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Health: a mess of unbalanced, random numbers fixed

Official announcements, updates, and details about the Eaxia rebuild.

Health: a mess of unbalanced, random numbers fixed

Postby GDEXXY » Oct 30, 2003 (12:16 pm)

Under our current system, health points, though not displayed, are tracked by a number. When a person has all of their health points, they are fully healthy. Health points are determined by level, Constitution, class, and a random factor. Every time a character levels, their class gives them a bonus, their Constitution bonus is added, and then a random number is added on top of that. The problem with this is that (1) the random number is a little unfair, especially after compiled against dozens of levels (D&D, the system this is modeled after, generally does not have players exceeding level 15), (2) the differences in health between levels is so large that it makes it very difficult to set damage levels of creatures for a range of levels, much less a range of classes, which leads into the problem of (3) the differences in health between classes makes an astronomical difference in combat difficulty -- very easy for those classes that have better health distribution and very difficult (if not impossible) for those classes with poor health distribution.

All that has changed. All of it.

Now, health is determined by level, class, race, and Stamina. The most obvious change is the loss of any random factor -- but what else has changed?

Level: level is factored in differently. Instead of level being a direct multiplier, it's ratio is smaller, though still a key ingredient to being able to withstand damage.

Class: while far less of a factor, some classes still get stronger bonuses to health than others due to the nature of their training. It is by far the most important determining factor anymore though.

Stamina (previously Constitution): now the most important factor, though instead of a direct bonus (which was previously: [ability score - 10] ÷ 2), Stamina provides a much more complicated bonus to health, the details of which are for you to discover. Again, though -- definitely the most important factor.

Race: a new factor to health, a racial bonus to health will be applied to each character when the character joins a guild (class) at the time they join (or when you select a prepaid character package from the Character Management System). This is a one-time bonus and each race is different. This, coupled with the other changes to health, will help buffer character levels 1-3 (but mostly level 1 characters) to help prevent them from dieing after taking one or two hits.

In general, the changes will balance the huge difference in health points between classes and between levels in a class to make it easier to judge damage (combat, magic, traps, etc.) on a wider basis (to make it more fair) but will still favor the fighting classes (that's one of their perks). Possibly more importantly, the health changes greatly award characters who spend time training Stamina.

Another note on changing health to have no random factors involved at all: because there are no random factors, we can recalculate someone's health pool/points any time we want/need to, which means we can have more Stamina-boosting (or penalizing) items, spells, abilities, and effects without worrying if we'll damage their previous random factors and without worrying if the game crashes (or we lose power, etc. -- it's happened) if someone will wind up with more or less health than they should have. This is a huge benefit and opens a new door to what we can do!
GameDirector Exxy, CEO
Role-Players Gaming Network, Inc.
Eaxia Online, an adventure unlike any other...

Eaxia Online is a product of the Role-Players Gaming Network. Visit us online at http://www.role-players.com.
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GDEXXY
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