Discussion: the PoE beta xp system

[Namutree]

That's great info, C2B. I mean, I still think exploration XP sounds sketchy, but I also don't know exactly how they're going to handle it. Clearly, they're trying to accommodate people who don't want strictly quest XP.  If this method helps, I'm all for it, even if I still find some aspects dubious.  ...But  sometimes a truce dividing the hill in half is better than everyone dying on top of it.

What aspects are dubious? If some one is an adventurer he should be given xp for exploring/discovering areas since that is what adventurers do. If anything; it's non-discovery xp that is dubious. As far as I'm concerned, quest-xp is easily the most dubious & least important kind of xp there is.

[PrimeHydra]

 

 

"Then, the devs should just follow their vision and grit their teeth during these three remaining months, instead of caving in and compromising on bestiaries and such. "

 

agreed. point?

 

nevertheless, am s'posing some obsidian folks is at least considering the options o' implementing a largely cosmetic change to appease folks. we cannot be too hypocritical in our rejection o' such a notion as we suggested changing the name o' the fighter and the rogue 'cause having identical names to d&d classes appeared to be causing confusion amongst the rabble. if a largely cosmetic change satisfies folks and obsidian believe they can do without too much effort, then so be it, but it nevertheless strikes us as unnecessary. however, PoE is a commercial product, so sometimes you need sacrifice principles on the altar of pragmatism.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Point, I very much doubt it would end up like in the sentence that followed the one you quoted. That's just me.

 

+1 for being able to wade through Gromnir's "in character" writing. I gave up a while back. Gromnir, seriously, cut it out--it's not cute, it's just annoying.  I know that sounds harsh but somebody needs to let you know. It dilutes your points and makes you sound childish at best and schizophrenic at worst.

[Gromnir]

 

As in the Sawyer quote I just posted the XP system is set up to be changed quite easily So why shouldn't they if the additional solution doesn't overly interfere with design goals?

 

Preetty sure frap was being sarcastic against the OE stalwarts who shoot down any post questioning their designs.

 

yes, but is better to respond as if he is serious.

 

in any event, we find the bestiary... amusing. we don't play mmo games much, am recalling when we first hit coruscant playing swtor. there were a quest that automatically were added to our log upon entering a new area. we were to kill 30 freaking gang members. *groan* fine. so we kill 30 and we get a prompt: kill 25 more gang members. 

 

*chuckle*

 

worst quests evar.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps as for your no doubt well-intentioned advice that you delivered in such a polite and endearing manner, we will take it under advisement. 

 

*shakes head sadly*

 

oh well, our motto has always been, "kid, the first shot is free."  

Edited September 24, 2014 by Gromnir

[Elerond]

 

 

 

Furthermore, kill xp and ad hoc xp awards is not easy to implement and balance.

This is the real root of all otherwise baffling decisions, including the absolute need to avoid the Spectre of Quest Staggering.

 

Although a backer (I'm not) might say "balancing Baldur's Gate 2 wasn't easy either. So?"

Baldur's Gate 2 had much more people working on it and it still failed in that balancing (similarly as all IE games failed), why they want to do things differently this time.

Will PoE's final price be a fraction of what was Baldur's Gate launching price, in order to reflect the low number of people working on it? If not, why should it matter to the final quality?

 

By the way, I'm sure all those people who remember Baldur's Gate's Chapter 2 so incredibly fondly do so exactly because it failed completely to achieve any semblance of balance.

 

 

I can't say what will be launch price of the PoE as that is to Paradox to decide, but budget of the game is smaller than what Baldur's Gate 2 had, which means that do achieve similar overall quality they can't take the most laborious options for every mechanic in the game to achieve their goals. 

 

It is not that Baldur's Gate or any other game fully failed in balance or that they weren't good game, but that they had optimal ways to play them which weren't always ways that designers meant to games to be played and this was because designers failed their job (according to said designers) so they don't want to those design mistakes that they did with IE games again with their new game (stated by said designers as reason why they have changed things).

[C2B]

+1 for being able to wade through Gromnir's "in character" writing. I gave up a while back. Gromnir, seriously, cut it out--it's not cute, it's just annoying.  I know that sounds harsh but somebody needs to let you know. It dilutes your points and makes you sound childish at best and schizophrenic at worst.

Gromnir has been doing his charachter for ~15 years now. You aren't the first to complain about it and you aren't going to be the last.

 

Hell, Bioware put a charachter in Throne of Baal (I think?) based on him.

Edited September 24, 2014 by C2B

[Cantousent]

 

That's great info, C2B. I mean, I still think exploration XP sounds sketchy, but I also don't know exactly how they're going to handle it. Clearly, they're trying to accommodate people who don't want strictly quest XP.  If this method helps, I'm all for it, even if I still find some aspects dubious.  ...But  sometimes a truce dividing the hill in half is better than everyone dying on top of it.

What aspects are dubious? If some one is an adventurer he should be given xp for exploring/discovering areas since that is what adventurers do. If anything; it's non-discovery xp that is dubious. As far as I'm concerned, quest-xp is easily the most dubious & least important kind of xp there is.

 

I suppose I have *my* reasons for finding it dubious, which is why I spoke for myself.  ...But, from Elrond's explanation, I'm actually quite happy with it.  The system I envision would be quite a bit more robust, but I've already described those ideas in the previous thread and there probably isn't much use in going over them at this point.  Exploration XP is apparently in, which is good for you and I don't begrudge it to you in the least.  It is still objective related, which is what I would prefer, so I hope you don't begrudge me being happy about that.  Anyhow, I'm dubious of more than just Exploration XP, but that's a whole new can of worms and there's no point in muddying the waters any further.

[Gfted1]

 

 

It was an answer to a question on how difficult it would be to change parts of the XP system (due to of course balancing issues). Sawyer's response was *Not very* and elobarated on it with that comment.

That runs totally counter to what others have stated. How odd.

 

 

Although he suggestion to change system is to add more objectives in the game, where one is to kill x number enemies and get xp and second is to add more exploration points in the game that give directly xp when found instead of tying them in the quest and tasks, so there isn't much change to current system.  

 

 

And last week it was a nearly insurmountable problem according to some. Funny how things work out.

[Elerond]

 

 

How did BG1 fail to balance the xp? By what metric did it fail?

 

 

 

 

 

 

By metric that Josh uses you get most XP by doing quest first and then kill everybody after wards. And taking combat option brings more experience than sneaking past enemies. Using thief open locks and remove traps brings more experience than using knock spell or strength to open locks and using detect traps spell to find traps so that you can avoid them.  

 

A) Doesn't killing people (Like quest givers) lower your reputation which causes other problems? Can you give me an example of the kind of situation you are talking about?

 

B) Isn't sneaking past enemies safer than fighting them? If so; fighting them should yield more xp since it is more dangerous/challenging. That would be balance. If fighting enemies yielded no more xp than sneaking past them; then the game would be unbalanced in favor of sneaking.

 

C) IIRC in the original BG1 disarming traps/opening locks didn't yield any xp. 

 

 

A) Not really as you have virtually unlimited pool of money and you can buy reputation from temples and reputation really matters for those that play good characters and maybe in some extent for those that play neutral characters.

 

B) It may be safer but it don't help when there is encounter that you can't avoid and you are under powered because you sneaked past previous encounters. 

 

C) I give you that I have played too much versions with BG2's engine. But absence of such source of non-combat xp only works to tip the xp scales towards combat xp.

[frapillo80]

 

 

 

 

 

Furthermore, kill xp and ad hoc xp awards is not easy to implement and balance.

This is the real root of all otherwise baffling decisions, including the absolute need to avoid the Spectre of Quest Staggering.

 

Although a backer (I'm not) might say "balancing Baldur's Gate 2 wasn't easy either. So?"

Baldur's Gate 2 had much more people working on it and it still failed in that balancing (similarly as all IE games failed), why they want to do things differently this time.

Will PoE's final price be a fraction of what was Baldur's Gate launching price, in order to reflect the low number of people working on it? If not, why should it matter to the final quality?

 

By the way, I'm sure all those people who remember Baldur's Gate's Chapter 2 so incredibly fondly do so exactly because it failed completely to achieve any semblance of balance.

I can't say what will be launch price of the PoE as that is to Paradox to decide, but budget of the game is smaller than what Baldur's Gate 2 had, which means that do achieve similar overall quality they can't take the most laborious options for every mechanic in the game to achieve their goals.

 

It is not that Baldur's Gate or any other game fully failed in balance or that they weren't good game, but that they had optimal ways to play them which weren't always ways that designers meant to games to be played and this was because designers failed their job (according to said designers) so they don't want to those design mistakes that they did with IE games again with their new game (stated by said designers as reason why they have changed things).

Ok, but that happens to the best games. I think the devs were being really perfectionist about it: I mean, if that's a failure in balancing, well, I personally wish for more failures like that. And for the time the balancing of such a complex setting was just grand. While PoE will be a 2014 game. Edited September 24, 2014 by frapillo80

[Elerond]

 

 

 

It was an answer to a question on how difficult it would be to change parts of the XP system (due to of course balancing issues). Sawyer's response was *Not very* and elobarated on it with that comment.

That runs totally counter to what others have stated. How odd.

 

 

Although he suggestion to change system is to add more objectives in the game, where one is to kill x number enemies and get xp and second is to add more exploration points in the game that give directly xp when found instead of tying them in the quest and tasks, so there isn't much change to current system.  

 

 

And last week it was a nearly insurmountable problem according to some. Funny how things work out.

 

 

But all they will do is to rename some quest differently and change how they are triggered so that people don't know that they are quest and that solves problems that people have with their quest xp system?

[Gromnir]

 

 

That's great info, C2B. I mean, I still think exploration XP sounds sketchy, but I also don't know exactly how they're going to handle it. Clearly, they're trying to accommodate people who don't want strictly quest XP.  If this method helps, I'm all for it, even if I still find some aspects dubious.  ...But  sometimes a truce dividing the hill in half is better than everyone dying on top of it.

What aspects are dubious? If some one is an adventurer he should be given xp for exploring/discovering areas since that is what adventurers do. If anything; it's non-discovery xp that is dubious. As far as I'm concerned, quest-xp is easily the most dubious & least important kind of xp there is.

 

I suppose I have *my* reasons for finding it dubious, which is why I spoke for myself.  ...But, from Elrond's explanation, I'm actually quite happy with it.  The system I envision would be quite a bit more robust, but I've already described those ideas in the previous thread and there probably isn't much use in going over them at this point.  Exploration XP is apparently in, which is good for you and I don't begrudge it to you in the least.  It is still objective related, which is what I would prefer, so I hope you don't begrudge me being happy about that.  Anyhow, I'm dubious of more than just Exploration XP, but that's a whole new can of worms and there's no point in muddying the waters any further.

 

keep in mind that josh already told us that obsidian were considering adding a bestiary and exploration... which successfully kicked up another combat xp dust storm just as thing appeared to be dying down a bit. thanks josh. in any event, am not certain why some folks is gloating and others is acting surprised by c2b's quoted material... josh wouldn't have told us they were considering adding such stuff if they were impractical. 

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68476-discussion-the-poe-beta-xp-system/?p=1513428

 

this is what we meant about overreacting. josh told us that they were thinking o' doing a thing. now we got a quote from josh saying he can do what he were thinking of doing. color us shocked. some folks who were irritated by josh's bestiary plan is now acting as if it is a win 'cause he says he can do it? huh? 

 

people is crazy.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[PrimeHydra]

 

+1 for being able to wade through Gromnir's "in character" writing. I gave up a while back. Gromnir, seriously, cut it out--it's not cute, it's just annoying.  I know that sounds harsh but somebody needs to let you know. It dilutes your points and makes you sound childish at best and schizophrenic at worst.

Gromnir has been doing his charachter for ~15 years now. You aren't the first to complain about it and you aren't going to be the last.

 

Hell, Bioware put a charachter in Throne of Baal (I think?) based on him.

 

Yikes...

[Namutree]

 

A) Doesn't killing people (Like quest givers) lower your reputation which causes other problems? Can you give me an example of the kind of situation you are talking about?

 

 

 

B) Isn't sneaking past enemies safer than fighting them? If so; fighting them should yield more xp since it is more dangerous/challenging. That would be balance. If fighting enemies yielded no more xp than sneaking past them; then the game would be unbalanced in favor of sneaking.

 

C) IIRC in the original BG1 disarming traps/opening locks didn't yield any xp. 

 

 

A) Not really as you have virtually unlimited pool of money and you can buy reputation from temples and reputation really matters for those that play good characters and maybe in some extent for those that play neutral characters.

 

B) It may be safer but it don't help when there is encounter that you can't avoid and you are under powered because you sneaked past previous encounters. 

 

C) I give you that I have played too much versions with BG2's engine. But absence of such source of non-combat xp only works to tip the xp scales towards combat xp.

 

A) The amount of xp most quest givers would give you is like ten or twenty. The amount of reputation you'll lose can be as high as 7. I'll gladly keep the 3,000 or so gold it costs to keep my reputation at a reasonable level over the 20 xp that quest giver gave me.

 

B) The game can be beaten even with a level 1 character, and quest xp alone will easily get you to level 5 with a full party. By sneaking past the enemies you are making some parts easier & some parts harder; sounds balanced to me.

 

C) A meaningless point since I have already established that combat xp isn't needed in the game.

 

The system is balanced in BG1, and you have yet to voice any solid evidence to the contrary.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Namutree

[Gfted1]

 

 

 

 

It was an answer to a question on how difficult it would be to change parts of the XP system (due to of course balancing issues). Sawyer's response was *Not very* and elobarated on it with that comment.

That runs totally counter to what others have stated. How odd.

 

 

Although he suggestion to change system is to add more objectives in the game, where one is to kill x number enemies and get xp and second is to add more exploration points in the game that give directly xp when found instead of tying them in the quest and tasks, so there isn't much change to current system.  

 

 

And last week it was a nearly insurmountable problem according to some. Funny how things work out.

 

 

But all they will do is to rename some quest differently and change how they are triggered so that people don't know that they are quest and that solves problems that people have with their quest xp system?

 

 

Was beastiary xp in the whole time under a different name? No, of course not. The TOTAL XP remains the same, how you earn it is different. If you don't kill mook, you will earn less xp.

[Hellraiser789]

Elerond - "Baldur's Gate 2 had much more people working on it and it still failed in that balancing (similarly as all IE games failed), why they want to do things differently this time."

 

Well I dont see how BG was unbalanced personally... Actually, I thought all the IE games were pretty balanced. Then again, I didnt go out of my way to grind and even sprinted past trash mobs a couple times. I think people just kinda feel that quests railroad them into doing exactly what the developers want. Which is ok I guess because the story should be awesome. I guess its a matter of liking the Baldurs Gate Series vs the Icewind Dale Series.

 

Icewind Dale, as a combat-heavy game was railroaded so that in order to find new areas, you had to complete the quests (IIRC, its been a while). Baldurs Gate simply let you wander around (not JUST completing quests), and if you were in a section you werent supposed to be in, the monsters were hard to kill and either you ran from everything, reloaded and didnt go back, or grit your teeth and found new tactics to beat them, earning good loot and a boost in xp as a reward. 

 

Elerond -"By metric that Josh uses you get most XP by doing quest first and then kill everybody after wards. And taking combat option brings more experience than sneaking past enemies. Using thief open locks and remove traps brings more experience than using knock spell or strength to open locks and using detect traps spell to find traps so that you can avoid them.  "

 

With stealth vs combat, it does seem that stealth has the advantage due to not losing out on important resources. But I dont know the best way to make it fair for all parties (without hardcoding every single action), so Im just going to leave this one to the devs.

 

Also, I dont think its necessarily "We need our pie NOW!! syndrome, I think its more of "What is the point of combat?" You can say "Well you get rewarded for finishing that quest!" and I think "Well, I shouldve invested in stealth - then I wouldnt need to fight."

And if you say, "Combat should be its own reward!" I can say "Quests should be their own reward!" and we have an endless loop going. Because that IS a viable argument IMO. How many people would do quests if they didnt get any kind of legitimate reward? O sure, you would do the quest where you slay the dragon and get the Awesome Sword of Amazingness +5, but will you still do that Find the Farmer's Daughter Quest? I dont think so. Its the same thing with the combat - why even bother if there is no real reward. Sure, maybe it is semantics, and MAYBE its a simple thing like enjoying that feeling of "O Sweet that Super Giant Spider Queen was worth 2000xp! Nice!", but right now, it SEEMS (and I stress that word) that there is no difference between fighting a stray goblin and killing a freaking dragon. There is no difference, other than the POSSIBILITY of better loot (I would HOPE a dragon would have better loot...). Unless of course you happened to talk to the NPC who wanted you to kill that goblin for him - then you get XP for killing a goblin! (obviously, Im sure there would be a quest involving the dragon too...right?)

 

If wanting variation and different rewards between harder fights and easy fights means I want my pie now, then you can say thats what it amounts to, but its all about the FEEL. If i feel like Im being jipped, that decreases my enjoyment of the game (which is essentially the argument for stealthing - why pick stealth when i can just fight?). Then again, combat rewards you with loot, so there is THAT. But if the loot is trivial, it IS kinda offputting..... Either way, I dont know what the best answer is. I'll probably love the game regardless of whether it has combat xp or not, but I cant think of ANY games that didnt give XP for kills... Who knows, maybe this will be the best game ever BECAUSE of Quest Only XP?

[Elerond]

 

+1 for being able to wade through Gromnir's "in character" writing. I gave up a while back. Gromnir, seriously, cut it out--it's not cute, it's just annoying.  I know that sounds harsh but somebody needs to let you know. It dilutes your points and makes you sound childish at best and schizophrenic at worst.

Gromnir has been doing his charachter for ~15 years now. You aren't the first to complain about it and you aren't going to be the last.

 

Hell, Bioware put a charachter in Throne of Baal (I think?) based on him.

 

 

Yep, Gromnir Il-Khan

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67656-pictures-of-your-games-part-5/?p=1505700

[Namutree]

+1 for being able to wade through Gromnir's "in character" writing. I gave up a while back. Gromnir, seriously, cut it out--it's not cute, it's just annoying.  I know that sounds harsh but somebody needs to let you know. It dilutes your points and makes you sound childish at best and schizophrenic at worst.

 

 

 

If you don't like it; don't read it. Gromnir is awesome and that's a fact. Don't ever change, Gromnir.

[Elerond]

C) A meaningless point since I have already established that combat xp isn't needed in the game.

Here you make false assumption that things that aren't necessary to complete game don't influence on its balance and what is the optimal way to play and especially how many people play the game, which are things that designer worry over.

[frapillo80]

Elerond - "Baldur's Gate 2 had much more people working on it and it still failed in that balancing (similarly as all IE games failed), why they want to do things differently this time."

 

Well I dont see how BG was unbalanced personally... Actually, I thought all the IE games were pretty balanced. Then again, I didnt go out of my way to grind and even sprinted past trash mobs a couple times. I think people just kinda feel that quests railroad them into doing exactly what the developers want. Which is ok I guess because the story should be awesome. I guess its a matter of liking the Baldurs Gate Series vs the Icewind Dale Series.

 

Icewind Dale, as a combat-heavy game was railroaded so that in order to find new areas, you had to complete the quests (IIRC, its been a while). Baldurs Gate simply let you wander around (not JUST completing quests), and if you were in a section you werent supposed to be in, the monsters were hard to kill and either you ran from everything, reloaded and didnt go back, or grit your teeth and found new tactics to beat them, earning good loot and a boost in xp as a reward.

 

Elerond -"By metric that Josh uses you get most XP by doing quest first and then kill everybody after wards. And taking combat option brings more experience than sneaking past enemies. Using thief open locks and remove traps brings more experience than using knock spell or strength to open locks and using detect traps spell to find traps so that you can avoid them. "

 

With stealth vs combat, it does seem that stealth has the advantage due to not losing out on important resources. But I dont know the best way to make it fair for all parties (without hardcoding every single action), so Im just going to leave this one to the devs.

 

Also, I dont think its necessarily "We need our pie NOW!! syndrome, I think its more of "What is the point of combat?" You can say "Well you get rewarded for finishing that quest!" and I think "Well, I shouldve invested in stealth - then I wouldnt need to fight."

And if you say, "Combat should be its own reward!" I can say "Quests should be their own reward!" and we have an endless loop going. Because that IS a viable argument IMO. How many people would do quests if they didnt get any kind of legitimate reward? O sure, you would do the quest where you slay the dragon and get the Awesome Sword of Amazingness +5, but will you still do that Find the Farmer's Daughter Quest? I dont think so. Its the same thing with the combat - why even bother if there is no real reward. Sure, maybe it is semantics, and MAYBE its a simple thing like enjoying that feeling of "O Sweet that Super Giant Spider Queen was worth 2000xp! Nice!", but right now, it SEEMS (and I stress that word) that there is no difference between fighting a stray goblin and killing a freaking dragon. There is no difference, other than the POSSIBILITY of better loot (I would HOPE a dragon would have better loot...). Unless of course you happened to talk to the NPC who wanted you to kill that goblin for him - then you get XP for killing a goblin! (obviously, Im sure there would be a quest involving the dragon too...right?)

 

If wanting variation and different rewards between harder fights and easy fights means I want my pie now, then you can say thats what it amounts to, but its all about the FEEL. If i feel like Im being jipped, that decreases my enjoyment of the game (which is essentially the argument for stealthing - why pick stealth when i can just fight?). Then again, combat rewards you with loot, so there is THAT. But if the loot is trivial, it IS kinda offputting..... Either way, I dont know what the best answer is. I'll probably love the game regardless of whether it has combat xp or not, but I cant think of ANY games that didnt give XP for kills... Who knows, maybe this will be the best game ever BECAUSE of Quest Only XP?

Well put. I think quest xp has the potential to work really well, just not exactly in its current implementation. Probably the upcoming changes will improve it, I think more likely than not. Although they are a last minute fix, and I am afraid it will show.

[Hellraiser789]

 

A) Not really as you have virtually unlimited pool of money and you can buy reputation from temples and reputation really matters for those that play good characters and maybe in some extent for those that play neutral characters.

 

B) It may be safer but it don't help when there is encounter that you can't avoid and you are under powered because you sneaked past previous encounters. 

 

C) I give you that I have played too much versions with BG2's engine. But absence of such source of non-combat xp only works to tip the xp scales towards combat xp.

 

 

In regards to point B - It would make sense that avoiding combat would make you worse at combat...right? VS Quest only xp gives no reason to do combat AT ALL.... So while I understand you wanting stealth to be viable, I would think that HAVING combat xp would make it a more strategic thing, as you weigh the pros and cons of the situation. "Well this fight is really hard, so why dont I just stealth through it? Well I might not get the xp + loot that they offer....Hmmm what should I do?" Vs currently it IS a no brainer - just stealth past them - you will get rewarded anyway. So whats the point of having combat in the first place....?

 

And actually, IMO skills should be leveled up through use - makes more sense then fighting all the time and suddenly getting an extra skill point to spend on lore or mechanics or stealth. The only thing that would make sense would be survival. VS If you are stealthing all the time, it would make sense to get better at being stealthy.... One of the things I actually loved about skyrim. (sure its exploitable, but EVERY game has exploits, lets be honest...) Not that this should be exactly like skyrim or anything, I just think its a cool system.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Hellraiser789

[Elerond]

 

B) It may be safer but it don't help when there is encounter that you can't avoid and you are under powered because you sneaked past previous encounters.

 

In regards to point B - It would make sense that avoiding combat would make you worse at combat...right?

 

It also make you worse in sneaking...

[frapillo80]

 

 

+1 for being able to wade through Gromnir's "in character" writing. I gave up a while back. Gromnir, seriously, cut it out--it's not cute, it's just annoying. I know that sounds harsh but somebody needs to let you know. It dilutes your points and makes you sound childish at best and schizophrenic at worst.

 

 

 

If you don't like it; don't read it. Gromnir is awesome and that's a fact. Don't ever change, Gromnir.

But I didn't even dream to complain about it, I even gave him, ah, how did he put it? some "no-doubt well-intentioned advice that I delivered in such a polite and endearing manner that he will take it under advisement"...

[Hellraiser789]

 

 

B) It may be safer but it don't help when there is encounter that you can't avoid and you are under powered because you sneaked past previous encounters.

 

In regards to point B - It would make sense that avoiding combat would make you worse at combat...right?

 

It also make you worse in sneaking...

 

 

Currently. If you read the rest of my post (yeah I know they tend to be long...) I said that it would be better to get better in stealthing by USING stealthing. Sure it would require tweaking the system a bit (how much I wouldnt really know - could be a LOT or a LITTLE), but I think it would be better for it. My personal opinion, yours can vary.

[Namutree]

 

C) A meaningless point since I have already established that combat xp isn't needed in the game.

Here you make false assumption that things that aren't necessary to complete game don't influence on its balance and what is the optimal way to play and especially how many people play the game, which are things that designer worry over.

 

Since you don't even need combat xp in particular the lack of lock/trap xp only moves you to xp in general. Quest xp as much as combat xp. That is why it's meaningless. 

 

The game also doesn't give you xp for pausing the game. Does that tip the scales toward combat xp? No; it just makes it so you need another source of xp in general. Whether it be combat xp or quest xp is meaningless.

 

So, as I have already said. BG1 had balanced xp.

 

Kill the quest givers? There are consequences for that far exceed the tiny bit of xp you'll receive. 

Sneak past foes? You'll be making some parts easier; some parts harder. 

Any way of opening chests or avoiding traps is balanced.

[Namutree]

 

 

 

B) It may be safer but it don't help when there is encounter that you can't avoid and you are under powered because you sneaked past previous encounters.

 

In regards to point B - It would make sense that avoiding combat would make you worse at combat...right?

 

It also make you worse in sneaking...

 

 

Currently. If you read the rest of my post (yeah I know they tend to be long...) I said that it would be better to get better in stealthing by USING stealthing. Sure it would require tweaking the system a bit (how much I wouldnt really know - could be a LOT or a LITTLE), but I think it would be better for it. My personal opinion, yours can vary.

 

This ain't no Elder Scrolls!