Levels and skills
Learning paths through this topic
Buying the premium season track late leaves out the rewards for levels already reached
A season path gives a reward at every level, and players may be offline when they pass some, or upgrade halfway through. Claiming must hand out everything owed, once, in order, without double giving. Here is how to work out what is waiting, and why a claim button should be safe to press twice.
A hero at the chapter's level cap should keep the experience for later
A campaign may stop heroes at a level until the story opens the next chapter. What happens to the experience earned in the meantime? Throwing it away feels cruel, and letting it pile up without a limit breaks the pacing the cap was meant to protect. This entry shows a bank with a ceiling and what happens when the cap is raised.
Houses should grow up only when their needs stay met for days, not for a moment
A market truck passes once and a house jumps a level, then drops again the next day when the truck is gone. Neighbourhoods look like a blinking light. This entry shows how to make growth feel earned and decline feel fair, with a counter on each side and a rule for what happens to the other one.
Veterans left idle in a fort should grow rusty, but never lose their rank
Some strategy games want trained units to get rusty when they sit around, so the player keeps them busy. Done the obvious way, the loss is applied every tick, depends on the frame rate and can strip a unit of its rank overnight. This entry gives a version that is the same at any speed and has a floor the player can understand.
A reward message arrives twice after a bad connection and the player is paid double
Online games resend messages when they are unsure whether they arrived, so the same kill can be reported two times. Deleting duplicates sounds easy until messages also arrive out of order. Here is a bookkeeping method that pays each reward once without remembering everything forever.
A balance patch changes the experience curve and players land in the wrong level
After a patch changes how much experience each level needs, stored totals suddenly mean different levels, and some players drop back while others jump ahead. Here is how to move everyone to the new curve so each keeps their level and their progress toward the next one.
A player's connection drops mid-dungeon and their share of the reward is lost
Wi-Fi fails for twenty seconds and the player comes back to find they earned nothing from the fights they were part of, or the group has already kicked them. Here is how to treat a short drop as an absence rather than a quit, and what to do when they never come back.
A skirmish ladder where a new rank is protected for a few games
Rank points go up with wins and down with losses, and a player who just reached the next league drops straight back after one bad evening. That feels terrible and teaches people to stop playing. This entry shows how promotion carries its surplus, how a short shield works, and what happens at the bottom and the top of the ladder.
Leaders near a unit should not stack their bonuses into an unbeatable blob
A leader gives nearby soldiers a bonus that grows with the leader's level. Put five leaders in one spot and the bonus is five times as large, so the best play is to pile them up. This entry gives a rule where the best leader counts fully, helpers count a little, and the edge of the circle is decided the same way every time.
A group is refused at the door because one friend is a few levels too low
Checking the average level lets a hopeless beginner slip in beside three strong players, while checking the lowest level blocks friends who are almost there. Here is an entry rule in between, and how to tell the group exactly who is the problem.
The level shown is sometimes one too low right at the moment of leveling up
Working out the level from a pile of experience points looks like one line of maths, yet it goes wrong exactly at the edges, where a player has precisely enough. Here is how to get the level, and the progress to the next, right every time.
One rich member levels the whole clan alone and the others stop caring
When a clan has a level that grows from what members contribute, a single heavy player can push it up in an evening, and a member who leaves can take the clan's progress with them. Here is how to keep the contributions balanced, per member and per day, and keep the clan's level safe from departures.