Each party member gains X exp, divided among their skills.

[Facarwi]

HI guys,

So I believed I have a fairly good grasp on the character system after playing around with a fair bit, I like to make a character purely for testing parts of the game in RPGS, work things out then make my real character. I knew I needed to specialize because of how the skill system works, so with that in mind I created the character I wanted from both an RP perspective and one that is specialized and strong in the area's I want.

I made a specialized two-handed (both) solider (background), I knew I wanted to get arrow armor quickly but after testing felt I could get away without dodging and gain the two levels so I never gain experience in dodge... However it didn't take long for me to realize because of how experience is awarded for completing quest objectives and extra things (I noticed it right at the start when I pushed over the boulder to kill one of the guards in the second fight) I was getting awarded experience to one-handed weapon skill... Why? Because the solider background gives me +2 to one-handed skill, and although I had never equipped a one-handed weapon or earned experience through any other means, it still was awarding me.

This is hardly a game breaking thing its a small problem but I cannot help but feel the game is asking two completely different things of me that contradict each other, on one side (RP) it wants me to have things like athletics, the background of my choosing, roleplaying to explore the game from a lore perspective (fun!), but then the other side (character progression) hits me over the head for doing it, What you want solider as a background for RP reasons? I laugh at you, Noble Scion is your only option if you don't want wasted experience!

I know that the impact these skills will have is minimal, especially when its one skill. Yet I cannot help but feel from a desgin standpoint they made two systems that don't work in the best ways together, I love playing on the harder difficulties which in the very tool tip states it requires you to maximize at every possible turn, yet if I choose to play like this it seems I will be penalized from an RP perspective and not able to play the backgrounds that I want.

From a desgin perspective, do we still need to give players bonuses to RP based choices such as backgrounds and even races, I know this part not everyone will agree with, but its my opinion that when choosing such things, the reward/reasoning should be effecting how the world see's you and interacts with you not because of some bonus your build requires/benefits from.

 

[AndreaColombo]

Agreed. I noticed this too in my current playthrough, where I'm being given XP to Dodge for gaining 1 point in it at the beginning of the game (I engaged the sucker in melee and he still threw his stupid javelin at me, giving me dodge.)

Imo the best solution is what @Balthazar69 suggested: an On/Off toggle for each individual skill to decide whether you want it to gain XP or not.

 

[Dirich]

It felt pretty bad when in the middle of my Trial of Iron run my character was disarmed and consequently attacked (and hence gained exp, and started leveling) Unarmed...
Being able to toggle XP earning capability on specific skills would be good for those who like to optimize.

 

[AndreaColombo]

Guys, I'm told Obsidian got their eyes on this thread so if you're nodding in agreement as you read, consider also writing a line to let them know.

Being able to specify which skills are allowed to gain XP on each character individually would be the best solution imo, if technically feasible.

To really go the extra mile to let us optimize, they could let us redistribute all skill XP companions have when we recruit them (no more Parry on Verse or Magic Staff on Eb; huzzah!) The downside is that you could end up doing something completely nonsensical lore-wise, such as Sirin with no ranks in Performance or Eb with no ranks in Tidecasting; to prevent that, those unique NPC-specific skills could be left without a toggle. Or not, I'm fine either way so long as I can optimize

 

[Raz415]

This should have been a part of the game from the start!

I'm not THAT upset with it since PotD is easy enough (Tyranny is a lot easier than PoE in general, and combat is more fun imo), but this feature is clearly missing and should be implemented asap!

 

[Elfwind]

TBH I'd rather they focus on putting more content into the game and making more choices that are more reasonable with more outcomes.

Spoiler

I managed to make friends with both bronze brotherhood and forge-bound on my anarchy play-through and I was not given a choice to return the mage-bane helm so Levian's Crossing still got murderederederederredeed despite annihilating the bane, I couldn't even tell Webly to be aweshum and hold the fort for meh or the forge-bound that max favor means don't give up on life.

 

[Raz415]

TBH I'd rather they focus on putting more content into the game and making more choices that are more reasonable with more outcomes.

Different people do different things in game development. What you want will also likely not happen outside of expansions. Only very minor changes are done to a finished game for practical reasons. This is pretty offtopic imo.

Also not nice to include spoilers like that in a gameplay thread.

 

[Elfwind]

Different people do different things in game development. What you want will also likely not happen outside of expansions. Only very minor changes are done to a finished game for practical reasons. This is pretty offtopic imo.

Also not nice to include spoilers like that in a gameplay thread.

Oops lemme fix the spoilers. I'm tired lol. And I know that ppl do different things but I feel like I wasn't given a complete game =c

 

[AndreaColombo]

I think he meant that people who would code the skill toggle we're requesting (don't forget the possibility to redistribute skill XP that NPCs have the first time we recruit them! ) are likely not the same who would write and implement extra reactivity.