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

[wanderon]

Killing for items is still an incentive though xp's taken away.

 

An idea for discussion - what's to discourage the player from killing for (high level?) items though a non-combat resolution's been achieved and its rewards been paid out?

 

Why their conscience of course!

[Gatt9]

SERIOUSLY?

Dude, I've posted COUNTLESS posts on this topic with full disclosure on why it should be the case. If you don't read them, don't blame us on not giving all the reasons right up there up front for all to see and judge...

 

No you haven't. Because all I'm seeing in your posts is "If we give Xp/kill then everyone's going to play it wrong" undertones. The rest of your post is pretty much strawmanning, you didn't address any of the points I was making, and pretty consistently tried twisting my comments into something completely different.

 

Strange, so you fight without having fun just to get xp. Lets define "farming": Doing repetitive boring tasks to get something. Lets define "meta-gaming": Doing things you normally wouldn't do to get rewards outside of the game world(*). So it seems to me you want Obsidian to design its RPG for meta-game farming.

 

I played all the infinity games and other RPGs and I had fun with the fights. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Trivial fights are boring everywhere, I played some in PnP as well. Hard fights are fun. Or tactical fights like ToEEs or the mage duels in BG2 or Torment where you had to peel of the protections spells were fun. If they were not I would have stopped playing or played on easy or god-mode.

Naturally fighting is only one part of an RPG so there is a limit to how tactical you can make it without the player spending 95% of his time in fights. So fighting is a compromise. But fighting for xp is not the solution, really

 

(*) I say xp is outside the game world because you get your advancement/level-up in any case if you play the game (which entails solving quests), just the exact moment you get some of the xp is different. So if you absolutely need an xp reward directly after the fight to do the fighting then your motivation is solely for the xp and not for the later level-up.

 

Then you've misunderstood what I've said.

 

What I've said is: If we're going to address the issue of multiple solutions to a problem, then the correct solution is to reward the different approaches. Not create some lump sum experience reward that doesn't reflect what you've done.

 

Further, you're twisting what I've stated. NOWHERE in this thread have I advocated farming. Go read back through my posts and you will not find a single instance of me advocating farming.

 

I'm a little fuzzy on how you made the leap from "Rewards should be made on the basis of the solution used" to "I want farming!".

 

"Stripping protections" in BG2 consisted of "Cast Breach, Cast Warding Whip". It's not like there was some complicated and engaging method of handling protections, you cast those two spells over and over.

 

Objective based xp, which is exactly what was used in Mass Effect 2 isn't the solution. Might as well completly eliminate levels and experience entirely and just give a skill point at the end of each mission, as that is what happens. Go play it and tell me that's at all a good solution.

 

Motivations to not use the direct route (which often is killing everyone):

* Curiosity. Hey, what happens if I do the other thing?

* Role play: My priest wouldn't do that

* Fun: Hehe, I got a great idea that will make that sorceror look like an idiot

 

By the way, nothing prevents Obsidian to grant more XP for exceptionally difficult solutions. This would still be an objective-based xp system.

 

-What motivation do I have to be curious when there's no reason to be curious? Why would I bother doing anything other than going straight to the objective if I know that there's no point in exploring?

-Very, very, very few people "Role play" beyond what the system immediately requires of them. The majority self-insert. They're certainly not going to implement arbitarary "Play rules". This can easily be demonstrated by looking at the historical popularity of Roleplaying servers in MMORPGs.

-I'm not at all sure where you're going with that last one.

 

As far as Obsidian giving more Xp for difficult solutions goes, you just implemented experience by solution (Which I've been advocating), except now you've increased memory usage and code complexity by a wide margin. Giving the reward at the time of the solution to each "Encounter/Event" is trivial. Your solution now requires every quest to have a series of flags to track how the player solved each "Encounter/Event" and must be updated at the time of the solution.

 

Further, it creates a significantly greater window for defects since you now have to make sure n flags update properly for m solutions for all x quests, and the reward properly reads those flags and grants the correct reward.

 

My solution can be verified in Unit Tests, yours requires intensive manual testing.

 

Wait, he isn't better if killing the 100 critters didn't push him over the level-boundary. Or do you think the PC sees a holy number before his eye that changed from 11583 to 11593 after he killed one critter? No, he seems to kill 100 critters and doesn't get better at all. Then he kills critter number 134 and WHAM, suddenly a level-up and he really is better. "What was so special about critter number 134?" he asks himself. He also wonders why his alchemy skil did improve as well, without him doing anything else but killing critters. What does that do to your suspension of disbelief?

 

If you want a system were doing something improves that skill a small bit and only that skill, get a Bethesda game. Not that skill-use leveling is more fun to play (it isn't IMO) but it definitely is more realistic.

 

Nice try at twisting my arguement. I'm pretty sure if you go back through my posts you will not find the statement "Use-based xp is the best solution!". You will find me stating over and over, that all solutions should generate rewards.

 

You all are the ones complaining because "I don't get viable reward if I don't enter combat", the solution is to give viable rewards for non-combat solutions. So if you don't like systems which reward you based on your solution, then your problem cannot be that you're not rewarded for non-combat solutions.

 

Hence, my comment earlier about people not being honest about their issue. Which I strongly suspect most people in this thread are far more concerned with someone powergaming than they are with actually implementing a system that rewards you based on how you solved the problem.

 

Because the only reason to argue for Objective based Xp instead of Solution based Xp is to try and prevent people from "Playing it wrong".

 

How do you reward stealth? By giving 10 xp for every second you are in stealth or not seen by anyone? Oh wait, that is skill-use leveling like in Bethesdas RPGs (although I doubt they give xp for being just stealthed). No thank you. Everyone would just get stealthy, leave the computer for an hour and have a fully developed master thief.

Got any better idea how to reward the stealth solution? If you don't have a *really* easy implementation idea let me give you one:

 

Just use objective-based XP. It is really easy and solves the problem ;-)

 

Sure. Base class monster has a series of floats for each type of solution (combat, stealth, diplomacy) and a boolean hasRewardedXP. Inherited monsters initialize the values, and specialized or situational modifiers are added later by reading in modifiers added to the map.

 

You sneak past the critter, it does xp * modifer and rewards you, sets the hasRewardedXP flag to true, which means it won't reward any further xp preventing you from going back and killing it.

 

Done.

 

Now you have a system that dynamically rewards the player based upon his solution at the time of the solution, and can even account for the relative difficulty of the solution, with the only expense being a couple of megabytes of disk space by the end of the game, and is easily tested in the unit tests making it trivial to QA.

 

So honestly, I'm a little fuzzy on how Objective based Xp is any kind of optimal solution when all it does is implement Mass Effect 2's "Have a skill point at the end of every mission!". People keep claiming the problem is "Non-combat solutions aren't viable", but what I keep reading is something completely different that sounds alot more like a User issue. Sounds like people's actual complaint is that someone might powergame or metagame and that's "Playing wrong".

 

Because the only reason to argue for Objective based xp over Solution based xp is to try and manage how others are playing that game. That's the *only* thing objective based xp does that all other solutions do not do.

 

Which IMO is a really terrible reason for implementing a system.

Edited November 4, 2012 by Gatt9

[PieSnatcher]

 

Then you've misunderstood what I've said.

 

What I've said is: If we're going to address the issue of multiple solutions to a problem, then the correct solution is to reward the different approaches. Not create some lump sum experience reward that doesn't reflect what you've done.

 

Further, you're twisting what I've stated. NOWHERE in this thread have I advocated farming. Go read back through my posts and you will not find a single instance of me advocating farming.

 

I'm a little fuzzy on how you made the leap from "Rewards should be made on the basis of the solution used" to "I want farming!".

 

I like the argument that you are presenting, but try harder to understand their counter-argument. Nobody would logically advocate xp farming on these forums (well, probably not). I think jethro added the bit about you not having fun while fighting for xp, but when they bring up xp farming I think it didn't really have anything to do with your personal thoughts on xp farming (not that I'm in any position to speak for them or that i have any more knowledge/authority than you- I probably have less to be honest). They weren't saying that you advocate farming- rather, the system where experience is rewarded for killing monsters will pretty much always lead to people feeling compelled to xp farm. You're argument was over-simplified when it was attacked, but now you are doing the same thing. They aren't making a radical jump from a logical game-play mechanic to a fabricated foible in its design; they (I think) are pointing out a well-known aspect of a system that, while functional, isn't perfect. This isn't fun for (perhaps) most people, but I'm sure there are some that enjoy doing it to the point of grinding to be as powerful as the game will let them (I guess for them it IS perfect). Which may have been your point here:

 

 

Because the only reason to argue for Objective based xp over Solution based xp is to try and manage how others are playing that game. That's the *only* thing objective based xp does that all other solutions do not do.

 

Which IMO is a really terrible reason for implementing a system.

 

Since I generally love as much freedom as possible without complicating or compromising excellent game design, I too think that this is a terrible reason to implement a system. But that simply isn't the case here. Just like you aren't advocating xp farming, do you really think jethro/hhunter/etc are really out to limit how other people play this game? I don't think so. PE needs a consistent design. If we are expected to kill hordes of monsters or be able to (for character progression), the game will be designed with that in mind. This very much impacts how each of us experiences the game. If we only get xp for objectives, we kind of have a guarentee that we wont be expected to go out into the wilderness for a couple hours to farm so that we can continue a quest (though we'd be in a pickle if we NEEDED to get more xp and ran out of quests...). I hope this makes sense- I'm often long-winded and inarticulate when I try to explain my thoughts.

 

I think PE is a golden opportunity, with a new IP, to improve on the mechanics we were given in the IE games. The devs are free to stray as far as they want from DnD rules and the mechanics we've seen before. I hope they don't stray far- but I'd like to see them change things up to address the weakness that may have existed before. Honestly, I'd be happy with another BG-like game, but I'd be happier with something that has evolved a bit.

[Ralewyn]

Seems like quite the controversial topic here.

 

We all have seen this sort of progression system perform quite admirably in a very specific subgenre of RPG--the FPS hybrid. This includes the System Shock series, Deus Ex, and of course Bloodlines--a personal favorite. However, this does not necessarily mean objective-based character progression will go off without a hitch. To my knowledge, Project Eternity is going to have its basis in D&D 3.x rules, which features level progression, while all the games mentioned above featured point-buy progression systems. The other more obvious difference is Project Eternity is most certainly not an FPS hybrid, and I can't think of any RPGs more along the lines of Infinity Engine games that featured point-buy systems or objective-based progression, so it's unproven.

 

However, I have confidence in Obsidian's design team and their ability make objective-based progression work should they choose to go that route, and I most certainly did experience gameplay degeneration in KOTOR and KOTOR II, so I can understand the argument in favor of it. I can't think of a title from Obsidian, Troika or Black Isle that didn't have some sort of variance in progression reward based on how you solved a given problem, so I doubt we should have any fears of just getting a flat lump sum from completing a quest with multiple solutions.

 

I can understand the concerns about players not getting experience rewards for simply playing the game without following the plot--nothing from exploring or just hunting or the like, and to that end I'd like to make a suggestion that adds a layer of abstraction that's already been somewhat proven:

New Vegas had a challenge system that kept track of a large variety of variables--most of them killin' related, that you barely ever noticed was there. With every lock picked, computer hacked, robot blown up, etc. a little counter in the corner went up. When that counter hit a certain threshold, you'd complete the challenge and gain a nice tasty experience boost that I remember being quite satisfying. Not a lot compared to what you'd get for completing objectives, mind you, but that was because all of these actions also got you immediate bits of experience.

I would suggest that this system could be expanded and used in conjunction with the objective-based experience rewards. This gives players regular rewards for doing what they would normally do in the game; such as stabbing rats, but removes the immediate skinner box compulsion to conduct a full-scale rat genocide across an entire dungeon floor before proceeding. If the player still wants to do that, hey, that's their business and the system will keep tally towards their next rat-killin'-experience bonus. However, if the player doesn't despise rats enough to systematically murder every single one room by room, floor by floor, they don't end up feeling like they aren't completing the dungeon 100% for avoiding the rats because each individual rat doesn't give that little bit of experience points up front.

Note that this doesn't necessarily alter the rate of experience points gained very much at all, this is more a matter of player psychology--removing the compulsion that causes degenerative gameplay to occur by adding an extra layer of abstraction between killing stuff (or doing any other more mundane adventuring thing, for that matter, such as lockpicking, sneaking, speaking, exploring, etc.) and actual character progression.

 

Mind you, this is all just theory based on observation. It would of course require time and resources to be proven or dis-proven through prototyping, but I would think a paper prototype of this system could be drawn up and implemented in a matter of hours for a given session of D&D. This method would require more player book-keeping, granted, but this is a system to be used for a digital game rather than a paper game as paper prototypes often are, so we could safely ignore that factor for the purposes of playtesting.

[curryinahurry]

Killing for items is still an incentive though xp's taken away.

 

An idea for discussion - what's to discourage the player from killing for (high level?) items though a non-combat resolution's been achieved and its rewards been paid out?

 

There will be a faction system in this game. If you kill an NPC to loot their bodies, that would put you in the doghouse with that particular faction regardless of whether you completed a quest some other way. This in turn would prevent you from obtaining future quests from that faction.

 

Of course, this would be dependent on the situation and if you do something like first blackmail the npc and then go back and kill them, it might not matter so much as both lead to negative reputation. The penalty could still arise not not getting any continuation of a quest line that might have existed if you went with a strictly non-lethal solution.

[Hassat Hunter]

An idea for discussion - what's to discourage the player from killing for (high level?) items though a non-combat resolution's been achieved and its rewards been paid out?

Nothing. Why should there be?

There is no discouragment. That's not the point. However there is no ENcourangement. And that... is the whole point.

No you haven't. Because all I'm seeing in your posts is "If we give Xp/kill then everyone's going to play it wrong" undertones. The rest of your post is pretty much strawmanning, you didn't address any of the points I was making, and pretty consistently tried twisting my comments into something completely different.

Yes, I have.

You probably have me confused with antoher user or users, cause I am pretty sure I never used the "Oh my, players will play wrong with xp per kill". It's all about allowing various builds to be viable (good for players) and to properly define player progression and advancement for balancing (good for developers).

What I've said is: If we're going to address the issue of multiple solutions to a problem, then the correct solution is to reward the different approaches.

Which is exactly what objective based experience does. You get rewarded, however you do it. Not just for fighting your way out, like so often the case in the old IE-games.

-What motivation do I have to be curious when there's no reason to be curious? Why would I bother doing anything other than going straight to the objective if I know that there's no point in exploring?

That's a pretty bad motivation to go into a game. Why be curious? Well, to satisfy your curiosity of course! For many players exploring is their own reward (an apparent fondness of BG1 travel explained in some threads also reinforces that). Then there are quests, items, locations etc. all only found through that. If you only explore for XP instead of that, well, our interests couldn't be further away.

Nice try at twisting my arguement. I'm pretty sure if you go back through my posts you will not find the statement "Use-based xp is the best solution!". You will find me stating over and over, that all solutions should generate rewards.

Which is entirely our point... :confused:

And we're not twisting your argument, you pretty much said "I don't want to level up mysteriously when completing a quest, I want it to be done by killing thousands of critters"... which is indeed advocating farming and other stuff you are 'surprised' we 'accused' you off.

So if you don't like systems which reward you based on your solution, then your problem cannot be that you're not rewarded for non-combat solutions.

We actually advocate a system which rewards you on your solution, instead of punishing you. It's called objective-based XP.

It's kind of curious you think we don't want what we are trying to advocate... I am befuzzled atleast.

Because the only reason to argue for Objective based Xp instead of Solution based Xp is to try and prevent people from "Playing it wrong".

How about (as I stated many times) "allow all playstyles to be viable and rewarded," not just combat. Hence, the goal is that there is no 'wrong' way to play the game. All ways are good.

I suppose in some way that could be seen as prevent people from "playing it wrong"... though I hardly see how it can be seen as enforcing our own playstyle upon others.

You sneak past the critter, it does xp * modifer and rewards you, sets the hasRewardedXP flag to true, which means it won't reward any further xp preventing you from going back and killing it.

You do realise it's impossible to check if you "sneaked" past an enemy. It's just simply not doable. Hence stealth games giving experience and rewards for ghosting sections or levels, not per individual enemy.

It's even more impossible for a PE-style RPG system. Hence using the same system stealth systems use, rewarding reaching a point (ie. objective-based XP) would be better, since it's actually viable, and checks easily something that should be done, reaching a point.

However in PE there wont be a major "ghost bonus" but just a general XP gain when you get there. Wheter it be by stealth, force, diplomacy, creating a distraction, risk all running to the point, getting harmed in the progress, sacrifice knights to buy your time or any other method.

but what I keep reading is something completely different that sounds alot more like a User issue.

Reading that does sound like a User issue... :D

(sorry, had to be done)

[Hassat Hunter]

Because the only reason to argue for Objective based xp over Solution based xp is to try and manage how others are playing that game. That's the *only* thing objective based xp does that all other solutions do not do.

Well, there is also the distinction that "solutions" aren't really there for things like exploring and finding a location. That's kinda an objective, not a solution to any problem.

All in all it does look here like you're trying to sell us our own system, just named less suited to the task at hand (rewarding for reaching objectives), since it doesn't only compass rewarding for problems or quests.

Which IMO is a really terrible reason for implementing a system.

Indeed, implenting a system just to force people to play different would be bad. Which is exactly why there is this system proposed that doesn't do that but instead rewards everyone for just doing stuff their way.

 

Of course all this is moot since you think this is true... which explains the root of the issue;

Objective based xp, which is exactly what was used in Mass Effect 2 isn't the solution.

No, it isn't. Really. I wouldn't advocate a ME2 system anywhere...

[Sacred_Path]

No XP for combat would take all the point out of a good tatical combat system, as you'd mostly avoid combat (except for items/ gold). Of course you could make grinding required to raise your skills (Wizardry) or even for level ups by skill training (TES), but then you might just as well give XP.

[Borna]

Boy, a lot has been said here and you will excuse me if I didn´t read all the 27 pages of discussion!

 

First of all, I voted "against", but mostly beacuse I see no reason to change the reward mechanics from games such as BG, ID, PT, Fallout 1&2, etc. I think they worked perfectly fine, and they´ve been implemented in what many people, including myself, consider to be some of the best games ever made. The possibility to gain experience for every kill never made me play a murdering psychopath, and I´ve never felt like I´m missing on something or that my character is somehow less powerfull just beacuse I didn´t murder that quiet village of fishermen, even though I predominantly play with combat based characters.

 

I noticed that a lot of you people are worried that excessive metagaming would occur. I say; so what? Again, did any of you think any less of Baldurs Gate 2 just beacuse you had the possibility to kill of an entire city to get that extra exp? Besides, some metagaming will occur with all but the most casual of players, and honestly, imo that is a part of makes RPGs so enjoyable.

 

Now, having said that, I hope nobody here seriously thinks that this reward system is the only way to go. These are Planescape Torment and Baldurs Gate devs were talking about here people! If anyone in the industry today is capable of creating a new fun and rewarding RPG system, that will make you want to play this game over and over and OVER again, it´s these guys. The last thing that should happen here is to let the devs feel forced to implement a system they dont want, just beacuse of popular demand. The simple truth is that we have no idea what exactly kind of a system they are capable of coming up with. But then again, it would be foolish from the devs to ignore this forum, simply beacuse I think a lot of great ides have been tossed around here, and I hope they will take into consideration what is being said here (and I think they are already doing that).

 

I see no problem in giving no exp for a goblin, but a considerable amount of exp for an ancient demon trapped in some distant corner of the map. I think the main issue here is how to reward players who take their time and explore every inch of the game world. Will only loot be enough? Consider this; if you are not given any exp for killing a creature for the sake of "not encouraging murderous behavior", then why should you find any loot on them as well? Loot = money = better equipment = more powerfull characters. Your fallen enemies not leaving behind any loot seems a pretty blasphemeus idea for an RPG. If anything, rewarding people with money for killing other people seems more twisted than simply acknowleging they´ve learned something from the process.

Again, players that wan´t to kill everything that moves beacuse it gives them sick pleasure will do that regardless of the rewards.

 

In the end, after all I´ve read in here, the hybrid system seems to make the most sense. Different types of enemies give different amaounts of exp, ranging from no exp (I see no problem with most creatures in the game world falling under this category) to large amounts of exp.

Killing a pack of koblods at lvl 1 will be a daunting task, but at lvl 15 you wont even notice stepping on them, so no exp for you!

[Silentsigil]

I don't like the idea of ONLY gaining exp from objectives... That kind of creates a railroad for players, unless these objectives are placed all over the place. Maybe my idea of 'objectives' is off from what the designers are thinking.

 

Let's say that you are exploring. If you find a curious assortment of humanoids or something in a lived-in cave, murder them, and then you get xp for finding the treasure cache, and a small bonus for finding the jewelled ring hidden in the third orc on the left's wooden clog (perception?), then maybe it would be fine, if done right.

 

This type of free roaming is the definition of an open world game. PE will be a story driven game and making this exploring possible will not be a design priority. Just keep that in mind when you expect a reward for that. But wait, you think you didn't get a reward? Lets look closely:

 

* You already get the stuff you find there and maybe even a unique item.

* You get the satisfaction of finding this hidden cave all by yourself and isn't that the purpose of "exploration"?

* But it doesn't end there: You might have the chance to talk to them, they even might have a quest for you. Or you hear some rumor from them.

* If not, the chances are really good that someone else had and still has a quest for you that involves this cave. When you talk to this person and he laments that some orcs stole his jeweled wedding ring you can smile knowingly, tell him how lucky he is and give him the ring. Oh, and get the xp.

 

Why should exploring get an extra reward? I had so much fun exploring in Fallout 3, just getting into the role and scouting the area. xp is something a role player should have no knowledge about, it is just a mechanism to level up at appropriate moments. If you hunt for xp in a game you are not role playing any more, you are meta gaming. You have fallen into the instant gratification trap. The design goal of an RPG is to immerse you into the world, let you role play. If you want to meta-game most MMORPGs will accomodate you better.

 

If there are no rewards like this in the envrionment, then there is little reason to try to explore. It all becomes you pushing your character from point a to point b, and this destroys replayability. You also miss out on any cool stuff that is around just a couple feet off that road you just charged blindly down to get your next level at noob town B.

 

You say it yourself: "You miss out on any cool stuff that is around". Exactly, there is cool stuff there! What more reason do you need to look for it?

 

By the way, I just realized that xp could be viewed as a sort of generic micro-achievement system.

 

 

Jethro...Why, exactly, did you quote mine my post and ignore most of what it said?

 

I can see that I didn't say quite what I wanted to here, but your responses are... a bit bizarre.

 

Anyways, I don't think I'd mind whatever these guys came up with as a system. It'd be new, and it probably wouldn't be stuck in the hallway-traps I was imagining and didn't quite express clearly. When I see 'objectives' now, I'm thinking of shiny arrows or something that drag you towards them in an invisible-walled 'hallway' of a forest...modern "gaming" issues. I'm betting the P:E designers aren't going to do that to us.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'm confused by what those who want xp tied to only objectives want. Something like ME2/3, where no matter how you played you got the same reward?

 

Personally I hate this. XP should be rewarded for everything the PC does successfully, not just for completing a quest or objective.

 

I also dislike the reasoning behind it. It sounds like hand-slapping players, which is worse than hand-holding them.

[Grand_Commander13]

How is giving you XP for completing objectives different than doing something successfully? If your objective is to remove the spirit haunting the house, you haven't completed your objective until you've removed the spirit haunting the house.

 

You don't necessarily need to give identical XP rewards for completing something different ways, but since ME2 and ME3 lacked for easier/more difficult ways to accomplish the same goal it wouldn't make much sense to not have the awards be identical.

 

Anyway, I fail to see how giving awards for combat is any different. Combat is a major form of gameplay; if combat is only interesting if I'm getting a reward then it's very poorly designed; if that reward is only that I get better at that combat that bores me so much, I fail to see how I'll care about that for long either.

[Sacred_Path]

Anyway, I fail to see how giving awards for combat is any different. Combat is a major form of gameplay; if combat is only interesting if I'm getting a reward then it's very poorly designed;

 

I disagree. Rewards are at the very heart of the ©RPG, and there's no reason why combat should be different in that aspect.

 

Let's take an example: chess.

 

This would seem like what you are proposing - you get no reward other than pinning down your opponent. But:

 

1) Not everyone's interested in chess.

 

2) A good number of chess players get satisfaction from playing against human opponents, which you don't get here.

 

3) RPGs that want to offer some realism/ immersion won't offer as many tactical choices as chess, because it's a strong abstraction. Instead, it's usually more satisfying to stick with the old "hero walks up to monster, hero swings sword, monster is damaged".

 

In a CRPG especially, I want some form of acknowledgement of my actions also in combat. Gold, items, XP is often the only way to even tell that you just defeated a monster. They also reward solid skills, since you can use these resources to go on and do some more combat.

[Utukka]

Seems to me the issue here is that people are mad that someone could "powergame" or w/e and walk away with slightly more exp for doing everything. For example, sneak past then come back and kill. God forbid you just stick to roleplaying which is what you are arguing for and stop worrying about what someone else is doing. Guess what, if I want to play a certain way, I'm going to play the way I want to regardless of what is "available" or what some guy across the world may be doing.

[Gatt9]

I'm confused by what those who want xp tied to only objectives want. Something like ME2/3, where no matter how you played you got the same reward?

 

Personally I hate this. XP should be rewarded for everything the PC does successfully, not just for completing a quest or objective.

 

I also dislike the reasoning behind it. It sounds like hand-slapping players, which is worse than hand-holding them.

 

That's pretty much what the underlying reasons for wanting it seems to be in most cases. The problem people started out stating at the beginning of the thread was "Kill based xp makes non-combat builds impossible or sub-optimal".

 

Solutions have been presented numerous times that cleanly handles that issue. Those solutions are completely ignored, and "Objective based xp is the best" continues to be asserted. Which means the issue cannot be what was originally stated, since a number of strictly better solutions have been proposed.

 

I suspect the issue is actually a combination of...

 

"I do not want anyone anywhere to be able to metagame"

"I do not want anyone anywhere to be able to farm"

"I am bothered if I know people are out there doing that"

 

Which is why I said that I don't think people are fully disclosing their reasons for wanting objective based xp, because if those reasons were actually asserted, cross-examination would render them invalid very rapidly.

 

If you go back and read through the thread, you'll find the defenses for Objective based xp very rapidly become behaivior management issues instead of gameplay issues. The oft sited "Farming", "Exploiting stealth", "Going back and killing everyone after getting the reward", those are all behavior management issues, trying to force people to play "The right way".

[Utukka]

I'm confused by what those who want xp tied to only objectives want. Something like ME2/3, where no matter how you played you got the same reward?

 

Personally I hate this. XP should be rewarded for everything the PC does successfully, not just for completing a quest or objective.

 

I also dislike the reasoning behind it. It sounds like hand-slapping players, which is worse than hand-holding them.

 

That's pretty much what the underlying reasons for wanting it seems to be in most cases. The problem people started out stating at the beginning of the thread was "Kill based xp makes non-combat builds impossible or sub-optimal".

 

Solutions have been presented numerous times that cleanly handles that issue. Those solutions are completely ignored, and "Objective based xp is the best" continues to be asserted. Which means the issue cannot be what was originally stated, since a number of strictly better solutions have been proposed.

 

I suspect the issue is actually a combination of...

 

"I do not want anyone anywhere to be able to metagame"

"I do not want anyone anywhere to be able to farm"

"I am bothered if I know people are out there doing that"

 

Which is why I said that I don't think people are fully disclosing their reasons for wanting objective based xp, because if those reasons were actually asserted, cross-examination would render them invalid very rapidly.

 

If you go back and read through the thread, you'll find the defenses for Objective based xp very rapidly become behaivior management issues instead of gameplay issues. The oft sited "Farming", "Exploiting stealth", "Going back and killing everyone after getting the reward", those are all behavior management issues, trying to force people to play "The right way".

 

This. Especially what I bolded.

[Elerond]

I would say that pure objective base sytem will make deciding to use raw force with out any trickery more valid option. As often player/character is punished if s/he don't use sneak or diplomatic options as they reward usually more experience than combat option, so player usually go around this fact by using first either sneak or diplomatic option and in some rare cases they can do both before they will use combat option to ensure that they will not lose any xp when they decide to use combat option. Or sneaky character gets key to locked door via diplomatic means and then s/he will lockpick door after all, because s/he will get additional xp reward by doing so.

 

These are bugs in level design caused by task based xp sytem and they will sunk level designers orginal ideas about which solutions should give greatest xp rewards and which should give better rewards in other sectors as player can achive them all. And usually when level designers tries to answer to this design problem they often relay on railroading that forces player his or her choosen solution. Objective based xp gives often more easier answer to this design problem as player will only get xp from solution which s/he used first. Of course this don't remove all kinks from the reward allocation but it make level designing easier. This is of course only my opinion which is based to my own experiences.

[Hassat Hunter]

This. Especially what I bolded.

Still not sure where you guys are getting that from. I barely see anyone stating that as reason to go pro-objective based XP, however numerous people try to paint us off as "you have a crusade against powergaming. You want to imply your game on others"

Could someone please explain me this faulty deduction? Or is it part of some plot to discredit us using what are blatently lies?

Solutions have been presented numerous times that cleanly handles that issue.

Solutions while sound in theory, are impossible to integrate in reality. Especially awaring "sneaking past an enemy" is impossible to detect. There is a reason all games just check if you ghosted to a specific section for the reward instead of doing so per individual enemy. Heck, some you may never encounter (most likely if sneaking). Would they be unrewarded?

Also definitely most modern games lack severe diplomatic XP awards. They may have some, but they are generally less rewarding than just murdering everyone in sight.

since a number of strictly better solutions have been proposed.

Hah. I still have to see one better solution posted yet.

"I do not want anyone anywhere to be able to metagame"

Noooope.

"I do not want anyone anywhere to be able to farm"

This one essentially is true. Allowing to farm and/or grind are repetitive and boring occassions. Making the game heavily rely on it may be good for Diablo, but not for a game like PE. Hence, the less we need to resort to grind and thrashmobs, the better the game for everyone. Also, from a developers point of view grinding would be bad since it makes the expected power level of the player vary much more. Making balancing of encounters and the game more difficult. You should be able to deduct an avarage power-level of all gamers depending on wheter they just went the main quest, did several sidethings, or went full-out exploring every nook and cranny. Without having to take into account overpowering those players with re-appearing bunches of experience.

 

The less level-scaling in the game the better, and this would help towards that goal. More control for the developer, a better suited game for the player. Win/win.

"I am bothered if I know people are out there doing that"

I am bothered that I know people out there love a different style than me and are obstructed in properly executing it by gameplay restrictions put upon them by an old archaic system.

If I was bothered by them playing different, why support a system that makes all playstyles equally viable, not tipping the side over to one or the other?

It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to do so...

Which is why I said that I don't think people are fully disclosing their reasons for wanting objective based xp, because if those reasons were actually asserted, cross-examination would render them invalid very rapidly.

I'm still waiting for you to cross-examinate my posts for their "invalidations", rather than just ignoring them or strawmanning them as "you just hate powergaming."

I'm here, waiting. For all the fallacies. And ready to support them. Or update them if they really are defective. Just, tell me what's flawed. Go on.

"Exploiting stealth"

You do realise stealth was pretty bad in BG and one of the major pointers of Objective based XP is making stealth visable too, right? I am not sure what exactly 'fixing stealth exploit' is part of that... :/

 

Anyway, not sure why I even bother... pretty sure Gatt9 is going to ignore me anyway and tell me how I try to force my gameplay style on others...

[jethro]

Further, you're twisting what I've stated. NOWHERE in this thread have I advocated farming. Go read back through my posts and you will not find a single instance of me advocating farming.

 

I'm a little fuzzy on how you made the leap from "Rewards should be made on the basis of the solution used" to "I want farming!".

 

I answered to a post of yours where you argued that (and I rephrase here) you are not motivated to do something in the game (for example combat) if you don't immediately get an XP reward for it. I was pointing out that this is very similar to the motivation a farmer has or someone who is "meta-gaming".

 

Now you can play any way you want, I don't mind where you get your motivation from. But the game should not have to be designed to take this "meta-gaming" into account, because giving xp for kills makes balancing the game more difficult. <-- Since you always ask for our hidden agendas, look here, this is it. I gather you think it is not more difficult to balance the game with kill xp, but I'm pretty sure it is.

 

Motivations to not use the direct route (which often is killing everyone):

* Curiosity. Hey, what happens if I do the other thing?

* Role play: My priest wouldn't do that

* Fun: Hehe, I got a great idea that will make that sorceror look like an idiot

 

By the way, nothing prevents Obsidian to grant more XP for exceptionally difficult solutions. This would still be an objective-based xp system.

 

-What motivation do I have to be curious when there's no reason to be curious? Why would I bother doing anything other than going straight to the objective if I know that there's no point in exploring?

 

Since curiosity IS a motivation (look it up in the dictionary) your sentence really doesn't make any sense. I am at a loss how to answer that question. Is xp the only motivation you accept. Doesn't anything else motivate you?

 

-Very, very, very few people "Role play" beyond what the system immediately requires of them. The majority self-insert. They're certainly not going to implement arbitarary "Play rules". This can easily be demonstrated by looking at the historical popularity of Roleplaying servers in MMORPGs.

Yes, role play servers didn't have much success in MMORPGs. Mostly because of immature players destroying the immersion for the ones trying to role-play. Not because no one wanted to do it.

 

When you talk to a quest-giver in BG and say "You seem distressed. How can I help you?", you are role-playing. So don't act as if "role-playing" were something undesirable.

As far as Obsidian giving more Xp for difficult solutions goes, you just implemented experience by solution (Which I've been advocating), except now you've increased memory usage and code complexity by a wide margin. Giving the reward at the time of the solution to each "Encounter/Event" is trivial. Your solution now requires every quest to have a series of flags to track how the player solved each "Encounter/Event" and must be updated at the time of the solution.

I looked through previous pages of this thread (down to 14) and didn't find where you defined experience by solution. I assume solution-xp is meant as sort of finer-grained than objective-xp even though nobody really said how fine-grained objectives are. And with fine-grained you probably want to say that every single monster is a problem to be solved. Hence it gives xp. Am I right with that?

 

Further, it creates a significantly greater window for defects since you now have to make sure n flags update properly for m solutions for all x quests, and the reward properly reads those flags and grants the correct reward.

Why should it be necessary to make each and every solution to a problem give different xp? I assumed you thought it a good idea to give more xp for a very ingenious or difficult solution. Most problems will have different solutions but no single solution that stands out as particular difficult. The diplomatic solution will be as easy to someone specializing in diplomacy as killing is to the fighting specialist. How can you say one of them should get more or less xp? And remember that the game balancing is easier when you get the same xp regardless of solution. And better balancing means better overall satisfaction of the players.

 

Nice try at twisting my arguement. I'm pretty sure if you go back through my posts you will not find the statement "Use-based xp is the best solution!". You will find me stating over and over, that all solutions should generate rewards.

You brought up the realism argument about killing 100 critters and it not improving you. I just showed you that your argument directly leads to use-based xp and not kill-xp or solution-based xp as you seem to think. Come on, make some effort to read what I am saying.

 

How do you reward stealth? By giving 10 xp for every second you are in stealth or not seen by anyone? Oh wait, that is skill-use leveling like in Bethesdas RPGs (although I doubt they give xp for being just stealthed). No thank you. Everyone would just get stealthy, leave the computer for an hour and have a fully developed master thief.

Got any better idea how to reward the stealth solution? If you don't have a *really* easy implementation idea let me give you one:

 

Just use objective-based XP. It is really easy and solves the problem ;-)

 

Sure. Base class monster has a series of floats for each type of solution (combat, stealth, diplomacy) and a boolean hasRewardedXP. Inherited monsters initialize the values, and specialized or situational modifiers are added later by reading in modifiers added to the map.

 

You sneak past the critter, it does xp * modifer and rewards you, sets the hasRewardedXP flag to true, which means it won't reward any further xp preventing you from going back and killing it.

 

Done.

You skipped over the difficult part I was interested in. Maybe my fault because I didn't pinpoint the exact problem. How does the program find out that you sneaked past this one critter?

 

Two scenarios:

A) There is a castle where you need to get to the throne room. At a narrow passage there is a group of enemies to stop you. You could (1) kill them, (2) sneak past them, (3) go through a hidden path that leads over their heads through a servant passage (no need to sneak) or (4) trick the butler into calling them to the west gallery.

B) There is a desert area between two towns. On the road is a group of critters. You could (1) kill them, (2) sneak around them or just (3) simply walk around them. It could also happen that you just explored the area and by chance walked around them.

 

Now an objective based xp system would probably give xp in case A once you arrived at the throne room. Same xp for every solution, easy to program, easy to balance the game. In case B you might get no xp at all or maybe xp for reaching the next town. Additionally you might get xp for killing the critters because you made the road safer. No problem programming any of this. Getting xp for the kill means there is an additional objective (clearing the road) for which only one solution exists (killing the critters). There might or might not be a quest for it.

 

So how would your solution based xp system work in these cases?

 

How do you get the xp for solutions A3 and A4. By crossing some line? Then you have this line as a special case to program. Also were do you put this line in an open area like the desert. Why would you get xp in case B3 even though you might not even know the critters are there?

 

Or does sneaking while in sighting range of enemies give you the sneak xp for them? Then you need a special solution for cases A3 and A4 (where the problem is solved through intelligence, observation or exploration).

 

When do you give the sneak XP? Probably when you turn off sneak mode again after being in sighting range of the enemies. Problem: You might not have sneaked passed them when you turn of sneak mode again. So you also have to check positional data to make sure you really are past them. But that isn't as easy anymore in case B, an open area. You could come from any direction, leave in any direction. How can you easily determine whether you really passed them? It might mean that people who sneak a lot will sometimes get xp before they even have decided if they want to avoid the monster (for example if touching the outer edge of a monster sight radius and exiting again)

 

 

Before I list other possibilities it would be easier if you told me how you think it should be done in the above scenarios. At the moment I see your solution-based xp as workable (if I guessed right what you meant), with some edge-cases and more detail programming necessary to accomodate all solutions than an objective-based system. A few more quest bugs (which only would result in not getting xp for a specific solution, so no show stoppers), not as trivial as you seem to think. The (only) advantage is instant gratification (aka xp meta-gaming).

 

Because the only reason to argue for Objective based xp over Solution based xp is to try and manage how others are playing that game. That's the *only* thing objective based xp does that all other solutions do not do.

 

See above. I don't see any difference between objective based and solution based xp in that regard. If you have to make sure that every playing style gets somewhat the same amount of xp (to make the game better balanced), then they do practiacally the same thing, only your solution is more programming work per quest, more complicated.

[jethro]

 

Jethro...Why, exactly, did you quote mine my post and ignore most of what it said?

 

I can see that I didn't say quite what I wanted to here, but your responses are... a bit bizarre.

 

Sorry for the rant. I don't think I misread your post that much but did heavily overdramatize.

 

I try to rephrase more sanely and hopefully more clearly:

 

I think yes, objectives shouldn't be automatically identical to quests as some might think. So just making an intelligent observation in a conversation or getting someone to reveal some bit of information could give xp as well. I hope this answers your question in the first paragraph

 

There could also be xp to be had in a cave somewhere. Directly by freeing a child the orcs had locked away there or indirectly when you later find out that someone was looking for the ring. Maybe even for finding a hiding place.

 

But what I don't understand is the view that exploring the cave would be useless if you don't get xp there. That you wouldn't go there just for curiosity, gold or items, or the satisfaction to have cleared the cave from unsavioury elements. That you additionally needed the xp as some sort of meta-pat on the back from the designers.

 

Your words: "If there are no rewards like this in the envrionment, then there is little reason to try to explore". Simply not true for many players.

[jethro]

No XP for combat would take all the point out of a good tatical combat system, as you'd mostly avoid combat (except for items/ gold). Of course you could make grinding required to raise your skills (Wizardry) or even for level ups by skill training (TES), but then you might just as well give XP.

 

Sacred, would you avoid combat and instead sneak slowly around needing double the time? And miss out on the loot they have?

 

You should take into account that to make sneaking fun the designers have to make it difficult as well. So since both methods give the same xp and both take time, the decision on your side is quite easy: You would sneak or fight depending on which is more fun. Or what you would see as appropriate.

[Sacred_Path]

No XP for combat would take all the point out of a good tatical combat system, as you'd mostly avoid combat (except for items/ gold). Of course you could make grinding required to raise your skills (Wizardry) or even for level ups by skill training (TES), but then you might just as well give XP.

 

Sacred, would you avoid combat and instead sneak slowly around needing double the time? And miss out on the loot they have?

 

You should take into account that to make sneaking fun the designers have to make it difficult as well. So since both methods give the same xp and both take time, the decision on your side is quite easy: You would sneak or fight depending on which is more fun. Or what you would see as appropriate.

 

I'm not against sneaking (or other alternatives), I'm against combat not being rewarded in some tangible way.

[jethro]

No XP for combat would take all the point out of a good tatical combat system, as you'd mostly avoid combat (except for items/ gold). Of course you could make grinding required to raise your skills (Wizardry) or even for level ups by skill training (TES), but then you might just as well give XP.

 

Sacred, would you avoid combat and instead sneak slowly around needing double the time? And miss out on the loot they have?

 

You should take into account that to make sneaking fun the designers have to make it difficult as well. So since both methods give the same xp and both take time, the decision on your side is quite easy: You would sneak or fight depending on which is more fun. Or what you would see as appropriate.

 

I'm not against sneaking (or other alternatives), I'm against combat not being rewarded in some tangible way.

 

So loot is no tangible reward? The xp you get sooner or later for the objective is no tangible reward?

 

I never said you are against sneaking or alternatives. I was only trying to refute your opinion that "no xp for combat would make you avoid combat".

I'm asking you directly: Would you, Sacred, avoid combat if there is no xp for it and instead sneak? I'm guessing the answer is "no", and in that case your opinion above is wrong.

Whether it is true for other people shouldn't concern you, right?

[Sacred_Path]

So loot is no tangible reward? The xp you get sooner or later for the objective is no tangible reward?

 

I cited gold as a possible reward. XP only for objectives would exclude fighting with random wandering monsters (i.e. getting ambushed while you rest).

 

I'm asking you directly: Would you, Sacred, avoid combat if there is no xp for it and instead sneak? I'm guessing the answer is "no", and in that case your opinion above is wrong.

 

That would depend on other factors too. First time through the game? I'd probably go combat heavy, because it's more obvious how you should build your characters, and I'd want to make sure that I'm not missing out on something. But in later playthroughs, if I knew that I could just as well sneak past every encounter rather than cast spells, coordinate my fighters, using potions etc. that would leave a bad taste in my mouth.

[wanderon]

No XP for combat would take all the point out of a good tatical combat system, as you'd mostly avoid combat (except for items/ gold). Of course you could make grinding required to raise your skills (Wizardry) or even for level ups by skill training (TES), but then you might just as well give XP.

 

Sacred, would you avoid combat and instead sneak slowly around needing double the time? And miss out on the loot they have?

 

You should take into account that to make sneaking fun the designers have to make it difficult as well. So since both methods give the same xp and both take time, the decision on your side is quite easy: You would sneak or fight depending on which is more fun. Or what you would see as appropriate.

 

I'm not against sneaking (or other alternatives), I'm against combat not being rewarded in some tangible way.

 

It's not that combat will not be rewarded - combat will play a large part of the game and WILL be rewarded - it just won't be rewarded by putting X experience points per body like a pinball machine racking up points for everytime you hit a button - the "scoring" will be more sophisticated than that.