The experience system

[PrimeHydra]

Obsidian: If you truly care about this debate, add a poll to this thread and pin it.

 

Otherwise, me thinks this is just a heat sink to keep the arguments in one place.

[Linkamus]

Regardless of practical reasons to have or not have killing monsters give you exp, the bottom line is that killing monsters for exp is fun. When you down a foe and you see the feedback: "Party Gained Exp: 3000" it just incites good tingly feelings. It's fun.

I would say just implement a system in which if you talk your way out of a battle, then you also get a comparable amount of experience. 

[Mayama]

Zansatsu: As a fellow exploration lover, those are really cool ideas to build some reward systems on, and they could very well work for PoE - even though they aren't spiritual successor-stuff, if you get my drift.

I find that complain strange because all those issues he adressed like a door he cant lockpick etc. because if he would truly explored the enviroment he would have found out that their are other ways around those locked doors... he also never bothered to read the bug forum or else he would have known how to avoid the "wiped quest log" bug.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Mayama

[Monte Carlo]

Regardless of practical reasons to have or not have killing monsters give you exp, the bottom line is that killing monsters for exp is fun. When you down a foe and you see the feedback: "Party Gained Exp: 3000" it just incites good tingly feelings. It's fun.

 

I would say just implement a system in which if you talk your way out of a battle, then you also get a comparable amount of experience. 

 

I agree. Sadly, Sawyer has an otherworldly sense of what constitutes fun.

[Cantousent]

I agree. Sadly, Sawyer has an otherworldly sense of what constitutes fun.

 

I laughed out loud, ya bastard.  However, I still think there's fun to be had for mowing down mobs if that's what you like to do.  It's not like removing the XP reward entirely kills the fun, right?

 

OT:  Is your icon Michael Douglas from Falling Down?

[Headbomb]

 

Yes, that is even better.  Maybe get the rare mob XP then for that one spider though.

 

 

Definitely. If it's a rare mob not tied to a specific quest. I got zero problem with that.

[Volourn]

Why is the ogre with xp but not the spider queen? That's rude.

[Gfted1]

Because someone told you to kill the Ogre. Duh.

[Volourn]

Which is why it's rude.  The spider queen (once bugs are dealt with) would/should be a worthy optional battle/confrontation worthy of  being a challenge to overcome hence worthy of xp.

 

Just because some needy villager doesn't beg you to be his whipping boy doesn't mean it's not worthy of xp.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Yeah it's falling down. The XP thing makes me feel like the scene in the burger restaurant.

[Helm]

Regardless of practical reasons to have or not have killing monsters give you exp, the bottom line is that killing monsters for exp is fun. When you down a foe and you see the feedback: "Party Gained Exp: 3000" it just incites good tingly feelings. It's fun.

 

I would say just implement a system in which if you talk your way out of a battle, then you also get a comparable amount of experience. 

Yep, I love it too. The satisfaction of killing a strong foe and then getting a large sum of XP really lets me feel immersed and also improves the feeling of progression.

[Yonjuro]

Regardless of practical reasons to have or not have killing monsters give you exp, the bottom line is that killing monsters for exp is fun. When you down a foe and you see the feedback: "Party Gained Exp: 3000" it just incites good tingly feelings. It's fun.

 

 

 Somebody made a similar argument over in kill xp thread number 752. But, their argument was not that it's fun but that it provides feedback.

Basically, does the game agree with you about how hard that fight was?

[Shevek]

This is easily what i find least appealing about the game thus far. A combat focused crpg whose character dev system is entirely focused on combat that hesitates to reward combat? What the hell...

 

If this game forced players to choose between combat and non combat development (like Fallout or whatever), i could get on board with purely objective based xp as a means to be fair to players who sacrificed offense for a silver toungue or a quiet gait. This is not the case however.

 

As such, failing to reward combat just feels wrong. The choices of class and talents are made purely to inform how best to help the party murder its opponents. As such, the xp system should reward players for constructing a party that executes this best.

[Helm]

Indira inspired me to check out update #7:

 

Design Goals

In putting together our non-combat system, we have made a list of goals for the design of these skills and the rules they need to follow.

• Non-combat skills are gained separately from combat skills. You shouldn't have to choose between Magic Missile and Herbalism. They should be separate types of abilities, and you should spend different points to get each one.
• Non-combat skills do not use the same resources as combat skills. You don't spend the same stuff for a non-combat skill as you do for combat skills. Some don't use anything at all to use, so you will never find yourself unable to blast an opponent if you get caught sneaking.
• All non-combat skills are useful. If we add lockpicking to the game, we will make sure that there are locks to pick and worthwhile rewards for getting past them.
• All non-combat skills can be used frequently. If you take disarm traps as a skill, you should expect more than two traps in the entire game world. Frequency of application has a large impact on how useful something is.
• Combat can be avoided with non-combat skills. There will often be ways to avoid fighting. Yes, we will have the standard methods of talking your way out of a fight or sneaking around an encounter, but there will be other ways too. Perhaps you can re-sanctify a desecrated cemetery to prevent any further undead from rising, or maybe figuring out a way across a ruined bridge will always avoid the bandits on this side of the river.
• Avoiding combat does not lead to less experience gain. You shouldn't go up levels any slower by using your non-combat skills rather than your combat skills. We plan to reward you for your accomplishments, not for your body count.

I hightlighted the interesting stuff. They sugar coated the truth real nice.

[xsubtownerx]

I would personally love the more traditional route of XP gaining (quests, combat, etc). But at the same time I'm open to this new ideology of CRPGing. With that said though, combat needs to feel more rewarding. Because right now loot doesn't seem to be cutting it all on its own. At the very least boss fights should give XP. 

[Arsene Lupin]

Um... I find this whole absence of combat experience to be completely baffling. I've been anxious about POE for a while since Obsidian seemed so resolutely opposed to sharing anything substantial to the backers, but I still had faith that they could deliver a competent CRPG based on their prior work.

 

But quest-only experience is... Not at all indicative of competence.

 

Has Obsidian made any real attempt to justify this? I'd appreciate it if someone could point me at a defense for this nonsense.

[illathid]

Um... I find this whole absence of combat experience to be completely baffling. I've been anxious about POE for a while since Obsidian seemed so resolutely opposed to sharing anything substantial to the backers, but I still had faith that they could deliver a competent CRPG based on their prior work.

 

But quest-only experience is... Not at all indicative of competence.

 

Has Obsidian made any real attempt to justify this? I'd appreciate it if someone could point me at a defense for this nonsense.

 

My understanding is that Oblivion believes "Per Kill" XP promotes degenerative game play. Where people will choose to take the non-combat route for XP, and then go back and kill everything to gain additional XP. I know I have done that on more than one occasion (The sahuagin city in BG2 comes to mind as a notable example).

[Arsene Lupin]

 

Um... I find this whole absence of combat experience to be completely baffling. I've been anxious about POE for a while since Obsidian seemed so resolutely opposed to sharing anything substantial to the backers, but I still had faith that they could deliver a competent CRPG based on their prior work.

But quest-only experience is... Not at all indicative of competence.

Has Obsidian made any real attempt to justify this? I'd appreciate it if someone could point me at a defense for this nonsense.

 

 

My understanding is that Oblivion believes "Per Kill" XP promotes degenerative game play. Where people will choose to take the non-combat route for XP, and then go back and kill everything to gain additional XP. I know I have done that on more than one occasion (The sahuagin city in BG2 comes to mind as a notable example).

And that's... a bad thing? Since when? I always thought having multiple play styles was supposed to be something to strive for. And that the extra XP for superfluous murder served to "tempt" players to evil acts by offering greater rewards.

 

By removing combat EXP, it seems to me that Obsidian has greatly reduced both the complexity and immediacy of the game.

 

...That latter bit being a big problem I don't think many of us, in this thread at least, are recognizing. The chief problem with the current EXP system is that it unnecessarily breaks up the play experience. It separates the moments when the player feels as though he or she has become more powerful (defeating a tough monster) from the moment that the game systems grant the player more power (quest resolution).

 

Actually, the more I think on it, the more problems I imagine--yet I cannot think of a single benefit of quest-only EXP.

 

What happens when we kill a boss without accepting a corresponding quest? What happens when a quest is broken? What happens to exploration when there is no tangible reward for the risk of combat? What happens when a player decides that the best roleplaying option for a quest is not to complete it at all?

 

This feels like a Bethesda decision, where they don't care about roleplaying. Here, now, the optimal play style will be to complete every single quest in the game, regardless of what that quest is. Here's hoping it'll at least be better than Skyrim and not force players to murder innocent NPCs and then eat their flesh. Yeesh.

[skylander]

I think the point of continuing the discussion is a quest (pun intended) to hear back on the perspectives and putting a weight on the impact this may have in multiple dimensions.

 

While I am confident devs knew there would be impact, unless you let it to those that didn't spend time debating pros/cons, you don't really know how the fan base it going to truly react.

 

I agree with the concerns.  Some of my favorite times were spent exporing interacitons, characters, mobs, whether to increase skill (Elder Scrolls, wondering what may be somewhere even if there wasn't a quest invovled (and if I lost the quest item, oops)...  That's more like the unscripted, even if guided adventuring.

 

Realizing how big of a change this sounds like, I hope it is a serious consideration.  Otherwise, I'm thinking my funding was a charitable donation vs. giving me a game I am looking forward to playing over and over again.

[Caladian]

Let's address some of your falsities.  Not having grindxp has nothing to do with RP.  Second, even w/o grindxp there are tangable awards: loot.

 

Now to address your other actual concerns.

 

I don't know of anyone that thinks this system is just fine the way it is.  There is actually more people against grindxp than for it (last time I checked either poll).  Does that mean we think there shouldn't be more types of xp?  Heck yeah, there should be more.

There are bugs to the ogre quest currently about that and they acknowledged it.

 

I for one, would be very disatisfied if they brought back grindxp.  I won't just act like a baby and not support the game though.  There is still enough other stuff that I want to see closer to completion.  After doing over a dozen or so betas, it is wayyyyy to early to make any definitive statements.  Technically this game is already more polished than some games at launch.  Not that I think the game should be launched in its current state.

[Cantousent]

Why should the design team tempt us to evil acts in the first place?  Of all the arguments I've heard, that idea is the most confounding.  The design team should allow us to envision and then create the character we want.  It should be entirely neutral in what we decide to do and should have no stake in whether we play evil, good, neutral, dithering, or anything else.  Personally, I don't view 'immediacy' as a problem either.  There will, by necessity, always be a disconnect somewhere along the line between an abstraction of character growth and character actions in a game.  That's something else that also confounds me:  many of the folks who hate challenge (quest) centered XP are the same folks who hate the TES system of XP awarded by carrying out specific actions.  To me, advocating combat XP (itself an abstraction) is simply one step closer to the TES idea that spamming fireball makes you a better mage.  In fact, I would say that the TES system, which I don't want at all, is more 'logical' according the premise.

 

The thing that really stands out to me is that you say you can't think of a single benefit to quest-only XP.  I get that you don't like it, and I figure we should give opposing views a fair hearing. But I'd figure that people can at least recognize that there is at least a logical basis to the Challenge only XP stance, even if that player doesn't agree with it.  In this case, there are tons of posts that provide a logical framework for both sides, including everything from challenge only XP to granting XP awards based on combat, lockpicking, dialogue and even exploration.  I prefer the challenge only oriented approach to XP rewards, but I can at least give a good shot at explaining the combat XP point of view.

[skylander]

Let's address some of your falsities.  Not having grindxp has nothing to do with RP.  Second, even w/o grindxp there are tangable awards: loot.

 

Now to address your other actual concerns.

 

I don't know of anyone that thinks this system is just fine the way it is.  There is actually more people against grindxp than for it (last time I checked either poll).  Does that mean we think there shouldn't be more types of xp?  Heck yeah, there should be more.

 

There are bugs to the ogre quest currently about that and they acknowledged it.

 

I for one, would be very disatisfied if they brought back grindxp.  I won't just act like a baby and not support the game though.  There is still enough other stuff that I want to see closer to completion.  After doing over a dozen or so betas, it is wayyyyy to early to make any definitive statements.  Technically this game is already more polished than some games at launch.  Not that I think the game should be launched in its current state.

 

Given this is a Role Playing Game, I would have thought playing what ever role in an equivalent manner would be encouraged... Some are sneaks, some have clever tongues, some have brutes.  

 

In BG, you can be successful as a barbarian or a bard, using very different tactics and still finishing the game.  The reputation system IMHO worked well.  If you killed too many of the wrong sort, there would be consequences.  These are the type of dynamics that are fun to play with.

 

I never got into EQ or other grind/raid heavy games if they took away too much from the role playing.  

 

Hoping beta and feedback would secure focus on the R of the pg... 

 

Last, i'd rather wait for another 3-4-5 months that see something that doesn't take off after bumps

[Helm]

Let's address some of your falsities.  Not having grindxp has nothing to do with RP.  Second, even w/o grindxp there are tangable awards: loot.

Well now we have avoidcombat XP and useless loot drops. GOTY quality gaming.

 

 

BTW there was no grinding in Baldur's Gate. You have no idea what you are talking about if you considered the combat in BG to be grinding.

 

[Helm]

Because it slowly turned into captain ahab chasing the white whale of kill-xp. You wont get it, like some other things it wont change no matter how long you discuss it. I agree that it is disheartening to see thing not in the game that you personaly really like but at this point it doesnt matter anymore. Aim your effort at something that is not set in stone, deal with it and move along.

I've been wondering, do you hate combat XP or are you just an extremely loyal fan?

[Uomoz]

What's the difference if there's combat xp or not? The central point is progression. If you do progress, and you reach the end game with late game characters, then the system works.