Attribute theory

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Strength does seem to be weaker than the other attributes. Then again, we don't know the magnitude each attribute effects derived stats, so it could be plenty viable.

[Sensuki]

I only have an issue with Strength and maybe Perception (since in order to actually crit you have to outclass the enemy by having a higher accuracy than their defense) - useful on classes that can attack many types of defenses, not as good on the others unless you pump dex as well.

 

Might have a think about them over the holiday break and post something.

[Sabotin]

We've no idea how much of an influence the base stats are though. I trust they're all viable, since that seems to be the point .

[J.E. Sawyer]

 

About my example...

The spellcaster won't be screwed if he dumps or bumps dexterity. If he dumps dexterity.. oh well, he can focus on non-aoe spells. If he bumps it he can focus on aoe* spells. Should the attribute system rescue people that insist on casting aoe spells with exceptionally low dexterity for example, when they have the option to cast other types of spells?

 

That has never been a goal and I've stated so on the forums previously.  Players still have to play to their strengths.  If they can safely ignore their weaknesses, then they aren't really weaknesses.  It's one of the things that commonly makes GURPS games so lopsided for min-maxers.  Who cares if your sniper is colorblind, shy, and triskadekaphobic when she can lobotomize a fly with a rifle at 200 yards?  The A/D&D analogue would be something like the classic kensai.  They're amazing with one weapon, but they stink with all other weapons _{which they never use unless the DM contrives a circumstance for them.}  With fighters, Int qualifies.  You can make Int-based fighter builds with core rules, but if you tank it, who cares? You can ramp Str, Dex, and Con through the roof and go nuts.

 

I don't disagree that the current drawback of dumping Strength in PoE is more of a strategic/convenience concern, but it is something that every character would have to deal with.  Ideally all of the attributes will influence obvious and immediate tactical elements.

[Endrosz]

I fully agree with the goals of the system, and hope that during testing a good all-around balance will take shape.

 

Re:  Strength not an attractive stat

 

I have this gut feeling that Health coming from Strength will be a bigger issue than people make it right now.

 

We have to get rid of your old perceptions, several things are vastly different in PoE than in DnD&Co, starting with very limited healing. Whether our favorites are the old-school RPGs from '80s, isometric RPGs from the '90s, action RPGs from the past 15 years, we're accustomed to powerful healing readily available. Chug a Full Rejuv Pot in Diablo 2, cast Heal in ADnD games, wait for the healers to heal you in an MMO raid, it's all the same: HPS (healing per second) keeps you alive, your health is simply a buffer against a DPS burst.

 

For example, while Con in DnD isn't a dump stat, I never, ever remember raising it above 14 via the points-buy system, or assigning a really high value to it in the older stat rolling games. With Con ~14 and buffs, I have enough HP not to die from, say, an initial swarm of high-level sneak attacks in NWN2, and after that, it's Heal/Greater Restoration/Mass Heal time, baby.

 

If you remove powerful and constant healing, suddenly Health is much more important. We'll see, of course, it's just a guess.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Endrosz

[aluminiumtrioxid]

It's all very cool, but what about the non-combat applications? Intimidate and suchlike depend on Str, you can pickpocket/do sleight of hand stuff with Dex (doesn't sound particularly useful), have Resolve act as a Charisma substitute, check Intellect to play smartass, and Perception to notice stuff (like in KotOR 2). What about Con?

[rjshae]

From reading through this, I am wondering whether Strength impacts the type of weapons you can use? If a high Strength is required to wield a massive weapon with ease, then that would be an indirect benefit to the damage. Having a high Strength with a small weapon like a dagger shouldn't be as beneficial as it is implemented in D&D.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I fully agree with the goals of the system, and hope that during testing a good all-around balance will take shape.

 

Re:  Strength not an attractive stat

 

I have this gut feeling that Health coming from Strength will be a bigger issue than people make it right now.

 

We have to get rid of your old perceptions, several things are vastly different in PoE than in DnD&Co, starting with very limited healing. Whether our favorites are the old-school RPGs from '80s, isometric RPGs from the '90s, action RPGs from the past 15 years, we're accustomed to powerful healing readily available. Chug a Full Rejuv Pot in Diablo 2, cast Heal in ADnD games, wait for the healers to heal you in an MMO raid, it's all the same: HPS (healing per second) keeps you alive, your health is simply a buffer against a DPS burst.

 

For example, while Con in DnD isn't a dump stat, I never, ever remember raising it above 14 via the points-buy system, or assigning a really high value to it in the older stat rolling games. With Con ~14 and buffs, I have enough HP not to die from, say, an initial swarm of high-level sneak attacks in NWN2, and after that, it's Heal/Greater Restoration/Mass Heal time, baby.

 

If you remove powerful and constant healing, suddenly Health is much more important. We'll see, of course, it's just a guess.

 

I've felt for a long time that Strength and Constitution should be merged into a "Fitness" stat. Many checks could easily be used by either--climbing, swimming, stamina, etc. Likewise, it doesn't make sense for a burly muscular fighter to be wimpy. While arguments are more easily made for Constitution to be distinct from strength, I find them to be weak. Merging strength and consitution has a lot of logical consistencies both in use and character builds. It also makes room for the inclusion and necessity of other more interesting statistics, like percpetion, etc.

[Lephys]

All I can really say is, while it's functionally sound, it's a little saddening that the physical aspect of Strength is kinda of going *poof*

 

I mean, I get it. It makes sense under the hood. But, it's almost like we're only representing half of damage, now.

 

Sure, bows and slicey weapons and spells don't derive their damage from strength, but lots of stuff does. I mean, if you boil it down, you've got two aspects to the abstraction that is damage:

 

1) Where/how you're striking something (is it in between armor plates, or right on the front of the breastplate? Are you just hitting them with your katana like a baseball bat, or swinging it in an optimally slicing fashion, and letting the sword's design do its thing? etc.)

2) How much force is being applied in the strike.

 

Even slicing with a katana, a weakling isn't going to be able to put enough force into the swing for it to slice as well as it should. Or, a weakling with a bow isn't going to be able to draw the bow as far -- to store up as much potential energy to be released into the projectile. Of course, with a crossbow, you've got pretty much no Strength effect. Not abstractly. Sure, I guess if you had a heavy enough crossbow, you wouldn't be able to ready it. But, you're not firing the projectile. The crossbow is.

 

Same with spells. You're not physically transferring the strength of your muscles into the force of spells. So, those are still both covered by Intellect. You aim the crossbow, and the spells, and you intelligently weave the spells (much like mixing a grenade's powder or something -- the more intelligently you know how to make a powder mixture, the more effective the explosion from the same amount of substance.)

 

So, I dunno. If it stays the same, it stays the same. But, my feedback is to definitely keep considering the possibilities. Maybe Strength could have a milder affect. Instead of just "damage," it could affect an aspect of damage, with Intellect affecting another aspect. Then, weapons (and/or spells/abilities) would either have one, or the other, or both.

 

To put it simply, if a sword's base damage is 10, then a Fighter with 20 Strength and 3 Intellect might gain a +2 to his base damage (with that sword). Similarly, a Fighter with 3 Strength and 20 Intellect might gain a +2 to his base damage. However, a Fighter with 20 Strength and 20 Intellect might gain +5 to his base damage.

 

Of course, the uber-Fighter (20 STR, 20 INT) would only get his +2 from INT to a crossbow, or even a bow. I always liked the restriction on, what was it, the recurve bows in DnD? The ones that allowed Strength to apply? But, only so much, based on their design.

 

Anywho... I don't think that would be too convoluted. Just off the top of my head, you could have a property for both things: Strength benefit and Intellect benefit. Intellect would still pretty much affect, to some degree, all potential damage with all weapons/attacks. So, even a brute Fighter couldn't dump Intellect without giving up something. But, we could still make burly Strength people without HAVING to pump stuff into Intellect just to have any effect on damage at all. *shrug*

 

Like I said, just food for thought. Another really minor thought I had was, what if Strength affected Stamina and Constitution affected Health, instead of the way it is now? OR, if you wanted to get crazy, what if everyone had the same amount of health, and Strength affected Stamina while Constitution affected the ratio of Stamina damage to Health damage?

 

That's probably a huge clash with the current design, I know. Just some thoughts, is all... My main issue is with Strength not affecting damage at all, and not so much it not being the sole attribute for damage. Which, really still isn't even that big of a deal. It just... feels so off. To have Strength only affect survivability and carry-ability.

 

 

EDIT: Splitting up the effects of Strength and Intellect on damage is very similar to splitting up the effects of attacks into 4 defenses (deflection/fortitude/reflexes/willpower). The effects of Strength and Intellect, respectively, could be something like "Force" and "Effectiveness." Much like the game pointing out what attacks target what defenses, it could just point out what damage values draw from what properties (force, effectiveness, or both). Or, if Intellect ends up affecting literally every damage source available, then all you'd really have to toggle is Force (Strength's effect). Either something would benefit from that, or it wouldn't. An easy thing to indicate.

Edited December 19, 2013 by Lephys

[jamoecw]

I fully agree with the goals of the system, and hope that during testing a good all-around balance will take shape.

 

Re:  Strength not an attractive stat

 

I have this gut feeling that Health coming from Strength will be a bigger issue than people make it right now.

 

We have to get rid of your old perceptions, several things are vastly different in PoE than in DnD&Co, starting with very limited healing. Whether our favorites are the old-school RPGs from '80s, isometric RPGs from the '90s, action RPGs from the past 15 years, we're accustomed to powerful healing readily available. Chug a Full Rejuv Pot in Diablo 2, cast Heal in ADnD games, wait for the healers to heal you in an MMO raid, it's all the same: HPS (healing per second) keeps you alive, your health is simply a buffer against a DPS burst.

 

For example, while Con in DnD isn't a dump stat, I never, ever remember raising it above 14 via the points-buy system, or assigning a really high value to it in the older stat rolling games. With Con ~14 and buffs, I have enough HP not to die from, say, an initial swarm of high-level sneak attacks in NWN2, and after that, it's Heal/Greater Restoration/Mass Heal time, baby.

 

If you remove powerful and constant healing, suddenly Health is much more important. We'll see, of course, it's just a guess.

given that you always lose a set fraction of health for loss in stamina, i can see stamina in excess of this ratio to be useless, while health would not.  so if one normally gets double the health than the ratio of loss, then one can dump health if they want, or boost stamina.  if one normally gets half the health than the ratio of loss, then one can dump stamina, or boost health.  if they are matched then it would make sense to raise or lower them in tandem.  ultimately one would figure what ratio he would want based on how he plays, then work to get that, if want more health at some point he would also want to boost stamina, and vice versa.  this makes hit taking ability twice as expensive as one would think, thus the numbers of gain would have to reflect such (either by gaining more for strength and stamina, or less for dexterity and intelligence).

this also means that how one plays is going to influence what sort of value crit dmg and duration is going to have to their build (given the specialness of AoE/duration to certain abilities/builds, and the rarity of crits).

 

i am sure it will be a fine system, though as you have said, comparing it to a system that has other factors which invalidates certain attributes makes for poor comparison.

[Tamerlane]

It does seem odd to me, splitting health and stamina into two different stats like this, and I do like the notion of tying strength to attack rate more than health total. Maybe it'll work out best when we actually get the chance to play it, but for now, merely looking at it and hearing about it, I can't shake the notion that it's... off somehow.

[ocelotter]

If the inventory impact of Strength was applied to in-combat factors, I suspect it would be more tactically relevant. Since weapon sets/quick items are the only items usable in combat, what if Strength determined how many weapon sets and quick items you could have? For instance, the burly fighter could have four different sets of weapons ready for use and 10 different potions hanging from his belt, while the wimpy wizard could hardly lift his single grimoire and carry a single potion on his belt.

[jamoecw]

All I can really say is, while it's functionally sound, it's a little saddening that the physical aspect of Strength is kinda of going *poof*

 

I mean, I get it. It makes sense under the hood. But, it's almost like we're only representing half of damage, now.

 

Sure, bows and slicey weapons and spells don't derive their damage from strength, but lots of stuff does. I mean, if you boil it down, you've got two aspects to the abstraction that is damage:

 

1) Where/how you're striking something (is it in between armor plates, or right on the front of the breastplate? Are you just hitting them with your katana like a baseball bat, or swinging it in an optimally slicing fashion, and letting the sword's design do its thing? etc.)

2) How much force is being applied in the strike.

 

Even slicing with a katana, a weakling isn't going to be able to put enough force into the swing for it to slice as well as it should. Or, a weakling with a bow isn't going to be able to draw the bow as far -- to store up as much potential energy to be released into the projectile. Of course, with a crossbow, you've got pretty much no Strength effect. Not abstractly. Sure, I guess if you had a heavy enough crossbow, you wouldn't be able to ready it. But, you're not firing the projectile. The crossbow is.

 

Same with spells. You're not physically transferring the strength of your muscles into the force of spells. So, those are still both covered by Intellect. You aim the crossbow, and the spells, and you intelligently weave the spells (much like mixing a grenade's powder or something -- the more intelligently you know how to make a powder mixture, the more effective the explosion from the same amount of substance.)

 

So, I dunno. If it stays the same, it stays the same. But, my feedback is to definitely keep considering the possibilities. Maybe Strength could have a milder affect. Instead of just "damage," it could affect an aspect of damage, with Intellect affecting another aspect. Then, weapons (and/or spells/abilities) would either have one, or the other, or both.

 

To put it simply, if a sword's base damage is 10, then a Fighter with 20 Strength and 3 Intellect might gain a +2 to his base damage (with that sword). Similarly, a Fighter with 3 Strength and 20 Intellect might gain a +2 to his base damage. However, a Fighter with 20 Strength and 20 Intellect might gain +5 to his base damage.

 

Of course, the uber-Fighter (20 STR, 20 INT) would only get his +2 from INT to a crossbow, or even a bow. I always liked the restriction on, what was it, the recurve bows in DnD? The ones that allowed Strength to apply? But, only so much, based on their design.

 

Anywho... I don't think that would be too convoluted. Just off the top of my head, you could have a property for both things: Strength benefit and Intellect benefit. Intellect would still pretty much affect, to some degree, all potential damage with all weapons/attacks. So, even a brute Fighter couldn't dump Intellect without giving up something. But, we could still make burly Strength people without HAVING to pump stuff into Intellect just to have any effect on damage at all. *shrug*

 

Like I said, just food for thought. Another really minor thought I had was, what if Strength affected Stamina and Constitution affected Health, instead of the way it is now? OR, if you wanted to get crazy, what if everyone had the same amount of health, and Strength affected Stamina while Constitution affected the ratio of Stamina damage to Health damage?

 

That's probably a huge clash with the current design, I know. Just some thoughts, is all... My main issue is with Strength not affecting damage at all, and not so much it not being the sole attribute for damage. Which, really still isn't even that big of a deal. It just... feels so off. To have Strength only affect survivability and carry-ability.

 

 

EDIT: Splitting up the effects of Strength and Intellect on damage is very similar to splitting up the effects of attacks into 4 defenses (deflection/fortitude/reflexes/willpower). The effects of Strength and Intellect, respectively, could be something like "Force" and "Effectiveness." Much like the game pointing out what attacks target what defenses, it could just point out what damage values draw from what properties (force, effectiveness, or both). Or, if Intellect ends up affecting literally every damage source available, then all you'd really have to toggle is Force (Strength's effect). Either something would benefit from that, or it wouldn't. An easy thing to indicate.

the problem with this logic is the assumption that you need to use force in your swing for the power it provides.  this is false.  just like with hammers it is more the weight of the weapon/tool than the muscle behind it that delivers the force of impact.  generally when muscling a hammer you mess up the strike and end up bending the nail, rather than driving it into the wood.  when using a sledge hammer one needs strength to bring the hammer back up before releasing it and guiding it to its mark.  muscling a sledge hammer results in little extra force and a lot of extra energy expended.  that being said using muscle to gain speed results in better results for force of impact, and if you can prevent yourself from messing with your strike by adding the speed then you end up delivering more force without messing things up, in addition to getting more swings per minute.

 

as for using a crossbow, i can't say, but using i rifle i can.  one of the things marksmen do to steady their aim is to weight their rifle barrels and to hold a firing position.  this builds up the muscles needed to keep the rifle steady, and results in a much steadier aim over a longer period of time.

 

in real life more strength means using a weapon with more ease, resulting in steadier aim and faster swings.  some how people think that more muscle means more damage, which though intuitive is in fact false (like cars exploding).

[Tamerlane]

If the inventory impact of Strength was applied to in-combat factors, I suspect it would be more tactically relevant. Since weapon sets/quick items are the only items usable in combat, what if Strength determined how many weapon sets and quick items you could have? For instance, the burly fighter could have four different sets of weapons ready for use and 10 different potions hanging from his belt, while the wimpy wizard could hardly lift his single grimoire and carry a single potion on his belt.

Isn't... isn't that how it works presently?

[ocelotter]

 

If the inventory impact of Strength was applied to in-combat factors, I suspect it would be more tactically relevant. Since weapon sets/quick items are the only items usable in combat, what if Strength determined how many weapon sets and quick items you could have? For instance, the burly fighter could have four different sets of weapons ready for use and 10 different potions hanging from his belt, while the wimpy wizard could hardly lift his single grimoire and carry a single potion on his belt.

Isn't... isn't that how it works presently?

 

I presumed "inventory" in Sawyer's post referred to player "packs", not equipped items/quick items, with Strength providing similar utility to what it did in the IE games. Packs are not accessible in combat.

[Lephys]

@jamoecw:

 

I'm not sure what logic "this logic" is that has a problem, because I addressed the fact that strength doesn't directly translate into the damage of many a weapon type, including swords. However, it is still a factor. Especially with certain swords. I guarantee you a 7'4", 300lb muscle-mountain of a man who swings a claymore at you is going to do more damage (just from the sheer swing) than a 5'5", 150lb guy with just average strength swinging the same claymore in the same fashion.

 

It's not that a slicing weapon doesn't rely on force. It's simply that the force is applied along the blade rather than outward from it. It's not about strength being more significant in fueling the damage of, say, a katana swing, than accuracy/proper swinging. It's about it still being a factor. In fact, what I was thinking of would ideally involve different weapons/weapon-types bearing different Strength modifiers/multipliers, etc. A katana might have .5, while a maul might have 2. So, if your Strength Damage bonus is 10, the katana would only do 5 more damage, while the maul would do 20 more. Those are example numbers, to illustrate the relationship, and mean absolutely nothing outside of the context of an entire weapon/combat system with its own balance.

 

Anywho... Basically, we've already seen systems in which Strength is the only thing that determines damage. Then, we've seen systems in which only one stat determines damage for any given class, but that stat differs between classes (Rogues derive damage from Dex, Wizards from Int, Warriors from Str, etc.). Why not a system that represents each thing?

 

Accuracy/"dexterity" is already represented by the attack roll, mostly. If you happen to roll really high, you hit your foe in the eye or the spot between their armor or something, and this is represented by a critical. So, basically, the "where exactly did this hit" is represented, which is what I mean by accuracy. And even more so in PoE, because you have full misses, grazes, regular hits, AND criticals. So, the more accurate you are, consistently, the more consistently you score what amounts to "damage bonuses."

 

Then, now, you've got Intellect modifying your damage. Just generally being smarter and therefore aiming more intelligently (and not necessarily more skillfully, as with Dexterity/accuracy), and thus consistently producing more effective blows/strikes, aka more damage. Another damage bonus.

 

So, why not force? If something strikes you on the helmet, instead of the eye socket, but strikes you 10-times more powerfully than usual, would it not produce greater damage? For every action there is an equal-yet-opposite re-action, is there not? In other words, hitting you between armor segments instead of right on an armor plate, with the thrust of a sword, is going to be more effective, regardless of how much force there is. But, then, hitting you between armor segments with even more force is going to be even MORE effective than hitting you there with far less force.

 

This is all I'm getting at. Not "we should arbitrarily make Strength affect EVERYTHING to a great degree! 8D!".

 

Heck, it doesn't even have to be sheer damage bonuses. What if, much like the accuracy representation, increased Strength provided some circumstantial boost to critical chance? And/or knockback/knockdown/stagger chance? Okay, your broadsword isn't doing MORE slashing damage from your harder swings, but that force is still going somewhere, right? Maybe we even work in the benefit of having stronger muscles for control, as in holding the weight of a rifle/heavy crossbow steady. So, maybe, on that particular weapon, your Strength bonus actually translates to an accuracy bonus in your attacks? At whatever rate you choose. Sure, it's a bit more complex, but it's still the same for every class. "Strength does THIS to rifles/heavy crossbows, and THIS to hammers/mauls, and THIS to bows, etc." *shrug*

 

Pretending Strength has no impact (pun intended) on anything attack-related is just as arbitrary a choice as pretending it has a major impact on everything attack-related. That's all I'm saying. It feels like Strength shouldn't do NOTHING in relation to combat actions/attacks/weapon-types. etc. I mean, all other things aside, riddle me this: How weird would it be if your 20 Strength, 7 Intellect Monk was a pansy, but your 20 Intellect, 7 Strength Monk was like Uber Melee Attack God? Because, as it stands, even purely unarmed attacks -- basically just your muscles as weapons -- wouldn't have their damage or effectiveness in any way affected by Strength values.

 

I think Strength should affect something, and then that something should, in turn, affect a subset of weapons/attacks/abilities to a variable degree.

[anameforobsidian]

 

the problem with this logic is the assumption that you need to use force in your swing for the power it provides.  this is false.  just like with hammers it is more the weight of the weapon/tool than the muscle behind it that delivers the force of impact.  generally when muscling a hammer you mess up the strike and end up bending the nail, rather than driving it into the wood.  when using a sledge hammer one needs strength to bring the hammer back up before releasing it and guiding it to its mark.  muscling a sledge hammer results in little extra force and a lot of extra energy expended.  that being said using muscle to gain speed results in better results for force of impact, and if you can prevent yourself from messing with your strike by adding the speed then you end up delivering more force without messing things up, in addition to getting more swings per minute.

 

as for using a crossbow, i can't say, but using i rifle i can.  one of the things marksmen do to steady their aim is to weight their rifle barrels and to hold a firing position.  this builds up the muscles needed to keep the rifle steady, and results in a much steadier aim over a longer period of time.

 

in real life more strength means using a weapon with more ease, resulting in steadier aim and faster swings.  some how people think that more muscle means more damage, which though intuitive is in fact false (like cars exploding).

 

 

Absolutely this.  I do think there's something to the idea of dexterity as twitch muscles and strength as longer term muscles, but the current d&d system  (that people expect) is a mess.

 

So there's dexterity, which is flexibility, kinesthesia, reactions, and twitch muscles.  Then there's constitution, which is general health, but some how otherwise unrelated.  And all of these are unrelated to strength, which is a general catchall for burliness.

 

Charisma, which is both attractiveness, force of will (for casting spells), and persuasive ability, is somehow unrelated to the physical shape of the individual or their intelligence.

 

Then Intelligence and Wisdom are separate dumps of various parts of intellectual capacity, despite their obvious relationship.  The fact that it's possible to have a wise adviser who's retarded should say quite a bit about those flaws.

 

Of all these, Charisma is the worst, but they all reflect some very messy divisions.  This has gotten worse in later of editions of D&D where people grow stronger and more intelligent over time.

 

I'm not saying I know the answer to these problems, but I don't think the attraction to the old system of attributes is all that great.  My effort to improve it would be a system with fewer primary stats that were mostly static, with derived stats from that the player could level up.  The derived stats would leak around the circle, with a bonus to one giving a smaller bonus to its neighbors that diminished with each link.  That's not great for pnp games, because it uses a lot of calculation, but could be presented pretty easily to crpgs.

[Lephys]

So there's dexterity, which is flexibility, kinesthesia, reactions, and twitch muscles.  Then there's constitution, which is general health, but some how otherwise unrelated.  And all of these are unrelated to strength, which is a general catchall for burliness.

Didn't even think of that. Scratch that whole "Maybe Strength helps you steady your aim of a heavy crossbow" thing I said, as Dex already covers that. I'm glad you pointed that out.

[JerseyP]

Here's my opinion.

 

All this talk of muscle fibers, knowing where to hit,  and such is just a rationalization. Strength affects melee damage. It's common sense.

 

Mr. Sawyer is obviously a very intelligent, experienced person. I get it. He is trying to solve the problem that probably every gamer has contemplated. The perfect, balanced gaming system.

 

Life isn't balanced. Classes exist. Dump stats exist for certain classes. If your going to be a game developer, your not going to be a UFC champion. The goal should be to lessen the extremes so that each class has multiple viable builds, and maybe a couple non-viable builds.

 

Aiming for balance and perfection only results in counter-intuitive systems where intelllect affects melee damage instead of strength. It's silly, and it breaks immersion. Why is such an amazing game being tainted with siliness. Attribute systems and life are both about tradeoffs. Are you going to aim for an "A" in balance if it means settling for a "C" in intuitive design? Is intuitive design the dump stat?

 

I want the option to make a big, strong, stupid, thug fighter.

[Lephys]

Life isn't balanced. Classes exist. Dump stats exist for certain classes. If your going to be a game developer, your not going to be a UFC champion. The goal should be to lessen the extremes so that each class has multiple viable builds, and maybe a couple non-viable builds.

 

I'm not so sure that's quite the case. It's one thing for a particular overall build to be nonviable or less viable, but another thing, entirely, for a whole STAT to be nonviable.

 

If you're an ignorant Fighter, there's another Fighter out there who possesses something useful to his Fightery that you do not.

 

I firmly believe Strength needs to have its effects on damage/attacks, as I've stated in not-so-few words above, so we're in agreement, there. But, that's just part of common sense. "There are just dump stats" isn't really common sense. And, I think people tend to not really get the fact that stats exist in abstraction, whereas reality doesn't separate everything into stats. Sure, there are strong people in the world who don't care about being smart, but that doesn't mean smarts is a real-life "dump stat" for them.

 

A dump stat is one that blatantly provides SIGNIFICANTLY less value, in ANY capacity, to your specific character. Worrying about not having any dump stats isn't a dumb thing to do. It's common sense. A system that allows you to pump everything in Strength and take a 4 in Intellect doesn't have to not-allow you to get something from putting more points into Intellect.

 

The allowances aren't for "you," the individual. No one cares if one person just cares about damage and offense and HP, ever, and never explores any other builds. If one person doesn't value what a stat does, then awesome. They can do that no matter what. But, some other player, out of the entire player spectrum, who DOES want to take advantage of some "non-typical" build, should get to do so, so long as it makes sense for that to be possible.

 

It's no different from anything else in the whole game: DnD schools of magic. Specializing in Illusion should be just as viable as specializing in Evocation. Doesn't mean nothing's different no matter what you choose. It means that there aren't 2 uses for the entirety of Illusion magic, and 70 uses for the entirety of Evocation magic.

[PrimeJunta]

@JerseyP I think you can make your big, dumb, strong fighter. He would excel at tanking. The high STR combined with the fighter's damage soaking abilities would make him extremely difficult to dislodge from holding a position. That's a classic combat role, and very well suited for the "dumb brute" concept too, even if someone cleverer does have more effective nut-punching skillz.

[Endrosz]

I've felt for a long time that Strength and Constitution should be merged into a "Fitness" stat. ...

Now that I think about it, maybe the problem is simply that we have 6 stats and not enough always relevant ("omnipresent") duties to distribute between them. Doesn't matter how we juggle them, at least one of the stats will be lacking.

 

Solution: Either come up with a new always relevant duty and assign it to the least attractive stat, or reduce the number of stats to 5, and redistribute.

[PrimeJunta]

Numenera only has three stats (Might, Intellect, and Speed) and is IMO better for it.

[Endrosz]

Life isn't balanced. 

 

Yes. Isn't it wonderful that we get to create GAMES where we can set the rules as we see fit, including a more balanced approach so that more character concepts become viable? Also, if you crave more realism, would you like to roll for stats, too? Because rolling for stats is a lot-more life-like than the points-buy approach of almost every RPG in the last decade. Some people are born with higher attributes than others.

 

I understand that we're already knee-deep in the "simulationist vs. gamist" debate, so a quick stance: I believe that a game should provide entertainment, and that depends on what it wants to be. If it aims to be a simulation (ArmA, vehicle simulators, serious tycoon games), it must be a good simulation first, and a good game second. If it doesn't aim to be a simulation, it must be a good game first, and then add as much realism as you can without upsetting the game balance. (Nobody thinks that Settlers of Catan is a good colonization simulator, but it does resemble one somewhat.)

 

I want the option to make a big, strong, stupid, thug fighter.

 

You say this as if this is a choice. "Hey, my fighter is big, strong, stupid, which is so different from..." ...nobody who uses the same dump-allowing system? There is no MEANINGFUL choice here: you either build your fighter like this, or your fighter will suck (And in a multiplayer environment, co-op or MMO, you will be ridiculed for not going with the "optimal build", possibly even dumped from parties after pinging your build! I speak from experience). Just as Josh explained, the goal is to provide a variety of viable builds. Which means you CAN build a big, strong, stupid fighter, and it will play differently than an agile, canny or stubborn fighter. Under the current system, it will be a tank with a lot of Health and Stamina and less DPS than builds with more Intellect or Dexterity. Does it actually bother you that besides the stereotypical builds, other ones will also be viable?

 

----

 

A "no dump" system that I'm very familiar with. Guild Wars 2 has 4 basic stats:

Power (affects damage)

Precision (affects critical hit chance)

Vitality (affects health)

Toughness (affects armor)

 

Since GW2 ditched the "holy trinity" of MMOs, meaning that there is no aggro management or powerful incoming healing available (everyone has a self-heal), every stat is desirable to every character. These 4 stats have a baseline value, even if you put no points into them,  you'll still have some damage, some health etc. There are also 3 additional stats which start with a value of 0, but you can spec into them if you wish: healing power, condition damage and critical damage, and 1 special stat which is class-dependent, also starting from 0. This means that GW2 has 4 primary (universally desired) stats, and 4 secondary (build-dependent) stats. It works pretty well, although I have to admit that the balance is much better in PvP than in PvE.

 

EDIT: Ninja'd on the fighter tank by PrimeJunta. .

Edited December 19, 2013 by Endrosz

[Infinitron]

Hey Josh:

 

Do you envision the ability scores having diminishing benefits as a character levels up? As a character grows more powerful and gains more talents and powerful equipment, that +1 or +2 he got from having a high Intellect or whatever becomes less important, until eventually his ability scores are just an interchangeable relic of his early career.