Are there reasons not to dump an attribute entirely?

[gkathellar]

The more I look at character creation, the more I feel tempted to leave one attribute all the way down at 3, so that I can have the others at reasonably high levels. I'm not expressing an opinion on this, just trying to get a feel for it.

 

Obviously, there are no true "dump stats" in PoE, although some are easier to drop than others, at least for some classes. But if one or two of my scores is already going to be pretty low - say I'm rolling a Barbarian, and I'm probably not going to invest much in Intelligence or Perception, for instance - why shouldn't I drop the attribute entirely? Is there any particular benefit to having an attribute at 8, or 6, as opposed to, say, 3?

 

And, as a secondary question - which attributes do you think are most dump-able, and in which circumstances?

[Elerond]

In my opinion current system encourages more to everything about average as then you have more conversation and event screen options open to you and efficiency difference to maxed stat is minimal. 

[Hiro Protagonist II]

There's really no reason not to dump stats. As Sharp_One said, there are no bad builds so you can dump stats and it's all okay. This is not D&D where if you dump your INT and DEX to 3 for a Mage, you'll gimp your mage. In PoE, you can dump INT and DEX to 3 and max out Might, Con, Resolve and Perception and it's a perfectly good build. This is the design philosophy from the dev's that even if you dump a stat by mistake, you won't get halfway through the game and realise your character sucks. So dumping an attribute is okay.

 

The only reason I see not to dump is to try and get more dialogue choices. But then there's more than one way to solve a quest and you usually have a few dialogue choices anyway with dump stats, so it's okay if you miss out on one of those dialogue choices imo. You'll still have a few dialogue choices available to you to choose from when interacting with NPC's.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Silent Winter]

 say I'm rolling a Barbarian, and I'm probably not going to invest much in Intelligence

FYI Intellect covers the Barbarian's AOE for fury-wotsit attack and also the duration of Wild-Sprint etc.

 

Currently attributes only have a small effect (according to beta testers - 2nd hand info from me ) - dump away.  Hopefully this'll get looked at through the beta phase.

[PrimeJunta]

Currently PER is unambiguously dumpable except if you're really big on dialog options or are making a gimmicky special "interrupter" build. 

 

The other attributes are mostly useful to most classes. However IMO they do need more bite.

 

Ironically the only stat I've actually regretted dumping is RES -- having RES 3 makes it practically impossible to do slow things under attack, like casting spells or using slow weapons. Right now that's the stat I'd dump last, although I don't know how much better RES 18 is than, say, RES 12 ATM.

[gkathellar]

In my opinion current system encourages more to everything about average as then you have more conversation and event screen options open to you and efficiency difference to maxed stat is minimal. 

 

Mm. Part of the reason I started to think about it was because most of the conversation options require 14 in a stat, and if you actually invest evenly, you get 13 all around.

 

 

 say I'm rolling a Barbarian, and I'm probably not going to invest much in Intelligence

FYI Intellect covers the Barbarian's AOE for fury-wotsit attack and also the duration of Wild-Sprint etc.

 

Currently attributes only have a small effect (according to beta testers - 2nd hand info from me ) - dump away.  Hopefully this'll get looked at through the beta phase.

 

 

It does, but I'm not super-impressed by either of those. Presumably, when there are more and better abilities post-beta, Int will be less dumpable.

 

 

Ironically the only stat I've actually regretted dumping is RES -- having RES 3 makes it practically impossible to do slow things under attack, like casting spells or using slow weapons. Right now that's the stat I'd dump last, although I don't know how much better RES 18 is than, say, RES 12 ATM.

 

Dex also seems fairly non-negotiable, at least if you intend to contribute any offense whatsoever.

[PrimeJunta]

Dex also seems fairly non-negotiable, at least if you intend to contribute any offense whatsoever.

 

True, but OTOH there are classes which can be usefully played without contributing offense. Notably the priest; buffs/debuffs/heals is what they do and they don't need accuracy. I don't know how much the wizard's AoE spells benefit from higher accuracy either.

[Elerond]

 

In my opinion current system encourages more to everything about average as then you have more conversation and event screen options open to you and efficiency difference to maxed stat is minimal. 

 

Mm. Part of the reason I started to think about it was because most of the conversation options require 14 in a stat, and if you actually invest evenly, you get 13 all around.

 

 

Base on beta I would say that stat lines that are something like 12 12 12 14 14 14 or 10 12 12 14 14 16 or 10 10 12 14 16 16 or 10 10 10 16 16 16 distributed in stats in way that you feel that best describes your character, will give you largest pool of options, especially when you take account rest and item bonuses.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Elerond

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

 

Dex also seems fairly non-negotiable, at least if you intend to contribute any offense whatsoever.

True, but OTOH there are classes which can be usefully played without contributing offense. Notably the priest; buffs/debuffs/heals is what they do and they don't need accuracy. I don't know how much the wizard's AoE spells benefit from higher accuracy either.

IIRC, they will need to hit the Reflex or Will defence, some some is probably needed.

 

As to dumping, a problem with the current attributes stated by many is that there doesn't seem to be enough effect with them, especially might. This is a tweaking problem rather than a design issue, and something that should be easy to tune in a beta.

 

As an alternative point, Gromnir argued for the current state of attributes, as they took some emphasis off character creation and placed more on talant selection for levels after 1. Worth a read if you can find the thread.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Base on beta I would say that stat lines that are something like 12 12 12 14 14 14 or 10 12 12 14 14 16 or 10 10 12 14 16 16 or 10 10 10 16 16 16 distributed in stats in way that you feel that best describes your character, will give you largest pool of options, especially when you take account rest and item bonuses.

 

 

You could probably increase Might to at least 14 and lower DEX or CON to get more dialogue options as there are Might options in dialogue. I don't recall DEX or CON options in dialogue.

[Lephys]

To my taste the goal "no bad builds" was achieved. That means the attributes are more or less meaningless.

This is such an awful perspective. That's like saying "Oh, if you're a physical fighter with a sword, and you can deal good damage, OR you're a Wizard with spells and you can still deal good damage, then the distinction is pointless."

 

One doesn't have to be flat-out bad. They should both be conditionally bad, and conditionally good, depending on the circumstances. Same with attributes and their effects.

[Lephys]

The point is as was mentioned before that assigning the attributes in PoE is not "conditionally good or bad" it's meaningless. The difference between Might 3 fighter and Might 18 fighter is not noticeable.  

 

I would be thrilled to have system that encourages playing different builds in the same class. But I would like the choices to matter. In this system as it is attributes are meaningless.

"Meaningless," in this case, is an exaggeration, as it actually just has very little meaning. If it was meaningless, absolutely nothing would be affected.

 

Also, this illustrates that the alleged problem stems from too low an extent of variance between a minimum attribute value and a maximum, and not specifically from the lack of inherently "bad" builds.

[Ashen Rohk]

You dump Might - your damage sucks

You dump Constitution - you have no health

You dump Dexterity - You swing a weapon like you're trying to swat flies around your head.

You dump Perception - "Huh...what was I doing again?"

You dump Intellect - Your duration is on par with me in the sack and your AoE is roughly that of a one-legged chicken

You dump Resolve - You get blown over by the slightest breeze and you end up like that kid at school who somehow managed to pick up chicken pox four times in six months.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

That's been shown to be incorrect Ashen Rohk. You can have a Mage dumping Dex and Int to 3 and still take on lions one-on-one and kill them. You can dump Int to 3 on a priest and the AoE is still quite large for a spell like Consecrated Ground.

[Didier2]

With how attributes affect the game at this point I think I may choose attributes based on what it allows u to do in conversations and scripted interactions.

[Macrae]

I don't understand why developers and people do not talk about one solution that would insta-solve the attribute problem currently in the game:

Progressive point requirements

This means that when creating your character you would need (just example) 1 point for each attribute up until, let's say, 14, than 2 points for each attribute from 14 to 16 and then 3 points for 16 and up. (details open for debate, it's not the point of the post)

 

This would discourage people from putting extreme scores and encourage going for more "balanced" (as in "normal", like the normal distribution of things) attribute spread instead of extreme "muscle-mage" builds...

In that example the person creating the mage character would have more incentive to spread the stats because putting 18 in might instead of 14 would cost him not 4 points but 10. It would therefore make much more sense putting these points elsewhere (you know like...mages...intelligence?) so that he could obtain 10 attribute points instead of just 4..

[wpmaura]

I like obsidians past games but it now becomes painful clear they do not know how to create a rpg from the ground up, all there past systems have used other tried and true games. there attribute system is a mess and all wrong.

 

Wish I could get a refund since nothing is changing.

[Lephys]

I don't understand why developers and people do not talk about one solution that would insta-solve the attribute problem currently in the game:

 

Progressive point requirements

Well, functionally, that's exactly no different from the point limitations in the first place. Besides, unless you have lower-than-average scores start costing fractions of a point, you're still not addressing the issue of dumping stats. In a way (the key words here being "in a way," ), this would actually encourage dumping stats. Because, that stat you already were okay with being 7 could easily just go down to 4, so that you can put another 2 points into Stat X to get it up to 18, since you now need FOUR points instead of TWO to get that same score.

[Sensuki]

You dump Might - your damage sucks

You dump Constitution - you have no health

You dump Dexterity - You swing a weapon like you're trying to swat flies around your head.

You dump Perception - "Huh...what was I doing again?"

You dump Intellect - Your duration is on par with me in the sack and your AoE is roughly that of a one-legged chicken

You dump Resolve - You get blown over by the slightest breeze and you end up like that kid at school who somehow managed to pick up chicken pox four times in six months.

Not quite. You are quoting the ideal situations of what the system should do or what you have been told the system does but this isn't what actually happens. You have to look at the mathematics.

 

Both Might and Dexterity add DPS, Might is actually quite a bit stronger than Dexterity and Accuracy scales with level, whereas damage and healing does not. You get a class starting bonus to accuracy and it's also influenced by the weapon style and weapon you choose. So it is actually possible to completely dump Dexterity and still have a competitive accuracy if you compensate for it by using 1H Single style / an accurate weapon such as a spear. If you max Might you are also getting good DPS anyway.

 

Constitution works as intended.

 

Perception's usefulness is largely dependent on the weapons/spells you use, your Accuracy (because you need to graze to quality for Interrupts and grazes and crits reduce interrupt chance), the Defense score of the unit you are attacking and their Concentration value. How much benefit you get from Perception in combat is really hard to quantify. It is completely safe to dump Perception to 3, as you are getting more per point out of a point in Might or Dexterity instead. As an offensive attribute it is a failure.

 

The AoE size difference isn't that big, as it scales total square area, not radius. Durations however are important and classes that have a lot of durations should definitely invest in Intellect.

 

Low Resolve does make you get interrupted pretty often, and getting interrupted reduces your DPS. However that DPS is compensated for more than enough by extra points in Might, Accuracy, Intellect or Constitution as you get more of a benefit from them per point than Perception and Resolve.

 

Matt516 and I have worked on all of the mathematics and logic for all of this over the last few days and are going to be producing a paper at the end of the week that provides a balanced solution to make all attributes useful for every class, with no dump stats.

[Lephys]

Regarding Perception... what if it were changed to simply pit your Interrupt-causing value against the foe's Concentration, independent of Accuracy/attack resolution? I mean, if what you're interrupting is concentration, it's possible to miss someone but still "shake" them, right? *shrug*

 

Might make Perception more potent/worthwhile.

[Sensuki]

We already have a solution for that, check the BB forum on Friday or so for our paper.

[QDI]

We already have a solution for that, check the BB forum on Friday or so for our paper.

 

I'd be interested in reading it as well (even without having access to the beta).

[Matt516]

 

We already have a solution for that, check the BB forum on Friday or so for our paper.

 

I'd be interested in reading it as well (even without having access to the beta).

 

 

Dunno if you've seen it yet, but it's been posted for a bit.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68526-how-to-fix-the-attribute-design-in-pillars-of-eternity/