Experience Point Mechanics - Fighting Enemies

[Hassat Hunter]

*Looks at last few pages*

Seems I got a video to find and look at...

 

Anyway, on the discussed stuff;

I want that awesome feeling that the IE games captured so well: where you see some dangerous and really *tough* looking creature(s) in front of you and the first thing that goes through your mind is....awesome, I bet this guy's worth a ton of XP.

If I EVER think like that... please kill me. Please.

First of all, stop making XP into the only possible reward. Second, why does it follow that a combat-focused RPG has to reward you for combat? To jump genres, do shooters like Doom reward you for combat? No.

But don't you get it. That's why everyone runs past enemies in Doom and Wolfenstein!

But apparently Stun already replied "they use no XP" so let's go from there to Deus Ex.

Have you tried running past foes there? Even early-game pistol ones will murder you instantly if you do that. It's also a good show how sneaking definitely isn't always "easier and faster" as the pro-XP camp seems to imply.

Also I'm pretty sure plenty of people (me included) do kill a lot of people in DX.

If you think Vampire: Bloodlines is a bad example (it's not) how about saying what's so bad about Deus Ex that kill-XP would have massively improved?

Not to mention the fact that Bioware spotted the thief problem in Bg1 and addressed it right away in BG2...where suddenly Thieves became XP generating machines with their non combat skills. Disarming a traps nets you 2780xp (and later 3550) and opening locks nets you 750xp (and later 1550).

Congratiolations.... your "fix" is what I would call 'totally break the system'... BG1 offered many ways to solve doors, traps. BG2 you better use your thief on them. It also introduced great XP stuff like XP for learning spells. Which added the logicial "remove spell you know and re-learn for XP"

Seriously, the BG2 XP-exploits revolving around this kind of giving XP are so numerous, I'm shocked anyone thinks of this of a fix.

 

Similarly for KOTOR1>KOTOR2... where Obsidian was so stupid to add the same stuff. A giant minefield was "yup, level up" instead of "how do I get past there" (seriously, you could level up on Goto's Yacht and Telos just on the mines). It also added the great "place mines, switch map, mine mines... XP!" exploit.

Also, KOTOR2 was ridicilous easier than KOTOR1, having insanely early access to Lightning thanks to all this bonus XP.

 

If there's one thing Obsidian failed in upgrading KOTOR it was XP-wise. Let's not repeat the procedure, will we?

Yes of course your right.. I wasn't saying that Vampires is empirical evidence that combat should always give XP.. It had alot of combat issues beyond xp rewards.

 

I just don't like it being used as a poster child for why no xp for combat works.. it didn't work in that game..

If you would force everyone to fight every monster in the Sewer each game I'm sure more than one gamer would have turned clinically insane. A solution to bad combat and area design isn't "add XP"... that's just a cookie to do something you hate. With good combat, and good design, you don't need that cookie to get through it.

 

And yes, it definitely worked... there's a reason people really can only mention 2 areas where it fails... the Sewers since horrible design and the endgame since serious too much combat.

And XP wouldn't fix that or everyone would say Ravager+Malachor V was teh awesome instead of stopping the game just infront of it.

[Immortalis]

Yes of course your right.. I wasn't saying that Vampires is empirical evidence that combat should always give XP.. It had alot of combat issues beyond xp rewards.

 

I just don't like it being used as a poster child for why no xp for combat works.. it didn't work in that game..

If you would force everyone to fight every monster in the Sewer each game I'm sure more than one gamer would have turned clinically insane. A solution to bad combat and area design isn't "add XP"... that's just a cookie to do something you hate. With good combat, and good design, you don't need that cookie to get through it.

 

And yes, it definitely worked... there's a reason people really can only mention 2 areas where it fails... the Sewers since horrible design and the endgame since serious too much combat.

And XP wouldn't fix that or everyone would say Ravager+Malachor V was teh awesome instead of stopping the game just infront of it.

 

 

So.. as I already stated.. Vampires isn't a good example of no kill xp for combat working well..

 

Instead It's an example of a non-combat focused game working really well.

 

Just like Planescape Torrent is an example of a non-combat focused game working well even though it has xp for kills.. that doesn't mean kill xp was working well..

 

This just means you can make a game with 80 - 90% of the combat being optional and the game will still be really good. Xp for kills is irrelevant in these types of games. These games are not directly comparable to BG / IWD type games in my opinion.

 

Please don't cherry pick quotes..

 

EDIT:

Again.. just to state my point in reverse. If you decide to play Bloodlines as a crazy killer and fight everything in the game.. you slowly begin to HATE combat in that game.. Without the progression that comes with combat, you begin to get combat fatigue. This is not where the game shines at all.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Immortalis

[Stun]

 

Not to mention the fact that Bioware spotted the thief problem in Bg1 and addressed it right away in BG2...where suddenly Thieves became XP generating machines with their non combat skills. Disarming a traps nets you 2780xp (and later 3550) and opening locks nets you 750xp (and later 1550).

Congratiolations.... your "fix" is what I would call 'totally break the system'...

 

Oh yes. Thieves getting XP for Disarming traps. That Totally Broke BG2. I mean, with a party of 6 you could <gasp> reach the cap before the final battle! What a terribly broken XP system!

 

Of course, if BG2 HADN'T made thieves so useful (both in and out of combat), you tiresome IE game haters would have bored us with your cookie-cutter Plan B argument: Endless rants about how useless the Thief class was in The IE games. Oh wait, you still do that anyway.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Stun

[Tartantyco]

Again.. just to state my point in reverse. If you decide to play Bloodlines as a crazy killer and fight everything in the game.. you slowly begin to HATE combat in that game.. Without the progression that comes with combat, you begin to get combat fatigue. This is not where the game shines at all.

 

 

If the combat in Bloodlines bores you, maybe you shouldn't roleplay as a crazy killer? It sounds to me like you just want the game to reward you for how you want to play, regardless of how that affects how others want to play.

[PrimeJunta]

Stun... I think you're still missing the point of our criticism. Well, mine at least.

 

It's this. A bit long, but hey.

 

I believe that good cRPG's have no single best way to play them. This applies at all levels: no single best party, no single best build, no single best thief build, no single best way to play a thief. One of the main reasons cRPG's appeal to me is that there are lots of different approaches with different advantages and drawbacks. So, one measure of excellence for a RPG system is how well it supports diversity in gameplay, parties, builds, and tactics.

 

The IE games—well, most of them—did this pretty well, certainly a lot better than most modern cRPG's. You could play with a full party, half party, or solo; you had lots of classes, kits, and subclasses to play with; you had lots of spells and gear and even some specializations to choose from. And you had a lot to do. With me so far?

 

Now: the problem with systemic XP—kill XP like in all of them; lockpicking or spell-learning XP like in BG2—is that it detracts from this crucial aspect. If dealing with a trap with a thief gives XP, but sending a summon to trip it doesn't, then playing with a thief in the party becomes objectively better. It becomes the right, favored way to play the game. Same with kill XP: since XP is objectively good—there's never any reason you would not want XP, assuming you want to become as powerful as you can—there's never any reason not to kill everything you see. Killing things becomes the right way to play the game, rather than sneaking, talking, or finding ways around them, even if the game's makers put in these possibilities.

 

As you've pointed out, it's possible to balance things out by hand-placing XP for these other approaches. Yes. However, this is not necessarily easy to get right, and you have to also make these rewards somehow disable the systemic rewards they're there to offset. That's yet more work, and also often makes the game worse in other ways—where did all the beasties suddenly disappear? why can't I pick this lock? why don't I get any XP for killing this critter after all?

 

All of this can be avoided simply by not having systemic XP at all, and making all XP hand-placed and tied to the objectives you're trying to achieve. Is it flawless? Of course not. Not rewarding combat does make avoiding combat the more attractive solution. The solution to that is in the map and quest design. Make some combat unavoidable and make it challenging to avoid combat. Yes, it would be boring if you could run past or sneak around every fight with every party. However, it would not be boring if, say, avoiding fights in the wilderness required that you have a wilderness-proficient scout in your party, and that you used that scout effectively to plan your moves so you can avoid those annoying beetles. 

 

This way, you have two viable strategies to attack wilderness maps, both of which give you a different experience but roughly similar results. You can build a party and tactics that kills wildlife as efficiently as possible. Or you can build a party that avoids hostile wildlife as efficiently as possible. The first party will get a few monster bits and other minor loot but will expend more resources fighting them. The second party will avoid spending the fighting resources, but will miss out on the monster bits. Being relatively minor, they're not all that hard to balance, and you won't have to deal with all the possible double-XP traps you'd get with systemic XP.

 

This is good.

 

Finally: BG2 isn't broken. It's a hell of a good game overall. Many of its particular mechanics, though, are broken. Criticizing these mechanics or other aspects of the game does not make us "IE game haters." Slinging around epithets like that isn't very helpful IMO. And I believe quite strongly that BG2 would have been an even better game with better mechanics, including for XP.

[Caerdon]

A great post, PrimeJunta!

 

Unfortunately Stun will still wonder why you get 1500 XP for entering one cave but not the other, and this thread will go on and on and on.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

It also introduced great XP stuff like XP for learning spells. Which added the logicial "remove spell you know and re-learn for XP"

 

 

In all fairness, though, at least it gave you a way to get something actually good for all that useless gold you had sitting in your pocket.

 

Two wrongs don't make a right, but still.

[Stun]

As you've pointed out, it's possible to balance things out by hand-placing XP for these other approaches. Yes. However, this is not necessarily easy to get right,

Is anything in game development easy to get right? Of course it's hard. So what? By the way, as hard as it is, we're getting tons of these hand placed "Other Approaches". Have you taken a look at the scripted encounters, and all the skill and attribute checks (and I'm assuming XP rewards for success) that Obsidian has decided to implement? or hell, even standard 7-option dialogue choices.

 

Obsidian is flat out taking on this challenge. But of course, the entire discussion here is about how, if we were to attach 100xp to a wood beetle kill, or 30xp to a black ooze, (for example) then suddenly the system will collapse upon itself; Players might reach the XP cap before the last phase of the final battle; and the worst result: the utter catastrophe of some players actually opting to "ruin" their own single player gaming experience by still choosing to kill stuff instead of choosing the totally viable, totally rewarding other options that are still made available to them.

 

and you have to also make these rewards somehow disable the systemic rewards they're there to offset.

Again, I don't agree that you'd have to do this. I've got 5, count'em, 5 Infinity Engine games that I can point to that totally prove (to me, at least) that I'd utterly enjoy even an UNbalanced systemic XP system. No, more than that: I'd enjoy it for a decade and a half, and then eagerly throw a couple hundred dollars at a kickstarter that simply name drops them as an influence. It's YOU people who are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Not me. Edited August 17, 2014 by Stun

[Tartantyco]

The reason why kill-for-XP is bad has already been explained, Stun. Manually placing XP will not improve anything either. It has also been explained that, while the IE games XP system didn't completely wreck those games, that is not a good reason to emulate it. It didn't add anything, either. If this makes for a better game, then that's a good thing.

 

Pillars of Eternity is meant to emulate the feel of the IE games, not their mechanical underpinnings.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Tartantyco

[Immortalis]

 

Again.. just to state my point in reverse. If you decide to play Bloodlines as a crazy killer and fight everything in the game.. you slowly begin to HATE combat in that game.. Without the progression that comes with combat, you begin to get combat fatigue. This is not where the game shines at all.

 

 

If the combat in Bloodlines bores you, maybe you shouldn't roleplay as a crazy killer? It sounds to me like you just want the game to reward you for how you want to play, regardless of how that affects how others want to play.

 

Or they could.. you know.. make it more fun by adding meaning to that combat. You know like.. make a fun combat system. You know.. that thing that games with combat should do? You are taking the Josh Sawyer argument to an extreme. Here is some stuff you can do in the game.. it's boring we know.. but optional.. that last sewer level is a doozy.. and not optional.. but like, that's just your opinion man. If you don't like it.. don't buy our games..

 

How did that work out for Troika?

 

The reason why kill-for-XP is bad has already been explained, Stun. Manually placing XP will not improve anything either. It has also been explained that, while the IE games XP system didn't completely wreck those games, that is not a good reason to emulate it. It didn't add anything, either. If this makes for a better game, then that's a good thing.

 

Pillars of Eternity is meant to emulate the feel of the IE games, not their mechanical underpinnings.

 

"It has been explained".. except MANY people have explained their counter argument. You should try reading the whole thread.. not just your side. Both sides have pros and cons.. I think our side can satisfy your side. I want both systems in place with a balance pass over all of it so everyone's happy. You want us to shut the **** up and do what you want.

[Stun]

How did that work out for Troika?

Ouch! lol

[Tartantyco]

Or they could.. you know.. make it more fun by adding meaning to that combat.

 

 

Why should combat have meaning? And why should combat have meaning over other actions in the game? Will you also demand that Obsidian pay you to play the game? Once again, most combat games do not reward you for combat. Because the combat should be good on its own.

 

I have read the entire thread, and there have not been any counter-arguments that hold up. It's just generic "give XP for every approach" without providing a system for doing so. Or "it should be logical" arguments where "logical" is restricted to a very narrow and inconsistent definition. Or the argument you're making right now, that because you're not getting XP for kills the game will automatically become boring, without actually providing any reason for that other than the fact that you apparently only play the game to get XP.

[PrimeJunta]

@Stun, yes, you've made it abundantly clear that you're not bothered by unbalanced, borderline-broken game systems, nor do you mind playing games with sub-optimal strategies just for the challenge. Good for you.

 

I'm not like that. I tend to respond to the incentives games give me. If they incentivize boring behavior, I engage in boring behavior. Then I get bored, then I quit. Therefore, I have an extremely strong preference for systems that do not incentivize boring behavior. Your molehill is my mountain. So sue me.

 

(And yes, if the game has other good things about it, I tolerate bad systems to some degree. That line lies somewhere between BG2 and Arcanum. Never managed to complete Arcanum because it has such horrid systems, despite being awesome in just about every other way.)

 

Edit: what I don't get, though, is that given your high tolerance for broken systems, why do even care about kill XP vs hand-placed XP?

Edited August 17, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Logos]

What is wrong with playing the game to get xp? You can't exactly play an rpg "incorrectly". (unless you're that fps streamer who couldn't work out what to do in Skyrim because the game didn't tell him...)

[PrimeJunta]

@Logos. Please read the thread.

 

There's nothing wrong to play a game to get XP. XP is a major incentive that directs your gameplay in fact.

 

The problem is if the XP rewards are set so that you get maximum XP for playing the game in one particular way, because that reduces the degree to which the game supports diversity in gameplay, and it's much worse if that particular way is really boring -- like farming, for example.

 

In that case, the game's systems reward boring behavior. I don't play games to get bored. Therefore, I prefer incentive systems which reward interesting behavior. Capeesh?

 

As a bit of a tangent, I think one reason we're talking at cross-purposes here is that some of you appear to take the game's systems as some weird laws of nature, with the game somehow emerging from them. That getting XP for killing things is just the way things are, or should be. I OTOH think of the game as a designed artifact. It has systems which model actions and objects, reward some kinds of interactions with them (e.g. clever use of tactics in combat) while punishing other kinds of interactions with them (e.g. dumb use of tactics in combat). The XP system isn't something that's just there; it's designed, and it's designed to server particular purposes, namely character advancement, and to direct player behavior by rewarding activities the designers think should be rewarded.

 

I.e., what you guys are saying sounds to me just fundamentally stupid. From where I'm at, you're demanding that the game rewards boring activities. That makes no sense to me.

[Stun]

Edit: what I don't get, though, is that given your high tolerance for broken systems, why do even care about kill XP vs hand-placed XP?

lulz

 

This is like the "when did you stop beating your wife" type of loaded question.

 

First, I don't recall claiming that the IE games had broken systems. Second, I *know* I never claimed that I liked broken systems. Third, this is not an either/or. I'm advocating XP for kills as a base, and then Hand-placed Objective/skill/situation/quest XP for everything else. This IS a role playing game, not a first person shooter. (so can we stop citing Doom and Wolfenstein? please? thanks.) And I expect to be rewarded XP for my tactical, party-based, combat success as well as for all my other problem solving choices.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Stun

[PrimeJunta]

Edit: never mind, I'm done with this discussion.

Edited August 17, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Logos]

@Logos. Please read the thread.

 

There's nothing wrong to play a game to get XP. XP is a major incentive that directs your gameplay in fact.

 

The problem is if the XP rewards are set so that you get maximum XP for playing the game in one particular way, because that reduces the degree to which the game supports diversity in gameplay, and it's much worse if that particular way is really boring -- like farming, for example.

 

In that case, the game's systems reward boring behavior. I don't play games to get bored. Therefore, I prefer incentive systems which reward interesting behavior. Capeesh?

 

As a bit of a tangent, I think one reason we're talking at cross-purposes here is that some of you appear to take the game's systems as some weird laws of nature, with the game somehow emerging from them. That getting XP for killing things is just the way things are, or should be. I OTOH think of the game as a designed artifact. It has systems which model actions and objects, reward some kinds of interactions with them (e.g. clever use of tactics in combat) while punishing other kinds of interactions with them (e.g. dumb use of tactics in combat). The XP system isn't something that's just there; it's designed, and it's designed to server particular purposes, namely character advancement, and to direct player behavior by rewarding activities the designers think should be rewarded.

 

I.e., what you guys are saying sounds to me just fundamentally stupid. From where I'm at, you're demanding that the game rewards boring activities. That makes no sense to me.

 

I simply disagree with the premise that rewarding xp upon enemy kills encourages behavior that is 'boring'. In fact, receiving xp upon killing an enemy is exciting, because it's the game telling you you've just overcome a significant challenge.

 

That you don't experience things this way does not mean that it is not an experience that exists for others. There is no single absolute truth of what is boring and what is not. That said, no xp for fights could encourage behavior that is just as boring: simply stealth past everything and then persuade yourself to your xp at the end.

 

Xp for enemies could lead to boring gameplay, no xp for enemies could lead to boring gameplay. What we both want is exciting gameplay, experience or no experience for enemies is an issue entirely orthogonal to that.

[Sarex]

Edit: never mind, I'm done with this discussion.

 

And the winner by knockout, Stun...raises hand in victory...

[PrimeJunta]

I simply disagree with the premise that rewarding xp upon enemy kills encourages behavior that is 'boring'. In fact, receiving xp upon killing an enemy is exciting, because it's the game telling you you've just overcome a significant challenge.

You don't find repetitively killing the same enemies over and over boring? Then we're just going to have to disagree about it.

[PrimeJunta]

I love you too, @Sarex. <3

[Tartantyco]

 (so can we stop citing Doom and Wolfenstein? please? thanks.)

 

 

You simply can't refrain from misquoting and misrepresenting the arguments of other people, can you? We were talking about where the fun comes from in combat, and you(Among others) have consistently argued that combat will be extremely boring without being rewarded with XP. Genre is irrelevant, according to your argument you simply cannot have fun with combat unless you're rewarded with XP. Pretty much every FPS game ever is proof to the contrary.

 

Let's make this simple. Stun, do you believe that combat will be boring in Pillars of Eternity if you are not rewarded XP from kills?

[Helm]

Combat won't be rewarded with XP because the developers want to encourage the player to avoid combat as much as possible. Obsidian Josh Sawyer is going to great lengths to make combat as unrewarding as possible, a substantial amount of item drops will contain useless vendor trash, so that people who strongly dislike combat (which is basically everyone who didn't like the IE games) don't whine about being deprived of good loot.

 

Combat will always be an answer, although it will make more sense to minimize risk and effort by avoiding it if possible. I really hope that the combat which we are better off avoiding will be fun, because that is real important.

 

Just out of curiosity and I'm not trying to argue I'm simply curious why this matters in a single player game and it comes up a lot. Why does it matter in the slightest if a player desides to go around and gain a bunch of xp and lvls from doing side objectives thus making him very powerful and allowing him to complete the story with greater ease? I don't understand why people care about that. What am I missing?

Because Sawyer has terrible nightmares about players abusing his game by slaughtering everything and getting rewarded with XP for doing so.

 

This ruthless killing of NPCs has to be STAWPED NAO!!

Edited August 17, 2014 by Helm

[Stun]

We were talking about where the fun comes from in combat, and you(Among others) have consistently argued that combat will be extremely boring Pointless, Unrewarding without being rewarded with XP.

Fixed.

 

Go burn your straw man in someone else's face.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Stun

[Sarex]

I love you too, @Sarex. <3

 

I was just poking some fun.