Not sure why people that are against stat allocation compares this to WoW. In WoW you didnt get points to allocate to stats it auto allocated them for you. Second thing about WoW was in vanilla you could allocate into your spec tree, and yes this did make it where anyone could change whenever and was no class identity, but vanilla WoW was still better than what we got now in WoW. Other than this so far loving reading everyone's post making some great points for it and against it. And remember we are all on the same side trying to get a great game out of pantheon so no agressive post. Thanks.
Medjai said:How would a warrior feel if a Bracer with 5 STR and 5 STAM dropped and I took it because I knew that next level I would get 5 more wisdom or I could just redo my stats and take 5 out of STAM since I got the bracer and put that back into WIS. No.
Looking at this from the opposite viewpoint, if a character allocated stats at level 1 and never got to add more, then potentially as hybrid characters find they need more WIS on INT (for example) to help with their spells, then they potentially are going to take that shield or amulet with +WIS/+INT because there is no other way to get more stats in those abilities.
Choosing Stat points at creation is great, and so is an explanation as to what each does for each class. Armed with this knowlege you can make a decent choice. What is the big deal ? Reading is fundamental.
Umbra said:Medjai said:How would a warrior feel if a Bracer with 5 STR and 5 STAM dropped and I took it because I knew that next level I would get 5 more wisdom or I could just redo my stats and take 5 out of STAM since I got the bracer and put that back into WIS. No.
Looking at this from the opposite viewpoint, if a character allocated stats at level 1 and never got to add more, then potentially as hybrid characters find they need more WIS on INT (for example) to help with their spells, then they potentially are going to take that shield or amulet with +WIS/+INT because there is no other way to get more stats in those abilities.
If you have an enchanter and wizard, both are going to roll on a +5 INT bracer. That's a given.
If a Paladin and cleric are in the same group and a piece of plate drops with WIS on it, both will likely roll on it.
MY example ganks Pure Warrior gear from a warrior because I can just swap stam and wis at any time.
Just allocate at creation and leave it alone after that. No point in creating issues because people wanna get freebee stats and be able to move stats around at any time.
Skycaster said:Choosing Stat points at creation is great, and so is an explanation as to what each does for each class. Armed with this knowlege you can make a decent choice. What is the big deal ? Reading is fundamental.
Lets look at EQ and the evolution of the game.
Necromancer uses INT for spell casting. Everyone knows and understands this. However it wasnt till the game evolved a bit after release that people realized that STA was also kind of a big deal for necro's. Especially so for necro's with particular playstyles. Then as the game evolved, because necro dot's took so long to do their dmg, and because necro pets had such massive pathing issues, groups almost forced necros to feed mana to the group as a primary function. (Hell, I'm pretty sure the feed mana spell line was invented in hopes of giving necro's a group purpose...) So emphasis went back to higher INT.
Yeah, reading a description at the time you create your character can give you a degree of confidence. But that makes no gaurantee in any way that it'll be the most valid choice for you a year or more down the road. Perhaps many years. And you can't be sure you'll absolutely know how you prefer to play your class compared to others without having played your class, which makes that stat alocation hindsight.
Skycaster said:Choosing Stat points at creation is great, and so is an explanation as to what each does for each class. Armed with this knowlege you can make a decent choice. What is the big deal ? Reading is fundamental.
I doubt that a certain stat will always be the best for a class. The games evolve and with new patches new abilities and balancing will apear. And maybe now the best stats will be not the best any more. In the early WoW Alpha you could set your stats with every level up. But later they disabled it because it led to extreme cookie cutter builds.
Greetings
I agree with Moar and Medjai in that stat increases really are just another way in which some players will try to cheat the system or each other. It is much easier to keep yourself sane (as a player) if all you have to concern yourself with is the gear you are using. Adding in stat points really can lead to a lot of gamey play. I also believe there are many, many more ways in which we as players can differentiate our characters and ourselves. Given these points, I think keeping the stat increases to a minimal would be a good thing.
Imho, stat increases (at any given level) will be done by most players to either A) get around gear deficiencies they have at any given level, or B) to achieve some super long term goal that will only be fullfilled when they use their last stat increase at level 50. I believe most will be using them for A. That said...
Truth is, we don't know exactly what role each stat will play in the game. If VR does a good job, all stats will be important in atleast some way to all players.
Small stat increases are not a bad thing. Permanent ones are not a bad thing. Large, permanent stat increases that are not correctable with gear are a problem. Not to mention, they will devalue gear.
For many people, the way in which they want to differentiate themself is through items/gear/house ect... let us not devalue that.
My opinion.
JD
I honestly don't recall, its been too long, but did stats at character creation "scale up" with your level? What I mean is I have say 20 points in wisdom, did that mean it was always just a base of 20 points or did it increase as I leveled up to be worth like 200 at lvl 50? If it doesn't, it seems like those small numbers at character creation might matter for lower level play, but then be far outstripped by what could be added by gear later. I am also of the opinion that you should be able to allocate a certain amount of points at creation, but that it be permanent.
Not to muddy the waters, but some people prefer certain race and class choices that based on starting stats do not mesh well together. It has been so long ago since I did the beta and first year of EQ, but I recall someone who was determined to be something like a gnome fighter (or something similar, but I forget). People avoided him like the plague because they knew he would be statistically weaker. Through the course of the game, though, if a player was allowed to slightly adjust their stats... that gnome fighter guy might actually be comperable. He/she would still have to suffer through weaker grind early on, but eventually through determination, they could be a solid race/class mix.
I think that fits into our theme of a hardcore game. If you are willing to work and suffer (ok, maybe not suffer), you can be that great gnome champion that was a once-in-a-lifetime statistical anomally. Most people will never choose that route, but the route exists and can become viable.
My two cents. I'm not committed to no stats, stats at start, or stats throughout. I'll happily except what VG offers.
*edit for spelling*
I touched upon this even back in the Sigil forums. I don't mind stat allocation as long as the player isn't given the ability constantly reset or respec their character.
I say this because some games that allow character specing just end up being ‘templates’ of min/maxing. When a player changes their mind on their character direction they just respec their stats to the new build. This really throws out the idea of someone building a character over time. I’d rather players just make an alt or new character if they don’t like their current character.
I have feelings about this because I had a really bad experience with Shadowbane. That game was designed to be min/maxed and it really showed when you got owned in PVP because someone knew the perfect template to follow for that class.
If the developers can build a system where people are not gimping their character by assigning their own stats, then fine, but otherwise hold off. I think Vanguard did OK with it. You could customize to some degree but I never felt like the characters were screwed if you put points into a non-primary stat.
Utlimately I think the absolute best system is to assign stats/abilities from items. If you want to change your stats or skills you just swap gear. That means there's no way to screw up and not be able to back out. Your initial baseline stats will get set by your race and class but the base stats never change.
Player allocated for sure, nothing like being able to differ when it comes to multiple people of the same class. I remember is EQOA i had a warrior that i put 75% of my points into Dex(back than that was Def) and 15% into Vit (HP) and 10% into Str... I might not have been able to do damage.... but i gave Tank a meaning ;-)
Well,
In the grand scheme of things, having or not having a pool of stat points that you can allocate each level or every 2 levels or whatnot can be meaningful or not depending on how you design your other sources of stat points.
I can understand that it gives some people a sense of individuality(sp?) when they can "customize" their toon.
From my point of view though, this topic in itself is rather pointless, because it all boils down to how big an impact the possible "customized" stat point are.
You can choose to make it a pure cosmetic thing in the sense that the allocated stats end up being 0.01% of the total stats efficiency (total number or effect on skills it has) and you can go the other extreme and make them totally dominant (or somewhere in between of course).
So, for me to answer the topic, I need to know how the devs think about these things in terms of the relative impact the allocated stats should have on the overall performance of the total stats (0.001%, 10%, 90% or whatnot).
Also, with mudflation (even if it's small) the level based stat allocations are generally getting a smaller and smaller impact on actualy ingame performance with time (there are probably ways to combat this, if you want but I haven't really seen anything like that in the many mmos I've played over the last 26+ years).
Sorry if this was stated earlier...
In the june stream where they brave black dagger keep and caves of halnir.. at some point they do state that most of your attribute points would come from armor..
Where this is in the stream ill be be back to edit this post with a time marker for it to be easily found..
Stand by...