Powerleveling and Metagaming

[Legacy_Badwater]

               This is probably a topic that in the past might be more suited to a different board but I thought I'd bring it up here, because I'm more likely to get helpful suggestions here (if there are any).

On my PW I have a problem with player powerleveling and metagaming. The powerleveling normally consists of using a high level PC to spawn enemies in an area, and then having that PC leave while lower level PCs go in and kill for much more xp than they would if they were spawning lower level enemies on their own.

The metagaming consists of a very high level looting and then passing along loot to a different lower character, be it their own or someone else's.

In the old days there was a large enough player and DM base that an online presence could deter this kind of play.

Is there any kind of scripting, downloads, building, suggestions that anyone can offer that would help me address this problem? I'm looking for some way to limit powerleveling and metagaming that does not require me sitting on a PW and babysitting the damn thing.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Badwater, 28 novembre 2011 - 12:08 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               issue1: bigger spawns with high lvl

This is reason why I do use my own custom spawn system, but it can be also aproached via bioware default encounter but its very limited in posibilities. To "fix" it via bioware spawn you have to set constant number of enemies and only one kind of creature (of if there is more of them they must have same CR). That way spawns will be the same for whatever character. Since my custom system rely on very module specific features, I can only suggest NESS if you don't want to go with bioware encounters.

Issue2 passing items on lower characters

Yea I have same issue. You can't do much with that via scripting. Even if you set Item Level Restriction, they still can pass gold, potions and scrolls. With a boost from a lvl 40, its almost the same.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               

Badwater wrote...

This is probably a topic that in the past might be more suited to a different board but I thought I'd bring it up here, because I'm more likely to get helpful suggestions here (if there are any).

On my PW I have a problem with player powerleveling and metagaming. The powerleveling normally consists of using a high level PC to spawn enemies in an area, and then having that PC leave while lower level PCs go in and kill for much more xp than they would if they were spawning lower level enemies on their own.

The metagaming consists of a very high level looting and then passing along loot to a different lower character, be it their own or someone else's.

In the old days there was a large enough player and DM base that an online presence could deter this kind of play.

Is there any kind of scripting, downloads, building, suggestions that anyone can offer that would help me address this problem? I'm looking for some way to limit powerleveling and metagaming that does not require me sitting on a PW and babysitting the damn thing.

Tag the PC that spawned the encounter and have the encounter follow him/her. If the PC leaves the area or game, destroy the encounter group.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lightfoot8]

               You could try the new .ini setting.  with how it is worded though, I dont know if it will do anything different then what is already done.   would love to hear your results if you try it.

- Added new nwnplayer.ini file setting to reset the encounter level spawned by an encounter trigger every time that it spawns creatures. If this option is turned on, the encounter trigger will always spawn creatures based on the triggering player's level rather than potentially using left over spawned creature from an early triggering that was initiated by a much higher level player.
   [Server Options]
   Always Reset Encounter Spawns=0
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_DMSelena]

               As far as the spawns go, if you're not willing to install something like the Legacy system that adjusts XP distribution with more elegance, the above suggestion of destroying the spawns is probably the most effiicient way to do it.

As to the items, there are a couple of ways to do this. I asked Wyldhunt about this, and he said the following:

You can use the module OnActivate script to check for whatever you want and control the outcome of the used item in most cases... A couple are hardcoded, but not many. Also, OnAcquire can be used to control or change what they get when they pick it up or take it. You can check the gp value of a potion, and if the value is too high, just replace it with something cheaper. Or, check for specific vars and do whatever you want based on the vars. Both OnActivated and OnAqcuire are hooked.

The gold value is used so that you don't have to write a script that automatically assigns a variable to every item that spawns in game. You can only manually put variables on items in the toolset that are custom, and I'm assuming you don't want to have to redo your whole world so that default palette items never drop under any circumstances. Assigning a required level variable to the item makes the math simpler (you just have to do a difference check between the number of the variable and the character's level), but you still have to be able to create that variable dynamically from some value for default palette items, and the easiest way to do that is to check gold piece value. From that point you'd have to decide what minimum gp value is associated with the usability for each level (100gp = level 1, 1000gp = level 2, etc.), have the script do the calculation, then execute according to whatever level it determined the item was appropriate for.

You can then have the script measure the ratio of difference between the item's level and the character's level, and cause everything from forcing the player to drop the item on the ground, to having unintended consequences, to having it work slightly less well than it would for someone who is level appropriate, all depending upon what the item is and how much of a bastard you want to be in a given circumstance. Having the player drop the item is the simplest way to do it, but it's not the only thing you can do. The PRC uses something like this when it checks your skill to see if you can craft a poison successfully, or if you screw up and accidentally poison yourself. This is a skill check, but it's perfectly possible to do a level check, or a value-to-level check, too. That way, there is an in-character response to their metagaming, which I prefer to simply destroying items or something like that. But, you could do that, too.

Let me know if you're interested in something like this and I'll see if I can get Wyld to post the script for it somewhere.

EDIT: Here's a link to the script Wyld wrote for this fix: https://docs.google....HZgL_Pq4LvZIls4

- S.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par DMSelena, 28 novembre 2011 - 08:37 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_wyldhunt1]

               Unless they fixed it, which I doubt, items lose all of their variables when they are purchased from a store. I fixed that in our mod by deleting anything acquired from a merchant and re-creating it in their inventory. That way, palette items can have vars that work with stores.
That script just checks against a predefined value based on character level and item type and drops the item if it's better quality than a serf deserves.
If you want to use it, feel free. You may need to tweak the BASE_ITEM variable names since we don't use the standard list, as well as whatever values that you want to assign for your mod.
It should be fairly obvious when you open it in the toolset.