Valorian

: Just no. So all you have to do is stand still and regenerate you precious stamina back? In combat you don't have the luxury to stand still and regenerate stamina while monsters are pounding on you. Next. Combat is complex, it involves: positioning, deciding which abilities/spells to use, selecting optimal targets, timing, combining actions... Sneaking involves moving your character around. Next. When you fail in combat the consequence is death. Even if you win, there is this little problem of health drainage. When you fail sneaking, you can always draw your weapons and have a second chance. .

Your first post hasn't offered valid/reasonable alternatives. : *Cat still eagerly awaits wall of text* Do not disappoint Cat.

PJunta, your logorrheic frenzy hasn't addressed the crucial problem. How does your segmental/arbitrary-objective-xp-system solve the issue of sneaking around enemies being the optimal solution? : Please elaborate. Without sci-fi examples.

Your cat is a retard.

The Cat is one and only. And this is not my , but a copycat. My Cat would reduce you to shreds if you ever tried to kidnap it.

Because the dragon will regenerate his stamina back when you leave, just like the player. Will rest too, probably. The 5 monsters will stay dead. So, wait, if you spend 5 minutes combatting something, and it happens to die, then logic dictates that you gained combat experience (fitness, weapon technique practice, dodging/blocking practice, etc.) and should be rewarded. BUT, if you spend 5 minutes combatting something, and it happens to not-die, then, logically, you didn't gain any combat experience? Hyperbole. And they're not going to use a learn-by-hitting xp system.

So now we're assuming there are going to be ultra-convenient alternate tunnels everywhere that always lead to the chest behind the big group of enemies, are we? . Lovely. The key words there being "If." Where in "No. Awarding loot is not systemic." (which is exactly what you just linked to) does Josh say "All the best loot in the game will be placed in non-combat-obtainable chests. Suck it, combat-advocates!"? Please, please point it out for me. Pretty please. I'll give you a dollar. All that means is, you have no way of knowing what's in the contents of a chest behind some enemies, and what the enemies, themselves, are carrying (you can see weapons and equipment, maybe, but what about small bags of gemstones or gold?). At the very least, not-killing them means you miss out on ANYTHING they're carrying regardless of whether or not it's uber equipment that you want to use, or lesser equipment that you want to sell. Josh has expressed an intent to deal with loot bloat, but I don't recall anyone at Obsidian saying anything about "No enemies will ever drop anything except for elites, and you'll know exactly who these elites are, and what they will drop!". If they did, then, again, please show me. I would seriously like to know, because I missed it (Not sarcasm... sincerity.) If you opt to attempt to kill the enemies, between your player skill at controlling your party, the difficulty setting of the game, and your party's build, you have 1 of 2 outcomes: A)You are unable to defeat them and must reload from a previous save and give up on killing them, or B)You defeat them (however many tries it takes, you either eventually win or you don't), get anything they were carrying (which, until they announce loot lists on mouse-over, I'm going to consider that we probably don't have any way of knowing without killing them and checking), then STILL get to go open the chest. How does the amount of stuff enemies had on their persons + contents of chest somehow = only the contents of the chest? And if the combat loot is NEVER a significant enough addition to the chest contents, then that's a balancing issue, not a problem with the system itself. If you heat water on a stove, and fail to bring it to a boil (you only get it to 200 degrees Fahrenheit), the method you're using to boil it (heating it) isn't the problem. The exact value of the temperature you reached is the problem. i.e. balancing. You're perfectly free to believe they'll terribly balance the game, but that's pretty much just a guess (Like, "I believe we will have exactly 10 hurricanes next year, instead of some other number of hurricanes!"), and has absolutely nothing to do with the system. Hell, in a system that awards XP for each and every enemy killed, if it only gave you 5 XP for each enemy, and you always needed 20,000 to gain a level, then you'd still be upset because of balancing issues, even though it was using the system you favor. So, I'd very much like to know why we should all assume the same things you assume. Also, no one addressed this example I gave earlier: If you'd like to ignore it, I suppose nothing's stopping you. It just seems to me like it disproves the "Combat avoidance is always the better option" hypothesis. Correct me if I'm wrong. * opens thread, wall of text falls down and almost kills Cat*

=/ dodgy troll is dodgy. It's you who's extolling the virtues of IE over possible elements of P:E so you'd better explain why, I reiterate, chugging potions in IE was just fine by you but you cannot possibly tolerate it in P:E. On the contrary... My point was that constructing any play style around chugging potions is horrible. Especially if it involves chugging a potion, going invisible and then walking past enemies expecting the same xp as those who engage in combat. Cat tells me to tell you he thinks you have huge comprehension issues. Cat played without casters, yes. I included a caster from time to time, for fun. It's generally too easy with a caster, for Cat anyway.

: Potions don't reappear as you wake up though.

OMIGAD. I wonder what you thought about combat in the IE games, where combat was designed around chugging health potions (well, stitching needles or smth in PS:T's case). According to your logic, that wasn't fighting, it's drinking. What about the fact that at higher levels, IE (=DnD) combat tended to become a game of your tanks playing merry-go-round while success came from your casters pulling off the right (AoE) spells at the right time? Then that wasn't fighting or drinking, it's casting. *wonders why anyone would think that designing a play style around chugging potions is not inherently a negative thing* *wonders how he played without casters just fine and why would anyone think that casting combat spells in combat is something odd*

*Cat sneaks in* -) Non-combat will be favored because alternatives to combat are easier, less complex, cost less resources and take generally less time to complete. IE games are indicative in this regard, seeing how stealth and dialgue worked there. -) That is not true! What if.... It costs 100 000 gold pieces to make a diplomacy check?? interjects: You've just upgraded the cost to an unreasonable level, not the complexity of choosing dialogue options. It costs potions(!) if you want to sneak around?? interjects: It is unreasonable to expect them to design stealth around drinking invisibility potions. Then that's not sneaking around, it's drinking around.

The discussion amounts to this: -) Non-combat will be favored because alternatives to combat are easier, less complex, cost less resources and take generally less time to complete. IE games are indicative in this regard, seeing how stealth and dialgue worked there. -) That is not true! What if.... It costs 100 000 gold pieces to make a diplomacy check?? interjects: You've just upgraded the cost to an unreasonable level, not the complexity of choosing dialogue options. It costs potions(!) if you want to sneak around?? interjects: It is unreasonable to expect them to design stealth around drinking invisibility potions. Then that's not sneaking around, it's drinking around.

It affects loot. In IE games it is very easy to take loot during combat. A rogue taking a strong stamina potion from a corpse could change the battle. It only works like that... if the world follows your twisted logic. But that's highly unlikely.

So you'd be okay with a system that, for example, doesn't reward combat against weaker enemies at all, but still rewards stealth options? So lets say a CR encounter 2 levels above the party gives the same XP to stealth and combat but a CR encounter 5 levels below the party only gives XP to the stealth party (because there's still some "effort" involved on the part of the sneaking party in sneaking but not in fighting the punny fellows)? What effort is there to sneaking past a significantly inferior enemy? Also, what's the danger? What's the consequence for being spotted and heard? :D You do have to take consequences into account for success/failure when employing such a philosophical stretching of circumstances. Penalties to combat if caught sneaking plus the alerting of ALL monsters in the area to your presence (ruling out sneaking further even against more advanced foes, requiring retreat/failure of the objective or heavier combat resource investment than a combat path)? : *cat is bored* Yeah, because that would make so much sense.

Because the dragon will regenerate his stamina back when you leave, just like the player. Will rest too, probably. The 5 monsters will stay dead. But what if the 5 remaining monsters are rejoined by 5 of their pals (respawn)? From a game standpoint, the encounter is still the same, so rewarding the failure to take the 10 monsters all at once with a combat xp system will reward you constantly. (Do we know if PE monsters will respawn?) What if... respawns? What if... plague strikes? What if... earthquake? You still improved your skills by killing them. There shouldn't be raspawns because this means unlimited loot and/or xp for the player so it's an inherently negative machanic, unless it's a MMO. No, I won't accept the "learn by doing" xp for hitting the dragon, because this is not the spiritual successor to TES and I wouldn't like the silliness that springs from such a system in PE.

So you'd be okay with a system that, for example, doesn't reward combat against weaker enemies at all, but still rewards stealth options? So lets say a CR encounter 2 levels above the party gives the same XP to stealth and combat but a CR encounter 5 levels below the party only gives XP to the stealth party (because there's still some "effort" involved on the part of the sneaking party in sneaking but not in fighting the punny fellows)? What effort is there to sneaking past a significantly inferior enemy? Also, what's the danger? What's the consequence for being spotted and heard? :D You do have to take consequences into account for success/failure when employing such a philosophical stretching of circumstances.

Because the dragon will regenerate his stamina back when you leave, just like the player. Will rest too, probably. The 5 monsters will stay dead.

Why do you need an instant-reward? Why return to the quest-giver for the reward? Give it right away, makes it go faster. Why reward option A with dialogue A later and B with B later. Such a late reward is silly... just give XP and the later dialogue should do C whatever you did. Because you're not yet strong enough to kill the remaining 5? Because you forgot about that optional side quest and moved on? You should never be rewarded for writing anything, really. No, writing gibberish code is not the same thing as defeating 5 monsters and improving your combat skills in the process.

Amentep, I want the xp system to be balanced towards giving the most xp for the hardest and most demanding options.

You've obviously already forgotten that you started with "so what if we remove combat/sneaking/dialogue xp (because it's a reward in itself)".

No, it doesn't. The 5 dead monsters are a very real success. Why should you wait, for instance, an in-game month to get rewarded (if ever) for overcoming 5 monsters?

That's not removing XP. Removing xp is not my goal.

Nope, it wouldn't. If a group was scripted to give XP only once for sneaking past them. And if you kill them after that you'd get no xp either. I suppose you could assign a system that gives an opponent a set of xp that is "taken" when the player kills or stealths the enemy, thus allowing the xp to be gainable only once. I'm not entirely sure how that's fundamentally different from assigning an objective "get past the enemy" to a quest and rewarding the same amound of total XP for the objective as to the individual kills/stealths. It's diffent because... The player could kill 5 enemies from a group of 10 and then run away to survive. He'd get no xp under the "quest xp only" system.

I don't mind... but this is a RPG. How do you want to level and build up your character? By giving combat xp + (specific instances of stealth/dialogue XP) + exploration xp + quest xp.

Yes, you do. In fact, most quests involve lots and lots of talking. Should you get xp for exchanging a few meaningless words with a peasant or passerby? Surely not, like you'd get no xp for killing them or sneaking around them. Also, quests involve a lot of sneaking. And combat. All leading to the big final reward. But is the talking itself rewarded? No. Does that mean you no longer talk? No. Is the sneaking itself rewarded? No. Does that mean you no longer sneak? No. Is the combat itself rewarded? No. Does that mean you no longer do combat? No, except for some exclusions apparently. Who then tell us WE hate combat. While WE aren't skipping it. It's strange... All the extra dialogue is it's own reward. All the extra sneaking is it's own reward. All the additional combat it it's own reward... You're not rewarded for any combat, you're rewarded only for combat that ends in your favor. You are not rewarded for general talking. You are rewarded for discovering new important informations when talking to people, persuading them regarding important issues. Etc. Completing a quest is also its own reward. We're not removing quest XP though, are we?