Does this account for both instances of giving another 50 XP? I've managed to get Trudy to give me 50 XP upon talking to her three times. First by having the first conversation, second by killing Joe Cobb and talking to her, third by starting Ghost Town Gunfight and talking to her for the quest. Just curious if you caught both of those.
Edit: I tested it out for fun. If you kill Joe Cobb and talk to Trudy before talking to Sunny Smiles during Ghost Town Gunfight, it still gives you 50 XP like you just finished the tutorial. Not sure if there's a way to fix it, but the original XP fix does work.
Correct me if im wrong as id need to run through the start of the game again, but i believe completion of the goodsprings quests gives the player just enough xp for a level up (or two?).
If so its possible in testing the devs wanted to ensure the player would receive a level in this section of the game, and so give out this extra XP as a safeguard.
TLDR: If this is ineed a bug I support the change but only if the player is still able to receive the correct xp/level ups.
going to run through the start of the game real quick to check the xp given.
ok, i tested the start of the game completing only the tutorial quest back in the saddle and ghost town gunfight.
here are the xp results (on normal difficulty):
10xp leaving Doc Mitchel's 5xp per geckos killed (8 geckos in total) 10xp for discovering goodsprings source 50xp for completing back in the saddle 10xp discovering goodsprings cemetery 50xp for talking to trudy 10xp per powder ganger (6 gangers in total) 50xp for ghost town gunfight
If you subtract all xp earned via kills it amounts to 180xp just 20 shy of the needed 200 to reach level 2. This means the players is only required to kill either 2 powder gangers, or 4 of the geckos (or a combination of the two) in order to get a level up.
if you subtract the 50 from talking to trudy its 130xp in total, meaning the player would be required to kill all of the geckos and a third of the powder gangers to receive a level.
You also have xp for killing the bloatflies, the bark scorpion, mantids, picking locks, hacking terminals, and passing all the speech checks. There's plenty XP to get to level two. I see no signs of this being an intentional feature, especially with the fact that it is checking the status of VCG02/3
You can't balance a game based on the maximum possible xp a player can earn, but the minimum.
If you have a new player, who doesn't understand how to play, is failing to get many kills, and missing or bypassing content, they could very easily fall behind on xp.
Considering Goodsprings is the tutorial area, you would want to guarantee as much as possible that a player is leveling up and is taught how to play the game.
Its pretty clear to me this was an intentional design choice by the developers.
I would agree with you if it weren't an exact copy of the script from her previous greeting. The script checks two quests that cannot possibly be running at that time. The XP is clearly meant to be the reward for completing those quests. Take a look at the script in the description. Plus even with the 50 XP from Trudy, the minimum XP is still below level two since you can end the tutorial before killing any geckos, discovering the source, or discovering the cemetery. You also have to take into account the skilled trait too if you want to talk about theoretical minimums (although that was introduced in OWB)
I've seen many people, even still today, who are just now getting into gaming and dont understand basic game mechanics struggle with learning how to play and end up missing out on or bypassing content, sometimes in ways you wouldn't even thinks possible.
I myself when I first played fallout 3 back when it first launched, had no experience with shooters or RPG's and ended up stating my character out horribly, and when I got into combat in the later half of the intro i was completely out of my depth. I ended up just running past most of the radroaches and hostile guards in the vault, I wasn't even sure why i was being attacked and didn't want to kill anyone.
Then once i got out of the vault, i was completely lost and ended up wandering out into the waste's where i kept getting mauled by a group of molerats and ended up quitting the game out of frustration.
It was only years latter in 2012 when a friend gifted me a copy of new vegas that I was able to appreciate the gameplay mechanics the game was going for.
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Edit: I tested it out for fun. If you kill Joe Cobb and talk to Trudy before talking to Sunny Smiles during Ghost Town Gunfight, it still gives you 50 XP like you just finished the tutorial. Not sure if there's a way to fix it, but the original XP fix does work.
If so its possible in testing the devs wanted to ensure the player would receive a level in this section of the game, and so give out this extra XP as a safeguard.
TLDR: If this is ineed a bug I support the change but only if the player is still able to receive the correct xp/level ups.
going to run through the start of the game real quick to check the xp given.
here are the xp results (on normal difficulty):
10xp leaving Doc Mitchel's
5xp per geckos killed (8 geckos in total)
10xp for discovering goodsprings source
50xp for completing back in the saddle
10xp discovering goodsprings cemetery
50xp for talking to trudy
10xp per powder ganger (6 gangers in total)
50xp for ghost town gunfight
If you subtract all xp earned via kills it amounts to 180xp just 20 shy of the needed 200 to reach level 2.
This means the players is only required to kill either 2 powder gangers, or 4 of the geckos (or a combination of the two) in order to get a level up.
if you subtract the 50 from talking to trudy its 130xp in total, meaning the player would be required to kill all of the geckos and a third of the powder gangers to receive a level.
If you have a new player, who doesn't understand how to play, is failing to get many kills, and missing or bypassing content, they could very easily fall behind on xp.
Considering Goodsprings is the tutorial area, you would want to guarantee as much as possible that a player is leveling up and is taught how to play the game.
Its pretty clear to me this was an intentional design choice by the developers.
I myself when I first played fallout 3 back when it first launched, had no experience with shooters or RPG's and ended up stating my character out horribly, and when I got into combat in the later half of the intro i was completely out of my depth.
I ended up just running past most of the radroaches and hostile guards in the vault, I wasn't even sure why i was being attacked and didn't want to kill anyone.
Then once i got out of the vault, i was completely lost and ended up wandering out into the waste's where i kept getting mauled by a group of molerats and ended up quitting the game out of frustration.
It was only years latter in 2012 when a friend gifted me a copy of new vegas that I was able to appreciate the gameplay mechanics the game was going for.
Edit: didn't see your second response.
Maybe its both, perhaps it was a bug, but the devs ended up leaving it in because it could be helpfull.
Anyway not trying to argue with you or anything, I was just looking at it from a different angle.