The XP for Combat Megathread! DISCUSS!

[mutonizer]

Also why are you surprised about people that try to game the system and going for the best possible route?

I'm not, I don't care really, it's a cRPG.
I'm surprised when they do it, then complain about it and blame it on the game "forcing them" to do it or start calling it "degenerative" or something

 

[Infinitron]

No it's not, it's forcing players to go one route and one route only, instead of keeping it in the players hands and instead of actually finding interesting ways around it (which I'd be totally for if it made sense), they just slapped some artificial mechanics in there and called it "solved". That's my issue with it.

Though apparently players aren't capable of handling the responsibility of it so you might be right, better to treat them like little children on a leash, make sure they don't get lost or hurt along the way.

XP for combat is itself an artificial mechanic.

But I'm not an idiot, man, I know what you mean. What you really want is a game that pays a greater degree of lip service to a more free-roaming, emergent gameplay, pseudo-simulationist form of gameplay (ie, "not putting players on a leash"), but that's not the kind of thing Black Isle Studios and Obsidian Entertainment games have ever been about. (With the ironic possible exception of Sawyer's FO:NV which had to support some of that Fallout 3 Bethesda hiking playstyle) And it's not what we love their games for.

 

[Duraframe300]

Also why are you surprised about people that try to game the system and going for the best possible route?

I'm not, I don't care really, it's a cRPG.
I'm surprised when they do it, then complain about it and blame it on the game "forcing them" to do it or start calling it "degenerative" or something

Why shouldn't they do it?

 

[Duraframe300]

No it's not, it's forcing players to go one route and one route only, instead of keeping it in the players hands and instead of actually finding interesting ways around it (which I'd be totally for if it made sense), they just slapped some artificial mechanics in there and called it "solved". That's my issue with it.

Though apparently players aren't capable of handling the responsibility of it so you might be right, better to treat them like little children on a leash, make sure they don't get lost or hurt along the way.

XP for combat is itself an artificial mechanic.

But I'm not an idiot, man, I know what you mean. What you really want is a game that pays a greater degree of lip service to a more free-roaming, emergent gameplay, pseudo-simulationist form of gameplay (ie, "not putting players on a leash"), but that's not the kind of thing Black Isle Studios and Obsidian Entertainment games have ever been about. (With the ironic possible exception of Sawyer's FO:NV which had to support some of that Fallout 3 Bethesda hiking playstyle) And it's not what we love their games for.

 

[mutonizer]

What?
Shouldn't do what? Complain?

You often blame others for things you did to yourself?

Look, imagine some guy buys a bottle of scotch, and end up drinking the entire bottle within an hour, getting pissed drunk, wrecking his car. Then imagine that guy blaming the alcohol manufacturer with "but the bottle was there damnit! It forced me too!". Then you got some other dude that comes around and goes: "Damn, he's right, them bottles are totally degenerative so here's a new law: All bottles can now only serve one glass per 24 hours".

That'd be fine for you?

edit:
Immortal! I swear I keep replying in the OTHER thread! No idea why it keeps popping back here!

 

[Duraframe300]

What?
Shouldn't do what? Complain?

You often blame others for things you did to yourself?

Look, imagine some guy buys a bottle of scotch, and end up drinking the entire bottle within an hour, getting pissed drunk, wrecking his car. Then imagine that guy blaming the alcohol manufacturer with "but the bottle was there damnit! It forced me too!". Then you got some other dude that comes around and goes: "Damn, he's right, them bottles are totally degenerative so here's a new law: All bottles can now only serve one glass per 24 hours".

That'd be fine for you?

edit:
Immortal! I swear I keep replying in the OTHER thread! No idea why it keeps popping back here!

Why shouldn't they choose the route that yields the higher reward?

 

[Infinitron]

Grinding XP in CRPGs doesn't "wreck your car", mutonizer. I understand you'd like it if DID wreck your car, ie, if the developers made an effort to create some kind of realistic, non-"artificial" consequence to the player engaging in wanton slaughter.

But they're not gonna. Because why bother? As DraQ will tell you, XP for combat is itself an unrealistic mechanic. It's asking for a bandaid on a bandaid.

 

[mutonizer]

Ah well, different styles right? I just would like to see some effort made sometimes by non-fringe indie teams. Just tired of games being just cosmetic jobs atop mechanics barely more advanced than the ones used 10-20 years ago, especially with the power we got now. Might never happen though, business reasons I guess

Why shouldn't they choose the route that yields the higher reward?

I don't even know how to answer that sorry.
Usually when it comes to that point I'm just going "ok, troll bait, I'll pass", but I'm still new on the codex so not really sure about things yet.

I'll pass for now though, said my piece, no need to go into it some more.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Why shouldn't they choose the route that yields the higher reward?

Because the route that yields the higher reward isn't always the optimal one when it comes to one's enjoyement of the game. If I detest grinding and find it to be a waste of time I certainly won't engage in it, if I find killing quest givers ridiculously stupid (as I do) I won't do it, if I enjoy the challenge of playing through the game with as little rest as possible I won't rest spam, same goes for savescumming etc. I don't need Josh taking extreme measures to stop me from behaving like an idiot.

Besides, you could ask similar questions about PoE, why shouldn't I try my hardest to avoid every fight that isn't quest related? Why should I refuse any quest (only source of XP/Character advancement) no matter how boring it is or how much it goes against my character concept?

 

[Immortal]

Some more Sawyer from today

Yeah, we're talking about various other forms of XP including exploration, trap, and lock XP. We've also discussed XP connected to unlocking elements in the bestiary, which is sort of a limited-pool form of combat XP that eventually gets exhausted and doesn't require you to commit genocide to reach it. Also, kith (humanoid people) are not (and would not be) in the bestiary, and those are the characters most often associated with quests.

The main motivation for our quest-only XP system came from observing how many people, both regular gamers and QA testers, completed certain types of quests in the games we've made. Those who completed a quest via stealth or conversations often backtracked to kill the people or critters they had just "spared" because the game's basic mechanics systemically rewarded that behavior. You can set a bunch of flags for each quest and try to side-step around these cases but it's a huge amount of work for something that can be solved in a more straightforward manner by awarding XP for objectives and quests instead of individual creatures killed.

Since creatures (i.e., not humans/elves/dwarves/etc.) are directly involved in quests as non-hostiles with much less frequency, I think having XP awarded based on bestiary unlocks could work well. If we set those unlock thresholds much lower than the total number of critters in the game, players will hopefully learn that they don't need to exterminate everyone/thing they come across and they will eventually exhaust the available XP for that type of creature. E.g. Korgrak is an ogre, but he's by no means the only ogre, so if you don't kill him, you should still be able to completely unlock the entire ogre bestiary entry (and get all XP from it).

Considering these came out of Josh's mouth.. I am pretty shocked. They aren't the solutions I personally wanted to see but it's a step in the right direction. Until I read this..

My goal isn't to discourage killing/combat overall, but to avoid the emphasis of combat solutions as the de facto best way to resolve quests (unless the quest is fundamentally about killing someone/thing, of course) and to avoid the player feeling compelled to kill everything they come across. I think it will be good for the game if a player can ask themselves, "Am I losing out by not completing this area with combat?" and sometimes answer, "Nah." Quest only XP accomplishes this, but obviously a lot of people want to gain XP from fighting. Short of having a separate mode where you get combat XP from everything and all of the quest XP is rebalanced around that, bestiary unlocking XP is the best solution I've come up with to accomplish both goals.

He totally got push back from someone at obsidian (Feargus?)..
Even now he thinks it's a stupid idea.. but he's conceding that basically the community is split between people who want it and people who don't so he has to do something.. I can't wait for him to flip flop so I can taste Roguey's tears.. or laugh at her backward rationalizions why Josh can flip flop 3 months before release on Combat XP.. But Brian can't for aimed shots.

 

[Duraframe300]

Why shouldn't they choose the route that yields the higher reward?

Because the route that yields the higher reward isn't always the optimal one when it comes to one's enjoyement of the game. If I detest grinding and find it to be a waste of time I certainly won't engage in it, if I find killing quest givers ridiculously stupid (as I do) I won't do it, if I enjoy the challenge of playing through the game with as little rest as possible I won't rest spam, same goes for savescumming etc. I don't need Josh taking extreme measures to stop me from behaving like an idiot.

Ok

I think the problem I'm having is that I just don't understand whats so extreme about Josh's measures. But, eh doesn't matter. Anyway, thanks for the answer.

 

[Makabb]

All I know is that, that I killed vampire wolfs in BG1 for the massive nice XP at start, and they weren't easy to kill to begin with.

 

[Duraframe300]

Some more Sawyer from today

Yeah, we're talking about various other forms of XP including exploration, trap, and lock XP. We've also discussed XP connected to unlocking elements in the bestiary, which is sort of a limited-pool form of combat XP that eventually gets exhausted and doesn't require you to commit genocide to reach it. Also, kith (humanoid people) are not (and would not be) in the bestiary, and those are the characters most often associated with quests.

The main motivation for our quest-only XP system came from observing how many people, both regular gamers and QA testers, completed certain types of quests in the games we've made. Those who completed a quest via stealth or conversations often backtracked to kill the people or critters they had just "spared" because the game's basic mechanics systemically rewarded that behavior. You can set a bunch of flags for each quest and try to side-step around these cases but it's a huge amount of work for something that can be solved in a more straightforward manner by awarding XP for objectives and quests instead of individual creatures killed.

Since creatures (i.e., not humans/elves/dwarves/etc.) are directly involved in quests as non-hostiles with much less frequency, I think having XP awarded based on bestiary unlocks could work well. If we set those unlock thresholds much lower than the total number of critters in the game, players will hopefully learn that they don't need to exterminate everyone/thing they come across and they will eventually exhaust the available XP for that type of creature. E.g. Korgrak is an ogre, but he's by no means the only ogre, so if you don't kill him, you should still be able to completely unlock the entire ogre bestiary entry (and get all XP from it).

Considering these came out of Josh's mouth.. I am pretty shocked. They aren't the solutions I personally wanted to see but it's a step in the right direction. Until I read this..

My goal isn't to discourage killing/combat overall, but to avoid the emphasis of combat solutions as the de facto best way to resolve quests (unless the quest is fundamentally about killing someone/thing, of course) and to avoid the player feeling compelled to kill everything they come across. I think it will be good for the game if a player can ask themselves, "Am I losing out by not completing this area with combat?" and sometimes answer, "Nah." Quest only XP accomplishes this, but obviously a lot of people want to gain XP from fighting. Short of having a separate mode where you get combat XP from everything and all of the quest XP is rebalanced around that, bestiary unlocking XP is the best solution I've come up with to accomplish both goals.

He totally got push back from someone at obsidian (Feargus?)..
Even now he thinks it's a stupid idea.. but he's conceding that basically the community is split between people who want it and people who don't so he has to do something.. I can't wait for him to flip flop so I can taste Roguey's tears.. or laugh at her backward rationalizions why Josh can flip flop 3 months before release on Combat XP.. But Brian can't for aimed shots.

Imo, not really. Josh observes players and the community and gets a lot of his opinions on it from it. I'm not surprised he would concede that theres a divide on something that spawned multiple threads.

At least from my view of Josh. YMMV.

 

[Irxy]

In a few games which didn't award xp for killing I still kill everything - because of the loot, don't they forget it?

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

In a few games which didn't award xp for killing I still kill everything - because of the loot, don't they forget it?

That degenerate gameplay is different, it must be made more convenient with no weight limit and an infinite stash

 

[FeelTheRads]

It's pretty funny that the same people who keep praising this as the solution to filler combat don't realize that they'll get the very definition of filler combat. No reward, no goal, no nothing, just in your way to pad the game length.

BUT IT STOPS YOU FROM HUNTING RANDOM MOSTERS THATS AWESOME RIGHT? But what about the monsters that are in your way? Ah well, let's waste the party's resources on them because hurr durr amirite?

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Ok

I think the problem I'm having is that I just don't understand whats so extreme about Josh's measures. But, eh doesn't matter. Anyway, thanks for the answer.

Well, removing combat XP entirely (in a supposed BG/IWD successor) and tying character advancement solely to sidequests could be considered extreme. A more moderate way would have been say having quest XP dwarf combat XP and have certain type of enemies stop giving XP after you reach high enough of a level, the way it was in Witcher 2 for example.

The current situation is also somewhat made worse by the increased amount of combat micromanagement, resource cost associated with resting and short adventuring day. It encourages avoiding (non-sidequest related) combat and "degenerate" gameplay of it's own (for example kill the tough non-quest related monster in northeast, see that it doesn't carry anything of value, reload and don't go there anymore).

 

[Immortal]

All I know is that, that I killed vampire wolfs in BG1 for the massive nice XP at start, and they weren't easy to kill to begin with.

So you were rewarded for doing something difficult in a game? Sounds good to me..

 

[AN4RCHID]

What you really want is a game that pays a greater degree of lip service to a more free-roaming, emergent gameplay, pseudo-simulationist form of gameplay (ie, "not putting players on a leash"), but that's not the kind of thing Black Isle Studios and Obsidian Entertainment games have ever been about. (With the ironic possible exception of Sawyer's FO:NV which had to support some of that Fallout 3 Bethesda hiking playstyle) And it's not what we love their games for.

People don't love the Fallout games and Baldur's Gate for the degree of freedom they give players? News to me. Not railroading progress != Bethesda style hiking simulator.

 

[Immortal]

What you really want is a game that pays a greater degree of lip service to a more free-roaming, emergent gameplay, pseudo-simulationist form of gameplay (ie, "not putting players on a leash"), but that's not the kind of thing Black Isle Studios and Obsidian Entertainment games have ever been about. (With the ironic possible exception of Sawyer's FO:NV which had to support some of that Fallout 3 Bethesda hiking playstyle) And it's not what we love their games for.

People don't love the Fallout games and Baldur's Gate for the degree of freedom they give players? News to me. Not railroading progress != Bethesda style hiking simulator.

This..

Tight plot control and pacing with the ability to drop out and explore any time is a staple of the series.. even in Ice Wind Dale series .. (to a MUCH lesser degree though.. I wonder why)

 

[DragoFireheart]

Everything should give XP in some shape or form.

If I kill something, I should get xp.
If I disable it without killing it, I should get xp.
If I sneak past it, I should get xp.
If I talk it down, I should get xp.
If I convince someone to deal with a problem for me, I should get xp.

What you do is what you experience and you almost always grow from it. If an encounter doesn't give xp then it's filler and bad game design, worthy of being removed. Inane, xp-free actions should be kept to a minimum as I already deal with inane, pointless, experience free crap in real life.

 

[Immortal]

Everything should give XP in some shape or form.

If I kill something, I should get xp.
If I disable it without killing it, I should get xp.
If I sneak past it, I should get xp.
If I talk it down, I should get xp.
If I convince someone to deal with a problem for me, I should get xp.

What you do is what you experience and you almost always grow from it. If an encounter doesn't give xp then it's filler and bad game design, worthy of being removed. Inane, xp-free actions should be kept to a minimum as I already deal with inane, pointless, experience free crap in real life.

The reality is that a system your describing is very easy to abuse.. aka hard for the developers to stop you from abusing.

Plus from a cost vs reward pragmatic look.. Killing something is usually harder then talking it down or stealthing past it.. which usually just requires a dice roll as opposed to maybe real life where all those options may be difficult depending on the situation..

I don't disagree though.. It would be nice to have all those options be meaningful..

 

[DragoFireheart]

The reality is that a system your describing is very easy to abuse.. aka hard for the developers to stop you from abusing.

Not really. Well, it may be harder with infinitely re-spawning enemies, but that's lazy game design depending on the game.

Plus from a cost vs reward pragmatic look.. Killing something is usually harder then talking it down or stealthing past it.. which usually just requires a dice roll as opposed to maybe real life where all those options may be difficult depending on the situation..

With the way most games have been designed, killing is usually easier than sneaking past it.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Inane, xp-free actions should be kept to a minimum as I already deal with inane, pointless, experience free crap in real life.

I think making players to decide between a solution that grants a gauranteed XP reward and something more nebulous like faction rep can be good. Giving the same reward for different solutions is boring, taken to it's logical conclusion with Sawyer's "You Walked Through a Door!! +15000XP!!!" trail of breadcrumbs.

 

[DraQ]

Stop underestimating learning by doing man

Yeah, I'm sure you're a big fan of the awesome non-linearity of true RPGs like The Witcher, but when you say that an adventurer "adventuring" is stupid you pretty much have won the dunce cap.

(Guess what amuses me the most here.)

Nope, using them makes them better at using them, more precise incantations, more precise quantities of ingredients, better hand gestures, better entonation, everything tested in stressful situations. Throwing grenades makes you better at throwing grenades, but you also get to exercise your knowledge in explosives, because you can give a more precise purpose to each grenade... put them where you know it will hurt the most, because youve studied this shit. Again, tested in stressful situations.

At best this is grounds for splitting magic skills into independent battlemage skills (practical use of known spells in crisis situations - AKA throwing 'nades) and wizard skills (understanding of spells, their creation and underlying magic as well as ability to learn new ones - AKA explosives design and chemistry).

The thing that differentiates magic and 'nades is that you need the second skill to use magic at all (even if you may also need the first one to use them effectively in stressful situation without fumbling or backfiring) and you can't hone it in battle.

Why not? why cant you learn and uncover secrets, take shortcuts and make your way into an amazing archamage in a matter of months?

For the same reason you can't go from high schooler to university professor in the matter of months. Duh.

An ancient wizards was probably going through those few months over and over again over the course of the last few centuries or a millenium due to having no life. You're not chasing a guy who is standing still. You're chasing someone who's been running longer than your grandgrands have been alive and presumably damn fast too.
Even if they did hit the wall, if it was located remotely early in their career, then old and powerful wouldn't be near synonyms when it came to wizards because you'd actually get more young ones - just at the point of hitting the wall but without their numbers having been whittled away by all sorts of accidents and hostilities - remember, every wizard was young once, but not all of them will be old.

And this glances over the point that the wizards shouldn't be getting points for mundane shit including mundane use of arcane (like fireballing a bunch of wolves into fine mist) - if you do become badass archmage in the matter of months that's because of all sorts of special circumstances like finding ancient places of power and unearthing forbidden lore which is something no amount of blown up wolves can replace - another nail in the coffin of kill XP (at this point it probably looks like it pissed off the ranger from Quake, but I digress).

Goal xp is not exploit proof

It is, demonstrably. It's one of the exactly two things it does well.
Feel free to prove me wrong by showing an example of an exploit that involves neither a strawman or obvious design mistake (like having every fetch quest giev XPs).

it also creates scenarios where players get stronger by running away from shit.

Not if the shit is actually doing the job of being in players' way towards objective.
Then running from shit moves you away from XPs.
Of course figuring out how to move past shit or get shit out of the way does yield XPs because it should, duh.

Encountering the same group of bandits even if there are more of them wont yield as much XP because my guys are more familiar with their tactics.

I too don't think you should be able to EXP in afterlife.

What is an "adventurer" ? In game logic pls.
And yes, "adventuring" for no reason is all kinds of stupid.

This. Adventuring != seeking random shit to kill for no reason.
The 'R' in 'RPG' stands for 'Role' not 'Retard'.

That's akin to saying that if you didn't slaughter absolutely every living thing you came across in IE games (massacring whole towns/villages and such) it means you didn't enjoy/care about combat in those games.

Combat is contextual, XP are all the same.

And XP non olet.

Grinding XP in CRPGs doesn't "wreck your car", mutonizer. I understand you'd like it if DID wreck your car, ie, if the developers made an effort to create some kind of realistic, non-"artificial" consequence to the player engaging in wanton slaughter.

But they're not gonna. Because why bother? As DraQ will tell you, XP for combat is itself an unrealistic mechanic. It's asking for a bandaid on a bandaid.

Also, sometimes it's hard to envision meaningful consequences for some actions - no matter how you try a bunch of random wolves is going to be a bunch of random wolves, it's hard to make up meaningful and yet logical negative consequence for doing them in. OTOH, take the artificial reward away, and having nothing to gain but mauled dong suddenly becomes good enough disincentive against just running around seeking random wolves to kill, add the artificial reward and mauled dick becomes small price to pay for another small step towards demigodhood.

That's what pisses me off in proponents of "traditional" mechanics like XP or HP system - they insist on broken shit then try to clumsily fix problems that wouldn't exist without stupid and clearly broken shit in the first place. Bonus points if their fixes introduce other problems that need to be fixed as well - bandaids all the way down, man.

In a few games which didn't award xp for killing I still kill everything - because of the loot, don't they forget it?

That degenerate gameplay is different, it must be made more convenient with no weight limit and an infinite stash

That's why I have no respect for so called professional game designers.

One step forward, double flip over the railing and down the stairwell back.
It's as if they actually wore buckets on their heads.

It's pretty funny that the same people who keep praising this as the solution to filler combat don't realize that they'll get the very definition of filler combat. No reward, no goal, no nothing, just in your way to pad the game length.

BUT IT STOPS YOU FROM HUNTING RANDOM MOSTERS THATS AWESOME RIGHT? But what about the monsters that are in your way? Ah well, let's waste the party's resources on them because hurr durr amirite?

Freedom is slavery bro.

Well, removing combat XP entirely (in a supposed BG/IWD successor) and tying character advancement solely to sidequests could be considered extreme. A more moderate way would have been say having quest XP dwarf combat XP and have certain type of enemies stop giving XP after you reach high enough of a level, the way it was in Witcher 2 for example.

Or you could remove the actual problem instead of building a bandaid tower.

It encourages avoiding (non-sidequest related) combat and "degenerate" gameplay of it's own (for example kill the tough non-quest related monster in northeast, see that it doesn't carry anything of value, reload and don't go there anymore).

That's the problem with save system. Rewarding player for completely pointless, risky and resource consuming combat encounter just because they will reload otherwise is retarded. Just because you can't punish them effectively for carelessness, doesn't mean you have to reward.
And if you do want to reward, put a body in monster's lair with a good item or quest hook. Or let the player take monster's body part to impress the ladies and gain +rep as a badass. If it was dangerous and hard to kill it's pretty logical thing to be able to do.
Or raise the monster if you're necromancer and have badass undead pet. Etc.

If you don't want to reward, then maybe instead of having monster sit around at one spot have it move around and make it initiate the combat. Beter yet, let it spot and stalk the party before the party can spot it - with any lack player will have saved when the combat is already nigh inevitable. Losing might not be fun, but the most memorable and fun experiences are when player gets fucked and have to get themselves out of deep shit. Without crisis there is no relief no satisfaction - even everything going just as planned isn't so rewarding if it couldn't possibly go otherwise.

In any case I consider monster sitting in remote corner for no reason to be failure in location design not permissible in a game with meticulously handcrafted places and encounters - even if it does just sit there it's trivial to make it play some role in the context.

Besides, you could ask similar questions about PoE, why shouldn't I try my hardest to avoid every fight that isn't quest related?

What if avoiding the fight is going to be harder or more time consuming than engaging in it? What if there is no quest related to it, but some loot you can't really get while bypassing it? What if your build doesn't give you opportunity to avoid it?

Combat or lack of combat aren't goals in themselves. There are means to an end. Sometimes it's better to kill something than to have to find a detour. Sometimes it's the other way around.

Why should I refuse any quest (only source of XP/Character advancement) no matter how boring it is or how much it goes against my character concept?

This is no kill XP thread, not Josh is infallible god of game design thread.

I firmly stand by my position that XP should be assigned to goals in smart way and not every quest stage nor every quest should yield XP.
MQ, optional major quest tying into MQ with good universal motivation, finding a forgotten temple of ancient lore, surviving an ambush (in any way)? Probably should.
A quest to bring a farmer 10 bear asses for a thank you and hot meal, that egg quest a druid should object against or handing over a quest after already doing (and getting XP for) the hard part? Probably shouldn't.

People don't love the Fallout games and Baldur's Gate for the degree of freedom they give players? News to me. Not railroading progress != Bethesda style hiking simulator.

Why do you mention BG in one sentence with Fallout?
It has always bee a game of empty same-y wilderness and arbitrary travel restrictions juxtaposes with pseudo-free roaming gameplay (can't Cloakwood because you aren't far enough in the MQ).
Comparing it with Bethesda style hiking sims is doesn't really help BG either - at least in Bethesda hiking sims you have proper open world structure and sometimes (as in "excluding Oblivion") even proper exploration based gameplay.

Everything should give XP in some shape or form.

If I kill something, I should get xp.
If I disable it without killing it, I should get xp.
If I sneak past it, I should get xp.
If I talk it down, I should get xp.
If I convince someone to deal with a problem for me, I should get xp.

What you do is what you experience and you almost always grow from it. If an encounter doesn't give xp then it's filler and bad game design, worthy of being removed. Inane, xp-free actions should be kept to a minimum as I already deal with inane, pointless, experience free crap in real life.

And if I sneak past, then come back to talk, disable and finally kill - QUAD DAMAGE!
I mean XP.

OTOH if I get XP for getting past it, then no matter if I kill, sneak, talk, disable, hire, or pile crates to hop the fence I get muh XP once and exactly once regardless of the solution and whether or not it was predicted by the devs.