Fearabbit

As I understand it, none of the defenses compete against each other. They all have a different role, and they all compete against Accuracy. I don't see how it's important how everything is calculated. There's no fundamental difference, it's just that in general Will, Reflex and Fortitude will be higher than Deflection. That's alright though, because as you said it is the more valuable defense.

Isn't that on purpose? Otherwise you have the situation that one attribute becomes more valuable the higher another attribute is - this is why they put Accuracy and Interrupt together as well as Deflection and Concentration. But I'm not sure. I haven't done the math and without having all the formulas (I don't even know what Deflection does exactly in comparison to Will, Reflex and Fortitude), I don't feel comfortable discussing small details like this. ^^ By the way. I know everyone likes symmetry and 2-2-2 distributions, but... we do have four defense stats. Deflection, Will, Reflex and Fortitude, as mentioned before. This part of the system still doesn't sit right with me. The old system had Deflection as a stat that was only influenced by items, and we had a nice symmetry. Now RES affects two defense stats at the same time, and I don't really like it. So... I don't know. Maybe it would be better to have two attributes that do not affect the defense stats in any way, while the other attributes get one each? Just an idea. Obvious choices for defense-free attributes would be Might and Intellect. Might is the most offensive attribute, and Intellect doesn't really fit to either of the defense stats. CON - Fortitude DEX - Reflex PER - Deflection RES - Will Seems like the most intuitive distribution to me. I do realize this messes with balance in a big way, but on the other hand I think it makes balancing easier because each attribute has its own defensive stat and increasing/decreasing its effect on that is a simple way of balancing the stat itself. Dunno.

This... although I'm against making it even crazier. I'd rather have a very grounded approach to it, kind of like the world of The Golden Compass (without the daemons and the other worlds and all that). Seriously, my bet is that a game that takes a setting like this and makes a Fallout-style game out of it will make tons of money. There's so much potential there.

Great job. I had some similar ideas for DEX and PER, and I think your solution makes sense. RES also sounds logical and intuitive, so that's great. There's obviously still the Might issue, but yeah, I would imagine that making a character with this system is fun, and it seems like an improvement over the current system because it's overall more intuitive.

This was the part I wanted to hear more about. I believe you when you say you can make it balanced, but this part is more fundamental for me. But okay, I'll wait for the "big reveal".

Can you summarize your changes in broad terms? What is governed by which attribute, and how do you perceive the role of each attribute for the character? That's what interests me most - I believe balancing is possible for most systems (though finding the balance certainly is difficult), but not all systems feel "right" to me, so I'm curious what you changed generally.

I was wondering about this - is a large AoE actually always a good thing, or do you sometimes want to have a small AoE so that you don't hit your own party? Also what's the deal with range? Until now I wasn't aware that spells have different ranges, can you elaborate on that? I kind of assumed it was either melee or ranged, with "ranged" functioning the same way as arrows for example.

I know. To which I responded "I doubt that most people read the description, and even if they do, they might not understand it". Your point? Yeah but the thing is, you can be a mighty warrior or wizard without the attribute Might. Being "mighty" means that you're awesome at what you're doing, it's an all-encompassing "in general, he's freaking good at killing stuff" kind of evaluation of a person. Or the other way around: "He was a mighty warrior, even though he was not very agile and kind of low on health and lacking any willpower." - "Soooo he was not, in fact, very mighty at all?" - "Yes he was, for his attacks did a lot of damage!" - "Yeah but they missed all the time!" Like you say, a "mighty warrior" or "mighty wizard" is mighty in general. It's a single stat that evaluates his combat prowess. It's actually... the character level. And it feels kind of weird to create a really awesome character who more or less dumped Might in order to kick ass by being an agile-as-hell interrupter with far-reaching special attacks who's constantly doing critical hits... and then have the game imply that this character 1) is not actually a mighty warrior 2) does not have a very powerful soul and is therefore not very heroic 3) psych! - does of course still have a powerful soul although his "powerful soul" attribute is low, because he's the main character and him having a powerful soul is actually a plot point.

@Tartantyco, And mutonizer has also made some excellent points.

As far as I know, most people read the description on the side before deciding what to pick or put points into. So I personally expect the majority to have no issues at all with Might current existence going by its description. In fact, the only people I see complaining about Might are people who can't get over the fact that it's not just an clone of the D&D strength stat. "Most people read the description on the side"... bold statement. I don't think that's the case. Of course, at some point people will understand the system, but I think in their first playthrough many people will pump certain attributes for the wrong reasons. (However, I wouldn't make this my main argument against Might. I have other problems with it, like the ones regarding Intimidation I mentioned in an earlier post here.) Anyway, what I actually want to say is that I am personally not a fanboy of IE games. In fact I only got to know them a couple of years ago. The D&D system is very weird and unintuitive to me. I would never play IE games without consulting the internet for a good build before, because I know the frustrations of playing with a bad build that I thought would be awesome. And yet I don't like Might, and I think many people will have a problem with it. I'm not one of the people who "can't get over the fact that it's not just an clone of the D&D strength stat", and I hate being put into this category without having said anything to warrant it.

Everyone's a prophet. God I hate that. "People will find it difficult", "no they won't". Is this what our discussions have turned into? And Sensuki, "you'll get used to it" is not a good argument for a game system that has some actual logical flaws. That's purposefully aiming for mediocrity. And sorry, I'll choose to start getting used to it when I actually hold the finished product in my (virtual) hands, not before when there's still a chance to change it. I mean come on, you make dozens of threads trying to change the game in a way that you like. Let some other share their opinions without shutting them down like that. You're talking about differences in their Dexterity and Constitution. A Georges St-Pierre with the muscles of Hulk Hogan would be superior to normal Georges St-Pierre, as long as they didn't affect his Dexterity and Constitution. So you're not really making an argument here.

I think there's a difference between wanting an actual simulation of medieval warfare and wanting attributes that sort of simulate a human being. (My personal response to the warfare thing would be that a typical RPG usually is more based on epic poems of that time than on the actual combat anyway, just like it is the case for most fantasy stories. The way Legolas and Gimli go through orcs in LotR surely isn't realistic either.)

I know it's a joke, but... that's actually the reasoning behind it, yeah, and I don't find it satisfying for two reasons: 1. You can't ignore effects like reputation, weaponry and so on in favor of only looking at your soul power. 2. And even if you do, how does soul power manifest itself in conversation? It comes off as being headstrong and intense, right? Well... Resolve is supposed to be the attribute for "strength of personality, intensity, and determination". So Might does the same thing, only with your soul? And soul always trumps body and mind (unless of course when it doesn't)? It just doesn't work. In the case of Intimidation, you have two attributes that should do the same thing, and the game just says "yeah but let's just look at the one attribute". And why does it say that? Because that's the disguised Strength attribute, and Strength is the classical attribute that Intimidation is based on. Which never made any sense to begin with. So even if we live in a world where you can feel the other person's soul and it can be somehow intimidating, that just means that you can use Might to do Resolve stuff with it. That's bad. At the same time you disregard any other qualities with which one could intimidate another person, like knowledge of the body parts that hurt the most when tortured, or an arrow aimed at the groin. Also bad. Basically, this is a good example why I find Might so unintuitive. It feels kind of all over the place, which would be alright if it didn't interfere with already existing attributes.

In real life, I think you can boil intimidation down to two aspects: willpower and resourcefulness. If someone threatens me, I first think "does it appear like he might go through with it?" and second "does he have the muscle, the tools or the skills to go through with it?". Keyser Soze was intimidating not only because he was strong-minded, but also because he had the manpower, the reputation and also simply the weaponry to back it up. This is something that you can't put into one attribute, if you ask me. Tying it to body strength is completely ridiculous since, like you say, that's not what is needed. Tying it to your mental strength is closer - and I'd argue that Resolve is a better candidate for that than Might is, since Resolve literally is the "go through with it or not" attribute. But your reputation and simply your level (which is an indicator of your combat prowess) should heavily influence indimidation too, and I'm always disappointed by the game mechanics used to represent it. PoE takes a step in the right direction, but it's not nearly enough.

Interesting! Can't wait to hear what you've come up with. I guess you didn't change Might much if at all though, did you? As for the original topic of this thread - I think Perception and Resolve are good attributes and far better than Charisma and Wisdom. Resolve is willpower, how headstrong you are. Perception is attention to details. Important characteristics and very intuitive. Wisdom in D&D is basically four different attributes that don't have anything to do with actual wisdom, and Charisma is a superposition of beauty and personality that is simply not very elegant. There's also the question whether I really need an attribute for beauty, and how important the difference between wisdom and intelligence is for roleplaying. I often think that these things can be implemented as skills or traits if necessary - a "wise" character is one that has a high Lore skill, for example, and characters are assumed to be average looking unless they have the "Disfigured" or the "Gorgeous" trait (one gives a small Intimidation boost, the other a Seduction boost). So no, I don't think the basic attribute design is flawed, other than the fact that I think Might should be Strength and should have a different effect on spellcasting than it currently has, while Resolve should be more important for spellcasting than it currently is. I'll wait with further comment until I see the new system, but I fear that what Sensuki has hinted at might not be exactly to my liking. Resolve isn't a purely "defensive" attribute in my opinion, especially for mages I see it as very aggressive actually. But... we'll see.

And as I've said before: Listen to this man. :D Virtually all your ideas for gaining XP can be implemented with such a system without unbalancing the game or forcing people to do something they don't want to do. Kill XP, Exploration XP, Lockpicking XP, Objective XP and Quest XP. It's the perfect compromise. The best part is that gaining XP has benefits, but they are short-term benefits. The guy who kills all the monsters will level up earlier, which gives him an advantage in the boss fight. The guy who only kills when necessary will have a tougher fight, but get more XP for the quest.

Well, think about that, they are still slurring a large swath of people - the 'hardcore' as they define, which used to be the largest group and probably still is a big group - as Bad Men as it suits them. Hardly a good step off, and generally enthusiast excuses for press snarking at their audience is a poor approach. I just don't see it that way. I mean I'm really only talking about those articles linked there. There's lots of hate on all sides, to be sure. But those articles - the Kotaku article basically asks "where is all this hate that we're seeing here coming from?", and they try to find an explanation for that. Look at it from this perspective and you don't have journalists who snark at their audience anymore. They see lots of people who are full of hate, and these "lots of people" are the ones they want to talk about. Frankly I don't care too much about the semantics if the context is clear (which it is in my opinion). This kind of outrage over the words used in an article, which ignores the context, is what people actually kind of hate about the "feminist movement". I certainly don't like it one bit. Yes you can always find justifications for being outraged, but I'm not a fan of taking political correctness to the extreme, no matter what the topic is. Or to put it in neckbeard terms, "I find it very ironic (yes so so ironic) that the very people who belittle the feminist movement for their supposed censorship of both ideas and words should choose to use the same techniques in their oh so important fight for justice." ...anyway. Comparisons have been made to calling all muslims terrorists and stuff like that. I think the more appropriate comparison is simply politics. You have the liberals and the conservatives, you have people like Stephen Colbert and Bill O'Reilly taking the piss out of the other group and being very inconsiderate about from the point of view of the victims. This is really the exact same situation - gaming has been made political, and there are "liberals" and "conservatives" here as well. So a large part of the gaming press is liberal, and they're catering to a liberal audience. Meanwhile there are almost no big conservative gaming sites, and people don't feel represented anymore because lately, the differences have become more apparent. I mean, that's really all there is to it, right? I don't know what the solution to that is, though. Maybe the conservatives (and the moderates) should organize and get some influence themselves. But the liberals aren't going to go away, and telling them to stop being so liberal won't work.

I hope you all feel really cool now that you've managed to derail this thread completely. This was supposed to be a constructive thread. Now we've come to the point where people leave "badass one-liners" like the one above to show their assumed superiority in the discussion. Really, right now this just makes me really sad and angry. I've told you again and again that this is not the place for that stupid discussion, and you ignored it, ignored it, ignored it... well yeah hope you're real happy now. You've turned this into thread number 10 of people fighting about whether the attributes make sense or not. And yeah I guess I should have seen this coming. I just hoped that talking to people, explaining them again and again what this thread was supposed to be about, would change something. I hoped that people weren't ignorant asshats who ignored the actual topic at hand just because they liked to fight about stuff so much better.

Guys. "They" are gaming journalists and they are gamers themselves. You're saying that they're generalizing and attacking all gamers - of course they don't do that. Why would they? That'd be shooting yourself in the foot. Just... think about it for a minute, what you're saying doesn't make any sense. Not the same people. (Also not a gaming journalist, at least not one I'd heard of before.) That article is obviously stupid and ridiculous and I don't know why you brought it up. It adds nothing to the discussion except "look how stupid some of them are". Yeah, great. @Meshugger: In the articles I'm referring to, that's exactly what's being described. An organic change that can't be stopped. And some people are having problems with it. I don't know where you get the idea from that these articles want to enforce some kind of new world order. They talk about the change and the unwillingness to cope with it in some groups of gamers.

Why would gaming journalists do that?

Saying that "gamers are misogynist" is in any way the quintessence of the articles I read is nothing but gross falsification. In those articles, nobody says that. It is not implied either. What is being said is that a hardcore group that used to be the dominant market is losing its importance and that the individuals who belong to this group are angry about that, and that this anger manifests itself in different ways. The articles are also pretty clear about who they're talking about. They're not saying "all gamers", they're saying "these gamers". Or they put it in quotation marks to signify that the word is not theirs, but that the group itself uses it to describe itself. In any case, it is clear that not all gamers are being targeted. They're obviously not talking about "casual gamers" in their articles for example. That's actually the whole point, the breakdown of these barriers that have been put up by the "true gamers". And I think if we want to have an intelligent discussion about this, then we need to try to understand what the author is actually trying to say, not what it could imply if we prefer to be dramatic about it.

I don't know if that was the plan all along or if you're putting her through some horrible crunch time now, but... thank you! That sounds awesome and I can't wait to see the result.

I understood your point, and I even agree to an extent. Like I said, I'm no fan of Sarkeesian's videos. She generalizes a lot, and it's no wonder people get upset. But no matter how her videos come across, this isn't about hating on every game that has a male protagonist who saves a damsel in distress - it's about the fact that gaming would benefit from just a couple more games where that isn't the plot. Anyone who looks at one game and uses it as an example for the whole industry is clearly doing it wrong - that goes for both sides of the argument. Just because we have Portal and Mirror's Edge that doesn't mean we don't have a problem with too many boring plots about male action heroes. And as someone in one of those "gamers are dying out" articles wrote, this kind of criticism is to be expected for a medium that wants to be taken seriously. Look at the reviews for Hollywood blockbusters and you'll find the same arguments. What's important is that this general criticism should not influence the review of one single movie, game or whatever. As soon as it does, we have a problem. Which is why I pick my reviewers and critics very carefully.

To quote something I posted earlier but never got a response to: He has posted some videos where he shows the chatlogs. I don't know, it could be false but his story adds up quite nicely, and that's quite an amount of chatlogs, and there really was no point for him to lie. But it isn't something that should be relevant in this discussion. BTW if I have to watch these obnoxious videos where some neckbeards talk for hours about how "ironic" all these "logical fallacies" made by Anita Sarkeesian are to hear some evidence about apparent corruption in gaming journalism... well, I won't. These guys should really go back to writing blog posts if they don't just want to preach to the choir. (My feeling is however that they do want to do exactly that. The choir is big enough.) @Longknife: Your point about social justice warriors and so on is a whole different discussion in my opinion. I can kind of understand that it's annoying for someone not interested in these topics - and personally I don't watch Sarkeesian's videos for the same reasons I don't watch the neckbeard videos - but at the same time I don't think this "liberal" coverage is taking anything away from games. CoD will be successful no matter how much the times are a-changing. @Nonek: Well the tl;dr version of alanschu's post is basically that it wasn't gaming journalism that started misusing the term "gamer" for a small group of narrow-minded people. If anything you should be angry at the people who started dividing gamers into "true gamers" and "the Candy Crush playing rest". Gaming journalism wasn't attacking you. I still identify as a gamer and have no problem with those articles.

If you only focus on my posts it's just five or six of them. I don't know which claims are being made in total. I've asked for examples and there were two articles about friends' games that were neither reviews nor glowing praises. The rest of the claims were mainly that - claims without backup or conspiracy theories, all without proof (or proof to the contrary). I just did and I don't see any answers. In fact you don't seem to be addressing any rumors or debunking any, you're chatting about tangets or other ideas. :U There's nothing to debunk. That's the thing. People talk about the corruption as if it was a known fact. They don't actually offer any evidence that holds up. (Meshugger posted something about DARPA, but nobody knows what his point is.) Also I distinctly remember my posts being awesome. Don't talk about them like that.