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On Exploration XP Rewards

Dev_Anj

Learned
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Jan 14, 2015
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I had a short argument with Ash over on RK47's lp thread covering the Deus Ex games. To summarize; he said that rewarding actions with xp in an open ended RPG was bad, with the exception of exploration. I asked him why, and he stated that's because there are no exceptions to exploration besides not exploring, which is bad, exploration already has its share of rewards, and providing skill points for exploration rewards all players equally, since there's only so much stuff that can be stashed away in secret caches without feeling contrived. I pointed out that most of the above applied to combat in most games too, and he elaborated on that here:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...and-invisible-wars.110651/page-8#post-4749083

So, thoughts on exploration experience rewards? Yay or nay?

And I fully expect some trolling and cheap jokes, so bring it on!
 

Kahr

Guest
-Yay, if it's first-person games like Deus Ex or SS2 because you can miss hiding places easier.

-Nay, if you get the points for entering an unknown location in isometric games, which you would've entered anyway. I don't get the idea behind this.
(the 5 skill points in AoD were nice, but not really necessary)
 

deuxhero

Arcane
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Flowery Land
Exploration rewards can get pretty gamey on second playthroughs or even first if the game's XP is limited or they are the primary source of XP.

Then you have examples like New Vegas where the exploration XP is so low, even at level 1, you wonder why they bothered adding it.
 

Dev_Anj

Learned
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Auldale, near the great river
Exploration rewards can get pretty gamey on second playthroughs or even first if the game's XP is limited or they are the primary source of XP.
Indeed. Even if they aren't the primary source of xp, I've found that they encourage un intuitive behavior in games with open endedness. For example, if you can enter a building in several different ways, each having its own xp reward based on how difficult the routes are. Under this system, the player will be encouraged to use all of the paths if possible, thus defeating the point and engaging in a dull activity only for game rewards. This could be resolved by having the other xp triggers destroyed upon hitting one, or making all the paths one way, but it would be a constraint on the design.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
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Jan 10, 2007
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Searching for my kidnapped sister
The whole underlying premise is that you can explore in many "different" way. So different xp for different ways is a method to lead players to try. If you give it a simple xp just for enter the location, what incentive do players have for trying different ways? Answer me that, killjois.
 

pippin

Guest
To be fair secrets in Deus Ex were actually secret. Some of them were even Wolfenstein-like, with the "push a brick so the wall opens" thingy.
It's also worth mentioning the devs made it so it could be ghosted, and ghosting often means finding secrets because you were looking for the odd way to clear the stage. Players who weren't fighting anyone would not get rewarded.
Also DE isn't really open ended. It's just that it has huge levels which felt open, but they were still closed environments. I won't deny it really makes you feel like it's a big open game, though, which shows you how valuable good design is. The only thing bigger than Deus Ex's levels is my cock.
 

deuxhero

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Flowery Land
I should note I'm not against them inherently, but they do need work (frankly strictly limited XP gets abused on its own plenty.).
 

Momock

Augur
Joined
Sep 26, 2014
Messages
644
If you discover something that is really a secret, something unknown to mankind (or to the majority) or some really important information, then it should reward XP. But it isn't exploration per-se that gives the XP in these cases, it's the things you discovered by exploring (that's the point of exploration, to discover things, anyway).

So arriving to a big city, get into a bar by the vents or listening to general explanations from an info-dump NPC shouldn't give XP, but arriving at the location of very old ruins that remained undisturbed for centuries or finding the true agenda of whatever faction by hacking a PDA hidden somewhere should give a big bunch XP.
 

deama

Prophet
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
4,352
Location
UK
I don't really like it, it feels too "game-y". I think you should only just get loot as a reward really, or some helpful information (e.g. boss is weak to X).

One way this might work is if the main character is blind and once you finish exploring(touching) an area you get an exp reward.
 

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