PrimeJunta

Nope. Killing critters for XP (rather than to accomplish some in-game goal) is degenerate. Any in-game activity you do for metagame reasons is. And that is indeed one reason they've dropped combat XP. The main reason being that it makes the system easier to balance and more difficult to break. Because having endless respawns adds nothing to the game, other than eventually annoyance. On the contrary. They can make, for example, travel an interesting gameplay element. If you're able to completely depopulate a wilderness, there's no more cost to traversing it. If there's always a possibility of a potentially dangerous random encounter, you need to take that into account when planning your moves. It adds depth to the gameplay. Sometimes a quite a lot of depth, even. Nope. See above for an example. Another benefit is that it adds life and depth to the setting. If you kill a family of bears occupying a cave in the wilderness, it won't be too long before something else moves in. Replicating this in a game makes the world more believable. That is not an insignificant benefit IMO. That is quite true. I hope they address it somehow, e.g. by making junk loot drops unsalable, or so painful to sell that it really, really isn't worth the trouble.

What makes combat a pointless chore, but sneaking, diplomacy, or other problem-solving not a pointless chore?

Sorry, Val, but if you can't be arsed to read JES's concise and excellent explanation of what degenerate strategy means, I'm not going to do your homework for you. Why is it a better solution to remove respawns than combat XP?

How does awarding XP for quest objectives rather than victory in combat stop you from coming back to kill the lizards, if that's what you enjoy doing? Why are respawns and endless random encounters a problem, if there's an in-game rationale for them, and if they don't break the game system (e.g. by permitting grinding?)

I did start discussing, but you completely ignored what I was saying. All JES has said is that the game won't reward grinding or degenerate tactics like the Valorian the Munchkin scenarios above; i.e., XP and loot for solving problems, regardless of how you solved them. It does not follow that pacifists are never at a disadvantage. Nor does it follow that pacifist solutions are the easiest, least resource-consuming, or most rewarding ones, or always available. I even described a couple of scenarios entirely compatible with JES's descriptions where (consistent) pacifists would be at a disadvantage. What do I expect? A mix of stealth, diplomacy, and fighting. Sometimes fighting will be the most advantageous solution, sometimes stealth, sometimes diplomacy. Meaning that a character/party who favors stealth, or diplomacy, or fighting will sometimes be at an advantage, sometimes not. Why do you feel the game should reward fighting more than stealth or diplomacy, if such paths are available?

I do like what he said. Your interpretation of what he said, though, is nonsense. (Not to mention whiny.)

@Helm, you keep saying that but it don't mean it's true. We don't know what mechanics are involved with stealth or diplomacy. We don't know what trade-offs are involved. We don't know what resources will be needed. We don't know which parts of the game will have avoidable combat, and which won't. For example, suppose a mega-awesome weapon is behind a sidequest that involves extremely tough, unavoidable fights. This will be simply inaccessible to a pacifist player, because s/he won't be able to beat those fights (or doesn't want to, which is what makes him/her the pacifist). Further suppose that the main quest contains a minimum of one tough unavoidable fight. Now who's at the disadvantage -- the pacifist who doesn't have the mega-awesome sword of slayingness, or the combat-oriented party who got it? Basically, all I'm picking up here is a lot of butthurt about non-combat paths being accommodated at all. Non-combat questing can involve lots of creative, fun, interesting, and challenging stuff. Why should that be rewarded less than hacking your way through everything? Finally, XP in itself is a huge abstraction. Quest XP is better than combat XP because it makes it easier to balance the game, leaving fewer exploitable mechanics that reward degenerate gameplay. (And no, I won't shed a manly tear for people going wee-wee-wee about possibilities for degenerate gameplay being taken away. I'm sure there's an Easy mode out there that'll make it possible for you to beat the game even if you won't be able to grind your way to max level by swatting respawning rats or find an exploit in the economy that lets you buy +5 swords of awesome for everybody before you're out of chapter 1.) TL;DR: You're working up massive butthurt by extrapolating wildly about stuff that just isn't there.

That's a good point. There are a number of ways to address it though. I hope they will. For example, there could be tough, unavoidable combat -- a less combat-focused party would be at a disadvantage there, and would have to go through more consumables to survive that than a more combat-focused party. Or you could require different types of consumables for noncombat solutions -- invisibility potions for stealth, for example. That said, this being a single-player game, there's not much point to chasing perfect balance. I'm a happy camper if I can get viable, interesting, and noticeably different playthroughs with different types of parties and strategies. If the game doesn't have too many obviously exploitable mechanics, so much the better.

+1 for patrols. Respawns... depends on how they're used. I'm bothered by respawns -- or any kind of spawns, for that matter -- that just happen for no reason. There has to be some rationale for them. Respawns in the wilderness are fine; they just represent new critters wandering into the area you cleared. Respawns in dungeons not so much. One way they could be kind of cool is if you'd find someone else moved in if you returned to a dungeon after clearing it. This wouldn't even be very hard to implement, actually -- just have a timeline for slowly repopulating the dungeon with random non-story creatures, such as wildlife, bandits, or other generics. This would represent critters making use of recently-vacated prime real estate. This would also provide a rationale for cleaning up any loot the party may have left behind.

I would like to see barbarians break out of the Conan mold. Mounted steppe raiders, striking an unprotected city like lightining in a horde of thousands. Maasai warriors. Maori crossing vast stretches of ocean in a fleet of massive war canoes. Touareg striking on camelback from the deep desert.

St. Mercius's province is fertility. The holy symbol is a life-size depiction of his... mace.

If that happens, they will have seriously failed. P:E is a combat-heavy game. I would expect sneaking to require trickier and more specialized parties. If you're looking for the easiest and most straightforward way through the game, I'm fairly certain it's gonna involve a lotta fighting. I do appreciate them making the effort to make non-combat options viable as well, though, at least in places.

Thank you for your patience and explanations. I think I understand your preferences and priorities better now, even if I don't share them.

That's Ms. Juanita, Dread Schoolmistress to you. Okay, let's try another hypothetical. Suppose you have to obtain the Holy Symbol of Saint Mercius of the Mace from the Hospice of St. Mercius, because you need it to defeat the Vile Overlord of Darkness. The monks of the Hospice selflessly care for plague victims, orphans, and abandoned kittycats, but are so attached to the Holy Symbol that they will defend it to the death; they won't even lend it to anyone, for any purpose. And they're not actually using it for anything. Rudolph the Rogue hires an expert counterfeiter to make a perfect copy of the Holy Symbol, disguises himself as a plague victim to get checked in, and in the dead of night, substitutes the counterfeit for the real Holy Symbol, hides it in a bodily orifice, then gets better, checks out, uses the Holy Symbol to defeat the Vile Overlord, and then posts the real Holy Symbol back to the monks in an unmarked brown paper parcel. Barbara the Barbarian smashes the monks into a bloody paste, grabs the Symbol, defeats the Overlord. For lack of care by the monks, the country is overrun by the plague and three out of four of its inhabitants die, including, ultimately, Barbara. Valorian the Munchkin obtains the Symbol like Rudolph, then comes back to kill the monks, then defeats the Overlord, then dies of the plague. Who should get most XP, and why?

@Helm, cool. Why do you think it would be bad game design?

Yep, but why is it better to tie that improvement to killing something rather than to fighting something? You could make an argument based on realism for tying it to fighting something, regardless of outcome -- in fact, IRL people tend to learn more about failures than successes (assuming they survive, of course). However, you said your argument isn't based on realism. Fine. I agree; putting realism over fun in a game like P:E is a bad idea. But in that case, how is awarding XP for victory in battle better than awarding it for achieving a quest objective? In both cases, you're rewarding the player for accomplishing something: winning a battle, or achieving some quest- or story-related objective. Neither makes much sense from a realistic POV, but both make sense from a gamist POV. Suppose you have Rudolph the Rogue, Barbara the Barbarian, and Valorian the Munchkin attempting to obtain the Eyes of the Lizard God Ssilt from the Temple of Fanged Evil. Rudolph the Rogue sneaks in and filches the Eyes from under the noses of the Lizard Priests, and sneaks out. Barbara the Barbarian smashes everyone in her way into a bloody paste, grabs the Eyes, and marches home in victory. Valorian the Munchkin sneaks in, filches the eye, sneaks out, returns, and kills the Lizard Priests. Now, the question. Who do you think should get the most XP for what s/he did, and why?

Okay. So you want XP for killing things because your elf chick's combat abilities should go up when she has practice killing things, but you don't want your elf chick's shield block ability to go up when she practices blocking things with a shield because...?

You know, Val, I just thought of something. I gather you'd prefer a system where your abilities improve as you use them -- for example, your barbarian's fighting skills improve by fighting. I've heard there's a somewhat obscure computer role-playing game franchise where it works exactly like this: your block skill improves by practicing blocking, your jumping skill improves by practicing jumping, your sword skill improves by hitting things with a sword, and so on. In fact this is just about the only way you can improve these skills in it. What's more, there's no limitation to where you can go, enemies respawn so you'll never run out, and pretty much any character can do anything. Why don't you give it a whirl? I can't quite recall the name at the moment, though. Older Books, or something like that. Ask around, I'm sure somebody else does though.

Oh, so you're saying it's not realistic? :innocent look:

:raises hand: Teacher! Teacher! I thought the point of playing a computer role-playing game was to complete quests? Wouldn't "not engaging in completing ... artificial 'objectives'" and then complaining about being underleveled be a bit like complaining about not winning any races in a racing game because you think it's more fun to drive around the track in the opposite direction? :re-lurk: (This thread is full of epic.)

I <3 this thread.

Yup, it has. The game will include an Adventurers' Hall which will let you create your companions. It is not known exactly how this will work in the game. However, the "pre-built" companions will have histories, personalities, and relationships that you'll miss out on if you roll your own. The game will not force companions on you at any point; it is possible to go solo or construct your party any way you like.

Gimping the AH at harder difficulties would be doubly stupid, as the people most likely to enjoy using it to the max are exactly the ones most likely to play at harder difficulties and multiple play-throughs. I voted "yes" on the economy question, although it's more a "maybe" really. It depends on how the economy works. I'm all in favor of making stuff harder to get at harder difficulties, and tweaking the economy might be a part of this.

I'll go with "chosen one" too. Kill it with fire.

I don't find arguing about what to call them a productive use of anybody's time.