EXP is an outdated and obsolete mechanic. Games should reward exploration, completion, and engaging with the mechanics, not grinding.
>>3965618To some degree I can agree but I also found EXP to have potential to be played around with.Fire Emblem games for example, forces you to decide which unit should be fed EXP. And absolutely not let Jagens take those away from you.
>>3965619I'll admit that's a rare example of a game that does it right since it's technically a limited resource due to battles being do-or-die.
>>3965618>Games should reward exploration, completion, and engaging with the mechanics, not grinding.This is a significant part of what allows Zelda to be better than the entire RPG genre. It's a better realization of what RPGs ought to be doing that doesn't make the same mistakes.
>>3965618>Games should reward exploration, completion, and engaging with the mechanicsPerhaps rewarded with some sort of… experience… points?
>>3965632Equipment, abilities, party members, classes, items, literally anything beyond "This number makes these numbers go up". Take some notes from SaGa for example.
>>3965653>abilities>classesWhat if there were some sort of arbitrary quantifiable unit to track progression towards these things?
>>3965618Fighting enemies IS "engaging with the mechanics" you stupid niggerStop giving XP for combat and you just incentivize speedrun bullshit to skip encounters, aka not engaging with the mechanics
>>3965618Mate, you haven't had to grind the SNES. Mind you "no grinding" doesn't mean "I can skip all combat except bosses".
if i remember correctly, Pillars of Eternity only gives exp for quests, filling in the map, and bestiary entries, so you can't grind respawning enemies for levelsand being a faux-d&d crpg, leveling gave you options to expand and refine your build rather than just being a direct power increase
>>3965657Quests to find teachers, unlocking through story progression, skills being tied to weapons and equipment?
>>3965618That's not a bad idea. I agree with you.
>>3965632>>3965709>"This number makes these numbers go up"That's literally how video games work on a fundamental level, retard. What do you think happens in this hypothetical game where you get new shit by finishing quests or talking to the right NPCs? Under the hood it's all making a number go up, or giving you more ways to make enemy numbers go down. Any "innovation" you come up with is just going to accomplish the exact same thing as experience points but with extra steps>b-but GRINDING!You know you don't HAVE to have infinite random encounters or respawning enemies, right? The player is only going to be able to get as much XP as you let them, if you don't want your players grinding you can just literally make it impossible to do.
There's a reason why Chrono Cross is the only game to use its progression system. Reinventing the wheel just tends to leave you with a cart that can't go anywhere.
>>3965653>Equipment, abilities, party members, classes, itemsDepends on how you do it but those seem to be sidegrades (don't have to be to be fair), where lvl up is an upgrade.Sidegrade is not always useful, upgrade is.It may seem like the point but you swap "damage and hp inflation" to "Another 'reward' that I won't use".Elden Ring has both. When I level up it's nice, when I find some incantation not for me it's like spitting in my face (incantation that is useful does feel good of course)If you want to make those upgrades and you give me stronger and stronger equipment and abilities, the power curve would be out of control, unless there is only 1 way to play, I guess than it would make sense.Only game that comes to my mind and has done upgrades without levels is Sekiro.
>>3965618whatever you say faggot keep away from my series then if you're this retarded
>>3965619There's nothing wrong with giving Jagens some exp.
Maybe you could just play different genres of games from time to time instead?
>>3966098>There's nothing wrong with giving Jagens some exp.Yeah let's give Marcus all the EXP. Great advice.
>>3965619>>3966098>>3966170>some>alloverfeeding your jeigan is a noob trapcompletely benching your jeigan in the earlygame is also a noob trapanyone who's competent at playing Hector Hard Mode will tell you (correctly) that Marcus is one of the most important units in the game
>>3965659>Stop giving XP for combat and you just incentivize speedrun bullshit to skip encounters, aka not engaging with the mechanics>clever ways of handling an obstacle shouldn't be rewarded so I can grind like an MMORPGSpergtastic argument.
>>3966061>DisgaeaYou are brown.
>>3965618What is it with these "X is an outdated concept" mentioning core elements of the RPG genre? If you don't like RPGs just play a different type of game. Leave RPGs alone for those of us who enjoy these games.
>>3966490>Leave RPGs alone for those of us who enjoy these games.I absolutely refuse to. RPGs have trashed the quality of gameplay of most turn based games so that they cater to tards. This needs to be fixed.
>>3966490We can't just have threads. Every thread must be lousy rage bait.
>>3966210I just need him there to act as a barrier/funnel to get enemies to attack the units I actually plan to use.
>>3966682If you genuinely want to change opinions, consider starting an OP with reasoning behind claims, rather than simply making inflammatory statements.>EXP is an outdated and obsolete mechanic.Why?>Games should reward exploration, completion, and engaging with the mechanics, not grinding.Why?Etc.
>>3966490You can love something while recognizing its faults.
>>3966490>>3965622>>3965653These fags just want to play Zelda, seeing numbers on the screen triggers them because they are low IQ. Rather than just accepting that they don't enjoy RPGs and moving on to games more their taste they stamp their feet and demand the entire genre change to accommodate them. Skyrim was designed for this exact audience btw.
>>3967045>seeing numbers on the screen triggers them because they are low IQ. >they stamp their feet and demand the entire genre change to accommodate them. >Skyrim was designed for this exact audienceHave you ever modded Skyrim to put floating damage numbers on screen? It’s great, can’t go back again
Infinity engine games gave exp for everything including combat. Progression systems are fun.
>>3965653Or just reaching story objectives?When I played Witcher 3, the best reward I experienced was finding Ciri. I still choke up at that scene.
>>3967028Yup
>>3967091A story unfolding is definitely a factor that makes me finish a game.
>>3966490OP is an idiot, but you don't NEED exp to have an RPG. I sincerely think every /vrpg/ user needs to read at least one non-DnD /tg/ rulebook in their life, because some people here genuinely can't conceive of RPGs that stray too far from what Gygax made in the 80s.I think posts like OP's are born of people who are essentially reinventing the wheel and can't express it properly. Rather than thinking "What would it be like to not have X feature?" they immediately jump up "X Feature must be removed from all future RPGs". I swear I don't see this zero sum mindset in any other videogame genre.
>>3968295>>3968295>I swear I don't see this zero sum mindset in anyManaged to bait a reply out of you, didn't itWelcome to 4chan
>>3968296At least you admit the thread is bait which was clear to everyone.
>FF7 Rebirth>open world>should we do rare materia, armor and accesories as exploration rewards in optional dungeons and stuff?>nope they are all chadley quest rewards and on the main pathWASTED
>>3968620Chadley IS the challenging optional content, doofus. The Meridian Ocean materia can only be acquired by beating the game's superbosses and duo summon boss fights.
>>3965618I like individual skill levels, like sword proficiency making the character more likely to land blows, and land them squarely or parry incoming attacks when they're using swords, or turn an incoming square blow into a glancing one, or redirecting it from a vital location (head/face/neck) to a non-critical one (shoulder/hip/forearm)I don't like EXP giving character more hit points and damage. HP should basically static and set during character creation, damage should be a function of the character's strength the weapon they're wielding, and how square/glancing the blow was and how vital/noncritical the location they hit was.
>>3966481And then in games that have both, the optimal play is to first bypass the combat encounter, and then going back and fighting all the enemies anyway.
>>3965618If the RPG has some open world or sandbox-y elements: leveling by doing is the best for me. I just enjoy using a skill and seeing my progress as I use it more and more. It also allows for some breaks in your playthrough: for example in Morrowind I always enjoy the moment where I got a good foothold and can start working on skills like Alchemy. Having to go buy the necessary equipment, going around traders for ingredients, exploring the map while being focused on picking up plants instead of just going from point A to point B...If the RPG is somewhat linear, the next best thing in my opinion is the Underrail Oddity system. It removes any issues of "missing" XP from different playstyles (Human Revolution had this problem with stealth and non-lethal giving way more XP) and you can also easily reward exploration. I don't know if any other game has implement such a system but if yes I am curious.After experiencing those two systems it's always a bit of a letdown going back to the old get XP from beating up people or completing quests -> level up a completely unrelated skill
>>3965618Any other reddit-takes Mister r/Imafuckingfaggotpleasefuckmyface ?
>>3965632what about a picture of a lady with her clothes off instead?
>>3965618>gain exp and level up because you talked to people a lot and read some books>now you can wear the heaviest armor and onehand a greatswordno
>>3965618>EXP is an outdated and obsolete mechanicNo its not. It wouldn't be used otherwise. I do want some variety.
Why are people always trying to reinvent the wheel. Some motherfuckers always trying to skate uphill.
>>3970955Because I demand bigger and better hero simulators. I will never be satisfied with inferior hero simulations.
>>3965618SaGa and similar games have been a thing for decades, you know that right?
>>3966490I imagine this thread was made because there's been similar discussions on /tg/. For a long time now RPGs have tracked character progression by kills, but the original rules of DnD had the amount of gold you earn as EXP. It was considered a weird rule until recently, when people tried it and realized it actually allows for significant flexibility and creative strategies. Like you can have your party spec into stealth, or you can bait enemies into attacking each other and not worry about EXP loss. Naturally, people are reconsidering and experimenting with EXP as a concept, and it was only a matter of time until it leaked to vidya RPGs.
>>3965618It's another retarded relic of D&D, along with levelling, classes, hit points, dungeon crawling etc.
Statistics-based character progression is THE pillar of the genre. It's the one thing that ties all flavors of RPG together.
EXP is good actually and its not the games fault youre too retarded to stop yourself from grinding. Just play the fucking game like you say you want to.
>>3965618any game developer that says this then goes on to make a shittier system than a standard exp game, every single time.the only one i ever liked were the gameboy saga games
>>3965618I've been working on a game without EXP and after a while I had to cave and use them anyway.The main thing is that EXP are very flexible. Systems like exploration rewards or resource based power can work, but they require you to adapt the game towards them while experience points don't. Simple example: alchemy themed game where you gain stats from materials. Works fine with one player character, but if you're party based you now have to deal with players funneling all resources to one character.EXP is an abstraction that every player understands, a very granular reward for any activity and an idiot-proof way to make players stronger. In any exploration based progression the delta between good and bad players is much larger and thus you'll have more difficulty tuning the difficulty. And a player might end up frustrated because they missed a key ability in the starting area. In contrast, with EXP you can ensure that players will eventually catch up to your content.Of course you can use EXP simply as the backbone for your other systems. Dragon's Dogma 2 for example has you unlock some classes through a quest and others through meeting teachers, and then later on your ultimate abilities through class quests. But a more common example is equipment: add some horizontal progression to items instead of just bigger number to make the items really interesting, then make some special pieces for quests. That should give you the feeling of meaningful exploration while still letting the dev have the detailed control of player power from EXP.
>>3965622I agree, Zelda relies on mechanically intuitive and enjoyable systems wheras the vast majority of RPG exploit basic arithmetic to make you enjoy them.
>>3970662this is a pretty fair take
>>3965618RPGs without XP aren't new. Betrayal at Krondor didn't have XP or levelling, and it came out in 1993.
>>3965618No, games should reward grinding.
>>3965618IF Level is greater than or equal to the enemy level by 3, THEN EXP equals 0Wow, so hard.
>>3981140>equal to the enemy level by 3
>>3965653If you go that way you'll end up with a puzzle game fast.
>>3965705Poe is killed by the wall of text and nonsensical story and premise in 2.
>>3982063>If you go that way you'll end up with a puzzle game fast.Or strategy
>>3978149>similar gamesLike what
There's already games that don't use EXP. for progression, thing is they're harder to design and most people out there don't have any reason to bother especially since the audience itself doesn't want games that don't use EXP.
>>3982078>they're harder to designNah, Zelda has been doing it for years, it uses hearts and sword upgrades for progress works fine and is arguably easier to design around then giving every monster in the entire game its own exp value and making sure the player doesnt get too little or too much.
>>3982080Zelda is not an RPG in any way or shape
>>3982072Disagree. It'll boil down to rock paper scissors. Feel free to show me a counter example. I made more than 50 systems, I'm pretty sure I correct.
>>3982082What else, action adventure?
>>3982092Explain what you mean by "rock paper scissors"
>>3982099Attack/unit A < A/U B < A/U C < A/U AThink fire beats ice beats water beats fire
>>3982101And if we add more objects to "rock paper scissors"
>>3982103One way to soften it up or to add spice, essentially>It'll boil down to rock paper scissorsThis is by no means a bad thing. The question is what do you want? If you add more options, some flavour and maybe trap choices (actually a nogo imo), you can have a system that has been tried hundreds of times. It's serviceable, but not groundbreaking.
>>3982092>what the fuck did you just say to me, you little bitch? I’m a /vrpg/ anon with over 50 confirmed systems
>>3982129>>3982101>>3982092Is this the same anon?
>>3982130>>3982133Wth
>spend 10 minutes in combat struggling to defeat the enemy with various clever combinations of tactics, buffs and luck.>or click the [persuade] let's not fight dialogue choice>the EXP award should be equivalent for these two things
>>3982199>Spend 10 minutes persuading people through dialogue choices>Level Up!>Put points in Strength and learn Cleave (Combat)
>>3982199Ideally the [persuade] option would be its own game with its own rules thats as fun to interact with as the [fight]. Its a failure of game design that they're not equally satisfying.
I like xp
>>3965618>an outdated and obsolete mechanicexplain whyis chess outdated and obsolete?I think you don't actually understand what games are and look at them as nothing but virtual reality experiences where the point of the mechanics is to simulate real lifenow, the history of games is definitely intertwined with war simulation, so your confusion isn't unfounded. it's just very reductive to limit games to that and consider them as failures because technology has evolved and you can now simulate with less gamey abstractions
>>3982199Not necessarily, but should open other parts of the game. Somehow we still follow 70s design principles of right and wrong choices. See bg3. It wants to be sandbox and open, but a single decision can lock you out of hours of gameplay. One door closes, the other opens.
>>3982233Do you like money and tits, too?
Weapon skill levelling up based on use is a very cool thing, that's what I think
>>3965619I actually hate Fire Emblem's EXP system because it encourages sub-optimal or cheesy gameplay in order to feed exp to a unit. I'd rather the game just award one level for everyone who participated in a battle and just lower jagen stat growth so they naturally fall off.
>>3966170>Bro just don't use your good units! The game doesn't want you to use your good units!Why are FE players so stupid?
>>3982253I like food and ass
>>3965618EXP is just there for the people who can't git gud at actual combat strategy, party composition, and exploration. If you're good at those other things, you'll find equipment and abilities that will allow you to overcome enemies stronger than your level would normally allow. If not, you'll whine like a bitch and grind until you can one-shot everything.The only people who complain about EXP are the shitters who need it.
>>3984985>If you're good at those other things, you'll find equipment and abilities that will allow you to overcome enemies stronger than your level would normally allow.The problem is that there is no convention for this though. If every RPG 'agreed' that 0 EXP/no leveling was possible and acted as an intended hard difficulty for challenge completionists, then this would be fine. But there's no standard for this and so at best you have "well, just don't level TOO MUCH", but nobody agrees on which 'too much' is or how powerful you should be at a given point of a game to be challenging. It's a dumb excuse that lets you go "ha, you were just to overleveled to be challenged" whenever someone beats something without any gigga IQ strategy.
>>3965972And I loved it.Such a shame most gamers have no imagination, we can't have good things while most people are still type 5.They need to see the number go up.
>>3982082>Roleplay as ZeldaWhat now faggot?
>>3982204This, how can these retards not understand the problem?
>>3982199>>3982204>>3986952You tardos should just play a genre you actually like instead of being autistic fucks that want to ruin stuff for other people desu.
Dumb thread premise, didn't read anything, but learn by doing systems (most notably colony ship) have resulted in my belief shifting towards:>EXP as a form of progression is meaninglessAnd instead, that a character's experiences in the game, post-adolescence(post character creation in most cases), should redefine their relationship with said world without directly increasing player power. A character shouldn't generally gain something without losing something else. You can still have vertical power progression via equipment, economy, reputation, etc.
>>3987025>NOOOOOOOOOOO DON'T POINT OUT RETARDED GAME DESIGN>YOU JUST DON'T LIKE THE GENREThanks god most people aren't as retarded as you and things move forward, I bet you think gold as exp was good design too
>>3965618A mechanic I thought of was medals or badges clear a scenario well and get a mid tier silver badge and mid tier stat boosts from it. Later on when you have more badges come back and get the gold version of the badge etc. There is something comfortably mind numbing about grinding and just watching the numbers get bigger though.There has to be some sort of permanent reward for killing an an enemy. Because sometimes it feels like a slog and gold an items are temporary and XP is permanent and feels like a decent consolation, even a small amount.
>>3987044>no everything has to ''''evolve'''' into boring ass ARPG slop where all that matters is minor gear upgrades!!!You're fucking stupid fyi
>>3987377>Anything that doesn't use EXP is "boring ass ARPG slop"Dumb motherfucker, people were already abandoning EXP as a mechanic in the fucking 70's in TTRPGs, stop posting
>>3987385>some guys stopped doing a thing before video games even existed>that means it should never ever be allowed to exist anymore in anything!God, you're so stupid that it's painful. Why are the autistic like this?
>>3987387Stop following with non-sequiturs to save your retarded ass, go back to twitter
>>3987385>people were already abandoning EXP as a mechanic in the fucking 70's in TTRPGs
>>3965618I think XP should all be doled out as an item you can expend as you please across your whole party, like funneling it all into one character or saving some for a new character you know is coming so that you can bring them up to parity immediately. They did this for archetype experience in Metaphor: Refantzio when you have a character who is capped out on their current archetype, so I just let everyone max out their own starting archetype and their respective direct upgrades, then used literally the rest of it to level all the MC's archetypes, not even knowing that there's a great item you get for unlocking all archetypes for him at the time I did it.
>>3987540Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance's bonus experience system was delightful.
>>3965618only gain xp whenever you explore
>>3965618I love EXP as a resource not just as a mindless incentive to overpower the enemies
>>3966098I strip my Jagens of their weapons, FIRST TURN, and I send them into the corner of the map to get exactly 0 experience the whole game. Once possible, I field them onto a map where they are able to get instantly killed by a boss, so as to not stink up my army with their presence and to have no potential to be fielded to garner ANY exp.
>>3967045The numbers are not the problem, it's the EXP system making games impossible to balance as accurately as ones without it.
>>3970849sold
>>3965619Your Jagens can have a little EXP, as a treat.
>>3965618Fuck off Sawyer.
>>3965618No, it just needs to be done in a more dynamic way.One exp bar? No. THREE experience bars.>combat xp>social xp>knowledge xpCombat xp is only earned from fighting, and raises your combat level, unlocking all the combat skills.Social xp is earned from quests, and from all the persuasion and intimidation skills used during it. Levelling it unlocks the ability to complete quests in peaceful ways and get more money.Knowledge xp comes from exploring and reading books n scrolls. It unlocks abilities that help you find books n scrolls. Also slightly empowers magic.
>>3992685>One exp bar? No. THREE experience bars.No. Even more experience bars.
>>39927531000 billion million trillion maybe more
>>3966484Etna is pure sex. Your post is invalid.
>>3992765based
You dumbasses whining about EXP and LVL are in the wrong board. This stuff appeals directly to the (endless) progression & power fantasy. It's also why LitRPG is a huge success. The idea of becoming stronger through hard work and seeing your progress being visualized in numbers going up is highly addicting.
>>3965618I played Witcher 3 unleveled and it felt like ass. Fuck off.
>>3992782What possessed you to play a RPG without leveling up?
>>3992785Geralt as an established veteran monster slayer shouldn't be leveling up like crazy from zero to hero.
It would be needlessly obtuse for any reasonably complex RPG to hide abilities behind specific quests. It's only desirable in more simple games, like Zelda or metroidvanias where abilities are tightly controlled.
Real talk: games with multiple party members should give the OPTION to smooth XP totals. If your party is level 50 and has a new level 1 member, all XP should automatically go to them.
>>3992781What the fuck is LitRPG
>>3987042>A character shouldn't generally gain something without losing something else.Bizarre statement
>>3992782>I played Witcher 3 unleveled and it felt like assBecause>>3993577>Geralt as an established veteran monster slayer shouldn't be leveling upI can't tell if this anon is joking or
Saga games and Mana Khemia have the best jrpg leveling system imo
>>3993669That's the explanation given for W3EE's removal of levels. I didn't even play the original version. Geralt without amnesia "leveling up" feels artificial.
>>3993697>play RPG>affronted at the existence of character progression
>>3993697>W3EEApparently it's an overhaul mod made by amateur fans, in case you weren't aware.
>>3993577Yeah, there shouldn't be any levelling in the Witcher. It should just play action-adventure style.Geraldo would always be the same strength, and enemies always the same strength. But you would take on harder enemies.Fighting monsters should just require you gathering the right potion ingredients and being prepared.Not everything needs levels.
>>3993723I disagree and cancel out your preference
The problem with XP isn't grinding, but metagaming.NPCs aren't aware of "XP" as such. It's a the most important resource for the player, but it's existence isn't acknowledged ingame. An evil MC has no reason to help out a struggling pregnant women from a village with her mundane troubles, but the player knows he will be handsomely rewarded with "XP", thus encouraging to break RP.Also, the amount of XP received by completing Quests is utterly arbitrary. It usually hovers around 1/10 to 1/2 of the amount of XP required to level up for the level the developers expected the average player to have at that point and time. Meaning, a fetchquest in BG1 where you have to buy a book from a bookstore yields 100XP, but doing basically the exact same thing in the beginning of Throne of Bhaal yields 4000XP.It's a terrible system. Increasing proficiency of skills by using them, or turning XP into a real resource like Souls from the Souls' series are far superior.
>>3993770>but the player knows he will be handsomely rewarded with "XP", thus encouraging to break RP.Good point.But it also makes quests feel better. Old RPGs like Fallout and Baldur's Gate had garbage quests, but I got my dopamine hits from the XP participation reward.
>>3993728You bastard.
Metroid predates Symphony of the Night which added XP to the formula to much acclaim.
>>3965618How would you measure progress?
>>3993837Quests.
>>3993846So you just want to replace EXP bar with Quest bar/counter? What would even be the difference other than making it more confusing
>>3993837Measure what progress?
>>3993852>Measure what progress?Zeno’s paradox.
>>3993852skill/abilities/stats progress? or do you want the entire game to play the same
>>3993858>>3993868Which one of you asked the question?
>>3965618That's a given but the average person doesn't like having to use their brain to succeed.
>>3993846You know whst gives the most exp in games? Quests.
>>3965618I remember not caring about the enemies in Bioshock 1 and 2 because there's no exp/leveling system, that's why I run away everytime instead of waste my time fighting them. Eventually I dropped the game, that was over a decade ago and I still haven't beaten a single Bioshock game until now.
>>3999224>why I run away everytime instead of waste my time fighting themRealistic roleplayingExp turns players into mindless murderhobos
>>3999234What would make you better at fighting, killing 10 ogres with your sword or finding 100 mushrooms?
>>3999319>What would make you better at fighting, killing 10 ogres with your sword or finding 100 mushrooms?Yes.
>>3999319You gave me a game design idea
>>3992753>>3992765>every individual action has exp progression>decide to check what your left leg turn speed assist when wounded level is>open the progression screen>give up immediately because it'll take 15+ minutes to find itNow we're gaming.
>be too retarded to trivialize exp gain or intentionally play with minimal exp gain in a genre where pretty much every game allows you to do both>complain about it instead of not playing the genre that revolves itself around mechanics of logisticsI will never understand gamers or how they got so retarded
>>3993770Yeah I remember when enemies could earn XP in the Tactics Ogre/FFT games
>>3965618>Games should reward exploration, completion, and engaging with the mechanics, not grinding.In games like Project Zomboid, exploring is already rewarding since more often than not, you find things you're going to need by walking around and looking around for stuff.Grinding also felt like something that helps you make your own story bec if you've found a place you're using as a base and have nothing to do, you can grind by exercising or crafting and doing these will level up certain skills.
>>3965618Wow. So... ok. But... how would you track those rewards? With some kind of ... points...? For ... the experience you just had...?
>>3999525Every action you perform will set a flag, and future actions that could reasonably benefit from having experienced those actions will check which flags are set.
>>3965618It's not.
>>4001841>primeCheckUgly
>>3965618Learn by doing systems are worse than traditional exp and actively encourage more grinding because they're NEVER optimally trained by just playing the game normally. Trad exp can also be easily gated by level, forcing the player to continue on. Don't tell me you can do that with learn by doing systems because that's exactly the system Dungeon Siege 1-2 have and you people hate that game.Trad exp also makes the player make choices in character design instead of being a boring master of all. It's better all around.
>>4004133Learn by doing is even worse but there are options. Structuring progression around milestones like quest completion, hitting certain thresholds of exploration/bestiary pogress, or finding useful equipment/upgrades in the world all tends to feel more rewarding than just leveling up arbitrarily as you fight random encounters.
>>4004133>they're NEVER optimally trained by just playing the game normally.Wrong>Trad exp can also be easily gated by levelAnd that is different from learn by doing...how exactly?Do you understand that something like TES for instance works exactly the way you're describing despite being a learn by doing system?Never mind, of course you don't because you're an illiterate idiot who doesn't have the faintest idea of what you're talking about.
>>4004133>Trad exp also makes the player make choices in character design>instead of being a boring master of all?
>>3965618I think it's less about the existence of exp and more that the game revolves around numbers. When the goal most of the time is getting enemy HP to zero, you naturally find a way that produces the biggest number. Ironically, an RPG where you just attack or defend has the potential to become deeper than even RPGs critically acclaimed for requiring strategies, you just need to properly implement them. One way I could think of is trying to simulate real life melee combat. You can only attack or defend, but you have options on how you would attack or defend. You can choose to preemptively strike an enemy and enemies can only choose to defend. Of course, enemies can do the same to you, and you cannot attack if you're being put on the defensive. You can choose to target an arm, and the enemy can no longer attack if it hits. Some of these concepts are already in some RPGs, but they're tied to numbers. What I'm proposing is an RPG with no stats at all.
>>3965618Just make grinding impractically dangerous outside of optional endgame content. Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup does this. Normal dungeon enemies don't respawn. There are only four grindable areas:>The AbyssHas a ratcheting minimum difficulty that outpaces any character growth you can realistically get from it. You can get sent there by enemy attacks, so raising the minimum difficulty is usually a bad idea.>PandemoniumMost grindable of the four, but always risks encountering optional super-bosses. Escaping a super-boss level locks you out of the best ending.>The HellsRandomly applies long-term debuffs while you're there, which accumulate faster than you can remove them.>ZigguratsRatcheting minimum difficulty like the Abyss, except you can't even escape without permanently losing access to future Ziggurats.You need to think carefully about where you're going to get experience. It's sometimes worth leaving levels uncleared to bank experience for later.
>>4004457Thank you chat gpt.>>4004495>Make the whole game subservient to a small minority of players who grind for exp.RPGs are single player experiences, what does 5% of your player base beeing highly artistic and grinding until level 99 in the first zone matter to anyone?What is the point in trying to ban them from that, saving 20 hours of these few players lives from their own poor judgement?The classic FF exp system with predetermined level gains based on the character is more or less flawless, and has served well as a vessel for storytelling for 30 years.Which is why it is the baseline for every RPG, anyone who attempts to change it up ends up with these stupid, pointless problems the posts I linked to describe. Where countless dev hours go down the drain hunting excuses to punish anyone not playing ”as the dev intended”.Exp remains irreplaceable as the defining feature of the RPG genre.
>>4005230You're not going to entertain the idea of not having stats in an RPG for once? I'm not saying that RPGs moving forward should move away from exp systems, just that I want to see an RPG, preferably turn-based, that doesn't have any of those things. No stats, no grinding. Even if you choose not to grind in turn-based RPGs that have exp systems, it doesn't change the fact that they revolve around getting the highest number. So lame.
>>3992781>The idea of becoming stronger through hard work and seeing your progress being visualized in numbers going up is highly addicting.To people I view as less human than me. XP is useful as a tool, but a game becomes instantly shit when XP is the goal. See nearly every MMO ever.
>>4005248If the existence of XP makes it your goal, the problem lies with you.
>>3992592Every combat in an action adventure games like Zelda has a fixed difficulty, the only difference might be your items and equipment if the game has them. RPGs allow you to grind levels and eventually outclass every enemy in the game, that's kinda the whole point. You're playing the wrong genre!
>>4005306Except when your party is organizing a raid and are expecting you to meet the DPS threshold for a certain encounter. I'm fine with exp points as a system but that depends on how they're designed, but if they're designed around meeting DPS checks, it's a problem, and you're most likely getting kicked out of the party if you don't engage with the game's exp system. If you're playing a single-player RPG, and the enemies have DPS checks, you're incentivized to grind to meet the threshold. You can choose not to, but then you're making battles last longer than they should.
>>4005366Yeah shut up, those are both fringe cases to justify XP obsessionName a RPG with dps checks
>>4005378Chronodia in the PSP version of Final Fantasy I (FF superbosses in general, really)Seven Heroes (final boss) and Dread Queen (superboss) in Romancing SaGa 2, both remaster and remakeAll bosses in Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana remake on No Future difficulty (They're timed, expecting you to beat them in 10 minutes or less)I'm sure there's more, but that's all I could think of at the moment, because these are the games I'm playing right now.
>>4005245>not having stats in an RPGWell you either have stats, hiden or open, and rolls or checks against them. Or you have pass/fail things like the typical Monkey Island point and click adventure, or CYOA "if you go to area x without A,B or C flag. You either can't click there, get a fail and negative outcome A B or C (or maybe a game over if it's something that should had been really obvious to the player, or his xth fail in a row or something)If it's a computer game it needs to handle the situation somehow, it can't just be a game of makebelieve without stats, because the GM a computer, not your childhood friend whom you're dreaming up some adventure with.
Can't find my post. Is there now something better than xp currency or not?
>>4005401Yeah fringe cases>these are the games I'm playing right now.Playing multiple games at the same time?
>>4005486Without stats, the if-else conditions would be something along the lines of meeting certain requirements, like "IF hit on vital parts, THEN enemy is killed" or "IF player talked to NPC, THEN unlock location, ability, skill, etc". It's totally doable, it's just that designing RPG combat without stats is very hard to balance. The bright side of stats is that they're easy to change the numbers as a way of balancing a game. An RPG combat without stats would need defined rules and fundamentals so the system doesn't collapse on itself.
>>4005378World of Warcraft
>>3965618Sphere grid shill spotted. I still prefer exp and levels over anything else because you can tell if someone is underleveled or not just by looking at their level number. The level number makes you realize that that character needs to keep up with the party. I had an underleveled rikku in ffx that could have been more leveled if I had known her level number. I don't hate the sphere grid, but the game giving me a heads up by showing each character's number is so much more straightforward.
>>4005401There's no DPS check for the final boss in OG RS2, it's only a thing in that garbage remake
>>4005542Unless there's a strat that I don't know of where it's possible to not take any damage from the boss, it's a DPS check in a sense that you will run out of WP or SP if the battle goes on long enough. Assuming you don't use cheese tactics like Hasten Time, or solo Emperor with Mist Cover + Phantom Chivalry.
>>4005545That's not what a DPS check is, if the fight goes on long enough to the point that you run out of resources it's a you problem, it's something that can happen in any RPG to some extent, the final fight doesn't have any actual DPS check where something happens if you don't do X amount of damage in Y amount of time unlike the remake where the final boss does nuke your entire party three rounds after the scripted Astral Gate turn, in fact in the original you can also reverse Astral Gate by tuning the field element out of the forced Abyss shift which you can't do at all in the remake.And technically yes, you can also ignore most of the shit the final boss pulls on you in the original game, in the original game Wraith Form lets you ignore anything that isn't Vortex, everything the final boss has can be countered in some way unlike the remake where it goes apeshit after two rounds in the astral shift phase and forces a game over if you can't push enough damage before the round where it pulls a scripted overdrive on you, at best you can survive one round of overdrive by using some contingency setup with Reviver and getting lucky with RNG but you'll die in the next round anyway.
>>4005557Ah, I forgot about Wraith Form, since I never go for dark magic in OG RS2. You typically want the Iris class to use Wraith Form as she already has a non-removable equipment that nullifies CO attacks. You can then add HE, BO and STS resistances with equipment like the Fire Circlet, Wind Ring and Earth Ring.As for the remake, if you cast Hasten Time on the turn before they perform an overdrive, and then have everyone equip a broadsword and use Life Blade, you can survive their overdrive.
>>3967045Ironic, because Skyrim has plenty of numbers on the screen, including xp...
>>3982207Yeah, an entire subsystem for interacting! It could be structured like some kind of branching tree of responses you can give to the NPC. So the gameplay experience is kind of like having a dialogue where the context follows what you actually say, and results in a specific context-dependent outcome based on your choices. It'd be like talking to them...All you'd need at that point is some kind of mechanical way to represent how persuasive you were in the process through your emotive expressions and inflections, and it could include an abstraction of the NPC's internal state somehow.It'd be like a skill check which evaluates your persuasive ability against the target's reticence.You could call such a skill... "Persuasion". Or is that too on-the-nose?
>>4004133>because they're NEVER optimally trained by just playing the game normally. Except when they are.
>>3965618>Games should reward exploration, completion, and engaging with the mechanicsThey do. Stop grinding.
>>3982207>Ideally the [persuade] option would be its own game with its own rules thats as fun to interact with as the [fight]. It’s a failure of game design that they're not equally satisfying.Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
>>3979395i enjoyed brogue, you find potions to increase health (increasing max health) and strength (allowing you to wear/weild heavier weapons/armor) and enchant scrolls that upgrade anything. there are multiple viable builds including variations on battlemage, tard wrangler, thief, assassin, tank, heavy weapon, etc.
>>3966210this, just give him slim weapons and grind him on thrones, same with isadora and vaida
>>3965618How? How should it reward exploration, completion and engaging with mechanics? It's great to say those things, but you have to quantify it somehow. HOW should it be rewarded?
>>4015929How would you do it?
