View source for Post:Creature Treasure - 03/19/2021 - 13:38

{{Post
|a=DR-ZADRAES
|t=Creature Treasure
|d=03/19/2021 13:38
|n=114
|f=Creatures of Elanthia / Game Master and Official Announcements
|c=m,d
|p=Hi folks.

This is a heads up about a proposal related to creature wealth that was recently cleared and how it may affect you going forward.

ACPL = approximate coin per level. Don't read too much into the name, because a lot of things end up affecting it along the way, but a creature's wealth is ultimately based off that value if it drops coins/gems/boxes. Level ends up having a double effect in some ways -- because higher level creature's have...higher levels...they generate more coin. For example: a level 3 goblin vs a level 150 goblin using the same settings. Just because its level is higher, ignoring all other factors, it will generate more treasure. But this gets compounded with higher ACPL values that have not held to our guidelines.

In general, lower level/lower difficulty creatures will have a lower ACPL than higher level ones. Some, but not all, of the factors we consider:
* Low vs high level creature (gains at 100 and 175)
* Does it cast a TM spell or debuff of some kind?
* Does it have a special attack or ability (like re-stealthing after initial spawn)?
* Is it undead/evil/construct?
* Does the hunting area have extra hazards as a substantial part of the area ("the claw" in [[Zaulfung]], dark areas, [[Swamp Troll|swamp troll]] anti-magic effect, swimming, etc)? Climbing a single thing or swimming a single thing to access the area does not qualify.

Because the guidelines weren't equally applied over time, there are a lot of creatures out there with settings that are out of whack, leading to lower level creatures generating more wealth than higher level ones and other oddities. Going forward, as we touch creature scripts for updates and/or bug fixes, part of our process will be reviewing the treasure settings for the creature and adjusting them to fall in line with our now-standardized settings. This means you may see some creatures drop less than they have in the past, but you may also find some dropping more.

As a part of some bug fixes in the past couple days and because of the new standards, the following creatures have had their treasure settings updated:
* [[Germish'din]] were lowered.
* [[Adult wyvern]]s were lowered.
* [[Young wyvern]]s were lowered.
* [[Retch fiend]]s were lowered.
* [[Celpeze]] should once again drop ambergris.

I won't promise we'll always announce every change, but if you notice creature loot changing, this is likely the reason why. Fighting creatures with more spells/abilities/difficulty should be more rewarding than a same-level creature without those hazards. It is no one's project to visit every creature to make mass changes; don't panic that everything is turning on its head tomorrow. But as we make other tweaks and fixes, treasure will be reviewed going forward so that eventually those harder creatures reward appropriately.

[[Zadraes]]
|sub=Approximate coin per level, Misshapen germish'din, Adult wyvern, Young wyvern, Retch fiend, Asaren Celpeze,
}}