They do not do it for shinnies and exp, they do it for a greater purpose, to further their ambitions.
So they don't masturbate via incrementation, but instead they masturbate via incrementation?
'k.
Players will exert themselves to get a greater reward because they want to realize those fantasies, the sooner the better. And combat is the riskiest but fastest way of doing just fucking that, therefore it makes sense that you reward those risks they willingly take with the means to gettint to where they want to be. More cautious players will level up slower, but they will more than likely make it alive to the end of the story.
I know this is hard to apply to cRPGs because saving, meta knowledge and other shit that make taking risks a trivial thing
Bingo.
but instead of trying to change the approach to something that completely misses the point (same xp no matter what you do as long as you advance the plot, which by extension makes levels meaningless, as they are only checkpoints.
You can gate the side content with character's level.
You can also gate whatever the fuck you want with loot, information, rep and world state.
Levels have never been particularly meaningful (in cRPGs).
At best they are mostly cosmetic storytelling device reflecting hero's growth or simulationist mechanics, at worst they are a design headache allowing outgrinding any challenge with dumbfuck perseverance.
wouldnt it be better to find a way for those risks to mean more?
AFAIK PoE won't force ironman and I don't expect it to have truly hardcore resource management or nasty, delayed potential consequences of combat, so this point is moot.
(and i dont want to hear "but you get a giants bladder, it will help you craft arrows of giant slaying!1!!!")
You could also craft a bag of holding out of giant's nutsack.
I just would prefer progression to be systemic rather than scripted
Then why don't go for an actual system that governs what you can learn by doing what, instead of a fugly hybrid that makes the occurrence of character growth systemic, but not the act of growth itself?
It makes little sense to award something completely abstract systemically for concrete activities. Either you settle for abstract rewards doled out in similarly abstract manner, or you relate concrete reward and activity systemically.
Anything else is half-baked.
Besides, player should be getting substantial wiggle room when it comes to situations in game, but not when it comes to underlying mechanics - would you tolerate it if player could get as creative with things like HP management?
The disparity between low level XP gain mechanics and completely abstract and free XP exploitation only creates unnecessary loopholes.
Now maybe I am ~possibly retarded~, but how's "experience for the completing a chapter" equals "experience for non-combat quest solutions"?
Because there is no mechanics allowing XP rewards to be based on how you solved the quest, all solutions are rewarded with XPs.
I'm all for latter, like I already have said. But the former, especially if that's automatic predetermined amount of exp — how's that a good idea? I was a Storyteller back in the day, and oWoD really encouraged giving players experience for non-combat activities, for outstanding role-paying and so on, and it was a good concept. Moreover, the number of points which players have gained was announced either at the end of a module, or at the end of a campaign (oWoD didn't have levels). But that wasn't a predetermined amount of points, their number depended on player's actions.
It's a good idea because anything else equals trying to influence player's decision and assessment of situation through artificial means. It might work with live DM who can react and assess whether players are playing the "right way", but in a computer game the GM has left the room before the player even entered, there is no dynamic interplay possible here. All you do with differentiated XP rewards (or any such rewards using universal, highly desirable resource) is providing player with overarching meta-mechanics to be gamed and turning potentially interesting dilemmas into a simple game of "gotta catch them all".
Leaving all possible XP rewards equal at least ensures that player will make their decisions based on actual in game situation that is likely to involve more factors than just the amount of pluses it gives.
