idea about newbie guide . plz share your opinions

[atul]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
A console RPG that did the same - Final Fantasy VIII or IX or X or some such - it was a _huge_ PITA because if you want your people to level up, you had to swap each of them in long enough to take an action.

Arcanum? The amount of xp for kill was so minor compared to the one you got for bashing the critter up you could leave them lie unconscious if you were the kind type (and without followers, as they butchered without mercy).

Originally posted by Cainehill:

Paper and Pencil RPGs such as Runequest, AD&D and the like certainly never insisted that a character make a kill to get experience, or 1st level mages would never reach lvl 2; similarly, support characters such as clerics would rarely.

I really liked RoleMaster series (and MERP) in the sense you could actually level up from all the xp you gained for getting hit yourself. All those imaginative criticals yielded tons of xp when felt in first person.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Boron:
you have to chose whether to risk your hero or not .

You aren't choosing whether to risk your hero. You are using extremely gamey tactics to make sure that your most valuable units always act Last, and are the only ones to kill any other units so as to maximize your experience. If experience was granted for damage dealt, then you would at least have to fight lots to gain levels. If it was granted for some kind of spellcasting, then your casting heroes would be more useful as well.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by Boron:
you have to chose whether to risk your hero or not .

You aren't choosing whether to risk your hero. You are using extremely gamey tactics to make sure that your most valuable units always act Last, and are the only ones to kill any other units so as to maximize your experience. If experience was granted for damage dealt, then you would at least have to fight lots to gain levels. If it was granted for some kind of spellcasting, then your casting heroes would be more useful as well.

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you could get spell casting 1-5 in age of wonders 2 as levelup reward .

age of wonders 2 had tactical combat where you had full battle control .
in dom 2 you can only give very limited battle orders .

so the ability to exploit that is quite limited .
and it would reward those killing something more
i assume hitting something by damage shields counts as hitting too or ?
don't you agree that pretender sc's which conquer indies get maximum xp level too fast ?

so with xp for killing only your weak and almost worthless troops like militia would get almost no expierience while knights and other good troops would get some .
furthermore a sc wouldn't get max xp as quick as he does now .

you have to see expierience more abstract : authority/respect also matters .

if you look at any "barbarian" tribes in real history like the germans at the time of the roman empire there battle prowess and valor were very important .
only the most fierce and strong and successful warriors ( those who killed most enemies ) had a chance to become leaders , later kings .
there are many examples in history of warrior kings which rose from common , but brave soldiers to generals and finally kings .
even in rome there was the time of soldier kings .

so how else should you prove your valor and bravery in battle than by killing as much enemies as possible ?
war is not about hitting as many enemies as possible but killing as many as possible .
one hit , no kill is always a bad option .
was even in ancient times suboptimal .

a shortbow archer can hit a heavy armored soldier 10 times but he doesn't even scratch him . then the armored soldier is in range and kills the archer .

so i still can't see why getting xp only for killing doesn't make sense in pc games

[Boron]

Originally posted by atul:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cainehill:
A console RPG that did the same - Final Fantasy VIII or IX or X or some such - it was a _huge_ PITA because if you want your people to level up, you had to swap each of them in long enough to take an action.

Arcanum? The amount of xp for kill was so minor compared to the one you got for bashing the critter up you could leave them lie unconscious if you were the kind type (and without followers, as they butchered without mercy).

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oh yeah i played arcanum too . i have to admit that i enjoyed it very much .
i exploited that by using a low damage gun . this way i got more xp .

since dominion is the game i ever wanted i am forgetting almost all my gaming expierience from former games lol although it is only about 1 year ago when i played arcanum .

but still xp for killing is better than for hitting

@ cainehill : yeah that party joining and leeching was great

just rush to hell difficulty in 1 hour , join cowruns , leech and have a lvl 80 char in 2 days or even faster if you would have played nonstop .
loved that times

edit : me and a friend even offered that service for sojs
we got 1 soj for shuffling to hell ( complete ) and about 4-5 for even leveling up to lvl 80 .

was quite profitable .

ah well diablo was great you could betray the new and unexpierienced . and they even thanked you . so great and funny

[ July 29, 2004, 22:48: Message edited by: Boron ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Arryn:
Frankly, the idea that you only get experience for killing is stupid, and it leads to game play abuses. First, in the real world, you learn by doing. If you were practicing martial arts, or marksmanship, or whatever, you do really learn by trying to hit an opponent. If you only learned by defeating them, no one would ever learn anything, because beginners could never defeat experts. As for the gameplay abuses, it's not fair that one character gets all the XPs because they were lucky enough (or in MP, aggressive/sneaky enough) to land the Last blow, regardless of whether someone else did 99% of the work to kill the target. Which was one of the things I liked about the SWG MMORPG: you got XPs proportionally based on your share of the damage that was inflicted when you gang-banged an enemy.

There is no perfect XP system: Your great SWG system, for instance, neglects the value of support characters. If you only get XP for something based on the amount of damage you actually inflict to a target, then characters which are "support", and perform actions such as healing, buffing, and other tasks which allowed the party to inflict such damage, but did not actually cause damage directly, are without value to the XP system.

A system which rewards only for killing, on the other hand, results in the "vulching" issue where weakened units are saved for the person who is to finish them off, or, in a MMORPG, people "steal kills".

A system which rewards you for merely performing an action, on the other hand, results in players that perform purposeless actions for the sole purpose of acquiring XPs. An adaptation of this in which only acts performed upon appropriate targets qualifies results in "punching bag" behavior, in which the player intentionally preserves an otherwise crippled opponent, who has been intentionally hobbled due to a pile of negative status effects or is trapped upon an terrain obstacle, so that he can beat on this opponent repeatedly.

A system which rewards you for simply being in a group and/or being in proximity of those who commit an act which gains such an award, on the other hand, results in leeching: People that join and follow others around, and do not actually make any kind of contribution, for the express purpose of acquiring this experience.

All known XP systems have some sort of abusive pattern built into them: Either some form of artificial behavior becomes the easiest path to gaining XP, or some actions become artificially unrewarding or even counterproductive.

In theory, the only way you'd come up with a "fair" XP system is to include all of these methods simultaneously: At least then, there's no single pattern of abuse that can be followed, as you can abuse the system in a variety of ways. Until somebody comes up with a better solution than manually awarding the XPs, however, XP systems will always be abused.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Boron:
you could get spell casting 1-5 in age of wonders 2 as levelup reward .

You're missing the point. Your spellcasters had to go into physical combat to gain levels. They were not granted experience for any spell that they cast that did not actually kill the enemy.

age of wonders 2 had tactical combat where you had full battle control.

Which doesn't make the problem of giving experience only on kills any easier to deal with.

i assume hitting something by damage shields counts as hitting too or ?

It doesn't.

don't you agree that pretender sc's which conquer indies get maximum xp level too fast ?

No, I don't agree, since I'm pretty sure that the _only_ five star unit I've ever seen is Orion.

so with xp for killing only your weak and almost worthless troops like militia would get almost no expierience while knights and other good troops would get some.

What would be the point of this? Your expensive troops should not be any better at learning to be effective warriors than your cheaper troops.

furthermore a sc wouldn't get max xp as quick as he does now .

SCs don't get maximum experience unless they Last for a very, very long time.

you have to see expierience more abstract : authority/respect also matters .

Which is what the leadership rating represents, not the amount of experience that the unit has. Experience is combat ability, you gain it by the means already described. It would be pointless to change it, since the system is working as designed.

if you look at any "barbarian" tribes in real history like the germans at the time of the roman empire there battle prowess and valor were very important .

And this doesn't matter at all for combat ability.

only the most fierce and strong and successful warriors ( those who killed most enemies ) had a chance to become leaders , later kings .

Experience doesn't represent leadership ability.

so how else should you prove your valor and bravery in battle than by killing as much enemies as possible ?

A unit's experience also doesn't represent valour and bravery. Bravery is represented by morale. Experience represents the amount of combat that the unit has been involved in.

war is not about hitting as many enemies as possible but killing as many as possible .

Your ability in combat is certainly about hitting as many enemies as possible. As you hit more enemies, ie, as you are involved in more combats, you will become better at it.

a shortbow archer can hit a heavy armored soldier 10 times but he doesn't even scratch him . then the armored soldier is in range and kills the archer .

So what? That archer managed to hit _10 times_. That's quite an accomplishment, and he would certainly become a better archer after that.

so i still can't see why getting xp only for killing doesn't make sense in pc games

You've used a double negative in this sentence, so it's kind of hard to figure out what you mean.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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don't you agree that pretender sc's which conquer indies get maximum xp level too fast ?

No, I don't agree, since I'm pretty sure that the _only_ five star unit I've ever seen is Orion.

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well your vq is level 5 really fast too in general

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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only the most fierce and strong and successful warriors ( those who killed most enemies ) had a chance to become leaders , later kings .

Experience doesn't represent leadership ability.

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no but it was a requirement . it still is .
there is a figure of speech in german : von der pike auf dienen . unfortunately i don't know what the correct american figure of speech for that is .
so if anyone can translate that plz do it .
i try to describe what i mean :
you start your career as soldier as a basic soldier . once you haven proven worthy you get a low leader .
even without military skill you can get a midlevel leader through valor .
the main assessment factor for that are the kills achieved .
in ancient barbarian kingdoms physical weak sons were often even murdered if they were first successor to the throne and a more adept other son was available .
so the ability to kill is a must for becoming a leader , leadership abilities are only a good benifit but no crucial requirement .

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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war is not about hitting as many enemies as possible but killing as many as possible .

Your ability in combat is certainly about hitting as many enemies as possible. As you hit more enemies, ie, as you are involved in more combats, you will become better at it.

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true but see below

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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a shortbow archer can hit a heavy armored soldier 10 times but he doesn't even scratch him . then the armored soldier is in range and kills the archer .

So what? That archer managed to hit _10 times_. That's quite an accomplishment, and he would certainly become a better archer after that.

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the archer managed to hit 10 times but he is DEAD .
new modern , even more clear example : i take ww 2 cause i love that era for squad level tactical combat , you can simply replace it by any modern war :
the ability to hit is nice but as long as you can't kill what you hit it is irrelevant .

the russian KW/KV 1 series had so thick armor that it could only be penetrated long range through the 8,8 flak cannon .
so when the germans met the first KW/KV 1 when raiding russia in 1941 when the Pz III ( german mbt 1939-1943 ) shot at them at e.g. 1000/500 meters distance they had a really high hitting ratio because they had better targetting optics and the crews were better skilled .
but even the side / rear armor of the KW/KV 1 was so strong that it even couldn't be penetrated by the newer 5cm KwK's from the newer Pz III models at normal combat ranges .
the russian KW/KV 1 vice versa penetrated even the front armor of the Pz III at far combat ranges . although the Pz III landed probably something like 90% hits and the KW/KV 1 only like 50% he destroyed 1 Pz III with almost every hit while vice versa it was impossible .

so hitting is a requirement but it doesn't guarantee success = making a kill .

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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so i still can't see why getting xp only for killing doesn't make sense in pc games

You've used a double negative in this sentence, so it's kind of hard to figure out what you mean.

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sorry i meant i still would prefer the d2 lod / nwn xp system with xp for kills / shared for party , bonus xp for the killer .

edit : typo

[ July 29, 2004, 23:27: Message edited by: Boron ]