Lephys

^ Haha. I've always loved the flavor gained in RPGs when music-based characters literally fought with their weapons. It might be a tad out of the seriousness threshold for P:E, though. Also, maybe Chanters WILL get instruments? Just, ones that support vocals (no flutes, etc.). And maybe ones that don't require 2 hands to play at once (it's a bit tough to play a lute WHILST battling). Maybe tambourines, etc.? You could even dual-wield them. Or a tambourine and a dagger/sword/axe. One-handed percussion instruments are the only things that come to mind.

Maybe just make the special, enchanted arrow types function like separate spells? Example (Brought to you by LephysCorp Example Numbers and Math!): You're a level 1 Archer (I don't even care what class at this point.) You picked a Shortbow as your starting equipment, so you get a Basic Quiver for free. That quiver provides 12 arrows per encounter. You get to level 3, and you have enough money to buy a Not-Bad Quiver (10 gold). The Not-Bad Quiver stores 20 arrows per encounter. As you go up in quiver quality, the price would start getting pretty hefty (because your abilities/damage/effectiveness with arrows fired from a bow increases with your level, despite your number of arrows.) At level 3, you find a Frost Bow, that allows a % of your total quiver size worth of Frost Arrows (let's say 50%, so if your quiver is at 20, you have 20 regular arrows and 10 Frost Arrows. Now, you can either toggle to Frost Arrows (more damage plus cool Mr. Freezey effects, with bonus damage the more puns you make in Arnold Schwarzeneggar's voice), of which you have 8 per encounter, OR you can select targeted single-shot attacks or abilities with Frost arrows (So you don't have to use silly toggle timing just to fire off one Frost Arrow.) If you were in a dungeony area filled with things susceptible to Frost Arrows, then you might want to toggle permanently to Frost Arrows. But, sometimes you might only want to use them selectively. *shrug* Maybe the bow's ability to enchant arrows is tied to the strength/endurance of your soul, so as you level up, this will increase? And/or maybe certain talents increase such things. Also, you could still possibly purchase other forms of arrows (regularly crafted ones, as opposed to magically enchanted ones,) in, say, bundles of 100? So, 100 piercing arrows. OR, maybe "regular" (non-magical) arrow types are gained specifically through talents, and are still unlimited (but there's a quiver refill/swapout duration, so you can't just swap all willy nilly every 5 seconds.)? There are a dozen factors that could be better one way or another, depending on how other combat factors are going to be handled, etc. Maybe your quiver always holds the same amount of arrows (and you can still buy bigger quivers, for a decently hefty price), but there's an ammo-type swap-time, like I said. But, maybe you can still use single-use abilities that are on cooldowns with all of the arrow types available to you? Maybe your enchanty bow has a short cooldown on it, so it can only enchant an arrow every 3 or 4 continuous shots, and that cooldown decreases as you level/specialize? Who knows. You could even mimic the spell-system even more (but with proportionately larger numbers, probably) by having the special arrow types be per-rest, and the regular arrows be per-encounter. Then, as you level up, you could start gaining a handful of special arrows per-encounter. That number could increase as you go, until only the absolute best/most magical arrows you can possibly find are still per-rest (Arrows of the Eternally Damning ThunderFrostFlame?). Of course, the arrows at your disposal would still be equipment-based (your quiver would determine your per-encounter quantities, and your bow would determine enchantments available.) Perhaps only talents/specialization would determine what special types of non-enchanted arrows you gained access to, their numbers (both per-rest AND per-encounter), and how effective you are with them. You could get all the types available and not gain many specific abilities with them (to have very versatile/numerous ammo available for general bow combat), or you could specialize more in piercing arrows than SmashyCrush arrows (I have no idea what crushing-type arrows would be called, so I took artistic license) and be an extreme Pierceman, with all manner of Piercey abilities to use with your 20 regular arrows and 8 piercing arrows (no SmashyCrush ones or ShreddyChop ones). Bah, one of my points I wanted to emphasize (and didn't do very well with the example maths...) is that the quantities and availability of all arrows should be very much in step with character progression. Quivers might offer 2 more arrows per upgrade, since they'd be per-encounter and such. But, there are a lot of mathematical ways to handle/balance it. You definitely should earn your Awesome Archer status, and not just find some bow that automatically respawns Flaming Arrows of Molten Maiming every 2 seconds, when you were just using regular arrows at 16 per encounter. Especially if you can use Power Shot and Barrage and other such types of bow-firing abilities with just extreme damage boosts from your Flaming Arrows of Molten Maiming.

Maybe the Barbarian gains attack speed/damage, or some other form of combat effectiveness, the more health he has missing? (Not Stamina, but Health). That way, you don't WANT him to lose health (because he's closer to death), but you'll sometimes want to send him into the fray, within reason, rather than make sure you just take on 1 foe at a time and maximize Health-retention. *shrug*. They could, just to go along with that possibility, have a larger health pool than other classes, and still have the same Stamina-to-Health (4:1) ratio of damage-reception. 120 Health, 25 stamina when everyone else has 100 health, 25 stamina. *shrug*. On that note, I'm still curious as to whether or not the 4:1 applies to pool total relations AS WELL AS damage reception, or the pool totals are unrestricted by that ratio. For example, do we have 100 health for 25 stamina, or can we have 200 health and 25 stamina? And/or, will some characters have 90 health and 25 stamina, and some have 130 health and 25 stamina?

I like the idea of a combination of both the randomized "Oh snap! Something's wrong with this weapon!" AND the ability to decide whether or not the benefits are worth the "detriments." If you happen to think it's friggin' awesome of your character to run around consuming souls, for example, then it's a win-win (because of your preference.) But, it would generally be a pretty big decision. I like the idea of the cursed item kind of adhering to you and requiring removal, as well, but, as has been noted, this one has a bit more potential for drastically upsetting the players. You'd just hafta take extra care in balancing the design for that. Maybe have some indication that it might be problematic (i.e. a party-member says "I'm getting some bad vibes from that weapon, man...") ahead of time, and have the curse-removal unlock even better qualities from the weapon? OR...! The "if you're evil, you wouldn't mind devouring souls to gain new powers" thing made me think of Fable again. What if you just found "cursed" souls embedded in weapons (or maybe just 1 in the whole game? *shrug*), and how you dealt with their problems decided what kind of bonuses their soul added to the weapon? Maybe it would be much more work (not necessarily "harder," except in the amount of work) to help them resolve the issue in the best possible manner. I.e. some lost soul's family was slain, and it was bound to this weapon in a fit of extreme turmoil (it chaotically attached to the thing that wrent its soul and its family's souls from their bodies, rather than making its way into the soul stream... kinda like a lot of modern ideas of "crossing over" for ghosts, heh). And maybe it can't rest until you use the weapon to exact revenge on the killers of its family. Of course, maybe it can't really remember all the details. So, you can either uncover the truth behind the killing of that soul's family, and put it at peace (gaining certain bonuses that perhaps entail "good" things, like protection and Charm bonuses to the helping of people in the pursuit of justice, etc.), or you can take the route of killing your way through the ranks of the family's alleged killers and not really ever find out what exactly happened, granting the weapon's soul a sense of exacted vengeance (gaining viciously brutal bonuses to the weapon, but somehow tied to the sort of over-zealous quest for vengeance in all things, maybe?) I don't know how the specifics would work, but it's sort of your typical dichotomy, not necessarily of "good," and "evil," but more between taking the time to gain perspectives on situations before handling them (usually for the benefit of others' and the cost of your own time and resources) and taking care of situations as you find them, in that "We can't risk this guy getting away if he IS the killer" kind of way. You know, "Justice at ANY cost!" type justice. *shrug* Sorta like Paragon/Renegade in Mass Effect. Your goal is to save the galaxy either way, but you can either view everyone else as tools in the only thing that matters (your efforts), or you can consider other people's problems and efforts as important, as well, even when taking advantage of them would've proved more useful in a lot of cases in the overall efforts to save the galaxy. *Le shrug*. I suppose I could type a few more paragraphs here, no? *typity typey type...* Hahaha. I don't have carpal tunnel. I have carpal LABYRINTH! ^_^

I LOVED those traits. But, yeah, there were the handful that kinda made you tilt your head like a puppy. Like Gifted. But, specifically, I liked things like Heavy-Handed and Finesse. Finesse increasing your critical chance, but decreasing the average damage you deal. You still get a bonus either way... It wasn't like you get +50% more crits, but -50% combat damage. It was more in consistency. You COULD'VE been doing 10 damage on every hit, and critting for 30 once every 15 shots/hits, but now you're doing 7 per hit, and critting for 25 damage 3 or 4 times in every 15 hits. It had to do with playstyle, and started affecting things when you start making combat decisions. "Okay, I'm more likely to crit, so who should I go for first?" Not to mention that criticals had the chance of knocking people down or crippling them, etc. So, even if your criticals and your regular hits averaged out to the same amount of damage per combat encounter, you still changed up the playing field a bit with how your character performed if you took Finesse.

is should depend on the kinds of enemies you're fighting. Enemies with mind powers or strong magics would make sense to have easy communication methods An excellent point. However, I will say that if you alert Psychic Thingy Steve, and he basically relays his exact first-hand sense-based info telepathically to Psychic Thingy Bill (who is 100 feet away around a bunch of corners), then you KILL Steve before Bill gets to you, you should still be able to surprise Bill to some degree (who only has knowledge of your location and position from the moment up 'til Steve died.) If you slay Steve, then hide in a different room, Psychic Thingy Bill should come into the room you WERE in, where now-deceased Steve is, and remain extremely cautious while he decides how best to search for you. He should not have a GPS tracker on you forevermore once he is alerted to your sheer presence as an intruder. That goes doubly for non-psychic thingies without cool names. u_u

Yup, you're right. Less choice. Because choosing is hard. So remove the choice of engaging in combat or not, just make it a no-brainer. Bah, that was supposed to be "or don't kill the things and don't get XP." Sorry about that. Simple typo. I didn't mean "the currently proposed quest system." I meant "Take a quest you're in the process of ironing out the details for, because you're the developer, and what you have so far is just a quest that involves killing things, and if you don't do it, you simply don't get anything." Man, that was a pretty crucial typo, haha. And, TRX, my point is, from a purely logical standpoint, if it's perfectly fine to have combat only reward you after 30 minutes of continuous fighting (dragon), then what is inherently wrong with having to fight 100 orcs for 30 minutes (arbitrary example duration) instead of a dragon? "Because you're killing things" is not what makes one wrong and the other fine. It's what you're deciding is a good basis for things being "okay." But based upon what actual effective difference? As I said, if "because you're killing things" was the only reason, then that would be happenstance. The devs could just say "Okay, all combat groups are replaced with single enemies. Now everything's fine." But, I bet there would still be a perceived problem. That's what I'm getting at. If you're absolutely fine with attempting a combat challenge that you know, up-front, isn't going to yield anything if you don't completely finish it, then why is objective-only XP problematic when they're telling you up-front "the objective that earns you XP is killing all 100 orcs"? Why is it even valid to say "Hey, wait a minute... I killed like 99 of those, and never went back and finished off the last one or even got past that whole valley, so I missed out on any content that was past that obstacle or anything. I SO should've gotten XP for those 99 kills, now that I've been lazy and changed my mind about being okay with the encounter from the get-go." Fighting the dragon takes combat resources, and time, and effort, and you never get that back. Just like the orcs. However, it's okay when it's a dragon? There's only a problem when it HAPPENS to be multiple enemies instead of just one? It seems like you either enjoy and want to partake in the content, or you don't, from the get-go. If you want to, then it doesn't matter to you how you get the XP (if you kill all 100 orcs, no matter what, because you don't want to NOT complete it, for whatever reason, then you get XP for all the orc deaths). And if you don't want to do it, then XP-per-kill's implementation would be the only conditional incentive to make you do it anyway. That is the definition of "grind," methinks. "Having" to do something you have no wish to do, purely for the usefulness of the reward gained. Awarding XP only at the end of all 100 orcs IN NO WAY encourages you to fight some of the orcs, then not fight the rest. It either encourages you to attempt to kill all of the orcs, or to not even attempt to engage them at all. So, the "Oh no, I didn't kill all of them, but now I'm upset because I feel I deserved XP for the ones I DID kill" dilemma isn't even a problem caused by the XP system. Also, I'm not even against the killing of all 100 orcs resulting in more XP than simply completing the objective (sneaking, etc. to get past them).

Indeed. It's very similar to the increased adrenaline/attack-effectiveness upon damage taken that's often used for berzerker-type classes and mechanics.

I agree that every footstep you take, undetected, should not yield XP (and, therefore, every enemy you sneak past), but the entire act of sneaking and actually accomplishing something (especially when it's something that could not be accomplished with straight-up combat) should be rewarded with "extra" XP. Example: There are combatants, and hostages (you guys already had a little hostage pseudo-example going). If you attack, they kill the hostages. Therefore, you have to get to the hostages BEFORE attacking to save them. But, obviously nothing in the specifics of this scenario prevent you from ALSO killing all the combatants who were holding the hostages. So, killing all the combatatants should be one objective (regardless of however XP is actually dished out, it should be dished out in some form or fashion specifically for handling the group of hostile hostage-takers), and successfully rescuing the hostages (happens to require some form of stealth) should be another. So, in the way that you're looking at the XP, if you sneak in and rescue the hostages and get out without fighting, then the decision to fight, instead, after rescuing the hostages would reward "extra" XP (on top of the saving of the hostages.) And vice versa. However, you can't fight and THEN sneak, obviously. But, you can still do both, or either one alone. Both objectives would be potentially "extra." There's always the "surprise attack!" idea from turn-based RPGs of the old console days we could work into the math somehow. Which pretty much lines up with what you're suggesting, anyway. Whether it's a defense penalty, or a bonus to all the enemies' first attack rolls (in the old turn-based RPGs, then enemies that ambushed you all got to go first), I'm all for it. And @Osvir, I like the idea of traversability/accessibility being a big factor. Like climb. It's not that you're a master of shadows, but if your people suck at climbing, they can't scale that 15-foot smoothish stone wall. Someone who knows how to climb and/or knows how to use a grappling hook might could do it. Of course, you still might have the element of "listen for the patrolling guard on the other side of the wall so that you don't throw a grappling hook and make a *TINK* 5 feet away from his head right as he's passing." Which brings me to another interesting (to me, at least) facet of stealth. The ability to perceive that which you are trying to avoid's ability to detect. For example, if we have relatively elaborate stealth (compared to the traditional binary "You're either stealthed or you aren't!"), what if the whole "Your non-Rogue folk can be sneaky, too, but not as well as your Rogueish folk" notion was based heavily upon the fact that only Rogues (or people with the much, much higher stealth abilities, a la deliberate focused skill point spending) could accurately "SEE" the enemies' detection ranges/radii? In the exact same scenario, in a dimly-lit corridor, you might have a patrol of guards. Maybe there are shadowy alcoves along the length of it, but you don't have a masterful Rogue, so you think you could move about halfway when the guards are marching away from you, duck into the alcoves, wait for them to pass, then continue on until you round a corner and are out-of-sight, but you aren't sure. You might just have to fight, or you could risk it to find out. Same scenario, you DO have a masterful Sneakster, and his knowledge of how much noise you could make exactly how close to those guards, and how far they could detect someone in this lighting, both moving and standing still (maybe different parts of the "vision" cone, *shrug*) would translate into UI indicators for the player. In other words, what if part of Stealth was the detailed information of paths, vision ranges, and hearing ranges?

YAY, WE WON WHILE I WAS AWAY FOR THE WEEKEND! Haha. I joke. The only thing I see as a win is actual discussion taking place, and people who don't want to discuss ceasing to clutter things up. But, I'm glad the heat has died down. I think if this thread is being ignored by the devs at this point, it's probably because they already trusted themselves to consider all the necessary factors affected by their decision in the first place, and they've taken into account anything we could possibly say in here already. I think the miss thread is a perfect example of how actual discussion, though long and arduous, offers positive criticism, analysis, and contribution that benefits everyone. But when you get something as long as this thread, with so much "I'm just posting to tell you that people who don't believe what I believe are morons" instead of "here's an intelligent, contributive constructive criticism of your contribution, and now we have an even better understanding of the factors involved with the design decision being discussed," I see the chance that the devs will have the time to read through it all and weed out the unnecessary drop drastically. The last thing I'll say on the matter is this: Kills could always be marked as direct objectives, where it is reasonable, and not where it is not. I have every confidence in the ability of the development team to discern which is which in the balancing and further design ironing-out of the rest of the game. And if they need to change it (like the miss mechanic), they will do so. But it's going to be because there's a reason, and not because a bunch of people childishly protested the decision made out of sheer preference and ignored intelligent discussion about it.

^ Yeah. I apologize for the extreme inefficiency of my last post. Here's the point my brain wouldn't quite actually get to *punches own brain in the face*... That example only works in the context of complete isolation. You don't say "Hey, part of that dragon should give me XP!" when you are presented with the dragon. You understand that only successfully killing the whole dragon will grant you XP. If the game uses objective-only XP, then you'd know, up front, that only killing all 100 orcs would get you any XP. So, why should we reasonably feel the need to change the design when someone says "Hmm, I think I'll try to take on all 100 orcs... Oh no, I failed part of the way through! Better leave... Hmm, I'll just never go back and finish that orc band. Wait, I DIDN'T GET ANY XP FOR MY EFFORT?!" See? It doesn't make any sense. What I'm getting at is, you can no more say "part of this combat challenge SHOULD, inherently, present me with XP because it required effort and involved accomplishment" than you could say "That dragon SHOULD'VE been 100 orcs, instead!" Because we're talking about design choices here. I mean, what makes an orc INHERENTLY need to give you XP, as compared to a rat, or a random villager? I don't know how to say exactly what I'm trying to say. If you take a huge dragon fight in a game, and suddenly replace it with with 100 orcs instead, for the same XP once you kill them all, either the orcs are an inherently better design decision (because of how much combat effort should translate into XP how often), or a combat challenge as long as 100 orcs that only rewards you with XP at the end is acceptable. It can't be both ways. How much effort the death of a single enemy constitutes isn't a static value. Saying the dragon is fine and the orcs aren't would mean that having only ONE enemy in the entire game that took 50-hours to fight and never regenerated health would be totally fine, and you shouldn't get any XP until you reduce some threat. Or, rather, if all fights in the game consisted of only 1 enemy per encounter, you wouldn't care how long they took or how many resources they required, and whether or not you had to give up halfway through all of them and never receive any experience because you never went back and completed them. Even though you'd wind up with exactly the same "problem." As long as it's 100 orcs, even if the rest of the game is exactly the same, it's wrong not to give XP for a portion of the encounter, no matter what, but if it's just 1 big enemy that's equally as tough and time-consuming, it's fine to never give any until the whole thing is done.

^ All that tells us is "Adjust the number of orcs, then test again." So, my point is, that isn't the system's fault. It isn't a flaw inherent to not-awarding-XP-every-single-time-you-ever-kill-something-in-the-whole-game, it's a flaw in the allocation of objective boundaries. What if you just adjust all the factors so that you can't run away? What if, once you're detected, the entrance is blocked off, and you either have to kill all the remaining orcs and get to your objective "past all the orcs," OR be really, really stealthy and sneak past them all. I know it seems different, but think about it... how is that different from the dragon example? Instead of 100 orcs there, there's a big tough dragon, who's as hard as 100 orcs. You get him to 80%, but you run out of health, so you flee. Except, imagine he doesn't heal. But you didn't kill him. You didn't get any XP, but you never came back to kill him. Well, if you beat the game without ever coming back to kill/otherwise-get-past him, then that couldn't have been an objective that was integral to anything else you did after that, so it must've been a purely optional XP objective. So, you chose to get that, then changed your mind. In other words, consider the 100 orcs a single challenge. If you can't fight through all 100 of them on your amount of health, then, again, we probably have a balance issue. The number 100, and how tough they are is dependent upon balancing. Another way to look at it is that the purpose of the orcs (the reason they're even there, in the context of design) is not to be XP fountains, but to be an obstacle in getting through the pass. Last boss of the game... he might not give you XP, if beating him completes the game. Why? Because XP gain isn't the goal of the game. Again, getting XP per kill makes sense from the "Every action should realistically earn you XP" standpoint. But, UNLESS you use that scheme, it is no longer required for sense to be made. If you want the 100 orcs to be completable in one fell-swoop, then you adjust them accordingly. Because, if it's balanced properly, and you're able to take on however many orcs it is with the previous XP/level-up opportunities presented to you so far (you can only make a challenge SO balanced... someone could still attack a rat, stand there and let it bite them all day long until they get low on health, then say "Damn, gotta go back to town to heal" and never come back to fight that rat), then there's no difference between giving up on taking down ONE enemy and giving up on taking down 100. If you can kill 5 orcs in 10 seconds (because of their difficulty) OR one orc in 10 seconds (because it's that tough), then why does it matter if the developers put in 5 easier orcs there, or one tough orc? Or what if they put in 1,000 orcs (regardless of how ridiculous that would be)? They would have to be easy enough to present the same challenge as the one tough orc. So, they'd each give .0000-something XP. At some point, the amount of experience you get relative to the challenge of the kills is going to be marginal (hence the 100 orcs in the original example being 100 by design, rather than 10 or 1.) TL;DR... How could the same example be adjusted to address the problem? There are a great deal of factors at play in balancing.

If you have to get past all 100 orcs to get any XP, and you fight 50 of them, then sneak past the last 50, and you get 10,000 XP for completing "Get through the orc-filled pass," then how do you define "additional" kills? In addition to what? You just got 5,000 XP for killing orcs, and 5,000 XP for sneaking, successfully past orcs (I'm not advocating this as a good quest/objective-options setup... I'm merely illustrating a point about perspective on XP rewards.) If you kill only 1 orc, and you sneak past the other 99, then you got 100 XP for killing an orc, and 9900 XP for sneaking successfully past a boatload of orcs (which is probably a lot harder than just sneaking past 1, if you've designed the game well. OR we could all just assume it's impossible to make the number of foes a factor in stealth if we don't want to be reasonable.) No matter what you do in that situation, you're getting 100XP per orc killed. If you sneak past them all, THEN go back and kill them all, you just lost 10,000 sneaking XP and gained 10,000 kill XP. You never get gipped for your kills, and you never get gipped for your sneaking. You only get XP = to how much sneaking you did, and you only get XP = to how many kills you made. Again, the only way there is to be upset with this is if you just plain think that combat should be the ONLY thing in the game that nets you XP. What is the problem? You're only encouraged to sneak IF it's easier than combat (which really depends on current equipment, level, combat skills, player combat prowess, etc., as it relates to your stealth skills and such.) Unless you just have certain checkpoints at which you're magically bumped up to a statically-coded level and given a certain set of skills and equipment, I'm pretty sure there'll be variance in the combat abilities of different players' parties that affect whether or not killing the orcs or sneaking past them would be easiest. NOT TO MENTION you still probably get more loot if you kill all the orcs. So, 10,000 EXP + any amount of extra loot/gold, as opposed to just 10,000XP.

Current quest design involves only 1 choice: Kill the things and get XP, or don't kill the things and get XP. Hmm... let's make that quest more complex, and throw in a diplomacy option (it involves diplomacy, and handles the situation... that doesn't mean it takes 1 second and involves the simplistic "Let's not fight" dialogue option.). This also gives XP, because it involves spending time and resources (possibly going other places, talking to other people, finding out other information, acquiring other items) that wouldn't have been spent had you simply opted to fight (there'd be absolutely no issue to handle anymore, so no reason to go talk and acquire these things.) How is this ANY different from having one optional combat-only quest, and one optional diplomacy-only quest, EXCEPT that you can't do them both? And if the problem is that you can't do them both, then your issue is really with mutually exclusive options. What if you had a quest/objective that had 2 methods of handling it: Stealth, or Diplomacy? Would you insist that it isn't fair because there's no combat XP available? Probably not. So it's just optional XP that happens to be tied together. IF you fight when you can, you ALWAYS get XP. If you don't, then the game's not designed well. How does that not make sense? IF you think there's a problem with non-combat things granting XP, no matter what, then you simply don't want them to even be options. Because, why would you want someone to be ABLE to get past a fight without fighting (that they can never go back and fight) and not progress in any way? And if it's because "combat is always more complex than non-combat," then how do you account for poison and cutting ropes to drop things on your foes? Or how do you account for a Wizard casting one AOE spell in 4 seconds and killing 5 things, instead of a swordsman chopping and dodging away at them for 2 minutes until each one dies? The reasoning just doesn't hold up. There's always an adjustment to be made to make the "always" bit false. What if you're Frodo and Sam, trying to get through Mordor to Mount Doom? Well, the game has to prevent you from just fighting everything in sight, because everything in sight means THOUSANDS of orcs and trolls and whatnot. So, should you be able to sneak through and avoid all that combat and still progress? Should each of those orcs and trolls provide combat XP, even though showing yourself means death (the game waits 'til you die in combat rather than instantly saying "You were spotted, GAME OVER!", but it's mathematically impossible to survive)? If it doesn't tell you you're dead, and they actually provide XP and loot (because they always should), then aren't you going to be mad that the game is so "unbalanced" that you're being deprived all that XP and loot, and the non-combat path is being rewarded? That would just be silly. Times when combattable things are within your reach but combat with them is never a viable option are times when you don't get XP for killing (because you're "artificially" prevented from killing, and therefore barred from that XP). In an objective-based system, killing orcs and trolls in Mordor wouldn't be an objective. Problem solved. You CAN kill them, but since you already don't have a reason to, you now don't have a player-override reason to ("I know this would be insanity, but if I can manage to somehow kill even just ONE of these things, I'll get like 100 more XP!").

I really don't think we can show enough appreciation for so many casual, direct responses to questions regarding the blueprints of mechanics thus far. You guys should have a Paypal Tip Jar or something. And may this maelstrom of rapid-fire criticisms and suggestions that we maintain on a daily basis hopefully provide its useful tidbits of raw, precious design ore, to help forge giant mechanical space lions that can ultimately consolidate into the Voltron of valuable design conclusion.

@Valorian: I'm saving you the trouble of responding by acknowledging here and now that you did not read this. You're welcome. There was a .0001% chance you might've gotten a hand cramp or something. Then, by that same line of reason, what's the point in picking one class over another, if they all get the same number of abilities to choose from? All loot is not created equal. If you get a Masterwork Mace from a chest, and you get 1300 gold from killing some foes, then the path of least resistance ends with you 1300 gold poorer. That's really the problem here... things with variable amounts keep being cited as being inherently worse than other things with variable amounts. Clearly, if ALL combat in the game were not rewarded with any XP, then there'd be a problem. But if some things require you to successfully combat hostiles, and those things ALSO give you XP, then you were given XP for combat (you could not have gotten that XP without combat.) If even ONE instance of combat in the entire game gives you XP, then "combat is ALWAYS worse" is not true. Therefore, the actual problem is "combat doesn't give enough experience to be a valid option as compared to combat-avoiding options." So what do you do? You adjust things. That's called balancing. If you award combat XP for every kill, then you automatically have to adjust the total number of creatures ever available to be killed, and/or the amount of XP each creature kill gives, and/or the difficulty level for all subsequent content. So, how much would be enough? We keep getting examples of "If I killed 10 guys, and I COULD'VE also done ANYTHING else in the universe that didn't involve killing those 10 guys, and I still get XP for either, I should get more for the killing." Well, if you get more for the killing, how much? You can't have killing everything in the game put you at level 170, and killing only the things you HAVE to kill put you at level 30 at the end of the game. How the hell do you balance that? It's either WAY too easy for the combat-choosers, or WAY to difficult for the people you've told "Hey, it's totally a viable option to not kill these things, and we still let you advance through all the content to this point of no return at the end of the game." So, if the devs say "Okay, you get 1XP every time you kill something," is that enough? Probably not, right? That would just feel like a slap in the face. So how much? 20? 30? 70? It's most likely going to be higher for tougher fights, and lower for easier fights, right? But, you're surely not going to fight nothing but stuff that's 4 levels lower than you, so, again, you come back to the fact that only a certain range of XP per kill is valid. Or, maybe you decided to just say "Okay, well, we'll just have like 5 enemies per group, instead of 10. That should cut all the XP gain down to a reasonable, balanced number for all available combat encounters." Well, you think no one's gonna complain about "Why don't we ever get to fight more than 5 things? There are 6 people in my party! I expect the challenge of numbers to not be forcibly reduced!" And say you DO just give everyone plenty of XP per kill. You've either got to remove the non-combat options you're calling "viable," or let people get to the end of the game completely under-leveled, like I said. It all comes down to balance, no matter what. Which is why, it doesn't matter what system you use, really. It matters how you address all the factors. Starting with the number 2 and need to get to 50? Let's use addition, because I like addition. So we have to add 48. But wait, you hate addition, and like multiplication better? Okay, well, we can't just multiply 2 by 48 and still end up with 50, so now we have to change that 48 to a 25. Every single value has an effect, and they must all be addressed, based on SOME kind of standard. I really don't see the problem, unless things aren't properly balanced. It's just like someone said about that Vampire: The Masquerade example. IF you give objective-only XP, then let's say you fight your way through 50 enemies, and you "Find the exit to the sewer." That's your objective completion, and you get 5,000 XP. Well, you just got 100 XP per enemy, if you killed them all. You just didn't get it all at once. - Was the problem that it was too long and tedious? Then make the area smaller/less-convoluted, and/or reduce the number of enemies. - Was it that you didn't have to kill them all, and you still got the total XP? Then have them all in the immediate path, and make them threatening enough to kill you (be faster than you) if you try to ignore them and run. - Was the problem that someone else just stealthed their whole party through the whole thing and still got 5,000 XP? Then don't let them do that (give them infra-red vision, or very good hearing or smell, or just make them move around a lot to pretty much make it impossible to path through them without bumping into them. Also, don't make your Stealth system insta-win.) - Was it that you want the XP more often instead of waiting 'till the end? Then design a series of "checkpoints" (which makes perfect sense in a sewer-system-type layout, anyway) at which you gain 1500XP or so. See, either system has issues to address. It's about addressing whatever issues present themselves as a result of whatever system you use. All I keep seeing are overly-specific examples of scenarios using VERY specific factor values, with the system swapped out, and then "See, it will ALWAYS be like this!" Also, mechanically, using a "combat-kill XP system" and using an objective-only-XP system in which every single instance of combat is part of a designated objective are quite literally the exact same thing. One overtly speaks the term "objective," and the other does not. "Objective" is just something that nets you XP, so if a kill nets you XP, it inherently becomes an objective, within that system. So, yes, again, I don't see a problem with the system. Only specific references of unbalanced circumstances. "We can't use a Hitpoint system, 'cause if you ever got like 1,000,000,000 HP and the enemies all had like 10 HP, that wouldn't work! Let's change the whole method of keeping track of mortality, instead of just balancing our game accordingly!" Feh, I say. FEH! o_O

If you admit it makes sense for combat xp to sometimes not be awarded (when you have already committed to a solution that produces no hostility or reason for combat whatsoever, so that the player's desire for more XP on top of the quest-completion XP would be quite literally the ONLY incentive for the combat), then what's so different about the objective-only XP method? Choose to kill all those peeps instead of trying to solve the problem at hand in a different manner? You achieve an outcome to the dilemma, and you gain XP (for combat, because that's the only action you took.) You use some method that isn't combat (and achieve possibly a different, yet still viable outcome to the dilemma, mind you)? You gain experience for that method you used, even though it wasn't combat. If it "makes sense" not to award combat XP for killing the people you just specifically opted to make peace with INSTEAD of killing, then what's the problem? No one's going to kill all the people, THEN make peace with the dead corpses for extra XP, either. Also, regarding your favorite "Josh Sawyer said" reference, about pacifists not getting "punished" in terms of loot, I think you misunderstand. Pretend there are 100 items of loot in the game, total. They are all the equipment, potions, herbs, whatever, in the entire game. 50 of them are part of the critical path of the game, and are right there for you to grab no matter how you play through the game. 25 of them are only obtainable via optional combat (when you COULD kill things, but don't have to to complete a quest/the game.) 25 of them are only obtainable via optional non-combat (diplomacy, sneak, what-have-you). Therefore, if you play through the whole game, gathering all loot that is available from your given choices, and you choose ALL combat options, you end up with the core 50 plus the 25 from non-mandatory combat, resulting in 75 of 100 loot items in the game. If you do the same thing, but choose all non-combat options whenever you can, and none of the optional combat options, you get the core 50 plus the 25 exclusive to non-combat options, resulting in 75 of 100 loot items in the game. So, you're not "punished" for not choosing the combat options, because if you were, then combat would ALWAYS result in a greater reward (which is exactly what you've been claiming is the problem with the current system and non-combat options, for some reason). You get a balanced amount of items and loot, either way. This is no different from any other RPG with locked things in it that require really high lockpicking skill to access, AND really tough combat counters that require really high combat skills to complete (and therefore get loot/XP rewards from). The above example math works for XP, also. Some xp can only be gotten through combat, and some can only be gotten through non-combat choices (when you can't do both, like simultaneously spare people's lives AND kill them). Meaning, if you do nothing but combat options, and you want more rewards, you can always get more by doing some non-combat stuff, and vice versa if you've thus far done only non-combat objectives and want more rewards. Where is the inherent imbalance? I understand the desire for xp upon kills. I do. It makes sense. But it ALSO makes sense, within a system in which we already accept plenty of other abstractions of things, for SOME combat to not directly award XP, and for SOME non-combat to not directly award anything, either. When Josh says "loot is not systemic," what he means is that, the purpose of enemies in RPGs is not purely to be loot/xp factories. Loot is balanced throughout a variety of systems and mechanics. If not-killing things never gets you anything, then stealth, diplomacy, and all that other stuff is pointless. And if the two never collide (quests/scenarios with mutually-exclusive combat/non-combat choices and outcomes), then you arbitrarily eliminate a lot of the depth of the game's story and just wind up with a big sandbox. So, SOMEtimes, not-killing something will be viable, even when killing them is also viable, which can ONLY mean that you get something either way. Again, I understand the seeming problem with "Wait, I killed stuff just now and didn't immediately get XP?" I do. No one's saying combat XP doesn't make any sense. BUT, it ALSO makes sense to do it a different way. It's two mutually exclusive systems being compared. Not "LOLS, let's just take an old IE game, remove combat XP, and call it a day, ^_^" The game is being designed around the fact that characters will not receive xp for the sheer act of assaulting things. Using your exact reasoning, in a system with combat XP, the player is "punished" for not killing every single enemy there is. So, if you design a cave with a horde of undead pouring out of a portal, and you're supposed to escape, you're basically giving the player a reason to try to fight an infinite horde instead of escape, when the characters would really have no reason to do anything but run.

*Nod nod*. Limitation is one thing. "Oh know, I've taken an arrow in the knee, and I can't move as quickly!" or "I can't use certain abilities right now," etc. But, a complete void in the player's ability to input any commands or take any actions is excrutiating.

^ Hear hear! *Raises mug* That's how I feel. You've either got to accept abstraction, or not tolerate ANY abstraction (or literally as minimal abstraction as can be achieved via modern game-coding capabilities). So, either only certain degrees of effort (sneaking past enemies to obtain something, escape, etc., or killing enemies for some actual reason) should be rewarded, or literally all effort should be rewarded 1:1. Party walk 5 miles? You gained fitness and nature-watching experience. Talk to some people in town? You gained social interaction/conversation experience. Everything we experience is, well, what experience represents. So, it all comes down to "how do we reasonably convey that gain throughout the game and not take 17-years to code it?"

Yeah, I get that. I was just trying to make sure you were aware of his stances on those things. The way information gets kicked up into a tornado around this place, it's easy to miss stuff, I think it's good to consider reasonable ways to eliminate scenarios in which save-scumming easily turns things into an extremely inefficient chore. However, I don't think they're waging war on save-scumming or anything. Basically, if you can implement something like lockpicking, for example, in such a way that the provided systems (saving anywhere) don't encourage the grueling circumvention of limitations (using your save to re-roll dice for an hour until you pick the lock), then by all means, do so. But, I think the benefits of being able to save anywhere still greatly outweigh the benefits of fully-eliminating the need and/or possibility to save-scum. Basically, it's better for everyone for the process of lockpicking to never even be able to take an hour than it is for it to possibly do so. And yeah, it's highly tied to chance calculation. But they're not all bad.

^ A fair take. I wasn't intending to suggest it was perfect, but it's a prototype. We still don't know if there will be weapon stances, various types of attack with the same weapon, etc. If they can do it with their resource limitations and time constraints, then sure... the more effective factors we can put into the system, the better. But, I just don't see 17 different possible factors going into how damage and armor interact in an isometric, party-based game. I'm not saying it's 17 factors or 1. Like I said, the more reasonable complexity they can add, the better, in my book. I just personally will be fine with a more abstracted approach than what you would rather see as the minimum mark, methinks. Which is fine. Just a preference difference is all that is. It doesn't really have any bearing on the value of not over-simplifying combat calculations.

^ Yeah, I mean, if you didn't have a limited number of throwing daggers and arrows and other ranged weapons, then why not just let everyone with a sword attack from range? What would be the trade-off? "This weapon does 10 damage and attacks from 2 feet away, and this weapon does 10 damage from 70 yards. Which do you want?" That would be a no-brainer. The ranged weapon would always have an advantage. And, regarding the spell-like limitations (probably per-encounter, for arrows), it would just be a matter of number-balancing. Maybe a Wizard only gets 10 spells per encounter at Level 5, and an archer character gets 40 arrows per encounter. Depending on the damage of the bow and the arrows (if there are types, etc.) and the capabilities of the character, maybe it needs to be 60. But, quite frankly, if you're going through 400 arrows in a single encounter, I think you've got a balance issue. I suppose another alternative might be to allow arrows and other ammunition to slowly regenerate, like mana, in combat, but that's edging closer to the fine line between abstraction and nonsense. Besides, then you run into even more possible problems, like "what's to keep you from just kiting an enemy around for 10 years while all your arrows regenerate?". It's more fun when battles don't take an hour (especially when you can potentially run out of finite health and resources at the 57-minute mark), so that's the type of scenario they're trying to steer away from. I think if the characters were understood to resupply between each encounter, and you got the numbers right, everything would be fine. Keep in mind, archers will progress in damage and effectiveness just like any other weapon-user. It's not like you'll need 20 arrows (7 damage a piece, maybe?) per battle early on, then, you'll need 500 arrows per battle at level 30 because an arrow from your bow will still only do 7 damage while everyone else has 60+-damage longswords and daggers and pikes and chakrams. Also, your archer character shouldn't be SO specialized (or, in this case, restricted) that he literally can't use any other weapon but one that requires ammunition. He should be able to break some emergency glass and whip out a short sword of infinite swinging or something, in the event that he does, in fact, run out of ammo before the battle's done. Or maybe he defaults to a boomerang? (INFINITE AMMO, 8D!)

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? And what about poison? Or traps? You can cut a rope and drop massive boulders onto enemies, killing them all with very little effort, or Sneakily poison their wine, then shuffle off to watch from a dark corner while they all die. You caused their deaths. Was that combat, or stealth? Should you get more experience for straight-up fighting them, instead of poisoning them or dropping rocks on them? And, if so, why shouldn't you gain XP for fighting the dragon for 15 minutes, but not causing its demise? One would think the most logical system (while still within the realm of some abstraction) would be to provide 75% of the XP the dragon would provide for killing it in exchange for 75% of its health. Then, you'd only have the potential of gaining the final 25% if you actually ever finished killing it, regardless of whether or not it regenerated or didn't, etc. Still doesn't tackle the poison/rocks vs. taxing-physical-combat discrepancy.

I like this. It's basically a critical defense instead of a critically-bad offense. I think the only problem I really have with critical misses in the D&D rulesets and any RPGs that copy them in that respect is when you're attacking a stunned combatant who's lying on the ground, not even moving or taking any action whatsoever, and you not only fail to hit him, but you stab yourself in the leg. What caused you to stab yourself in the leg? What factors even produced a chance of that? It should only be possible under certain circumstances, and tying those directly to the capabilities of the defender is a good way to handle that.

What would be great is if they used the same tactics on you. Luring and all that. Like a surprise party gone terribly wrong, 8D. Not that that hasn't ever been done before in an RPG. It would just still be great. But, as to what they're doing when you come upon them, I think that's an excellent area to implement the "your specific actions can produce all manner of effects" idea. Maybe they're sitting around talking about something, and if you actually listen for a minute instead of running in and killing them, you hear valuable information (treasure, creature movements, clues to some stash or artifact or weapon, incriminating info on some noble guy in town, etc.). But, it's a time-sensitive thing. They don't just strike up a conversation about super useful info the second you come upon them, so you don't really know until you say "Hey, they're talking about stuff... I wonder what all they talk about." Sort of like... combat exploration. When exploring the environment, you're often given clues as to secret doors, or you see a path that looks reachable/traversable, even if you don't know where it leads. I think it would be interesting for combat situations, rather than just "when/how should we attack?"