Awarding experience in a ORPG

Here's something I don't see discussed very often, most people typically just think there's only one ways of gaining experience. When you complete a task. However there's some questions I have to you guys regarding this setup.

Usually experience is rewarded in three ways:

• Killing a monster.
• Completing a quest.
  
• Performing a profession based task.

But, what about changing the way you gain experience all together? Say a quest doesn't have to be completed, and you can go back to the giver and say "Hey, I did this much of what you asked." and he gives you a portion of experience.

What if you grant experience based on the damage that's dealt, and not the monster that's killed.

What if you based experience gained on the materials you fine while exercising your profession, not the node you selected.


ideas?

 

There's some flexibility in ArcheAge's quest system. You can do a half-assed job and get partial XP, or you can do the job properly for full XP. But you can also overachieve (usually about 50% more of whatever the task requires) to gain a bonus. Sometimes the bonus also upgrades item rewards.

It's also possible to craft & harvest your way to the top level, instead of fighting. Just plant a farm full of flowers or bushes. The "endgame" is all about fighting players anyway, so any road to 50/55 is fine, and the best gear is supposedly what you make. Kill & loot isn't everything.

Most games give experience for exploration and conversations too. I'm sure everything has been tried in various games. Most people are sick of kill X quests and such, so alternatives had to be invented. It's nice to gain several levels in the process of gearing up for battle

The game is also flexible with classes, where you can switch out any of your three skillsets, and they have to be trained up. That's why generously giving XP many different ways makes sense for that particular game.

Some games give experience indirectly by causing damage. It's not uncommon to have weapon skills that increase as you fight, independently of character levels. Focus on a weapon and get really good fast, or switch around to gain enough skills to manage a bit of everything.

 

I think that doing XP by damage is completely biased towards scrappers and blasters, while screwing over tanks, healers, and controllers.

 

Yeah, it doesn't work with a City of Heroes-style system

 

Does ORPG stand for online role playing game, or offline role playing game? Seems totally ambiguous to me.

 

Afaik Silkroad Online changed XP reward because of "kill-switchers". It didn't matter who killed the monster, but how much damage you made. Healers and buffers got great experience in party gameplay, because everyone in a party shared the XP points received. Good system, rewarded teamplay (until the game was destroyed by botters). Regarding crafting, fusing, enhancing equipment - it was also rewarded with XP, though not much.

Edit: if you're talking about offline RPGs, I recall that in Lands of Lore I Exp. was gained by how much damage each character made, instead of who killed the monster.

So the ideas have all been executed one way or the other...