No experience from combat

[Namutree]

 

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. 

 

Not to be "that" guy, but a poll with around 100 votes dosnt really mean anything....

 

Not to shoot myself in the foot here, but I suspect those who would be most motivated go and vote would be people hoping to change the xp system.

[AdaMusic]

Here's what I'm hearing in this thread:

 

"This bugged experience system isn't fit for final release! Giving XP for kills will fix the bugs."

 

"This combat, which is artificially more difficult because of bugs, is too hard for me. The solution is obviously isn't to fix the bugs and make combat easier, but to give XP for kills."

 

"I don't know what a dungeon crawler is. Obviously, the solution is to give XP for kills."

 

 

Yea that map looks like a map from a classic dungeon crawler to me #sarcasm.

"There are multiple dungeons in BG2 therefor it must be a dungeon crawler"...

... "There are multiple sex scenes in Mass Effect therefor it must be a sex simulator" ...

... "Oh did I forget to mention that the creator of Mass Effect likes sex?"

Edited August 20, 2014 by AdaMusic

[Shevek]

Here's what I'm hearing in this thread:

 

"This bugged experience system isn't fit for final release! Giving XP for kills will fix the bugs."

 

"This combat, which is artificially more difficult because of bugs, is too hard for me. The solution is obviously isn't to fix the bugs and make combat easier, but to give XP for kills."

 

"I don't know what a dungeon crawler is. Obviously, the solution is to give XP for kills."

 

 

Wilderness in BG1 = Overland Dungeons

 

Your point?

 

You wander around killing monsters and instead of being surrounded by stalactites you are surrounded by trees. YOU BASICALLY WANDER AROUND AND KILL THINGS IN THE IE GAMES. Stop trying to make those games something they were not.

 

Also, stop trying to insult posters you disagree with by trying to place words in their mouths. Deal with the ideas by using actual quotes not fake quotes you use to try to prove a point.

 

The IE games were fun but they were, at their core, games centered around dungeon crawling. The dungeons drove the story forward. They are how you gained companions, met story objectives, found loot and gained xp. Trying to deny this is ludicrous.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Shevek

[Amentep]

 

 

People act like this is self-evidently a bad thing, but I'm actually not sure why. Why is gaining 0 XP a bad thing? What exactly are you being deprived of here?

 

Personally, I think it's cool when you can't count on the inevitable level-up to rescue you from a tough encounter. You have to make due with what you have. No level-up for you until the quest is over.

 

You are being deprived of any character progression for a days worth of playing a game, as to why that is bad, well it railroads you in to doing quest to have character progression at all, ie. it removes choice from you.

 

Everything is pretty much explained and discussed in this thread already:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67140-experience-point-system-in-the-beta-and-onwards/

 

 

How on earth is kill-XP any different from your complain.

You have to slaughter anything that moves, otherwise you are denied character progression.

It forces you to be murderhobo, instead of playing quests and adventures.

 

All XP is an abstraction of some kind. You don't have to kill even if kill XP is granted; but if the game railroads you into combat then your characters have to be able to kill. This is a fine distinction but an important one, since the IE games did railroad you into combat, so combat ended up being their primary focus.

 

There are a few different arguments going around but what I get from them is that Kill XP can encourage combat as the primary solution to problems. Objective XP does not, but it does inherit a couple of new problems: potentially giving a dis-incentive to killing (as the risk is greatest in combat but the reward is theoretically equivalent to other solutions) and in having a player play the game for a significant amount of time with potentially no reward.

 

The ultimate factor really is implementation (IMO) since as I started, all XP is an abstraction.

[Namutree]

Here's what I'm hearing in this thread:

 

"This bugged experience system isn't fit for final release! Giving XP for kills will fix the bugs."

 

Whether or not the bugs connected to the quest system are fixed; it won't change the fact that making xp quest exclusive railroads us into doing quests. Quests shouldn't have a monopoly on xp.

 

 

"I don't know what a dungeon crawler is. Obviously, the solution is to give XP for kills."

 

The issue as to whether BG1/BG2 & IWD/IWD2 are dungeon crawlers is merely semantics. The real point is that the IE didn't railroad you into doing quest exclusively, and if poe does; it will not capture the feeling of playing an IE game.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Namutree

[ctn2003]

Yea it is weird, but the Beta is short. And at the moment im more worried at the fact that some of the classes are so over powered that level 5 is all you would need to beta the whole game.

[Tartantyco]

Shevek proudly proclaims that all games ever made are now dungeon crawls. Yes, even Tamagotchi.

 

You are only deserving of ridicule at this point, Shevek.

[Amentep]

 

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.

 

Not to be "that" guy, but a poll with around 100 votes dosnt really mean anything....

 

I'll be that guy, anonymous self-selecting internet polls are worthless. Your population is so limited (and again, self-selecting) that any attempt to draw the conclusion of such a poll to the larger society would carry a huge margin of error rendering it meaningless.

 

They can be fun, but certainly not definitive.

[AdaMusic]

 

 

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.

 

Not to be "that" guy, but a poll with around 100 votes dosnt really mean anything....

 

I'll be that guy, anonymous self-selecting internet polls are worthless. Your population is so limited (and again, self-selecting) that any attempt to draw the conclusion of such a poll to the larger society would carry a huge margin of error rendering it meaningless.

 

They can be fun, but certainly not definitive.

 

 

Can someone give a link to this poll?

[Tartantyco]

It's this one.

[Namutree]

Shevek proudly proclaims that all games ever made are now dungeon crawls. Yes, even Tamagotchi.

 

You are only deserving of ridicule at this point, Shevek.

Shevek rightly asked that you didn't put words in people's mouth. Now you are doing it again.

 

The only one here deserving of ridicule is you.

[sparklecat]

 

 

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.

 

Not to be "that" guy, but a poll with around 100 votes dosnt really mean anything....

 

I'll be that guy, anonymous self-selecting internet polls are worthless. Your population is so limited (and again, self-selecting) that any attempt to draw the conclusion of such a poll to the larger society would carry a huge margin of error rendering it meaningless.

 

They can be fun, but certainly not definitive.

 

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.

 

 

Back to the issue at hand, I have less of a problem being railroaded into doing quests in a game where I am required to complete quests to progress and unlock further areas because of the basic structure of the thing.  You could level up to some degree by ignoring quests and simply killing things in the IE games, yes, but there was absolutely no way they were not required to reach new areas with more things to kill.  I have more of a problem with being essentially forced to jettison any hope of roleplaying someone who's not a mass-murderer if I want a strong character by the end.

[Sarex]

Shevek rightly asked that you didn't put words in people's mouth. Now you are doing it again.

 

The only one here deserving of ridicule is you.

 

The best thing to do with people like him is to ignore them. Notice how almost everyone is doing it.

 

 

I have more of a problem with being essentially forced to jettison any hope of roleplaying someone who's not a mass-murderer if I want a strong character by the end.

 

How are you forced? You keep saying that, but that was simply never the case in IE games.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Sarex

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'm happy with no kill XP, but it is exaggerating a bit to say kill XP forces you to play a mass murderer. You killed plenty of hostile stuff in the IE games and could hit the level caps, more so with mods.

[Namutree]

  I have more of a problem with being essentially forced to jettison any hope of roleplaying someone who's not a mass-murderer if I want a strong character by the end.

Then you're going to be disappointed as reaching the end requires a lot of combat. Even if you talk/stealth your way out of as many possible combat situations as you can; you will still be a mass murderer at the end. Not that kill xp being added would have made that any more/less likely.

 

[IndiraLightfoot]

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.

 

*Dramatic pause, staring in amazement*

 

Who am I? Death himself? Oh, no, wait, that's the next D3 expansion, after Reaper of Souls, mark my words!

Edited August 20, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[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.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Amentep

[AdaMusic]

 

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. 

[Tartantyco]

 

 

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. 

 

 

And how does combat make someone better at stealthing? Or lockpicking? Or identifying rare items and stuff? XP is generalized and abstracted, don't try to apply some 1:1 logic to it.

[sparklecat]

 

Shevek rightly asked that you didn't put words in people's mouth. Now you are doing it again.

 

The only one here deserving of ridicule is you.

 

The best thing to do with people like him is to ignore them. Notice how almost everyone is doing it.

 

 

I have more of a problem with being essentially forced to jettison any hope of roleplaying someone who's not a mass-murderer if I want a strong character by the end.

 

How are you forced? You keep saying that, but that was simply never the case in IE games.

 

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), ignoring the Illithid and the Beholders, right?  But that is a ton of XP you are missing out on, in a game where your ability to keep on with it requires you to have plenty of said XP if you want to survive.  The less killing you want and do, the worse you are at it and the harder and more frustrating combat becomes.  That's forcing a very specific playstyle on you, in a way that giving XP only for something you will need to be doing anyway (quests) does not. 

 

I agree that the limitations on resting does make it a bit more of a problem, but to some degree it simply affects what you're weighing - is using up more of my resting supplies by getting in a fight with that group of whatevers worth it to me?  Overall, not being rewarded by the game, XP-wise, for doing something (killing nonessential enemies) and being penalised by the game for not doing something (killing enemies) are very different things.

[Pendali]

Imo. There absolutely must be some kind of reward for killing creeps, but it dos not need to be exclusively experience points, (although thats what I want) 

It could be other things.. or based on or in a different system.

[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.

[Namutree]

 

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.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Namutree: Same here.

[AdaMusic]

 

 

 

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. 

 

 

And how does combat make someone better at stealthing? Or lockpicking? Or identifying rare items and stuff? XP is generalized and abstracted, don't try to apply some 1:1 logic to it.

 

 

What you are saying is exactly the point that I am trying to make.