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

[Hassat Hunter]

If you're going to turn every encounter into an "Objective" that you solve by both combat and non-combat methods, then you have to check game state for the progress of those methods. Stealth and combat are great examples. how do you determine when the solution is reached? By creating a hotspot on the map? Just stealth your way to the hotspot and you win? That doesn't work, what if the player misses stepping on the hotspot?

 

Your only option is to assign the creatures themselves a variable that states whether or not you successfully passed them, and each one will require their own check, and you'll have to continuously check to see if all of them have been passed in order to reward the player. Which becomes *extremely* problematic if 3 passed stealth, 1 fails, and you kill that 1 that failed. Now you have major potential for a defect, because you cannot reward the stealth "Objective" since all 4 didn't pass. Now you also have to track the combat solution, and you must do it in real time. For every single entity involved in one of these convoluted "Objectives" you're asking to be implemented.

 

It's convoluted because that's what Hassat Hunter is proposing, he's trying to morph "Objectives" to be Solution based rewards without actually implementing solution based rewards.

That couldn't be further away from what I was suggesting here, or even the more complex system of my linked thread.

Basically, I have no idea how you could have made THAT out of my words.

Especially since that was your idea and I stated checking if anything was "stealthed past" was impossible. Kind of an odd thing to say if 'my system' was build around that.

(are you confusing me with yourself here per-chanse? It sounds a lot like your system after all.)

Contrast that to the IE games, especailly Baldur's Gate, where there's nothing that forces you to go from A to B, you can progress asynchronously from the expectations of the developers by crawling your way through a higher difficulty area becoming increasingly adept as you progress. Something an Objective based system precludes, because as the difficulty of the area ramps up closer to the goal, you remain static in power.

A has objectives, B has objectives. Do the devs force you to do A before B with objective-XP.

Nope.

Problem solved.

 

As stated before, we are dealing with a full fledged RPG here, with sidequests, exploration etc. Not just one long path with increasingly hostile enemies to slash, like Diablo, where there is only one predetermined linear path.

primarily because both of their posts make it apparent their motivation is to manage player behavior, because they consistently fall back to behavior management arguements when their posts are debated. I have neither the time nor inclination to let either of them drag me off topic as they strawman and twist to try and avoid dealing with the actual subject.

Quote me once saying either that my goal is player-guiding (the so called behavior management argument). I dare ya. Once!

As I've said, just add up all of the xp for the mainline, that gives you your min.

So far, so good.

Add the xp for the mainline + sidequests, that gives you your high end.

God. Damn. It.

So close.

Read my FORUM POST: QUESTS != (that means ISN'T) OBJECTIVES. 4 MORE YEARS. I DID NOT SLEEP WITH THAT WOMAN... what were we talking about again?

From that point, you just look at your min and your high end, tweak the values of critters/quests/xp of your stuff once, and you're done. You can do all of this in the design phase easily, it's the same thing you have to do with Objective based xp.

Except for the many pros mentioned before;

* Making encounters harder with more enemies, more powerful enemies. Without giving more XP for that, taking down difficulty a notch again.

* No grinding for XP on foes.

* Easier to balance areas, instead of tweaking all foes (which might be elsewhere) just look at the objectives and tweak them.

 

Mainly, it's pretty hard to balance XP values of foes, since they aren't exclusively to one area. Tweak them, another areas balance is modified too. You could use a system of unique enemies per level like KOTOR2 does, but that adds even more issues. So many enemies are having completely different stats there. Map A-B-C, and on A and C they match, and suddenly B the same enemy is weaker. Same planet. No explanation. It also gives more XP. And changing that requires about multiple files per area to be modified.

Having a single "template" and working with that is so much more efficient.

[jethro]

I'm not claiming that it's realistic about learning alchemy from orc slaying (tho you probably get a good idea of the properties of various orc internal fluids from them sprayign everywhere) but

You got me there ;-)

 

the point being that gameplay and the levelling process becomes more organic when you have a smooth XP progression of constantly gaining XP in small increments rather than in chunks which would mean you only ever level up upon completing an objective.

I don't buy that. A quest resolution is preceded with a builtup of tension. Upon solving the quest you get a feeling of accomplishment, so a level-up *ding* at that point is quite appropriate whereas it looks out of place when you just killed a measly goblin somewhere in the middle of a dungeon. You got a point if objectives are tied to quests and quests are so extensive that there are big gaps between those "reward"-points. In that case spreading out these points would be positive.

 

This is not Diablo, but what it is is a game with not 1 but 3 hard settings, including an equivalent to Icewind Dales Heart of Fury which basically required you to reload a preexisting game completing party/character in because it was leveled that way.

Ah ok, didn't know about the Heart of Fury mode, take back the "Diablo" comment. I'm wondering why someone else created a "New Game+" thread here in the forum when HoF is exactly that ???

Has the XP thing been actually stated by Obsidian, because if so I'm not a particular fan of that choice, if the assumption is you are doing something with a party of six and you pull it off with a party of three, by definition each of those characters is doing twice the work and therefore should be getting twice the XP. Part of the playstyle options of the Infinity Engine games was letting you make your own decisions about party size, balancing greater power but fewer characters against more characters (and thus more tactical options) but individual lower power. As Obsidian has said they intend it to be soloable (can't remember where off the top of my head) that would seem strange as then your one character would be doing the work of six without any tradeoffs for doing so.

 

No, not stated by Obsidian, just my conjecture. Think about it, if you get twice the xp with a half party you will have a very uneven play. At first you will have it as tough as a normal-xp half party as your level is still similar. Then in the middle game you will have it as easy as a full party because your level will be higher. Then in the last third of the game you hit the level-cap and it will get tough again. So if you are over your head with too small a party on normal xp you will fail in the beginning or in the end of a double-xp game.

 

If someone wants to play a half-party or a party of one I imagine he does so for the challenge. Fiddling with the difficulty setting is a much better way to make that possible than double-xp.

Edited November 8, 2012 by jethro

[RoughOne]

I've always preferred skill based systems to systems like DnD. When you use a skill, you have a chance to increase it. Keep track of what is used, and crit successes (and crit fails, since we do learn more from mistakes) and use those to raise that skill.

 

Experience (points) are too ambiguous for me. A character's development should reflect the style with which the person plays them. Do alot of archery and those skills increase, do this spell, that SPELL increases (and perhaps the school a wee bit and perhaps magian and lore a wee wee bit as well)

 

languages were always a point of frustration. If you don't speak dwarvish, you may piss someone off if understood. It is often TOO easy to communicate in RPG's for sake of ease. Perhaps Spanglish, and Russo-something and Japanesish could be adopted for 'other' languages, so some folks may have a chance to guess what is being said and the development would be more automatic. Using Tolkiens elvish alphabets did help back in teh day, but that was just a tedious chore for characters to translate the tome. No need for taht in a game.

 

So experience for objectives met, means there is little to experience along the way. So learning the weak points of wandering monster X on the way to the objective is only reflected in the player's knowledge of the game, not in their character? I can't agree with that.

[wanderon]

No one has confirmed that the objective experience will only be added when a major objective has been completed - it's possible that experience for minor objectives like dealing with a group of bandits on the highway or a group of thugs in the slums will be awarded as soon as the encounter ends.

 

The same might be true for sections of a larger objective as well where it is broken into sections - I certainly don't see the mega dungeon having to be completed before any experience is awarded.

 

Once again the devs are not taking experience for fighting off the table they just are not going to award it by body count - there is really no reason to believe it will not be awarded as you go along since it will likely still be calculated in small segments as you go since people may not finish every quest but thats no reason not to give them experience for what they have accomplished. Yes there may be a larger lump awarded at the end of a major quest but that doesn't mean there won't be awards along the way.

[wanderon]

 

Ah ok, didn't know about the Heart of Fury mode, take back the "Diablo" comment. I'm wondering why someone else created a "New Game+" thread here in the forum when HoF is exactly that ???

 

The Path of the damned is a spiritual succesor to Heart of Fury but according to what has been said so far it appears to be focused on the original run through - not a second run.

 

From Josh in update #9

 

Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved.

 

[jethro]

The Path of the damned is a spiritual succesor to Heart of Fury but according to what has been said so far it appears to be focused on the original run through - not a second run.

 

Well, then I take back my take back of the "Diablo" comment ;-). I was already wondering. All signs point to there being a level-cap and the continuation of the level-up progress in the expansion. How did IWD do that? Did they implement lots of levels above the first play-through to accomodate HoF mode or did it just get progressively difficult to play?

[Alexjh]

The Path of the damned is a spiritual succesor to Heart of Fury but according to what has been said so far it appears to be focused on the original run through - not a second run.

 

Well, then I take back my take back of the "Diablo" comment ;-). I was already wondering. All signs point to there being a level-cap and the continuation of the level-up progress in the expansion. How did IWD do that? Did they implement lots of levels above the first play-through to accomodate HoF mode or did it just get progressively difficult to play?

 

In Icewind Dale 2 there were 30 levels.

From my playthroughs,

If you soloed the game you got to level 27.

If you did it with a party of 4 you got to level 17/18ish

If you did it with a party of 6 you got to level 14/15ish.

 

As for the difficulty thing, in Icewind Dale 2 the versatility really does compensate for the higher level characters - of those, the 4 x 17/18 party made for a far easier final battle than the single level 27 or the 6 14/15ish. With the singular character you had 15 or so opponents including several spellcasters piling on you while you couldn't get to them due to havign to fend off being surrounded by melee opponents, and status effects like paralysis, or being held were a death sentence while in a party it was an inconveniance. With six characters, although more versatile, each of the characters was more vulnerable and less powerful and several ended up dying in the process. With four you were obviously a lot less powerful than the solo character so individual foes didn't go down so quickly, but you were tough enough that this wasn't so much of a problem compared to the six characters.

 

All are valid playstyle options and none of them are necessarily better than the others.

 

Heart of Fury generally required you to be at least level 14/15 to start it, but honestly I haven't got especially far into it, once you are facing multiple spellcasters it ends up having A LOT of reloading.

Edited November 8, 2012 by Alexjh

[Deathman]

Definitely for!

 

I’ve actually played games were I very specifically arranged the quest to give me the maximum amount of things to kill. I didn’t feel like a character making decisions. I felt like some strange God of Experience Gain that needed to be sated. Make the negotiator as viable as the genocidal, omnicidal maniac! Make the sneak thief, with his eye on the prize as viable as the attention deficit dismemberer!

[Hormalakh]

How do those of you who want XP for killing monsters play any other games that include monsters and killing them while giving no "experience" for it (like Action games)? Do you still try to fight your way through the enemies, or try to avoid all of them? What do you find enjoyable in those gaming situations, since experience isn't your reward? What about when you level cap in RPG games that give you XP for killing enemies? What do you do then? Do you go around avoiding every single enemy in your path or do you kill those that require it? Are you a stealthy sneak, a blood-ravenous barbarian, or a discerning executioner of those that demand death? Are these games any less fun for you when you don't receive XP?

Edited November 9, 2012 by Hormalakh

[Delterius]

Ideally, experience is given when you roleplay your character. You play to your character's or your party's strenghts in order to complete a certain objective. If quests are generally open-ended or have multiple ways to be finished (as per what strenghts and weaknesses a character/party may have) then awarding experience for objectives sounds like a cheap way to reward the player for playing however he wishes (which, depending on things, might just demand 'roleplaying' as I defined above).

 

My only fear is that this becomes cheap enough to make the devs 'forget' to add some reactivity to the player's builds in dialogue and quest structure (if said reactivity is part of the project at all). But that's ultimately a silly concern, it seems.

[LadyCrimson]

This thread has reached a level of experience well past the norm. eg, post limit. Feel free to make a part2 or something.