XP and leveling up

[Jaesun]

Not sure if this is too early to ask, but from the few screen shots shown already, is leveling up basically, You gain a level, and then are given a few points to put in your choice of skill/skills? (i.e. Mass Effect).

 

You possibly are still tweaking this, so if you can't answer, I understand.

[Enoch]

Good question.

 

I am also curious as to how the game is paced, in character development terms. I.e., is there XP at all, or is it a Deux-Ex-like system of direct character point awards? Are said XP/awards objective-based, or will there be opportunities to meta-game the system by picking every lock or subduing every guard we come across? Is there a finite amount of XP available so that the level of challenge can be scaled precisely to correspond with the predictable growth in character abilities? I understand that there is at least some flexibility in the order in which we take our missions-- are we given any indication beforehand of whether our skills need further honing before taking on the tough ones? Does the in-mission difficulty scale to our level/abilities/whatever at all?

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

From the footage (can't remember which) I got the impression that there are no arbitrary "character levels," and it's more of a DX-style XP system.

[mkreku]

I must say that for this type of game, I prefer the Deus Ex way of things. Real people don't level up when they accomplish things! I know reality isn't something you need to strive for in a game, but levelling up has never made much sense to me logically either. I mean, especially when you play D&D and you start with 8 HP and end up with hundreds og HP over the course of the game. What does that mean? You were a fetus at the beginning (barely surviving fighting rats) and by the end you're something that's capable of taking on elephant sized animals (dragons)? Are you even human anymore?

 

In Deus Ex, you started of as a sort of human with basic skills and by the end you were a sort of human with well trained skills (and great equipment).

 

Why do I always get this urge to replay Deus Ex whenever I talk about it?!

[Achilles]

Why do I always get this urge to replay Deus Ex whenever I talk about it?!

Edited May 13, 2009 by Achilles

[fastpunk]

I very much prefer the Vampire: Bloodlines way of leveling up. Eh, 'leveling up' isn't quite the right term though, cause it didn't have levels per se. You'd receive experience points for completing objectives, and you could spend them right then and there... or save them for later; your choice. This way, the game doesn't encourage/penalyze any of the multiple ways of completing objectives. It seems like a perfect fit for AP.

 

In Deus Ex, you started of as a sort of human with basic skills and by the end you were a sort of human with well trained skills (and great equipment).

 

Well, the previews suggest that this will be the case with AP's Michael Thorton as well. It was mentioned quite a few times that he'd start out as a well trained agent, just not with much field experience.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

Yeah, Bloodlines was similar to Deus Ex.

[Matthew Rorie]

We've tried a few things, but at this juncture we've got the good old "earn enough XP to gain a level, get advancement points to put into your skills" model. You mainly get XP by completing objectives and either killing/avoiding enemies (so that stealthy/avoidance players are not penalized for not killing everything). Enemies do scale in difficulty with the amount of skill that you've gained - since you can travel to any hub in any order, this is necessary to ensure that enemies are not too strong/too weak if you bounce around through the hubs.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

So, like Mass effect?

 

*ducking and running*

[Killian Kalthorne]

We've tried a few things, but at this juncture we've got the good old "earn enough XP to gain a level, get advancement points to put into your skills" model. You mainly get XP by completing objectives and either killing/avoiding enemies (so that stealthy/avoidance players are not penalized for not killing everything). Enemies do scale in difficulty with the amount of skill that you've gained - since you can travel to any hub in any order, this is necessary to ensure that enemies are not too strong/too weak if you bounce around through the hubs.

 

Just as long as the leveling isn't too ridiculously fast all is good. One thing I hate most is fast leveling. NWN2 was way too fast in leveling for my tastes.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

Yeah? Well, I happen to like fast leveling.

[Jaesun]

We've tried a few things, but at this juncture we've got the good old "earn enough XP to gain a level, get advancement points to put into your skills" model. You mainly get XP by completing objectives and either killing/avoiding enemies (so that stealthy/avoidance players are not penalized for not killing everything). Enemies do scale in difficulty with the amount of skill that you've gained - since you can travel to any hub in any order, this is necessary to ensure that enemies are not too strong/too weak if you bounce around through the hubs.

 

Thank you Matthew.

 

A few more questions:

 

You mainly get XP by completing objectives and either killing/avoiding enemies (so that stealthy/avoidance players are not penalized for not killing everything).

 

What happens if you do a mixture of both? Say outside the building I need to get into, I decide to kill the guard that's guarding the back door. But, when I enter the building are all the enemies "suddenly" aware of my presence (due to me killing someone)? Or can I then complete the missing inside the building using stealth? Just hoping we can do both, unless, of course, in the mission it explicitly states not to kill anyone, or possibly stated do not get seen etc..

 

Thanks!

[Meshugger]

Why do I always get this urge to replay Deus Ex whenever I talk about it?!

 

 

God.......dammit, you got me

[SirPetrakus]

We've tried a few things, but at this juncture we've got the good old "earn enough XP to gain a level, get advancement points to put into your skills" model. You mainly get XP by completing objectives and either killing/avoiding enemies (so that stealthy/avoidance players are not penalized for not killing everything). Enemies do scale in difficulty with the amount of skill that you've gained - since you can travel to any hub in any order, this is necessary to ensure that enemies are not too strong/too weak if you bounce around through the hubs.

 

That's something really good to know. In VtM: Bloodlines, you got XP even if you chose not to kill anyone, as stated before, in some cases, like in the boat, stealth and no bloodshed were the highest priority. Playing sltealth in a game where killing=XP, it doesn't give much incentive to play it that way. Otherwise, I guess it's like assassin mode the whole game. BTW, now that I mentioned assassin, will we be able to assassinate a game Boss instead of tediously fighting him for 30 minutes? For those of us short in patience for that kind of stuff or that just plain suck at shooters.