What is min-max ?

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

I know... "noob"

 

But please explain i didn't get it even with wiki

[Yenkaz]

Completely minimizing attributes that you find to be useless or less useful and investing everything into the ones you find useful. A build with all attributes either being 18-20 or 3 would be an example.

[Crusty]

I know... "noob"

 

But please explain i didn't get it even with wiki

 

Refers to the practice of minimising un-needed stats while maximumising desired stats in order to optimise effectiveness of a character.

 

As far as video games like PoE goes, it means creating characters with lopsided Attributes in a way that maximises their potential strengths in their designated party role.

[Guest BugsVendor]

I know... "noob"

 

But please explain i didn't get it even with wiki

 

Creating unrealistic characters that have only the stats that you want. So if you make a warrior you would give him 20 condition and 20 strength and 3 intelligence. Such a person does not make any sense in role playing kinda sense but all you care for is stats for fighting and other mechanics.

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

Completely minimizing attributes that you find to be useless or less useful and investing everything into the ones you find useful. A build with all attributes either being 18-20 or 3 would be an example.

 

OK thanks, but that's nearly impossible on PoE since the attributes are almost all important for each class ?

 

I'll take the example of BG, you make a berserk, you can min INT, WIS, and CHA and max the reste.

 

You do a fighter in PoE : what can you minimize ? INT ? OK but what else ?

[mammasaura]

optimizing the stats in order to overperforming your class, mostly regardless the roleplaying.

[Caerdon]

Min-maxing is about recognizing what gives you the most bang for the buck and maximizing that at the expense of everything else. The idea is not to create characters that are good at everything, but characters that are the absolute best at the most important thing.

 

TV Tropes actually puts it quite nicely: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MinMaxing

[jackjack]

It's a sickness.

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

It's a sickness.

 

Well i'm sick then

[Gorgon]

This is why I dislike point buy. The stats on one character doesn't matter that much anyway so they might as well have given more freedom for main character creation. This is your main guy, you are supposed to care about other things except how effective he will be in combat.

 

A 'roll' function with adjustments like PST or instance. 

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

This is why I dislike point buy. The stats on one character doesn't matter that much anyway so they might as well have given more freedom for main character creation. This is your main guy, you are supposed to care about other things except how effective he will be in combat.

 

A 'roll' function with adjustments like PST or instance. 

 

In this type of games, i just care about mechanics.

 

The rest is story and lore (and i like it but i won't create a looser to make him RP)

[Guest BugsVendor]

 

This is why I dislike point buy. The stats on one character doesn't matter that much anyway so they might as well have given more freedom for main character creation. This is your main guy, you are supposed to care about other things except how effective he will be in combat.

 

A 'roll' function with adjustments like PST or instance. 

 

In this type of games, i just care about mechanics.

 

The rest is story and lore (and i like it but i won't create a looser to make him RP)

 

 

You have already contracted the sickness. Please lock yourself in your home and don't leave until you change your mind. Thanks you.

[Gorgon]

It wouldn't matter if you had a roll system like torment. Have your cake and eat it too. Why not. It's your main character. I proudly cheated the stats on my guy so I could have a dispersal that would not otherwise be advisable as it would starve main stats. 

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

 

 

This is why I dislike point buy. The stats on one character doesn't matter that much anyway so they might as well have given more freedom for main character creation. This is your main guy, you are supposed to care about other things except how effective he will be in combat.

 

A 'roll' function with adjustments like PST or instance. 

 

In this type of games, i just care about mechanics.

 

The rest is story and lore (and i like it but i won't create a looser to make him RP)

 

 

You have already contracted the sickness. Please lock yourself in your home and don't leave until you change your mind. Thanks you.

 

 

I had that sickness looooong ago... I just went to a doctor who told me the name of my disease

 

Actually, i think i can't cure it : i'm a min-max character IRL

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

It wouldn't matter if you had a roll system like torment. Have your cake and eat it too. Why not. It's your main character. I proudly cheated the stats on my guy so I could have a dispersal that would not otherwise be advisable as it would starve main stats. 

 

You got the cheating disease

[Gorgon]

You are making 1 party member out of 6 perhaps 10-20 % better. It really won't matter much. 

[DocDoomII]

Well to be fair, roleplaying a warrior with 6 might wouldn't be that fun.

 

Since you are at it, at lest give him good stats.

Edited April 5, 2015 by DocDoomII

[Yenkaz]

Sure a low int character makes sense. Let's make it 3-5.

 

You're a severely brain damaged person barely able to do what is required of you to live. At about 5 you could pass for someone with severely impairing autism or Down's syndrome. When you talk, you're actually making nondescript moans or speaking in an extremely childish way. Your companions are interpreting everything other NPC's say to you in the most simple language they can manage and then convey your responses best as they can.

 

Nobody knows why these honorable and/or powerful people follow you. Maybe it's because they see a childish goodness in you. Maybe your naivety means they have an excuse to do the terrible things you ask of them. Maybe, they use you as a figurehead to represent their real goals as they manipulate you to 'lead' them, using your watcher gift, yet ready to dispose of you should they need a scapegoat. In any case, the dialog you see in the game is simply a reinterpretation of what your mentally impaired main character really sees and hears.

 

A low might warrior is basically just someone with no affinity for feats of strength, yet no other particular skills (not a strong believer or interested in arcane lore). You only get a -12% on damage and can make somewhat up for it with talents. People follow you not because you do much in combat, but because you make up for it with a keen mind and strength of character. They can handle the worst of the combat for you, you are there to lead them when making decisions and dealing with the politics of this world.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Yenkaz

[varangy]

Well to be fair, roleplaying a warrior with 6 might wouldn't be that fun.

 

Since you are at it, at lest give him good stats.

You wouldnt roleplay a warrior with 6 might, because that means our guy has very little strength. A guy with low strength wouldnt be a warrior.

 

Roleplaying is not about having **** characters, but rather having characters *you* believe could exist in that particular world.

[Luckmann]

 

Completely minimizing attributes that you find to be useless or less useful and investing everything into the ones you find useful. A build with all attributes either being 18-20 or 3 would be an example.

 

OK thanks, but that's nearly impossible on PoE since the attributes are almost all important for each class ?

 

I'll take the example of BG, you make a berserk, you can min INT, WIS, and CHA and max the reste.

 

You do a fighter in PoE : what can you minimize ? INT ? OK but what else ?

 

Actually, no, PoE rewards min/maxing considerably. There's essentially two relevant builds; Tank or DPS.

 

Tanks want Resolve and Perception.

 

Everyone else wants Might, Dexterity and Intellect.

 

Yes, the Attributes are generalized, and gives equal effect regardless of class, but to most, it's not viable to build them as a tank to begin with, so you can immediately discount Perception, Resolve and Constitution.

 

So for your question, as a Fighter, the question becomes; what do you want to do?

 

If you want to optimize for tanking, dump Might and Dexterity, pump Resolve and Perception, wear heavy armour and a big shield. Weapon doesn't matter, you won't be doing damage, but go with a Sabre anyway. Anything left over goes into Intellect because it increases durations.

 

You want to do damage? Dump Resolve and Perception, pump Might and Dexterity. Wear Cloth and wield an Estoc. Put any leftover points into Intellect because it increases durations.

 

Done.

 

PoE has some good ideals to build upon, but balanced, it is not. When people complained about the terrible Attributes of the Companions because the Attribute bonuses are lopsided (Perception is useless for Alott, a Wizard, for example) the response was to change the companions to "better" Attributes, betraying that they know that the Attributes are heavily min/max-able, and not at all "equally good" for classes based on concept, and that they are willing to compromise character themes, the mechanical/narrative interaction of the game, but never the address the Attribute issues themselves.

 

Hopefully it's going to be something they'll address at some point in the future, probably not until a sequel, but I wouldn't hold my breath. At one point they were also talking about slowly doing away with the "Combat Only" issue with abilities, but last patch, they actually added that limitation to more abilities, not fewer, so, eh, not sure what to expect in the future. They're all over the board at this point.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Luckmann

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

 

 

Completely minimizing attributes that you find to be useless or less useful and investing everything into the ones you find useful. A build with all attributes either being 18-20 or 3 would be an example.

 

OK thanks, but that's nearly impossible on PoE since the attributes are almost all important for each class ?

 

I'll take the example of BG, you make a berserk, you can min INT, WIS, and CHA and max the reste.

 

You do a fighter in PoE : what can you minimize ? INT ? OK but what else ?

 

Actually, no, PoE rewards min/maxing considerably. There's essentially two relevant builds; Tank or DPS.

 

Tanks want Resolve and Perception.

 

Everyone else wants Might, Dexterity and Intellect.

 

Yes, the Attributes are generalized, and gives equal effect regardless of class, but to most, it's not viable to build them as a tank to begin with, so you can immediately discount Perception, Resolve and Constitution.

 

So for your question, as a Fighter, the question becomes; what do you want to do?

 

If you want to optimize for tanking, dump Might and Dexterity, pump Resolve and Perception, wear heavy armour and a big shield. Weapon doesn't matter, you won't be doing damage, but go with a Sabre anyway. Anything left over goes into Intellect because it increases durations.

 

You want to do damage? Dump Resolve and Perception, pump Might and Dexterity. Wear Cloth and wield an Estoc. Put any leftover points into Intellect because it increases durations.

 

Done.

 

PoE has some good ideals to build upon, but balanced, it is not. When people complained about the terrible Attributes of the Companions because the Attribute bonuses are lopsided (Perception is useless for Alott, a Wizard, for example) the response was to change the companions to "better" Attributes, betraying that they know that the Attributes are heavily min/max-able, and not at all "equally good" for classes based on concept, and that they are willing to compromise character themes, the mechanical/narrative interaction of the game, but never the address the Attribute issues themselves.

 

Hopefully it's going to be something they'll address at some point in the future, probably not until a sequel, but I wouldn't hold my breath. At one point they were also talking about slowly doing away with the "Combat Only" issue with abilities, but last patch, they actually added that limitation to more abilities, not fewer, so, eh, not sure what to expect in the future. They're all over the board at this point.

 

 

Thank you i understand better. BG was far more easy to min-max i think. But here, all the stats are essentials to make a good "class" character.

 

A fighter with low damages makes no sense, as well as a fighter with no deflection.

 

You gotta choose well what you're ready to loose when creating a character and all are importants things (except INT for fighters or PER for wizard, stuffs like theses).

 

 

Personnally i think it's good. The ultimate ultimate warrior is impossible to do which leads to make sacrifices.

[Yenkaz]

Also, if you like having companions with actual personality along, you'll only have your main character making most of the decisions.

 

I don't know about you, but I like at least having decent INT and PER for dialog options at least. If you want your character to be able to force your will upon others, you'll also want RES or MIG.

 

The only universal dump stat seems to be CON.. It simply doesn't mean much when +Endurance equipment is plentiful and it adds very little actual endurance. PER and DEX helps you not getting hit in the first place. Besides, I rest mostly when I run out of spells, not when health is low.

 

That said, I simply can't make myself leave any stat below 8.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Yenkaz

[dirigible]

This is why I dislike point buy. The stats on one character doesn't matter that much anyway so they might as well have given more freedom for main character creation. This is your main guy, you are supposed to care about other things except how effective he will be in combat.

 

A 'roll' function with adjustments like PST or instance. 

 

Rolling and rerolling and re-rerolling was the worst part of Baldur's Gate character creation.

I'd rather have a system where your stats are built up from your character creation choices.

 

EG: Amaua starts with 8 con, 8 might, 5 dex, 6 per, 7 int, 8 resolve

Coastal gives you +3 con, +3 might, +3 dex, +1 per, +1 int, +1 resolve

Ranger gives you +1 con, +2 might, +5 dex, +4 per

Wolf Companion gives you +2 might, +2 per, +2 int

and then you have 6 points to put wherever you want

[PrimeJunta]

I'd rather not have attributes at all.

[Luckmann]

 

 

 

Completely minimizing attributes that you find to be useless or less useful and investing everything into the ones you find useful. A build with all attributes either being 18-20 or 3 would be an example.

 

OK thanks, but that's nearly impossible on PoE since the attributes are almost all important for each class ?

 

I'll take the example of BG, you make a berserk, you can min INT, WIS, and CHA and max the reste.

 

You do a fighter in PoE : what can you minimize ? INT ? OK but what else ?

 

Actually, no, PoE rewards min/maxing considerably. There's essentially two relevant builds; Tank or DPS.

 

Tanks want Resolve and Perception.

 

Everyone else wants Might, Dexterity and Intellect.

 

Yes, the Attributes are generalized, and gives equal effect regardless of class, but to most, it's not viable to build them as a tank to begin with, so you can immediately discount Perception, Resolve and Constitution.

 

So for your question, as a Fighter, the question becomes; what do you want to do?

 

If you want to optimize for tanking, dump Might and Dexterity, pump Resolve and Perception, wear heavy armour and a big shield. Weapon doesn't matter, you won't be doing damage, but go with a Sabre anyway. Anything left over goes into Intellect because it increases durations.

 

You want to do damage? Dump Resolve and Perception, pump Might and Dexterity. Wear Cloth and wield an Estoc. Put any leftover points into Intellect because it increases durations.

 

Done.

 

PoE has some good ideals to build upon, but balanced, it is not. When people complained about the terrible Attributes of the Companions because the Attribute bonuses are lopsided (Perception is useless for Alott, a Wizard, for example) the response was to change the companions to "better" Attributes, betraying that they know that the Attributes are heavily min/max-able, and not at all "equally good" for classes based on concept, and that they are willing to compromise character themes, the mechanical/narrative interaction of the game, but never the address the Attribute issues themselves.

 

Hopefully it's going to be something they'll address at some point in the future, probably not until a sequel, but I wouldn't hold my breath. At one point they were also talking about slowly doing away with the "Combat Only" issue with abilities, but last patch, they actually added that limitation to more abilities, not fewer, so, eh, not sure what to expect in the future. They're all over the board at this point.

 

 

Thank you i understand better. BG was far more easy to min-max i think. But here, all the stats are essentials to make a good "class" character.

 

A fighter with low damages makes no sense, as well as a fighter with no deflection.

 

You gotta choose well what you're ready to loose when creating a character and all are importants things (except INT for fighters or PER for wizard, stuffs like theses).

 

 

Personnally i think it's good. The ultimate ultimate warrior is impossible to do which leads to make sacrifices.

 

 

Yes and no. In the IE games, min/maxing was easier, but at least the different classes were min/maxed in different ways, and min/maxing was largely unnecessary anyway - if you are min/maxing, you might as well roll the dice until you can just max, no?

 

PoE has the issue that instead of a number of classes being min/maxed in different ways, there's essentially only two builds - DPS and Tanks, and their builds (Attribute-wise) are the same. A DPS Fighter and a DPS Wizard that are being played optimally will have, if not identical (Fighters should not dump Con, since they may want to be melee, and lose more Endurance than a Wizard would) then at near-identical builds, Attributes-wise.

 

The idea of the system is great, I love the promise, the mix-and-match nature and the ideal that all attributes should apply equally regardless of character is excellent. The execution.. is questionable, and the fact that they know that it is yet refuses to acknowledge or fix it is ridiculous.

 

 

Also, if you like having companions with actual personality along, you'll only have your main character making most of the decisions.

 

I don't know about you, but I like at least having decent INT and PER for dialog options at least. If you want your character to be able to force your will upon others, you'll also want RES or MIG.

 

The only universal dump stat seems to be CON.. It simply doesn't mean much when +Endurance equipment is plentiful and it adds very little actual endurance. PER and DEX helps you not getting hit in the first place. Besides, I rest mostly when I run out of spells, not when health is low.

 

That said, I simply can't make myself leave any stat below 8.

 

Constitution is especially bad because it affects you so differently based on class. It is the only Attribute that does this, and deviates from the "same effect regardless of class" ideal that shaped the system. Constitution is bad for low-Endurance classes, because they gain very little from it compared to others, and high-Endurance classes that gain a lot from it simply  do not need it.