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Experience gaining?

Endymion 14 years ago

So I was I was just thinking about experience gaining systems and the way it should be in Driftmoon. What do you think about it?

I didn't like how it was in the preview it rewarded me for the tedious act of finding and killing nearly all things that can be killed. Maybe it was that it was entirely up to me whether I fight or not or maybe that it had no other purpose aside from gaining experience. Or it could be that because I got experience at all from fighting enemies that I found it tedious since I did it just for the exp instead of just for the sake of it.

As for possible solutions. Deciding the exp amounts by hand would go a long way in ensuring I get properly rewarded for doing cool stuff(and feel more hand-crafted). Making only the dangerous "enemies" hostile and capable of preventing you from going through them until they are killed also some consequences for killing random things* might make fights feel less pointless and boring of course just increasing the difficulty of them might do it also. Removing exp from enemies altogether and give it only for doing interesting or important things and exploring cool places would ensure that when I fight it's because I need to or want to and that the best way to play isn't super boring.

*for example killing one fly could aggro all of them in vicinity until you run far enough away and if all of them die summon something player can't easily handle, another one could be to get haunted or cursed by a person you killed and him alerting all undead to your presence and causing something else less beneficial until you somehow get rid of him/it.

Anonymous1157 14 years ago

"Endymion" said:
As for possible solutions. Deciding the exp amounts by hand would go a long way in ensuring I get properly rewarded for doing cool stuff(and feel more hand-crafted).

Deciding exp by hand might get tedious for developers. Adding one new monster that was intended to deliver a certain amount of exp might unbalance the game completely.

"Endymion" said:
Removing exp from enemies altogether and give it only for doing interesting or important things and exploring cool places would ensure that when I fight it's because I need to or want to and that the best way to play isn't super boring.

If you remove exp from monsters and award it only for exploration, you force a particular way to play on people who like to play RPGs/FPSs/etc by killing all of the monsters. (And hopefully, the Driftmoon AI will be challenging enough to keep it interesting.)

Endymion 14 years ago

"Anonymous1157" said:
Deciding exp by hand might get tedious for developers. Adding one new monster that was intended to deliver a certain amount of exp might unbalance the game completely.

How would adding a monster that gives exp based purely on its stats instead of hand-picked amount be likely to cause less unbalance? Also if hand picked it can be adjusted much better to suit the situation and number of enemies.

"Anonymous1157" said:
If you remove exp from monsters and award it only for exploration, you force a particular way to play on people who like to play RPGs/FPSs/etc by killing all of the monsters.

I tend to do just that but I question how enjoyable it ultimately is. Also how is it forcing you not to kill when you aren't rewarded for each and every enemy you kill but for getting past them which naturally would most likely involve killing them? Especially when not killing something should be a good way of getting killed yourself. And there could be other rewards for killing all enemies for example talents, items or recognition or even harder enemies. Also giving exp would be forcing a particular way of playing too. Plus I didn't mean that you'd get experience only from exploring it should involve all kinds of things including killing important enemies and in general doing things that you should and figuring stuff out.
In short I guess I just don't like being rewarded(so greatly at least) for killing all of the filler enemies and NPCs. Often it seems that I'm being punished for doing things as well as possible(even if it's tedious) by making rest of the game so easy it's boring.

E_net4 14 years ago

I actually like getting XP from killing enemy creatures. And you definitely wouldn't want players to run away from most of them, which is what would probably happen thus. A good player could cleanse the area from enemies, but that's not really a bad habit.

MageKing17 14 years ago

Some of the better RPGs give experience for sneaking past a tough group of enemies or using the terrain against them. A true general, after all, must not only know when to fight, but when not to fight.

Anonymous1157 14 years ago

"MageKing17" said:
Some of the better RPGs give experience for sneaking past a tough group of enemies or using the terrain against them. A true general, after all, must not only know when to fight, but when not to fight.

That actually sounds like a really good idea, and it doesn't seem that hard to implement, either. (At least the first part doesn't. I mean, seriously, just check if the player has reached a physical location without having killed a certain monster. Voila!)

Endymion 14 years ago

Getting exp for sneaking and for doing clever things in general is nice.

"E_net4" said:
I actually like getting XP from killing enemy creatures. And you definitely wouldn't want players to run away from most of them, which is what would probably happen thus. A good player could cleanse the area from enemies, but that's not really a bad habit.

I like it too but that doesn't mean it can't be just as fun without exp gaining.
As long as you make running through enemies relatively hard and dead things stay dead running away shouldn't happen too often(those at least were the problem with Aquaria).
Sadly it's rarely necessary to be a good player in order to kill all enemies just determined, bored or addicted to exp and it means people are more likely to have characters with very different levels(well if you make sure that player can always return to kill anything he didn't first time through it shouldn't be that much of an issue).

Having some special situations where the point is gathering some commodity that powers you up from enemies until you're strong enough to take on some very hard enemy might be nice. But doing it constantly for the vague goal of being stronger than before doesn't sound that awesome or impressive.

Venom31 14 years ago

The law of diminishing returns may help, however, improperly implemented, it can make the game hard to hell (e.g. Revenant, where your most exp-giving monsters were always so strong for you, that you'd prefer killing many easy mobs for 1 exp instead of one mob for 1000 exp...)

LunaticNeko 14 years ago

"MageKing17" said:
Some of the better RPGs give experience for sneaking past a tough group of enemies or using the terrain against them. A true general, after all, must not only know when to fight, but when not to fight.

I was thinking of that. Thanks for speaking it out for me. Exploiting the enemy, resistances and weaknesses, terrain, or environment should not go unrewarded.

ville 14 years ago

You've got good points here. I agree that the preview rewarded too much for killing easy enemies, and not enough for the quests. I'm actually going to add less enemies in the future versions, and make them tougher and nearly impossible to escape from once they notice you.

At least for the moment I'm thinking of going with the traditional XP gaining from enemies and quests. Rewarding sneaking could be a good idea, but in my opinion it should be especially noted to the player that sneaking is a choise here - I don't see Driftmoon as a general sneaking around game.

One way to get xp could be the achievements system found in all console games, but I don't usually like them that much. They tend to be useful for sports and action, but not for RPG in my opinion.

I'm really interested if you can think of any more interesting ways to get experience points.

E_net4 14 years ago

Hmm... in Guitar Hero: World Tour (and possibly later GH game) you receive money after finishing a song. And there are several variables defining how much you obtain (percent notes hit, note streak, "hot start", etc.)
This could be partially applied to Driftmoon by calculating the experience gained in a battle based on how efficient the player was to kill the enemies.

Narvius 14 years ago

My advice: Don't put too much thought into it. Most jRPG's let the player decide (implicitly) whether they want to grind weaker monsters or dash through and face bosses at lower levels (taken to the extreme in certain FFX runs: one character only that stays level 1 the whole game... from what I've heard, there are people who did that), which is more challenging.

If you want to add experience for non-combat/quest stuff, then do it, but nothing too complex. Don't fix what ain't broken

(Or get rid of experience altogether, and use some storyline-driven or item-based (or whatever) character advancement.)

Venom31 14 years ago

"ville" said:
Rewarding sneaking could be a good idea, but in my opinion it should be especially noted to the player that sneaking is a choise here - I don't see Driftmoon as a general sneaking around game.

I can already imagine a munchkin's hack into that:
1) have a notice the area could be sneaked through
2) sneak through the area
3) receive XP point boost for success in sneaking
4) turn around and go kill everything for more XP, ROFL
Please be sure something like this won't happen )).

"Narvius" said:
(Or get rid of experience altogether, and use some storyline-driven or item-based (or whatever) character advancement.)

Well that would look so much like Notrium )).

Amarth 14 years ago

"Venom31" said:
"ville" said:
Rewarding sneaking could be a good idea, but in my opinion it should be especially noted to the player that sneaking is a choise here - I don't see Driftmoon as a general sneaking around game.
I can already imagine a munchkin's hack into that:
1) have a notice the area could be sneaked through
2) sneak through the area
3) receive XP point boost for success in sneaking
4) turn around and go kill everything for more XP, ROFL
Please be sure something like this won't happen )).

*shrug* Why not? XP is the reward for performing things, for, quite literally, gaining experience. Sneaking around, then killing a monster is certainly more experience than doing only one of the two, isn't it?

But all in all, I don't really care. As long as I'm able to play the way I want to and finish the game without huge troubles because of XP deficiency.

Narvius 14 years ago

"Venom31" said:
Well that would look so much like Notrium

Which isn't exactly a bad thing, is it

Anonymous1157 14 years ago

"Narvius" said:
"Venom31" said:
Well that would look so much like Notrium
Which isn't exactly a bad thing, is it

Especially considering that some of the first discussions revolving around a new Ville Mönkkönen game went along the lines of "Make a sequel to Notrium or build the engine with one in mind so that we can do it for you."

... And I do hope that gets lived up to.

MageKing17 14 years ago

"Narvius" said:
(taken to the extreme in certain FFX runs: one character only that stays level 1 the whole game... from what I've heard, there are people who did that)

FFX doesn't have character levels.

Venom31 14 years ago

"Narvius" said:
"Venom31" said:
Well that would look so much like Notrium
Which isn't exactly a bad thing, is it

Sure

However, experience gaining says we have experience to gain. Just please, Ville, make sure the item combining is possible, that will take us to Notrium sequel later on.

Narvius 14 years ago

"MageKing17" said:
FFX doesn't have character levels.

I know. But it's easier to say level 1 than to start explaining what not using the sphere grid means. It's functionally equivalent.

MageKing17 14 years ago

"Narvius" said:
"MageKing17" said:
FFX doesn't have character levels.
I know. But it's easier to say level 1 than to start explaining what not using the sphere grid means. It's functionally equivalent.

Yes, it is. I merely wished to clarify what you actually meant, as I've never heard of someone managing to go through the game without gaining a sphere level (given that there are forced boss fights which have to give you enough AP to get a sphere level... if not dozens).

ville 14 years ago

I like experience points in roleplaying games, getting something permanent feels better to me than getting money or items. Mostly I like to get my xp from quests and items from enemies, so I'm probably going to follow along those line with Driftmoon.

The idea of performing well in combat giving you more xp sounds like a pretty neat idea. It could count the time it took to kill the enemy, or how much damage it did to you, or how many there were at the time against you.

Venom31 14 years ago

Yes, but don't forget that losses increase your own experience more than wins

Narvius 14 years ago

Instead of killing the enemy, experience could be awarded for every action during combat, ie. whenever you deal or recieve damage, perform an ability or are affected by one... whereas the amount of experience gained would depend on the relative power of you and the action. That is, getting bitten by a rat when you're in full mythril platemail armour or casting a Magic Missile as an archmage won't exactly make you any wiser.

And obviously, that could be used outside of combat, too.

Redemption 14 years ago

"Venom31" said:
Yes, but don't forget that losses increase your own experience more than wins

My immediate thought is that if the player is going for the kill, the enemies will be doing likewise. However, it does give me a nice idea... in the wild animals rarely fight to kill, it's just a territorial thing. If the player could choose to defeat an enemy non lethally or straight out kill them it could change fights quite a bit. Especially if enemies want to knock you out by default and a brutal player could gain a combat advantage by going for the kill, while more forgiving players would have a safety net of defeat not meaning death - if an enemy sees that their lives are at stake they'll react accordingly. If saves are limited to towns then the choice between pressing for an easy kill or safer knock-out could be interesting.

Venom31 14 years ago

I don't clearly understand how that relates my post, but you're right. Realism, again...
Also, what Narvius said just before looks really like Morrowind/Oblivion(/earlier TES?), not to mention other games with similar system.

MageKing17 14 years ago

"Venom31" said:
I don't clearly understand how that relates my post, but you're right. Realism, again...
Also, what Narvius said just before looks really like Morrowind/Oblivion(/earlier TES?), not to mention other games with similar system.

Yeah, but if you're going to take inspiration from TES, you need to throw the levels/attribute mods system out the window and look more to something like Galsiah's Character Development, which is still the best leveling system I've ever seen.

Venom31 14 years ago

"MageKing17" said:
"Venom31" said:
I don't clearly understand how that relates my post, but you're right. Realism, again...
Also, what Narvius said just before looks really like Morrowind/Oblivion(/earlier TES?), not to mention other games with similar system.
Yeah, but if you're going to take inspiration from TES, you need to throw the levels/attribute mods system out the window and look more to something like Galsiah's Character Development, which is still the best leveling system I've ever seen.

It's not me gamedev here

to take inspiration from anything, but why "throw the levels/attribute mods system out the window"? Mor's skills/stats system was pretty imbalanced, if that's what you mean.

GCD (Galsiah's Character Development), I've seen implementation of something like this somewhere before...

MageKing17 14 years ago

"Venom31" said:
why "throw the levels/attribute mods system out the window"? Mor's skills/stats system was pretty imbalanced, if that's what you mean.

I have no idea who/what Mor is, but the vanilla leveling system in Morrowind/Oblivion is ridiculously broken. You have to carefully plan out every action of your character to x5 attribute modifiers three times every levelup, otherwise your character is underpowered for their level and enemies eat you for breakfast. In GCD, on the other hand, every skill increase fractionally increases multiple attributes (but mainly its governing attribute) so your character progression is gradual and more natural.

"Venom31" said:
GCD (Galsiah's Character Development), I've seen implementation of something like this somewhere before...

Unless you've played Morrowind with the GCD mod, you haven't. Well, or nGCD (not Galsiah's Character Development; that's its actual name) for Oblivion, but it was an imperfect adaptation due to engine differences.

Narvius 14 years ago

"MageKing17" said:
Mor

rowind. Just saying :>

Venom31 14 years ago

Yes, Morrowind

I don't think planning is bad, but they just trumped vitality (and thus skills spears and mid/heavy armor) over other stats. Haven't played Oblivion, but TES III wasn't that hard even for my first uber-unoptimal character - monk...
And yes I've seen GCD system long before in Dungeon Siege, just thanks for pointing that one out.

EDIT: it (Dungeon Siege) had sooo few skills and stats; and IMHO, it didn't work well... Oh well, just a prototype, huh?

Amarth 14 years ago

I've always liked the "Betrayal at Krondor" style. There are no levels or experience points visible, just skills with a skill "level" between 0 and 100%, though modifiers could push skills over 100%. You learn gradually by doing, but you can emphasize certain skills if you want to learn them faster, at the cost of all other skills. I'm not sure of the actual implementation behind it but at least the idea is sound to me.

MageKing17 14 years ago

"Narvius" said:
"MageKing17" said:
Mor
rowind. Just saying :>

I have never seen that abbreviation. We always abbreviate it MW.

"Venom31" said:
And yes I've seen GCD system long before in Dungeon Siege, just thanks for pointing that one out.

I highly doubt that, since I've checked, and there is no Galsiah's Character Development mod for Dungeon Siege.

LunaticNeko 14 years ago

I never heard of something like GCD in Dun. Siege. Maybe I'll need to check my memories...

Venom31 14 years ago

"MageKing17" said:
"Venom31" said:
And yes I've seen GCD system long before in Dungeon Siege, just thanks for pointing that one out.
I highly doubt that, since I've checked, and there is no Galsiah's Character Development mod for Dungeon Siege.

You must be joking

. There is no need for GCD mod to DS. Its original system looks just like that. In a minimum scale, but the idea is pretty much the same.

EDIT: And yes, it works badly in DS (Dungeon Siege). That system there gives no chance of multiclassing. Multiclass characters are hell as hard and not convenient to play...

ville 14 years ago

Back to the topic of experience gaining, have you ever played a game where experience is only awarded for quests, and killing enemies gives you something else than experience, like items or skills? I've thought about separating the two because it would be easier to balance.

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