Josh Sawyer reveals some information about Project Eternity's attribute scores

[Valorian]

 

Even if this *were* a problem, which it isn't, it's easily fixed just by being creative with the names and descriptions.

 

E.g. I could easily see an attribute that affects to-hit chances with weapons as well as to-hit chances with spells (IIRC P:E is using a 4E-style defenses system instead of saving throws; sub with save DCs if I'm wrong) being called "Discipline." A character with a high discipline is careful and exacting about how they go about things, while a character with low discipline is sloppier, more reckless.

Sure, slapping a random name onto the attribute, like "discipline", will fix this ridiculous concept. Doesn't work that way, hon.

 

However, it's apparent that you can't see further than the name/envelope and grasp the essence. Saving throws and defenses work the same way. S.t. vs DC / Accuracy of an attack (DC) vs Defense

 

 

 

 

 

And I really.. really, I mean really can't comprehend the existence of the type of brain that would find an attribute system in which an attribute affects both your accuracy with a two-handed sword and your accuracy with a charm spell -- appealing.

...The chace of the sword to hit and the duration of the charm effect in one attribute.

So you can't comprehend why someone would be alright with that system (which may or may not be in PE), but you can comprehend the intricacies of that system before they're announced?

 

I love the fact that a modicum of empathy is the deciding factor between what you can comprehend and what you can't. It's almost as if you are not actually precognitive!

 

I can comprehend the elements which have been presented as part of the attribute system. If Sawyer deemed it's not time to discuss attributes because he's not ready to share important details about it yet, he wouldn't answer the question I believe.

 

That said, I can't comprehend stupidity masked with a fake scholar hat and never was able to. That's where my empathy always fails.

[teknoman2]

valoran i think you are being a DnD fanboy here. 

[Valorian]

 

valoran i think you are being a DnD fanboy here.

 

 

teknoman2, you're wrong.

There are shortcomings in d&d, as well as elements which I don't like.

 

To name a few..

I prefer a damage reduction system over AC, which is a staple of d&d.

Immunities to damage type etc. are not a good element of d&d.

The duration of disable-type spells is too long in d&d and they're going to address this in PE.

Attributes in d&d need further balancing. Attributes in PE are also going to need further balancing for years to come, but they'll have this little sPEcial addition of being silly nonsensical abominations.

 

 

Not that I need to explain anything to you, but I felt like offering this polite FYI.

[teknoman2]

>they'll have this little sPEcial addition of being silly nonsensical abominations.

so, if the attributes are not a numerical representation of physical and mental traits of your character (that, as DnD teaches us, makes 4 out of 6 useless for each class), but are indicators of your character's ability to control his class' skills, are an abomination?

[Sabotin]

Heh, actually the first thing that came to mind was that they got rid of that thing with wizards INT/clerics WIS/Sorcs CHA or that both melee and ranged weapons use STR for damage.

 

The one problem I see for now is that they've thrown both mental and physical into one basket. I believe most of the stats can easily be explained away with fluff (higher "damage" might more muscles for fighters, more brainpower for mages etc...), but when you come to gish characters there's that disconnect. As previously stated, I just can't wrap my head around a wizard hitting with a sword or spell based on a single stat.

 

Obviously we have nowhere near enough information to make an informed opinion, but I think it's still valid to voice concerns even at this stage.

[teknoman2]

what Josh practically said, is that every attribute will provide different bonuses for each class, in order to make them all useful depending on your playstyle, so it wont be like DnD where a fighter needs strength and some constitution and can safely ignore the rest, or a wizard only needs intelligence and can just dump the other stats.

of course since he did not give any details we are speculating. it may be good, it may end up being ridiculous... it's something we wont know until we see it in detail, but the thing i see from most who are against this system, is an unhealthy attachment to the way DnD did things.

as i said in another topic, some things from the ie games (including the DnD rule set) were not features but technical limitations, and it's really annoying to see people criticize the removal of these limitations from eternity thinking that obsidian removes trademark features. 

Edited July 21, 2013 by teknoman2

[Micamo]

Sure, slapping a random name onto the attribute, like "discipline", will fix this ridiculous concept. Doesn't work that way, hon.

Why not?

[anubite]

I think, given the very vague description we have, that the system sucks. If it's class-based, DA2 tried that.

 

If stats don't do the same things for every class, you just have utter confusion and mayhem. It's hard to build interesting items for a game like that. It's hard to decide what items are better for who, everything is obfuscated.

 

It's also not gamey enough. If attributes are unified ("strength" raises magic and physical damage) or class-based, then there are no difficult choices. Does my Warrior get any stats up in magic? Usually strength is a stat you just dump points in, but a good class system would say to the warrior, "If you raise your magic, you can use special magic weapons with supportive effects." Now, you have to choose between strength and magic as a warrior. Unifying something like that... it takes a lot of meaningful choice from the game. I don't like it, it makes certain classes too "jack of all trades"-y. Specializing is what makes RPGs fun.

 

But we don't know the specifics. So, this is all just reactionary. I'd wish they'd show us, at some point, before it's too late to change. They should realize a system like this will require iteration.

Edited July 21, 2013 by anubite

[Morgulon the Wise]

What use does high strenght have if the character with it cant lay a hit on his foes or dies from a single blow? I think that the attributes will be not only dependent on each other but also have limits in how high you can raise them. So you won't neither have a jack of all trades (equal attributes will be boring/ don't give the edge), nor get THAT highly specialized through the attributes only.

 

In such a context attributes like power, focus or discipline won't be all that bad as some of you say.

[Fearabbit]

I'm in the "need more information" camp.

 

But yeah I'm a little worried. Things I'm wondering about: Can I always use the same distribution of attributes for all my characters if I want to? Will the attribute scores represent my physical and mental capabilities in any way? How many different variables are even used in combat, and shouldn't these "attributes" be called correspondingly instead? "Health", "Stamina", "Damage", "Accuracy", maybe "Speed" and "Focus"... what else? And isn't that a bit bland? These stats tell me nothing about my character's personality!

(And if the attributes are actually named as usual, i.e. STR, INT etc., which is which? And why? What if I want a focused fighter who is dumb as bread, but the ability to stay focused in combat is tied to the attribute that's called "Intelligence"?)

 

My problem with this system is that I actually do want "dump stats" in a way. It's just that I want to be rewarded for taking them. And I think this is a very different way of approaching the problem that you always have "best builds" for certain classes. (My mage shouldn't choose to put points into the STR-equivalent because it increases the damage of his spells, he should do so because more STR means he can wear heavier armor and is better protected, or something like that. Unless you have lore where strong magic also needs a strong body to contain it, but that sounds like a fantasy world I'm not really interested in. I can already see the Warhammer-like cover art.)

 

When I create a character, I don't want to think about his damage output etc. right from the start. First I actually want to have a picture in my head. Is he strong? Okay, put points in STR. Is he dashing? Okay, put some points in CHR. But he's a bit clumsy, so he has a low DEX. I want to create a character first, and then I hope that the RPG I'm playing makes playing this character with all his strengths and weaknesses as viable as I imagine him to be.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Fearabbit

[Micamo]

When I create a character, I don't want to think about his damage output etc. right from the start. First I actually want to have a picture in my head. Is he strong? Okay, put points in STR. Is he dashing? Okay, put some points in CHR. But he's a bit clumsy, so he has a low DEX. I want to create a character first, and then I hope that the RPG I'm playing makes playing this character with all his strengths and weaknesses as viable as I imagine him to be.

First, D&D-style attributes are, well, just as bland and terrible for this sort of thing. They're really ambiguous and don't nearly capture all the nuances. Like, what exactly is the difference between a high-Wisdom character and a high-Intelligence character? Ask 5 players and you'll get 20 different answers. Does Charisma include how pretty the character is? If it does, then does the archetypal "spoiled princess" (pretty face but a self-centered brat who couldn't empathize her way out of a paper bag) have a high CHA score, or a low one? Is my high INT wizard character really good at logic puzzles, information retention, and/or research? (Believe me, these are not in any way correlated.)

 

The fact of the matter is the stats on your sheet only line up with the fiction of your character in the way you imagine they do. The character isn't the stuff on your sheet or even the concept you have in your head, it's what comes out at the table that matters. A well-designed ruleset can help with this process of bringing out an interesting character in play: A badly-designed ruleset acts as an unnecessary straightjacket. (Note a single game can have both good and bad parts.)

 

Second, in D&D especially these things aren't in conflict. Your character build feeds and is fed by the character concept: Your concept determines what you want your build to do, and the choices you make for your build can help further refine your concept. CharOP isn't (fundamentally) about obsessing over the numbers like an accountant to make sure you get as many pluses as possible, it's about looking at the ruleset and asking "What kinds of awesome can we do with this?" Just look at an example like the Nasty Gentleman.

[okkoko]

 Intelligence - skill points (everyone wants that),

in nwn2 i believe duelist would get more attack powers like a sub stat of sort but intelligence is many things in rpg everyone have intelligence rpg in it self is a great show off of intelligence

[Jarmo]

A bit more thinking about this, assuming a lot of stuff, nevermind what it makes u&me.

 

Yeah, I believe the system can work. It's going to be pretty simple, easy to grasp, functional, all that.

In a word, good solid system for a CRPG. Me no like, but nevermind that either right now.

 

The other thing about no dump stats and your character always going to be viable no matter what stats you choose.

Suggests to me one thing and then one or the other.

 

The one thing first. 

When encountering a new system, there's always a puzzlement of what stats to pick, then you found out you screwed up.

Basically you only know what to pick in the beginning once you've already played through the game. Which is not nice.

 

Then the other.

 

Either you're going to be getting a lot more points during the campaign, DA:O style,

so you can steer developement into whatever direction you find you want to steer towards.

Enough points to make the opening stats meaningless.

 

Or the stats themselves are relatively meaningless,

like 10th level character getting +10 to attack based on level, +3 based on weapon and then +2 based on high stats.

 

And the whole thing just looks like, trying to do away with stats and keeping them at the same time.

[Fearabbit]

First, D&D-style attributes are, well, just as bland and terrible for this sort of thing.

 

That's a very bold statement. I reply with another one: D&D's attributes are designed in a way that everyone can at least imagine something. Does high INT mean that my character is good at logic and deduction, research and magic? No. It means that you have designed an intelligent character, nothing more. "Intelligent" is an adjective we commonly use to describe people. "Strong" is a popular adjective, just like "charismatic" or "wise".

"Dealing high damage (with both sword and spell)" or "very accurate in combat" are less often used as descriptors, and don't give me any idea about the character.

The attribute system is a ranking of different adjectives that people would commonly use to describe other people. Therefore it should always give you very broad idea, but never a detailed picture.

 

Concerning the difference between beauty and charisma: Personally I don't see the problem. You wanna play a brat, you give her low charisma. But then, I never defended D&D's system. I don't even like the character creation in D&D very much. Personally I prefer the system from Fallout or that from Arcanum (which does differentiate between Beauty and Charisma, by the way).

In principle though, while D&D's attributes don't tell you everything about a character, what they do tell you gives you a general idea about looks, strengths and weaknesses. And that is what attributes should do. They shouldn't be abstract ideas that only represent numbers in some hidden calculations.

[Chilloutman]

just copy/paste from another thread about that:

 

Hmm, I am not sure if I understand it correctly

 

if there will be one stat ''power'' which affects how powerfull wizard spell is and same stat determine how powerfull blow can fighter done I dont like it. Its good system and I know it works quite well for fast paced combat mechanics but for top down view RPG it feels... to simplistic?

 

I think they going for this:

 

http://wiki.guildwar...mary_attributes

 

I would much more like if they can pick SPECIAL or DnD system and improve it. I like when my character have some 'real' characteristics. I know where problem with these system is but I see clearly how to improve it without scraping it completely.

 

Common example is fighter. 18Str/3int vs 14str/15int

 

to make 15int matter, simply add abilities which rely on that skill. For example feat (can be ability) combat expertise (add int bonus to AC) - make it scale with int modifier and now you have good stat for your tank fighter. And make somehow equal number of abilities which rely on each stat and there will be no useless attribute at all.

 

another example: wizard 8str/18int vs 15str/15int

 

spell Nethersword - mage enchant weapon in his hand drawing power from his soul for limited number of attacks. number of attacks = int modifier, bonus damage 1.5x str modifier

 

now you have somehow balanced spell, but 15str mage can use bigger weapon and some armor as well

 

 

Problem was not with bad primary attributes, problem was with lack of abilities relying on them.

 

my 2 cents

[Valorian]

First, D&D-style attributes are, well, just as bland and terrible for this sort of thing. They're really ambiguous and don't nearly capture all the nuances.

 

Says the person who finds the GIVETH-damage-and-heal, GIVETH-accuracy attribute system appealing.

 

An attribute system that has (cardinal) attributes which are commonly used to describe human beings is a fine attribute system for an RPG.

 

 

There's only so much relativization you can use in your posts before crashing into the land of nonsense. And you've already settled there.

[Chrononaut]

So a bit like Torchlight. The downside is that for nerds complexity is GOOD, even if it's mostly for its own sake.

The difference is that PE was sold to us as a successor to Infinity Engine games, four of which used AD&D 2E and the other using 3E. If not a D&D style system, what else is an "IE-like" game about? Would you say the only thing Obsidian meant by "IE-like" is isometric perspective? That's it? They namedropped BG, PST and IWD and yet the only influence this game seems to be taking from those games is completely cosmetic?

 

If I knew OE was going to run in the completely opposite direction the second the KS ended, and make decision after decision which did nothing but distance themselves from making a computer ruleset which emulated D&D, instead of a system which draws it's gameplay influences from MMOs, MOBAs and RTSs, if I knew that now I would have never contributed.  I find it completely dishonest that OE are just going about developing a game which from all updates about it's mechanics will play nothing like BG or IWD (it's not even round-based where each character as a "turn" of six-seconds FFS!), they are just keeping the cosmetic trappings of IE while making a party-based Diablo.

 

It's a bit different say from InXile making Wasteland 2 and using THE EXACT SAME ruleset which tweaks in order to be loyal to the fans.

[Iucounu]

 

Well, that for instance every wizard  only causes base damage with his weapon strikes me to be a bit weird. But affinity with a certain skillset.. ok. 

he doesnt have to... he may get a skill that allows him to use magic to buff up his physical attacks, adding thus a part of his power to the weapon damage, but not all of his power like a fighter would

 

You could do that. However, I was referring to mental and soulbased attributes from the start which are explained within the world, not just some abstracted stats that are only made for the player. But I'm not saying that such a system couldn't work. Again, it's about simulationist vs. gamey.

 

I get the impression, that the more you have to do with gamedesign, the more you tend to develop gamey games. Just like Picasso went from naturalistic art to abstract art, because he found the former more and more boring. Perhaps.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

So a bit like Torchlight. The downside is that for nerds complexity is GOOD, even if it's mostly for its own sake.

The difference is that PE was sold to us as a successor to Infinity Engine games, four of which used AD&D 2E and the other using 3E. If not a D&D style system, what else is an "IE-like" game about? Would you say the only thing Obsidian meant by "IE-like" is isometric perspective? That's it? They namedropped BG, PST and IWD and yet the only influence this game seems to be taking from those games is completely cosmetic?

 

 

Gameplay focusing on exploration, tactical combat and awesome dialogues?

 

Since tabletop D&D was never about combat, I fail to see why would distancing yourself from that (frankly horrible) ruleset be counterintuitive for the aforementioned goals.

[decado]

 they are just keeping the cosmetic trappings of IE while making a party-based Diablo.

 

 

This is completely over-the-top.  Ridiculous, even.

[Valorian]

Gameplay focusing on exploration, tactical combat and awesome dialogues?

 

Since tabletop D&D was never about combat, I fail to see why would distancing yourself from that (frankly horrible) ruleset be counterintuitive for the aforementioned goals.

 

 

Hold on, little pal.

 

It's one thing to distance themselves from the games/rulesets that, during the marketing phase, were going to be the spiritual predecessors blabla-bla --

-- and another thing to distance themselves from attributes designed using common sense.

 

You take the dictionary and then look up, for example, the word "agility". You research the meaning a bit;

 

Hmm, could agility affect the duration of the charecter's hold spell? Hmm, no.. not really.

Could it affect your coordination and your chance to avoid being hit? Hmm, yes! Yeees!

 

 

[Failion]

Don't get me started how ridiculous DnD statistics were. 2nd edition, The more stronger your guy gets apparently more accurate with using his weapon. So someone completely retarded can be a master swordsman. And I don't know about you guys I find dnd more  unrealistic and ridiculous then a anime like dragon ball z. Halfings slaying a dragon lol, never... 

[Gfted1]

And I don't know about you guys I find dnd more  unrealistic and ridiculous then a anime like dragon ball z. Halfings slaying a dragon lol, never...

But its totally realistic if its an Orlan, amirite?

[Elerond]

 Hmm, could agility affect the duration of the charecter's hold spell? Hmm, no.. not really.

Could it affect your coordination and your chance to avoid being hit? Hmm, yes! Yeees!  

 

But if you look for example word "dextertity" from dictionary then you will find that you could use that term in both of those scenarios.

 

 

dexterity [d?k'st?r?t?]

n

1. physical, esp manual, skill or nimbleness

2. mental skill or adroitness: cleverness

3. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Physiology) Rare the characteristic of being right-handed

 

So when you choose your attribute names you need to only find those that have enough ambiguouness in them to work for your needs.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Gameplay focusing on exploration, tactical combat and awesome dialogues?

 

Since tabletop D&D was never about combat, I fail to see why would distancing yourself from that (frankly horrible) ruleset be counterintuitive for the aforementioned goals.

 

Hold on, little pal.

 

It's one thing to distance themselves from the games/rulesets that, during the marketing phase, were going to be the spiritual predecessors blabla-bla --

-- and another thing to distance themselves from attributes designed using common sense.

 

 

Since it's pretty much confirmed that the game will have some kind of background system, I think worrying about how gamist attributes tell nothing about the character aside from what his/her strengths are in combat is pretty meaningless. Want an intelligent character? Pick up a background like "well-educated", (which, say, gives you a bonus to lore skills and reputation bonus among academics). Want a persuasive guy? Invest in the speech skill. Et cetera.

 

I see nothing inherently wrong with the division of roleplaying descriptors and combat capabilities. (Hell, Alpha Protocol didn't give you an option to customize your character's attributes at all, yet it's still considered to be one of the most reactive games ever, with really deep roleplaying aspects.)

Edited July 22, 2013 by aluminiumtrioxid