Lephys

But you don't lose out on XP. If you go Wizard, you lose out on melee fighting prowess... but you still gain levels and can attain level 12, despite your class choice. The problem is the xp allotment, not all-rewards-ever allotment. It's not that the other stuff doesn't matter. It's that it's not what's an inherent problem with "you always get XP when you fight things, and you always miss out on that XP when you don't." And it's specific to actual events/situations. Not just "There are some things standing around there... I don't wish to go fight them... I STILL WANT XP!", just to make that clear. I think you have too narrow a view of what this is. You're thinking of an old game's system, just with kill xp ripped out of it, and the rest left as-is. In PoE, the entire game is designed around XP being allotted only through the completion of objectives. Objectives don't have to be something you already know about/have before entering some area. I'm pretty sure it will be impossible to explore an area with no objective content, because anything pertinent to almost anything else is going to be designated as some form of objective. Objective-based XP is merely a different approach to the allotment of XP. It does not inherently define the circumstances under which XP will be granted, or how it will be calculated, etc. All that is still up to the devs, just like all those same factors for any other XP allotment system. My options for argument are not limited to "only the exact opposite of the words Immortalis typed, and nothing more." I'm going to cover plenty of stuff you didn't explicitly type, because it's pertinent to the XP system, and how it doesn't inherently do the things you're opposing.

True, but that's not inherent to an objective-based system. There is no inherent "quest" to complete. There's a situation, and then there are goals. They're either collaborative toward a greater/overarching goal (i.e. "Find all the pieces of the Elmrynthine Amulet"), or they're standalone, optional things upon which the resolution of the situation doesn't necessarily depend (i.e. "Handle the Bandit Threat, Locate info on the Bandits' other operations in the area."). Etc. There's absolutely no reason for you to get XP for each piece of the Elmrynthine Amulet (example above) you find, THEN just suddenly receive a big blob of XP for finding the final piece. Finding the last piece is the completion of the quest. I mean, could it be (and has it been, in existing games) done like that? Yes. Should it be? No. But, that's all that tells us. It's not a matter of whether or not to use an objective-oriented system, but rather, a simple matter of how to use it (or how not to, in this case). It appears I may have been unclear on details there, and if so, I apologize. You get better at something when you practice it, yes. But, in a level-up-based game, you don't. You get better at something when you level up and spend points in it. Since that's what we're dealing with here (and what it's being compared to with the idea of "removing" kill XP, as in changing things from previous games, which also used this leveling system), that's what I'm pointing out isn't doing the job of representing combat XP properly. You could still get better at archery by taking down bunnies at a distance (they're small, fast-moving targets, etc.) Yet, the game decides "bunnies are no threat, so you get nothing for killing them." Negative. The game decides how hard something is to kill, in general, then calculates an XP value for it (relative to your level/capabilities/ability to kill stuff). You could chase a bunny for 10 days, and miss with 34 arrows before finally killing that one bunny. The game doesn't care how hard it was for you to make that kill. It just cares whether or not the bunny died, and how threatening a bunny is to your level of character. Just like in my poison example. It's EASY to dose a water supply with poison, and yet hundreds of deaths could result from it. Or, another, more active-combat example... casting a fireball. If a given enemy is worth 10XP, why does a Mage get only 10XP for casting fireball once when only 1 enemy happens to be standing within its radius and dies to the spell, but gets 100 XP just because 10 of them were standing there? Does he have to expend any more effort? How did he get 10-times better at casting Fireball at a 20-foot circle on the ground just because the resulting fire-splosion happened to end 10 things' lives instead of 1 (or none, for that matter)? He didn't. The game's just deciding that, since you accomplished the death of that thing, you get XP. It's not representing how hard you're working. It's just an objective. Or, a table of them, I suppose. But, it's absolutely not at all a representation of how much actual battle experience your characters are getting for the kill. Am I saying you can't make a system that better represents that? Not at all. Am I saying that "but now our battle experience will go unrepresented, whereas before it was totally represented!" is not a valid argument against this objective-oriented approach to XP that PoE is taking? Yes I am.

Just to be clear, the goal isn't to ensure the player can never ever amass a bunch of money. Just that they can't do so far beyond any and all expenditures in the game. If you're ridiculously frugal and sell everything you can get your hands on for 4 whole chapters, and then you have enough money to buy a bunch of extra stuff, this isn't a problem. If you're not even trying, and by 4 chapters in, you have enough money to succeed in a Bribe check against the head villain of the narrative to get him to stop what he's doing and take up charity work, there's a problem.

I guess I just think that "Hey, that wasn't very cool" does more harm than good when it's a bit premature, is all. When you start getting trigger happy with your social cost, your "Hey, that wasn't cool" warrants its very own "Hey, that wasn't cool." For whatever that's worth. Annnnnywho... seriously, I apologize, as I wasn't trying to derail anything. The design of all that has been described by Josh, I believe. In some thread somewhere. Apparently if you run into a Blorp (made-up example foe), you'll be able to mouse-over and see the general defenses and such of Blorps. But, this info starts as ???'s and gets filled in after you've faced them enough or something (not sure how that mechanically works -- if it's a chance every time you kill one? Or every time you hit one? Or just "after X hits/kills, info unlocked!"). But, at that point, you still only see that "Oh, Blorps have like 40 deflection." That particular Blorp could still have 44, or 37, or what-have-you. So, I think once you've unlocked that info in your little beastiary-opedia thing, and you start a battle and mouse-over a given Blorp, it shows a certain color of number values there (grey? I don't remember) to designate "You know the relative characteristics of a Blorp, but not the specific ones of THIS Blorp, yet." Then, after you attack it in combat, I think the value you attacked will change to the exact value of that Blorp. So, if you hit it with a sword, you'll discover its exact Deflection, etc. Also, all this can apparently be toggled off via options.

The scripts in Dragon Age, minus the arbitrary quantity limitation, would be cool. That, and there were many useful conditions/actions that were absent. DA2 had a bit more, but the whole system was still a wee bit lacking. I do like the idea of setting what you want people to do and under what circumstances a lot better than the typical AI options we get (Aggressive, Defensive, Support, etc.)

So, what you're saying is... the stitchwork on that outfit is... barbaric? 6_u Indeed. Nothing a few days of getting re-used to 2D backgrounds shouldn't fix.

Thing about this stuff is, I find it perfectly reasonable to question it/point it out, but even if it did drop a cloak, my first guess would be "the loot-drop stuff is a bit wonky/unfinished," and not "Obsidian obviously thinks amorphous entities should drop humanoid equipment/attire." 8P

Methinks they need useful testing feedback a lot more than they need to just show off the game early. "Beta" nowadays has often come to mean "we're almost done; take a look! 8D!". Anywho, I guess requiring money for beta access is one way of ensuring some amount of dedication from the beta participants, instead of just letting 73,000 people in who all like the idea of playing the game early, and getting flooded with so much "WHY ISN'T THIS DONE YET?" "feedback" that it becomes an ordeal to actually sort through it to find the useful testing feedback. *shrug* Dunno if it's the best way, but it's one way.

I don't think you really addressed mine, so I clarified mine. Whether or not my argument coincides with your own beliefs on the matter is sort of the whole core of an argument/discussion. I can try and address each and every line in that post, if that would be more helpful: Okay... once again, the problem you're implying with "there's still reward loss, so the problem isn't fixed" is not the one that is trying to be fixed according to Tim Cain, unless he specifically stated that they don't want any reward deficit whatsoever in any shape or fashion. I realize that items and XP are both two different streams from which to draw water. However, that's rather moot, since they're not mutually exclusive. You can hardly expect a lvl 1 party with all the best gear in the game to make it through an entire playthrough. Just like a lvl 12 party with all the worst gear in the game would probably have a lot of trouble (though, probably less than the other party, if I had to guess). They're not redundant streams. Everybody needs XP for the progression system inherent to the game's gameplay to function. And no... "my" logic in no way advocates doling XP out per chapter, which is how I know you've misunderstood me. You don't just passively hand it out... you grant it for actively accomplishing things. Hence quests. You know what quests used to be? The DM tallying up what you did and didn't do, and giving you XP for it. Did you super-cleverly use 1 ability to handle an entire room full of goblins, and you were a Rogue? GOOD ON YOU! You get way more XP for the effective use of that, than just "X goblins times X exp = here ya go." A game can't decide that on the fly, so now we just have quests. It all started as just "what did you actually DO about this situation?" Objectives, basically. And, as I already said, the game doesn't perfectly simulate combat XP anyway, so the "but you're fighting things, so you have to gain experience from doing so, every time!" doesn't really fly. You fight stuff, then level up your Mechanics skill? How does that work? Stabbing trolls helped you reach an engineering epiphany? It doesn't. Another perfect example: the game doesn't care HOW you killed something. Did you simply cut a rope and drop a huge load of quarried stone atop 17 foes? Boom... foe XP-times-17! Did you spend hours honing your swordsmanship and magical prowess facing them head-on? BOOM! Foe XP-times-17! So we're not disrupting anything by not having every single thing that threatens us grant us a boost of character potential every time it dies. It was already objective based, it was just an objective that wasn't nonsensical about 80% of the time, so we rolled with it being ALWAYS an objective. Dunno who the certain people are, or what their arguments entail, so I don't even know what to take from this. Could you at least explain how some people seem to be wanting freedom removed? You don't even have to name them. I think "always" is a bit of a stretch. Yeah, if you could resolve a situation via non-combat means, it usually granted you XP. If you resolved the same situation with combat, however, you usually (if not always, I'm not sure if it was every single time in existence) got kill XP PLUS "objective" XP for the quest. "Deal with the bandit threat." If you weren't able to not-kill the bandits and still achieve that objective, then it's not an applicable example. So, we'll look at when you COULD do something else. If you do something else, you don't fight-and-kill X number of bandits, and get X number of XP per kill, PLUS the XP you get for "turning in" the quest. "Oh, thank you for dealing with the bandits! +1000XP." Furthermore, if it wasn't done on every quest with such an array of solutions, then what good does "Oh, if you do this peaceful thing 3 Chapters on down the line, you'll get more XP than if you do the combat thing, so don't worry" do you at the time you're doing the quest that gips you? This is about the game's design, and what's being presented to the player. "Hmmm, on the one hand, I could kill all these dudes, get all their stuff AND get the XP for handling this situation. On the other hand, I could just handle the situation, and maybe get some thanks and a present or something, and the XP for handling the situation." Tell me which seems like a better deal if you have the means to kill them all, and it's not one of those "this fight option is HEAVILY frowned upon!" situations. You don't support an extra step that no one's asking for? How frequent non-combat options are has nothing to do with this. If there's only one single situation that can be handled by both fighting AND not-fighting (to relatively the same end), this system works fine (and doesn't hurt anyone who fights stuff). If there're 3,000 of those situations, it still works. How many situations there are and how they're designed is a completely separate issue. Not to mention what I've said before; "you don't just get XP every time something dies" doesn't mean "you will never, ever get XP when something dies." You won't get XP for the very fact that a thing died. But, the objective system doesn't discriminate. If you can only accomplish something via killing, then you can't get the XP for THAT without doing the killing. And if you can't accomplish something without refraining from killing, then you'll only get THAT XP for not-fighting. Etc. This isn't about taking all the things you can do in the game, combat and non-combat alike, for XP, and making them all equal (in XP amount OR in frequency). Do I want varied solutions to situations? Yes. I'd like for a generally sneaky play style, and a generally peaceful play style, etc. to work alongside a "HULK SMASH" play style. But, it's relative. I'm fine with 60% of the game requiring combat. I don't want every single situation in which combat arises to have a non-combat option to resolve it to the same end. And, if you give me 50 of these situations, and I choose non-combat on all 50, I don't want to end up 2 levels behind by the end of the game, just because I chose to handle things differently, in ways that you, the developer, presented as perfectly feasible solutions. It's exactly the same principle as if I cleverly poison the bandits' water supply, instead of going and fighting them. I handled the situation. I even killed everyone. But I didn't fight them. Should I only get 100XP instead of 50 for every single bandit in the camp because I did that? Nope. In Combat Skill Honing Simulator 2014 I should. Not in an RPG.

Yes, but no other phrases. Only that one phrase. Glad you picked up on that.

*sigh*... It means that stereotyping everyone who says "girl gamer" isn't helping anything when you're trying to get people to stop stereotyping female gamers. Two wrongs don't make a right.

And STAY down! *stomp*... haha.

/flee?

All XP is a reward, but not all rewards are XP. Unless Tim Cain said "People who don't kill stuff get absolutely no rewards, and we want to fix that," then he didn't say what you're claiming. And regardless of what problems were or weren't in any other specific games, the fact remains that awarding XP for actually accomplishing tasks relevant to something about the situation is simply an efficient way of achieving the same end, without having "if it dies, you get some more XP" always attached. If its death affects something, other than whether or not it's alive, then the award is already attached. The "Everything you kill gives you XP, but actually accomplishing things ALSO gives you XP" system merely allows for unintended redundancy. Every time you accomplish something by killing something, you must account for the XP you already gain from killing it, instead of just awarding whatever amount of XP for accomplishing that particular outcome. And, just for what it's worth, the only other reasonable argument I can think of -- "But fighting things grants you combat experience, so it should in the game!" -- doesn't really hold up, because the game's still abstracting it. A bunny doesn't grant you anything, despite the fact that it would make VERY good target practice for an archer. The amount of XP it grants is based on how easily it could kill you. Essentially, how much of a challenge it was to overcome. Thus, the objective system can easily opt to designate the killing of something an objective, and make the killing of other things not-an-objective. It's not unreasonable for a system design. Like anything, it can be done crappily, or well. But it's sheer blueprints do not make it flawed, and it is not taking any freedom away from anyone. If you want to kill everything in sight, you still get more rewards than other people who choose not to do so. But, basically, if you want to handle a situation in whatever way you wish that achieves the same goal, you get the XP for that goal being met. Whether or not the non-combat options in the story are available in reasonable situations or not (etc.) is a completely different story that is not automatically determined by the XP system in place.

All that being said (last two posts), artyom, it doesn't mean it's going to be as clunky as BG. The actual "make sure people are performing intelligent actions" bit isn't the obstacle, though. You can't group those two things together. The frustration you described stemmed heavily from things not really working like they should even when you DO give them orders. I mean, worst case scenario, you'll have to pause at the beginning of every combat, to briefly assign targets and such, then let it roll for a bit. Maybe re-assign or change if something major happens. It's not like you have to forcibly make the whole party take each individual step and perform each individual motion to attack, etc. Decent party passive AI would be nice, but it would still need plenty of guidance in any given combat instance. On Easy, it'd need less, and on Hard, it'd need more. But, you never want "none."

I kind of assumed that pale, blueish light was supposed to be moonlight. They're kind of out in the open until they enter those ruins, inside which I'm pretty sure the lighting changes. When they're outside, aren't there still shadows and stuff under trees and objects? They're just dim shadows.

Will it, though?

But we haven't yet discussed whether or not it's appropriate to discuss that! What are you trying to do... get us all killed?! o_o I found a much simpler way to say what I was trying to say earlier, btw: Stereotypes are bad, but stereotyping people into a group of "stereotypists" doesn't really help battle stereotyping. It doesn't take the figurative pollution down to zero. Anywho... I dunno about that trap FX rectangle, either. All I know is it's trappy and dangerous. 8P

You say "Chosen," I say "Qualified." "The Qualified One," admittedly, doesn't have much of a ring to it. Honestly, I wasn't very happy with DA2. PURELY from a gameplay standpoint, it was fun to play through it, as opposed to being the opposite of fun. But, it wasn't exceptionally enjoyable, and it could've been with just some different design choices (not even that major, really). So, I was disappointed in it, and I've been disappointed in a lot of the ways Bioware has approached their games as of late, so I honestly hope they really do take things in a new direction and DA:I ends up being maybe not perfect, but actually pretty all-around great. We shall see, I suppose. If I actually end up snagging a PS4 before it comes out, it may be one of those "My new console needs a library, so that's tipped my internal vote towards 'get it and risk it sucking'" situations, heh.

@Strangecat, I'm pretty sure it's just the ambient lighting effects. A person's image is just reflected light, so, they're all supposed to be in a sort of moonlit area, so they appear a pale-ish blue. They look "normal" when near fire, don't they? And yeah, it might be a little light out for night time, but I'd rather be able to see, as the player, than perfectly simulate night time, for what it's worth. Besides, some nights with a full moon are pretty bright like that, if you're not in a lot of shade. Also, as for the time-freezes-during-dialogue thing, I do feel that it's a bit nicer to have passive animations continue on (wind blowing, flames dancing, people standing around at idle, etc.). You can even have people change stances in minor ways to convey what's going on. Maybe if someone turns their back on you, that character actually turns around, on the screen. Either way is fine, though. I don't really mind everything freezing while we enter a text-and-portrait-only realm, temporarily.

I'm still a slowpoke, by the way. I just look like a Brak now.

Just sounds like an observation, to me. Although I did horribly typo "their" instead of "they're." Ahh it hurts me when I do that, haha. But, all I mean is, if you're against the public's view of female gamers, be against he public's view of female gamers. All this "wait, you actually used the word 'girl' to describe this gamer, who is a girl? YOU CHAUVINIST!!!" is silly. Heh. "Obviously, the fact that you typed 'girl' instead of just leaving the gender off means that you are way too focused on gender, and feel that her being a girl means something bad, which I'm against, so my cause leads me to shun you! SHUNNNNNNNNNNNNNnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!"

Also, how does that weapon-swap action time fit in with other action times? I mean, normally, you make an attack (for example), and then you've got X seconds of recovery time until you can take another action, right? So, does that stack? If you fire your bow at an approaching foe, and you have a 5 second recovery time... what if you just switch to your sword then? Does it take 7 seconds before you can attack again, or is it still just 5? Seems reasonable for it to not-stack, and maybe just apply a minimum to the recovery time. If you fired your bow, say, and you waited 'til you only had 1 second left until you could fire again, but at that point in time (you're not keeping up with it this precisely while playing... it just so happens that this amount of time has passed when you decide/do this), something's running toward you, and you decide "Yeah, screw it, better switch to melee." Well, now that you're swapping weapons, you're not ready-to-go in 1 second. Maybe it takes 3, then. In other words, the weapon-swapping probably shouldn't delay something unless it's actually interrupting some amount of time during which you would've been ready. *shrug*

"... fin" Or, ooh, ooh! What if the global "end conversation" option was "Adjourn, *GAVEL SLAM*"?

Ahh, my bad. Also, yay for slightly lower minimums! I do think it's nice to have them not be set down to 1 or something. Again, especially if all creatures in the lore are going to be governed by the same stats (if a bunny has an intelligence of 2, it's silly for an adventuring Human(oid) to have such an intelligence and still be functioning). But, it's also nice to feel like you can have legitimate deficits in given stats.