Dungeon Master Forum

In RTC is there a way to restrict level/s of the character?

The ideas is similar to conflux where the character must complete tasks to allow level up. Or having a book/journal similar to 'restricted runes' and they place their rewards into it, or get their tasks recorded into. (like a book that records their secrets found)

It might work with a trigger and relay system that activates lose experience actions, with the trigger of 'amount of experience' changing when tasks are completed, there will be a lot of counters used, but this gets complicated really quickly (if not already), especially when you have more than one character at different levels.

Has anyone else done something similar?

Should I put this in the RTC suggestions? (have a restrict level option similar to restrict runes)

I don't think you can do this currently, as there are no conditional operators for checking a character's level. You can only detect who has the highest level in something. You might be able to fake something for a single character, but as you say, it gets too complex too quickly for multiple characters -- plus you might end up removing more experience than you want or all sorts of other problems that come from not foreseeing all possible player actions.

Put it as a suggestion

You CAN check each individual character.... use a relay to check TRIGGERING/MEMBER_FIGHTER, NINJA, PREIST, WIZARD....

But that only tells you the character with the highest value in any class. It doesn't give you a way of checking what their current level actually is, does it? Unless I'm misunderstanding how it works?

EDIT: OK, I just had a quick look as I was intrigued. You're right, somehow I've never noticed those options before!

@Trego: If you look at the options in Relays, you can set the triggering value to something like MEMBER_NINJA as Lord_Bones mentioned. Then set the Operation to something like GREATER THAN and then in Parameter 2, set the Number to the level you want to check, for example 3.0 for Apprentice.

True, but if it's iterative can't you cut the tallest poppy down to size, then recheck, until they are all restricted to the same level?

Lord_bones pointed out there's a mechanism for testing experience levels. I didn't realise this.

However, I don't see how you can do what Trego wants using this mechanism. The problem is that every time you increase or decrease the player's experience through an action, RTC gives you a big fat coloured message at the bottom of the screen -- not really what you want. And you can't stop the player receiving experience through normal gameplay... these two issues conspire against an arbitrary experience system.

You'll need some GG intervention to get this to work, I'm 100% sure you can't do it in a reasonable way using the current mechanisms. Sorry to be a pooper!

Gambit37 wrote:...there's a mechanism for testing experience levels...

Cool.

Gambit37 wrote:...every time you increase or decrease the player's experience through an action, RTC gives you a big fat coloured message at the bottom of the screen...

I can turn this off in the 'Edit' menu 'Edit Text Strings' and have a mechanic in the game that does it instead.

But I think your right

Gambit37 wrote:...I'm 100% sure you can't do it in a reasonable way using the current mechanisms...

Easiest way I know of....

Create a relay. Make the relay run the above check that Gambit described. Create a new object (WALLITEM_ACTION), set the action property to ACTION_LOSE_EXPERIENCE_FIGHTER/NINJA/PRIEST/WIZARD (whichever one the relay is checking), set the strength to 100. Set the first target of the relay (the top one) to the newly created WALLITEM_ACTION, and then set the 2nd target to the relay (create a loop).

When you trigger the relay, it will loop through until its conditions AREN'T met. So setting the relay condition to:
IF "TRIGGERING/MEMBER_WIZARD" GREATER THAN 10 THEN....
Would mean that the character would be limited to level 10 wizardry, the second that this relay triggers AFTER they are level 11 or more, it bumps it back down.

Neat! However, doesn't this mean you have to re-create every single attack method and spell to be able to run the check everytime the player performs an action? Seems like an impossibly huge amount of work!

You can use a "delayed-relay-loop" (relay that targets itself, and other stuff, with a delay) to keep the effect going, then just start the loop at the dungeon entrance.

USEFUL NOTE: Relays that loop in this way, maintain any triggering values (eg: strength)

How many of these do you have in your dungeon? I've noticed that even with just a few permanent loops going, RTC responsiveness gets quite bad. Have you noticed any performance issues?

What's the overhead of doing this? I know in DSAs in CSBwin a loop was not noticeable to gameplay but was still an overhead to keep track of incase you wanted to trigger other intensive effects.

I have a fair few effects running like this, including my entire weather system, my fps sits at about 70-80% of standard RTC with v-sync turned off (v-sync makes the performance seem to take more of a hit than it really does).