The XP for Combat Megathread! DISCUSS!

[Lhynn]

This is strange complaint. The game itself is a quest - the "main quest". Generally speaking, if you don't like doing quests, you're probably playing the wrong sort of RPG.

Would you say hes... playing it wrong?

 

[Infinitron]

In summary, let's take a look at the two archetypes of hardcore RPG players, which as Codexers are the demographics we should care the most about:

1) Completionists. They explore all the content, they kill all the enemies, they do all the quests. They don't care what they get, they just wanna see it all and do it all, and exhaust the game's content. Combat XP - irrelevant.

2) Speedrunners, sequence breakers, and metagamers. They do whatever it takes to beat games as quickly and efficiently as possible, which in this sort of game, means blazing through the main quest and ignoring everything else as much as possible. Combat XP - irrelevant.

It seems that a lot of the arguments for combat XP are essentially focused around the fear that players who are in neither of these groups will be incentivized by the lack of combat XP to become metagamers and join the second group, which in turn will cause them to have less fun than they would have otherwise. I find this unlikely for a number of reasons, but besides that, I also think that the benefits of no combat XP to the first two groups should, in the minds of the game's designers, outweigh the risks to this third "undecided" group. This is, after all, a game for those hardcore players.

 

[sser]

Strawmanned to fuck, dude. You could make those same statements and say "Quest XP - irrelevant." Game design is not nailed to "player archetypes" which, even if they were, go way beyond just two. Come on.

Sawyer said PoE is based on BGII and the other Infinity games, so that's the kind of game I hope to play. What I really wanted was a game like BGII with better writing. Not a game that thinks its narrative is so good it'll take precedence over gameplay because ultimately that is what quest-only-XP is, as stated throughout the thread, a way to support the main narrative. Sawyer thinks he's attacking degenerative gameplay. I think he's being ridiculous. You can powergame through BG or you can build a shitass POS and still make it through. Combat XP has nothing to do with it. It's about what the player wants to do and, apparently, Sawyer believes gamers are too stupid so he's decided to limit options. The highest rated RPG in years just came out, D:OS, and it's one big walkabout if you want it to be, so I find it strange that people are so quick to want to scale it back to a linear experience when the system that gives players as many options as possible is clearly supreme.

 

[Zed]

combat xp is a reward and incentive.
"oh but combat can be fun without that!"
of course it can but it's even more fun if you feel like you gained something afterwards.
It really is that simple.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

1) Completionists. They explore all the content, they kill all the enemies, they do all the quests. They don't care what they get, they just wanna see it all and do it all, and exhaust the game's content.

This describes me.

Combat XP - irrelevant.

No. You usually need to be jack of all trades to "complete" a game. You have to use combat XP to build yourself up.

It's also fun.

 

[crufty]

metagamers

I was with you till there-- metagamers aka power gamers (unless you consider them to be a different species) love their incremental power. items w/bonus of +1,+2,+3,+4. If you give a metagamer +1 then +4 he is like cool but wtf happened to the +2 & +3. I look at metagamers as the guys who put $10 in gauntlet on the first level just so they could keep maxing out their health. They are the guys who save scum their netback levels, and the same guys who edited their pool of radiance pcs to max out their attrs @ 18. Take away combat XP from an metagamer and you just fried their little rules lawyer brains dude--it would be like giving a hardcore platformer a mario game where you didn't die if you fell off a ledge. THATS NOT MARIO they would scream.

Don't get me wrong I love me combat XP w/the best of 'em, but I only REALLY cared about leveling up enough to get the fireball spell (when playing games that followed the d&d rulesets).

 

[crufty]

combat xp is a reward and incentive.
"oh but combat can be fun without that!"
of course it can but it's even more fun if you feel like you gained something afterwards.
It really is that simple.

what about phat l00t

 

[Infinitron]

Strawmanned to fuck, dude. You could make those same statements and say "Quest XP - irrelevant." Game design is not nailed to "player archetypes" which, even if they were, go way beyond just two. Come on.

Sawyer said PoE is based on BGII and the other Infinity games, so that's the kind of game I hope to play. What I really wanted was a game like BGII with better writing. Not a game that thinks its narrative is so good it'll take precedence over gameplay because ultimately that is what quest-only-XP is, as stated throughout the thread, a way to support the main narrative. Sawyer thinks he's attacking degenerative gameplay. I think he's being ridiculous. You can powergame through BG or you can build a shitass POS and still make it through. Combat XP has nothing to do with it. It's about what the player wants to do and, apparently, Sawyer believes gamers are too stupid so he's decided to limit options. The highest rated RPG in years just came out, D:OS, and it's one big walkabout if you want it to be, so I find it strange that people are so quick to want to scale it back to a linear experience when the system that gives players as many options as possible is clearly supreme.

I'm pretty sure DraQ has been through this topic already.

Here, by the way, are the benefits of quest-only XP to completionists:

1) They aren't incentivized to kill enemies that respawned in an area that they've already explored and exhausted of all interesting content.
2) They don't need to feel so bad when they discover that there was an enemy in the corner of a room back on the first level of the dungeon that they missed.

(The benefits to metagamers and speedrunners should be obvious to you, I think.)

I was with you till there-- metagamers aka power gamers (unless you consider them to be a different species) love their incremental power. items w/bonus of +1,+2,+3,+4. If you give a metagamer +1 then +4 he is like cool but wtf happened to the +2 & +3. I look at metagamers as the guys who put $10 in gauntlet on the first level just so they could keep maxing out their health. They are the guys who save scum their netback levels, and the same guys who edited their pool of radiance pcs to max out their attrs @ 18. Take away combat XP from an metagamer and you just fried their little rules lawyer brains dude--it would be like giving a hardcore platformer a mario game where you didn't die if you fell off a ledge. THATS NOT MARIO they would scream.

Don't get me wrong I love me combat XP w/the best of 'em, but I only REALLY cared about leveling up enough to get the fireball spell (when playing games that followed the d&d rulesets).

Fair enough. And yeah, I would call power gamers a different species.

But I'd like to think that most of the power gamers who play this game will be the type who adapt themselves to rules of the game they're playing, and accept that they might able to min-max and optimize their party build, but they aren't going to be able to "power level".

 

[Volourn]

But, they will be able to power level, you fuk nut.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Again, I don't think that this will happen. You want to uncover the fog of war. In the fog of war are monsters. You have to kill them. QED.

Seeing that pretty background slowly uncover itself, lawnmowing it of hostiles, that's your reward.

Except that PoE will feature expending resources, far more so than in any IE game. I can't rest whenever I want, I have to use fucking camping supplies. I can't go through the combat (even against trash mobs) almost without a scratch because of HP bloat (can't kill them quickly) and grazes (complete misses are rare). Heck, you heard even Sensuki say the adventuring day is too short as it is.

You're wrong if you don't realize they'll have to balance this with the loot system and enemy positioning otherwise it will result in simply a different kind of "degenerate" behaviour (save before exploring going to that one cave fork, achieve a pyrrhic victory over some dangerous spiders, reload because they didn't drop anything of value/aren't a part of any quest and move on).

Using games from other genres to draw a parallel is pointless. Given the fact that PoE does reward XP for solving quests so all this "gameplay should be its own reward) kinda falls flat, especially considering how much better Obsidian is at writing/designing quests compared to combat systems and encounter design.

 

[Infinitron]

You're wrong if you don't realize they'll have to balance this with the loot system and enemy positioning otherwise it will result in simply a different kind of "degenerate" behaviour (save before exploring going to that one cave fork, achieve a pyrrhic victory over some dangerous spiders, reload because they didn't drop anything of value/aren't a part of any quest and move on).

But the fog of waaaaaaaaar

Using games from other genres to draw a parallel is pointless.

I don't accept the "you can't compare with other genres" argument. But I also remember that I didn't stop killing aggressive enemies that got in my way in Baldur's Gate after hitting the level cap, nor did I stop exploring new areas.

 

[crufty]

I can't rest whenever I want, I have to use fucking camping supplies. I can't go through the combat (even against trash mobs) almost without a scratch because of HP bloat (can't kill them quickly) and grazes (complete misses are rare).

my man, that is my kind of game. easy is for wusses.


sold. So when does it come out of beta again? Learnt my lesson back in the Ultima Online days, no more betas.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

But the fog of waaaaaaaaar

Which I already explored before loading my save, if I know what is there I don't really give a shit if one black spot remains on the map. I already experienced the thrill of engaging and prevailing over giant spiders in Sawyer's brilliant combat system and I still didn't waste any resources (health, camping supplies etc.) because I loaded a save.

I don't accept the "you can't compare with other genres" argument.

I do and I find such comparisons to be a waste of time.

But I also remember that I didn't stop killing aggressive enemies that got in my way in Baldur's Gate after hitting the level cap, nor did I stop exploring new areas.

Neither did I but as I said, I didn't expend any (finite) resources doing so. Also, enemies weren't HP spounges.

 

[crufty]

But I'd like to think that most of the power gamers who play this game will be the type who adapt themselves to rules of the game they're playing, and accept that they might able to min-max and optimize their party build, but they aren't going to be able to "power level".

maybe. the power gamer loves this kind of maze:

  +----+            +----+
  |..<.-############-.>..|
  +----+            +----+

anything more gets a hexedit for a wand of digging w/99 charges.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't really give a shit if one black spot remains on the map.

Other players do. They want to be able to say to themselves, "In my playthrough, my character saw everything, went everywhere, did everything, and left no enemies alive behind him."

Neither did I but as I said, I didn't expend any (finite) resources doing so.

What finite resources? You will always be able to rest at rest spots. This is a non-issue - the game isn't a roguelike, you can't run out of resources and "fail".

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Other players do. They want to be able to say to themselves, "In my playthrough, my character saw everything, went everywhere, did everything, and left no enemies alive behind him."

Doesn't matter what a small group of hardcore, completionist grognards would do (or so I constantly hear). Many players also didn't rest spam and/or killed quest givers and squirrels but those things still needed to be "fixed" .

What finite resources? You will always be able to rest at rest spots. This is a non-issue - the game isn't a roguelike, you can't run out of resources and "fail".

Camping supplies? Money that I'll use to pay for the lodgings at the inn, of course in most games the prices of those are negligable but seeing that minor stamina potion costs 1000gp to make or something, who knows.

 

[Volourn]

Stamina potions will be useless anyways since you'll have so many ways to heal stamina mid battle not to worry about it. And, you will run out of health before you'll have to worry about stamina in the long run anyways. L0L

 

[DefJam101]

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?

I think this grognard's dilemma owes less to combat XP and more to the industry-wide tendency of designing games in which combat exists as an inherently rewarding, non-threatening endeavor for the player to anticipate, rather than a chaotic, potentially disastrous situation for the player to fear.

Edit: Of course, PoE must therefore fall into the latter category, as not even the most punishing, exhausting, Werdnaesque resource management hell a modern game developer could produce would strike more fear into the heart of your average RPG player than the prospect of some good, old-fashioned RTwP combat.

Spoiler

 

[FeelTheRads]

This is strange complaint. The game itself is a quest - the "main quest". Generally speaking, if you don't like doing quests, you're probably playing the wrong sort of RPG.

Morphing into Roguey: 60% complete.

Yes, avoiding some quests means you're not playing the game right.

So tell me, what bullshit answer do you have to: why is it good gameplay to actively search for quests but not to search for fights?

Or maybe there shouldn't be quests that you need to find and instead they should all be handed to you as you stride along the path set up by the developers? After you all you balance-fags love your fake choices.

 

[Jagged Appliance]

I have to say I've come around to the idea that quest-only XP is limiting. Now the answer is not to just add combat XP and expect PoE to be a better game for it. Devs need to tailor their XP systems to reinforce the core gameplay of their RPGs.

If we look at Underrail, combat is part of its core gameplay. So too is exploration. The oddity system rewards characters with XP for exploration, for combat, for opening containers with hacking or lockpicking and for quests. The point is, this tailor-made system provides a systemic benefit to the player for core gameplay.

When the oddity system was first introduced, there was no XP given for completing quests. People complained that quests felt unrewarding so Styg gave small amounts of XP for the more important quests. That is the simple answer to the PoE problem. Give relatively small amounts of XP for combat and leave the majority of XP tied up in quests. Perhaps introduce diminishing returns based on the relative level of the PC and the enemy or based on the number of that enemy type killed.

I don't think anyone can argue that combat is not at least a large part of the core gameplay of PoE. Therefore the onus is on the dev to provide a reason for not directly rewarding the player for combat. The reasons given are:

• it makes the game more difficult to balance because it's harder to pin down exactly how much XP a player could have at any point in time.

• combat XP encourages the player to a psychotic serial killer version of their character that kills quest-givers for sweet delicious XP damaging the role-playing aspect of the game

• combat XP encourages grinding and resolving every quest with combat

Giving small amounts of XP for combat will not make these large problems IMO. In Underrail, players already took on most quests before quest XP and in PoE players are already fighting most enemies. This means the balance issue shouldn't be serious. Players should already be rewarded for combat through loot whether it's weapons or crafting materials or whatever so there is an incentive to fight already, but the incentive is not there for all character archetypes and is not as satisfying to many players. If my party does not make use of crafting, I have essentially no (direct) incentive to fight anything that isn't using a weapon, wearing armour or carrying a quest item. That is going to include a lot of the combat in the game.

Before someone says something along the lines of carrot-on-a-stick, incentivising core gameplay is a good thing, not a bad thing. It focuses the experience of the player by encouraging the player to play in a way the dev intends. This might sound bad to some of you but think of it like this: Ion Storm designed Deus Ex with exploration as one of the core concepts. They encourage you to explore using XP and loot. This is an obvious and simple example of the hidden hand of the designer pushing you towards certain types of gameplay. The act of exploration is enjoyable in and of itself and it's helpful in completing your objectives so the devs give you a nudge in that direction by also giving you the direct and concrete rewards of XP and loot.

The psychotic serial killer problem is certainly a problem as combat XP in this case conflicts with another core element of the game, role-playing. Removing combat XP does not in fact remove this conflict because you can still get loot from killing quest-givers, but it does diminish the problem. Ideally we would like to solve both these problems and one way would be to tie the death of quest-givers strongly into the already present faction and reputation mechanics. Give the player in-game consequences for killing innocent people. You might say this is very work intensive and I realise this won't happen in PoE but really I don't expect anything hugely complex. If everyone knows you're a psychotic asshole then you get don't get a quest or two or you get less rewards from certain quests but maybe you can also intimidate people much more easily. That's interesting and means that if you choose to kill innocent for XP or loot that it's also a roleplaying choice.

With regards to grinding, it can be discouraged relatively easily through diminshing returns for fighting weak creatures and fighting the same creatures over and over. This should be done so the player is not incentivised to take part in boring and trivial combat encounters.

The biggest problem in my mind is that combat XP encourages the resolution of every quest through combat. This is also the most difficult problem to solve. Diminishing returns on combat may help in some cases but certainly not all of them. I'm trying to think of systemic rewards which can be incorporated to incentivise stealth and dialogue but the issue is you can always go back and kill all those dudes you just stealthed past or talked your way past. Giving more XP for dialogue or stealth resolutions falls flat because you again can just kill everything afterwards. To be perfectly honest I can't think of an ideal solution to these problems. What I do think is that if combat XP is small in relation to Quest and objective XP these problems are not major and are somewhat reduced by diminishing returns of combat XP. Not incentivising core gameplay is a much more serious problem IMO.

 

[Lhynn]

Its just an awful idea for so many good obvious reasons.

 

[DraQ]

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.

tl;dr version of most of what needed to be said in this thread.


One more thing I didn't address previously:

Intelligent ++ (help others, help themselves in the upper right), Bandits +-, Helpless -+, Stupid-- (hurt others, hurt themselves in the lower left) .

The problem here is that stupidity is negatively correlated with viability and not independent of stat system.

Another problem is that any alignment system is going to be crude and limiting as far as possible character motivations and player agency go, so I'd rather have none, at least for the PC (sufficiently advanced NPC AI may need some framework resembling one).

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.

Unmodded Skyrim is somewhat mediocre (ok and not a half assed effort oblivion was, but still dumbed down and somewhat lacking), but with the right mods it becomes pretty fucking good.

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.

Table driven means giving up mechanical advantages of non-PnP medium.

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.

It would not because goal only XP solves dire problems created by solution specific XP (of which combat XP is a subset) - ability to score multple rewards by nonsensical behaviour, ability to score no reward with sensible behaviour (clever unforeseen solution), grind incentive, encouraging player to game the system rather than play the game.

Since those are solved by taking solution specific XP away, bringing those XP back brings back the problems.

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.

It's not a bandaid solution. It's straightforward evening out the XP flow. Duh.

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.

Again, you're fighting a strawman here. There is no requirement which quest stages should yield XP.
If you, as quest designer, determine XP should be given after solving the ogre problem, but not after turning quest in, you make it so.
In the end it boils down to quest design being shitty/good if it's shitty/good. Duh?

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.

A big reward post solving the ogre problem.
If it's by killing you can consider them kill XP but they might as well be diplomacy XP or slipping laxatives into ogre's stew XP or arranging for ogre getting nommed by a dragon XP.

The difference is that you have one XP condition tripped exactly once no matter how you solve the problem, rather than multiple independent rewards, some systemic (kill XP) some not (diplomacy XP), player can pick based on completely out of character considerations (whatever yields most XP) and backtrack for to collect them all, or most of them (even if they should be mutually exclusive) by engaging in silliness.

So you have a simpler system with less design overhead, that is also more effective, exploit proof and easier to balance.

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.

See Morrowind's solution to somewhat analogous problem - quest stages can be triggered independently so you can end a quest before you have started it and be rewarded accordingly.
So again, no.

The only way staged XP would work silky smooth is if you make the game linear as fuck - which, apparently, you want...?

Nonlinear game can still have linear critical path (because critical path, no matter how branched and convoluted the quest is, is linear by definition - it only consists of stages that must be present in any walkthrough), and can also feature side-content that's either something player will want to complete regardless of build and agency or something you can force on the player - like an ambush - not necessarily at rigidly pre-determined point (so XPs can be awarded without skewing player's motivation).

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.

Reached dungeon level...

The player who would prefer to fight his way to being a better party has a lot of options stripped away.

Why? They take quests and find anything that might be interesting (quest doesn't need to be something an NPC wants you to do) and fight their way through becoming better in the process.

The player who wants to ditch quests has options stripped away.

He already does if the game isn't a TES style massive sandbox, so no big deal.
Derping respawning bears for XP in rectangular chunk of forest isn't an option whose loss anyone sane would mourn.

Only the story-fag who sees combat as an interlude between narrative setpieces is going to be easy-peasy with your system.

What about an option fag who sees combat as one of many possible solutions to the problem?

Honestly, game design that removes player options has always pissed me off.

Kill XP effectively makes either non-kill solutions or any sensible solutions (including straight combat) as opposed to nonsensical ones (sneak by, backtrack, negotiate, kill anyway) less valid, making them bad options.

When your design pretty much flags *every* sensible playstyle as inferior it has a big problem.

im pretty sure it can be implemented easily.

Prove it.
Sketch out your easy implementation.

How would you know if you havent read a guide?

Scumming.

Besides, It doesn't take a genius to notice that kill XP > 0XP and that sum of XP for all individual solutions > XP for any single one of them.

Outcomes of wut? elaborate.

Outcomes of my decisions. If I knowingly take an inferior option then I don't care about it being inferior.

Expertise doesnt grow on trees, you need to do shit to get better at shit.

You want a use-based system, then.

Why give exp? just award levels at arbitrary points, exp is redundant in the system you propose.

Not if the critical path has concurrent sections (stuff you can do in any order). It also doesn't account for stuff you can force player into out of critical path (like an ambush) or goad player into (optional goals like finding info about main antagonist, or wtf is happening in the MQ).
Exp is more flexible because it allows you to control the amount of it you dole out.

Even better, just award stats

Stats are not linear. Mage will develop differently than fighter (unless a muscle wizard).

Yes, because the thief doesnt only get better at picking locks and because the thief is bound to pick a couple locks/disarm a couple traps (action based xp! it works again!!).

What if you choose to trip the traps instead with warrior with protection spells cast on him, preferably in combat if they are AoE, to use them against enemy? What if instead of picking the lock you bash it with your fighter?

Getting xp for a quest that makes you fight a band of trolls, but not getting it for fighting a band of trolls without the quest is neither honest nor consistent, its pretty fucking retarded.

Reality proves you wrong as otherwise I would have leveled up by now.

 

[Rake]

Getting xp for a quest that makes you fight a band of trolls, but not getting it for fighting a band of trolls without the quest is neither honest nor consistent, its pretty fucking retarded.

Reality proves you wrong as otherwise I would have leveled up by now.

 

[crufty]

The problem here is that stupidity is negatively correlated with viability and not independent of stat system.

Another problem is that any alignment system is going to be crude and limiting as far as possible character motivations and player agency go, so I'd rather have none, at least for the PC (sufficiently advanced NPC AI may need some framework resembling one).

Not really..stupidity is not associated with any attribute--not intelligence (IQ) nor wisdom! That is the thing: a stupid person can be smart, strong, fast, and an intelligent person can be dumb, weak and slow. Stupidity and intelligence are measurable by HOW a player role plays his/her PCs. Remember, an intelligent PC is one that acts and abides by the maxim "a rising tide raises all boats." A stupid PC is one that hurts themselves, and those around them--think Leroy Jenkins.

A big part of the issues has to due with what is known as the imperative nature of the programming languages developers HAVE to use. An imperative programming languages forces people to write logic in terms of how--discrete steps. RPGs however are implicitly declarative. An Orc is an Orc--there is no HOW to define. Programmers, designers, what have you, they aren't allowed to simply decide "This is an ORC"..they have to DEFINE "ORC" in all sorts of myriad ways.

Unmodded Skyrim is somewhat mediocre

I'm not saying Skyrim is great CRPG--just a great game. In terms of the radiant quests and infinite 1hr long sessions, it's an old friend at this point. A few months will go by, and I'll fire it up. What have I done in game? Can't remember. What was I doing last time? can't remember.

However, I can go to a guild, get a random quest and...an hour later, I am done...

 

[DefJam101]

Getting xp for a quest that makes you fight a band of trolls, but not getting it for fighting a band of trolls without the quest is neither honest nor consistent, its pretty fucking retarded.

Reality proves you wrong as otherwise I would have leveled up by now.

checkmate