Combat XP - What Just Happened..?

[Cantousent]

XP is hardly the single biggest incentive. Take for example Deus Ex. Let's say that getting Paul killed has a higher XP reward. Do you still feel that this option would be the most favored one?

 

Okay, I'm going to plead a little bit of diminished capacity here, but I'm game to respond before heading to bed.  First of all, I have to admit something.  XP doesnt' matter nearly as much to me as being the 'good guy' in the game.  I see RPGs as a way to be the knight in shining armor that I can't be in real life, so I argue from a position of logic about XP, but your line of reasoning is particularly powerful to me.  Yeah, story based rewards are more important to me personally than XP rewards.  I mean, if I'm really ****ed by the XP rewards, what I'm really going to feel is resentment towards the design team.  That's not usual though.  I think that being a goody two shoos or complete villain should be harder, but usually it's not that big of a difference.  However, I think habitiuation, even for someone who sees it, is really a big factor.  I tend to overlook it, but it's not always possible.  So, even though I've come clean about my personal views, I still see XP as the king of the reward court *along practical lines.*  I know that I'm arguing against my position on one level, but that's my honest assessment at any rate.

 

...But I don't remember anything about Paul in Deux Ex.  of course, I don't remember Deus Ex right now either.  Let me just say that I try to shoot straight on these issues, and for that reason I'll agree that XP doesn't *always* trump everything, but it nevertheless It is always a factor in everything, even when I decide to eschew it on my particular screwed up moral grounds.   Ugh, rat bastard, I'm going to get some sleep before I argue any more.  :Cant's rueful grin icon:

[Captain Shrek]

Just replay Deus Ex buddy. Still looks great

[wanderon]

Grinding or not there were certainly areas in BG where you could abuse respawning enemies to level up - if I played a dual class PC and planned to dual class Imoen I would head to the Sirine caves with a good supply of poison arrows and use the flesh golems to raise the two of us enough levels to get our old skills back - then gather our party and continue our journey...

[IndiraLightfoot]

Grinding or not there were certainly areas in BG where you could abuse respawning enemies to level up - if I played a dual class PC and planned to dual class Imoen I would head to the Sirine caves with a good supply of poison arrows and use the flesh golems to raise the two of us enough levels to get our old skills back - then gather our party and continue our journey...

Tsk, tsk. I knew it! Non-kill xp proponents are the ones who abuse systems and farm xp systematically. I have played BG dozens of times, even munchkin-ly, and I've never done that kind of thing. Are you subconsciously urging OE to have quest-xp only just because of your lacking self-control? 

Edited October 19, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[wanderon]

 

Grinding or not there were certainly areas in BG where you could abuse respawning enemies to level up - if I played a dual class PC and planned to dual class Imoen I would head to the Sirine caves with a good supply of poison arrows and use the flesh golems to raise the two of us enough levels to get our old skills back - then gather our party and continue our journey...

Tsk, tsk. I knew it! Non-kill xp proponents are the ones who abuse systems and farm xp systematically. I have played BG dozens of times, even munchkin-ly, and I've never done that kind of thing. Are you subconsciously urging OE to have quest-xp only just because of your lacking self-control? 

 

 

Not really - just "answering" to those who say none of the IE games had "grinding" or degenerative gameplay (if one cares to call it such) - anyone who spent any time on BG forums (I started before ToTSC was released) knows very well that there were areas like this and that it was certainly not an insignificant number of forum goers that utilized them as such - especially among the crowd that was into the No reload challenge type games.

 

I was on both sides of that sort of thing - playing no reload was (and is) a passion (loved the adrenaline rush in every battle) but also played oddball fairly gimped PCs and parties too.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I reckon I recognize your avatar name from the BG:EE and even the NWN2 forums?

 Regardless, you seem to be a devout fan of D&D and CRPGs, no doubt. And I do agree that playing gimped PCs and parties are pretty fun, and no reload playthroughs too. The upcoming Ironman Mode sounds exciting. I did another game in that mode recently (Unrest) - and it always feels intense - it keeps you on your toes.

 

My stance is that I don't care if people do such things - I don't even bother to label such approaches to a game in any derogative fashion. Let people do what they want. All I know is this: It's very easy to destroy a good game by exploring a loophole, and then all the fun of it goes out the window. Heck, I played my second playthrough in Skyrim, and then I decided to use crafting, after all. It wrecked the game IMHO. All challenge was gone far too early in the game.

Edited October 19, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[archangel979]

 

 

Grinding or not there were certainly areas in BG where you could abuse respawning enemies to level up - if I played a dual class PC and planned to dual class Imoen I would head to the Sirine caves with a good supply of poison arrows and use the flesh golems to raise the two of us enough levels to get our old skills back - then gather our party and continue our journey...

Tsk, tsk. I knew it! Non-kill xp proponents are the ones who abuse systems and farm xp systematically. I have played BG dozens of times, even munchkin-ly, and I've never done that kind of thing. Are you subconsciously urging OE to have quest-xp only just because of your lacking self-control? 

 

 

Not really - just "answering" to those who say none of the IE games had "grinding" or degenerative gameplay (if one cares to call it such) - anyone who spent any time on BG forums (I started before ToTSC was released) knows very well that there were areas like this and that it was certainly not an insignificant number of forum goers that utilized them as such - especially among the crowd that was into the No reload challenge type games.

 

I was on both sides of that sort of thing - playing no reload was (and is) a passion (loved the adrenaline rush in every battle) but also played oddball fairly gimped PCs and parties too.

 

Nobody said IE games didn't have mechanics or bugs to abuse (people could finish BG1 in 15 minutes). BUT, the sirine cave didn't represent normal gameplay or any other dungeon/cave but that one. It was an exception, not the rule.

Also I would not want it removed, it had its purpose in giving people that wanted to abuse it what they wanted. For the rest of us there was other stuff that we liked that someone else might like to have removed.

I am all for implementing lots of stuff and as long it is not obvious let players decide what to use or abuse.

Edited October 19, 2014 by archangel979

[H0RSE]

Not really - just "answering" to those who say none of the IE games had "grinding" or degenerative gameplay...

 

And many would likely still say they don't. Your example above of "grinding" in BG, is really grasping at straws. Grinding is a mechanic that is present, and often times known, not a mechanic that can maybe possibly present itself if you "game" the game a certain way. Your Shrine cave example isn't an example where BG presents "grindy" mechanics, it's an example where the player exploits the mechanics to make it that way.

[wanderon]

 

Not really - just "answering" to those who say none of the IE games had "grinding" or degenerative gameplay...

 

And many would likely still say they don't. Your example above of "grinding" in BG, is really grasping at straws. Grinding is a mechanic that is present, and often times known, not a mechanic that can maybe possibly present itself if you "game" the game a certain way. Your Shrine cave example isn't an example where BG presents "grindy" mechanics, it's an example where the player exploits the mechanics to make it that way.

 

 

Semantics - the "purpose" of grinding whether it be in a RPG or MMO is to level faster than "normal".

[H0RSE]

Semantics - the "purpose" of grinding whether it be in a RPG or MMO is to level faster than "normal".

 

It's not really semantics. You are arguing on a technicality at best. We know what the purpose of grinding is, the argument is does/did the IE games present this mechanic to the players, and from your above argument, it appears grinding was there, but only in certain situations and only if players were willing to exploit the game to achieve it.

Edited October 19, 2014 by H0RSE

[Captain Shrek]

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I reckon I recognize your avatar name from the BG:EE and even the NWN2 forums?

 Regardless, you seem to be a devout fan of D&D and CRPGs, no doubt. And I do agree that playing gimped PCs and parties are pretty fun, and no reload playthroughs too. The upcoming Ironman Mode sounds exciting. I did another game in that mode recently (Unrest) - and it always feels intense - it keeps you on your toes.

 

My stance is that I don't care if people do such things - I don't even bother to label such approaches to a game in any derogative fashion. Let people do what they want. All I know is this: It's very easy to destroy a good game by exploring a loophole, and then all the fun of it goes out the window. Heck, I played my second playthrough in Skyrim, and then I decided to use crafting, after all. It wrecked the game IMHO. All challenge was gone far too early in the game.

You know what? This is the ONE thing I do not get. Why the heck do the developers care how I play their game? 

[redneckdevil]

Could be multiple reasons why developers care.

reputation of the game may haps. If a loophole is exploited or gaming the system and it becomes to easy and people complain, the game could get a reputation of being something it wouldnt be for most players.

Its the creation we are playing and they may have a certain amount of pride or vision how it roughly goes down. In this sense picture a GM/DM who basically came up with a toolset and created a world and all that goes in it down to the races and politics and gives the players a story campaign (not a sandbox campaign). They put in alot of work and may have emotional pride or vision to see things unfold somewhat "their way". Thats ok to feel that way BUT since the player PAYS to play they are entitled theirown rights. So because the player is entitled to his/her own rights because they paid to play, they work and build the system to where their vision of things can still have a somewhat likely hood of coming across. Then theirs the modding which is basically "hey we did this work, u do it however within these rules BUT if u want to spend time and effort (aka modding) u can tweek things ur way.

 

 

Granted i threw out examples of "emotional" reasons that a developer has every right in feeling, but i guess since ive started GM/DM and seeing the amount of work that goes behind the screens that alot of players have no idea is going on or what went they went thru to engineer that or the things they bypass and the amount of work that went into things that didnt see any light, so ill admit im pretty bias for the developers on the subject and will admit i problemly didnt give any good examples.

in a video game just like any other game, the perwon running the game should have a say and as much as the person who is playing. But then money gets involved and pretty much skewers the lines and whatnot. Any way i gave them money for the game THEY wanted to make.

[Immortalis]

 

 

 

 

First, could it just be that the people who didn't vote for it is tired of mindless grinding?

Again.. A Gross over exaggeration of those games.. "Grind XP" never entered peoples vocabulary until MMO's became popular. You never had to grind anything in any IE game unless you wanted to.. which IMO was stupid/pointless.

Mmmm i remember in secret of mana grinding away to level up my fire spells and levels before the first main boss and basically every new area whenever i gain new caps on my abilities. Ff3 i remember grinding up my characters to learn new magic and become higher levels. Same with FF7. I remember grinding alot in dragon warrior games, basically spending a whole afternoon grinding slimes to get enough cash for all the gear the first town had and to be able to successfully survive wandering trying to find next town. I remember grinding in legends of lagoon because of just simply following the quest line strictly meant that u were under level and undergeared for the boss fights. I remember grinding in earthbound for new weapons and being able to survive because i felt i needed higher level spells and abilities to survive. In dragon age and mass effect, I remember going and finding every enemy so i could be at the topest level as i was doing the main quests. Ahhh i could go on and on about the many games ive played thru the years and will say ive known about grinding wayyyyy before wow even came out lmao. And i havent even touched isometric games yet until the past few years.

 

 

You never needed to do this to beat the games.. Chocobo Racing, Leveling Materia, Grinding to 99, fighting extra bosses, farming zone eaters, getting gogo or umaru..

 

None of those games required you to play the hidden content or grind levels. That was something you did for enjoyment. You can beat all those games at mid-level fairly easily, the hardest bosses weren't the last bosses but the optional bosses.

 

It wasn't called grinding.. it was called playing the game. Grinding is something you do repetitively because you have to. You can't fully experience WoW at level 35.. and if you hate leveling then the optimal way to level is GRINDING dungeons or GRINDING mobs. It's generally faster to grind something then do quests.

 

You had no choice in WoW. In those games you do. If you choose to grind creatures so you can reach the max level when you only needed to be level 50 - 60.. that's your own choice and your own fault if your not having fun.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Immortalis

[wanderon]

 

Semantics - the "purpose" of grinding whether it be in a RPG or MMO is to level faster than "normal".

 

It's not really semantics. You are arguing on a technicality at best. We know what the purpose of grinding is, the argument is does/did the IE games present this mechanic to the players, and from your above argument, it appears grinding was there, but only in certain situations and only if players were willing to exploit the game to achieve it.

 

 

Was it really an exploit or a feature - someone implemented those flesh golems to respawn any time you rested in the cave - that didn't occur by accident.

 

And the argument is whether or not mechanics that lead to "grinding" are one of the viable reasons to remove kill XP isn't it? I think there's a decent case for it - I don't really care whether they are removed or not but I can support the reasons the devs have chosen to do so.

[Caladian]

I'm not calling exploits or anything else like that grinding, persay.  What I am considering grinding is the 'need' to slaughter the entire zone to stay at maximum competitiveness vs mobs later on.  The degenerative gameplay that Joshua is talking about is using those exploits to farm xp, or completing a quest to only go back and kill everyone because the quest is now done.  Slaughtering the entire screen to stay at maximum competitiveness is also degenerative gameplay.  I will say again, I'm not against combat xp, but that is not what is being asked.  People want xp for every single beetle, wolf, spider in the game.  The game would then be balanced around that, and because it is balanced on the fact the developers will adjust the scaling so that mobs later on are tougher based on what they expect people to do (slaughter the area and not getting into scaling encounters in this).  Truly purposeful combat xp, I am fine with.  Killing the spider queen, the ogre, the alpha wolf, for instance.  Everything else is trash and should be considered as such.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Caladian: I'm not sure killing off all baddies on maps is degenerative gameplay. Rather, it's typical behaviour for many of us that have a bit of OCD about walking on each tile in M&M, or removing all fog of war, or just kill off every hostile critter in an area. Your post, however, implicitly carries the solution to this divide between kill-xp and quest-xp, if I simplify it grossly, and that's this:

-Dish out very small xp rewards per hostile creature. Same thing for locks, disarmed traps, crafting. I mean, quite small. On occasion, by using the already existing monster challenge level in PoE, have a slightly raised reward for taking on challenging baddies (still low xp). Then, finally, and most importantly, let the subquest and quest cp be the big xp boys on the block. Pace the xp via those rewards.

 

Do this, and we will finally have peace among the PoE fans on the xp system issue.

Edited October 20, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[H0RSE]

Was it really an exploit or a feature -

it was an exploit of a feature....

 

someone implemented those flesh golems to respawn any time you rested in the cave - that didn't occur by accident.

Not the point. Someone also made it so you could go hostile and kill everyone in town for xp, but somehow I don't think that was the intent...

 

And the argument is whether or not mechanics that lead to "grinding" are one of the viable reasons to remove kill XP isn't it?

Yeah, and as of yet, none of the proponents for keeping combat xp out, have been successfully able to demonstrate where grinding existed in the IE games - games that featured combat xp, and the games PoE is basing itself off of.

Edited October 20, 2014 by H0RSE

[redneckdevil]

 

 

 

 

First, could it just be that the people who didn't vote for it is tired of mindless grinding?

Again.. A Gross over exaggeration of those games.. "Grind XP" never entered peoples vocabulary until MMO's became popular. You never had to grind anything in any IE game unless you wanted to.. which IMO was stupid/pointless.

Mmmm i remember in secret of mana grinding away to level up my fire spells and levels before the first main boss and basically every new area whenever i gain new caps on my abilities. Ff3 i remember grinding up my characters to learn new magic and become higher levels. Same with FF7. I remember grinding alot in dragon warrior games, basically spending a whole afternoon grinding slimes to get enough cash for all the gear the first town had and to be able to successfully survive wandering trying to find next town. I remember grinding in legends of lagoon because of just simply following the quest line strictly meant that u were under level and undergeared for the boss fights. I remember grinding in earthbound for new weapons and being able to survive because i felt i needed higher level spells and abilities to survive. In dragon age and mass effect, I remember going and finding every enemy so i could be at the topest level as i was doing the main quests. Ahhh i could go on and on about the many games ive played thru the years and will say ive known about grinding wayyyyy before wow even came out lmao. And i havent even touched isometric games yet until the past few years.

You never needed to do this to beat the games.. Chocobo Racing, Leveling Materia, Grinding to 99, fighting extra bosses, farming zone eaters, getting gogo or umaru..

 

None of those games required you to play the hidden content or grind levels. That was something you did for enjoyment. You can beat all those games at mid-level fairly easily, the hardest bosses weren't the last bosses but the optional bosses.

 

It wasn't called grinding.. it was called playing the game. Grinding is something you do repetitively because you have to. You can't fully experience WoW at level 35.. and if you hate leveling then the optimal way to level is GRINDING dungeons or GRINDING mobs. It's generally faster to grind something then do quests.

 

You had no choice in WoW. In those games you do. If you choose to grind creatures so you can reach the max level when you only needed to be level 50 - 60.. that's your own choice and your own fault if your not having fun.

True and i will go ahead and say i didnt "HAVE" to except maybe in dragon warrior but anyways, i was simply saying and i guess i missed the point that "grinding" had been out before WoW and even talked about (ex. Stradegy guides would tell ya to beat such and such u need to "grind" out a few more levels to be safe etc etc.)

Now the thing is i dont really understand the "grind" being labeled with wow though. I stopped playing wow for some time but even in vanilla u didnt have to grind ur way up to get higher levels, u just go into areas and do all the quests and then go into another area and do their quests. Now i will say that ur professions u had to "grind" but thats optional, or pvp which was also optional, or for gear to do endgame raids and whatnots which are also optional, but then there were some quests that u had to "grind" out kills for certain drops. You dont HAVE to grind killing everything to reachmax level, all u had to do was stay mobile and go find areas where u could get quests at.

[redneckdevil]

I guess what im saying is that to do "all" content in most games you had to "grind exp" and with the ways things are now im happy that i should be able to experience everything and overcome everything without grinding like i have in the past to stay ahead and make sure the future content was insured victory. Hope thats makes sense.

[Captain Shrek]

Well, the point is not if WoW is grind or not. The point is that IE games other than IWD2 were not grinding just because there was combat XP.  Any suggestion to the cotnrary is ridiculous.

Even IWD2 despite being a trash fest, did not strictly require you to kill everyone to level up. But even worse, it did not even give you anything useful for going through the horrid expereince of killing all those trash mobs, like the hook horrors or the goblins.

[PrimeHydra]

Before OE revealed the stealth system, I too favored XP from combat. The issue is not that kill XP in PoE would be grindy (it wouldn't); the issue is that kill XP would discourage sneaking around or talking down enemies.

 

The IE games had no real stealth system, unless you count the "Move Silently" skill. I never noticed any benefit from this skill because I never wanted to forgo experience by sneaking past foes. The unlimited resting in those games made it a question of when, not whether, to engage. I forsee stealth being an interesting choice in PoE on higher difficulties, particularly with Trial of Iron.

 

Combat experience also goes explicitly against a kickstarter update--though I won't call it a promise, backers take these seriously--stating experience wouldn't be tied to body count.

 

As to combat itself feeling less rewarding without XP? Yeah, that's a valid concern. The issue can be sufficiently minimized by:

 

- tying the more significant or interesting fights to quest objectives, like the egg bandits in the backer beta.

 

- making levels interesting without lots of annoying "trash fights". Putting looy behind monsters is fun because you can beat them up or slip past and still feel rewarded.

 

- making combat itself as slick, responsive and fun as possible. The more they've improved fighting in the beta, the less I miss the XP because the experience is less annoying and more fun in itself.

 

- rewarding xp for unlocking bestiary entries. This is oft-reviled, butwith the more important items above in place, it'll help.

Edited October 20, 2014 by PrimeHydra

[PrimeHydra]

And by looy I meant loot. Stupid edit permission timeout.

 

Also I'll concede that invisibility could be considered a stealth mechanic in IE games. But ironically I only used it in combat.

Edited October 20, 2014 by PrimeHydra

[Lephys]

I disagree.

 

XP is hardly the single biggest incentive. Take for example Deus Ex. Let's say that getting Paul killed has a higher XP reward. Do you still feel that this option would be the most favored one?

XP is the single biggest incentive, out of the purely-mechanical incentives offered by the game.

 

Your example wonderfully demonstrates how XP does not overcome the results of alternative choices, but it doesn't say much about the situation when the alternative is nothing.

 

You never needed to do this to beat the games.. Chocobo Racing, Leveling Materia, Grinding to 99, fighting extra bosses, farming zone eaters, getting gogo or umaru..

 

None of those games required you to play the hidden content or grind levels. That was something you did for enjoyment. You can beat all those games at mid-level fairly easily, the hardest bosses weren't the last bosses but the optional bosses.

I don't understand how the "you didn't need to do that" argument is relevant, since you don't know what you do or don't need to to until you do or don't do it and see what comes of your decision.

 

The IE games were based on D&D, and in D&D, your DM's making up crap as he goes, essentially. So, I don't see why you're just suddenly supposed to assume "Don't worry, guys... we probably only need like 5,000 XP to be able to sufficiently beat the game."

 

What's with applying hindsight to in-the-moment decisions? Hiro made an excellent argument regarding bestiary XP, in that, instead of encouraging the player to simply pace their creature kills, it encourages you to think "I don't know how many X there are in the game, so I better kill every X I see, for fear of missing out on this bestiary entry XP unlock!". So, I don't see why that wouldn't apply to any other unknown in the game.

 

You can probably beat the game without ever using the Mechanics skill. Does that mean you're ridiculous if you see chests and want to unlock them to get at their nougat-y centers? Or, should you just decide "Hey, I've probably opened plenty of chests by now; I probably don't need to open any more I come across to beat the game, so, I'll just stop opening chests"?

Edited October 21, 2014 by Lephys

[Stun]

I'm not calling exploits or anything else like that grinding, persay.  What I am considering grinding is the 'need' to slaughter the entire zone to stay at maximum competitiveness vs mobs later on.

In that case, the IE games you've been citing do not apply*, and your whole argument on this thread is absurd.

 

*Lets run them down one by one, because we've been through this with you before. You don't know what the hell grinding is, and your memory of the IE games is insultingly skewed.

 

1) BG1 (and its expansion) - semi open world, but with a constrictingly low level cap that renders grinding moot. And it goes further than that. The game can be beaten - legitimately - with a party of level 6-ish characters. For a game the size of BG1, this means that you can do a whole lot of combat avoidance if you wish- the opposite of grinding.

2) BG2 (and its expansion) - an extremely loot heavy semi-open world. So loot heavy, in fact, that 'leveling to stay competitive' is not important in the slightest. Loot alone will insure that even the pacifists can beat the game.

3) IWD (+HoW + Trials of the Luremaster) Linear game where kill XP is not as vital as you think. The game's quest XP system is unusually massive (90,000 XP for placing the heartstone gem in your inventory; 650,000 XP for returning the Glacial Rose to a bard in HoW. etc )

4) IWD2 - Grinding will actually *hurt* you in that game, due to how 3e's CR XP tables work. You can grind to gain levels early on if you wish, and if you do, you will eventually out-level your opponents later on and that means you'll receive pitifully useless kill XP rewards (as in ZERO against some opponents)

5)Planescape Torment - Ironically, PS:T is the one IE game that contains real, authentic grinding. But if we use your definition, it has none lol

Edited October 21, 2014 by Stun

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I'm not calling exploits or anything else like that grinding, persay.  What I am considering grinding is the 'need' to slaughter the entire zone to stay at maximum competitiveness vs mobs later on.  The degenerative gameplay that Joshua is talking about is using those exploits to farm xp, or completing a quest to only go back and kill everyone because the quest is now done.  Slaughtering the entire screen to stay at maximum competitiveness is also degenerative gameplay.

 

E.C.L. Effective Character Level. This was solved over a decade ago. Read.