Stun

Maybe I need to write this in crayon. In a system where XP rewards are handed out only for completing objectives, you're NOT solving the "problem" of players always choosing combat as a solution. You're simply shifting the problem to the other side: you're making it so that players will always choose to solve problems without combat. Since combat incurs costs that non-combat doesn't.

Alright. How exactly will the game determine that you've completed the level? (you found the stairs to the next level? You've murdered all enemies in the level? you solved all the level's puzzles? you've killed the level's assigned boss?)

You know what the real joke here is? No one here even remotely suggested a systematic XP reward system. Tartantyco literally decided to Soapbox against it...in a vacuum.

No, that is not the solution. As I just explained, you can't practically or cost-effectively create a fair XP system that does that. How do you create a stealth XP reward system? XP for going into stealth mode? XP for the duration of your stealth? XP for being stealthed near enemies? XP for being stealthed and moving near enemies? All of that is just complete XP abuse central. What about casting spells? XP abuse again. And this means what? There should be No XP rewards at all? I'd imagine there would be completion XP for dungeons, as well as items. The Megadungeon is 15 levels in size. Withholding XP rewards until its completion may be one of the most moronic ideas I've ever heard.

What a waste of a turn, dude. You keep using examples that exist in a vacuum, and that are not part of a larger narrative. The question isn't whether you're getting rewarded for doing X or Y, it's whether doing X or Y allows you to accomplish your goal(Not in-game objective). If you want to go to point B, but there's a mob of X in the way, you have to deal with them somehow. If you get XP for kills, then the obvious answer is to kill them. It is always the answer. Again, then the solution is to reward players equally for violently dealing with X, or non-violently dealing with X. It is NOT to eliminate all rewards for engaging in the violent option, because that just shifts the problem to the other side... it makes the non-violent option the "always/obvious" solution. And lets keep in mind that (in PoE at least) Even granting the same XP rewards for both the violent and non-violent solutions STILL doesn't succeed in making both options equally appealing, since UNLIKE stealth, or "running away" or "talking", Combat incurs inherent costs on people who choose it as an option (use of limited consumables; use of limited per day abilities; the chance of permanently losing companions, etc)

I'm pretty sure people here are debating the concept, rather than actually complaining about a game that they haven't yet played. Edit: Wouldn't the solution, then, be to reward players with an equal amount of XP for engaging in combat or avoiding it? Why totally eliminate the rewards for one of the options?

It'd be more accurate to say that I dislike doing things that are a waste of my time. Engaging in combat for combat's sake, knowing full well that it's 'just for fun', and that it won't really mean anything in-game is no different than Larping. It's just like Skyrim Players who make sure their characters eat 3 times a day, get 8 hours of sleep every night, and drink Ale at the mead hall with the companions. My turn. Lets say you Love talking your way out of situations. And suppose a game has a Diplomacy skill that you can put points in---so you do. Now lets say the game never actually rewards you for successfully talking your way out of situations. Would you conclude that Diplomacy is a waste of time in that game?

Thats really your problem if you don't like combat enough What an interesting backwards mindset you have. The reason (stated reason, in fact. Please see Update #7) that Obsidian has decided to eliminate kill XP is because they wish to reward players who prefer non-combat solutions to the problems presented to them. In other words, they wish to fully reward players who view combat as not as important to good roleplaying. If I "didn't like combat enough", wouldn't it follow that I'd fully welcome this no-XP-for-Kills system that PoE is going to have?

You're asking if I'd bypass the completely rewardless combat in order to grab the magic lute strings? Yes. I would. (although the notion of treasure that grants you XP rewards is amusing. And unique to say the least.) On the other hand, if the game gave us XP for kills, And the Big Voodoo daddy was a really tough opponent who's worth a great deal of EXP, then I'd take my time and relish every moment of the combat, and then, after killing him and getting a giant XP boost, I'd grab the loot strings as the icing on the case. Not really a tough decision here, although I'd like to caution again against a system that uses loot as a crutch. If you condition the gamer on the expectation that he will always be rewarded with ph@t loot, then you are setting your game up for tragic failure. Because such systems inevitably spiral out of control as the gamer loses appreciation for the current level of the treasure he finds due to its sheer abundance and so to keep him interested, you must constantly increase the power level of this loot. And the next thing you know, your game world is littered with +10 Vorpal Swords of Godslaying, and enemies no longer pose a challenge because you've turned the player's party into an invincible band of overpowered artifact hoarders. The best way to handle rewards is to vary them. Have XP for kills. Have quest XP for non-kills, have some battles that net minimal XP but great loot. Have some battles that net enormous XP but no loot....etc.

Are you taking Bester's posts seriously? We have something called due process here in the United States. But I know of at least 1 European country that does not even bother with such meaningless concepts. Cops in Hungary have the power to dole out on the spot fines. If they think you are committing a crime, then they have a right to demand that you pay them immediately. Failure to do so means they can haul you off to prison. Moreover, there's no Oversight for this "system". A "good" cop in Hungary can quickly become wealthy by going on a "law enforcement" spree and just pocketing every fine he collects from his victims. Yeah, lets have a discussion about Cops in Europe. lol

We will inform all pods of your observation.

I'm not. Nor have I ever once advocated such a moronic playstyle/mindset ever on this thread or any other. You have misunderstood my argument consistently. Allow me to reduce it down to the simplest possible bottom line terms. Ok. Remember how BG1, BG2, IWD, IWD2 and PS:T handled exploration and XP distribution? THAT is how I prefer PoE to handle thngs. Note: By "handle things", I mean the base system itself. I, of course, eagerly welcome Obsidian's stated goal of widely expanding its quest-objective system. Hope that clears things up.

I'm a member of the XP for kills crowd. Check I have argued that no XP for kills might cause me to eventually not engage in combat because it won't be worth it. Check. Someone is claiming that due to the above, I will not explore the backer beta because I won't think it's worth it. Check. Straw man? Check. Lets not defend stupid, lephys.

I don't see myself being all that motivated to acquire the loot that a friggin beetle might or might not drop.

Straw man. I've already stated that when the game is fresh and new, XP (for anything) won't matter, to me at least, because it will still invoke wanderlust and pure excitement. MY concern is the game's long term appeal. 1 year from now, when I'm on my 5th playthrough, will I still enjoy engaging in combat (like I STILL do with games like BG2 and IWD)?

LOL 3-5% is an enormously high estimate. It's more like .00001%. You have a better chance of coming to Las Vegas as a tourist, and leaving with a $25,000 slot machine win, than even encountering a cop with his weapon drawn. Lets not lose sight of the fact that these high profile incidents, like the one in Ferguson tend to occur in the ghetto parts of society, where gang action is very much the context. If you're a tourist, and you find yourself in friggin Ferguson, you'll have far worse things to worry about than the police. But off topic.... It's interesting....Cops. When you're a teenager, and you see a cop, you think of a big older guy. the LAW. But when you're 42 years old, you look around and most of the cops you see are like kids! I got pulled a while back for speeding and I swear to god the guy that pulled me over looked like some highschool kid.

Or Maybe the police are wiping their feet all over the truth. The cop that shot and killed Brown was not aware that Brown was a robbery suspect. http://news.yahoo.com/turmoil-tear-gas-way-hope-ferguson-053336976.html So for the purpose of assigning some sort of Police motive for shooting Brown, This childish "he started it!" excuse can't rationally be used. Even the Police Chief knows that. Not that it matters. You don't friggin summary execute unarmed robbers. I live in St. Louis. I live about 10 miles away from Ferguson. I'm trying my hardest to not keep both eyes on this really dreary, saddening story, but it's hard when I'm driving to work every day and every radio station has a Cop, or a police chief, or a spokesman for the police on the air to pound everyone over the head with What Really Happened™. As graphic and dramatic as the scenes of the riots and the crying African American mothers is, here in St. Louis it is not as loud or prolific as the massive Damage control PR campaign currently being waged by the police on every single media platform.

He defined us as Irrational way back on Page 1. It took 14 pages, but we've finally returned the favor lol In any case, I admire Josh a lot. 95% of the time whenever he opens his mouth brilliant things come out. It is a given that PoE is going to be a real demonstration of a bunch of Josh's gaming philosophies. We'll see how everything turns out. I'm betting he's just as nervous as we are excited.

No, you aren't rewarded for talking. You are rewarded for completing objectives. Which can often be done by Talking. Which means the illogical notion of diplomaticking your way to better sword-fighting is still an option. Stop splitting hairs. Most. Overused. Misconception. Ever. Not sure how lazy your DM was, but ours was a tediously methodical book-keeping nerd. We most Definitely got precisely the XP rewards for every individual creature we killed, calculated and adjusted according to every hitpoint bonus of each creature. And while we did indeed get the XP as a lump sum at the end of each gaming session, we DID NOT get XP for stuff we didn't kill. Nor were we ever short changed for any monster that we did kill (for example, if we managed an entire dungeon level in one session, and it had, say, 23 orcs on it, and we managed to kill 16 of them while skipping the last 3 rooms which had 7 orcs, We got precisely the XP rewards for killing 16. The lump sum did not include some arbitrary total based on some arbitrary "objective" like: "Find the stairs and decend to level 2", Or "liberate level 1" or whatever PoE is going to be doing.) The only deviation to this is in the rare times when we came up with a particularly clever way to solve a combat/noncombat problem. In those cases we got a Bonus that was above and beyond the kill XP and it was rewarded to us immediately, instead of being part of the lump sum at the end of the session.

Not to mention the fact that Bioware spotted the thief problem in Bg1 and addressed it right away in BG2...where suddenly Thieves became XP generating machines with their non combat skills. Disarming a traps nets you 2780xp (and later 3550) and opening locks nets you 750xp (and later 1550). Thieves also got trap setting abilities that were over powered right out of the box and only got MORE powerful with every level up. And Nevermind the free, unlimited True Sight ability they got with their detect illusions skill. And....UAI. which, alone, ends the discussion outright. The result of this design is that, in one of the Great Ironies in all of gaming, Thieves in 2nd edition-based BG2 ended up being one of the easiest classes to Solo the game with. Go figure.

The Cyclopedia is absolutely, mind-blowingly awesome, and the moment I saw it in yesterday's demo the very first thing that popped into my head was: Finally, the trump card against every Combat XP concern I ever had for this game. But then I started thinking things through. And Uh...actually, it's not. Because You're NOT rewarded for combat with it. You're rewarded for having a high Lore skill with it. Makes total sense the way it's set up. Until you roll up a party of Athletic barbarians and try to learn by fighting, instead of lore-keeping, and end up watching as your Cyclopedia doesn't update, because you didn't put points into lore. Considering the fact that we ARE dealing with a system that will see you becoming better at combat by repeated TALKING, this example of yours just means that Obsidian has replaced one illogical concept with another.

Baldurs Gate 1 & 2, and Icewind Dale 1 & 2 are four very combat Oriented RPGs that have Combat XP. I'll rank them a wee bit higher than Mass Effect, Vampire Bloodlines, and Shadow Run returns. If you have a point here, then make it. But until then, citing exceptions to the rule doesn't really get us anywhere.

In a class based System, Characters are defined by their character classes. 1) Obviously XP isn't the only reward for combat. Loot is also a reward, but killing things for just loot is 10 times worse than any problem or issue we are discussing here. So I choose to focus on EXP....which stands for Experience Points. And while it should make total sense that engaging in combat would directly result in a gain of combat experience, I seem to be debating against people who insist that solving a local villager's pig problem, even non-violently, is the better way ONLY way to gain combat experience. 2) Why does it follow that a combat focused RPG should reward you for combat? Good question! Though totally obvious. Not being rewarded for something that you'll be doing for the majority of the game is simply a bad idea. Verging on bad design, depending on a game's pacing. 3)Shooters tend to not grant XP for kills, true. Of course, most of them don't grant XP for anything, because they lack a leveling mechanic, and they're not RPGs anyway -and- most of them usually aren't advertised as spiritual successors to the Infinity engine games either. (for some reason, this utterly relevant point keeps getting forgotten) Sure... Taking in the sights, admiring the flora, observing the fauna, watching the effects of the wind on the trees and grass. I'll play Skyrim if I want that type of "reward". You're stating an opinion as fact. It is both.

You can however, waste a whole lot of time doing things that are utterly pointless in game. The very notion is silly. A combat focused RPG that does not reward you for combat. yeah. That makes sense. No wait. it doesn't. at all. So is helping out a victim of a pig-stealing Ogre. The difference is you get XP for that. Sounds needlessly arbitrary to me. Obsidian decides what the professions will be. I might Play through this game as a Fighter. That means my profession is that of.... FIGHTING. Now what happens if I enter a dungeon and start plying my trade?? Nothing, of course. I must first change my profession to that of "problem-solver", or "treasure hunter" or "full time amateur sparring partner to monsters"

My apologies if I'm getting the 2 threads where we are discussing this mixed up but I thought I already addressed this point like 3 times. What happens if I'm NOT ON AN OBJECTIVE? Josh said this game will focus heavily on exploration. That means that we should be able to enter a map, and start exploring it. So NO, I'm NOT ok with losing out on XP simply because I decided to clear out that map before getting some "objective" to "go-there-and-do-this". In *my* situation, the enemies I encounter are not "in between me and any objective"....except for maybe my objective to gain combat experience by combatting them. PS: I don't recall asking to be directly rewarded for everything I do. I'm pretty sure I'm only requesting to be rewarded for...you know... engaging in my character's profession, which I value pretty darn highly in a Role Playing Game.