The XP for Combat Megathread! DISCUSS!

[imweasel]

DraQ just completely ignores the fact that players are rewarded for combat in his favorite game: Skyrim



Never heard him bitch about that before for some reason, I guess combat XP isn't so bad after all.

 

[Bubbles]

DraQ just completely ignores the fact that players are rewarded for combat in his favorite game: Skyrim



Never heard him bitch about that before for some reason, I guess combat XP isn't so bad after all.

You can just grind your combat skills to 100 on summoned skeletons at the start of the game. That way you avoid being incentivised to use violent quest solutions.

 

[Rake]

Imagine you have a forest with a road through it.

You got a quest to complete at another town - you just gotta take that road to get there.

With combat XP - holy shit, let's go explore the forest and see what monsters lay beyond the trees.

Why would a sensible person ever do that shit. Your character has an objective, he wants to do something (traveling to the next town). By what logic he would stop, leave the road without reason in order to kill random monsters that have nothing to do with him in the heart of the forest? If the Player is doing that, he played an idiot and he shouldn't be rewarded by the devs for his non sensical approach.
But even then, finding an abandoned temple in the middle of the forest with an ancient weapon in it is good reward, and what's actual exploration is all about. No need for further reward.

I just can't see how people don't realize how the system is completely antithetical to a party-based RPG about combat, adventure, and exploration.

See my above example about exploration. The adventure part is what we propably will disagree, because i have the sense that for you (and Lhynn) adventure means the happy go lucky "hey, lets go excplore the world with no reason, kicking monster's butt and find loot", which is in itself nonsensical and needs to die as a concept in cRPGs. Keep that shit to P&P if your group wants to roleplay a band of retards.
Ffs, even Forgotten fucking Realms novels have their protagonists be something else than "adventurers" and give them reason for doing what they do. Even if that reason is simply Money, in which case they are just mercenaries. (the whole Quest thing Lhynn is so against). Adventurers as a whole, it's a retarded concept.

I really can't see how a system that uses both approaches to XP would ever be inferior. You give the player more choices, you give incentive to actual gameplay (gasp, what a concept), and you don't have to argue about how much 'sense' it makes for the narrative. You can still roleplay.

If you want to engage with combat, you do. If you don't, you don't. If you don't want to engage in combat, but you do because of XP, THAT is bad design.

You don't ever have the player gaming the system, i.e., avoiding your gameplay, which, IMO, is the complete fucking opposite of an attempt to get people to "role play", but hey, that's just me.

Instead you have the player gaming the system, i.e. hunting combat even i he don't wants to which, IMO, is the complete fucking opposite of an attempt to get people to "role play", but hey, that's just me

If something would make no sense in the story it should have yield no benefit in mechanics.

Since most RPGs have a main story that is defined by urgency either throughout or at certain points, would you want xp rewards removed from side quests that are done while the game is at an urgent stage (for instance when you're at the typical "the World Eater is about to devour us all! Enter the portal into its lair once you're ready" final stage)?

If one of your side quests is at an urgent stage and you decide to proceed with the main quest instead before coming back, should that part of the main quest give no xp rewards?

The bolded part is easy. If a side quest is at an urgent state and you ignore it to procced with the main quest, the side quest should fail, as the whole situation would sort itself without you, and you won't get xp for it. When you decide to turn up, there should be only corpses.

Quest-only XP suggests that you could complete 99% of the quest, not turn in it, and thus not "learn" anything from it.

How about that for roleplaying or "making narrative sense" ?

If you complete the objective, all is fine and you get your XP. When you decide to go claim your in game reward(Money,information, maybe additional XP) is a separate thing

 

[crufty]

Is there any RPG that comes even remotely close to those design standards?

the one in my heart of course I wouldn't call it idealist, more like a focus on fundamentals.I am a believer in the million micro rules approach to game world building.

in terms of whats out there--beats me. Only commercial RPG I've played in the last ten years is skyrim. I thought it was an awesome game and if my ps3 wasn't near death I'd still be playing it, but ultimately it is not really an XP based rpg.

To be honest, i don't think it would be that hard to put together. a large part of RPGs since ultima vii focus on non-RPG elements that take away from the RPG elements.

edit: I am not a fan of table driven rpg implementations--I think that restricts what designers can do. yes yes it is convenient to set a bit mask of flags and a stack of +/- bonuses, but all it does is make making a game a puzzle, which can make playing the game a bit like undoing the puzzle. but...like you say...it's how folks know how to do shit so thats how shit gets done.

 

[sser]

Why would a sensible person ever do that shit. Your character has an objective, he wants to do something (traveling to the next town). By what logic he would stop, leave the road without reason in order to kill random monsters that have nothing to do with him in the heart of the forest? If the Player is doing that, he played an idiot and he shouldn't be rewarded by the devs for his non sensical approach.
But even then, finding an abandoned temple in the middle of the forest with an ancient weapon in it is good reward, and what's actual exploration is all about. No need for further reward.

Because my way of playing a game doesn't have me being handheld by questgivers and quest-markers the whole time?

You're told to go to location X and the game doesn't give you any incentive to do anything else. In fact, it gives incentive to stick to the quest.

What's that called.

Something like a railroad...

If you want to engage with combat, you do. If you don't, you don't. If you don't want to engage in combat, but you do because of XP, THAT is bad design.

If you only complete a shitbad quest because of XP, that is bad design. The player given the option to bail out of a questline without feeling compelled to finish it? Wow, that's good game design. Who knew giving options was the superior choice pretty much every time.

Really though, what happens with adaptability and replayability? In a game with varying XP, the player could decide to kill this monster or that one, or he could decide to kill all of them. He could also do this quest or that one; or he could do half a quest and not be worrying about turning it in to get his reward because, really, killing the monsters were good enough and he just wants to progress the story. I ditched quests all the time in the Infinity Engine games and also in the Fallouts. And I'll have allllll those options every time I play 'em.

The player in PoE has what choices, exactly? You're ultimately going to be playing at the exact same pace every playthrough. If you start a quest, and it fucking sucks, and you're halfway through, you're going to have to suck it up and finish it if you want a reward? Do you really believe that's good design? Sorry, I don't have full faith that the PoE team will make every single questline kickass and really worth completing. There's going to be quests where I'm like, jesus, this pretty much sucks, but I've wasted a lot of time on it already and have literally nothing to show for it until I stomach out the rest of it. And then I'll probably be thinking, why am I even playing this? I could go play Fallout and if I run into something I don't like I can say fuck this shit without feeling like I've left behind a great deal of XP.

Instead you have the player gaming the system, i.e. hunting combat even i he don't wants to which, IMO, is the complete fucking opposite of an attempt to get people to "role play", but hey, that's just me

The only time a player is hunting for combat is in shitbad games or MMOs or some hybrid of the two (Amalur).

Quest-only XP suggests that you could complete 99% of the quest, not turn in it, and thus not "learn" anything from it.

If you complete the objective, all is fine and you get your XP. When you decide to go claim your in game reward(Money,information, maybe additional XP) is a separate thing

I don't think you read me right.

You and DraQ have droned on about a "role playing" experience.

I'm talking about the on/off switch of XP and how it's completely antithetical to any suggestion of "roleplaying."

That on/off switch is the quest-giver. What I'm saying is that, per quest-only XP, you can kill an army of goblins, slay the big bad dragon, and solve a murder, but your party is still dumb as a rock and has learned literally nothing from these adventures until they say, "Hey, we did all that and WHOAMG WE KNOW SO MUCH NOW."

If you complete 99% of your objective, stand one foot away from the quest-giver, and then turn around and walk away, you "learn" nothing.

Makes zero game design sense. Makes absolutely no roleplaying sense.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

If you don't want to Role-Play in your Games, then find yourself a different genre.

No

 

[Volourn]

Can any of the Sawyer cocksuckers explain to me why PE has a worse xp system than SRR which actually has a good xp system?

THAT'S FUCKED UP.

 

[Lhynn]

I want to roleplay one that can actually use his judgement in deciding how to tackle any given situation rather than knowing that anything not involving bashing heads is an inferior option.

Then you are a degenerate that cannot into making a compromise. Not that it matters, what sawyer should have done instead of crippling the feel of the game for balance would have been what BG did (because that game never had this problem) but meh, he has axed everything else, why wouldnt he axe this too.

I dont want to work for anyone, unless they fucking beg me. I dont want to need their quests, because i believe carrying a package from A to be should not be rewarded with xp to your combat class, but taking on a pack of lions should.

Then you're wanting to play the wrong game.

Well i know that now. So cool im not buying it, doesnt mean it is beyond criticism.

I too can see where you're coming from, but I can also see where Obsidian is coming from. IE games never properly supported "independent" adventuring where you avoided quests and just derped around in the wilderness, neither will PoE. Even BG1 wilderness was at best MESOLARPS grade.
No XP based has ever properly supported this mode of play as well.

You could make due just derping around and following the main plot, exp was aplenty just doing that. Not that this is the issue.

The thing is XP system can be both simple and just good enough to support quests as primary mode of interacting with the content.
Basically what Obsidian wants is a pistol, what you probably want is an ICBM. Pistol and ICBM are both weapons, but they have their own very different design priorities.
Obsidian's pistol may not be good ICBM but it's a good pistol - light, small, cheap and reliable.

Nah, ill settle with a baldurs gate spiritual successor, they are failing to provide that, so fuck them.

Meanwhile kill XP system is some sort of nuclear pistol - it struggles to implement some features of ICBM, but all you get is a "pistol" that's not at all concealable - requiring secondary crew to just be carried around - and while it can't achieve critical mass to actually explode anything, it will still lethally irradiate its crew when shot at anything within its minuscule pistol range. It's completely useless as personal self defense weapon and as a strategic one.

If you want an ICBM whine to Bethesda to stop dumbing down their fucking games and hire someone to help them work out their use based systems so that you can derp in wilderness properly - PoE is not for you.
And stop breaking pistols.

xp/action system never hurt a game, if it somehow did it wasnt the underlying reason, just one of the consequences of dumb design choices.

To me an adventurer should grow stronger by tackling risky encounters, and the system should reward that.

The problem is how narrowly you define "tackling". Because charging in and administering headbashings isn't the only way to tackle something.
Besides, how do you know PoE won't reward that? Maybe before every XP checkpoint there will be a massive and challenging encounter, and any alternative ways of tackling it won't be mechanically limited to just having really high INT, WIS and CHA, or maxed out hide in shadows?

It doesnt matter, fact is you get xp by walking tru a checkpoint, not by beating the enemy, as stated before there is a clear disconnect between the effort and the reward. making the effort feel meaningless and useless when it should be clearly rewarded and deservedly so. Combat now is literally an arbitrary minigame in GTA that you have to complete to unlock the main quest. You can do it on your own, but its just as pointless.

To you it should reward any approach equally to avoid conditioning a single solution to a problem, not only that, every action should have context within the game, if it doesnt it should not be rewarded in any way. I just hate both notions, i think they go against the spirit of traditional D&D and should be put down.

Then the spirit of traditional D&D needs to be put down. Approaches can be rewarded differently but using in-universe consequences, using XP for that reeks of impotently trying to shoehorn the player into the right path.
If there is only one right path then why the fuck waste resources implementing the wrong ones? Make everything fucking Diablo.

Dont make me repeat myself for the 5th time. There doesnt need to be a right path, just different paths with different outcomes and different but comparable rewards.

First, the rpg does not get to tell me what to think or what context do i give to my actions

Tough luck because its the game that provides the context. You just bring in the actions.

True.

Second, i dont want to feel obligated to take on any quest, if i want to go on my own and stumble with adventure i should be able to, not only that, the game should encourage me to take that approach instead of giving me a list of chores that will make me stronger, BG did this superbly.

What, derping around repetitively sprited rectangle popping bears?

You shouldn't be obligated to take every quest, but in a game with wilderness as bare bones as BG1 you probably should take some, because the game just fails to support derping around unless you have an attention span of stoned goldfish..

Wilderness wasnt bareboness in BG1, lots of shit happened in it.
But i do feel forced to take quests! obs says "there is only one way to get the cookies". Fuck, this is so obvious i dont see how you can miss it, he replaced an inexistent problem with a real one.

I dont know what to say man, it appears im not going to convince you and as i said before, i know exactly where you and Zombra are coming from, i just believe its shitty and boring. They lack soul and are anti-fun.

Meanwhile popping bears in BG1 was oh so interdasting.

Im guessing you did that? fun fun fun, guess you DO need to be policed. Do yourself a favor, quit the genre and go play graphic adventures, youll find that breaking their systems is usually not worth it, it will lead you to many hours of fun, story and character development without feeling guilty for leaving the quest giver alive after getting the xp.

Action xp was never a problem, lazyiness, lack of creativity, and an awfully shitty motivation behind remodeling something some asshole didnt like are.

 

[Lhynn]

Well, i dont like being presented with alternatives, that in itself feels like canned progression, rather have the alternatives just be there and let me figure out they exist (sadly this is so fucking rare), thus i really dont give a fuck, as long as its an enjoyable ride. What is a proper roleplaying experience? because if you ask gygax youll probably end up dungeon delving and fighting the cast of star wars. If you ask the guys at whitewolf youll probably end up avenging your lovers death at the hand of the vampuletos. If you ask bioware they will put you at the start of a gay romance and they give you 3 options, you either use lube, you tease you wont, or you dont. If you ask beth they will tell you to go take a hike.

I? I'd ask the player.


Differentiated XP rewards make the question rhetorical.

Dont be silly (or retarded, or an imbecile, take your pick), it really doesnt, at least it never did on BG.

And about asking the player, its sawyer and his design goals that are alienating a big part of the fanbase, so im guessing he didnt ask the player, he decided for them.

If you don't want to Role-Play in your Games, then find yourself a different genre.

I want to roleplay. Its you that seems to need a helping hand with that.

 

[Lhynn]

Why would a sensible person ever do t...

stop, STOP!
sensible people dont get to level up. They are too sensible for that. They make sensible choices thus they are never hard pressed to improve. No world champion of anything that requires a degree of mastery ever got there by being sensible.
Your whole premise, your whole motivation to playing an adventuring roleplaying game needs to be revised.

A sensible person would have stayed home.

 

[Cadmus]

I like the carrot on the stick as much as the next guy but since I personally have plenty of games to play I'm curious if they manage to make this interesting in PoE. I mean, it worked in VtMB and some other games so I'll wait and see. Sure as fuck I ain't gonna play the stupid beta.

My view on this is that if I have a reason to not always fight because I won't feel I've lost out on the XP, I might try something new for once. Sawyer comes across as such a retard though=/

 

[Volourn]

"I mean, it worked in VtMB"

It kind of worked in VTMB. It worked perfectly in SRR. It looks to be EPIC FAILUIRE in PE unless they change things.

 

[Cadmus]

Dude one day you need to explain what's wrong with your reply button.

Anyway, I haven't read all this shit so far so why is it so bad? Just asking..

 

[Volourn]

" ... "

Those are the reply button. When it comes to quoting, I'm the very definition of a grognard. :D


The xp system is bad for one simple reasonm - it doesn't reward the player in a reasonable manner for overcoming challenges, role-playing their character, or using their skills to success.

SRR - which has a no combat/kill xp system btw - does reward the player in a reasonable manner for overcoming challenges, role-olaying their character, or using their skills to success.

 

[FeelTheRads]

If you don't want to Role-Play in your Games, then find yourself a different genre.

Funny coming from someone who thinks progression in RPGs in bad.

DOOM screenshot

If that's supposed to show good combat without rewards... when talking about RPGs then lol.
I hope you like Halo. Best RPG.

I want to roleplay one that can actually use his judgement in deciding how to tackle any given situation rather than knowing that anything not involving bashing heads is an inferior option.

So you want to be hand-held by quest givers, right? Because certainly an adventurer searching for cats to save is pretty retarded.

The adventure part is what we propably will disagree, because i have the sense that for you (and Lhynn) adventure means the happy go lucky "hey, lets go excplore the world with no reason, kicking monster's butt and find loot", which is in itself nonsensical and needs to die as a concept in cRPGs.

It needs to die because if it's there you're somehow being forced to play a "retard"?
No, what needs to die is people who one day wake up with some brilliant idea about why RPGs suck and need to be changed completely.

 

[Untermensch]

Lets imagine a situation:

You're trapped in a dungeon. You decide to escape.
There are 2 ways to do this:

Escape by trying to sneak out --> reward for this choice is 1000 XP
or
Escape by fighting your way out --> you killed 10 guard --> reward for this choice is 1000 XP + 10 XP per kill = 1100 XP + phat lewt dropped by the guards

Why would I choose the first option when it's clearly the inferior one?

 

[Rake]

Why would a sensible person ever do t...

stop, STOP!
sensible people dont get to level up. They are too sensible for that. They make sensible choices thus they are never hard pressed to improve. No world champion of anything that requires a degree of mastery ever got there by being sensible.
Your whole premise, your whole motivation to playing an adventuring roleplaying game needs to be revised.

A sensible person would have stayed home.

So your whole premise, your whole motivation to playing an adventuring roleplaying game is hiting the level cap? And somehow mine is the one that needs revised...



The only part i kinda agree is the forced to do quests, and the perfect solution would be DraQ's. Just remove XP even from side Quests. If the player wants to explore or do sidequests, he will do it for in-game rewards like Money,items or Information. The only thing giving XP will be the main path quests that the played would be forced to do anyway. So someone ho did every single thing in the game and someone who never set foot outside the main path, they whould be the same level in the end. The difference would be one of items, and you know, actually having played the game.
Pity Lhynn would never do anything than the main Quest since playing the game is meaningless unless the dev gives him sweet XP for his work

 

[Lhynn]

Why would a sensible person ever do t...

stop, STOP!
sensible people dont get to level up. They are too sensible for that. They make sensible choices thus they are never hard pressed to improve. No world champion of anything that requires a degree of mastery ever got there by being sensible.
Your whole premise, your whole motivation to playing an adventuring roleplaying game needs to be revised.

A sensible person would have stayed home.

So your whole premise, your whole motivation to playing an adventuring roleplaying game is hiting the level cap? And somehow mine is the one that needs revised...



The only part i kinda agree is the forced to do quests, and the perfect solution would be DraQ's. Just remove XP even from side Quests. If the player wants to explore or do sidequests, he will do it for in-game rewards like Money,items or Information. The only thing giving XP will be the main path quests that the played would be forced to do anyway. So someone ho did every single thing in the game and someone who never set foot outside the main path, they whould be the same level in the end. The difference would be one of items, and you know, actually having played the game.
Pity Lhynn would never do anything than the main Quest since playing the game is meaningless unless the dev gives him sweet XP for his work

Strawman, strawman everywhere!
Im tired of this bullshit, you keep making assumptions like you knew shit about me, or how i game.
Many reasons why i hate current PoE XP system:
First, RPGs need some sort of character growth that makes sense within its universe. Fails miserably on account that your combat class levels up by talking or sneaking, it is the equivalent of a soccer player becoming better at kicking the ball by doing accounting. Fuck that noise.
Second, rewarding people with levels for crossing arbitrary lines makes leveling up pointless in any way that matters, its reverse level scaling, you get to the level of the plot when needed, why the fuck is it even there then? it is the equivalent of achievements. This belongs in a linear game, not a semi open world rpg, and im not sure it belongs there too, better to cut it off or re-purpose it in those games.
Third, i did extra activities in games like GTA or or Sleeping dogs, ive got nothing against rewarding minigames. So it wouldnt be bad.... If the stupid game wasnt supposed to be a throwback to AD&D games. For fucks sake think a little.
Fourth, Fuck items, sawyer itemization is about as interesting as reading the numbers on the back of a cereal box.
Fifth, current implementation of rewards strike me as bullshit, instead of different rewards for different outcomes you get the same shit, so players dont "find the optimal outcome for their character and always pick that", instead of fixing it with creative rewards he removes the option, brilliant, why didnt i think of that.

Now to address your answer, no rake, it is NOT to hit the level cap, it is to show you that sensible level headed people just dont leave their farm and go adventuring. It is to tell you that behavior in an RPG should not be conditioned by forceful mechanics, and instead dealt with within the context of the narrative. Stop giving me bullshit answers that fail to adress the issue. I have had it with these motherfucking storyfags on this motherfucking thread. You guys have thoroughly failed to give me a decent reason besides "degenerate player behavior demanded we cut it off", that is it, and i tell you i never had this issue, but it seems like you guys did, because we are always back at the same fucking point. Just fucking admit you want to be policed and want others to be policed and get this shit fucking over with.

Lets imagine a situation:

You're trapped in a dungeon. You decide to escape.
There are 2 ways to do this:

Escape by trying to sneak out --> reward for this choice is 1000 XP
or
Escape by fighting your way out --> you killed 10 guard --> reward for this choice is 1000 XP + 10 XP per kill = 1100 XP + phat lewt dropped by the guards

Why would I choose the first option when it's clearly the inferior one?

Difficulty (you can always level up with other means, why bother?), problems with the law down the line (be sure to inform the player of this), your character reputation will be hurt (be sure to inform the player of this too), one of those guards would have given you a small quest down the line (hint at it, maybe with a letter Some of your players will naturally feel interested), your character doesnt like killing people that is only doing their job (be sure to inform him of that within the narrative), could hurt your access to supplies, quests, you get a minor but permanent bonus to sneak etc.

Whats the inferior choice now? you can tweak it so no choice is inferior, it just takes a bit of fucking work.

 

[Rake]

Fails miserably on account that your combat class levels up by talking or sneaking, it is the equivalent of a soccer player becoming better at kicking the ball by doing accounting. Fuck that noise.

Or someone becoming better at lockpicking and diplomacy by bashing goblin heads, oh wait...

Second, rewarding people with levels for crossing arbitrary lines makes leveling up pointless in any way that matters, its reverse level scaling, you get to the level of the plot when needed, why the fuck is it even there then? it is the equivalent of achievements. This belongs in a linear game, not a semi open world rpg, and im not sure it belongs there too, better to cut it off or re-purpose it in those games.

I think Josh just did that.

Third, i did extra activities in games like GTA or or Sleeping dogs, ive got nothing against rewarding minigames. So it wouldnt be bad.... If the stupid game wasnt supposed to be a throwback to AD&D games. For fucks sake think a little.

By this point they have changed so much from AD&D that kill XP is a strange thing to complain about, as there are design decisions that move the game further from AD&D than XP ever does.

Fourth, Fuck items, sawyer itemization is about as interesting as reading the numbers on the back of a cereal box.

Don't realy disagree here.

Fifth, current implementation of rewards strike me as bullshit, instead of different rewards for different outcomes you get the same shit, so players dont "find the optimal outcome for their character and always pick that", instead of fixing it with creative rewards he removes the option, brilliant, why didnt i think of that.

I agree that handplaced rewards for every individual solution would be better, except one problem. What if your so clever and creative solution was in fact too clever and creative and didn't cross the level designer's mind, so he didn't script any XP for it? The way it works now, at least all solutions will be rewarded.

Now to address your answer, no rake, it is NOT to hit the level cap, it is to show you that sensible level headed people just dont leave their farm and go adventuring.

Who said anything about leaving the farm? We are talking about someone who has a goal (reach next town) and for no fucking reason we just decides to go hiking into the dengerous forest just for the hell of it. And the highlighted part is the key. Real characters wouldn't go "adventuring" , they would leave their city for a reason, whatever that is as mercenaries(most quests in RPGs), assasins or searching for a spesific treasure/place they already know something about.

It is to tell you that behavior in an RPG should not be conditioned by forceful mechanics, and instead dealt with within the context of the narrative.

We agree 100% here, but this is what DraQ and me are saying all this time. Read again,carefully, what you just wrote.

 

[Lhynn]

Fails miserably on account that your combat class levels up by talking or sneaking, it is the equivalent of a soccer player becoming better at kicking the ball by doing accounting. Fuck that noise.

Or someone becoming better at lockpicking and diplomacy by bashing goblin heads, oh wait...

Abstraction of doing some shit in you do, practice or study in your down time, and a stupidly small part of each build or level up, get real.

Second, rewarding people with levels for crossing arbitrary lines makes leveling up pointless in any way that matters, its reverse level scaling, you get to the level of the plot when needed, why the fuck is it even there then? it is the equivalent of achievements. This belongs in a linear game, not a semi open world rpg, and im not sure it belongs there too, better to cut it off or re-purpose it in those games.

I think Josh just did that.

Except it serves no purpose but a cosmetic one.

Third, i did extra activities in games like GTA or or Sleeping dogs, ive got nothing against rewarding mini-games. So it wouldnt be bad.... If the stupid game wasnt supposed to be a throwback to AD&D games. For fucks sake think a little.

By this point they have changed so much from AD&D that kill XP is a strange thing to complain about, as there are design decisions that move the game further from AD&D than XP ever does.

True, but turd on top of turd doesnt make the first turd cease to exist. Someone has to complain, plus there are guys busy tearing the shit out of this. And grunker is grunkin i guess.

Fifth, current implementation of rewards strike me as bullshit, instead of different rewards for different outcomes you get the same shit, so players dont "find the optimal outcome for their character and always pick that", instead of fixing it with creative rewards he removes the option, brilliant, why didnt i think of that.

I agree that handplaced rewards for every individual solution would be better, except one problem. What if your so clever and creative solution was in fact too clever and creative and didn't cross the level designer's mind, so he didn't script any XP for it? The way it works now, at least all solutions will be rewarded.

So a bug or an omission can make the system shit? I agree, and this is obs we are talking about, so i doubly agree. Doesnt mean its not the correct path to take tho.

It is to tell you that behavior in an RPG should not be conditioned by forceful mechanics, and instead dealt with within the context of the narrative.

We agree 100% here, but this is what DraQ and me are saying all this time. Read again,carefully, what you just wrote.

No need, i know you are on the other side of the fence, which is why i cannot believe you are defending a system that not only fails to solve an issue that ive literally never seen raised in any BG thread, it makes it worse, to the point where people are genuinely upset by this.
Plus when i speak of the narrative i speak of the meta narrative that comes from acting in a world, not necessarily the one that the game directly acknowledges it.
You beating a pack of wolves may not mean much to the game and its story, it may not even be ever addressed, but it did happen and its part of the story you are making as you play, Xp is the way of RPGs to acknowledge this, and it changes your character forever, in a small way, and it is a more important element than you may think.

 

[Raghar]

I think you need to remember theory and different RPG systems.

You should differentiate between Storyteller system, where story is separated into chapters, and XP is rewarded at the end of the session. (GM must keep book keeping to reward extraordinary solutions and punish lazy ideas.)
And systems where gameplay can be for theoretic reasons separated into encounters, and where XP is rewarded at the end of the encounters. Then XP is often rewarded at the end of encounter, or when stuff ceases to be hectic. GM can also throw numbers after each killed opponent and let players do book keeping. That depends if last hits do extra, or on non combat XP for extraordinary tasks. For example, by solving stuff by diplomacy.

Obviously PoE belongs into the second category, and as such must abide by rules of the second category. Which means XP per encounter, and because it's PC game XP can be received after each event without needing to wait until end of the encounter.

Another problem this lack of XP per combat would cause is the lack of feedback between environment and hero growth. The XP given at the end of the successful quest might be viewed as gained during quest, but because they are not awarded immediately even if it's PC game that's spiritual successor of a game where they were awarded immediately, it would remove part of feedback to players which would create additional problems.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Can any of the Sawyer cocksuckers explain to me why PE has a worse xp system than SRR which actually has a good xp system?

THAT'S FUCKED UP.

Considering an answer in defense of PE would involve bold admission of cocksuckery, it's not likely to happen.

 

[Zombra]

Since most RPGs have a main story that is defined by urgency either throughout or at certain points, would you want xp rewards removed from side quests that are done while the game is at an urgent stage (for instance when you're at the typical "the World Eater is about to devour us all! Enter the portal into its lair once you're ready" final stage)?

If one of your side quests is at an urgent stage and you decide to proceed with the main quest instead before coming back, should that part of the main quest give no xp rewards?

Short version: I might easily say yes to both questions.

However, as hypothetical situations go, these kind of suck. As a designer, you're looking at your quest design, saying, "I've written this quest such that the player really should ignore everything else if he is a reasonable person. So let me see about removing XP from these unreasonable options." At that point, what awards XP and what doesn't is a vanishingly insignificant issue compared to your shitty quest design. Any quest that's framed as being that urgent needs to be on some kind of timer, plain and simple. We all hate it when an NPC says "A man is holding my daughter inside! He's going to kill her!" and then the player can walk away for 3 weeks, come back, and rescue the girl. You either need to frame those quests less urgently ("Bandits kidnapped my daughter and took her to the mountains. Search parties haven't been able to find them, but I know she's still alive up there somewhere"), or force immediate resolution ("He's going to kill her! Will you help right now (Y/N)?") Using XP controls as a band-aid for shitty writing is no solution, not because XP controls are bad, but because they don't address the much more obvious problem with your examples.

 

[DraQ]

If something would make no sense in the story it should have yield no benefit in mechanics.

Since most RPGs have a main story that is defined by urgency either throughout or at certain points, would you want xp rewards removed from side quests that are done while the game is at an urgent stage (for instance when you're at the typical "the World Eater is about to devour us all! Enter the portal into its lair once you're ready" final stage)?

If one of your side quests is at an urgent stage and you decide to proceed with the main quest instead before coming back, should that part of the main quest give no xp rewards?

Urgency should be enforced using in universe means, else it is fake. Anyone who had the misfortune of playing oblibians should understand how disgustingly bad can fake urgency get.

As for XPs, I'd happily remove them from, let's call them "motivation restricted" sidequests.

I don't disagree with that and yet I still think it's a bad choice.

I think both XP based system and storyfag/quest centric design are both essentially bad choices, not quite tapping the genre potential.
Yet they undeniably work out sometimes, and they will work better with suitable reward structure, less loopholes and less development effort required for those.

Side-quests become the grind

I have addressed this a few dozen times already, excuse my disinclination to repeat myself even more.

running past combat scenarios is the norm.

That assumes combat is easy to run past, which implies that either the system or the encounters are hopelessly broken, having one job (being in your way) and failing at it.
Yes baaaaad system and/or baaaaaaaad encounters are baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

explorashun

What motivates exploration is what you can find rather than generic reward currency.
There is a reason why it's usually games with good, hand placed content that are explorers' paradise.
Handplaced content is or can be unique, XPs, being generic "currency" are not.

Quest-only XP suggests that you could complete 99% of the quest, not turn in it, and thus not "learn" anything from it.

Quest stages. There, dismissed.

I agree. Ultimately, combat for XP is an easy way to balance a game.

Not really. Goal only XP has an advantage of actually balancing the game rather than punishing the party for certain solutions, of avoiding degenerate gameplay aiming at reaping more rewards than deserved and of being actually simpler to implement.

It's simpler, yet better which is sort of a deal breaker.

Goal XP only ceases to be viable solution when ratio of general content to quests increases but then XP in general is working poorly and more versatile system is called for.

DraQ just completely ignores the fact that players are rewarded for combat in his favorite game: Skyrim



Never heard him bitch about that before for some reason, I guess combat XP isn't so bad after all.

Use based is superior but costlier, more complex and buggier alternative that shines in freeform, non quest-centric games.

Congratultions! You have won reading comprehension special olympics.

Have a special trophy.

Remember - everyone is a winner!!!

You could make due just derping around and following the main plot, exp was aplenty just doing that.

Too bad that interesting content wasn't.

It doesnt matter, fact is you get xp by walking tru a checkpoint, not by beating the enemy

In kill XP you only get XP by dealing that final blow. You can fight a dragon all you want but will only get the XP by stubbing it in the toe with that final blow - some challenge, swish and it's all over.

But i do feel forced to take quests! obs says "there is only one way to get the cookies".

Then don't give XP for every shitty little quests out there and conversely, dole out XPs for stuff player *will* want to do making it quests of sort (like exploring some anceint temple ruins for an item of POWARRR).

Fuck, this is so obvious i dont see how you can miss it, he replaced an inexistent problem with a real one.

Have it ever occurred to you that perhaps I'm NOT missing it?
And no he *possibly* replaced an existing and severe problem with its milder analogue. The solution isn't to go back, but all the fucking way through - if the player cannot be forced or unconditionally motivated to do something, it shouldn't give XP.

Im guessing you did that? fun fun fun

No, it definitely wasn't fun fun fun.

But it allowed me to get to use fun fun fun spells and shit earlier, on encounters where they were fun fun fun, plus it helped with some hairier encounters very early on, so knowing that I endured and in enduring I have grown strong.
Which is the shit I'm talking about - antithesis to fun AND reason you engage in out of healthy self-interest.

at least it never did on BG.

Lack of alternative quest solutions in BG might have something to do with that.

And about asking the player, its sawyer and his design goals that are alienating a big part of the fanbase, so im guessing he didnt ask the player, he decided for them.

Quite the contrary, he had the audacity of asking each individual player rather than the majority of unwashed rabble. Quite an incline.

I want to roleplay. Its you that seems to need a helping hand with that.

No, I want to roleplay, you want to LARP.

I want my decisions to be supported by mechanics rather than to knowingly pick suboptimal ones because fuck if I know.
You apparently don't care about outcomes.

A sensible person would have stayed home.

That's why we have quest hooks.

Funny coming from someone who thinks progression in RPGs in bad.

And what does progression have to do with role playing?

DOOM screenshot

If that's supposed to show good combat without rewards... when talking about RPGs then lol.

Lol. I sometimes forget that combat in RPGs is not allowed to be fun or interesting and the constant trickle of XP is the only thing that can keep the player from succumbing to apathy and despair.

It needs to die because if it's there you're somehow being forced to play a "retard"?

You should try it once.
I mean not playing a retard.

Start on the 'Dex.

The only part i kinda agree is the forced to do quests, and the perfect solution would be DraQ's. Just remove XP even from side Quests. If the player wants to explore or do sidequests, he will do it for in-game rewards like Money,items or Information. The only thing giving XP will be the main path quests that the played would be forced to do anyway.

Or at least only give XP for stuff player will want (like unearthing some powerful and universally useful secret via exploration) or have to do (like surviving an ambush).

I agree that handplaced rewards for every individual solution would be better, except one problem. What if your so clever and creative solution was in fact too clever and creative and didn't cross the level designer's mind, so he didn't script any XP for it? The way it works now, at least all solutions will be rewarded.

But OTOH you can reap multiple rewards by being 'clever' by trying all the paths, backtracking and finishing with combat, so it evens out!
Don't you see it?
Bah!lance.

Fails miserably on account that your combat class levels up by talking or sneaking, it is the equivalent of a soccer player becoming better at kicking the ball by doing accounting. Fuck that noise.

Or someone becoming better at lockpicking and diplomacy by bashing goblin heads, oh wait...

Abstraction of doing some shit in you do, practice or study in your down time, and a stupidly small part of each build or level up, get real.

So when the warrior gets better at fighting because of sneaking and talking it's bad and makes no sense, when thief gets better at picking locks by stabbing goblins it's good and abstraction.

Fifth, current implementation of rewards strike me as bullshit, instead of different rewards for different outcomes you get the same shit, so players dont "find the optimal outcome for their character and always pick that", instead of fixing it with creative rewards he removes the option, brilliant, why didnt i think of that.

I agree that handplaced rewards for every individual solution would be better, except one problem. What if your so clever and creative solution was in fact too clever and creative and didn't cross the level designer's mind, so he didn't script any XP for it? The way it works now, at least all solutions will be rewarded.

So a bug or an omission can make the system shit?[/quote]
Actually, finding optimal outcome should be based on in universe factors and expected consequences, not what the designer considers to be objectively better. It's player's playthrough, not the designer's and XPs are completely arbitrary reward currency *IMPOSED* on the player by the designer.

 

[sser]

DraQ, I just can't get away from your imagining of a game that could just as well exist with XP in all forms and would be better for it at pretty much every interval.

Take the incomplete quests, for example. Under your system you have "stage" completions. Okay, that still doesn't solve anything. It's a bandaid solution that just makes the system look a little self-aware that, yes, quest-only XP has a giant flaw so you get laddered XP instead. Now you can abandon quests and not feel too bad, whereas an ordinary XP-everywhere system you could abandon a quest whenever you want. Hell, in an ordinary XP system, you could technically finish the quest and never turn it in. Because killing the monster in the sewers solved the fucking problem, not telling people you killed it. Destroying a goon and having the option to just bail on the quest-giver is empowering. Being made to tell the quest-giver, no matter what if you want your XP, is pretty fucking lame and 100% destroys any sense of freedom.

Seriously, though, what would staged XP be? A big reward post-ogre killing? Sounds exactly combat XP to me, except you just tagged it onto a questline instead of open world exploration. What happens if players go explore, kill shit, and then way later auto-turn in quests, as basically every RPG I've ever played has let you do? They still learn nothing all that time, then have a lighbulb moment months later when reporting it in...? Do questlines only have that quest-related monsters in them? Because most RPGs I play have a lot of side-content or quests inside of quests that, to me, sound pretty damn difficult to "ladder XP" to. You go into a dungeon on one quest, kill a high-end monster from another quest, but technically there's no ladder for it, because you're not on that other quest, so you receive nothing. Yet, your need for staged rewards still lets on that the player should be rewarded something for such actions. And there's an extremely easy fix for that... The only way staged XP would work silky smooth is if you make the game linear as fuck - which, apparently, you want...?

And the ultimate worst case scenario of "met end-boss of dungeon, can't do it" does not get solved by your solution either. Unless "walked outta dungeon like a faggot" is a staged quest reward. No matter how you argue it, a quest-only-XP system is going to tether the player. It's going to box him into corners when he doesn't want to be. The player who would prefer to fight his way to being a better party has a lot of options stripped away. The player who wants to ditch quests has options stripped away. Only the story-fag who sees combat as an interlude between narrative setpieces is going to be easy-peasy with your system. But even then, the on/off switch of "learning" and "not learning" vis a vis talking to the farmer about his stolen pigs, as opposed to killing the shit that stole his pigs, still doesn't make any fucking sense. Because in a game centered largely around combat, learning via field reports instead of doing is insanely backward. Are these adventurers, or are they all lab coated scientists that need to sit and dwell on everything to learn? And we're still supposing that, if you never turned the quest in, then, quite frankly, you never learn anything. Which, again, is just ridiculous.

You find ogre.
Ogre has killed the pigs.
You kill ogre.
Farmer's pigs are dead. Who cares. You should move on. Dungeon exit is next to other shit you want to do, anyway.
You don't get XP.
Shit. Fine. Go tell farmer.
"Your pigs are dead. What killed them is dead, too."
10,000 XP, you've learned Lightning Bolt!


Honestly, game design that removes player options has always pissed me off. Quest-only XP can work, but a party-based RPG where you're given the illusion of the ability to roam around, but the game strictly penalizes you for it unless you're on a quest, is pretty much the last fucking concept of a game I'd run quest-only XP with. Mostly I just don't see why anyone wouldn't do an "all of the above" system. It incorporates something for everyone - as has been proven already. Mostly you just seem pissed off that people can combat-grind their way through the game? Are you so pissed that other people are enjoying games differently that you want a way to end their fun? 100% makes no sense to me. And it never will. M'last post, sirs. Honestly. (Hopefully.)