The XP for Combat Megathread! DISCUSS!

[felipepepe]

For instance, I think an interesting idea would be to somehow measure how well the player does in each combat, and giving him XP depending on how well he does. You know, much like fighting games give a mark to the player on different categories depending on how he fights. Of course, the player would be given XP only once for each "kind" of fight. So fighting poorly the same group of goblins, or a very similar fight (no idea how to measure if a fight is similar to another, though) won't give you more XP. But improving your marks give you more XP. So the game is rewarding the point of the game, and the lack of risk isn't really an issue.

I find things like this so illogical. If the person performed well, he's a good player and gving him more XP will only make him a better player and the game's challnges easier. While reducing the XP bad players get will only make them weaker and the game harder.

So you made the game easier for hardcore players, and harder for newbs.

 

[Lhynn]

In the end there is no universal answer for anything in design, every game has it's own unique feel and things that support it and make it fun.

Exp distribution is a very essential part of D&D, it dictates how the game is played. You cannot claim a game is trying to be similar to D&D if you change how exp works.

This is literally the most retarded thread i have read, with people defending this retarded fucking mechanic that could and maybe would work in another type of game (maybe in sawyers "masterpiece") but not in a game that is trying to be an IE game. As some dude says in that thread, it fucks up the pacing, and it really does, it also fucks up the feel of the game, and this is what fucking happens when you work on abstract instead of actually reasoning about why its done the way its done.

The goal of this shit is to recreate the IE and by extension the D&D feel and you change the motivations of the player characters behind their actions, is there any fucking doubt it will feel off?

I wish i could set some of you on fire and close the door behind me.

PS: i am not mad at the stupid game, im mad at you missing the whole fucking point of this, im mad at you for being so fucking reasonable instead of calling bullshit on something that is obviously wrong. Gozma called some of the obvious flaws on this system, several times, and no one gave a shit.




PS2: i know, i fucking know in PnP you give exp usually at the end of the story, but because more stories tend to be free form and usually side stories are stories on their own right. In a cRPG you dont have that, you can half do 3-4 quests as you travel from place to place, and as you finish them you realize it took 3-4 times longer to get any reward, this is where combat xp comes into play as well.

PS3: fuck it, im stalking Alex

PS4: felipepepe thats how all rpgs play, get good and it gets easier. You can always create new optional challenges for those that are good at character building and planning, after all, given enough time any RPG player can be that player.

 

[Alex]

For instance, I think an interesting idea would be to somehow measure how well the player does in each combat, and giving him XP depending on how well he does. You know, much like fighting games give a mark to the player on different categories depending on how he fights. Of course, the player would be given XP only once for each "kind" of fight. So fighting poorly the same group of goblins, or a very similar fight (no idea how to measure if a fight is similar to another, though) won't give you more XP. But improving your marks give you more XP. So the game is rewarding the point of the game, and the lack of risk isn't really an issue.

I find things like this so illogical. If the person performed well, he's a good player and gving him more XP will only make him a better player and the game's challnges easier. While reducing the XP bad players get will only make them weaker and the game harder.

So you made the game easier for hardcore players, and harder for newbs.

Well, that is how it is in many games. But that difficulty is part of what making XP its own mechanic rather than a meter of how much of the game you have completed needs. In a game where XP is its own game element, getting more XP is actually difficult and fun, and the XP enables you to do more than you would otherwise. In many computer games, getting more XP just means you get to see cool abilities you don't need. So it is more of an exploratory element. But in a game like, say, D&D, getting a character to name level is an actual accomplishment, and opens up a series of different options. Like, if your fighter gets to establish a keep and raise an army, the point isn't that you can kill goblins a lot easier now, but that you can do stuff you couldn't before. For instance, if the necromancer is going to invade the city with his zombie host, a party without name level characters might need to find a way to get to safety and maybe save some innocents (probably the richest people in town so they can pay you). But if you have your own army, saving the city itself becomes feasible.

My point is that if XP is its own mechanics, then a player that doesn't do so well could get through the game, but he would be forced to miss some stuff in it. Maybe he can kill those bandits that kidnapped the daughter of the merchant, but probably not before they kill the daughter.

 

[DefJam101]

As a noted combatfag I must side with the no-XP-for-killing-things approach, even in combatfag games, as an experience curve based around completing "game objectives" is easier to pace out than a kill-based curve, and better pacing means more fun. Generally speaking.

Edit: While it's true that having the option to kill a bunch of weaker mobs for fun and profit creates a more convincing illusion of player freedom in a game that's 90% killing things, you can accomplish the same goal through minor objectives or loot rewards.

 

[Bubbles]

How can you have "good pacing" in a game with lots of side quests? Make side quests not give xp?

 

[DefJam101]

How can you have "good pacing" in a game with lots of side quests? Make side quests not give xp?

I'm talking about a hypothetical combatfag RPG, not necessarily PoE. I don't know anything about PoE other than it supposedly being the game to finally make everyone realize D&D is shit.

 

[Azrael the cat]

This is where alternative advancement comes into play. You should be rewarded for killing beasties, but not in exp. Exp should be what guides your gameplay, and giving exp for combat means that all playstyles that don't involve clearing the entire gameworld of animal life, presumably ushering some environmental apocalypse, are so greatly disadvantaged as to be 'playing it wrong'.

Instead, reward the player with money (where suitable) and crafting items. This has a different advancement curve to exp. Money and crafting items are things that you benefit signficantly from 'having enough of', but once you've got enough for good equipment, it's largely a money-spinner. Players who dedicate themselves to harvesting as much as possible will still be able to use consumables far more freely, and obtain store equipment earlier - a genuine advantage, but not so great as to cause balance issues.

 

[Bubbles]

and giving exp for combat means that all playstyles that don't involve clearing the entire gameworld of animal life, presumably ushering some environmental apocalypse, are so greatly disadvantaged as to be 'playing it wrong'.

Easy solution: respawn timers.

 

[Alex]

This is where alternative advancement comes into play. You should be rewarded for killing beasties, but not in exp. Exp should be what guides your gameplay, and giving exp for combat means that all playstyles that don't involve clearing the entire gameworld of animal life, presumably ushering some environmental apocalypse, are so greatly disadvantaged as to be 'playing it wrong'.

Instead, reward the player with money (where suitable) and crafting items. This has a different advancement curve to exp. Money and crafting items are things that you benefit signficantly from 'having enough of', but once you've got enough for good equipment, it's largely a money-spinner. Players who dedicate themselves to harvesting as much as possible will still be able to use consumables far more freely, and obtain store equipment earlier - a genuine advantage, but not so great as to cause balance issues.

But how is that different from saying "Lack of regenerating health mean that all playstyles that don't involve checking all the corners for med-kits are disadvantaged."?

My point is that in a combat-centric game, like I expect PoE to be, Combat is supposed to be the main attraction, not one among many options.

 

[Shadenuat]

As for now it's (theoretically) possible for players in PoE to roam from location to location checking the promised "Baldur's Gate exploration" part, killing monsters that are probably only grow in power, all while player's party being totaly stagnant. Because "Baldur's Gate exploration" also featured progression, but someone forgot that part.

With that in mind Obsi could add some macguffins to get for XP (since they are so useful, because any party can get a macguffin with any skills they want), additional objectives and achievements (reaching a hard part of world by any means, like in Divinity:OS), and they would have to balance it out with good loot system, and provide decent quest and consequences system (so player won't lose XP if he killed some quest target without actually getting quest, or whatever).
To me all that doesn't seem like less work than just splitting combat xp&quest xp in a balanced way and removing nonsensical options to get more by hand, by making quest NPCs leave with classical fade in/fade out effect or only give very little XP.

 

[Volourn]

"xp should be what guides your gameplay, and giving exp for combat means that all playstyles that don't involve clearing the entire gameworld of animal life, presumably ushering some environmental apocalypse, are so greatly disadvantaged as to be 'playing it wrong'."

Except, PE is full of insta hostile enemies attack on sight so you can;t play it wrong. You cna't talk with beetles, lions, or even the fukkin' human cultists as they are all insta hostile. And, unless you give your entie squad sneak you can't avoid them that way.


This isn't like talk to someone, get quest then kill NPC shit. I think that's dumb and there cna be other ways to deal with that.

Bottom line is xp is about rewarding the player for overcoming a challenge. FUKKIN' USE IT.

One can play the entire beta and get ZERO xp. LMFAO

 

[DraQ]

The game argument for going back and killing after a diplomatic solution is exactly the same when doing it for the benefit of loot as it is for doing it for the benefit of kill xp + loot though?

Nope. Without XP reward for diplomatic resolution you can just get straight to the point.

And other incentives are easier to regulate with disincentives, while it's hard to argue with universal and objective measure of progression (TM).

What the heck is a metagame reward? (...) but XP in general makes no sense in narrative in a hundred ways.

You have essentially answered your own question.

With XP system you have essentialy given up all pretense of simulationism as far as character growth mechanics goes. It's an abstract reward system, bearing no tangible relation to anything in actual gameworld, and as abstract reward system it should be judged solely on the basis of how it drives the player's behaviour and in consequence the game - what system rewards is basically what you want player to do. It's a metagame system in that it exists outside and beyond the game proper.

Kill XP motivates grind and derpy degenerate gameplay, goal oriented XP rewards fulfiling - nomen omen - goals.
It's pretty clear which one succeeds here and which one doesn't.

No longer can you "roleplay" a sociopath who kills people after helping them or sparing them because doing so makes you stronger.

I've read a lot of legit arguments in favor of dropping combat xp. This is not one of them.

-> Quest givers are only worth 1 XP after you you help or spare them.

Problem solved.

What if quest givers give more than one quest? What if they are involved in a more elaborate quest structure where killing them is one of *expected* outcomes?

It is different, because it only applies to quest givers and only after you help or spare them.

Why?

Since XP numbers in this system are set by hand (like in a P&P system), you could easily give no XP for killing friendlies.

Why?

You see, that's the problem here. You guys just *assume* that kill XPs are desirable mechanics and try to work around its obvious shortcomings by piling up epicycles on epicycles - singular, extensively scripted, often nonsensical solutions (why the same character with same challenge rating should sometimes be worth many XP and sometimes virtually none?) in the name of what?

OTOH if you recognize the underlying system as broken and replace it with something sane, all the problems just *poof*.

4. You failed reading comprehension on this one. As in 1. combat XP here is set by hand for individual fights, so the solution is not giving XP for these NPCs - or do give XP for them, if they are challenging to defeat and the player should be rewarded for that.

Is setting up completely arbitrary and unpredictable rewards for varying circumstances seriously your answer to making the rewards more systemic?
Because your failing horribly.

What I don't really get is why powergamers, who use diplomacy and then kill the quest-giver are the reason to remove killEXP altogether.

You've got it ass backwards.

The question is why would you possibly *keep* the kill XP if not including it makes for much cleaner and saner solution without losing either verisimilitude or gameplay complexity.

The question isn't how to make kill XP more palatable or whatever. The question is why not fucking ditch it.

Deviating from that formula will create something of a cognitive dissonance.

I don't disagree here. Personally I am OK with a game that tries something new (especially when the new idea makes good sense). If IE addicts get headaches and cry because something isn't exactly what they're used to, good. They need to have their horizons broadened. If P&P games didn't variate on the original formula, we'd all still be playing Basic D&D. Fuck, we wouldn't even have D&D, just Chainmail. The P&P games I play today make D&D look like the childish silliness it is. Fine for kids. I'm delighted that my CRPGs are starting to grow up a little bit too. XP addicts need their brains stretched.

...And should start rolling for horizon circumference ASAP.

Once you are no longer measuring how experienced adventurers are at adventuring, there is no reason to retain a complex system intended to measure the adventurers' experience at adventuring. When xp is all about where one is in the story, it is best to ditch the unnecessary complexity and have the story grant powers as the story needs to. It is silly to have a complex solution to a simple problem.

I agree, but I don't consider a single variable and some numeric thresholds particularly complex.
Think of it as hero's journey progress bar.

Nah, PoE rewards you for completing an objective/quest, not for overcoming a challenging fight.

If you need to do A, but B stands in your way, doing A implies that you must have overcome B in some way, therefore rewarding A also rewards B. Simple.

If IE games (supposedly) rewarded mass killings, PoE rewards bounty hunter like mentality - kill only those critters that are part of fetch/kill quests (those unfortunate souls for whom DM Sawyer put a price on their heads). Having only one source of character growth (quests) also promotes certain behaviour and limits player choice.

Switching from killing everything you can for the XP to only killing what you have reason to (story-wise - via XP, or another - via loot or more desirable world state) is already a massive incline.

Now I certainly see advantages of no kill XP system, I just disagree that it's a 100% perfect solution with no drawbacks for a tactical IE successor type game in which every class is a monster in combat.

I think it is. If it was more of a TES style game, I would disagree.

In the playthrough I am doing of the PoE beta, I am just going to different maps and attacking hostiles/picking the [attack them] option in wilderness/dungeon dialogues. I have cleared 2 wilderness maps, a dungeon and the Ogre cave. I haven't gained a level and the character sheet shows 10 000/15 000xp for next level (or something like that), which is what you start with.

How does that make you feel?

It makes my dong hard with manjuices.

Of course, some people dislike the idea that there would be any difference in how much XP you get depending on how you solve problems. Of course some people prefer for XP to not be an element of the game at all. But I think this makes the game poorer. It makes the player's actions matter less, much like regenerating health and small inventory spaces in FPSs.

Of all the things you posted I can't agree with that, if only because a single variable all-permeating reward mechanics just doesn't have much room for depth in it and it merely overshadows the actually interesting aspects that, unfortunately aren't just about universal reward incrementation.

Getting it out of the picture makes the game more interesting and deeper, not the other way around...

But having different actions not be directly comparable to each other makes for a richer game than simply equalizing everything, I think.

...because no other, more grounded reward can hope to outshine the XP, removing it goes a long way towards not making solutions directly comparable by taking away the way in which they could be directly compared.

Exp distribution is a very essential part of D&D, it dictates how the game is played. You cannot claim a game is trying to be similar to D&D if you change how exp works.

This is literally the most retarded thread i have read, with people defending this retarded fucking mechanic that could and maybe would work in another type of game (maybe in sawyers "masterpiece") but not in a game that is trying to be an IE game. As some dude says in that thread, it fucks up the pacing, and it really does, it also fucks up the feel of the game, and this is what fucking happens when you work on abstract instead of actually reasoning about why its done the way its done.

The goal of this shit is to recreate the IE and by extension the D&D feel and you change the motivations of the player characters behind their actions, is there any fucking doubt it will feel off?

In that case I hope the game will also feature infuriatingly retarded pathfinding and AI that simply stopped functioning when not observed by the player and could be abused by spamming AoE from afar.

Because them IE feels.

I wish i could set some of you on fire and close the door behind me.

PS: i am not mad at the stupid game, im mad at you missing the whole fucking point of this, im mad at you for being so fucking reasonable instead of calling bullshit on something that is obviously wrong. Gozma called some of the obvious flaws on this system, several times, and no one gave a shit.

May you find great enlightenment at the end of your great butthurt.

 

[Infinitron]

As for now it's (theoretically) possible for players in PoE to roam from location to location checking the promised "Baldur's Gate exploration" part, killing monsters that are probably only grow in power, all while player's party being totaly stagnant. Because "Baldur's Gate exploration" also featured progression, but someone forgot that part.

Pillars of Eternity has promised to be more content-dense than BG1 was. As you roam that wilderness and uncover that fog of war, you will inevitably encounter sidequests and other challenges. This isn't a wilderness simulator game (although personally I think even BG1 with its wilderness areas wouldn't be bad without monster killing XP - there were enough little side objectives to find out there)

As an aside, I personally don't see what's so wrong with "gaining zero XP" or being "stagnant" for a prolonged period of time. Are we addicted to character progress, or something?

I thought Codexers considered slow level progression to be a monocled thing. It's great when you have to learn to deal with challenges with the assets at hand, rather than trust the inevitable level-up to eventually make you strong enough to breeze through an encounter.

 

[Shadenuat]

That's what you said. But for now people have to go through beetles and other agressive wildlife spawning all around, and nobody can say for sure if it will really change or not, and how fun will it be.

Are we addicted to character progress, or something?

Yes? Because it adds options, as new enemies pop with new abilities, and the party should get too, to keep combat fresh and interesting.

Also it's not slow progression, but rather more strict, localized - it's decided at particular points when you are allowed to level up.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

After reading some of the feedback on the side quests, perhaps xp should be removed from them too...

If the game needs to be a skinner box to be fun, then it's not actually fun.

If encounters aren't fun with no XP, then you can either play a different game where encounters are fun, or you can skip the encounters you don't find fun and find ones that are. You can just beeline straight for the quest objectives if you don't like them.

If the game needs to be a skinner box to be fun, then it's not actually fun.

If side-quests aren't fun with no XP, then you can either play a different game where side-quests are fun, or you can skip the side-quests you don't find fun and find ones that are. You can just beeline straight for the main quest objectives if you don't like them.

 

[Volourn]

"we just need to see if Josh can swallow his pride a bit.."


Problem is he won't do that. I mean he's already labeled those who disagree with him 'grognards' even thoguh he actually fits the description.



He's simply wrong with how they're going about xp. Even his own boss disagreed with him but relented to Sawyer's 'vision'.



No combat xp worked in SRR. It doesnt' work here.



To be more positive so I'm not 'picking on Sawyer'; there are stuff he has done well for the game and kudos to that thoguh it's wrong thread for those kudos.





Bottom line is player should be rewarded for overcoming challenges. So far, in PE Beta, the player is not. That's a fail. Even the anti xp people (except Roguey because he's a defintiion of a fanboy) are slowly seeing this.



Volourn was right again. Don't pull a Troika or a POR;ROMD , Obsidian.

 

[Bubbles]

I already suggested removing side quest xp. It's the logical conclusion of the reasoning used to remove kill xp.

 

[tuluse]

If the game needs to be a skinner box to be fun, then it's not actually fun.

If side-quests aren't fun with no XP, then you can either play a different game where side-quests are fun, or you can skip the side-quests you don't find fun and find ones that are. You can just beeline straight for the main quest objectives if you don't like them.

I would love to see a flat progression RPG, don't test me.

 

[Roguey]

I thought Codexers considered slow level progression to be a monocled thing. It's great when you have to learn to deal with challenges with the assets at hand, rather than trust the inevitable level-up to eventually make you strong enough to breeze through an encounter.

This has 12 levels, the progress damn well ought to be slow. This isn't a 12-24 hour game.

 

[Bubbles]

This has 12 levels, the progress damn well ought to be slow. This isn't a 12-24 hour game.

How do you know? There's no official number.

 

[Zombra]

I already suggested removing side quest xp. It's the logical conclusion of the reasoning used to remove kill xp.

Yeah, as tuluse said, this isn't the crushing counterargument you think it is. I would be fine with side quest XP being removed if the devs didn't want to encourage doing them. (You may be stunned to learn that I would still do most side quests anyway because that is a gameplay style I enjoy.)

 

[Volourn]

"This has 12 levels, the progress damn well ought to be slow. This isn't a 12-24 hour game."

Funny enough, BG only went up 8-9 (10 with expansiion), had kill/combat xp, and is still a lengthy game. IMAGINE THAT. Another asaine Roguey 'argument' thrown in the trash.

\And, hey, it also didn't have hit point bloat with characters of 100+ hp by level 5. LMFAO The absolute max was 75. And, that was with a dwarf warrior with con of 19. FFS

XP should be sued to suitably reward the player for accomplishing task, over coming challenges,a nd role-playing. PE (so far) fails to do that.

 

[Bubbles]

I'm agreeing with Volourn a lot in this thread.

Yeah, as tuluse said, this isn't the crushing counterargument you think it is. I would be fine with side quest XP being removed if the devs didn't want to encourage doing them. (You may be stunned to learn that I would still do most side quests anyway because that is a gameplay style I enjoy.)

I wouldn't be stunned at all! I believe that side quest xp should be removed because side quests don't need any reward beside being fun.

Main quest xp is important for maintaining a sense of progression while keeping the game balanced, but all other sources of xp are detrimental to that.

 

[Infinitron]

Cross-posting some of my posts from the Obsidian forums. On the argument that quest-only XP "encourages players to avoid combat":

What sort of combat will it encourage players away from?

"Random encounters" and wilderness "trash mobs"? You can't uncover all of the fog of war and explore the entire map unless you've defeated all of those. This isn't a first person game, you can't "go around" if you really want to see everything. As I stated earlier, for many players, probably the majority of them, this alone will provide sufficient reason not to avoid that variety of combat.

Quest-related encounters? You will typically get XP for defeating those, if not immediately then at the end of your quest chain. You might say that this system incentivizes pacifist solutions to quests, but my impression is that in quests players usually role play, especially since this is an Obsidian game where some degree of long-term choice & consequence may be involved. Also, quest-related encounters usually come with interesting loot, providing another reason to choose the violent solution.

Wait, can't you use stealth to explore without combat, asks the critic?

Well, with regard to stealth, I think people are overestimating the applicability of that. First of all, it's unlikely that your entire party will be stealth masters. Typically you're going to use stealth to bring one or two of your characters into a position before springing an ambush, or something like that.

More importantly, however, stealth is unreliable. What happens when one of your six stealthed party members fails a roll and suddenly that enemy you were stealthing by sees you and all hell breaks loose? It's not really safe to leave a living enemy behind, especially in a non-linear area where you're likely to pass by him several times as you wander about. I believe most players will dispatch all enemies and that bypassing all encounters using stealth will be reserved for so-called "gimmick playthroughs".

 

[tuluse]

Failing a stealth roll... in my Josh Sawyer game?