Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Less experience for being good?

See? Murder hobos are awesome! So awesome that we should get the chance to murder some of GODs legion of guardian angles....they look too pretty.

Wait, perfect idea.....persisting in killing after killing the first angels sent to stop you causes increase in Angel numbers and difficulty....all the way up to and including the Arch Angels and GOD himself coming down to tell you to stop clogging up heavens gates XD

It's like a super hard secret bonus achievement/challenge

First part answer: while yes xp rewards are nice you have to play from the position that you don't know what they are unless you are sitting there with a guide telling you everything or save scumming. If you want to play good play good if you want to play evil play evil but being evil should not net you more xp.

Second part answer: No not everyone is lawful good but even and evil character in any PnP game would not stab someone that gave them a quest after earning a reward without a reason and no GM would award XP for doing so they might earn a small xp bonus at the end.

Just killing a quest giver to kill them because you know they now have no further quests for you because its a videogame and you have played it before is meta gaming and deserves punishment by the GMS if someone wants it to be a demon appearing and eating your soul for source that is a little extreme in an open game system but it should not award you with full experience points like if you fought them fair and square and they had the chance to kick your ass.

By the theory which you have just stated there is no cause not to kill everything and everyone in any video game that allows you kill everyone just because it nets you more experience name a game that is like that. Where there is no penalty at all for killing everyone.

Now i'm sorry you think that maximizing xp is the point of a video game an increasing your characters power is the point of a video game but its not the point of a video game especially and rpg game like divinity original sin 2 is to enjoy the storyline and the multitude of different paths it can take.

Just making the most OP character should not be the goal of any roleplaying game.

Devs really shouldnt have to worry about meta gaming in the full version, and the meta game argument really sounds absurd.

I took the easy way several times in my first play through (killed a guy who looked at my funny) and missed out on several quests I found on my next 'good guy' play through. This is what the average player will experience and I feel like this is a positive experience. You should be role playing your character, making choices based on what you feel is right and what your character would do. Like the guy ahead of me said. XP should not be on your mind while you are making choices. For example: I wanted to kill the silent monks because they could be used as weapons against us, my partner disagreed. She felt that they had done us no harm, and may be rehabilitated. So we left them alone. Would killing them have made us a tiny bit stronger? Sure. But who cares? The point was that I had to make a choice. And if a player looks at those npcs like experience pinyatta's then they have successfully role played a character with no moral compass who will do whatever it takes to be the strongest mofo around.

So, I agree with the guy who says work=reward. If it's an easy fight, it shouldn't be worth much XP. But the XP for a fight should be completely separate from the XP for any quests they might offer which require additional work. Doing extra work should net extra reward.
Now, if that work makes you a scum and ruins your karma so the gentle loving deities start cursing you at their shrines instead of offering you blessings than you now have a really cool and meaningful karma system.

I have simple answer.
This is game, game have goal and only actions what brought players closer to goal should be rewarded by xp, no matter what way the chosen to accomplish the goal.

The simplest solution and the best one for balance is to set some checkpoints like: coming to fort joy, finding way in magister's headquarters, getting out of it. etc.

Side quests and killing should only give items and money as reward, because they don't directly help in progress main quest. They will be pure optional choices.

If you want level up you need to actually progress, no backtracking or randomly kill everyone.

That solution doesn't force anything, and is nice gift for people who only want to do main quest only. People who like doing combat, quests and stealing will have extra items, skills and gold.

/// Soft version of that solution would just lesser xp reward for quests and having something like bestiary from Pillars of Eternity.

I'm amazed this isn't self evident to everyone, but the point of a video game is to have fun. What makes a video game fun for you is the point of that game for you, not necesarily for everyone else.

Telling other people how they are supposed to enjoy a game is straight up immature.

It's not that getting the max amount of XP is the most important thing, but increasing levels and getting stronger is an important part of the fun.
With ever increasing amounts of XP being rewarded from quests and new enemies, and larger amounts of XP required for each level up, I just doubt the kind of min-maxing from farming every low-level NPC will ever be too much of an issue.

The reason it is currently an issue in the alpha is because if you kill someone from stealth that has nothing to do with combat normally you gain the same xp as from an actual battle. 450 xp is no small matter at level 2 and can easily make you gain levels if you kill all the npc's in the game which is what people are doing just so they can level saying that they are playing evil characters.

That is not evil that is metagaming because you know as a player they have no quests for you because it is a video game. Evil doesn't want to get caught anymore than good would want to get caught for stealing. Evil characters even in a PnP game don't kill everyone because the GM would do something to kill that character or punish them like having them arrested by high level knights or something because at that point they are just a disorganized serial killer and everyone knows who they are.

Devs aren't responsible for meta gaming - > point 1

If you want punishment system, thats fine; don't make it 'impossible' to beat on purpose though -> point 2

If a player manages to defeat the 'high level knights' called in, they should get properly rewarded -> point 3

Reputation can be evolved into an ad hoc karma system -> point 4

Killing something = XP reward...should never consider changing such a fundamental rule -> point 5

I started a new game any tried the find all of the quests this time and tried to finish them the good guy way. So the thing that i found out you are forced by quest trigger to kill most of the npcs in the fort even if you try to play nice. Basicaly in this game there are lots of non hostile bad guys.

If you want to safe the prisoner without sacrificing the lizard you will have a hell of a fight yes.

I'd be fine with this tbh, as it doesn't remove the reward for doing extra work / doesn't cheapen then decision to spare/kill bad guys.. but would uncouple the level/power imbalance and keep the game challenging even for the evil hobo barbarians everyone keeps mentioning (I imagine they are also cannibals amirite?)

O yeah. Killing and eating one of the elves in the cave with the warfare vendor yields the Frost Armour skill, which is really nice.

I did a full playthrough recently where I killed literally everyone, and I earned lvl 8 with 41% XP towards level 9. So it's a noticeable bonus to get everyone all the time.

I did find one particularly notable spot where being evil was a big bonus.

Point 2 - Are you assuming that the "punishment" involves being attacked by Magisters?criminal elements/some other group or person?

There are other possible ways of dealing with these problems. For example, if you kill a low level trader then the remaining ones reduce the amount of gear and gold they have on their persons. Some might require cash in advance and agree to leave the goods elsewhere to be collected. Of course, some traders might then decide to disappear with your gold.

An attack on a Magister before a certain event might involve a Monopoly response "Go directly to jail, do not collect £200 etc." followed up by the loss of some choice gear.

Point 3 - This defeats the whole purpose of the original suggestion. It is a reward which is not available to "good" players.

Point 4 - This might do the job, but I think any such system might not go down well. I would prefer to approach it by considering the impact of the players actions on NPCs. For example, you are a small trader. You have just heard that another trader has been attacked and murdered and all his gear was taken. You know who carried out the attack. What would you do?

Point 5 - I don't see any reason why this should be the case. If there is no real challenge in the killing the killer will not have improved their skills.

If you are forced into a fight, which happens quite a lot, then self-defence is a reasonable action even when trying to be the "good guy". Being good need not be the same as being a pacifist.* I would not like to try to get through this game as a committed pacifist!

*Yes, you can argue that only a pacifist can be truly good. I would not accept that argument.

True, the evil wins if the good does nothing.

When you start talking about the line between "good" and "evil" in role-play you're potentially opening up a can of worms because people enjoy debating it. Largely because they can come in different varieties.

In my role-play experience and with most of the people I've ever role-played with, the line between "good" and "evil" can be very easily blurred and comes down to two things: intent and perception.

Intent is defined as the purpose and will behind an action from the mind of the actor:

"Evil" often has intentions inconsiderate of the cost or affect on others.
"Good" often has intentions considerate of the cost or affect on others.

Both can be selfish but only one tends to be selfless.

Perception is defined as the purpose and will behind an action from the mind of the audience:

"Evil" is often perceived as malicious, extreme, unnecessary and/or harmful.
"Good" is often perceived as benevolent, compassionate, sacrificial or just.

An act can be "good" to the actor because he understands the full context of the situation but still be perceived as "evil" to the audience who only understands the moment. An individual's 'alignment' is best determined by the sum of both intent and perception.

In terms of this game, the "good" character isn't going to start a fight if it can be avoided unless more "good" can come from the fight than avoiding it. (Such as fighting the establishment that is inherently preying upon others). That same character won't hesitate to defend themselves if attacked because there is nothing inherently evil about defending oneself.

Bovine Defense Initiative in Witcher 3.....check it out. That was dev response for 'punishing' players that wanted to farm weak cows for infinite gold in the game.

A punishment system should be there to discourage certain actions by making a player question if they want to follow through. "Discourage" is not the same as "impossible." By removing the ability to see something through, you remove choice.

If an 'evil' player can legitimately over come a punishment system in the form of higher level opponents trying to stop him using skill and tactics, then obviously he's not being evil cause he needs it to beat the game.

So, why should it matter that he wants to imbalance difficulty more his way?


Furthermore, all efforts deserve a reward, in all context. The idea that any action is unviable or gets one nothing is, frankly, bad game design as it begins making players question "why do it at this point?" if there's nothing tangible to go along with an action.

Instead of arguing that evil players should be stripped of their rewards, I have proposed the alternative idea.

Consider how to make a 'good' player feel more rewarded for his choices.

Evil -> Kill everyone -> More power in leveling and stuff
Good -> Save everyone -> ??????

XP is not the only reward system. Could give them special items or skills, special quest lines and story bits, ect....

The most I'm willing to conceded is that killing everyone shouldn't be so 'easy' as to make it a non thinking choice for power. Some mechanics to balance out the thought going into the action would be nice. Either a karma system or some high level enemies interfering would be nice.

Also, I ,patently, hate this idea. Removes weight of actions beyond simple gear and money.....which one can make or buy easily.

Why would anyone kill anyone if it doesn't get you anything unique? When it ultimately matters nothing? When it hardly changes the experience directly?

No, uncoupling XP from combat and direct actions is never something I could agree with.

XP for killing
XP for significant trigger actions
XP for discovering new locations

I still find this very silly argument when it amounts to little beyond saying: "That guy worked longer, but doesn't deserve more; even when the end difference isn't that big!"

TBH, i'm ok with more XP for evil.

Being good is generally considered to be the harder path.

the dark side. quicker, easier, more seductive.
so being good is the hard path. With lower rewards, just as in real life, often.
Think of it as 'hard mode.'

As long as there's some reasonable XP for an encounter, rather than just kill XP.

I play a lot of DnD and Pathfinder and this is an extremely common issue in those worlds which, in my opinion, is best handled by giving the same amount of experience no matter what happens. It doesn't matter if you decide to take the direct route and mow everyone down, talk everyone down, or talk everyone down and then jump them while their guard is down, at the end of the day you have "conquered a challenge" and should be rewarded depending on the difficulty of the encounter. The one way that exp should be variable is if there are optional side objectives, stated or otherwise, that alter the difficulty of the encounter or create unique ways to handle the problem. In almost all cases creativity in how to handle a situation should at least be attempted to be rewarded but that can be pretty hard to do without making it feel shoehorned or not comprehensive.