XP system flawed?

[Weetu]

I'd like to offer my opinion as well:
I think the experience system used in Grimrock reflects what it is supposed to represent perfectly: becoming experienced, or learning. If a character actively participates in a battle, they learn. If they only observe the battle, they still learn but not as much. Thus, the amount of EXP a monster has should not be an absolute quantity (like e.g. the weight of that monster), but dependent on the events of the battle itself.

[oodyboo]

Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not sure why you think this is a flaw.

Because if a mob "has" 100 xp, I expect my 4 chars to get 25 each.

Maybe it is your expectations that are flawed.

[\/4n!ll4 ][c3]

I did a few tests on slugs and it seems that the XP system is flawed.
I tried killing it with only 1 char attacking and he got 60 xp and all the rest got 30.
Then I attacked with 2 chars, they both got 60 xp, the rest got 30.
Doesn't seem like XP is divided (from some total xp per mob) among party members (with the ones doing most of the damage getting a bigger share).
It seems like enemies give a set number of xp to all chars (half that if a char doesn't actually hit the mob).
I tried killing off 3 chars and killed a slug with my 1 survivor, he got 60 xp, no more.
Seems wrong, no?

this type of experience gain system is not unique to this game. many console hack and slash games that have experience leveling systems work on the same principle. its a way to both keep all characters at a respectable minimum level while also providing a way to focus on leveling one character up. it also provides an incentive for players to actually get in there and kill stuff.

in this specific example, the best way you could look at it would be like some older console RPGs, where when you killed enemies, the combined experience value was split among all members of the party, and the share was decreased based on the number of members in your party. some people like this system, some people dont. the choice to do it as it is in this game is mainly to do it to encourage keeping all your teammates alive to promote the feeling of working together to get out alive.

you know, the whole "theres no I in team" thing.

[oodyboo]

I also suffered from the OCD perfectionist desire to make sure all my characters got every bit of exp they could by tagging all the monsters.

for the most part it isn't hard, just give everyone something to throw and they can tag monsters without killing them too fast. The larger groups are a bit harder.

I wasted countless hours on some fights trying to make sure everyone got all their precious exp. And then....

SpoilerShow

I discovered that monsters can actually respawn, so I can always just kill a bunch of extra slugs / crabs/ uggardians / etc. with any character that I think is 'behind'

After discovering this and dropping my OCD perfectionist lunacy, all the tediousness of reloading when my mage killed a slug too fast went away. The game is really a lot of fun when you let go of worrying how much hp you gained on a level or if your warrior didn't get exp for that slug because he missed. With my second party everyone levels within one or two kills of eachother, and I hardly even try to tag everything. Just have your mages throw stuff at the weaker blobs instead of wasting mana and overkilling them with fireballs.

[Disasterrific]

The core issue is that one player might get 50% more XP for the same monsters, killed with the same characters, than another.

But the same characters didn't all take part in the fight. Again I would agree that you've been conditioned to think that XP works in this way and anything else is wrong.

It's not too hard to think of a rationale behind this system - each character has the potential to learn a certain max of knowhow from each monster and they reach that max by engaging in combat with it, their degree of involvement is dictated by whether they were in there stabbing the weak points or sitting on the sidelines.

This system is natural but doesn't work like a spreadsheet so you can abuse the game to max XP. But ask yourself, what would your characters do? All chip in, try to kill the monsters as fast as possible and every now and again someone will be left out of the combat because someone else got there first. This is a roleplaying game. WoW is an excellent example of where roleplaying has been forgotten. The very term DPS is ridiculous.

Sure, it's important to develop your characters well and a moderate understanding of the game is important, but going out of your way to exploit the numbers can take the fun and magic out.

One benefit of this system is that if a poor player is just blasting everything with magic, only their mage will develop normally, to her full potential, whereas if the whole team took part, their shared experience and teamwork would ensure they all reached the same level.

[Thels]

1) I haven't tested this, but if it is indeed by slot and not by character, then I guess everyone can agree upon it being a flaw, and not as intended.

2) The XP gain is certainly somewhat different, and I can see points for both sides. I think it does make sense that those that stand by idly and watch gain less XP than those that are involved. Then again, if only one of my characters takes down an enemy on it's own, should he not gain more XP than when all four of my characters bash down an enemy together? Or if my front fighter misses the opponent six times, does he not learn from his failures and get ideas about how to attack the mob better next time?

The Devs have chosen for this, and while it feels counter-intuitive to some of us, it's easy to understand, and indeed, if you want, you can try to maximize XP. Keep in mind that since the system is designed like this, it's probably balanced around not all characters getting all the XP at every mob, so those of us that do our best tagging every mob with each character are probably getting a little more XP out of their run than those that would just go with the flow, so it's actually a system that you can use to your advantage!

I actually deliberately let some of my characters sit out on fighting the snails to create a split in XP, preventing my party from dinging all at once. That way, with some Load-Save assistance, I can manage to max out the Health/Energy on all my characters, which would be impossible to do if they all dinged at the same time.



Maybe it's just me, but I check all my characters after killing each mob of a pack, and I haven't seen once where one of my characters got only half XP, so while it's near impossible to notice if everyone tagged the mob, at least for me it seems to go right more often than not.



Side note: Where is all the WoW hate coming from? WoW might not appeal to some of you, which is entirely fine. However, it's such a totally different kind of game, that there's no real way to compare the two, so there's really no point in discussing what WoW does wrong. Let's just focus on LoG, shall we?

[Disasterrific]

1) I haven't tested this, but if it is indeed by slot and not by character, then I guess everyone can agree upon it being a flaw, and not as intended.

Oh yeah, that's a bug without a doubt.

One thing I would like to see implemented is experience for non-monster successes, solving puzzles and finding secrets (although there is an argument that the secret and items are their own reward).

[Thels]

One thing I would like to see implemented is experience for non-monster successes, solving puzzles and finding secrets (although there is an argument that the secret and items are their own reward).

I was actually surprised to notice only monsters give XP.

[Disasterrific]

Side note: Where is all the WoW hate coming from? WoW might not appeal to some of you, which is entirely fine. However, it's such a totally different kind of game, that there's no real way to compare the two, so there's really no point in discussing what WoW does wrong. Let's just focus on LoG, shall we?

But I would directly blame WoW amongst others for setting a trend for this min/maxing approach to RPGs, and resulting in this overwhelming false sense of entitlement (although that is a modern cultural problem rather than just a game related phenomenon).

Saving and reloading for level ups to max HPs is cheating, in the same way rerolling every dice throw until you got a 20 would be cheating in a game of D&D - a game where at least consequences are permanent. No matter what went wrong with my party, if there was one survivor I kept on playing. Hell I then went and clicked save - what happens has happened, and the game is more fun for doing that. Imagine the journal of the party that does a "perfect" run, no hardships will have been faced, every secret found in seconds without hours of studying walls on an empty stomach, no "I stabbed the last spider in the face and dragged the rest of the party back to the life crystal with my bare hands" etc.

Anyway, play the game how you want, but accept the system as it is. It's not "flawed." Someone designed it to be the way it is, with all the advantages and benefits that come with that. It may inhibit your style of spreadsheet analysis - or "play" if you could call it that - but you can always mod that away and make your own sandbox to throw rocks in.

[Disasterrific]

One thing I would like to see implemented is experience for non-monster successes, solving puzzles and finding secrets (although there is an argument that the secret and items are their own reward).

I was actually surprised to notice only monsters give XP.

It's not a big deal really, more often than not there's an extra few monsters in the secret rooms so in a way you do get extra XP, and it seems a silly thing if all players will be getting full XP but it's just fun to solve something and all of a sudden there's a level up. You feel even more clever for it!