Experience

Monsters range in level from level 1 to level 100. The number of experience points an individual monster has determines its level. Monsters mostly gain experience points through battling other monsters. There may be other ways of gaining experience points as well.

Current implementation of experience points and levelling

When an enemy monster is eliminated, all player monsters that did any amount of damage to it are given an equal portion of (its total experience points / its level) (this is identical to giving experience points equal to level ^ 2).

A monster increases in level if its total experience points meet or exceed (its level * its Experience Required Modifier) ^ 3. I believe the Experience Required Modifier is currently hard-coded to 1 for all monsters.

A monster increases as many levels as it is entitled to.

Gaining experience points

In battle, record each time one of the player’s monsters faces an enemy monster (i.e. not one of the player’s monsters). When an enemy monster is defeated, calculate how many experience points it gives. This is based on the “Experience Points Given” formula.

These experience points are distributed between every monster on the player’s team that damaged that enemy monster. Monsters should not gain experience points once they have reached maximum level (100).

Discussion

A monster requires X experience points to increase its level. The amount of experience points it needs is determined by a formula.

The current formula is that a monster levels up when its experience point total exceeds (current level +1) ^ 3.

I think this works well and is nice and simple, but defeating a monster of the same level should result in less progression the higher level you are. For example, maybe a level 1 character needs to battle three level 1 characters to go to level 2; a level 99 character might need to battle 10 level 99 characters to go to level 100.

(Also level 1 monsters should have 1 experience point, not 0).

The current system results in some funny behaviours:

• Level 1 monsters give no experience points. • It takes a monster defeating between five and three monsters of the same level to increase in level – with low level monsters needing to defeat more monsters to level up. In most games it’s quicker to level up at lower levels and it gets progressively slower. • I suspect that this is quite quick levelling up compared to other games, and compared to the story that we have planned. • All monsters of the same level give the same experience points (not necessarily a bad thing, but it is unusual). • Monsters can have more experience points than their level would suggest; they potentially “should” be many levels higher. • A monster could make a contribution in battle without damaging the opponent, e.g. using a technique that makes them confused or enraged. Currently, they wouldn't receive experience points for participating in that battle.

We should consider:

• Do we want monsters that only used non-damaging techniques to share in the experience points of the defeated monster? • How many equally-matched battles do we want a monster to be involved in before it gains one level? • Do we want lower-level monsters to gain a level after more or fewer equally-matched battles than higher-level monsters? • How much more experience points should higher-level monsters give than lower-level ones? Is defeating a level 10 monster worth twice as much as defeating a level 5 monster? Or four times as much? Or more?

Sharing experience points

There may be various ways to share experience points with monsters that are on the player’s team but never faced the monster that just got defeated. For example:

• An item that, if it is in the player’s possession, means that half of the XP goes to monsters that participated and half goes to monsters that did not participate. (“XP Transmitter”)
• An item given to a particular monster that means that half of the XP goes to monsters that participated and half goes to that monster (including allowing them to double-dip if they participated) (“XP Feeder”).

When does levelling up occur?

The three options are:

• Levelling up occurs after the battle is over, if the player wins the battle • Levelling up occurs after the battle is over, regardless of who wins the battle • Levelling up occurs immediately; morphing occurs after the battle if the player wins the battle (current and my preference at the moment) • Levelling up occurs immediately; morphing occurs after the battle regardless of who wins • Levelling up and morphing occurs immediately (my second preference)

Whenever levelling up does occur, the stat, technique, etc. changes that come along with levelling up should occur immediately.

Experience items

I suggest Tea, Super Tea, Mega Tea and Imperial Tea as four new items.

Tea would give roughly enough experience points to advance a 4th level monster to halfway through level 5th; Super Tea a 9th level monster to halfway through 10th; Mega Tea a 16th level monster to 17th level; Imperial Tea a 25th level monster to 26th. (Obviously the exact number of experience points would depend on what experience point model we end up choosing).

You could create further teas giving more experience points (36 > 37, 49 > 50, 64 > 65, 81 > 82, potentially).

Alternatives

How experience points are awarded

I think the game should give experience points to all monsters that used a technique on the defeated monster, not just ones that damaged the defeated monster.

Experience points don’t have to be distributed evenly, but I think it’s better that they are. Other options would be to give them in full to every participant or to allocate them based on “contribution” (e.g. how many rounds they were in battle for or how much damage they did).

Simple alternative formula

Perhaps we could change the Experience Points Given formula, e.g. to (total experience points/level) + level or (total experience points/(2*level)) + level.

These at least give a basically even progression (at each level, defeat three/six monsters of the same level to advance a level)

Elaborate alternative formulas

An alternative that matches what is done in other monster catching games would be to make level ^ 3 the additional experience points required to increase a level, rather than the total experience points required to be at that level.

You could also have different families of monster to level up at different rates. For example, a stupid, ancient or powerful monster might gain levels more slowly. A clever or weak monster might gain levels more quickly. You could even have monsters that gain levels quickly to begin with, but then take more time; or vice versa.

Here are five suggested formulas:

Name	Formula	Potential use
Slow	(level ^ 3) * 0.8	Dinosaurs, dunces, golems, giants, legends
Medium	(level ^ 3)	Domesticated animals, predators
Fast	(level ^ 3) * 1.25	Rodents, insects, fish, magical creatures
Slow-then-fast	(level ^ 3) * (1.3 – (level/180))	Aliens, dragons, oddities
Fast-then-slow	(level ^ 3) * (0.75 + (level/180))	Starter monsters, team staples, humanoids

Experience Points Given formula

This could be as simple or complicated as we want to make it.

I suggest a simple formula:

Experience Points Given = Life Stage multiplier * (defeated monster’s level ^ 2)

Life Stage multiplier: Original stage = 2, Middle stage = 3, Final stage = 5

Ramifications

Because Experience Points Given is based on level squared but Experience Points to Level Up is based on level cubed, monsters of higher level will require more battles to level up – all things being equal.

However, the life stage multiplier is important here, because Middle and Final stage monsters will become more common, and Original stage monsters less common, as monsters are higher level. This goes some way towards reducing this effect – but does not wholly eliminate it.

This is by design – players progress quickly at first, but then have to work harder for later progress.