Heh! I admit it would be a bit crazy. However, I am chuffed to bits over ToN's ambitious xp system attempt, and I do feel both versions we've been "shown" for PoE are lacking: quest only xp and quest+subquest+bestiary+lock/trap. Also, the divide in the comminuty, although false, has been going something like this: Those for kill xp and the system in BG are supposedly degenerative, xp-hungry non-RPG munchkins, and those for quest xp/subquest are true RPG:ers with pure playing at their finger tips. So, why not try something that goes beyond such fallacies?

It is important for a developer to try and do more than just ape what has come before.  You have to have vision and be willing to shake things up a little to make a real impact these days regardless of the genre you are making a game for.  That said, there are some basic core tenets you should not screw with and do everything you can to avoid rocking the boat.  Not because they are super duper important, but because they need to be things players can just understand and roll with.

 

EXP systems is one of those.  People can bitch all they want about kill EXP, they still understand how Eternity's EXP system works, they still understand how to earn EXP, they still know how to game the system.  I don't think they should be messing with those particular fundamentals, unless the core of the game itself was going to be different.  However it isn't, try as people might to claim it is something else, Eternity is still a Infinity engine style game just with some different rules.

All the PoE XP system really needs is some iterative evaluation and tweaking.

 

If you microwave a bowl of food, and it's still cold in the middle, then you put it back in the microwave. You don't change the food, or insist that you must obviously use something other than heat to cook it, since it didn't come out perfectly.

 

The objective XP concept works fine. It just needs to be hashed out better, and "trash" mobs need to be better positioned relative to actual objectives, etc.

 

It's no different from anything else, like treasure chests, etc. If you fight your way all the way to a treasure chest glittering with magical gemstones, and you puzzle out how to open it, and it contains enough riches for your entire stronghold to survive for a year, then you obviously don't need to ALSO find a big bag of XP there for you. Same with combat. If hacking your way through some hostile creatures actually gets you something (access to a place of pertinence, nice/useful loot, the completion of some other quest-type/related objective, etc.), then you're already getting XP, even if not just for the simple act of hacking some living creature to death.

 

No, you can't make someone fight 73 battles, THEN give them a bunch of XP because all those 73 battles led up to that one objective. That's a frequency issue, clearly. But, that's not "objective XP"s fault. That's "we didn't do this as well as we should have"s fault. So you do the same thing, but better, and keep tweaking that 'til you get it nice and functional. Then, the only people who are unhappy are the people who are going completely out of their way just to hack some beetles to death that weren't doing anyone any harm, then going "WHY DID I DO THAT WITHOUT HAVING A REASON TO DO THAT?! WHY U NO PROVIDE REASON, OBSIDIAN?!"

 

I know it's a lot of work and effort to go through a whole game and design that out nicely, but it's not really conceptually very difficult. Whether you call it that or not, you're deeming things "accomplishments" or "objectives" from the get-go. I mean, why does killing one guy get you 1,000 XP, just because he was a bandit lord, and killing another guy only gets you 100? It's not because that guy was literally 10-times-as-difficult as the other guy. It's because of the very idea of significant/narrative-pertinent accomplishments and achieved "objectives." Thus is the nature of RPGs.

 

I don't think people who invented PnP gaming before there were computer/video games sat around DMing campaigns in which their players just all arbitrarily ran around in the wilderness to purposely encounter hostile things, just so they could say "Oh, it's hostile! I'm overcoming it!", then went "GOOD JOB, GUYS! You're doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING here, but at least things are dying, so... huge XP rewards for everyone! 8D!"

 

No, the foundation of PnP gaming is significant choices. Here's a situation, what do you do, as your character? Oh? Wow, that was neat. Have some extra XP for that. Not "Oh, good job, you finally killed you fought, then rested, then fought, then rested until you killed your 70th goblin in a row. Now you're level 3 already, and there hasn't been any point to any of this except the thrill of watching dice come up in 'hit' ranges and the joy of receiving XP! 8D!"

 

Basically, if you're actually playing the game, you should be completing what would be deemed "objectives" (argue semantics all you like). If this is true, then the extremely-boiled-down key is just don't have a linear game. Do I have to do only very, very specific things to tackle objectives? Or do I get awesome choices, and varied, spiffy outcomes depending on my choices (both short-term AND long)? And lastly, is there any general playstyle/choice-set that the game is suggesting is perfectly feasible, but that doesn't even let me reach the level cap, which I must reach to keep up with the inherent progression of difficulty that flows through the main narrative?

 

If all those things are handled then you're fine. And, if that's the case, then you shouldn't be worried about what happens if you're dicking around, not actually handling any objectives.

 

I get that, as it stands, with all of those NOT handled, way too much stuff falls into the "not actually handling objectives" category. Which is the problem. Not the very concept of marking things as objectives relevant to your game world and the whole purpose of the game's gameplay.

Torment XP system sounds good for Torment.

 

What. I'd like to see in PoE is every encounter to yield XP, barring quest encounters (which will reward depending on the player-chosen resolution).

 

Also quest objective XP and that's it. NO bestiary/lock-pick XP or such. It's non-sensical that a party can venture for days upon days and gain no experience from it, while helping some villagers can suddently advance them.

 

The spoils of war are what they are, like it or not.