Pixel Tennis

Hello everybody,

in the last days, Wong and me had many meetings in terms of backend handling. One of them was the exp rate in Pixel Tennis.
We are sure that most of you agree, that we try to build the game as similar as possible to Fantasy Tennis when looking at gameplay and basic features. Anyway, regarding the topic "exp rate" and "exp gaining", we have much latitude to design it with you.

So yesterday Wong and me planned a small concept:
Like every MMO a new character starts at level 1. The max level will be 50 (we know that fantasy tennis had a maximum level of 60, but this will be a future topic, it is not necessary for the first release).

For the first level up you will require 20 exp. Every next level will need 7% more than the previous one.

Level 1 - 20 exp
Level 5 - 26 exp
Level 25 - 101 exp
Level 49 - 515 exp

For a match you will earn between 1-20 exp, depending on the following properties:

Match Duration
For every minute that the match go on, you will get 2x exp. So matches until 1 minute, gives you 2 exp, matches over 1 minute gives 4 exp, over 2 minutes 6 exp and so on. The maximum basic exp to get is 10 exp and takes over 4 minutes.

Winning Team
The winning team gets a multiplier 1,5

Team level difference
Player that are low level and play against strong players gets additional exp (Regardless who won). So the weaker Team get following multiplier: levelDifference / 200 + 1. For example 14 level difference / 200 + 1 = 1,07. Max multiplier is here 1,15.

Win/Lose difference
The same concept like the level difference. Teams with worse W/L rate get additional exp: ((StrongerTeamWin / StrongerTeamTotalGames) - (TeamWin / TeamLose)) / 4 + 1. So for example: ((57 Win / 92 Total Games) - (17 Win / 38 Total Games) / 4 + 1 = 1,0425. Here is a max capped at 1,15 too.
For the team level and Win/Lose difference we calculate the average of both player.
For Wong and me is important to reward players which play against stronger ones. Anyway it is not possible for the losing Team to get more exp than the winning team.

Full examples:
Finally, for a sprint from level 1 to 50, you need with an average of 15 exp per match 542 matches.

At this point we want to bring in the community. Maybe one of you have an idea, that would improve our actual concept. So please comment this topic and tell us your opinion

Regards
Boned

Thanks for your job,
the Exp system looks nice to me.

keep going

Everything looks fine and fair. If there will be any unfair situation, i think you can solve it on the following updates

This is a stateless exp rate system, which is fine because it's simple. But i don't think it will motivate low level players to stay against high level players enough, that is one reason for all that switching room action in the actual game

Of course team level difference multiplier cannot be boosted too much or it will promote power-leveling.
I would suggest a stateful version for level difference multiplier as follow:

PLAYER STATE
expFocus = 1.0; // player state ( how receptive is the player to learn)
attentionSpan = 0.2; // constant between 0 and 1, how long can he keep up learning (i.e. getting the bonus)

ON MATCH COMPLETION
levelDiffMultiplier = <your formula>
actualMultiplier = (levelDiffMultiplier - 1) * expFocus + 1; // actual bonus depleted by how "tired" the player is
expFocus = (expFocus / levelDiffMultiplier) * (1 - attentionSpan) + attentionSpan; // player gets tired with difficult matches but gain back energy on simpler ones

and using a higher level multiplier.
Also attentionSpan like this could be included as a cool item stat bonus

Doesn't the attentionSpan lead to the scenario, that you will gain less exp the more you play against better players? Power leveling should be no issue. If you play more, you should gain more exp. If you "noob hunt" or play against yourself with a second account, the time dependent exp base will kick in.

Btw, in Milestone 1, it should be quite easy to level up, as I do not expect many players to play the game tech demo at release.

WongKit wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 6:06 am Btw, in Milestone 1, it should be quite easy to level up, as I do not expect many players to play the game tech demo at release.

TBH i posted just because XP in mmo's is a cool topic, and of course im not telling you what to put in Milestone 1 (or in the game), im already amazed by how far you pushed this project! So basically this is off-topic and just for talking

WongKit wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 6:06 am Doesn't the attentionSpan lead to the scenario, that you will gain less exp the more you play against better players?

Worst case scenario, you gain no bonus (multiplier goes to 1.0).
However you suggested 1.15 max, but as a lvl 20 would you risk against a lvl 50 for just 15% more (level bonus) and almost surely losing while you could get 50% (win bonus) more with a sure win against a lvl 5? And since its rare to meet someone of your same level, one of the two will always be unsatisfied and leave...

But if you raise the level mul from 1.15 to let's say 3.0, and use ehm, lets call it "expFocus mode" ( ) At your first game you will gain 200% more xp, wouldn't you give it a try? The higher level also want to play because its a easy WIN for him (50% more). Of course since a fixed 200% would be too much it should get depleted, thus the expFocus.

If you keep playing against him your bonus could look somenthing like 200% -> 60% -> 20% -> 6% -> ... etc. If instead you play anyone you meet you always feel like you have something to gain (level bonus against higher lvl players or bonus recharge against lower) or that was the idea...

In my opinion the best option is to make it ELO based with gradual decrease when playing against the same opponent x times/week with level multipliers. It's the easiest way to avoid noob hunting and secondary accounts abuse. Of course there will be "smart" ones who will gain ELO just from secondary accounts but you can punish them manually when reported or detected by deducting double the ELO gained from abusive behaviour or similar type of punishment.

This looks well thought-out. As long as it's a "healthy" curve and a rate that can not be abused, I'm fine with it

Some people suggested something along the lines of an elo based rate;
I think for now this is the normal level rate. Stuff like rating, points or even a "ranked system" should be, if Wong wants, implemented later.

looks good to me, super excited to play m1