All I know is that monster levelling is unfunny, cheap, unrealistic, shallowing (because it decreases the tactical approach diversification to the same monster as further the player grows stronger) and also easily avoidable (instead of making an high level goblin appear, just put 7 goblins in that room or an ogre or a well equipped goblin).

I don't think that's a good reason why monster leveling is not good, because there is basically no difference between a leveled goblin than any other monster that appears only in those depth levels. Only the name.
So, a roguelike with a single leveled monster could be the same as a roguelike with thousand different-named monsters since each different monster can have a "leveled goblin" alternative.
The only reason I see is "diversity": it's boring to kill goblins during hours.

4- it makes the tactic aspect stable over time

Don't have to, if the monster growth is not proportional to the depth level.
And this can apply differently to each monster, so you are even simulating a king of AI where certain monsters from a monsterType learn how to battle better against the player. For intelligent monsters that is the most realistic.
It's ok that rats, slimes, and such non-thinking beings can't learn new tactics, but many monsters in the dungeon are beings with a certain degree of "intelligence".

Also, the drop quality should increase, and that is the same as if such monster is wearing better equipment.

Sigh.

You've stumbled into a long-standing argument here.  Keep in mind that a lot of the comments aimed at "monster leveling" are aimed at some of the worst examples of the game mechanic, and not at the way (whatever the way) you are doing it or intend to do it.

ADOM had a problem in early releases where characters would "farm" an easy monster like Jackals to level up.  Biskup "fixed" it by making Jackals, as a species, level faster than a single human being who's killing jackals.  Thus, by the time you've slaughtered enough Jackals to get third level, the Jackals have morphed into super-jackals who are more challenging to you now than the regular jackals were at first level.  This is about the point where you realize you're screwed if you slaughter too many more jackals, so you start actively avoiding them -- except you can't completely avoid them, and before long you have to deal with über-jackals which are death-on-wheels. If you run into a pack of those, even with an end-game character, you'll usually lose.

[...]

I dunno about ADOM algorithms, but farming should become useless if the monster farmed gives items that are low level for you and the experience given decreases or even becomes zero, when the power difference between player and monster changes (rises in this case). As someone wrote before, you will learn nothing new by doing something the you also can do perfectly.

But anyway, i'm not follower of "level-up" games, i prefer "practice-skill" games. I'ts more realistic and allows the player more diversified tactics.

In the other hand, I see no reason why the player can increase it's health points limit. It's supposed that by killing you reach a new understanding level, and this is why you level up or increase your weapon skill, or learn a bit better how to dodge or block or <....>. But your health shouldn't increase.
This only should happen if the damage from monsters increase in a ratio where dodge, parry, block and armour points can't avoid the player to die.

I even dare to say that Dexterity shouldn't increase, since even if you are way dexterous, that doesn't mean that you can apply such dexterity to all situations.

The only stats in my Roguelike are Constitution, Agility and Strength. You can't increase them unless by magical methods or praying to gods.
You will have always almost the same HP, but you will learn how to kill faster, how to block with shields, how to parry with weapon and/or how to dodge sucessfully.
Or even you can make your equipment better.
And you can survive learning, not by simple "bruteforce".

 Had trouble following what other guys were saying. I do understand how farming a weak creature for xp can be exploitative. Should fix that by assigning monsters a level and not giving xp for killing creatures 2-3 levels lower than the player. Fixed. That's how WoW does it.
  As for a drop system I use a list for each creature. Kill a bat. Roll 1d10. 1-9 you get nothing. Roll a 10 and get a batwing or some such. If it is too much work to make a table like that for each creature then you can make generic tables for each TYPE of creature and add modifyers by level or some such. So a Giant Bat (level 4) you will roll 1d10 + 4. With again 1-9 being nothing, 10-12 being a bat wing and 13-14 being a pile of guano.
  That's pretty basic. Probably didn't help. GL with your game man.

Thanks a lot :-)

[Krice]

Possibly worth noticing that monster leveling is linked to player's own leveling. Without monster leveling it would be much easier to kill lesser monsters and get more experience (farming). The problem is really in the leveling itself, but I'm not saying leveling is always bad. You know, it could be possible to make it work quite nicely, it's just a matter of finding the balance.

But I don't know why bother to struggle with that kind of system. I think it's better place stronger/more monsters in deeper caves and also prevent player character becoming too strong related to monsters.

[Bear]

For what it's worth, I think monster leveling is reasonable and worthwhile, in some circumstances.  But there are limits. Now, other people are free to disagree with me in some places, but here's where I think I want the lines drawn for me personally to enjoy a game the most.

Firstly, with unintelligent monsters, leveling should be sharply limited and well-discretized.   Maybe the first dungeon floor has Rats.  Maybe the Slough of Despond encountered later in the game has a higher-level type of Rat.  That's okay.  But If there are rats at *every* scaled value in between, then a tactical situation involving rats is difficult to evaluate, and this becomes "fake difficulty" of the worst sort.  If the character usually dies of the player not knowing something that should have been obvious to the character, it's fake difficulty and a cheap shot at the player. 

Second, there should be some obvious distinction between the discrete leveled forms.  If I have a regular Rat at first level, then the higher-leveled rat I encounter later should be a Rabid Rat, or a Giant Rat, or a Rodent of Unusual Size, or whatever, and it should be represented by a different tile or character/color combination. Maybe a Lynx Kitten grows up into a Lynx during the game - that's okay too, provided that on the cusp between kittenhood and adulthood, it gets a display update that shows it as a higher-level creature now than it was before.

Third, intelligent monsters are different; suspension of disbelief is willing to accept them leveling a lot more like the player.  But this is why there are titles, in most games, that tell both the level and the professional skill that the creature is leveled in.  Thus an "Elfin Paladin" is not the same as an "Elfin Ruffian" is not the same as an "Elfin Hunter" is not the same as an "Elfin Healer" and so on.  So, yes, we can meet differently leveled elfs traveling together in a group, and each elf will be represented by a different tile and have a different title, and that's fine too.  Further, intelligent monsters usually complement a higher skill level with better equipment suitable to their leveled skills. 

Fourth, a species should never level as a whole unless it's for very specific plot-related reasons.  If a big bad sorcerer curses a city by making its rats bigger, faster, more voracious, and invulnerable to fire and poison, that's a plot-related reason that can frame a fairly serious problem and corresponding quest.  If suddenly, because the player has killed his hundred-and-fiftieth rat or whatever, every rat in the city including those that have never even seen the player, get bigger, faster, more voracious, and invulnerable to fire and poison, then the city has just been doomed for no reason comprehensible to anyone.  Individual rats climbing in power level by scavenging in the BioHazard dumpsters behind the school of Things We Were Not Meant To Know can be fun but should not affect the "level" of all those rats that weren't in on the party.  Leveling, in other words, is always individual and for specific reasons, never just because something is a member of a particular species. And again, the individual 'leveled' rats should be distinguished from the masses of unleveled, ordinary rats in tactical situations.

Bear

[Xecutor]

In Wizard's Quest monsters have level.
Even more, they have experience, just like player, and if one monster will kill enough other monsters (or player), he can level up.
But. Each monster have fixed range of levels where they can be summoned.
Monsters on these levels will have slight levels dispersion.
Rat on level 2 is a little bit stronger than rat on level 1.
But just a little bit, not twice.

Monsters that are not supposed to wear anything do not drop equipment items. At most potions.
Monsters with equipment have chance to drop something on death. Chance is higher for bosses.
Each item have level and rarity. Item quality depends on this parameters.
Monster can only drop item of it's own level. Rarity is rolled with special distribution.
Chance to roll numer in range [0,0.1] is 10 times higher that [0.9,1].
Boss monster can drop item of increased rarity.

Like this.

[Vanguard]

I like how this thread completely stopped being about drop systems just a few posts in.

[RogueMaster]

In Wizard's Quest monsters have level.
Even more, they have experience, just like player, and if one monster will kill enough other monsters (or player), he can level up.
But. Each monster have fixed range of levels where they can be summoned.
Monsters on these levels will have slight levels dispersion.
Rat on level 2 is a little bit stronger than rat on level 1.
But just a little bit, not twice.

Monsters that are not supposed to wear anything do not drop equipment items. At most potions.
Monsters with equipment have chance to drop something on death. Chance is higher for bosses.
Each item have level and rarity. Item quality depends on this parameters.
Monster can only drop item of it's own level. Rarity is rolled with special distribution.
Chance to roll numer in range [0,0.1] is 10 times higher that [0.9,1].
Boss monster can drop item of increased rarity.

Like this.

I agree with you.

There is also a ARPG called "Din's Curse", where any monster can kill other monsters, and he wins experience, and can even become a boss.
In a RL game, even if monsters can't kill themselves, i think leveling monsters depending on player overall strength and map level is a good method to say "those monsters learnt to fight better againts you. Either by training or either by aquiring new weapons and/or armour".

Of course, the monster leveling shouldn't be always proportional.

[guest509]

I like how this thread completely stopped being about drop systems just a few posts in.

  Lol I know. I did give him a rundown of the old DnD system with modifiers.

  To thread starter: If you haven't read the dungeons and dragons books they have pretty good loot systems. Each enemy has a loot class. A class like a, b, c, d, etc...
  So a Dragon, Goblin King and Great Shiny Collector would have loot class G. Roll 1-100. 1-10 a random ring (roll to see what ring) 11-40 a random weapon (roll for it), etc...A wolf would be loot class a. Roll 1-10. Get a Superior Wolf Pelt on a roll of 8,9,10. Or else nothing.
  Again I dunno if this helps. That's just how DnD and I do it. But who am I. My only addition to this genre was a universally panned 7DRL that shall remain unnamed.