Experience remains a popular concept that is used in most games. So I dont know whats supposedly "dated" about this topic. Calling a very universal concept that everyone except a few outliers uses "dated" is just very strange.
Just because it's popular doesn't mean it isn't dated.
It's an old fashioned mechanic derived from TTRPG's that continues to see usage "Because that's what is done"
Even then, many TTRPG playgroups have ditched the system YEARS ago, because of how such a system interferes with the actual experience of playing the game.
There are obvious drawbacks to the concept, but on the other hand its amazingly simple, compared to more complicated solutions.
And it's more complex than simpler solutions.
You see how much of a non-statement such things are?
Solutions which always have to answer the question if the additional effort results in actual gain in regards to gameplay quality.
And yet, apparently the way experience currently works is exempt from being questioned if it's worth the effort for the results it provides.
Given that there's continual balancing issues done in terms of experience gain rates, player engagement in activities that provide experience and other minutia (Such as BG3 explicitly adding in experience gains for dialogue options to avoid combat because in prior Larian games, the prevailing trend was just to murder everyone because you got experience for that... Which of course, in BG3 leads to players both doing dialogue to skip combat then initiating combat anyway to get both forms of experience)
Experience as is, is just haphazardly thrown in to every game because "It's an RPG and RPG's have experience". It's much the same way where a lot of RPG's throw in stats because "It's an RPG and RPG's have stats" irregardless of how meaningful such a thing actually ends up being (With it often not providing even a slight amount of customisation and instead being "You just equip the latest item because it has more stats")
I'm highly critical of a lot of these systems that get thrown around because they're the status quo, without anyone bothering to think about what their implementation actually
ADDS to the game itself. It is just used because it is used.
I dont think there is anything actually broken about this concept that needs fixing. Quite on the contrary, in my experience systems like that work best. You really have good control over how you want to develop your character, and the programmer can have a pretty good idea about the powerlevel of your character, allowing them to keep a good level of challenge - not too easy, but also not too hard - that is great to have to neither bore the player with overly easy encounters nor overly frustrate the player with impossible encounters.
Meanwhile, I highlighted the flaws with the system.
The system stifles player freedom as well as design. Developers have to imagine what the "Average" person will do and what their powerlevel will be. Players can feel forced to do things simply for the sake of gaining experience instead of actually role playing as a character.
A system that is tied exclusively to the main story, opens up freedom:
Developers don't have to care about balancing experience between completionists and those who do the bare minimum. They only have to factor in where in the main story a player is.
A developer doesn't have to balance HOW someone does things, they don't have to set up experience bonuses for dialogue based combat skips, they don't have to consider "What if players stealth past/avoid this situation", they don't have to factor in players gaming the system by dialogue skipping AND murdering everyone.
They simply set up the challenge based on progress through the story.
Meanwhile players are free to do whatever they wish. They can be completionist and do everything. They can do nothing. They can do a few things that fit their role play. None of it affects the balance of the game, they will always get an adequate challenge without overleveling or underleveling being a concern.
Nothing about the way experience currently works provides any benefit besides a global reward.
Even in this statement of yours, nothing about it is specific to this particular way of how experience works. It is just a statements that function for literally any form of experience/level management.
What benefit is there for getting experience for doing every random thing? In a way that can mean players accrue vastly different amounts of experience depending on how they play? What does it add to the game specifically? What makes it better than literally any other system of progression?
Your only statement about it is "It's simpler than more complex solutions" and that's its only benefit. What about simpler solutions (Such as tying levels directly to main story quest progression. Which is much more simple. Or tying progression to specific objects like Shrines/Orbs that give you skill points when interacted with. Again, simpler.)?
What about if any more complex solutions provides a better experience? Wouldn't that be preferable than just doing something
only because it's simpler (At least from a player's perspective)?
