Use-based works independently of such assumptions.
Goal only XP requires quite a lot of assumptions, but they are pretty generic and usually satisfied together, while the assumption you postulate is quite specific.
Overall the only application in which I can see kill XPs being better than both of its alternatives is a simplistic H&S focused exclusively on combat or crawler with the same focus - then player fighting everything there is to fight is a safe assumption to make and so kill XP and kill XP alone (you can throw in quest XP rewards if you really want to, but no other activity specific XP because that returns us to square 1) makes a sufficient measure of character's progress.
Otherwise either goal specific XP, pure use based or possibly both are going to be superior to kill XP.
Feel free to challenge this statement with actual or hypothetical examples.
*an nice example of fragmented story*
It's all well and good, but you'll have to forfeit some assumptions to make such a story work. For example - who is alive or dead in any particular moment.
You have to make as many NPCs and exact situations as you can non-critical.
You have to account for NPCs dispositions towards the player based on their previous encounters or acount for their lack of manifestation.
And so on.
It's one thing to make a story robust enough to resist minor alterations and flexible enough to accommodate quite a lot of change, but it becomes really hard if you can't just unconditionally keep player out of some places and from doing some sorts of stuff.
But still, I would prefer much more a game with a smaller, slightly underdeveloped and not so well told story to one that is very well done, but with little lee way for the player to do as he wants.
So do I, but I favour truly open sandboxes and I just don't think PE will be one.
Lastly, your fractured story would still work very well with both goal XP only and pure use based.
I bolded the part above because this is, I think crucial here. A well designed game should account for what could be considered valid behavior, for what is just the player playing in good faith, I am not saying that hese problems should be just ignored (although they might not be as important as other stuff). But eventually, you have behavior that is quite clearly in bad faith, and accounting for it is just a wast of time, I think.
The problem is that different players may consider different things to be done in good faith, and then there are all sorts of random elements, screwing around out of the box and all that sorts of stuff. Your game is not a GM, it can't really determine if the player is breaking it unless it has clear rules on what is and isn't allowed.
I disagree. It is his fault because he is the one cheesing so damn much.
Except he might be cheesing so very much because the game was designed for more XP overhead than he actually got and he has no other option and two hours of cheese are better than losing 20h of gameplay. And the problem wouldn't exist in the first place if you didn't have to gauge how much use can ifnite resource mines have legitimately.
It's just bad design.
It's like giving player a godmode button or, I don't know, sticky wallhack cover and tell them, "here use it, just not too much" - it's just unambiguously awful design.
Well, sometimes you don't need a complex system, or the complexity is actually in the philosophy of how things (like xp points) are placed. Aside from that, yeah, hand placed xp is frequently the most important part of xp in such systems, but still placing xp rewards for recognizing the player accomplished something important
Rest assured that if player manages to get past (or through) encounter meant for level 20 at level 2 the loot and XP meant for level 20 will make them feel *VERY* rewarded. Combat XP not necessary.
like keeping his own life after combat
I have always considered keeping one's life a rather substantial reward. People generally don't like missing this one out.
The game would feel less like a sandbox, for starters.
More detail and more to the point please.
So far the only way it would feel less like a sandbox that springs to mind is that it wouldn't contain nearly as much cat turds.
Just make the circunstances ensure it isn't broken.
How?
The rationale for it being?
Maybe, but it leads to a more boring and less uncertain game.
By the same logic flying an aircraft that has actually been designed, calculated and tested as opposed to just thrown together in improvised manner results in more boring and less uncertain flight.
And if you can farm this resource indefinitely or even just increase it severalfold over what the game is designed for we can't speak of any scarcity.
Sure, but neither of these necessarily require that we control the experience tightly.
It does if by "control" you mean "remove the obvious infinite resource mines". Hey, it's not my fault, I'm not the one who wanted XP to be a resource here.
Well, the idea is that the GM is applauding what you managed to bring the game
But we don't have GM here. Everything I bring to the game I bring for myself. If I think it would be awesome to stab a god dead, then devise and execute plan to do so, then I got what I wanted. At no point do I need to play tricks to the nonexistent GM.
I have killed Vivec and all I've got was his soul in the Azura's Star.
Come on, man, I addressed this right after the part you quoted.
I don't believe you have.
Even the best and most engaging mechanics can go stale if the player grinds it repeatedly. It doesn't have to be trivially easy for that.
You still haven't provided even a single example of stuff that requires kill/activity/solution specific XP to work and isn't either a derpy exploit or mindboggling grind.
Really, this conversation won't be getting anywhere unless you either do, or concede to my points (durr, railroading).
Anyway, what I was trying to say is that it is a valid concern that different people will engage in more or less combat and grow tired sooner or later of it. The xp of the game should account for this kind of thing.
How? I'd rather it not be level scaling.
It blocks cheese, but blocking cheese is something I care very little for. On the other hand, it takes away part of the satisfaction of combat and using it to open your own way through the game.
Can't you really feel satisfaction for doing something unless you're rewarded with numbers?
Also, the more you reward some solution in favour of the others, the less satisfying you make those others solutions. So yeah, even if it does make combat more satisfying, it makes clever plan required to successfully stealth past (I'm assuming more than just clicking stealth and moving forward here) proportionally less satisfying. And no, you can't reward all sorts of player cleverness, because you can't predict all sorts ofplayer cleverness - if you could it probably wouldn't be very clever.
Really, combat XP only makes sense if there are no alternatives to combat.
I always go for pacifist characters as much as I can, actually. But I do think RPGs feel different without combat xp. Not necessarily worse, but not necessarily better either. Getting XP hat is appropriate to the fight you just had can give you the sense of advancement, that your bet was really worth something after all. I will concede saving and reloading until you win break that same sense of accomplishment, though, so that this makes more sense in a ironman game, or at least one that punishes you for losing in some palpable way.
In an ironman game surviving a meaningful encounter is very rewarding on its own.
Well, by now I think it is clear this is a question of priorities for both of us, and how I would prefer it gave you a reason not to engage in the behavior than simply forbidding it.
No one intends to forbit anyone from doing anything here. Not providing reasons - artificial ones that are external to the actual gameplay too - would be perfectly sufficient.
Why are you standing in the way?
Xp proportional to difficulty is a way of measuring it, though there are others. If the player decided to do that just because he felt chaotic neutral, I would probably not give him much, or even anything, unless he managed to make the game entertaining through it regardless.
The problem here is that you can't entertain computer program and you can't really make the computer program tell whether or not player was just feeling chaotic stupid.
Leave giving XP out to the humans.
Trying to escape guards, living in the wilderness to avoid detection, or spinning the facts in such a masterful way someone else gets the blame are all probably entertaining things, though.
Neither will happen in a cRPG unoless specifically scripted or systemically acounted for.
Anyway, I prefer to deal my players consequences for their actions through in game logic than just by fiat.
Good, but XP don't really relate to in-game logic. If they did, they would be a use-based system.
