This sounds good to me.
Giving exponentially more XP for higher level enemies and requiring exponentially more XP for each additional level would accomplish the same thing.
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And here's the complaints:
"Evil" = more exp = one/two extra levels for hours more work and multiple playthroughs and guides
You have unsuccessfully validated why that extra work shouldnt be rewarded and why the, frankly, small difference is notable.
I don't follow your argument here. The npcs we are discussing are in the main low level with the combat ability of a dead rat. If you get into a fight with them, it typically lasts a few minutes at most.
What relevance do multiple playthroughs and guides have? These are used (or not used) by players adopting all play styles.
The "work" is minimal and the rewards are disproportionate. In the early stages of Fort Joy, a difference of a single level can changes battles from difficult to routine, so it is not a matter of a "small difference".
My complaints about your hamfisting attempt to solve something that's only a possible issue cause of the limited content available has far reaching impact.
So, yes, the fact that levels don't/won't differ much in the end cause of exponential req to level up is important to note.
Those fights you say last a couple minutes will be adding up if someone really wants that extra level at the end cause he'll be having to repeat that for a good long time during the final release.
In fact, anyone who's saying that those couple minutes adding up isn't important should aslo not be complaining about the time wasted repairing items...it's only a couple seconds, eh?? -_- And yet they feel it's important. That's the definition of being a hypocrite.
Then we move onto the fact that you apparently want meta gaming to be a developer concern in an rpg....that's asking for the world on a silver platter. It's infeasible, impractical, and everyone here seems to be targeting a specific playstle cause its in direct contrast to their own and these solutions hold little impact on them overall.
The only point anyone here has been able to reasonably make is that the NPCs are too weak for the xp value they give. Either their combat ability should match their level and exp value or the other two should be lowered to match their combat ability. That's it.
Aside from that, making it so the NPCs have some kind of fallback to actually defend themselves well so that murdering an entire town isn't super simple would be nice as well. Whether in the form of more monsters from divine intervention or the guards being alerted and doing their jobs would be nice.
The note that one level can have major impact in the beginning is barely of note. Fact is: the entire game as a whole has to be taken into consideration. Not some high and low points. This means future content and exponential cost of levels.
2 milliion and 2.5 million xp -> That's hardly a difference if it costs 3 million to hit level 21 and 2 for 20 in the end. This is the big picture we're talking about.
Now let me go back to my original points on this silly thread for maybe solving this in a way that actually makes sense and
isn't extremely biased in moral views and playstyles:
1. Don't change core mechanics to fill meta game exploits
2. Use the goddamn setting to creatively make fun plugs for said holes
3. Discouraging an action and making one impossible are different concepts.
4. Player choice should never be infringed upon and all choices should feel rewarding in some manner
5. Making being an evil power hungry hobo barbarian killing everyone for extra power you can't get from being good impossible removes player choice -> this is bad
6. Having NPC exp value, combat ability, and level all be out of alignment is bad
7. Give non-combat NPCs recourse to defend themselves
8. Give good players a reward that has nothing to do with leveling up: items, gear, special optional quests, ect... If a player is being 'good' chances are that he's less focused on combat and 'powah' then he is other things. You can give him some buffs in the form of divine blessings and loot, but the rewards should be tailored to the more pacifist mindset
9.
Differentiate play styles with more than exp so that 'good' players feel rewarded for their efforts in a different manner -> this is a restatement of the obvious, but apparently needs saying
10. While evil players should have more combat power in the end, give some notable story differences to make their actions have impact on the world
11. Actually make us give a damn about Reputation by turning it into an ad how karma system: Goo action = +reputation, evil action =-reputation. Let it span into negative values to show 'karma'
12. If the goddamn difficulty is balanced around a particular level (cause we all know level scaling would be horrendous) and a player wants/desires to break that by leveling up elseswhere and coming back to kill everyone or double dipping cause they know which quests/rewards they want need for ultimate power and who/when to kill or cause being evil in a specific area has gains that reach across a few fights...that's called meta exploits. WHICH SHOULDNT EXPLICITLY BE A DEV CONCERN.
