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

[SageAcrin]

Well aware of that, and that's part of the problem. With items you can build stats up to talent-breaking levels at times.

While the talent breaking element can happen sometimes, I would say that the amount of skills that feel like they break with exceptionally high stats are an incredibly small minority. And the times I've seen truly ridiculous values involved category pointing a category, which most of the time is non-optimal to begin with. Making it even worse of an option doesn't seem desirable.

Mostly, it just feels like a reasonable form of scaling. Many players focus on their stats enough to hit at or near the 60 cap by L20~ or so, and equipment based bonuses allow skills to continue slowly moving upwards for the rest of the game, even though the core stat has capped off.

If you removed statistics from the equation, many skills would effectively cease to scale upwards past about L30 or so. That's a lot of time for your only growth in talents to be +damage equipment, with utility skills like Unflinching Resolve, Icy Skin(At least, IIRC that's StatTalent Will.), Shield Wall, Berserker, Cursed attack skills(which have the unique trait of scaling their multipliers with Strength), etc., there's probably more options than just what I can think of off the top of my head.

If you changed this, you'd have to either let these skills cease to grow past a point around the midgame-not the original designed intention, for at least some of them; I can say this since I wrote Misdirection with thoughts like this in mind!-or redesign them to work with powers, which would require a fairly large overhaul, with some rather surreal curve changes. (Swapping Strength/Dexterity to Physical Power/Accuracy, for instance, would mean that you could, relatively quickly, generate 60 on that primary stat by capping Weapon Mastery/Knife Mastery and Combat Accuracy, respectively.)

I don't feel like it's fair to brush this all off as abusive, is what I'm getting at. It generates a nice, even curve-a little frontended, but that's reasonable given how the game was constructed.

[bricks]

+1 from me. Stat juggling has always bothered me, and I rather items state exactly what effects they grant. The abilities that scale with primary stats instead of the appropriate "power" seem vestigial and should be changed. I genuinely think ToME is in a state where it needs to start pruning out certain elements to maintain its integrity, quality, and (substantial but not overwhelming) complexity.

(Of course, I never cared for the scaling saves/powers system.)

[jotwebe]

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.

This is where I'd put my +1.

I do see where the luck of the draw in finding the right +stat items for your desired skills make the game more interesting, but I weary of collecting every +con and +str item I come across just in case.

I don't mind the evaluation difficulties Grey suffers from, but then I'm a rule-of-thumb kind of guy.

[nate]

Would the game really break without swap-for-stats? If swap-for-stats is a problem, why not do a stat check every time you untrain stats or take off a piece of equipment? (I'm sure there's a good reason the game doesn't already do this-- just asking what it is.)

If the problem is just about identifying how a piece of equipment would affect your myriad talents, maybe that'd best be solved in the info window, rather than by altering the egos. Go through all of your talents, do a check on all your %d%s with before and afters, and note any that have changed at the bottom of the item's box. (Add in phys power, damage, whatever else ought to be there.) Maybe just do it with a compare (ctrl) info box to prevent screen clutter.

[Nivrax]

Against it. Every main stat boost few substats, so for each stat ego, you would need to add multiple stat boosts instead, making it look ever worse. This would be even more terrible on items with multiple stat boosts. The alternative of cutting gain to simple phys power or health means you are nerfing rare items in a game where most of your gear is artifacts anyway, widening gap even more. Then as other pointed out, you have hefty amount of skills, generics, or even prodigies that work off main stats. Then you have weapon scaling, especially important for things like Mindstars, which simple +phys power would not be enough, or some melee classes (Berserker) hitting ** cap early anyway, making gear with such stat entirely worthless. Then you have class specific stuff, like 1 max summon per 10 cunning.

For swapping gear for prodigies, it does seem cheesy to me, but most of them are useful already for classes that stack specific skill. The ones that would be most affected by it seem to be Through the Crowd and Crafty Hands. First is already pickable only by 2 classes in the game, rather weak, and if you'd have to put 40 hard points in Dex to even qualify for it, seems useless. Second also require to boost stat that does pretty much nothing for classes that would like it, and I'd argue it's also not worth to trade prodigy AND 40 stats for 2 gem slots.

Going back to comparing two weapons, this will be constant problem due to how complex damage calculation is. You'd need compare window to show actual weapon damage change (like on char sheet) to make it more clear, switching +Str on that sword to +Phys power helps with absolutely nothing.

[AIAndy]

I'd say leave the stats on items but make requirements only check base stats. That just removes the metagame of collecting stat items (mainly Con) for skills and prodigies but leaves the balance apart from that intact.
Then maybe improve the item comparison display to make it easier and faster to read.

[SageAcrin]

To be honest, I feel like the only reason statistical requirements are on skills and equipment is more thematics than anything.

A few skills genuinely use them as curve balancers, but for the most part they could be safely removed, if you didn't mind stuff like Combat Training looking funny for level reqs. (And Combat Training's reqs look funny anyways.)

Equipment is a bit weirder, since the strength limitations do help keep the occasional earlygame Voratun equip from a chest under control, but you could safely replace that with a (Material Level*5)-5 level requirement and mirror the same thing, pretty much.

Same goes for Prodigy skills, really.

I don't think making such limitations meaningful would do much positive for the game. Putting mail on a mage is generally non-optimal and sidegrade at best, even if you don't go for the stats for it-and Strength does much less for a mage than other stat options.

Sidegrade options make the game's class builds more interesting, since there's often not a one true way to do things. And a lot of that is, in practice, due to swaps getting around the stat reqs. Heavy armor Shadowblades become a lot less viable if you have to build up 40+ strength, heavy armor mages stop looking interesting, Wild-Gift/Harmony goes from the universal interesting Generic sink to one only for Willpower classes, to say nothing of how Antimagic becomes even worse for non-Will-building characters, Adventurers...lose a lot of hilarity, really...

I'm sure there's more examples of it.

And it doesn't really prevent much that actually is linearly better, that is a distinct upgrade that involves swaps. It's mostly Thick Skin, if anything-and fixing that mostly just skews class balance towards the two-stat classes, which already tended to be some of the best anyways(Berserker, Corruptor, Solipsist, Summoner). Funny, but true.

Thinking on it, Thick Skin really ought to be something like (Level*8) instead of a Con req regardless of what comes out of this. Its current handling skews in favor of those classes, and classes that have to build Con to survive, anyways, and it's the main swap offender anyhow.

[ohioastro]

For most of the classes I play the stats enter in if

Thick Skin
Armor, especially for weak classes looking at something like heavy boots or helms
Occasional off-class skill trees like Harmony

And, rarely:

I have a weapon that's a bit different than the one I usually use

The other place they impact game-play is for progression of multi-classed characters. The tier 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 stat requirements don't matter if they relate to a single primary skill - but if you have two co-equal stats then they do matter. This seems intentional and reasonable.

Given that, you'd remove much of the need to fuss about stats if you adopted a level-based Thick Skin criterion and relaxed the strength requirements for the first tier of armor so that most classes could choose iron boots, etc. if they burned a point (rather than also requiring gear hoarding, true at present).

I'd also relax the stat requirements for generic skills to encourage more creative things if people are willing to burn the (expensive) category points for them.

[wobbly]

I'd say leave the stats on items but make requirements only check base stats. That just removes the metagame of collecting stat items (mainly Con) for skills and prodigies but leaves the balance apart from that intact.
Then maybe improve the item comparison display to make it easier and faster to read.

I pretty much agree with this.

You can lower the stat requirements to match if needed, I wouldn't mind spending a couple of points in strength on a wizard/rogue/summoner etc. to get armour training - that's an interesting choice (invest or wear gloves/leather boots) . It's spending 6 or so points in a dead stat for that class that isn't viable. Thick skin could run of level as others have suggested. Willpower is useful on most classes - extra stamina or mana or higher saves. Taking some to meet the requirements for harmony is hardly a waste.

I don't mind the whole put some +str items on to meet item str requirements. This to me makes sense. It's the fact you can keep it on after removing the +str items that doesn't.

[Grey]

Going back to comparing two weapons, this will be constant problem due to how complex damage calculation is. You'd need compare window to show actual weapon damage change (like on char sheet) to make it more clear, switching +Str on that sword to +Phys power helps with absolutely nothing.

Well, yes, I think the idea is to help slightly with the much wider problem of too many stats on gear. It's very difficult to make an informed choice on equipment unless something is very obviously more powerful. Often there are far too many junk stats for most classes on items. Changes primary stats to secondary stats (and not a direct change, but an intelligent change for each ego type) would help with making informed choices more easily.

[Frumple]

... so what you're actually aiming for is the reduction of the number of egos and the removal of potentially interesting choices, because you feel it adds too much complexity. Basically making kit choice less involved and more cookie-cutter, in order to make equipment considerations less burdensome.

Not going to say it's not a thing you could do, or that it wouldn't make things easier on folks getting into the game. Will say I'm not fond of the suggestion I like having wiggle room with item choices and less rigid kit, m'self.

[wobbly]

Well, yes, I think the idea is to help slightly with the much wider problem of too many stats on gear. It's very difficult to make an informed choice on equipment unless something is very obviously more powerful.

Why should the best choice be obvious? You have a choice & you use your judgement. Maybe your right, maybe your wrong. Maybe your choice isn't best but does the job.

Often there are far too many junk stats for most classes on items. Changes primary stats to secondary stats (and not a direct change, but an intelligent change for each ego type) would help with making informed choices more easily.

Many of those junk stats are actually useful even though you wouldn't take magic given the choice of str on a bulwark & vis-versa for mages . A couple of extra points in magic can give a noticable increases in premonition & chant of fortuitude, there are weapons that trigger spells based on spellpower, spellsaves etc. As far as comparing weapons if you have a +str or a +magic weapon then that choice is obvious. If you don't have the choice then it still gives a small bonus. It increases stats you would never waste level-up points on, rounding out the character a little. A character with 100 str/dex/con & 10 will/cun/magic or whatever is a little boring & unbalanced to start with.

[tiger_eye]

Just popping in again to say I disagree with Grey on this one. I think it would make the game less interesting and less fun. The general consensus seems to be that primary stats on object is fine, but stat prerequisites are currently silly. SageAcrin makes some good points too (as do other people, of course).

Well, yes, I think the idea is to help slightly with the much wider problem

Then why isn't this discussion focused more on the "much wider problem" and less on something that may "help slightly"? I don't disagree that items and egos could be streamlined a bit (although I think edge2054 did I fine job with the last revamp of egos). I just don't think removing primary stats is the way to do it. There are a lot of egos, a lot of damage types, a lot of... well, just about everything. This is both a strength and weakness of ToME. In general, some sane pruning or refining or distinguishing of things in ToME may be beneficial. But that, again, is a larger issue, and needs wider consideration.

It's very difficult to make an informed choice on equipment

I disagree. To an inexperienced player, the biggest challenge is knowing what dangers to expect in upcoming zones and what you should be doing with your equipment. Once you've decided on what to gear for though--even if it's simply "well-rounded"--I think it's easy to decide what equipment to wear.

Often there are far too many junk stats for most classes on items.

Sure. And these are often secondary stats, not primary stats. Virtually any class can benefit from Con, Wil, Cun, and Str. Dex and Mag are more dependent on classes, but they may still help with talents learned from escorts or usable items. Primary stat bonuses are generally more applicable and useful, but secondary stat bonuses are more focused and stronger. Personally, I think that makes a lot of sense, and I guess what you think of as "challenging" I think of as "interesting". I know my experience as a new player is a bit dated now, but I do recall that learning what each stat does was one of the first things I learned.

[notmiki]

Thinking on it, Thick Skin really ought to be something like (Level*8) instead of a Con req regardless of what comes out of this. Its current handling skews in favor of those classes, and classes that have to build Con to survive, anyways, and it's the main swap offender anyhow.

I disagree. Thick skin early is an appropriate reward for building Con right off the bat instead of waiting, especially considering that stat differences are more pronounced - and more important - early. If an archmage builds con instead of wil, they can't afford some big-cost sustains they may want. A bulwark is getting less out of the skills that scale with dex. A berserker...actually doesn't have much of an incentive to build anything other than str before con but you get the idea.

How about this: make thick skin require either a level (8/16/24/32/40) or the current stat requirement. In practice, a class that never puts a point in con probably won't hit 59 before the high 30s anyway, so this doesn't change the current balance in play but removes the incentive to hoard.

[Grey]

... so what you're actually aiming for is the reduction of the number of egos and the removal of potentially interesting choices, because you feel it adds too much complexity.

Oh no! I don't want less egos or less complexity, I just want more clarity. Interesting choices and hard decisions are great. However I don't feel that really happens so often - you analyse the stats and after a while decide one is clearly better. It's just a little puzzle you have to think through every time you want to change hats.

Anyway, I clearly have little support on this, and some people seem to assume I want to nerf everything or dumb down the game :-\

tiger_eye: I have other specific ideas regarding egos, but this seemed the low hanging fruit.

Regarding Thick Skin, it's Con link is important to teach players to invest in Con. Also stat reqs are nice in comparison to level requirements as they allow more flexibility - you can choose whether or not to invest in stats to get a certain ability earlier. However it only really works out like that in classes with more than one primary stat. Still, I do think there's something a bit boring about straight level requirements.