Game Attributes - A Science Project

[Anaeme]

Understanding how the game attributes interact with each other is more of a science project in POE than it should be. This has the cummulative effect of making the game less accessible to folks who arre not number crunchers or D&D veterans.

 

 

People enter combat and you cannot fathom what is affecting what.

 

1. Why is it that if I increase Might my damage (DPS) is not noticeably increased?
2. If I focus on Con I do not seem to be surviving better?

 

At a very fundamental level increasing primary attributes should have a clear impact on gameplay instead of being lost under the influence of other stats.

 

The primary attributes for each archetype should be clear and impactful. Increasing secondary stats should serve to add flavor to the character such as a 'charismatic fighter'

 

 

My experience has been that when you build a fighter and emphasize Might Dex and Con....you do not get  a tank. This is wrong. There is something off about such an outcome that needs to be addressed

 

 

 

Does anyone else have this same experience?

Edited September 28, 2014 by Anaeme

[Sensuki]

It only feels like a science project because they're using Percentages and very poorly showcasing what the percentages give on the UI.

 

What would help is if they displayed the combat stats for a character in the attribute screen during character creation so you'd know what they do when you raise them.

[Anaeme]

I hope they work to address the problem because the way the stats interact is not intuitive for any given archetype

[Kjaamor]

It is fascinating how many gold backers seem at odds with infinity engine concepts. I'm increasingly left feeling that maybe they should have a greater definition on the project and maybe I should go back to playing rpgs in Excel.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I know I find it confusing which is why I basically ignore everyone's arguments and opinions on attributes. What might be good on paper doesn't seem to be the same in the game, in my experience anyway. I honestly believe there is no system that can get rid of dump stats. So I min-max characters, dump certain attributes which some people on this forum would claim to be not dump stats, to see what effect this has in game and the results are startling to say the least. I have no maths to back this up, just combat log feedback to see that a character is hitting, at times critting, and fights become shorter. Then I update my spreadsheet with this character's class, race, background, attributes, skills and powers with some notes with what works and what becomes essential for this character.

[Azrael Ultima]

The primary attributes for each archetype should be clear and impactful. Increasing secondary stats should serve to add flavor to the character such as a 'charismatic fighter'

I think your issue here is that you expected a different design philosophy, not that there is anything wrong with the attributes.

 

There are no primary/secondary attributes in this system by design, at least not in the way you seem to understand them.

 

 

Your points 1. and 2. are mostly due to tuning, not any inherent problems with the system. You're not going to notice a 2% difference much. This isn't lost due to the influence of other stats, though, as they have similarly low impact.

 

The math for most of it is pretty easy as well. Might and Dex provide simple multipliers. The only complicated part is the Accuracy table, as the benefit is non-linear and dependent on your target.

My experience has been that when you build a fighter and emphasize Might Dex and Con....you do not get a tank. This is wrong. There is something off about such an outcome that needs to be addressed

There's no mechanical problem here. Only game reality not matching your expecations. Whether that needs addressing is a matter of opinion.

[Rumsteak]

Understanding how the game attributes interact with each other is more of a science project in POE than it should be. This has the cummulative effect of making the game less accessible to folks who arre not number crunchers or D&D veterans.

 

Agreed.

 

My experience has been that when you build a fighter and emphasize Might Dex and Con....you do not get  a tank. This is wrong. There is something off about such an outcome that needs to be addressed

 

Agreed.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

My experience has been that when you build a fighter and emphasize Might Dex and Con....you do not get  a tank. This is wrong. There is something off about such an outcome that needs to be addressed

Try pumping Int and Con, that will give you better deflection and Health.

[Captain Shrek]

May be some musing on what the attributes OUGHT to represent will help the issue along. 

 

Attributes are basically defining aspects of the character. At least in most RPGs I played PnP and cRPGs  had this in common. This is in no way to say that this is all attributes do. But still a good game will have BOTH a meaningful (as in an understandable) and a unbroken implementation of attributes.

 

The first one is to mean that if there is an attribute called Intelligence, it should be effing tied to traits / abilities that one associates with being intelligent. 

 

The second one means that no single attribute should overwhelmingly be good / bad for ALL classes. 

 

As long as these two conditions are met I believe the implementation is reasonably good. The rest is up to what you allow players to do with the mechanics. 

 

 

One can argue that within the "gamism" paradigm the attributes need not really define anything concrete and they just need to be some excle sheet modifiers. This a valid design, sure. But a lazy and incompetent one. Taking this argument to the extreme why even play as humaniform creatures or even have meaningful graphical representations? Just play excel sheets! 

 

A good designer is always trying to TIE in the utility and the realism (in the sense being used here in the post) together to create a game. 

 

*** Something I posted in another thread, but makes equal sense here. 

[Matt516]

Just wanted to point out that though in game testing is certainly valuable, there no substitute for the raw math when it comes to determining attribute balance (at least when talking about simple things like who does more DPS). The reasons I say this are three: Many of the variations in DPS due to attributes are very small. Additionally, testing in-game has the unfortunate side effect of falling prey to the very small sample size issue. Any difference in DPS is likely to be overshadowed by the inherent randomness of the damage rolls working itself out in the fairly isolated case of a single battle. Lastly, it's very difficult to control for everything when doing in game testing (or at least many people don't seem to be doing so). Race, class, abilities, modals, armor, enemy deflection, enemy DT, weapons - will all affect DPS in addition to attributes. So if desiring to compare (for example) the impact of Might vs Perception on DPS, in game testing is really only valuable if all the other factors mentioned are accounted for, either by holding them constant or varying them intentionally (as with Deflection).

 

In any case - not wanting to knock in game testing. It's extremely important for determining the "feel" of things, and after all - this is a game. If it isn't fun it isn't much good. And I understand that many (most?) people don't really care to go deep in depth with the maths. That's fine. Just wanted to point out that as valuable as in game testing is for pretty much everything, it's not the absolute best tool for weighing balance. Just too many variables and too much variation (not to mention confirmation bias). It's like when people in XCOM think the RNG is cheating them when it really isn't - humans are inherently bad at thinking about statistical things in a subjective way.

 

Anyway - cheers all. In game testing is great, so don't anyone take this post as me condemning it. Just.. please don't make balance statements based on anecdotal evidence alone. It's just inherently less accurate than going straight to how the game calculates everything.

 

PS - All that said, it's always possible things could be bugged. Ie what the math on the game mechanics says might not match up with reality due to a bug. Luckily though, the combat log can sort these out as its fairly easy to spot errors in damage calculation there.

[Matt516]

 

My experience has been that when you build a fighter and emphasize Might Dex and Con....you do not get a tank. This is wrong. There is something off about such an outcome that needs to be addressed

Try pumping Int and Con, that will give you better deflection and Health.

Yeah - although that would've been true in D&D, this attribute system is a bit different. It's not wrong persay, just different - unless you define wrong as anything that's not the same as it was in D&D, which is a view that I can understand but certainly don't agree with. In this attribute system, Con and Int are what make you more survivable. Personally I would've argued for Deflection on Resolve instead, but the current system is what they decided to go with for this iteration.

[Karkarov]

 

 

My experience has been that when you build a fighter and emphasize Might Dex and Con....you do not get a tank. This is wrong. There is something off about such an outcome that needs to be addressed

Try pumping Int and Con, that will give you better deflection and Health.

Yeah - although that would've been true in D&D, this attribute system is a bit different. It's not wrong persay, just different - unless you define wrong as anything that's not the same as it was in D&D, which is a view that I can understand but certainly don't agree with. In this attribute system, Con and Int are what make you more survivable. Personally I would've argued for Deflection on Resolve instead, but the current system is what they decided to go with for this iteration.

Here is the problem Matt...

 

The first one is to mean that if there is an attribute called Intelligence, it should be effing tied to traits / abilities that one associates with being intelligent. 

I am quoting this because it is a really really really good point.  Yes the stats need to be balanced to all be useful in some way and be fairly consistent in how powerful each stat is versus all the others.  Yes it is important each stat do "something" of value for all classes.

 

But it is absolutely critical your stats make logical sense.  A stat called "Dexterity" affecting action speed makes no sense, Manual Dexterity has very little to do with how fast you do things but more to do with how skilled you are when you do "hands on" activities... such as painting or assembling a model.  So this stat should not be called "Dexterity" it should be called "Agility or Speed".  Perception I can see effecting your accuracy at say shooting a rifle at someone 50 yards away... but standing three feet away from someone fighting them with an axe there is very little my Perception can do to make my attack more accurate.  I know if I hit him in the face with the Axe or in an armor join it will hurt more, I don't need to "Perceive" that.  However Manual Dexterity is your judge of how well you handle tools and of course... weapons, so it will have an effect on your ability to accurately handle a weapon regardless of what kind it is or range you are using it at, so why is accuracy no longer associated with it?

 

Perhaps the worst offender though is Intellect.  What does general knowledge and book smarts have to do with your Deflection rating exactly?  Deflection should come from one of two things.  1: You dodged the attack, which I would think makes more sense being paired with Perception (you sensed the attack so preemptively dodged) or Dexterity.  2: You blocked the attack, which makes far more sense paired with Might (you need physical strength to perform the block) or Resolve (your ability to stand firm and take the hit).  Nothing about Intelligence/intellect has anything to do with your ability to block or dodge an attack, AKA: Deflection.  Deflection makes zero sense being associated with it.

 

Case in point, I would no go to d'Artagnan if I wanted help with a rough trigonometry problem that was giving me a headache.  However, if I lunged at him with a rapier I would certainly expect him to easily parry my attack deflecting it like it was launched by a three year old girl scout.

 

When rules balancing becomes so important that logic is thrown out the window in regards to the stat system then maybe you have gone too far down the balancing rabbit hole.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Karkarov

[archangel979]

Intelligence is commonly described as solving problems on the fly. Understanding your enemy weakness is a part of Intelligence. This can be used both for offense and defense.

[archangel979]

Understanding how the game attributes interact with each other is more of a science project in POE than it should be. This has the cummulative effect of making the game less accessible to folks who arre not number crunchers or D&D veterans.

 

 

People enter combat and you cannot fathom what is affecting what.

• Why is it that if I increase Might my damage (DPS) is not noticeably increased?
• If I focus on Con I do not seem to be surviving better?

At a very fundamental level increasing primary attributes should have a clear impact on gameplay instead of being lost under the influence of other stats.

 

The primary attributes for each archetype should be clear and impactful. Increasing secondary stats should serve to add flavor to the character such as a 'charismatic fighter'

 

 

My experience has been that when you build a fighter and emphasize Might Dex and Con....you do not get  a tank. This is wrong. There is something off about such an outcome that needs to be addressed

 

 

 

Does anyone else have this same experience?

 

While I agree with your that attributes should be foremost logical and more important, I don't agree with your about the D&D statement. Currently the game does not share much with D&D except for a general skeleton. Understanding D&D does not help you much at understanding PoE systems.

[Karkarov]

Intelligence is commonly described as solving problems on the fly. Understanding your enemy weakness is a part of Intelligence. This can be used both for offense and defense.

If this were a sci fi game and I were gaining a defense bonus because my high Intelligence let me mod my armor for superior shield output I would be down with that.  But I don't care how smart you are, you aren't going to eke one ounce more defense out of full plate than a guy of average intellect wearing the same armor.  Likewise I don't need a doctorate to know things like "a piercing attack from say a spear will be more effective on chain mail than a sword or club".  That isn't intelligence... it's common sense and a basic understanding of the laws of physics.

[Matt516]

The role playing concerns you express are certainly valid, though not universal. I personally have no problem with the idea that a more intelligent fighter is better able to deflect attacks against them. It makes perfect sense to me. I'm not saying that you are wrong, just that there is a valid case to be made the other way and that it's not a given that Deflection does not make sense on Intellect.

[Captain Shrek]

Intelligence is commonly described as solving problems on the fly. Understanding your enemy weakness is a part of Intelligence. This can be used both for offense and defense.

 

 

Really? Then PhDs in physics must be terribly good swordfighters.

[Azrael Ultima]

 

Intelligence is commonly described as solving problems on the fly. Understanding your enemy weakness is a part of Intelligence. This can be used both for offense and defense.

Really? Then PhDs in physics must be terribly good swordfighters.

 

Compared to an equally trained person with the intelligence of a beanstalk, they probably are.

 

Deflection is not based on intelligence alone.

[Captain Shrek]

Aren't you over justifying this attribute system a bit?

[Azrael Ultima]

Mostly just pointing out the poor logic in your post.

[archangel979]

 

Intelligence is commonly described as solving problems on the fly. Understanding your enemy weakness is a part of Intelligence. This can be used both for offense and defense.

 

 

Really? Then PhDs in physics must be terribly good swordfighters.

 

As Azrael Ultima said. Put two people of same skill to face each other and the more intelligent one is going to win every day of the week.

If you watched Game of Thrones, Bronn duel to save Tyrion is pure intelligence win.

[Captain Shrek]

That definitely makes it real. You convinced me mate.

[Fiebras]

It only feels like a science project because they're using Percentages and very poorly showcasing what the percentages give on the UI.

 

What would help is if they displayed the combat stats for a character in the attribute screen during character creation so you'd know what they do when you raise them.

 

Complerely agree. Character creation should have a retractable (NOT TAB-ABLE) panel that allows you to see how the atributes are affecting your stats. It would seriously help understand the system better for new players and see how much bang you are getting for your buck.

[Karkarov]

 

 

Intelligence is commonly described as solving problems on the fly. Understanding your enemy weakness is a part of Intelligence. This can be used both for offense and defense.

 

Really? Then PhDs in physics must be terribly good swordfighters.

As Azrael Ultima said. Put two people of same skill to face each other and the more intelligent one is going to win every day of the week.

If you watched Game of Thrones, Bronn duel to save Tyrion is pure intelligence win.

Yeah and that's why the Mountain won his duel and was the most feared fighter in the entire kindgom, cause he is such a genius.

[Matt516]

 

 

 

Intelligence is commonly described as solving problems on the fly. Understanding your enemy weakness is a part of Intelligence. This can be used both for offense and defense.

 

Really? Then PhDs in physics must be terribly good swordfighters.

As Azrael Ultima said. Put two people of same skill to face each other and the more intelligent one is going to win every day of the week.

If you watched Game of Thrones, Bronn duel to save Tyrion is pure intelligence win.

Yeah and that's why the Mountain won his duel and was the most feared fighter in the entire kindgom, cause he is such a genius.

 

 

(GoT spoilers)

Well he actually would've completely lost if it weren't for Oberyn's arrogance,

so that's really not a very good example. Besides, the argument isn't about if Int should make you win in a fight, it's if it should make it harder to land hits on you. With that criterion, your example serves the other side as

Oberyn was nothing if not impossible for Gregor to hit (until he went and got hisself killed by not finishing things when he should have.

 

Edited September 30, 2014 by Matt516