XP only for Questing: Some Observations

[PsychoBlonde]

It's interesting to hear the devs talk about implementing a system whereby you get XP only for fulfilling objectives, because this is (largely) the system that Dungeons and Dragons Online has. The trouble is, depending on how this is implemented it can be JUST as broken as the "XP for kills" system.

 

Personally, I think the best system is one in which you can get xp for doing ANYTHING, and you, the player, get to pick whatever way is the most fun for you to level. Like decimating hordes of kobolds over and over? Fine. Go level up that way. Like solving puzzles and disarming traps? Fine. Go level up that way. Like crafting? Fine. Go level up that way.

 

XP for quest objectives is NOT a system that lets people do whatever they like in order to level their character--it is a system that FORCES you to QUEST in order to level. And, here's the thing, it is NOT equivalent if one character build can sneak past all the enemies, snag the Quest Item, and sneak back out, while another build has to hack their way through all those enemies. In terms of time invested vs. reward, the stealth method is absolutely superior. Granted there may be some difference if the non-stealth person REALLY LIKES hacking things up, but ultimately it's better to be sneaky in this system than to be a combat monster. Stealth becomes "OP", in that you get the most bang for your buck this way. If one method of completing a quest is drastically less time-consuming than others, there need to be extra benefits for the time-consuming methods. If you fight instead of sneak, you get loot, for instance. It'd be fine if the sneaky person can simply pickpocket all the enemies if they want the loot--that's time-consuming, too. And they might not be able to get some of the loot via this method unless their skills are INSANE. It may be advisable to put in actual (optional) objectives that involve finding odd little nooks and crannies or simply killing X creatures, so people who enjoy exploration and combat can get some benefit from those activities in addition to just plowing through the quests in the most efficient way possible.

 

Not to mention that this sort of system rewards doing All Teh Quests, so you won't EVER want to reject a quest because that means turning down XP. Of course, they could put in a ton of quests that are mutually exclusive (or potentially mutually exclusive depending on how you handle them), but this is yet another bit of externally-enforced arbitrariness and needs to be carefully handled.

 

Also, you may start doing what DDO does--put in roadblocks that cannot be circumvented except via one method. You can't insta-death them (they're immune). You can't sneak past them (the door can't be opened until they're dead, although I don't understand how that lever knows whether the monster is dead or not). Or, you have to gather your entire party at a certain place in order to proceed, stealthy and non-stealthy party members alike. Not to mention their whole "dungeon alert" mechanic. DDO is a fun game (well, fun for me anyway), but stealth is seriously under-utilized because the functionality is EXTREMELY limited. There's an actual level 2 quest called "stealthy repossession" where you can actually FAIL THE QUEST by killing mobs, and still people don't stealth it (not least because it's INCREDIBLY tricky to do so), they charge straight through. Arbitrary roadblocks are a big no-no, and keep in mind, if you have to be a certain level to progress due to limitations on what skills you can have or how high they can be, that is now an arbitrary road block that forces you to complete X number of quests. However, if you make the entire game scale to avoid this, you've now removed the challenge, which a lot of people also won't like. This is a serious and perhaps unsolvable problem.

 

Granted, you don't HAVE to have these kinds of issues, but you do have to think about this kind of stuff in way in advance if you don't want to have them.

 

Personally, i think trying to "balance" all these various factors (and others I didn't mention or think of) is going to turn out to be impossible. You are going to force people to do SOMETHING they may not enjoy (or at least, encourage them so much that anything else looks absurd) I think it would be better to literally let people level however they want by handing out XP for EVERYTHING--grinding kills, crafting, exploring, questing, chatting people up, every active thing they do. If, for some reason, you want to limit the ultimate possible power of someone who chooses to take their time and do, literally, everything, have a level cap.

 

Or, you could try an even more radically different method: don't have levels or "XP" at all. This doesn't have to make the game less fun, nor does it have to mean that your characters don't get cooler as the game progresses. I did this to myself by accident in my most recent playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins. I was bored with having only a few abilities available at the early part of the game, so I used the console to give myself extra XP. However, I typo'd and gave myself an extra couple 0's which gave me enough XP to hit the level cap. I laughed a bit, and then decided to just go with it. I cranked the difficulty up to NIghtmare.

 

And, here's the thing, I'm having a LOT of fun. The fights are interesting and challenging. I still get better from finding items that grant character points and from finding/buying better items. And, since I don't have to worry about trying to squeeze out every bit of XP I can get, I'm completely free to play the way I want to play. If I want to do All Teh Quests I can. If I want to skip some (I don't, but that's because of How I Am), I can.

 

Just some thoughts.

[Tale]

XP for quest objectives is NOT a system that lets people do whatever they like in order to level their character--it is a system that FORCES you to QUEST in order to level.

I'm not really sure I see the problem here. I don't know that they're building a game to be ideal for players looking to start up a shop and being farming. I think it's perfectly reasonable to establish a game with the assumption players will be adventurers doing quests.

 

And, here's the thing, it is NOT equivalent if one character build can sneak past all the enemies, snag the Quest Item, and sneak back out, while another build has to hack their way through all those enemies. In terms of time invested vs. reward, the stealth method is absolutely superior.

"time invested vs. reward" really should only be a secondary or tertiary consideration. Players aren't going to be aggressively counting their playtime for the fastest means to level up. Or at least not generally. It's not an MMO. What they want to do is achieve the objective according to their playstyle. Which is the far more important consideration. What you're proposing ultimately boils down to encouraging the player to do every little thing, even those against his desired agency. He'll feel obligated to craft, sneak, talk, and kill. Instead of just picking the ones he likes and moving forward through the game with that. A complaint you seem worried about for quests, but no other activity.

 

Not to mention that this sort of system rewards doing All Teh Quests, so you won't EVER want to reject a quest because that means turning down XP. Of course,

This is a flaw in some quest design. An ideally designed quest should never really have a reason for you to want to turn it down. If you find the quest objectionable, then there's room to turn the quest around and make it about stopping the questgiver instead of helping him. That's kind of what player agency is about. A player should be able to assume that even if he takes on a quest, he's still able to affect it in accordance with his desired agency.

[Volourn]

I agree. XP should be rewarded for everything not just 'quest completion'.

 

I remember in V:BL, the game was full of combat and the game got boring as it felt useless to bother fighting since you got nothing out of it.

 

The experience should be worthwhile and rewarding and gaining xp from fighting 9as well as non combat stuff) is part of that reward 9along with loot and sense of accomplishment).

 

That's why, again I must stress, XP should be rewarded for everything potentially. From combat to creating a potion to saving the damsel to persuading the barkeep to give you a discount via dialogue.

 

Obviously, the easier the combat the elss xp given and the easier the non combat activity (ie. sneaking past a master assassin should reward more xp than sneaking pass a dumb, lazy, inattentive giant) while fighting that same giant in combat should reward you more. But, killing the barkeep should net you less xp than getting a discount.

 

Capiche? Capiche.

 

I WIN.

[PsychoBlonde]

XP for quest objectives is NOT a system that lets people do whatever they like in order to level their character--it is a system that FORCES you to QUEST in order to level.

I'm not really sure I see the problem here. I don't know that they're building a game to be ideal for players looking to start up a shop and being farming. I think it's perfectly reasonable to establish a game with the assumption players will be adventurers doing quests.

 

As opposed to adventurers exploring the countryside or adventurers seeking out ancient secrets or adventurers slaughtering bandits. I didn't say "they should reward you for non-adventuring activities like taking a crap". I said that if you only get XP for doing quests, they are forcing you to do quests. Which is 100% accurate, and you're NOT getting XP for crafting or fighting or exploring or stealing shopkeepers blind *unless they make those into quests*.

 

"time invested vs. reward" really should only be a secondary or tertiary consideration. Players aren't going to be aggressively counting their playtime for the fastest means to level up. Or at least not generally. It's not an MMO. What they want to do is achieve the objective according to their playstyle. Which is the far more important consideration. What you're proposing ultimately boils down to encouraging the player to do every little thing, even those against his desired agency. He'll feel obligated to craft, sneak, talk, and kill. Instead of just picking the ones he likes and moving forward through the game with that. A complaint you seem worried about for quests, but no other activity.

 

Google the words "speed run" and the name of any RPG. Or "pacifist run". Just because they don't matter to you doesn't mean they don't matter to other people. And many, many people have actual jobs and lives so the amount of time they get to spend gaming is strictly limited, so the quantity of the game they can see in a given time is of vital importance to them.

 

This is a flaw in some quest design. An ideally designed quest should never really have a reason for you to want to turn it down. If you find the quest objectionable, then there's room to turn the quest around and make it about stopping the questgiver instead of helping him. That's kind of what player agency is about. A player should be able to assume that even if he takes on a quest, he's still able to affect it in accordance with his desired agency.

 

If you insist that all quests must adhere to this model, you're enforcing arbitrary limitations on what kinds of quests can exist. Every quest doesn't HAVE to be a complex opportunity for betrayal and redemption. This is a *type* of design, not *bad design*. It means, for instance, that you can't ever design a story where the consequences are ugly and evil no matter what you do, and the only way to "win" is not to play.

[Cantousent]

Any system that encourages players to solve the same problem more than once using different strategies is simply flawed. I don't want a game that rewards the PC for sneaking, then speaking, then going back and killing when he was already done with the immediate task by sneaking *or* speaking *or* killing. This has got to be the most vexing issue to me. I'm not much of a message board cowboy anymore. I don't have the stamina to read everything like I used to and I sure as hell can't flame (or even heatedly debate) for fifty pages, but this one issue is one of the few that I find irritating. I get that folks want combat experience, but the idea that it's a deal breaker just seems silly. ...And getting experience for the widest variety of things doesn't make any more sense. Now, I *will* say this, there's a certain argument to be made for practice. For example, if you're a hunter, you learn to hunt better by hunting. You're a better at running by running daily. Sure, but if that's your main concern, you should be pushing for the Elder Scrolls mechanism for experience gain, which is to get points only for performing actions associated with the area in which you gain experience. I prefer the abstracted method and the best (not perfect, merely best) way to avoid glaringly silly exploits is to limit experience to objectives. However, some objectives may very well be associated with combat. In fact, like I will probably keep saying throughout the whole project, experience shouldn't just be tied to objectives, but should also be scaled to the most beneficial outcome. Yeah, that entails discretion on the part of the design team, but that's why they're paid so much anyway.

[Tale]

If you insist that all quests must adhere to this model, you're enforcing arbitrary limitations on what kinds of quests can exist. Every quest doesn't HAVE to be a complex opportunity for betrayal and redemption. This is a *type* of design, not *bad design*. It means, for instance, that you can't ever design a story where the consequences are ugly and evil no matter what you do, and the only way to "win" is not to play.

If saying that quests should accord agency is being arbitrary, it's an arbitrary I can live with.

[PsychoBlonde]

I don't have the stamina to read everything like I used to and I sure as hell can't flame (or even heatedly debate) for fifty pages, but this one issue is one of the few that I find irritating. I get that folks want combat experience, but the idea that it's a deal breaker just seems silly.

 

If you can't be bothered to actually read the post, you may not want to bother replying, either, because this has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with ANY of the observations I was making.

 

My concern is that everybody likes to play in a different way. For instance, I have a younger brother who played Arcanum, and you know how he leveled himself up? He ran around doing the random map encounters until he was level 50 before he did ANY questing. No, I'm not kidding. That's how he wanted to play.

 

If you ONLY get XP for doing ONE thing--completing quests--then you can ONLY level ONE WAY. And if you need to level to finish the game, then you HAVE to do quests. The game is channeling you into playing it a certain way. I'm just pointing this out. Did I mention it was a "deal-breaker"? No. I'm not complaining--I'm one of those people who compulsively goes and does EVERY QUEST and explores EVERY CORNER of EVERY MAP. I also hate grinding kills. It's boring as snot. This sort of thing suits my playstyle perfectly--I will get 100% of all the XP available in the game. That doesn't mean it suits other people, though, and I wanted to point that out.

 

I don't see the point in limiting people in what they can do to level. I'm not even sure that the whole xp/leveling dynamic is an essential part of the gameplay experience. I don't care about other people's time vs. reward--if someone can figure out a way to "beat" the game in 20 minutes, more power to them. I do care if people with limited time but a desire to explore the entire game feel like they're pushed into playing certain builds or in certain ways because there's a radical functionality imbalance.

[PsychoBlonde]

If you insist that all quests must adhere to this model, you're enforcing arbitrary limitations on what kinds of quests can exist. Every quest doesn't HAVE to be a complex opportunity for betrayal and redemption. This is a *type* of design, not *bad design*. It means, for instance, that you can't ever design a story where the consequences are ugly and evil no matter what you do, and the only way to "win" is not to play.

If saying that quests should accord agency is being arbitrary, it's an arbitrary I can live with.

 

I don't think "agency" equates to "I must be able to have every possible situation work out in a way that suits me". There's nothing removing my agency by putting in quests with horrible results no matter what you do after you take the quest--you still have a choice. You can skip the quest. But you can't tell stories like I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream If there must be a possible happy ending. If you're precluding the existence of an entire *category* of storytelling, then you're not talking about bad design or flawed design any longer. You're talking about what you like and don't like.

[Tale]

If you insist that all quests must adhere to this model, you're enforcing arbitrary limitations on what kinds of quests can exist. Every quest doesn't HAVE to be a complex opportunity for betrayal and redemption. This is a *type* of design, not *bad design*. It means, for instance, that you can't ever design a story where the consequences are ugly and evil no matter what you do, and the only way to "win" is not to play.

If saying that quests should accord agency is being arbitrary, it's an arbitrary I can live with.

 

I don't think "agency" equates to "I must be able to have every possible situation work out in a way that suits me". There's nothing removing my agency by putting in quests with horrible results no matter what you do after you take the quest--you still have a choice. You can skip the quest. But you can't tell stories like I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream If there must be a possible happy ending. If you're precluding the existence of an entire *category* of storytelling, then you're not talking about bad design or flawed design any longer. You're talking about what you like and don't like.

I'm not saying the outcome must be ideal. But the player should be afforded agency to try their playstyle and be rewarded one way or another, whether it's a standard victory or something else. Saying that the only way to win is to avoid a quest entirely, that is pointless metagaming. The character can't know the outcome in advance.

[Cantousent]

Where did I say I hadn't read your post? I did read it. I just can't scour the forum. I try to read those threads in which I participate carefully. Frankly, I wasn't being personal. I'm still not.

 

I disagree with notion that object/quest/purpose only xp rewards only one style of gameplay. You can complete objectives in a variety of ways and as long as that variety is sufficiently broad, you can't argue that there's only one valid style of gameplay unless you say that completing objectives is simply one of many types of gameplay. Even in sandbox games, you could have multiple objectives outside the main story arc, but the point behind questing and adventuring is still exploration and accomplishment.

 

EDIT: And, *re*-reading your latest post, I will point out that the manner of xp gain and leveling or even whether or not there are levels and classes is all variable. The line is the question, not the fact that the devs control where it is. If their discretion is that quest only xp is the way to go, it's no different than deciding at combat or combat and other action or only at specific plot points. It's when and where that are the question and if you trust the design team, it shouldn't matter that much one way or the other.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Cantousent

[Valorian]

XP should be awarded for kills, quest completion, disarming traps, lockpicking and solving various problems like puzzles. Basically, I'd want XP awards only for things that are finite; that means I'd hate constant respawning of monsters and traps, endless random encounters with XP awards etc.

 

In the same vein, I'd prefer gold coins to be finite as well. Oh look, that rare herb which serves as the ingredient for an expensive potion (moneyz!!) has spawned for the 40th time. Please not.

[duskwind]

Not to mention that this sort of system rewards doing All Teh Quests, so you won't EVER want to reject a quest because that means turning down XP.

 

The only alternative is having quests that don't give any XP at all (including making all quest monsters accessible without taking the quest), which seems like a much, much worse idea.

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm not saying the outcome must be ideal. But the player should be afforded agency to try their playstyle and be rewarded one way or another, whether it's a standard victory or something else. Saying that the only way to win is to avoid a quest entirely, that is pointless metagaming. The character can't know the outcome in advance.

 

They don't have to. Is there some law where the protagonist should ALWAYS have a way to "win"? No. It's not metagaming unless you're obsessed with ALWAYS "winning" instead of experiencing the story that's out there. I'd like a fair variety. I don't have to always save the hostages.

[PsychoBlonde]

Not to mention that this sort of system rewards doing All Teh Quests, so you won't EVER want to reject a quest because that means turning down XP.

 

The only alternative is having quests that don't give any XP at all (including making all quest monsters accessible without taking the quest), which seems like a much, much worse idea.

 

Or, they can have a level cap that you can hit by only doing, say, 50% of the quests. Or they can make it so it doesn't really matter what level you are as you progress down the main story line. Granted, there are tradeoffs with these options, too. But there is no "only" alternative.

[PsychoBlonde]

You can complete objectives in a variety of ways . . .

 

But you still have to complete objectives.

 

It doesn't matter if you have 40,000 different ways to jump through the hoops if you still have to jump through the hoops.

 

What is it to you if my little brother wants to cap his character by doing random encounters? How does this detract from your gameplay experience in such a way that you INSIST on ACTIVELY FORBIDDING his style of play because well, he COULD do the quests in a variety of different ways? He doesn't want to do the quests right now.

 

Or, let's imagine that they take into account that sometimes It's fun to fight stuff. So they put in a quest like "kill X bandits to cripple their operations". How is that different from just giving you 20xp per bandit kill? Actually, it's worse because what if you kill 20% of X and run out of health potions or get bored? You've just wasted 20 minutes for no reward. Or, if they decide not to put in XP for kills, they need to give you SOME kind of reward (loot) or there's no gameplay point to killing stuff, so a combat monster is a pointless character. But then how is the pacifist persuader character going to get THAT reward? So now playing a pacifist persuader is going to lag behind the combat monster.

 

Handing out XP only for finishing quests is not the solution to this problem as the devs seem to think it is. It is an alternate version of the same problem. The only ultimate "solution" if you want to keep XP and leveling is to hand out XP for everything and let people *really* decide how they feel like leveling at any given time. Or, you could dispense with XP and leveling entirely, and let the direct rewards of the activities (loot, new spells, money, casual sex, whatever) BE the reward.

 

Granted, you could also just say "we're designing a game that's about questing, so we're going to make you do the quests to progress". That's perfectly fine. It's 100% accurate, too. What's not accurate is saying "we're going to let you play how you want to play" AND "we're only giving out XP for completing quests". Those statements contradict each other.

Edited September 24, 2012 by PsychoBlonde

[ogrezilla]

You can complete objectives in a variety of ways . . .

 

But you still have to complete objectives.

 

It doesn't matter if you have 40,000 different ways to jump through the hoops if you still have to jump through the hoops.

 

but when you play a game designed around jumping through hoops...I would expect to have to jump through hoops.

 

When you start giving experience for everything, its harder to have a good controlled amount of finite experience. Which makes it harder to balance the content of the game.

Edited September 24, 2012 by ogrezilla

[Director]

 

If you ONLY get XP for doing ONE thing--completing quests--then you can ONLY level ONE WAY. And if you need to level to finish the game, then you HAVE to do quests. The game is channeling you into playing it a certain way.

 

 

How are you going to play the game without doing quests / achieving objectives?, (it might be better to think of them as "objectives" rather than "quests").

 

This isn't going to be an open world game where you just wander around aimlessly for hours exploring random caves, filled with random boxes and random traps/creatures to loot/disarm/kill for xp. Like Vampire:Bloodlines, (guessing), your character will have a list of objectives to achieve, and when you achieve them, regardless of how - you get skill points / xp - however they choose to work that.

 

If your in a dungeon - it will be for a specific objective, find an item, find a person - whatever. If your spending all your time crafting magic potions in your house - well great - those potions might help you achieve your next objective, but why would you get xp for them as well?

 

Your only going to be rewarded for advancing the plot. This helps with balance as well - if I know exactly how many skill points a player will have accrued by a certain point, the designer can create appropriate challenges. If someone can level to over 9000 by making potions of food colouring in their basement - it gets harder to predict the power level of the player at a given point.

 

It's not like Tim / Chris / Josh eta al, haven't made games where you get xp for EVERYTHING!, (Fallout / Arcanum / New Vegas), but they have chosen this method, (Bloodlines), for this game, and I suspect - have good reasons for doing so. It's not something they would choose to do without cause.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Director

[Cantousent]

Okay, I know this might sound snarky, but it's not meant to be.

 

"But you still have to complete objectives."

 

I don't understand the issue then. I will reread the whole thread in a bit, but for the time being, I will simply ask whether the devs should create a game where you should be equally rewarded or doing nothing and doing something? I know there is a group of players who want only role-playing for its own sake, without combat or questing. There is a group who wants nothing more than exploration for it's own sake, avoiding combat of any sort and simply uncovering more and more areas. ...But I don't think the design team should be constrained by those groups. They might or might not want to inlcude some non-objective oriented RP, such as playing the part of a barmaid or gold merchant or famer. They might want to include some sort of experience gain for folks whose only desire is to uncover more map. On the other hand, maybe uncovering more of the map can be an objective and therefor will receive experience whether you achieve it by walking, running, riding, flying, or teleporting to do it. There's a huge number of things the design team could put in the game, some of which serve to achieve no objective at all, but the game wouldn't be improved by including all of them.

 

I think the combat experience is such a hold-over from the early days of PPGs that it's a corner-stone of design, but I don't think it should be. As a genre, we didn't start out with sneaking as a separate source of xp. We started out with combat xp and some sneaky bastard said, "why not me?" More and more, it's "why not me?" I'm not saying that's *you* and I'm not saying you would be bad even if it were. I'm just saying that I think the game might be better without the burden of that consideration for the design. I'm advocating what I see as the best design, but I would much rather have the devs come out and say explicitly "there will be combat xp" or "There will not be combat xp."

Edited September 24, 2012 by Cantousent

[Gromnir]

is another thread we didnt read, so am apologizing in advance, but it boggles the mind when we see folks advocating any system other than xp rewards for completion o' quests. is simple and elegant. potential for exploitation? sure, but it is EASY and intuitive. rather than coming up with a complex calculus to be allowing all characters to get equivalent xp for completing quests regardless o' their use o' combat or sneaky or diplomacy or whatever, the developers avoids the problem completely. doesnt matter How the player completes objectives 'cause the award is simply for completion. is absolute egalitarian and is brainless simple to implement.

 

is it possible to come up with a system that is more fair or more... kewl? sure, but why bother. simple xp rewards means developers can devote time to actual freaking gameplay rather than minutiae that will inevitably be more susceptible to exploitation. is axiomatic that the more complex the system, the more ways it can be broken.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Tale]

I'm not saying the outcome must be ideal. But the player should be afforded agency to try their playstyle and be rewarded one way or another, whether it's a standard victory or something else. Saying that the only way to win is to avoid a quest entirely, that is pointless metagaming. The character can't know the outcome in advance.

 

They don't have to. Is there some law where the protagonist should ALWAYS have a way to "win"? No. It's not metagaming unless you're obsessed with ALWAYS "winning" instead of experiencing the story that's out there. I'd like a fair variety. I don't have to always save the hostages.

I never said you did. What are you even talking about? Choosing not to save the hostages is part of player agency.

 

It is metagaming if you have some preconception that avoiding a quest is the only way to victory. That's your original statement. And that is the definition of metagame.

[PsychoBlonde]

It is metagaming if you have some preconception that avoiding a quest is the only way to victory. That's your original statement. And that is the definition of metagame.

 

No, the definition of metagaming is "gaming in such a way that you get the consequences you want while ignoring what you have to do to get there". It is metagaming, for instance, to murder a particular NPC not because you think it'd be fun to kill them or because you think they deserve to die, but because that's the only way to get the Vorpal Greatsword. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. Sometimes you just wanna swing around the Vorpal Greatsword.) I put "win" in sneer quotes because I was referring to the concept of "winning" as meaning "get the happy ending where everything is sunshine and bunnies and singing tra-la". If you have a quest where doing the quest means some kind of tragedy is going to occur, you cannot do this quest and still "win" in this fashion. So, yeah, if you are obsessed with always being The Bringer of Perfect Happiness, you can't do this quest and accomplish that goal, so you will probably a.) do the quest, b.) observe the endings, c.) load a saved game and NOT do the quest. That would, indeed, be metagaming. However, there's nothing in the nature of the quest that FORCES you to play that way. You could a.) do the quest, b.) observe the endings, and then c.) say OMG that's HORRIBLE and then d.) do another quest. Which is not metagaming. You could a.) not do the quest because you don't like the sound of it. Also not metagaming. You could a.) do the quest, b.) observe the endings, and then c.) HAHAHA FEEB d.) loot the corpses. Not metagaming. There isn't necessarily any metagaming involved.

 

And, it doesn't necessarily remove player agency if it's occasionally *impossible* to rescue the hostages. Granted, it does if you present the situation in such a way as "your options are: rescue the hostages or join the bad guys" and when you choose "rescue the hostages plzthx!" the game goes "AWW YOU FAILED SUCKA!!!!" THAT removes player agency. But if the choices are, instead: "join the bad guys or kill the bad guys, but the hostages bite it either way", you still have agency, you just . . . don't maybe get the precise results you wanted. And that's okay too. It doesn't have to be a game where nothing bad ever happens.

[Tale]

So, yeah, if you are obsessed with always being The Bringer of Perfect Happiness, you can't do this quest and accomplish that goal, so you will probably a.) do the quest, b.) observe the endings, c.) load a saved game and NOT do the quest. That would, indeed, be metagaming.

And it's precisely what you were promoting as a justification against quests awarding XP. Metagaming as an excuse to not do quests.

 

Here: "It means, for instance, that you can't ever design a story where the consequences are ugly and evil no matter what you do, and the only way to "win" is not to play."

That was your argument for not doing quests. That you "win" by not doing them. That you win by metagaming, and somehow this is an argument against quests being the source of XP.

 

However, there's nothing in the nature of the quest that FORCES you to play that way. You could a.) do the quest, b.) observe the endings, and then c.) say OMG that's HORRIBLE and then d.) do another quest. Which is not metagaming. You could a.) not do the quest because you don't like the sound of it. Also not metagaming. You could a.) do the quest, b.) observe the endings, and then c.) HAHAHA FEEB d.) loot the corpses. Not metagaming. There isn't necessarily any metagaming involved.

But you still did the quest.

 

And, it doesn't necessarily remove player agency if it's occasionally *impossible* to rescue the hostages. Granted, it does if you present the situation in such a way as "your options are: rescue the hostages or join the bad guys" and when you choose "rescue the hostages plzthx!" the game goes "AWW YOU FAILED SUCKA!!!!" THAT removes player agency. But if the choices are, instead: "join the bad guys or kill the bad guys, but the hostages bite it either way", you still have agency, you just . . . don't maybe get the precise results you wanted. And that's okay too. It doesn't have to be a game where nothing bad ever happens.

This is a close approximation of what I was saying. It's a complicated discussion and veers a little off from whether the quest should grant XP or not.

[Aedelric]

You are right PsychoBlonde, being only rewarded for quest completion does force you to only ever do the quest, but we would be doing quests regardless. The problem only arises, if we only have one option to complete the quest with not alternative path or alternative outcome.

 

I do have a problem with the concept of an NPC handing out worldly experience like it is some sort of currency, it is ridiculous to me. One should gain experience through their actions during the quest and only a item or monetary reward for the quest itself.

 

Edit - When I went to college it was the years of learning that gave me experience, not the guy that handed me the certificate at the end, the certificate was just the reward.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Aedelric

[SqueakyCat]

I'm not really a fan of the quest experience, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt - for now. I'll just put a little checkmark in the 'con' column for that aspect of the game. I'll wait to see other announcements before I fully decide. I just want so much for this to truly be a spiritual successor to the classics (like BG), and I'm not completely convinced yet. Any announcements of checkpoint saving, however, and I won't be able to hit the 'cancel pledge' button fast enough.

[ogrezilla]

You are right PsychoBlonde, being only rewarded for quest completion does force you to only ever do the quest, but we would be doing quests regardless. The problem only arises, if we only have one option to complete the quest with not alternative path or alternative outcome.

 

I do have a problem with the concept of an NPC handing out worldly experience like it is some sort of currency, it is ridiculous to me. One should gain experience through their actions during the quest and only a item or monetary reward for the quest itself.

 

Edit - When I went to college it was the years of learning that gave me experience, not the guy that handed me the certificate at the end, the certificate was just the reward.

 

being more realistic doesn't make it a better video game mechanic.