How To Give Experience Points

[@CainOnGames]

This video has generated so many interesting comments that I am working on a new video about the pros and cons of making a game with skill-based XP, where experience points are awarded for using your skills (or perks or traits or backgrounds or almost anything part of the player build). Expect it in a few weeks (the current queue of videos is quite long).

[@daniel.holbrook]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on scaling XP as well, like how much/by what factor late-game XP rewards/requirements should increase relative to early-game

[@fredrik3880]

I really dont like the elder scroll way of xp. It is the worst ive seen. Quest xp only is superior to that as it encourages you to do stupid things like getting hit when in armor, just run around to level athletics or jump lol with acrobatics.

[@fredrik3880]

The way new vegas does it really like.

[@fredrik3880]

Fallout 1 also had a very good xp system imo.

[@lonneansekishoku8288]

I personally like it the way they do it in Elder scrolls. The more you perfect/ train a weapon, armor, etc the better you become at it. It rewards your chosen playstyle.

[@GL1zdA]

Exactly this. It struck me most, when I played the new Deus Ex games. I basically went through the whole game knocking out every NPC, because the stealth approach allowed me to extract the most XP.

[@NamelessVoice]

And hacking everything, even though you didn't need to, because it gave XP.

[@VinnyBloo]

I always console command myself stats in Elder Scrolls titles since leveling them as intended is a chore.

[@stuartmorley6894]

​@@VinnyBloojust mod in a different perk or experience system.

[@jekw23]

@@NamelessVoiceI remember doing exactly that. All stealth kills and hacked everything. Enjoyed it at the time, not sure I’d do that again.

[@overwatch1774]

Original Deus Ex only gave you rewards for completing objectives and exploring, not based on how you played.

[@Retro-Calico]

I can’t even begin to explain how important it is for someone like Tim Cain to be making videos like these. Giving an honest and frank look into games, game design and the industry outside of mainstream interviews is something rare, especially for someone as experienced as Cain.

[@kotor610]

This reminds me in tabletop RPG of being wary of lessons you impart to your players. If you constantly say no to the players when they make suggestions they will learn that creativity is not something rewarded and will stick to rules as written.

[@NamelessVoice]

The part about how what gives XP is directly telling the player how to play your game is important. Giving XP for different things isn't necessarily bad, but it's something that needs careful thought. If you're making an action-RPG where combat is the focus, it makes sense to give XP for kills, because killing things in the primary gameplay loop and this reinforces that. But in a more open-ended, story-driven game, it makes much more sense to give XP for milestones (like quest completion) instead. Give XP for the behaviours you want to encourage in your game, whatever those might be.

[@fredrik3880]

Or even in those examples give xp for all those options but give more for options you want to nudge (or shove) the player to do (i say nudge)

[@Ike_of_pyke]

Even then in say an action rpg you could benchmark it where the XP is set until you kill the whole room of monsters then it drops a set amount , that way you don't have cheese moments where the player figures out "If I do x and y I can getmore dsmage/XP from this " and it'd unintentionally caused an infinite XP glitch

[@afatchimp]

I feel like it's even more relevant for multiplayer shooters, since a lot of the AAA ones are stuck in the mindset of increasing player retention, without considering the impact on enjoyment. Why aren't you being rewarded for damaging vehicles (by damage dealt)? Is coordination something that they truly want to penalize? Why does it take 10 hours to unlock all the attachments for a single weapon? Do they want to discourage experimentation with different weapons / weapon builds?

[@michaelbolland9212]

Thank god for Tim I was about to make terrible mistake

[@chocolate_maned_wolf]

what about minecraft

[@Area2209]

One thing to kerp in mind, however, is that for games like New Vegas where everyone is killable, you'd still need to award xp somehow for psychopath playthroughs. Since most quests will auto fail. Divinity RPG's have a lot of the issues you stated where I would try to maximize xp. But they did a smart thing where the gap between player levels 8 and 9 were so far apart for Act 1 xp. It was impossible to level, but it was super easy to with Act 2 xp rewards.

[@ZlothZloth]

That's actually been around since D&D showed up! XP required to go up a level and XP gained from enemies/tasks/whatever rise exponentially. That way, a 10th level character beating up on 2nd level enemies makes very little progress. Lots of MMOs would even reduce that to 0 (if something /con's grey). D&D only did the exponential thing for a certain number of levels - I presume because people with high level characters didn't want to be dealing with 9-digit numbers. Computer could do that with no issue at all, though.

[@GabrielMatusevich]

Thank you so much for the response! It does make sense to have a single source for XP generation, specially for the system maintenance, I think that something similar can be done in D&D campaigns... even tho the rules say killing gives XP you can avoid those and just give XP per quest or act... One of the things I wanted to integrate into a game is to split quests into "stories" or events.... by that I mean... as the player you don't know when a quest ends.. you just achieve events in the story... and earn XP by doing each event. I'm not sure if it's weird... not to let the player know the quest is "done" by I think if you don't know when it's done it also means it can be done after any or each event.... specially if you decide to drop it and do something else.... that "story" ended where you left it.

[@michaelvicente5365]

I agree, especially for a game rewarding interacting with npcs, and dialogues, giving xp on quests, makes you want to interact with them. Underail has an interesting alternative for xp, called oddities, where the only way to get Xp is to find "oddities" which are just a bunch of random objects/artifacts that you have to find, through exploring the world (they're great to get free situational lore as well). If you want your game to be about exploration and scavenging, I think this is a great idea for to reward that.

[@mat9h1]

Let me start by saying I 100% agree with what you had stated. That said, I think it might be helpful to consider intrinsic vs. extrinsic awards. I see some of the comments suggesting that you need to give XP for mundane tasks so that people feel rewarded. Why would I pick that lock or pass that speech check unless I got some XP for it? My response would be that in a well crafted game, you are getting intrinsic rewards for taking those actions. If there's something cool inside the box then you are rewarded for lockpicking. If you learn something cool about a NPC then the speech was worthwhile. If you ghost by all the guards then you can take enjoyment in that feat by itself. The advantage with this is that it's self balancing. I'm less likely to pick the lock if I already hacked a door which leads to the same place. The reward of being in that place is met, so I'm not getting the same intrinsic bump by solving the problem two different ways.

[@Dr_Slash]

1:52 - Thank you, Tim!! This is something I've been practically screaming at every RPG for the past decade. Giving XP for combat makes it not only more difficult to balance, but also actively punishes roleplay in a genre literally called "role-playing game" and sucks all the fun out of the game with the amount of trash fights most CRPGs throw at you.

[@charliek5964]

In original fallout everything gave XP which seemed fair because the XP required to level up had an exponential increase. I don't think I've ever seen the level 20 perks in Fallout because so much XP is needed. If a designer still wanted to incentivise everything, would requiring exponentially more XP to level also work?

[@CainOnGames]

Yes, that would work well. That’s the fun (and frustration) of game design. There are so many ways to accomplish a goal, and each one has its pros and cons, and some of those are subjective. As long as none of the cons of an idea is objectively at odds with your design goal, then that idea could be used. But expect a lot of complaints about the subjective cons.

[@geesehoward700]

ive killed more than 50 ants, wheres my achievement?

[@Palaquack59]

Bug stomper completed

[@alpha007org]

@@Palaquack59 Achievement: 100.000 ants remaining. Are you up to it?

[@arcan762]

it's in the mail

[@chocolate_maned_wolf]

achievement unlocked: termite army destroyed foundations of house

[@totonk793]

Probably one of the most important gamedev class I had EVER. Thank you so much for doing this, Tim! I really hope what you do will make our future game experience better!

[@SirJordzy]

I hope one day Tim hits us with a "Hi everyone, its me, ya boi,Tim"

[@S....]

Why?

[@MasterOFSuperFunny]

How about, "there are some who call me... Tim."

[@effect_phantom3276]

Back when I was thinking about game development, I started thinking about how to balance xp and how to make it easy for yourself when going back and cutting or editing quests and stuff. Your idea about levels for xp is a genius solution that I'll have to keep in mind! Also, I think another way to give out xp would also be with successful skill checks. This way, the player gets rewarded when their build makes them more successful with speech checks in certain dialouge, or maybe repair checks for a broken machine that you may need for a quest! It won't be near as much as you would get from actually doing a quest, but it's a bonus that encourages players to use the strengths they have in their build, which in turn, could also help with immersion.

[@StavrosNikolaou]

One of my favorite topics! Thank you for the video. I really like the table trick for tracking level-based portion(%) of XP contribution (as opposed to absolute XP) I have thought an unhealthy amount about the topic of what awards XP; my conclusion is I have no perfect or even a favorite way to award XP, even with my own biases and expectations in RPGs :D For a while I thought that XP by doing (i.e. via specific actions) is the most natural, organic way of growing: but that often led to a) degenerate behaviors (like the ones described in this video for milking XP from npcs) or b) unintended XP gains (which can be very frustrating when you have a level/skill cap in your game) not to mention c) adjusting progression rates is a nightmare. Then I went for XP on quest completion only. So easy to control, make fair across playstyles and redistribute as needed (with the addition and or removal of content); designer's heaven :D ... but if you wanted more flexible exploration and non linear engagement with content it is easy to engage with quests without ever doing some of the standard steps of "starting" or "completing" the quest (e.g. the quest is "go kill the dragon in the nearby cave that has been eating the villagers" but if you stamble onto the cave and kill the dragon without ever talking to the villagers how will you get your XP?); there are ways to address this but then it quickly becomes designer's hell :D For a while I even toyed around with the idea of wealth being XP or reputation since those do not need to follow the strict confines of a quest structure. Unfortunately, wealth being XP is not always very intuitive or respectful of play style choices(e.g. you can level up at trainers by paying them but then if you are a murder hobo you are in trouble). Similarly XP for reputation can also lead degenerate gameplay or significant designer/developer complexity for closing all the loopholes. Finally, I also considered achievements, individual obstacles, and encounters being XP but those also need very careful curation and constant re-tweaking as the game changes (i.e. tricky to automate) or offer a lot of meta-gaming exploitation opportunities (make sure you go through every possible encounter to get all the XPs:). I suspect the "ultimate solution", if such thing even exists, is a combination of the above... Such a fun topic though! (I know I have a problem :D) Thanks again for the video!! Have a great day :)

[@Skiad-OpsGash]

What you said about employers' and employees' goals aligning made me think of a question: Has designing games in any way impacted your perception of the world or the way you solve real life problems? Like, for example, using the setting-story-system structure for planning other things than games? (It helped me write a proposal for a scientific project, by the way 😉, so thanks, Tim!)

[@chocolate_maned_wolf]

games ultimately create conflict and problems artificially (since they are entertainment / mental exercises) so with all the variety in problems as a result it’s guaranteed you’ll discover things that are useful IRL, shockingly sometimes at greater rates than more traditional fields

[@joelsandberg5494]

Masahiro Sakurai has the same advice for having values and parameters in an external table. Not just XP values, but also frame counts and scaling values. In addition to having all your data in one place for comparison, it means non-programmers could adjust things and free up your actual programmers. Just about any number that can change I implement as a macro then const expr.

[@aNerdNamedJames]

One of the most prominent examples I can think of is Mass Effect 2. Changing to XP for mission completion was a very deliberate choice to avoid stuff like how (in the first Mass Effect) kills with the Mako gave less XP (than kills outside the Mako) which meant that players were tacitly incentivized to use the Mako to whittle down enemies as much as possible but then exit Mako at the last second so that their last shot on the enemies would give full XP.

[@Ermanariks_til_Aujm]

I still think that giving XP into the skill by doing the skill is the best. It's more logical, and it rewards doing what you want your character to do. What is bad is if you put crossing requirements forcing the player to lvl up a skill he doesn't care about, or if the skill itself is boring (but then they don't want to play it anyway, or you just failed at making it fun).

[@gilgamecha]

I agree with you. But basically that describes a skill-based system rather than a level-based system.

[@VinnyBloo]

I dislike this approach. I don't want to level crafting by sitting in a menu crafting and decrafting the same thing over and over. I don't want to get stealthier by walking crouched back and forth behind a sleeping NPC. Let me get one bundle of XP to spend how I like.

[@zennim125]

if you do that with lockpicking the player will become a kleptomaniac and open every single lock they can find if you do for crafting they will make some 100 iron daggers or bullets to grind for the xp also, if you do it so the only way to lvl the skill is by using it, the game will become about finding places to use the skill, since if you have a skill system you are bound to have high checks at the end game

[@snakeshepard9761]

It's more logical, but it becomes a chore on replays.

[@michaelduan5592]

This is what I tried for Saleblazers. There were a few issues: 1. Too grindy on replays. 2. A player that stayed in one spot could level up really quickly with the various non-combat skills that you have, so you could end up overleveled for future areas. 3. You don't care about quests on a mechanical level other than for narrative exposition and to complete the game of course. If quests give XP you will actually consider doing side/main quests more often and this reduces the pressure for designers to add unique rewards.

[@daniel.holbrook]

When I first played Arx Fatalis I legitimately didn't realize it even had an XP system, it felt like it was working off of milestones as I seemed to be leveling up naturally after certain events (whether that be a tough fight, a significant puzzle or a major plot point). I wish more RPGs had milestone leveling but I guess that does go back to "design your story before you design your gameplay" because a strict milestone system certainly wouldn't work in a more open-ended game.

[@rrrrthats4rs]

I should really stop prefacing criticisms with "I love this game but" because I don't bother to talk about games I don't enjoy-- but I gotta admit this perfectly described how KOTOR2 taught me to engage with the dialogue system. I found out that there was a certain pathway that would "unlock" force powers for all of the characters who can learn their force powers. It wasn't until years later, on Pillars of Eternity 2 that I learned to "play my character" and enjoy the twists and turns as they happened to me, and a big part of that was how well the Pillars games handled experience points that drove me to appreciate different things about the game.

[@Cheyne_TetraMFG]

I know this video is a few months old at this point, but for those interested in actual play, DND shows, Dimension 20 has the new season of fantasy high, and one of the antagonists is basically an XP grinder, so the conflict for the season is XP versus Milestoning. Felt relevant to this conversation lol

[@UnkieNic]

Thank you Tim, ive been thinking about XP pacing for my little project and this has been really helpful

[@erazerhead99]

Hey Tim, i wanted to thank you for bringing up my interest in the old Fallout games up again - for the first time since ages. Played and loved F1 ten years ago, but because of my utter frustration with Bethesdas games i completely wrote off the series and didn't even play F2. I'm now playing F2 for the first time and i am having a blast, though i wish it would be closer to F1s dark tone.

[@Ike_of_pyke]

I'm very much for benchmark during mission XP. Like your example of the item off the bandits, I'd give XP for: - If it's hidden /out of the way, Finding the bandit camp. - Locating the item in the camp. - Retrieving the item. - Returning the item/giving away the item. This would incentivize players to try different approaches and allow them to go "Okay I found the camp and where in the camp the item is" but know "the retrieving the item is going be a challenge even with that information". And so they're rewarded by gaining that real applicable expreince of their character gaining knowledge. Of course the completion of the quest is going to be the big reward and potentially the thing that puts them over a level up or close to it for those who are just doing the story mission. Say If this were a game like Bloodlines , I'd give 1 XP for all the steps before the thing that'd complete it and finally a 2 or 3 XP for completing with additional modifiers for how they completed it like - It was suppose to be a non-lethal situation but they killed several people so 2 xp and nothing more Or - They did it with no causalities so 4 xp and a verbal backpat Or - They did it with no causlaites and did it disguised as a rival/third party(for those who want to fight or barter)/ no one saw them (for Stealthy people ) 4 xp and a helpful item.

[@renaigh]

Exp is a currency, give too much and you make skills worthless but give too little and players become indecisive on how to build their character.

[@anonimowelwiatko9811]

Indecisiveness comes from having way too many options and little to no information along with permanent nature of your choice.

[@Jaekylll]

@@anonimowelwiatko9811 this is my current experience playing arcanum for the first time, finally decided to just do melee and branch into some cool magic or tech stuff later

[@KubinWielki]

Hey, Tim! Thank you for the video and sharing your thoughts. I wonder what you as an experienced RPG designer think of what I've come to think of as 'exploratory design' - instead of having a system where the player earns XP, to then spend it on their stats/skill/etc. in a character menu, you base the entire system on where the player has been, what they have done, and whom they talked to. I'm particularly interested in your thoughts on the difficulty of implementing something like this, especially in light of cut content etc. *Example: * The player arrives in a new city. There is some internal drama and some struggles in the city that the player can get involved in, by completing quests - depending on which quests the player does (some may or may not be mutually exclusive), they get access to different rewards. - Did the player help the local wizard in some way? Now that wizard is willing to teach them some magic. - Did they help the innkeeper? Now they've unlocked a cheap/free rest point in town to recover lost hit points etc. and the local merchants are interested in hiring them for help. - Did they solve some issue for the local lord? Now they're allowed to enter the 'upper city' that's typically for rich citizens only, and that gives them access to a whole slew of new shops, items to find, NPCs to talk, quests to get etc. Similarly, you can tie the progression to their decisions as explorers - if the player doesn't care about exploring, they can just blast through the main part of the game, and nobody will hold it against them, but if they have the explorer's mind, and look into every nook and cranny, you can reward them not with just items, gold or cool fights. You can make it so the places the player visited, and the knowledge they've gained, shows up in dialogue later on, and gives them access to new quests/shops/skill teachers etc. *Example: * the player has explored optional areas, found some ancient cave system, at the end of which there was a dying gold dragon that wasn't aggressive, and the player talked to it, being given some ancient lost wisdom, that they can now use in one or more places across the game. In essence, the player goes up in mechanical strength not because they got enough of the mercurial (or some would say - arbitrary) amount of XP that allowed their character to have an instant epiphany (learning new skill through character menu, regardless of where they are in the world), but rather based on how they played through the story and how they interacted with the game's world. And I admit, that this is an idea I've had since childhood, partially thanks to what you did in Arcanum, with the mechanical bonuses/maluses based on character's reputation (i.e: becoming the Butcher of Stillwater, or completing that fun little quest for Pickpocket Mastery ;) ). To me, a system like that would feel more immersive. By the end of your adventure you are a powerful mage not because you unlocked it in a menu, but because you learned from other wizards, explored ancient ruins of magical significance, studied in a grand library, and torn the Great Tome of Elements from the hands of that one crazed lich etc. Though yes, I am aware that this is likely much more difficult to implement and balance, especially with the aforementioned cut content in mind. XP system is a more 'loosey goosey' adaptation.

[@StavrosNikolaou]

I love this system but given how haphazardly players tend to play I fear it might not work as well with some common play styles, e.g. shoot every character you meet in the face :D Also implementation might be a concern as you need to create and maintain content to ensure your progression gates are always available (e.g. even when characters/content are added or removed from the game) In general though this is a great system and in my ideal RPG I would love to see some of that being part of progression!

[@jimnms]

Tim, what are your thoughts on achievements? I've seen people that won't touch a game if it doesn't have achievements. I personally don't care about achievements and just want to play the game.

[@CainOnGames]

A video on my thoughts on achievements coming up in two weeks…

[@gilgamecha]

Question for Tim: Paper RPGs evolved past the mechanic of levelling quite quickly, by the early 80s, offering a variety of alternative mechanics such as skill based systems. (I was quite shocked when I came in to video RPGs to see that they used concepts probably considered archaic in paper RPGs.) If you weren't actually trying to reimplement (eg) D&D, would you proactively choose a level-based system over say a skill-based system? If so, why?! Or better: what are the pros and cons?

[@CainOnGames]

I have always thought ttRPGs are way ahead of CRPGs. They always have been. I have discussed skill vs class based systems and how I have used both, but both existed inside of level advancement schemes. Are you talking about skill-based systems like GURPS, which have no "levels" but instead have "points"? To me that is swapping one number for another. In fact, you see modules for "100-point characters" for GURPS, so they even serve the same purpose. Or do you mean something else?

[@gilgamecha]

@@CainOnGames I did mainly mean games like GURPs and as you say, effectively points == levels. Maybe a better distinction would be based on where advancement comes from. Specific skill use increasing that one skill, vs generic experience increasing a broad range of factors.

[@CainOnGames]

@@gilgamecha The problem I have run into with skill use increasing that particular skill is that some skills are used more frequently and more easily than others. In a melee combat against multiple opponents, you will use your sword skill 10, 20, maybe even 30 times. And that is just one fight. But there aren't that many locks in the entire dungeon! And once unlocked, they yield no more xp. So now you find yourself changing design. Maybe locks reset themselves. Maybe sword skill grants less of an increase per use, or has a bigger bar you need to fill to raise it. But these are features that you might not want but are adding to support another design feature. Not to mention that there are people who will grind skills early in the game to raise them, and how are you supposed to balance the game against that? Should combat or stealth or conversation checks just become really easy at that point? Should the game detect that and do something? Wait...isn't that just level scaling? That's why I fall back on the rule of letting the player do whatever they want to do and rewarding the end result, not the steps taken to get there.

[@gilgamecha]

@@CainOnGames I think that's exactly the right design decision Tim and I can see the amount of hard-won wisdom that brought you to that view. Thank you so much for sharing the benefit of your experience (ha ha!) with us. It's greatly appreciated.

[@TheYamiks]

Problem with gamedesign based on quest only EXP : they don't give that dopamine hit as hard as per-kill EXP...which is why most lazy game designers default to this ... and in turn it creates grindy games which in turn fuel the "xp-farming" guides and then devs nerfing them again .. the vicious loop of crap design just to captivate the player with that XP rush!

[@DaRkPlUm]

This immediately made me think of how you get XP for almost everything in Fallout 3. Problem with the "XP for Quests" approach is that there are some people that want to explore your world and level up without touching a main quest or progressing the story. I played Oblivion in this way for roughly 2-3 years before I cared about anything that happened after Kvatch. Instead of saying "you should do all these smaller things for maximum XP yield", we are now saying "You want to level up and access the better perks and stats? Better play the quest then." At some point with video game design, we have stick the player on some sort of rails so that progression increments logically.

[@Lex_Araden]

You could have XP for quests approach for side quests and questlines that are not the main quest. But I think one thing you need if you are going to do this approach is to be able to support all approaches by having contextual quests that only appear once you have pissed off a faction to destroy the faction (perhaps something similar with individual settlements for very large factions).

[@UnkieNic]

This is a good point, one of the joys of nonlinear game is blowing off the main quest to wander and prod at the world. I think a possible solution here is to reward exploration and side encounters/discoveries/events with items, currency, or unique perks (these can be tweaked to be as impactful or fluffy as needed). There can still be incentive and reward for going off the beaten path, but overall XP level will stay the same. The player may be ahead of the power curve (and good for them, they did the side stuff to earn it) but you don't have to worry about the extremes of someone over grinding and trivializing the rest of the game or a non-combat character falling too far behind the expected curve.

[@chocolate_maned_wolf]

@@UnkieNic forbidden west had an interesting approach to this by making the main quest have 4-5 separate “fetch” (not crappy, very much story heavy winding quests) for the single main quest, so you could do all the side wandering in an area and then the MQ part there and not have the entire story pushed forward yet

[@kingVibe111]

I like the idea about, at its core, experience points are awarding players for doing what you want them to do in your game. I like dungeon crawlers, wizardry you carry that crappy thief everywhere cause they can open treasure chest cause man can’t live on level-up stats alone, you carry the wizard around cause sometimes you just need a wizard. These are balances against the player following just exactly what we tell them to do: destroy every enemy until the final boss. What we have are weights and balances built around the challenge presented to the player which creates great drama. Experience is one system but if you have other mechanics countering it players feel a sense of drama in the game.

[@brycejohansen7114]

I really like this idea, it's healthy for the XP economy and as a gamer I'm most likely to pay attention to something like this after finishing a quest rather than small gains from doing something random. You do miss out on micro endorphin hits from the moment to moment game-loop from it happening at random though, but at the very least I'm not being strung along into grindy game-play.

[@Faithreaver]

Hey Tim. Thanks again for sharing your work experience with us. How would you approach an experience system where players earn perk-specific experience, enabling them to unlock higher-tier perks within specific dialogue categories like persuasion, intelligence, deception, empathy, and leadership? What advantages and challenges do you foresee in a system that encourages players to specialize their dialogue approach by rewarding them for consistently using certain interactions, potentially limiting their versatility but enhancing their depth in chosen categories?

[@epsilon7482]

Really appreciate your words on these topics. very glad i came across

[@harpake]

Why do so many games insist on a weight limit for the player? In some games it's justified as a part of the core mechanics like Death Stranding, Subnautica or any game where you act as a trader, but I find in most games it's the first thing I have to mod away to keep my sanity.

[@CainOnGames]

No weight limit results in a huge inventory and complaints about how bad the inventory UI is. Sometimes limits exist for reasons beyond lore or tech reasons.

[@chocolate_maned_wolf]

@@CainOnGamesit’s kind of hilarious how in modded minecraft this problem has become so large the only viable solution is to create an inventory management mod with channels, filters, literally a simulated amazon center (applied energestics) so i can see why that would be undesirable

[@lmfsilva3000]

I fully understand the logic of making XP objective oriented rather than action oriented, but over time, I've grown a bit disaffected with systems that allow the player to click on the + or > sign next to the number indicator of a skill to improve it, as opposed to having the player actually having to use it (or use consumables) to do so. Of course, those are separate variables (for instance, using those skills grows potential which could become permanent on level up), but I've found things like for instance hacking and slashing to the end of an objective just to put points on low value skills like archery or speak good until they can ge relied on to be a bit inorganic.

[@srekel]

I would love to hear more thoughts on more freeform/dynamic RPG design where you may do things that can systematically have an effect on the world without needing to accept a quest first (or go somewhere to complete it later). For example you stumble upon a bandit encampment that has spawned based on procedural rules and take it out, so there's no quest to complete, and in fact, the result may be counter to your expectations (e.g. instead of the nearby village being "saved", now the big bad spider broodmother moves in to the vacant spot in the forest). (I'm making a CRPG like this hence my interest! it feels like less explored rpg design space which is super exciting)

[@PretendCoding]

There's also the issue of the psycho PC who just goes around killing everything. If they never accept a quest and just murder everything they come across, they eventually hit a wall where they aren't high enough level to actually kill things, and the things which would have given them XP are now all dead

[@Aethozoid]

Give experience for failing quests too? This idea is probably extremely flawed and may incentivize players to become psycho murderers who otherwise wouldn't prefer to play that way.

[@PretendCoding]

@@Aethozoid Yeah, there's not a great answer to this problem, but it's one I've identified thanks to a friend who tries it in every single game.

[@chocolate_maned_wolf]

in this situation if you want to account for that play style, most people doing that are doing it for the psychotic satisfaction, and those would enjoy the world reacting to them and becoming more hostile. RDR2 handles this with the honor system, where things get more dark and evil but without truly punishing the player. you basically have to ignore that style or allow it by creating a global slider that changes the oncoming encounters to be primed for response to that play style which is a lot of work

[@ghendar]

Cape Cod sweatshirt. This man has great taste. One of my favorite places.

[@MaxFry-r5s]

​ @CainOnGames I totally agree with this approach. I see one issue though that I would want to solve somehow in my games. What if a quest has multiple endings and I would want to make them equal to each other in terms of experience points? For example, you can choose to help a villain and complete the quest or you can choose to ditch him and not kill a good guy (which doesn't complete the villain's quest). How can we handle this situation in terms of XP?

[@ef3152]

Hey Tim, I’d love to see a video of your thoughts on sound design and audio implementation within the game industry.

[@MAYOFORCE]

As a person who's played way more JRPGs than WRPGs, I like to think that a person who is able to manipulate the systems to gain levels quickly is more of a demonstration of mastery over the game's systems. For example, the Etrian Odyssey series has more powerful enemies called FOEs you're meant to avoid early on, but planning your party's skills to take advantage of their weaknesses to kill them early will give you more experience early on and cut down on downtime later. Another example would be metal slimes in Dragon Quest, people who know where they spawn and the best way to handle them will be soaring passed the level curve as a reward for their preparedness. In both cases these are generally planned by veteran players and should get rewarded for their knowledge, and gives replay value to these admittedly more simple and grindy games. I personally prefer the mindset that experience should come from a wide variety of things, but to use another Japanese example, the older Yakuza titles had a mindset that's a lot more similar to the ideology described in this video. Eating at restaurants and fighting guys on the street would net you around a couple hundred experience each time you enter one, but completing sidequests and clearing chapters of the story would get you tens of thousands, so much more that it wouldn't be worth the time investment to do the other activities unless you had other motives to do so.

[@LeopoldZ]

In my ttrpg games i only award XP for main quest stuff, so the reward for sidequests are usually unique/powerfull items or allies. Pretty happy with that approach so far :)

[@uchusky08]

Love the Cape Cod sweatshirt Tim.

[@Tetramir1]

Thank you for all you do! I have a question: How do you approach the problem of graphical fidelity in your games? I'm not just talking realistic vs stylized, but diciding the amount of time that is going to be spent on 3D models, but also animation, lights etc... Graphical fidelity vs Being able to iterate faster and take more risks. You've made games that cover a big range, 2d games with very few voices, and AA games in full 3d fully voiced where dialogues are well animated. How do you feel about that range, do you have a sweet spot ? You talk a lot about having a reactive world, that is very systemic. But very high fidelity means that many things need to be locked in earlier. If we take the exemple of dialogues: Text only, you can iterate very late into the project. If you do voices you have to think things a bit earlier. And if you have mo-cap it's an even bigger beast. But each of those progressions may make the world more immersive, the story more impactful etc.

[@blacksage81]

1:22 I am here, but instead of XP I'm wrestling with Unreal Engine's GAS framework trying to figure out how to calculate attributes modified by gear, and where to store said values. I do have a setting, a world map, but my story is still in the skeleyal phase, I have a general overview of what I want the main character to go through, but I need to nail down specific scenes.

[@Devieus]

Here's the thing, if you're only giving XP from quests, you can forego XP altogether and focus on rewards instead. This seems to be the case for Mass Effect where you're given skill points instead; moving this to a logical conclusion, you can have side quests not give any XP and only give a cool item or special ability. Very optional, still putting people where you want them to be. This is how tabletop RPG milestones work, but it also makes XP completely moot and you can just get rid of it. In order for it to have an impact, it needs to be something more fluid than that.

[@TheYoungtrust]

80% seems like a lot to me. If you have at least some side quests for every kind of build, should they be under-leveled if they don't do any?

[@BickleyLTO]

I'd love for you to make a video about Jet in fallout.. there's a great debate about if Jet is actually Pre-War (began because of Bethesda loot tables) I'd enjoy hearing your take on the origin of Jet. Although I know you left during fallout 2 , maybe you have incite as to whether Myron was lying or not

[@DYWYPI]

This is why I dislike "training" based skill leveling. In an attempt to make the skill system more realistic - you have to practice something to get better at it! - you actually end up forcing extremely unrealistic and immersion-breaking behavior from players, such as deliberately getting hurt over and over so they can train their healing magic, or jumping the entire way across the overworld to train their dexterity.

[@mylesfrost9302]

memories of paying the drunk guy in markarth to punch me over and over to level up my armour while i went and had tea because the passive healing i got natutraully healed me faster than i took damage

[@seanothepop4638]

I like a "get better by doing" system but I find such systems struggle to be truly just right at the rate. Either it's too little grind or too much and that could be a 1% difference in rate either way to make it the vice versa problem. It's delicate! I also am cool with characters having defaults that the player can choose to follow or not. Saga Frontier (Square Enix) is an example where there's no experience at all, it's just getting better at what you did in the battle itself. Punched stuff? You got strength, hitpoints and maybe learned Kick and some weapon points (magic points for weapons skills including unarmed) And the rates were acceptable enough that the player could take a new character and mold them easily into a role they need. Grinding was on the easy/short side.

[@seanothepop4638]

But I also like being able to grind. I don't always want the uber skills and powers the last 5 minutes of playing the game. Nothing has gotten that right so far when grinding is rescinded and the game is linear.

[@lnoxd4215]

Hi Tim, could you do a video on the differences between Linear and Exponential Level Progressions and their use cases?

[@malik740]

I have an interesting thought , how to apply this to a publisher developer relation? Is XP in the real world just money? But doesnt that incentives a forever-game never reaching 1.0? How does a publisher keep the developer on track without restricting too much or being too lose? Bonus Question: What would an ideal Publisher look from the developer standpoint?

[@HeinerGunnar]

A scenario that comes from that way of giving out XP (and that I've personally experienced multiple times playing games): a completionist like myself risks being overleveled somewhere along the main quest. How would you mitigate that, beyond having the main quest scale to your level which can lead to other problems ("bullet sponges" and/or generally feeling like your level up didn't really achieve anything)?

[@God9OuterSpace]

Hey TIm, I was watching your series on prototyping and I was wondering if you could give more insight on _how_ to recognize if a feature is successful or not. Specifically if you maybe had some examples of prototypes that were scrapped. How did you recognize it failed, and was there any way in hindsight to account for the flaws in the design process.

[@jpage505]

Is it just me or does Tim seem like he would be super fun to hangout with and just chat/ pick his brain?

[@jamiepeter3567]

If that's the case, why then xp for kills in outer worlds? (Still your most underrated game, can't wait for 2!) Xxxx

[@MonochromeWench]

doing every path for Maximal XP reminds me of a problem common in the 3d fallout games where terminals can unlock something that can also be picked. and you get most xp by hacking the terminal but not choosing the unlock option and then picking the lock.

[@FlimsyRanger]

Hey Tim, got a question: Dont you think that having side quests not having as modular design as main quests could feel like a developer strong arming them into a playstyle? (Especially if the rewards are good enough). An example would be if a player only cares about combat, but they have to do a socially focused side quest to unlock a high damage dealing companion. Or heck, even if they just wanted the XP to lvl up faster. How do you magage rewards for side quests to keep them actually feeling optional?

[@HatTrickSwayzee]

Have a nice weekend, Tim.

[@eleventhrealm]

Hey Chris, just want to thank you for your videos. For an aspiring GM, your channel is an absolute goldmine of knowledge, and all the other resources and tools you freely share have been incredibly helpful. I don't think I'd be able to get my head around GURPS without watching your videos and learning about GCS. So thank you Chris, and congratulations on what is now over 4000 subscribers! Looking forward to seeing more videos from you!

[@julianscomposer]

Hey Tim, have you ever dealt with a great idea for a game that would fix a lot of design problems but came too late in development to properly implement?

[@user-hv7tr5tl7x]

Just thinking about this made me realize most, if not all, CRPGs give the player a benefit from completing a quest in the form of character experience. Of course, that makes sense as a reward and for the sense of progression, so that the player is more well equipped to take on the later, harder, quests and parts of the game. But as it is, this makes sure that the player will get an easier experience going forward, not a tougher one. Would there be a way to keep rewarding the player from completing these quests, but also making sure each time they do, the game would get harder, in other ways than just raising the experience amount required to hit a subsequent level? Games are generally expected to get harder the further you get along, does anyone see any other way of going about quest rewards, while making sure each quest cleared would also make the game ever so little harder on the player. One way would be giving simply less and less experience from each quest completed in any given act. However, I'm mainly looking for some avant-garde solutions for encouraging the player to clear quests while also making the game harder each time you do, so they would possibly have to more carefully think which quests to tackle and in which order. The reason I'm thinking of this is that nearly all CRPGs become so much easier the more side quests you have cleared, usually to the point of trivializing the entire game if the player chooses to focus on the side content before moving on to the main story.

[@NoTAdrian115]

I was thinking about what if the quests have a designated area and NPCs and there is a max XP you can gain from there? I mean, If the mission can give the player 500 xp at maximum you can split from where that xp comes, maybe you can get half of that xp from killing or doing things on the quest area and then when the player finishes the quest you reward them with the remaining xp. That way the players can feel that they are progressing doing what their character is for while also getting xp from doing the quest itself.

[@lounowell4171]

What do you think about the disconnect between the character gaining experience points versus the player themselves gaining actual real world experience?

[@MrGolibroda]

Now I understand why RPGs quests give so much XP at the endgame. It's probably due to cut out content and they needed to keep player levels up!

[@runfonkey]

Does anyone know of a CRPG uses the PbtA-like system of granting XP on failure?

[@m.duquesnay7603]

The other thing that goes hand in hand with this is whether the game world scales enemies to meet characters’ level - which I don’t like. If the game has this part right that wont be necessary.

[@ZlothZloth]

Won't it? Different players are going to want to play very different numbers of quests. Unless you make the main quests give far more XP than the side quests, you're still going to have quite a big level range showing up at the later acts. I think the bad thing we often see with scaling enemies is that they are done in a simplistic way - just give them more HP and make them hit harder. That can make it feel like you aren't levelling up at all. (In fact, if you 'bank' all your upgrade points, you effectively are not levelling up at all.) That type of scaling really requires that the enemies change significantly. They get new powers and use new strategies that utilize those powers, forcing the players to use their new powers as well. That's a lot harder on the developers, of course. Instead of trying to balance that boss fight for the wizard, the fighter, and the thief, they have to balance it for the 10th level wizard, the 12th level wizard, the 14th level wizard, ....

[@cronotrigger6206]

Tim i agree witha LOT of stuff you put out but this take on exp is a dev take and not a player take. that quest exp system is very restrictive to the player (i stay away from those) players like to see numbers go up. In fallout 1 2 and even skyrim you got exp from actions and those games where great! when playing those game that exp system made me want to explore the world! never forget that you have two very different view points as a dev and gamer! great stuff keep up the good work tim!

[@wesp5]

This is exactly how XP work in "Bloodlines", but absolutely not how XP work in "The Outer Worlds" where you get them from speech stats over lockpicking and hacking to killing enemies. How could that happen? Were you forced to do it that way by others?

[@CainOnGames]

I wouldn’t say forced. Every game I’ve made has been made with different people who feel differently about how things should be done. Even as a game director, you need to pick which battles you want to fight and which ones you avoid.

[@charliek5964]

One of my critiques of Outer Worlds is I hit the level cap at only the 2/3rds mark. I still enjoyed the game but the lack of progression for the last portion did detract from the experience.

[@wesp5]

@@CainOnGames I understand and as Leonard worked with you on "Bloodlines" I hope he wasn't one of those ;).

[@CainOnGames]

@@wesp5 No, Leon was not one of those people. We didn't always agree on things, but we always talked it out and found good solutions. That doesn't happen with everyone, though.

[@chadnelson8906]

So set it up like a DnD campaign with variables based on game pillars?

[@magicmanscott40k]

Thats exactly how I played new vegas. I got exp for speech options and repair so I put points into that even though I wasn't planning on making that kind of character.

[@starscream2092]

The problem is also with ingame money. For example I played Deus EX and returned to hoard items from dead enemies to buy very expensive perks for 10K, it was boring but I wanted to be stronger.

[@Topcatyo.]

I have some thoughts on the concept of having finishing quests be the sole source of XP. No real solutions or any realizations, this is just me thinking. While I think it makes the equation for solving game balance easier while also not railroading the player in terms of solutions for how to complete a quest, I do wonder if quest-completion as the sole XP reward conflicts with what you talked about in a previous video about inaction being a choice as well. Since the reward of XP is often what encourages specific player action, having quest completion be the way to earn XP encourages the player to get involved in every potential dispute going on in the game world. If you want to really encourage player choice in the game, does that mean that quests (probably side quests in particular) should have an "I'm not getting involved" option that marks the quest as complete then and there and rewards the player XP? Do you think, if the player chooses that option, they should maybe get a bit less XP than if they had gone on whatever errand that NPC would have sent them on? This would mean that players still get the freedom of choice in the game, and players who are interested in seeing all of the designed gameplay would still probably decide to engage in the activity because they want to see what the game has in store for players. At the same time, players wouldn't be completely discouraged from having their character decide to not get involved, which as you said in that video about player choice, is a choice of its own. Perhaps the solution is making sure side quests aren't just tawdry distractions where you're asked to talk to some NPCs in a couple of places or to deliver a letter to this NPC's grandma, and have actual substance to them so that the player will actually feel compelled to get involved. A "not getting involved" run would be an interesting strategy for speedrunning an RPG. As well, if a player has expectations that they may receive items on the quest, either from design choices in the game or from experience with other games of its genre, they may still decide to get involved either way. Or perhaps, not getting involved can still involve the player having to do certain actions instead of it being a simple matter of clicking the "no thanks" option. It can make for interesting characterization of the player character. For instance, the Yakuza series, which is phenomenal, is interesting in that a sizeable percentage of the sidequests in the game start with the player character, Kazuma Kiryu, getting scammed by somebody who is clearly a blatant scammer. While this can make the player feel some type of way in that they have to essentially agree to have Kiryu fall for an obvious scam in order to experience the game's content, it does lend some characterization to Kiryu as kind of a dummy but who has a heart of gold, which does feel consistent. Yakuza is quite different from the kind of games you like to make though, since if I remember correctly you've stated you like to have the player create their own character. Anyways I don't have any point I'm getting at, these are just thoughts I've had about XP gain in games. As always, I enjoy seeing you discuss these topics and seeing your perspective on these things. Jeez I typed a lot. Sorry

[@MicoSelva]

I understand your approach, but as a completionist, I really dislike this recent trend in RPGs of the majority of experience points coming from main quests, since that usually makes me reach the level cap soon after the halfpoint of the game. I prefer more even XP split between main and side quests, especially if main quests are only a fraction of the content in the game (which they often are).

[@diewott1337]

That way you make people that don't want to play a completionist style be forced to do so to progress the story. It solves one problem by creating a worse problem. Not a great solution.

[@MicoSelva]

​@@diewott1337Not necessarily. Critical path does not have to require getting all the XP to progress. You can make critical path scaled to XP you get from main quests (or dynamically scaled like in Deadfire). Plus you could then make some really hard optional content for the most involved players.

[@samuelbarrett5701]

In this economy I'll take whatever xp I can get since entry level jobs require so much

[@Gregorovitch144]

TBH although in principle giving XP for quests alone is great for evening out murdo hobbo vs knight in shining armour play styles it leads to the problem that the side quests become more or less mandatory unless you balance the end game such that it can reasonably be completed on 80% XP. But if you do that any player that does do all the side quest content will find it far too easy, and RPGs get easier and easier as you level up anyway. Case in point is PoE1 where it's really easy to reach level cap in the early part of Act 3 which is really annoying as you kind of lose interest at that point and just beeline the finale ASAP pretty much ignoring all non-critical path Three Elms material.

[@halfdecentstrange]

I have no idea what I'm talking about, but what would character progression in an RPG look like without levels?

[@tomhassomethoughts]

This sounds very much like the "Gold for XP" dynamic in original D&D and the OSR - - are you familiar at all with the larger OSR conversation about character progression?

[@FathDaniel]

How would this work in a sort of game that's Run Based? I'm talking roguelikes, since those rarely have a really central quest.

[@Anonymous-ks8el]

XP/HR only works in MMOs like Runescape where it doesn't have acts and players might spend dozens or hundreds of hours on just 1 skill, there XP/HR is determined by how much money the player can burn

[@muzboz]

Could you do a video about how a company could make their goals align with the employees, and vice versa, and hypothetical ways to make that work well for everyone? :D

[@RakastanPorkkanakakkua]

TL;DR: Rewards players based on what you want them to do.

[@longjohnbaldry7360]

You read videos?

[@winstonjen5360]

In Arcanum, is Kerghan meant to be an allegory for Socrates?

[@CainOnGames]

I don’t know. That’s really a question for Leonard, who I think wrote him. I’ll ask him.

[@winstonjen5360]

@@CainOnGames Thanks!

[@CainOnGames]

@@winstonjen5360I asked Leon, and he said that he and Chad Moore, who wrote Kerghan, never discussed Socrates, so it is unlikely that there’s an allegorical connection.

[@winstonjen5360]

@@CainOnGames Thanks for taking the time to respond. I came to that conclusion because you can talk him out of his evil plan by using the Socratic method.

[@bezceljudzelzceljsh5799]

Oh, this is such a good topic, I like that some games have unique, or just very restricted exp gaining methods. Like I think I used to play a lot of games, that had the main way to progress in power was by gaining exp from quests, and grinding was just not an option. Also Underrail had the find "artifacts" kind of system, where you look for junk and you gain exp. I guess that seems to imply the PC gains knowledge of the world they live in by acquiring junk/artifacts. Btw there was normal way to exp too, there are 2 systems. The restricting exp system that sort of have organic level cap, is Gothic 1&2. There just is a set amount of exp that you can have per chapter. Chapters don't change map, they just make the map a bit more difficult, sort of like ng+ in Dark souls 2. Chapters are just for the story.

[@memeslich]

Curious how Tim feels about milestone leveling in modern dnd.

[@theangel666100]

That would sorta get in the way of emergent gameplay though. If they can only advance by playing quests, then they gave less incentive to find their own stories

[@PaintsAreOp]

Fallout got 2, 3 and even bigger numbers, Vampire Bloodlines and Outer Worlds are getting sequels soon and South Park got a sequel. How do you feel about Bards Tale Construction Set 2 and Rags to Riches 2?

[@RastaJew]

I stopped playing Dishonored because it was rewarding you for not being detected or not killing enemies in every mission. It changed the whole ending of the game. And that's not how I wanted to play it. A lot of the time trying to play that way was tedious or just too hard. So i quit because I was annoyed because just having fun playing the game would affect the reward.

[@mabec]

This kinda contradicts OG Fallouts quite alot

[@joelsandberg5494]

Lessons learned

[@Toxic_Korgi]

Outer Worlds also gave xp the same way which makes it a little confusing.

[@AntonioCunningham]

I don't know sure this seems like a easier way to program games, but it punishes anyone who wants to grind. I get that overleveling can ruin the fun of games. (It's why I'm not a fan of the DPS advocates in Monster Hunter) but so can being under leveled. I think Suikoden had a great way of dealing out exp. Once you start to become over leveled, your exp drops to almost nothing (5 out of 100) but if you have a charater you didn't use, they can level up really fast without too much grinding.

[@lrinfi]

Question: What is the appeal of grind for the sake of grind? I respect that others appreciate it, but don't understand why they do. I don't play games to work. I play games to play; to allow my imagination free reign; to kick back, relax and not worry about a thing. If the game is thoughtful and includes enough downtime (e.g. the beautiful sights Todd Howard himself apparently enjoys so much or incredible art and art direction, e.g. Elden Ring's) and/or inspires contemplative as opposed to merely strategic thought, so much the better. Yet, I increasingly find myself feeling like I've clocked into work when firing up a new video game with nary a moment of downtime. The message seems to be "hustle or die". In fact, I often wonder at times if that isn't a bit of the real world's message leaking into video games. :/

[@LN.2233]

Many people derive satisfaction from grinding because the reward is having items far better than others/enemies and being stronger than enemies. This is part of why grindy games are so popular.@@lrinfi

[@AntonioCunningham]

@@lrinfi I can't speak for everyone, but I like games having the ability to grind for multiple reasons. 1: I'm not wealthy so I only can buy a few games a year. Having the ability to grind can greatly extend the life of a game. For example, I could just use raw weapons in monster hunter, but I find that boring. I like having the ability to make all the elemental weapons and try out each build on my own. therefore I have to grind multiple monsters and quests. I'll *always* buy a game with grinding over games that has no grinding. 2: If I don't like the difficulty, grinding can allow me to bring the difficulty down. Also, if I feel I'm too strong, I stop grinding. I feel I have more agency in games that allows grinding. Too be far, there are games with *bad grinding* Like Random Decos in MH:W/I and the Lootbox grind in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 I understand not wanting to work when sitting down to play a game. That's how I feel about games that's hard for no reason. Having a game that's too challenging isn't fun and feels like work I'm not being paid for.

[@chocolate_maned_wolf]

@@AntonioCunninghamthat’s valuable and a fair take, thanks. I personally don’t like grinding but this is interesting to hear

[@VieneLea]

The "Fall off a cliff 50 times" style of achievements pain my soul to the core. ...unless the game is all about falling off of various cliffs, I guess.

[@LTPottenger]

No one gives me experience points. I take them.

[@soldat88hun]

Is it even necessary to have levels and XP? For example you start out without having any combat skill, you can pick up a sword and swing it, but you are not very good at it. Then you can talk to a trainer and learn basic sword fighting and now you are can use the sword but you still didn't master it.

[@Heyesy]

WHOO! I GET TO EXPERIENCE A TIM VIDEO AS IT COMES OUT OVER HERE IN PST BECAUSE I HAD A COKE PAST 8PM! WHOO!

[@electricelf-music]

Lol made me laugh about how to extract the most XP from an NPC. I've done that a lot in the past just to get a level up 😂

[@wyattderp9719]

Skill based exp that only improves the skill is not a bad thing.

[@evoltaocao5078]

I don't like the concept of levels and experience points, but I'm not sure rpg games could be done without quantifiers like that.

[@uncledrax]

There are systems that use 'Gear' instead of 'Experience Points' to enhance character metrics.. but then you're just s/xp/wealth/ .. so the same net-result with just different names.

[@evoltaocao5078]

@@uncledrax same shit. my contention is the conceptual model of reality such quantifiers impose.

[@uncledrax]

@@evoltaocao5078 If i'm understanding your take correctly (and sorry if I'm misinterp'ing it) - ok fair. I think now we're getting at the crux of 'what makes an RPG.. the Roll vs Role playing game'. IME - Stat-less ttRPGs tend to be more akin in practice to Improv work (e.g. Fiasco), which to be believable imparts a technical hurtle to modelling in something like computer game ( at least pre-LLM ).

[@evoltaocao5078]

@@uncledrax the fundamental problem is the complexity of reality and the difficulties of modeling its nuances; defining and quantifying things that are possibly not quantifiable. general experience is subjective and relative. often my biggest gripe with games that aspire realism is that they are just a reflection of the narrow understanding and preconceived notions of its creators; "answers" that should be questions.

[@uncledrax]

Absoultey, and while I generally agree with the topic/rationale the circumstance is: 'it's just a game, and not a reality simulator'.. so either we (as players) can accept a reality model (read: cRPG/ttRPG) that flawed, limited, and abstract - and enjoy it, or we can find a different model we can accept, or just choose not to engage and find something else entirely.