XP system flawed?

[Kostas]

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?

[Chiller]

*shrug* It's how it was designed. Some don't like it, and the rest don't care.

If a prisoner is alive and has damaged a mob they will get full xp when it dies. If not they get half xp. That's all there is to it.

[rakenan]

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

[Kostas]

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.
If 2 of my chars do not hit it then let them get 17xp and the other 2 get 34xp each (for a total of 17+17+34+34=102 roughly 100).

Also dead chars do not get any xp so the xp share of live ones should be greater.

I don't see how the current system seems perfectly reasonable to you

TBH I'd rather all chars got the same xp whatever, hit or no hit. It's just so CHEESY that your total xp (all 4 char's xps added together) might suffer if one char misses a blow and doesn't land a hit on a mob before it dies. Cheesy that you have to throw a rock with each char at first sight of an enemy to "tag" em (as other players have said, not my term) to make sure you get full xp totals.

[Marak]

While the current system has some quirks to be sure, I kinda like that your level-ups get spread out over multiple battles.

It's more interesting (to me) to divvy up Skill Points on one character every 5 battles, rather than fight 20 monsters and then level up everyone at once, then fight 30 more battles, etc.

As for "tagging" monsters, the only time I don't like this method is what you're fighting clumps of enemies on the same tile - skeleton spear dudes and the green swarmy things, for instance - where you have 0 control over who is hitting what and all your non-Mage characters are pretty much guaranteed to lose out on some XP.

At other times it seems reasonable - in a game like this, with no Tanking or Healing combat roles to speak of, you give the most XP to those who contribute to the only remaining role: damage dealing.

[Kostas]

OMG I tested the skeleton squads and it is indeed very hard to get my rogue and fighter to tag em all. I had to limit my 2 mages to 1 spell each and then stay out of the fight.

I can sympathize with your point of view about staggering lvlups (it also addresses my save-reload OCD problem with lvlup stat gain randomness, easier to get max dice rolls for 1 char at a time than all 4), but again I'm not saying not to give varied xp, but to keep the total given the same. See my previous arithmetic example.
You could even argue for a % based xp system, based on damage done instead of just tagging, but that would suck for the tanking chars and favor the dPSers.

(Overall I'd rather xp was shared tbh, but the total must be safeguarded first)

EDIT: why you say no tank roles? dodge rogues and armor fighters are tanks and low dps.

[seebs]

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

Well, definitely a flaw: It's per slot, not per character. Swap a mage into all four slots damaging a quad of skeletons, all four characters get full XP.

I think it's a flaw: You get substantially less XP for the same mobs depending on how you fight them, and in general this massively penalizes warriors and rogues, especially on skeleton quads and the like. It's surprisingly hard to get everyone to have tagged a specific skeleton before it dies, let alone to do so in an efficient way.

Look at it this way: Would you rather get 10,000 XP for killing a given population of monsters, or 6,250 for the same population of monsters, killed by the same characters, same level, and everything? For that matter, is it a good thing that the way you get 10k XP instead of 6,250 is by playing in ways that are otherwise ludicrously inefficient?

There's a reason that most systems use a fixed XP total per mob, and divide that up. (Note also that virtually nothing in traditional RPGs uses a division other than "living party members", because measuring only damage penalizes you for, say, having someone healing other party members, or using utility abilities, and so on.)

[King Semos]

If it was a game based around convenience like WoW, it would be a flaw.

If certain classes get penalized for it, so be it. The end result is really the same regardless. The worst I've had a character fall behind is one level, that being a mage. That being because his fire couldn't hurt Uggardians. However he shielded my group with fire resistance proving useful still. Since he lagged behind, I gave him a Tome of Infinite Wisdom, and Bam. Inconvenience solved.

That's just how I see it though.

[sapientCrow]

So what is the actual way to make sure exp is received? Is it simply if a character lands a successful hit?

[seebs]

If it was a game based around convenience like WoW, it would be a flaw.

That's a pretty total non-sequitur.

It's nothing to do with convenience or inconvenience; it's that if you play pretty normally, your party as a whole is likely to end up a level or two behind where they would have been if you play with careful attention to XP.

If certain classes get penalized for it, so be it. The end result is really the same regardless. The worst I've had a character fall behind is one level, that being a mage. That being because his fire couldn't hurt Uggardians. However he shielded my group with fire resistance proving useful still. Since he lagged behind, I gave him a Tome of Infinite Wisdom, and Bam. Inconvenience solved.

That didn't solve anything, that just got you back to almost where you would have been if XP had been divided rather than reduced.