Super early on, only finished the hostage situation, and I've managed to pass through several rooms without incapacitating guards. Is there any XP for avoiding guards entirely, or am I handicapping myself for not going back and hunting them all down?

You are technically missing out on some XP.

• You get bonus XP for getting through a level and not getting seen at all - Ghost (500)
• There is also bonus XP for not triggering alarms - Smooth Operator (250)
• There is no bonus XP for not touching the guards, since well you are effectively doing less. You are rewarded for the extra work involved in taking out guards by the XP you get for taking them out.

There's bonus xp if you finish an area/objective without alarming any of the guards (you can still stun or kill them provided no one else sees you do it or spots the body).

Yes you do get XP bonuses for completing objectives without setting off alarms and without being seen. I know one of those bonuses is called "ghost" (I think it is the no alarms one) and it gets you a lot of XP (500 I think). The game is pretty balanced so that stealthy people and combat people both gain EX for playing the game their way.

That's too bad. I feel like when games suggest avoiding confrontations altogether, they should incentivize it. Alpha Protocol actually handled that extremely well, you got more XP at the end of the mission for guards that never knew you were even there.

@Brodehouse: I don't know if the others weren't clear enough, but to clarify, you do get experience for the guards not knowing you're there. It's just that in many cases, this is actually easier than it is to take them all out without them knowing you're there. So you get the bonus & the takedown experience if you take them out without being detected, and just the bonus if you avoid them completely. I think it's a fair system.

When you consider the relative bonuses, Ghost and Smooth Operator give 750 points collectively ( you can get them both, right? never really noticed) compared to 50 points for a non-lethal takedown (10 for man down, 20 for merciful soul, 20 for expedient) . As such, you would need to take down at least 15 enemies in an area (in the most point-rewarding way, which is tough with that many dudes) to equal the reward you would get for avoiding them entirely. If you kill all your enemies with firearms, on the other hand, this is only a 20 points at best (if you headshot, 10 for Marksman, 10 for Man Down). As such, you would actually need to kill 38 enemies to beat the bonus for going undetected, which I'm pretty sure is impossible... the only area with that many enemies is the last level and you get no points for dealing with them.

So it's quite fair to say you are missing out on more experience by being detected than you are by avoiding enemies. Not that, at the end of the day, there's any shortage of experience to be had.

@Brodehouse said:

That's too bad. I feel like when games suggest avoiding confrontations altogether, they should incentivize it. Alpha Protocol actually handled that extremely well, you got more XP at the end of the mission for guards that never knew you were even there.

You are incentivized just on a different way. With Ghost and Smooth Operator bonus. And to get them will also mean the guards never even knew you were there.

It is much easier to just put on Cloak and just run through the level then to actually try to take out the guards and still keep the above bonuses at the same time. Extra effort is rewarded not less effort.

@Veektarius: @Tennmuerti: You get the no detection bonus whether you incapacitate them or not, so logically the ideal method of play is to incapacitate everyone without being detected. So far, that hasn't really been an issue. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't wasting time incapacitating dudes when I would get as much from avoiding them.

No, there is no bonus for 'avoiding guards entirely'. Taking everybody out without being detected will give you the most XP. It's bullshit, because sneaking past everybody without taking them out is obviously way 1337er, but there it is.

@Jimbo said:

No, there is no bonus for 'avoiding guards entirely'. Taking everybody out without being detected will give you the most XP. It's bullshit, because sneaking past everybody without taking them out is obviously way 1337er, but there it is.

It's also way way easier and faster to just sneak by everyone.

Taking out everyone while remaining completely unseen and undetected is way 1337er :D

Well this is disappointing part of the game , 
I had ghost and smooth operator most of the Game. But i also knocked out every guard i came across , hacked every terminal. 
You don't have to avoid guard to get them.
 
There should better incentive for avoiding guards all together , right now avoiding means you loose out on loads of Xp(especially if you go for take-downs) as well hacking Xp from terminals that the guards are usually patrolling.
 
However it is faster , to get through sections. There should have been some sort of time bonus to make up for all that lost XP.

How much more XP you get if you use a take-down instead of... you know, just shoot them? I'm going Adaptive style so when situation calls for it, I have to down them the old fashioned way. Also, are there differences in XP between lethal and nonlethal methods?

@valrog said:

How much more XP you get if you use a take-down instead of... you know, just shoot them? I'm going Adaptive style so when situation calls for it, I have to down them the old fashioned way. Also, are there differences in XP between lethal and non-lethal methods?

There are several layers of XP that are stacked on top of each other (takdown = melee):
basic kill is 10
non lethal bonus is 20
takedown adds 20
headshot adds 10
double takedown adds 25

So a normal kill is 10
A lethal takedown is 30
A non lethel takedown is 50
A hedshot kill is 20
A non lethal headshot (dart) is 40
A double non lethal takedown is 125

@valrog: Their buddies can wake them up. This is not much of an issue at the start of the game, but later on as groups get bigger and bigger it becomes a significant factor.

I suck at being sneaky. I don't understand how anybody plays like this. And the worst thing is, is if you ever get caught, you're always surrounded by like three dudes.

absolutely

I just get out my laser-silenced-handgun and headshot all day every day.