The XP for Combat Megathread! DISCUSS!

[roshan]

You could have a percentage of the XP from skipped or failed side quests transferred into the main questline.

You know Sawyer's design is fucked up if the solution to it is to give players free XP.

 

[DraQ]

What if you spend hours clearing the overworld map of everything that moves to farm crafting ingredients, then wipe out all the villages to loot the NPCs?

If it pleases you and if you can manage it without level advancement, then who the fuck cares?

Or are you under misguided impression that it will cause us butthurt?

Just to follow up this tangent a little, I'm not a fan of "use it or lose it" skill-degrading mechanics; they lead to one-trick ponies. Kinda reminds me of Paragon/Renegade, you know? Once you pick something, you better stick with it and let everything else go to hell ... every time you don't use Skill X is another chance for it to get weaker.

Well, you can always cycle. And loss curve doesn't need to be linear, so you can adjust how well does the game cater to characters that mix and match.

I still dislike use it or lose it skill mechanics for simpler reason - it implies either infinitely malleable builds, or some nasty breakage potential.

In the case of PoE, I don't believe that the goal is steady linear progression. It seems that the idea is to inspire involvement in the storyline(s) without encouraging any particular solution methods.

Which is a sound approach to something based around scripted quests, like IE games.

A side quest is still a storyline that they want you to feel mechanically motivated to engage in.

I'm not sure I can agree here.
It encourages "gotta catch them all" mentality in regards to sidequests. Instead of thinking whether you should take a break from your primary quest and bring someone 20 bear asses in exchange for a mid-sized turd, you jump at any and all even most outrageous chores, even obvious traps, because they are XP. Sidequests should be rewarded (or punished) by in universe consequences, maybe some major, universally desirable ones or ones signifying some great achievement should yield XP rewards, but certainly not every single sidequest in game.

The fact that xp is infinite turns it into something not worth micromanaging, which lets you focus on other parts of the game without feeling like a contrived, forced down your throat way to keep the game challenging.

The fact that XP is infinite implies that you can tackle pretty much any challenge at arbitrarily high level, meaning either nearly all challenges being potentially underleveled and therefore not actual challenges, or all challenged being maxed out and forcing you to grind before you attempt to tackle them.

At this point why not go full mondblut and reason that since you grind to high enough level before doing anything, giving yourself maxed out stats and level right off the boat is fair as it merely saves you the hassle.

Seriously, take a chill pill, intense butthurt you're experiencing is clouding your mind.

Actually thats one of the best parts of the game, it rewarding stealth on a situation that calls for it instead of giving you the same exp for any aproach that gets the job done (which is lame, lazy and retarded).

Actually, if the situation calls for stealth there should be negative in universe consequences for failing to stealth, otherwise the situation didn't call for stealth.

First off, it seems that the intention of PoE is not so much to reward risk as to reward participation in its stories. I guess one way to phrase that would be: growth is narrative rather than systemic.

And that's all well and good, because XP based makes for lousy systemic growth.

But, even assuming that rewarding risk is what we want to do: there essentially is no "risk" to CRPG combat, not just because you can always reload. Running around killing 200 groups of bears really is no more risky than killing 1 group of bears; once you've determined you're tough enough to take a group, doing the same thing 199 more times isn't risky at all.

QFE

Isn't the story fun enough by itself, without bribing the player with XP?
You already get loot for completing quests, do you really need that extra dopamine boost of seeing a number go up?

Spoiler

Honestly though, I suspect Sawyer just included quest XP because people would have rioted if he cut it out completely. So he got as close as he could while still giving people their regular Pavlovian rewards

Like I said, I wouldn't mind having no character growth mechanics - just build your character and then only increase in power by getting loot, learning spells from tomes/NPCs and so on.

The man reason to have some growth mechanics is when it makes sense for character to increase in power over the period of game.

but the whole "IE succesor" is thrown out the window the minute you change the basic premise of a combat based engine to be have only quest related xp.

False.
Playing PoE you will level up once in a blue moon, playing IE games normally you also leveled up once in a blue moon.
The difference will only be apparent if you try to cheese PoE the way you could IE, but that wasn't exactly a feature.

The Witcher

The Witcher isn't really an RPG. You're forced into the role of particular monster exterminator with established personality and shit. You can't decide to be a thief or pretty elf princess.
It's an action-adventure (good one) with stats and some good C&C.

 

[AN4RCHID]

2) feels alone, particularly nostalgia feels, are insufficient reason for archaic, garbage Skinnerian design.

This is why I was establishing that objective-only XP is equally skinnerian; Sawyer doesn't have a problem with that in principle. And on the topic of feels, nostalgia has been cited as a valid reason for a lot of the design decisions on this project. One of the primary design goals of the game is to make something that 'feels' like the IE experience. It absolutely is a valid reason, and while there could be more valid reasons not to do it (like ditching AC), I don't find any of Sawyer's examples of killing quest-givers or razing whole towns convincing because that doesn't at all reflect my experience in games with kill-XP.

 

[Bubbles]

The Witcher isn't really an RPG.

oh ffs

 

[Lhynn]

The fact that xp is infinite turns it into something not worth micromanaging, which lets you focus on other parts of the game without feeling like a contrived, forced down your throat way to keep the game challenging.

The fact that XP is infinite implies that you can tackle pretty much any challenge at arbitrarily high level, meaning either nearly all challenges being potentially underleveled and therefore not actual challenges, or all challenged being maxed out and forcing you to grind before you attempt to tackle them.

Except this was never a problem in the IE games, especially on BGII. Seriously DraQ, stop trying so hard to justify a shit call.

Actually thats one of the best parts of the game, it rewarding stealth on a situation that calls for it instead of giving you the same exp for any aproach that gets the job done (which is lame, lazy and retarded).

Actually, if the situation calls for stealth there should be negative in universe consequences for failing to stealth, otherwise the situation didn't call for stealth.

Yes, there should be C&C for all supposedly meaningful actions in the game, i dont see how anyone could argue against this. In vampire i think you got scolded, in blood money you had to pay witnesses to shut the fuck up, etc. They definitely play those failures down in those games, a lot more could be done, but that they do anything at all is cool enough.

 

[DraQ]

If the objective is to actually kill the ogres, then you can just as well get a chuk of XP for every sub-objective dead.

Durp hurp.

Which would be kill xp.

The Witcher isn't really an RPG.

oh ffs

What.

In Witcher none of the character building elements have any effect on what you can and cannot do. They are just combat upgrades.
Moreso there are no non-combat roles (or any roles for that matter) available in game. Your profession is given, the way yoiu're supposed to play is given (you're essentially fighter/mage who does drugs) and protagonist's personality is given.
Your choice is limited to combat preparation and approach, and narrative options that are all crafted to not really clash with pre-established personality (which is good, because they aren't just another take on gud vs ebil).

Regarding stat system, in TW1 pretty much all "unlockers" are bronze or silver talents, so no matter what you do you will pretty much have all the important things unlocked and you won't be able to focus exclusively on particular area of your character, meanwhile in TW2 all stat upgrades are just boosters of perfectly adequate baseline combat performance, you don't need developed character to beat the game.

Having both C&C and stat system does not an RPG make, to make an RPG those parts need to talk with each other.

 

[Alfons]

In Witcher none of the character building elements have any effect on what you can and cannot do. They are just combat upgrades.
Moreso there are no non-combat roles...

Strange,I thought Dark Souls was an action rpg game.

 

[Zombra]

A side quest is still a storyline that they want you to feel mechanically motivated to engage in.

I'm not sure I can agree here.
It encourages "gotta catch them all" mentality in regards to sidequests.

Oh, I didn't mean to say that doing it like this is a great decision; only to illustrate that they decided to attach Skinnerian feedback to questing. The reason they did this is because they "want" you to do quests, and want you to feel motivated to do them even if it's against RP, or it sounds like a boring quest, or whatever. I agree that essentially giving a penalty for not doing every side quest kind of sucks. It is a blow to freedom. Personally, it's one I can live with because I like doing quests anyway, but it's not ideal.

Playing PoE you will level up once in a blue moon, playing IE games normally you also leveled up once in a blue moon. The difference will only be apparent if you try to cheese PoE the way you could IE, but that wasn't exactly a feature.

Yeah. The funny thing about this whole raging argument is that the system details don't actually matter. The game is going to play almost exactly the same either way: you do a bunch of stuff, and once in a while you level up.

2) feels alone, particularly nostalgia feels, are insufficient reason for archaic, garbage Skinnerian design.

This is why I was establishing that objective-only XP is equally skinnerian.

Completely agreed. As I've been saying all along, as long as there is an abstract reward system, the devs have the power to attach artificial motivation to whatever behavior they choose; in fact, they MUST encourage some behaviors but not others.

The "garbage design" I meant in particular was per-kill XP ... because it is dumb to encourage killing stuff for the sheer sake of killing stuff. Action without motivation makes for a seriously crap role-playing experience.

I'm not 100% opposed to Skinnerian feedback; on some level, abstract rewards are a practical necessity in games of this type. I'm just delighted to see that feedback attached to stories instead of assembly-line violence.

And on the topic of feels, nostalgia has been cited as a valid reason for a lot of the design decisions on this project. One of the primary design goals of the game is to make something that 'feels' like the IE experience. It absolutely is a valid reason, and while there could be more valid reasons not to do it (like ditching AC), I don't find any of Sawyer's examples of killing quest-givers or razing whole towns convincing because that doesn't at all reflect my experience in games with kill-XP.

Ehhhhh. Well, like I was trying to say, there's nothing wrong with feels by themselves, but when a nostalgic design is chosen instead of an actually good design, that's a mistake in my opinion.

As far as Sawyer's dumb extreme examples go, I agree that they have nothing to do with reality - my reality, anyway - because I would never think of playing like that. Nevertheless, leaving those examples aside, it's still good to remove abstract rewards from motiveless violence. So they're doing the right thing, even if it's for the wrong reasons.

----------

And guys ... please ... do we really have to get into "What is an RPG" here? I know, I know, it's the Codex, but really now.

 

[Bubbles]

Isn't PoE's xp system objective based rather than quest based? I'm not sure if "pick 10 locks" or "find all the pieces of King Fuckoff's mask in the sewers of Tsogereb" are the building blocks of anything in particular.

Just correcting myself to concede that I was an idiot and you do indeed only get xp from quests.

Experience is awarded only through quest progression. At certain points during quests a "Quest Update" scroll pops up in the top left and any experience gained is shown in the Combat Log.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67500-more-obvious-xp-notice/?p=1486643

 

[DraQ]

I agree that essentially giving a penalty for not doing every side quest kind of sucks. It is a blow to freedom. Personally, it's one I can live with because I like doing quests anyway, but it's not ideal.

The new system is indisputable incline compared to traditional XP based, but it still has some way to go.
I think that majority if not all sidequests shouldn't give XP rewards.

Personally I have never been a fan of Skinner Box mechanics, so I have always looked on advancement systems through the prism of what makes sense in the setting (maybe that's the reason I found Morrowind's advancement system liberating rather than compelling me to grind and abuse it).
Generally it makes sense for character to improve and develop their abilities if they start a farm hand and end up a legend so a system tied to either mechanics (use based) or narrative may be called for, but most of the cRPGs exclusive problems stem from badly designed or excessive advancement mechanics, so it should be kept at lowest necessary level.
If your character already starts competent, then having no advancement mechanics might be a better choice.

And yeah, if you have to make a skinner box, attaching it to stories instead of grind is better.

And on the topic of feels, nostalgia has been cited as a valid reason for a lot of the design decisions on this project. One of the primary design goals of the game is to make something that 'feels' like the IE experience. It absolutely is a valid reason, and while there could be more valid reasons not to do it (like ditching AC), I don't find any of Sawyer's examples of killing quest-givers or razing whole towns convincing because that doesn't at all reflect my experience in games with kill-XP.

I disagree about nostalgia being valid reason, but I don't see IE-like design (maybe apart from RTwP and abysmal "exploration") as invalid in this day and age. Those game had aesthetics that worked pretty well, and isometric/overhead perspective is good for coordinating a party.

 

[Lhynn]

The new system is indisputable incline compared to traditional XP based.

Go die please.

I think that majority if not all sidequests shouldn't give XP rewards.

I agree, narrative and material rewards should be plenty.

Generally it makes sense for character to improve and develop their abilities if they start a farm hand and end up a legend so a system tied to either mechanics (use based) or narrative may be called for, but most of the cRPGs exclusive problems stem from badly designed or excessive advancement mechanics, so it should be kept at lowest necessary level.
If your character already starts competent, then having no advancement mechanics might be a better choice.

I agree, unless theres a reason in the narrative as to why he still hasnt untapped all of his potential.

And yeah, if you have to make a skinner box, attaching it to stories instead of grind is better.

Lets not attach skinners box to anything. Let the player figure out their own motivations and play however the fuck they want, while letting them take their fair share of whatever they overcome.

Ive always believe thought that its best to keep material and narrative rewards in the quests and xp wherever there is combat. Of course this applies mostly to D&D, but yeah, keeps them moving, keeps them prioritizing how they spend their time.

 

[Zombra]

Lets not attach skinners box to anything. Let the player figure out their own motivations and play however the fuck they want, while letting them take their fair share of whatever they overcome.

No can do. If you have an abstract XP system, you have a Skinner box system. No way around that, nowhere, nohow.

 

[Lhynn]

Lets not attach skinners box to anything. Let the player figure out their own motivations and play however the fuck they want, while letting them take their fair share of whatever they overcome.

No can do. If you have an abstract XP system, you have a Skinner box system. No way around that, nowhere, nohow.

Bullshit, punish them for that xp and skinner box goes away. If they are lossing a lot of resources in each fight, they will try another aproach instead of grinding, and often they will even avoid them. And outright dont give xp for fights that are in no way dangerous to them.

 

[Zombra]

If you have an abstract XP system, you have a Skinner box system. No way around that, nowhere, nohow.

Bullshit, punish them for that xp and skinner box goes away. If they are lossing a lot of resources in each fight, they will try another aproach instead of grinding, and often they will even avoid them. And outright dont give xp for fights that are in no way dangerous to them.

Incentive + disincentive != 0. Adding more rewards and punishments does not mean that you are not manipulating the player. Obviously if you kill the player in every fight, they will avoid fights. It's all just more sticks and carrots. XP is still an abstract carrot.

 

[Lhynn]

Incentive + disincentive != 0. Adding more rewards and punishments does not mean that you are not manipulating the player. Obviously if you kill the player in every fight, they will avoid fights. It's all just more sticks and carrots. XP is still an abstract carrot.

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.

Incentive + disincentive = actual choice. You are counting on the player beating the encounter and getting the exp for free!! and not thinking of the reloads, on if the player decides hes not up for it and goes away and gets back another day, if the player has a tough time etc. You are taking away the challenge and only counting the reward as if it was a gift from the designers and not something the player fucking earned.

 

[Zombra]

Nope. You're not getting it. If it hasn't penetrated your skull by now, nothing I say in this thread is going to help you. Have fun in there.

 

[Bubbles]

Another anti-kill xp poster ragequits the thread. Is there still anyone left?

 

[Zombra]

I'm not quitting the thread, I'm just quitting Lhynn.

 

[mastroego]

Games of this kind work when the player takes pleasure on the continuous progression.
That constant feeling (an illusion, if you want) that whatever mundane activity you're engaging in a specific moment, SOME reward will come out of it.

Now, maybe it wasn't perfectly "balanced", but in BG2 you got XPs for:

- Killing monsters
- Solving quests
- Removing Traps
- Picking Locks
- Learning Spells!
- You could even wish for experience (and it got you monsters, IIRC)
- Heck you could even gamble for it with that crazy cards deck

Possibly something else, too. So, basically everything gave XPs.
Now consider Skyrim: totally different beast, but whatever you do will increase your skills somewhat. Nothing is wasted.

Removing combat XPs from an XP based game means that a good portion of the player's actions throughout it will be basically meaningless in terms of progression.
Yes, I know, you do get to finish the quest, but that's not what a veteran CRPG player is really expecting out of his experience.

Now I see good arguments for both sides, but, bottom line:
I'm sure a large portion of the potential buyers won't like this design decision AT ALL, and that will hurt sales.
My opinion.

 

[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.

 

[Lhynn]

Nope. You're not getting it. If it hasn't penetrated your skull by now, nothing I say in this thread is going to help you. Have fun in there.

No, i get what you mean, i just dont even share the perspective, i think its a shitty way to look at things.

 

[thesheeep]

Yes, I know, you do get to finish the quest, but that's not what a veteran CRPG player is really expecting out of his experience.

Now I see good arguments for both sides, but, bottom line:
I'm sure a large portion of the potential buyers won't like this design decision AT ALL, and that will hurt sales.
My opinion.

Time to change some experiences then that were wrong when they started becoming a standard.
You know, educate that shit out of people and let them experience something superior.
Missionary work, basically, just with showing instead of telling.

The message of kill-XP systems is: do anything and be rewarded for it.
The message of quest-XP systems is: do something useful and be rewarded for it.
To me, the second message is clearly the superior one as it is one worthy of an RPG.
You remember those sirens on the coast at BG1? You know what I do every single time I play the game? I go there and kill them! Not because it would make any sense for my character to go there and do so, no. There is not a single roleplaying reason to even go to that region that any GM with a brain between his ears would accept. I go there because they give a shitload of XP (2000 each, IIRC) and are ridiculously easy to beat. Which is another downside of kill-XP. You need to balance every single monster's XP reward. Balancing a quest reward is far easier, it can also include giving less reward when choosing an easier path.

In that siren situation, I game the system, instead of playing the game. Because not doing so would mean losing so much character progression that it would be a really bad idea. If there was no XP for killing the nude, charming bowwomen, I would never go there. If there was this one guy you meet, that tells you that there is this group of sirens threatening the peaceful village people, there would be a reason for your character, be it out of paladin or greedy thief reasons. You could go there, end the threat (completely! No xp for killing half of them, then running away, as nothing would have been achieved that way) and get your reward of XP, loot and gold.
If someone really does not see the superior design here (ok, except the boring quest design, but you get the idea), they cannot be helped any more.

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.
One of the "boons" of systems that reward every single action mindlessly instead of rewarding achieving a goal is to keep ADHD kids in the loop that would lose interest if there is no constant progression shoveled into their faces. This is true for kill-XP as well as Elder Scrolls' hit a rat a number of times to get better at hitting things. The latter at least has the benefit of being far less abstract and more intuitive.
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.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Because not doing so would mean losing so much character progression that it would be a really bad idea.

That's bullshit. There's more experience in the game than you can get because of the level cap.

There is not a single roleplaying reason to even go to that region that any GM with a brain between his ears would accept.

And that's another bullshit. So what, it would be fine then to get XP for killing them if you got a quest to go there or if they were right in your way?

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? Why would I go there? Well, for the XP of course. If there's nothing to be had from them then you can ask why would I go there.

 

[Infinitron]

IIRC there was a cave next to the sirens that was a quest objective (for the companion NPC Safana) so you could say they were part of a quest.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I don't remember them at all, it's possible that I never found them, but if you want to draw the GM parallel then you can consider they're a random encounter set up by the GM for you wandering around.

Plus he's talking from the perspective of someone who already played the game and knows they are there and they're an easy XP boost. A first time player just exploring would just stumble upon them. There's no "gaming the system".