PrimeJunta

Yup, you're right. That is the general fear among the fearful. I'm a bit puzzled about it, since JES's explicit design intention is to craft a system that does not favor one approach over another. Indeed. We'll know when we'll know.

I already answered that. Please pay attention, 'cuz I won't repeat it again. I loved the IE games despite their flaws, not because of them. It is soooo possible to make a game that takes the best bits from them and corrects the worst bits. That's what I'm hoping P:E will be. I love parts of the system. The parts that don't suck. I loved the hand-painted 2D orthographic art. I loved the party-based gameplay, where you could pick your comrades from a largish pool and then develop their capabilities to suit your needs, and deploy them in a large variety of interesting, hand-crafted combat encounters against a massive bestiary of genuinely -- not just cosmetically -- different enemies. I loved the huge variety of spells I could pick from. I loved the intra-party interactions and the back stories my party comrades had. I loved the large variety of useful and interesting hand-crafted items that were in the game. I could make a similar list of stuff I didn't care for so much, but maybe some other time. But no, I did not love every little thing about the game. The rogue path in Planescape: Torment sucks like a tornado, for example. How will quest only XP give rise to degenerate strategies (if that's what you mean by "degenerative" gameplay?) Examples, plz. I've produced several examples of kill XP yielding degenerate strategies, so it's your turn now IMO. TL;DR: put up or shut up.

On average... yes. But in every particular instance... absolutely not. It would be boring if I knew of every problem I encountered that I could choose stealth, diplomacy, or combat and the end result would be the same. The game would be much more interesting if it had you wondering whether you did right to fight, or not fight, this time. Variety is the key. And once more, the obligatory caveat -- perfect balance is a mirage. Won't happen. But there is such a thing as sufficient balance: making the overall system roughly neutral re the various subsystems (combat, stealth, diplomacy, etc.), and then creating a variety of problems which feature a mix of different favored approaches.

I'm not saying it'd be terrible, I'm saying quest XP only is better. Combat XP -- even if there's only relatively little of it -- will create perverse incentives, which result in degenerate strategies. You won't be able to have any persistent respawns (e.g. the "close the portal wherefrom the demons spring" quest), you'll reward players who chase monsters for no other reason than XP and so on. Once again: if there is an easy way to align the systemic incentives with the in-game objectives, why would you not want to do that? If you were a designer, why would you knowingly leave in perverse incentives?

So, for how long would you be willing to mindlessly grind boars? Two days is a bit much, for sure. How about one day? Four hours? Two hours? One hour? A half an hour? Different people have different thresholds for it. With NetHack, I find pudding farming too tedious to bother with, but I do polypile (unless I'm going for a polyless conduct). And if you as a designer could align the incentives in such a way that there was no benefit to grinding boars for even fifteen minutes, why wouldn't you? You know, it doesn't sound like we disagree in principle. We just have slightly different priorities. I value balance between different approaches more than you do. I certainly agree that there should be at least one fun way to play the game. Moreover, if there is only one, the game should somehow communicate to the player, through its incentives, what the fun way is so the player doesn't accidentally attempt to play it in an un-fun way. But I do think it's a worthy goal to try to give the player as many different fun ways of playing the game as you can. In fact, I believe that just the availability of those alternative approaches adds depth and interest to any of them. That's why I'm such a big fan of branching storylines, unexpected consequences, and delayed effects.

True, it does, but in a way that is relatively easy to address. E.g. low-level loot drops from kills which more or less match your expected expenditure of resources for the battle. As an added perk, skillful players will be able to win battles with less resource use, meaning they'll end up ahead. This is a much easier problem to address than the imbalances introduced by kill XP.

Yeah, you could divide players into two camps -- those who respond strongly to systemic incentives, and those who don't. Those who don't usually have some reason they don't; for example, they role-play some particular kind of character even if it goes against the grain of the incentives. LARPing in other words. Or maybe they're in it for the story, just not interested in figuring out the game system, or just casually play through once. Which is all cool IMO. I've played a few games like that myself -- ones I didn't really care about enough to get deeply into. Mass Effect to name one relatively modern one. Played through it once, didn't bother returning to it for any reason. But that, IMO, is a red herring. I simply cannot think any good reason not to try to align systemic incentives with in-game objectives. Why wouldn't you want to do that? Yup, that's a good example. I may be a bit more of a game design geek than most people, since I am a software designer myself. As such, I am irritated no end by design flaws, and perhaps for that very reason I tend to notice them... and then get caught in the ensuing degenerate strategies. More casual players probably won't care; they'll never get deep enough into the system to catch any but the most glaringly obvious misalignments, like that rest-spamming you mentioned for example. And some of the truly hardcore consciously eschew the degenerate strategies they know about, and are strong-willed enough to stick to their decision. Perhaps some aren't even bothered by the availability of such strategies. For me, just knowing that they're there, within arms reach, greatly reduces my enjoyment of a game. Point being: I see no reason whatsoever not to attempt to create the most elegant, least exploitable game system as well aligned with the in-game objectives your game as you're able. I mean sure, nothing's perfect and eventually you're going to have to stop faffing about with it and let it go, and there will probably still be the odd exploit left in, but leaving in misaligned incentives that you know to be misaligned is just pointless and stupid IMO.

That is true. Those are also two very big ifs. I'd say that NetHack and Diablo are two examples of games where they hold, more or less, although they have their degenerate strategies as well (e.g. pudding farming in NetHack). But that's not why they do it! They do it for the same reason rats push a lever to get a pellet. They don't enjoy pushing the damn lever; they do it for the pellet. It's known as Skinner conditioning, and MMO's are built on it because it's the only way to keep players playing. "Challenge and excitement" have nothing to do with it. Believe me, if there was a button you could press every half-second to gain 1 XP, there would be players out there who would keep hitting it and do nothing else until they hit the level cap or died of carpal tunnel syndrome. I'm not making this up -- this is how people behave. This is how Blizzard made it's billions, for cryin' out loud! You really ought to read JES's posts on the topic, 'cuz you've got it backwards again. A degenerate strategy is not the player's fault -- the player is only doing what players do, i.e., responding rationally to the incentives handed out by the game. It's the designer's fault, for setting things up in such a way that the game rewards the strategies.

What if your diplomatic solution requires that you bribe an official with 10,000 zorkmids? Again, resources consumed. Wouldn't that make combat obviously the better choice and what the dev's said they don't want? I'm pretty sure JES was referring to systemic features. Combat XP is a systemic feature. Lockpicking XP is also a systemic feature. Random loot drops are systemic features. OTOH a quest nexus where you can talk, fight, or sneak, and your choice may have varying costs and outcomes, is a situational feature. The good thing about a system that treats stealth/combat/diplomacy/other neutrally is that it will easily permit crafting situations which favor any or none of the available solutions, without having to go through the extra effort of figuring out how systemic features affect the design of the problem. You can intentionally make one approach better than another in a particular situation, and then make some other approach better in some other situation. In a multi-path game, a big part of the fun is figuring out which is the best way to approach a problem, and not always picking the optimal one. Unforeseen consequences FTW!

That's quibbling with words. "Degenerate strategy" has a precise and generally accepted meaning in game design, which is how it's being used here. So I'm not following you on this tangent, TYVM. Whether it's an apposite term or not is a different matter, and one I don't want to get into either.

People keep saying that, but it ain't necessarily true at all. What if sneaking your (non-all-rogue) party through an area requires that everybody drinks an invisibility potion, or your spellcaster maintains a "cloak" spell? That's resources diverted away from battle. What if your diplomatic solution requires that you bribe an official with 10,000 zorkmids? Again, resources consumed. What if your diplomatic solution requires that you put points in Persuasion rather than Weaponcrafting, and Weaponcrafting gives you a supply of more effective arrows for use in combat? Again, cost. I could go on, but you get the picture.

@Karkarov, maybe I am. There are other ways than level scaling to maintain challenge, of course, but they all come with their trade-offs. The classic IE way is to split the game up into relatively manageable areas and only let players into a higher-level one after they've cleared a lower one, and to keep the amount of optional content to a level that won't produce huge spreads in party power at any given point. The Gothic way is to keep killing your character if he wanders off the intended path. But that's a pretty big trade-off in and of itself. It constrains player freedom a great deal. I like big areas, lots of optional stuff, and lots of player freedom. Putting in level scaling allows designers to make those sandboxes bigger and give players more freedom. Do it too much and you end up with Oblivion, of course, but there are balances to be found between that and none at all. Once more: I'm not calling for level scaling for its own sake. I just think that it's a useful tool in the box that can be applied to get desirable results, and we shouldn't discard it out of hand just because Oblivion misused it. I like what we're hearing about it in P:E so far -- the level 5-8 bracket JES cited sounds like it already allows a good deal of optional content and player freedom, without letting things get completely out of hand. But we will see. Edit: dafuq? The BBS ate half my message...

Ah. Humor. I have heard speak of it. It is a ritual practiced by your species, no?

Oh, Helm, Helm. You still don't appear to have grasped that quests are the defining core mechanic of a cRPG, and therefore demanding that they don't award XP is as silly as demanding that a racing game doesn't reward you for winning races. This is getting a little absurd actually...

@Helm. We have no indication whatsoever that avoiding combat is pure benefit. In fact JES went out of his way to say that he wants to avoid situations where one approach to a problem is always pure benefit -- e.g. lockpicking over using keys in DX:HR. You're just assuming as a matter of course that noncombat solutions to problems carry no cost -- opportunity cost, resource cost, some other cost. I can think of a half-dozen ways off the top of my head to make it not always so, and I think it would be very surprising if the game turned out that way, especially with JES's known obsession with balancing everything against everything else.

Nah. I'm really a teacher at an institution for troubled youth. Val is one of my favorite pupils -- intelligent, talented, but with a couple of social problems I'm trying to help him out with. This is my attempt to get him to understand that there are other people in the world besides him. Once that sinks in, I'm sure girls will start to like him better too. Edit: Or boys, if that's his preference, natch.

Hypergraphia: an overwhelming urge to write. Fits better. So brace yourself, kiddo. I'll continue: that's a matter of preference. I get where you're coming from, Val. You're a munchkin. That means you play a game for the power trip -- to get your character and party to feel as powerful as possible relative to the environment. You'll go through the entire game meticulously to squeeze every last bit of XP, usable weaponry, and all-around badness out of it. You detest level scaling with a passion because it feels like cheating -- you do all that work to amass all that power, and the rest of the world just merrily scampers after you so you never end up really ahead -- or at least not as far ahead as you feel you deserve. That's an entirely valid and enjoyable way to play a game, and I wouldn't want to deny you the pleasure of playing it that way. I do hope -- and I'm pretty confident -- that they won't level scale in such a heavy-handed way that they'll take that feeling away from you. Hell, I indulge in that type of gaming myself from time to time; I played through BG2 with an all-kensai/wizard party. Eventually. Thing is, it's not the only way to play a game. For me, one of the greatest things about cRPG's is that they support a broad range of different styles of gameplay, and different experiences. You can play it for the story, for the combat, for the power trip, be 'good', be 'evil,' be a stealthy sneaky pickpocket, be a silver-tongued diplomat, be a badass wrecking ball of fighting. What you're asking for -- a game without level scaling, but balanced in such a way that it's not utterly boring in its ease to someone who powergames -- will make all of those other experiences less enjoyable, even unfeasible. I'm opposed to that because I also want to play the game in those other ways. If the team can find a way to balance a game so that it supports all those different styles without any level scaling, then more power to them. But if they use level scaling to get there, I'm not opposed to it.

That's hypergraphic rampage to you, young man.

Here's the way I see it (beyond what I already said in the epic level scaling thread). In a well-designed game, systemic rewards are aligned with in-game objectives. A racing game should reward you for winning a race. A RTS game should reward you for winning a battle, and the reward should be bigger if you manage to do it with fewer losses. A dungeon crawler like NetHack should reward you for stuff that gets you closer to getting the McGuffin you're chasing. If systemic rewards and in-game objectives are misaligned, you get degenerate strategies. For example, suppose that in-game a druid is defined as a class whose mission is to protect nature. If the game rewards killing wild animals, you get a misalignment: a druid that kills wild animals whenever he meets them becomes more powerful than a druid who goes out of his way to avoid killing them. Or, for another example, suppose that your party's in-game objective is to close a portal that is spawning demons. If the system rewards staying put and slaying those demons until you've hit your level cap, a party that does that is more successful than one who attempts to close that portal as quickly as possible. What's wrong with these degenerate strategies? They're tedious and boring, that's what. Battling your way through a demon-infested dungeon to close the portal before you get overwhelmed by the spawning hordes is inherently more exciting than staying put and swatting them until you hit level cap and then breezing your way through the now pitifully weak (by comparison) demons. In sum, when designing a game, it's the writers' job to come up with exciting, interesting, and imaginative content, and it's the designer's job to come up with a game system that aligns with that content. In a game where the core mechanic for delivering the content imagined by the writers is the quest, with combat only one among several sub-systems (even if it's arguably the biggest and most important sub-system), it makes a lot more sense to tie XP to questing than killing. N.b.: I use the term "quest XP" fairly loosely here -- I don't mean XP only for completing quests; I'm also including things like XP for discovering new locations, unearthing new lore, finding hidden treasure, and so on. Reward results (achieving in-game objectives) rather than process (the way you chose to achieve those objectives). That is all.

As a recap, because I think it may have been lost in the noise here, here's a summary of my thoughts about the case for replacing kill XP with quest XP: (1) Kill XP rewards metagame thinking and degenerate tactics, e.g. solving a quest peacefully for quest XP, then going back and killing everyone for kill XP. So you get druids killing wildlife for the levelups, instead of protecting it which is pretty much the entire class's in-game reason for being. (2) Kill XP precludes respawns, because kill XP + respawns = infinite XP = grinding opportunity. What's the problem with removing respawns? Nothing fatal, but it does remove one tool from the toolkit of making interesting things in the world. Take the classic "dwarves who dug too deep" situation: a dungeon with a portal which spawns beasties from another dimension. Closing the portal is a completely feasible quest objective. With kill XP, the incentives are stacked so that the best strategy is to park the party in a defensible spot and kill everything that wanders your way until level cap is reached, then close the portal. With quest XP, the best strategy is to figure out how to close the damn thing and then close it as quickly as possible. To me, the latter represents much more enjoyable gameplay than the former. There's even a sense of urgency, without a hard "you took too long, FAIL" time limit which rarely work very well. (3) Because it's less breakable and easier to manage, quest XP only makes the game much easier to balance. Don't like level scaling? Then make it as easy as possible for the devs to anticipate how strong you'll be at various parts of the game. With quest+kill XP, the possible range of character levels at any point is much broader, which means that either you have to use much more aggressive level scaling, or you'll be much more likely to find encounters boringly easy, especially if you're the type of gamer who goes after all the XP he can. (4) Kill XP favors solving problems through killing than through other means. One of the things I like best about cRPG's is if they provide a variety of ways to solve problems. Favoring one of the ways over others greatly cheapens this aspect of the game. Players do respond to incentives, as Helm has so eloquently demonstrated. Kill XP rewards killing over and above solving problems, which means that it will end up as the most-rewarded and therefore most-favored way of approaching the game. We get a "dominant strategy" situation, in which the rational player will not even bother with the non-killing strategies, unless they're especially keen on role-playing aka LARPing. Quest XP, OTOH, makes the player free to solve problems as he best sees fit, without kicking him into metagame thinking about whether he picked the "right" way to do it, in terms of mechanics. Naturally, this does not preclude situational differences -- in some cases, the noncombat solution might be very difficult and/or expensive; in other cases, the combat solution might be extremely challenging. I'm kinda hoping it'll turn out this way actually! Simply put, I don't see any compelling advantages to kill XP in a cRPG that's built on quest-completion as the core gameplay mechanic, whereas I see several quite significant drawbacks. Diablo or NetHack is another story of course -- they're pure dungeon-crawling with minimal questing, and kill XP is a natural fit for them. P:E however is not Diablo nor NetHack. One thing I am curious about is The Endless Paths though -- that sounds like it would be a candidate for an area where kill XP would fit well. To make it worthwhile, they're going to have to place XP there much like loot. I would expect mini-quests, XP for exploration, and XP for triggering events (opening a door, acquiring a piece of loot) to stand in for kill XP. Come to think of it, it could be quite interesting to play that sort of dungeon as a sneaky pacifist -- this isn't something you normally do in a dungeon crawl because the game system doesn't reward it. In all my years of roguelikes, I've never even attempted the pacifist conduct in NetHack, for example, even though the game keeps track of it, and even though it's not really all that pacifist as the only way you can survive is by training really vicious pets to do your dirty work for you.

Goodness, no. They were among the best cRPG's ever made. Never played it, so I don't have an opinion on it. I liked Morrowind, though, even though the game system in it was enormously worse than that in any of the IE games. I tolerate poor game design if the game has other redeeming qualities. I just recognize that I love these games despite their flaws, not because of them. Where? How? Why then, did you describe combat as a tedious chore that you'll avoid if given an alternative that will give an equivalent -- not better -- reward? Pointless how? You're still not actually defending any of your points. You're simply reiterating them plus demanding that I re-read them. So yeah, this discussion doesn't really appear to be going anywhere much, so it's probably better to let it drop. I gotta say, though, that the difference between this discussion and the one I had with Valorian is that now I understand what Valorian likes and dislikes in a game and why, whereas with you I'm as puzzled as ever. But thanks for the effort anyway, and sorry about any feelings I may have hurt; that was not my intention.

On the contrary: the exploitability and degenerate strategies made it too easy. That's what exploitability and degenerate strategies do. Easy but tedious and boring. Wait, wut? Are trying to say I'm a noob because I like combat xp? LOL. I'm not saying anything. I'm asking. You said that you wouldn't bother with combat unless you got a little nugget of XP as a reward every time. You described it as "a chore." That suggests that you don't really like combat much. I have made no statements, nor assumptions about your noob-ness or lack thereof. I notice you still didn't answer the question, though. I have never accused you of lying (although I admit I derive a certain amount of pleasure from watching you squirm). I am simply pointing out some apparent contradictions in what you're saying, and asking you to address them. Which you're still not doing. I understand that you feel that way, but I fail to understand why you feel that way. Your attempts at explaining it seem riddled with contradictions: you like combat, but you think it's a chore and would rather do stealth or diplomacy if there are no extra rewards for it. The only thing that the quest-XP model changes is your motivation for doing what you do -- you'll no longer be fighting for XP (a metagame reason); you'll be fighting to achieve some in-game objective. You'll kill orcs to deliver the homesteads of Derpwood from their raids, not to get those last 1500 XP and level up. At least for me, the former makes for much more enjoyable gaming than the latter. This ain't an MMO, remember? Once more: your position does not make sense to me. Something cannot be at the same time so tedious you'll only do it if rewarded, and the main reason you want to play the game. One or the other, not both. IOW, it seems to me you don't understand your own motivations very well. Nope, usually not. Should I? Why? Do you think there will be lots of fights with no in-game reason to get into them? If so, why on Earth do you think they'd design it that way? I'm not dead against combat + quest XP, and no style of XP would make me ragequit, if it worked reasonably well (say, as well as BG2 at a minimum, which really wasn't all that well, TBH). I just think that system is inherently more "gamable" than quest XP alone, which makes quest XP alone preferable. This ain't Diablo or NetHack, y'know -- those are nearly pure combat RPG's with minimal or no quest XP at all, and infinite monsters to swat down. And yeah, I do tend to do all the sidequests in NetHack as well, come to think of it. Summa summarum, since you're unable or unwilling to explain yourself, this is the impression I've gathered of what kind of a gamer you are: you prefer combat (except you think it's boring and a chore and will avoid it whenever possible unless it's specially rewarded) who likes to role-play good-guy smiters of evil (who will only smite evil if they're rewarded for the effort), and who feels gypped if the game doesn't reward his preferred play-style better than someone else's preferred play-style. Out of curiosity, how old are you?

I don't know, but it hasn't worked so far. Either you're not very good at explaining, or I'm not very good at understanding. Either way, communication is not happening. I agree. It's still respawning, though. I was obviously talking about the mechanic and not always choosing the diplomatic resolution to a conflict. Yes, I understand that. Why do you think diplomacy, as a mechanic, is always good? Because it was exploitable and easy to break, and encouraged metagaming and degenerate strategies. Not saying it was a bunch of bullcacky, mind; just that it has lots and lots of room for improvement. As game systems go, AD&D is pretty god-awful to start with, 3.0 and 3.5 are much better especially for PnP but still a long way from as good as they might be. I've noted, by the way, that you didn't answer my question, but instead deflected it and asked me one. I'll repeat it in case you change your mind and decide to address it after all: It sounds like you don't like cRPG combat much at all, then. If that's the case, then (a) Why do you want to play a combat-heavy cRPG to start with, and (b) Why aren't you overjoyed that you can avoid all that boring, tedious chore of combat by engaging in stealth, diplomacy, or other approaches instead? Still waiting... Hey, there's another thing we agree about. (Although I would add "some of" before "the greatest.") As Valorian has told you many times, you seem to have problem understanding written text for some reason. I'm not going to explain it slowly to you either. Not answering the question again, instead attempting to deflect it with ad-hominem. Duly noted. You're not defending your position very well. Let me restate my question. You appear to be stating the following propositions: (1) You want to role-play a mean hm-hm-man-of-goodness who smites evil wherever he finds it (2) You won't do it unless you get a cookie from the game every time you do it (3) You disdain LARPing (i.e., fighting those orcs b/c your character hates them and think they should be exterminated). From where I'm at, there's a contradiction there. If not, please explain how I've misunderstood your position. The impression I've gotten from your (rather confused) postings about your gaming preferences and position is something like: (1) You want to play a combat-oriented character. (2) You feel that combat is such a tedious chore that you only want to engage in it if the game rewards you with XP specifically for choosing combat rather than a non-combat solution, if available. (3) You hate this. From where I'm at, there's another contradiction there. If you hate combat, logically you should be pleased that there are ways to avoid it without losing out on anything (much). If you like combat, logically you should be pleased that there are ways to do lots of it without losing out on anything (much). Help me out here, man. What am I missing?

That is not metagaming. Metagaming, roughly said, is if I know something that my in game character can't know and I use this to my advantage. i.e. I use a strategy guide. Nope. Metagaming is any in-game action you take for out-of-game reasons. Racing to win in a racing game is not metagaming, because winning a race is an in-game objective. Attempting to complete a quest in a cRPG is not metagaming because it is an in-game objective. Going back to kill monsters for XP is degenerate/metagaming, because you are not doing it for any in-game reason. Translation: if a mechanic you don't like is used in a way you like, you redefine it as no longer the mechanic you don't like. Thanks for making that clear; I'll try to account for it in future exchanges with you. Why do you believe diplomacy is always good? It sounds like you don't like cRPG combat much at all, then. If that's the case, then (a) Why do you want to play a combat-heavy cRPG to start with, and (b) Why aren't you overjoyed that you can avoid all that boring, tedious chore of combat by engaging in stealth, diplomacy, or other approaches instead? I've lost you again. Weren't you just arguing against role-playing (LARPing)? Now you're saying that you want to role-play a mean hm-hm-man-of-goodness but won't unless said mean hm-hm-man-of-goodness gets rewarded by some juicy XP every time he smites a bad guy? Which is it? You can't really have it both ways. And this is a problem, because...? Yeah, I detest those kinds of quests. Almost as bad as "bring me 20 wolf pelts" or "carry this Very Important Package to the Derpwood post office." OTOH, "Clear out the orc encampent in Derpwood to stop them from raiding the homesteads" would be a meaningful quest.

The same way playing a racing game to win a race is not metagaming. Completing quests is to a cRPG what winning a race is to a racing game. That would be a really stupid way of going about it, and not what I suggested at all. I was suggesting that if you return to the dungeon the next day, you might find some scavengers gnawing on the bones you left behind. Return to it in a month, and maybe a tribe of kobolds moved in. And so on. It would be silly if the exact same monsters respawned every time, except in a wilderness setting where they would represent beasties wandering in from neighboring areas. It would not be believable to have one band of murder hobos be able to entirely depopulate a huge wilderness area. In your world, if the police arrests and jails a criminal biker gang, does no other criminal gang ever take over its business? Exactly! None of them are pointless chores, if rewarded appropriately. But combat will always be the worst choice, seeing that you always benefit more from sneaking or diplomacy, because it is the easiest (an therefore most logical) solution to reach the same goal. Why do you believe sneaking or diplomacy are always easier and provide more benefit than combat?