Degenerate Gameplay

[Helm]

It's Origin Bullet time .  Try not to get hit by one....

 

You know it's funny after Lephys last post I realized that I would actually be okay with 0 xp as a penalty for not using your head as a gamer/roleplayer.  So in that sense I propose a simple hybrid system no combat xp for neutral or friendly mobs/npcs.  Killing a neutral goblin faction that's sitting around in the middle of nowhere not really harassing anybody really shouldn't be rewarded.  I suppose in that sense i'm tired of playing a person only interested in mass genocide.  Completely ignoring the hostile faction of hobgoblins ambushing people on the road between cities?  Yea you should take an xp hit for that.  Roleplaying a coward should not be a viable option and it sure as hell shouldn't be rewarded for it.  Neutral bears and wolves wandering the woods that only become aggressive if you get close makes more realistic sense and xpwise shouldn't really be rewarded though maybe you can trade in bear pelts for gold and in the process piss off the nearby Druids of the Evergrove.  So you can do it but you don't have to do it.  Likewise, any combat forced on a player or proposed as a viable option should simply be rewarded and handily too if you have to spend a good chunk of resources.  One of my favorite things to do in Baldur's Gate was to go basilisk hunting and as I recall there wasn't much in the way of treasure or quests that directed you to do so.  Instead, it was simply more of a challenging hunt of a legendary monster.  Getting zip xp and no loot for an enemy that can instantly kill you is more than a little lame and kind of defeats the entire purpose of rewarding a player for going out of their way to do things "off the track."  I don't need npcs pointing in a direction saying "there's a sense of wonder right over there."

Quest-only XP still seems to only serve a rational, compliant playstyle, and penalize chaotic and/or evil choices. Which all comes back to whether the player (i.e. YOU) can control yourself by having your characters behave relevant to their "alignment". A paladin would accept the quests, do the quests, and receive quest XP. A blackguard on the other hand, would lie, cheat, and possibly betray quest-givers to increase their power, which means they would not play to the rational, compliant model.

 

Kill XP allows players the freedom to play "against the system" if that's how their character would (and should) behave. I'm still convinced we all want the same awesome game experience, but I'm not convinced quest-only XP will cover all playstyles.

This. Pretty much this.

 

Posted again because it is good.

[Amentep]

Yeah, it's ridiculous. There is no more choice, all you have to do now is cross that imaginary line however you feel like it. You get the same amount of xp for and fighting, sneaking or being diplomatic. Ridiculous.

 

Are you now arguing that instead of the problem being the possibility that sneaking and being diplomatic could become superior pathways to fighting that the problem is that fighting is no longer the superior pathway?

 

Not to mention that the IE games were based heavily upon combat which is not the case for PE anymore. Yeah, I bet that is what all of the backers were expecting.... (no, not really).

 

Planescape: Torment was heavily based on combat? Combat was the worst thing about it and usually just tedium between the good bits. That said I'd love another Icewind Dale game. Unfortunately I'd imagine the BG and PST fans would be up in arms about that...

 

[Helm]

 

Yeah, it's ridiculous. There is no more choice, all you have to do now is cross that imaginary line however you feel like it. You get the same amount of xp for and fighting, sneaking or being diplomatic. Ridiculous.

 

Are you now arguing that instead of the problem being the possibility that sneaking and being diplomatic could become superior pathways to fighting that the problem is that fighting is no longer the superior pathway?

 

Not to mention that the IE games were based heavily upon combat which is not the case for PE anymore. Yeah, I bet that is what all of the backers were expecting.... (no, not really).

 

Planescape: Torment was heavily based on combat? Combat was the worst thing about it and usually just tedium between the good bits. That said I'd love another Icewind Dale game. Unfortunately I'd imagine the BG and PST fans would be up in arms about that...

 

I have not changed my argumentation. Not at all.

 

And since when has fighting always been the superior path in the IE games? And where did I ever say that I always want the combat path to be the wisest choice? Don't put words in my mouth.

 

And in Planescape you were rewarded for combat (regardless of how good you thought it was). You were rewarded for overcoming challenges in Planescape, and that is the way it should be. Half of the rewarding for overcoming challenges is being thrown straight out the window with PE though.

 

They already said that the game will have elements of all of the IE games. And if you don't like companions, then you can create a full party of PCs, just like in Icewind Dale.

[Amentep]

I have not changed my argumentation. Not at all.

 

And since when has fighting always been the superior path in the IE games? And where did I ever say that I always want the combat path to be the wisest choice? Don't put words in my mouth.

 

I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth - I thought I was misreading what you stated and wanted to make sure that I had; my memory was that you were okay with three valid paths as long as in making three valid paths fighting wasn't made invalid (the fear about cost in expenditures in fighting vs rewards). So the question was asked for clarity on my part not to accuse you of anything (sorry if it came out like that).

 

And in Planescape you were rewarded for combat (regardless of how good you thought it was). You were rewarded for overcoming challenges in Planescape, and that is the way it should be. Half of the rewarding for overcoming challenges is being thrown straight out the window with PE though.

 

They already said that the game will have elements of all of the IE games. And if you don't like companions, then you can create a full party of PCs, just like in Icewind Dale.

 

Right, but I'd argue the poor implementation of combat made the xp reward a terrible motivation to engage in combat if it could be avoided (in this case, combat was unattractive so the xp reward didn't outweigh the tedium for me). 

[Helm]

 

And in Planescape you were rewarded for combat (regardless of how good you thought it was). You were rewarded for overcoming challenges in Planescape, and that is the way it should be. Half of the rewarding for overcoming challenges is being thrown straight out the window with PE though.

 

They already said that the game will have elements of all of the IE games. And if you don't like companions, then you can create a full party of PCs, just like in Icewind Dale.

 

Right, but I'd argue the poor implementation of combat made the xp reward a terrible motivation to engage in combat if it could be avoided (in this case, combat was unattractive so the xp reward didn't outweigh the tedium for me).

This is the reason why Planescape was a commercial failure. Too much text, too little combat.

 

And then to PE. The motivation for combat will be non-existant in many cases. Unless the game forces me to fight or a I see a mob with good loot.

[Helm]

 

 

 

However it should not happen in a game which has been advertised as retro to give the additional elements and colors so big a significance that they upset core mechanics.

PE is not advertised as retro game it's advertised as spiritual successor. Spiritual successor does not mean carbon copy. Like new Torment game which is set in different setting and will have different mechanics. I would wish some people to wrap this idea around their head.

 

Yes it is.

 

Miss classic cRPGs like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment? So do we!

 

Well, where in this sentence do you see - we will make a carbon copy of those games we miss? They always wrote about spiritual successor, there is no: "we will make a classic game" statement. Just like in the movies there are sequels, remakes, spiritual successors etc. and they are all different things. Grindhouse movies are spiritual successors of old movies but they were made using modern filming techniques.

Could have fooled me, it says so right there that they want to make a classic IE style game.

With their own ruleset of course. Modernized graphics is also a no brainer.

 

But seeing that you know better would you be so kind and point out to me where on the Kickstarter page it says that they are not actually planning on making a classic IE style CRPG?....?

[Helm]

 

But seeing that you know better would you be so kind and point out to me where on the Kickstarter page it says that they are not actually planning on making a classic IE style CRPG?....?

That's an idiotic statement, but since most of your post are idiotic then we have to deal with it. Nowhere it says they don't want to make a classic RPG, also nowhere it says that they don't want to make an RTS, FPP, racing game, H&S, TPP, point and click or an orgy sim.

*chuckles*

 

I see you couldn't find any proof to back up your statement. This is because it isn't there you know.

 

Well, thank you for proving me right.

[Helm]

*sigh*

[Ffordesoon]

Ha!

 

I was amused to see the reactions to my post, because they were exactly as I had predicted they would be.

 

PrimeJunta has the right of it. I love dungeon crawlers like Diablo and Etrian Odyssey, and I love hack-&-slash killfests. Love 'em, love 'em, love 'em. And they are games centered around numbers going up.

 

The IE games had numbers going up, but they were not centered around numbers going up. The Icewind Dale series, maybe, but the rest of them? Absolutely not.

 

And I can prove it to you.

 

Ask yourselves what your favorite memories of the Baldur's Gate games are. This includes battles, by the way; good encounter design is enjoyable in itself, regardless of the ultimate reward (though that can certainly be quite nice). Oh, and loot is also included.

 

Are you picturing those memories in your mind?

 

How many of your very favorite memories from Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 begin and end with numbers going up? I don't mean the excitement of learning what the higher numbers allowed you to do within the game, but solely the numbers themselves.

 

Very few, I'd wager. I doubt you were checking the XP counter every time you killed a monster to see if your sweet, sweet numbers went up.

 

And if you were, it wasn't because you were SO DANG EXCITED to see those numbers increase, was it?

 

You did what you did in those games in order to overcome the goal set before you. If you wanted a better sword, you wanted it to kill some dudes who were guarding a part of the map you'd never been to before. If you wanted to level up, you wanted to do it because you wanted to complete a quest sitting at the bottom of your journal that you'd been killed trying to complete a number of times before. You wanted the numbers to go up in the IE games because they let you do more things within the content.

 

The numbers, in other words, were a means to an end, and not an end in themselves.

 

In a numbers-go-up game like Diablo, you want to go up a level or get better loot so you can go up another level and get betterer loot so you can go up another level and get bettererer loot, et cetera, ad nauseam. The sole point of character progression is more character progression. That doesn't make Diablo a better or worse game than Baldur's Gate, just a different one.

 

The IE games - even the Icewind Dale series, in a way - were quest-focused narrative RPGs. I completely understand the desire of some players to have percieved control over their leveling, and I wouldn't necessarily be averse to that. Certainly, I don't care at all for the overly prescriptive leveling of Mass Effect 2 and 3, and I'd imagine that's what most people here are afraid of. I'm just saying that a spiritual successor to a series of quest-focused narrative RPGs should ideally be about questing.

 

It's also worth mentioning that the "challenge XP" Sawyer has referred to multiple times would - if it's anything like New Vegas - basically be combat XP. It would simply be delivered in one lump sum as opposed to being parceled out over a long period of time. I understand why someone might prefer one to the other, but there's not a huge functional difference between the two.

 

When any of you actually sit down and play PE in 2014, I seriously doubt any of you will be fuming at the changes made to the IE formula. Unless, of course, you've already made up your mind to fume at the changes on release. But, hell, you can't all be Codexers, can you?

[TMZuk]

I wonder what it is about those damned kill-points that makes the same people post the same things again and again and again?

 

To those of you who love them, and who fume because they won't be there, I hate to break the "news" to you: We were a number of people who loved the IE games but hated the kill-points. Did that stop us from playing the IE-games? No.

 

So how about you get over yourself already and move on? I LOVE that kill-points are out. But I am damned sure that there will be other features which I'll dislike. I am also pretty sure I'll play the game anyway!

[Helm]

I wonder what it is about those damned kill-points that makes the same people post the same things again and again and again?

 

To those of you who love them, and who fume because they won't be there, I hate to break the "news" to you: We were a number of people who loved the IE games but hated the kill-points. Did that stop us from playing the IE-games? No.

 

So how about you get over yourself already and move on? I LOVE that kill-points are out. But I am damned sure that there will be other features which I'll dislike. I am also pretty sure I'll play the game anyway!

Please. Explain why you hated receiving xp when you engaged in combat.

Edited February 7, 2013 by Helm

[Lephys]

Quest-only XP still seems to only serve a rational, compliant playstyle, and penalize chaotic and/or evil choices.

"Seems" being the key. I think this whole multi-thread debate revolves around things seeming a certain way to certain people.

 

It actually serves all playstyles, until specific developer decisions direct it to do otherwise, just like a car doesn't kill anyone because it's a car. It only kills people when it happens to be driven into people. Cars can exist around people without killing people, and Objective-based XP can exist around playstyles without killing any playstyles.

 

It doesn't matter who hates combat, and who loves combat, and how much someone likes XP, and how often you want XP, and what difficulty you want to play the game on, and which flavor of cake is better. Opinion is irrelevant to the discussion of the "problem." Opinion on BOTH sides of the debate. It's pointless.

 

The system is either inherently problematic as far as logical design constraints go, or it is not. And it simply is not.

Edited February 7, 2013 by Lephys

[Hormalakh]

 

I wonder what it is about those damned kill-points that makes the same people post the same things again and again and again?

 

To those of you who love them, and who fume because they won't be there, I hate to break the "news" to you: We were a number of people who loved the IE games but hated the kill-points. Did that stop us from playing the IE-games? No.

 

So how about you get over yourself already and move on? I LOVE that kill-points are out. But I am damned sure that there will be other features which I'll dislike. I am also pretty sure I'll play the game anyway!

Please. Explain why you hated receiving xp when you engaged in combat.

 

This conversation is stilllll going on?

 

I hated receiving xp for my druid when he killed animals.

[TRX850]

It's still going on because many people are discussing XP as if it's in a vacuum.  Check out the Cause and Effect thread.  Allow XP for whatever, then adjudicate the behaviour.  If it affects certain factions, then there's your trade-off.

 

If you kill forest animals, you may well antagonize a druidic faction.

 

If you kill innocents, you will most certainly antagonize local factions.

 

If you know there are consequences for unlawful behaviour, it may result in a little more self control from players.

 

There's no need to punish chaotic or evil play styles by denying them XP just because their party are "in character".

[LadyCrimson]

Not that the ever ongoing combat-XP topic isn't scintillating but ... post limit.