Amentep

Why does it matter? What if the game is similar to the Elder Scrolls and you can't level up unless you can rest in a town anyhow? Or visit a "trainer" who then allows you to level up? Realistically, it actually kind of doesn't make sense to level up in the middle of battle, but its all an abstraction so I'm a bit stuck on why it matters whether you level up after completing a quest or objective in the quest or level up after whacking 5 of 10 orcs. It keeps coming up because one of the issues with Quest XP that I keep hearing is people want to get XP for killing things.

I'm reminded a bit of Star Ocean 2 (ooo, Japanese RPG - burn the heretic!) where, upon entering a city your party broke up and did things that they wanted to do (this furthered the character relationship aspects as the Player could then find the NPCs and have dialogue scenes with them, finding out things they were interested in or wanted to do). I think part of the reason why shops are uninteresting is that there isn't really an incentive to shop, most of the time. So they exist as a system element as opposed to a world element. Ditto taverns. While I liked the idea of buying a beer and getting hints in a tavern, most of the time the implementation has left something to be desired, thus creating no incentive for the player to participate. These things could be changed if the party "split up". Some of it could be fixed by making areas more reactive (and thus the player more inclined to experience). Maybe buying a round from the bartender gets something, maybe it doesn't. Maybe buying a round for the house gets you something maybe it doesn't. Maybe sitting in on a game in the corner gets you some information, or coming in with a specific NPC or class. But I imagine each of these ideas increase the difficulty a good bit for testing/reactivity. EDIT: Typo - "buying a bear" at a bar would be pretty exciting, though

But aren't you saying then, that Character Development comes from adventuring and "adventuring" is actually killing every creature you come across (for Kill XP)? Or am I misinterpreting you? To my mind character development is the choices you make as your character (and thus what choices your character can make based on race, class, skills and experience) as you move through stories and quests. Not how many orcs I killed.

Only if I get to wear a black slouch hat, crimson scarf, black cloak with crimson lining and wield twin .45s automatics... "The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit..."

I saw the movie when it was released in the US in 1991. It was so over the top that it stood out. I've wanted to see the TV series since it gives more background than the movie can (the movie really is "Ken's biggest hits" (in multiple senses). But yeah its hard to take seriously because it is so over the top. But that's its appeal and fun factor.

hahahah, yeah pretty much.

I never liked sneaking about in VTMB, so yeah, I also murdered everyone. No XP. Not a problem with it. As long as it's fun. And if people do want to sneak they can. I am not so petty as to suggest that they should be punished just because I like combat more... Oh I sneaked if my character was sneaky. Its just that for me, if I'm building a character to do certain things I tend to play them doing those certain things whether the game is going to give me XP for it or not. I may be atypical in this regard though.

I need to get back to watching the Fist of the North Star tv series. And the first season of Lupin III. And finish re-watching Imagawa's Giant Robo...

Saw Mama. Weird scary-movie / dark fairy tale hybrid. Good and it has its scary moments (although mostly jump scares); refreshing to see the movie embrace its weird supernatural mythology so early in the film.

I've had two DMs, one who was like yours mostly any adjustments made on the fly were to get the game back to on his chosen course. The other would just build ideas on the fly and deal with it if we went off the rails. Both were good; both gave us experience so we weren't feeling cheated. But it was never when we killed an orc each time (at best we might get encounter XP) Well, I don't know if its a shame or just different.

I never felt discouraged from combat in VtM:B. But then if I build a character for combat, I'm generally expecting combat to be my primary means of conflict resolution - whether the game is giving me XP for every kill or not.

nvm

Actually it doesn't work "just fine". Face it - objective-based XP is simpler to implement, more fair to everyone and easier to balance To be fair, when I started playing D&D back in the early 80s, we never got XP for killing a monster (*rolls hit* "I hit the monster" "Okay, add 100 xp to your character sheet and tell me if you level up"). We waited for the battle to be over or for the night to be over before the DM calculated XP for the combat, the quest or the night. So part of why I'm not terribly beholden to kill XP is that my P&P background was never hinged on it. People who've only played computer games might have a different experience. But then the first computer games I played - like SSI's Phantasie were "all or nothing" propositions. Get into a fight and kill a couple of monsters but have to run away? Too bad - no XP for you. So the idea that the only way to do a game is to dole out XP every time the player opens a lock, kills a monster, lances a bunion or whatever just isn't there for me. Not that I hate it either; different systems bring their own pluses and minuses and can be equally fun to play.

I would think that the statement would really be "this game is well-designed because you play through it without ever fighting" is an additive statement to the idea that the game is also able to be played through with fighting. Part of the issue with trying to open up the paths of PE - as I see it at least - is that the IE games really have only one method to get through the game and that's combat. And that's fine, but it also makes non-combat skills and abilities relatively irrelevant to the game. And that's also fine. The IE games were great fun. But because the game was geared into combat, the kind of things you could do with say, a thief or a smart, charming bard in P&P were non-existence (I'd go so far to say that bards suck in IE games; combat-wise they're worse wizards, worse thieves, the songs are really only useful at low level and the flexibility of the class outside of combat is lost in the IE series). So now we come to PE and PE has the ability to go back and rethink the system of the game. And they have an opportunity to add value to skills that may not be useful in combat (and in fact may be useful in avoiding combat). And I think its great to look at this so long as combat isn't devalued. Having a reason to take a character who may not provide combat utility because they might provide other useful skills seems to be something worth doing, IMO.

If by "path of least resistance" you mean "most efficient path," then this is not a problem: it is good. It rewards players who are smart or skilled enough to figure out what is the most efficient way to deal with any particular situation. The most efficient way shouldn't be the most obvious way of course -- if the quests end up that way, then that's poor quest design. It's the same principle that rewards the most efficient killers in a game based on kill XP. The only difference is that the game rewards efficiency in quest resolution by any means available, not only killing. No, I really mean "path of least resistance"; ie the game encourages the player to play in one way over all others at a universal level thus discouraging the player from playing the game in the way they want. In a well balanced design, a "most efficient path" for a particular quest doesn't rule out the validity of the other paths (thus the player who plays combat doesn't feel cheated sticking to a combat path because he's wasting his resources unnecessarily, nor does the stealth player end up 7 levels too low and unable to continue because they missed out on kill xp). Its the difference between having three good paths and having two bad paths and a good path. This is the problem most of the combat fans are having - the idea that the cost of resources on combat will make combat unattractive (a bad path) for all quests; in short the game will encourage non-combat paths over combat. Note I also recognize this is a seismic shift from the IE games in which combat really is the primary conflict resolution method.

As I understand it, the objective in both cases would be "get past bandit"; the objective XP system should not care what method is used to get past the bandit. So satisfying the objective could be based on three things for example: Did the bandit let the party past [Y/N] (yes = diplomacy success) Did the bandit spot the party [Y/N] (N = stealth success) Is the bandit alive? [Y/N] (N = combat success) You could penalize stealth here by making the combat success something like "Did the bandit spot the party from stealth [Y/N] and is the bandit alive [Y/N] where a NN = combat success and a YN is failure of the objective (if the bandit spotted the party and initiated combat, then the party fails the stealth path and gets no reward for winning the combat objective; if the party changed their mind and went to stealth to combat, though, they could still get the combat XP). Even if the stealth party failed the objective, they could - for some quests at least - still satisfy the quest (and other objectives). They just get no XP for failing the objective.

Yes, dear. That's because if the Baron of Derpwood offers the bounty, it becomes an in-game objective. Therefore, because whacking them aligns with designer intent, by definition, it is not degenerate behavior. Are you some kind of clown that is trying to be funny or do you just have no idea what you are writing? Because that makes absolutely no sense at all. What you just wrote is the most contradictory and ridiculous post in this whole thread. This is what you wrote: "If a designer implements objective xp, then it aligns with designer intent, by definition, it is not perverse degenerate behavior." on the other hand: "If a designer implements combat xp, then it does not align with designer intent, by definition, it is perverse degenerate behavior." Are you high or what the heck is wrong with you? BTW, you also really have to stop calling the system used in Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape degenerate. They are great games. Jeez. As I understand it, "Degenerate gameplay" - as defined in the way PJ is using it - refers to influences systems have on players that aren't going to what the intent of the developers is. So if a player earns XP in the way that the developers intended (Objective XP, Combat XP, learn by doing XP) then the gameplay is not degenerate. So the goal, then, is to look at the unintended consequences of the system and see how those consequences can be dealt with. The example that is "pro" objective XP is the player being encouraged by the system to complete a quest by persuading the villain to give up the hostage to complete the quest for XP then killing the villain for XP earning more XP than if the player either killed the villain outright. The system in this case has been created as such that it encourages an unintended behavior because it will greatly benefit the player. Now one suggestion to "fix" this is to write code that says "if quest complete, don't give Kill XP". But if you have 1,000 quests, you have to do these exceptions 1,000 times; however if you design your system not to have these consequences to begin with. So we get the suggestion of not rewarding the player for kills, but only for quests, thus not incentivising completing quests in a peaceful way then going bi-polar and killing everyone. So with Quest XP you then have a new problem - the potential for the system to incentivise the player to always take the path of least resistance with regard to completing the quest. This is a valid fear, and so our discussions are mostly centered on whether we think it is possible for a high level solution to exist to not encourage players to not use combat (which clearly isn't the developers intent since I've seen Josh talk heavily about wanting players to have good quality combat - to the point that he responded to one question by saying if you didn't like IE combat you won't like PE).

I'm not sure why health is the "be all / end all" of resource management. If a rogue uses as many stamina potions to get through a stealth path to equal the same cost a combat path has in health & stamina potions where is the difference in cost between the two? The difference is stamina regenerates on its own, health does not. And if stamina regeneration is heavily penalized for stealth actions forcing the player to use more resources or lose time vs a combat path, where is the difference between the two? Here's the bottom line - I still don't believe that the developers in wanting to create more ways to play the game so that combat isn't the optimal path (stealth and diplomacy really were combat tactics in the old IE games; there was no reward in using them in any context outside of combat related benefits) that they'll make combat a less valid path (or even a lesser path). They will find a way to balance the paths so that the expenditures - while necessarily unequal - are still equivilent. Now I say this because we don't have much to go on but there stated intentions and I acknowledge the idea of creating unequal paths is a possibility. I think where most of our disagreements come in are whether we (a) see the possibility as a high probability and (b) whether we think it is possible to balance the paths (I think is it possible; since you seem to reject any attempt to add costs to stealth that would put it on par with combat (while being different), I'm assuming you don't.) And maybe it can't; I'm not convinced but once we have better information about what they're actually implementing, I'm willing to change my mind.

I'm not sure why health is the "be all / end all" of resource management. If a rogue uses as many stamina potions to get through a stealth path to equal the same cost a combat path has in health & stamina potions where is the difference in cost between the two? Tactical options in sneaking could include - distraction, path finding, timing of movement, understanding guard movement patterns, spotting for secret paths, searching for low visibility areas. But there could be a whole lot more; just as there are games built solely on combat there are entire games built entirely on the complexity of stealth. I'm not sure why you seem to think stealth has to be "press a button and win".

Why does it have to drain health to equal; I'm not talking one to one scenario here. If a combat path requires a party to expend health potions, stamina potions, armor repair kits, and wetstones to repair after a quest and the stealth path requires a party to expend stamina potions, skeleton keys, smoke bombs, trap disarming kits, noisemakers, stealth potions, sound damping gel... ...which one paid the most in consumable resources to complete the quest? Again I'm not thinking of stealth as "press a button and run", but something more complex if its going to justify itself as a legitimate path at the same level as combat. And that means having to make a lot more choices and using a lot more resources than in the IE games. A valid distraction system - like throwing noisemakers - should be part of something like that (and noisemakers should carry risk - yes they may distract one guard, but also put others on alert). That entirely depends on the situation doesn't it? If you're in a wide open plain and the stealth party is 30 ft away (whereas the combat party is enbroiled in the fight) - sure. If you're in a dungeon and in taking the stealth path you've put yourself in a corridor where you've been spotted and the alarm raised from being spotted has alerted enemies in front of and behind you, versus the combat party being in a room with one set of antagonists...not really. But even if its easier to run away, you still have greater risk = greater reward. The combat party is going to get XP and 2 times the loot of the stealth party.

To be fair, any system is going to have problems so trading one XP system for another is to some degree trading one set of problems for another; the question will always be "what system has the least number of problems for the goal of the game?" I think. Since the developers seem to want to make viable paths for stealth and diplomacy to exist outside of supporting combat (as they were in IE games), they seem to want to not have combat as the optimal conflict resolution solution (this is not to say that they want combat to not be attractive or viable, however, only that it won't be optimal).

So all you have to do is stand still and regenerate you precious stamina back? In combat you don't have the luxury to stand still and regenerate stamina while monsters are pounding on you. I'd say that using stealth in any form has to reduce stamina. Maybe it drains less when you're not active, but the "stealth button" is really encompassing a lot of different things - from hiding in shadows to controlling breathing and should always require "stamina". Sneaking involves: positioning, deciding if you want to risk throwing a stone to make a noise on the opposite wall in order to distract the guards, selecting optimal travel paths, timing travel between guards... When you fail in combat the consequence is retreat or death. When you fail at sneaking the consequence is retreat or fight with diminished resources (which has retreat or death as its failure) But if you succeed in combat you get the reward of extra loot (from bodies) to go along with environmental loot. If you succeed at stealth, you get the reward of environmental loot. Greater risk = greater reward?

Plus even if you don't have to backtrack, there's nothing like the outer guards walking inside when you fail to stealth past the inside guards, making you fight two groups at once...

That's what happened to me. I got my first full time job at older than that (worked multiple part time jobs and spent almost a decade looking for full-time work after graduating with my degree (which wasn't an art, music, theater or English degree, thankyouverymuch) - also took a detour in trying pitch novels & comic ideas for a few years). As I tell students who complain about the amount of time it takes to get their goals - including some who miss admissions and registration dates - you're not in a race with anyone but yourself. As long as you don't abandon your goal, you can succeed. It just may not be the most direct (or even the easiest) path. Even if your parents see you as a total failure, only in persevering will you have the ability to "shove it in their face" (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Haha, there is a kind of eerie resemblance, now that you mention it! (the avatar is Peggy Neal as Jenny from the late 1960s Japanese / US sci-fi co-production of TERROR BENEATH THE SEA) RE: Balance - I think microbalance is where we keep getting lost in the trees with a lot of this, when I think the goal is macrobalance.