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

[teknoman2]

i do not see how not geting kill xp is limiting player freedom. if you dont get xp, you will not engage in combat? and what guarantees you that you can avoid combat? and if killing the dragon you just persuaded to let you go, was an extra objective that would give extra xp and you just dont know it?

so there will always be the chance that killing a guy you did not kill was worth extra xp, or not killing a guy you did (for no xp) would open up a new quest line. you just dont know, and that actually promotes freedom, because you wont have the certainty of an extra reward in xp for certain play styles and you just play however you feel like

Edited January 24, 2014 by teknoman2

[Sir Chaox]

Sorry, I am sifting through a lot of pages here... bear with me.

 

I feel like random encounters is a separate discussion. People have brought up good points as to the relevance of these encounters, since they tend to offer almost nothing to the player and are just a time sink; sure, potentially there can be an interesting, story-based encounter, but a majority are just trash mobs to fight (or ignore) and offer little to no worthy loot or experience. I can imagine players getting fed up with these encounters quickly and just reloading to avoid them. Also, PoE may not even have them as simple trash fights, choosing to make each random encounter a special circumstance; but the issue with that is that players will hope for these encounters, and may reload to try and get them, which becomes the opposite effect. Anyway, not sure if there has been a discussion on random encounters, but it feels mostly off topic.

 

I think Lephys brought up a question that I have failed to see answered satisfactorily: If you are given experience for completing an objective, and this objective was accomplished almost entirely through combat, then how is it that you are NOT getting experience for fighting? How did you get the experience, if it was not through fighting?

 

I think one of the main issues is the loss of immediate XP returns on accomplishments, such a disarming traps or slaying an opponent. The only way to create the balance between paths that they (Obsidian) want in this game is to implement a bulk return for accomplishing larger goals rather than allowing users to cheat the system, in a way, and following multiple pursuits SIMPLY FOR EXPERIENCE. With an objective system, you can simply do what is necessary and not try to maximize your gains of XP.

 

The bandit camp is a great example of how killing everyone in the camp just for experience is really something that is trying to be avoided in this game. Grinding and metagaming at its worst.

 

I understand there is something to be missed by losing these smaller returns, but this will produce a stronger system overall that will hopefully eliminate "degenerate gameplay" (a great term, by the way).

[Yonjuro]

 

Hmm....If it was an objective only system, then yes, obviously. But It'd be 2 objectives we're dealing with here and the XP rewards would be separate. The first objective, of course, would be the primary one: Getting into Tazok's tent and grabbing the documents.(non combat) The second objective would be to wipe out the bandit camp. (combat)

 

 

 Yup, agreed, it's two objectives.

 

 

 

But then.... if I was lame enough to adopt a "no XP for body-counts" philosophy, It probably would not occur to me to even bother with having that second objective in the first place, and I probably would not award the party any XP for just marching through the camp and killing everyone.... unless, again, they did it in a particularly imaginative way.

 

 I suppose an XP reward for being imaginative is almost impossible to do in a CRPG, but something like efficiency might be almost as good - e.g. if you wiped out the bandit camp with, say, 5 traps and a skeleton instead of 100 traps, 20 skeletons and with two party members killed you might get more XP for the former case.

[Sir Chaox]

 

 

Hmm....If it was an objective only system, then yes, obviously. But It'd be 2 objectives we're dealing with here and the XP rewards would be separate. The first objective, of course, would be the primary one: Getting into Tazok's tent and grabbing the documents.(non combat) The second objective would be to wipe out the bandit camp. (combat)

 

 

 Yup, agreed, it's two objectives.

 

 

 

But then.... if I was lame enough to adopt a "no XP for body-counts" philosophy, It probably would not occur to me to even bother with having that second objective in the first place, and I probably would not award the party any XP for just marching through the camp and killing everyone.... unless, again, they did it in a particularly imaginative way.

 

 I suppose an XP reward for being imaginative is almost impossible to do in a CRPG, but something like efficiency might be almost as good - e.g. if you wiped out the bandit camp with, say, 5 traps and a skeleton instead of 100 traps, 20 skeletons and with two party members killed you might get more XP for the former case.

 

 

If we start producing cases where you get more XP based on your performance, then would we not be encouraging players to save scum?

[Yonjuro]

...

The bandit camp is a great example of how killing everyone in the camp just for experience is really something that is trying to be avoided in this game. Grinding and metagaming at its worst.

...

 

 You're not necessarily killing them for XP. They are bandits, after all. They've been robbing everyone (and have killed at least twice that you know of), and will continue to do so if left alone.

 

 I've played as a paladin where I wiped out the camp, looted everything, rather than leave the items for more bandits to use, and donated the proceeds to the temple of Helm (well, I kept the full plate and the enchanted long bow - I was playing a paladin, not a saint).

[Sir Chaox]

 

...

The bandit camp is a great example of how killing everyone in the camp just for experience is really something that is trying to be avoided in this game. Grinding and metagaming at its worst.

...

 

 You're not necessarily killing them for XP. They are bandits, after all. They've been robbing everyone (and have killed at least twice that you know of), and will continue to do so if left alone.

 

 I've played as a paladin where I wiped out the camp, looted everything, rather than leave the items for more bandits to use, and donated the proceeds to the temple of Helm (well, I kept the full plate and the enchanted long bow - I was playing a paladin, not a saint).

 

 

Well, the reasons I read suggested it was done for the XP alone. Also, you could still do the same thing without the XP being given to you per kill anyway.

[Yonjuro]

...

If we start producing cases where you get more XP based on your performance, then would we not be encouraging players to save scum?

 

 Hmm, maybe. It would depend on how much of a bonus it was and how efficiency was measured.

 

 That is, if it were possible to (mostly) factor out the luck of the draw from the bonus calculation, then there wouldn't be much point in redoing an encounter unless you genuinely figured out a better way to do it.

[Lephys]

It's not a "no XP for body-counts" philosophy. It's a "the basis for your being rewarded is something other than simply a body-count" philosophy.

 

Basically, the XP system shouldn't encourage you to intentionally run around getting detected and sounding all alarms, everywhere, and wait around for 20 reinforcements to show up, just 'cause if you do it any other way, you get less XP.

 

Here's the best example I can think of, actually:

 

An enemy caster who summons things. If the objective is "end this evil dude's reign of terror upon the land," then killing him gets you XP. Intentionally prolonging the fight just so he can summon 15 minions instead of only 5 before he dies isn't going to give you BONUS fighting XP, nor should it. Why should you get 900 XP just because you did something that NO ONE would ever even remotely do without the enticement of bonus XP, when you only get 500XP if you kill him and his first set of minions?

 

Why not chain him up, take him back to your dungeon, and just force him to slavingly summon minion after minion, all day every day, while you just stand there cutting them all down. Or, maybe even the same one. Maybe he's a necromancer, and it's just a skeleton. He just keeps reanimating the same skeleton, over and over again, and you keep getting XP for it. He can be your secret XP cow.

 

Because that's preposterous. If you kill him quickly and skillfully, you get X amount of XP. If you don't fight effectively and prolong the crap out of it, and make it harder on yourself, you still only get X amount of XP. It's not that you're not getting combat XP. It's that you're not getting XP simply for every single instance of a kill.

 

You're getting an amount of XP that represents however many kills you made, no matter what. Why does it need to be some specific amount for each kill? If that's the case, then every single use of your sword should net you XP, because something doesn't have to die to warrant XP. If you sword-duel someone for 15 minutes, injure them a lot, then finally knock the sword from their hand and choose to let them live, and they NEVER ever die, did you not just gain fighting experience? In a per-kill XP system, you'd get no XP for that fight. In an objective-XP system, if "win the fight" is an objective (which there's no reason it couldn't be), then you get XP for that fight, instead of only for deaths.

 

If you come upon some random, even moderately-capable person on a road between two cities, and you have NO idea who he is, and he has no relevance to anything at all, you COULD talk to him, and MAYBE he'd have some immediate relevance to something, or offer you a quest, etc. But, in a per-kill XP system, it doesn't care who he is or if he's relevant to any goals or quests, or even if he's actively making your life difficult; if you kill him, and he's even capable of fighting you (as opposed to as squirrel, or an unarmed peasant), then, even if you just walk up behind him and backstab him, or every single member of your party casts a spell/uses an ability on him simultaneously and kills him before he can even draw his sword, you know you're going to get XP. And, as has been mentioned, you need XP, no matter what. So, what reason is there to NOT-kill him? Killing him gives you XP. And you didn't even have a tough fight. HE was tough, even though he didn't even get to fight you, so you get XP for that. Isn't that silly?

 

With objectives, it wouldn't become an objective to kill him until there was some relevance, and/or he was actually threatening you and warranting a tougher fight, because "did he die?" wouldn't be the only basis for rewarding XP. It's not that killing him or fighting him wouldn't ever grant you XP. It's that the conditions under which killing/fighting him grants you XP are more specific than simply "he died."

[Lephys]

Also, for what it's worth, I'm fairly certain the only times you'll ever kill something and not get an XP reward for the effort you put into that combat will be when it isn't mandatory.

 

Think about it... they've said that you'll HAVE to fight a lot in the game, that combat will be unavoidable much of the time. "Much of the time" being in relation to progressing through the "critical path" of the game. And you need XP to progress and keep up with the difficulties of necessary combat encounters, which, if you don't overcome, hinder your progress through "the game." Thus, how nonsensical would it be to design a game that requires you to combat harder and harder stuff throughout the game, but never gives you the ability to progress your own capabilities as a direct result of overcoming that mandatory combat?

 

That argument basically just leads to "I think Obsidian are idiots, and have no idea why I even backed this game, or why I ever thought they'd intelligently design anything, whatsoever." Because, that has nothing to do with what system they're using, but with your feelings on their competence.

[Yonjuro]

 

 

...

The bandit camp is a great example of how killing everyone in the camp just for experience is really something that is trying to be avoided in this game. Grinding and metagaming at its worst.

...

 

 You're not necessarily killing them for XP. They are bandits, after all. They've been robbing everyone (and have killed at least twice that you know of), and will continue to do so if left alone.

 

 I've played as a paladin where I wiped out the camp, looted everything, rather than leave the items for more bandits to use, and donated the proceeds to the temple of Helm (well, I kept the full plate and the enchanted long bow - I was playing a paladin, not a saint).

 

 

Well, the reasons I read suggested it was done for the XP alone. 

 

 

 I think that people arguing for kill XP (that is, not me) are really arguing that:

 

Wiping out the bandits makes sense from a story perspective and it is also more challenging than not wiping them out therefore the XP rewards should be higher.

 

 

 Also, you could still do the same thing without the XP being given to you per kill anyway.

 

 Agreed. If you're doing it purely for role play reasons, then you would do it anyway. There are lots of examples where XP and role play are not aligned, e.g. I wouldn't kill Adalon in BG2 if I was playing a good character. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Did I miss anything of note or are the same arguments being repeated ad nauseam?

[Azmodan]

Example #2. POE is a nice big world and you're dying to go out and start exploring those wilderness areas on the map. So you do. Once your party arrives, you start walking around. You stumble upon a pack of Ogres. They attack. You fight them. You kill them.

 

A) You get no XP for it, because there was no quest tied to it. And no objective.

B) You get 300xp because it was an "encounter" and you "accomplished" a victory.

 

Given what was revealed to us in Update #7, Which one is true? A or B?

 

- If A is true, then are you ok with that, given how significant they're claiming exploration AND combat are going to be?

- If B is true, then isn't it safe to say that the system will be literally no different than how it was in the BG games, and therefore, it won't really "fix" any "degenerate gameplay"?

 

Hi Stun,

 

The answer is "B". And it is "literally no different", because you just gave a really simplistic example, and then demolished it. This is called a strawman arguement.

Why is your example insufficient? Because in GM terms what you described is an enemy encounter in the wilderness. These encounters serve no storytelling purpose beyond presenting a party with an immediate and unimaginative (lazy?) task. "Kill some ogres".

 

I GM for a party of 12-14 level players, and I happily follow the rules - so if they are travelling through the wilderness, I roll their encounters. What challenge does a band of 8 highwaymen present to a party of 12th level players? None. The rules-driven XP reward would be approaching 0 due to level disparity. The party mage could vaporise them with a fireball, without bothering me to roll their initiative. However my guys roleplay. They make these encounters fun because the party cleric or paladin, undertakes to call a truce and lecture the vagabonds on the merits of repenting their sins. They actively seek to gain experience from me by calling on the ruffians to use their collective intelligence and surrender. Sometimes it works, other times the local merchants receive hamster statues. Either of those approaches yields more XP. Similarly for Orcs, Ogres and Dire Bears - not every conflict resolution needs to be lethal.

 

As a GM, I'd expect the game designers, who also GM and PnP roleplay, to design encounters that simulate the PnP choice.

 

In the oft-cited Cloakwood example of BG, the party should be receiving full XP for resolving the quests, and if the party wants to take additional actions to grab phat lewtz, then on their heads be it. Phat lewtz are their own reward. For a party of rogues and wizard's some tinhead's armour, no matter the plusses, might not be a worthwhile risk. Additionally, a rogue or a mage, I would expect, would seek to resolve the pursuit of treasure with more finesse than a direct, head-on approach. This "finessed approach" is an opportunity for the level designer to have some fun by scripting interesting and memorable encounters.

 

What you are also forgetting, is that ADnD rules (BG etc) have a different experience model to 3E DnD which is CR based. In ADnD, the spider gives a flat XP reward. In 3E DnD, the reward is relative to party level. The killing of a spider by a party of 1st level characters will yield reward (and overcoming the spider in a non lethal way will also yield the same XP reward, with bonuses for inventiveness).  But a party of 6th or 8th level characters will not get anything for overcoming a spider. Because they comprehensively overpower this encounter.

 

And now, an example:

Your party has to attack a fort, the objectives are:

1) Find way inside the fort - 1000XP

2) Neutralise the Armoury - 500XP

3) Neutralise 2 enemy officers - 500XP

4) Neutralise enemy spell casters - 500XP

5) Neutralise Leader - 1000XP

 

Bonuses:

A) Free the prisoners - 250XP

B) Ensure no civilian casualties - 1000XP

 

And now I'm going to reveal the source of the XP numbers - that the roughly correspond to how many enemy soldiers / monsters etc. are in the vicinity of the targets.

 

If you, as a player accomplish the above objectives by killing everyone in your path (and wonderously manage to ensure that the head-on assault yields no civilian casualties), you get the full reward.

But because I reward accomplishments, not Body Count, I will not dock you 100XP, because you missed out on killing one guard in the toilet on level 2 and 100XP for the patrolling guard in the SE corner of the map that you couldn't spot, nor will I dock you 500XP because the Armoury was liberated by the prisoners you helped escape. Because you know.. they did ALL THE KILLING there.

 

- Incidentally - to get inside the fort, you can barrage the gatehouse with fireballs (the head-on approach), climb the wall, sneak in through the sewers, fly in, teleport in, bribe a guard to get you in etc. etc.

If you, as a player accomplish the above objectives by non-lethal means, you also get full rewards. But you might not get quite as much phat lewtz.

Then again - if you put all your enemies to sleep and manacled them, as a GM I would concede, that later you can still strip them naked for their goodies.

[Yonjuro]

That argument basically just leads to "I think Obsidian are idiots, and have no idea why I even backed this game, or why I ever thought they'd intelligently design anything, whatsoever." Because, that has nothing to do with what system they're using, but with your feelings on their competence.

 

 I think the argument really boils down to something more like 'the IE games weren't broken so why is Obsidian trying to fix them by doing something significantly different?'

 

 For the record, I'm optimistic that they will come up with something good, but I can see some of the concerns being raised about the mechanics as being legitimate concerns to have. In the end, it will depend on how the pieces fit together.

[Yonjuro]

Did I miss anything of note or are the same arguments being repeated ad nauseam?

 

 Nope. You're all caught up.

[Sir Chaox]

Bonuses:

A) Free the prisoners - 250XP

B) Ensure no civilian casualties - 1000XP

 

Liked your post, but I just want to point out, I dislike the B option as a bonus versus the A option, which is a good sub-objective. 

 

Ensuring no civilian deaths means if one of your civs ends up dying, you'd be prone to reload the game and try again (bad). Meanwhile option B simply requires you to find the prisoners; either you find them or you don't, there is no reloading over it.

 

I realize you were just using it as an example, but I wanted to point out that I'm hoping such objectives like A are limited or don't exist in the game. Maybe the story changes because not all of the civilians survived, but you should not be penalized experience for it happening (I consider not getting an XP bonus a kind of penalty in a way).

[Lephys]

 

That argument basically just leads to "I think Obsidian are idiots, and have no idea why I even backed this game, or why I ever thought they'd intelligently design anything, whatsoever." Because, that has nothing to do with what system they're using, but with your feelings on their competence.

 

 I think the argument really boils down to something more like 'the IE games weren't broken so why is Obsidian trying to fix them by doing something significantly different?'

 

True enough, but I was specifically referring to the "who's to say which kills/combats will grant XP and which ones won't?/ What if I HAVE to best something in combat merely to make any progress whatsoever in the game, but it doesn't get labeled as an objective?" argument. It's more an aspect of "the" argument, I suppose.

 

It's completely separate from the system, though. What if, by halfway through the game, enemies have 7,000 HP on average, and do 150 damage, but all the player's characters only deal a maximum of 30 damage and only have 100 HP? Well, that would be dumb, but it doesn't mean we should stop using hitpoints or damage values to determine conflict resolution. The human ability to design something improperly does not comment directly on the validity of the system being used.

 

There are plenty of valid points and concerns on the "I'm kind of unhappy with this system change" side of this whole debate, but "our choice to combat/kill things is never ever going to result in XP" is not one of them, and declaring such is not somehow automatically saying "So you can't possibly have any valid concerns and the only true way of living is to love and cherish PoE's chosen XP system! 8D!"

 

I just ask people who are against it to stop wasting time with something that's not even true, and to actually productively discuss how to use the objective-XP system to ensure that combat and kills don't get the short end of the stick. Pretending the only two possibilities are that they get NO stick, or an infinitely long stick is just plain silly.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Lephys

[Silent Winter]

but the so called "random" encounters are just preset situations that the developers have set in the game. it's not like the game just creates something randomly like the first diablo did for the maps. they just occur at random times or order.

 

 

Oh yeah.  I was looking at them as throwing random trashmobs at you but now I remember they were set up and just repeated the same encounters depending on your level/chapter.  Still, there was no dialogue, you were just forced straight into combat.  (Except a few times I've gotten a NON-hostile bear ... just walked away since I was a druid/ranger at the times).

A set-piece with bandits demanding a toll (and other such things) couldn't be repeated as often - though this may well be a good thing.

And woe to those who do all 15 levels of the megadungeon and don't get any XP for killing all its monsters until the very end when the quest is completed.

 

Once again - whoever said that 15-levels of megadungeon was a single objective?  That would be stupid, I agree.

It's more likely that either a) clearing a floor will be an objective (OBJECTIVE =! GIVEN QUEST) and/or b) opening certain puzzle-doors (likely guarded by enemies) / finding artifact X, etc will be objectives.

 

And I think Josh would call killing the leader of the black talons (to get his armor and the 2000 xp that he's worth) when the quest/storyline doesn't require it Degenerate Gameplay. So of course, such behavior must be stamped out/discouraged at all costs. Including fun, and player freedom.

 

That's nothing to do with player freedom - you're free to kill the bandits or NOT?  That's freedom.

You're free to not kill them but you'll lose out on important xp at that time in the game? - that's not freedom, it's 'optimum path' forcing.

 

Sendai's lair - you can go through the spider tunnels or the slave tunnels to reach your goal.  What did we do?  We went through the spider tunnels, rested, then went back through the slave tunnels for the giggles/XP.  That doesn't encourage player freedom or roleplaying or repeat playthroughs - it just encourages grinding.

[Azmodan]

 

Bonuses:

A) Free the prisoners - 250XP

B) Ensure no civilian casualties - 1000XP

 

Liked your post, but I just want to point out, I dislike the B option as a bonus versus the A option, which is a good sub-objective. 

 

Ensuring no civilian deaths means if one of your civs ends up dying, you'd be prone to reload the game and try again (bad). Meanwhile option B simply requires you to find the prisoners; either you find them or you don't, there is no reloading over it.

 

I realize you were just using it as an example, but I wanted to point out that I'm hoping such objectives like A are limited or don't exist in the game. Maybe the story changes because not all of the civilians survived, but you should not be penalized experience for it happening (I consider not getting an XP bonus a kind of penalty in a way).

 

 

 

Thank you, Sir Chaox.

 

That's an example to illustrate the point. I also don't like missions of the type where the random positioning of NPCs detrimentally affects your mission. Also don't like escort missions where the NPC is liable to get killed by an AoE effect. Those are artificially frustrating challenges.

In the specific example above, the exact amount of XP reward would be game-balanced and there ought to be means to ensure civilian casualties are avoided through meaningful tasks and scripting. E.g. game-balanced (out of 20 civilians, ensure no more than 3 are lost, Steam achievement: None are Lost!), or scripting: sneaking into the kitchens and talking to the cook will ensure that 10 civilians quietly evacuate somewhere safe before things get messy.

 

According to the communicated vision for PoE - I would not expect a "avoid civilian casualties" objective to carry an XP bonus. I would expect it to have a reputation effect.

Objective is to storm the stronghold and neutralise the leader. How you accomplish that, is up to you as a player.

However if you end up killing civilians, your reputation will suffer and the cleric of the God of Mercy will no longer trade with you.

But perhaps the militant and sadistic leader of the mercenaries in the region, took note of your actions, and the next time you run into his thugs, they'll recall that and avoid combat (as you're a hard one to cross).

[Stun]

If we start producing cases where you get more XP based on your performance, then would we not be encouraging players to save scum?

It would also promote multiple Playthroughs. And role playing. But shame on me for being an Idealist. Developers should not be concerned about the playing habits of lousy gamers. They should only be focused on creating a fun, challenging experience. period. A game specifically designed to eliminate all "degenerate gameplay" will end up being a very DULL game. Consider the following "solutions" that RPG makers (including Obsidian) have already done in the past and which have ultimately lead to the nauseating dumb-down of the entire genre.

 

1) Issue: combat is too tough. The system is too complex

Casual Player behavior to this: Save scumming! Multiple reloads. Quits playing the game.

Developer solution: Make combat brainlessly easy. (example: Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2). Make the rule system child-like in simplicity ( example: Skyrim)

 

2) Issue: Dungeons too open ended and complex.

Casual Player behavior to this: Casual player loses interest in the game itself. Quits playing.

Developer Solution: Make Dungeons linear, and impossible to get lost in (example: Skyrim, Dragon age 1 & 2)

 

3) Issue: perma-death for party members

Casual Player behavior to this: Reload! Reload!

Developer solution: No more perma-death. Death no longer has any meaning. Combat loses that wonderful element of urgency; players no longer have to be extra careful with their party's actions because the consequences of failure have been minimized. (example: Most RPGs from 2006 to the present.)

 

4)Issue: True choice; true branching narratives.

Casual Player Behavior: Casual players miss half the game

Developer response: from a boardroom, while looking at cost-effectiveness reports, budget allocation pie charts, and other rigid, non-gaming things, the decision maker decides its not a good idea to expend resources on content that most players will never see, so the result is a linear game, with rails everywhere (example: Dragon age 2)

 

5) Issue: the game of Chance.

Casual player behavior: Reload till you get the best outcome

Developer Response Remove chance. Result: No more fun things we used to love in our games. Like the deck of many things; the wand of wonder; Save or Die rolls etc.

 

6) Issue Having to heal yourself after a fight is boooring...

casual player behavior: varies. God mode console commands; playing on easy; Quit playing the game.

Developer response Make health instantly regenerate at the conclusion of combat. (example Most RPGs today)

 

7) issue: lots of text

Casual Gamer behavior: casual gamer doesn't like to read while gaming. Skips over the text.

Developer Response: minimize text. or replace text with cutscene after cutscene. (example: every Bioware game after 2004)

 

This is just a small list. Only a fraction of the 'evolution' of the genre. This very kickstarter was born from a groundswell of gamers who wanted Obsidian to make the kind of game that used to exist before the industry-wide crusade to stamp out "degenerate gameplay" began. But it is now manifesting itself on this very thread as the gamers themselves start worrying that their peers will grind combat to get XP and therefore, we should remove XP rewards for combat. <sigh>

Edited January 25, 2014 by Stun

[Sir Chaox]

 

 

If we start producing cases where you get more XP based on your performance, then would we not be encouraging players to save scum?

It would also promote multiple Playthroughs. And role playing. But shame on me for being an Idealist.

Developers should not be concerned about the playing habits of lousy gamers. They should only be focused on creating a fun, challenging experience. period.

A game specifically designed to eliminate all "degenerate gameplay", will end up being a very DULL game. Consider the following "solutions" that RPG makers (including Obsidian) have already done in the past and which have ultimately lead to the nauseating dumb-down of the entire genre.

1) Issue: combat is too tough. The system is too complex
Casual Player behavior to this: Save scumming! Multiple reloads. Quits playing the game.
Developer solution: Make combat brainlessly easy. (example: Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2) Make the rule system child-like in simplicity (Skyrim)

2) Issue: Dungeons too open ended and complex.
Casual Player behavior to this: Casual player loses interest in the game itself. Quits playing.
Developer Solution: Make Dungeons linear, and impossible to get lost in (example: Skyrim, Dragon age 1 & 2)

3) Issue: perma-death for party members
Casual Player behavior to this: Reload! Reload!
Developer solution: No more perma-death. Death no longer has any meaning. Combat loses that wonderful element of urgency; players no longer have to be extra careful with their party's actions because the consequences of failure have been minimized. (example: Most RPGs from 2006 to the present.)

4)Issue: True choice; true branching narratives.
Casual Player Behavior: Casual players miss half the game
Developer response: from a boardroom, while looking at cost-effectiveness reports, budget allocation pie charts, and other rigid, non-gaming things, the decision maker decides its not a good idea to expend resources on content that most players will never see, so the result is a linear game, with rails everywhere (example: Dragon age 2)

5) Issue: the game of Chance.
Casual player behavior: Reload till you get the best outcome
Developer Response Remove chance. Result: No more fun things we used to love in our games. Like the deck of many things; the wand of wonder; Save or Die rolls etc.

6) Issue Having to heal yourself after a fight is boooring...
casual player behavior: varies. God mode console commands; playing on easy; Quit playing the game.
Developer response Make health instantly regenerate at the conclusion of combat. (example Most RPGs today)

7) issue: lots of text
Casual Gamer behavior: casual gamer doesn't like to read while gaming. Skips over the text.
Developer Response: minimize text. or replace text with cutscene after cutscene. (example: every Bioware game after 2004)

This is just a small list. Only a fraction of the 'evolution' of the genre. This very kickstarter was born from a groundswell of gamers who wanted Obsidian to make the kind of game that used to exist before the industry-wide crusade to stamp out "degenerate gameplay" began.

 

 

I think you've taken my statement to the extreme and went a bit off topic as well, but whatever.

 

So I agree with a lot of what you said in regards to other RPGs, but I think you are taking it too far in regards to PoE. It has already been stated that PoE will be implementing several things you are concerned with. Let's look.

 

1. I believe combat with challenge is a major goal of PoE, so no worries there (unless you lack confidence in Obsidian's team, veterans of the IE days)

2. Couldn't say, but I hope they will be similar to the old IE games, perhaps even a step further in complexity

3. Permadeath is in. (Expert mode)

4. Branching narratives will be in PoE, and I am hoping they will implement this in a way where there is no "best outcome"; simply different outcomes

5. I'm not sure if this one will be in PoE, but I don't see why not

6. Healing will still be a requirement in the Stamina/Health system (at least this is their goal)

7. IIRC, I believe there will be lots of text in this game, similar to PST

 

So even despite trying to remove degenerate gameplay mechanics, this game will have most, maybe even all, of these items you've listed. You can eliminate the problems of the IE games and still make it feel like an IE game. Unfortunately, what I see as a problem, you see as a key part of the IE experience: this is the core of the argument.

 

So as you can see, we are all idealists, just that the ideal happens to be different for each of us. Another unfortunate note is that there is virtually no middle ground here; either we choose one system or the other.

[Lephys]

Sawyer has never stated being against "degenerate gameplay." He's against "degenerate design." A very different thing. He's even specifically corrected that on several occasions, on these forums.

 

I agree with your sentiments 100% in the above post (Stun). But, I think you're falsely attributing those ideas all with Josh Sawyer's mind, to be honest.

 

There's a big difference between trying to prevent players from taking "degenerate" actions with perfectly sensible design (save-scumming -- the design is save-anywhere, but players could USE that to do "bad" things), and designing a game that encourages players to do nonsensical things via the design itself (aka, these peaceful manatees are just floating about, but IF one were to fight manatees, one would gain fighting experience, therefore, TOTALLY have some never-not-useful XP if you kill them, ^_^).

Edited January 25, 2014 by Lephys

[Stun]

 

Example #2. POE is a nice big world and you're dying to go out and start exploring those wilderness areas on the map. So you do. Once your party arrives, you start walking around. You stumble upon a pack of Ogres. They attack. You fight them. You kill them.

 

A) You get no XP for it, because there was no quest tied to it. And no objective.

B) You get 300xp because it was an "encounter" and you "accomplished" a victory.

 

Given what was revealed to us in Update #7, Which one is true? A or B?

 

- If A is true, then are you ok with that, given how significant they're claiming exploration AND combat are going to be?

- If B is true, then isn't it safe to say that the system will be literally no different than how it was in the BG games, and therefore, it won't really "fix" any "degenerate gameplay"?

 

Hi Stun,

 

The answer is "B". And it is "literally no different", because you just gave a really simplistic example, and then demolished it. This is called a strawman arguement.

Why is your example insufficient? Because in GM terms what you described is an enemy encounter in the wilderness. These encounters serve no storytelling purpose beyond presenting a party with an immediate and unimaginative (lazy?) task. "Kill some ogres".

 

Nonsense. When exploring the wilderness, encountering a pack of the wilderness' inhabitants IS the story. Or an element of it. Why do you think Bioware put a bunch of named-bandit encounters in BG1's wilderness areas?

 

 

Sawyer has never stated being against "degenerate gameplay." He's against "degenerate design." A very different thing. He's even specifically corrected that on several occasions, on these forums.

 

I agree with your sentiments 100% in the above post (Stun). But, I think you're falsely attributing those ideas all with Josh Sawyer's mind, to be honest.

 

There's a big difference between trying to prevent players from taking "degenerate" actions with perfectly sensible design (save-scumming -- the design is save-anywhere, but players could USE that to do "bad" things), and designing a game that encourages players to do nonsensical things via the design itself (aka, these peaceful manatees are just floating about, but IF one were to fight manatees, one would gain fighting experience, therefore, TOTALLY have some never-not-useful XP if you kill them, ^_^).

For what it's worth, my post wasn't directed at Josh Sawyer specifically. But the fact that he has specified that he's crusading against "degenerate design" not "degenerate gameplay" really doesn't change the nature of the beast. The end result, historically, has always been the same: A new design emerges that succeeds in making gameplay more "gamer friendly" at the cost of boring the rest of us due to its overly streamlined nature.

 

Example: The Limitless inventory. He designed such a thing for POE. Not because IWD2's inventory system was "degenerate design" (it wasn't. at all), but because, in HIS opinion, players shouldn't have to bother worrying that their inventories will fill up in the middle of a dungeon and they'll have to back track to town to sell off excess loot.

 

Again, no good player ever had that problem with IWD2, but I'm sure Josh took a night or two to watch one of the "Lets play" videos on you tube and discovered that some clueless gamer was struggling with Inventory management in one of his previous games, therefore, he swore to fix the "problem" once and for all! And the Result: No More inventory management mini-games. (which I actually enjoy in my RPGs)

Edited January 25, 2014 by Stun

[Sir Chaox]

Sawyer has never stated being against "degenerate gameplay." He's against "degenerate design." A very different thing. He's even specifically corrected that on several occasions, on these forums.

 

Did not even realize it was a term Josh was using. I meant the term in a design sense, so you are right.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Sawyer has never stated being against "degenerate gameplay." He's against "degenerate design." A very different thing. He's even specifically corrected that on several occasions, on these forums.

 

Really? Can you supply some links?

 

Because Josh Sawyer says here:

 

People used it to great degenerate gameplay lengths in old Infinity Engine games to kill powerful enemies on the first round of combat.

 

Looks like degenerate gameplay to me. Obviously not having a go at Josh. Because the IE games did have faults which Obsidian are trying to correct.

 

If you're going to quote people, it helps to have some links to back you up or at the very least, quote them with what they say.

[Sir Chaox]

Example: The Limitless inventory. He designed such a thing for POE. Not because IWD2's inventory system was "degenerate design" (it wasn't. at all), but because, in HIS opinion, players shouldn't have to bother worrying that their inventories will fill up in the middle of a dungeon and they'll have to back track to town to sell off excess loot.

 

Again, no good player ever had that problem with IWD2, but I'm sure Josh took a night or two to watch one of the "Lets play" videos on you tube and discovered that some clueless gamer was struggling with Inventory management in one of his previous games, therefore, he swore to fix the "problem" once and for all! And the Result: No More inventory management mini-games. (which I actually enjoy in my RPGs)

 

I agree with that; it was a rare inconvenience to be overburdened in the IE games, and overall feels unnecessary to implement this. But I feel we are going off topic again.

 

Then again, going back on topic might not be productive...