picks86 said:Aggelos said:I agree with you to a certain extent but I still think people should know either by their own math gameplay that the extra point of agility actually effected their dodge or would it be more beneficial to pick up points in another state because due to diminishing returns, you have hit a point where it takes too much agility to gain an extra percent in dodge and it would be better server to pick up that gear with extra strength or constitution.
I also want this exact style of gameplay! This is something players (and your character) should logically have to learn and study to figure out.
a) "It feels like my dodge isn't improving that much anymore from agility, let me try getting some more dexterity or AC and see if my survivability improves."
b)"This here character spreadsheet shows me to the thousandth decimal that more agility is worthless now, time to stack X instead."
One involves gameplay and would be in-line with what your character experiences, one does not and is straight up math. Math =! gameplay.
This is also the same line of reasoning as to why I'd prefer to have no in-game maps or radar, unless they are player crafted/etc. People have forgotten what RPG stands for in MMORPG!
Agreed
i'm one who likes seeing physical data saying that i'm improving. i want to see my dps get better or worse depeding on my weapon/armor set. seeing the numbers was fun and it always pushed me to better my numbers next time.
if i can't raid much, i would want to focus on the equipment that will maximise my char based on player data provided
Fulton said:I so love the number crunchers. :/
/shout Group looking for 1 more, must have Tier 4 gear, min 435DPS, min 25x run speed, 22% haste, and 32% mitigate damage. Lessers need not apply.
/tell I have 432DPS
/reply Sorry, too low.
Yeah, when this is standard in a game is when I decide it's time for me to stop playing that game. I want to be judged by my personality and skill first and foremost. And I say that as someone who end game raided Kunark through darkhollow.
Fulton said:I so love the number crunchers. :/
/shout Group looking for 1 more, must have Tier 4 gear, min 435DPS, min 25x run speed, 22% haste, and 32% mitigate damage. Lessers need not apply.
/tell I have 432DPS
/reply Sorry, too low.
Feels to me that you're describing assholes, not the entire subset of number crunchers...I would not refuse someone a group for having 0.68% less sheet DPS than a made up threshold. Good players realise that sheet DPS is only a potential number. Someone who maximises his time attacking (and that includes staying alive) can do quite a bit more damage during a fight than someone wiht a higher potential who is lazy and/or bad.
Tangent question: at which point would you say it's ok to refuse to group with an undergeared player? Would you bring someone in cloth armor to kill Nagafen? Would you group with a naked healer? I'll be honest and say that I don't have an answer for myself...
Like I said, I like numbers and if we are given only basic relation (option #2 from OP) I will go to theory crafting forums and figure it out and get an edge. I did it in D2, WoW, D3 and many other games. But I would really be disappointed in the game if the informations is as absent as EQ or ,worst, a UI like Arkisen is describing.
My opinion about how detailed the information should be depends entirely on how involved/intertwined/complex the stats on gear are. For very basic stats as they exist in some current MMOs, mousing over dexterity on a warrior and seeing a tooltip that says "This stat provides no benefit for your class," I'd rather, I think, very detailed information for the stats that *do* affect that class. While I do like figuring it out for myself because it's another facet of learning the game and/or class, and not ending up with a situation where people refuse groups to people who don't meet very specific criteria, it will be sorted out by various people mathing it out sooner or later. In that case, I think I'd rather just see it up front; mouse over strength on a warrior, and the tooltip tells you "This stat increases the damage you do with weapon attacks. Your current strength of xx adds nn additional damage" or some such. That goes for secondary-type stats as well--if crit adds crit chance and additional crit damage, the game may as well show how much crit chance you've gained and how much extra damage crits will do. People will figure it out anyway, as well as any diminishing return points, regardless of how little information is provided, and the fewer variables involved, the easier it is. (See FFXIV, for example--it doesn't even show damage on abilities, just potency for relative power variations between your skills, but people quickly math it to pieces every patch and come up with stat weights for every job.) Since the stats in those games are so basic, I love it when someone calculates it all, details the methods of their calculations (so I can indulge my inner math geek and look for holes), and lists what very specific benefits I'd get from a given stat. There's not enough to choose from in those games, so I *want* to know what's best, and work for those pieces of gear.
That said, what I'd like is a pretty complex stat system, with an in-game source for somewhat vague information about what the stats do (unless the stat's name makes it blatantly obvious.) I'd be very happy if every stat was beneficial to every class, in some form or another, with some stats being "better" but none being wasted. Rather than having no use for wisdom on a warrior, perhaps it adds a chance to resist--fully or partially--elemental damage, while intelligence may add resistance to other forms of magic damage. You wouldn't necessarily want to stack wisdom as a warrior, and you should probably not fight the cleric in your group for a wisdom-laden drop if it directly increases their healing done, but you wouldn't scorn the "wasted stats" on gear that's otherwise good for your class. You might even try to get some gear that has a weird mix of stats when you're going to fight mobs that do a lot of non-physical damage. The more convoluted the stat system is, the less specific I'd like the displayed information in-game to be. That may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, since with a greater variety of stats and greater interaction between them, having a way to figure out which gear is really "better" becomes more difficult. I kinda want that. :P I don't want to see BiS lists for every class, mainly because I don't want to see pared-down stats on gear with such limited variety that it's even *possible* to determine a BiS gear set.
Above all though, what I truly never want to see is some variation of item level/rating/tier listed on equipment. It so quickly leads to "This is better because the ilvl is higher!" with no understanding of *why* it may or may not be better, and the amusement park "You must be this tall to enter" mentality where people who are tragically bad at even a basic grasp of their class are "better" because they meet a group's item level requirement, yet someone very adept at playing is slighted because he or she hasn't had particularly good luck with drops.
So long as all calculations for Combat (and I use this term to govern all things which come into play when a player vs an NPC) are only based upon those things visible to the player, even vague notions can be readily interpreted correctly. By what is visible to us, I mean our stats, our resists, the relation between levels, etc. Hopefully we can avoid the introduction of extra or hidden variables which began appearing over time as EQ1 expansions were released. Percentages to things like Sheilding, Spell Shielding, Spell Damage, Heal Amount, Avoidance began appearing on items. Were these other stats part of the system from day one? Hard to say, but something in the back of my mind says no.
Simples said:i'm one who likes seeing physical data saying that i'm improving. i want to see my dps get better or worse depeding on my weapon/armor set. seeing the numbers was fun and it always pushed me to better my numbers next time.
if i can't raid much, i would want to focus on the equipment that will maximise my char based on player data provided
Question: Do you want to see this in hard numbers - OR -do you just want to "know" you are getting better by how things happen in combat. For example, you get a new sword, and things start dying faster = you did more DPS.... you get a new breast plate, and you finish fights healthier = better defense, etc...
Just curious.
picks86 said:Arksien nailed every point I was trying to make. That sounds like a game I could play for years learning every in and out.
I think that is what makes some games survive longer. Spending the time to play and understand the mechanics. Look at EQ it's been around 16+ years. Others have come and gone. Some people do like spending the time to look into these things, and I see from the posts some don't.
I am in the camp of not wanting to know exactly what everything adds up to. I would like to get that robe and see the results from using it rather then putting it on and seeing of +.34% to this go nope don't want that. You will generally always know how stats will affect things. I remember doing the research on wis points vs +mana as +10 mana was better at lower levels than +2 wis, but at higher levels the tables turned.
It's like going to the gym and doing a workout for a week. Are you stronger? fitter?, probably but you have no idea how much until you test yourself. Thats like a +2 str, +2 sta item you are probably stronger and fitter, how it relates ingame well you have to find out :)
You may have hit a soft stat cap so it doesn't actually help until you level a bit more. Just like I think there was a damage cap until level 20 in EQ, onve you got there you could do more damage. It also helped with twinks having the best weapon not totally owning the content level they were fighting.
personaly i could care less either way. But as I dont have hours upon hours to game like i used to (usually 3 hr intervals) doing all the research to find out what everything is tends to be a hinderance. People will figure it out good enough like 130-140 is the sweet spot kind of deal that not implmeneting a good tool tip with at least what it affects like block, dodge, parry, spell dmg, etc.. i dont believe in. I dont look at what should be best for my class point wise, but at least what they affect would be nice to know upfront.
I like building different kind of the same classes so it helps. Such as a heavily armored tank, focused on blocking with my shield, and another tank, that wears light armor, and focuses on parry/dodge, 2 weapon wielding.
In the end, it truly wont matter to me as i'll play either way, but i'd rather see some informative tooltips what what each stat affects.
Mekada said:Fulton said:I so love the number crunchers. :/
/shout Group looking for 1 more, must have Tier 4 gear, min 435DPS, min 25x run speed, 22% haste, and 32% mitigate damage. Lessers need not apply.
/tell I have 432DPS
/reply Sorry, too low.
Feels to me that you're describing assholes, not the entire subset of number crunchers...I would not refuse someone a group for having 0.68% less sheet DPS than a made up threshold. Good players realise that sheet DPS is only a potential number. Someone who maximises his time attacking (and that includes staying alive) can do quite a bit more damage during a fight than someone wiht a higher potential who is lazy and/or bad.
Tangent question: at which point would you say it's ok to refuse to group with an undergeared player? Would you bring someone in cloth armor to kill Nagafen? Would you group with a naked healer? I'll be honest and say that I don't have an answer for myself...
Like I said, I like numbers and if we are given only basic relation (option #2 from OP) I will go to theory crafting forums and figure it out and get an edge. I did it in D2, WoW, D3 and many other games. But I would really be disappointed in the game if the informations is as absent as EQ or ,worst, a UI like Arkisen is describing.
No issue with number crunchers, we all do it to some extent. My post was more a exagerated humorous take on the extremist, who I have encountered on many occassions and ultimately lead me to quitting WoW. Where people like that tend to really need bots, not players, because they want everything a certain way, tell you what abilities and in what order you will use them in this fight, etc.
I play for the entertainment value, if I am instructed on exactly how to play my character by someone else, rather than just being told what my duties in the group are and leave it to me to figure out the best way to fulfill those duties, well, the entertainment value is lost and I might as well just go work in the garage.
I actually joined a guild raid, and was told to check my email for an ability macro. I was like "Say What?"
To be fair, precise instructions on what to do and what not to do will always exist in a game like this at the top tiers of gameplay. Some things are just required of people. Avoiding that tier of gameplay is about the only viable option one has to avoid the negative situations.
I won't invite someone to a group with resists that are too low if the content in question demands high resists. I won't exclude people from a group if their performance won't be compromised by being undergeared.
I can't really think of a practical way to avoid a situation like that, but we're getting really far off topic anyway.
Wandidar said:Simples said:i'm one who likes seeing physical data saying that i'm improving. i want to see my dps get better or worse depeding on my weapon/armor set. seeing the numbers was fun and it always pushed me to better my numbers next time.
if i can't raid much, i would want to focus on the equipment that will maximise my char based on player data provided
Question: Do you want to see this in hard numbers - OR -do you just want to "know" you are getting better by how things happen in combat. For example, you get a new sword, and things start dying faster = you did more DPS.... you get a new breast plate, and you finish fights healthier = better defense, etc...
Just curious.
Each group and fight has different variables that can affect how fast a mob dies. I'd like to see numbers and parsers. i normally role a class that has self buffs. well, it's hard to tell if another class group buff is better than my self buff without see numbers. if i can help my group out by using X weapon or Y buff, then i want to do so. I used a parsing program back in the day, it was fun as each class tried to out do the other members in their class on raids. Other games i coudn't run a program, so i busted out the calculator and scrolled through chat to see how i was doing. <-- that sucked but it was for the betterment of my friends and guildies including myself.
Mekada said:Fulton said:I so love the number crunchers. :/
/shout Group looking for 1 more, must have Tier 4 gear, min 435DPS, min 25x run speed, 22% haste, and 32% mitigate damage. Lessers need not apply.
/tell I have 432DPS
/reply Sorry, too low.
Feels to me that you're describing assholes, not the entire subset of number crunchers...
my thoughts exactly, wish there was a thumbs up option
I like specifically vague :)
For example: You mouse of Strength and it will say "gives damage boost" and perhaps angle those towards the class being played. It will tell casters it's a less important stat (if it is) and a melee it will tell it's a more important stat (if it is).
Outside of that I don't care if it shows benefits or not. I'm not a number cruncher to the point of wanting to know all the forumals, but if I put gear on I want to see a change. Again as an example: As a rogue I put on a piece of agility gear and my ac goes from 10 to 11. I don't know the exact math behind it (2 agility = 1 ac), but I saw a change.
For many figuring out the nitty gritty of stats is a game within the game and I say let them have at it. Look how hotly debated charisma for enchanters (and to a lesser extent necros) was! :)
I am still playing the original EQ and they show me stats galore. I may be a scrub player but I do not look at all at those stats. if a piece of armor drops and it seems better for the key stats of my class then i replace it but that is about as far as i dig into stats. I'm not one to actively find the stats i need to improve and research the gear i need. I just play the damn game and do my quests and rewards are a bonus. I absolutely hate researching to figure out what i need.
But i know there are a vast number of people that do like that. So i dont know, i say put the stats and tool tips in or leave them out.
I'm just with some of the above posters and quit most games because of the iLevel issue. If this game devolves into that then i will probably leave this one also.
I know i need a certain amount of HP, Mana and AC to be able to fight certain things, but i have been able to do that almost intuatively in EQ without having to parse or research stuff.
This post is jumbled but i'm thinking of this stuff as I type. Stats have always been the carrot i guess, but if i am remembering correctly, it just wasnt that much of a focus during my early EQ days. My greatest fun was camping regular mobs with my friends. I have never been able to recreate that enjoyment with any other game. it wasnt dungeon farming like most games or whatever. It was just me and my friends, sitting on a hilltop or whatever, pulling regular mobs to camp and killing them over and over. This doesnt sound like it would be fun but it was the best. The pullers skill in splitting, the slows of the shammy or the CC of the Chanter. It just seemed like more skill based game to me than trying to run the gear & stat treadmill. Gaining levels and the new spells or abilities were the biggest things i looked forward to. Epic Quests and the Shawl quest also. not for the stats but just the extreme challenge at that time of being able to work through that back in the day.
Rereading this post i notice that i added nothing to this discussion. So my opinion on the OP's question is to try and balance fun, rewarding, social gameplay against iLevel bullying.
Upgrades would need to be pretty significant if you want to "feel" the difference. A tank would probably never notice a 1% evasion variation so would assume that 25 agi points are useless. Assuming magic gear will be rare again, I won't be hoarding a full set of agi gear hoping that at some point it will make a difference to my gameplay. Knowing the maths let's you aim for a gameplay decision like having more absorption or evasion based on your available equipment options.
Echoing Kayahni, I too would like to see a complex system of mechanics over a simple one. I like figuring out which of STR, hit chance, haste, crit chance, crit dmg, etc is better for what I'm aiming for instead of just having a few possible stats affect the dmg output.
I like to be able to figure it out...or not. I think some benefit should accrue to people who try and test and give thought to how they want their characters to be geared and spec'd.
"You need to have 45429 mitigation and 342522 spell block chance to enter this instance."
So gear resets, everyone follows the exact same quest path that gives the exact same quest armor for your exact class that will enable you, at the end, to survive the instanced dungeon just like 2 million other players can who are on the exact same path. Skip the path and the aoe melts you. Guaranteed.
This is not appealing to me in the least.
So a little opacity enables different players to experiment with different enhancements that might make a difference to them in their particular style of play.
I remember one person on the old old EQ forums was kind of perplexed when I mentioned our core group makeup. "For some reason you have sacrificed dps for survivablity" /boggle. Well, the way we play, dungeon crawling, on a PVP server, survivability might be paramount to us. Melee dps (at that time) less so. So yes, this is what we are running with and it works for us. And we are aware that it takes a bit more time to kill certain mobs.
But the EQ2 model (and I am assuming the WoW model) is just way overdone. And totally linear. It doesnt allow for tactics to beat gear or stats which for me is an important part of my enjoyment of the game.
And yes, I still sacrifice dps for survivability! So I would want to be able to know I was having the desired impact, so some clarity about what the stats did would be necessary heh.
I like to see the info. I don't mind it being behind a toggle or something. If I can't see the info I will dig in the internet to find it. Someone will have figured it out. I would rather play the game with my limited time than dig through the internet. So lets just see it up front.
For me personally, I actually really enjoyed the abiguity of stats in my mmo of choice (ffxi, to be clear it also didn't explain what stats did in a similar fashion). There was something special about elements of how the game worked being discovered through experience and community experiments and data pooling.
Having said that, as far as stats go I don't feel like it would hurt my experience significantly if some information was explained. Example: DEX - .5 accuracy per point, determines critical rate relative to target AGI, and modifies skills that make use of it.
To be clear, I can live with some explaination of what is going on but would prefer it still not be super specific with all of its details.
Yes, PLEASE tell me exactly what my stats do. That is one thing I always disliked in EQ.
We ARE playing an RPG right?? Somebody mentioned D&D and how players knew exactly all their stat numbers and what exactly each stat did. In D&D the players role played but they also had to govern their own die rolls and the info that ties into that so it was required of them to know each stat and its value. Video games have removed the behind-the-scenes die rolls from the players so they can focus on role playing and knowing exactly what each stat does is not neccessary because the game engine handles that.
So now, in a video game MMORPG, it's not neccessary for a player to know his 20 dexterity gives him 50 evade, 60 parry, and 5% crit damage for the quest, the story, the fight, the world, the whatever to move on. That's one of the reasons EQ was so magical to so many because it was one of the first instances people could role play with others where not only did they not have to handle all the die rolls but they didn't have to know all that immersion-breaking iformation.
I feel giving a player stats such as dexterity and telling them it affects evasion, parry, crit damage, etc is fine and immersive but the player should not know exactly how much dexterity affects them. Once the player is given all this information and numbers to the exact decimal they are removed from the game world and are no longer role playing and ultimately, again, breaks immersion.
So I'd like to see stats such as strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc have a description of what each one affects and that would be fine. Since this is a video game and I can't personally feel how increasing my strength is affecting myself I believe knowing that strength affects my melee damage, my blocking, what armor i can wear, that it affects carrying capacity, etc does not break immersion and is fine. Also, though I don't believe knowing the EXACT amount is required, having an idea of how my strength is affecting my attributes is important. Somebody gave the EQ example and how in EQ you would know if your useage of 2 handed swords was 'awful, bad, average, good, excellent, etc' having info like this for your stats would be fine. Not sure how you would implement this but a player has to have a feeling or a general idea of where their attributes stand at, they just don't need to know to the exact decimal nor do they even need to know a number at all for that case.
I'm in for as much ambiguity and obfuscation as possible. To that extent, I'd really like to hide as many numbers as possible, and when we do get a number, make it hard to know precisely what that even means. In EQ they hid defensive numbers by layering two aspects of defense (avoidance and mitigation). That made it a bit more challenging to know what 800 AC actually meant.
But going back specifically to statistics, I'd like for there to be unusual/unstated side benefits of stats. In EQ we struggled alot to know what some stats even did. What did Dex actually do? Help channeling, help proccing? What did Cha do? Charms, mezzing, price... I'd actually like more of this, where one stat might tie to something relatively obvious, but secondarily affect in a more nuanced way. For instance, Intelligence. Intelligence could primarily affect casting/mana pools, but if high enough, could affect avoidance skills like dodge (we could argue this is possible with improved reflexes through higher cognition).
I think the more complexity with stats the better, and the more they hide from us the more immersive the experience.
I for one would be happy if they hid everything behind a veil and just color coded everything to know if it is approximately appropriate for our level.
Hide the stats completely for all I care.
If an item drops, have it color coded so it shows whether your STR will increase, stay the same or drop if you put the new piece on. Don't say how much, just give the direction. I know some people like to play the spreadsheet game and totally get that not everyone would agree with me... but I like the thought of removing numbers so people don't mistake the ability to hit a target number for skill.
Get rid of the levels on the mobs as well... just go off cons. If you are level 10 and it is red... it might be 15... it might be 50.
Always hated being spoon fed every piece of information before the fight, so you know exactly how the fight should turn out....