Are you for or against gaining experience points only for completing objectives?

[Azarkon]

Take, for example, Dragon Age Origin's Deep Roads segment. That slug fest of an area is barely tolerable with exp gain, because you are at the minimum progressing your characters for each darkspawn you kill. Without exp gain, it is unbearable, because it becomes just a tedious chore that you have to do to get to the next objective of the game, which is several hours off.

In addition to what has already been said about no one suggesting to remove rewards for combat oriented tasks in general (where does this idea even come from?), I find it funny how you talk about not wanting to discuss degenerate cases and then go on and suggest a degenerate case of your own: hours long grindfest that adds nothing to the game. How is "something is good because it makes ****ty parts of the game marginally less ****ty" a good argument?

 

Fine, then a better example is wilderness exploration in Baldur's Gate - no objectives involved but your own curiosity and desire for adventure, with exp and loot from slain monsters / cleared dungeons being the only rewards for doing so. How do you script combat objectives into exploration without making it feel artificial and rail roaded?

 

Well, if you get experience for exploring or finding Interesting Locations, then there you go. Or there's a bounty on gnome-ears. Or there are people you meet in the wilderness that supply quests, items, interesting interaction, etc. Maybe there are trails you find that people with Survivalist skills can track and find dens of bandits.

 

There's many, many ways to make wilderness exploration interesting and useful as a game mechanic. The fact that you can't come up with them doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

I know they exist, because I'v played a variety of quest driven MMOs and the game mechanic for doing what you said is a specific concept there - quest hubs.

 

I don't, however, find quest hubs a solid game mechanic. They are:

 

Not intuitive: why is it that I'm only able to get a chunk of experience from doing what NPCs tell me to do? Why is fighting a dragon not experience granting in and of itself?

 

Intrusive: why are there camps of quest givers conveniently located next to every wilderness area and outside of every dungeon? What, they think an adventurer is just going to walk by and offer his / her help? Oh wait-

 

Constrictive: quest driven games rail road the player into having specific objectives that the game tells them they have, and fails to support objectives that the player himself / herself has. For example, one strategy for beating a game is to 'go off into the wilderness, kill lots of monsters for experience and loot, and then come out, a veteran of countless battles, to stop the villain.' In a quest driven game, this isn't allowed. Instead, the player is forced to do the NPCs' bidding to get better. Whether he cares about those quests is irrelevant. He HAS to do them to level up.

 

The last of these cases is quite degenerate in a roleplaying game. In a logical setting, a lot of the side quests a game has are of no personal concern to the player. What does my dwarvish fighter care about a couple of elves being robbed, for example? What does my drow mage care about what happens to human towns? Yet, because quests are the mechanism by which the game provides exp, I am forced to do them just to advance my character. This leads to the same sort of 'degenerate' meta-gaming that happens when players slaughter townsfolk for exp - ie doing quests to maximize exp gain instead of roleplaying a certain character.

Edited October 17, 2012 by Azarkon

[RTWAP]

I voted 'For', but I am hoping that there will be ad-hoc or dynamic accomplishments for certain classes of creatures (specifically bad guys or beasts). There are a lot of ways those less 'storyline' accomplishments could be supported within and 'objectives' system. I hope they find one they like. And we like.

[Mazhlekov]

Well, if you get experience for exploring or finding Interesting Locations, then there you go. Or there's a bounty on gnome-ears. Or there are people you meet in the wilderness that supply quests, items, interesting interaction, etc. Maybe there are trails you find that people with Survivalist skills can track and find dens of bandits.

 

There's many, many ways to make wilderness exploration interesting and useful as a game mechanic. The fact that you can't come up with them doesn't mean they don't exist.

I like it.

This will be possible only in cases when there is infinity generated map like in Arcanium...

[CrazyPea]

I like a mix: Some of the XP coming combat/diplomacy and some of it coming from objectives/quests completed. NWN2 had it right, for me.

[Gatt9]

Take, for example, Dragon Age Origin's Deep Roads segment. That slug fest of an area is barely tolerable with exp gain, because you are at the minimum progressing your characters for each darkspawn you kill. Without exp gain, it is unbearable, because it becomes just a tedious chore that you have to do to get to the next objective of the game, which is several hours off.

In addition to what has already been said about no one suggesting to remove rewards for combat oriented tasks in general (where does this idea even come from?), I find it funny how you talk about not wanting to discuss degenerate cases and then go on and suggest a degenerate case of your own: hours long grindfest that adds nothing to the game. How is "something is good because it makes ****ty parts of the game marginally less ****ty" a good argument?

 

Fine, then a better example is wilderness exploration in Baldur's Gate - no objectives involved but your own curiosity and desire for adventure, with exp and loot from slain monsters / cleared dungeons being the only rewards for doing so. How do you script combat objectives into exploration without making it feel artificial and rail roaded?

 

Well, if you get experience for exploring or finding Interesting Locations, then there you go. Or there's a bounty on gnome-ears. Or there are people you meet in the wilderness that supply quests, items, interesting interaction, etc. Maybe there are trails you find that people with Survivalist skills can track and find dens of bandits.

 

There's many, many ways to make wilderness exploration interesting and useful as a game mechanic. The fact that you can't come up with them doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

At that point, you've introduced extreme amounts of complexity in order to achieve what xp/kill already did, or introduced even more degenerate gameplay than xp/kill caused.

 

-Experience for exploring results in consulting gamefaqs to find the point you need to stand at to receive a xp and doing nothing more than that.

 

-Bounty on gnome ears (And the whole "Objective" based arguement rewarding killing) is introducing additional layers of NPC's, quest tracking, writing journal entries, and art just to finally end up with what xp/kill does.

 

-Survivalist skills not only ends up doing what xp/kill already did, but now you've introduced extreme levels of min-maxing as skill choices are now a question of "What skill will yield the most additional experience over time?".

 

There's no need to go through all of this just to achieve what xp/kill already does, with far less complexity. This whole thing is introducing hundreds of lines of extra code and objects simply to end up with what you can do with less than a dozen lines of code, all of it just because someone somewhere might exploit in their single player game or someone somewhere might grind in their single player game.

[rjwest0004]

I'm definitely in favor of Quest for XP. I liked the Witcher style where you did get some XP for killing monsters, but it was minuscule compared to the amount you got for questing. I like the XP for sub-quest objectives though. If the quest is to rescue a kidnapped victim, you should get the same amount of XP for sneaking in and picking the lock/pickpocketing the key, persuading the kidnappers to release the victim, or killing the kidnappers. Deus Ex: HR really turned me off because the game rewarded you for completing a level without killing anyone, and more rewards for going through undetected. That should be a choice, but not such a substantial reward without purpose. Of course, if the quest IS to steal something without being caught, then you should not get as much XP for being detected and having to fight your way out...

[HansKrSG]

I want xp for each challenge I overcome, even general killing, or I will quickly feel there is a lot less to be gained from winning a fight.

 

I do understand that Project Eternity isn't meant to be a carbon copy of the old IE games, but not one of those games removed xp per kill, and I can't say they suffered for it, why break a good formula?

Edited October 18, 2012 by HansKrSG

[Gizmo]

Getting Experience for killing an attacker makes all the sense in the world. XP is the effect of experiences (including life threatening ones). A person who has been attacked with lethal force will be different afterward (even if they survive without a scratch on them); for one thing their confidence goes waaay up.

 

IMO (as a rule of thumb) a game could halve the XP for killing anything not initially hostile to the PC. In some situations, the game could relax that rule.

 

Also: Consider a hunter, whose business is hunting; should they not get better at killing game for constant practice killing game?

Fighters won't get better for constant practice at fighting?

Edited October 18, 2012 by Gizmo

[Andredeavila]

I think the realistc aproach is the better one: Practicing makes you more experienced, completing tasks gives you rewards. Every time you fight you should be given experience, it would be the most realistic. Also, practicing anything should give XP: Diplomacy, stealth, puzzles, survival, etc...

Binding experience to quests only seems extremely artificial and very un-RPG-like. One of the characteristics in common with all IE games and most successful RPG games is the combat XP. Getting rid of that would be tampering with a mechanic that's working fine.

[Hassat Hunter]

You also say that the XP mechanic is bad. If you say that the XP mechanic is bad, then you pretty much say that all of the old good rpg's are bad since they all use it.

Nope, I just say Objective-based XP is better for a story-oriented RPG instead of an action-RPG. And hey, look what PE is!

Bloodlines and Deus Ex are a completely different category of games and are not that much comparable to BG, ID or Fallout. While their mechanic is also good, it doesn't belong to the IE games from 15ish years ago. The whole point Obsidian is trying to make is to stay true to the old good mechanics as much as possible, upgrade them, and add a new world, story, lore, graphics to the mix.

Yes, they do. And I find this a very good example of "upgrade them"... if I say so myself. It bodes well that they try to make a good game and not a grindgame just by this system itself!

however, it may limit how much exp a party can get throughout the game. If the exp limit from quests is low then there is no way to get an edge on the game by leveling up your party.

There is indeed a level cap, yes.

I don't see the point in limiting it and then imply a system which doesn't allow you to gain max level. I am going to assume you need around 50%-75% of content done to max out, hardly all thus.

How does that not give a good system where it's pretty freely to get XP for you to progress?

An exp cap is what I'm scared of most. A limit on how much exp a party can have will take away that edge.

Be afraid, there's a maximum level. You can't go to level 300. I am pretty sure they talked about around 12 or so?

how does that person level up if there are few quests in the area to gain exp from? And do you scale all new companions to your party's average level? Ha! If a certain character class is not good in early levels, why take a character in that class at early levels

I can ask the same for a combat XP system. Why would you take a weak char to combat if (s)he just gets killed. Wouldn't you prefer to take some non-combat quests using your (speech) skills and personal brain/wits to gain XP and level him/her up without fear of being wiped as well?

but I don't think you need to tie XP rewards solely to quests to do that. I don't see how having certain quests that reward nonviolence or encourage people not to go on killing sprees is exclusive to having XP tied to quests only.

See also; taking 22 pages and people still don't know what "quest based" or "objective based" really means...

And the worst part of it is...

 

boolean completedGuardQuest;

 

if( completedGuardQuest && guard.isKilled )

guard.xp = 0;

 

There. It's that easy to prevent someone from going back and killing the guards for xp after the quest is completed.

Yup, really easy. Except the code would be;

if( completedGuardQuest && !guard.isKilled )
guard.xp = 0;

or you set the XP to 0 after the kill (kinda pointless)

Oh, and if it's in a script that keeps loaded, it would create an infinite loop (resource heavy, potential crashes, bad!). If the guard is in another area and in a 'load area' script still need to make it a one-shot to save resources.

Yeah, so easy... imagine doing that for all NPC's. I mean, that PC's have large amounts of RAM doesn't mean it should be wasted on having a bunch of "if" conditions checked all the damn time.

[Hassat Hunter]

That's why this is purely "Play it my way!" and there's no rationale justification for it. Because if the issue really is that "People shouldn't be rewarded for going back and killing the guards", it's far less lines of code to address that use case than I have put in this entire post.

That's kind of a stupid reason to want objective-based XP for, I agree. Which is why it kinda not is the entire point for having objective based XP.

Did you miss the whole "allow all playstyles", "easier to balance for developers", "easier to balance sections if same enemies in different sections" etc. etc.?

I am not concerned about the 'degenerate' cases because I find them trivial. Provided the game is balanced for parties that did not go back and kill every quest giver / townsfolk they met in their travels, it is not an issue for me because it's not how I play RPGs.

Oh my, you SERIOUSLY think that's our only argument. Damn...

which keeps the games from becoming dull when faced with a long tract of combat, and which encourages the player to fully explore a wilderness / dungeon, effectively making the game longer than the set of objectives it contains. Take, for example, Dragon Age Origin's Deep Roads segment. That slug fest of an area is barely tolerable with exp gain, because you are at the minimum progressing your characters for each darkspawn you kill. Without exp gain, it is unbearable, because it becomes just a tedious chore that you have to do to get to the next objective of the game, which is several hours off.

Alternatively, objective-based XP allows you to CUT the entire combatdrag. Now you should tell me how that's a bad thing. Please.

I do agree about the end of Vampires though. It clearly showed they had a lack of time there, as Obsidian did with KOTOR2. And even with XP Malachor was a freakin' pain...

Yeah, getting rid of slog doesn't sound so bad to me.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Project Eternity is a monster grinder, but in a game where tactical combat is a primary mode of gameplay, it is vital to understand that 'exp gain for monster killing' is one of the things that makes RPG combat work.

And here I was thinking adding up more of the word or going to the next section was.

 

"You defeated this party, have access to Baldur's Gate.

 

GODDAMMIT. Baldur's Gate? Heaven of fun and quests and people to meet? WHY? Why not my precious combat XP. Why fun. I hate you, game."

 

Next you tell me the assassin before Beregost I did not defeat to enter the tavern and get on with the story but for XP and phat loot.

[Sensuki]

in the Red Wizard area of the Wood of Sharp Teeth in Baldur's Gate there's a non-hostile Druid that gives you a quest go go and recover a scroll from an Ettercap. The scroll is cursed and he says keep it, it will grant you infinite wisdom or something.

 

If you kill him after you've completed the quest, you only get 14 experience. I am not sure whether his XPvalue is 14 or whether because he's non-hostile the XP value is scaled down.

[Silvast]

I still think we should get XP from combat, but perhaps a less significant amount.

[Volourn]

"ope, I just say Objective-based XP is better for a story-oriented RPG instead of an action-RPG. And hey, look what PE is! "

 

It's an RPG that's going to have a lot of combat with a focus on story and characters - just like BG2. Also, PST was story fcoused yet also had LOTS of combat, and rewarded xp for it yet it didn't hurt the game at all.

 

In fact, out of all the complaints of the three IE series they mentioned - IWD, BG, and PST - none of them have been OMG You get xp for combat that's horrible!

 

As long as you get xp from various sources there is absolutely nothingw rong with getting xp for combat.

 

I think people who are opposed it are anti old skool rpging which PE is supposed to be about. They also bel;ieve others should play exactly liek them. That's bogus.

 

You should get an xp for every battle. It's perfectly logical. And, it's illogical to think you shouldn't.

[Pshaw]

Really whatever the choice the game will be designed around it so it will work. I'd say that I'm used to combat giving experience but that doesn't mean it has to be that way. In this game it's being done without combat experience so people who choose to stealth around encounters or talk their way out of encounters aren't losing out on XP from killing everything in site. In which case I'm all for it because I'd rather have alternative victory methods than have need to get XP for everything I crush underfoot.

 

My only concern with the system is that it will then have a set amount of experince to be gained which I'm not a huge fan of. I feel that you should be able to out level the content if you really want to grind out XP and I hope they provide a way to do that without combat XP.

 

However I do hope if they're addressing this to help out noncombative characters that they will do something to help the evil/selfish characters as well. I say this because most of the time people handing out quests are just asking you to go do something for them for little/no reward. I'm always tempted to do the 'piss off' dialogue options when playing my evil characters but know that doing so will just mean I miss out on the quest and the xp and reward that goes with it. So instead my evil characters agrees to help out some poor shlub with some silly errand even though they'd really rather just ignore them or stab them through the throat.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Pshaw

[Fimbul]

Hmmm intriguing idea: When did a rouge sneaking around a boss and stealing the objective ever get the same exp as a warrior simply slaying the boss?! Most people would slay the boss anyway - rouge or not - just for the XP.

But I like it better to use abilities like diplomacy (intelligence / wisdom), intimidation (strength / constitution) or reflexes (dexterity) to evade confrontation. Such ways should be available for almost any encounter in the game and XP and loot should be even higher in case of success!

Giving XP only for objectives might make the player run waypoints and make exploring less attractive.

[IgnatiusDrake]

I think that xp should be awarded for combat (a la random encounters) as well as for objective completion. For the objective completion, it's fine if both the combat and non-combat solutions give the same amount of xp, but only awarding xp for objective completion and a finite number of objectives results in a de facto level cap (which I disdain) based on maximum possible xp. Further, there are all kinds of skill levels in players and some folks might need to be able to grind a few levels in order to deal with a particularly troublesome boss fight, for example.

 

Finally, given that non-combat, dialogue solutions will almost always be faster (in terms of real time spent) ways to complete objectives, you're essentially making all combat in the game a punishment. You have to fight because you didn't get this skill, or chose the wrong dialogue option and you lose some of your actual, real life time without any in game benefit because of it. Combat shouldn't be a punishment, it should be fun, and the only way to ensure that it stays that way is to include rewards for combat (most notably xp).

Edited October 18, 2012 by IgnatiusDrake

[ComMcNeil]

I think that xp should be awarded for combat (a la random encounters) as well as for objective completion. For the objective completion, it's fine if both the combat and non-combat solutions give the same amount of xp, but only awarding xp for objective completion and a finite number of objectives results in a de facto level cap (which I disdain) based on maximum possible xp. Further, there are all kinds of skill levels in players and some folks might need to be able to grind a few levels in order to deal with a particularly troublesome boss fight, for example.

 

Finally, given that non-combat, dialogue solutions will almost always be faster (in terms of real time spent) ways to complete objectives, you're essentially making all combat in the game a punishment. You have to fight because you didn't get this skill, or chose the wrong dialogue option and you lose some of your actual, real life time without any in game benefit because of it. Combat shouldn't be a punishment, it should be fun, and the only way to ensure that it stays that way is to include rewards for combat (most notably xp).

 

but combat can have loot rewards, monetary rewards or generally different story development.

If you talk your way through a quest, the quest giver may react differently if you leave someone alive rather than killing him - or other stuff may be blocked out then

[TrashMan]

For the objective completion, it's fine if both the combat and non-combat solutions give the same amount of xp, but only awarding xp for objective completion and a finite number of objectives results in a de facto level cap (which I disdain) based on maximum possible xp.

 

I disdain the idea of no level cap.

[Verethan]

FOR: As long as all enemy encounters are properly integrated into this design.

[Bryy]

It really doesn't matter to me, since I trust them as game designers.

[Lionskull]

I like the idea of gaining XP for objectives and not random killings.

It doesn't mean you will never get anything from drawing your weapon, you just have to know when it's best to do so.

Vanquishing a master swordsman is the kind of feat that is bound to improve your status as an adventurer, not slaughtering wolves or squirrels or common bandits.

[teknoman2]

"ope, I just say Objective-based XP is better for a story-oriented RPG instead of an action-RPG. And hey, look what PE is! "

 

It's an RPG that's going to have a lot of combat with a focus on story and characters - just like BG2. Also, PST was story fcoused yet also had LOTS of combat, and rewarded xp for it yet it didn't hurt the game at all.

 

In fact, out of all the complaints of the three IE series they mentioned - IWD, BG, and PST - none of them have been OMG You get xp for combat that's horrible!

 

As long as you get xp from various sources there is absolutely nothingw rong with getting xp for combat.

 

I think people who are opposed it are anti old skool rpging which PE is supposed to be about. They also bel;ieve others should play exactly liek them. That's bogus.

 

You should get an xp for every battle. It's perfectly logical. And, it's illogical to think you shouldn't.

well except for torment, the other IE games were 90% combat based. except for very few cases in both BG games, no matter the dialog option you chose, the end result was a fight. in IWD it was always a fight since it was a dungeon crawler with barely any interaction with npcs

[ComMcNeil]

I think an objective based XP system allows for far more flexibility in encounter design that XP reward for killing things could. As already stated, every "overcome" encounter can yield XP, how you overcome it should not matter.

Deus Ex:HR had such problems, as that non-lethal was always yielding more experience as lethal combat, practically pushing the player in the direction of non-lethal combat, as it was more rewarding (and often not harder)

 

Personally I would like to see a game that does this correct, but I understand that the concept, especially for people that like the old IE games so much, may be strange and not applicable.

[Kide]

And I for one enjoyed combat in icewind dale games and baldur's gate games. There were a lot of options with spells and it was tactical with 6 party members... Even when I feel like it's good that someone who decides to sneak past enemies does not loose experience because of it, I would feel less happy with the tactical combat if there were no actual reward in battling enemies and gain experience... Olden role playing games had usually a lot of combat, but for me it never felt like a burden. (Well maybe in wizardry 8 when you could not even sleep before you got more enemies attacking...) But as said I enjoyed combat in icewind dale and baldur's gate, probably more than in any other role playing game before or since. So to me combat is a big part of these games, even if the story is the really important part that made them the games they are. Still I would want to enjoy combat in project eternity just the same, and I really don't know what's the point of fighting then if there is no other reward for it than some loot.

 

In some games excess amount of battles can become a burden for me, that was never the case with infinite engine games though. So I am not really sure I would want this kind of thing to be changed when there was nothing really wrong with the other system. And as said even if you can argue you would still gain the same amount of experience by objective based system, it does not feel the same. And with nostalgia effects the feeling you get is quite important. Plus as some said it would kind of feel a little restrictive to think that there is always the same amount of experience out there with the objectives, and it could be just like that with the old system too, but it just does not feel as restrictive as you can see your own progress all the time...

 

I don't know, anyways even if I argue a lot for the older system, I still trust that obsidian would try to put the objective based experience well into the game. So i trust they will what ever they do make an awesome game. One which I personally will enjoy a lot no matter what, but one where I might enjoy combat more with the old system than with the new system... But it's up to them what they want to do.

 

And hopefully were clear enough of what my opinion is about the matter, english still is not my mother language.