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

[John Lemon]

For.

See:

Deus Ex and sequel, Human Revolutions.

Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.

[MoobooMagoo]

I don't really care. I've seen games done both ways and both ways are fun.

 

As for combat experience, if it is in, it depends on how the game is structured. If you have just your group, like in Baldur's Gate, then I think the combat experience should be split so a smaller group levels faster. If it is more like Neverwinter Nights, where you have different party members that you can freely pick and choose from, then it should be spread.

 

Non combat experience should be spread no matter what, though.

[Hassat Hunter]

TOnce an option is established as the fastest option people tend to stick with it rather than take their time, it's just the way most of us work.

And how do you know what's the quickest option between A, B or C on the first run? Heck, while that one time going into a conversation was a good call, the other time I sneaked in a locked warehouse, tried to reason and ended up with reinforcements being called instead of less fighting.

In a good RPG (and I think OE can make it) it really is dependant on the situation what "the best/fastest" is. If you want to know that straight up one has to do plenty of re-loads... and that's hardly a fast game to pass through the game .

 

However this time around it doesn't matter what your character roleplays at, it's not going to affect the reward. The warehouse with extra thugs because you tried talking? Not more XP than straight fighting. Or sneaking passing all combat, which takes effort though.

 

So wheter the first or second or afterwards time, there is no penalty to roleplaying your character. If you want to go the "fastest" route using meta-knowledge after 5 runs, why prevent that? I don't see the point. As long as there is no "good" or "bad" option for your (first) game, and not a single path (combat) is always the most beneficial.

And as stated, stealth and talking can have it's downsides too. I wouldn't want conversations to become the new "one way to rule all" either.

 

Anyone object to that?

RPGs by nature are a mixture of events with varying reward rates, if a player doesn't feel rewarded for doing something chances are said played will try to avoid that option as much as possible.

Exactly. And this is exactly the solution to that. No option will be worthless, all are equal. You don't need to specifically use one to not miss out, or avoid one since it's 'lesser'... and if you want to vary ingame, feel free to do so. Although of course you will not become quite as good as a specialised build in that regard. Or use various teammates for the different functions. Look at all those options besides fighting. That's what RPG's supposed to be about. And that's what OE intends to give the game.

To make that option more viable devs will try to balance it out with other existing options. When a game provides a lot of option variety as PE probably will it is extremely hard to space out and balance all options, without making them feel forced or artificial.

Exactly what objective-based XP is good for. No more artifical "this intimidation is XP worthy, that one ain't" just to make the system work. No really hard number crunching to make specific options as good as combat, taking into account variable XP for power level etc.

It's one of the easiest way to add "balance". It doesn't matter how you do it, as long as you do it. Poison the beast, lure it in a trap, kill it straight off, toss it off a cliff. Devs wont need to make 5XP scales for all these options, 1 ring, ehm... XP reward to rule them all.

And for those asking then "why would you want to slay it in fair combat with all these options!" the answer would be 'because you want it'... It really *should* be that simple...

If objectives are the way Obsidian desides to go with, it's OK with me but I hope those objectives will be a sequence of small rewards rather than spaced out huge bursts of EXP gain.

Well, that goes without saying. Obviously. I seriously doubt they would give XP just for clearing an endless dungeon level for example, that would be stupid. Not that it completely excludes very big rewards for moving the main plot forward (think Deus Ex's plot forwarding bonusses).

The problem with gaining "quest only xp" verses "quest+killing xp" is that it is really reaaaaally hard to balance "quest only xp" with enough quests that are unique and engaging and not just a dozen iterations of "gather 20 coconuts".

"Quest-XP" is just a name. Objective-based is the *exact* same, although it confuses people less with actual quests apparently.

Basically, it's not just a reward for finishing quests. It's a reward for doing what needed doing, whatever way it was. Or could be for exploring even. So many options to utilise it, while still maintaining 'control' over the rewards given by developers, something monster based XP has way less.

 

Hopefully that answers your entire post. Has your evaluation of the system changed, either towards one or the other?

This is an action game

No, it's not.

there needs to be fighting

Which however does not mean this part *is* still true.

People will find a loophole.

Is stopping them do it spoiling their fun.

If the system is fun for you does it matter if they wrought the system (I would point out I don’t do what they do so I couldn’t care less if it is stopped).

Not really.

The major point (for me anyways) isn't so much to make an infallible system as to make a system where roleplaying is viable as an option. Where there is no negative consequence to not adhere to the strict code of mass-murder. That you don't need to "game" to get the most XP out of it, but can perfectly well stay in character and the game does account for it, proper and as it should.

Considering the myriad of non-combat skills and options, it makes the perfect candidate for objective-based experience, compared to, say, IceWind Dale which was much less story and much more killing everything, where combat-XP was the most obvious route to take. BG1 with it's many combat scenes too. Wheter BG2 or PS:T would benefit from the new system. I would say yes, however, it's too late now. However if PE is made with the system in mind... yes... I can see good times for roleplaying .

 

To make a long story short; If people want to 'game' the system to get the "best"/fastest route, more power to them. It would be interesting to see what kind of a party one would need for that though, switching playstyles on the spot all the time . Or maybe they even make special parties for it in the adventurer's hall. If someone really wants to do all that effort to save time (kinda counterproductive, but what the heck)... I want to see their Let's Play .

For.

See:

Deus Ex and sequel, Human Revolutions.

Hmmm, I hope you used HR as an example of how NOT to do it. Since it rewards more XP for sneaking up a person than killing them. Also it's major awards for sneaking and such completely voiding combat and tech playthroughs...?

Yeah, that's a good example for OE how they definitely should not implent PE's system...

[Wilhelm3891]

While i can see both sides of the argument, i'm personally leaning towards a "mixed" xp system. I think that a pure objective based xp system limits the joy of exploration.

The example i'm thinking is this: You get a quest to go to area "X" and clear a crypt of skeletons. An objective based system would work perfectly here. You go to the area, you enter the crypt, you kill the skeletons and earn the xp on completion.

But what about the rest of the area outside? If i decide to explore all the map and bump into random encounters, a bandit group or a group of orcs, what is the point of it if i dont get anything at all? They might not even drop any weapons or gold, so why did i have to go around and explore the map and do combat?

I think that xp should be rewarded on kills as well but it shouldn't make a big difference as in, the player that did only the crypt objective should not leave the area a level lower than the one that killed everything.

 

 

Edit: Unless they manage to add automatic objectives on all the encounters and situations in the game, which i think is pointless and too much meaningless work

Edited October 22, 2012 by Wilhelm3891

[Jojobobo]

I'm for it - it worked great in V:tM~B. It also gives the devs a tight control on what sort of power level the PC and his companions will be at certain points in the game (and as such they can slightly focus where they want you to go if they don't use scalable monsters - not in a restrictive way but maybe more in a way to stop you advancing the main story too rapidly, as per FO:NV). On top of this it can be used to make players return to locations (a quest is too difficult, or the quest giver will only hire you when you're more advanced) which helps prevent the whole "I've cleared this area of quests, now onto the next" style of playing which isn't very organic.

[Elerond]

While i can see both sides of the argument, i'm personally leaning towards a "mixed" xp system. I think that a pure objective based xp system limits the joy of exploration.

The example i'm thinking is this: You get a quest to go to area "X" and clear a crypt of skeletons. An objective based system would work perfectly here. You go to the area, you enter the crypt, you kill the skeletons and earn the xp on completion.

But what about the rest of the area outside? If i decide to explore all the map and bump into random encounters, a bandit group or a group of orcs, what is the point of it if i dont get anything at all? They might not even drop any weapons or gold, so why did i have to go around and explore the map and do combat?

I think that xp should be rewarded on kills as well but it shouldn't make a big difference as in, the player that did only the crypt objective should not leave the area a level lower than the one that killed everything.

 

 

Edit: Unless they manage to add automatic objectives on all the encounters and situations in the game, which i think is pointless and too much meaningless work

 

Maps in PE will not be generated randomly, so when level designer design an area, s/he will also fill it full of objectives. So if there is random encounter, it will be an objective and depending on designer you may have also some other way to solve it than fighting. Objectives can be anythign from small task to quest, they can have multiple solutions or be very straight forward, like kill that bandit group that ambushed you.

 

Adding objectives to everything in game is not such tasking thing as one could first tough as everything what you see and encounter in game is designed by some one. And actually it is much easier to design game with good xp gain balance when you using objective based xp system as it is much harder do create xp loops to grind or that mundae tasks, like defuse mine, will give player more xp than you planned to player get from your encouter as s/he will not get billion xp point for defusing every mine on your labyrintic like mine field, but only from that that s/he survives somehow to other side it.

[TrashMan]

Unable or unwilling to understand opinions very different from his own. Being narrow-minded is one thing, but this is totally ... (Checks post history... sigh)

 

Want me to to check your post history? HMmmm....not impressed.

 

But seriously. Don't get worked up.

The post wasn't aimed only at you, but at everyone posting in this thread.

It's getting irritating when one group talked about apples and hte other responds about oranges.

 

 

Hell, my main concern is that usually dialog is far easier and arguably faster way to progress a quest than fighting. My main point was that it is too hard to balance experience gain and rewards/events/goals/you-name-it should be small and well-paced.

 

It often is.

But I don't see a problem, as you loose out on all the loot.

There's always trade-off and time is only one varialbe in a large equation.

 

If I don't want to talk, I won't - regardless how faster it is.

[TrashMan]

While i can see both sides of the argument, i'm personally leaning towards a "mixed" xp system. I think that a pure objective based xp system limits the joy of exploration.

The example i'm thinking is this: You get a quest to go to area "X" and clear a crypt of skeletons. An objective based system would work perfectly here. You go to the area, you enter the crypt, you kill the skeletons and earn the xp on completion.

But what about the rest of the area outside? If i decide to explore all the map and bump into random encounters, a bandit group or a group of orcs, what is the point of it if i dont get anything at all? They might not even drop any weapons or gold, so why did i have to go around and explore the map and do combat?

I think that xp should be rewarded on kills as well but it shouldn't make a big difference as in, the player that did only the crypt objective should not leave the area a level lower than the one that killed everything.

 

 

Edit: Unless they manage to add automatic objectives on all the encounters and situations in the game, which i think is pointless and too much meaningless work

 

That's exactly how it works actually.

 

If you run into a random group of monsters, your immediate objective is to survive the encounter. How you do it is irrelevant.

 

What's pointless about that?

[Sensuki]

Encounter based works the best for me.

 

Objective-based XP still has the problem of making side-encounters in quests almost pointless unless they're given an objective themselves or special loot.

[Wilhelm3891]

While i can see both sides of the argument, i'm personally leaning towards a "mixed" xp system. I think that a pure objective based xp system limits the joy of exploration.

The example i'm thinking is this: You get a quest to go to area "X" and clear a crypt of skeletons. An objective based system would work perfectly here. You go to the area, you enter the crypt, you kill the skeletons and earn the xp on completion.

But what about the rest of the area outside? If i decide to explore all the map and bump into random encounters, a bandit group or a group of orcs, what is the point of it if i dont get anything at all? They might not even drop any weapons or gold, so why did i have to go around and explore the map and do combat?

I think that xp should be rewarded on kills as well but it shouldn't make a big difference as in, the player that did only the crypt objective should not leave the area a level lower than the one that killed everything.

 

 

Edit: Unless they manage to add automatic objectives on all the encounters and situations in the game, which i think is pointless and too much meaningless work

 

That's exactly how it works actually.

 

If you run into a random group of monsters, your immediate objective is to survive the encounter. How you do it is irrelevant.

 

What's pointless about that?

 

A random encounter is not meant to be a quest or an objective that you have in your journal. So if you kill for example two bandits that you run upon, then you get nothing theoreticaly. Unless you get an "invisible" objective that gives you xp when you kill them.

Again i'm not saying it cant be done and i'm not against it by any means. Just saying my thoughts.

[Sensuki]

P:E isn't meant to be about killing Perhaps you can make them flee too!

[Wilhelm3891]

Encounter based works the best for me.

 

Objective-based XP still has the problem of making side-encounters in quests almost pointless unless they're given an objective themselves or special loot.

 

I believe that if you're in a quest, any side encounter in that same area will be quite easy to include in the objectives. I wouldn't worry about that.

[Sensuki]

Yes but, in order to avoid too many sub-objectives this may restrict the level design.

 

Previous Infinity Engine games didn't suffer from this problem. Whereas if this design choice is chosen in Project Eternity they may streamline the design of levels. I prefer it to be a bit more chaotic because it feels less staged.

[Elerond]

If you design an encounter to an area you also must design how much experience points one can get from that encouter. So if designer want to be lazy and create only combat based objectives s/he can. And in that case you get xp similar to IE games. And there is no need for journal entrys for every object as there can be hidden objectives from where you get xp when you have fullfilled it.

 

So objective based xp can be very similar with xp from kills and tasks, but it gives designer more freedom when s/he design areas and how much, often and where player will get xp and it make it easier to avoid double/triple xp from same thing bugs.

[Few]

It would be nice if they made xp gains only for objective completion, as that way certain non lethal skills may actually be viable. The particular instance of this that I'm thinking of are the skills in arcanum such as "charm beast". You could make it through the crash site without killing any nice little wolves but you get no xp at all and lose out on about 2-3 levels right from the word go. So in terms of playing a character who isn't a killing machine and would rather not hurt things you wouldn't be penalised for not going on killing sprees and could gain xp just as effectively as a more violent approach.

 

As I'm sure (fingers crossed) they are going to add skills with a slant towards a non violent approach, you could then theoretically (hopefully) go through the game with absolute minimum amount of killing and still level effectively and not nerf yourself by taking the pacifist approach.

[agrael]

Absolutely for. Personally I don't fear at all the problem someone mentioned, about not being rewarded for exploring and killing random enemies in the meantime. I like to explore every corner of the map because I always hope I can find some cool item, quest or new place, not to gain experience ( actually in some easy games of these times I'm worried exploring and killing too many enemies could give me too much exp and make me too powerful so I try to avoid fights ).

[Wighnut]

I'm sure that Obsidian has some good ideas in that regard. They already said they wanted to make leveling slower but more rewarding.

[Hassat Hunter]

The example i'm thinking is this: You get a quest to go to area "X" and clear a crypt of skeletons. An objective based system would work perfectly here. You go to the area, you enter the crypt, you kill the skeletons and earn the xp on completion.

But what about the rest of the area outside? If i decide to explore all the map and bump into random encounters, a bandit group or a group of orcs, what is the point of it if i dont get anything at all? They might not even drop any weapons or gold, so why did i have to go around and explore the map and do combat?

If you make a giant map with only 1 single objective, you're a pretty bad designer. I personally think Obsidian has no such crew, so we shouldn't expect to see that.

But yes, you wont get rewarded for every single wolf/spider/rat/bandit etc. you kill on the way.

Are you going not to kill them because they give no XP? Probably not since you still want to pass them most likely. Are they surving no purpose? Well, they are blocking your way. Are you now no longer having fun exploring? Why so, there is still more map you haven't found. Maybe there there is something else than minor orc guards.

Heck, they could even give a little bonus for 100% map exploration. Though that's artificial rewarding I rather not want. But it could work...

As I'm sure (fingers crossed) they are going to add skills with a slant towards a non violent approach, you could then theoretically (hopefully) go through the game with absolute minimum amount of killing and still level effectively and not nerf yourself by taking the pacifist approach.

That's the plan.

Hopefully not completely crossing the line and making non-violent the only solution like Human Revolution though...

[Gromnir]

am kinda sad that josh hasn't responded direct-- he has in the past. in point o' fact, josh has had some scathing replies to folks arguing for action based xp awards (e.g. killing an orc or unlocking a chest) as opposed to quest-based xp awards. maybe he is getting more diplomatic as he ages. regardless, after 20+ pages o' debate we has yet to see an alternative to quest xp that is 1) as simple/straightforward to implement and 2) provides equally balanced xp rewards regardless of gameplay style. some o' you not care 'bout balance, but obsidian has made it clear in the quoted material included at the start of this thread that that they does care.

 

so, come up with a more elegant xp model that results in equal balance.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Droogle]

It would be nice if they made xp gains only for objective completion, as that way certain non lethal skills may actually be viable. The particular instance of this that I'm thinking of are the skills in arcanum such as "charm beast". You could make it through the crash site without killing any nice little wolves but you get no xp at all and lose out on about 2-3 levels right from the word go. So in terms of playing a character who isn't a killing machine and would rather not hurt things you wouldn't be penalised for not going on killing sprees and could gain xp just as effectively as a more violent approach.

 

As I'm sure (fingers crossed) they are going to add skills with a slant towards a non violent approach, you could then theoretically (hopefully) go through the game with absolute minimum amount of killing and still level effectively and not nerf yourself by taking the pacifist approach.

This game is running a class based system, not a skill based system. sounds a lot more like BG/IWD and we all know how well playing a pacifist would go in those games. just sayin

[Arhiippa]

I voted FOR. While I see a point in rewarding player for challenging fights, I don't see why the player should be encouraged to become an extinction machine and killing everything that moves within the vicinity of civilization. There are much better and subtler ways to reward and encourage exploration. I wouldn't mind a system that tracks character's actions and gives slight bonuses to abilities that the characters have used a lot, though. Not huge ones, but just enough to give the feeling, that they have honed their skills by using them consistently.

[Hassat Hunter]

am kinda sad that josh hasn't responded direct-- he has in the past. in point o' fact, josh has had some scathing replies to folks arguing for action based xp awards (e.g. killing an orc or unlocking a chest) as opposed to quest-based xp awards.

That would be great to see. Maybe we may still get that. Many interviews also remain till April 2014 no doubt.

I'm sure he can tell it better than all of us...

[Sensuki]

He does have a formspring account you know

 

That's where we have got some good answers to some of the issues (like the spell-casting system), it was the formspring answer that cleared everything up.

Edited October 23, 2012 by Sensuki

[SeekDWay]

If you run into a random group of monsters, your immediate objective is to survive the encounter. How you do it is irrelevant.

 

What's pointless about that?

 

Exactly my thoughts on the matter, I meant the same earlier but I guess I'm too wordy to be understood most of the time. It's the best possible solution, but I'm a bit sceptical they will be able to handle it well enough. Still I see no better option and it isn't pointless in any way.

[_Kangaxx_]

For.

 

Also this dont stop you from killing everyone once you have completed the quest. You can still talk your way past the encounter and then kill that person and his friends and then kill the quest giver. The only difference is that you wont be rewarded with x2-3 the experience.

 

That's the point for me. I always hated to kill the friendly quest-giver that rewarded me so well with some nice gold and loot for completing his/her task just to get some extra xp. But I did in most cases, because I wanted those extra xp. I feels a little like to be forced to do something you don't want, to optimize your character (and character-optimization is one of the biggest parts in an rpg imho).

Edited October 26, 2012 by _Kangaxx_