On PE difficulty mechanics, objective xp and combat, stealth, sweet-talking

[Karkarov]

To add, you'd be building your characters around non-combat skills versus combat skills, and would need the similar amounts of experience (let's say the same amount) to continue to hone those skills and match the non-combat challenges proposed in the game; it is not like people who choose to go non-combat with their characters do not need experience at all to successfully meet these new challenges, like a combat character would. Any kind of character could potentially need the same amount of experience; it depends on if the game offers enough depth in these different areas (stealth, diplomacy, etc.).

Well like I said in some other thread somewhere this is a concern because the idea that a character is a "social" or "stealth" character and not a valid "combat" character is frankly.... a stupid way to make a game.  Every character needs to be viable in combat on some level no matter what I do with their "skills".  If a character can be made that is basically useless in an actual fight Obsidian needs to scrap that character build or adjust it to fix that issue. 

 

There should be no such thing as a character who is straight out useless in combat.

[Stun]

Sure, they COULD botch the crap out of it. No one's denying that. But that's due to no fault of the system, itself. If "handle the village's bandit problem" is an objective, then killing the bandits meets that objective, and thus awards you XP, no? So does sneaking out at night and stealing all the bandits' provisions (which takes a lot longer than just killing them, probably), and so does elaborately speaking to every individual bandit to successfully get them all to paranoidly turn on each other.

Sure, those situations are fine.

 

But what about something much bigger... and longer... like "Find and defeat the source of evil in this 15 level mega dungeon? Are you going to be ok settling on a deferred lump sum XP reward from a 15-20 hour long (or even longer than that) quest? Me personally, I shudder at the thought. And yeah, I know, there are ways to work around that, such as throwing a bunch of mini-objectives at us in every level of the dungeon; or holding our attention and motivation via frequent loot drops.

 

But there's no substitute for the real thing: Combat exp. It's the definition of the concept, after all. EXP is shorthand for experience points, remember? If I'm a fighter, shouldn't I be getting experience for fighting?

Edited January 23, 2014 by Stun

[mur'phon]

Karkarov: Don't worry, Sawyer has been very clear that every stat will have a use in combat, sure you could make less effective characters, but he has been clear that he wants to avoid "social characters" and "skill monkeys".

[Sir Chaox]

 

To add, you'd be building your characters around non-combat skills versus combat skills, and would need the similar amounts of experience (let's say the same amount) to continue to hone those skills and match the non-combat challenges proposed in the game; it is not like people who choose to go non-combat with their characters do not need experience at all to successfully meet these new challenges, like a combat character would. Any kind of character could potentially need the same amount of experience; it depends on if the game offers enough depth in these different areas (stealth, diplomacy, etc.).

Well like I said in some other thread somewhere this is a concern because the idea that a character is a "social" or "stealth" character and not a valid "combat" character is frankly.... a stupid way to make a game.  Every character needs to be viable in combat on some level no matter what I do with their "skills".  If a character can be made that is basically useless in an actual fight Obsidian needs to scrap that character build or adjust it to fix that issue. 

 

There should be no such thing as a character who is straight out useless in combat.

 

 

I realize this is a video game, but is it not realistic to create a character that is horrible in combat? If a pacifist playthrough is possible via a combination of stealth and sweet-talk, and people want to pursue this, then I don't see the issue.

 

But at the same time, this is a party based game, and it is hard to get every one sneaking through an area (and ultimately pretty ridiculous), so I do expect everyone to do some fighting. The point is that if I choose to emphasize some skills over others, making it more difficult to overcome a challenge through combat, or if I simply have a preference to avoid combat, then I should be rewarded similarly for pursuing another path through the challenge because I need the experience to upkeep my other pursuits. My need for XP should be similar as someone going all combat.

 

But I want to correct myself and say that XP does not necessarily have to be the SAME for every path; this may depend more on the situation at hand, what path makes the most sense versus a path that will require more effort (and should reward more experience). But the trick is to try and keep it somewhat balanced so players do not feel like they are missing out on XP by going particular routes.

[Lephys]

Sure, those situations are fine.

 

But what about something much bigger... and longer... like "Find and defeat the source of evil in this 15 level mega dungeon? Are you going to be ok settling on a deferred lump sum XP reward from a 15-20 hour long (or even longer than that) quest? Me personally, I shudder at the thought. And yeah, I know, there are ways to work around that, such as throwing a bunch of mini-objectives at us in every level of the dungeon; or holding our attention and motivation via frequent loot drops.

A valid point. The mega-dungeon is a very good example of something that's not so intuitively broken down into objectives. However, I trust they have a plan, or they wouldn't have put it into the game. Honestly, what it comes down to here is that I don't trust them to spend oodles of time and effort implementing game aspects that I look at and admire, and that we all agree are really well-planned, then turn around and ignore the crap out of other stuff in the game, such as just tossing in a 15-level mega-dungeon for no other reason than to have a big optional dungeon crawl, completely unsupported in any way by their plans for the XP system.

 

Obviously I'm not saying they'll just do this with everything, ever, but, if, for example, there's not any way to simply talk and/or stealth your way through the levels(floors) of the mega-dungeon (as I suspect their probably won't be... not the entire floors), then they could very well make clearing certain groups of enemies be objectives. There could even be lore reasons for it, like pathways/passages that are sealed by the force of wandering souls/spirits, etc., until you kill them. Not to mention that you still can also get very useful loot from dead things, and/or tombs/containers guarded by tough things, etc. There could even be lore reasons for the obtainment of certain loot to be an objective.

 

In other words, they're not exactly devoid of options, there. This is just a tiny paragraph of me thinking about it, and they've got a whole team of people who've already designed this mega-dungeon (and the rest of the world/game) from the ground up. Again, it's definitely a less-easy task to figure out how to handle such things in the proposed XP system, but I trust that they can handle it.

 

I hardly think you're crazy for having concerns about such things, and you know well that I'm a fan of analysis (so I'm hardly criticizing that), but, I just want to emphasize that there's no definitive design proposed thus far for ignoring the role of combat in XP gain. That's all.

 

But there's no substitute for the real thing: Combat exp. It's the definition of the concept, after all. EXP is shorthand for experience points, remember? If I'm a fighter, shouldn't I be getting experience for fighting?

Again, you have a point. And yet, if it's that simple, then shouldn't a Wizard get experience for casting spells (regardless of whether or not they have anything to do with besting someone in combat?)? Shouldn't a Rogue get experience for manipulating people and pilfering things? Shouldn't a Ranger get experience for training his animal and surviving in the wilderness? A Priest, for praying to their deity and performing pious works?

 

A Fighter fights, sure. But, in PoE, everyone fights. "Fighter" just describes how you do what you do, rather than specifically what you do and do not do. A Fighter can obviously do plenty of other stuff (sneak, talk, manipulate, observe, calculate, study, craft, etc.). He can't NOT-ever-fight, though. The whole "you kind of are required to partake in a good bit of combat to get through this game" aspect of the design takes care of that.

 

One more way to look at it: In previous games, with per-kill XP, there wasn't much else you got XP for, per-action. You didn't just get XP for lying to people, for example. "Hey, there's a huge boar attacking the guards on the east gate!" "REALLY?!" "Haha, no, but I got you! +50XP!". Nope, you got XP for accomplishing things. Oh, you lied and it was useful? XP. Whereas, killing almost anything got you XP, regardless of whether or not it was useful. Sure, you often got XP for disarming traps, but, could you just set your own trap, then "disarm" your very own handiwork, and keep gaining XP for that same trap? No. And if you could, then that was horrible design, because that doesn't even make sense.

 

So, in lieu of a "you gain experience with every action -- more sword-swinging = more swordsmanship skill, etc.)" system, I think a little abstraction is understandable. Again, even in per-kill, the system doesn't care HOW you kill stuff. It just cares that it died. Ingeniously set a bomb trap, then lure 10 enemies into it, detonating it and killing them all? You just go the same amount of XP as if you had single-handedly killed them all with a rock tied to a stick and your own physical ability. Is that not awarding two different approaches -- the use of your mind and cunning, AND the use of your physical skill -- to accomplish the same task (the death of hostile things)? It sure seems like it.

 

And don't get me wrong... I hope to see situations in which combat is the better choice (and possibly even requires more cunning to get through, regardless of sheer party strength), AND offers more XP. I don't think the general idea that it won't ALWAYS be the most frequent way to get XP/MORE xp means that it will never offer more XP than some other approach. The idea IS balance. And, again, could they screw it up? Of course. But, it won't be because the system forced them to. That's all I'm trying to say.

[Azmodan]

I think in parts, it also depends on how the levels are designed. e.g. if every level is designed towards combat encounters, then a substantial amount of XP is probably going to come from killing enemies (I'm assuming this will be evenly divided between party members).

 

On the other hand, conceptually a level may be designed with sufficient hot zones and triggers, which account for things such as character state, movement and interaction with environment. There is no reason why a level shouldn't be designed for a sneaky rogue or invisible wizard, quietly avoiding guard patrols to pull some levers that lead to resolving the objective using the environment.

 

The disadvantage of that level design might be in that you could double your XP by first sneaking and satisfying area objective, and there-after murdering all the enemies for more XP.

 

However a potential work-around is to have the environment kill / disable the enemies so as to preclude kill-harvesting. Or, to only award additional XP following a last status check upon exiting the level.

[Stun]

A valid point. The mega-dungeon is a very good example of something that's not so intuitively broken down into objectives. However, I trust they have a plan, or they wouldn't have put it into the game. Honestly, what it comes down to here is that I don't trust them to spend oodles of time and effort implementing game aspects that I look at and admire, and that we all agree are really well-planned, then turn around and ignore the crap out of other stuff in the game, such as just tossing in a 15-level mega-dungeon for no other reason than to have a big optional dungeon crawl, completely unsupported in any way by their plans for the XP system.

 

Obviously I'm not saying they'll just do this with everything, ever, but, if, for example, there's not any way to simply talk and/or stealth your way through the levels(floors) of the mega-dungeon (as I suspect their probably won't be... not the entire floors), then they could very well make clearing certain groups of enemies be objectives. There could even be lore reasons for it, like pathways/passages that are sealed by the force of wandering souls/spirits, etc., until you kill them. Not to mention that you still can also get very useful loot from dead things, and/or tombs/containers guarded by tough things, etc. There could even be lore reasons for the obtainment of certain loot to be an objective.

 

In other words, they're not exactly devoid of options, there. This is just a tiny paragraph of me thinking about it, and they've got a whole team of people who've already designed this mega-dungeon (and the rest of the world/game) from the ground up. Again, it's definitely a less-easy task to figure out how to handle such things in the proposed XP system, but I trust that they can handle it.

 

I hardly think you're crazy for having concerns about such things, and you know well that I'm a fan of analysis (so I'm hardly criticizing that), but, I just want to emphasize that there's no definitive design proposed thus far for ignoring the role of combat in XP gain. That's all.

No offense, but this is getting a little tiresome. Every time someone raises a valid (and logical) concern about a stated gameplay design for POE, we get people like you responding with: "Have Faith! I'm sure Obsidian will successfully pull off a miracle and we'll all be awed!"

 

OK, before I address that, let me make one thing clear. I *do* have faith in Obsidian, when they're right. When their gameplay design suggestions make sense. But this "no xp for kills" thing is part of a small handful of design decisions that fall into Josh Sawyer's unhealthy crusade to stamp out "degenerate gameplay". The theory is that if they take away the rewards for killing stuff, then Players will be more willing to explore alternative conflict resolution options. Yeah, that's fine. Great even.... for everyone except those of us who don't appreciate Daddy using ham-fisted tactics to get us to play a certain way..

 

 

Again, you have a point. And yet, if it's that simple, then shouldn't a Wizard get experience for casting spells (regardless of whether or not they have anything to do with besting someone in combat?)?

That goes without saying. Spells are how a wizard solves problems. If I'm playing a wizard, I want... nay.... I expect to be rewarded for solving problems with my spells, be it combat or otherwise. Ditto with Rogues and rogue skills.

 

Shouldn't a Rogue get experience for manipulating people and pilfering things? Shouldn't a Ranger get experience for training his animal and surviving in the wilderness? A Priest, for praying to their deity and performing pious works?

Absolutely. I'm certainly not arguing that non-combat skills shouldn't be rewarded. I'm steadfastly arguing that successful use of ALL skills should be rewarded. In fact, I'll take it a step further. I want double rewards if I manage to successfully use 2 different skills at the same time to solve a problem. For example: lets say I encounter an enemy party. I manage to use my speech skill to turn half of them to my side, and my combat skills to kill the other half. I should get more XP than someone who simply managed to talk everyone to his side, or, simply slaughtered them all.

 

 

A Fighter fights, sure. But, in PoE, everyone fights. "Fighter" just describes how you do what you do, rather than specifically what you do and do not do. A Fighter can obviously do plenty of other stuff (sneak, talk, manipulate, observe, calculate, study, craft, etc.). He can't NOT-ever-fight, though. The whole "you kind of are required to partake in a good bit of combat to get through this game" aspect of the design takes care of that.

And? does the fact that we all get non-combat skills make it OK that we won't be rewarded XP for using combat skills to kill enemies? or what? What's your point?

 

 

One more way to look at it: In previous games, with per-kill XP, there wasn't much else you got XP for, per-action. You didn't just get XP for lying to people, for example. "Hey, there's a huge boar attacking the guards on the east gate!" "REALLY?!" "Haha, no, but I got you! +50XP!". Nope, you got XP for accomplishing things. Oh, you lied and it was useful? XP. Whereas, killing almost anything got you XP, regardless of whether or not it was useful. Sure, you often got XP for disarming traps, but, could you just set your own trap, then "disarm" your very own handiwork, and keep gaining XP for that same trap? No. And if you could, then that was horrible design, because that doesn't even make sense.

I suppose I should make my point clear again. I'm not at all opposed to getting awarded massive XP for successfully solving problems without resorting to combat. Nor have I ever argued that we should be able to gain XP for summoning monsters and then killing them. LOL

 

And your gripe that those games rewarded you XP even if the kill was pointless (ie. slaughtering innocent villagers), fine. I don't see why the solution to this is to eliminate all combat xp outright, when they could simply make all non-hostile NPCs worth 0xp, thus solving the specific problem. Sheesh.

 

So, in lieu of a "you gain experience with every action

Correction: We should be getting EXP for every conflict resolution. Not every action. Huge difference. A fighter can swing his sword and hit an enemy with it. That's an action. But unless that action manages to End the Encounter, he should not be getting EXP for it.

 

the system doesn't care HOW you kill stuff. It just cares that it died.

False. The system doesn't even care if stuff died. Re-read Update #7 with Tim Cain. The game will not reward you for your body count. Those are his exact words.

 

On its face, this actually sounds awesome. As it is what true roleplaying is all about. But the problem is that they have decided that this will be a combat-centric game. And in a combat-centric game, it simply doesn't make sense to hand out XP rewards for everything BUT combat. Someone who sneaks past that tough group of Ogres should get some measure of XP for avoiding a blood bath, but the game should NOT make a bogus judgment call and rule that the brave warrior who took on those Ogres, and won, gets NOTHING.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Stun

[teknoman2]

you can look at it this way

you are in a dungeon for a quest

you kill a guy and get 60xp

you disarm a trap and get 30xp

you unlock a chest and get 10xp

you kill 2 more guys and get 120xp

you kill the boss and get 80xp

you turn in the quest and get 300xp

total 600xp

would it not be the same if instead of getting small amounts for each individual action, you got 600xp at the end of the quest?

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Or

 

You sneak past the enemies and talk with the boss. Dazzle him with your charm and turn in the quest. 600xp thank you. Nice.  

[Stun]

you can look at it this way

you are in a dungeon for a quest

you kill a guy and get 60xp

you disarm a trap and get 30xp

you unlock a chest and get 10xp

you kill 2 more guys and get 120xp

you kill the boss and get 80xp

you turn in the quest and get 300xp

total 600xp

would it not be the same if instead of getting small amounts for each individual action, you got 600xp at the end of the quest?

No, because with a differed lump sum system like the above, a player (even without using any skills) can simply skip the majority of those actions, and still be rewarded the same as someone who meticulously took the time to do everything.

 

That's not to say that Quest XP is a bad idea all the time. It's not. It's a great idea almost all the time. It just shouldn't stand on its own.

 

Look, what's wrong with the system BG2 used? You got quest/Objective XP at the end of every major questline in BG2. But you also got XP for the individual stuff you did during that quest. Like for killing things, solving puzzles, disarming traps, unlocking chests. etc.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Stun

[Hiro Protagonist II]

No, because with a differed lump sum system like the above, a player (even without using any skills) can simply skip the majority of those actions, and still be rewarded the same as someone who meticulously took the time to do everything..

 

This. You can skip some of those things. If you skip stuff in a game like BG2, then you lose out on xp. If you don't explore, you miss out on all those chests, enemies, traps and everything else that rewards you. If you play a game that is all quest based xp, you get all the xp regardless if you explored or not.

 

I can see one of the challenges will be speed runs and how quickly you can do PoE and still get maximum xp. Missed out a 1/4 of the game but still got all my xp! winner!

[Pipyui]

designed this mega-dungeon [...] from the ground up.

 

Generally when building a giant underground mega-dungeon, you tend to work from the ground down.

 

PE doesn't need to have a strict "lump sum" system of distributing experience.  I don't see why we can't still get it from killing things, solving puzzles, disarming traps, unlocking chests. etc.  I know that IE games of old used it, but in my mind the implementation of kill exp serves more for the realm of ARPGs and dungeon crawlers than for CRPGs - where you grind through enemies and dungeons solely to level up.  In PE we will be leveing so slowly that I don't imagine the difference between getting exp for killing things immediately, and getting it instead at the end of the quest/dungeon/whatever should impact too significantly.

 

In every ARPG - and in many CRPGs - I've played, I treat experience like currency beyond gold, the ultimate resource, and will go out of my way to clear enemies for it only to turn around and persuade my way through an obstacle as the "alternative choice."  The no-kill-exp mechanic serves to cull that metagaming BS.  Sure, your party should get experience from combat, but if this is abstracted away to a system based on merit - even the merit of clearing a remote horde of goblins, or solving a puzzle, or unlocking a hefty chest - to staunch flaws of the stab-something-get-exp system, I'm for it.  You should still get experience for clearing enemy parties and such, I just don't mind if it's delayed until after I clear the immediate area of enemies entirely / finish the quest / whatnot.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Pipyui

[Lephys]

And your gripe that those games rewarded you XP even if the kill was pointless (ie. slaughtering innocent villagers), fine. I don't see why the solution to this is to eliminate all combat xp outright, when they could simply make all non-hostile NPCs worth 0xp, thus solving the specific problem. Sheesh.

Here's really the entire core of the dispute right here. Without addressing this, there's no point in saying anything else, really. *snap*, You too, Hiro. Pay attention. Or don't. It's really up to the both of you, I suppose.

 

A) Please explain to me how an objective XP system (which is PoE's current design) "eliminates all combat XP outright," if you don't mind. Because, the whole point is that it doesn't, but you seem to think otherwise.

 

B)Guess what making all non-hostile NPCs worth 0XP is the functional equivalent of? That's right. Not-marking those NPCs as combat objectives.

 

*dusts off hands*

 

If you can't tell anyone here how an objective is simply incapable of providing a reward for a successful combat victory, or even the death of a specific individual, then everything else you're saying is a complete waste of e-breath.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Lephys

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Or

 

You sneak past the enemies and talk with the boss. Dazzle him with your charm and turn in the quest. 600xp thank you. Nice.

Yes, it is nice. Seeing as sneaking will be skill-intensive, and unless Obsidian are absolutely terrible designers dazzling the boss will be more complicated than just "Speech>10 = win".

 

No, because with a differed lump sum system like the above, a player (even without using any skills) can simply skip the majority of those actions, and still be rewarded the same as someone who meticulously took the time to do everything.

Which is why the vast majority of quests shouldn't(and likely won't) use lump sum and instead reward XP in intervals. Preferably said intervals would be tied to overcoming individual challenges within the quest and rewarded after completing those challenges.

 

For example, you have a quest to rescue a lord's mistress from a mage. One challenge in the quest involves getting past the bandits the mage employs to guard his fortress. You have the option to (1)defeat the bandits in combat, (2)sneak past them, (3)bribe them, (4) poison them, or (5) trick them into fleeing. On completion of this challenge, you are rewarded a set amount of XP for completing the challenge regardless of method used. Options 1 and 2 require both player and character skill, options 3 and 4 will be resource draining, and if well-designed option 5 should be harder than "Speech>10 = win".

 

Furthermore, the idea that quests should be completed without using any skill would be terrible design.

 

Look, what's wrong with the system BG2 used? You got quest/Objective XP at the end of every major questline in BG2. But you also got XP for the individual stuff you did during that quest. Like for killing things, solving puzzles, disarming traps, unlocking chests. etc.

I didn't like it because combat was the only method of conflict resolution available in the Baldur's Gate series for the vast majority of quests. For everything good about Baldur's Gate 2, there were very few quests where non-combat resolution was viable. I would have much preferred a system that rewarded players for completing challenges than method used to complete challenges.

 

You can skip some of those things. If you skip stuff in a game like BG2, then you lose out on xp. If you don't explore, you miss out on all those chests, enemies, traps and everything else that rewards you. If you play a game that is all quest based xp, you get all the xp regardless if you explored or not.

If you skip out on things in PoE, you will miss out on loot and XP as well. If you don't bother exploring, you will miss out on quests and loot too.

 

I can see one of the challenges will be speed runs and how quickly you can do PoE and still get maximum xp. Missed out a 1/4 of the game but still got all my xp! winner!

You can play about a fourth of Baldur's gate and reach the 161,000 level cap. Only played 25% of vanilla BG and got all my XP! Winner!

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

If you skip out on things in PoE, you will miss out on loot and XP as well. If you don't bother exploring, you will miss out on quests and loot too.

 

You didn't read my post properly. I never said to miss out on quests with xp. If you do all the quests that have xp and get the maximum amount of xp in the game, then you should be able to skip stuff that doesn't have xp tied to it. And it's been confirmed that there will be stuff that doesn't have xp. And loot? I won't need to collect all the loot in the game to finish it.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

You didn't read my post properly. I never said to miss out on quests with xp.

No you said "some of those things" which is very vague. If you don't want people to misunderstand your meaning, try being more precise.

 

If you do all the quests that have xp and get the maximum amount of xp in the game, then you should be able to skip stuff that doesn't have xp tied to it. And it's been confirmed that there will be stuff that doesn't have xp.

How is his different than Baldur's Gate? You can reach the XP cap if you only play a fourth of the game and there are plenty of actions that are not rewarded with XP.

 

And loot? I won't need to collect all the loot in the game to finish it.

Again, how is his different than Baldur's Gate? You don't need Varscona, The World's Edge, or Asheinda to beat the game, but they are quite nice to grab.

[Stun]

A) Please explain to me how an objective XP system (which is PoE's current design) "eliminates all combat XP outright," if you don't mind. Because, the whole point is that it doesn't, but you seem to think otherwise.

OK. Here's one example. (of many, MANY that anyone who's read Update #7 can give you) Enemy adventuring party (like the one that the $10,000 backers get to create) ambushes you while you're in the wilderness. It's a tough fight, you emerge victorious. You gain 0XP. Why? Because we will not be getting XP for killing things in POE..

 

 

B)Guess what making all non-hostile NPCs worth 0XP is the functional equivalent of? That's right. Not-marking those NPCs as combat objectives.

Well, yeah. But it's a far more specific solution to your gripe about how the IE games rewarded you XP for pointlessly killing stuff 'just cuz".

 

On the other hand, we have hordes of hostile monsters and undead... you know, possible denizens of the 15 level mega dungeon. Are they ALL going to be combat objectives? I doubt it. It'd be terrible dungeon design if they were. I mean, what happens if you miss a single skeleton on level 2? Will it constitute quest failure?

 

And what about the exploration they promised us? Do you see them not allowing us to roam around a hostile map without being on a quest to? Because if we're not on a quest, then everything we kill on those maps will net us ZERO xp.

 

If you can't tell anyone here how an objective is simply incapable of providing a reward for a successful combat victory, or even the death of a specific individual, then everything else you're saying is a complete waste of e-breath.

<sigh> citing exceptions, then parading them around as the rule is a truly moronic way to debate. More to the point: The fact that we will occasionally have bounty-hunter quests, and "clear this cave for me" quests that see you specifically tasked to kill stuff in exchange for XP, does not mean that we're dealing with a system that rewards you for your kills. Instead, it just means they're throwing us a bone.

 

It might also mean that we're going to be forced to hang our hopes on lousy quest writing, but I digress.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Stun

[Lephys]

You gain 0XP. Why? Because we will not be getting XP for killing things in POE..

You're very skilled at arbitrarily repeating things. I was asking if you could possibly explain why this is true. Or rather, to be more specific (because I know how much you love semantics and technicalities of wording), how does the fact that every single death in the entire game will not immediately produce an XP award upon its happening somehow mean that "Take down this $10,000 backer's really tough party" cannot possibly be an objective? Or that killing any given creature, even, cannot be an objective?

 

Or, to use an example that's already been used about 800 times, and people like yourself just keep ignoring it... If your objective is simply "handle the evil, backer-designed party problem," and killing them handles the problem (who knows what it is... they're probably raping and pillaging, *shrug*, it's a simple example), then why would killing them not directly produce an XP reward? Thus, in a system in which you "don't get XP for kills," you actually just received XP for kills, an occurrence which, according to you, is impossible, as an objective-XP system apparently CANNOT affiliate killing or combat of any kind with an objective.

 

Is it really that hard to comprehend?

 

A per-kill XP system is simply an objective-XP system in which killing living NPCs is always labeled as an objective. There's no toggle in Unity for "Use Kill XP system" or "Use Objective XP system." So, all this contempt for an objective-XP system and how it's somehow inherently not going to ever represent combat or deaths with XP rewards is pure folly.

 

But, *shrug*, no one's here to tell you what to do. I mean, if you reallllly want to go on arbitrarily feeling like you've wasted your pledge money, and that the game's just going to be a catastrophe, then that's totally your prerogative.

 

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

[Frenetic Pony]

The interesting thing I'd always found in these kinds of RPGs is the reward mechanism. You come across a room of enemies, you can talk your way past or kill enemies.

 

You always have a motivation to kill enemies, because you get loot. Everyone likes loot right? And if you get XP then you've got even more motivation to do so. Then there's the motivation to roleplay, if that's your type of character.

 

On the other hand you can talk your way past. If you get no XP you don't have much motivation to talk, beyond roleplaying. If you get XP, it's often less than just killing the enemies anyway, not too mention not getting any loot.

 

So if you get loot and Xp for killing enemies, you will tend away from roleplaying because Hey XP and Loot! So the reward mechanism should correspond to the game. If you want PE to be primarily about roleplaying, then objective completion only XP would be the way to go, and maybe even minimize the loot random enemies drop. If you want more of an action game then by all means all the XP and loot in the world should come from enemies. Personally I vote for the former.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

You didn't read my post properly. I never said to miss out on quests with xp.

No you said "some of those things" which is very vague. If you don't want people to misunderstand your meaning, try being more precise.

 

 

If you read it in context, it is precise. I was answering a post above me. Try keeping it in context.

 

 

If you do all the quests that have xp and get the maximum amount of xp in the game, then you should be able to skip stuff that doesn't have xp tied to it. And it's been confirmed that there will be stuff that doesn't have xp.

How is his different than Baldur's Gate? You can reach the XP cap if you only play a fourth of the game and there are plenty of actions that are not rewarded with XP.

 

 

I've never hit the level cap 1/4 of the way into Baldurs Gate. You must do a lot of side quests before you even reach Baldurs Gate. Or just play the main quest with very little side quests. However, when I do hit the level cap closer to the end of the game, I just concentrate on finishing the game. I don't bother with a lot of the other quests or loot, especially if the rewards are small.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the xp in PoE is spread over the game so you hit the level cap near the end of the game. What this does for me is make a lot of stuff during the game that you aren't rewarded with xp for become somewhat redundant. A locked chest guarded by some slimes with some gold and spells? If it's just some random encounter that's not part of a quest, then I don't care. Not enough of a reward to go in, have a fight, unlock it and take the small amount of loot. Maybe Obsidian will get rid of all the trash fights in PoE? The slimes in Davaeorn's lair in the Cloakwood mines is an example of this. It wasn't required to fight them. If something like this is in PoE, then it's not worth my time if I can pick up the same stuff elsewhere. In the BG games, you were rewarded. And you also had a very high level cap in BG2. 

 

 

 

And loot? I won't need to collect all the loot in the game to finish it.

Again, how is his different than Baldur's Gate? You don't need Varscona, The World's Edge, or Asheinda to beat the game, but they are quite nice to grab.

 

 

 

It's different because you're mistaking quest items with non-quest items. The items you quoted are quest items with xp attached to them. However, there are magical items that are not part of a quest and I just ignore them as being too far out of my way, not as good as what I have, or for many other reasons. 

[Utukka]

Some of you seem to be looking at this like you're from the Diablo 3 dev team. (1 extreme or the other) There's a million ways they can work in XP, "objective" or "kill" based.

 

In the example of a "Ambushing" party...perhaps combat is the only option in that instance and so winning the fight(killing them), grants you XP in this instance. They could also possibly allow you to run away or talk your way out of it...it's all in their hands and they are certainly not tied in how they can implement this.

 

Main point = They can do a mixture of Objective AND kill based XP depending on the story/nature of whatever event.

 

For example....

 

1)Roaming ogres in wilderness - Perhaps they aren't a talkative bunch and the area is too wide open to really merit giving points for hiding in a bush so in this case, they give XP for killing them. They of course, could also have these ogres guarding a bridge and sneaking past them then could give XP while dialogue is given the finger again.

 

2) There could be a # of traps placed out in a wilderness area, perhaps these are worth XP for disarming. Dialogue and combat in this case are given the finger. Now there could be a further story to this later on, but it doesn't necessarily have to be some major event to get your XP/reward.

 

There doesn't have to be 100% balance across the board, they can give multiple different scenarios across the board that require different resolutions while still leaving the majority of major quests/xp to be objective based. If the game is 100% stealth, combat, or dialogue every single time...then it's probably not very realistic in my opinion and will diminish part of the immersion in my opinion.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

And what about the exploration they promised us? Do you see them not allowing us to roam around a hostile map without being on a quest to? Because if we're not on a quest, then everything we kill on those maps will net us ZERO xp.

 

There goes those random encounters. Not that the random encounters were hard to overcome, except for the wyverns, spiders and ettercaps with poison in the Cloakwood Forest. No fear of being ambushed because you get no xp for kills. Unless Obsidian wants to make us fight for no xp in random encounters. Random encounter?, no xp?, okay just runaway or reload.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Silent Winter]

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the xp in PoE is spread over the game so you hit the level cap near the end of the game. What this does for me is make a lot of stuff during the game that you aren't rewarded with xp for become somewhat redundant. A locked chest guarded by some slimes with some gold and spells? If it's just some random encounter that's not part of a quest, then I don't care. Not enough of a reward to go in, have a fight, unlock it and take the small amount of loot. Maybe Obsidian will get rid of all the trash fights in PoE? The slimes in Davaeorn's lair in the Cloakwood mines is an example of this. It wasn't required to fight them. If something like this is in PoE, then it's not worth my time if I can pick up the same stuff elsewhere. In the BG games, you were rewarded. And you also had a very high level cap in BG2. 

 

 

[specific v. random loot]

It's different because you're mistaking quest items with non-quest items. The items you quoted are quest items with xp attached to them. However, there are magical items that are not part of a quest and I just ignore them as being too far out of my way, not as good as what I have, or for many other reasons. 

 

 

Fair enough, and that's your playstyle - for a lot of us, we'd beat those slimes and open that chest just because it was there (and we wouldn't know it wasn't an objective until we did it -> "objective" doesn't equal "given quest").(That's a reminder to everyone, not aimed at you Hiro)

Josh has said you'll need gold and wotnot for the stronghold - if you choose not to bother with the stronghold, then you won't need as much loot.  (I'm hoping that they solve the issue of early-game poverty v. endgame millionaire).

 

But they can reward you with XP for beating a group of enemies, for getting through a level of the mega-dungeon (whether or not you killed every last skeleton, you got past them either by fighting or by sneaking or by trapping or by...).  Is it really necessary to reward the annihalation of every last Xvart in the village? (we'll be talking 2xp maybe )

 

Fighting while randomly exploring the wilderness (as Stun brought up) is more of a question.  How should that be rewarded?  Obviously there's random loot, but in BG I often don't bother picking up those swords unless they're magical and special - so Hiro's point is valid for this.  Should the wilderness have hidden, mini-objectives?  "Find the campsite" , "Control the Ankheg population" etc - this could be achived most directly through fighting through it, but perhaps sneaking past to the campsite and purchasing Ankheg poison from the nearest town and placing it at the edges of their holes would work too.

So you're getting xp for exploring and doing things - combat is the obvious way to solve the problem and comes with its own challenges, other solutions might be possible too (and if not - there's still the combat).  The combat fans aren't getting short-changed then, just because fans of other methods can also get XP from exploring.

 

Or maybe they'll just say "scr*w it - explore if you want, there's no xp"

[Stun]

There's no toggle in Unity for "Use Kill XP system" or "Use Objective XP system." So, all this contempt for an objective-XP system and how it's somehow inherently not going to ever represent combat or deaths with XP rewards is pure folly.

For that matter, no where in update #7 does Tim Cain use the word "objective" when describing the XP system. Instead, he uses the word accomplishments, and he makes it clear that Racking up a bunch of Kills =/= ACCOMPLISHMENTS... so...

 

 

You gain 0XP. Why? Because we will not be getting XP for killing things in POE..

You're very skilled at arbitrarily repeating things. I was asking if you could possibly explain why this is true.

 

You want me to explain why this is true?

 

Alright. It's true because The guys developing this game said so.

 

 

From TIM CAIN:

 

We plan to reward you for your accomplishments, not for your body count.

 

 

Or rather, to be more specific (because I know how much you love semantics and technicalities of wording), how does the fact that every single death in the entire game will not immediately produce an XP award upon its happening somehow mean that "Take down this $10,000 backer's really tough party" cannot possibly be an objective? Or that killing any given creature, even, cannot be an objective?

because... we... will.... not.... be.... rewarded.... for... our.... body count.

 

 

My turn. And I'll even make it multiple choice. Ready?

 

Question: When one of the developers says: We plan to reward you for your accomplishments, not for your body count. Does he mean:

 

a) We will definitely be rewarded for killing things

b) Racking up a big body count in this game is a way to gain rewards

c) a & b

d) None of the above

 

 

 

 

 

Or, to use an example that's already been used about 800 times, and people like yourself just keep ignoring it... If your objective is simply "handle the evil, backer-designed party problem," and killing them handles the problem (who knows what it is... they're probably raping and pillaging, *shrug*, it's a simple example), then why would killing them not directly produce an XP reward?

Um, what makes you think they're going to be tied to a quest? Are you privy to information the rest of us don't have?

 

Thus, in a system in which you "don't get XP for kills," you actually just received XP for kills, an occurrence which, according to you, is impossible, as an objective-XP system apparently CANNOT affiliate killing or combat of any kind with an objective.

Ok, following that logic, lets talk about the Mega dungeon...again. If the quest objective is: find and eliminate the evil in the Mega dungeon, does that mean that you have to do 15 whole levels of intensive combat (several hours) without gaining a single exp point for it, until the very end? YOUR logic (that if the objective is to kill, then you're getting xp for killing) says yes.

 

And if so, what's the solution, again, for this remarkably unacceptable flawed design that is doomed to utter failure?

 

 

A per-kill XP system is simply an objective-XP system in which killing living NPCs is always labeled as an objective.

No, it's not. In cRPGs, Objectives get their own journal entries. But I've never played an RPG that updated your quest journal every time you killed a wolf. or a goblin. Edited January 24, 2014 by Stun

[Lephys]

There goes those random encounters. Not that the random encounters were hard to overcome, except for the wyverns, spiders and ettercaps with poison in the Cloakwood Forest. No fear of being ambushed because you get no xp for kills. Unless Obsidian wants to make us fight for no xp in random encounters. Random encounter?, no xp?, okay just runaway or reload.

... Dear lord...! The only incentive in the entire game is XP! I... I get it now! Why didn't I see this before?! MAN I'm an idiot.

 

Guys... gold and loot are useless! And obviously the game can't use combat as a challenge, like, ever. You know, "Oh, you want to get to these forgotten ruins full o' loot and objectives and stuff? You're going to have to fight your way there, then!" I mean, at that point, what's the point in combat? Getting to a treasure-laden ruin? Pffff... That's preposterous. u_u What's it filled with... XP?

 

That treasure chest right next to you? Well, it's not filled with XP, so... there's not really point in opening it.

 

Hey, even if the game DID have guaranteed XP for every single kill, what if you run into a branching path, and you choose a way to go, and you don't run into any enemies on that particular path, and it dead ends in a room full of free loot. Well, obviously you have to reload the game and go a different way, right? Duh...

 

If there's no point in fighting anything if you don't get XP, then there's no point in doing anything unless you fight something. Because clearly, the slaying of things provides us with absolutely nothing else.

 

Boom. Discussion: VANQUISHED!

 

Awww, but it didn't give us any XP! T_T