Attributes: The case for turning Might into Strength, and improving the whole system in the process.

[wpmaura]

Man I hope they take the OP suggestion I hate that might is just a power stat, where is the role play of having a stupidly strong character.

[RadonGOG]

I´d think of something like what has been done in the DSA-System, but less complex and more intuitive: Spells and Skills have to have there own attributes they benefit from.

Like an EarthMage needs Might to control the heavy forces, a fire mage needs a high amouth of constitution to do not be confused by the heat of his own spells, a waterMage needs something like dexterity to adjust the forces so they can be as fitting as possible and so on! But one attribute like wisdom pushs them all, but not so ultra-strong...

 

You could create a very nice and diserve system with this design sheme!

[GreyFox]

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand items don't have attribute requirements. Does that mean any character can swing around a heavy twohanded weapon?

Yep, just like in all the IE games.

 

 

Yep except you're wrong...it amazes me how much people don't' actually remember about the games they reference.

 

http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Spider%27s_Bane

 

Items did have minimum requirements in BG1/2....load up BG and try to put full plate on Viconia plz and ty.

[Vizera]

The current system needs some tuning but it works well and allows for some very varied and interesting builds.

You just have to accept that might in this system simply means different things for different classes and stop confusing it with strength.

A "mighty" mage wont be doing massive melee damage, alltho with the right buffs they wont be useless with a weapon either.

[archangel979]

My hope is if Might stays as it is that at least they rename it to Power. Might has a different meaning to both old and new gamers due to how almost any other game does it.

[Fearabbit]

The current system needs some tuning but it works well and allows for some very varied and interesting builds.

 

Agreed. It needs tweaking, but allows many different builds. That's a good thing that I'd like to preserve.

 

 You just have to accept that might in this system simply means different things for different classes and stop confusing it with strength.

 

Or you could accept that people do not find this system very intuitive and would like a more "simulationist" approach where they feel like the derived attributes really fit to the attribute that governs them. Because I'll have no trouble accepting the current attribute system if the game releases with it this winter. But until then I can try and make suggestions that I'd prefer, and I don't think comments like yours add anything of value. Which is why I asked people like you repeatedly to just ignore this thread - it's not like it's doing you any harm.

 

You're saying that I'm "confusing might with strength", which simply means that you didn't understand my point or even care to read it. In the end, you're not respecting my opinion, while I respect yours (as can be seen in nearly all my posts in this and other threads). And that's a problem. We can't have a constructive discussion based on that, and that's why I don't want one here.

 

BTW personally I think that the current system would work just as well if Might was called Strength. "Screw it. Magic has a physical component to it, and being strong helps with that, and people who don't like it have to deal with it." I could easily live with that. Still wouldn't be my ideal distribution of derived attributes, but at least it'd be committed to attributes that describe your character intuitively, not in abstract ideas.

[Vizera]

Actually, i was not responding to you specifically which in retrospect i should have made clear.

A prevailing theme in this thread is that people did not think a musclebound mage made any sense which of course is understandable.

All i was trying to communicate was that might is ambiguous and can refer to different attributes, and thus make sense for a range of classes where as strength is not.

We are a matter of months from release so something this basic is not going to likely change.

[rjshae]

Hmm, but why can't Might be interpreted as Strength? This can be a magical system where your muscles provide a component of the magical energy. You're "throwing" a magical force at something, which gets amplified through the spell. That approach doesn't seem any less implausible to me; it's just different than D&D. Now, a wimpy, intelligent wizard has to rely on attrition tactics to win his battles, rather than, say, delivering a knockout blow against the enemy leader.

Edited August 29, 2014 by rjshae

[Azrael Ultima]

Or you could accept that people do not find this system very intuitive and would like a more "simulationist" approach where they feel like the derived attributes really fit to the attribute that governs them.

Why can't you just say "i" instead of "people"?

[Fearabbit]

Because there are more than just me? 

 

@Vizera, sorry for misunderstanding then. I thought it was directed at me.

[Failion]

Mights fine as it is. I imagine its someones ability to exert intensity in their soul power to accomplish a task. So someone can still be physically degenerate frail but if they have high might they have the soul power to push their weak crippled muscles to their weakling limits however not useful that may be.

 

This isn't DnD so how power levels mechanics work and stuff isn't the same.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Failion

[gkathellar]

After thinking about it a lot, I think Might is kinda non-intuitive, but not for the same reasons as some other posters - the problem, in my mind, has more to do with Dexterity and Constitution than the difference between Might vs. Strength.

 

As a player, I'm used to seeing Str, Dex, and Con as a set. Sometimes Dex will by Agility, or Con will be Vitality, or whatever - but the three are usually seen as a set of "physical" stats, often with 2-3 mental stats accompanying them. So when I see Might, Dexterity, and Constitution coupled with Intelligence, Perception, and Resolve, it feels familiar, and I reflexively start looking for how the six stats go about playing to their archetypal roles. When they fail to do that, because Might really isn't Stength, it can be jolting, like a cognitive "skip" in a record. I may want to ignore it (not sure); I may like the new status quo (I do); but it still forces me to adjust. And I don't think this is a unique experience.

 

I get that the game designers don't necessarily intend me to, and I understand that I should approach PoE as something fresh, but that is what it is. I have some limited experience with tabletop RPG design, and what I've learned, overwhelmingly, is that even things which make perfect sense can be problematic. For instance, my group had a system where any stat could be used to attack or defend (subject to class limitations), which led many people to question how that could be. To us, and to most of the people we explained it to, this made perfect sense - but it still put off some prospective players, even ones who thought our reasoning made sense. When something is non-intutive, even for really objectively silly reasons, it can break verisimilitude, or the feeling of realism (which is far more important than actual realism).

 

Personally, I'd be inclined to either repurpose the Might stat to be more like Strength (keeping the name or otherwise), or to at least change the names of Dexterity and Constitution (possibly to something more abstract and more "mental" in tone). Either would allow things to be more intuitive.

 

Hmm, but why can't Might be interpreted as Strength? This can be a magical system where your muscles provide a component of the magical energy. You're "throwing" a magical force at something, which gets amplified through the spell. That approach doesn't seem any less implausible to me; it's just different than D&D. Now, a wimpy, intelligent wizard has to rely on attrition tactics to win his battles, rather than, say, delivering a knockout blow against the enemy leader.

 

I don't think it's that there's anything inherently wrong with that approach, but for a certain number of people it just doesn't feel "right," so to speak, for their Medieval European fantasy. You could give all kinds of reasons - it breaks form, it feels "too anime" ( ), it's not what they felt they were signing up for, etc. I'm not 100% sure of where I stand on this, myself.

 

On the one hand is the universe and its internal logic - it does make sense with PoE's notion of "spirit" as the power source of all characters. Fighters and barbarians and so on are ultimately a kind of mage in PoE, so it's not much of a leap to think that wizards and cyphers might benefit from well-conditioned bodies just as their counterparts do. I love this kind of internal consistency, and the sense of a very cohesive world that can often come with it.

 

But on the other hand, making these kinds of radical shifts away from what's expected seems to be at odds with having such archetypal divisions as "fighter," "wizard," "cleric," and so on and so forth. I get that PoE wants to simultaneously invoke a feeling of the familiar while also going its own way, but when people hear "wizard," and they have certain expectations for what that means, especially when they hear it right next to other terms that it's often paired with. Veering away from those expectations can be offputting, even for someone (like me), who really wants to like the direction things have gone in.

 

Or you could accept that people do not find this system very intuitive and would like a more "simulationist" approach where they feel like the derived attributes really fit to the attribute that governs them.

 

In fairness, the current approach is no more or less simulationist than the alternative - just different in a way that can be jarring.

[Azrael Ultima]

After thinking about it a lot, I think Might is kinda non-intuitive, but not for the same reasons as some other posters - the problem, in my mind, has more to do with Dexterity and Constitution than the difference between Might vs. Strength.

I'd say Might is perfectly intuitive, but many people have been conditioned to expect certain stats... though cRPGs veer from that conditioning far more strongly than PnP systems in my experience.

 

So the issue would less be any problem with the stats themselves, and more with tradition. Which on its own is only an excuse to not having to change ones thinking patterns.

[Orillion]

Might allows wizards to be intimidating. Do not ruin a good thing here.

[Lephys]

You just have to accept that might in this system simply means different things for different classes and stop confusing it with strength.

A "mighty" mage wont be doing massive melee damage, alltho with the right buffs they wont be useless with a weapon either.

Except it doesn't. It means both things for all classes.

 

Your Wizard with a sword gets the same proportionate increase to his sword-thwacking damage as he does to his fire-tossing damage. The fact that his class abilities are all designed mainly to produce more base magical damage, rather than physical attack damage, has nothing to do with the effects of stats.

 

Also, just in principle, it's rather preposterous to think that a Wizard has only magic power (and not even any measurable physical strength, whatsoever). Imagine if Dexterity did the same thing; a Wizard ONLY has the skill with which he shapes his spells, and lacks any and all physical coordination whatsoever. Is he horrible at performing dexterous tasks? Nope. Nor is he good. He's just completely devoid of it.

 

When you do that, it's not like that stat just means something different for that class. It's like that class is always getting forcibly assigned some default measurement for that aspect (physical strength, in the case of Might).

[Azrael Ultima]

Also, just in principle, it's rather preposterous to think that a Wizard has only magic power (and not even any measurable physical strength, whatsoever). Imagine if Dexterity did the same thing; a Wizard ONLY has the skill with which he shapes his spells, and lacks any and all physical coordination whatsoever. Is he horrible at performing dexterous tasks? Nope. Nor is he good. He's just completely devoid of it.

Nice strawman you've got there.

 

Care to point out where anybody claimed that Wizards have no strength at all?

[Lephys]

Nice strawman you've got there.

 

Care to point out where anybody claimed that Wizards have no strength at all?

It's not a strawman. It's just an observation. The relevance lies in that little quoted segment of Vizera that prefaced my post. I don't know if you read that or not, but he suggested that Might just represents different things for different classes. So, firstly, I pointed out that that actually isn't true in PoE; it represents BOTH things for all classes, as a Wizard's Might DOES affect his physical attack damage, and that the difference between a Wizard's base physical damage and a Fighter's has nothing to do with the function of the Might attribute.

 

Then, I pointed out (in the little section you so kindly called out as appearing scarecrowish) that, for what it's worth, the idea of an attribute system that measures something like physical strength in one class, but doesn't even measure it at all in another class is a bit silly.

 

Does that help? If you're still unclear, just say the word, and I'll gladly help clarify in any way I can.

[Azrael Ultima]

Except he didn't say it doesn't measure strength for Wizards.

 

Also, your first "observation", while correct, is meaningless. Yes, it affects physical and magical damage. But nobody was debating that.

 

You're being perfectly clear. You're also still strawmanning.

[Lephys]

So says you. *le sigh*

[Fearabbit]

You're being perfectly clear. You're also still strawmanning.

 

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.

[Vizera]

 

You just have to accept that might in this system simply means different things for different classes and stop confusing it with strength.

A "mighty" mage wont be doing massive melee damage, alltho with the right buffs they wont be useless with a weapon either.

Except it doesn't. It means both things for all classes.

 

Your Wizard with a sword gets the same proportionate increase to his sword-thwacking damage as he does to his fire-tossing damage. The fact that his class abilities are all designed mainly to produce more base magical damage, rather than physical attack damage, has nothing to do with the effects of stats.

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1st off i just want to point out that i typed out the last two posts on my phone, and since the forums wont let me edit my posts for some reason there are a few words missing or out of place in both posts.

 

As for your point, yes might increases a mage's melee damage but he will still hit for **** all damage so obviously might does not mean the same for a mage as it would a melee character.

The fact that this comes from the base damage of the different classes does not change anything. A "mighty mage" and a "mighty warrior" still mean two very different things.

Granted, might is not optimal, but it makes more sense then strength since it is a lot more ambiguous.

 

[konst3d]

Deleted, wrong topic, sorry.

Edited September 9, 2014 by konst3d

[Chilloutman]

Currently attributes feels like MMO ones

 

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute

[DeHavilan]

OP, I really like your suggestions for the most part.  I truly think that the distinction between physical strength and magical strength should be clear and captured in different stats.

[Lephys]

As for your point, yes might increases a mage's melee damage but he will still hit for **** all damage so obviously might does not mean the same for a mage as it would a melee character.

The fact that this comes from the base damage of the different classes does not change anything. A "mighty mage" and a "mighty warrior" still mean two very different things.

Sure it does (change anything). You could change absolutely nothing about Might and still have a mage not hit for crap damage with melee. I'd say that's a significant fact, rather than an irrelevant one.

 

I don't understand why it's fine for all the inherent class factors to handle the Fighter's melee potential, then expect a single attribute to be solely responsible for handling a Wizard's melee potential. The stat works exactly the same for both classes, so it can hardly be the stat's fault that some discrepancy exists.