Experience Point Mechanics - Fighting Enemies

[Immortalis]

Yeah, Skyrim does the 'learn by doing' classless system. It's 'cool' I suppose, and of course, you can argue that it's realistic too. But I wouldn't choose it over a good, robust class-based system. Ever. At least not in a party based game.

 

I would, however, enjoy a system where you begin the game classless, and then have to specifically work towards one of the classes available to you in the game. Then once you get there, you advance in it till the end.

Skyrim has real issue with their system as well.. The problem is if you invest skills into non-combat related skills and the world scales to your level within certain ranges for different families of creatures, you begin to become grossly less powerful then the things around you because you decided you wanted to do blacksmithing and enchanting professions..

 

This is easily solved by breaking out non-combat abilities into a new pool of skills that don't affect your level.. but then more balancing would be required to offset the fact your able to craft items ect ect..

 

There are solutions but that game was far from perfect balance wise.

[Gfted1]

Im interested to see how "objective based xp" will work in an open world system. In a game like SRR its no problem. Its very linear and you are guided from location to location. The devs can easily reward at and everyone will be at exactly the anticipated level at the anticipated location. With a game like PoE where one of the pillars is "exploration" I cant quite wrap my head around how it will work. For example, lets ay Im out bushwacking and I come across 3-4 little lizard dudes standing outside a cave entrance. I kill them and enter the cave. A few chamber in and I encounter a immature Wyrm, which I kill and loot for its scales. I leave and a little while later I encounter a farm. Farmer Bob wants me to go kill a Wyrm that's been stealing his sheep.

 

What happens here? Does my journal auto-update because the Wyrm is already dead? Does the farmer quest cease to exist and instead I was awarded some random "Clear the cave of Wyrms" journal entry and xp at the time I killed the Wyrm? As an aside, I really dislike when a quest completes that I didn't even know I was doing.

 

Anyway, will be interesting to see how it works out.

[Amentep]

The way that looks to me, I'd consider handling it by breaking the quest into four parts:

 

FIND THE LAIR OF THE WYRM

GET INTO THE LAIR OF THE WYRM

KILL THE WYRM

REPORT THE SUCCESS TO THE FARMER

 

In your scenario you would get the Quest XP KILL THE WYRM at the time of killing it. You'd get Quest XP for GET INTO THE LAIR OF THE WYRM by killing the guards but could have gotten it as well by sneaking past the guards into the cave.

 

Once the Wyrm was dead, update the Journal with something like: "Just killed an immature Wyrm. Cave nest appears close to farmland; possible that someone there will want to know"

 

When you meet the Farmer and he gives you the quest, you'd get a dialogue to indicate you'd already found the cave and killed the worm, thus satisfying the FIND THE LAIR OF THE WYRM and REPORT THE SUCCESS TO THE FARMER and awarding Quest XP.

 

However if you meet the Farmer first, you'd follow the 4 parts of the quest in order and receive the quest XP as you go.

 

At least that's how I'd assume it'd go. No clue how Obs is going to actually solve it (and they may leave the final award of the quest XP for completing the whole thing, dunno, but smaller dispersments makes more sense to me).

[Gfted1]

I was thinking something similar but doesn't it seem like a lot of extra work to program for every possible approach?

[Sarex]

I was thinking something similar but doesn't it seem like a lot of extra work to program for every possible approach?

 

But balance!

[sb5]

Personally I prefer classless, level-less and XP-less systems. Earn character points directly, use those to develop your character. Have traits and skill/feat/spell/etc trees instead of classes and levels. Class, level, and XP just seem like so much unnecessary complication.

Check out Titans of Steel, it's a Battletech clone with deep character development. Earn character development points as you roll successful checks, assign them to attributes or skills.

[CptStarfish]

They did similar solutions back in Fallout. Doesn't seem like such a big problem

[CptStarfish]

They did similar solutions back in Fallout. Doesn't seem like such a big problem

[PrimeJunta]

Extra work, sure. Lot of extra work, not so sure. In this case, steps 1, 2, and 3 always follow in sequence, so the only thing you'd need to check for 3 is if you already got the quest from the farmer, and adjust the concluding text accordingly.

 

Also this wouldn't change at all even if you had kill XP, assuming there still was the farmer interested in seeing the wyrm dead. Either way you'd have to code for the possibility that the player stumbled upon the lair before getting the quest from the farmer (or end up with weird journal entries.)

[Immortalis]

I was thinking something similar but doesn't it seem like a lot of extra work to program for every possible approach?

 

Depends what you mean by this statement. There can be certain triggers that are hit regardless how you did it.

 

For the most part it won't matter how you got in the cave or how the dragon was killed (Did you sneak past guards and poison him or just fireball everything in sight) either way the flags are in place to reward you..

 

For sure having multiple outcomes to a quest depending how you did it means more resources devoted to writing / variable and state setting / testing.. but that doesn't have to be done for every quest.. only the larger scale ones. We will see.. its all speculation at this point.

 

[Amentep]

I was thinking something similar but doesn't it seem like a lot of extra work to program for every possible approach?

I don't see why they'd have to program for every possible approach; the key would be to make sure the triggers are properly clearing the quest elements and ensuring that the quest XP is being awarded. Realistically this approach would not care how (or when) it was done.

[Gfted1]

In an objective based reward system, how do two opposing objective work themselves out? Say objective one is "Clear the cave." and the other is "Clear the cave for farmer Bob". If you complete the first one then naturally the other one is redundant. Since apparently Fallout did this, what happens to the path not taken? It just never comes up I assume? If you did one, the second will never be presented to you, right? Do both solutions then offer the exact same rewards and xp?

[PrimeJunta]

They wouldn't be separate objectives. It'd be like this:

 

(0) Get quest from Farmer Bob -- set bit FARMER_BOB_WYRM_QUEST_GIVEN.

(1) Objective 1: Find Wyrm Cave: 100 XP. Triggered when coordinate (x1, y1) is mapped.

(2) Objective 2: Enter Wyrm Cave: 100 XP. Triggered when WYRM_CAVE map is loaded.

(3) Objective 3: Get rid of wyrm, sets bit FARMER_BOB_WYRM_QUEST_COMPLETE. Options, mutually exclusive:

(3a) Intimidate, trick, or persuade Wyrm to leave (1000 XP)

(3b) Slay wyrm (1000 XP)

(4) Report back to Farmer Bob (500 XP).

 

Since 1, 2, and 3 naturally follow in sequence, the only things you'd have to check is FARMER_BOB_WYRM_QUEST_GIVEN after setting bit FARMER_BOB_WYRM_QUEST_COMPLETE, and both bits when talking to Farmer Bob.

 

If FARMER_BOB_WYRM_QUEST_GIVEN is set, show "Must report back to Farmer Bob" in the journal, else show "Someone in the nearby hamlet might be interested in this." And when talking to Farmer Bob, check both bits: if neither is set, have Farmer Bob give you the quest; if QUEST_GIVEN is set but QUEST_COMPLETE is not, do the "Did you kill it yet -- no" dialog, and if QUEST_GIVEN is not set but QUEST_COMPLETE is set, do the "I just killed this wyrm" dialog, which sets both bits and gives you the XP from step 4.

 

Again, this is completely vanilla for any game that's at all free-roaming and so lets you stumble onto locations in the "wrong" order. Kill XP affects it in no way at all.

Edited July 29, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Amentep]

It depends, I wouldn't say "Clear the Cave" and "Clear the Cave for Farmer Bob" would be opposing objectives.

 

So you might have

 

FIND CAVE

CLEAR CAVE

REPORT TO FARMER BOB

 

As objectives, and you could always report to Farmber Bob after "Clearing the Cave".

 

But lets say Farmer Bob wants you to clear the caves of all Xvarts (but let the Kobolds live because they eat Farmer Dave's cows) and Farmer Dave wants you to Clear the Cave of all Kobolds (and leave the Xvarts because they trash Bob's corn crop).

 

FIND CAVE

CLEAR CAVE OF XVARTS

CLEAR CAVE OF KOBOLDS

REPORT TO FARMER DAVE

REPORT TO FARMER BOB

 

You always FIND CAVE on the quest

 

If you CLEAR CAVE OF XVARTS then you can REPORT TO FARMER BOB. If you CLEAR CAVE OF KOBOLDS then you can REPORT TO FARMER DAVE. Succesfully Reporting to Bob or Dave fails the other report quest.

 

CLEAR CAVE OF XVARTS and CLEAR CAVE OF KOBOLDS then REPORT TO FARMER DAVE and REPORT TO FARMER BOB are both failed. But you get the quest XP for clearing the caves too, but there's also reputation tied to it because now Dave and Bob talk bad about you. Etc.

Edited July 29, 2014 by Amentep

[artyom]

although there are downsides to the "no-exp-per-kill" mechanic, Iam pretty happy about it so that there is no incentive to kill everyone. Although it would make sense to behead everything if you play or role-play an evil character...

[Doppelschwert]

Doppel I do somewhat agree with your post. If Obsidian could promise me tons of side quests and hidden quests off the beaten path that were worth finding and doing that could make my life enjoyable when I am out in the wild killing essentially filler creatures with no real story line.. I could give up the xp for kills.

 

Like my argument is.. when I am fighting hordes of **** in a forest and I walk out with 20 bear hides and a broken dagger.. I don't feel like I accomplished anything and the experience points I gained make it feel worth my time.

 

If I instead fought 20 goblins because some meaningful content drove that and there was some pay off at the end that session where I wasn't just left holding a bag of useless goblin body parts.. then I can live without seeing the 20xp flash accross my combat log for each thing I killed.

 

I just don't think in the time frame they have, they are gonna trump Baldurs Gate 2 in scale and scope and the easier solution would of been just give XP for killing stuff.

 

Do you see where I am coming from? Combat for combats sake isn't as fun as combat with progession. Now if they can fullfill what I just said in my post.. we are fine don't change a thing. In 2 years.. I don't think they had the time to fullfill that promise amount of content.. so the lesser version of that is xp for kills..

 

Upgrading my stronghold and awarding me xp is great.. but I want that feeling of Baldurs Gate 1.. where I am walking around in random areas I shouldn't be.. and stumbling across crazy mages with pet oozes or a bear that scares the **** out of me.. and when all is said and done.. a few gems and a short sword shouldn't be all I had to show for it because there wasn't a quest to kill that bear or wizard.. they were just there..

 

EDIT

I sort of repeat my point twice here in reverse.. give it a read and let me know if you can understand where im coming from. I don't want xp for killing stuff just because IE had it.. I want it because of how it made me feel for parts of the game when that mechanic existed..

 

Then everything depends on your assumption that there are areas where there is nothing to do but to beat random mooks. Given your assumption, that perspective is perfectly understandable and fine.

I'm just not that pessimistic about whether there will be something worthwhile to find. I'm sure that if you encounter some crazy wizard for example, there will be a dialogue and then it's either a fight or some diplomatic reasoning, for which you will be awarded with exp in both cases. Just wait till 18th of august, when the demo will be available. Then we'll see.

[Lephys]

It is the problem that is trying to be fixed according to Tim Cains interview.. And XP is a reward.

All XP is a reward, but not all rewards are XP. Unless Tim Cain said "People who don't kill stuff get absolutely no rewards, and we want to fix that," then he didn't say what you're claiming.

 

And regardless of what problems were or weren't in any other specific games, the fact remains that awarding XP for actually accomplishing tasks relevant to something about the situation is simply an efficient way of achieving the same end, without having "if it dies, you get some more XP" always attached. If its death affects something, other than whether or not it's alive, then the award is already attached.

 

The "Everything you kill gives you XP, but actually accomplishing things ALSO gives you XP" system merely allows for unintended redundancy. Every time you accomplish something by killing something, you must account for the XP you already gain from killing it, instead of just awarding whatever amount of XP for accomplishing that particular outcome.

 

And, just for what it's worth, the only other reasonable argument I can think of -- "But fighting things grants you combat experience, so it should in the game!" -- doesn't really hold up, because the game's still abstracting it. A bunny doesn't grant you anything, despite the fact that it would make VERY good target practice for an archer. The amount of XP it grants is based on how easily it could kill you. Essentially, how much of a challenge it was to overcome.

 

Thus, the objective system can easily opt to designate the killing of something an objective, and make the killing of other things not-an-objective.

 

It's not unreasonable for a system design. Like anything, it can be done crappily, or well. But it's sheer blueprints do not make it flawed, and it is not taking any freedom away from anyone. If you want to kill everything in sight, you still get more rewards than other people who choose not to do so. But, basically, if you want to handle a situation in whatever way you wish that achieves the same goal, you get the XP for that goal being met. Whether or not the non-combat options in the story are available in reasonable situations or not (etc.) is a completely different story that is not automatically determined by the XP system in place.

[Immortalis]

I don't think you really addressed my points. Not that you are wrong in your opinion but I had arguments that I think you either skimmed or skipped because you didn't address them, instead just sort of gave your opinion on how things should be.

 

You also took my interpretation of Tims update video out of context and spinned it. I really felt you only read like half that post or every second line.

 

At which point we just have to agree to disagree.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Immortalis

[Lephys]

I don't think you really addressed mine, so I clarified mine. Whether or not my argument coincides with your own beliefs on the matter is sort of the whole core of an argument/discussion.

 

I can try and address each and every line in that post, if that would be more helpful:

 

 

It is the problem that is trying to be fixed according to Tim Cains interview.. And XP is a reward. Character progression vs new items are both increase in power. They are just two different streams to draw water from. By your logic we should just say.. No XP at all.. Instead the game will be done in chapters.. and every chapter you get one level.. PoE is 12 chapters long. Does that sound fun? You want to be on a linear rail system like that?

Okay... once again, the problem you're implying with "there's still reward loss, so the problem isn't fixed" is not the one that is trying to be fixed according to Tim Cain, unless he specifically stated that they don't want any reward deficit whatsoever in any shape or fashion. I realize that items and XP are both two different streams from which to draw water. However, that's rather moot, since they're not mutually exclusive. You can hardly expect a lvl 1 party with all the best gear in the game to make it through an entire playthrough. Just like a lvl 12 party with all the worst gear in the game would probably have a lot of trouble (though, probably less than the other party, if I had to guess).

 

They're not redundant streams. Everybody needs XP for the progression system inherent to the game's gameplay to function. And no... "my" logic in no way advocates doling XP out per chapter, which is how I know you've misunderstood me. You don't just passively hand it out... you grant it for actively accomplishing things. Hence quests. You know what quests used to be? The DM tallying up what you did and didn't do, and giving you XP for it. Did you super-cleverly use 1 ability to handle an entire room full of goblins, and you were a Rogue? GOOD ON YOU! You get way more XP for the effective use of that, than just "X goblins times X exp = here ya go." A game can't decide that on the fly, so now we just have quests. It all started as just "what did you actually DO about this situation?" Objectives, basically.

 

And, as I already said, the game doesn't perfectly simulate combat XP anyway, so the "but you're fighting things, so you have to gain experience from doing so, every time!" doesn't really fly. You fight stuff, then level up your Mechanics skill? How does that work? Stabbing trolls helped you reach an engineering epiphany? It doesn't. Another perfect example: the game doesn't care HOW you killed something. Did you simply cut a rope and drop a huge load of quarried stone atop 17 foes? Boom... foe XP-times-17! Did you spend hours honing your swordsmanship and magical prowess facing them head-on? BOOM! Foe XP-times-17! So we're not disrupting anything by not having every single thing that threatens us grant us a boost of character potential every time it dies. It was already objective based, it was just an objective that wasn't nonsensical about 80% of the time, so we rolled with it being ALWAYS an objective.

 

The more certain people defend this quest only xp idea and the more I hear their justifications..really they are just saying remove freedom from gameplay..

Dunno who the certain people are, or what their arguments entail, so I don't even know what to take from this. Could you at least explain how some people seem to be wanting freedom removed? You don't even have to name them. 

 

In your next point.. the problem you just described was never there. Obsidian always offered alternative xp rewards for taking the dialogue option. It wasn't some kind of stream lined process offered on every quest.. but every game Obsidian has ever done.. all the way back to the IE engine has had at least one quest with a peaceful option that generally awarded a surplus in experience to offset the xp you missed in combat...

I think "always" is a bit of a stretch. Yeah, if you could resolve a situation via non-combat means, it usually granted you XP. If you resolved the same situation with combat, however, you usually (if not always, I'm not sure if it was every single time in existence) got kill XP PLUS "objective" XP for the quest. "Deal with the bandit threat." If you weren't able to not-kill the bandits and still achieve that objective, then it's not an applicable example. So, we'll look at when you COULD do something else. If you do something else, you don't fight-and-kill X number of bandits, and get X number of XP per kill, PLUS the XP you get for "turning in" the quest. "Oh, thank you for dealing with the bandits! +1000XP."

 

Furthermore, if it wasn't done on every quest with such an array of solutions, then what good does "Oh, if you do this peaceful thing 3 Chapters on down the line, you'll get more XP than if you do the combat thing, so don't worry" do you at the time you're doing the quest that gips you? This is about the game's design, and what's being presented to the player.

 

"Hmmm, on the one hand, I could kill all these dudes, get all their stuff AND get the XP for handling this situation. On the other hand, I could just handle the situation, and maybe get some thanks and a present or something, and the XP for handling the situation." Tell me which seems like a better deal if you have the means to kill them all, and it's not one of those "this fight option is HEAVILY frowned upon!" situations.

 

This isn't some kind of new mechanic or revolutionary idea.. even Arcanum did this.. It was perfectly fine. Infact I really enjoyed it. I just don't support the extra step of changing the rest of the game to balance around this option being available all the time when they obviously have other ways of dealing with multiple reward options.. I admit that my idea could lead to balance problems and would make more work for the developers.. but it can be done.. Obsidian has really smart designers working there..

You don't support an extra step that no one's asking for? How frequent non-combat options are has nothing to do with this. If there's only one single situation that can be handled by both fighting AND not-fighting (to relatively the same end), this system works fine (and doesn't hurt anyone who fights stuff). If there're 3,000 of those situations, it still works. How many situations there are and how they're designed is a completely separate issue.

 

Not to mention what I've said before; "you don't just get XP every time something dies" doesn't mean "you will never, ever get XP when something dies." You won't get XP for the very fact that a thing died. But, the objective system doesn't discriminate. If you can only accomplish something via killing, then you can't get the XP for THAT without doing the killing. And if you can't accomplish something without refraining from killing, then you'll only get THAT XP for not-fighting. Etc. This isn't about taking all the things you can do in the game, combat and non-combat alike, for XP, and making them all equal (in XP amount OR in frequency).

 

Do I want varied solutions to situations? Yes. I'd like for a generally sneaky play style, and a generally peaceful play style, etc. to work alongside a "HULK SMASH" play style. But, it's relative. I'm fine with 60% of the game requiring combat. I don't want every single situation in which combat arises to have a non-combat option to resolve it to the same end.

 

And, if you give me 50 of these situations, and I choose non-combat on all 50, I don't want to end up 2 levels behind by the end of the game, just because I chose to handle things differently, in ways that you, the developer, presented as perfectly feasible solutions. It's exactly the same principle as if I cleverly poison the bandits' water supply, instead of going and fighting them. I handled the situation. I even killed everyone. But I didn't fight them. Should I only get 100XP instead of 50 for every single bandit in the camp because I did that? Nope. In Combat Skill Honing Simulator 2014 I should. Not in an RPG.

[Stun]

Well, I thought Lephys addressed your points fine. He left himself open for valid counters though.

 

The "Everything you kill gives you XP, but actually accomplishing things ALSO gives you XP" system merely allows for unintended redundancy. Every time you accomplish something by killing something, you must account for the XP you already gain from killing it, instead of just awarding whatever amount of XP for accomplishing that particular outcome.

So? This type of redundancy is going to happen even if there's no kill XP at all. For example: Take any Quest containing multiple objectives.

 

1) First, you're rewarded every time you complete one of the quest's objectives.

2) Then you're rewarded when you finish the quest itself.

 

To eliminate the redundancy that you're describing, we would have to either scrap #1, or scrap #2.

 

And, just for what it's worth, the only other reasonable argument I can think of -- "But fighting things grants you combat experience, so it should in the game!" -- doesn't really hold up, because the game's still abstracting it. A bunny doesn't grant you anything, despite the fact that it would make VERY good target practice for an archer. The amount of XP it grants is based on how easily it could kill you. Essentially, how much of a challenge it was to overcome.

 

Thus, the objective system can easily opt to designate the killing of something an objective, and make the killing of other things not-an-objective.

If killing something is giving you good archery practice, then by definition, it IS granting you something: Experience in archery. You get better at something when you practice doing it, yes?

 

More to the point: the best way to become a better archer is to practice your archery in live combat. KILLING things is what grants combat XP in games that have it. The XP value of the kill is based on how difficult it was to kill that creature, not necessarily on how much of a mortal threat it posed to you.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Stun

[Immortalis]

 

"Hmmm, on the one hand, I could kill all these dudes, get all their stuff AND get the XP for handling this situation. On the other hand, I could just handle the situation, and maybe get some thanks and a present or something, and the XP for handling the situation." Tell me which seems like a better deal if you have the means to kill them all, and it's not one of those "this fight option is HEAVILY frowned upon!" situations.

 

In addition to Stun's points.. I would like to add for the third time.. this problem still exists. Like me and Doppel have discussed this at length already... If enemies do drop items they are using and your able to bypass them without fighting them. You still lose out on maximum rewards by going the non-combat route.

 

So that issue as far as we know still exists in PoE. Plus I don't actually care how quests handle rewards anyways. If you want to give bonus XP to people who resolve the quest peacefully or without combat to offset the XP someone got for doing combat that is fine. Keep the XP rewards balanced.. Or solve it some other way, make quest NPC's flagged so they don't give XP so people don't meta game.. I really don't care how quests handle kill xp.

 

If I was to really hammer at the issue I have.. it's deeper the XP for kills..

My ideal situation is that we can explore areas with no quest content and still grow in power (Both in Items and Character Levels). Thats it. However that is attained through game mechanics or whatever else is fine by me.

 

The most obvious way to attain this goal for a game that has 2ish years of dev time would be xp for kills and items drops similar to how infinity games did it. If Obsidian has something else up their sleeve like all those wilderness areas are FILLED with quest content.. (not 1 per area but literally every worthwhile encounter is backed by some kind of objective mechanic) then I don't need xp for kills anymore. I just feel thats a tall order for obsidian to fill in the time they had.

 

Like I am repeating myself here so I don't think your reading my posts beyond the one that replied directly to you. I never argued in favor of half the things your saying.

[Lephys]

1) First, you're rewarded every time you complete one of the quest's objectives.

2) Then you're rewarded when you finish the quest itself.

 

To eliminate the redundancy that you're describing, we would have to either scrap #1, or scrap #2.

True, but that's not inherent to an objective-based system. There is no inherent "quest" to complete. There's a situation, and then there are goals. They're either collaborative toward a greater/overarching goal (i.e. "Find all the pieces of the Elmrynthine Amulet"), or they're standalone, optional things upon which the resolution of the situation doesn't necessarily depend (i.e. "Handle the Bandit Threat, Locate info on the Bandits' other operations in the area."). Etc.

 

There's absolutely no reason for you to get XP for each piece of the Elmrynthine Amulet (example above) you find, THEN just suddenly receive a big blob of XP for finding the final piece. Finding the last piece is the completion of the quest.

 

I mean, could it be (and has it been, in existing games) done like that? Yes. Should it be? No. But, that's all that tells us. It's not a matter of whether or not to use an objective-oriented system, but rather, a simple matter of how to use it (or how not to, in this case).

 

If killing something is giving you good archery practice, then by definition, it IS granting you something: Experience in archery. You get better at something when you practice doing it, yes?

It appears I may have been unclear on details there, and if so, I apologize. You get better at something when you practice it, yes. But, in a level-up-based game, you don't. You get better at something when you level up and spend points in it. Since that's what we're dealing with here (and what it's being compared to with the idea of "removing" kill XP, as in changing things from previous games, which also used this leveling system), that's what I'm pointing out isn't doing the job of representing combat XP properly.

 

You could still get better at archery by taking down bunnies at a distance (they're small, fast-moving targets, etc.) Yet, the game decides "bunnies are no threat, so you get nothing for killing them."

 

More to the point: the best way to become a better archer is to practice your archery in live combat. KILLING things is what grants combat XP in games that have it. The XP value of the kill is based on how difficult it was to kill that creature, not necessarily on how much of a mortal threat it posed to you.

Negative. The game decides how hard something is to kill, in general, then calculates an XP value for it (relative to your level/capabilities/ability to kill stuff). You could chase a bunny for 10 days, and miss with 34 arrows before finally killing that one bunny. The game doesn't care how hard it was for you to make that kill. It just cares whether or not the bunny died, and how threatening a bunny is to your level of character.

 

Just like in my poison example. It's EASY to dose a water supply with poison, and yet hundreds of deaths could result from it. Or, another, more active-combat example... casting a fireball. If a given enemy is worth 10XP, why does a Mage get only 10XP for casting fireball once when only 1 enemy happens to be standing within its radius and dies to the spell, but gets 100 XP just because 10 of them were standing there? Does he have to expend any more effort? How did he get 10-times better at casting Fireball at a 20-foot circle on the ground just because the resulting fire-splosion happened to end 10 things' lives instead of 1 (or none, for that matter)? He didn't. The game's just deciding that, since you accomplished the death of that thing, you get XP. It's not representing how hard you're working.

 

It's just an objective. Or, a table of them, I suppose. But, it's absolutely not at all a representation of how much actual battle experience your characters are getting for the kill.

 

Am I saying you can't make a system that better represents that? Not at all. Am I saying that "but now our battle experience will go unrepresented, whereas before it was totally represented!" is not a valid argument against this objective-oriented approach to XP that PoE is taking? Yes I am.

[Lephys]

In addition to Stun's points.. I would like to add for the third time.. this problem still exists. Like me and Doppel have discussed this at length already... If enemies do drop items they are using and your able to bypass them without fighting them. You still lose out on maximum rewards by going the non-combat route.

But you don't lose out on XP. If you go Wizard, you lose out on melee fighting prowess... but you still gain levels and can attain level 12, despite your class choice. The problem is the xp allotment, not all-rewards-ever allotment. It's not that the other stuff doesn't matter. It's that it's not what's an inherent problem with "you always get XP when you fight things, and you always miss out on that XP when you don't." And it's specific to actual events/situations. Not just "There are some things standing around there... I don't wish to go fight them... I STILL WANT XP!", just to make that clear.

 

If I was to really hammer at the issue I have.. it's deeper the XP for kills..

My ideal situation is that we can explore areas with no quest content and still grow in power (Both in Items and Character Levels). Thats it. However that is attained through game mechanics or whatever else is fine by me.

I think you have too narrow a view of what this is. You're thinking of an old game's system, just with kill xp ripped out of it, and the rest left as-is. In PoE, the entire game is designed around XP being allotted only through the completion of objectives. Objectives don't have to be something you already know about/have before entering some area. I'm pretty sure it will be impossible to explore an area with no objective content, because anything pertinent to almost anything else is going to be designated as some form of objective.

 

Objective-based XP is merely a different approach to the allotment of XP. It does not inherently define the circumstances under which XP will be granted, or how it will be calculated, etc. All that is still up to the devs, just like all those same factors for any other XP allotment system.

 

Like I am repeating myself here so I don't think your reading my posts beyond the one that replied directly to you. I never argued in favor of half the things your saying.

My options for argument are not limited to "only the exact opposite of the words Immortalis typed, and nothing more." I'm going to cover plenty of stuff you didn't explicitly type, because it's pertinent to the XP system, and how it doesn't inherently do the things you're opposing.

[Stun]

True, but that's not inherent to an objective-based system. There is no inherent "quest" to complete. There's a situation, and then there are goals. They're either collaborative toward a greater/overarching goal (i.e. "Find all the pieces of the Elmrynthine Amulet"), or they're standalone, optional things upon which the resolution of the situation doesn't necessarily depend (i.e. "Handle the Bandit Threat, Locate info on the Bandits' other operations in the area."). Etc.

 

There's absolutely no reason for you to get XP for each piece of the Elmrynthine Amulet (example above) you find, THEN just suddenly receive a big blob of XP for finding the final piece. Finding the last piece is the completion of the quest.

 

I mean, could it be (and has it been, in existing games) done like that? Yes. Should it be? No. But, that's all that tells us. It's not a matter of whether or not to use an objective-oriented system, but rather, a simple matter of how to use it (or how not to, in this case).

It.... doesn't matter. PoE's system will be as described above: There will be quests to complete for XP and objectives within those quests to complete for XP. And while this is a clear example of the very same 'unintended redundancy' you condemn kill-XP for inflicting on the system, I've never met anyone else on earth who opposes such a thing.

 

 

It appears I may have been unclear on details there, and if so, I apologize. You get better at something when you practice it, yes. But, in a level-up-based game, you don't. You get better at something when you level up and spend points in it. Since that's what we're dealing with here (and what it's being compared to with the idea of "removing" kill XP, as in changing things from previous games, which also used this leveling system), that's what I'm pointing out isn't doing the job of representing combat XP properly.

You are misunderstanding the abstraction.

 

 

 

Negative. The game decides how hard something is to kill, in general, then calculates an XP value for it (relative to your level/capabilities/ability to kill stuff). You could chase a bunny for 10 days, and miss with 34 arrows before finally killing that one bunny. The game doesn't care how hard it was for you to make that kill.

Lephys, a Bunny (what a stupid straw man, but lets go with it), will not be difficult for an archer to kill. Thus, it will not require 10 days of stalking, followed by a sustained arrow barrage. Its XP value will be suitably low as a result, and that is how it should be. On the other hand, a Blue Whale is a massive and elusive (but just as harmless) creature. ITS xp reward will be far larger, since it WILL require significant stalking, and a LOT of arrows to slay.

 

It just cares whether or not the bunny died, and how threatening a bunny is to your level of character.

If this was true, then a 20th level Fire elemental would be worth 0xp to someone with 100% fire resistance, since it poses no threat to him. Edited July 31, 2014 by Stun

[Lephys]

@Stun, you are inferring meanings that I'm not specifically stating, from almost everything I'm saying. I know not why, since, by now, you must be aware that I err on the side of elaboration.

 

It.... doesn't matter. PoE's system will be as described above: There will be quests to complete for XP and objectives within those quests to complete for XP. And while this is a clear example of the very same unintended redundancy you condemn kill-XP for inflicting on the system, I've never met anyone else on earth who opposes such a thing.

It does matter. And, if you would be so kind, please show me how you know that, in PoE, every time a quest is technically completed (even if it was completed by finishing a task that was, itself, the final part of the overall quest objective), you get a bunch of "this is ONLY for completing the whole quest" XP on top of anything else you get. Because I missed that memo.

 

 

You are misunderstanding the abstraction.

Could you... be more specific? o_o

 

 

 

Lephys, a Bunny (what a stupid straw man, but lets go with it), will not be difficult for an archer to kill. Thus, it will not require 10 days of stalking, followed by a sustained arrow barrage. Its XP value will be suitably low as a result, and that is how it should be. On the other hand, a Blue Whale is a massive and elusive (but relatively harmless) creature. ITS xp reward will be far larger, since it WILL require significant stalking, and a LOT of arrows to slay.

A bunny is not a strawman. I don't even comprehend what you're suggesting there.

 

You are clearly not comprehending my example, and or do not know what "if" means. "If" doesn't mean "this is what's going to probably happen with a bunny." Yes, the example was ridiculous, on purpose. I apologize, as I forgot many here do not comprehend the exaggeration in such examples.

 

Let me just go with a different one, instead of trying to explain that one. I feel that would be best.

 

Another that I already made, how bout? A big trap. Maybe you see a bunch of super "hard to kill"... I dunno... Ogres. But you've lured them to a ledge above some liquid hot magma. Sure, it'd be super difficult to murder them to death with your trusty blade, but maybe you knock them off into the lava. Well, the lava did all the dirty work, but you "killed" them. They weren't hard to kill. It took one knockdown, and a convenient pit of lava. Why do you get all that "kill XP" for knocking something down? I can understand if you got more for battling them and taking them down completely yourself. But the game doesn't distinguish.

 

I don't know how else to make this clear. The game says "was this an Ogre? Did it die? You get ## XP." It doesn't care how much effort you had to expend, or how representative of the actual combat experience your character would've gained that the XP value actually is.

 

If this was true, then a 20th level Fire elemental would be worth 0xp to someone with 100% fire resistance, since it poses no threat to him.

First of all, no. I specifically said (and you quoted) "to your level of character." So, your resistance has nothing to do with that, unless you can become so high level that you just have an inherent 100% fire resistance, in which case, yes, by that point, the thing probably isn't a threat to you. If you just so happen to don a bunch of fire resistance stuff, that has nothing to do with the level of your character.

 

Second of all, my point was that the game decides, up front (from a table) how threatening a given foe is to a given character at a given level, then allots XP rewards accordingly. It doesn't care if you fight an Ogre naked, with your bare fists, or fully decked out in diamond gear crafted by some divine blacksmith, that naturally just melts nearby Ogres within 10 seconds. All it cares about is a generalized calculation of your capabilities at a given level, versus the enemy's capabilities at a given level. It doesn't care about the circumstances, or your effort, or how much combat XP someone would actually gain based on any of that. Just "Were you technically fighting it, and did it perish? HAVE SOME XP!"