Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-26172435-20160707105627

Alright, here comes the Ogre with another one of his lengthly, complex ideas on rpg, levelling and stuff ... NAY! This be simpler me laddies!

Background
As I am playing on TOS, where enchanting is completely disabled, and there are still experience orbs exploding from both vanilla and mod added mobs, but there is no effective use to them other than naming objects on an anvil (repairing is much resource-efficient when combining two worn-off items), even the risk of losing them upon a knockout is meaningless ... so, I pondered a simple way to make this mechanism meaningful to the players yet not game-changeing.

Objective
Provide a simple, easily codable method that:
 * makes use of the acquired vanilla experience orb levels,
 * provides a moderately effective reward in combat and
 * doesn't encourage grinding without additional risk,
 * yet encourages players to act carefully because the effect of losing experience upon a knockout ('death') is costly, and to keep them mining, baking and forging.

Assumptions
(* Until now, there has never been any verifiable feedback yet by any mod team member or Mevans on any of the suggestions relating to this on this wiki. Not on my proposals, nor on those by other contributors. So, we must assume that even the starting points for any new system are yet 'undecided', otherwise they would have already been able to narrow down the range of our suggestion options on that feature.)
 * Given the fact that any new NPC still generates experience orbs, I assume these shiny dots will be in the mods gameplay environment for ages to come.
 * My guess is that the enchanting/enhancement system may eventually be changed, but it will take quite some time before Mevans will come to that (*). Whether or not that be based on experience orbs or another experience system, or on a different mechanism seems irrelevant. Therefore, a simple intermediate solution may be feasible to please many players with the 'comfort' of being awarded for acquiring and keeping experience orb levels.

Proposal
A players 'Vigour' is represented by the experience orb level. This represents the combined effects of the enhancement of a players traits through experience. These traits can be assumed: health, resilience, hardiness, agility, stamina, endurance, anticipation and perseverance. Each 'Vigour' level (experience orb level) adds 0,5 % to impact reduction from any incoming damage originating from melee combat or environmental effects. This will imply that a player with 30 experience orb levels gets 15 % less impact damage from a blow by a Warhammer, a fall from height or a bump by an Aurochs. It will not affect impact damage from any ranged weapons. It may be useful to set a cap on the maximum effect, but as the experience orb cost per level increases dramatically with each level, I don't think that would even be necessary. The feature should be configurable for both single player mode and for server owners.

Considerations

 * Any other buff I could think of would encourage NPC grinding more than this one. The rewards of the system are only effective in situations where players expose themselves to risk of losing it all: in direct melee combat.
 * Of course, I still recommend to implement this and this anyway.
 * At 5 % per 10 levels the maximum effect is capped significantly. Note that to increase your levels with 10, you must acquire more than double the experience orbs you already have.
 * A justifiable explanation for this mechanism may be to assume that experience from combat, slaughtering, crafting or forging required a player to put effort in training his skills and traits. The result of which makes a player better fit to dodge any impact, to absorb impact energy and recover from damage. So, the effect may be considered a combined result of enhanced traits of the player, as mentioend above. I pondered calling this combined trait, represented by the experience orb level the players, 'Vigour', would be most appropriate. If he gets knocked out, his body and mind will be 'reset' to their base levels and they will need work on regaining that once acquired level of 'Vigour' again.

Feed feedback!
Yes, these are just my first thoughts, condensed after pondering on them for a while. Now, please bring up your thoughts so I may be able to improve on this, or convince me of the meaninglessness of it all, whatever you feel is most appropriate. Thank you! 