Maybe but the way you were explaining your model in your OP made me assume that you wanted each step to have a meaningful-feeling reward. If you think they'd be satisfying even if the ratio of "step XP" to "quest completion XP" was low then maybe you're right, I don't know.

 

I want it to be somewhere in the happy middle. Completing every quest at maximum detail should get you to the level cap a bit early, and should get you significantly better gear by the endgame. Completing most optional quest a little carelessly should get you to the level cap by the endgame. Completing only the crit path carelessly should leave you underleveled for the endgame, but no so much it would be impossibly difficult at Easy. (I wouldn't mind if it was a serious challenge at Normal and genuinely tough at Path of the Damned -- I'm sure the folks looking for a challenge would like that.)

 

There's a lot of space between the extremes here.

 

 

I guess so. Thinking about it that does sound okay if they balanced it carefully, after all it's not too different than skipping quests you don't like in BG2 or something.

 

The part that makes me personally uneasy about it is that I tend to be the guy who does do every step and explore every nook and cranny, but I could easily see myself missing "steps" of a quest on accident, just because of the way I chose to play the quest or because I missed something (my previous example, in the cult quest instead of investigating the Ogre like the guy said I should I just broke into his backroom, if the Ogre step was worth XP that I missed out on, that would annoy me). That's just a personal thing that would annoy me, so perhaps it's less relevant.

 

However, like I've been saying, it's also permanent. If I skipped a quest in BG2 because I didn't like the sound of it, I could usually go back later and do it if I changed my mind or decided I really wanted to get stronger (ie. the XP). But going back and redoing the middle of a quest is impossible.

Edited August 24, 201411 yr by Answermancer

Haha, yeah, I know that "did I miss anything?" feeling all too well.

 

The upside with the incremental small rewards is that missing something on occasion is no big deal; it will only start to bite with consistent behavior.

Plenty of good points, I hope that Josh & Co are already on the same page, and if not, that they take notes!

 

EDIT: Btw, this thread is great consolation for me, since we get to discuss here how objective xp could work to accommodate all kinds of playstyles and still feel rewarding. We're on a salvage mission (at least if the xp system in the beta build we have at hand is anything to go by). However, I would be ecstatic if OE posted something about what their goals are for the xp system, and the issues they are having with it at the moment. 

Edited August 24, 201411 yr by IndiraLightfoot

I support steps xp entirely. The main reason is that with default player behavior (go to a hub, get all quests possible, go in the wilderness, solve the most you can before coming back to the hub), you end up with long intervals getting no xp just to get everything at once), It just doesn't seem adequate to distribute a reward like xp, that is maybe the main reason why many players feel the game as rewarding in the first place (sad but true), in such a way.

 

I wouldn't worry with optional steps giving more xp, as long as the difference didn't go beyond 20-30% what the quest would normally offer. If in the long term this made progress difficult, I'd be also a defender of main quest combat difficulty adapting to the level of the player at those later levels. I know many hate the system, but it's probably because it's used uniformly in other games, making progress useless. This kind of situation is perfect for it, I believe, as it would also avoid making a final confrontation too easy and anticlimactic for players that did everything the game offers.

 

Besides, giving steps xp would make the combat xp widows less angry by distracting them.