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

[AGX-17]

Wait, so would this be like if you fought your way 4 floors into a 5 floor dungeon, you would get zero experience because the objective is on the 5th floor? No matter how tough the challenge? Even if your party was all martially-inclined?

[Ieo]

Wait, so would this be like if you fought your way 4 floors into a 5 floor dungeon, you would get zero experience because the objective is on the 5th floor? No matter how tough the challenge? Even if your party was all martially-inclined?

 

In a vacuum, perhaps so.

 

But believing Obsidian would design such a lop-sided hypothetical encounter in a vacuum is rather silly. See: cooldowns.

[mstark]

I still really like the idea of having "epic" class monsters that are completely disconnected from any quests, and can only be found through exploring.

 

If these monsters would give a significant chunk of experience, you'd be indirectly rewarded for exploring if you actually manage to overcome these encounters. In addition to the loot, that is.

 

Fighting an ancient dragon, like Firkraag, is certainly an experience few have had - experience points represent exactly this.

 

Wait, so would this be like if you fought your way 4 floors into a 5 floor dungeon, you would get zero experience because the objective is on the 5th floor? No matter how tough the challenge? Even if your party was all martially-inclined?

Valid point. And I think the solution would be to introduce different classes of "monsters", as suggested earlier in the thread, and by Ieo.

 

@Ieo, what do you mean when you say "in a vacuum"?

Edited October 16, 2012 by mstark

[oldmanpaco]

79% for objective based XP. The silent masses are speaking.

[Gorth]

Just a note that this thread has been pruned somewhat. Apologies to those whose posts fell by the wayside as collateral damage.

[jvempire]

what the hell, isn`t the point of an rpg to be able to roleplay the character the way you want to?

You can still roleplay your character the way you want to. The only difference is that the game will not be rewarding you for doing things for which no sane DM would ever reward a player.

 

Actually, a sane DM would reward experience, because the Player took seperate actions which would make him more experienced.

 

This is just trying to dictate playstyle, instead of making a solid RPG system. This is "I don't want anyone to have more experience than me because they did more stuff", there's no logical reason behind it. If I go write code, I get better at writing code, even if I didn't give the code to some random person.

 

If my character kills critters, he should get better at killing critters, not by reporting back to someone and saying "Yup, I killed 5 critters!".

 

Can anyone give me a single reason for this system that does not amount to "I don't want people to play that way"?

Did you read the thread?... I don't understand the point of ignoring what people are saying.

 

The reason for making it objective based is that it's easier to balance the game. Since the devs are handing out the xp they can see what levels people will be at throughout the game, and they can balance they see fit to make mostly everyone's gaming experience fun. With grind though, while it's not impossible, it's much more difficult to balance the game out. It generally ends up with the player having to kill enough enemies to get an orbutrary amount of xp so they can catch up with the pace of the game, or they exploit the system and become overpowered and make the game dull since there's no challenge. Of course you can figure out some balance to this, but it can get convaluated (see oblivion, fo3, new vegas, skyrim).

 

We can also assume that since the game is being designed around objectives, there won't be massive amounts of enemies that won't give xp to you. Of course this part is only my speculation.

 

Now I really want to hear some examples people have of systems that use grinding well.

 

I've read the thread. I've also read the intent behind it, because as I said earlier, there's no logical reason to choose a nonsensical implementation over one that makes sense. Not trying to flame, but you're illustrating that the intent is exactly as I said, "I don't want people to play that way".

 

-It does not make it "Easier to balance the game", balancing the game is trivial. The developers can easily add up the experience attained by following the primary path, and the primary path + side quests, and compute the min/max xp range. All they have to do is add each xp reward for each possible action to a spreadsheet as it's added. Then all they have to do is make minor tweaks to the xp rewards in order to get everything to where they want it.

 

-"make mostly everyone's gaming experience fun" is a strawman arguement. You're determining what makes a game fun for everyone.

 

-It's not harder to balance the game with people grinding, if they choose to grind, let them. It's their problem. There's no reason to dictate to people "You cannot play that way, it's wrong!".

 

-Your next statement is another strawman. You don't force people to grind. You balance the game for a point in between "Main path only" and "Full completion run".

 

-Then you are dictating what's fun for everyone again. You cannot say whether or not it makes it dull for people who choose to grind, in fact, logically it's quite the opposite. People grind because it enables gameplay they find fun, some people enjoy being overpowered.

 

-Using anything from Bethesda as an basis isn't a good arguement, they've demonstrated time and again they don't know what RPG's are. One of the most glaring examples is their inability to add any meaningful dialogue or noncombat skills. Additonally all of the games you note are Player Based skill, and by definition, not RPG's.

 

-You are making multiple false assumptions. Just because xp/kill exists doesn't mean that grinding exists, and if grinding exists, that doesn't mean it's mandatory. I can easily design a dungeon for you using any edition of AD&D/D&D that rewards xp/kill, and xp for actions, that does not include grinding. I can even do so with an entire campaign. You are equating xp/kill to grinding, and that's a false assumption. One does not logically lead to the other.

I don't understand why it's bad to create rules for the player, or like you said "I don't want people to play that way". There is nothing wrong with this, since even with grind the developers will make decisions that will limit what the player can do. It's all about how it's handled, and the way the player gets xp should be up to the developer not the players.

 

For all issues about the balance, I ask again. I want to see examples of systems that allow for people to grind. Like specific games. This isn't meant to be an agressive statement, I'm curious here.

 

Fun is subjective, yes, but I don't believe this means developers should cater to everyone. If they have a vision, they should stick with it. My assumption is that the developer will create a system that works if they focus on one system, but of course that's just my assumption.

 

And yet again, I never said grind is impossible to balance. And like you said, it all depends on the design. Which we can't really say about project eternity at all, because all we have are ideas. We have no idea on the specific mechanics of the game, so any statement talking about them is of course an assumption. Therefore, neither of us can make an argument on if this objective system is good or bad at the moment. It's only speculation.

 

This is why I ask the people who are for the grinding side, bring some specific examples of games which use grind positively. It will help us all understand where you are coming from.

Edited October 16, 2012 by jvempire

[GhostofAnakin]

I like the idea of the bulk of XP coming from completing objectives, but I'd still be in favor of very minor XP being awarded for killing things.

 

Kind of like, assuming a quest earns the player 500 XP (300 XP for completing the quest, plus up to an additional 200 XP for completing the quest in an *optimal way), then in relation to that kind of XP, perhaps 5 XP for the weakest of enemies, 10 XP for middle range, and 50 for the tougher enemies.

 

That way the majority of XP is still geared toward completion of objectives, with only a minor about for killing things.

 

*for example of what I mean by optimal, perhaps a quest requires a rescue of a princess in addition to simply recovering an item that a bad guy has stolen. Simply defeating the bad guy and retrieving the item will yield 300 XP, but if the princess dies or if you fail to find the dungeon she's being held, you lose out on the additional potential 200 XP extra.

[Ieo]

@Ieo, what do you mean when you say "in a vacuum"?

 

By a "vacuum" implementation, I mean the idea that the system will on its face appear in the game without any regard to any other potential mechanism. For example--ignoring different enemy types and frequency/density, ignoring the setting/level design for a quest, ignoring the objective design itself, etc.

 

A prime example of "vacuum" thinking was with the cooldown announcement some weeks ago: The people dead-set against it assumed it would only be applied as a spell-level cooldown applied in seconds, without taking into account other potential variables such as application by spell levels, or very long cooldowns, or that cooldowns could work perfectly alongside limited spell number per tier or mana or something else. I made such a suggestion early on, but well, people got overheated quickly in the exact same way I see it here.

 

And it turned out that I was right (in general, not my specific idea); Sawyer had other mechanisms in mind that would temper the main implementation of cooldowns as a solution to specific issues he saw in the old D&D Vancian CRPG application--cooldown by spell tier and grimoires, and rest for other things. I don't remember the details, but the point is that vacuum thinking merely generates useless hysteria instead of an academic discussion for other linking mechanics.

[Troller]

Just saying, you all are making a mistake here, this isn`t call of duty where you can kill thousand of soldiers and never get anything, an rpg since the dawn of time awarded players for their hard work(grinding for monsters for example) now if they do it in P:E in a way that if you kill monsters you get no XP, what is the point of killing them? i will just make a stealth or diplomatic build then...

[dlux]

XP only for completing objectives - and regernerating health?!

 

Well, Project Eternity is now turning into an action RPG. lol Might as well name it "Call of Eternity"!

 

Yup, old school RPGs are truly dead, you heard it from Obsidian - the guys that wanted to revive that genre. ^^

Edited October 16, 2012 by dlux

[Humanoid]

Just saying, you all are making a mistake here, this isn`t call of duty where you can kill thousand of soldiers and never get anything, an rpg since the dawn of time awarded players for their hard work(grinding for monsters for example) now if they do it in P:E in a way that if you kill monsters you get no XP, what is the point of killing them? i will just make a stealth or diplomatic build then...

 

The point is that you may find the combat approach to be the most enjoyable one.

 

....just as the stealth junkies play the stealthy way because it's the most enjoyable way for them.

 

....just as the speech junkies play the speechy way because it's the most enjoyable way for them.

 

 

If no one finds the combat solution to be the most enjoyable, then the problem is entirely nothing to do with the XP system, but because the combat mechanics turned out to be unfun and should be redesigned.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Humanoid

[Troller]

Just saying, you all are making a mistake here, this isn`t call of duty where you can kill thousand of soldiers and never get anything, an rpg since the dawn of time awarded players for their hard work(grinding for monsters for example) now if they do it in P:E in a way that if you kill monsters you get no XP, what is the point of killing them? i will just make a stealth or diplomatic build then...

 

The point is that you may find the combat approach to be the most enjoyable one.

 

....just as the stealth junkies play the stealthy way because it's the most enjoyable way for them.

 

....just as the speech junkies play the speechy way because it's the most enjoyable way for them.

 

 

If no one finds the combat solution to be the most enjoyable, then the problem is entirely nothing to do with the XP system, but because the combat mechanics turned out to be unfun and should be redesigned.

about the first junkie part, that really depends on the game. The rest yeah I agree, but still its not just about fun, say you are playing a Paladin guy, and there is this evil rapist necrophile pedophile dude that eats children for breakfest cannibal too, your character would do anything to kill him, then you go kill him and you get no XP??? RPGS arent just about fun IMO, its about roleplaying a character, its like real life, you might hate to live, but you still go on, or you suicide maybe...

WTTFFFF

[Tamerlane]

Just saying, you all are making a mistake here, this isn`t call of duty where you can kill thousand of soldiers and never get anything, an rpg since the dawn of time awarded players for their hard work(grinding for monsters for example) now if they do it in P:E in a way that if you kill monsters you get no XP, what is the point of killing them? i will just make a stealth or diplomatic build then...

 

The point is that you may find the combat approach to be the most enjoyable one.

 

....just as the stealth junkies play the stealthy way because it's the most enjoyable way for them.

 

....just as the speech junkies play the speechy way because it's the most enjoyable way for them.

 

 

If no one finds the combat solution to be the most enjoyable, then the problem is entirely nothing to do with the XP system, but because the combat mechanics turned out to be unfun and should be redesigned.

about the first junkie part, that really depends on the game. The rest yeah I agree, but still its not just about fun, say you are playing a Paladin guy, and there is this evil rapist necrophile pedophile dude that eats children for breakfest cannibal too, your character would do anything to kill him, then you go kill him and you get no XP??? RPGS arent just about fun IMO, its about roleplaying a character, its like real life, you might hate to live, but you still go on, or you suicide maybe...

WTTFFFF

If you have a quest to kill an evil rapist necrophile pedophile cannibal, you will get EXP for killing said person.

 

If there is no quest and you want to do it anyway - well, there's nothing stopping you. Go fill your role. Making EXP quest-based stops you from killing thangs in roughly zero ways.

[Troller]

dude all I`m saying is that This is the biggest bull**** ive heard here so far, not getting XP for killing stuff??

Its outrageous

[MaximKat]

With that nickname, it's like you're not even trying...

[mstark]

@Ieo, what do you mean when you say "in a vacuum"?

 

By a "vacuum" implementation, I mean the idea that the system will on its face appear in the game without any regard to any other potential mechanism. For example--ignoring different enemy types and frequency/density, ignoring the setting/level design for a quest, ignoring the objective design itself, etc.

 

A prime example of "vacuum" thinking was with the cooldown announcement some weeks ago: The people dead-set against it assumed it would only be applied as a spell-level cooldown applied in seconds, without taking into account other potential variables such as application by spell levels, or very long cooldowns, or that cooldowns could work perfectly alongside limited spell number per tier or mana or something else. I made such a suggestion early on, but well, people got overheated quickly in the exact same way I see it here.

 

And it turned out that I was right (in general, not my specific idea); Sawyer had other mechanisms in mind that would temper the main implementation of cooldowns as a solution to specific issues he saw in the old D&D Vancian CRPG application--cooldown by spell tier and grimoires, and rest for other things. I don't remember the details, but the point is that vacuum thinking merely generates useless hysteria instead of an academic discussion for other linking mechanics.

Thanks for extrapolating .

 

I think what's worrying a lot of people, including me, is that the way it was put, it sounded quite like killing anything will never reward experience, ever. Maybe that is what they meant, but for the problem Sawyer was arguing this would solve, it's seems a bit overkill. Especially since every IE game has always rewarded you with experience for combat, in some way, even if levels usually did come from quest solving.

 

It also seems to indicate that if we want to find epic monsters (your Firkraag example), we first have to find the quest attached to them, if we want any other reward than the items they might give upon death... or being required to find the quest attached to said monster before you can even find/encounter it.

 

I suppose these worries are kind of silly, the game will be made to work awesomely around whichever system they implement. I'm just so deep into my nostalgia of the IE games that I don't want to see PE deviating too much from their system, even if it's for my benefit

Edited October 16, 2012 by mstark

[Volourn]

Late to the party ti seems and have yet to read whole threa dbut plan to.

 

Anyways, i find giving xp only for quest completion almost as bad as giving xp only for combat. I think , even though it does take a little more work design wise, you should reward xp for combat, non combat, skill useage, quest completion, exploration, and role-playing. That ensures all styles are covered.

 

A noteable game BL - which is a terrific game overall - had quest based xp awards only - and it just made (admittedly alreayd subpar combat) combat even less fun. It just felt like a chore and by end of game I would just run past all enemies because there just seemed no purpose in fighting them any longer making it a waste of time.

 

I agree you shouldn't get any xp for combating versus wussy foes 9villagers and the like) not should you get the same amount of xp for using dialogue than killing someone afterwrads but you should get basic xp though. Plus, there's other ways to punish people for killing creatures neededless.

 

Plus, for old schoolers, this is how most 'old school games' did it. Dumbing down for it to be quest only xp is soemthing ME2 did. Are Codexers admitting to be next gen fans?

Edited October 16, 2012 by Volourn

[Troller]

what if my character just wants to kill everyone, how will i get XP THen this is unnaceptable!!!

[jvempire]

Late to the party ti seems and have yet to read whole threa dbut plan to.

 

Anyways, i find giving xp only for quest completion almost as bad as giving xp only for combat. I think , even though it does take a little more work design wise, you should reward xp for combat, non combat, skill useage, quest completion, exploration, and role-playing. That ensures all styles are covered.

 

A noteable game BL - which is a terrific game overall - had quest based xp awards only - and it just made (admittedly alreayd subpar combat) combat even less fun. It just felt like a chore and by end of game I would just run past all enemies because there just seemed no purpose in fighting them any longer making it a waste of time.

 

I agree you shouldn't get any xp for combating versus wussy foes 9villagers and the like) not should you get the same amount of xp for using dialogue than killing someone afterwrads but you should get basic xp though. Plus, there's other ways to punish people for killing creatures neededless.

I believe someone said earlier in the thread that while you don't get xp, you still gain skill from all combat. Though I'm not perticularly sure if this is confirmed or just someone's theory.

 

Really, the hardest part at the moment is that since major development of the game hasn't started yet we can't really discusss much about. Once development starts picking up when the kickstarter ends than things will be less vague, and it will be easier to discuss what is going on with the game.

Edited October 16, 2012 by jvempire

[Ieo]

Thanks for extrapolating .

 

I think what's worrying a lot of people, including me, is that the way it was put, it sounded quite a like killing anything will never reward experience, ever. Maybe that is what they meant, but for the problem Sawyer was arguing this would solve, it's seems a bit overkill. Especially since every IE game has always rewarded you with experience for combat, in some way, even if levels usually did come from quest solving.

 

It also seems to indicate that if we want to find epic monsters (your Firkraag example), we first have to find the quest attached to them, if we want any other reward than the items they might give upon death... or being required to find the quest attached to said monster before you can even find/encounter it.

 

I suppose these worries are kind of silly, the game will be made to work awesomely around whichever system they implement. I'm just so deep into my nostalgia of the IE games that I don't want to see PE deviating too much from their system, even if it's for my benefit

 

Sure, I can understand the fear that general adventure-hunting would not be appropriately awarded, though I read Sawyer's "general killin'" comment that the implementation would still have fuzzy edges outside the quest objective aspect. I had noted earlier that balancing against finer points of the difficulty modes may or may not be an issue if enemy xp constitutes a significant chunk of leveling, but honestly if balance is a concern, then I don't think it's a problem to remove world monster xp if they have interesting loot.

 

Josh already said that the opposition was noted, but he's a systems guy--he knows a lot of systems and has seen how they work both in the back-end and front-end during play, so I trust that an overall implementation will take into account these various things.

 

Still, back-loading xp to quest objective is a generally good idea to me because it does address a major imbalance among playstyles per leveling, but like all good idea proposals, it's still open to fine-tuning. Frankly, I think the concerns for this mechanism will be easier to address than the cooldown ones.

[Zoraptor]

Skill improvement is somebody's theory, so far as I am aware, but given how certain perks and the like worked in previous Obsidian games (eg Alpha Protocol, FONV) it seems likely there will be some system of its like. Doesn't have to be a TES style system, something like TWitcher 2 had you improve against enemies by fighting them- if you didn't just go and buy the books to get the info straight off the bat.

 

I really can't see where the people who think they're going to be forced to play a certain style/ that combat is going to be deprecated are coming from though. Wandering around slaughtering stuff will still be a viable approach, presumably- you just won't be specially rewarded for that approach. Just because you could avoid (most) combat in Fallout doesn't mean that you had to, and there's no real reason why someone who wandered the wasteland killing literally everything that moves should be 'better' than someone who achieved exactly the same goals but left nearly everyone alive.

[Humanoid]

Just thinking out aloud, I'm picturing a scenario where to get between two different area, you must navigate a tunnel full of foes. There's no real point to the scenario, just that the concept of it amuses me.

 

You sneak through to the other side, 1000xp

You kill some or all of them to get to the other side, 1000xp

 

At this point nothing is contentious, what is, and what the topic of this thread is, is whether you can claim both of those XP blocks in the same playthrough. But that discussion has come and gone for me, what mildly amused me is the image of you then sneaking back through the same tunnel to get back to the first area.

 

Now "realistically", this "should" be worth another block of XP, the quantity doesn't matter. Maybe after enough repetitions it'll become like taking candy from a baby and award nothing. But I wonder, would a "traditionalist" who claims that on the basis of realism, you should be rewarded for killing those enemies after they've been bypassed, see anything wrong with the notion of repeated XP rewards for sneaking past those same foes? After all, you're doing/accomplishing something and should be rewarded for it, no?

[Volourn]

the logic you used makes no sense. Barring an enemy being ressurected, you NEVER kill the same enemy twice. It's also why weaker enemies are worth less xp than tougher monsters and why a kobold is worth more if you face him at level 1 than if you face him at level 10. Capiche?

 

In your scenario above, you kill the enemies only once. If you sneak past them multiple times you should get less xp each time 9if any at all) because you already learned/proved you can sneak past them.

[Gatt9]

Just thinking out aloud, I'm picturing a scenario where to get between two different area, you must navigate a tunnel full of foes. There's no real point to the scenario, just that the concept of it amuses me.

 

You sneak through to the other side, 1000xp

You kill some or all of them to get to the other side, 1000xp

 

At this point nothing is contentious, what is, and what the topic of this thread is, is whether you can claim both of those XP blocks in the same playthrough. But that discussion has come and gone for me, what mildly amused me is the image of you then sneaking back through the same tunnel to get back to the first area.

 

Now "realistically", this "should" be worth another block of XP, the quantity doesn't matter. Maybe after enough repetitions it'll become like taking candy from a baby and award nothing. But I wonder, would a "traditionalist" who claims that on the basis of realism, you should be rewarded for killing those enemies after they've been bypassed, see anything wrong with the notion of repeated XP rewards for sneaking past those same foes? After all, you're doing/accomplishing something and should be rewarded for it, no?

 

Absolutely, but probability states this will end sooner rather than later. Since each creature is going to roll against your sneak skill, the probability of failure increases quite rapidly. Probability of the first event * the probability of the second event * the probability of the nth event, with each creature representing an event. Assuming that in the very worst case the monster needs to roll a 20 to see you, you'll roughly make it past 19 critters before being discovered. It does downhill pretty quickly from there.

[zlarm]

I voted for... but I do have a concern about say an encounter with a group of enemies (for example a very tough enemy adventuring party) that is not assigned to a quest. Will defeating these guys give no experience then? I'd be kind of disappointing if I spent a lot of time setting up a good strategy and upon finally beating these guys to receive no xp.