Balancing Stealth vs Combat II

[IndiraLightfoot]

Alright, I continue PrimeJuntas long thread here.

The link: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63171-balancing-stealth-vs-combat/

 

Let's hope it will be a less of a cess pool of negativity as someone so cleverly put it.

 

IndiraLightfoot, on 13 Feb 2013 - 20:24, said:

Alright, now compare that to Fallout New Vegas which I am playing nw actually:

Would each interval-1 objective accomplished ever reach some perk-reward? Or is it just a few select objectives that are difficult which do get perks as a possible reward?

 

If you would remove kill xp from FNV, then you would have no xp but quest xp with your system, since it rewards skill challenges, those repetitive things - like shooting a gun or picking a lock, with a perk after 100 times or something. Are you perhaps proposing Skyrim's learning by doing-system with those interval 1-objectives, but levels will replace perks? After several of those interval 1s stacked, suddenly the level meter goes "ding"?

 

Raz: "No, no, no per swing of sword etc. would get a bit ridiculous and be problematic like Arcanum. The sub objectives would simply be things that you do on the way towards whatever larger objective/quests you are going for (lockpicking doors/chests to rob the house, killing barbarians to wipe out the barbarian clan, etc.). The perks would only be gained for the higher tier things like killing 100 bandits or w/e or robbing Bill the Uber Noble's house blind. All the sub objectives would give normal xp and you'd level normally like the IE games."

 

For what I am understand this sounds like a mix between Fallout New Vegas and the IE games, and I think I like it very much. Good thinking, Raz! 

Edited February 13, 2013 by IndiraLightfoot

[TRX850]

I'm pretty sure everyone on the other thread has been arguing for discussing the same thing all along.  The issue was ostensibly that objectives had a "greater-than-one" component, which meant it was possible to have incomplete objectives dependent on player actions, and the argument discussion was whether it was appropriate to get kill xp for a partial objective.

 

Reducing it to one sounds like combat xp + skills xp + objective xp + quest xp all in one, which is what we're after......isn't it?

 

Either way, my brain trees are quivering.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I'm pretty sure everyone on the other thread has been arguing for discussing the same thing all along.  The issue was ostensibly that objectives had a "greater-than-one" component, which meant it was possible to have incomplete objectives dependent on player actions, and the argument discussion was whether it was appropriate to get kill xp for a partial objective.

 

Reducing it to one sounds like combat xp + skills xp + objective xp + quest xp all in one, which is what we're after......isn't it?

 

Either way, my brain trees are quivering.

 

I know, my brain tree is defoliated as by the horrid Agent Orange.

 

I have read quite a bit of posts in the thread, and the contention seems to be precisely that: Party encounters a group of leprechauns, but after having killed a third of them for spite, they move on, as they are lured away by a will-o-wisp into a mere nearby. With objective xp, would the party get no xp in such a case? Yes or no. I could ive with no, but it's very rare and brave for a CRPG to do so. Factoring in a bit of Fallout NV and Raz' and others ideas, that third of the leprechauns would be made into objective xp anyhow, no? Case solved?

[JFSOCC]

NO! why couldn't you just let this thread die? it's been derailed long, long long ago.

[IndiraLightfoot]

It was never alive to begin with. It was an undead entity with a will of its own... *Twilight music*

 

Jokes aside, I reckon some of the core points are worthy of discussion and a place to pick them apart. Let's just hope it won't derail again or take any of the old derailing any further.

Edited February 13, 2013 by IndiraLightfoot

[TRX850]

Back on topic, but still relevant to XP rewards, what if "successful stealth XP" didn't need to adjudicate your hide and move silently skills against a discerning enemy, but rather what you had access to *if* you managed to sneak past?

So if you snuck past an enemy guard into a back room, you'd then have opportunities to gain XP for using some of the following skills:

- Disable Device
- Open Lock
- Pickpocket
- Search
- Set Trap
- Listen
- Spot
- Sneak Attack

Even if the guard was pacing back and forth, or randomly scouting the area, the same would apply. It's still up to the character to remain stealthy, but there needn't be a complicated stealth-determining system like imaginary lines on the floor etc, which become arbitrary if an enemy is scouting randomly.

I think skills like Disable Device, Open Lock, and Pickpocket are definite contenders for XP rewards based on challenge rating.  Other skills like successfully Searching (finding hidden doors or traps), Listening, Spotting, and Setting Traps may need careful adjudication with respect to CR, and only award XP for non-trivial outcomes.

A combat character might kill the guard and still have access to the same skills as a stealthy character, but has put themselves in danger (potential loss of health and resources) and possibly alerted other enemies in the area. So the real worth comes from avoiding those things for a stealthy character. And chances are, a combat character won't have as high skill points in the skills listed above as an archetypal stealthy character, so success is by no means guaranteed.

And lastly, sneak past the guard and then Sneak Attack him for the usual (calculated) risk/reward.
 

Edit:

 

Actually, it's not CR for skills, it's DC (Difficulty Class), but you get the idea.

Edited February 13, 2013 by TRX850

[AGX-17]

SO what exactly is the issue, anyway? It's already been confirmed that combat and non-combat skills will be organized into two different columns with their own separate pools of points to increase skills and so on. And Sawyer has already said they're not doing the "experience per skill action/success" type model, citing Deus Ex: Human Revolution as an example why. What's the conflict?

[Lephys]

Balancing Stealth Vs. Combat II: The Armageddon Scale.

 

Coming to a theater near you, this Friday.

 

 

All right, all right, if this is still here, we'll see if we can't get something constructive out of it. I'll keep it simple.

 

Here's a point I failed to clearly make (or a way in which I failed to clearly make a point?) regarding why it makes perfect sense based on the logic behind per-kill-XP, to award XP only for groups. If it sheds some light on something, awesome. If it doesn't, then *shrug*. I tried:

 

In a per-kill-XP system, how do we determine how much XP an enemy should give? Well, you might say "with a challenge/difficulty rating." But, what is that based on? What is "difficulty," mathematically? Why does a rat give you no XP, but a Troll Lord gives you 200? Simply put, because the rat is so easy, and the Troll Lord so challenging. Quantifiably, it's because the rat requires so little effort and resources in order to overcome/kill. We're talking player resources, here (time, party micro-management, hit points, spells-per-encouter/rest, etc.).

 

Is that not how we determine it? "Oh, this thing is so easy now, it only gives you 10 XP instead of 50. Oh, now it's even easier because you've leveled up some more, so it no longer gives you any XP."

 

So, using that same exact basis, fighting the fearsome dragon might take you 30 minutes and all the cunning and micro-management you can muster, and that's why it rewards you with 2000XP and lots of awesome magical loot and the components for a legendary dragon claw dagger or dragonscale armor, etc. But, notice how the game, still using the exact same system, is using the quantity of effort and resources demanded from the player (including time) to determing the XP reward, but it's TOTALLY FINE with the fact that fighting a bandit for 20 seconds nets you an XP reward (albeit a smaller one), but fighting a dragon for 20 seconds does not net you any reward. If you want anything from the dragon, you've got to spend MUCH more time and effort (a greater quantity, really, of all resources involved) to get it.

 

Hence, the decision to always award something when something dies is completely arbitrary in the context of the system. As has been mentioned, you realistically gain fighting experience and muscle-memory and technique knowledge from the act of fighting, and not from the killing blow. Yet, in a kill-XP system, the XP rewards are already abstracted to the point of an arbitrary "finish line" that is completely indefinite in nature. Are you fighting a dragon? Then you have to fight for 30 minutes, but you'll get lots more XP and loot. Are you fighting 10 bandits? Well, you'll only need to fight for 20 seconds and kill a single bandit before you'll get XP and loot (although actually getting the loot is still questionable, what with 9 other bandits standing about, attempting to bring about your demise).

 

I know the dragon-vs-smaller-enemy example has been made several times, but I felt it would be good to stick with it, in light of the extra point I failed to make before about the fact that the kill-XP system actually determines whether or not you even get a reward from a kill, based solely on the resource/effort requirements of a given enemy. Also, you will sometimes, in per-kill-XP games, have a quest involving the battling of a horde of weak, no-XP enemies. In the numbers in which they are presented (together, as a whole group), they may actually be enough of a threat to warrant XP. Thus, the quest (i.e. "Clear out this cellar," or "find this artifact in this goblin-infested cave") might actually reward you with XP, for fighting a bunch of enemies that, individually, wouldn't give you any XP at all, but in a large group constitute an XP reward.

 

So, is objective-based XP that doesn't necessarily reward XP for individual enemies really the devil? Well, it's based upon the same reasoning as the per-kill-XP system. What is the decision "You get XP when this thing is dead" based upon? The fact that the death of that thing required a certain amount of effort and resources to achieve.

 

Boom. Welcome to the unbiased, reason-based basis (that the kill XP system ALREADY uses) for rewarding both combat and stealth (and all non-combat) accomplishments.

 

And, for the record (because several people seemed to be confused in the previous thread), this isn't about seeing a group of enemies, simply sneaking past them for no apparent reason, and still getting XP as though you had fought them. This "balancing stealth versus combat" discussion is referring ONLY to times when it is viable to accomplish the same thing in two different manners: Via stealth, and via combat. No one's saying they want XP rewards for every single enemy they avoid fighting.

[TRX850]

The dragon example is sound analysis Lephys. You're using game mechanics and logic, and upscaling the situation to demonstrate a flaw, and that's cool.

 

When you say the game only rewards you XP when something dies is a fair comment.  Some might say the game rewards you when an individual threat is removed, irrespective of its power, i.e. you can't kill half a dragon and claim a threat has been removed. It remains a threat until it dies. So maybe combat XP is a little contradictory in that the reward comes from removing a threat, rather than by learning (tactics, muscle memory etc).

 

And in the case of dragons vs. weak goblins, a reasonable design would be to keep the power level inversely proportional to the quantity of encounters, i.e. one or two dragons per campaign, but 1000 weak goblins spread out in groups.

[Lephys]

When you say the game only rewards you XP when something dies is a fair comment.  Some might say the game rewards you when an individual threat is removed, irrespective of its power, i.e. you can't kill half a dragon and claim a threat has been removed. It remains a threat until it dies. So maybe combat XP is a little contradictory in that the reward comes from removing a threat, rather than by learning (tactics, muscle memory etc).

 

And that makes sense. However, the same reasoning is still being used to define what is and is not a "threat." That's my whole point. When you switch to the proposed "We're probably going to shift the definition of 'a threat' to groups of enemies, rather than every single individual enemy being one," it's almost the same thing as switching from feet to meters to measure. It's a simple balancing issue, the same as "How much of a threat should we put in this spot? Should we put an orc, or a dragon?". It's functionally the same as asking "should we put an orc, or 100 orcs?"

 

So, yes, having a thing's death be the removal of "a threat," and having the removal of "a threat" be the threshold for XP reward frequency is an arbitrary decision, in that the amount of time and effort the killing of that thing constitutes is being evaluated and agreed upon, by the designers of the game, as an acceptable "threat."

 

All I'm getting at (and was trying to in all similar posts and usages of dragon examples in the other thread) is that the basis for the decision of when and why to grant XP in anything related to killing is exactly the same in both forms of XP-handling that have been so gladiatorially pitted against one another by numerous folk who share concerns about the proposed objective-based-only XP system.

 

All I'm looking for is an "Oh, well yeah, I hadn't really thought about it like that." Or even an "I already knew that, but it makes sense." This is merely an effort towards a better understanding of how the systems function before human decisions start causing any problems. Not a "I shan't sleep until ALL bow before the mighty objective-only XP system! MUAHAHA!"

 

It's just my natural response to the outcry of "That newfangled system is stupid and makes absolutely no sense!". I know it does make sense, so I'd rather people understand it if they're going to hate it. And if they don't care to understand it, and they still want to hate it... Well, I'm not the opinion police. Heh.

 

And in the case of dragons vs. weak goblins, a reasonable design would be to keep the power level inversely proportional to the quantity of encounters, i.e. one or two dragons per campaign, but 1000 weak goblins spread out in groups.

 

This is true. And this is a part of balancing, after the decision to make kills a static objective in your XP system.

 

Think of the change this way: The only thing different, really, is that the minimum CR is higher now. If a goblin has a CR of 5, then nothing below a CR of 20 (at a given level) will give you EXP. Then, the enemies are placed accordingly. So, you're probably not going to be running into individual goblins simply roaming about. Because they don't naturally do that. There are only individual goblins randomly strewn about if the devs design it that way. So, you run into a group of 4 goblins. Minimum CR met! Maybe you get 100XP for taking 'em out. Run into a group of 12 goblins? For example's sake, we'll just stick to simple math, so you get 300XP for taking 'em out (even though it would probably be higher, since you're fighting 12 at once, rather than 3 separate groups of 4.)

 

Anywho, this is no different, really, from a single goblin becoming too easy and no longer giving you XP in a per-kill-XP system. The devs obviously wouldn't populate the world with goblins at a stage in the game where they know the single goblin's CR is too low. So they start throwing orcs at you, all balanced to the needs of lore and story, of course. And various other, higher-CR creatures. Well, in a kill-XP system, if they wanted to use goblins again, they'd have to basically designate a big group of goblins as a special exception to the "goblins are too low-CR to give you XP" rule they've already established. Whereas, in the objective system, if they add up to a high-enough group CR, they're a combat objective. If not, they aren't. And, again, the enemies are placed accordingly. If you need to fight a group of 12 in order to get XP, they're probably not going to fill an entire dungeon with groups of 11 goblins, just to spite you.

 

Everything is designed and balanced with everything else in mind. If it's not, it's designer error (which happens... I know. It's a complex thing, a whole RPG.)

 

Hopefully this was both constructive and helpful. Hopefully. *blink blink*

Edited February 14, 2013 by Lephys

[TRX850]

It was both constructive and helpful.

 

The old IE system of including combat XP within a quest probably irks the more astute players here because they're super aware that the game design surrounding it was flawed.

Rest spamming, creature respawns, level squatting, flawed level scaling, and all the other reasons given in the original thread (I can't remember them all) led to unbalanced XP exploitation and so-called degenerate behaviour.

 

It looks as if OE are aware of those previous design flaws and are aiming to correct them. Quest/objective XP might be one way they intend to address it, and that's fine. I don't *hate* it btw. It's not a hateworthy concept. But with everything all said and done, there *appears* to be situations where quest/objective XP only covers say, 90% of realistic play. Maybe that figure is arbitrary depending on play style or a player's skill level.

 

If the objective is to clear the area of 10 tough enemies, but you only kill 5 because your party has been decimated, you have a choice to temporarily abandon that objective while you head off in search of easier quests to get your party level up, before returning to finish the job.

 

I personally feel that the party is entitled to the XP of those 5 tough enemies (it could be substantial) because they removed a threat with each encounter. It might mean the difference between levelling up and not levelling up before deciding whether to look elsewhere for a while.  And I'm not talking about levelling up during combat, but between each stage of the objective.  So it's not that objective XP is downright bad, it's just that combat XP fills in the gaps when valid (well, I would call it valid) situations merit it.

[Razsius]

@TRX850

I'm pretty sure everyone on the other thread has been arguing for discussing the same thing all along.  The issue was ostensibly that objectives had a "greater-than-one" component, which meant it was possible to have incomplete objectives dependent on player actions, and the argument discussion was whether it was appropriate to get kill xp for a partial objective.

 

Reducing it to one sounds like combat xp + skills xp + objective xp + quest xp all in one, which is what we're after......isn't it?

 

Either way, my brain trees are quivering.

 

Ah TRX850 you're breaking my heart man.  We usually see eye to eye on things.  This isn't a combat xp + skills xp + objective xp + quest xp all in one.  That's clearly a ludicrous system to adapt and I certainly wouldn't be a proponent of such a thing.  No this is very clearly a simple objective based xp system.  Sub objectives are simply divided into the smallest and easiest possible quantifiable number which would be that of the number 1.  The interval being 1 allows for complex game balancing on the designers part because they can look at each individual sub objective and balance according to the difficulty it *should* be given before focusing on the "greater whole" (in this case the objective/quest that you are currently pursing) and setting balance and experience points from there.

 

I think this should be fairly easy to understand.  Mmm... or am I missing something?

 

 

Back on topic, but still relevant to XP rewards, what if "successful stealth XP" didn't need to adjudicate your hide and move silently skills against a discerning enemy, but rather what you had access to *if* you managed to sneak past?

So if you snuck past an enemy guard into a back room, you'd then have opportunities to gain XP for using some of the following skills:

- Disable Device
- Open Lock
- Pickpocket
- Search
- Set Trap
- Listen
- Spot
- Sneak Attack

Even if the guard was pacing back and forth, or randomly scouting the area, the same would apply. It's still up to the character to remain stealthy, but there needn't be a complicated stealth-determining system like imaginary lines on the floor etc, which become arbitrary if an enemy is scouting randomly.

I think skills like Disable Device, Open Lock, and Pickpocket are definite contenders for XP rewards based on challenge rating.  Other skills like successfully Searching (finding hidden doors or traps), Listening, Spotting, and Setting Traps may need careful adjudication with respect to CR, and only award XP for non-trivial outcomes.

A combat character might kill the guard and still have access to the same skills as a stealthy character, but has put themselves in danger (potential loss of health and resources) and possibly alerted other enemies in the area. So the real worth comes from avoiding those things for a stealthy character. And chances are, a combat character won't have as high skill points in the skills listed above as an archetypal stealthy character, so success is by no means guaranteed.

And lastly, sneak past the guard and then Sneak Attack him for the usual (calculated) risk/reward.
 

Edit:

 

Actually, it's not CR for skills, it's DC (Difficulty Class), but you get the idea.

 

Excellent post as always TRX850.  Yes all sub objectives should be balanced in a non-trivial form.  An above example of breaking into Bill the Uber Noble's house should *not* be an easy task.  Avoiding guard patrols should take viable amounts of time, effort and energy as well as brains (from the player).  Cracking his safe might be significantly more difficult then something as trivial as clicking your lockpick skill and then hoping it's high enough.  No, instead you might have to find the code to his safe by a) capturing and torturing the information out of Bill himself and thus effecting your reputation negatively or b) finding the code written in a book within his hidden library or c) saying "screw finding that code" and instead blowing it open with explosives alerting the western half of the continent of your misdeeds.

 

@IndiraLightfoot

 

I'm pretty sure everyone on the other thread has been arguing for discussing the same thing all along.  The issue was ostensibly that objectives had a "greater-than-one" component, which meant it was possible to have incomplete objectives dependent on player actions, and the argument discussion was whether it was appropriate to get kill xp for a partial objective.

 

Reducing it to one sounds like combat xp + skills xp + objective xp + quest xp all in one, which is what we're after......isn't it?

 

Either way, my brain trees are quivering.

 

I know, my brain tree is defoliated as by the horrid Agent Orange.

 

I have read quite a bit of posts in the thread, and the contention seems to be precisely that: Party encounters a group of leprechauns, but after having killed a third of them for spite, they move on, as they are lured away by a will-o-wisp into a mere nearby. With objective xp, would the party get no xp in such a case? Yes or no. I could ive with no, but it's very rare and brave for a CRPG to do so. Factoring in a bit of Fallout NV and Raz' and others ideas, that third of the leprechauns would be made into objective xp anyhow, no? Case solved?

 

That's a great idea Indira!  I kind of wish I had thought just a bit more and come to that conclusion .

 

@Lephys

 

I don't think we'd have to worry too much about that problem as long as the designers properly balance their objectives.  Sub objectives are balanced within their own objectives or tier 2 objectives if you will.  If kill 1000 xvarts was a completely trivial encounter by the time you got to it then it was stupid game design in the first place.  Which is one of the reasons i'm not exactly a fan of fetch quests.  There's no actual challenge involved it's more like a chore.

 

Edit: Sorry I was gone a bit.  I went to the doc's office and had to find a physical copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening (because yes I like both SRPGs and JRPGs... as well as some ARPGs).

Edited February 14, 2013 by Razsius

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Like I said in the previous thread, I think XP should be challenge based. You randomly encounter a group of bandits, you can pacify them in any number of ways, you get the same amount of XP. Also XP awarded for clearing dungeons. That way we don't end up with a ME2 like "quest only" system or punish people who like to wander around a bit first rather than do a mad dash to complete quests.

 

On an unrelated note, I would like a few areas that have no quests tied to them that the player can explore.

Edit: Sorry I was gone a bit.  I went to the doc's office and had to find a physical copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening (because yes I like both SRPGs and JRPGs... as well as some ARPGs).

Dude where have you been? That game is probably one of the best FE released so far. Just look out for Chapter 5, that one can be a bit tough.

[Lephys]

If the objective is to clear the area of 10 tough enemies, but you only kill 5 because your party has been decimated, you have a choice to temporarily abandon that objective while you head off in search of easier quests to get your party level up, before returning to finish the job.

I'm glad it was constructive and helpful. NOW SHARE MY OPINION!

 

Joking aside... I agree with all you've said, until the quote above. And I DO understand why you're saying it. Why it is that that's a concern. But, it seems to me that it's appearing to you to be more of an actual problem in hypothetical Example World, all by its lonesome, than it actually would be in the game (without some ridiculous voluntary player decision-making.)

 

If you fight a group of 10 things, and they're all doing 10 damage every second, and you kill 5 of them before having to flee and lick your wounds, there are now only 5 left. A) What quests are you about to go embark on that don't involve you first healing up back in town or at the nearest rest point? And B) If you're going to heal up, and the threat has been cut in half, then what's to stop you from returning to finish what you started, which you KNOW will now be easier (only 50 damage/sec is being hurled at your group from the get-go, as opposed to 100) and will grant you XP and wondrous, wondrous rewards, save for your own laziness? (The player's... I'm not calling YOU lazy, 8P)

 

If anything, the game is encouraging you to go back and finish off the other 5 enemies after you heal up, rather than go start something else that you know you might have to abandon halfway through in order to heal up. As I said, you know you could take 5 Blargles out whilst 10 Blargles attacked you the whole time (-1 each time one was slain, of course.). So, you're mathematically guaranteed to be able to finish them off in one more strike, now. And what if you only take out 1 before you have to flee? Well, that's evidence you should probably try again when you're stronger. And you've still taken out that one, which isn't really that big of a deal. You tried something, and your party fell short (just like trying to sneak for some sneaky objective and failing 1/3 of the way through, realizing you lack the sneaky skills to successfully sneak your way to the objective's end, and that you must go improve your sneakiness and return at a later time to try again on this optional, sneaky objective.)

 

Also, how often are you going to encounter a group of 10 enemies that you can't take on all at once (again, assuming the game isn't simply horribly designed around whatever systems are utilized)? Health is meant to last you several encounters (between rest points), so if every other combat encounter decimates you, it's probably just plain bad game design (giving an enemy 1,000 damage and 100 armor and 1,000,000 hitpoints isn't the XP system's fault). Not to mention, if you can just go do other things to level up, then come back later to finish that off, then it must be an optional combat encounter. At least in the sense that you don't need to finish it right now before being able to partake in other optional things at your leisure for the purposes of leveling up. If you fight 4 groups on your way through a mountain pass, as part of some main quest (or even an optional quest), then the 5th group slays the last of your Health, and you're forced to retreat to a previous resting point after slaying 5 of 10 enemies, why on earth would you abandon a trek through an entire mountain pass, after you've come that far, simply because you had to delay your progress and travel several minutes out of your way in order to rest up? Again, the game certainly isn't encouraging you, in any way, to do anything of the sort.

 

If you unlock 12 doors that lead to a huge awesome chest, then run out of lockpicks on the final, 13th door, does it make sense to simply run off to town for lockpicks, then go take on some random other quests and claim that the game denied you part of the loot from that chest that you earned by unlocking 12 out of the 13 obstacles keeping you from its nougaty center? Of course not. You're like "It's cool. I saw all the locked doors, and I realized the doors didn't contain any awesome loot. Only the chest." And if you weren't worried enough about the contents of the chest to get through 13 doors, then you wouldn't have bothered. And if that last door is beyond your picking ability, then you come back later when you're higher-level to pick it (which, again, doesn't happen with foes, because the elimination of foes always makes the remaining foes easier to tackle.)

 

So, that's how it seems to me. And I'm with you on the moderation of that XP threshold. I am. I don't want to see "Kill every living thing in this entire cave labyrinth, THEN you'll get 40,000 XP!!!" or anything. But, to say that anything beyond the death of a single enemy is too distant an XP-granting threshold is silly, since every enemy takes a different amount of time to kill. That's the point behind the fact that a goblin may only grant you 10XP when it does, but you don't get 10XP for every goblin's-worth-of-time-and-resources that you fight a troll. Which inherently, within the same system, says "You know what? It's perfectly fine to have to fight for longer against more HP and damage and challenge before you get any XP, and to simply get more XP for that at the end."

 

And I didn't think you hated the objective-only system, for what it's worth. I just didn't really see anyone simply evaluating my points. Again, if I say "well, it could rain, and then things would get wet," and someone responds with "No, it couldn't ever rain," or "things wouldn't get wet," or "Are you saying it's always going to rain?!", all I know to do is to clarify my point. If it doesn't work, then all I know to do is further clarify.

 

I don't win at anything if people decide they like the objective-only system instead of the kill-XP system. I'm not selling subscriptions here, haha. I only win when I make a constructive point, and help people to see it, so that it may then be used to evaluate the overall topic at hand for anyone who didn't look at it that way before. Some things are simply observably true, and I try to find them. I don't claim to know them all inherently, or that I'm incapable of being mistaken.

 

 

@Lephys

 

I don't think we'd have to worry too much about that problem as long as the designers properly balance their objectives. Sub objectives are balanced within their own objectives or tier 2 objectives if you will. If kill 1000 xvarts was a completely trivial encounter by the time you got to it then it was stupid game design in the first place. Which is one of the reasons i'm not exactly a fan of fetch quests. There's no actual challenge involved it's more like a chore.

 

Edit: Sorry I was gone a bit. I went to the doc's office and had to find a physical copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening (because yes I like both SRPGs and JRPGs... as well as some ARPGs).

That's sort of my thought on the matter. The potential problem being pointed out is only really a definite problem within the context of a game designed and balanced around per-kill-XP, rather than the proposed objective-based-XP. The encounters would be designed accordingly. You could take any encounter from any game, and simply try to apply it to another game's XP calculations, and you'd probably come out with some whacked up problems. Game A has 1,000XP per level, and Game B has 10,000 XP per level. You say "That's crazy! If I killed these 5 orcs I just killed in Game A in Game B, I'd only have 500XP, which is only 1/20th of a level instead of 1/2!!!" Obviously, Game B is going to calculate its XP based upon the 10,000XP requirement of level-up. Not to mention any other level-relevant factors that are different.

 

That's been my only intention in all this. Not to say Kill-XP is obviously dumb and makes no sense. It DOES make sense. But, since it's looking like they're probably not going to change their minds about the objective-based XP decision, I simply wanted to help alleviate people's concerns about the "problems" that seem apparent. There are design/balance changes that need to be made to incorporate the new system, but it's nothing that's going to be all that noticeable, in the grand scheme of things, once the game is complete and we're playing it.

Edited February 14, 2013 by Lephys

[TRX850]

I didn't mean all 10 at once. I meant 10 separate encounters, spread out across that area of the map. Fight 5, then deciding to go elsewhere is valid, and for the reason KaineParker said; because some people just want to have a look round. Well, those two and a raft of other valid examples.

 

Sometimes, quests are interrelated; you find a magic weapon in one quest that would be perfect against an enemy in another quest, so if you like, you can divert from the first one while doing a bit more of the second one. And while on the second quest, you accept a third quest, and depending where it is and what it entails, you can do some of that before deciding you'd better go back and finish the first quest.

 

It just comes down to catering for a multitude of play styles.  I don't think I ever advocated laziness.  Only choice.

 

Edit:

 

I remember the first time I played BG1, I kept putting off the trip to Nashkel because I wanted to explore other areas first. Xzar and Montaron kept hassling me to head south, but I wanted to do more and more quests on the way, many of which were all done in a somewhat unorthodox order, like a drunken spider spinning a web.    It wasn't a very efficient way to play, in hindsight, but it was memorable and fun. And crucially, the game handled the XP rewards for me at every ridiculous choice I made.

Edited February 14, 2013 by TRX850

[Lephys]

^ It isn't ridiculous to do things in a different order, or to procrastinate exploring an entire cave network for a quest item simply to go off and explore something else or take on another quest. However, again, nothing's in any way providing a feasible scenario in which you fight PART of a group of enemies within that cave system, then never return. It's just like the Hallway O' Locked Doors example, with the chest at the end. If they're all right there, and you're on your way to the chest, and you don't get all the way to the chest, then you're not going to get what's in the chest. If the doors were all scattered throughout 20 different corridors within a structure or area, then I wouldn't recommend ONLY having a chest magically appear after you unlocked the 20th door.

 

Again, balancing and designing with the existing design decisions in mind.

[TRX850]

I just want my XP as I go.    If it allows me the option of backing off to go level up, I can still choose where I go after that in my own game.  I've earned it after all.

[rjshae]

Bravado points: these are points you gain for every significant act you perform--every creature you kill, door you unlock, creature you sneak past, trap you avoid, and so forth.

 

Each time you return to camp for healing, your current bravado points are cut in half.

 

When you are awarded a chunk of XP, you gain a percentage XP bonus (+0/5/10/20%) based upon your bravado points. Your bravado points are then reduced by the net XP award, to a minimum of zero.

 

When you level up, your bravado points are reset to zero.

 

[Lephys]

And that's totally fine. You're entitled to desire that. But, it all comes back to reasoning. Why, when you kill 1 out of 10 orcs, do you say "Yay, I got partial XP for that group of orcs!", but when you kill 10% of a dragon, you're not like "This is BULLcrap! I just wanted to back off and go level up, but I didn't get anything for my troubles?!"? Your troubles are the same, either way. It doesn't matter that you killed something as opposed to simply harming something, because that's not what you're saying you have an issue with. You have an issue with the amount of effort/time you spent being insufficient to reward you with XP.

 

I think you yourself said that such a thing is an example of the unfairness of per-kill-XP. Why is it okay for that to be unfair, but it's not okay for objective-based XP to be unfair by requiring you to kill the other 9 orcs before rewarding you? You say that per-kill-XP handles the partial-completion scenarios, yet it only does so when the partial-completion HAPPENS to involve the death of a whole entity.

 

Hydra with 7 heads. Is that 7 enemies? Should you be able to kill 3 heads, and get XP for those 3, or do you need to kill all 7? It's the same creature, but it's also 7 different targets. Tell me "when something's dead" is handling the reasoning behind XP gains in that scenario.

 

If we're discussing the effects of the choice of system, and the ideal design to accomodate all playstyles and eliminate any unfair scenarios, I don't see how you're saying "So see, per-kill-XP is totally boss" when you, yourself, acknowledge its shortcomings.

 

I like my loot as I go, but I understand that not everything I kill is going to drop valuable goods. I might have to kill 5 orcs before one's carrying money and quality equipment. Except, with XP, you know when killing the 5 orcs is going to give you XP. With loot, you don't know if any of the 5 orcs are going to have any loot.

[TRX850]

For the reasons I explained earlier.  It's not about the length of time it takes.  It's about removing a single, individual threat one at a time.  I don't expect to encounter more than one dragon (if at all) in the game, but I'm ok with the fact that because it is so powerful and will provide boss loot etc, that I only get the XP once I defeat it.  Big battle = Big XP + Big Loot + Bragging Rights.

 

It's easier (for me) to accept that XP comes after defeating 100% of a creature, regardless of how much time I spend.  The "unfairness" of length of time is reflected in the increased XP.

 

Edit:

 

One could almost say that there is a direct correlation between the XP value and the length of time it takes.  Low XP = expected short combat duration.  High XP = expected longer duration.

Edited February 14, 2013 by TRX850

[TRX850]

Bravado points: these are points you gain for every significant act you perform--every creature you kill, door you unlock, creature you sneak past, trap you avoid, and so forth.

 

Each time you return to camp for healing, your current bravado points are cut in half.

 

When you are awarded a chunk of XP, you gain a percentage XP bonus (+0/5/10/20%) based upon your bravado points. Your bravado points are then reduced by the net XP award, to a minimum of zero.

 

When you level up, your bravado points are reset to zero.

 

 

^ We need more ideas like this.

[Lephys]

For the reasons I explained earlier.  It's not about the length of time it takes.  It's about removing a single, individual threat one at a time.  I don't expect to encounter more than one dragon (if at all) in the game, but I'm ok with the fact that because it is so powerful and will provide boss loot etc, that I only get the XP once I defeat it.  Big battle = Big XP + Big Loot + Bragging Rights.

 

It's easier (for me) to accept that XP comes after defeating 100% of a creature, regardless of how much time I spend.  The "unfairness" of length of time is reflected in the increased XP.

 

Edit:

 

One could almost say that there is a direct correlation between the XP value and the length of time it takes.  Low XP = expected short combat duration.  High XP = expected longer duration.

You're... You're quite literally making my point. The one you're arguing against.

 

If it weren't about the amount of time it takes, then you'd have no problem with every single enemy in the game taking 30 minutes to fight, and giving you the same XP as 30 1-minute enemies, regardless of however much XP that was.

 

You just said it yourself. "The 'unfairness' of length of time is reflected in the increased XP." That reasoning holds true regardless of whether or not you've killed one thing or 1,000 things. I know it's convenient and nice to tally XP whenever something dies. But it's an arbitrary convenience, as far as mechanics and mathematical balancing goes. The reason that's okay is because of the general length of time and amount of resources required to fight an individual foe.. The reason you're okay with fighting a 30-minute dragon battle only very rarely is specifically because of the increased amount of time and effort it takes to kill the dragon (among other immersive reasons, which are again arbitrary in the context of mechanic balancing.).

 

If you are fine with the system, that's cool. No worries there. You're entitled to your opinion and preference. And I'm not here to change that. But when you say "I'm fine with it and also the death of an enemy isn't an arbitrary, almost-infinitely variable choice for XP-granting checkpoints, and the amount of time and resources required to fight an enemy has nothing to do with when/how-often I think I should get XP," I'm going to call you on it. You might as well be saying "I like potatos, and also they're killer alien robots."

 

No. No they aren't, but liking them isn't wrong. You can be both right and wrong at the same time.

 

The only difference between a group of 10 Blargles giving you XP, and 1 Blargle giving you 1/10th of that XP, is that you're already used to the standardization of the arbitrary choice to make dead things give you XP no matter how difficult and lengthy the battle is. If every 10 enemies in P:E takes as long (and as much effort) to kill as 1 enemy in any other isometric RPG that you're used to, you won't even notice the difference. But, here, in hypothetical land, you simply can't get past the idea that you killed an entire Blargle without getting XP until 30 seconds later, when you've killed the other 9.

 

How can you even want XP more often than an undefined group of enemies provides in a currently-in-development game when you don't even know how difficult groups of enemies will be that will be awarding the XP, or how long they'll take to fight, or how numerous they'll be, or where they'll even be placed?

 

Simply put, if time/effort doesn't matter, then why is there even such thing as a too-low-level creature? Why does a certain CR award 0 XP? Why don't ALL enemies award SOME XP? They're dying, right? Threats are being removed. Why does a squirrel give you no XP? It could bite you for 1 damage, over and over and over. It's a very tiny threat, but a threat nonetheless. And it can die. And the death of something inherently needs to provide XP, because there are no other factors to consider (like time/effort involved). So, why the lack of XP reward for incredibly weak creatures?

 

If you can truthfully, reasonably answer that question without the reason involving time and effort, I will consume my own face. o_o. I'll do it!

[TRX850]

You're talking about multiple enemies in a single encounter counting as one "XP Checkpoint".  I'm talking about single enemies regardless of whether they're on their own or in a group. If I fight one at a time, short time = low xp and long time = high xp.

 

Whether squirrels or unarmed peasants give 0 XP or 1 XP isn't the issue.  I fully expect the lower end of the XP spectrum to feel a bit like pocket change, whereas I'm probably going to be more interested in the "big notes" for XP the higher my level.

 

And again, I'm not addicted to receiving XP every 10 seconds in a battle of 1000 goblins. If I'm powerful enough, I'll probably cleave them all to pieces without having to retreat. Frequency in that example is a non-issue.  The issue of receiving XP after each kill is more important after fighting small groups or single enemies. In those cases, I can kill then evaluate my position. Do I have enough XP to level up? If so, I may head off and do that, then return better prepared.

 

Consume away!

 

(actually, don't eat your own face, there are probably laws against it)

Edited February 14, 2013 by TRX850

[Hassat Hunter]

TRX, you're confusing the crap out of me... sometimes you get so close, only to drift so far away.

 

For example every single game to point with XP for every little damn thing (DX:HR, BG2, KOTOR2, the entire freaking TES series) has shown how that leads to issues. Yet still people put it up as some holy grail fix for non-combat. It's not just theory here, it's been proven again and again in games.

Secondly; the FN:V system works fine there, but isn't that suitable for PE. The desert is big. It has respawning enemies. It would be silly if remaining empty. So yeah, killing large group XP's work less well with finite amounts of enemies. Different game, different system. Just applying the same wont work. Doesn't mean we can't look at FN:V seeing what it has done right and wrong, but just copying over the system of an entirely different gametype (sandbox vs. storyled) would be... problematic.

 

Also last one at TRX again; Why the obsession with in-combat level ups. From I hear there's about 12 level ups you get in the game. 12. In a, what, 100 hour game? Is it really that important that you get instant XP to expedient those 12 times by, what, 1 minute. It's not like it's Diablo with 150 levels or most modern games with around 50 that leveling is a common occurancy. It's SO rare, it should be an extreme non-issue. Instead of the focus point of changing a system just for those once in 10 hour events (well, faster on low level and less on high, but I hope you get the point).

 

EDIT:

Grats for Lephys for making points far better than I can, and probably not getting as frustrated as me... which can sometimes lead to less polite responses than I should make. It's just so hard not to bang my head to the wall to some points made over and over and over, and it's like the people proposing them don't even read counter-posts, let stand respond on the points being made.

Edited February 14, 2013 by Hassat Hunter

[TrashMan]

You still spent time and effort.

 

You're just not making a very good case here, since your approval of the system is completely arbitrary.

 

Also, leveling up is rare enough that it's hardly worth considering as a tactical element in deciding to retreat. Why would you retreat if the battle is going fine? If it isn't, you're going to retreat either way.

 

Either way, "XP on death" is in no way more logical or better than "XP on effort".