How to Fix the Attribute Design in Pillars of Eternity

[Fearabbit]

Deflection is not competing against the other 3 defenses as they are out of the equation, it is competing against it's inverse - Accuracy, and other things that help with combat.

 

As I understand it, none of the defenses compete against each other. They all have a different role, and they all compete against Accuracy.

I don't see how it's important how everything is calculated. There's no fundamental difference, it's just that in general Will, Reflex and Fortitude will be higher than Deflection. That's alright though, because as you said it is the more valuable defense.

[Seari]

 

@Sensuki Now that I've thought about it more, I don't think I like your version of RES.You're putting 2 stats together, that basically contribute to the same thing. Both deflection and concentration decrease the chance of an interrupt, I don't think putting them together is a good idea. I'm glad they're removing interrupt, because interrupt+accuracy is basically the same deal as conc+def.

 

We did this to balance Resolve against Perception, Resolve technically does almost the inverse of Perception. I believe they should go together to preserve the symmetry, and I think what they offer goes together well. I don't think removing Interrupt changes that - we need to make the attribute have roughly equal efficacy as Constitution for the purposes of survival time in combat.

 

Now you're also forgetting that Deflection on it's own contributes incoming DPS reduction, while Concentration contributes outgoing DPS loss prevention. Two completely different things. Deflection does increase effective Interrupt against Deflection attacks but so does Fortitude, Reflex and Will Defense - and you get equal points in them because they are spread across the attributes evenly.

 

Interrupt is bad without accuracy, correct? Hence interrupt is a bad stat, coupling it with accuracy to make it better is just silly, and I 100% agree with Sawyer to have it removed from attributes. You based your attributes around the notion that interrupt won't be removed. With perception only affecting accuracy, what reason is there to have both deflection and concentration on RES? Before the reason was to counter accuracy+interrupt, right? So yes, I think def and conc on the same stat is a bad idea, because they both influence the same thing, the chance of an interrupt happening.

[Sensuki]

As I understand it, none of the defenses compete against each other.

Competing against each other for attribute points.

 

Interrupt is bad without accuracy, correct? Hence interrupt is a bad stat, coupling it with accuracy to make it better is just silly, and I 100% agree with Sawyer to have it removed from attributes. You based your attributes around the notion that interrupt won't be removed. With perception only affecting accuracy, what reason is there to have both deflection and concentration on RES? Before the reason was to counter accuracy+interrupt, right? So yes, I think def and conc on the same stat is a bad idea, because they both influence the same thing, the chance of an interrupt happening.

In my second revision I will be removing Interrupt. The reason we did not suggest removing interrupt is we were not sure that the devs OR the backers wanted it gone. Deflection is still a very good combat stat to have in the attribute system, because you need *something* else in there other than what's in there now. It's a strong 'main' combat stat along with Damage, Accuracy, Stamina/Health (which to me are the same), Durations and now IAS.

 

There is nothing else in the game that could be used without creating a new mechanic.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Sensuki

[Fearabbit]

Competing against each other for attribute points.

 

???

 

Okay, then they all are competing against each other, except for Will and Deflection because they are both governed by Resolve. Like, what are you trying to tell me right now? (I suspect that you are misunderstanding what I said. I didn't say anything against having an attribute that affects Deflection, I just said that right now it's not very symmetrical, since Resolve governs two defenses unlike any other attribute.)

[Sensuki]

Like we stated in our paper, this is not a problem because no matter how you assign your attributes, the three minor defenses will get the same points distributed among them, it just depends how you spend your attribute points.

 

Deflection is directly competing against the other stuff - Accuracy, Damage etc

 

Deflection will most likely be stayin in, so either way this will happen anyway.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Sensuki

[Fearabbit]

Like we stated in our paper, this is not a problem because no matter how you assign your attributes, the three minor defenses will get the same points distributed among them, it just depends how you spend your attribute points.

 

Deflection is directly competing against the other stuff - Accuracy, Damage etc

 

All I'm saying is that it's not very elegant. I don't know about balancing (although I think it's dangerous to just shrug it off as a non-issue like you're doing right now), but I do know that all that nice symmetry of your system simply isn't there in this case.

 

Deflection is directly competing against Accuracy, Damage etc. in the same way the other defenses are. The only (!) difference is that you'll likely be hit more often with normal melee/ranged attacks than with magic, abilities or poison. I don't think that's enough to label Deflection as the "major defense" and all others as "minor defenses", especially since the effect of getting hit by magic/abilities is much worse than that of getting hit by melee/ranged.

 

 Deflection will most likely be stayin in, so either way this will happen anyway.

 

Again, I didn't say anything against that.

 

 

EDIT: Basically, your argument with "the others are distributed among the attributes, only Deflection is competing against Damage, Accuracy etc." is only valid if the other defenses are indeed negligible. You're basically saying that Deflection is the defense stat that makes all the difference, and I don't think it's true. If we took all the other defenses and put them into Resolve, so that Resolve affects Fortitude, Will, Reflexes and Deflection, then you could say "okay now we have an attribute that competes against the other attributes by offering better defenses". This is your line of reasoning right now, but it only works if you take the whole range of defenses.

Otherwise you're comparing oranges and apples. Might is all the damage. Perception is all the accuracy. Either you have an attribute that has all the defenses, or you have an asymmetrical, inelegant system.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Fearabbit

[Sensuki]

All I'm saying is that it's not very elegant

That's fine - wasn't my decision to have the three defenses spread across the attributes like that and Attribute-influenced Deflection is kind of demanded by the system IMO. 2H melee hits hit pretty hard and pretty often.

 

A spell that does more damage than that has a 6 second cast+recovery time. 2H Melee can attack twice at least in that time.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Sensuki

[Monte Carlo]

 

Just to bring this topic back down to earth.... The clusterphuck of stats, variables, maths, 'gamism' and all round BS of this system Sawyer has conjured from the pit of Logic Hell is hilarious. And this is from people who allege AD&D is too complex. I'm not too proud to admit I haven't a bloody clue how this system works. It's so obtuse it feels like a parody of some ultra-nerdist homebrew. I almost want premade characters with auto-levelling so I don't need to waste my life trying to understand this nonsense, some hipster RPG nirvana where there's no strength for fighters and where some arcane stat might increase your chance of something awesome happening linked to your soul.

 

W.T.F?

 

 

 

Good to see Sawyer explaining stuff, er, somewhere else.

 

This answer is disingenuous, to say the least. How can you build the character you want to build if the underlying systems are too opaque? Just trust in Josh that everything will be awesome whatever you choose?

[Sensuki]

[Monte Carlo]

Out.

[Namutree]

Cassim is Josh Sawyer.

 

EDIT: I'll stay and pout.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Namutree

[Sensuki]

I don't think that's what Monte Carlo meant.

[Seaking4]

 

 

Just to bring this topic back down to earth.... The clusterphuck of stats, variables, maths, 'gamism' and all round BS of this system Sawyer has conjured from the pit of Logic Hell is hilarious. And this is from people who allege AD&D is too complex. I'm not too proud to admit I haven't a bloody clue how this system works. It's so obtuse it feels like a parody of some ultra-nerdist homebrew. I almost want premade characters with auto-levelling so I don't need to waste my life trying to understand this nonsense, some hipster RPG nirvana where there's no strength for fighters and where some arcane stat might increase your chance of something awesome happening linked to your soul.

 

W.T.F?

 

 

 

Good to see Sawyer explaining stuff, er, somewhere else.

 

This answer is disingenuous, to say the least. How can you build the character you want to build if the underlying systems are too opaque? Just trust in Josh that everything will be awesome whatever you choose?

 

So your complaint is that you find a system that you have barely used more complicated than AD&D which has been used in dozens of games (which you have likely played many times)?

[Seari]

 

Interrupt is bad without accuracy, correct? Hence interrupt is a bad stat, coupling it with accuracy to make it better is just silly, and I 100% agree with Sawyer to have it removed from attributes. You based your attributes around the notion that interrupt won't be removed. With perception only affecting accuracy, what reason is there to have both deflection and concentration on RES? Before the reason was to counter accuracy+interrupt, right? So yes, I think def and conc on the same stat is a bad idea, because they both influence the same thing, the chance of an interrupt happening.

In my second revision I will be removing Interrupt. The reason we did not suggest removing interrupt is we were not sure that the devs OR the backers wanted it gone. Deflection is still a very good combat stat to have in the attribute system, because you need *something* else in there other than what's in there now. It's a strong 'main' combat stat along with Damage, Accuracy, Stamina/Health (which to me are the same), Durations and now IAS.

 

There is nothing else in the game that could be used without creating a new mechanic.

 

Yeah I'm all for deflection, I was confused when it was missing from the attributes when I first saw the beta. They may need to add another mechanic with interrupt being removed from attributes, no idea what that mechanic could be. Or they could just have PER only affect accuracy, kind of dull.

 

I'm still adamant about RES. It doesn't sit well with me from a role-playing or design perspective. Def+conc is a no go IMO.

 

edit: I kind of like Sawyer's attribute changes after reading Ganrich's posts , not sure if they're the best tho.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Seari

[Fearabbit]

 

All I'm saying is that it's not very elegant

That's fine

 

No. 

 

In other parts of your paper you're actually talking about the elegance and symmetry and how you want to preserve them. The more I think about it, the more this seems like a very big flaw. It's the equivalent of having Might govern all damage except for ranged attacks, or having Intellect affect all AoE except for melee abilities. While you can find justifications for it, you're simply giving up on the symmetry and elegance you were aiming for.

 

I'm not saying it's a deal-breaker, but let's call it what it is - a flaw that, if possible, should be dealt with.

[Elerond]

 

 

Just to bring this topic back down to earth.... The clusterphuck of stats, variables, maths, 'gamism' and all round BS of this system Sawyer has conjured from the pit of Logic Hell is hilarious. And this is from people who allege AD&D is too complex. I'm not too proud to admit I haven't a bloody clue how this system works. It's so obtuse it feels like a parody of some ultra-nerdist homebrew. I almost want premade characters with auto-levelling so I don't need to waste my life trying to understand this nonsense, some hipster RPG nirvana where there's no strength for fighters and where some arcane stat might increase your chance of something awesome happening linked to your soul.

 

W.T.F?

 

 

 

Good to see Sawyer explaining stuff, er, somewhere else.

 

This answer is disingenuous, to say the least. How can you build the character you want to build if the underlying systems are too opaque? Just trust in Josh that everything will be awesome whatever you choose?

 

That is only thing that we can do, because before we have full game our hand and can test balance ourself from start to finish we can only trust or not trust him that every build during character creation will be viable in the game. Currently we can only see little of content (for the example current content could all we know be similar to one of the fight heavy areas in Planescape Torment, which would have given us bit wrong picture what kind character builds would be most effective/viable in the final game considering whole playthrough) and limited number of mechanics that are under polishing and balancing.

[Sensuki]

No. 

 

In other parts of your paper you're actually talking about the elegance and symmetry and how you want to preserve them. The more I think about it, the more this seems like a very big flaw.

It's not a flaw I created. The elegance we spoke about was two offensive, two defensive and two universal attributes. We do not count what the attributes give to the minor defenses in that assessment.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Sensuki

[Matt516]

 

 

Just to bring this topic back down to earth.... The clusterphuck of stats, variables, maths, 'gamism' and all round BS of this system Sawyer has conjured from the pit of Logic Hell is hilarious. And this is from people who allege AD&D is too complex. I'm not too proud to admit I haven't a bloody clue how this system works. It's so obtuse it feels like a parody of some ultra-nerdist homebrew. I almost want premade characters with auto-levelling so I don't need to waste my life trying to understand this nonsense, some hipster RPG nirvana where there's no strength for fighters and where some arcane stat might increase your chance of something awesome happening linked to your soul.

 

W.T.F?

 

 

 

Good to see Sawyer explaining stuff, er, somewhere else.

 

This answer is disingenuous, to say the least. How can you build the character you want to build if the underlying systems are too opaque? Just trust in Josh that everything will be awesome whatever you choose?

 

 

To elaborate and hopefully elucidate Sawyer's point:

 

This kind of complicated math analysis needs to be done at a design and balancing level. The reason for that is so the player doesn't have to. If the attributes are properly balanced, than the player can get all complicated if they want, or they can just go "look, this one says +% Damage, I'll put a few points there.... ooh, this one says +% Duration, I'd like a few there..." without having to worry about if they are screwing themselves over by picking the "wrong" stats. If you're not fond of the level of detail we've gone into on the mathematical interactions between the stats, that's totally fine. Not everyone will be. But just know that the whole point of going this in-depth at the design level is so the player doesn't have to.

 

EDIT: This guy explains what I'm trying to say pretty well.

 

Edited September 14, 2014 by Matt516

[Monte Carlo]

I've played the beta and looked at the stats. I think I'm halfway there, but tbh I'm struggling to understand the synergies behind the stats. Does a high int fighter perform better than a high might one? If so, how? And why?

 

'Gamism' for me seems to be about sacrificing verisimilitude in favour of maths. Nothing I've seen dissuades me from atm. I've spent thirty-odd years playing games with stats that boost fairly easy-to-understand metrics (STR = damage, DEX = agility and defence and so on) to... this.

 

Add in deflection and interrupts and grazes and stamina and I'm quite simply baffled. Then there are these predefined character roles (heavy-hitter, support, crowd control). How do I build a light fighter? How do I build a tank with an emphasis on soaking-up damage? How...

 

I need to have at least an understanding of the numbers and systems. And rather than a transparent and elegant system, we have this abortion only Rainman and a few of you guys understand. Srsly.

 

Now I'm being patient. Lots of other RPG fans, otoh, are going to take one look at this, marry it with the fact that the combat system isn't much fun, and walk away. That troubles me. I'm prepared to take the brickbats and sneering, but my point has validity.

 

It's too confusing and it's not fun.

 

Edit - I don't mean Matt and 'Sukis work, I mean the overall design as is.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Monte Carlo

[Sensuki]

Percentages are probably throwing you out. Integers are easier to grasp.

 

+1 Damage - very easy to grasp

 

2% - not so easy

 

That's why most games either go with integer damage and integer or percentile armor - as that's much easier to understand.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Sensuki

[Seari]

It's p. simple IMO, you just need to get used to it.

 

It's not so much about all stats having the same weight for every class, but every stat doing something for every class. Basically having viable alternatives.

[BlueLion]

I'm hoping when all this is said and done someone creates a nice tutorial to explain everything in its basic form. Otherwise, I may be so overwhelmed with stats I won't even be able to select my characters attributes for the volume of permeatations.

[Matt516]

I've played the beta and looked at the stats. I think I'm halfway there, but tbh I'm struggling to understand the synergies behind the stats. Does a high int fighter perform better than a high might one? If so, how? And why?

 

'Gamism' for me seems to be about sacrificing verisimilitude in favour of maths. Nothing I've seen dissuades me from atm. I've spent thirty-odd years playing games with stats that boost fairly easy-to-understand metrics (STR = damage, DEX = agility and defence and so on) to... this.

 

Add in deflection and interrupts and grazes and stamina and I'm quite simply baffled. Then there are these predefined character roles (heavy-hitter, support, crowd control). How do I build a light fighter? How do I build a tank with an emphasis on soaking-up damage? How...

 

I'm a little confused by what's so confusing about the current or suggested systems - could you elaborate on what in particular is confusing for you?

 

Might makes all your damage and healing do 2% more per point,

Constitution gives you 2% more health per point,

Dexterity (will soon) give all your actions 2% more speed per point,

Intellect (just going with our suggested for now) makes all of your AoEs 5% bigger and all of your Durations 5% longer per point

Perception gives you +1 Accuracy per point (maybe Interrupt as well, TBA), 

Resolve gives you +1 Deflection (AKA physical defense) and makes you less likely to be interrupted per point.

 

The only mechanics that aren't clear are the Interrupt-related ones, which Sensuki and I acknowledged. The rest is even clearer than D&D, in my opinion - we're going from a somewhat unintuitive "bonus modifiers to various skills and checks for every 2 points in a stat" to a straightforward "every stat point does this exact thing" system. It's clearer, not more complicated, in my opinion.

 

But I'd love to help you understand it better if you're still confused - can you give more details on what aspects of the current system you find obtuse?

 

Also (this didn't fit anywhere else) re: your comment about whether a high Might or high Int fighter performs better: neither! They perform differently - that's the beauty of it. A high Might fighter will do more damage because Might increases your damage. A high Int fighter will have longer lasting knockdowns and such because Int augments your abilities. A high Con fighter will take more hits because Con increases your health. There is no "best" way to build your fighter - that's the whole point of this system. You look at the stats and build a character specialized to your own personal tastes and desired playstyle.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Matt516

[Matt516]

I'd encourage everyone who's finding the complexity of the math in our paper troubling not to worry - as Josh mentioned in the screenshot that's been posted a few times, this kind of analysis only needs to be done by the designers. The reason the designers do this analysis is so when you're creating your character, you can do it by "feel" if you want and you won't accidentally screw up due to some attributes being much stronger than others.

 

Don't be discouraged by the complicated analysis Sensuki and I performed - even the simplest systems can be analyzed to death, and people like me who love analysis will do it if you turn them loose. If analysis isn't your thing though, don't worry about it. Badly designed systems require the players to have an intimate knowledge of the maths in order to make a proper build. Well designed systems that have been analyzed and properly balanced in advance don't. We're doing the analysis so you won't have to.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Matt516

[PrimeJunta]

@MC ...

 

I don't get it.

 

This system is much more straightforward than any DnD edition. If you did a similar analysis of the AD&D or DnD3 attribute and combat systems, you'd get something that's every bit as intricate, probably more so. What exactly do you find hard to understand about it?