Global Hall Of Champions

[George Gilbert]

Just a quick note to say that I've put up the Global Hall Of Champtions page on the RTC website:

<a href="http://www.ragingmole.com/RTC" target="top">www.ragingmole.com/RTC</a>

The Global Hall Of Champions contains a record of the brave adventurers who have beaten each of the dungeons. Once you have completed a dungeon you will be invited to submit your characters for inclusion in the Hall. If you would like to see them there, please email your completed RTC module file to me (george at ragingmole dot com).

[Lunever]

Does it make any difference to the Hall on what level of difficulty you've played? If not I strongly recommend so (it was no peace of cake playing at Master6; the strength of your characters does not outweigh the increase of difficulty, for when you begin with a new party at 0-dif. you will not end up that weak that a single fireball from the Dragon or a single Lightning from Chaos will instantly kill your entire fully rested and spell- & fire-shielded party, which did happen to my very powerful party at Master6).
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[George Gilbert]

There's no explict change to your scores from the level you pley at however it will effect them implicitly.

Broadly speaking, the score gives an indication of each characters success against the dungeon. A positive score shows they've given out more than they've taken, a negative one and the dungeon has taken its toll on the character. Take for example the "earth" score (representing physical scores). When you're playing at a harder level, if you complete the game, on a positive side you'll be inflicting more damage to the dungeon (as the monsters are stronger) but on the negative side they'll be doing more damage to you. So at a high level the positive scores and the negative scores will both be higher than their equivalents when playing at a low level.

So, if you play an "average" game you will get a score of 0 regardless of the level you're playing at. However, if you play very well you'll get a higher score by playing at a higher level (as the number of large positive scores will outweigh the number of large negative ones more than at a low level when low positive scores will outweight low negative ones).

[Lunever]

Ok, one more question: The balance of taking and giving, is it saved in the character or is it reset at each new game: If I have a character with a bad score at my first adventure, will it be possible to have a good score at the next game (scores reset to 0 at it's beginning) or are the previous scores retained in the character so I'd have to "catch up" for the "bad karma" accumulated before?
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[George Gilbert]

It's reset at the start of each game (i.e. when you "enter" the dungeon for the first time or "make new adventure" by importing existing characters into a new game). In other words, the score represents your characters effect on the dungeon you're currently playing.

[Lunever]

Hmm, there seems to be another thing that is not accounted for in this score system, but maybe should be: The killing rate, the percentage of killed and surviving monsters. I've always gone to great lengths to really kill every monster possible, even when it meant additional battle or tricky maneuvering to not trigger a generator again after it's monster was killed.

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[Ameena]

Heh, I'd never be able to do that...there's the spawn bug thingy (and I'm sure this is a bug), where endless numbers of mobs appear down a corridor no matter how many I kill, but quitting and reloading (usually because I'm resetting the computer after the game freezes - something it does sometimes) seems to sort it out...some of the numbers listed at the end did no way match the number of mobs of that species I killed, but I can't remember how many (for example) Skellies it said there were. Still, I coped with it...it's not that hard. I just wish there was such a spawn bug in the Screamer room, hehe

[Lunever]

Well, problem is, that a player whose goal is to kill everything and gain all treasure isn't rewarded very well in this score system. Ok, to be quick may be one goal and be represented by one of the score traits. But to be COMPLETE should also be somehow POSITIVELY reflected in some other score trait.

Also I still think that it is by far easier to gain a high score at low difficulty, cause the higher potential of dealing out of damage does not match the higher potential of the dungeon taking more toll on the characters <p>Komm zur bunten Seite der Macht! </p>

[beowuuf]

But that's good, surely the hall shohldn't descriminate between one playing style or another.

Someone who is good but is only playing a straightforward game shouldn't get less than a person who has gone round the whole dungeon afterwards playing clean up, since some don't find that style of play rewarding...

I think by the sounds of it the current scoring has a good balance

As for the higher rating versus score..i guyess just have to see how it goes when more people submit high-level scores!

[George Gilbert]

The negative score for distance travelled is actually quite low (about a fifth the size of other factors) and the gain you will get from defeating extra monsters will probably outweigh it (unless you take lots of damage!) as long as you keep moving through the dungeon or exploring new areas. What it explicitly doesn't reward is training - if you spend alot of time in one area then this will score very negatively.

[Note, if you *need* to do that as part of the normal dungeon, then that negative score will effect everyone so there's no overall effect - it's just if you stop off and other people don't that the negative scoring will come into play.]

However overall I'm with beowuuf on this one. I think the balance is quite good but may need some tweaking once more people have completed the game.

Once you finish a game, the RTC module files stores all the component data (i.e. not just the total scores for each skill but all the plusses and minuses that go into them are recorded separatly) specifically so I can retrospectively adjust all the scores to keep the Global Hall Of Champions compatible with future versions if necessary...

[Lunever]

PS: I copied the thread above from the thread I posted at Cowsmanauts forum but didn't notice that the spell checker somehow cut the post short, so the last sentence has been missing:
"; and I think, that a high score system should not reward that player only who walks the path of least resistance. In many good old - very old - action games with different levels of difficulty all scores a a bit multiplied up when you play at those higher difficulty level, and I think, that should be aplied to RTC also."

So now my current reply:

Ah, ok, I didn't know about the training malus. So in the game I sent you most bad points would derive from the other problem I complained about and that you already fixed for V 0.25: The high level food drain. To stay alive in the deeper levels I had to kill about 450 Rats, I suppose that was accounted for as training. So I'll get a better score in V0.25, that's fine.

I agree with you Beowuuf, that all styles of play should be somehow rewarded, that's why I've been questioning the details, for being one of the explore-all-style players I want to have a chance beside quick & stealthy players too.
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