I learned that fights don't give you experience

[Sarex]

the entire area of firewine bridge is quest related

durlag's tower is quest related

the iron keep is quest related

naskel mines are quest related

the other mine is quest related

return to candlekeep is quest related

the gnoll's keep is quest related

the bandit camp is quest related

the sewers are quest related

the crazy priest and all his undead are quest related

and so on. the bulk of the enemies are in quest related areas or are there to keep you from reaching them (ie the wyvern forest). there are few monsters that can be found randomly and give worthwhile xp after level 3

 

LoL, then everything in DA:I is quest related too.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Sarex

[h3st]

For me I want a game that offers a lot more than XP so I can level up and get more goodies so I can kill more things.

But why would you kill the baddies (pull the lever) if you don't get XP (sugar water)? Are you telling us you're too good to play in a skinner box, Nakia?

[Luckmann]

 

the entire area of firewine bridge is quest related

durlag's tower is quest related

the iron keep is quest related

naskel mines are quest related

the other mine is quest related

return to candlekeep is quest related

the gnoll's keep is quest related

the bandit camp is quest related

the sewers are quest related

the crazy priest and all his undead are quest related

and so on. the bulk of the enemies are in quest related areas or are there to keep you from reaching them (ie the wyvern forest). there are few monsters that can be found randomly and give worthwhile xp after level 3

 

LoL, then everything in DA:I is quest related too.

 

It is. What's your point?

[Sarex]

It is. What's your point?

 

No it isn't... In both cases and I don't where you get the idea that it is. BG2 had a crap ton of trash encounters, that were in no way related to the quest except to maybe fill the space in between the encounters that were related.

 

Being related to the quest means that they somehow fit in the story of the quest and not just be there to fill empty space. Which is not to say that filling empty space with trash mobs is bad.

[Luckmann]

 

It is. What's your point?

 

No it isn't... In both cases and I don't where you get the idea that it is. BG2 had a crap ton of trash encounters, that were in no way related to the quest except to maybe fill the space in between the encounters that were related.

 

Being related to the quest means that they somehow fit in the story of the quest and not just be there to fill empty space. Which is not to say that filling empty space with trash mobs is bad.

 

You are re-interpreting the intended meaning of quest-related as implied by everyone else that is talking about it. Being "quest-related" was obviously referred to as being encountered as part of carrying out a quest. The vast majority (all?) encounters in Baldur's Gate 2 and something like DA:I (and many other games) fit that bill like a glove.

 

That you do not agree with the semantics of what "quest-related" means does nothing to diminish that point.

[Sarex]

You are re-interpreting the intended meaning of quest-related as implied by everyone else that is talking about it. Being "quest-related" was obviously referred to as being encountered as part of carrying out a quest. The vast majority (all?) encounters in Baldur's Gate 2 and something like DA:I (and many other games) fit that bill like a glove.

 

That you do not agree with the semantics of what "quest-related" means does nothing to diminish that point.

 

Nah, trash encounters are trash encounters. That they are present in the quest has no bearing on that. An example would be going to the area of the quest, while not taking the quest, and kill all the trash encounters. You can still come back and do the quest. There is a pretty big difference between quest related creatures/npc's and trash mobs. 

[Yellow Rabbit]

But why would you kill the baddies (pull the lever) if you don't get XP (sugar water)?

It's good we don't have perceivable kill xp points in real life, otherwise most of us would be killed by some minmaxers already. No, srsly, from rp standpoint fight is something you should engage in only having very sensible reason (or not having choice). Abstract kill xp gives you reason to murder everyone that benefits you as a player but doesn't make any sense for your character. That tempts to abandon roleplaying (not that many people mind this thing anyway).

 

As for me, I couldn't care less whether amount of xp I gathered is somewhere close to theoretical maximum I could've get as long as my character is strong enough to proceed through the game.

[Nakia]

 

For me I want a game that offers a lot more than XP so I can level up and get more goodies so I can kill more things.

But why would you kill the baddies (pull the lever) if you don't get XP (sugar water)? Are you telling us you're too good to play in a skinner box, Nakia?

 

Sorry I don't know what a skinner box is.  Seriously I seldom check to see what my XP is.  If the game gives me choices I pick the choice I feel fits the character that I am Playing.  My preferred D*D alignment is chaotic good although the most fun game I ever played was BG/ToB where I played what we called smart evil.  I had a mod that separated reputation into public reputation and party reputation.  Edwin, Korgon(sp?), Vicky and Jan Jensen.  Added Sarevok when I  got to ToB and the sixth member varied.  It was a blast.

 

Question - are those baddies really evil?  From there point of view maybe your character is the baddie invading their territory. Only trolls are evil.  

 

edit: I looked up Skinner Box.  A conditioning chamber for training animals.  Hmm, ah yes life, the world, our enviroment, culture, society etc do condition and train us but human beings do have the ability to think, to rebel, to chose.   We can train or condition ourselves and not be mindless pawns of others.  

Edited January 17, 2015 by Nakia

[Luckmann]

 

You are re-interpreting the intended meaning of quest-related as implied by everyone else that is talking about it. Being "quest-related" was obviously referred to as being encountered as part of carrying out a quest. The vast majority (all?) encounters in Baldur's Gate 2 and something like DA:I (and many other games) fit that bill like a glove.

 

That you do not agree with the semantics of what "quest-related" means does nothing to diminish that point.

 

Nah, trash encounters are trash encounters. That they are present in the quest has no bearing on that. An example would be going to the area of the quest, while not taking the quest, and kill all the trash encounters. You can still come back and do the quest. There is a pretty big difference between quest related creatures/npc's and trash mobs.

 

You're trying to defend your argument by semantics - the intent of the argument (that the majority of mobs are quest-related) was never the definition that you assign to it. That you don't agree on the definition as to what constitutes "quest-related" has nothing at all to do with the argument, it's just semantics, like I said.

[ruzen]

I think Its only the balance issue to giving exp for completion of a Quest and I dont have problem with It. It will took much more efford to balance with combat exp in video games.

 

Personly, I think fhinishing quest shouldnt give any experience but all other activities ( Combat, training, meditation, learing ( talking, study, etc..) , revealing... all activities even camping in the wilds or bargening should give exp. After a charecter sleeps or meditates he/she could level up. We can do that in FRP Its more flexiable but In video games It all comes to balance issue.

[Sarex]

You're trying to defend your argument by semantics - the intent of the argument (that the majority of mobs are quest-related) was never the definition that you assign to it. That you don't agree on the definition as to what constitutes "quest-related" has nothing at all to do with the argument, it's just semantics, like I said.

 

For people who like to explore and 100% the game it's really not semantics.

[Luckmann]

 

You're trying to defend your argument by semantics - the intent of the argument (that the majority of mobs are quest-related) was never the definition that you assign to it. That you don't agree on the definition as to what constitutes "quest-related" has nothing at all to do with the argument, it's just semantics, like I said.

 

For people who like to explore and 100% the game it's really not semantics.

 

 

There's no relation between exploration and the definition of what constitutes quest-related. The point was that the vast majority of all enemies in BG2 are quest-related in one way or another (easily 90%). Instead of arguing against this, you started arguing what constitutes "quest-related"; i.e., semantics.

 

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of opponents in BG2 (and IWD/IWD2/PS:T) are quest-related in one way or another, in that you will be facing them while carrying out a quest. Your own definition of "quest-related" has nothing to do with that argument, and the argument can't be deflected by you focusing on the semantics.

 

As I pointed out earlier, in BG1, this does not hold entirely true, because BG1 has a lot of wilderness areas that are largely devoid of quests (or do not have quests that send you there). In the context of PoE, I would argue that the process of exploration has it's own rewards, but just to be clear, you also do get experience for finding new sites, and I think that it's perfectly reasonable to hand out goal-oriented experience based on finding secrets, finding locations you'd otherwise miss, and so on, just like it was in Deus Ex.

 

Anything is better than murderhobo-oriented experience. Murderhobo-oriented experience really achieves nothing, except forcing the gameplay to be kill-oriented, rather than roleplaying-oriented (character development, achieving goals, solving quests/crimes/mysteries, exploring locales, etc).

[Sarex]

There's no relation between exploration and the definition of what constitutes quest-related. The point was that the vast majority of all enemies in BG2 are quest-related in one way or another (easily 90%). Instead of arguing against this, you started arguing what constitutes "quest-related"; i.e., semantics.

 

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of opponents in BG2 (and IWD/IWD2/PS:T) are quest-related in one way or another, in that you will be facing them while carrying out a quest. Your own definition of "quest-related" has nothing to do with that argument, and the argument can't be deflected by you focusing on the semantics.

 

As I pointed out earlier, in BG1, this does not hold entirely true, because BG1 has a lot of wilderness areas that are largely devoid of quests (or do not have quests that send you there). In the context of PoE, I would argue that the process of exploration has it's own rewards, but just to be clear, you also do get experience for finding new sites, and I think that it's perfectly reasonable to hand out goal-oriented experience based on finding secrets, finding locations you'd otherwise miss, and so on, just like it was in Deus Ex.

 

Anything is better than murderhobo-oriented experience. Murderhobo-oriented experience really achieves nothing, except forcing the gameplay to be kill-oriented, rather than roleplaying-oriented (character development, achieving goals, solving quests/crimes/mysteries, exploring locales, etc).

 

 

There is a pretty big relation as a matter of fact, imagine exploring the maps in PoE and doing so for hours, all the while you are fighting trash mobs that are in your way. So after playing for hours you open up you char sheet and see 0 xp, 0 character progression. That would be pretty disheartening.

 

So because you guys are scared to miss out on that precious xp, now we have to suffer for our playstyle.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Sarex

[Hassat Hunter]

For people who like to explore and 100% the game it's really not semantics.

Any good TRUE RPG doesn't allow you to "100%" since it would require multiple-playthroughs to see all it's content.

[Sarex]

Any good TRUE RPG doesn't allow you to "100%" since it would require multiple-playthroughs to see all it's content.

 

False, you can 100%, ie. you can go through all choices and all available quest. Also as class restrictions don't exist you can even do all the quest in PoE.

[Luckmann]

 

There's no relation between exploration and the definition of what constitutes quest-related. The point was that the vast majority of all enemies in BG2 are quest-related in one way or another (easily 90%). Instead of arguing against this, you started arguing what constitutes "quest-related"; i.e., semantics.

 

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of opponents in BG2 (and IWD/IWD2/PS:T) are quest-related in one way or another, in that you will be facing them while carrying out a quest. Your own definition of "quest-related" has nothing to do with that argument, and the argument can't be deflected by you focusing on the semantics.

 

As I pointed out earlier, in BG1, this does not hold entirely true, because BG1 has a lot of wilderness areas that are largely devoid of quests (or do not have quests that send you there). In the context of PoE, I would argue that the process of exploration has it's own rewards, but just to be clear, you also do get experience for finding new sites, and I think that it's perfectly reasonable to hand out goal-oriented experience based on finding secrets, finding locations you'd otherwise miss, and so on, just like it was in Deus Ex.

 

Anything is better than murderhobo-oriented experience. Murderhobo-oriented experience really achieves nothing, except forcing the gameplay to be kill-oriented, rather than roleplaying-oriented (character development, achieving goals, solving quests/crimes/mysteries, exploring locales, etc).

 

There is a pretty big relation as a matter of fact, imagine exploring the maps in PoE and doing so for hours, all the while you are fighting trash mobs that are in your way. So after playing for hours you open up you char sheet and see 0 xp, 0 character progression. That would be pretty disheartening.

 

So because you guys are scared to miss out on that precious xp, now we have to suffer for our playstyle.

 

 

It's almost as if you've got some pretty die-hard reading disability going on here. I said "There's no relation between exploration and the definition of what constitutes quest-related." and you say that there is a relation, and then go on to argue something completely unrelated to what I said. This is the second time you clearly misconstrue an argument in order to avoid the subject.

 

That being said, nothing in goal-oriented experience excludes exploration rewards in any way. If we assume that PoE takes the approach of BG2 (in terms of "virtually everything is a quest area", which is a pretty safe assumption, unfortunately), you will gain experience via quests as you explore, or your exploration/murderhobo tendencies will make it easier to later complete quests as you return to the area.

 

Even if we assume a BG1 approach and the fact that exploration can be it's own reward independent of immediate experience doleout, why should a murderhobo get more experience than any other solution by default? Why should it not be viable to explore via stealth, if the issue here really is "exploration", and not just instant-gratification highs for the cognitively shallow?

 

Goal-oriented experience gives the players the incentive to seek alternative solutions, and the developers the freedom to create rewarding scenarios aside from combat encounters, and discourages the munchkin behaviour of killing people on principle even after finishing a quest a certain way. It allows you to stay in-character without penalizing yourself. In no way does it affect exploration negatively, nor dismiss violence as a possible means to the same end.

 

Murderhobo-oriented experience, however, incentivizes violence - and only violence - as a meaningful solution.

 

For an example of this, look at Deus Ex: Human Revolutions and compare it to Deus Ex. Deus Ex rewards ingenuity and emergent gameplay, allowing the player to find his own solution to problems, sometimes whether it was intended by the developers or not. There are multiple ways to solve any situation, often including just plain fleeing the scene, and a player is rewarded for exploration, solving problems, reaching goals and finding secrets. DE:HR on the other hand, awards experience for every little thing you do, incentivizing you to do every little thing, including doubling back to kill the enemies you left alive (or, to be specific, do a silent melee takedown), it awards you experience for hacking, even when you have the password, and for lockpicking, even when you have the key, meaning that if you have a choice, you'll always do both.

 

Even the BG/2 game(s) suffer from this, albeit in a much-diminished fashion, in that there are actually several quests where you are rewarded better experience for doing the quest to it's conclusion, and then turning on whomever you've been working with in order to kill them, making sure that you get the kill-experience as well.

 

In PoE, however, you get experience based on result, meaning that no matter what you play or the approach you take, it's viable from an experience perspective. Now, if the developers have truly taking this into account, I honestly doubt (you can't even Stealth independently, only as a party), but as long as experience is Goal-oriented, the possibility is there. If it's Murderhobo-oriented, that ideal is dead. Dead and buried and gone forever, and the best way to go through the game is with a big stick and a surly disposition.

 

 

Any good TRUE RPG doesn't allow you to "100%" since it would require multiple-playthroughs to see all it's content.

False, you can 100%, ie. you can go through all choices and all available quest. Also as class restrictions don't exist you can even do all the quest in PoE.

 

First, this is you again trying to reinterpret what someone said and argue over semantics. It is obvious that Hassat Hunter meant that you can't do everything in a game. Instead of arguing against that, you start arguing over the definition of "100%".

 

In fact, no TRUE RPG allow you to go through 100% of all the content in one go, simply because there will be branching paths that are mutually exclusive. That's what Hassat Hunter meant and anyone with the cognitive ability over that of a ferret would've realized it instead of arguing the semantics.

 

Second, what gave you the idea that there are no class restrictions in PoE when it comes to quests or options? There certainly are Cipher-specific dialogue options, and given that each class is what it is, that would also mean that they have class-specific solutions to certain quests.

 

I'm not saying that there *are* class-specific quests or quest solutions, but there is nothing saying there's not. There's no class restrictions on things like gear, but there certainly are class restrictions in terms of dialogue choices, talents, and powers. It's not Skyrim (thank god).

Edited January 17, 2015 by Luckmann

[Quetzalcoatl]

In PoE, however, you get experience based on result, meaning that no matter what you play or the approach you take, it's viable from an experience perspective. Now, if the developers have truly taking this into account, I honestly doubt (you can't even Stealth independently, only as a party), but as long as experience is Goal-oriented, the possibility is there. If it's Murderhobo-oriented, that ideal is dead. Dead and buried and gone forever, and the best way to go through the game is with a big stick and a surly disposition.

Wouldn't the entire party being allowed into stealth make it easier to perform combat-avoiding tasks? Why do you think this would be an obstacle?

Edited January 17, 2015 by Quetzalcoatl

[teknoman2]

 

It is. What's your point?

 

No it isn't... In both cases and I don't where you get the idea that it is. BG2 had a crap ton of trash encounters, that were in no way related to the quest except to maybe fill the space in between the encounters that were related.

 

Being related to the quest means that they somehow fit in the story of the quest and not just be there to fill empty space. Which is not to say that filling empty space with trash mobs is bad.

 

lets use windspear hills as an example. the only enemies that are not part of the Fiirkrag quest are a few animals that roam the area and those worm things. the band of ogres that you meet as you enter, as well as all the orcs, trolls, elementals and so on in the ruins where Fiirkrag is are related to the quest.

[Luckmann]

 

In PoE, however, you get experience based on result, meaning that no matter what you play or the approach you take, it's viable from an experience perspective. Now, if the developers have truly taking this into account, I honestly doubt (you can't even Stealth independently, only as a party), but as long as experience is Goal-oriented, the possibility is there. If it's Murderhobo-oriented, that ideal is dead. Dead and buried and gone forever, and the best way to go through the game is with a big stick and a surly disposition.

Wouldn't the entire party being allowed into stealth make it easier to perform combat-avoiding tasks? Why do you think this would be an obstacle?

 

I don't mind that the entire party is allowed into Stealth, the problem is that the entire party stealths and unstealths together. You can't stealth individually, and when combat starts, everyone is unstealthed together.

[h3st]

edit: I looked up Skinner Box.  A conditioning chamber for training animals.  Hmm, ah yes life, the world, our enviroment, culture, society etc do condition and train us but human beings do have the ability to think, to rebel, to chose.   We can train or condition ourselves and not be mindless pawns of others.

Yeah, I was being facetious, comparing the (in-game) killing of other sentients to lab rat behaviour. Having even the slightest of in-game justification (getting to some item, strapped for cash, Joe "Random" Buttmunch asked you to kill someone you've never seen before … ) helps. I find XP-for-death is often accompanied by grinding, which I see as just boring.

 

If you want to try a skinner box game, try Cookie Clicker, or more satirically, Cow Clicker. The horrifying thing is that these games that involve no skill or critical thinking, just a few clicks and waiting, can actually be sort of … entertaining isn't the word, but they do give an insight into why those rats keep pushing those levers.

 

We are the rat in the machine.

Edited January 17, 2015 by h3st

[Lord Wafflebum]

I'm a Rat King.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Any good TRUE RPG doesn't allow you to "100%" since it would require multiple-playthroughs to see all it's content.

 

You need to watch this video.

[ManifestedISO]

Is the Mountain game a skinner box, I haven't opened that one for months. I wonder if it's still spinning. I'll check, hang on. 

 

Edit: Yes, still spinning, so hard that it locked my desktop. Lame, Mountain, laaaame

Edited January 18, 2015 by ManifestedISO

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

There's no relation between exploration and the definition of what constitutes quest-related. The point was that the vast majority of all enemies in BG2 are quest-related in one way or another (easily 90%). Instead of arguing against this, you started arguing what constitutes "quest-related"; i.e., semantics.

 

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of opponents in BG2 (and IWD/IWD2/PS:T) are quest-related in one way or another, in that you will be facing them while carrying out a quest. Your own definition of "quest-related" has nothing to do with that argument, and the argument can't be deflected by you focusing on the semantics.

 

As I pointed out earlier, in BG1, this does not hold entirely true, because BG1 has a lot of wilderness areas that are largely devoid of quests (or do not have quests that send you there). In the context of PoE, I would argue that the process of exploration has it's own rewards, but just to be clear, you also do get experience for finding new sites, and I think that it's perfectly reasonable to hand out goal-oriented experience based on finding secrets, finding locations you'd otherwise miss, and so on, just like it was in Deus Ex.

 

Anything is better than murderhobo-oriented experience. Murderhobo-oriented experience really achieves nothing, except forcing the gameplay to be kill-oriented, rather than roleplaying-oriented (character development, achieving goals, solving quests/crimes/mysteries, exploring locales, etc).

 

 

There is a pretty big relation as a matter of fact, imagine exploring the maps in PoE and doing so for hours, all the while you are fighting trash mobs that are in your way. So after playing for hours you open up you char sheet and see 0 xp, 0 character progression. That would be pretty disheartening.

 

So because you guys are scared to miss out on that precious xp, now we have to suffer for our playstyle.

 

Sarex is correct. So much that Obsidian changed their stance on Quest only xp because they even admitted it was a problem and included other types of xp including kill xp in the form of bestiary pages. When you have dev's changing and overhauling the xp system a few months from release, you know there's a problem. I've shown that it's worse with the current bestiary kill xp than the full combat xp in the IE games, the PoE xp system encourages kill sprees even more and I've given reasons why in the beta feedback forum.

 

It's pretty easy for you Luckmann to give an argument from your viewpoint, but if you actually played the beta when it first came out when it was Quest only xp, it was a problem that even some of the die hard Quest only xp fans admitted on this forum.

[Nakia]

I like the way XP is being done.  If the devs changed from the quest only XP in response to feedback good for them.  The killing of beasts and monsters in the wilderness may or may not be optional.  Even using stealth constantly you could walk into the aggro area of animals and monsters.     I think the solution made is a fair one.  There may be something better but this late it might take to much time and personal to make a major change.