Bio Engineer Archive

I admit I'm assuming that this is considered a problem, or at least will be after vacations are over. There is ample evidence from posts about the intentions of the new system that this extreme of CL change is beyond the intent. If I'm wrong, and the devs don't mind, I'm sure all BE's will be very happy (and CH's who don't want clones very angry).

So, if we stay with the assumption that it is going to be fixed, I want to make sure it is fixed in a manner that doesn't need to be fixed again. To this end, I'm going to make some suggestions.

1) Nature of the system - I don't know how CL's are currently calculated for the things we make. It does not appear that the stats of the final creature are considered in any way. I suspect that the system is actually tracking our experimentation successes and failures and applying those results instead, which is what is truly blowing the CL's. Whatever the method is, I suggest the following instead:

a) Do not consider CL at all throughout the template fabrication.

b) When building the creature, come up with an initial CL, based on the exact same system wild creatures use.

c) allow us to experiment the CL down. Use resource quality (and template quality) to determine what the max experimentation is. Determine a maximum drop in levels would be acceptable for game balance. I think 33% max is high enough (CL 15 could go as low as CL 10, CL 105 could go as low as cl 70 (which can't happen anyway because of sampling limitations, high CL I've heard of is 78 from current BE efforts)).

This lets us build things half again better as what is naturally available. Which seems reasonable.

2) If you must remove the broken CL things from the game, I strongly request that you do it in as gentle way as possible. It is possible that the errors propogate through all clones made to date. Adjusting all of them back to normal CL is going to ruin a lot of people's pets - 10's going to 12's, 70's going to 71's. Please leave creatures that are within the frame of max desired CL reduction alone.

3) Get with those BE's on the test server BEFORE releasing the patch. Interact with them directly, ask them what they are able to achieve. Give them an ingame email directly to a character you make specifically for screening BE concerns. Let them know what your intentions are so you can see if the game is meeting those intentions.

4) Please let the community know what is going on ahead of time. People need to know if this is an exploit that will be punished, or a bug that will be tolerated until it is fixed, or working as intended. Let people know what the boundaries are supposed to be, so we can accurately gauge if it is working or not.

BE's please keep comments constructive. If people insist on personal attacks, ignore them entirely. I want to make sure that the dev's go into these fixes with the right mindset, so we don't get overnerfed.

i'd like a CL to be able to be inserted into a chart. then we can either exeriment down or experiment up certain parts to make them fall within the spec. this will take out so much guess work.

we only have the option to exeperiment upwards, with downs only coming from fails. we can resample the clones, but even that's not accurate at all.

CL = Toughness

so if Toughness = defence + offence then CL should = resistances + stats + damage + speed + chance to hit + specials + HAM + ferocity + armor

'Fixing' the CL calcualtion should be combined with re-evaluating the way experiment points affect stats. Seems to me that adding an experiment point into any of the five areas should produce about the same increase in CL. If no experiment points are put into one of the five areas, the resulting decrease in CL should be about the same.

Adding 100 pts to Hardiness, Dexterity, or Cleverness through experimentation gets you about 1500 points in the corresponding pool (at least for the types of pets I make. I'm much less certain about this estimate than the others).

Adding 100 pts to Fortitude gets you 10% inc in Effective Resists (and Health Pool goes up if Hardiness goes up).

Adding 100 pts to Cleverness gets you 0.066 To Hit, equivalent to about 3.3% Accuracy increase (and Mind Pool goes up if Cleverness goes up).

Adding 100 pts to Courage gets you 0.1 Attack Speed, around 5% inc near the 2.0 level (whether Dependability goes up or not does not seem to matter).

Adding 100 pts to Power gets you 80 more damage pts,about 20% inc around 400 Damage level, but very high % inc at low Damage levels (although Power seems to go up much less at lower levels, particualrly if Fierceness is very low. Very large Fierceness results in a much greater increase in Power and, therefore, a much greater inc in Damage).

Some people think adding a point to Psychology reduces CL, but I think it just results in a much smaller inc than putting points elsewhere.

And last, but definitely not least, the CL should be shown throughout the Experimentation process. If this were the only change made right now, I would be satisfy.

I agree with Tal-N,

But, we should be GIVEN the formula used to figure out the CL, and the weights attached to each portion of the formula.

Even if it is a Calculus equation, I'd like to bea able to predict what level of creature I should end up with.

ALSO: the CL should appear on the Template, and the experiment screen, so I can know exactly how much I affect the CL with each experiment.

I would Also love to see the actual HAM, damage and speedon the template.

I don't know if satisfied is the right word for me...

but having the CL show throughout the whole experimentation process with be a VERY big plus.