I don't believe quests should give xp. It makes no sense to me logically. That's like a student getting a burst of knowledge after turning in the exam. The knowledge came from everything that lead up to turning in the exam like studying, paying attention, etc. More importantly to gaming, however, is how quest xp has created the modern mmo trope of running from quest to quest while skipipng all the texts to level quickly and efficiently.
Quests should be about the rewards. Rewards come in many different forms. These could be gear, crafting materials, faction rep, currency, or maybe even simply lore that leads to other hidden zones/quests.
Some examples of quest rewards:
Merchants giving you foods, potions, or currency.
Crafters making you an item needed for crafting swords that your profession can't make because of the interdependency of crafters. However it's the basic quality so you still need players if you want a better quality end result. Or maybe you simply want that faction's design and don't care as much about the quality.
Bard giving you the name of a contact in a nearby village (would this be a questline? find out!).
Lonely lady in the lost lodge increasing your reputation with a werewolf faction making you realize...
Essentially, I want to do quests not because I feel I have to in order to keep up with others, but because I want to learn more about the world, get closer to my faction/crafting/gearing goals, or maybe simply get specfic items instead of hoping for the right random drop while exploring. It'll be even more exciting when I realize the quest didn't give me anything. Will this lead to an epic questline? Are the devs messing with me? It gets me invested in more exploring for the sake of exploring. Not because it's efficient.
This might be a separate topic, but I also believe quests should be repeatable and retroactively completeable. Adding this to the game would make me talk to every quest giver, especially after adventuring for a while. It wouldn't be about the experience they give, but the rewards I can get for everything I already finished doing before unloading my loot.
For repeatable quests, it has to make sense. If the quest reward is a family heirloom or the life savings of a villager, then it's reasonable for that quest not to be repeatable (unless they have several heirlooms..). The story has to lend itself to being done more than once as well. However, if the quest giver is a merchant/crafter offering multiple rewards for a kill/gather quest, you should be able to repeat the quest to get the other rewards even if that means the rewards provided are weaker than non-repeatable quests. In order to combat any abuse, repeatable quest items can be soulbound and non-sellable/deconstructable/etc. Basically you either use it yourself or it's worthless.
Retroactively completing quests feels way more immersive to me in general. If you're asking me to kill a boss I just killed 4x the day before, I'm going to feel like my accomplishment meant nothing. However, if when I talk to that same NPC and instead get greeted with "I heard you killed Rabid Named Rabbit, thank you! Here's a nickle." that would feel amazing and as if the world were alive. The same with drop or kill quests. Why didn't that bear have a tuft of fur when I killed the last 100 of them? I could see a repeatable kill quest on a timer saying "Hey, the bear population is back up since the last time. Do your thing please." Maybe have a way for certain quests with good rewards to know if you did the gathering yourself so you don't abuse the system and pre-buy ore, tufts of fur, etc. I'll take that feeling of my accomplishments being recognized and important to the world around me over some extra xp any day!
Currently playing a new mobile game Eternal kingdom battle peak and the quest gives more exp than killing monsters. So ............ now Instead of grinding monster I just skip reading and get huge exp plus equipment from quest. I will be quiting soon because it always leads me to that end.
A good balance would be great if VR can achieve it. I would rather have a stable exp from monster and random exp, item,gear,etc from quest.
@AbsoluteTerror that's how I feel about games these days too. I still prefer no xp, but if that's too far a stretch for the devs and the gaming community a this point then I think it should be minimal xp that's proportional to the amount of running around they make you do. Basically just making up for the time you spent traveling vs killing monsters.
I definitely can't be the only one that looks at xp per kill and time per killl to calculate if a quest with a lackluster item reward was a waste of time, lol. Having retroactive quests or doing it for specific rewards removes that feeling of questing being a necessary chore since it's simply incorporated to your daily adventures anyway.
Feastycentral said:I don't believe quests should give xp. It makes no sense to me logically. That's like a student getting a burst of knowledge after turning in the exam. The knowledge came from everything that lead up to turning in the exam like studying, paying attention, etc. More importantly to gaming, however, is how quest xp has created the modern mmo trope of running from quest to quest while skipipng all the texts to level quickly and efficiently.
Well, if we gave the student XP for studying, what if the student learned all the wrong stuff or understood it wrong and failed the exam? Take the XP away again?
It's part a trope and part just a useful, sensible analog, as is a lot of the 'rules' of fantasy RPGs and has been since pen and paper rule sets like Dungeons and Dragons have been going.
The rationale would be that until you know the quest is truly complete and successful, you can't crystalise the gains in experience from what you've learned along the way. Killing monsters and discovering things is easy to count as XP-as-you-go, but quests, not so much.
It is upon rest, reflection and training that you can take what you experienced and turn it into new ability. At the end of the day, XP is only a 'measure' for when you might be ready to make meaningful porogression in your character development.
Feastycentral said:Quests should be about the rewards. Rewards come in many different forms. These could be gear, crafting materials, faction rep, currency, or maybe even simply lore that leads to other hidden zones/quests.
Well they are that too, but what would a fantasy game be without treasures *and* character progression?
Feastycentral said:Essentially, I want to do quests not because I feel I have to in order to keep up with others, but because I want to learn more about the world, get closer to my faction/crafting/gearing goals, or maybe simply get specfic items instead of hoping for the right random drop while exploring. It'll be even more exciting when I realize the quest didn't give me anything. Will this lead to an epic questline? Are the devs messing with me? It gets me invested in more exploring for the sake of exploring. Not because it's efficient.
Well now you're touching on a separate issue, really, that modern MMOs have turned questing into the primary source of XP. Yeah, that's proved to be a bad thing. I qgree quests should be more special and much more intriguing than just 'the best way to get XP' clicking on the exclamation marks at each hub.
Feastycentral said:This might be a separate topic, but I also believe quests should be repeatable and retroactively completeable. Adding this to the game would make me talk to every quest giver, especially after adventuring for a while. It wouldn't be about the experience they give, but the rewards I can get for everything I already finished doing before unloading my loot.
For repeatable quests, it has to make sense. If the quest reward is a family heirloom or the life savings of a villager, then it's reasonable for that quest not to be repeatable (unless they have several heirlooms..). The story has to lend itself to being done more than once as well. However, if the quest giver is a merchant/crafter offering multiple rewards for a kill/gather quest, you should be able to repeat the quest to get the other rewards even if that means the rewards provided are weaker than non-repeatable quests. In order to combat any abuse, repeatable quest items can be soulbound and non-sellable/deconstructable/etc. Basically you either use it yourself or it's worthless.
Retroactively completing quests feels way more immersive to me in general. If you're asking me to kill a boss I just killed 4x the day before, I'm going to feel like my accomplishment meant nothing. However, if when I talk to that same NPC and instead get greeted with "I heard you killed Rabid Named Rabbit, thank you! Here's a nickle." that would feel amazing and as if the world were alive. The same with drop or kill quests. Why didn't that bear have a tuft of fur when I killed the last 100 of them? I could see a repeatable kill quest on a timer saying "Hey, the bear population is back up since the last time. Do your thing please." Maybe have a way for certain quests with good rewards to know if you did the gathering yourself so you don't abuse the system and pre-buy ore, tufts of fur, etc. I'll take that feeling of my accomplishments being recognized and important to the world around me over some extra xp any day!
I agree and I believe VR feel the same. As always, I'm vaguely remembering comments over the years, but I also went and found a quite from Joppa (used the Library of Pantheon to find it).
Q: While we know that Pantheon won’t be a primarily “quest driven MMO” (a la WoW), we do know there are some quests, as well as the perception system, that will provide content. How much “content” will there be that revolves around Pantheon’s version of “questing”?
Joppa: A significant amount of game content will be centered around Tasks, Perilous Tasks and Storylines. We approach Tasks as the more mundane “jobs” that an NPC might ask you to do for them if you inquire. These could result in a bit of coin, a small amount of experience, an item reward, a means of increasing your reputation, or any combination of the above. Perilous Tasks represent more dangerous quests that will usually require more than one player to band together in order to succeed. With Perilous Tasks, the potential rewards will definitely be commensurate with the risk. And finally, Storylines are unique to the Perception system, and will be a primary means through which players will progress as Keepers and unlock the vast Lore of Terminus.
An important thing to emphasize when talking about Pantheon’s specific vision towards “questing” is that we are committed to creating a non-linear experience, giving the player a deep sense of sovereignty in how they approach this sphere of content.
disposalist said:Well, if we gave the student XP for studying, what if the student learned all the wrong stuff or understood it wrong and failed the exam? Take the XP away again?
It's part a trope and part just a useful, sensible analog, as is a lot of the 'rules' of fantasy RPGs and has been since pen and paper rule sets like Dungeons and Dragons have been going.
The rationale would be that until you know the quest is truly complete and successful, you can't crystalise the gains in experience from what you've learned along the way. Killing monsters and discovering things is easy to count as XP-as-you-go, but quests, not so much.
It is upon rest, reflection and training that you can take what you experienced and turn it into new ability. At the end of the day, XP is only a 'measure' for when you might be ready to make meaningful porogression in your character development.
How many times have we killed the wrong quest mob over and over thinking an item had a low drop rate only to find out it's not the right mob at alll? That doesn't erase or invalidate all the experience already gained. It simply means we'll now gain more experience in order to be able to receive the quest reward, or the passing exam grade.
I do like your idea of reflection and training. However, I don't think we have to follow all the rules of RPGs simply because they're as old as the genre. Pantheon is trying to bring back older principles while also creating new and unique features. The climbing system being one of them.
disposalist said:I agree and I believe VR feel the same. As always, I'm vaguely remembering comments over the years, but I also went and found a quite from Joppa (used the Library of Pantheon to find it).
Q: While we know that Pantheon won’t be a primarily “quest driven MMO” (a la WoW), we do know there are some quests, as well as the perception system, that will provide content. How much “content” will there be that revolves around Pantheon’s version of “questing”?
Joppa: A significant amount of game content will be centered around Tasks, Perilous Tasks and Storylines. We approach Tasks as the more mundane “jobs” that an NPC might ask you to do for them if you inquire. These could result in a bit of coin, a small amount of experience, an item reward, a means of increasing your reputation, or any combination of the above. Perilous Tasks represent more dangerous quests that will usually require more than one player to band together in order to succeed. With Perilous Tasks, the potential rewards will definitely be commensurate with the risk. And finally, Storylines are unique to the Perception system, and will be a primary means through which players will progress as Keepers and unlock the vast Lore of Terminus.
An important thing to emphasize when talking about Pantheon’s specific vision towards “questing” is that we are committed to creating a non-linear experience, giving the player a deep sense of sovereignty in how they approach this sphere of content.
Thank you for this quote! I'm for Joppa emphasizing "a small amount of experience". That's better than the large chunks of XP we currently receive that make other sources of XP irrelevant. I can stand behind the questing system described here.
Unsurprisingly, I do not agree that quests should not give experience.
Many of us find the thought of killing 10 million wolves at 3XP per wolf a terribly boring way to set up a MMO and are far happier when we can interact with the denizens of the world and earn rewards for these interactions. I would rather get to maximum level through quest experience with no experience given for killing anything at all. Let us face it - by the 9 millionth wolf what are you actually learning.
I note that Dungeons and Dragons Online does it that way - experience is for completing quests with no experience per kill whatsoever.
But since some people, like you, feel otherwise - my preference is that Pantheon give experience for quests and experience for killing and let the players decide where they choose to spend their time.
Your opinion may have been influenced by two things that almost none of us want. We do not want quests to be a very *fast* way to gain experience the way it is in many MMOs. We do not want quests to be a "golden path" leading us from the starter area through the world to the "endgame". We do not want to go from quest hub to quest hub to quest hub to quest hub.
My frequently expressed desire to have many quests and for them to give experience as well as other rewards presupposes a game, as VR intends, that does not have these ...abuses ... of the quest system.
I agree that beyond the first few levels quests (tasks) should not be giving experience. It all comes down to not wanting to be forced into grinding quests, which is exactly what happens. If getting from 25 to 26 is 20% faster by grinding the same handful of kill X quests, then most people are going to do that rather then explore and try to hold camps. I would much rather spend my night holding down a bandit camp with a few friends in hopes of getting the rare named to spawn then running back and forth with a murder list I’m checking off for the most efficient experience gain.
At first I was taken aback, but I think I know what you are getting at. Gettig to the end point provides all the exp you should need, the end reward is. plainly, the well earned reward. You are made wiser in battle fighting to get to the point to be able to handle the blade of thulsa doom. Merely receiving the blade of thulsa doom after alot of fighting doesn't make you more wiser in battle than you were before. When you get your diploma, were you suddenly smarter? how could you tell? it is a symbol of recognition of the effort and metriculation you have achieved as witnessed by the accredited awarding body or...quest giver. That's not to say, money and gems would be nice too, and maybe a healthy faction boost...some unique food too or some recipes
dorotea said:Unsurprisingly, I do not agree that quests should not give experience.
Many of us find the thought of killing 10 million wolves at 3XP per wolf a terribly boring way to set up a MMO and are far happier when we can interact with the denizens of the world and earn rewards for these interactions. I would rather get to maximum level through quest experience with no experience given for killing anything at all. Let us face it - by the 9 millionth wolf what are you actually learning.
I note that Dungeons and Dragons Online does it that way - experience is for completing quests with no experience per kill whatsoever.
I welcome disagreement! I think my idea would be pretty absurd if mobs gave 3xp. As much as I would love the idea of it taking a long time to hit max level, we do have to see some progression in our characters to get excited about the game.
I think DDO works well that way because everyone dungeon has a corresponding quest, and I could be mistaken but there are no overland mobs to kill. Everything is instanced. In that case the completion of the quest/dungeon being the reward makes sense.
dorotea said:Your opinion may have been influenced by two things that almost none of us want. We do not want quests to be a very *fast* way to gain experience the way it is in many MMOs. We do not want quests to be a "golden path" leading us from the starter area through the world to the "endgame". We do not want to go from quest hub to quest hub to quest hub to quest hub.
You're 100% correct on this assumption. I know realistically they will have XP despite my belief that they shouldn't need XP rewards. I simply hope it's very little XP that doesn't make it the motivating drive to purely focus on quests.
Thunderleg said:I prefer XP from all sources. Quests, mobs, perception pings, exploration, crafting/gathering, leveling up, collecting a new technique, completing a named armor set, and so on.
That's fair. Most modern MMO's very heavily weight XP gain in quests and daily tasks. Let's not force people to do quests for the sake of efficiency.
Xonth said:I agree that beyond the first few levels quests (tasks) should not be giving experience. It all comes down to not wanting to be forced into grinding quests, which is exactly what happens. If getting from 25 to 26 is 20% faster by grinding the same handful of kill X quests, then most people are going to do that rather then explore and try to hold camps. I would much rather spend my night holding down a bandit camp with a few friends in hopes of getting the rare named to spawn then running back and forth with a murder list I’m checking off for the most efficient experience gain.
Strangely enough, I don't want to be forced to grind in camps either. Never liked stationary camps. I prefer the feel of modern theme park dungeons that constantly keep you moving and going to different places without the linearity of them.
Manouk said:At first I was taken aback, but I think I know what you are getting at. Gettig to the end point provides all the exp you should need, the end reward is. plainly, the well earned reward. You are made wiser in battle fighting to get to the point to be able to handle the blade of thulsa doom. Merely receiving the blade of thulsa doom after alot of fighting doesn't make you more wiser in battle than you were before. When you get your diploma, were you suddenly smarter? how could you tell? it is a symbol of recognition of the effort and metriculation you have achieved as witnessed by the accredited awarding body or...quest giver. That's not to say, money and gems would be nice too, and maybe a healthy faction boost...some unique food too or some recipes
Great analogy! I don't think any of us will say no to some money, gems, and rep with a side plate of items.
Just something I didn't mention in my earlier post - There's little worse to me in an MMORPG to feel you are out-leveling an area of content just by doing the quests appropriate *to* that area.
In many/most modern MMORPGs I quickly find myself higher level than the monsters in any particular area way before I've completed the quests in those areas, never mind enjoyed a thorough exploration.
Couple that with the other bad modern MMORPG of making things easy even at the 'appropriate' level and you find that even soloing makes the game quickly boringly easy and grouping makes the game so trivially easy it is actually *worse* to group in an MMORPG than to solo.
This is just awful game design, though, of course. Those devs have made the XP rewards *way* too high and the challenge level *way* to easy to cater to the lowest common denominator that only do a couple of quests as they solo along while watching Netflix.
I am sure that Pantheon will not suffer from this at all.
"that doesn't make it the motivating drive to purely focus on quests. "
My preference, much as I like quests, is to have Pantheon give us a choice. Experience point gains just from killing things should be more or less equal to quest experience point rewards. On the only basis that matters - experience points per hour. If a quest takes 5 minutes it is fair for it to give very little. If it takes 50 hours it is fair for it to give a great deal. This, of course, is 100% consistent with the quoted language.
While you chose your thread title cleverly to appear more extreme than your position actually seems to be - I suspect that we do not actually disagree much at all.
We do agree mostly agree. I'm trying to be realistic here about expectations. So as not to be unreasonable, I can concede to a very minimal XP reward. However, the reward shouldn't be equal to time invested vs time invested in a dungeon. It should be way less considering you're already getting a guaranteed item/faction/etc reward.
I still think quest XP very negatively impacts the leveling and even grouping process of MMO's. I'm yet to see a convincing argument for the benefit to the game of quests having XP rewards.
It can be an alternate leveling path, but then the rewards should be XP gain OR an item or rep etc. Otherwise it will become the most desirable path with guaranteed gearing, guaranteed leveling, etc. vs the random drops of dungeons where you may or may not find gear for yourself that you also share with a group. Potentially going a few levels with zero upgrades if you're really unlucky.
Look at the huge success of modern MMO's that mostly play as a single player game until cap. Why spend time trying to group when the rewards from questing greatly outweigh those of group content?
I remember a few years back trying to level a healer in a game through mostly dungeons and having to find quests my level to upgrade gear pieces that were 15+ levels below my character's. That doesn't make sense. Granted, leveling speed is the real culprit there.
Questing = great leveling speed and guaranteed great on level gear while doable on your own.
Grouping = great leveling speed and a small chance for fantastic gear and must invest time finding a group first.
Let's be honest about the route most gamers will choose.
I agree with the sentiment, but perhaps for a different reason. I wish the motivation for questing was something more real than rewards or XP.
One should quest to save the world (or save the village, or save a captive), or to achieve something personally fulfillng, etc.
Frodo didn't carry the One Ring to Mount Doom for the loot and XP. He did it to save Middle Earth.
Unfortunately, today's game engines, along with current MMORPG design paradigms are likely unable to accomplish this in a procedural way that would give each player an equitable chance to make a difference in the world.
I know what I'm getting into. So for now I'm okay with experience in all its forms, including questing XP. I'll take the loot too, but not necessarily for the stats, I just want my character to look cool.
Quests should offer XP only if it's needed to keep them competitive in a time/xp ratio with other content (since those who want to participate shouldn't be punished for doing so). But then how will xp rewards be handled? Will the rest of the team get it? If so, they may get rewarded for little to no work (especially if invited in just to receive the completion reward). If they don't get it, it's not really fair that one person in the group gets more xp than everyone else, even though they're all doing the same content. And rewards need to be structured so questing isn't just farming with a skipped narrative.
Feastycentral: I don't believe quests should give xp. It makes no sense to me logically...
XP or experience is a measure of how much you have learned from completing a task. Whether that is killing mobs or completing a quest is immaterial. Gaining xp from questing is no weirder than gaining xp from the death of a mob. It is not the act of killing or the act of handing in a quest that is being rewarded, it is the reward for the effort in doing the undertaking in the first place.
I dont have an issue with quests giving xp or killing mobs giving xp. Each is a way to play the game. However, if the game favours xp for killing mobs, then you are in effect forcing people to play that way. To make any significant progress you have to kill mobs. If you favour quests for xp, then everyone will be forced down that route. I am in favour of an equal amount of xp being available from either route.
Wyvernspur: Frodo didn't carry the One Ring to Mount Doom for the loot and XP. He did it to save Middle Earth.
You are correct, he didnt set out to carry the ring for xp or loot. His world was in danger and he chose to do the right thing. However he did gain a ton of experience and he didnt gain it from killing mobs. Frodo was a totally different character when he got back to the Shire from the hobbit that set off in the first place. He gained experience as he journeyed on his quest none of it gained from killing mobs. In fact I dont think he actally kills a single creature in the book. He grew in stature, skills and notoriety from the quest he was on. He may not have set out to gain xp, but he definately received it.
In Everquest all quests were repeatable, even the Epic quests. There was a small experience reward for quests but it was usually designed to be a very minor reward. There were some very early quests when you were in those first 5 or so levels where completing the quest could grant you what seemed to be large chunks of experience; but after you gained a few levels the experience per quest was not significant enough to be a viable way to level up.
Since most of your experience came from fighting enemies and all the quests were repeatable, players could continue to hang with friends and still be getting rewards even if they had already completed the quests for an area. If you had already worked through a quest and a friend messaged you to come group up for that quest, you could come along and redo the quest and get another reward, plus the experience gained in the fighting parts.
In WoW (until they added daily quests) almost all quests were 1 time only. The experience reward for a quest was very significant and was the primary source of leveling up. Killing enemies did grant some very little experience but it was not usually an efficient way to level up. Since these quests were 1 time only and fighting only gave you minor experience gains, this would mean that once you had completed the quests in an area there was very little incentive for you to stick around in this area even if your friends were there still trying to finish quests. Staying to assist them was socially beneficial but gave you almost nothing tangible for your characters progression. This led to friends being motivated to split up and each work on their own quests on their own.
Even Dungeons tended to become pointless once you'd run through it once and finished all the quests. There was little incentive other than friendship to go back and re-do a dungeon you'd already completed. It would slow down your progression of your own character to go help a friend or guildmate go through that dungeon. Killing enemies in a dungeon did give you more experience than fighting in the outside world, but unless you were very speedy in clearing out enemies it was still less efficient than finishing quests.
As for Pantheon... We don't know if all Quests will be repeatable, but we do know that they want fighting enemies to be the primary way to gain experience. They don't want Quests to be the way you will level up your character.
Some sources for you:
From April 2017 Cohh Monk stream
Joppa said: "So our quest system, perception system is pretty unique. One of the decisions we made was to remove the leveling focus from our quest system, because part of what we are wanting to do is to move away from the 'On the rails' approach, that linear approach to questing. When questing is your primary way to level up then that's all you are really looking for is the next round of quests. So while there will be some quests that provide experience, the primary way you will level up in Pantheon is through combat, through vanquishing enemies. There will probably be some experience gains tied into certain, when your character gains skills in certain ways as you are progressing through the perception system for example or crafting system. We are open to the idea of tying some of those advancements into your adventuring experience. What you will not see is quest hub after quest hub filled with quests and then working through your quest journal as the fastest way to level."
From April 2018 TheHiveLeader stream
Will people be able to seemlessly play together or will quests and tasks cause people to separate often?
Ben Dean said: ”I’m glad you brought that up, because this is where Pantheon stands apart from a lot of the more modern MMOs. What Pantheon is about is more about exploration, more about the experience with you and your group. So while there will be quests or story lines that will take you in specific areas, it’s not as if you are going to have to do those to level up. So some people are going to have some different goals but you are all going to end up working together anyway. Your primary xp is going to be coming from exploration and just dungeon crawling and hunting together as groups.”
Aradune said: ”It’s more of a, people use the words ‘Theme Park’ or ‘Sandbox’. We are definitely more of a sandbox game. There are not quest hubs where you go to a certain area and do all the quests in that area and then go to the next one. You have a lot more freedom of choice. You’re rewarded a lot more for working with other people, for exploring the world and not just sitting there in one spot. That’s kinda one of the many aspects that distinguish Pantheon from other MMOs.”
chenzeme said:Wyvernspur: Frodo didn't carry the One Ring to Mount Doom for the loot and XP. He did it to save Middle Earth.
You are correct, he didnt set out to carry the ring for xp or loot. His world was in danger and he chose to do the right thing. However he did gain a ton of experience and he didnt gain it from killing mobs. Frodo was a totally different character when he got back to the Shire from the hobbit that set off in the first place. He gained experience as he journeyed on his quest none of it gained from killing mobs. In fact I dont think he actally kills a single creature in the book. He grew in stature, skills and notoriety from the quest he was on. He may not have set out to gain xp, but he definately received it.
I agree. He did gain experience. I guess the nuance is the motivation. Maybe it's up to the player to determine their motivation. We can roleplay that we are saving the world or just do it for the XP... or both... or neither.
Did Frodo kill Shelob?
GoofyWarriorGuy said:...
Great points. I focused more on the out-leveling thing in my initial post, but making quests repeatable but for small XP does encourage friends to redo them when others needed them.
The opposite, quests giving lots of XP and not being repeatable, encourages groups to split up and pursue their own quest lines and not to go back to places where they have done the quests.
It's also important that loot has good variety, is spread around and is tradable for similar reasons.
I think the majority of experience should come from kills. Even the majority of quest exp should come from the killing of the mobs involved. I also don't want quest/task exp and other paths to be so minor as to be neglible. Sometimes you are in between hunting spots, low areas too low, next areas too high, with other areas too far away. Times like this it's nice to have an alternative way to grind out a level or 2 to be more effective in the next higher area. Also, sometimes you can't find a group, or don't have time to find a group, and want a way to some solo quests or exploration quests and not have it feel like a waste of time. Sure, some quests might have a special reward, but not all quests are going to be perfect for everyone, and should have a reward everyone can use. There should be balance between all game modes, killing, questing, crafting, exploring, perception. Any route that gives an advantage will be exploited and others diminished.
VR need to be careful that the game doesnt become one big grind fest of killing mobs for xp. If the fun of the game is the journey, there has to be more than moving from one kill to the next. In my book, grind killing for xp is just not fun. Killing something should have good reason behind, killing just for xp and to gain a level seems to be a total lack of effort and imagination and will become boring, very quickly. Wow! For me engagement and immersion just fly out of the window and there is nothing worse than grind and overly repetitive game play. Nothing.
I know what VR have said. I am just very concerned that if killing everything in sight is the only way or even main way to gain xp, then the longevity of the game will be in question. Deep and involving story lines in MMOs are what interests me and the people I play with, not mindless, endless killing.
I know my point of view does not appear to be in line with the majority of people in this post, but it is still a valid point of view. I dont want a boring, repetative game and I was hoping that Pantheon would cater to the story buff as much as the killer types. Afterall, EQ was heavy on story and killing and Pantheon is supposed to be heavily influenced by such games.
Quest hubs gone: Cool. Rail-road journies, gone: Brilliant. Exploration: marvellous. Perception: superb. Grouping: splendid. Xp and progression exclusively or even substantially from killing, urgh! Xp should be available through multiple methods and play styles and in good amounts.
Oxford Dictionary: Grind; verb; hard dull work.
Says it all really.
Frodo may not have gone for the XP and his motivations may have been different for each step of the quest, but in the end he learned a lot about himself and grew as a person for it. You might say he gained a few levels of maturity and knowledge.
Really though, I think all progression type activities in mmos should reward experience. A lot of personal biases come into these arguements, but for as much as one person hates questing and loves the grind, you have to remember that someone else loves those very same quests and hates that grind. As long as one method of leveling is not stupidly better than the other, then the choice remains with the players on how they want to experience the game. This is exactly how it should be.
Personally, if they make it viable to level both ways, I will happily use both methods.