Remove all char stats (Str, Dex, etc) from egos

[Grey]

Yeah, I know, it's a little late in the day to be suggesting sweeping changes. Also, I have a feeling I've suggested this before :/

Right now comparing items is.... bleh. There's a lot of modified stats, and this is made worse by the fact that the core player stats (Str, Con, etc) cascade down into other stats. Trying to compare two weapons is a minefield, especially for new players.

So.... all these stats should be removed, and potentially replaced with direct modifiers to the secondary stats. Bonus to Con should give HP instead, etc. Exceptions could be made for artifacts and jewellery.

[mertonhobbit]

To some degree items of +CON and +HP have slightly different flavors. The +HP items focus on just that one element, while +CON have more broadly spread benefits...so the names and feel are or could be slightly different (e.g. of life vs of endurance or something).

Instead of collapsing them, maybe the calculation could be partially spelled out for the player to help in comparison.

+72 HP

vs.

+6 CON (+18 HP, +3 mental save, +...)

[SageAcrin]

A problem that I see is that...well, the skill system, for better or for worse, has had decisions built into it that at least to some degree assume you'll be swapping equips for stats. (Or accidentally worked out like that. Either way.)

It's certainly not impossible to rework the system with that in mind, but doing so in a way that doesn't require meticulously redesigning skills is pretty large amounts of work.

The very simplest answer would be to remove stats entirely from the skill equation, but even that really shakes up the balance of things. (Picking up 5 Thick Skin on any build early is weird, for example, as is stacking up tons of Weapon Mastery early on. There'd still be balancing work that'd need to be done with that.)

And the thing is, usually what the stat swaps enable is more interesting or quirky builds, or enable fighter/mage classes that have some of the rougher starts, that sort of thing.

Obviously, this doesn't shoot down the idea. It could be done, but it takes a decent amount of work to get it into a form that won't cause tons of rage from players that used stat swaps for things like Thick Skin, Armor Training, or Prodigy skills they wanted, but that their build doesn't support on raw stat points. And yet, to also have a form that has been sanity checked to avoid things like people running around with 55 physical power after Trollmire. To say nothing of actually having to redo all the egos(/artifacts, if they were included for consistency).

Do you really think the gain of a more obvious equip system is worth that much work, though? I mean, players do kinda have to grasp what stats do as part of playing the game. I generally have good rules of thumb like "1 Strength=1 Physical Power" and such, myself-overly simplistic but lets me eyeball things pretty fast.

Is it really worth the work that could be put into, say, designing a new class or new areas? I'm just not sure I see the payoff there, myself.

[Grey]

A problem that I see is that...well, the skill system, for better or for worse, has had decisions built into it that at least to some degree assume you'll be swapping equips for stats. (Or accidentally worked out like that. Either way.)

Unintended, and I believe DarkGod has tried (unsuccessfully) to stop this happening. But with my suggestions rings/amulets/artifacts could still allow a bit of this. At present I tend to keep these light items on me as swap items anyway.

Is it really worth the work that could be put into, say, designing a new class or new areas? I'm just not sure I see the payoff there, myself.

Is that relevant? I'm not asking anyone to stop working on classes. Plus I think it could likely be done in about an hour - go through most of the ego files and replace primary stats with secondary stats. In comparison a new class or area takes week of work, and quite frankly is unlikely to happen at this stage of development. I'm more interested in polishing the existing rich game than adding more clutter.

[SageAcrin]

Unintended, and I believe DarkGod has tried (unsuccessfully) to stop this happening. But with my suggestions rings/amulets/artifacts could still allow a bit of this. At present I tend to keep these light items on me as swap items anyway.

Not entirely unintended. The stated effect, when I asked point blank in chat on this subject, was that DarkGod intended that equips you wear add to your skill modifiers, but not that people would swap them on, learn a skill, and swap back to their usual set.

(Obviously, I don't intend to put words in anyone's mouth here when I say this-I'm just repeating what I was told, since I was very interested in this subject, due to how the system actually worked out.)

If he hadn't, it would have been incredibly easy to have skills check base statistics instead of post-equip statistics.

The change you're suggesting would still mar that intended effect.

In fact, if artifacts and jewelry still could be used, it would actually make the swap effect worse, as people would no longer be able to get decent amounts of stats from incidental equipment, and instead would then swap more to compensate. It's quite possible to get, say, Thick Skin from moderate Con building and just what you happen to have on, since Con also builds Life, for example. This change would notably hurt, if not remove, that.

Is that relevant? I'm not asking anyone to stop working on classes. Plus I think it could likely be done in about an hour - go through most of the ego files and replace primary stats with secondary stats. In comparison a new class or area takes week of work, and quite frankly is unlikely to happen at this stage of development. I'm more interested in polishing the existing rich game than adding more clutter.

For the former...doing it takes an hour, doing it right...can take a lot more. Prodigy skills, if nothing else, require a distinct reshuffling, and DarkGod has said he likes having the stats have equal amounts of skills for each stat.

Then there's how you represent each stat in points. For example, many skills still run off TalentStatDamage-directly checking a statistic for their power. So, for example, one point of strength is, for some classes, one point of physical power, some encumberance boost, etc., but for others, it's a bonus to damage with, say, breath attacks. How do you properly refund that? I sure don't know.

Certainly, you can set up an arbitrary set of bonuses that a stat point equals, and run through egos changing them pretty fast, if you already know the system. But it doesn't change the fact that it's basically changing the game a lot, and if you wanted to minimize those changes-which is optimal, since other people balance based on what is there.

Heck, when I designed skills that used TalentStatDamage, I checked three stat values. 10, 60 and 100. I don't think you'd get anywhere near 100, ever, with the suggested changes (Well, perhaps if you left Artifacts totally in for stats, eventually...but, then again, that's somewhat purpose defeating to the goal, I feel. I'm not sure why you'd keep them as an exception, if you were going to the trouble of changing things up.). I don't know how much this might genuinely shake up balance.

For the latter, I believe DarkGod has said his long term goal is...what, five? extra distinct campaigns. I don't think that counts as cluttering the game, but it definitely seems like a good amount of work to me.

[tiger_eye]

Aw hell nah. I don't like this idea at all. You know what's even less fun? Getting even more items with egos you can't use at all. Mindpower? Mindcrit? Most characters I play can't use those at all! But Wil and Cun? Even if it's not their main stats, they're still generally useful.

Many talents still scale with stats and not power (and this doesn't mean these talents should be switched to powers). For example, Vitality and Retch scale with Con. Should these instead scale with, what, life? Stealth, poisons, etc. scale with Cun. Should these scale with, uh, mindpower?! And there many other (and probably better) examples. Getting stats from items allows you to add to the strengths of a build, which I think is fun. Simply and only being able to add +life, +power, etc. to me seems far more boring.

Making it easier to compare weapons is a good goal and I think it could be clearer. This can be addressed without removing stats from egos. An easy change would be to have far fewer "base power" levels for weapons. A dagger with 4.5 power vs 5 vs 5.5 vs 6 vs 6.5 etc... are all those levels necessary? A given weapon type and level has a defined range of possible values. The difference between 4.5 vs 5 is almost negligible, and 49.5 vs 50 is more so. So, how about allowing only two or three possible base_powers for each weapon tier, such as minimum, maximum, and, if desired, average.

Gearing for stats to meet prerequisites is a side issue from what was proposed. I don't think it's a big deal, and I would be fine if prereq's were, for example, changed to use base values. I would also be fine if it wasn't changed.

[Infinitum]

I think having talent requirements working off base stats instead would be enough. Hoarding every +whatever item I come upon without any intention to use it in actual gameplay does feel non-intuitive and exploitive. Obviously stat requirements would need to be lowered in order to compensate, but it'd still be an improvement imo.

Then again, having talents scale exclusively on derived stats (power, defense, saves, accuracy, crit%) wouldn't exactly be unfeasable either, and if done right could discourage players from only pumping one primary stat as currently seems to be the norm. As an example, say you would want to max either DEX or STR to boost your accuracy for your primary damage dealing skill each level up this would still leave you with the choice of balancing your physical power or physical defense even as you optimize that one skill. Still this would necessitate some very creative reshuffling of what primaries affects what derived statistics so is probably unfeasable in practice.

[Grey]

Many talents still scale with stats and not power (and this doesn't mean these talents should be switched to powers). For example, Vitality and Retch scale with Con.

Well aware of that, and that's part of the problem. With items you can build stats up to talent-breaking levels at times. But more importantly it makes assessing items *impossible*. Not only does a stat increase several secondary stats, but it also has a load range of talent effects that you can't keep track of. Primary stats on items just leads to a headache of analysis.

[Frumple]

I'd... kinda' disagree, there. It's pretty easy to get a general feel for how stats are going to benefit your talents. If you're insisting on going near-OCD level and calculating out every small change involved, then yeah, that's going to cause a headache, but... you don't really need to. Just a general "this will make things better" seems to be enough, and it's seems fairly simple to notice that. It helps that most classes are fairly focused, so you have a pretty good idea what you need to be looking for.

[edge2054]

I seem to remember bringing this up as well, probably when I was sitting down to do the latest batch of ego changes. My reasoning was mostly that I'm not a fan of the item swapping for stat requirements mini-game.

Anyway I think it's a good thought but as you said Grey, it's a bit late in the game for it now. But I guess it's better late than never and you brought up some good points about overwhelming new players (not to mention redundancy).

[notmiki]

I'm for keeping egos that boost base stats, for all the reasons already given.

The biggest problem with stat-boosting equipment is people hoarding items for the sole purpose of learning skills, especially thick skin. I think the best solution is simply to lower stat requirements on combat training skills, and possibly other generic trees, and add some light level requirements to combat training to compensate. Something like lvl 4/8/12/16/20 for thick skin, and only require 40 con for 5/5. 0/0/0/4/8 for armor, and leave weapons alone because they're based on primary stats anyway. For class skills, I don't think any changes are necessary - a berserker isn't hoarding +str items for the sole purpose of learning skills, after all. For veteran players this cuts down on item-hoarding. For newbies - especially people who haven't unlocked the transmogrification chest and may be carrying around items to sell - this makes the game more approachable.

[Amphouse]

I'm not a fan of equipment swapping, it makes no sense from a realism perspective and I think it's unintuitive from a gameplay perspective. I don't understand why skills can't just become unusable if you no longer meet the stat requirements for them(and things like passives would just stop working). It sounds like a simple fix, but I don't know much about how the game actually works, perhaps it's not so trivial. Otherwise, we have to assume it's intended behavior, and I'd rather not, I really hate the idea.

[supermini]

How about moving on to a level requirement instead of stat requirement?

So Thick Skin could be level 6/12/18/24/30, for example. I'd do the same for weapons and armor (level req. to use instead of stat).

The good side of this would be that you'd lose the equipment swap mini game, but the bad side of it is that you lose flexibility on talents (although some talents like combat accuracy already work this way) and the ability to really luck out on early chests when it comes to gear (unless you set the requirements really low).

[ohioastro]

I'd suggest a hybrid approach that retains the core concepts of the current system while removing things like item swapping. There is already machinery in place for level requirements for skills; simply extend this. I think supermini makes a good point. But there is a straightforward change to the skills that could have a real positive impact:

Soften the stat requirements substantially, but make them tied to base rather than modified stats. I'd like to see no item or skill require more than a 40 base stat - so it's possible to design viable multi-purpose characters. To first order this amounts to multiplying the existing requirements by of order 2/3. You'd still need to plan some strength if you wanted heavy armor, but you wouldn't need to boot-strap off random equipment drops to reach critical thresholds to wear gear.

[Frumple]

Y'know, there's actually a fairly simple way to prototype and test all these massive sweeping changes -- and it's a way that'd actually make them somewhat likely to be implemented.

Go make some add-ons. Do the code work, test and see how it actually plays instead of theorycrafting. If it turns out well, then you can present it to DG and DG can take what he finds interesting, should there be anything. If it doesn't turn out well, or DG rejects it, then, well, you've got the game you want to play sitting there, a file away.

I'm kinda' okay with the system as is, myself. I like that it's occasionally somewhat non-obvious or flexible what item you might want to be wearing, or that you've got viable sidegrades and suchlike running around due to the overlapping stats (foopowers et al vs the core stats). Conceptually I don't like seeing potentially interesting choices removed from the game, even if, perhaps, that sacrifices a degree of accessibility (though as I noted above, I do believe Grey's overstating the current situation).