I'm speaking from an MMO RPG perspective not Solo RPG. Maybe it's just us older MMO players that remember days when developers didn't just build the characters for us.
Are you talking about games like call of Asheron, Neverwinter and Ultima?
Those were bit before my time so I wouldn't know, and I guess they could of been more closely modelled on how tabletop games work...
Most of the games I've played had manual stat allocation. It's definitely got its pros such as ability to make your character unique, ability to improvise and do things you wouldn't otherwise, gives consequences to your actions (although if there's indeed manual stats allocation, I really hope you're able to reset it once easily and then only after a crazy long quest).
I got used to it, but I never really enjoyed it. I enjoy games where your gear, race and skills change your character and your stats, not what you choose after each ding. Usually these stats don't mean anything anyway because most people will follow whatever is "meta", so I would prefer if there was no manual stats allocation.
However, this doesn't mean do not I want to see exactly how my stats are looking as how each attribute affects my skills and my character in general, regardless of what they choose for this system.
I am a fan of personal stat allocation through levels.
If as a mage. Usually you'd get +1 con +2 int or something similar.
Now - they talk about skill trees and experience and "leveling up" skills. This sounds to me like the Asherons Call system where experience gained collected and u could use it to increase attack skills/defenses level things up etc.
If they are going through "experience levels your skills" that means theres a hard cap they'll decide on what skills/attributes can be and u can only level them so much as is allowed through experience gains... At some point it'll be super high to get 1 skill point. In AC the final 10 points were something like 10billion experience each or something nuts... Took a week or more running your addon 24/7 to finish it out in the best dungeons.
If the image i have after hearing them talk about their skill trees/experience/levels goes then it may play out something like AC2 that microsoft did... The original turbine system was more personalized but this system was good too.
Where levels gave u points to spend in the skill trees. Experience leveled those skills to make them more powerful... Gave u different ranks/additional abilities/range to the skills the more experience u spent.
Base stats leveled and remained the same but were not changeable but gear augmented the stats with +con/int/str/dex type items ETC....... This allowed u to personalize stats much more and utilize the gear to play with. Making a plate wearing Constitution built mage is still possible....
The leveling skill points + experience will give us a build. It'll probably be a single tree you have with all your skills on it/modifiers for skills. Can choose a skill path towards AoE - Single Target - crowd control. ETC....
You will probably get a full tree for your main type, and then the archtype is the flavor influence on the skills. With experience and levels gained increasing the power of your skills.
quoted from wiki
"Heavy armor (passive)
Rank:1 Increases armor given by heavy armor
Rank:2 Further increases armor given.
Rank:3 Each piece of armor added gives health percentage bonus to the tank."
So yes in some cases tanks may wear cloth armour, but when specing cloth it gives mana rather then health I would suspect that specing into plate is generally a better choice for tanking damage.
Yea, but if you don't have a crazy amount of additional health (like 30%+) the effective health increase from more damage reduction is gonna outperform the health easily.
Also the value of health increase for tanks greatly depends on the maximum damage spike a boss can inflict on the tank.
If you can ensure that you never get oneshotted and the healer has enough time to react the value for health drops to zero if there are no abilites scaling with it.
If you neglect that point you still have the problem with health increase that it doesn't scale with any healing like damage reduction does.
So you can only assume that the health pool increase would be equal to a compareable damage reduction if the healer can output enough healing to top you in every situation.
Put simply more max. health has zero value if you are never at 100% health since you take to much damage.
Overall it is pretty much safe to say that Heavy armor will probably be total crap on fights that are heavy on magic damage.
That quote sounds like a specific class ability for heavy armor tho. Depending on what all it goes down/into different classes can attain different bonuses for wearing different armor I would think
Yea, but if you don't have a crazy amount of additional health (like 30%+) the effective health increase from more damage reduction is gonna outperform the health easily.
Also the value of health increase for tanks greatly depends on the maximum damage spike a boss can inflict on the tank.
If you can ensure that you never get oneshotted and the healer has enough time to react the value for health drops to zero if there are no abilites scaling with it.
If you neglect that point you still have the problem with health increase that it doesn't scale with any healing like damage reduction does.
So you can only assume that the health pool increase would be equal to a compareable damage reduction if the healer can output enough healing to top you in every situation.
Put simply more max. health has zero value if you are never at 100% health since you take to much damage.
Overall it is pretty much safe to say that Heavy armor will probably be total crap on fights that are heavy on magic damage.
ok I concede I probably over generalised in my first post with plate>cloth for tanks, and I didn't consider how much damage mitigation could trump bonus health, but if we're talking about pvp it changes and in general I feel medium armour might be what tanks end up using.
It all seems highly situational which leads to specialisation, maybe a guild needs tanks specialised for magic and physical, maybe some boss fights will require both and that creates an interesting dynamic like say you have a hydra with 3 heads with one doing magic, one doing physical and one doing hybrid damage, that would mean you need 3 specialised tanks to fight it.
and at this point its kinda speculation, who knows how they will want to change that as they proceed through development.
Earlier I was really just trying to illustrate this point "Weapons and armor are not class locked, but certain classes are more efficient with certain types of weapons or armor."
ok I concede I probably over generalised in my first post with plate>cloth for tanks, and I didn't consider how much damage mitigation could trump bonus health, but if we're talking about pvp it changes and in general I feel medium armour might be what tanks end up using for pvp, it all seems highly situational (which leading to specialisation, maybe a guild needs tanks specialised for magic and physical, maybe some boss fights will require both) .
Yea the armor question will be kind of "interesting" for tanks.
The reason why I dislike it is that they will probably just make bosses do primarily physical damage on tanks.
Eliminating the problem basically in the most boring fashion or they will make it a nesseccity to have at least 2 armour sets for magic and physical damage, which would be just annoying.
Armor choices in PVP for sure will be interesting,
I think medium armor will be prefered if both magic and physical are equally present on the item .
Earlier I was really just trying to illustrate this point "Weapons and armor are not class locked, but certain classes are more efficient with certain types of weapons or armor."
Yea, I guess playing tanks for over a decade just makes me more sensible on tank topics.
I think assuming that classes will be much more set in stone on armor and weapons is realistic to assume.
In fact I think people are totally overestimating the level of freedom that the classes will have in playstyle.
Right now it is still to early to tell for sure.
We need more information on how much secondary Archetypes will be able to individualize classes to further discover how it will play out.
Yea, I guess playing tanks for over a decade just makes me more sensible on tank topics.
I think assuming that classes will be much more set in stone on armor and weapons is realistic to assume.
In fact I think people are totally overestimating the level of freedom that the classes will have in playstyle.
Right now it is still to early to tell for sure.
We need more information on how much secondary Archetypes will be able to individualize classes to further discover how it will play out.
I would hope the weapon specilization type things will be more like a general category rather than a particular 1 weapon being specialized like.... Light weapon spec, medium weapon spec, heavy weapon spec, 2h heavy weapons.... etc etc etc..... You get the gist. And then it'll trigger whatever effect based on bladed weapons or blunt weapons in a broad sweep of what there is.
Makes things a bit easier to manage from my perspective
I feel like the community is in bit of a weird place atm with long standing members at ends with the large swath of new people coming in from the steamer interviews with their own ideas on how intrepid should make their game rather then just going along for the ride.
IS hasn't even released its first public alpha and people are already just going nuts with the scope of features they want and they should do that or this and wanting a finished product right now.
I really like watching the iteration process and seeing the game evolve over time and love how much care and thought seems to be put into each feature. like even just the art itself is bloody beautiful with some of the best 3d models I ever seen, like those bears look soo radical, Jhinsy (not sure how to spell her name) has got to be one of the most talented 3d modellers around in creature creation hands down.
I found what you said about tanks and how that mitigation works was really interesting for me thanks for bringing that up
anyway I've lost this topic soo much at this point so ill stop posting in this room.
Yeah, overall while we can talk about it, we really don't know enough about how they're going to do it. I'm sure that they'll come up with something great, and of they don't, thats what we're here for.
1) I'm assuming that because if everyone is given the freedom to allot stat points as they want it means that they can build the character as they want, meaning that the class you pick only affects what your skills are and that's it, which is not the way they want to go with this. They want the class to actually be a part of who you are, which means your stats, active skills, most effective weapons and gear you can use, your utility, what have you. And though this might not apply to everyone, locking stats essentially grounds your character in a sense, and while not everyone may like this, life is tough lol. If I was a mage, there's no way my magic attack would be lower than my physical attack. And while this is a game, they want it to have some sort of sense of realism. Idk m8, to me it doesn't make sense to be able to in a game like this.
2) It's not changing the rock-paper-scissors dynamic, it would be destroying it, because A. how am I supposed to know that your warrior did that in the first place and B. why would my rogue be stereotypical in the first place. Rock-paper-scissors only works if you're playing with rock-paper-scissors, not 'rocks that are now mud' (lol weird example). Rock-paper-scissors works because there are certain parameters you're working with and you have certain information, whereas in a world where you can freely allocate stat points, I now feel that my level 40 Fighter should be scared of a couple level 30 Bards, because I raised my INT too much and they could have maxed their STR for all I know. That situation wouldn't happen normally (normally being in the classic medieval fantasy world) so why should it happen in a game like AoC where it's supposed to be your experience in a medieval fantasy world?
3) Yeah the wiki, and they explained it in the first livestream @ShroudedFox posted, race determines your initial stat 'seed', or where they are starting out, for example elves will have a higher DEX stat than humans one can assume, and your base class will determine how those stats grow. So while there's a bit of a chance that there's room in their words to say stat allocation will be a thing, I think most can agree that it means they will have your class largely determine what your stats will look like. So while I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure I interpreted that right.
1) You're assuming what exacatly I don't really follow what you said. Are you suggesting because you can allot the attributes how you want that it's going to change the class system? Like a warrior that allots points to INT (however unlikely) all of a sudden is no longer a warrior? How exactly does giving players the freedom to allot attributes change the class they choose? They would not gain new abilities, it may impact the way some of their abilities work (better or worse) but everyone would still be the same class. You have this theory that everyone is going to go off the rails with their attributes, while a few might why are you trying to limit what people can do? Is it just because you do not want to not know something? With all of the purchased cosmetics in this game I have a hard time thinking you'll know the half of it anyway.
2) Why do you need to know it? The concept behind rock paper scissor isn't locked into the concept that every mage needs to destroy every warrior. It's designed so that every class doesn't have to have offensive and defensive skills equal to one another. For example a High Priest likely has limited offensive ability and would never win a 1v1. The game is designed in a way that the GROUP with a high priest and one without would however likely win the fight. Each character does not need to be able to compete equally - your understanding of rock paper scissor is simply just misleading. Your example of the fighter vs the bards is funny - yes if you build the character incorrectly it may limit your ability to fight certain classes and give you advantages vs others - this is no different than the current system it just doesn't lock us into only being able to beat specific classes. Why would you not want to ability to beat a class thats not used to losing to you? You seem so concerned that if you can't do something it ruins the game - but there would be a flip side to that and it may allow you to do something else and of course you could choose to just do the "normal" thing and build your character the same way as everyone else - thus giving players the option to choose how to do attributes would have no affect on you.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Let me give an example of attributes so we can actually discuss this from a reasonable stand point. In addition a lot of MMOs do not give equal bonus for each stat to each class. For example a Fighter/Warrior with 100 constitution may gain 2 points of health from each point of constitution where a mage may only receive 1 point of health per point of constitution. This is another way to balance the class system so you're worst fear of a rogue having more health than your fighter just simply won't be a reality- the rogue may however have higher health than the standard build.
Minimum attribute points of all stats = 0
Maximum attribute points of all stats = 100
Total allocation of attributes at level 50 = 400
Here are a few examples of what a character could look like at max level:
Fighter: Axe/Sheild/Plate
Power(Str): 70
Dex: 20
Con: 100
Willpower: 20
Wisdom: 20
Mentality: 50
Physical Atk: 100
Magical Atk: 15
Block: 80
Please feel free to tell me how any of these builds would effectively ruin the game for you or in general. Does this change the fighter class in some way? Did any of these builds ruin the character? Are any of them Wacky?
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
@Tyrantor
I kind of get where you are coming from and it is of course a fine position to have.
Regardless of that I don't think stat allocation is a good thing to improve the game.
My personal problem with stat allocation system is that they usually end up being pretty broing and straight forward.
Basically you check if there is something that can oneshot you or in PVP if someone can kill you in the max time they can cc chain you and spend points into health until you can survive that.
All other points will probably end up in any stat that scales the best with your actual task, e.g. damage or healing.
I think if you would like to have a stat allocation you need to make it a lot more complex than that so people actually start caring.
And that's the point where it starts getting a problem for the game.
Why so?
Because we then create another complex system that will needs to be balanced so that it works properly with all the other systems.
As far as I know there will be already progression systems for your weapon and you will have the modification on your abilities from your secondary archetype.
Those two systems are meant to be really impactful and basically define the individual element of your class.
If we now add a complex stat allocation system to the mix devs will need to put in a lot more effort to balance it proberly.
I would prefer not having a stat allocation system if I get the other system fleshed out properly in return.
Having a little bit less freedom makes it a lot easier to balance content properly since the devs know more accurately what everyone is capable of.
I'd also want to point that too high workload on the devs to balance stuff is a sever problem.
If you look e.g. at WOW's last expantions the devs introduced more more complex systems to the game which are basically meant to enable a level of individualism and less meta gaming.(artifact gear, azerite armor, corruptions)
The thing is that they have a 0% success rate with that, everything it ends up doing is severely damaging the developement of the core gameplay because they simply don't have the time to do it all.
Since ashes should hopefully evolve over time as well,
bloating up the workload with lackluster systems from the get go would not be adviceable.
We have passive skills. You can invest skill points that you gain from leveling up into the following passive skills: Block, cloth armor, elemental, heavy armor, light armor, mana pool, medium armor and ranged passive.
We have passive skills. You can invest skill points that you gain from leveling up into the following passive skills: Block, cloth armor, elemental, heavy armor, light armor, mana pool, medium armor and ranged passive.
@Tyrantor
I think if you would like to have a stat allocation you need to make it a lot more complex than that so people actually start caring.
And that's the point where it starts getting a problem for the game.
Why so?
Because we then create another complex system that will needs to be balanced so that it works properly with all the other systems.
As far as I know there will be already progression systems for your weapon and you will have the modification on your abilities from your secondary archetype.
Those two systems are meant to be really impactful and basically define the individual element of your class.
If we now add a complex stat allocation system to the mix devs will need to put in a lot more effort to balance it proberly.
So if I'm understanding this correctly you're suggesting that since the stat allocation i'm speaking of isn't significant enough from your perspective that we shouldn't get the ability to manually do this unless they overhaul the entire system to make it more complex?
What does complex even mean in this context?
I'll say this. If attributes like str, dex and int have zero impact on the characters ability to add damage to their weapons regardless of class then giving characters the ability to adjust these items would be a mute point. What that means is that if I'm a rogue and I want to use a hammer if all I have to do is invest my skill points into "1h hammer" instead of dagger, bow etc and my damage is the same (or rather not penalized for not having STR) or some other attribute as high as my DEX then I completely agree who cares.
If not however then giving us the ability to waste points in weapon skills we can't maximize their damage output due to our class then I disagree completely and believe that should be a significant enough reason for people to care. Just giving everyone the option to spend skill points in weapons doesn't justify anyone actually using them if their class is limited or gimped because their default attributes restrict their ability to actually be proficient in the weapon even if they have max skill points in that weapon. This means everyone will build their characters the same because their class dictates it.
Ultimately if your concern is "Don't change anything just release the game" then I hope you didn't buy the alpha 1 package.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
So if I'm understanding this correctly you're suggesting that since the stat allocation i'm speaking of isn't significant enough from your perspective that we shouldn't get the ability to manually do this unless they overhaul the entire system to make it more complex?
You got that partly wrong.
If you add another variable to the mix by making players choose stats themselves the devs will need to consider the different possible ways of its interaction with the other systems in place.
As a result devs will need to put a certain level of work into that.
I personally don't think this is nesseccary if the stat allocation is boring to begin with since that means we just create workload without a reasonable benefit.
Based on that I'd say if you introduce another system it should feel meaningful to the player to justify how much workload it will create.
Complex means that you need to make the decision of choosing a stat more difficult so people don't just pick the obvious.
For example make each stat have 3 things it modifies.
Then you need to take more things than just 1 improvement into account since it influences 3.
That's just an idealistic example to explain how stats could be more complex.
Don't assume I want that to happen please.
I'll say this. If attributes like str, dex and int have zero impact on the characters ability to add damage to their weapons regardless of class then giving characters the ability to adjust these items would be a mute point. What that means is that if I'm a rogue and I want to use a hammer if all I have to do is invest my skill points into "1h hammer" instead of dagger, bow etc and my damage is the same (or rather not penalized for not having STR) or some other attribute as high as my DEX then I completely agree who cares.
Even if it has impact on your damage it is extremely boring.
it creates no real change in your playstyle or has any complexitiy to make min/maxing it interesting.
If not however then giving us the ability to waste points in weapon skills we can't maximize their damage output due to our class then I disagree completely and believe that should be a significant enough reason for people to care. Just giving everyone the option to spend skill points in weapons doesn't justify anyone actually using them if their class is limited or gimped because their default attributes restrict their ability to actually be proficient in the weapon even if they have max skill points in that weapon. This means everyone will build their characters the same because their class dictates it.
If you look at it only from a damage point of view that's ok.
Thing is, a meaningful reason to have a weapon isn't only damage.
For example a ranged class using a bow for damage could use another melee weapon that enables you to slow down an enemy's movement speed.
That would be useful utitlity and make the playstyle more unique,
a slight damage increase wouldn't impact the playstyle in any way.
Ultimately if your concern is "Don't change anything just release the game" then I hope you didn't buy the alpha 1 package.
I don't really get why you come up with that, I merely think manual stat allocation is a boring system because they are boring in almost every game.
Like I outlined before my concern is not the workload until release but from balancing in general which will be a thing from release until they shut down the game.
I personally never preorder games, we are like 2 years from release are we not?
Spending any money on packages yet seems like an extremely foolish thing to do.
@Grievousness How do you know the system doesn't already take into account other variables? You understand I'm just using weapon damage as an easy to see variable for discussion purposes. For example Dex may already impact three abilities dodge, weapon speed, and specific weapon damage(s) and I'm sure there are plenty of other things it can impact i'm just too tired this morning to start listing out game mechanics that can be affected by each stat. You're arguing we shouldn't have the freedom to make these choices because of systems they haven't even explained.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
@Grievousness How do you know the system doesn't already take into account other variables? You understand I'm just using weapon damage as an easy to see variable for discussion purposes.
I don't know it. But that is not relevant to the argument I was making.
My argument is that letting the player allocate the stats makes the distribution an unknown variable.
If the system allocates the stats for you it is no variable anymore but a constant since it is the same for everyone.
If you want to take into account that gear will contribute about 40-50% of the player stats, according to the wiki.
You still half the range of the variable, makig balance problems more unlikely from the get go.
You're arguing we shouldn't have the freedom to make these choices because of systems they haven't even explained.
I am arguing that I prefer a few meaningful over a lot meaningless systems.
I personally would also be ok with a stat allocation system if it is well done.
Like I said before this is just very rare in games, at least from my experience.
If I were to make a general statement without context I personally would say the systems in place should allow the maximum freedom to the player.
But we don't live in an idealistic perfect world.
That's why I made the point that a system of that nature results in a workload increase that shouldn't be taken lightly since it will need to be rebalanced alongside the other systems with any balance change in the future.
My conclusion to that was that I'd rather see this workload being used to make the planned systems better instead of having a system that allows players to allocate their stats.
Just to be perfectly clear, with workload I mean the time the devs will need to balance this so we won't have any unbalanced interactions with the other systems in place.
@Grievousness No. Your initial argument was that if the stat allocation was going to be allowed it needed to be "complex" - then you further explained this as each stat needs to affect multiple items, once I gave you an example of how that can come to pass now it's no longer relevant to your argument?
ALSO now you're suggesting that the stat adjustments as people level (if allowed to choose for themselves) becomes an unknown variable. How is this possible you do understand that there would be a minimum stat and a maximum stat correct? Where does the unknown variable come into play here? Characters would be limited by a total number of stat points and each category would have a min/max this in simplicity means that there would be absolutely no unknown variables.
What it does is allow for a variation of known variables at the players choice.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
@Grievousness No. Your initial argument was that if the stat allocation was going to be allowed it needed to be "complex" - then you further explained this as each stat needs to affect multiple items, once I gave you an example of how that can come to pass now it's no longer relevant to your argument?
You missrepresent my argument here, stop that.
It is intellectual dishonest and doesn't progress the discussion in any way.
If you want to respond to something I said do a proper quotation and make a point.
Regardless of that I don't think stat allocation is a good thing to improve the game.
My personal problem with stat allocation system is that they usually end up being pretty broing and straight forward.
[...]
I think if you would like to have a stat allocation you need to make it a lot more complex than that so people actually start caring.
Complex means that you need to make the decision of choosing a stat more difficult so people don't just pick the obvious.
For example make each stat have 3 things it modifies.
Then you need to take more things than just 1 improvement into account since it influences 3.
That's just an idealistic example to explain how stats could be more complex.
Don't assume I want that to happen please.
ALSO now you're suggesting that the stat adjustments as people level (if allowed to choose for themselves) becomes an unknown variable. How is this possible you do understand that there would be a minimum stat and a maximum stat correct? Where does the unknown variable come into play here? Characters would be limited by a total number of stat points and each category would have a min/max this in simplicity means that there would be absolutely no unknown variables.
What it does is allow for a variation of known variables at the players choice.
Okay it is obvious to me that you didn't get the point so I try explaining it again.
If you have a system that provides complete freedom over how the points are allocated the devs would need to check out if there is any interaction between a possible allocation of points and the other systems that results in an unwanted result.
To be more precise if any combination is too strong or too weak.
With increasing complexity of the system this variable, that basically represents each possible way of allocating your points, becomes more and more difficult to balance.
In a very simple system where may only one stat is viable for your role (damgage / heal / tank) and maybe one for something else like a ressource increase or survivability you will only have a few combinations that need to be balanced around.
But if you e.g. have 5 viable stats to choose from and 60 points to spend you have a lot of different possible combinations.
Maybe check the number yourself but it should be about 5.461.512 different combinations.
(without repetition)
Of course devs wouldn't need to check every single one of them but still need to ensure balance.
The problem is they also need to ensure that the different stat allocations do not have any unbalanced interactions with other system like the secondary archetypes.
Basically further increasing the number of combinations dramatically with each system you add to the mix.
So while all of them are obviously known to be possible it is unknown which of those combinations the player will choose.
In other words the players choice is the unknown variable that turns into a constant once the freedom to choose is taken from the player.
@Grievousness Feel free to point out exactly what I said that is intellectually dishonest. You quoted the exact things I'm referencing and they still line up - so thank you for quoting them.
Yes there are tons of combinations that could be created - it's exactly the point I'm trying to get across here - we would actually have unique characters from a fundamental level outside of gear.
What I don't understand that is so difficult here however is that the weapons and abilities would likely draw their power/damage etc from a percentage of a characters stats or some multiple of it. Since a fireball would likely only pull it's damage from 1 or 2 attributes i'm not entirely certain and how that would throw the game into some major development conundrum.
How exactly does the game break when a character has 80INT instead of 65INT for example? Is it because their fireball spell is going to explode in the characters hand if his constitution isn't the exact # it's supposed to be?
So yes on a case by case basis each character would be uniquely different unless of course they chose to build them exactly the same (or there is some very specific build everyone does because it's the only real option).
However in terms of damage balancing for the game it seems relatively simple to me and since there would be maximum's in place it seems fairly simple for a developer to just test what each weapon/skill/abilities maximum combination of attributes would deliver to balance. It should not be the developers job to make sure the masses understand how to build a character - that should be our responsibility.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Personally I'm all for stat allocation rather than premade character stat boosts.
There is a scale
having full control over stats <//////////////////////////////> Have Premade Characters
'Trying to wedge players in the middle of the scale betrays the reason for stats in the first place.
If you want to balance your game on stats, and therefore limit the amount of stats people get and in what category, you're essentially dictating the meta. If they have a built in linear scale for damage calculated on skills because of this meta, then what is the point of even having a numerical representation of stats? It might as well be a flat damage number for the skills instead, and % growth of skills in armor.
Either way, that sounds nasty to me. It becomes WoW 2.0, where even if you have the option to wear +str gear on your mage in WoW, it doesn't benefit you at all. At that point it might as well be a 64 character select screen for a fighting game, with built in skills/stats.
You can argue that they're just lowering the scope of a player's ability to make a "mistake", but then that also implies there is only one "right" way, and they inadvertently encourage the player to play the game that way. That removes the feeling of meaningful choice. Because choice isn't just about being right, its also about being willing to be wrong.
You can say the choice comes in the armor/weapons you use, but then that makes your character feel less of a creation of your making, and instead piecemeal'd by whatever you can scrounge up along the way to the end. And then it puts most of the emphasis of your character on their gear. Which...feels very WoW again.
You could say that the skill distribution would help create a diverse character..but since the question pertains to stats alone...
What are the point of stats if all we can do are make the "right" choices to begin with? Why have a system in the works that doesn't have a meaningful function? if stats and %damage/health/mana increases are interchangeable, is that not a red flag? and if skills have different % scaling on stats, why rob players of the freedom of choice?
Personally I'm all for stat allocation rather than premade character stat boosts.
There is a scale
having full control over stats <//////////////////////////////> Have Premade Characters
'Trying to wedge players in the middle of the scale betrays the reason for stats in the first place.
If you want to balance your game on stats, and therefore limit the amount of stats people get and in what category, you're essentially dictating the meta. If they have a built in linear scale for damage calculated on skills because of this meta, then what is the point of even having a numerical representation of stats? It might as well be a flat damage number for the skills instead, and % growth of skills in armor.
Either way, that sounds nasty to me. It becomes WoW 2.0, where even if you have the option to wear +str gear on your mage in WoW, it doesn't benefit you at all. At that point it might as well be a 64 character select screen for a fighting game, with built in skills/stats.
You can argue that they're just lowering the scope of a player's ability to make a "mistake", but then that also implies there is only one "right" way, and they inadvertently encourage the player to play the game that way. That removes the feeling of meaningful choice. Because choice isn't just about being right, its also about being willing to be wrong.
You can say the choice comes in the armor/weapons you use, but then that makes your character feel less of a creation of your making, and instead piecemeal'd by whatever you can scrounge up along the way to the end. And then it puts most of the emphasis of your character on their gear. Which...feels very WoW again.
You could say that the skill distribution would help create a diverse character..but since the question pertains to stats alone...
What are the point of stats if all we can do are make the "right" choices to begin with? Why have a system in the works that doesn't have a meaningful function? if stats and %damage/health/mana increases are interchangeable, is that not a red flag? and if skills have different % scaling on stats, why rob players of the freedom of choice?
YES - Thank you.
Man this feels so good someone not only gets it but responded...
Look i'm 100% in on this game - but i'm really concerned that the backgrounds of Everquest (itemquest) and Planetside are going to bring down the true apex of AoC. Itemquest was a rock-paper-scissors game designed around building characters WITH items. Planetside was a shooter game that you basically unlock classes/roles with certificates/gold. - No offense to any developers reading this as they were both great games for their time and purpose, however you're building something new and don't let previous shortcomings fail this project because of "chaos".
This game has real PvP consequences, cities, castles, real estate all on the line. We should be creating characters designed around playstyles, strategies for war etc.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
@Grievousness Feel free to point out exactly what I said that is intellectually dishonest. You quoted the exact things I'm referencing and they still line up - so thank you for quoting them.
I actually can't believe I have to explain this.
But here we go.
I think if you would like to have a stat allocation you need to make it a lot more complex than that so people actually start caring.
And that's the point where it starts getting a problem for the game.
Why so?
Because we then create another complex system that will needs to be balanced so that it works properly with all the other systems.
As far as I know there will be already progression systems for your weapon and you will have the modification on your abilities from your secondary archetype.
Those two systems are meant to be really impactful and basically define the individual element of your class.
If we now add a complex stat allocation system to the mix devs will need to put in a lot more effort to balance it proberly.
I would prefer not having a stat allocation system if I get the other system fleshed out properly in return.
Having a little bit less freedom makes it a lot easier to balance content properly since the devs know more accurately what everyone is capable of.
If you have actually read it and not just glance over you might realize that I never said that it should nesseccarily be in the game if it is complex.
I just stated the obvious that it would be less boring for people if it were a more complex system.
I did not state that it should be "allowed" if it were complex.
I only brought the point up to begin with since it would have been the obvious counter argument so I already explained why that would not be a solution.
What makes your oversimplified summary of my argument completely wrong.
As far as I am aware I never stated this is the only solution, a good solution or that I would even like to have it in the game.
And this is exactly how I phrased it:
"For example make each stat have 3 things it modifies.
Then you need to take more things than just 1 improvement into account since it influences 3."
In fact I was perfectly clear by adding:
"That's just an idealistic example to explain how stats could be more complex.
Don't assume I want that to happen please."
You did not state in your phrasing that I only made this up as an example to explain a term to you.
You completely ignored the context and wrongly assumed that this "needs" to happen, while I was perfectly clear that this is not what needs to happen at all.
Making that statement of yours yet again wrong and a missrepresentation of what I said.
once I gave you an example of how that can come to pass now it's no longer relevant to your argument?
It is not relevant because this was not my point to begin with.
So obviously yes it is not relevant to the argument and never was.
To conclude that, everything you said I would have stated is an inaccurate oversimplification of what was actually written, to a point where it is not a correct representation of my argument.
Which is why people prefer getting quoted to prevent exactly this issue.
Furthermore you go on and yet again missrepresent my point by asking how it will break the game, while I never once stated that it would break the game but merely pointed out that it could impact the game negative by making it more unbalanced.
How exactly does the game break when a character has 80INT instead of 65INT for example? Is it because their fireball spell is going to explode in the characters hand if his constitution isn't the exact # it's supposed to be?
Since you ignore my plea to use quotations and yet again are missrepresenting what I said
it is obvious that you are intellectual dishonest and are doing that on purpose.
This is not only very annoying and lazy but also preventing any progress in the actual discussion.
I disagree with how you represent our conversation and am happy to let anyone who reads this thread decide for themselves.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
I disagree with how you represent our conversation and am happy to let anyone who reads this thread decide for themselves.
What do you think this is? A popularity contest?
Of course everyone who reads the conversation will have his own thoughts about it but that doesn't impact or change in any way what has been stated.
That's about objective reality not subjective opinions.
Even if a thousand people read the discussion it is irrelevant if they agree or disagree as long as they don't objectively prove it.
I hope they have some sort of stat point allocation! At least an option where you can turn off automatic allocation. I like the creativity of building a strong character where i wasn't just destined to succeed, i have to be smart about it. I'm more for permanent stat points, but i understand that some players would like to reallocate so maybe there is a lengthy quest for a potion to redo points. Just for the people out there that think there is no reason to do anything but meta, overall power level or dps is not a good determiner of strength overall. if your stat points mean anything, they can change your entire play style. I played a game once where i was a dex based wizard, because at certain increments, you could sleight of hand out extra lightning motes. 300 lightning motes later, and a lot of pain leveling up, it was a blast to play.
Comments
Are you talking about games like call of Asheron, Neverwinter and Ultima?
Those were bit before my time so I wouldn't know, and I guess they could of been more closely modelled on how tabletop games work...
I got used to it, but I never really enjoyed it. I enjoy games where your gear, race and skills change your character and your stats, not what you choose after each ding. Usually these stats don't mean anything anyway because most people will follow whatever is "meta", so I would prefer if there was no manual stats allocation.
However, this doesn't mean do not I want to see exactly how my stats are looking as how each attribute affects my skills and my character in general, regardless of what they choose for this system.
If as a mage. Usually you'd get +1 con +2 int or something similar.
Now - they talk about skill trees and experience and "leveling up" skills. This sounds to me like the Asherons Call system where experience gained collected and u could use it to increase attack skills/defenses level things up etc.
If they are going through "experience levels your skills" that means theres a hard cap they'll decide on what skills/attributes can be and u can only level them so much as is allowed through experience gains... At some point it'll be super high to get 1 skill point. In AC the final 10 points were something like 10billion experience each or something nuts... Took a week or more running your addon 24/7 to finish it out in the best dungeons.
If the image i have after hearing them talk about their skill trees/experience/levels goes then it may play out something like AC2 that microsoft did... The original turbine system was more personalized but this system was good too.
Where levels gave u points to spend in the skill trees. Experience leveled those skills to make them more powerful... Gave u different ranks/additional abilities/range to the skills the more experience u spent.
Base stats leveled and remained the same but were not changeable but gear augmented the stats with +con/int/str/dex type items ETC....... This allowed u to personalize stats much more and utilize the gear to play with. Making a plate wearing Constitution built mage is still possible....
The leveling skill points + experience will give us a build. It'll probably be a single tree you have with all your skills on it/modifiers for skills. Can choose a skill path towards AoE - Single Target - crowd control. ETC....
You will probably get a full tree for your main type, and then the archtype is the flavor influence on the skills. With experience and levels gained increasing the power of your skills.
Yea, but if you don't have a crazy amount of additional health (like 30%+) the effective health increase from more damage reduction is gonna outperform the health easily.
Also the value of health increase for tanks greatly depends on the maximum damage spike a boss can inflict on the tank.
If you can ensure that you never get oneshotted and the healer has enough time to react the value for health drops to zero if there are no abilites scaling with it.
If you neglect that point you still have the problem with health increase that it doesn't scale with any healing like damage reduction does.
So you can only assume that the health pool increase would be equal to a compareable damage reduction if the healer can output enough healing to top you in every situation.
Put simply more max. health has zero value if you are never at 100% health since you take to much damage.
Overall it is pretty much safe to say that Heavy armor will probably be total crap on fights that are heavy on magic damage.
ok I concede I probably over generalised in my first post with plate>cloth for tanks, and I didn't consider how much damage mitigation could trump bonus health, but if we're talking about pvp it changes and in general I feel medium armour might be what tanks end up using.
It all seems highly situational which leads to specialisation, maybe a guild needs tanks specialised for magic and physical, maybe some boss fights will require both and that creates an interesting dynamic like say you have a hydra with 3 heads with one doing magic, one doing physical and one doing hybrid damage, that would mean you need 3 specialised tanks to fight it.
and at this point its kinda speculation, who knows how they will want to change that as they proceed through development.
Earlier I was really just trying to illustrate this point "Weapons and armor are not class locked, but certain classes are more efficient with certain types of weapons or armor."
BTW sorry if this post is way of topic.
Yea the armor question will be kind of "interesting" for tanks.
The reason why I dislike it is that they will probably just make bosses do primarily physical damage on tanks.
Eliminating the problem basically in the most boring fashion or they will make it a nesseccity to have at least 2 armour sets for magic and physical damage, which would be just annoying.
Armor choices in PVP for sure will be interesting,
I think medium armor will be prefered if both magic and physical are equally present on the item .
Yea, I guess playing tanks for over a decade just makes me more sensible on tank topics.
I think assuming that classes will be much more set in stone on armor and weapons is realistic to assume.
In fact I think people are totally overestimating the level of freedom that the classes will have in playstyle.
Right now it is still to early to tell for sure.
We need more information on how much secondary Archetypes will be able to individualize classes to further discover how it will play out.
I would hope the weapon specilization type things will be more like a general category rather than a particular 1 weapon being specialized like.... Light weapon spec, medium weapon spec, heavy weapon spec, 2h heavy weapons.... etc etc etc..... You get the gist. And then it'll trigger whatever effect based on bladed weapons or blunt weapons in a broad sweep of what there is.
Makes things a bit easier to manage from my perspective
IS hasn't even released its first public alpha and people are already just going nuts with the scope of features they want and they should do that or this and wanting a finished product right now.
I really like watching the iteration process and seeing the game evolve over time and love how much care and thought seems to be put into each feature. like even just the art itself is bloody beautiful with some of the best 3d models I ever seen, like those bears look soo radical, Jhinsy (not sure how to spell her name) has got to be one of the most talented 3d modellers around in creature creation hands down.
I found what you said about tanks and how that mitigation works was really interesting for me thanks for bringing that up
anyway I've lost this topic soo much at this point so ill stop posting in this room.
peace
1) You're assuming what exacatly I don't really follow what you said. Are you suggesting because you can allot the attributes how you want that it's going to change the class system? Like a warrior that allots points to INT (however unlikely) all of a sudden is no longer a warrior? How exactly does giving players the freedom to allot attributes change the class they choose? They would not gain new abilities, it may impact the way some of their abilities work (better or worse) but everyone would still be the same class. You have this theory that everyone is going to go off the rails with their attributes, while a few might why are you trying to limit what people can do? Is it just because you do not want to not know something? With all of the purchased cosmetics in this game I have a hard time thinking you'll know the half of it anyway.
2) Why do you need to know it? The concept behind rock paper scissor isn't locked into the concept that every mage needs to destroy every warrior. It's designed so that every class doesn't have to have offensive and defensive skills equal to one another. For example a High Priest likely has limited offensive ability and would never win a 1v1. The game is designed in a way that the GROUP with a high priest and one without would however likely win the fight. Each character does not need to be able to compete equally - your understanding of rock paper scissor is simply just misleading. Your example of the fighter vs the bards is funny - yes if you build the character incorrectly it may limit your ability to fight certain classes and give you advantages vs others - this is no different than the current system it just doesn't lock us into only being able to beat specific classes. Why would you not want to ability to beat a class thats not used to losing to you? You seem so concerned that if you can't do something it ruins the game - but there would be a flip side to that and it may allow you to do something else and of course you could choose to just do the "normal" thing and build your character the same way as everyone else - thus giving players the option to choose how to do attributes would have no affect on you.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Minimum attribute points of all stats = 0
Maximum attribute points of all stats = 100
Total allocation of attributes at level 50 = 400
Here are a few examples of what a character could look like at max level:
Fighter: Axe/Sheild/Plate
Power(Str): 70
Dex: 20
Con: 100
Willpower: 20
Wisdom: 20
Mentality: 50
Physical Atk: 100
Magical Atk: 15
Block: 80
Fighter: Dual wield swords/Medium armor
Power(Str): 100
Dex: 80
Con: 70
Willpower: 20
Wisdom: 20
Mentality: 50
Physical Atk: 100
Magical Atk: 15
Block: 20
Fighter: Sword/Shield/Plate
Power(Str): 20
Dex: 100
Con: 80
Willpower: 20
Wisdom: 20
Mentality: 50
Physical Atk: 100
Magical Atk: 15
Block: 70
Please feel free to tell me how any of these builds would effectively ruin the game for you or in general. Does this change the fighter class in some way? Did any of these builds ruin the character? Are any of them Wacky?
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
I kind of get where you are coming from and it is of course a fine position to have.
Regardless of that I don't think stat allocation is a good thing to improve the game.
My personal problem with stat allocation system is that they usually end up being pretty broing and straight forward.
Basically you check if there is something that can oneshot you or in PVP if someone can kill you in the max time they can cc chain you and spend points into health until you can survive that.
All other points will probably end up in any stat that scales the best with your actual task, e.g. damage or healing.
I think if you would like to have a stat allocation you need to make it a lot more complex than that so people actually start caring.
And that's the point where it starts getting a problem for the game.
Why so?
Because we then create another complex system that will needs to be balanced so that it works properly with all the other systems.
As far as I know there will be already progression systems for your weapon and you will have the modification on your abilities from your secondary archetype.
Those two systems are meant to be really impactful and basically define the individual element of your class.
If we now add a complex stat allocation system to the mix devs will need to put in a lot more effort to balance it proberly.
I would prefer not having a stat allocation system if I get the other system fleshed out properly in return.
Having a little bit less freedom makes it a lot easier to balance content properly since the devs know more accurately what everyone is capable of.
I'd also want to point that too high workload on the devs to balance stuff is a sever problem.
If you look e.g. at WOW's last expantions the devs introduced more more complex systems to the game which are basically meant to enable a level of individualism and less meta gaming.(artifact gear, azerite armor, corruptions)
The thing is that they have a 0% success rate with that, everything it ends up doing is severely damaging the developement of the core gameplay because they simply don't have the time to do it all.
Since ashes should hopefully evolve over time as well,
bloating up the workload with lackluster systems from the get go would not be adviceable.
We have passive skills. You can invest skill points that you gain from leveling up into the following passive skills: Block, cloth armor, elemental, heavy armor, light armor, mana pool, medium armor and ranged passive.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Skills#Passive_skills
We dont really know if these exact passives still exist tbh.
So if I'm understanding this correctly you're suggesting that since the stat allocation i'm speaking of isn't significant enough from your perspective that we shouldn't get the ability to manually do this unless they overhaul the entire system to make it more complex?
What does complex even mean in this context?
I'll say this. If attributes like str, dex and int have zero impact on the characters ability to add damage to their weapons regardless of class then giving characters the ability to adjust these items would be a mute point. What that means is that if I'm a rogue and I want to use a hammer if all I have to do is invest my skill points into "1h hammer" instead of dagger, bow etc and my damage is the same (or rather not penalized for not having STR) or some other attribute as high as my DEX then I completely agree who cares.
If not however then giving us the ability to waste points in weapon skills we can't maximize their damage output due to our class then I disagree completely and believe that should be a significant enough reason for people to care. Just giving everyone the option to spend skill points in weapons doesn't justify anyone actually using them if their class is limited or gimped because their default attributes restrict their ability to actually be proficient in the weapon even if they have max skill points in that weapon. This means everyone will build their characters the same because their class dictates it.
Ultimately if your concern is "Don't change anything just release the game" then I hope you didn't buy the alpha 1 package.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
You got that partly wrong.
If you add another variable to the mix by making players choose stats themselves the devs will need to consider the different possible ways of its interaction with the other systems in place.
As a result devs will need to put a certain level of work into that.
I personally don't think this is nesseccary if the stat allocation is boring to begin with since that means we just create workload without a reasonable benefit.
Based on that I'd say if you introduce another system it should feel meaningful to the player to justify how much workload it will create.
Complex means that you need to make the decision of choosing a stat more difficult so people don't just pick the obvious.
For example make each stat have 3 things it modifies.
Then you need to take more things than just 1 improvement into account since it influences 3.
That's just an idealistic example to explain how stats could be more complex.
Don't assume I want that to happen please.
Even if it has impact on your damage it is extremely boring.
it creates no real change in your playstyle or has any complexitiy to make min/maxing it interesting.
If you look at it only from a damage point of view that's ok.
Thing is, a meaningful reason to have a weapon isn't only damage.
For example a ranged class using a bow for damage could use another melee weapon that enables you to slow down an enemy's movement speed.
That would be useful utitlity and make the playstyle more unique,
a slight damage increase wouldn't impact the playstyle in any way.
I don't really get why you come up with that, I merely think manual stat allocation is a boring system because they are boring in almost every game.
Like I outlined before my concern is not the workload until release but from balancing in general which will be a thing from release until they shut down the game.
I personally never preorder games, we are like 2 years from release are we not?
Spending any money on packages yet seems like an extremely foolish thing to do.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
I don't know it. But that is not relevant to the argument I was making.
My argument is that letting the player allocate the stats makes the distribution an unknown variable.
If the system allocates the stats for you it is no variable anymore but a constant since it is the same for everyone.
If you want to take into account that gear will contribute about 40-50% of the player stats, according to the wiki.
You still half the range of the variable, makig balance problems more unlikely from the get go.
I am arguing that I prefer a few meaningful over a lot meaningless systems.
I personally would also be ok with a stat allocation system if it is well done.
Like I said before this is just very rare in games, at least from my experience.
If I were to make a general statement without context I personally would say the systems in place should allow the maximum freedom to the player.
But we don't live in an idealistic perfect world.
That's why I made the point that a system of that nature results in a workload increase that shouldn't be taken lightly since it will need to be rebalanced alongside the other systems with any balance change in the future.
My conclusion to that was that I'd rather see this workload being used to make the planned systems better instead of having a system that allows players to allocate their stats.
Just to be perfectly clear, with workload I mean the time the devs will need to balance this so we won't have any unbalanced interactions with the other systems in place.
ALSO now you're suggesting that the stat adjustments as people level (if allowed to choose for themselves) becomes an unknown variable. How is this possible you do understand that there would be a minimum stat and a maximum stat correct? Where does the unknown variable come into play here? Characters would be limited by a total number of stat points and each category would have a min/max this in simplicity means that there would be absolutely no unknown variables.
What it does is allow for a variation of known variables at the players choice.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
You missrepresent my argument here, stop that.
It is intellectual dishonest and doesn't progress the discussion in any way.
If you want to respond to something I said do a proper quotation and make a point.
Here is what I said:
Okay it is obvious to me that you didn't get the point so I try explaining it again.
If you have a system that provides complete freedom over how the points are allocated the devs would need to check out if there is any interaction between a possible allocation of points and the other systems that results in an unwanted result.
To be more precise if any combination is too strong or too weak.
With increasing complexity of the system this variable, that basically represents each possible way of allocating your points, becomes more and more difficult to balance.
In a very simple system where may only one stat is viable for your role (damgage / heal / tank) and maybe one for something else like a ressource increase or survivability you will only have a few combinations that need to be balanced around.
But if you e.g. have 5 viable stats to choose from and 60 points to spend you have a lot of different possible combinations.
Maybe check the number yourself but it should be about 5.461.512 different combinations.
(without repetition)
Of course devs wouldn't need to check every single one of them but still need to ensure balance.
The problem is they also need to ensure that the different stat allocations do not have any unbalanced interactions with other system like the secondary archetypes.
Basically further increasing the number of combinations dramatically with each system you add to the mix.
So while all of them are obviously known to be possible it is unknown which of those combinations the player will choose.
In other words the players choice is the unknown variable that turns into a constant once the freedom to choose is taken from the player.
Yes there are tons of combinations that could be created - it's exactly the point I'm trying to get across here - we would actually have unique characters from a fundamental level outside of gear.
What I don't understand that is so difficult here however is that the weapons and abilities would likely draw their power/damage etc from a percentage of a characters stats or some multiple of it. Since a fireball would likely only pull it's damage from 1 or 2 attributes i'm not entirely certain and how that would throw the game into some major development conundrum.
How exactly does the game break when a character has 80INT instead of 65INT for example? Is it because their fireball spell is going to explode in the characters hand if his constitution isn't the exact # it's supposed to be?
So yes on a case by case basis each character would be uniquely different unless of course they chose to build them exactly the same (or there is some very specific build everyone does because it's the only real option).
However in terms of damage balancing for the game it seems relatively simple to me and since there would be maximum's in place it seems fairly simple for a developer to just test what each weapon/skill/abilities maximum combination of attributes would deliver to balance. It should not be the developers job to make sure the masses understand how to build a character - that should be our responsibility.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
There is a scale
having full control over stats <//////////////////////////////> Have Premade Characters
'Trying to wedge players in the middle of the scale betrays the reason for stats in the first place.
If you want to balance your game on stats, and therefore limit the amount of stats people get and in what category, you're essentially dictating the meta. If they have a built in linear scale for damage calculated on skills because of this meta, then what is the point of even having a numerical representation of stats? It might as well be a flat damage number for the skills instead, and % growth of skills in armor.
Either way, that sounds nasty to me. It becomes WoW 2.0, where even if you have the option to wear +str gear on your mage in WoW, it doesn't benefit you at all. At that point it might as well be a 64 character select screen for a fighting game, with built in skills/stats.
You can argue that they're just lowering the scope of a player's ability to make a "mistake", but then that also implies there is only one "right" way, and they inadvertently encourage the player to play the game that way. That removes the feeling of meaningful choice. Because choice isn't just about being right, its also about being willing to be wrong.
You can say the choice comes in the armor/weapons you use, but then that makes your character feel less of a creation of your making, and instead piecemeal'd by whatever you can scrounge up along the way to the end. And then it puts most of the emphasis of your character on their gear. Which...feels very WoW again.
You could say that the skill distribution would help create a diverse character..but since the question pertains to stats alone...
What are the point of stats if all we can do are make the "right" choices to begin with? Why have a system in the works that doesn't have a meaningful function? if stats and %damage/health/mana increases are interchangeable, is that not a red flag? and if skills have different % scaling on stats, why rob players of the freedom of choice?
YES - Thank you.
Man this feels so good someone not only gets it but responded...
Look i'm 100% in on this game - but i'm really concerned that the backgrounds of Everquest (itemquest) and Planetside are going to bring down the true apex of AoC. Itemquest was a rock-paper-scissors game designed around building characters WITH items. Planetside was a shooter game that you basically unlock classes/roles with certificates/gold. - No offense to any developers reading this as they were both great games for their time and purpose, however you're building something new and don't let previous shortcomings fail this project because of "chaos".
This game has real PvP consequences, cities, castles, real estate all on the line. We should be creating characters designed around playstyles, strategies for war etc.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
I actually can't believe I have to explain this.
But here we go.
I wrote the following in my first post
If you have actually read it and not just glance over you might realize that I never said that it should nesseccarily be in the game if it is complex.
I just stated the obvious that it would be less boring for people if it were a more complex system.
I did not state that it should be "allowed" if it were complex.
I only brought the point up to begin with since it would have been the obvious counter argument so I already explained why that would not be a solution.
What makes your oversimplified summary of my argument completely wrong.
I explained what complex could potentially mean by giving an example because you have asked me what I mean:
As far as I am aware I never stated this is the only solution, a good solution or that I would even like to have it in the game.
And this is exactly how I phrased it:
"For example make each stat have 3 things it modifies.
Then you need to take more things than just 1 improvement into account since it influences 3."
In fact I was perfectly clear by adding:
"That's just an idealistic example to explain how stats could be more complex.
Don't assume I want that to happen please."
You did not state in your phrasing that I only made this up as an example to explain a term to you.
You completely ignored the context and wrongly assumed that this "needs" to happen, while I was perfectly clear that this is not what needs to happen at all.
Making that statement of yours yet again wrong and a missrepresentation of what I said.
It is not relevant because this was not my point to begin with.
So obviously yes it is not relevant to the argument and never was.
To conclude that, everything you said I would have stated is an inaccurate oversimplification of what was actually written, to a point where it is not a correct representation of my argument.
Which is why people prefer getting quoted to prevent exactly this issue.
Furthermore you go on and yet again missrepresent my point by asking how it will break the game, while I never once stated that it would break the game but merely pointed out that it could impact the game negative by making it more unbalanced.
Since you ignore my plea to use quotations and yet again are missrepresenting what I said
it is obvious that you are intellectual dishonest and are doing that on purpose.
This is not only very annoying and lazy but also preventing any progress in the actual discussion.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
What do you think this is? A popularity contest?
Of course everyone who reads the conversation will have his own thoughts about it but that doesn't impact or change in any way what has been stated.
That's about objective reality not subjective opinions.
Even if a thousand people read the discussion it is irrelevant if they agree or disagree as long as they don't objectively prove it.