Experience for Killing Enemies

[Leferd]

Can't believe how man poeple insist on having to be rewarded with XP.

 

Like a good story or atmospheric experience isn't enough? Better trash games like Splinter Cell...no XP there. No levels. Worst game ever.

 

 

Seriously.. This is a problem when you are trying ot break the mold in a good way. People are so used to doing things one way that they insist that is has to be done that way and it's the only good way to do it, even if they can't even articulate why.

 

Because players like tangible rewards for their labors. It gives one the sense of progression md advancement. XP awards work.

 

So in essence, story and experience without tangible reward is not enough and makes for sub-optimal game design.

 

That said, I'm in the camp for not rewarding wanton murder for the sake of XP.

[JediMB]

Well...

 

I wouldn't want there to be an XP reward for killing bunnies or neutral NPCs, or whatever. Maybe a reward for killing a hostile group, if there are also alternative ways to acquire the XP... such as diplomacy or evasion. This would, of course, only work in encounters designed so that you can't go back and pick one of your other options after being rewarded for a first.

 

So if you sneak past a group of bandits waiting to ambush you, the camera might move back to them and show them walking off because they're tired of waiting for someone to show up. Likewise, talking, bribing or threatening yourself out of a fight would also have them moving on and disappearing.

[Volourn]

You should gain xp for everything.

[Starwars]

Only very small amounts, except for the very difficult fights. The absolue majority of exp should come from completing objectives/quests. It shouldn't be possible to "grind" out XPs by killing enemies.

[Rabain]

The amount of effort exerted and the risks involved should be about the same, regardless of what route you take. With combat experience, you have ensured that the most profitable way to resolve a situation is by adding to your bodycount, regardless of what solution would make sense to your character(s). With goal-oriented experience, you still have the option of doing it whatever way you please; whether that way is faster or slower is entirely a matter of encounter design, and one being better in one instance doesn't mean that it's not the worst the next.

 

So if there is no XP for killing the guards that are guarding the whatsit, what is the goal? The goal is to get the whatsit, so you want me to choose to waste my time or do it your way? Because I would see it as wasting my time to kill the guards instead of just giving in and sending the rogue in. Many players will feel this way.

 

It sounds great to say things should be goal oriented but large parts of the game have no goals at all. I want to travel to Bigtown at the end of the map, do I get a reward for just getting there alive with no combat involved in my travels? If I randomly get ambushed and fight my way through I do I get less or more or no XP on arrival in Bigtown? Combat XP would give me something, goal oriented XP would give me nothing.

 

If I choose to free roam in some random dungeon simply because I saw it on my map do I get no XP even though I cleared the entire thing of demons/undead/kobolds?

 

To be honest this goal oriented system seems to me to be extremely limiting, I basically have to have a quest in order to have a goal and get XP? Sounds like a game with zero freedom. You need a quest for everything and are a slave to your quest log.

 

Goals are great in the real world, they give us impetus and push us forward to attaining them but apart from work related goals I don't have a Quest Log tracking my progress, the goal is internalised. Most games are the same way, they provide some goals via quests but reward activity through XP (by activity I mean combat, picking locks, disarming traps etc). The goal is something you internalise, you want to clear a dungeon, you want to kill everything in the town etc, it has little to do with a directive from your Quest log.

 

I prefer a system that rewards me for doing stuff, even if that stuff is just killing a rat when I'm level 1. For me it makes more sense to get XP for doing things instead of getting XP only for working for people. Maybe the balance of combat XP could use tweaking but a system with no combat XP, sorry but it doesn't sound attractive in any way to me.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Rabain

[Starglider]

Experience points is supposed to be an abstraction for your character learning something. How much do you learn from killing your three hundredth sabre toothed swamp rat with a +2 bludgenhammer, or casting turn undead for the nineteenth time that evening? Not much. However the first time you fight a gryphon or successfully cast a lightning bolt is likely to be a very memorable experience. Learning comes from novelty; seeing and doing new things, taking risks, finding solutions to new problems. I would hope that's reflected in the game.

[TrashMan]

So if there is no XP for killing the guards that are guarding the whatsit, what is the goal? The goal is to get the whatsit, so you want me to choose to waste my time or do it your way? Because I would see it as wasting my time to kill the guards instead of just giving in and sending the rogue in. Many players will feel this way.

 

No, my confused friend.

What this means is that there is no "right" wway to do this.

 

You're only wasting time if you think you are. There is no objectively "right" way as it depends on your abilities and what you want.

 

Do you want to loot the guards? Do you hate the guards? Did someone pay you to kill the guards when he heard your'e going to that location?

Do you have a capable rouge? Can he handle himself if things go wrong?

Do you have a capable speaker? Can oyu bluff the guard? What happens if you bluff fails once you're in, and those same guards you passed by now attack you from behind?

 

It's not as simple as you make it sound.

 

 

 

 

To be honest this goal oriented system seems to me to be extremely limiting, I basically have to have a quest in order to have a goal and get XP? Sounds like a game with zero freedom. You need a quest for everything and are a slave to your quest log.

 

No, you don't have to have a quest.

Staying alicve is a goal. Surviving an encouter is a goal. It doesn't have ot be in your yournal.

 

You keep calling a good system limiting and at the same time demonstrate perfectly why your idea of a good system is 100 times MORE limiting.

[Luckmann]

The only possible solution, which has been shown in several games (compared to there *never* having been a balanced game that awarded experience by combat) is Goal-oriented experience. The goal could be reaching a certain point in the game, finding a secret, uncovering a truth, reaching enlightenment, exploring a region or simply finishing a quest. But never, ever, should experience be awarded by the roll of a dice or by performing a feat specific to a character type (such as combat) unless that feat is mutually exclusive but equal to feats performable by all other character types and roles.

 

 

The issue with this is you just described a highly linear game. Since experience becomes Goal-based, and you can never progress without completing goals, you end up moving in a straight line. If Town A is filled with level 5 quests, and Town B is level 10 quests, you cannot do Town B without doing Town A first.

...what? How could you possible come to that conclusion? There is nothing preventing you from doing "Town B" before "Town A", nor has Goal-oriented experience anything to do with linearity. Anyone who has played any game with Goal-based experience can attest to that.

 

Further, it's just unrealistic to the point of killing the suspension of disbelief. The character could conceivably kill 100,000,000 critters, and never get better at using his sword. But handing a person a magic marble suddenly improves the character's fighting ability.

Experience was always an abstraction. If experience ruins your suspension of disbelief, you shouldn't play experience-based games at all. Experience is an abstraction for what you learned on the way to your goal. If you chose to fight for that magic marble, you are free to spend your experience in combat-oriented skills. Experience has nearly always worked this way.

 

The correct implementation is the one that most closely mirrors PnP RPG's, where actions are rewarded with experience. Be it killing a critter, talking your way out of a fight, sneaking past an enemy, pick-pocketing, etc. Actions that would, in reality, make a person more experienced.

You clearly are not familiar with PnP RPGs. The vast majority of them do not give out experience for minor acts, including killing mobs, pickpocketing, or similar. They hand out experience based on your performance or reached goals, as well as how imaginative or resourceful you are in reaching those goals. It is entirely possible to play practically any PnP RPG in a pacifist way, never touching a single kobold, accumulate experience, and spend it however the hell you wish - and the only price you'd pay was the ruination of your own suspension of disbelief and the groans of yor GM, as you pay for Exotic Proficiency (Rat-Flail) instead of improving your Diplomacy.

 

In honesty, it sounds like everyone's just trying to ignore the root cause of the issue in CRPG's and kludge in a hack to fix it. The issue isn't, and never has been, kill-based experience. It's always been CRPG's failure to reward alternative solutions and/or non-combat actions.

This isn't true either. Plenty of games reward an ample supply of experience for disarming traps, winning conversations, or pickpocketing (deliciously abusable pickpocketing).

 

The problem is that it is always more profitable to also kill everyone, because they give experience. If you want to play optimally, and we're basically hardwired to try, as to not cripple ourselves, you need to; pickpocket everything, disarm every trap, disarm the chests, lockpick all the doors (preferably even if you already have the key!), sneak to the end of the dungeon, win the conversation rolls, shoot the end-boss before he leaves the room, loot his corpse, back-track and kill everything.

 

For an amazing example of Goal-based experience, play Deus Ex or Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines.

For an amazing example of how to fail miserable while giving multiple options, giving experience for everything, and failing miserably to create a varied and mutually viable playing-experience precisely because of that, play Human Revolution.

 

[...]

 

It sounds great to say things should be goal oriented but large parts of the game have no goals at all. I want to travel to Bigtown at the end of the map, do I get a reward for just getting there alive with no combat involved in my travels? If I randomly get ambushed and fight my way through I do I get less or more or no XP on arrival in Bigtown? Combat XP would give me something, goal oriented XP would give me nothing.

 

If I choose to free roam in some random dungeon simply because I saw it on my map do I get no XP even though I cleared the entire thing of demons/undead/kobolds?

 

To be honest this goal oriented system seems to me to be extremely limiting, I basically have to have a quest in order to have a goal and get XP? Sounds like a game with zero freedom. You need a quest for everything and are a slave to your quest log.

 

[...]

I think TrashMan ran you over pretty well, but I'd just like to comment on this specifically.

 

Nobody said you had to have a quest. In fact, I made it extremely clear that a "Goal" could be virtually anything. Instead of asking you to go back and read things properly (people seem to take offense when I call them illiterate, and would rather keep beating their sorry heads against the wall than to admit that they missed something) I will quote myself:

[...]

 

The only possible solution, which has been shown in several games (compared to there *never* having been a balanced game that awarded experience by combat) is Goal-oriented experience. The goal could be reaching a certain point in the game, finding a secret, uncovering a truth, reaching enlightenment, exploring a region or simply finishing a quest. But never, ever, should experience be awarded by the roll of a dice or by performing a feat specific to a character type (such as combat) unless that feat is mutually exclusive but equal to feats performable by all other character types and roles.

 

[...]

It was already colour-coded for stupid, but I put more emphasis on the relevant part(s). I also underlined it, so you wouldn't miss it again.

 

You reach Bigtown. You get experience for reaching Bigtown. How you got there is entirely dependant on you. Maybe you had to fight because you don't have anyone trained in Survival or Stealth - that is the price you pay for that; a far lesser price than any Diplomat would pay if he forgot the same, considering that he would be rubbish at defending himself. Maybe you could teleported, or taken a boat, if you fear highwaymen. Point is; you get points for reaching Bigtown. Just because you sucked at getting there doesn't mean that you should get more experience.

 

You explore a random dungeon. You get experience for finding it. You get experience for exploring it. You may uncover secrets. Whether you cleverly avoid all traps, carefully sneak through it, get the Thingomajig on the end or find a chest, or if you are playing a barbarian that rushes in, dodges the traps as they explode from the walls, and smashes the heads of all the poor kobolds (murderer!); either would result in the same experience. Experience is an abstraction for what you have learned. In this particular dungeon, a Barbarian group learned how to fight better, endure traps and smash the cribs of kobold children. A party of rogues learned how to sneak, steal the Whatchamagijja, and reverse-pickpocket a lollypop into the torn clothes of young kobold children.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Luckmann

[timobkg]

Experience distribution should be goal-oriented.

That's the approach I like. If your goal is to stop the bandit raiders, your XP should be based on stopping the bandit raiders. It shouldn't matter if you slaughtered all of them, or disbanded them by killing their leader in the night, or just convinced them that a different town is a much better target.

 

Luckmann's post right before mine goes into even more detail. Reward exploration, surviving encounters / traps, reaching the next level or the end of a dungeon, resolving conflicts, etc. Don't rewarding being a mass murderer.

Edited September 24, 2012 by timobkg

[MNOne]

You explore a random dungeon. You get experience for finding it. You get experience for exploring it. You may uncover secrets. Whether you cleverly avoid all traps, carefully sneak through it, get the Thingomajig on the end or find a chest, or if you are playing a barbarian that rushes in, dodges the traps as they explode from the walls, and smashes the heads of all the poor kobolds (murderer!); either would result in the same experience. Experience is an abstraction for what you have learned. In this particular dungeon, a Barbarian group learned how to fight better, endure traps and smash the cribs of kobold children. A party of rogues learned how to sneak, steal the Whatchamagijja, and reverse-pickpocket a lollypop into the torn clothes of young kobold children.

I'm not sure why that wasn't clear to begin with. It semed self-evident to me.

Like you say, XP isn't a quest-bounded thing. It's tied to 'doing something', and the nice thing is that the amount of XP can be associated with the 'thing' being 'done'.

Finding a town? Low XP - it's a hub, a place you go. Finishing a quest? Lots of XP - it's an objective you were meant to complete (and presumably involved doing more things than just going somehwere). Finding a remote hamlet? Medium (whatever that is) XP - it's basically a town, but it was a real slog to get to, requiring fieldcraft skills or good fighting (depending on how you got there).

There's also more creative things to do with such a system, but that's up to context, story and the devs' vision.

Edited September 24, 2012 by MNOne

[Tale]

Ideally, experience should be granted for achieving goals. However, players like to have small experience gains throughout progress to a goal instead of getting it all in one lump at the end.

 

So, would I like XP for combat? Let's just say I have nothing against it. They'll need to do those progress gains somehow. Maybe not necessarily killing each enemy, but for defeating a group to signify that a challenge has been surpassed, bringing the player closer to their goal. This would enable them to give it the same XP as if they'd talked past the enemy, then note that progress has been made so the player can't kill them as well for double XP. No additional progress was made by murdering people after talking them down, after all.

[Lucas]

I would like to see only a minor amount of experience for "generic" battles, granted only after you defeat the entire party/pack on generic enemies (wolves on the road, random encounters if they are going to implement them and so on). So, no exp for every single monster, but only after the battle.

 

Then, more XP for "plot encounters" and special, more powerful enemies. But, in proportion, I would love to see an equal or higher amount of experience for achieved quests, alternate ways to battle and so on.

[Cantousent]

I'd rather see no xp for combat/lock-picking/diplomacy per se. However, I do think how well you achieve your goals should impact on the amount of experience. You could even, in some cases, get more experience for killing enemies. That way, you don't have a case of doing both. Some solutions are better than others, and I don't think the game should always reward the same regardless of method. In some cases, killing might get better rewards, not only in xp, but also in loot and whatnot. In other cases, the lethal solution might get less. The outcome, and desireability should be king. Moreover, the game should make it harder to use a one note approach. If all you ever do is resort to violence, the game should make it tougher. You should have a rep in the community. You can't deal with the factions as easily and a lot of side quests might be out of reach for you. Conversely, if you never kill, you should have a tougher time also. You, likewise, have a rep and some side quests will be gone. Folks with the reputation for doing whatever it takes to finish the job should get it. If you have the rep of being brutal, brutal folks will seek your services. If you have the rep for being sly, smooth, or creatively pacifistic, then folks who need subtlety will seek your services. If you have the rep that you won't kill someone in cold blood, the local king-pin probably won't try to hire you to assassinate someone. If folks want consequences for their actions, then quest/objective xp makes the most sense to me, and there's plenty of opportunity to put in extra bits of xp here and there for side/small objectives.

[GhostofAnakin]

Assuming I understood the options properly, I went with option 2.

 

I'd like to see the majority of the XP come from completing quests, but I'd also like to see smaller amounts of XP granted for killing enemies as well as from non-combat stuff (ie. dialogue persuasions, lock picking, etc.).

 

For instance, suppose a quest rewards you with around 1000 XP, then the other stuff in relation should give something like 5 XP per weak enemy killed, 10 to 15 XP for the tougher enemies, 50 XP for a "boss" level enemy, and similar XP for minor lock picks or thieving activities.

[Gatt9]

Then you contradict yourself again in the next paragraph.

 

Plenty of games reward an ample supply of experience for disarming traps, winning conversations, or pickpocketing (deliciously abusable pickpocketing).

 

Which is it? Do they reward for it or do they not?

 

Finally, one of your sources for a "Great example" is a Shooter. Deus Ex isn't an RPG, because it's Player Skill dependent, not Character Skill dependent. It's an FPS with a crippled interface, and a "Leveling system" that reduces the degree of crippling, until the point that the Player's Skill is sufficient to overcome the crippling and from there out, it's a full-on FPS.

 

OTOH, if you'd like a great example of a game that handles the situation correctly, Fallout, Fallout 2, and Planescape.

[Cantousent]

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to post the question:

 

"I know this has been answered by implication, but will the PCs be gaining experience only for achieving objectives or will they also gain experience situationally by picking locks and killing monsters and other skill based actions in the game?"

 

Feargus: "You will get XP for both - Tim might have covered that in Update 7 (not totally sure thought)."

 

This answers the question for me. I prefer it done differently, but it's the way it is.

[Volourn]

Yes, it's settled. Another win for the goods ie. me. You get xp for both combat *and* non combat. GAME OVER.

[Cantousent]

Vol, you yutz! lol You've won *this* time, but we'll meet again! bwahahaha

[Volourn]

We always do and I cna't wait.

 

My victories for hard earned battles so far:

 

- Dwarves!

 

- xp for both combat and non combat

[teknoman2]

 

 

So if there is no XP for killing the guards that are guarding the whatsit, what is the goal? The goal is to get the whatsit, so you want me to choose to waste my time or do it your way? Because I would see it as wasting my time to kill the guards instead of just giving in and sending the rogue in. Many players will feel this way.

 

It sounds great to say things should be goal oriented but large parts of the game have no goals at all. I want to travel to Bigtown at the end of the map, do I get a reward for just getting there alive with no combat involved in my travels? If I randomly get ambushed and fight my way through I do I get less or more or no XP on arrival in Bigtown? Combat XP would give me something, goal oriented XP would give me nothing.

 

If I choose to free roam in some random dungeon simply because I saw it on my map do I get no XP even though I cleared the entire thing of demons/undead/kobolds?

 

To be honest this goal oriented system seems to me to be extremely limiting, I basically have to have a quest in order to have a goal and get XP? Sounds like a game with zero freedom. You need a quest for everything and are a slave to your quest log.

 

Goals are great in the real world, they give us impetus and push us forward to attaining them but apart from work related goals I don't have a Quest Log tracking my progress, the goal is internalised. Most games are the same way, they provide some goals via quests but reward activity through XP (by activity I mean combat, picking locks, disarming traps etc). The goal is something you internalise, you want to clear a dungeon, you want to kill everything in the town etc, it has little to do with a directive from your Quest log.

 

I prefer a system that rewards me for doing stuff, even if that stuff is just killing a rat when I'm level 1. For me it makes more sense to get XP for doing things instead of getting XP only for working for people. Maybe the balance of combat XP could use tweaking but a system with no combat XP, sorry but it doesn't sound attractive in any way to me.

if you kill the guards you get the loot besides the xp. if you sneak in you get the xp and no loot. so a benefit for fighting is still there.

you get xp for reaching the town alive non for how you reached the town. and i repeat: if you fight your way there you get loot

you may get nothing in terms of xp if you just clear out a random dungeon you find along the way, but who is to say that you wont find an npc later who will ask you to go to that dungeon? in that case the dungeon will be clear for you to do what was asked unhindered

[teknoman2]

Then you contradict yourself again in the next paragraph.

 

Plenty of games reward an ample supply of experience for disarming traps, winning conversations, or pickpocketing (deliciously abusable pickpocketing).

 

Which is it? Do they reward for it or do they not?

 

Finally, one of your sources for a "Great example" is a Shooter. Deus Ex isn't an RPG, because it's Player Skill dependent, not Character Skill dependent. It's an FPS with a crippled interface, and a "Leveling system" that reduces the degree of crippling, until the point that the Player's Skill is sufficient to overcome the crippling and from there out, it's a full-on FPS.

 

OTOH, if you'd like a great example of a game that handles the situation correctly, Fallout, Fallout 2, and Planescape.

its so sad to see people considering rpgs by the stats and how these stats work. rpgs are much more than numbers in a character sheet

Edited September 25, 2012 by teknoman2

[Volourn]

"ts so sad to see people considering rpgs by the stats and how these stats work. rpgs are much more that numbers in a character sheet"

 

Stats and character sheets is what makes RPGs RPGs. Otherwise you just have adventure games.

[alanschu]

Need an "indifferent and trust Obsidian" option

[Cantousent]

Need an "indifferent and trust Obsidian" option

QFT Whatever I want, the fact is that I trust Obsidian to do it the right way. If I didn't trust them, I wouldn't have pledged at all. I'm a cheap bastard and it would have been much easier to wait until they released the game. If we trust them a little, we should trust them a lot. It makes it a lot easier to accep the decisions when you ocnsider that there's a reason you follow them and they don't follow you Enough of my oenophilic ramblings, but that's the way I see it.

[Fertal]

I've voted for experience only for big fights, but the true question is: how this XP were distributed further?

 

I hope that Prj Eternity doesn't use the D&D system (killing orcs with axe for a day and upgrade sneaking with this XP) or TES system (cast firebal everywhere to upgrade the ability...)