UpgrayeDD

Right, but I'd think that a fighter who specializes in sneaking would have to be paying a penalty to some other skill that would diminish their effectiveness in combat or other aspect of gameplay. Hence why I also suggested a "battle mage" build as opposed to a support one who might have an invisibility spell and a sound damping spell at the cost of not having as many combat spells to choose from. Well should that be the case that non-combat skills and combat skills are things you have to choose between(which again is not what the dev's have said) then that would change a lot of things.

Yes, that kind of loan... salary. maybe you don't seem to get it. Both in pay for work in quests(xp) and in work in real life(most of the time) You get paid after you've already done the work. That is not a loan. A loan would imply that they give you Exp and Items before you slay the dragon... And maybe that bigger wall means slaying some extra orcs or solving some ancient riddle in the same quest. Nope, that's exactly my point infact. You get paid AFTER the work is done (quest/objective completion). Not while it's still in progress and you're working on it (ie. kill XP or being 20 hours in your 32 hours week). You don't see people stop working since they don't get paid per hour their salary. They're perfectly fine waiting for it at the end of the month. Why aren't all of you? Why do you need to see an increase every hour of your account, rather than wait for the big payoff? Are you really doing that at work too. Just not working since the rewards only at the end? regardless of when you get paid the person who does the most work should get the most reward. And while I agree completely that monetary rewards (Like paying you 1000 gold to slay the dragon. When Exp makes a whole lot less sense to be divvy out in such away. When I workout I don't suddenly grow muscles a week later. but thats besides the point. The more I work out during the month the better the results whether I see them gradually or all at once after a month.

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. Could you please elaborate on how it would be so terrible if the majority of Exp was quest based and some exp was rewarded for combat ahead of avoidance options?

Ehm, no... they just get paid A LOAN (goal completion, or usually, a month work), instead of PER HOUR (per kill). Do you have a great post on how loans are bad and everyone should be paid by the hour or everyone stops working? I would love to read it... I'm pretty sure you mean a pay check for a pay period. However how much you recieve is still determed by how much work you did. Worker A builds a wall and it takes him 32 hours of work to do. Worker B builds a wall thats bigger and it takes him 40 hours to do so. Guess who got paid more? I think my example flew over most people... so let's say it clearly... You aren't paid PER HOUR. You don't get each hour amount of money donated at your account (per kill). At the end of month your effort is set into money. Once. That's your loan. Or in this case, that would be "quest-XP". If you spend 32 hours you get less quest XP than 40 hours, indeed. That's why bigger missions give bigger rewards. Or more difficult ones give bigger rewards. But there's no need to instead of pay once at the end of that 32 hour pay the employee 32 seperate times. Because otherwise he stops working. Since that gives "no reward"... maybe you don't seem to get it. Both in pay for work in quests(xp) and in work in real life(most of the time) You get paid after you've already done the work. That is not a loan. A loan would imply that they give you Exp and Items before you slay the dragon... And maybe that bigger wall means slaying some extra orcs or solving some ancient riddle in the same quest.

It doesn't really solve the issue of avoiding combat becoming the best solution though. Wouldn't - in a well designed system - the best solution be based on the party build? ie, if you have a group of fighters and battle mages then surely the outlay of resources is going to be minimal compared to having the same group try a diplomatic or sneaky solution? From what the Dev's have said they are trying to separate combat prowess and skill prowess as ways of progression. so I can't see any reason why one of my mages couldn't be good at negotiation or my fighter couldn't be good at intimidation. I have no clue how then plan to handle sneaking but a little spell like invisibility is a rather common thing in rpgs. Also the dev state that they don't like having just one way of acomplishing something. Seems logical to think that other classes besides rogues can sneak past enemies.

I find it rather Ironic that you claim to be so perceptive about noticing things in games and fail to see that the quest/objective xp only system handing out equal rewards would not be rewarding the avoidance of combat/conflict.

It doesn't really solve the issue of avoiding combat becoming the best solution though.

Ehm, no... they just get paid A LOAN (goal completion, or usually, a month work), instead of PER HOUR (per kill). Do you have a great post on how loans are bad and everyone should be paid by the hour or everyone stops working? I would love to read it... I'm pretty sure you mean a pay check for a pay period. However how much you recieve is still determed by how much work you did. Worker A builds a wall and it takes him 32 hours of work to do. Worker B builds a wall thats bigger and it takes him 40 hours to do so. Guess who got paid more?

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. the thing you don't seem to get at all is that if the difficult combat and the sneaking past reward the same way. Well um lets see which do I pick.....

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! I am all for giving options in how things are done but I don't believe every option should be rewarded equally. If to get past the guard without killing him I must convince his sweatheart to forgive him that is going to be worth more then my rogue knife him then and there. I am not advocating for combat to always be the best rewarded. I'm saying there needs to be a balance between the difficulty of a way of getting things done and the rewards that follow.

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. It sounds to me like you think everything should be allowed and viable as long as it fits your definition of what is allowed and viable.

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? Depends on the rewards you get. Although why you want to initiate combat with an official and not except potentially dangerous consequences... A dimplomatic solution does not mean you are talking to a diplomat. If I talk an angry drunk down that is a diplomatic solution with someone who may or may not be an offical Your point would make a lot more sense if you actually kept to the same examples provided instead of constantly spinning off different ones when responded to. Random orc parties are not automatically composed of honorable orcs and bribing officials does not suddenly turn into talking down an angry drunk. sorry I misread that. And I agree it should come with consequences(rep loss, possible law men coming after you) But unless avoiding those things are worth the 10000 to you then the choice is still clear on which is easier.

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? Depends on the rewards you get. Although why you want to initiate combat with an official and not except potentially dangerous consequences... A dimplomatic solution does not mean you are talking to a diplomat. If I talk an angry drunk down that is a diplomatic solution with someone who may or may not be an official

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?

If someone would pay you 25 dollors to deliver a letter and another would pay you the same to deliver a 25 Pound package in the opposite direction which would you choose?

except until a player gets there he'll have no idea how much he has yet to gain. XP at some early point in the game will always be preferable to the risk, because you can reload. Unless you're playing in ironman mode in which case avoiding combat is king and the best way to proceed. But in normal play if you lose a character yeah theres always the reload and if you find its too tough then you can always sneak or talk through(which are the paths of least resistance). Once you make the rewards equal(or near enough) for all paths Most people(not all) will opt for the easiest path.

No you should totally be able to walk up and high fives them and bypass them by talking to them " hey guys whats up. Oh you're hunting elves again? Sweet I was about to get some myself so I can sow their skin into my new coat to match yours. Good hunting guys" And that should be perfectly viable to do. However why should that grant the same Exp so someone who fought throught the 10 orcs you ran into that nearly killed Vogo Frog master and made me use two rare healing potions? The avoidance of risk is a reward in itself. Its the reason people sneak and negotiate. The best way to handle the situation is to give ~800 Exp for "dealing with the orc band" and 150~200 spread among the band. There would be no benifet in talking and then killing which is what has Prime's panties in a twist. You'd still get a huge chunk of the total experience you could have gotten from the encounter. And with how big the game is going to be there should be more then enough encounters to hit cap with out needing those bits here and there that your risk avoiding lost you As much as I like non-combat approaches, I don't think it makes sense to have a diplomatic option on a group that is completely hostile to you. One thing I don't like about PnP diplomacy is that, by rules as written, it is possible to turn people who want to tear you into kibble into your friends solely with use of the Diplomacy skill and feats. There should be a reason the random orc party will want to talk to you in the first place before that option should even be made available. Well as they are out hunting elves unless I happen to have one in my party then they likely wouldn't jump the gun. Especially considering that I saw them first and showed no immediatly hostile action. And when I make it clear that not only that I don't like the elves but that I like to decorate my clothing with them it would create a bond. And I totallysupport that as a choice to deal with them. But its easier to deal with them with a few chat options then to fight a hunting party of orcs armed to the teeth and ready for battle. Which is why I don't think they should be awarded equally. At best the combat heavy party reaches cap a little sooner then the party opting out of unnecessary combat.

I agree with you but judging from the design philsophy of the dev's I highly doubt that they would penalize a choice of dealing with the enemy as it would "encourage" you to deal with the problem a certain way. Which is what they have said they want to avoid. That argument would work if healing potions actually were valuable (only a dozen or so in the whole game, or an insanely high price and a working economy where you actually want to buy stuff, instead of looting and crafting it, and money would be so scarce that you need to decide what to buy with it) Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but it was my understanding that they wanted stamina easily replaceable and health a much harder resource to replenish. So would it be hard to replenish if potions to cure health damage were easy to come by? We'll I don't think I've ever seen a game enlist a hero for his diplomatic prowess. Most of the time heroes are choosen for such missions it is in a situation where they expect failure to negotiate and want capable warriors there to handle the escalating situation should it arise. And dimplomatic situations could mean bluffing and intimidation. In both casing the people you did this to wouldn't bother trying to spread you name far and wide. And the same goes for killing. Dadmen tell no tales.

If you want the game to be believable then you should gain most Exp outside of combat training ceasesly to become the best of the best at you skills. So in keeping with your goal we should do away with Exp in quests and spend our days training in the mountains Well if both B and C are true then it sounds like there was no challange at all in your given scenario. If they are doing a task that is so incrediable easy to them why are they being awarded at all. I think we should award them for eating pie while we are at it. A seems to be the only choice where you don't imply that its a walk in the park.

well you can do this in mmo's too but I don't recall seeing players standing around in the same spot for hours on end swatitng demons. If it is something that you would do it sounds like the problem is with you and not the game. And should you do that and it makes the devs angry then again that sounds like the problem is with them for getting butt hurt over someones choice of playstyle. No you should totally be able to walk up and high fives them and bypass them by talking to them " hey guys whats up. Oh you're hunting elves again? Sweet I was about to get some myself so I can sow their skin into my new coat to match yours. Good hunting guys" And that should be perfectly viable to do. However why should that grant the same Exp so someone who fought throught the 10 orcs you ran into that nearly killed Vogo Frog master and made me use two rare healing potions? The avoidance of risk is a reward in itself. Its the reason people sneak and negotiate. The best way to handle the situation is to give ~800 Exp for "dealing with the orc band" and 150~200 spread among the band. There would be no benifet in talking and then killing which is what has Prime's panties in a twist. You'd still get a huge chunk of the total experience you could have gotten from the encounter. And with how big the game is going to be there should be more then enough encounters to hit cap with out needing those bits here and there that your risk avoiding lost you

I don't recall seeing any devs talking about glancing blows and having full misses. The things I try refer to are things said from the devs not players.

My understanding was that on a miss it would do half minimum damage, which is considerably less than half damage. fixed ty rjshae

As I understand it the Dev's seem to be leaning towards a quest/objective Exp only system. The goal in their current system is to leave the way in which players achieve goals left to the player. IE games also had quest/objective but they also gave Exp for killing things as well. This system meant the best way to advance your character was to kill as much as possible. Because the player recieves pure benefite they then feel compelled to choose a certain playstyle and thus is a form of DG(degenerate gameplay). However from what I have read about the mechanics in the game so far I don't see the current course of devlopement solving the issue of "Compelling a certain style of play". So what do we know so far. We Know that there are going to be two resources for staying alive: Stamina(easily regenerated resource) and health(resource much harder to recoup). We know that so far they plan a roughly 1:4 ratio on health to stamina for damage taken and that even on a miss half minimum damage(ty rjshae) will be dealt. So every encounter with the enemy will mostly likely result in taking away of the longevity resource Health. Also depnding on the difficulty per day resources and consumables may be used as well. So in essence the more you fight the more you use up these resources while completing a quest, the harder the final confrontation becomes. Next I'm going to define what i consider an entirely avoidable encounter. The is an encounter in which you must fight to progress the quest or will gain something of significant value(Exp or an Item upgrade). Now I know there are some on these forums that would also love to see the vast majority of oppenents leave behind gear with little to no real value. Should this be the case then bypassing completely avoidable encounters becomes pure benefit as it will leave you in better condition to continue without delays and the risks associated with combat(especially in harder difficulties). Fighting in entirely avoidable encounters will carry more risk, drain more longevity resources, and net you the same Exp and Good items. So instead of compelling players to fight as much as possible you compelled them to avoid combat as much as possible as they are rewarded in the avoidance of risk and the conservation of resources. Now I personally don't believe the Dev's would make the most enemies carry worthless items. However the value of those items only matters as much as the things you can do with it. And I doubt they would balance the game so that more then 10-15% of the wealth you could gain from a given quest would come from the completely avoidable encounters. And depending on how rare/expensive healing resources might be you could still be worse off for fighting. And should you gain too much money from the fights it again leans back to the "DG" of "I must fight everything for gain. Which doesn't solve what the dev's were trying to "fix" in the first place. Now some of you might argue "well how do they whats avoidable?" Well aside from common sense avoidables "like patrols, guards, grunts, or monsters that you've previously seen to carry nothing of value" The entire reason this system is being implemented the way it is to prevent those from seeking to squeeze every drop of Exp possible from doing so. Those types of players are much more likely to seek any advantage they can find. And from whats been told the system will be rewarding the avoidance of combat. I respect the Idea of wanting to make everything Viable as far as gameplay goes but it feels very backwards to me that the road with the most confrontation/risk yeilds the worst results. (edit) Alright appearantly the forum posted part of my post before it was finished. The post above this is the full and complete post. Sorry for any confusion

As I understand it the Dev's seem to be leaning towards a quest/objective Exp only system. I can understand why they would want to do this as to leave the way in which to achieve these goals is left up to the player. IE games also had quest/objective but they also gave Exp for killing things as well. This system meant the best way to advance your character was to kill as much as possible. Because the player recieves pure benifite they then feel compelled to choose a certain playstyle and thus is a form of DG(degenerate gameplay). However from what I have read about the mechanics in the game so far I don't see the current course of devlopement solving the issue of "Compelling a certain style of play" or DG.

its been done