XP only for Questing: Some Observations

[TrashMan]

Rabai, it doens't have ot be a quest in the general meaning. Goal-oriented would be a better word.

 

If you go off a beatn path and run into an ogre - surviving the encoutner is a goal. It doesn't have to be in your quest log. No one has to give you a quest. If you survive - by sneaking, talking or fighting - you get XP.

 

Run into a random ruin? Exploring it is a goal.

 

Goals are natural objectives your character/group has. You get XP for achieving them. It is rather simple.

[KhaineGB]

I take as many quests as I can when playing games just because I don't want to miss out on bits of story.

 

I've actually found little hints and snippets relating to the main plot in side quests before (I'm the guy that people get annoyed with in MMO's because I listen to everything an NPC has to say and read all the quest text)

[Valorian]

...

 

if your argument was that ridiculous quests such as clearing rats from tavern basements or saving cats from trees should be avoided in eternity, we would agree, but apparently you chose to beat the stuffing out of a strawman to make some kinda point about quest-based xp awards. most puzzling.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

No, my point, which you missed by a margin the size of Jupiter, is: if they're gonna give XP for "other activities" such as persuasion and solving puzzles, they should hand out XP for combat encounters as well. Each slain enemy that tries to kill you is an objective in itself and should be awarded with XP.

 

The most puzzling thing is that you've kept writing this way for more than 10 years by now (thinking it's funny and/or an awesomely original way of making a point).

[teknoman2]

...

 

if your argument was that ridiculous quests such as clearing rats from tavern basements or saving cats from trees should be avoided in eternity, we would agree, but apparently you chose to beat the stuffing out of a strawman to make some kinda point about quest-based xp awards. most puzzling.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

No, my point, which you missed by a margin the size of Jupiter, is: if they're gonna give XP for "other activities" such as persuasion and solving puzzles, they should hand out XP for combat encounters as well. Each slain enemy that tries to kill you is an objective in itself and should be awarded with XP.

 

The most puzzling thing is that you've kept writing this way for more than 10 years by now (thinking it's funny and/or an awesomely original way of making a point).

the point you miss, is that they dont give xp for non combat activities, they give xp for doing stuff no matter how. let's say some bandits are blocking your path on a bridge: you can kill everyone or talk to them or steal from them or pay them or sneak past them or just take a different route around and so on. in the end you will get 1000xp for getting to the other side of the bridge no matter how you do it. you are not getting rewarded for the skills you used but for reaching your destination.

let's say you need to get an item from a locked chest: you can pick the lock, pickpocket the guy who has the key, kill the guy who has the key, use magic on the lock or bash it with a sledgehammer... it doesnt matter at all. you will get 500xp when you pick up the item and not a point more, no matter what you do to get it.

so where exactly is the favoritism to non combat skills with this system?

[FlintlockJazz]

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.

 

Aye, sadly not done enough but I do like it when you get to turn on the quest giver instead and gain the opposing quest by rejecting one instead of going along with it like you're 'supposed' to. Every play Divinity 2? There were a couple of quests that worked like that, the one that springs to mind is when a pig farmer asks you to 'save' his pigs from the guards who have taken it to feed a starving town elsewhere, by rejecting the quest you could then tell the guard captain and get an even bigger reward than if you had gone along with the quest and for less effort too!

[Rabain]

this is just getting silly.

 

...

 

different tack. for those who object to quest xp rewards, offer us a similarly simple and intuitive system that will result in players getting equal xp regardless o' their play style. sure, "balance" is often ridiculed in these parts, but shouldn't the sneaky player or the diplomat get as much xp awarded to them as does the combat player? get halfway through game and the sneakers has 1/2 as much xp as the combat players would be bad, no? quest rewards ignores complexity o' trying to balance rewards for disparate activities. now some folks like vol needs a digital pat on the noggin for every action they is successfully completing, but is that really an efficient use of developer time and effort? quest xp is inherently balanced and simple to implement... which means developers can spend time actual developing game content 'stead of trying to achieve balanced xp awards in an action-based system.

 

tell us your alternative. give us a simple way to implement.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

To be honest I find this type of argument to be totally silly too considering that the majority of rpg games go with combat XP. Why should I need to explain it to you if you haven't figured out why yet.

 

Quest XP is not inherently balanced, it is only biased in a different way. With Quest XP speed of objective completion acquires XP faster, if you can sneak or invisibility to the objective and get out you will acquire XP faster than the person fighting, is that balanced? Likewise with combat XP some classes level slower due to combat taking longer, how has nearly every game dealt with this? They reduce the amount of XP those classes require to level up, that is not hard to understand. That would take a hell of a lot less development time than trying to fix a broken system where avoiding combat gets you XP faster by completing objectives faster, the exact same issue you say combat xp causes by being biased towards fighters.

 

Regardless I think going with only Quest XP is a terrible idea as it means you will need a quest to do anything and anything that doesn't have a quest is a waste of time. Why fight through an entire dungeon if all you want is the Holy Sword at the end? Why explore any random map in the world if I don't have a quest to do so? Any mob I kill will be pointless. My journal will be a nightmare of questlines halfcompleted or just queued up because I don't want to miss a quest so I pick it up in case I miss it on my next way through.

 

Basically with that kind of system you would say that 50% of the areas in BG1 didn't need to be there, all those Sword Coast large areas with just mobs to kill etc, wasting my time while I try to find X quest objective. Sounds like an exercise in frustrating the hell out of me rather than engaging me. When a mob offers me XP I will kill it, I am both rewarded and further along to my quest objective and closer to levelling up.

 

I'd prefer a mixed system where I get rewarded for doing something, even if that something is killing a mob, I shouldn't need a quest to get XP, I should be able to level up some amount without even doing a quest at all. I'm fine with hitting a wall at some point where I need to follow the story questline, just like BG1 where eventually you just had to go to Cloakwood to move the game forward.

 

If you think Quest XP is a perfect system you are far from being right, it has plenty of flaws.

[Valorian]

the point

 

Here we go again... I didn't miss anything, but some of you are forcing the idea of getting xp just for things *you* deem appropriate to give xp. And you conveniently call it "objectives". And everyone else is simply wrong...

So you're talking about XP for objectives only. Fine. Let's say I want to play a party of assassins whose main goal is to refine their art of killing. Their objective is to kill things. Each and every enemy killed is their objective and should hand out XP separately.

 

Do I think they should get xp for eating candy and making soup or for killing the same endless random encounters over and over again (yes, the last one is an OOC consideration)? No. I just want the standard xp system that we're used to from the IE games.

 

And I strongly object to the notion that every way of overcoming an obstacle should hand out the same amount of XP. The process should matter.

[Revan91]

I don't get why people say that you would be forced to accept all kind of quests, if you wouldn't get xp from combat or so.

First of all, a powerplayer would do all the quests he could even if the system rewards both fightings and quests, but a guy with at least a bit of roleplaying skills is perfectly capable of choosing what to do according to the pc he/she created, and that way at least the game wouldn't punish non-combat-centric characters and you have the possibility to play with a stealth or a diplomatic pc without any problems. Furthermore I think we will get non-linear quests that could allow many different kinds of characters to enjoy them... just a simple example: the classic rescue my daughter quest: a "good" character would do it just because it's the right thing to do, an evil one could demand a very high reward for it and accept only in that case, or maybe could save the girl and dispose of her in other ways (selling her to some slave-trader perhaps)... it's just a stupid example, mind, I am sure the game will have deeper quests, but it's just to make my point a bit clearer.

 

If you choose to kill things anyway you get the loot as an extra-reward, while if you avoid the battle of course you couldn't steal things from the enemy corpses, so there's no reason to reward the combat-way of solving the quest any further.

[IcyDeadPeople]

Dragon Age Origins would have been 10 times better if it had less quests and more areas or at least it felt like the areas only opened up by attaining a quest.

 

It was a fun game, and although I'd agree it would have been improved with more areas to explore, in my view it would have been improved even more with a greater number of side quests. It certainly never felt like there were too many quests in the game. I love games with hundreds of quests, the more the better, even if they take place in some of the same areas.

[Merin]

I've been meaning to respond to this one for awhile, just hadn't take the time yet. My apologies if my responses have already been addressed in the thread overall and I just missed it.

 

The trouble is, depending on how this is implemented it can be JUST as broken as the "XP for kills" system.

 

I'm not sure the concern is about being "broken" but, yes, any system can be poorly designed and/or implemented.

 

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.

 

The word, quest, might be problematic. Substitute encounter, goal, solution or any other synonym for "achieving something you set out to do."

 

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.

 

Putting aside whether or not the assertion that the stealth option in the given example IS superior...

 

... in a single player game does there need to be equality in effort per solution? Should the person who took the fighter and has to hack through a monster for minutes be rewarded more than the wizard who has a banishment spell that gets rid of the monster in a second? The effort is unequal, but the reward for defeating the monster remains the same. Or build - one player spends hours of game play getting their wizard's level and points spent to get their spell able to dispel a ward guarding a door and preventing it from being opened... and another has a thief who gets a thief-special item as a quest reward and that item lets him easily dispel wards locking doors. One player had to devote time and resources, the other got an item in the game simply for class choice.

 

Is that a bug, or a feature?

 

I'd argue for it being a feature. Maybe in a competitive game this would be an issue - but this isn't an MMO.

 

 

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.

 

Agreed. Arbitrary road blocks are extremely undesirable, especially if they are blatantly obvious. If the designers want you to not being able to stealth past certain situations, they need to design the stealth system from the get go to handle this. One possibility is needing cover, movement area outside of LOS of guards, and shadow - and if you want a door that isn't breachable by stealth then the door should be in a narrow area that is well lit. But most doors shouldn't be so placed, leaving stealth a viable option most of the time.

 

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.

 

Yes, exactly. And bringing it up in a thread like this is a good way to help prevent the problems.

 

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.

 

I think the issue is that "getting XP for doing what you want" will inevitably leave certain players feeling like there isn't enough of what they like to do to gain XP, but there's almost certainly going to be no lack of things to kill. Even if there's no random encounters, i.e. a specific set number of fights is all that is possible in the game, you can bet good money that the majority of what will be available to do in the game is fight stuff. Given that this is likely to be true, the stealthy players or the talkie players (or whatever) will feel significantly slighted. Honestly, how many games are out there where people try to build the charismatic or intelligent player only to find that Science is used like three times in the game or there's a total of three people you can talk to that your Speech skill gives you a bonus? Obsidian's better at this than most, but it still doesn't make it equal in their games. Far more stuff to kill New Vegas than there are computers to hack, after all.

 

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.

 

While the concept of a cRPG without XP or levels is intriguing, I don't think this is the project to experiment with that on. And for too many people (I'd include myself in this group) if their character doesn't change in some noticeable (GAME noticeable, not just head canon) ways, it doesn't feel like their character is growing and the game feels less like an RPG.

 

---

 

Good thread. Hopefully it leads to more good discussions!

Edited September 26, 2012 by Merin

[FlintlockJazz]

Dragon Age Origins would have been 10 times better if it had less quests and more areas or at least it felt like the areas only opened up by attaining a quest.

 

It was a fun game, and although I'd agree it would have been improved with more areas to explore, in my view it would have been improved even more with a greater number of side quests. It certainly never felt like there were too many quests in the game. I love games with hundreds of quests, the more the better, even if they take place in some of the same areas.

 

Aye as I have seen others on these forums say I found the sheer number and quality of side quests in chapter 2 of Baldur's Gate 2 to be one of the best things about it that I spent as much time doing that than actual main plot (though I personally usually waited until you get back from the Underdark to do them to avoid Imoen who I always feel obligated to bring along doesn't fall to far behind). DAO's side quests, what there were of them, consisted of "While you're doing the main quest, could you pick up this item that you'll find yourself falling over anyway for me? Thanks!" You didn't get areas like Trademeet that were entirely side quest only and yet were still incredibly detailed and had amazing characters and events, though DAO did help me realise just what it was I liked about the Baldur's Gate games in that respect. The detailed side quests and their storylines as opposed to the main plot like I used to think .

[Lohi]

Actually when I first did D&D the rule was XP came when the adventure was over. There were rules based on how much treasure you looted and the like, but most GMs just gave a flat amount I think. It was very much about telling a story and having an adventure and cooperating, rather than trying to get a high score.

[Cthulhu0316]

XP for kills, quest completion, quest progression, crafting, building...etc...etc...etc... K.I.S.S. and an oldie but a goodie "Dont fix what ain't broke"

[Merin]

Actually when I first did D&D the rule was XP came when the adventure was over. There were rules based on how much treasure you looted and the like, but most GMs just gave a flat amount I think. It was very much about telling a story and having an adventure and cooperating, rather than trying to get a high score.

 

It was, sort of. Given at the end of a session or campaign even, and, yes, XP was for killing things and for gold. So you got triplely rewarded for killing something: one, you got XP for it - two, you got loot from it - three, you got more XP for the gold value of the loot it carried.

 

Clearly, focus was on killing things. And you really liked killing things that had loot.

 

But D&D was, at the time, morphing out of table top war gaming, so this makes absolute sense. It hadn't evolved yet into being more about storytelling yet. Not until later editions.

[teknoman2]

 

 

If you think Quest XP is a perfect system you are far from being right, it has plenty of flaws.

all systems have as many flaws as they have advantages. the thing is: what system will allow a player to role play without getting penalized for not playing in a particular way?

with the xp for killing system, even if you use a different approach to solve something, in the end you will still kill any unfriendly npc that you can for that extra xp and loot, unless you are a hardcore role player with self imposed limits on what you will do and how. a way to solve it would be to make the unkilled enemies useful later or make them disappear immediately after solving a quest in a non violent manner so you would have no way to power play by killing them.

in the goal based xp system you can still kill anything after you solved the quest in a different way, but you don't get any reward for it so its easier to role play without pushing yourself to deny a possible reward. in this case however it would take some effort to make it so that the quests you get wont contradict the way you play, or have alternative solutions that fit your style

[Gatt9]

If you think Quest XP is a perfect system you are far from being right, it has plenty of flaws.

all systems have as many flaws as they have advantages. the thing is: what system will allow a player to role play without getting penalized for not playing in a particular way?

with the xp for killing system, even if you use a different approach to solve something, in the end you will still kill any unfriendly npc that you can for that extra xp and loot, unless you are a hardcore role player with self imposed limits on what you will do and how. a way to solve it would be to make the unkilled enemies useful later or make them disappear immediately after solving a quest in a non violent manner so you would have no way to power play by killing them.

in the goal based xp system you can still kill anything after you solved the quest in a different way, but you don't get any reward for it so its easier to role play without pushing yourself to deny a possible reward. in this case however it would take some effort to make it so that the quests you get wont contradict the way you play, or have alternative solutions that fit your style

 

This is a "Root cause" issue. The root cause of your concern is that actions other than killing aren't viable because they don't yield a reward.

 

The solution is to make actions other than killing viable by yielding a reward.

 

For some strange reason, people keep bypassing this, and instead jump straight to "The solution to the problem is not reward experience for killing" instead of "The solution to the problem is to reward experience for more actions than just killing".

 

To be honest, and this isn't directed at the quoted poster, I seriously wonder if many advocates of the Quest-based system don't have ulterior motives. The solution to the issue is extremely obvious and simple, but instead many keep jumping right past it. There has to be some other motivation here, because there's no logical reason to ignore "Make things other than killing viable solutions" and jump straight to "Don't give anyone experience for killing".

 

I strongly suspect there's a number who are just hiding a hatred of people who min-max and want to prevent people from playing that way, even though it doesn't affect them.

 

Seriously, what is so wrong with "Reward experience for more actions than just killing"? What concern is it that this doesn't address? Because it really looks like that isn't what people are really concerned with, it really looks like what people want to do is to dictate how others play.

[Tuco Benedicto]

Has Obsidian stated that xp is quest only? It didn't work out well in either V:BL or ME2, imo.

Actually, it did.

And ME2 is supposed to be...? Mass Effect 2? Because it didn't use that system at all, so I'm not sure why you are bringing it to the table.

[Cantousent]

This is a "Root cause" issue. The root cause of your concern is that actions other than killing aren't viable because they don't yield a reward.

 

The solution is to make actions other than killing viable by yielding a reward.

 

For some strange reason, people keep bypassing this, and instead jump straight to "The solution to the problem is not reward experience for killing" instead of "The solution to the problem is to reward experience for more actions than just killing".

The question has been answered, so I don't want to fight over whether or not we will get combat xp. We will, and that's the way it is. ...But your assessment isn't really what a lot of us have been saying. The addition of non-combat incidental xp has been around for a long time precisely because of what you describe. I refered to it earlier as the 'me too' mentality. ...But it's the same thing. My problem isn't that combat xp leaves out non-combat solutions. My problem is that folks are rewarded for doing incidently for doing things they'd normally do in a game anyway. As a matter of fact, the addition of non-combat xp just made it easier to forget the R of RPG and do the job several times in order to maximize xp gain. It's the classic example I read somewhere around here of picking the lock of a door to which you had a key because you would get xp for doing it. How sad.

[Gromnir]

...

 

there is clearly some kinda disconnect at work here, yes? does anybody argue that ad hoc xp award schemes is more simple than quest-based xp? no, right? after all, there is no need to add up every little award. there is no need to balance awards so that one style of gameplay is not given the lion's share of awards. no need to worry 'bout players exploiting monster spawns or re-locking chests to get credit for re-opening, or any number o' other exploits. sure, every game that has had quest awards has seemingly had infinite xp exploits, but it ain't like ad hoc schemes won't have quest-based awards as well. ps:t had some memorable infinite xp bugs from quest awards such as the coffin maker and the private sensory stones. nevertheless, bug hunting is much more simple if you not have all the ad hoc awards to be checking, right?

 

am not certain why josh has been silent on this issue given that he has, in the past, been such a vocal advocate o' quest-based schemes. maybe we should just wait and let him chastise folks who continue with their unreasonable advocation o' a bassackwards approach to xp awards. after all, josh tends to be even less diplomatic than Gromnir... as hard as that is to believe.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Cantousent]

I really want non-quest exp. I want to be able to level up by walking around looking for enemies.

 

Quest-only exp would limit the number of levels (or whatever metric they're using to quantify development) available to characters and to party.

I have to admit I chuckled out loud when I read this. I'm not making fun of you, but you're making an excellent point for objective only xp.

 

I think it's interesting that a lot of folks immediately thought that Cain's update (Update seven I think) put combat xp off the table and Feargus asserted that it will. I will be charitable and assume that there's so much for Sawyer to do that he either doesn't know the issue is under debate or doesn't have time to weigh in on it.

 

There's no truly logical reason for incidental xp (I read your arguments and I simply don't think any of them make sense in the long run), but they want to kill stuff and get xp and it's too much of a golden cow to pry it out of the hands of die-hard fans.

[Cantousent]

^_^; *blushes* Well it's a definite concern, don't ya know? Don't limit me XD

Okay, Tilly, I promise I will never kill you just for the combat xp. Fair enough? :Cant's huge grin icon:

[mute688]

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the system that the devs have said will be used. From my understanding, you don't lose all XP for killing things, you merely get XP points for killing things that can only be used for leveling up skills and abilities that are useful for killing things. You also get XP points for sneaking, lockpicking, dialogue solutions, etc, that can only be used to level up non combat skills and attributes. Seems a rather fair system to me, it rewards the style the player prefers with added skilss and abilities in that style. If you don't want to do the stealth, etc., it won't detract from your blood soaked advancement through the game.

 

Maybe I'm wrong and need to go back and re-read the posts again?

[Merin]

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the system that the devs have said will be used. From my understanding, you don't lose all XP for killing things, you merely get XP points for killing things that can only be used for leveling up skills and abilities that are useful for killing things. You also get XP points for sneaking, lockpicking, dialogue solutions, etc, that can only be used to level up non combat skills and attributes. Seems a rather fair system to me, it rewards the style the player prefers with added skilss and abilities in that style. If you don't want to do the stealth, etc., it won't detract from your blood soaked advancement through the game.

 

Maybe I'm wrong and need to go back and re-read the posts again?

 

That's an interpretation I hadn't considered.

 

I don't think you're right, but I don't know that you're wrong.

 

Hmmm.

[mute688]

 

That's an interpretation I hadn't considered.

 

I don't think you're right, but I don't know that you're wrong.

 

Hmmm.

 

lol, I just had a flashback to the frustrating converstions with Dak'kon.

[teknoman2]

If you think Quest XP is a perfect system you are far from being right, it has plenty of flaws.

all systems have as many flaws as they have advantages. the thing is: what system will allow a player to role play without getting penalized for not playing in a particular way?

with the xp for killing system, even if you use a different approach to solve something, in the end you will still kill any unfriendly npc that you can for that extra xp and loot, unless you are a hardcore role player with self imposed limits on what you will do and how. a way to solve it would be to make the unkilled enemies useful later or make them disappear immediately after solving a quest in a non violent manner so you would have no way to power play by killing them.

in the goal based xp system you can still kill anything after you solved the quest in a different way, but you don't get any reward for it so its easier to role play without pushing yourself to deny a possible reward. in this case however it would take some effort to make it so that the quests you get wont contradict the way you play, or have alternative solutions that fit your style

 

This is a "Root cause" issue. The root cause of your concern is that actions other than killing aren't viable because they don't yield a reward.

 

The solution is to make actions other than killing viable by yielding a reward.

 

For some strange reason, people keep bypassing this, and instead jump straight to "The solution to the problem is not reward experience for killing" instead of "The solution to the problem is to reward experience for more actions than just killing".

 

To be honest, and this isn't directed at the quoted poster, I seriously wonder if many advocates of the Quest-based system don't have ulterior motives. The solution to the issue is extremely obvious and simple, but instead many keep jumping right past it. There has to be some other motivation here, because there's no logical reason to ignore "Make things other than killing viable solutions" and jump straight to "Don't give anyone experience for killing".

 

I strongly suspect there's a number who are just hiding a hatred of people who min-max and want to prevent people from playing that way, even though it doesn't affect them.

 

Seriously, what is so wrong with "Reward experience for more actions than just killing"? What concern is it that this doesn't address? Because it really looks like that isn't what people are really concerned with, it really looks like what people want to do is to dictate how others play.

you are missing the point. often not killing in BG2 yields more xp than killing, however after the peaceful solution, you can still kill them for the extra xp. the lack of such xp would demotivate players from killing people with whom they reached an agreement. you can still opt to kill them from the start or even later, but you get no additional reward for doing so besides possible loot.