Attributes dumping

[Roda]

What do you think about the fact that you can dump 1 or 2 attributes to 3 and completly ignore them without killing disadvantages making a character with other attributes outstanding and sometimes making a game breaking char (18-20 its an example)?

 

Looking opinions.

[KDubya]

I only see the upcoming change to Resolve leaving just the Nuker Wizard as being able to dump a stat without adverse effects. They'll be able to drop Strength.

 

Pretty much every other character is going to not want to dump anything to a 3.

 

Who exactly do you see dumping stats that far and remaining viable?

[AndreaColombo]

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with min/maxing. It's a play style like any other. It shouldn't be punished any more or less than other play styles.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I don't think it's necessarily bad so long as the character loses something or risks something by dropping it that far. 

 

Like, dropping Con to 4 on a backliner is a real choice -- you're making a glass cannon. 

 

Stats have a smaller impact on the game than a lot of people think, so having maxed stats doesn't really break the game.

 

The real issue is that Resolve (and, admittedly, but to a lesser extent, Con) don't have many positive reasons for a lot of characters to take them -- if you're a backliner there's not much cause to take Resolve.

 

That'll change a bit with the new announced str/res changes but it's more spreading out the problem than solving it (it'll just mean some characters dump Res and some dump Str instead).

Edited December 16, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[Sedrefilos]

Min-maxing is bad when it is the only option, like in DnD. I hope they don't stretch too far with stat-dumping.

[L4wlight]

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with min/maxing. It's a play style like any other. It shouldn't be punished any more or less than other play styles.

This.

[MaxQuest]

What do you think about the fact that you can dump 1 or 2 attributes to 3 and completly ignore them without killing disadvantages making a character with other attributes outstanding and sometimes making a game breaking char (18-20 its an example)?

Thinking that it is ok.

 

A character (aside from chanting and body-blocking) can perform only 1 active action at a time. And if you notice that he is mostly casting just cc, or healing, or buffing, you better specialize him in that. So he becomes better at what he does, and worse at what he does not.

 

Still though, aside from specific builds and cases, maxing a stat up to 18 is not always the best solution.

For example you have 30 stat points left for investing into MIG and DEX. And if your character is used only for auto-attacking 0-DR targets (a situation in spherical vacuum) then he would rather go for 15 MIG and 15 DEX, because 1.15*1.15 = 1.3225 and it gonna result in higher dps increase than at 18/12 or 20/10.

 

 

As Sedrefilos mentioned min-maxing is only bad, when it's clearly the only option. Like straight-up maxing STR in NWN2 because you need that BAB, or taking +1 INT over epic spells in wizard because you need high CL and DC.

Edited December 16, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Wormerine]

I don’t think having less diserable stats for a class to be a bad thing. If you do a focused build there is always be a dump stat. The issue arises when a stat is useless to a class no matter how you want to use it or when favouring certain attributes due to role playing reasons makes a character unusable.

[Madscientist]

PoE on hard ( or lower difficulty, I have never played PotD ) and with a full party is so easy that you do not need an optimized char to finish it. An optimized char will make things easier and a not optimized char might have problems with some optional challenges, but even a player who is not very experienced should be able to finish the game if they put a few thoughts on how to build and equip their char.

In Baldurs Gate this was much harder, because most stats gave no bonus or penalty in a wide range and extreme values gave an exponential bonus or penalty. Also, some stats were neccessary to use a class at all ( wizards without int could not learn spells) while the power of sorcerers was not dependent on any stat, only on the level.

 

Players who try to solo the game on the hardest difficulty or even try to go for "the ultimate" achievement can do whatever they want. It is nice that you can do this but the game should not be designed around those people. While those elite players post a lot in the forums, they are not the majority of all players and obsidian will lose lots of potentional players if they make the game so hard that you need an optimized char to finish it.

 

Personally I do not mind stat dumping, though usually I do not drop stats below 7 or 8. This is a single player game so no player is disturbing another player by creating his char this way or another.

PoE is still better than the old DnD games in terms of stat dumping. In PoE you can build almost each class in a way that a stat has at least some value for this build. In games like Baldurs gate, int, wis and cha were complete useless for a fighter.

[Roda]

I was doubting and thats why I asked for opinions, I suposse it is not that was as I was thinking after reading some interesting and justified answers. Thx a lot for the replies!

Lets wait and see how resolve and might changes work.

Edited December 16, 2017 by Roda

[Answermancer]

Personally I just hate dumped stats from a totally irrational "aesthetic" perspective. Seeing a character with one or more 3 stats or something just "looks" and feels stupid as hell to me.

 

But it's a single-player game and it's no skin off my back what people do, as long as I'm not required to do it to be able to be successful, so I guess it's fine... I guess.

[dragubaba]

I don't think there's inherently anything wrong with characters that have large contrast between attributes. From the point of view of realism, well-rounded people (no dump-stats) tend to do ok in life but exceptional people tend to be really good at one or two things and often horrible at something else. People who excel at everything are VERY rare. This can manifest in (the stereotypical) warrior of legendary strenght but no interest in books or a wizard of endless arcane knowledge and brittle bones.

 

The whole point of everyone needing to be somewhat proficient at everything always seemed odd to me from roleplay viewpoint. Now game mechanics is a different issue. But that is for someone with more interest in that sort of thing to figure out.

[-dib-]

I really dislike stat dumping and any game system that doesn't penalize it, encourages it. Which kind of takes the fun out of character creation for me, because I'll have to choose between having a stat line that feels very artificial, unnatural and most of all extremely similar to other characters, or being gimped. Personally I would really like to see the penalties for going below 10 become exponentially harsher.

Edited December 17, 2017 by -dib-

[Nail]

I'm fond of min / maxing.

 

A pity that there is no weight system in PoE.

In this case characters with low strength would feel it more than anybody else, what would be just awesome.

 

Cut the strength to minimum - here you go, you can wear only this stiletto and a robe, no heavy loot for you

 

I miss encumbrance...

Edited December 18, 2017 by Nail

[Ancelor]

Min maxing felt like solving an equation to me thus I never go for it.

Breaks my immersion in a way that no character would really optimize all his “stats” to take advantage of the world mechanics.

Anyway I do dump some stats in some classes but never to an extreme

[Skaddix]

Well if you come from a DnD or Pathfinder background and since most rpgs run on variants of that heck even Pokemon does its business as usual no issues for me with it.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I really dislike stat dumping and any game system that doesn't penalize it, encourages it. Which kind of takes the fun out of character creation for me, because I'll have to choose between having a stat line that feels very artificial, unnatural and most of all extremely similar to other characters, or being gimped. Personally I would really like to see the penalties for going below 10 become exponentially harsher.

 

 

The PoE system does somewhat discourage stat dumping/spiking, in several ways.

 

1) By design intent at least, every stat is useful for every character, so if you take any one stat to minimum, you're creating a weakness. 

 

2) If you math out exactly how much additional benefit you get from each additional point of dex/might/per, there are diminishing marginal returns -- you're better off, generally speaking, with more even stats than you are spiking and dumping. (MaxQuest gave an example of this above).

 

Only real exception to both those rules is that Resolve isn't sufficiently useful for non-melee characters but that's a known issue they're working on. There's also a small issue that almost any caster does want to max out Intelligence but generally this isn't a problem because almost everyone who plays a caster wants to do so with max intelligence anyway.

Edited December 18, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[-dib-]

 

I really dislike stat dumping and any game system that doesn't penalize it, encourages it. Which kind of takes the fun out of character creation for me, because I'll have to choose between having a stat line that feels very artificial, unnatural and most of all extremely similar to other characters, or being gimped. Personally I would really like to see the penalties for going below 10 become exponentially harsher.

 

 

The PoE system does somewhat discourage stat dumping/spiking, in several ways.

 

1) By design intent at least, every stat is useful for every character, so if you take any one stat to minimum, you're creating a weakness. 

 

2) If you math out exactly how much additional benefit you get from each additional point of dex/might/per, there are diminishing marginal returns -- you're better off, generally speaking, with more even stats than you are spiking and dumping. (MaxQuest gave an example of this above).

 

Only real exception to both those rules is that Resolve isn't sufficiently useful for non-melee characters but that's a known issue they're working on. There's also a small issue that almost any caster does want to max out Intelligence but generally this isn't a problem because almost everyone who plays a caster wants to do so with max intelligence anyway.

 

 

Yeah, that's cool.

 

Isn't the issue there that it's currently a lot more attractive to go the CC/support route with casters rather than a damage dealer since damaging spells are pretty lackluster relative to the effort of using them? I'm hoping that will change since I would really like to be able to play a fireball flingin' maniac sometime.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

 

Yeah, that's cool.

 

Isn't the issue there that it's currently a lot more attractive to go the CC/support route with casters rather than a damage dealer since damaging spells are pretty lackluster relative to the effort of using them? I'm hoping that will change since I would really like to be able to play a fireball flingin' maniac sometime.

 

 

 

Right now pretty much all magic isn't worthwhile, apart from a few heals and buffs, because the cast times are crazy long relative to the effect and the lack of grazing means everything misses all the time.

 

Thing is, all that's a known issue, and they've announced a bunch of different changes in the next patch. We're basically all twiddling our thumbs right now waiting on said beta patch because there have been enough changes that it's hard to predict how they'll interact until we get our paws on it.

[Gromnir]

 

As Sedrefilos mentioned min-maxing is only bad, when it's clearly the only option. Like straight-up maxing STR in NWN2 because you need that BAB, or taking +1 INT over epic spells in wizard because you need high CL and DC.

 

agreed. obsidian made clear from the start o' poe development they were not intending to preclude min-max.  however, when a dump is the clear obvious way to spend points, then there is a problem.

 

am believing the change to might/resolve were warranted, but unfortunately the change is producing a peculiar uniformity 'mongst Gromnir casters.  any pure caster in our deadfire parties is beginning to develop odd similarities, and such homogenization is gonna get worse with the new build.  our dedicated casters all have tower shields and a wand, and with new beta build, it simple makes sense to sacrifice strength for constitution. we don't particular want basement fort saves, but we do not need suffer such a handicap as long as we raise constitution equal to our diminution o' strength.  a universal fatigue mechanic tied to constitution woulda made con vital, but poe/deadfire don't have such.  as a result, even tanks do not need much constitution, but casters will have excess.  will be odd to see muscle wizards replaced by unflagging iron wizards with deep constitution wells and basement strength, but as josh did point out, the status quo for casters will have changed very little as a result o' the stat update.  casters is gonna continue to have a dump stat, but most other classes/builds gots renewed appreciation for resolve.  is a net gain overall, but our casters just got a bit weirder.

 

HA! Good Fun!