The XP for Combat Megathread! DISCUSS!

[Raghar]

But none of this means that kill-XP are a good idea. You can still explore and find quests/whole encounters to gain XP. And all of these will be more interesting than just some goblins standing around a campfire, who just exist so you can level up.

Remove all trash mobs, make all combat interesting and challenging, problem solved. Blackguards did it on a less than €1 million budget and managed to be 70 hours long. I'm sure PoE can do it with $4 mil.

They would need talent.

 

[DraQ]

Go die please.

Not a carrot, just a representative of natural progression. People does shit, they get better at it. Its not a fucking mind game, its how it works.

So if you stab a lot of kobolds you get better at picking locks or arcane magic?

This kind of shit is why it's so difficult to take you seriously.
If you want "natural progression" then you sure as fuck shouldn't be using XP based system.

Kill XP is effectively "the worst of" combining most disadvantages of goal only XP system and use based, while only inheriting simplicity goal only XP already provides as its sole upside.

And outright dont give xp for fights that are in no way dangerous to them.

Giving XP based on resources expended, HP lost and so on, is an idea of sort - up until the moment your players start standing there and taking it up the ass from a goblin or rat, while spamming healing spells, to earn eleventy bazillion XP for their epic battle.

Whatever can work in a PnP will probably not work in cRPG because once you frontload your mechanics into the game you will no longer be there to rocksfalleveryonedies your players if they start abusing it too much.

tl;dr:
XP must flow because cRPG players are lowest common denominator instant gratification junkies.

Sadly.

The message of kill-XP systems is: do anything and be rewarded for it.

If only. Sneak past enemies or devise clever way to bypass them, and poof go your exps.

I've been playing PoE beta, Obsi tells me to roleplay, so I pick the evil druid chick and start going through quests, and one of the first quests is to steal dragon egg for a trader to make some uber potion or an omelet or something. Me and Faldorn in BG1 would slapped the bitch with a scimitar, killed her for some XP and grabbed her stuff, and walked away; but in PoE every time I say "no", I lose XP.

And that's why you shouldn't get quest XP outside of critical path, with possible exception of those major sidequests that are constructed in such way that no character would be willing to bypass them.

The problem lies with the player, not the system.

Just like it was the case with Oblivion, right?

This is bullshit "roleplaying". How about if I'm roleplaying an RPG player that goes everywhere and does everything possible to increase the power of his party?

Then in a sane system you wouldn't engage in activity that wouldn't confer actual benefits. Pointless killing is just that - pointless (just like pointless sidequests, so way ahead of you).

I'm not saying no kill-XP increases freedom.

Actually it does, at least in practical sense, because it removes relative disincentive from multiple valid and sensible approaches, while only adding disincentive to one that doesn't make much sense.

Of course you should not be given XP for rejecting a quest. But what are you complaining about, exactly?
That in a kill-XP based system you would still get the XP for killing the mini-dragons guarding the egg (or whatever) despite saying no to the quest?
So, make getting the egg a mini-quest on its own, which you can still do despite saying no to the trader.
Problem solved, no kill-XP needed. You would just miss out on the monetary reward from the trader.

Better idea - don't give XP for any quest or objective you aren't absolutely sure will fit *any* viable character or party player may build.

For example:

A quest can be something as small as "survive that random encounter".

fits the bill perfectly - any viable party or character will attempt to survive an ambush/hostile encounter, so if they get out of it alive them XPs can come KA-CHINGing.

Great way to even the progression rate out in a goal only XP, BTW. Of course if you can do anything to prevent ambush (for example by stat check) it should already check the quest out and also count as its solution despite ambush not occurring.

Basically what you want is to have everything tied to something else "so it makes sense" which pretty much means no exploration or actually doing anything on your own but following the developer's guidelines.

Yeah, right, because exploration only works with kill-XP. Seriously?

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Morrowind players fell out of their chairs laughing until they ran out of breath and were suddenly silenced. I fear something hilarious has happened.

What doesn't make sense about exploring and finding enemies? Once you find them, you kill them because they attack you. Very simple, no other reason needed.

What if they don't attack you? Or what if you can sneak up to them to observe them unnoticed? Surely you'd learn more this way than just running at them waving your sword, even if you'd decide to not fight them afterwards.

It will increase grinding of shitty quests and you will do quests that don't fit whatever Lady Of The Forest you're roleplaying because otherwise you will lose character progression.

Again, way ahead of you.

Let's imagine I did not already post a solution: What you would probably do if there were kill-XP is, say no to the quest as it doesn't fit your character, then go there killing everything anyway because it yields XP. Again, great roleplaying experience.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

No. Every time you walk past a deer without killing it, you lose xp.

As XP isn't a finite resource and I have alternate means of acquiring it, said deer is quite safe from my wraith even if some NPC were to send me on a quest to fetch his antlers.

 

[DraQ]

No. Every time you walk past a deer without killing it, you lose xp.

As XP isn't a finite resource

...you can tackle any challenge at arbitrarily high level.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

...you can tackle any challenge at arbitrarily high level.

Partly true, it also comes down to equipment/loot and your knowledge of game's systems and tactics but yeah, definitely a downside.

My point is, if XP is finite and you have only one way of acquiring it (quests), you'll be even more incentivized to do any quest imaginable (even if it's a boring fetch quest or one that goes against your class/alignment/larping/whatever) then you would be to kill that deer in BG.

Another point, if combat should be reward in itself (due to good game mechanics and encounter design) so should quests (due to design, writing, C&C). Reward XP for both or for none, rewarding one side and not the other limits player's choice in terms of character growth.

 

[Raghar]

No. Every time you walk past a deer without killing it, you lose xp.

As XP isn't a finite resource and I have alternate means of acquiring it, said deer is quite safe from my wraith even if some NPC were to send me on a quest to fetch his antlers.

Oh dear. That reminds me how Riku managed to get special items from encounters. You know when you killed something it changed into pyreflies, so you needed to get interesting things before.

 

[Lhynn]

Not a carrot, just a representative of natural progression. People does shit, they get better at it. Its not a fucking mind game, its how it works.

So if you stab a lot of kobolds you get better at picking locks or arcane magic?

This kind of shit is why it's so difficult to take you seriously.
If you want "natural progression" then you sure as fuck shouldn't be using XP based system.

Kill XP is effectively "the worst of" combining most disadvantages of goal only XP system and use based, while only inheriting simplicity goal only XP already provides as its sole upside.

Most of the benefits you get from leveling up with this system are combat related benefits (because all classes are combat focused in Poe), so its reasonable to level up by doing just that. plus i never was against xp for other kinds of actions, but believe combat xp should be predominant.
XP only for talking to npcs or crossing an arbitrary line is shit,

Xp being an abtraction of the learning progress is imperfect, i agree, but within that imperfection they must strive to give it when it makes more sense, not as a fucking cookie to players for doing what they are being told to do.

And outright dont give xp for fights that are in no way dangerous to them.

Giving XP based on resources expended, HP lost and so on, is an idea of sort - up until the moment your players start standing there and taking it up the ass from a goblin or rat, while spamming healing spells, to earn eleventy bazillion XP for their epic battle.

Whatever can work in a PnP will probably not work in cRPG because once you frontload your mechanics into the game you will no longer be there to rocksfalleveryonedies your players if they start abusing it too much.

Well, you take it to a retarded extreme, when its so much easier to measure the powerlevel of the enemy and determine if its a threat or not, even as an automated process. A rough estimation is enough, how the player deals with said threat, be it by clever positioning that minimizes damage or some other stuff its inconsequential.

 

[Infinitron]

If you have a problem with that, I hear there's a company called Bethesda.

What a narrow world you live in when it's either storyfag or Beth's games and nothing else within the spectrum.

(that part of my post was trolling)

 

[Raghar]

If you have a problem with that, I hear there's a company called Bethesda.

What a narrow world you live in when it's either storyfag or Beth's games and nothing else within the spectrum.

(that part of my post was trolling)

Congratulation in exercise of futility.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

No sure it was already handled:

So i walk into mega dungeon which is filled with tons of mobs and i don't get any XP for plowing through? Just the glimmer of hope, that there would be some good loot?

"no XP for kills" works only if the roads are not filled with trash beetle encounters. Hand picked encounters, interesting to fight would work. Otherwise it's problematic in a combat oriented game.

 

[Bubbles]

The idea is that in the final version you can only enter a dungeon if you have the quest, or if the quest giver is right next to the door.

 

[Mangoose]

I assumed removing combat XP meant that you would get XP as you got past any "area" no matter what tactic you used. It shouldn't be based on specific quests.

I think if it was done like that the frequency of XP gains would be too low for most.

Wouldn't that depend on what the amount of XP that is gained per instance?

But in an XP or skill point based system, that can be easily solved by introducing more little tasks, like milestones within a large quest, mini-quests (survive that random encounter), etc.
That can still be a rather high frequency and it would be for doing something useful instead of just fooling around mindlessly, gaming the system instead of playing the game.

That's kinda what I meant, actually. Like, if there's a big monster blocking an entrance, but somehow manage to get to that entrance, you could get XP no matter what method you used.

 

[Mangoose]

No sure it was already handled:

So i walk into mega dungeon which is filled with tons of mobs and i don't get any XP for plowing through? Just the glimmer of hope, that there would be some good loot?

"no XP for kills" works only if the roads are not filled with trash beetle encounters. Hand picked encounters, interesting to fight would work. Otherwise it's problematic in a combat oriented game.

I think IMO you should get XP. You wouldn't get kill XP but you should get XP for getting through the dungeon whichever tactic you used (sneaking, etc.).

If the game is combat oriented, then you are forced to use combat, and you still get XP at the end, so there isn't much difference from XP per each kill.

 

[DraQ]

Xp being an abtraction of the learning progress is imperfect, i agree, but within that imperfection they must strive to give it when it makes more sense, not as a fucking cookie to players for doing what they are being told to do.

And getting XP for goals is an abstraction of learning *process*.

Abstractions work best if their level is consistent.

Systems should either liberate players and/or provide interesting roleplaying opportunities, not tie them down.

Kill XP critically fails on both counts.

It depends on what core of the game is. I wouldn't suggest that kill-xp is a good idea for Tides of Numenera for example, because that's supposed to be a game about the story and combat is an optional activity. In a dungeon crawler like Icewind Dale, it makes perfect sense to reward assembly-line violence, because that's the whole point of playing the game and the quests are generally optional activities. From the beta and from all the KS updates, Pillars of Eternity is going to land somewhere around the BG/BGII ratio of combat to character interaction and story, and imho it's fair to say that party-based combat was still the meat of those games. Combat in PoE isn't an optional sideshow - it's a constant, central gameplay hook and all characters/classes are defined by how they perform in combat. Given that, I think it's appropriate to tie progression into those central mechanics.

Being combat centric doesn't imply that all combat should be mandatory or highly encouraged.
There have been countless even more combat centric games (not cRPGs, obviously) where thinking how, when and IF to engage in combat paid off more than just screaming "FOR THE EXPS!" and jumping into the fray. Most didn't have out of universe combat incentive either.

 

[Bubbles]

Systems should either liberate players and/or provide interesting roleplaying opportunities, not tie them down.

Kill XP critically fails on both counts.

Me luv smell of blud, me kill all that moof.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

If the game is combat oriented, then you are forced to use combat, and you still get XP at the end, so there isn't much difference from XP per each kill.

What about the beettles road? Should i try to avoid combat, because it's useless and be annoyed by aggros? Should there be a quest to clean every road and forest of beetles so i get XP at the end?

IMHO let quests give substantial XP and kills a radically smaller amount by comparison. Still a reward for clearing maps.

 

[dryan]

The problem lies with the player, not the system.

Just like it was the case with Oblivion, right?

Nope.

 

[DreadMessiah]

oh noes he killed the imaginary creatures made up of pixels on the screen!11 Doing it wrong! etc etc etc

Yeah some great reading here. I can go read youtube comments for such enlightenment.

 

[Lhynn]

Xp being an abtraction of the learning progress is imperfect, i agree, but within that imperfection they must strive to give it when it makes more sense, not as a fucking cookie to players for doing what they are being told to do.

And getting XP for goals is an abstraction of learning *process*.

Abstractions work best if their level is consistent.

On the simplest level of "you kill, you learn to kill better", it does. non combat skills are a small part of what constitutes a class in PoE

Systems should either liberate players and/or provide interesting roleplaying opportunities, not tie them down.

Kill XP critically fails on both counts.

The player is free to flee or simply stop and still keep what they have already earned, thats already more freedom than current PoE system allows.
Fighting and becoming strong is in itself a roleplaying opportunity, all you need is a world to interact with and give it context. Playing fedex and becoming strong because the devs needs to reward you with something... is a less interesting road. And not fitting at all with any of BGs big themes.

 

[Bubbles]

Fighting and becoming strong is in itself a roleplaying opportunity, all you need is a world to interact with and give it context. Playing fedex and becoming strong because the devs needs to reward you with something... is a less interesting road. And not fitting at all with any of BGs big themes.

Well, BG was all about you being a child of the lord of murder. For all we know, PoE is about defending against an ancient threat that's suddenly reappeared, or a former mentor who wants to destroy the world. Not really comparable themes at all.

 

[Lhynn]

Well, BG was all about you being a child of the lord of murder. For all we know, PoE is about defending against an ancient threat that's suddenly reappeared, or a former mentor who wants to destroy the world. Not really comparable themes at all.

You are right, mass effect and jade empire themes are pretty different from BG.

Wait, whats that about PoE?

Spoiler

 

[Mangoose]

If the game is combat oriented, then you are forced to use combat, and you still get XP at the end, so there isn't much difference from XP per each kill.

What about the beettles road? Should i try to avoid combat, because it's useless and be annoyed by aggros? Should there be a quest to clean every road and forest of beetles so i get XP at the end?

I fucking said there should not be quests.

IMHO let quests give substantial XP and kills a radically smaller amount by comparison. Still a reward for clearing maps.

In other words make the kill XP so negligible that it doesn't make a difference whether or not kill XP exists.

 

[thesheeep]

No sure it was already handled:

So i walk into mega dungeon which is filled with tons of mobs and i don't get any XP for plowing through? Just the glimmer of hope, that there would be some good loot?

No!
You'd get XP for reaching the loot room, for example. Lots of XP, depending on how hard it is to reach that point. If it is a truly long dungeon, there may be subsections that would reward XP for completing them.

The idea is that in the final version you can only enter a dungeon if you have the quest, or if the quest giver is right next to the door.

No! No! No! No!
Are you actively trying to misunderstand things or does it just happen to you?
Of course you should be able to enter in any case and do whatever you desire. You'd still get the XP for reaching the loot room (assuming that is the overall goal of the dungeon). You would just not get any additional reward from the mayor or whoever has an interest in you clearing the dungeon.

 

[Bubbles]

Source?

 

[AN4RCHID]

Being combat centric doesn't imply that all combat should be mandatory or highly encouraged.
There have been countless even more combat centric games (not cRPGs, obviously) where thinking how, when and IF to engage in combat paid off more than just screaming "FOR THE EXPS!" and jumping into the fray. Most didn't have out of universe combat incentive either.

I'm not saying that every combat encounter should be mandatory, or that it should be the only solution to every quest. We do already know that combat in general will be mandatory to finish the game, though. Designing an RPG where combat is only one of many play-styles is a huge additional undertaking that is outside of the scope of PoE. A combat-ready party is the way you're going to play this game, and this idea is reinforced by Josh's "no useless builds" philosophy. It's not an RPG where you have the option to kill lots of thing; it's an RPG where you do kill lots of things.

Now, that being the case, should it be highly encouraged? My answer is, absolutely yes. I'm going to replace 'should combat always be highly encouraged' with 'should there be an inherent reward for combat' since we're talking about XP. And to head off the inevitable: no, "fun" doesn't count. "Fun" is the result of good game design, it is not an ingredient in and of itself. I mean strictly a gameplay mechanics reward.

If the fundamental challenge of the game is combat encounters, I believe the reward structure should be integrated into that. Otherwise you have a broken gameplay loop, where completing the most basic gameplay segment (a combat encounter) has no purpose by itself, other than progressing to the next bit of content. It divorces the meta-game of character development and narrative progression from the minute-to-minute gameplay. A lot of games are like that, but it's not good game design imho.

This is where the 'feels', or lack thereof, come in. Even if you get the same reward after killing a mob under both systems, what you're being rewarded for is important. Mechanically, is the game congratulating you for killing a horde of orcs, or are the orcs an arbitrary chore to complete before the game rewards you for completing the real challenge, which is... walking through a door, or picking up an item, or whatever the arbitrary objective is? Sure, the combat is probably almost the same amount of fun in either case, but in the second case there's a dissonance in the game design because on the one hand you're being forced to fight horde after horde of enemy, and on the other hand the mechanics are telling you that this is a waste of time and resources. It turns what should be the heart of the game into a nuisance - at least mechanically.

In a game that gives the player more freedom in how to approach problems - ie, where playstyles other than full combat party exist - figuring out how to get past an obstacle with a given character/party build might be an interesting challenge. In PoE, there's is never a question of whether lethal force can be used for your build. It is the solution, and the only question might be whether it should be used per your role-playing choices and meta rewards like faction membership and loot. These exceptions can still exist and still be valid gameplay choices even with kill-XP, the content just has to support them.

Bringing up other genres just muddies the waters. Other games have other designs. In most action games there are no progression mechanics. Usually there aren't even long-term resources or a persistent economy that spans the entire game (as opposed to being contained to one level or section). Reward structures are different. A lot of games, including a lot of RPGs, don't have combat as their core gameplay like PoE does. Stealth games, tactical shooters, platformers, adventure games, etc... are all good for different reasons and require totally different priorities.

I'm kind of exaggerating; obviously, PoE is not just a combat-fest where the story doesn't matter at all. But as long as the gameplay is fundamentally based around tactical battles, I think the point stands.

I'd also like to note that I'm only comparing objective-only-XP and kill-XP. Not saying kill-XP is the best ever, or that a better system couldn't be devised. I'm sure it could.