Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Objective Experience & Actual Difficulty

So, I already mentioned this like... during the D:OS2 kickstarter... then I kinda forgot about this place, and now back again. So this comes a bit late probably, still I feel very strongly about this and I definitely think it can be added to the game not requiring much drastic changes for such a large gameplay change, and in the end potentially even saving time for balancing.

The suggestion being to use the Objective XP system above a kill XP-system like in most other RPG's.

Let's start? What's kill XP?
* Kill XP is fairly self-explainatory, it's giving experience per kill of an opponent. Generally this is enhanced with quest experience, and in some games, exploration. Most RPG's however your primary source of XP is from killing opponents.

Okay, that seems clear, what's Objective XP?
* Objective XP is kind of like exploration or quest, some even call it Quest XP, but it's in no way tied to only being rewarded for completing quests. Objective XP is mostly useful for it's controlled element to a developer. Bascially an objective is given a value, and then when you do it, that's given to you. No matter how you got to that conclusion. Say, you need to acquire a diamond. Now of course you can kill the owner, done, easy. Or you can pickpocket it. Or try to talk him into giving you. Or get more creative and poison the water supply. Dominate his friends and backstab him causing internal turmoil. Etc.

Okay, that's clear too, why do you prefer objective experience?
* Let's look to some of the kickstarter games of recent, Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition and Pillars of Eternity. Notice one thing they do different from most other RPG's; new and old? Something I like to call "Actual Difficulty". In most RPG's, even some of my favorite, the difficulty is... not that great. Going to easy just makes you deal more damage and enemies deal less for example. Artificial. Some sad cases came along like Dragon Age where a high difficulty meant nothing more than a HP sponge. HP Sponges became fairly common in RPG's. Now these latest RPG's they didn't do that. Enemies don't get artificially buffed... the fights get buffed. Far superior IMO and I absolutely LOVE this difficulty. However both games had a clear problem with this "Actual Difficulty", and that was kill XP.

What do you mean?
* Well, both games where plagued that higher difficulties meant more monsters, so more XP per battle due to that. And in the end that meant hard didn't end up being so much harder since you overleved "normal" players. Not the intention of a difficulty slider. More other problems were also surfacing however, like in D:OS (haven't done this segment in EE yet) where you need to choose 3 paths; combat, stealth or walking over lava. 3 valid options, but the very first offered 500% the XP of the other, often more difficult paths. What's offering choices in RPG's if one choice is skewered over the other?

And with D:OS 2 there is more. PVP in the Kickstarter vids gave XP. This can overlevel you if you do too much PVP. If you liked this, would you also want the campaign to be a cakewalk due to it's rewards. Would you want to miss out on an optional feature just to keep your progression in balance. I doubt many of you would want that. That 4 different players be 4 different parties adds more difficulty. Does that kill give XP to all? Just your current allies? Just you. More headaches an objective system will take care off.

But what about combat? People will just stealth and run past combat if they get no XP!
* That argument came up with Pillars of Eternity's development. And the kill XP camp got very very loud indeed. The result was some horribly abmysal development, the "beastiary XP" (leading the difficulty inbalance mentioned above) and "lockpick XP" (the less said about this the better, it's PoE's absolute depth of developer choices). In the end the devs caved in for them, and the game weakened for it. And looking back, just check the achievements on Steam, it's doomday scenario didn't come true. You can't avoid all combat, some are the means to complete your objective, and heck, it's just plain fun too. PoE would have been great showing how Objective XP can make next-gen old-school RPG's greater, but they caved in and now that opportunity is ruined. So here is D:OS2. Another hope to set in a new area of XP-progression rather than sticking to archaic ideals just because people can't let go of them even when so much can be improved ditching them. More paths, more options, balance, actually offering those 3 D:OS paths without having an obvious and clear winner.

What say you? Also, of course if you have any questions I'm glad to answer them.

While I like your idea as a whole (similar things were discussed in an old thread http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=582436&page=1)

I am unsure if rewarding players the full experience regardless of how they solve the issue is the best approach. I am on the fence regarding players getting more experience by solving the objective in a more difficult manor vs an all roads lead to Rome approach where they have the freedom to solve it as they like and will be equally rewarded for it.

Would a combat encounter count as an objective?
Would you still get xp if you snuck past them?
Could you double down on objectives with multiple solutions (IE for your diamond example. Steal the diamond, turn in the quest, then go back and kill the previous diamond owner.)
Would you gain the same experience spelunking an ancient cavern to bring back some ancient relic vs passing a speech check to convince the quest giver it doesn't exist. (Extreme poorly designed quest)

I'll give that topic a look-over (read-over)... I remember making a topic around the completion of the Kickstarter and it not getting much response

In an older system, that would mean balancing each encounter individually, leading to most power-players going for the most XP, or some original sollutions giving less or no XP at all. Some other examples of "how not to do it" is my most favorite game, where an entire level is lost if you make peace with a gang, rather than just murder them all. Even though a lot of the game is about conversation over combat, that segment actually picking the peace option harms you bigway, as do many other segments ingame. D:OS has somewhat the same burden where it offers many opportunities to solve something, just to reward the combat-heavy the most and leaving all others to dry.

To answer the questions:
1) It can. An objective is just what a developer has set it to be. This should allow easy control over the development of characters and on-the-drop modifications, compared to for example nerfing a skeleton's XP by 25 which affects all and has a large effect throughout the entire game, less predictable, more time required to apprase how the balance has shifted.

2) A thing noticed early on in Pillars of Eternity discussions about this is that gameplay type it's impossible to detect "sneak past"... it's just impossible to actually setup. A more realistic goal is to set "get to point X" and then reward that instead, wheter you got their peacefully or by force. Same result, but actually possible from a development standpoint.

3) If you got the diamond you got the diamond. While in a kill XP system indeed it's possible to finish the quest then squeesh more XP out by killing everyone (especially systems giving bonus XP for peaceful sollution then murdering them anyway getting their kill-XP aswell) in such a system that wont have any experience-benefits. There may of course still be many valid reasons for people to do so (roleplaying, revenge, other side-quest, suddden plottwist etc.)

4) Yes. Though I personally would oppose to such quest-design And of course it may open up other potential "rewards" than just XP. Like saying if you leave the ancient cavern with the relic after doing the speech check, a band of cuthroats is waiting for you to reward you for you honesty with some good old fashioned combat. Since it doesn't reward XP, it doesn't overpower the player picking that option, nor is it a "good, I got waylaid, some more XP"... it's some good old fashioned "shit, I got ambushed, I hope this wont cost me" (I do hate how most ambushes or negative side-effects are pretty much welcomed by players due to XP).