Breaking the Pinata

[acvar]

I realize that what I am proposing is a major shift in the game, but I feel it is a good thing to explore for the following reasons:

1. It gives the developers more control over one of the biggest and most important variables in the game allowing them to more accurately construct challenges for the players.

2. It removes a historical source of tedium that has spawned multiple kludges to fix.

3. For the players (and developers for that matter) it opens up whole new playstyles that were previously unthinkable.

I propose removing monster kills as a primary source of experience. As it stands now monsters are experience pinatas for the most part. Some monsters are obsticales when you first meet them, but a couple more levels and they too become pinatas. If killing monsters generally did not give you experience then they would become purely obsticales.

So if killing monsters does not give you experience then where does it come from? The primary source of experience would be simply advancing through the dungeon. Each time you enter a new level you gain some experience. In addition the developers could offer "skins" to the players. Skins would be certain actions that anounce themselves when you enter the level telling you how to gain some exta experience. For example:

1. This level is terrorize by a vile dragon. Slay it to recieve your reward.
2. Explore the entire level to recive a reward.
3. retrieve the slimy rune to recieve your reward.

Those are just 3 possible skins. The list could go on and on.

So how does this address the original points?

1. Since the levels of the dungeon (pre post-endgame at least) is predetermined then the amount of base experience is easly controled by the developers.

2. Skumming for monsters is instantly removed by this, and backtracking to find the unique you left behind is also gone. So are those times when you got teleported away from that high value unique that you keep searching the level for but just can't find.

3. Without the need to kill every monster new player styles like sneak thiefs and true warpers become viable. You could also play a hexer that just uses their hexes to distract their enemies long enoug to get to the exit. Crawl can evolve from a pure hack and burn game into something far more intersting.

[TeshiAlair]

To quote a submarine captain: DIVE DIVE DIVE

Exp has to be granted at least from exploring an entire level under this system (or at least something like 90%). This still serves the basic purpose of this proposal. I'd also suggest a less formal form of reward exp- simply killing a unique, or an OOD monster (maybe anything of red difficulty?) should gain exp.

Things I like about this proposal:

1. Less "tedium"
2. less grinding

Things I don't like about this proposal:

1. Overly encourages the "new playstyles"
2. Makes the game even more "mash autoexplore"
3. Encourages hiding and 5ing away threats.

Suggestion: Make this into a race. This will let you test the viability of this idea without requiring a massive entire overhaul of the game.

[Lasty]

I think this is an interesting idea, and I like aspects of it, but (as written) it would dramatically shift crawl from a game which revolves around combat to a game which revolves around advancing quickly. Stealth and invis would become massively better, and choosing to fight a monster would very rarely be a good choice, since it offers risks but no rewards.

There are some things that can be done to ameliorate this (exploration is worth more than diving, for example), but then translocations and speed become way better, in that they allow you to explore without necessarily having to fight monsters.

This could be a good way to build a new roguelike, one built and balanced around the concept such that player abilities make exploration and avoiding combat interesting. It might also be an interesting if only layered on top of Crawl: e.g., monsters give 50% (75%?) of current XP, and exploration gives an amount of XP that is equivalent to the XP removed from the dungeon by cutting monster XP, since that would de-emphasize combat slightly without removing it as a focal point of the game.

[johlstei]

A god of the shadows who gives piety for being in LOS of monsters without being seen might be cool, though maybe stabbing is a sufficient reward in that case. I'm not sure how Sil determines when to give you xp for a monster you sneak past, but a system like that would be cool. I definitely don't think all of crawl should be reworked to do that though, make it something optional like a god.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Monsters are already "purely obstacles". Removing them is just the most common method of avoidance, for a variety of reasons, XP obviously being one of them. Crawl isn't a "pure hack and burn game" and your proposal isn't some brave new direction. That's not to say other sources of XP are bad, but your proposal is essentially a short-sighted demolition of a delicate balancing act, and you seem blissfully unaware of that.

I'm not sure how Sil determines when to give you xp for a monster you sneak past, but a system like that would be cool. I definitely don't think all of crawl should be reworked to do that though, make it something optional like a god.

Sil gives xp simply for seeing monsters, then additional xp for killing them.

[damiac]

What if exploring 90% of a floor, and going down to the next level, gives you 50-75% of the exp for the monsters you left behind. Obviously the monsters need to be flagged somehow so you can't then go back and kill them for full EXP, though I guess you should be able to get the rest of the EXP you didn't get in the first place.

Also, this wouldn't affect the abyss obviously. Any maybe there are other extended areas that this shouldn't work in.

[and into]

People should get something for killing enemies, though. Here's a far less radical proposal that I would recommend (it is actually based off of an idea dpeg had about a god).

Currently in the game, you get a fraction of normal experience killing via summons, and you get a fraction of experience for pacification via Ely and banishment via Lucy. Note that the first was added as a nerf to summoning, while the last was added as a buff to banishment (which used to give less experience). Why don't we build on something already in the game (fractional experience gain) and expand it to some other actions? You (still) only get full exp. from killing dudes, but you aren't completely deprived if you circumvent your enemies by other means.

So, the idea would be that monsters retain current pool of experience, nothing needs to change there. You can get some of that pool through non-lethal means; if you do so, and then kill the enemy, you get *the remainder.* There is no double dipping—you won't ever get *more* than 7626 experience points for doing stuff around an a. lich before killing it; however, you can get some fraction of that 7626 exp without killing it.

So then the question is, what things give partial exp., and how much? Obviously you'd want to avoid grindy or tedious things, so the point here is more to reward with partial exp. what is (already) more or less normal, rather than incentivizing weird stuff. The advantage of implementing partial exp. in this way is that it would make less kill-centered approaches to the game more viable. (You'll still have to kill stuff, obviously, but you can get by killing less.) Another way of looking at this is, rather than using exp. merely to reward the kill, experience points can be used to reward things like surviving a tough encounter even if you don't kill the foe.

So here's a rundown, plus some ideas I'll throw out for what actions could give partial experience. The actual coding might be a bit complicated, but the game play won't be.

(Effectively) Lethal
1.) You get 100% experience by killing enemy with non-ally means of your choice.
2.) Killing entirely via summons / allies gets you no more than 50% of exp. pool. If you have already gotten 50% of exp from enemy via other means, you get no additional exp for killing entirely via allies.
3.) Pacification and banishment give you X% of the enemy's available experience. If you have already gotten X% or more exp from that enemy, dispatching an enemy via pacification or banishment gives you no additional exp.

Non-Lethal
1.) You can get up to 33% of total experience for successfully "escaping" from an enemy. Escaping can for these purposes be defined as, "You see enemy, get out of the enemy's LOS, and enemy does not reenter your LOS for X aut." Probably X = 200 or something (20 turns) would work. This applies even if enemy did not notice you, so sneaking away from enemies counts as escaping for these purposes.
2.) You can get up to 50% experience by successfully disabling the enemy. Nets, confusion, slow, enslavement, etc. work for these purposes.
3.) You can get up to 75% experience by bringing the enemy to near-death (the enemy's life bar gets to red level).

Note that players would not need to concern themselves with the numbers here, just like the actual number of experience points you get from an enemy, the information is available if you are curious, but you don't need to know it to play. As with allies now, if you know that you get partial experience based on how much of the fighting they do for you, that's sufficient.

Similarly, with this proposal, it would be sufficient for player simply to understand, "You get partial exp for X, Y, Z. There isn't any 'double-dipping' and thus no reason to go out of my way to do non-lethal stuff to an enemy I can safely kill."

[Wahaha]

and into has an elegant solution, mostly. Skills randomly leveling up after 20 turns of nothing happening isn't elegant but that's easily changed. Now the question is: solution for what?

[acvar]

Removing experience from monsters will not make a huge difference in how most play the game. Berserkers will still kill most things they see, nukers will still burn most things they see. The characters that players currently play will still handle monsters the same way they do now because that is what they are good at. What will change is less grinding, and less scumming on the current play styles along with some new styles being added to the mix. In addition a lot of design space is opened up to the developers in the form of designing intersting skins for the players. All this is done without complex equations and coding since all you need to do is add rewarding experience to the level generater code. Every time a level gets generated the player gets experience. The amount of experience is determined by how many times the function has been called. A simple multiplier is added if the player achieved a skin.

Now for some rebuttles.

1. To quote a submarine captain: DIVE DIVE DIVE - Sure if you don't need any consumables, weapons, spellbooks... You will still need to explore floors to get loot.

2. Overly encourages the "new playstyles" - This is impossible to assert. Whether "new playstyles" are overly encourged would depend on the distribution of monsters and the types of skins offered. Stealth characters would not be favored at all if the dungeon is full of guard dogs, and there are lots of skins that involve killing a single strong monster or killing everyting on the level.

3. Makes the game even more "mash autoexplore" - lets not kid ourselves. The game already is this, and that is not a bad thing. Autoexplore is the best thing about crawl. It removes one of the most tedious parts of roguelikes.

4. Encourages hiding and 5ing away threats. - Do you really think that a heavy armour fighter is going to be encourged to 5 and hide threats away with this system? If so then the person playing that character is a moron. Fighters will still fight, nukers will still nuke, but we might just get a few other viable character types.

5. but (as written) it would dramatically shift crawl from a game which revolves around combat to a game which revolves around advancing quickly. - This could be restated as changing crawl from a game about grinding to kill as many monsters as you can to trying to retrieve the orb of zot?!?!?

6. Also, this wouldn't affect the abyss obviously. Any maybe there are other extended areas that this shouldn't work in. - once you move onto the postendgame it really doesn't matter. The postendgame is just that. It's just extra grinding for those that like that sort of thing.

[Siegurt]

1. To quote a submarine captain: DIVE DIVE DIVE - Sure if you don't need any consumables, weapons, spellbooks... You will still need to explore floors to get loot.

1. Why do you need those things if you never need to kill anything?
2. Why shouldn't someone simply dive to the bottom of the dungeon, get all possible experience, then climb back up and collect loot as a now extremely-high-level character for whom none of the monsters are obstacles or a threat? (Presuming one actually cares about the loot at this point)


This sounds like trying to change crawl from a game about tactics to a game about speed and stealth, which might make a good "different style of game" (like Zot Defense or sprint) but doesn't seem like something that would be good as the primary game to me.

[galehar]

2. It removes a historical source of tedium that has spawned multiple kludges to fix.

You think killing monsters is tedious? But then, what isn't? What's the meat of the game if it isn't killing monsters?

[reaver]

2. It removes a historical source of tedium that has spawned multiple kludges to fix.

You think killing monsters is tedious? But then, what isn't? What's the meat of the game if it isn't killing monsters?

Killing monsters is tedious if they pose no threat. That's why the OOD timer works against this process- it ensures the monsters start posing threats again if it looks like you're farming. Just like Crawl is only fun with the threat of permadeath, fighting monsters is only fun when the possibly of death (or permanent damage) exists.

Anyway the current XP system isn't ideal, but it works fine for now.(and fixing it wouldn't "open up whole new playstyles that were previously unthinkable.") If I was going to try to replace it, I would probably use and item based advancement system like Brogue's, but the XP is system would be low on my priority list. There exist far more broken systems in Crawl. (To use a recent example - item destruction. To use an uncontroversial example - god wrath.)

[acvar]

2. It removes a historical source of tedium that has spawned multiple kludges to fix.

You think killing monsters is tedious? But then, what isn't? What's the meat of the game if it isn't killing monsters?

Actually I was talking about scumming. A bit of tedium that spawned the food clock in rogue, and the kludge that increases the dificulty of monsters after a certain number of turns on a level in crawl. Yes camping on a level waiting for more low level mosters to appear so you can kill them for experience is tedious.

On another note yes killing almost every monster in the exact same way that you killed the previous monster with just a few real threats thrown in to break the monotany is indeed tediouis.

These things are not given names like scumming and grinding for no reason.

The meat of the game as you put it is to deal with the obsticals that the game puts in my way that prevent me from achieving my goal of retrieving the orb of zot. Why should killing monster be the only viable way to deal with them? Why should me stealthing past a threat be less rewarded then me killing it? Why should me confusing it long enough to walk past it be less valuable then killing it? Dealt with should be dealt with and the rewards should not discriminate unless you are trying to make a game that is JUST about killing.

And please don't try to tell me that there is less risk in sneaking past something then actually fighting it. The vast majority of monsters I encounter while playing a kobold berserker are of ZERO threat to my character. Only a few percent of the monsters I encounter have any real chance of killing me. How is it any differnt for the stealth character that can sneak past 90% of the dungeon and only really needs to wory about the 10% he can't sneak past? People seem to be under the delusion that stealth characters never fail at sneaking past things and that warpers never end up in a situation where they can't just port right to the exit without fail?! In the crawl world random things screw up you best laid plans.

[and into]

Wahaha: Right, on my way to class today I actually realized that the "escape experience" set up I had initially envisioned would be problematic, but I agree that it could easily be tweaked.

In terms of *why* one would do this, I think acvar hit on some good points in his last post, though I don't agree that killing monsters is tedious. It is sometimes, sure, but tab exists for enemies that you (don't think) pose any threat to you at the moment, just like autoexplore exists when you think the level as a whole doesn't demand careful manual exploration. Of course, sometimes you end up misjudging and being wrong in some cases, but the tools are there to remove tedium.

Stealth and avoiding overly dangerous situations are already a very important part of Crawl. Unlike what was recommended in the OP, the changes to experience that I suggested would not change very much (if anything) in terms of tactics, and wouldn't bring about some revolution in terms of how people play the game. However, it would change strategic considerations by allowing one to rely more on certain (already established) tactics more often without gimping your character. It would allow less kill-oriented strategies to be more viable over the course of the game. A non-kill game would still be basically impossible, but you could use non-lethal methods much more often, which would open up possibilities for different ways of playing the game.

Even though it wasn't really (as I understand it) the intended effect, nor the primary benefit of doing so, removing victory dancing and allowing direct control over experience allocation did make experimenting with different strategies a lot easier and more viable in practice. I think the game would be richer and more interesting if it were pushed a bit more in that direction. (Viable is not same as optimal, and offense-oriented builds would still almost certainly be better. At any rate, no current strategies or play styles would become *worse* if my proposal were implemented.)

As it stands, only getting experience from kills (outside of two god abilities) is a very major, and basically insurmountable, disincintive to relying too much on non-lethal means of dealing with obstacles—other than potions (and cards) of experience, there is no way to advance your character except killing.

Such a strong disincintive is neither necessary, nor is it actually in keeping with the spirit of Crawl. There are lots of ways to get around any single monster, but if you use any of the non-lethal subset too much, then your character eventually becomes non-viable, even if you made no wrong move in terms of any given encounter. Scaling back that disincintive to some degree would make the game a lot richer in terms of possible strategies that, while probably not optimal, are nevertheless viable. I see that as a major improvement.

[galehar]

These things are not given names like scumming and grinding for no reason.

I don't want to enter a pointless terminology debate, but I think you use those terms a bit liberally. Especially grinding which usually implies some infinite source of XP/loot. Scumming usually means low risk / high reward / time consuming task, and I don't think killing easy monsters really apply (it's quick and not very rewarding).

Why should me stealthing past a threat be less rewarded then me killing it?

Avoiding easy monsters instead of killing them is going to be way more annoying. You're basically forgoing autoexplore just to save a couple of tabs.

Reducing the amount of chaff is a good thing, and it's actually being done regularly.

[Sandman25]

Yes camping on a level waiting for more low level mosters to appear so you can kill them for experience is tedious.

Is it optimal play? If not, there is nothing wrong with it. You can do everything you want as long as you enjoy it.

[archaeo]

The logical conclusion of this idea already exists, and it's called Brogue.

[Brannock]

2. It removes a historical source of tedium that has spawned multiple kludges to fix.

You think killing monsters is tedious? But then, what isn't? What's the meat of the game if it isn't killing monsters?

I don't mind monsters. In fact, I quite like the monsters. They're the most fun part of Crawl, and the rest of it is primarily changing which situations in which you deal with the monsters (and how those different situations affect how you deal with those monsters).

However, I don't think killing monsters is the only fun way to deal with monsters. I think dodging them, disabling them, trapping them, running away from them, distracting them, driving them to suicide, killing them via allies are all perfectly fun too. But only a certain few of those methods of Dealing with a Monster actually rewards me. As it is right now, killing monsters makes you very good at killing monsters. But dodging monsters doesn't make you better at dodging (or disabling, or etc...) monsters. You have to kill monsters to get better at dodging them, or to get better at teleporting them away, or etc.

Is this necessarily a flaw in Crawl? I don't think so. But it's a worthwhile avenue to look at should the devteam ever run out of chaff to remove from Crawl's gameplay.

[Mankeli]

But dodging monsters doesn't make you better at dodging (or disabling, or etc...) monsters. You have to kill monsters to get better at dodging them, or to get better at teleporting them away, or etc.
Is this necessarily a flaw in Crawl? I don't think so. But it's a worthwhile avenue to look at should the devteam ever run out of chaff to remove from Crawl's gameplay.

Dodging monsters used to make you better at dodging monsters -it was called victory dancing and it was absolutely horrible (well, truthfully speaking, you still had to get the exp first from somewhere in order to victory dance which was via killing monsters).

[acvar]

It is good to see some more people who understand the posstible benifits to players, but the alternate suggestions trouble me a bit. Here is why:

1. They do open up new possibilites for players, but they don't address the other points which are very valuable. They don't address scumming, and they don't stabalize experience levels.

2. They are very complex. This makes them hard to code, hard to predict the outcome of, and easy to break. The base of the system I proposed could be coded in just a few minutes, and the skins system shouldn't be all that dificult either. It is a very low time investment and as such very easy to test.

3, They still leave monsters as the only source of experience. Yes you no longer need to kill the monster, but its still ALL about monsters. The skin system allows devs to create varied play styles for characters throughout the game. Much like timed vaults can alter a players playstyle and spice things up a bit each skin will cajole the player to do things different if even for just a little bit. Anything that breaks the monotany is a good thing. Without the more stabalized and controlled aspect of the by level experience system I doubt a skins system could be effectively implemented, and even if it could it would require a massive rewrite of the current experience system if you wanted it to be at all common.

My basic point is that testing this should be trivial. The code to implement the basic system would most likely involve commenting out one line of code while adding another single line of code. You could then test to see if there were any major breakages in game play and see if there is any reason to continue work on the idea. The biggest cost would be time spent testing the change (and there needs to be lots of testing done).

[Zammy]

2. It removes a historical source of tedium that has spawned multiple kludges to fix.

You think killing monsters is tedious? But then, what isn't? What's the meat of the game if it isn't killing monsters?

Yeah, I bet I'm not the only one who likes to see chunks of meat fly around when I blast the pesky monster.
Besides, killing is the only way to prevent the monster ever bothering you again. If I sneakily avoid the monster there is a good chance I'll just run to it again while exploring the level or if I need to come back for some itemetc.

Monsters are exp pinjatas in vast majority of games. Why? Because it works.

[dpeg]

As has been mentioned already, Brogue used to have an experience system (with all xp coming from kills), and completely scrapped that not so long ago. The new system works very well. However, I am not sure that this concept can be easily transplanted onto Crawl. For one, Brogue's refocusing away from killing towards exploration meant higher emphasis on traps and secret doors -- Crawl is moving in the opposite direction. (Kills are still important in Brogue but you only kill in order to gain exploration space, hence items/vaults/allies.) Another difference is that Brogue is much smaller, in total scope and in its levels, and it has a tight food clock which means that it has many design options which otherwise would lead to tedium.

To sum this up: while it might be possible to turn Crawl into a game where killing is an option, but not necessary to advance, I don't think it's worth the effort. It would be a huge paradigm shift and while I see the conceptual appeal, it's not clear the game actually improves.

However, and this has also been mentioned already, a playing style not focused on killing could be fun. In Crawl, a good way to introduce such sideline styles is a god. As it happens, I thought about a god like this back when the Thief background was removed. The idea was to have a deity built around stealth, stabbing, theft -- there's certainly enough theme to get a god going. You can see my efforts here. It's basic idea is to give some xp (say xp/2) for spotting a monster; you can gain the rest by killing the monster -- this approach allows you to build your character without killing, like (pure) summoners or healers would do. To make things nontrivial, the god would not like noise, in particular you would lose piety from battle noises (this means that stabbing is fully accepted as a killing method). I got stuck when I couldn't find a good way to separate xp gain (done by exploration) from piety gain (done how?). However, in retrospect I realise that for blood gods (Trog, Okawaru) there's no such separation either: both xp and piety comes from killing. Perhaps I should give the stealth god another go.

Edit: regarding "killing is tedious": if you always feel like this, then Crawl might be the wrong game. If you sometimes feel like this, presumably because the game keeps spawning underachieving opposition, then we feel the same -- this has been addressed over the years and will continue to happen.

[XuaXua]

3, They still leave monsters as the only source of experience.

I had an extremely similar XP reform proposal that I had been working on which addressed this.
I had this idea before traps became even less relevant than they were, so mind the traps.
The point of the idea was to allow alternate sources of experience so that characters who are non-combative would still be able to gain XP.

• Every monster is a pool of XP.
• When a level is created, all the monsters (and traps and interesting spots - altars, shops, portals, branch entrances, possibly gold) are created on that level at that time.
• All monster XP pools for that level are reduced by 10%; the resulting total amount is the Exploration XP for the level.
  
  • This Exploration XP is given to the player as the level is explored.
  • Conceptually, it is based on depth because it is based on the XP available on the level.
  • New monsters generated through exploration or OOD are not reduced by this amount and do not add to exploration XP.
  • 5% of the exploration XP is given during basic, uninteresting, darkness dungeon exploration.
  • 5% of the exploration XP is distributed when discovering traps, interesting spots, entering the dungeon level from different staircases, and discovering gold.
• Monsters are now at 90% XP.
• Encountering a monster for the first time gives you 5% of its XP.
• Monster is now at 85% XP.
• The next 60% XP of the monster is considered "Transient XP"; It can be acquired a number of ways without killing the monster.
  
  • For every 1% damage you directly cause to the monster, you gain 0.5% of the Transient XP amount.
  • For example: if you damage a monster, to, say 94% health, you receive 3% of the monster's Transient XP. If it heals the damage, you have to re-damage the monster down to 92% health to get the next 1% of Transient XP.
  • For any summon of the monster you directly kill or abjure, you gain 1% of the owner's Transient XP.
• The remaining 25% of the monster's XP, the Death XP, is given at its death.

DUNGEON DAMAGE
Any damage to a monster made by the dungeon (traps, flames, accidental drowning) adds to that level's Exploration XP in the same way it would if the player was attacking it.
If the dungeon level is fully explored, the XP goes straight to the player.

SUMMONS

• Your summon gains XP the same way you would if you were the attacker; it is added to their own pool, which starts empty.
• XP gained by a summon can be drawn back out of them by an attacking monster through combat in the same way the player can draw XP from a monster; this adds it directly to the monster's current total pool.
• When your summon expires, you gain any XP in its pool.
• If your summon is killed, the killer gains any XP left in its pool and adds to their current total pool.
• If your summon was killed by the dungeon, it is resolved as DUNGEON DAMAGE (above).

ALLIES

Allies no longer give XP to the player. It is added to their XP pool.
Monsters can acquire XP from an ally in the same way the player can against a monster.
This part probably needs much more work.

[XuaXua]

Also, my idea was pre-draining reform; using draining would have damaged the XP pool.

[archaeo]

1. They do open up new possibilites for players, but they don't address the other points which are very valuable. They don't address scumming, and they don't stabalize experience levels.

I don't understand why stabilizing experience levels is necessary or desirable. You seem to think it's necessary for your "skins," but I don't see why; they're functionally equivalent to portal vaults, which have a really wide variety of loot and XP gifts. Otherwise, what real value does it add to the game? With the rune lock simplifying the decision space, players are already getting fairly stable XP amounts in the 3-rune game.

As for scumming, I think the game already discourages it by making it 100% feasible to win the game without scumming for XP even once. This definition of "scumming" means "going out of your way to find sources of XP," and not, say, just completely exploring levels as you go, for what it's worth. If anything, it would be much easier to scum for XP with this system, assuming that you'd still get skill levels for exploring Pan and the Abyss.

[dpeg]

archeo: It's off-topic, and less enforcing than in its original version, but why does the rune lock simplify the decision space? My goal is to increase choices by removing an option. (The decision "Which branch to head to?" may have become simpler now, with Vaults out off the equation for some time, but there's new decisions to be made instead.)

[Dertros]

Avoiding easy monsters instead of killing them is going to be way more annoying.

I had to register just to address this statement. Having no alternatives for experience but mindless slaughter is even more annoying. There would be no reason to avoid easy monsters when they do not yield any more experience for sneaking past them than simply killing them. On top of the fact that sneaking is not always successful, so there is always a risk that they will notice you anyways.
I think sneaking by monsters should give a percentage of their given experience the closer you sneak next to them and the experience is granted you exit their LOS. But killing a monster after entering and exiting it's LOS while sneaking will not give any additional experience. Stabbing is still beneficial, as completely removing an obstacle still beats out avoiding it. It also forces the player to make the decision for tough monsters if they can assassinate the monster in one shot or if they will just attract it's angry attention.
I'd just like the -option- of not having to kill every enemy I see to level up in any meaningful manner.

[acvar]

I don't understand why stabilizing experience levels is necessary or desirable. You seem to think it's necessary for your "skins," but I don't see why; they're functionally equivalent to portal vaults, which have a really wide variety of loot and XP gifts. Otherwise, what real value does it add to the game? With the rune lock simplifying the decision space, players are already getting fairly stable XP amounts in the 3-rune game.

Having predictable experience levels alows for easier develpment. The devs have a good idea just how powerful characters are expected to be. They can as such more accurately determine what threats belong where so that they are challenging, but not overpowering.

Yes you can still do skins with monsters as xp, but you would need to alter the current experience levels if you wanted them to be anywhere near common. Devs already complain that there is too much expericence in the game. Which is easier rewriting all the monsters in the database or just changing a couple of line of code?

As for scumming, I think the game already discourages it by making it 100% feasible to win the game without scumming for XP even once. This definition of "scumming" means "going out of your way to find sources of XP," and not, say, just completely exploring levels as you go, for what it's worth. If anything, it would be much easier to scum for XP with this system, assuming that you'd still get skill levels for exploring Pan and the Abyss.

As I allready stated earlier the postendgame is irrelevent. I have read similar statements from devs about how they don't worry much about the postendgame when they design things. If that is not the case then yes you would probably want to address it.

In the end there are agruments from enertia for monsters as XP, but "thats the way its alsways been" is not a good argument here anymore then it was a good argument when the assigning of XP was overhauld. There are plenty of warts on monsterers-as-xp which have been pointed out. The system I proposed also has some warts no doubt, but it is also designed to be extensible so those warts can be addressed.

Its funny I put the expanding of player options as the last point in my post for a reason. I thought it was the least important (and least likely) part of the proposal, yet it is the part that most have focused on.

[Sandman25]

One player spends consumables to kill dangerous monsters, another just runs from them and both players have the same XP??? No, I don't like idea of stabilizing XP. It is not realistic and makes the game boring.

[Brannock]

One player spends consumables to kill dangerous monsters, another just runs from them and both players have the same XP??? No, I don't like idea of stabilizing XP. It is not realistic and makes the game boring.

You have misconstrued and oversimplified the discussion. This idea is not meant to reward cowardice, it is meant to see if it's plausible to reward methods of dealing with monsters that aren't necessarily slaughtering them. If deemed appropriate and successfully implemented this could also open up new gameplay mechanics involving removing threats (trapping monsters, turning them to stone, crippling and paralyzing them). Currently we have Elyvilon's pacifism mechanic and not much else. Actually, something like this could open up Elyvilon quite a bit, which is interesting.

dpeg - I like the stealth god idea quite a bit. Is there active work being done on that proposal?

[dpeg]

Brannock: No. As I said, I got stuck juggling piety gain and xp (technically, a passive god gift) -- both of these are linked to exploration. If you like to discuss these ideas, just open a new thread or reply on the dev wiki, I'll take part either way.

I believe the original concept has been discussed exhaustively already. If you'd like to, here's a slightly different argument to why I (and some others, it seems) think it's not a good idea to try the OP's approach for Crawl wholesale: as it is, the game provides a *huge* infrastructure for killing things. If now suddenly the focus changes completely, by rendering not-killing as good for advancing your character as killing, then the one new method stands on par with the plethora of inherited killing methods. And that's a looming mismatch even before it starts -- with a god like Elyvilon, you take the new method out of the mainstream and put it in one designated closet. Works much better for Crawl, in my opinion.

[Wahaha]

A reward for not killing things is an illusion of choice. There are two situations:

1. You can kill the enemy. In this case it's always best to kill the enemy because: it gives more exp, it makes the level safer, it doesn't break autoexplore or make you constantly avoid it. It can be very annoying to avoid even one enemy, think of uniques, so I can't imagine how it would work for a character that chooses to avoid many things on purpose.
2. You can't kill the enemy. You walk away or escape. This is how Crawl already works. The enemies that deserve to be avoided are avoided. Enemies with item destroying attacks can fall under 2 as well, because they're annoying.

You're proposing making it viable to not kill many enemies that fall under situation 1. Ignoring why anyone would want to do that given that there are only disadvantages for doing so, the only characters who would be able to play that way, at least without wanting to constantly kill themselves, are those with high stealth and preferably invis. The thing is, these characters can ALREADY play that way, and they don't need a buff. No, I don't see any new play styles appearing out of this. If you want the change to be so drastic that new play styles DO appear, you should probably play Sil or Brogue instead.

[XuaXua]

I think sneaking by monsters should give a percentage of their given experience the closer you sneak next to them and the experience is granted you exit their LOS.

For my own proposal, I'd consider allocating a lower % from the transient XP pool to the character based on movement in proximity while in monster line of sight. There would be a limit to transient XP acquired in this manner, and it would be distributed evenly across all summons/allies in sight as well as the player.

[archaeo]

Devs already complain that there is too much expericence in the game. Which is easier rewriting all the monsters in the database or just changing a couple of line of code?

Even if you take it as given that the devs believe there's too much XP in the game, I don't think "changing a couple of line of code" would result in a very playable game. You're not doing your idea any credit by pretending that it's some simple fix; you'd have to substantially rebalance and change the game in order to remove XP, as dpeg has said better above. Turning this into an idea for a god seems more productive.