Question about Maximum Player Stats

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 5:38 pm

I ran into a little problem. The mechanism for
specifying things like Maximum Hitpoints allows
for 4 hexadecimal digits. That is 65535. But the
code in the Atari CSB interprets such large numbers
as negative. To prevent that, the maximum should
be 32767. But on the inventory page it can only
print 3 decimal digits for health, stamina, and mana.
That would be 999.

Limiting it to 999 or 32767 would be relatively easy.
Changing the code to allow 65535 would be more
difficult. And there is no way I am going to change it
to allow the inventory page to print numbers larger
that 999. What kind of consensus is there as to what
should be the proper limits?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 5:54 pm

I say limit it to 999...

Talking of wrapping, this is a quirk of PC DM/DMBuild. I created a character with maximum stats of 170 for strength, etc for playtesting. I then found that he died instantly when poisoned! This must be some vitality/poison modifier that went wrong. I have never seen this behaviour with DMuting an existing party, so not sure the difference. And therefore, don't know if this could be a potential problem in the CSB4win engine too.

Sigi · Post by **Sigi** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 8:24 pm

limit it to 999
there is no need for anything above 999 if you take dm or csb as a general guide. I never made it much above 900 health with any party. and the party should by then be able to defend against anything(mon ful ir neta and best armour many grades /levels playing experience and so forth.

The only thing that can possibly kill you, are stone golems in front and simultaneously behind you in a corridor... or maybe a pit over a pit over lots of pits over a nice solid granite floor.

Well on the other hand there could be items giving 10 k + health or something but that would be especially speciall.....

Post by **PaulH** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 9:29 pm

So 32k or 64k of hit points? This would only apply to monsters then. And if somebody put a monster in this hard apart from Chaos, they are evil.

Personally I think that character stats should be able to go above the 999. Afterall you never get to the top of the secondary stats. I think the most I got was 87 strength without cheating. This would allow harder levels to be built, and if implemented properly with level deepness would not spoil earlier levels with too much skill.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:22 am

I think 999 should be fine since this is a number I never even reached once with any original (not modified) party in all of the years I've played DM. I can not see a reason to extend that now.

Regards, PitD

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 5:09 pm

It appears that the 999 is the consensus. I will
adopt this. Thanks for your input and remember
not to complain when you reach the limit.

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:05 pm

Hey, please wait a second!
Sorry for the mix<<<

By telling limit it to 999 I didn't mean limit it...sort of..have changed my mind .
Just think about this >
maybe you take your party from one dungeon to the next to the next...
like dm csb.....

Although it is not crucial to have these high values, it would make sense , because you also just reach mediocre strenght scores and so on compared to the maximum...( 92 to 255...[well, potions aren't just the same, and the characters are consuming too much of this stuff you know..) so what if you are ee master in everything and already have 992 health,
and you were limited to 999 , where would be the kick to get pal mon , archmaster???(a fighter should be able to get around 1500 health with all levels maxed out ...
Is there an archmaster grade in dm? is it mon master? just know it from the dm2 , level increasing plant , could be alternative in dm and csb...

, it would be interesting , just in case, to know, what would have happened in the original , if you would, in the rare occasion, had more than 999 hps
anyone knows?.I don't . A mystery.....likely it is cut off, maybe the game would .

But I think it would be interesting to know, even more interesting to find out !

which follows is off topic
{[you could , even with Tiggy get more than 999 Health , I think. You must get much for each high master level .
+200 Health for archmaster fighter? guessing....
A crazy guy had Tiggy with 400 mana!!! Too much I think. 7 Fireballs in succession .... do not know if that is true., though.
Also said that chaos throws fireballs that you cannot make this powerful
seventh grade... could be optical....
you can evade fireballs, he said.
I think not with a full party , but i]m not sure..........take a step forward and evade it ....strange
last one>
I always had staffs and so on in hand to increase max. mana. Maybe that has made a difference in the calculation of mana you get when leveling up.
]}

it would definitely be nice and the game would be more pushing if you could in spite of the unseen points/uselessness of them bcs not needed, and in respect to the somewhat possible additional points in health and stamina, train your characters over this magic border.
You do not neccessarily have to see the value. Just a logic thought

Example
If you have 1238 hps , the total shows 999, always,
the current health shows normal until 999
at 1000 it is 000, at
1238 it would be 238.
if that is possible to display an other figure than the real one......
mark 1000 with green point or sth.
problem > what about the health bar then?

Arrrrgh is that possible?

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:29 pm

Who cares? I mean, seriously, who on earth is going to sit around playing one game enough to push their characters that high anyway? Seems rather a large waste of time to me.

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:43 pm

yeah , at some point it is getting jokeless.

Sorry for the mad text !!!! I need a break..
btw. iam sigi....

Post by **PaulH** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 1:28 am

As I said before, if somebody were to make a dungeon (unlikely) that spanned tens of levels, then I believe that surpassing the 999 max should be allowed. Huge battles could be added in further levels with a good possibilty of survival. Maybe it could be written into CSBWin as an option on dungeon design. If people want to cheat and up their max stats to 32000 or whatever using the editors then they are only cheating themselves.
I have never reached 999 in any stat. But, as everybody says, if nobody is likely to exceed 999 in a dungeon (current) then can it be of harm increasing this number? I am only thinking about new dungeon design.

Post by **Gambit37** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 1:32 am

Can CSBWin support the size of dungeon you describe? I thouhgt it was still limited to 16 levels of 32x32 maximum.

If not, then perhaps your argument holds some weight. But if not, then as I said, I don't see any point.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 2:13 am

if nobody is likely to exceed 999 in a dungeon (current) then can it be of harm increasing this number?

Edited.......................................................
Perhaps no harm to you. But It would be quite a bit more
work for me. I don't relish
the work just because it won't hurt you for me to do it.
So I thinbk I will set it at 999 for now. The original stopped
at 999 anyway. (Actually 900, to avoid going over the top
with additions, I supppose.)
Editied......................................................

I thought it was still limited to 16 levels of 32x32 maximum.

Very, definitely, irrevokably, decidedly, absolutely, really, and forever
limited to 16x32x32. One would have to start over from scratch.
But that has already been done.....RTC.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 11:27 am

in PC DM you seemed to be able to get higher that 999, for example using DMute to create 999, then wearing a moonstone
mana of 1002
This caused the number to not be displayd right
And ay archmaster you can cast the maximum spell fireball, i believe
And given that there is no real gain for the amount of work is sounded to paul, i stand by the 999 decision..lets face it there are other benefits to increased levels, not just stats...and besides, a body can only get so powerful!

Post by **PaulH** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 4:45 pm

For some reason I though CSBWin supported many more levels. Must have been Mr Gilbert's game.

But yes, I do agree with Paul, if it takes that much work to do it then there is no point.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:43 am

Better concentrate on more important issues than the maximum health until a situation arises that contains a good reason why it should be done. So far if I'm reading the posts correctly it's only about being able to do it in general and having potential for bigger dungeons that will not be possible ;o)

Regards, PitD

meynaf · Post by **meynaf** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 4:28 pm

I have seen in the code of Atari ST's Dungon Master 1.2 that the maximum is set to 999.
But what's the point in getting more, even in a big dungeon ?
You can defeat any monster even with "only" 500 health.

And, I wonder where the heck did you see this maximum of 16 levels.
I have successfully build a 17-level test dungeon, and it worked.
(untested on CSBWin, but with the original game it worked).
Dungeon Master 2 has 44 levels (areas).
The dungeon.dat file type allows up to 256.

So what ?
Could you indicate me where to find this limitation in the code ?

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 2:00 pm

About defeating any monster with 500 health... I would not be too sure on that. If we are talking the classical releases (DM, CSB, DM2) you are certainly right. But for some custom dungeons I would not necessarily bet on that...

Regards, PitD

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 4:28 pm

And, I wonder where the heck did you see this maximum of 16 levels.

I am beginning to believe that I only saw this limitation
in my mind. CSBuild and CSBwin have made the assumption
that there can only be 16 levels. And the code enforces this
limitation because of the way I modified some of it. For example,
I encoded a dungeon location in 16 bits in a few places.
5 X
5 Y
4 level
2 positon with cell
----------
16 total.

The target of a DSA, for example, is encoded in 16 bits. But
that is my invention......the original actuators could not
specify targets on other levels.

It appears that the original code provided for 64 levels.

meynaf · Post by **meynaf** » Wed Feb 25, 2004 1:40 pm

So my 48-level test-dungeon will not work on csbwin

Okay, 16 levels are enough...

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Wed Feb 25, 2004 3:23 pm

I would be very interested in trying to make your 48-level
game work on CSBwin. As soon as version 9.7 is
released. I think it might not be too difficult. In fact,
it might be downright easy. I don't think I broke much
of the original code.......it was just the things I added
myself that won't work. Like the DSA.

CSBuild is another matter. It was built from the ground
up with the notion of 16 levels maximum.

lectricpharaoh · Post by **lectricpharaoh** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:44 pm

I agree, it should be relatively straightforward (for CSBWin). What language are you writing this in, C, C++? Something else?

Assuming C/C++, it should be a relatively simple matter of adjusting the field widths if you've declared a struct-type bitfield, and even if you're doing the math by hand through shifts and binary ands, you're probably using #defined or const values for your shifts, so it should be a simple matter to change those. The only other thing that'll need changing are any limit checks, but again, unless your code is full of 'magic numbers', this should be a centralized change as well.

The only thing is we'll have to playtest new dungeons to see if the changes work without introducing new 'features', and as it'll be hard to make such dungeons without the editor (which you've already stated is more or less married to the 16-32-32 limits), this might be some time off.

Post by **PaulH** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:22 pm

I think the limits are now 64x32x32.

Just as Paul Stevens said: Very, definitely, irrevokably, decidedly, absolutely, really, and forever
limited to 16x32x32.

I am glad that even the Master changes his mind sometimes

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:47 pm

The above is over a year old too...

As someone (who is apparently unknown just now) once said, 'Time passes'.