Combat XP division/sharing.

[paultakeda]

Wasteland granted XP to the ranger who provided the finishing blow. Any assists were not rewarded.

I would rather the XP be based on the ratio of damage plus a little extra to the guy who actually takes out the enemy. If the system can be more elaborate, taking into account the difficulty of pulling of a particular attack, combat text acknowledging the improbable victory would be nice:

Thrasher scoops up and flings a rock at the Mega-Laser Spiderbot. It shoots directly into the tiny heat regulation exhaust port between the armored plate seams at its thorax, clatters through the entire length and into the robot's core, causing a complete system overheat that results in a spectacular explosion. Sgt. Ace is caught in the blowback for 10 CON. He is unconscious and near death. Thrasher gets 200 XP.

[oldmanpaco]

The problem with that system is that it rewards your combat specialized characters. You almost need to farm enemies for you tech/med type characters. Assuming you have a 4-6 person party that can get tedious.

To even out the xp distribution you could reward xp every time you use a non-combat skill but balancing that would be a bitch. Toaster repair has limited uses after all.

[paultakeda]

I'm operating from the original Wasteland mechanics, which awarded XP only to the person who kills the enemy or uses a skill. I'm adding the small modification of giving other party members who damaged the enemy a share of the XP, so the problem your citing is inherent in Wasteland 1, and it really wasn't a problem.

[oldmanpaco]

No I get it. Your idea is much better than the original Wasteland mechanic. But I also remember trying to save kills for people who needed the experience. Or at least I think I do. It might have been Ultima.

[Lord Blade]

I do think that shared XP is better. Making the XP only go to the one scoring the kill isn't very balanced. It tends to make combat characters gods, while the support characters fall behind.

I think that helping in battle should net XP. Everyone who fights something would get a split of the XP, with maybe a 10% bonus to the person who kills it off.

Of course, getting XP for non-combat abilities is a good idea too. Picking locks, disarming mines, fixing items, etc.
Also, in combat, healing and buffing should count as taking part in the fight, not just hitting the enemy.

[eastc]

Character XP is an old mechanic that I don't believe anyone uses anymore. I'd be surprised (and disappointed) if it showed up in WL2.

[paultakeda]

I think that helping in battle should net XP. Everyone who fights something would get a split of the XP, with maybe a 10% bonus to the person who kills it off.

Okay, so rather than divvying up based on how much damage contributed you want a straight split, but still keep the bonus to the character who ultimately kills the enemy. Sure, that's fine, too. I only have a very small point regarding combat and XP, and that is that I'd prefer not to have it all go to the one character who kills the enemy.

Character XP is an old mechanic that I don't believe anyone uses anymore.

What RPG games have you been playing recently?!

[alex]

I was initially going to suggest XP split evenly among the party, but realized this fosters play where one or two characters do nothing so they can get XP. Yeah, I think the OP's suggestion is pretty good. Like Oldman Paco I just hope the developers can balance out combat and non combat XP.

[paultakeda]

I was initially going to suggest XP split evenly among the party, but realized this fosters play where one or two characters do nothing so they can get XP. Yeah, I think the OP's suggestion is pretty good. Like Oldman Paco I just hope the developers can balance out combat and non combat XP.

Yep. But I do see the point about not basing it on damage caused. A skill or attribute could be used that drops the enemy's AC, allowing the other characters to deal substantial death-dealing blows; or a distraction that lowers their accuracy or even one that causes aggro to get them away from a team member low on HP. That should be rewarded just as much.

How you could implement this mechanic? Well, I guess that's the tricky part.

[alex]

Maybe the total experience of the encounter might be shared according to what each character did and how much damage they took. So if someone advances to draw enemy fire, another makes sure the first doesn die for their wounds using the medic skill and another throws grenades at the enemy, all are entitled to a share. Of course, the one throwing grenades gets the extra for killing it, but still...

[pikachunks]

A character should be rewarded based on his contribution to the kill, with debuffs (like lowering AC) and damage being weighted.

Each time a character acts in combat, consider their action a "weighted event", with higher weight values given to more successful actions. Even scoring the killing blow or a critical hit could be a "weighted event" in such a system, thereby granting a bonus to the character that finishes an enemy off.

I don't like the idea of all characters gaining xp at the same rate, and therefor all leveling at the same time. It's more interesting to have this progression be uneven, in my opinion.

[Celtic927]

I hate to be THAT guy but I don't EVER remember SAVING kills for people I'm not a numbers guy being an English Prof I probably just focus on the story line, but I NEVER noticed that certain chars were leveling up and others were not....AND WHY would you make non-combat characters...

[JesterOI]

I agree with the OP.

Combat XP would work better as a ratio of damage dealt to a target rather than who got the killing shot.
*Maybe* with a kill bonus. 10% maybe.

Furry Bunny with 100HP gets killed and yields 150xp.
Ranger 1 did 25 dmg, so gets 37xp ( 25/100*150 = 37.5 rounded down, always round down for XP).
Ranger 3 did 66 dmg, so gets 99xp.
Ranger 4 did 32 dmg, killing the bunny. Ranger 4 gets 13xp (last 9hp on the bunny, 9/100*150=13.5 rounded down) + 15xp (10% of 150xp) kill bonus for a total of 28xp.

Check out the poll here:
http://goo.gl/mod/9bgM

I also like the ideas for granting xp for other actions done in combat. First Aid, Debuffs, Damage Taken, etc.

[krellen]

I actually don't remember any other game doing the character-based XP that Wasteland did. Bard's Tale, maybe? I don't think it did, but maybe it did.

Anyway, I don't think it really adds anything to the game. Tabletop RPGs share XP with the whole party, why shouldn't our cRPGs?

[paultakeda]

I actually don't remember any other game doing the character-based XP that Wasteland did. Bard's Tale, maybe? I don't think it did, but maybe it did.

Anyway, I don't think it really adds anything to the game. Tabletop RPGs share XP with the whole party, why shouldn't our cRPGs?

Depends. All pen and paper RPGs I've played gave the XP to the killer. When I played Wasteland the same mechanic existed and I did not find it odd. Today, twenty odd years later, I figure a bit of sharing would be nice now that it can be easily and quickly calculated.

[krellen]

Depends. All pen and paper RPGs I've played gave the XP to the killer.

Which PnP RPGs did you play? I'm pretty sure not even oldest-school D&D did that.

[alex]

@krellen

The obvious reason for doing this is to avoid cheap tricks like putting a weak character in the back and grinding XP from enemies that are a threat to the more pacific fella.

But more in depth, XP isn't supposed to be just another resource, just a path you need to walk. XP is supposed to be the heartbeat of the game. The devs are supposed to come up with this basic idea of what makes W2 worth playing. And when you tangle with this, when you go and find those things, do those things, whether they are devilish puzzles, hard to crack combats or what not, you gain XP.

And the cool thing about XP is that it gives you the tools necessary to keep going. Now you leveled, you have skills with which complete more puzzles! Now you are better able to get hints from the gameworld. Now you can defeat badder, meaner enemies. You can tackle new challenges. One common misconception is that getting XP should make the game easier, since your party is better now. In reality, it should give you tools to tackle even greater challenges. It is not a question of making impossible combat hard and hard combat easy. The point here is to give you the tools with which tackling the impossible combat is now fun.

So, the point here is not killing your enemies, but overcoming their challenge. If a character does nothing to help the combat, that means your tactics didn't need him. Either you should drop him, or you should change your tactics to make him more useful. Do note that, as long as we have non combat XP too, a character with weak combat skills but many other miscellaneous skills might get his XP from one source while the others get from the other.

[krellen]

I'd argue that, in a party-based game, what's important is that the party overcame the obstacle, not individual characters. And if the party wants to carry Chatty McPrettyFace through combat, they can - just like Chatty carries them through social functions.

[Badunius]

why not count succesfull shots/strikes like using of weapon-related skill and reward it accordingly
(based on chance to hit the target and damage delivered)
and the one who did the killing blow will also get a little reward for actually killing an enemy

[paultakeda]

Depends. All pen and paper RPGs I've played gave the XP to the killer.

Which PnP RPGs did you play? I'm pretty sure not even oldest-school D&D did that.

You're right. It's not all. I had to think about that a bit more and realized that it was just some, and often it was because we altered the rules to suit play.