Post:Dynamic Spawnrates - 03/20/2013 - 11:27

Re: Dynamic Spawnrates · on 03/20/2013 11:27 AM CDT	1251
Firstly - this is something I plan to be very cautious approaching. I'm aware it's going to be a big change. Secondly - people are making an awful lot of assumptions about where the balance point is going to be, and frankly, they're wrong. Take the following scenario using some, roughly, realistic numbers: Every 40 seconds the spawn fires. It tries to keep a 3 to 1 ratio. Every time it fires it finds how many players there are, how many creatures there are, and restores this ratio. This is an example of the existing set up. Under the proposed set up: Underpopulation - The spawn evaluates the hunting ground and says, "There's 4 people here and every time I fire off there's 4 people and 11-12 creatures." so it slowly cranks the ratio up to 4 to 1. Equilibrium - The spawn evaluates the hunting ground and says, "There's 4 people here and every time I fire off there's 4 people and 4-8 creatures." so it decides, you know what, that sounds good. Overpopulation - The spawn evaluates the hunting ground and says, "There's 4 people here and every time I fire off there's 4 people and 0-2 creatures." so it slowly cranks the ratio down to 2 to 1. Clearly there's some space in-between those zones, but I'm trying to convey the overall idea. Keep in mind I haven't written a line of this code yet, so it's all subject to change. Any dynamic changes to the spawn are going to be somewhat slow as well. It's not like turning off the faucet, we don't want the spawn rate slamming back and forth between off and 11 just because you happened to kill a few creatures close together or swapped to a lower weapon. -Raesh
This message was originally posted in Creatures of Elanthia \ General Discussions - Creatures, by DR-RAESH on the play.net forums.