No experience from combat

[sparklecat]

 

 

By the need to keep up level-wise to progress.  Take BGII, for example, and the Underdark: if you're doing the drow city quests there, one route if you're not looking to kill everyone is simply to clear the Kuo-Toa camp (or just to do that from the start and get out of the place as soon as possible),

 

I did the drow city without killing everyone.

 

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it hampers your progress further on down the line if you skip XP rich areas where the goal is basically just to slaughter everything in sight.

[Namutree]

 

I haven't really thought about CRPGs and even PnP D&D in that way before. So I've basically been a digital mass murderer for the last three decades and more? I have actually reaped countless of lives. Who am I? Death himself? Oh, no, wait, that the next expansion of D3, after Reaper of Souls, makr my words!

I'm really enjoying a PnP game I'm in at present where my character basically leaps at every opportunity to avoid a fight.  We're getting a lot of "roleplaying XP" because she'll usually try to negotiate instead if it's feasible.  It's nice for that to be a realistic option in any rpg, IMO.  Less metagaming helps with immersion for me.

 

Not getting kill xp isn't making combat any more or less needed. There will be many parts of the game where combat is mandatory. If it wasn't it sure wouldn't be much of an IE successor. 

[Amentep]

 

 

Tbf, in this case we're only interested in the views of a pretty limited population (backers who have played the beta).  My issue is more with the point Namutree raised regarding how the self-selection would tend to skew; a poll on the topic put out by Obsidian where they asked all backers with beta access to give their opinion on the matter would be reasonable enough to work from, I believe.

The number of people who we know have access to the backer beta (from the Kickstarter numbers) is 7615. The 109 people who've voted only represent 1.4% of the backers. Ignoring the self-selction angle, my memory of statistics is that to draw conclusions to the greater population you'd want about 10% of the population voting (762 or so) at the bare minimum. You'd also want those 762 randomly sampled (ie not self selecting) to hope for any kind of validity to the results.

 

My hope with quest/Objective XP was that it would give value to differing play styles (diplomatic, stealth) without devaluing killing things. That would be an improvement (IMO- I know many differ on this) to how the IE games did it. But I also acknowledge that if we're talking about spiritual successors to the IE games, combat in those games is required and is rewarded and (in the end) kill XP isn't inherently "bad" in and of itself.

 

 

Player level almost only affects combat. Why would dialogue give XP that rewards the player by making him or her stronger in battle? Doesn't make sense. It would make sense if the player level didn't just indicate how strong a character is combat wise.

 

It makes as much sense as XP does in general. Its an abstraction, looking for sense in it is (IMO) going down the garden path. If you're going to look at things from an overly realistic lens, what does turning over an ogre's head to a farmer give a person from an experience perspective? How to pack a severed head? How to travel so it doesn't rot? Best handling techniques? Realistically turning over an item at the conclusion of a quest like this would net you nothing but money (and a piglet).

 

But XP is an abstraction, you get the quest reward for everything you do in the quest and it makes you better at whatever you want. Same thing as kill xp.

 

The ideal, to me, is that the player is rewarded for the play styles available in the game; if killing is the primary (or only viable) path all XP should be primarily focused on killing or supporting killing. If other play styles are viable, the rewards should be such that the player is able to further that play style.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Amentep

[sparklecat]

 

 

I haven't really thought about CRPGs and even PnP D&D in that way before. So I've basically been a digital mass murderer for the last three decades and more? I have actually reaped countless of lives. Who am I? Death himself? Oh, no, wait, that the next expansion of D3, after Reaper of Souls, makr my words!

I'm really enjoying a PnP game I'm in at present where my character basically leaps at every opportunity to avoid a fight.  We're getting a lot of "roleplaying XP" because she'll usually try to negotiate instead if it's feasible.  It's nice for that to be a realistic option in any rpg, IMO.  Less metagaming helps with immersion for me.

 

Not getting kill xp isn't making combat any more or less needed. There will be many parts of the game where combat is mandatory. If it wasn't it sure wouldn't be much of an IE successor. 

 

Yup.  And I'm fine with that.  Personally, I see the quest XP we get as simply delayed reward for, among other things, killing those enemies necessary to progress.

[Ink Blot]

The problem with no XP for kills, IMO, is that most of the spells and abilities the character classes get as they level are geared towards effectiveness in combat. I also agree that it makes sense to award XP for overcoming a combat encounter.

 

Having said that, perhaps a solution would be to flag all the creatures in a specific area as belonging to a specific quest or quests (you have to get past/through/around them to complete the quest anyway). The quest is worth a specific amount of XP. Every creature you kill awards XP, but that number is deducted from the value of completing the quest. For example, if the quest is worth 2000 XP and you kill nothing, you get 2000 XP for completing it. If you kill 10 creatures worth 50 XP each while doing the quest, then the quest reward at the end is 1500 XP. To me, this would strike a nice balance between those that want to avoid as much combat as possible, those that want to kill everything in sight, and those that just want to get some mobs out of their way without having to sneak/be diplomatic.

 

I realize this would increase the complexity of making the game, but if it could be implemented, I think it would solve the complaints with regards to kill XP.

[Namutree]

 

I did the drow city without killing everyone.

 

 

 

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it hampers your progress further on down the line if you skip XP rich areas where the goal is basically just to slaughter everything in sight.

Yes, believe it or not ignoring a huge portion of the game's content does not yield as much xp. So what? Being an adventurer who is a pacifist should be harder since it's kind of a contradiction in concept. It certainly doesn't justify the outright removal of combat making you better at combat.

 

As I have stated before: This is not a bold experiment in rpg game design; this game was pitched as a return to the familiar game-play of the IE games. Making xp exclusive to quests is not only a major detriment to role-play, it is a terrible departure from the tradition this game was meant to emulate.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Ink Blot: I like your idea! And if I were to expand upon it, I'd say make different quests behave differently too. For instance, another quest is worth 1,000 XP and you kill everything, you get 500 XP extra for doing just that. If you sneak past them you get 50 XP per sneak encounter and  then the quest reward at the end is just 250 XP. In other quest, it is the sneaky peeps or the diplomats that get a higher reward for it compared to the melee bunch.

Edited August 20, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Namutree]

 

Not getting kill xp isn't making combat any more or less needed. There will be many parts of the game where combat is mandatory. If it wasn't it sure wouldn't be much of an IE successor. 

 

 

 

 

 

Yup.  And I'm fine with that.  Personally, I see the quest XP we get as simply delayed reward for, among other things, killing those enemies necessary to progress.

 

I agree on quest xp. That is however meaningless as we are not discussing the merits of quest xp. We are talking about why exploring, battles, and general adventuring does not give you any xp unless a npc told you to do it. Kill xp and quest xp are not exclusive.

[sparklecat]

 

 

I did the drow city without killing everyone.

 

 

 

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it hampers your progress further on down the line if you skip XP rich areas where the goal is basically just to slaughter everything in sight.

Yes, believe it or not ignoring a huge portion of the game's content does not yield as much xp. So what? Being an adventurer who is a pacifist should be harder since it's kind of a contradiction in concept. It certainly doesn't justify the outright removal of combat making you better at combat.

 

As I have stated before: This is not a bold experiment in rpg game design; this game was pitched as a return to the familiar game-play of the IE games. Making xp exclusive to quests is not only a major detriment to role-play, it is a terrible departure from the tradition this game was meant to emulate.

 

You just said yourself one post back that there's going to be plenty of mandatory killing through following the quest lines.  That is hardly the same thing as pacifism.  If it's what you want to do, it is perfectly possible to roleplay someone who goes out of their way to kill enemies when the game doesn't force them to without giving XP for it.  It is not so simple to roleplay someone who tries for peaceful solutions but fights when required if your character progression requires you to go out of your way to find more things to kill.

 

What is disincentivising killing as a solution is not the lack of XP for doing so; it's the rest mechanics that makes it costly.  But it's hard to really evaluate the significance that cost without playing through much more of the game than we can right now.  I would be in favour of something like, say, the option to toggle the resting supplies requirement to address this problem.

[sparklecat]

 

 

Not getting kill xp isn't making combat any more or less needed. There will be many parts of the game where combat is mandatory. If it wasn't it sure wouldn't be much of an IE successor. 

 

 

 

 

 

Yup.  And I'm fine with that.  Personally, I see the quest XP we get as simply delayed reward for, among other things, killing those enemies necessary to progress.

 

I agree on quest xp. That is however meaningless as we are not discussing the merits of quest xp. We are talking about why exploring, battles, and general adventuring does not give you any xp unless a npc told you to do it. Kill xp and quest xp are not exclusive.

 

Of course they're not.  But if there are enough battles/general adventuring that aren't tied into any quests (and thus are going to have attached XP rewards at some point) that the XP gained from them is meaningful, it winds up penalising anyone who doesn't want to wander around killing things without an in-game reason.

 

My concern is more that they handle very well the cases where someone is generally exploring and effectively stumbles into the middle of a quest; that they don't lose out on XP by doing things in the "wrong" order.

[Msxyz]

removing XP makes the

 

 

 

I did the drow city without killing everyone.

 

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it hampers your progress further on down the line if you skip XP rich areas where the goal is basically just to slaughter everything in sight.

Yes, believe it or not ignoring a huge portion of the game's content does not yield as much xp. So what? Being an adventurer who is a pacifist should be harder since it's kind of a contradiction in concept. It certainly doesn't justify the outright removal of combat making you better at combat.

 

As I have stated before: This is not a bold experiment in rpg game design; this game was pitched as a return to the familiar game-play of the IE games. Making xp exclusive to quests is not only a major detriment to role-play, it is a terrible departure from the tradition this game was meant to emulate.

You just said yourself one post back that there's going to be plenty of mandatory killing through following the quest lines.  That is hardly the same thing as pacifism.  If it's what you want to do, it is perfectly possible to roleplay someone who goes out of their way to kill enemies when the game doesn't force them to without giving XP for it.  It is not so simple to roleplay someone who tries for peaceful solutions but fights when required if your character progression requires you to go out of your way to find more things to kill.

 

What is disincentivising killing as a solution is not the lack of XP for doing so; it's the rest mechanics that makes it costly.  But it's hard to really evaluate the significance that cost without playing through much more of the game than we can right now.  I would be in favour of something like, say, the option to toggle the resting supplies requirement to address this problem.

I agree. just to be clear I think a lot of us don't want PoE to be turned into a Diablo clone or those action RPG where bashing things is the main scope of the game.

 

I usually avoid trash mobs or random encounters whenever I can when I'm playing RPGs and yet I'm someone who likes to explore the environments. The fights I cannot really avoid at least provide me the consolation of rewarding me with some loot and XP. Take away that and they become only an annoyance. From what I've seen of the beta, the maps seems to be well populated of creatures and enemies attacking my party on sight. Short of assembling a party entirely composed of PCs with high sneak abilities, I don't have any other choice to endure one pointless fight after another without even the consolation of seeing my efforts rewarded somehow (loot from generic critters usually sucks).

 

TBH I'm feeling really demotivated right now. If Obsidian doesn't address this somehow, I don't see myself going through this game more than once just for the story and then disinstall it for good.

[Namutree]

Of course they're not.  But if there are enough battles/general adventuring that aren't tied into any quests (and thus are going to have attached XP rewards at some point) that the XP gained from them is meaningful, it winds up penalising anyone who doesn't want to wander around killing things without an in-game reason.

 

 

It isn't penalising to not give some one xp for something they didn't do. It is however very restrictive to say, "Only quests give xp. I like quest more than combat so no xp for combat."

 

That logic leads to:

 

No xp for quests- My character doesn't like to do quest when it isn't needed, and I don't want to punished for not being an npc's servant!

 

No xp for anything really. The entire xp concept is based on rewarding players for adventuring. If you can justify not giving xp for exploration/combat; the foremost aspects of adventure, then xp itself is no longer justified. 

 

I want kill xp and quest xp, but if a choice must be made; kill xp would be the logical winner. Since levels mostly revolve around combat mechanically speaking.

[Helm]

The problem with no XP for kills, IMO, is that most of the spells and abilities the character classes get as they level are geared towards effectiveness in combat. I also agree that it makes sense to award XP for overcoming a combat encounter.

 

Having said that, perhaps a solution would be to flag all the creatures in a specific area as belonging to a specific quest or quests (you have to get past/through/around them to complete the quest anyway). The quest is worth a specific amount of XP. Every creature you kill awards XP, but that number is deducted from the value of completing the quest. For example, if the quest is worth 2000 XP and you kill nothing, you get 2000 XP for completing it. If you kill 10 creatures worth 50 XP each while doing the quest, then the quest reward at the end is 1500 XP. To me, this would strike a nice balance between those that want to avoid as much combat as possible, those that want to kill everything in sight, and those that just want to get some mobs out of their way without having to sneak/be diplomatic.

 

I realize this would increase the complexity of making the game, but if it could be implemented, I think it would solve the complaints with regards to kill XP.

The high-risk task (killing enemies) and the low-risk task (avoiding enemies) would still both reward the player with 2000 XP. It would be exactly the same as what we already have, just obfuscated to give the illusion that the player is actually being rewarded for his hard work.

 

There is a poll, in the Gameplay & mechanics forum, that clearly shows only a small minority of the people (9%) is satisfied by how XP is now rewarded.

 

One of the reasons to hold a more or less open beta is to receive feedback about mechanics. I would be surprised -and disappointed- if Obsidian doesn't reconsider the way XP is handled.

You know how long this discussion has been going on? Almost two years. TWO YEARS. A majority or gamers have said since the end of the kickstarter that they want combat XP or something similar that actually rewards a player for his actions. We were ignored and also mildly insulted by his game designing grace, because he is confident that this system is absolutely perfect.

 

Two years and one beta version later, all I can see is that many proponents of Sawyer's XP design have either changed sides or went into hiding after playing the beta (to be clear, I absolutely do not blame these fans for originally giving Sawyer the benefit of the doubt).

 

Anyway, what I wanted to say was that it would be very hard to make Sawyer change his mind. He would rather disgruntle a substantial amount of the fans than give them something which all of the IE fans (which is of course their target audience) would be okay with.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Helm

[Sarex]

Two years and one beta version later, all I can see is that many proponents of Sawyer's XP design have either changed sides or went into hiding after playing the beta

 

Now that you mention it the experience thread in the gameplay discussion forum is missing a lot of people from the previous thread who where very active in the thread before the beta.

[NWN_babaYaga]

Havent played the Beta but the older infinity engine games made no sense in terms of gaining XP trough just killing monsters. Because how do you explain to raise your Charisma leveling up ? What had an increase of charisma to do with slaughtering of wildlife and creatures ?

It is the old and new D&D system without sense.

 

so i think it´s a new idea and somehow I like it. It´s not so violent and the only thing that makes sense in giving away XP for killing or fighting stuff was in Quest for Glory games!

Edited August 20, 2014 by NWN_babaYaga

[Kharador]

Havent played the Beta but the older infinity engine games made no sense in terms of gaining XP trough just killing monsters. Because how do you explain to raise your Charisma leveling up ? What had an increase of charisma to do with slaughtering of wildlife and creatures ?

It is the old and new D&D system without sense.

 

so i think it´s a new idea and somehow I like it. It´s not so violent and the only thing that makes sense in giving away XP for killing or fighting stuff was in Quest for Glory games!

 

In old IE games you (((CANT'T))) level up your main skills killing NPCs or via XP.

Only in IWD2, and is for the fake D&D3º rules... Go inform yourself.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Kharador

[sparklecat]

 

I usually avoid trash mobs or random encounters whenever I can when I'm playing RPGs and yet I'm someone who likes to explore the environments. The fights I cannot really avoid at least provide me the consolation of rewarding me with some loot and XP. Take away that and they become only an annoyance. From what I've seen of the beta, the maps seems to be well populated of creatures and enemies attacking my party on sight. Short of assembling a party entirely composed of PCs with high sneak abilities, I don't have any other choice to endure one pointless fight after another without even the consolation of seeing my efforts rewarded somehow (loot from generic critters usually sucks).

 

I think they also need to change the fact that every wilderness creature on the map is automatically hostile; make it dependent on distance or the like.  This would also help with the problem.

[sparklecat]

 

Of course they're not.  But if there are enough battles/general adventuring that aren't tied into any quests (and thus are going to have attached XP rewards at some point) that the XP gained from them is meaningful, it winds up penalising anyone who doesn't want to wander around killing things without an in-game reason.

 

 

It isn't penalising to not give some one xp for something they didn't do. It is however very restrictive to say, "Only quests give xp. I like quest more than combat so no xp for combat."

 

 

It's penalising the roleplayer to make it mandatory to wander around killing things without an in-game reason if you want your character to be at the expected level for combat encounters later on down the line.

 

[IndiraLightfoot]

_{Psst! I have a confession to make. I think experience point tables are pretty kewl, just saying. This flawed xp system makes me miss them pretty urgently.}

[NWN_babaYaga]

 

Havent played the Beta but the older infinity engine games made no sense in terms of gaining XP trough just killing monsters. Because how do you explain to raise your Charisma leveling up ? What had an increase of charisma to do with slaughtering of wildlife and creatures ?

It is the old and new D&D system without sense.

 

so i think it´s a new idea and somehow I like it. It´s not so violent and the only thing that makes sense in giving away XP for killing or fighting stuff was in Quest for Glory games!

 

In old IE games you (((CANT'T))) level up your main skills killing NPCs or via XP.

Only in IWD2, and is for the fake D&D3º rules... Go inform yourself.

 

Realy ? I dont remember that i had some kind of special XP´s that were separated from the ordinary XP´s. What nonsense. But i check it out if there were 2 different experience point shemes. one for leveling up and one for the fun....ungh... all the XP´s of the red dragon were just for de fun...

Edited August 20, 2014 by NWN_babaYaga

[Helm]

Havent played the Beta but the older infinity engine games made no sense in terms of gaining XP trough just killing monsters. Because how do you explain to raise your Charisma leveling up ? What had an increase of charisma to do with slaughtering of wildlife and creatures ?

It is the old and new D&D system without sense.

 

so i think it´s a new idea and somehow I like it. It´s not so violent and the only thing that makes sense in giving away XP for killing or fighting stuff was in Quest for Glory games!

Now our characters can raise their charisma by chopping off an Ogre's head for objective XP.

 

Makes so much more sense, even though it is the same thing. 

[sparklecat]

 

 

Havent played the Beta but the older infinity engine games made no sense in terms of gaining XP trough just killing monsters. Because how do you explain to raise your Charisma leveling up ? What had an increase of charisma to do with slaughtering of wildlife and creatures ?

It is the old and new D&D system without sense.

 

so i think it´s a new idea and somehow I like it. It´s not so violent and the only thing that makes sense in giving away XP for killing or fighting stuff was in Quest for Glory games!

 

In old IE games you (((CANT'T))) level up your main skills killing NPCs or via XP.

Only in IWD2, and is for the fake D&D3º rules... Go inform yourself.

 

Realy ? I dont remember that i had some kind of special XP´s that were separated from the ordinary XP´s. What nonsense. But i check it out if there were 2 different experience point shemes. one for leveling up and one for the fun....

 

Kharador means that you couldn't raise your Charisma or any other attribute via levelling in the 2e IE games, which were... some of them but not others.

[Helm]

 

Two years and one beta version later, all I can see is that many proponents of Sawyer's XP design have either changed sides or went into hiding after playing the beta

 

Now that you mention it the experience thread in the gameplay discussion forum is missing a lot of people from the previous thread who where very active in the thread before the beta.

 

The one thing that hasn't changed is that the hottest thread on the forum (which is the one about combat xp) is completely ignored by the developers.

[hairyscotsman2]

 

Havent played the Beta but the older infinity engine games made no sense in terms of gaining XP trough just killing monsters. Because how do you explain to raise your Charisma leveling up ? What had an increase of charisma to do with slaughtering of wildlife and creatures ?

It is the old and new D&D system without sense.

 

so i think it´s a new idea and somehow I like it. It´s not so violent and the only thing that makes sense in giving away XP for killing or fighting stuff was in Quest for Glory games!

Now our characters can raise their charisma by chopping off an Ogre's head for objective XP.

 

Makes so much more sense, even though it is the same thing. 

 

+rep not +cha surely?

[Gfted1]

It's penalising the roleplayer to make it mandatory to wander around killing things without an in-game reason if you want your character to be at the expected level for combat encounters later on down the line.

That's not true afaik. Staying on the critical path only will still provide you the XP needed to complete the game. XP gained on exploration / non crit path is just extra. You should hit the level cap either way but the latter method may get you there faster.