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Levelling/Progression Problem

ShillienKnight

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#1
Thank You SloHand i can post now. I hope i'm posting in the right sub-forum,

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Hi everyone, i'm new to this site, and in fact just registered about 2 hours ago! i played yserbius (offline only) back in 93, and really liked it's simple yet captivating interface. turn based games bring back memories. dungeon romps. i rank it among my other older favourites like demon's winter, SoAragon, wizardry, wasteland etc.

in my spare time, as a side hobby, i pull out old offline games and try to chart out the potential maximums for character development, possible through in-game methods. about 6 years ago, i actually did dig out yserbius, but only briefly. i encountered the same problem as i am facing now (i unzipped yserbius a week ago, and was hoping to detail the stat progression for some classes, as i had never successfully done it for this game before). it is hoped that some of you pros could help. in fact any response would be greatly appreciated.

please note i am not really interested in maxing out stats, just for sake of quick completion of the game or anything like that, my purpose is just to note down the possible maximums and analyse these progressions. just a side interest hehe. i do have and use vitaminf/TSNMacro to help me playtest.

well, my main problem is that i found the FULL RANGE (max) of Dexterity/Health/Mana auto-obtainable when levelling, is not reachable (or at least not obtainable by me on my pc) AFTER LEVEL 3. let me explain. note i am only charting the progression from levels 0-20. for the purpose of this post let's use the Barbarian for discussion.

Barbarians (Yserbius Classic 1.0) start out with Dex 4/Health 30/Mana 8, yes? this is at level 0. upon reaching level 1, you can actually obtain maximum through in-game rolling to Dex 6/Health 44/Mana 10. i find out these figures and then if it's actually possible through 2 stages :-

1. i hand-roll a level sometimes about 5,000 times (using a batch file to re-copy a char ready to level from a different location hehe). i chart down all the INDIVIDUAL numbers to determine the max for the 3 statistics. this is easy at lower levels where the range is small, but harder higher up.

2. this is the hard part, where i am currently facing my problem. just because i got down that the INDIVIDUAL maximum dex/hp/mana obtainable is 6/44/10, does not necessarily mean i can obtain all 3 during a levelling roll. so i had to test by hand-rolling again until 6/44/10 comes out during a SINGLE level-up.

now i was only using level 1 as an example. actually the levelling up max from 0-1, 1-2, 2-3 is easily obtainable. for barbarian i think at Level 2 maximum is 10/64/13 and at 3 is 14/88/17. if anyone wants exact data i would have to go home to check my notes as i am currently connecting from a public netcafe.

THE PROBLEM :

the real problem comes after level 3. i faced this problem before, when i play-tested yserbius on a 486, and now on a p4 it still exists. i mention the clock speeds here cos i'm unsure if this has any effect on random rolling a range for old games like these. doesn't appear so random actually hehe. maybe someone can give me a heads up on this. There appears to be a "squaring-off" for max attainable stats after lev 3.

1. from the max at level 3, when u are levelling up to level 4, it is possible to reach Dex 21 Health 118 Mana 21, ..... INDIVIDUALLY. if u roll a lot of times, and take down all the dex/hp/mana scores, u will notice that their individual maximums are 21/118/21.

2. but in A SINGLE actual level-up, there is ALWAYS a deficit of ONE point, ie. u can get either 21/118/20 or 21/117/21 or 20/118/21. there is some lock-up which just refuses to release a max roll of 21/118/21. i do not know if this was actually intended by the sierra, so as to encourage variations in people's stats since this was designed for online and predecessors to mmos. this way
at high levels, the possibility of 2 barbs having exact dex/hp/mana is very low. plus, u can't 'roll' in online.. i guess.

NOW if this was the only problem i wouldn't feel so frustrated. i mean if there was just to be a maximum deficit of 1 from either attribute at each level up from 4 onwards, i could still work out a logical progression. but no, it gets more complex at 5 up.

During the levelling-up at level 5, i used vitaminf to restore the -1 deficit (back to 21/118/21) in order to continue testing, since 21/118/21 could not be obtained naturally.

INDIVIDUAL Maximums for a Level 5 barbarian is 28/154/27.

From 21/118/21, i managed to obtain 4 results which were of interest :-

1. the best roll was 28/154/26, which is also like the level-up @ L4: a deficit of -1 only, but this time, specifically from Mana. the frustrating thing is that this -1 deficit ONLY comes from the Mana attribute. meaning u can't opt for a -1 from Dex, or -1 from HP, while maxing out the other two. this 'best' roll only exists in 28/154/26 combination.

2. 25/154/27. an overall deficit of -3. Specific. -3 from Dex.

3. 28/151/27. also an overall deficit of -3. Specific. -3 from HP.

4. 27/152/27. also an overall deficit of -3. Specific. -1 from Dex, -2 from HP.

so when i reach this stage, i begin to feel something is wrong, so i searched out info on yserbius and found this site. imo i feel this seriously can't be intended (meaning the attributes can't be precoded in the specific combinations above) by the programmers : i mean if it were intended they would have had to map out all possible stat combinations, for EACH level of EACH type of char, and we all know yserbius chars don't just stop at 20..
(I did not note any logical mathematical sequence for each level of the stats as well, but it could be that my maths sux).
the 4 combination results i detailed above might be brought about by some random number seed problem, something a little out of my league, which is why i am posting this. hopefully someone who knows more about programming can give me a heads up.

well, i'm only giving examples up to here, but this is what i need an answer to. when vitaminf can give u dex 3,200, no i don't think a -1 to dex would affect my game much hehe, but my concern is to find a way to obtain the potential stat maximums through in-game rolling...

in event that someone has already sucessfully analysed this topic before, or have written out some progression somewhere, then i would like to apologise. i have tried to search for such info, but failed. if that's the case then all i've written here, and all the rolling i have done have been a waste of time. and i'm sorry for posting this.
 

Tiger

Active Members
#2
Wow... Thats... Far to many numbers for me... One question though... Why?

I agree with you that Sierra would not have mapped out each char, at each level... There is likely a variable somewhere that determines the caps or random deficites above a certian level. I also agree with your reasoning of why they did this, would ensure one Barb isn't neccesarily as good as the other. Stats wise...

Prolly the most qualified person to awnser this would be one of the Dev people workin on the Online release, or Navic as he's collected alot of stats/info on char leveling.

G'luck to ya though... Whatever the reason...
 

ShillienKnight

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#3
oh ya, i just do it as a pastime, but i don't go in so deep really. i pull out some old games i played offline before because i liked the interface, but gameplay-wise i must find a new goal since i completed those before hehe. so i tend to concentrate on char development instead.

thanks! i'll continue testing and once i have further data, i will share here, for those who want to know. i only put out those stats which i can confidently confirm hehe, and this very time consuming.

mm there's definitely some ceiling. what they set it based upon i dunno, but i hope to find out if there is any sequence at all. but the deficits are definitely non-random. it is not even variably preset world to world (2 different offline games). this i have tested, they appear the same always at that level, in those combinations. i always handroll twice in 2 separate folders, create one harmony and one chaos, just in case it affects something.
 

ShillienKnight

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#5
ahhh... further testing indicates dex/mana (especially) gains which are too erratic for explanation (at least by me). eg. at some higher levels, it suddenly becomes possible to roll maximum again.. then the next few levels best rolls are all -2 deficit etc.

also, the dexterity and mana gains do not follow any logical scale. u can gain +7 dex +12 mana one level up, and the next level u can gain +13 dex +8 mana (these figures are not exact, just giving example), and next level u are back to +6/+12 or something. the combination of gains seem unique to it's level. it does not seem to increase by any steady increasing progression.

i am still continuing to graph the maximum possible attributes vs. what is actualy possible, in order to attain the stats of a legit level 20 character, but i guess it's pretty much useless info for most players. still i'll post the results here once i improve the integrity of such data, since i started this thread. i must apologise however, as i no longer have adsl connection from home, from now on i can only come back to the netcafe every fortnight or so, to update this test.
 
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