Combat XP - What Just Happened..?

[Gorionsson]

 

 

What rewards do people favor the most?  This isn't a kill or object XP question.  It's a question about the types of rewards that people favor most, from the sorts of in-game things like XP, loot, attribute bumps, etc.

I find it very difficult to separate XP and loot and pick out a favorite between the two, since attempts to eliminate either one typically lessens the experience. Again, take BG1. Do people kill Drizzt for the 12,000 xp? Or for his scimitars? I do it for both.

 

I almost never kill him at all. Even my evil characters rarely have cause to do so.

 

Same. Evil does not mean insane, afterall.   

[Hassat Hunter]

Absolutely. Award xp for everything, and balance it out.

That worked so great in, say, Oblivion. Hey, it's singleplayer, so who cares. Except that it was so horribly bad the singleplay gameplay was utterly tainted, and it's in vanilla form almost unplayable as horrible as it was.

"It's singleplayer" is no excuse for bad systems. Nor is "people can mod it out"... get your **** right from the start, or even singleplayer games will become bad due to the system. Being overpowered might be fun for some people (otherwise not so many cheaters walk around) but you always know said cheaters or games that are super-easy people get bored quicker of than when they are presented with a challenge, something that's not 'two-fingers in the nose' walk-through-able.

Please explain how the xp system in BG1 was broken. It worked just fine. It's critical reception and commercial success are evidence of that. It never needed patchwork.

While never quite as bad as Baldur's Gate II with it's "XP for everything" principle... let's see;

* Combat still always triumphed any diplomatic sollution. Always.

* Heavy bias towards cleaning the entire map.

* I recall infiltrating the Cloakwood Bandits and killing their leader being hard, but completely unrewarding compared to killing all. While that may work if combat is your only goal, if you want to offer stealth aswell that's a no-go.

* Many many MANY bugs related to XP-modifications or alignment for kill-modifications post-quests or event. Just check the fanpatch how many times they messed that up.

* Easy and Very easy granted a -50% XP penalty. Which made it harder than normal or even hard in the end, cause you severly lacked behind in power. If that's not broken I don't know what is.

As far as we know beastiary xp can only be obtained by combat. Adding the idea you suggested would be smart (I actually suggested a system like that.), but it would be a lot more work. If Obsidian did go through all that effort it STILL wouldn't be as good as combat xp, but at least it would at least be decent.

Then it's no good to add XP to add since it's just masked combat XP, albeit with a barrier.

IMO a beastiary system would have needed that from the start anyway, look like The Witcher for example. Adding conversation branches (without VO) or adding items related is still much easier than having to balance around the XP-value per enemy over the game and balance that up to peace or stealth bonusses (which would be pointless with a true objective XP-system), especially using the difficulty system PoE uses where harder difficulties give more or more potent foes (try that with a combat XP system without making hard the easiest mode, heh).

To get decent results it is. Right now it seems the xp system of poe isn't going to be very good or intuitive. It's going to take a lot of trial and error to get a decent result.

I fail to see how, say, adding a XP value of "discover this cave, whatever means" or is going to be an effort of trial and error, but maybe that's just me.

If you know the amount of XP needed to max leveling, then just work from there, it's simply mathematics. And [full XP]- [XP bonus] = X is much easier than [Full XP] - [Foe appears 10 times on easy, 14 on normal and 20 on hard] / [encounter] (note down XP value for diplomacy bonus)... oh, we buffed another foe, let's do all that over.

Not to mention respawning foes, infinite spawn fights (defeating lair X ASAP to prevent too many spawns), monsters as 'failure' penalties to a puzzle where if you don't you never get to fight them, and I could go on for quite a long time why balancing this way is much easier for encounter, level and questdesigners. "You want the final boss be a lich, no problem go ahead" vs "You want the final boss be a lich, let's see, lich is 15000XP, yeah, you need to work with level and balance and combat designers to see if that's a good idea there"

Because it's a lot more dangerous and time consuming than stealth.

Go play Deus Ex or Vampire: Bloodlines and say that to me and I will laugh in your face. Well, until you unlock the overly powered invisible aug or play malkavian with invisibily. I always find the notion Combat-XP fans put in that Stealth is a cakewalk hilarious, since most times it's harder to pull off than doing a battle.

Like Stealth people have it easier than them, the battle people, who do it the hard way. Ask them to stealth and, SHOCKINGLY, they fail. I am shocked, surprised, really.

Go over the high note with "stealth is easy, combat is hard"... or "You can just ran past all enemies."

Apparently in PoE that will shred you to pieces. I'm shocked, surprised. Guess running past everyone and everything isn't the obvious counterpart pro-XP always show it out to be. Who's surprised? I'm not...

In order to be balanced against stealth/diplomacy; combat needs to be profitable.

With Chris Avellone on the scene, I wouldn't be surprised if some dialogue "victories" are harder than combat. But of course, like stealth, the combat-XP crowd usually likes to put off stealth and diplomacy as pressing the "I WIN" button. But, like combat, there is no "I WIN" button. Shockingly... Having to read lore, books, talk with people just to know what to say to a certain person might be more time consuming and harder than your combat. But of course, that should not be rewarded. "People would just look up the sollution in a walkthrough"... well if you start basing decisions on that you might aswell toss your game down the bin. As anyone can easily visit a BG2 walkthrough and find the many many ways to cheese combat too. Guess we shouldn't reward it then since it's so easy, and the counters for all special foes can just be looked up online... hmmm?

Josh has already stated that he doesn't intend for players to want to avoid combat (If he did then I'd say he's incredibly stupid, but he doesn't so he's not). In order to accomplish that goal you need to either give combat xp, or a lot of loot. In either case it's balanced, but the loot solution is much lamer. That's the point of the beastiary xp, but that's just lamer combat xp.

Makes sense in a system where so much effort is put in the stategic combat system.

But it's kinda funny you completely ignore the gigantic better price than loot of XP... FUN. In order to accomplish that it needs to be FUN. Not "needs loot or XP"... It needs to be freaking FUN. Is it that hard to understand? That you can't even see this and need the carrot to pull you over combat seems to indicate you don't... Or is in your opinion making combat fun so it's fun to play even lamer, so we need to add XP to make the drag profitable. Down with fun, here with the carrot. Makes me remind of some MMO-player mentality.

Plenty of games out there who do without offering gigantic carrors to make you want to play them, since you just enjoy playing them. Bad design or good design I ask you? 

Not in anything mandatory. See there are points in the critical path where you MUST fight; from what I've heard there will be more of these situations than BG1. There will be no points where you MUST use stealth/diplomacy.

Except every time you talk to a NPC?

I remember making this mocking thread some time ago where people scandered that they need XP or otherwise combat would be pointless and I opted that talking to every NPC needed to have XP tied to them, asking the local rumours or asking directions need XP to them since "why would anyone otherwise talk to NPC's?"

I mean, it's mandatory. And it can't be enjoyable... must grant us XP talking to all those pesky NPC's, right? From what I hear there will be more of those situations than BG1.

But maybe you will avoid all conversations ingame an just run past them since they can't possible be their own reward and need the XP carrot attached to them to even possible think of spending time on it. Heck, the talk might even be longer than a combat sequence. How poor your time is squandered since it didn't grant you XP and made your eyes tired having to read all those words.

Hell, you read all this without getting XP. How did you manage? I don't reward you for it. Obviously I must be a giant **** for just giving a fun interesting discussion but without any actual reward tied to it. You could have used that much better running along enemies. Even if you personally state you rather like combat more than walking past enemies.

But no, you rather do the "unfun" thing cause no XP to "fun" than do the "fun" thing if there's no carrot to it.

 

Does that make sense to anyone? To me, it doesn't in the least.

Whether or not you want to believe it poe is a combat centered game. More so than the BG games. I hope you're not upset when you learn that stealth/diplomacy are LESS important in poe than in either of the BG games.

NEWSFLASH!

To avoid spoilers the developers made the beta specifically an area without main plot spoilers. They also wanted a lot of feedback on the combat system and leveling.

So yeah, does it makes sense for them to offer that then? Probably. Does it mean the entire game is focused around the pointers the beta test is focussed on? Maybe, maybe not.

[Silent Winter]

 (also, there's always pickpocket, but that would require better stealthskills).

sadly there isn't (in PoE) - pickpocketing will be limited to some scripted-interactions (maybe dialogue choices too).

[Namutree]

 

NEWSFLASH!

To avoid spoilers the developers made the beta specifically an area without main plot spoilers. They also wanted a lot of feedback on the combat system and leveling.

So yeah, does it makes sense for them to offer that then? Probably. Does it mean the entire game is focused around the pointers the beta test is focussed on? Maybe, maybe not.

 

I don't know how many times I must make this apparent, but here we go again...

 

Poe is A  COMBAT FOCUSED GAME!!! It's not a hybrid of combat, stealth, diplomacy; like they're equal elements. Stealth/diplomacy is going to be LESS catered to in poe than BG. 

 

Josh himself has said so. He said there would be, "Lots of mandatory combat." He's said, "I don't want players to avoid combat." He's said, "If you don't like combat, poe isn't for you." How many times does he need to say it before you guys get it? 

 

All the classes are different on the basis of combat. Most of poe's innovations are about reforming combat. The elements Obsidian cares most about "getting right" are combat. OE's willingness to ignore lore or create an attribute system that makes no RP sense should show that, but you 'combat deniers' just don't seem to get it.

 

 

 

Not in anything mandatory. See there are points in the critical path where you MUST fight; from what I've heard there will be more of these situations than BG1. There will be no points where you MUST use stealth/diplomacy.

Except every time you talk to a NPC?

 

Talking to npc's is not diplomacy, and you can't lose based on a conversation. You can totally ignore the text and still win.

 

 

 

I remember making this mocking thread some time ago where people scandered that they need XP or otherwise combat would be pointless and I opted that talking to every NPC needed to have XP tied to them, asking the local rumours or asking directions need XP to them since "why would anyone otherwise talk to NPC's?"

I mean, it's mandatory. And it can't be enjoyable... must grant us XP talking to all those pesky NPC's, right? From what I hear there will be more of those situations than BG1.

But maybe you will avoid all conversations ingame an just run past them since they can't possible be their own reward and need the XP carrot attached to them to even possible think of spending time on it. Heck, the talk might even be longer than a combat sequence. How poor your time is squandered since it didn't grant you XP and made your eyes tired having to read all those words.

Hell, you read all this without getting XP. How did you manage? I don't reward you for it. Obviously I must be a giant **** for just giving a fun interesting discussion but without any actual reward tied to it. You could have used that much better running along enemies. Even if you personally state you rather like combat more than walking past enemies.

But no, you rather do the "unfun" thing cause no XP to "fun" than do the "fun" thing if there's no carrot to it.

 

What a load of BS. No one has suggested that nothing that doesn't give xp isn't worth doing. Also, while you must talk to npc's for the critical path; talking poses NO danger, and can be over in seconds if you don't read it. So why should it give xp?

 

 

 

In order to be balanced against stealth/diplomacy; combat needs to be profitable.

With Chris Avellone on the scene, I wouldn't be surprised if some dialogue "victories" are harder than combat. But of course, like stealth, the combat-XP crowd usually likes to put off stealth and diplomacy as pressing the "I WIN" button. But, like combat, there is no "I WIN" button. Shockingly... Having to read lore, books, talk with people just to know what to say to a certain person might be more time consuming and harder than your combat. But of course, that should not be rewarded.

Prepare to be surprised. As I said before; none of the diplomacy option will be needed or hard. None of it will require reading books; it will be a multiple choice guessing game/skill-check; mostly a skill-check. In any case failure in diplomacy will never result in death. 

 

 

 

Please explain how the xp system in BG1 was broken. It worked just fine. It's critical reception and commercial success are evidence of that. It never needed patchwork.

While never quite as bad as Baldur's Gate II with it's "XP for everything" principle... let's see;

* Combat still always triumphed any diplomatic sollution. Always.

* Heavy bias towards cleaning the entire map.

* I recall infiltrating the Cloakwood Bandits and killing their leader being hard, but completely unrewarding compared to killing all. While that may work if combat is your only goal, if you want to offer stealth aswell that's a no-go.

* Many many MANY bugs related to XP-modifications or alignment for kill-modifications post-quests or event. Just check the fanpatch how many times they messed that up.

* Easy and Very easy granted a -50% XP penalty. Which made it harder than normal or even hard in the end, cause you severly lacked behind in power. If that's not broken I don't know what is. 

 

 

* Combat does not always triumphed any diplomatic solution. Sometimes the player isn't strong enough to win a battle; in such cases diplomacy is clearly superior.

* Not really. This has been debunked many times now, but I'll do it one more time. Clearing out most of the maps is not at all an effective way of gaining xp. If you're doing so; it's either because you don't know how to play effectively, or you're OCD.

* You recall incorrectly. Talk to the gentleman bandit in peldvale; tell him you want to join. If your charisma isn't bad he'll accept, and you've infiltrated the bandits. Also you could just sneak into the tent with stealth; this was also very easy.

* Never said the game didn't have bugs, but that's not a testament to the xp system; it's a criticism of the programmers.

* This point is 100% false. Oops!

 

Your posts are just too flawed to criticize them wholly without it just being sad. It seems you have many delusions about what poe is going to be, and what the IE games were.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Namutree

[Hiro Protagonist II]

"It's singleplayer" is no excuse for bad systems.

 

Well bad systems depends on how they're interpreted and used in play.

 

For instance in PoE, it's hard to outrun enemies including human enemies when they shouldn't be faster than your own human characters. It seems if you could outrun them, then Josh immediately thinks 'kiting' when you have some players thinking 'I need to get the hell out of here'. Tactical retreats are very hard to do in PoE especially when you're overwhelmed. I'd call the current philosophy of trying to eliminate kiting as bad design in favour of what we have now which is enemies that move too fast.

[Stun]

* Except it was broken...

It was NOT. If something so fundamental to gameplay as the leveling system was broken, none of the IE games would have seen the light of day, let alone become celebrated, genre-defining, all-time classics whose very name mentions can generate wildly successful kickstarters 15 years later.

 

Feel free to put a lid on the gross hyperbole now.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Stun

[Stun]

And for people saying "but there are no problems like that in BG2 or IWD since they added massive XP to quests to work around the XP-kill problem"... exactly; they already used went in this direction. Having to add such patches, workarounds. Wouldn't it be better than having to patch up a broken system, being bugprone and being overall a stitched together whole to have a system dedicated from the start to allow this gameplay.

What patches? What are you talking about?

 

Every single IE game shipped, on day one, with quest XP and kill XP in equal measure. Never were the two concepts ever separated, or ignored, or added later, or overly weighted to one side or the other.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Stun

[Immortalis]

 

And for people saying "but there are no problems like that in BG2 or IWD since they added massive XP to quests to work around the XP-kill problem"... exactly; they already used went in this direction. Having to add such patches, workarounds. Wouldn't it be better than having to patch up a broken system, being bugprone and being overall a stitched together whole to have a system dedicated from the start to allow this gameplay.

What patches? What are you talking about?

 

Every single IE game shipped, on day one, with quest XP and kill XP in equal measure. Never were the two concepts ever separated, or ignored, or added later, or overly weighted to one side or the other.

 

 

Stun nails it on the head.

 

I Re-iterate my point.. do most non-combat xp supporters even know or have even played IE games? If not, then PoE wasn't made for you. Thanks for your support to make PoE happen but this is an IE inspired game.

[Shevek]

Best XP system I have ever played with has to be Underrail's Oddity system. It rewards quests, exploration, combat, skill use and so on but it does so indirectly for the most part (quest xp being the smallest part of the xp pie by far). Read up on it - its fantastic. The best part of Underrail's system is that players can choose a standard xp system if they dont like the Oddity one.

 

If a small studio like Underrail's (for a while, it was a studio of one) can offer TWO xp systems (both awesome) why does PoE have trouble getting one right?

[Captain Shrek]

The Best Xp system is still inferior to the best system which is skill gain per-use disregarding grinding use (jumping up and down to increase atheletics). 

[wanderon]

Best XP system has probably not been made yet.....

[Namutree]

The Best Xp system is still inferior to the best system which is skill gain per-use disregarding grinding use (jumping up and down to increase atheletics). 

Which game does that? The only one I can think of is elder scrolls, but jumping increases acrobatics; not athletics. 

[Captain Shrek]

 

The Best Xp system is still inferior to the best system which is skill gain per-use disregarding grinding use (jumping up and down to increase atheletics). 

Which game does that? The only one I can think of is elder scrolls, but jumping increases acrobatics; not athletics. 

 

 

Unfortunately, no game does it right . And yeah, that was a barb at Morrowind. I just forgot that it was acrobatics. Age of Decadence has a mechanism in place where killing someone (which is a big thing in that game) nets you one combat skill point. Same for civic encounters. That is the best one out there by my judgement. 

[Caladian]

Immortalis, you aren't making a point.  You are stating your perception.  All of the IE games had lots of combat but it was also story driven.  Don't like the trapxp, but whatevs.  Joshua has clearly said that your style of combat xp was degenerate, and is NOT in PoE.  With every patch, things get better and better, knowing that with tweaks, they will be great in the end.

[Namutree]

 With every patch, things get better and better, knowing that with tweaks, they will be great in the end.

With each patch it gets closer and closer to combat xp. If the current trend continues; combat xp will be in the game.

[Sir Newbie]

 

 With every patch, things get better and better, knowing that with tweaks, they will be great in the end.

With each patch it gets closer and closer to combat xp. If the current trend continues; combat xp will be in the game.

 

ouch... Let's hope they will not take away the engagement mechanics and not drift away from their original intentions, i don't want a clone of DnD system.

[Namutree]

 

 

 With every patch, things get better and better, knowing that with tweaks, they will be great in the end.

With each patch it gets closer and closer to combat xp. If the current trend continues; combat xp will be in the game.

 

ouch... Let's hope they will not take away the engagement mechanics and not drift away from their original intentions, i don't want a clone of DnD system.

 

Heh; if you'd have played the beta you might have a different opinion. Right now the engagement mechanics are causing trouble and very well may need to be removed as they are very flawed.

[AussieNick]

I haven't played the Beta so not sure about Bestiary xp. I voted yes just in case.

 

I sure as hell don't want Lockpicking/Trap xp though. I mean, getting decent treasure or not dying is already a pretty big benefit isn't it? 

 

I voted against combat xp because I like the idea of not being forced to murder people because of a game mechanic, but yes to major bosses and extra-tough encounters (I think the xp reward should be the same if you managed to talk/bluff/trick your way out of those encounters though)

 

Thanks for reading.

[Cantousent]

If they do, indeed, renege on their kickstarter assertions regarding XP, I certainly hope that Sawyer grows a set of hairy balls and comes into the forum to tell us personally.  The assumption has been that combat XP folks are the only bomb throwers in the crowd, and I would personally like to put that to the test.

 

While I don't tend to speak for people other than myself, I do note what other folks post and take them at their word.  There are those of us who don't mind combat receiving XP.  Have *never* minded combat receiving XP and have *always* expected that it should.  I just don't want incidental activities to yield XP.  I won't get into yet another rehash of arguments that have become more threadbare than my daddy's overstuffed armchair.  There's probably a place that will accommodate a broad middle, but that will never be granting incidental kill XP for me.  If that makes me fringe, then I'm going to park my ass in the fringe section and make myself at home.

 

Really, all I want is to know how they're going to approach this so I can start stocking up on ****tails of the burning and exploding variety.

[Namutree]

 

Really, all I want is to know how they're going to approach this so I can start stocking up on ****tails of the burning and exploding variety.

Well, even they don't know as much of poe's design has been poorly thought out. We aren't gonna learn how xp is gonna work until about a month before release. It might not have kill-xp at release, but at the moment there is good reason to think it will. 

[Stun]

I certainly hope that Sawyer grows a set of hairy balls

I won't get into yet another rehash of arguments that have become more threadbare than my daddy's overstuffed armchair.

I'm going to park my ass in the fringe section and make myself at home.

Not that I agree or disagree with...whatever you're saying here, but I'd just like to point out that there's a fine line between creative writing, and talking like a shopper at a Wall Mart in Alabama. You've crossed it. lol

 

But on a serious note:

 

Really, all I want is to know how they're going to approach this so I can start stocking up on ****tails of the burning and exploding variety.

I suspect you'll have to scream extra loud to register anything on the e-Richter scale. We of the Pro-combat-XP crowd were always the loudest, and if you'll notice, we're being slowly and subtly appeased. Eventually we'll be mollified to silence and when that happens, there'll be no more 'explosions', because most RPGs reward XP for 'incidental stuff" as you call it. It's what people are used to. Also, Update 7 (the only kickstarter update that discusses the XP issue), is just vague enough to leave the door open for it. Tim Cain said we'll be rewarded for our accomplishments. Well? Disarming traps, opening locks, exploring areas and filling out the bestiary cyclopaedia all fall under the Accomplishment banner. Any gamer who's ever played an RPG knows that. Edited October 28, 2014 by Stun

[Namutree]

 

I suspect you'll have to scream extra loud to register anything on the e-Richter scale. We of the Pro-combat-XP crowd were always the loudest, and if you'll notice, we're being slowly and subtly appeased.

 

Exactly. OE is just wasting time fooling around with the xp system. We know where this is headed. Why they don't just stop beating around the bush and just put combat-xp in is beyond me.

[Caladian]

 

 With every patch, things get better and better, knowing that with tweaks, they will be great in the end.

With each patch it gets closer and closer to combat xp. If the current trend continues; combat xp will be in the game.

 

Changing to combat xp is a major overhaul NOT a tweak.  Just remove the trap/lock xp and I'm fine with it.

[Namutree]

 

 

 With every patch, things get better and better, knowing that with tweaks, they will be great in the end.

With each patch it gets closer and closer to combat xp. If the current trend continues; combat xp will be in the game.

 

Changing to combat xp is a major overhaul NOT a tweak. 

 

True, but I suspect it will come.

[Stun]

Changing to combat xp is a major overhaul NOT a tweak.

A change in design philosophy, in fact. But unlike Namutree, I don't believe Obsidian can take it all the way. Not by release time at least. There's far more involved in making a total switch to combat XP than simply assigning XP values to all the enemies. There's also the matter of balancing the entire game from beginning to end to account for the switch, unless they think it's no big deal if players end up hitting the level cap halfway through the game. due to the thousands upon thousands of additional experience points they gained from every enemy kill.