Thief XP Mechanic Gets Negative Feedback

Thief's XP Mechanic has been removed after it got negative feedback, now players will purchase enhancements with gold.

The system previously rewarded players with bonuses for performing certain feats, such as killing enemies with a headshot. Many fans of the previous games in the series said such a mechanic did not fit in with a traditionally stealth-orientated title.

"At first, we wanted to outline the progression of the player with XP," said game director Nic Cantin in a blog post, "but it was reducing our motivation to steal. The main goal of a thief should be to gain loot. Garrett is already the Master Thief, so we saw no need to have XP as a core mechanic.

"We wanted to put emphasis on stealing things, and put the rewards on the stealing aspect. We want to allow the player to decide the 'how to'--we shouldn't judge how the player wants to achieve their goal, only reward them for achieving it," said lead level designer Daniel Windfeld Schmidt.

"This feedback is extremely valuable to us, so as you can imagine, the consistent reaction to the XP system was something that indicated we needed to revisit some design decisions."

 "It is more a design decision to add to our economy system and entice the player to steal more. But yes, the E3 reaction was right, rewarding killing like that was wrong for a Master Thief."

"The goal is to use gold to buy elements to progress, to encourage the player to steal. The player will be able to choose how to spend money, for more stealthy or more aggressive tools," concluded Cantin.