Volourn

"The truth is Cyril was on the board of Lonmin and he did say the protracted strikes need to be ended. But anyone who understood how harmful the strikes were also said the same thing, we have a massive problem in South Africa with intransigence around what the Trade Unions want and expect. And they don't care if they drag the countries economy down with there unrealistic demands" Strikes should never be forcefully ended by the police or the gov't. Because that only leads to slavery.

"I would be surprised -and disappointed- if Obsidian doesn't reconsider the way XP is handled." Feel free to be dissapointed. Even one of Obsidian's bosses was told his opinion was wrong. This thread isn't really to convince Obsidian of anything. They made up their minds. There will be no combat xp in the game. If we're lucky, they'll improve the overall xp intake but otherwise no go. This is no SRR that is for sure. "Sorry, I don't debate with people who start making it personal, Stun. I'm done here." You are the one who made it personal. You attacked everyone who liked Diablo or was pro xp rewards. btw, I'm no Diablo fan. I played Diablo1 and somewhat enjoyed and I did even't bother with 2 or 3 but hey if you are gonna flame people expected to be flamed back. "Achievement: - "You moved the mouse!!!" - "You clicked once!" - "You clicked twice!"" STOP THE. HYPERBOLE. Nobody has asked for that. All we asked is to be rewarded for overcoming challenges. Period. "People act like this is self-evidently a bad thing, but I'm actually not sure why. Why is gaining 0 XP a bad thing? What exactly are you being deprived of here? Personally, I think it's cool when you can't count on the inevitable level-up to rescue you from a tough encounter. You have to make due with what you have. No level-up for you until the quest is over." Not being rewarded for overcoming a challenge *is* a bad thing. "I would say even 2 or 3 quality combat sequences per rest is more than your average DnD tabletop campaign, unless you're just running something really kill heavy. Additionally, from a role playing perspective, I think it would make sense that the large majority of characters would want to engage in life or death situations as little as possible, and especially when it isn't necessary for some tangible objective. For those that truly feel that murder is an important part of progression, then the value provided in the loot, or in not having to parlay with those you encounter seems sufficient enough." Huh? Ifa DM allows a party to res every 2-3 encounters, they aren't very good. I certainly wouldn't allow the party to rest after a battle before they 'face' the boss (though in pnp terms like 'boss' isn't thrown around a lot. On top of that the problem with PE is you can't parlay a lot. Most encounetrs are instantly hostile and aggresive. "How on earth is kill-XP any different from your complain. You have to slaughter anything that moves, otherwise you are denied character progression. It forces you to be murderhobo, instead of playing quests and adventures." Nope. You can level up just fine in BG without murdering every last xfart for 7xp. Please tell me you didn't feel the need to do that when playing BG? "Actually, I like dev's approach of "just be you" or "pretend to be a different personality" or role-playing. If you are interested in EXP, there are many other CRPGs, which allow you grind to your heart's content. For a story-focused role-playing game, the implementation makes sense." This doesn't make sense. It's not about grinding. I mean you can't really avoid the beetles for instance. They're basically right on the road. LMAO And, this is combat heavy. "My personal experience of playing some PnP RPGs and the way some of Obsidian devs kept the tradition of introducing PnP essences into CRPGs. In fact, while being counted as Infinity Engine games, Planescape: Torment was totally of it's own." O RLY? Funny enough, PST gave the player combat xp.... "Basically, their games tend to be story-focused game with clear design goals rather than loot'n EXP CRPGs but let's see how the quests are designed." They're both 'story focsed' and 'combat heavy'. Every single PE game including this one has LOTS of combat. I mean all the classes are geared to combat. Very few non com,bat skills, and no non combat spells. Yet people are pretending the game isn't focused on combat. Come on.Even Obsidian hasn't denied this. L0L "that Kill XP can encourage combat as the primary solution to problems" Except PE encourage and forces you into lots of combat. There's not a lot of choice in the matter except, say, ogre which you get xp either way. But, you can't talk to the beetles, lions, or even the humanoid cultists. They are insta hostile. "I'm really enjoying a PnP game I'm in at present where my character basically leaps at every opportunity to avoid a fight. We're getting a lot of "roleplaying XP" because she'll usually try to negotiate instead if it's feasible. It's nice for that to be a realistic option in any rpg, IMO. Less metagaming helps with immersion for me." That's fantastic! But, you ain't getting that in PE. Youa re gonna be forced to fight A LOT in PE. You should be rewarding for surviving a tough battle just a smuch if you wer eable to use dialogue skillz to convince the prince to show his shirtless chest to you. "I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it hampers your progress further on down the line if you skip XP rich areas where the goal is basically just to slaughter everything in sight." Not as much as you think. BG2 gave you over the top quest xp to more than make up for it. Not to mention lockpicking, scribe scrolls, and opening doors also gave generous xp. Plus, BG2 just like PE is combat heavy and combat focused. And, theya re both story focsued but they both have unavoidable combat.

"I hate the XP system that divinity origianl sin has, and it's you can combat but it's sterile xp, you only lvl up through quests, this means that it's only important the development that you do on cities or zones with tons of quests and not fighting." Uh.. Others covered this. D:OS is really generous when it comes to kill xp. It doesn't hurt the game at all like some the anti xp for kill crowd claim. Why? Because, xp is to be sued to reward the layer for upcoming obstacles, missions, and role-playing. When you have a battle with beetles, lions, or ogres and you successfully overcome them you should be rewarded for it. PERIOD.

"If ur only reward for exploring is a numeric advance in level...and not the actual curiosity of wanting to know and rewarded with that knowledge ..." ONLY!?! ONLY!?! ONLY!?! Being pro xp for overcoming challenge doesn't mean one wants that to be the only reward I want for it. Don't make stuff up.

I don't see it being hard. Played on normal. Did well in most combat. Have died maybe 4 times but twice was me being lazy and twice because have my team had no equipment include no grimoire. L0L

indira probably got hit with the vanishing quest bug in obsidian's defense there.

"Be brave, uve done somthing different and stick with it Obsidian." It's not different. It's been done before. It's been done better. SRR handles xp better than Obsidian. Even BL did. This system (thus far) is EPIC FAIL. "From someone who has played rpgs video games all the way back to dragon warrior first coming out," Not impressed. "weighing my options should this be a good idea to engage or a better idea for disengagement." Except majority of combat is forced on you (barring sneaking with whole party) since most enemies are insta hostile. There is no option. XP is about rewarding the player. PE doesn't reward the player for exploring, combat, role-playing, C&C in proper and meaningful ways. SSR, BG, and BL do.

"Inaccurate passers don't survive in the NFL" Tell that to two time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning who has 'below average' accuracy numbers in his career.

Why bring religion into this?

Spell system seems fine. Definitely DnDish overall. My bigest issue is that all spells are geared towards combat. The closest to 'non combat' is the haste spell. The system really needs some non combat ones .. Making different spells just do various damage/hold types can only work so long. Let's mix it up!

"I feel that there are other ways to reward the player some experience for not fighting. Maybe tie it to the stronghold or something similar. For instance, If you talked your way out of a situation you might get something like " followers at your stronghold heard word of your deeds and their moral boost rewards you ##xp". Whatever the same xp is you would get for all the creatures you would have fought. If you end up changing your mind then have their moral backtrack or something." There ya go. Of course, in most encounters, you can't talk your way out of it. It's not an option.

"Really? I was sure that Adam got it in the 2nd gamescon vid without talking to the farmer first - was it the same ogre? (Just checking that this mightn't all be an xp-bug)" It is likely a bug in this instance. I'm just having fun over it. The anti xp people got their wish. There's no xp at all. Not from combat, not from exploring, not from quests. Heh. Still, bugs aside, I don't see why one can't earn experience by overcoming the challenge of the beatles...

yeah, but people are saying 'best game ever', etc., etc. That's from a beta. If you can praise the beta you should be able t criticize it. And, I'm not talking about bugs since bugs are to be expected and if a bug exists it exists. That's not controversial for obvious reasons. the assumption, of coruse, is that at the very elast the major bugs like items disseapearing will be fix by release time. But, features like the discussion in this thread are things that can be praised/criticzed now.

But, it's not 'too buggy' for people to praise the game, right? L0L "You can't criticize because you haven't seen it." "You can't criticize because you haven't played it." "You can't criticize because it's just the beta." "You can't criticize because it was just released." "You can't criticize because you haven't played it 7 times." "You can't criticize because it's not the sequel." But, we sure as heck can praise it. Not one person has attacked me when I said good things about the character system... but, woe to me when I criticize something.

"Uhhh, no." Uhhh... Yes.. I wouldn't say it's Diablo like but it is heavily focused on combat. The stats prove it. Nothing wrong with that either. And, yeah, it will have dialogue and non combat solutions, and all that other stuff but even Obsidian has stated quite clearly that the game is highly focused on combat and majority of combat won't be avoidable. Yeah, you can avoid combat with ogre but not with the beetles, lions, or even the presumably intelligent cultists. Nothing wrong with that but don't pretend this is some anti fighting game when it isn't. XP should be about rewarding players for overcoming challenges, complting quests, role-playing, and encouraging them to partake in what the game has to offer. There is no reason why completing the challenge of beating the beetles shouldn't be worth the same as defeating the ogre. NONE.

"Good to know that the fans of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, etc. are not the target group of this game." I'm a fan of IE games and I don't feel the need to hunt down every last xfart for 7xp. But, I also don't believe games should be made to smack those type of players down. Theyc ertainly don't hurt me.

Since NWN was released and is the best game ever.

Actually, I think you just made another joke. L0L 'Cause that would be said if there were to be true. It's going to be between PE (if certain things are fixed), WL2, and DA3.

The pro xp camp have given constructive feedback. I know I have inbetween the sniping between me and the 'other side'. But, it doesn't matter. It's not being changed. Our opinions have been thrown in the trash and ridiculed by Obsidian. These xp threads are mostly for us posters. There's a reason why no dev is active in these threads despite how 'busy' they are, and it's because this issue is not an issue for them. It is what it is.

A lot of the changes are good. A lot of the changes are bad.

We all do. It's okay. :D

The thing is all PE classes are designed to kill things. That's what they are made for.

Great post and largely agreed.

"we just need to see if Josh can swallow his pride a bit.." Problem is he won't do that. I mean he's already labeeld those who disagree with him 'grognards' even thoguh he actually fits the description. He's simply wrong with how they're going about xp. Even his own boss disagreed with him but relented to Sawyer's 'vision'. No combat xp worked in SRR. It doesnt' work here. To be more positive so I'm not 'picking on Sawyer'; there are stuff he has done well for the game and kudos to that thoguh it's wrong thread for those kudos. Bottom line is player should be rewarded for overcoming challenges. So far, in PE Beta, the player is not. That's a fail. Even the anti xp people are slowly seeing this. Volourn was right again. Don't pull a Troika or a POR;ROMD , Obsidian.

I have to read this new thread so I'm responding to a post in the other one since you guys won't let a guy sleep in peace. L0L "But removing the choice to do that is not the way to go either. Like Indra said, you are essentially railroading the player in to a specific style of game play." PE si combat focused, and outside of ssneaking there is no way to avoid majority of combat in the game since enemies are usdually insta hostile and also camp right at the area entrance. ie. Beetles and lions. Now to read other posts and comment on those...