Ainadak said:Vandraad said:Your response is valid. Conceivably such a situatoin could exist but think about a primary ability/spell that is fundamental to the class. Think heals for a Priest. If a Heal has Stat X at 50% and Stat Y at 25% and one priest race has a higher Stat X than another priest race, then the race with a higher Stat X is the better healer.I was half playing devil's advocate there. I would fully expect that classes will be pegged with "best" races based on min/max. Having an inconsistent stat distribution at least trends in the direction of multiple races/armors/stats being useful.
My biggest hope: There are class/race specific benefits that can do a little to counterbalance some of the race benefits. To give an example...
Dwarf Enchanter: +str and +wis racial benefit, but they get a special boost to +mana given to others because they are a dwarf enchanter.
Gnome Enchanter: +int and +dex racial benefit, but they get +mez time because they are a gnome enchanter.
When things come down to the numbers it makes it so easy for a player to say "gnomes are the best enchanters", but when there are apples to oranges benefits, then it leaves a little more wiggle room for players to make choices a bit more.
Using your example, with the primary role of the Enchanter being Crowd Control and mezzing being critical to that function, clearly the Gnome Enchanter would be the best enchanter to choose. If the primary function is performed better by a particular race for that class, anything else is sub-optimal. It doesn't need to apply in all situations, but if it does apply in enough situations to solidfy that the Gnome is better than the Dwarf as an enchanter some groups will pass on a Dwarf Enchanter and look for a Gnome Enchanter. The people who really want to play Dwarves for roleplay purposes then become punished by the choice.
Now it may pan out that stats never see a wide divergence so the overall effect could be negligible then race/class choices really do become purely about aesthetics....but I do not have faith it will stay that way for long. Mudflation/Statflation is unavoidable.
I feel as tho there won't be such a big difference that groups would opt for a gnome over a dwarf enchanter. I can see endgame guilds crunching numbers like that. I think the delimiter will be a player's skill, experience, reputation, and level that gets them a group over racial differences. It would have to be something really big like no frontal stun or something like mez is extended by a full 3 tics or something like that for people to start choosing a certain race over another for a group. I feel VR is very cautious and won't allow for those type of racial benefits.
I can see there being a percentage abuse coming about so maybe only allow highest worn % to stack with ability % and spell % similar to how haste was calculated in eq1? I don't see a reason to implement a % cap at this point as you can just design the items/spells/abilities to only hit certain percentages gamewide. This way it would be pointless to gather 5 items with STR %'s on them as you just need the highest you can find.
Vandraad said:Ainadak said:Vandraad said:Your response is valid. Conceivably such a situatoin could exist but think about a primary ability/spell that is fundamental to the class. Think heals for a Priest. If a Heal has Stat X at 50% and Stat Y at 25% and one priest race has a higher Stat X than another priest race, then the race with a higher Stat X is the better healer.I was half playing devil's advocate there. I would fully expect that classes will be pegged with "best" races based on min/max. Having an inconsistent stat distribution at least trends in the direction of multiple races/armors/stats being useful.
My biggest hope: There are class/race specific benefits that can do a little to counterbalance some of the race benefits. To give an example...
Dwarf Enchanter: +str and +wis racial benefit, but they get a special boost to +mana given to others because they are a dwarf enchanter.
Gnome Enchanter: +int and +dex racial benefit, but they get +mez time because they are a gnome enchanter.
When things come down to the numbers it makes it so easy for a player to say "gnomes are the best enchanters", but when there are apples to oranges benefits, then it leaves a little more wiggle room for players to make choices a bit more.
Using your example, with the primary role of the Enchanter being Crowd Control and mezzing being critical to that function, clearly the Gnome Enchanter would be the best enchanter to choose. If the primary function is performed better by a particular race for that class, anything else is sub-optimal. It doesn't need to apply in all situations, but if it does apply in enough situations to solidfy that the Gnome is better than the Dwarf as an enchanter some groups will pass on a Dwarf Enchanter and look for a Gnome Enchanter. The people who really want to play Dwarves for roleplay purposes then become punished by the choice.
Now it may pan out that stats never see a wide divergence so the overall effect could be negligible then race/class choices really do become purely about aesthetics....but I do not have faith it will stay that way for long. Mudflation/Statflation is unavoidable.
I failed to see any issues with stats impacting abilities. Video games are about numbers and it has always been the case. Video games cannot be design without numbers.
Some races that have a slight advantage over others so what? I am sure there will be some kind of tradeoff and players will need to makes choices. Gnomes best dmg/utility enchanter? cool. Now perhaps Dwarfs will get a passive that will give them a strong perception and crafting bonus, while being resistant to cold. Some people might like that over being Gnomes.
Some people will chose a race because they want to play that race, others play a race because they wish to be the best possible iteration of that class. You will see halfling warriors even though ogres will probably end up being better in the long run. Thats how an MMO works.
Kittik said:Yeah, this along with a few other designs is what killed the game for me. The Free level to 85 was a shot to the gut too...I hate stuff like that. If they want to have an EVERYONE is the same level game, go make it else where. Fortnite is doing well with that concept.
I agree. I loved playing an off-tank SK with a high intelligence and a 2-handed weapon. My spells were amazing and since I was an off-tank, I wasn't relying on my melee attacks as much to keep the mob focused. I was so sad, the day they implemented the attribute changes. Now, I wasn't unique, I was broken and I had to retool my character, find her all new gear and be just like every other SK.
Ithaca said:I failed to see any issues with stats impacting abilities. Video games are about numbers and it has always been the case. Video games cannot be design without numbers.
Some races that have a slight advantage over others so what? I am sure there will be some kind of tradeoff and players will need to makes choices. Gnomes best dmg/utility enchanter? cool. Now perhaps Dwarfs will get a passive that will give them a strong perception and crafting bonus, while being resistant to cold. Some people might like that over being Gnomes.
Everything you mentioned is irrelevant to the primary function of the Enchanter, that being the ability to effectively crowd control. No group would give a rat's butt about a dwarf having a better crafting bonus when that plays no part in mezzing mobs.
Vandraad said:Using your example, with the primary role of the Enchanter being Crowd Control and mezzing being critical to that function, clearly the Gnome Enchanter would be the best enchanter to choose. If the primary function is performed better by a particular race for that class, anything else is sub-optimal. It doesn't need to apply in all situations, but if it does apply in enough situations to solidfy that the Gnome is better than the Dwarf as an enchanter some groups will pass on a Dwarf Enchanter and look for a Gnome Enchanter. The people who really want to play Dwarves for roleplay purposes then become punished by the choice.
Now it may pan out that stats never see a wide divergence so the overall effect could be negligible then race/class choices really do become purely about aesthetics....but I do not have faith it will stay that way for long. Mudflation/Statflation is unavoidable.
Ainadak said:Trasak said:Multiplicative: Strength*0.7*(Weapon Damage/100)Linear Additive: (Weapon Damage/100)*(100+Strength*0.7)
Log Additive: (Weapon Damage)*(1+0.7*Strength/(Strength Cap for level))
While I agree with your main point (that multiplicative stats can cause issues), I disagree with your math. Your equations can be simplified down to the form...
Multiplicative: Str*Wpn*X
Linear Additive: Str*Wpn*X + Wpn*Y
Log Additive: Str*Wpn*X + Wpn*YIn all of your cases X and Y (coefficients) were chosen as educated guesses, but are still arbitrary. We can see that your linear additive and log additive formulas are only different based on the coefficients and the multiplicative version has Y=0. The linear additive and log additive are better on scaling because they are *more* based on the scaling of a non-multiplicative term, but they both still have the same problematic multiplicative Str*Wpn term.
A more general starting point for the polynomial version of the equation could be (most game balance equations are just polynomial instead of getting into complex stuff)...
Damage = A + Str*B + Wpn*C + Str*Wpn*D
The more you weight the equation on A then the more steady your damage will be. B and C will cause a linear scaling factors to develop. If D is significant, then you can run out of control with multiplicative stats, which can overwhelm the other factors.A polynomial is fine, but avoiding or limiting the true "multiplicative" terms (like Str*Wpn*D) is important. Also, if buffs are multiplicative themselves (Damage = Base * Buff 1 * Buff 2), then you can run into scaling issues there also.
I am really hoping that Joppa's skill-specific scaling laws lead to stat-driven ability choice. For example - an encounter that had a super-high mana caster would use a Dire Lord tank that was kitted out to heavily favor int so that his manaburn type ability did lots of damage and generated lots of hate. On momst other encounters that same Dire Lord would want to kit out favoring Str to generate hate through physical attacks. We will have to see how it turns out!
Ouch, schooled!
A serious forums smackdown.
I must admit I also did not look closely at his formulas though. I prefer graphs. :)
DonRight said: Not to beat a dead horse but I'd like to mention that exactly what people are afraid of here happened in McQuaids last game Vanguard.
To be fair, McQuaid was long gone when Vanguard started to get jacked up. (and some might say McQuaid was barely around for Vanguard anyway) But an augument could be made for them not planning the classes well for long-term playing and expansion.
