Amentep

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.

I actually agree with this; balance isn't a one-to-one microtranslation, balance is looking at a totality. As I mentioned before (or was it in the other thread) a balance approach might lead to a quest that has 15 objectives; a stealth path might solve the quest in 4 objectives, the diplomatic 5 and the combat 6 objectives; the different objectives really look at the different complexity and risk each path has. Another quest may also have 15 objectives, but maybe combat has 3 objectives, stealth 8 and diplomatic 4. Fairly in each case the most objectives should indicate the greatest risk and therefor the greatest reward. But regardless of which path you take, there is some reward (so the stealthy party, after completing 7 quests isn't left unable to complete another quest because they can't accumulate enough XP through stealth paths without also getting kill xp, as would happen under the IE system). EDIT: It occurs to me after reading what I wrote to fix some typos, that the inherent difference is that stealth in IE (and diplomacy too) are ultimately Combat tactics; ie the only way that a player will use them in a viable way is to support the combat path.

Oh yeah, like this is any better then what they are palnning. This is just pretty much just a standard quest xp system. And then you sneak past every enemy, because there is not point in fighting. You get the enviroment and quest loot, and that's it. Great! lol it seems to me that the problem boils down to whether the developers understand the paths and risks/rewards being offered. In reality what the example describes to me is a "single path" satisfaction of objective ("Return Daughter to Farmer") with the path being "ReachWindmill", "EnterWindmill" and "ReachDaughter". This is exactly why the people who fear combat being made unattractive are arguing against Quest XP because if all solutions are equal, then the solution that requires the least investment of resources vs reward becomes the optimal solution. In my mind (and I could be wrong), to make Stealth, Diplomacy and Combat as equal paths, they can't be treated as equal in solutions. The only way for this to work from my (limited and non-game designing) perspective is that you have to understand the different paths (and therefore the different objectives) each path takes. So for an objective of "Return Daughter to Farmer" you'd have to understand how each path is - a stealth path may start with the party doing reconasaince around the area and finding a secret path that gets them past the guards outside and into the windmill; they then have to navigate the rooms avoiding being seen (otherwise they move to the combat path without a "boss" fight) to find the girl, then do the same to escape out the window. Rewards are given for finding the hidden path, for getting the girl and for getting her back to her dad and for not being noticed. Equipment look is found once the secret path is taken that would be better "stealth" equipment; loot in the rooms is stamina rebuilding (because I'm assuming stamina is drained in stealth mode). So 4 XP rewards, one stealth loot and some resource loot. A combat party goes to the guards at the gate and intimidates the guards, then fights there way through the windmill to the girl. The man behind the kidnappers shows up (either warned by the guards, or someone in his employ spotted the dead guards if not killed instead of intimidated) for a fight. The party wins and takes the girl home. The party gets rewards for getting past the first guards, killing the second guards, killing the kidnapper and getting the girl home. They get the loot in the rooms (resource loot) and off the dead bodies (equipment loot geared towards combat). So 4 XP rewards, and multiple resource and equipment loot. A diplomat takes the quest and starts asking questions around town. They find an informant who gives the diplomat the name and location of the kidnapper. The diplomat makes his way into the house through some fast talking, meets with the kidnapper. Here he persuades the kidnapper to let the girl go (if the diplomat fails, they have to take the Combat or Stealth path), they go to the windmill where the girl is freed. He takes the girl home, where he must negotiate the other part of the agreement with the kidnapper (if it fails, the kidnapper will later kill the girl and the farmer and put a bounty on the party). Once the agreement is made, the kidnapper or farmer gives the party a monetary loot. The party is rewarded for finding the informant, for getting into the house, for persuading the kidnapper and for persuading the farmer. They get loot in the form of a large monetary reward which can buy better diplomat equipment or grease others palms. So 4 XP rewards and money. Each path is rewarded, each path gets rewards that further encourage actions in the future along the same path. It is possible to go from one path to the other with the similar altering of immediate objectives and therefor rewards and risk. ...or something...there's a reason I'm not a game designer.

I personally wouldn't consider that a resource though, seeing that it regenerates. But yes, it could be used for a stealth mechanic. I suppose stealth will be like in commandos (but much simpler of course) as Josh says here. Stealth is a good idea, for some quests it would be an interesting an excellent alternative to a diplomatic resolution (Maybe @Valorian can post his examples here, they were excellent), but that still doesn't fix the problem that you will avoid every combat situation like the pest if you can. Well we know spells are a resource and that there will be combat abilities. Seems to me that stealth abilities and stamina could be valid resources for stealth, and therefore there can be a 'cost' associated with stealth paths (in that stealthing now may effect your ability to stealth later unless you waste your time waiting or expend stamina potions or something). I think at this point I can't really add anything new to the debate; really we'll need to know more of how they're doing certain things to see if your fears are right or not. I still have a hard time believing that developers who made the change to Quest XP so that all play styles could be valid would recreate a system where one play style is optimal over the other (in the broad sense, as opposed to the micro sense). Woops. Typo. hahah, oops.

Unless they can prove by certified mail signed by a responsible party of receipt of notice, I agree with you. IMO if the former home owner can prove they got the foreclosure notice, its up to the bank to prove the homeowner got the dismissal of foreclosure notice.

I watched the film TERROR BENEATH THE SEA. A very young Sonny Chiba in a sci-fi spy story; Reporters Ken (Chiba) and Jenny (Peggy Neal) investigate mysterious goings on near a nuclear science complex; the US Navy is also on hand. Explosions, gun battles, and people in fish-men costumes battling it out as our heroes fight a group of scientist creating a brainless underwater army out of regular people with which to conquer the world and create a giant totalitarian state. Good times, good times. I do suspect the English language version (intended to be shown on TV) is edited so certain scenes don't follow the way they should (they break the navy searching the sea in a super sub into two sequences, but I think its actually supposed to be one sequence, for example). The internet tells me the only known difference between TERROR BENEATH THE SEA and Kaitei daisensô is that the English language version has more scenes with the English language cast and the Japanese version has more violence (intended for theaters this makes sense). Too bad the Japanese version isn't on the disc - I'd love to compare the two!

I appreciate you trying! I do. If stealth depletes stamina, though, doesn't it deplete resources? Emphasis mine, but Josh is saying loot isn't systemic.

Questing is pure benefit - completing a quest will always give you XP and some loot. That link doesn't say how much benefit or what kind of benefit. I'm still stuck on how a stance you agree was intended by Josh - "He said that a player should do what he wants and no play style should be punished in any way" - is being read to mean "Combat based play style will be punished." I still haven't seen a link that says sneaking loses no resources. I'd appreciate it, really. But lets assume that you are right and that sneaking costs no resources. Lets say there are two types of loot, resource loot (loot that replenishes your resources like stamina potions) and equipment loot (stuff you wear). And this loot is found two places, dead bodies and environment. Fighting => you lose resources (-1) you gain resources loot (+1) and equipment loot (+1) from two places dead bodies and environment (x2). Net reward of 3 [2*(1+1)-1 = 2*2-1 = 4-1 = 3] Stealth => you don't lose resources (0), you gain resources loot (+1) and environmental loot (+1) from one place, environment. Net reward of 2 [1+1*1 = 2] Both groups are rewarded for their playstyle. Both are viable paths. Combat has higher risk / reward. Both groups get XP under quest objectives, so the next quest both groups are able to further their play style through "leveling". That link does not say sneaking will not be punished. What it says is that the placement of loot isn't determined by the system (random loot drop tables assigned by the program) but that loot is assigned by the determination of the production team.

If you place the best loot in chests, then who gets tthe best loot? Exactly, those who sneak and those who fight. Like Sawyer said, you won't be punished for your gamestyle. More below. If you place the best loot in chests, because loot isn't assigned at a system level but hand assigned then the problem still isn't systemic, ie the system is not designed to require the best loot in chests. Why you think that developers who've stressed how they want to make all paths viable would put the best loot in chests exclusively is beyond me. I'd think they'd want to think carefully about where the loot goes and what choices they want the player to face, personally. Particularly since where the loot is seems to be up to them (as opposed to random drops assigned by the system) It depends on what "good" loot is. Loot in the chest might be loot that replaces resources lost in stealth or that that improves stealth / lockpicking but doesn't do much at combat. Loot on the 10 monsters might be better defensive / combat equipment and less use to a thief or loot that replinishes combat resources. So the combat party is encouraged to fight for loot, but the stealth party gets rewards for stealth. Combat costs resources, sure. Since they want to make every path viable, any player path is going to have to cost resorces, otherwise it won't be balanced (which, as far as I've read, is the goal of their design decisions - to create viable balanced paths for different game style of play that doesn't inherently make any path optimal over another). I'm sorry but your logic is faulty. "Pacifists will not be punished with less loot" does not imply that "sneaking requires no resources". Please show me where Josh - or anyone else on the Obsidian team - has explicitly stated that "sneaking requires no resources" and I'm willing to say that your fears are valid. Otherwise you're making a huge assumption without any basis to do so (yet).

It affects loot. In IE games it is very easy to take loot during combat. A rogue taking a strong stamina potion from a corpse could change the battle. Right, but if respawns are in, and you're placing the loot, and you know what the other player grabbed, I suppose you could create a system where the respawn doesn't have the same loot. If you're against respawns, then under quest xp you still get the full xp once you complete the objective (taking out the other 5 monsters), once the objective is complete there's no difference. So the issue seems to be under conditions where you don't complete your quest and whether the system should reward you for that (xp for kills) or not (xp for objective). Does that seem fair? It only works like that... if the world follows your twisted logic. But that's highly unlikely. Its a game, the world follows the logic of the game. I don't expect computer games to be as reactive to individual accomplishment as pen and paper with a DM who can make all sorts of considerations a game isn't going to make.

No. Sawyers definition of "choice" seems to be "its a choice as long as you do it my way or suffer the consequences". A "choice" is whether to push the rest button or not, a "choice" is choosing to heal or continuing, a "choice" is what you put or do not put into inventory, etc... What part of his later post did you not understand? Hence why he says loot isn't systemic. They lose out on loot that is held by advesaries they don't kill. That's the point I took from his TOEE example. We do not know WHAT Stealth and Diplomacy cost. You are assuming that its going to be no cost. I'm assuming that Sawyer & co are going to assign it costs that makes the choice of stealth as (or as little) resource intensive as the next option. Until we hear more, we're all just speculating.

AFAIK Wizard and Witch have different roots; Witch is from wicce, the masculine equivalent concept in Old English is wicca which people translate as wizard, but wizard itself comes from Middle English wysard which is formed from wys or wise. Ergo Wizard should be acceptable as a gender neutral concept. Sorcerer / Sorceress is a better choice looking for male / female name concepts. Also Female: Priestess (prêtresse in French, as Paladin is), Male Priest; not sure why you have priest listed as female. Priest ultimately derives from Latin (presbyter) which is formed from the word for "old man"...the Latin gender neutral term, IIRC was sacerdōs.

If stealth and combat paths both drain equivalent resources...how is avoiding combat better than not avoiding combat?

If you're wanting to do a "legit" stealth build, then you'd have to use stealth ability to avoid combat as much as possible (since I'd think a stealth build should be weaker to a combat build for, you know, combat). I assumed Josh was talking about penalized in terms of losing out on XP with which to improve the area of focus (stealth, diplomacy). If Combat + Quest Xp is implemented and the stealth path only gives quest XP, then stealth parties are going to take significantly longer to advance their skills, leading to stealth paths "deadending" because the party is too under leveled to succeed in high level stealth checks. Depends on how sneaking is implement. If we're not talking about magical invisibility and silence, it might take a good bit of time to work characters around paths without being spotted.

What if... respawns? What if... plague strikes? What if... earthquake? You still improved your skills by killing them. There shouldn't be raspawns because this means unlimited loot and/or xp for the player so it's an inherently negative machanic, unless it's a MMO. No, I won't accept the "learn by doing" xp for hitting the dragon, because this is not the spiritual successor to TES and I wouldn't like the silliness that springs from such a system in PE. I don't want a learn by doing system either (I think I said that up in the thread). Why would respawns effect loot (or are you saying that your party, after killing 5 monsters, stopped in combat to loot the bodies? No wonder they lost to the remaining 5! ) You're still improving your skills by killing them - by killing all of them not half of them (as an old music teacher once said "perfect practice makes perfect" doing it wrong doesn't improve you any!)

Numenera: Torment: Not Quite Torment 2: Electric Boogaloo: Revenge of the Colon

So you'd be okay with a system that, for example, doesn't reward combat against weaker enemies at all, but still rewards stealth options? So lets say a CR encounter 2 levels above the party gives the same XP to stealth and combat but a CR encounter 5 levels below the party only gives XP to the stealth party (because there's still some "effort" involved on the part of the sneaking party in sneaking but not in fighting the punny fellows)? What effort is there to sneaking past a significantly inferior enemy? Also, what's the danger? What's the consequence for being spotted and heard? :D You do have to take consequences into account for success/failure when employing such a philosophical stretching of circumstances. Penalties to combat if caught sneaking plus the alerting of ALL monsters in the area to your presence (ruling out sneaking further even against more advanced foes, requiring retreat/failure of the objective or heavier combat resource investment than a combat path)?

This. Why should one player who simply sneaks through an area receive the exact same amount of xp as another who fights his way through? If they're both using equivalent levels of their resources to accomplish their chosen path...how are the two any different? The scenario is only imbalanced if there is no risk or expense in stealth options - for the system proposed to work I'd think there would have to be equivilency in resources used (or else your fears would be right). It seems to me that the disagreement here is one side believing that stealth won't (or perhaps can't?) have an equivalent resource drain to combat. Would that be accurate?

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. But what if the 5 remaining monsters are rejoined by 5 of their pals (respawn)? From a game standpoint, the encounter is still the same, so rewarding the failure to take the 10 monsters all at once with a combat xp system will reward you constantly. (Do we know if PE monsters will respawn?)

So you'd be okay with a system that, for example, doesn't reward combat against weaker enemies at all, but still rewards stealth options? So lets say a CR encounter 2 levels above the party gives the same XP to stealth and combat but a CR encounter 5 levels below the party only gives XP to the stealth party (because there's still some "effort" involved on the part of the sneaking party in sneaking but not in fighting the punny fellows)?

Nope, it wouldn't. If a group was scripted to give XP only once for sneaking past them. And if you kill them after that you'd get no xp either. I suppose you could assign a system that gives an opponent a set of xp that is "taken" when the player kills or stealths the enemy, thus allowing the xp to be gainable only once. I'm not entirely sure how that's fundamentally different from assigning an objective "get past the enemy" to a quest and rewarding the same amound of total XP for the objective as to the individual kills/stealths. It's diffent because... The player could kill 5 enemies from a group of 10 and then run away to survive. He'd get no xp under the "quest xp only" system. To counter this argument, I'll ask - why should the player be rewarded for loosing combat against a group? If a Dragon gives 100,000,000 combat XP, should a player who gets the dragon to half her HP before running away get 50,000,000 combat xp? Because that's equivilent to killing 5 of 10 in a group...