Is Might a Dump Stat? Is Perception THE DPS stat?

[Captain Shrek]

I just want to remind everyone that even in D&D which I presume what Josh is targetting in his post as the evul system with dumbp stats, no stat was actually useless to all chars. Clerics could have points in Dex and still reap benefits that came from them. Josh is just reinventing the wheel and calling is Turbo charged bike roller.

[GordonHalfman]

There's no reason a perceptive character has to be "bumbling", that's completely arbitrary. What if you want to make a frail but keen eyed old man who is slow as balls but still a dab hand with a rifle? Take per and dump dex. Your action speed will be slow but you will be accurate and from a longer range. There's nothing unreasonable about this.

 

In any case why single out perception for narrative consistency problems, when there are things like intellect boosting deflection and resolve boosting status effect durations for martial classes?

 

Both of which pale next to might influencing damage for both spells and firearms. Which has been like that since the beginning.

 

The "Sawyerist" approach to attribute balance has been the topic of discussion since the project started. There's pages of nerdrage about it on the codex. 

[Sensuki]

I think nipsen's issue is more with me (and possibly Matt) than anything else.

If you go back and find his first post on the thread with our paper, his first response is OMG SUPERFANS RUIN EVERYTHING. He hadn't even read our paper at that point.

He had come to a foregone conclusion, hahah!

Edited September 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[tdphys]

I just want to remind everyone that even in D&D which I presume what Josh is targetting in his post as the evul system with dumbp stats, no stat was actually useless to all chars. Clerics could have points in Dex and still reap benefits that came from them. Josh is just reinventing the wheel and calling is Turbo charged bike roller.

I'm pretty sure that making a high -int dump everything class in DnD except wizard makes an absolute useless Char.  In the modern DnD's (4e more then 5e)  if you don't pick the attributes designed and stated  in the manual that your class needs,  you can pretty much kiss your class features good bye.    Sure, you get some skill points you might not have been able to use before,  but you'd be absolutely neglecting the reason for picking the class in the first place.   I've seen people do this, and they spend months not hitting anything and being pretty much useless, even in a  pen-and-paper sense.  It's pretty painful,  they participate in Role-play and then zone-out in combat.   In a game... there's no role-play (there's narrative) and  a dead-end character like that is IMHO, it is something it's really important to avoid.   Also,  If obsidian  can be successful, by making attributes provide different , but successful game play avenues for all characters,  the re-play value of the game benefits immensely.   I think it looks like they'll succeed, along with help of beta testers who buy into this idea.   I don't even think the narrative will suffer. 

 

Edited September 30, 2014 by tdphys

[Captain Shrek]

 

I just want to remind everyone that even in D&D which I presume what Josh is targetting in his post as the evul system with dumbp stats, no stat was actually useless to all chars. Clerics could have points in Dex and still reap benefits that came from them. Josh is just reinventing the wheel and calling is Turbo charged bike roller.

I'm pretty sure that making a high -int dump everything class in DnD except wizard makes an absolute useless Char.  In the modern DnD's (4e more then 5e)  if you don't pick the attributes designed and stated  in the manual that your class needs,  you can pretty much kiss your class features good bye.    Sure, you get some skill points you might not have been able to use before,  but you'd be absolutely neglecting the reason for picking the class in the first place.   I've seen people do this, and they spend months not hitting anything and being pretty much useless, even in a  pen-and-paper sense.  It's pretty painful,  they participate in Role-play and then zone-out in combat.   In a game... there's no role-play (there's narrative) and  a dead-end character like that is IMHO, it is something it's really important to avoid.   Also,  If obsidian  can be successful, by making attributes provide different , but successful game play avenues for all characters,  the re-play value of the game benefits immensely.   I think it looks like they'll succeed, along with help of beta testers who buy into this idea.   I don't even think the narrative will suffer. 

 

 

I would like to remind you that the same will happen in POE. Just try and make a high int dump everything else in PoE and report back.

[tdphys]

 

 

I just want to remind everyone that even in D&D which I presume what Josh is targetting in his post as the evul system with dumbp stats, no stat was actually useless to all chars. Clerics could have points in Dex and still reap benefits that came from them. Josh is just reinventing the wheel and calling is Turbo charged bike roller.

I'm pretty sure that making a high -int dump everything class in DnD except wizard makes an absolute useless Char.  In the modern DnD's (4e more then 5e)  if you don't pick the attributes designed and stated  in the manual that your class needs,  you can pretty much kiss your class features good bye.    Sure, you get some skill points you might not have been able to use before,  but you'd be absolutely neglecting the reason for picking the class in the first place.   I've seen people do this, and they spend months not hitting anything and being pretty much useless, even in a  pen-and-paper sense.  It's pretty painful,  they participate in Role-play and then zone-out in combat.   In a game... there's no role-play (there's narrative) and  a dead-end character like that is IMHO, it is something it's really important to avoid.   Also,  If obsidian  can be successful, by making attributes provide different , but successful game play avenues for all characters,  the re-play value of the game benefits immensely.   I think it looks like they'll succeed, along with help of beta testers who buy into this idea.   I don't even think the narrative will suffer. 

 

 

I would like to remind you that the same will happen in POE. Just try and make a high int dump everything else in PoE and report back.

 

 

Ahh, my hyperbole catches me.   I should have said,  intelligence is a useless attribute to anybody but the wizard,  rather then propping up a sole-stat character.   And your arguments probably correct, the design process currently trying to optimize towards no stat is useless,  doesn't necessarily allow single pumped stat characters being useful.  I think by trying to not make attributes interdependent for mechanics might actually reach this, which would be fantastic,  but it's a harder design.   If the designers are truly successful,   It would be fun to see single pumped-stat runs for different classes,  requiring different type of game-play for each.

 

Half of most people's problem seems to be affecting the immersion/simulation desires, ie the game in their head rather than the one on the computer.   I'd offer that once the game starts to play, that'll emerge,  it's just people are married to their old imaginations, and resistant to the new

 

 

[Captain Shrek]

Well to be fair to D&D P&P every stat is useful as long as you have the right book to use it. A high int bard could potentially take the right feats locked by Int and become formidable warrior (as expertises are attached to it). Same for fighters, clerics and Paladins. With enough feats I wcould show that all stats provided means to NOT ONLY roleplay but also advantages in combat.

 

That is the crux of the matter isn't it?

 

PoE is trying to accomplish all of that with just the Core Attribute bonuses, all the while it should focusing on giving you content in the form of Talents bound to attributes and the proper content in game which uses those talents. The entire attribute balancing fiasco is also taking the game away from sensble storytelling into a purely excel sheet simulator.

 

It is indeed wrong to accuse D&D like systems for dump stats. There were none. There were min maxers and there was nothing wrong with that either.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So Nipsen, where did Sensuki touch you?

[Matt516]

D&D totally had dump stats.. Especially 2e, which is what the ie games used. Charisma was useless to Fighters, Rogues, and more... As was Intelligence. Non-fighter classes didn't benefit at all from raising Constitution above 14 (or 16, don't remember? ).

 

And yeah, they remedied that a bit in the later editions. But certain classes still have stats they're pretty much terrible without. INT for wizards. CHA (I think) for sorcs. STR for fighters. Etc. If it is possible to balance the attributes between classes purely based on the boni, not requiring talents to "rescue" a non-conventional build, isn't that a good thing?

Edited September 30, 2014 by Matt516

[tdphys]

Well to be fair to D&D P&P every stat is useful as long as you have the right book to use it. A high int bard could potentially take the right feats locked by Int and become formidable warrior (as expertises are attached to it). Same for fighters, clerics and Paladins. With enough feats I wcould show that all stats provided means to NOT ONLY roleplay but also advantages in combat.

 

That is the crux of the matter isn't it?

 

PoE is trying to accomplish all of that with just the Core Attribute bonuses, all the while it should focusing on giving you content in the form of Talents bound to attributes and the proper content in game which uses those talents. The entire attribute balancing fiasco is also taking the game away from sensble storytelling into a purely excel sheet simulator.

 

It is indeed wrong to accuse D&D like systems for dump stats. There were none. There were min maxers and there was nothing wrong with that either.

 

Yeah,  but the explosion of splat books to rescue trap builds isn't really available to POE devs who are trying to release a playable game.  That and the feat bloat of certain DnD editions is a holy war design decision itself.     

 

In terms of  computer games,  I'd almost be happier if attributes were separated into narrative ones and combat oriented ones.   You could min-max or balance combat ones and then have the narrative ones be driven by story-telling.  For example all the narrative options are available,  choosing one gives a dice roll and then pumps your narrative stat in that area.  You could run with narrative attributes like Intimidation,  Intuition,  Kindness,  Deceit,  Arrogance, Logic  etc...    kind of like the reputation system.

 

That way you'd be harnessing the computational power of your machine to enable better storytelling.  Physical challenges could stay related to combat attributes.      

 

DnD has to dump all of combat/physical/storytelling challenges into 6 stats, primarily for accounting purposes, with the rest being a roleplay-background mechanic which relies on imaginative game play.   Computer games are limited in computing imaginative game-play ( that's dependent on the player ) , but not in the accounting department.

Edited September 30, 2014 by tdphys

[Sensuki]

D&D totally had dump stats.. Especially 2e, which is what the ie games used. Charisma was useless to Fighters, Rogues, and more... As was Intelligence. Non-fighter classes didn't benefit at all from raising Constitution above 14 (or 16, don't remember? ).

Yeah 16 I think.

 

http://www.ancientscrossroads.com/adnd_tools/con_table.htm

Edited September 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[Captain Shrek]

D&D totally had dump stats.. Especially 2e, which is what the ie games used. Charisma was useless to Fighters, Rogues, and more... As was Intelligence. Non-fighter classes didn't benefit at all from raising Constitution above 14 (or 16, don't remember? ).

 

And yeah, they remedied that a bit in the later editions. But certain classes still have stats they're pretty much terrible without. INT for wizards. CHA (I think) for sorcs. STR for fighters. Etc. If it is possible to balance the attributes between classes purely based on the boni, not requiring talents to "rescue" a non-conventional build, isn't that a good thing?

 

Why is it a good thing? These games are called role playing for a reason. When the class wizard is practically defined by D&D as a group of people who study hard to gain knowledge of magic, why would they **** on their own logic? And funnily enough, it makes a certain kind of abstracted sense that is written into the game world. Intelligence is not some strictly defined trait in D&D. It encompasses a lot of aspects built around the general idea of memorization and correlation.

 

EDIT: And concerning 2.e yeah, it was not the best of gaming designs out there. Which is why most of us play 3.5 / Pathfinder. 3.5 practically did what I was saying to the attribute system: They rescued it with content. Which is the right way of dealing with things. Cutting / merging  content is what is practiced by Bathesda.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Captain Shrek

[Gfted1]

Lets direct responses to the posts and not the posters, please.

[Azrael Ultima]

Why is it a good thing? These games are called role playing for a reason. When the class wizard is practically defined by D&D as a group of people who study hard to gain knowledge of magic, why would they **** on their own logic?

You don't necessarily have to be intelligent to study. Besides, yes, it's called role playing for a reason... that reason being that people play roles.

Idiot wizard is still a role.

CHA (I think) for sorcs.

Yeah, it's CHA, though i never quite understood why. For somebody who relies mostly on intuition, i'd have expected INT or at least WIS.

 

Makes sense for Paladins and Bards, though.

[Lephys]

I think nipsen's issue is more with me (and possibly Matt) than anything else.

 

If you go back and find his first post on the thread with our paper, his first response is OMG SUPERFANS RUIN EVERYTHING. He hadn't even read our paper at that point.

 

He had come to a foregone conclusion, hahah!

I agree, at this point. He also seems to think that Team Eternity are sitting around in their offices, picking their noses, until someone comes along and makes a big enough deal about something on the forums. THEN, they spring into action, implementing whatever it is that "loud" forumites wanted, without even evaluating it with their own brains, or comparing it to anything they've been thinking of (because they've just been sitting around picking their noses, of course).

[Lephys]

Why is it a good thing? These games are called role playing for a reason. When the class wizard is practically defined by D&D as a group of people who study hard to gain knowledge of magic, why would they **** on their own logic? And funnily enough, it makes a certain kind of abstracted sense that is written into the game world. Intelligence is not some strictly defined trait in D&D. It encompasses a lot of aspects built around the general idea of memorization and correlation.

So... you're all about some role-playing value, but you think all Wizards, for example, should all be geniuses? You don't find RP value or interest in that one guy who's strangely good with magic, but isn't a super genius, resulting in his lack of complete ability to control stuff? Isn't that kind of the basis between Wild Mages and regular Mages? Is that not an interesting dynamic? "Hey, I can intuitively USE magic just fine, but other people who can very quickly crunch all this information and recall it all perfectly and read tomes and tomes and tomes in a week can go about magic DIFFERENTLY than I can. I can't do things they can, and they can't do things quite like I can, but we both still use magic."

 

How is that bad? Was making a Gnome Fighter a terrible thing? Obviously, Fighters need to be huge and burly, so Gnomes just shouldn't even be allowed to be Fighters, right?

 

I think that's kind of the epitome of roleplaying. The fact that you can make a 7-foot-5 Rogue, and have him take on being stealthy differently than someone who's inherently "optimized" for the task. The fact that you can have a pretty-ripped Wizard, who catches people off-guard when he handles a concealed weapon with surprising proficiency, because they expected him to be incompetent when it comes to physical capabilities.

 

Etc.

 

If everything's so constraining that everyone must fit a rigid cookie-cutter, what's the point? Role-playing is about what you can do in a given role, as opposed to what someone else can do in that role. That's why MMO's suck so badly now: your options to differentiate your given character from any other of the same class are ridiculously minimal. "Do you want bonuses to ice magic damage, or bonuses to fire magic damage? YAY! You're totally unique, because you and a million other mages can all pick from one of THREE distinct options! 8D!"

 

Roleplaying is a tango between similarities and differences. Not a guidance counselor who says "You've got big muscles and aren't a genius? You're gonna be a Fighter."

[Azrael Ultima]

Roleplaying is a tango between similarities and differences. Not a guidance counselor who says "You've got big muscles and aren't a genius? You're gonna be a Fighter."

I think roleplaying should be the guidance counselor who encourages the somewhat dim but muscular guy with the inherited spellbook to follow his dreams... preferably far away maybe abroad, on a great journey to find himself and wreak havoc on enemy cities.*cough*

[nipsen]

 

Roleplaying is a tango between similarities and differences. Not a guidance counselor who says "You've got big muscles and aren't a genius? You're gonna be a Fighter."

I think roleplaying should be the guidance counselor who encourages the somewhat dim but muscular guy with the inherited spellbook to follow his dreams... preferably far away maybe abroad, on a great journey to find himself and wreak havoc on enemy cities.*cough*

 

Are you absolutely sure that's not too vague? I mean, he could be making a big mistake if he doesn't grow up to be a body-builder, which clearly nature has chosen him to be without fail. I mean, really, the entire trick is about making it appear as if you have a choice - not actually giving it to you! Because that would be dangerous. Even in a game, it would be dangerous. People could start to get ideas about things, and we obviously don't want that!

 

Now excuse me, I have some heathens to brand back in 1340. See you later.

[Matt516]

^ wat.

[nipsen]

Imagination is a malady that at least you don't suffer from. Good for you!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

^ wat.

Nipsen has finally snapped. His frail sanity was bombarded with a savage assault by Sensuki and facts, till it finally broke under the pressure of pulling increasingly strange walls of text from his ass. Soon, he will be hauled off to the farm, where he will spend his days talking to LoF about Communism.

[nipsen]

 

^ wat.

Nipsen has finally snapped. His frail sanity was bombarded with a savage assault by Sensuki and facts, till it finally broke under the pressure of pulling increasingly strange walls of text from his ass. Soon, he will be hauled off to the farm, where he will spend his days talking to LoF about Communism.

 

Outside of that - you did go from d&d role-playing, to guidance councilors, then warriors in foreign lands, to fate and then finally to communism (with capital "c"). In less than 5 posts. Without my help. Just saying.

 

Good signature, by the way. 

[Sensuki]

did you actually send a refund request to Obsidian support nipsen?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

 

 

^ wat.

Nipsen has finally snapped. His frail sanity was bombarded with a savage assault by Sensuki and facts, till it finally broke under the pressure of pulling increasingly strange walls of text from his ass. Soon, he will be hauled off to the farm, where he will spend his days talking to LoF about Communism.

Outside of that - you did go from d&d role-playing, to guidance councilors, then warriors in foreign lands, to fate and then finally to communism (with capital "c"). In less than 5 posts. Without my help. Just saying.

 

Good signature, by the way.

[nipsen]

did you actually send a refund request to Obsidian support nipsen?

No. I asked them to cancel the order. Obsidian can have the money for nothing, or donate it somewhere.