Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Chaotic_Heretic]

But its still the aspie control freak of a designer who decides what should be awarded xp, rather than a more systemic approach.

 

[SuicideBunny]

But its still the aspie control freak of a designer who decides what should be awarded xp, rather than a more systemic approach.

i don't get your point. even in more systematic approaches the designers decide how fast they want the player to develop and limit xp by limiting the number of encounters, deciding that certain kinds of enemies do not give any xp (stuff you overleveled severely or stuff that respawns infinitely are two common examples) and whatnot, otherwise the system becomes so prone to abuse that it loses all its fun.

 

[Volourn]

So, why isn't the spider queen worthy of xp?

 

[FeelTheRads]

i don't get your point. even in more systematic approaches the designers decide how fast they want the player to develop and limit xp by limiting the number of encounters, deciding that certain kinds of enemies do not give any xp (stuff you overleveled severely or stuff that respawns infinitely are two common examples) and whatnot, otherwise the system becomes so prone to abuse that it loses all its fun.

Yeah, see if there's any fun being forced into fights that give ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
But hurrrrrrrrrr it totally balances teh systams which is good because nobody can say why.

And the point is that there's different types of control. Sawyer's is the lazy, shitty one where he basically forces your character into what he wants to. Dude, he was even talking about experience per chapter of story or some such. Instead of you creating the character, Sawyer is doing it for you.

 

[Shannow]

Making non-casters play like casters

The fighter in PoE plays little like the "casters".

The strawman that some people want to play "boring" classes is really childish.

You realize you're basically quoting Josh here, right?

You realize you're quoting me. And out of context, I might add. I'm just not sure if the strawman you are building by doing so, is on purpose or if you're doing it subconscously (flavoured by your preconsceptions and lazy reading). *shrug*
I don't really care, He-Man RPG will be what it'll be and it's too late for me to say "I won't spend money on that".

 

[Ulminati]

That actually sounds a lot like my GMing. People don't want to be told "ok, you killed the goblins, you get 5 xp". They just want me to tell them every couple of sessions "ok, you gain a level, have your new sheets ready when we play again in 2 weeks". The thing is that I still give the players the illusion that I'm tallying up their experience from encounters and solving plots, even if I've already decided ahead of time that at key points in the narrative I just give them a level. The problem with PoE is that it explicitly tells you you get NOTHING for a combat instead of making you think it's factored into the rewards you get after quest completion. This makes combat feel like a punishment for failing to sneak around everything rather than the main attraction to the game.


...Although the way combat currently plays, it IS punishment.

 

[FeelTheRads]

The issue would be that big if the fights were only quest related. But when you get random cats and beetles in your way, well, hurray for tedious work.

 

[msxyz]

That actually sounds a lot like my GMing. People don't want to be told "ok, you killed the goblins, you get 5 xp". They just want me to tell them every couple of sessions "ok, you gain a level, have your new sheets ready when we play again in 2 weeks". The thing is that I still give the players the illusion that I'm tallying up their experience from encounters and solving plots, even if I've already decided ahead of time that at key points in the narrative I just give them a level. The problem with PoE is that it explicitly tells you you get NOTHING for a combat instead of making you think it's factored into the rewards you get after quest completion.

This is a good analogy. I think part of the problem is that combat is right now a bit messy and the game doesn't seem to offer alternate ways to avoid it entirely. Factor in also exploration (something in P&P is difficult to create, you cannot simply tell your GM "screw the story: we've decided to roam in the forest collecting ingredients and honing a bit our skills fighting wildlife") and you'll get an idea why the game does't seem to reward the player's initiative.

 

[Grunker]

hurray for tedious work.

if you think xp is the only thing keeping combat from being "tedious work", you might want to stop playing combat-centric rpgs

That actually sounds a lot like my GMing. People don't want to be told "ok, you killed the goblins, you get 5 xp". They just want me to tell them every couple of sessions "ok, you gain a level, have your new sheets ready when we play again in 2 weeks". The thing is that I still give the players the illusion that I'm tallying up their experience from encounters and solving plots, even if I've already decided ahead of time that at key points in the narrative I just give them a level. The problem with PoE is that it explicitly tells you you get NOTHING for a combat instead of making you think it's factored into the rewards you get after quest completion.

This is a good analogy.

I would hate playing in a game where my GM gave me "the illusion of something." That's basically the BioWare school of RPG design. If you're doing shit like that and not actually rewarding the players for their hard work, you might as well come out and say it.

Anyway, I still think you're missing the point that non-combat XP still gives rewards for fights. Most of my P&P campaigns give out XP for overcoming obstacles efficiently - I don't care how the players do it, I just grade them at their level of success. PoE, Deus Ex, Bloodlines and similar games work with a system pretty much identical to that. Just because no one stands there with a lollipop at the end of each tiny beetle you kill doesn't mean you aren't being rewarded at the end. But then 500 pages of this has already been written, so seek out the XP thread if you want more of that.

 

[Ulminati]

I would hate playing in a game where my GM gave me "the illusion of something."

I give my players the illusion of being adventureres in a fantasy world who go on quests and fight the forces of evil (or good in some cases).

I only dole out XP on the basis of roleplay and plot points reached. I just never explicitly tell them they don't get any XP for combat. It's all factored into the "you get a level" reward they get for reaching certain plot points.

I tried doling out XP on an encounter by encounter basis and making players track it. Everyone hated the extra bookkeeping.

 

[Grunker]

I would hate playing in a game where my GM gave me "the illusion of something."

I give my players the illusion of being adventureres in a fantasy world who go on quests and fight the forces of evil (or good in some cases).

I only dole out XP on the basis of roleplay and plot points reached. I just never explicitly tell them they don't get any XP for combat. It's all factored into the "you get a level" reward they get for reaching certain plot points.

I tried doling out XP on an encounter by encounter basis and making players track it. Everyone hated the extra bookkeeping.

If you read what I'd wrote, you'd find that I don't do either (well, except for my Way of the Wicked playthrough, but that's for unrelated reasons). However, I do vary XP rewards greatly based upon player ingenuity, success and creativity. They don't get XP for failing, they do for succeeding, and I also often vary XP between players. You said:

I still give the players the illusion that I'm tallying up their experience from encounters and solving plots, even if I've already decided ahead of time that at key points in the narrative I just give them a level.

I.e. "I tell them that I factor in their actions, even if I've already decided that they they level up at this and this point in the narrative." I know many GMs that do it like this, and while I certainly respect the differences I think that a) if you do this, your players should know, b) it borders on hypocrisy to say that you dislike PoE's model and then go on to say you do the same except you use BioWare-tactics to give your players the impression that you do not, c) you ackknowledge that combat XP and encounter basis isn't necessary in your P&P games, so why should it be in a cRPG?

Also, it's not actually the same as PoE. PoE grades you and will have tons of optional XP. It precisely does not hand you a level at the end of each chapter, which I agree would be pretty shit. For these reasons, saying that your "chapter-based illusion" has merits over PoE's XP system is a diversion. The key aspect of any reward system is that you should feel the reward is commensurate with the deed, and that the system is modular enough to reward players or parties differently based on how well/how much they did, so you feel that your unique interaction with the system matters. The latter bit is precisely why chapter-XP sucks. Whether you get a small lollipop after defeating a kobold or a big lollipop after defeating 10 doesn't change the merits of the system.

 

[Darth Roxor]

This is a good analogy.

It isn't. In PnP you don't come across trash mobs every minute.

you cannot simply tell your GM "screw the story: we've decided to roam in the forest collecting ingredients and honing a bit our skills fighting wildlife"

You can't if you're a bad player

 

[Grunker]

My group often goes and does something unrelated in my sandbox games, yeah. It depends entirely on the game

 

[Infinitron]

Dude, he was even talking about experience per chapter of story or some such.

The only person who ever talked about that was me.

 

[msxyz]

This is a good analogy.

It isn't. In PnP you don't come across trash mobs every minute.

You never played with a GM that hated you with passion

 

[FeelTheRads]

if you think xp is the only thing keeping combat from being "tedious work", you might want to stop playing combat-centric rpgs

Again this strawman bullshit.
Well, then, how about if you think that no xp for combat is making RPGs better you might want to stop playing RPGs altogether hurr durr

The only person who ever talked about that was me.

Really? OK, I seem to remember something about having to complete a certain number of quests before you move forward. As in, when you have what Sawyer thinks is enough XP.
But if you say that was you, then OK.

 

[Infinitron]

Sawyer vs Shadenuat

 

[felipepepe]

He used bad examples, these certainly are the same shit:

 

[covr]

Sorry for Sawyerism, but they are different. Only a little bit, but they have different effect.

 

[felipepepe]

A tiny difference that could be eliminated by making spells scale with spellcaster's level, like in BG... Sawyer's approach means all your low level spells will be worthless in end-game, hurray.

 

[Sensuki]

He used bad examples, these certainly are the same shit:

Wizard's Double = Reflected Image (thanks Athelas, forgot about that one)
Mirrored Image = Mirror Image
Llengrath's Displaced Image = Blur

 

[Athelas]

A tiny difference that could be eliminated by making spells scale with spellcaster's level, like in BG... Sawyer's approach means all your low level spells will be worthless in end-game, hurray.

Per-rest spells are supposed to become per-encounter and eventually at-will as you gain levels. I assume it hasn't been changed.

 

[Sensuki]

That'll be the case, yep.

 

[Athelas]

Wizard's Double = Mirror Image
Mirrored Image = Mislead
Llengrath's Displaced Image = Blur

More like: Reflected Image, Mirror Image and Blur.

Which reminds me, one of the funniest quirks of Mislead was that BG2 mages tended it to cast it in conjunction with Fireshield, meaning the invisible caster was highlighted by a big ring of fire surrounding him.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Yeah, see if there's any fun being forced into fights that give ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

wtf are you? a nextgen consoletard who needs his achievement popups as validation for what he just did being awesome, or a codexer supposedly liking challenge in itself and laughing about instat gratification idiots? 'cos whining about no xp from combat sounds a lot like the latter to me.

But hurrrrrrrrrr it totally balances teh systams which is good because nobody can say why.

it allows much better control over power progression and thus easier fitting of difficulty to the power range of the players at any given moment, and prevents being able to trivialize content by farming something and overlevelling severely, and technically also would allow proper rpgaming since the way you bypass, but the problem with poe is that it's mostly about combat without proper alternatives.

And the point is that there's different types of control. Sawyer's is the lazy, shitty one where he basically forces your character into what he wants to. Dude, he was even talking about experience per chapter of story or some such. Instead of you creating the character, Sawyer is doing it for you.

that has nothing to do with xp, however, but rather with class based systems (which imo are all shitty) and build difference (which in poe hardly matters beyond skills). so in short, some aspects of what he did are lazy, sure, but not everything is bad, and goal-based xp is not among the bad things.