If you watch the Cohh stream at the beginning when they are going over the abilities, you can see at the bottom of the tooltips it says something like:
Modifying Attributes: Str (50%), AGI (20%), INT (10%).
https://youtu.be/2FXXE4IWu6k?t=437
Joppa explains that this is how ability effects (like damage or duration) are directly effected by your stats. So as your stats increase, your abilities do more based on these %'s. So some abilities will scale at different rates than others. For example: Abyssal Strike scales with Str 50% while Sanguine Blade scales with 30% Str.
Of course these values are subject to change, but you see the point that some abilities may become much better than others with high stats (due to level or gear). I'm guessing that some of the real rare abilities you find in the world will have even higher scaling, maybe 70% of str or something like that.
NOOOO! *echo* *echo* *echo* Ability scaling is the dark side of game design. Quicker, easier but more prone to mud-flation. Once you start down the path of scaling, forever shall it dominate your games destiny, consume your game balance it will.
All joking aside multiplicative increases in magnitude are brutally hard to balance and prone to unintended consequences when multiple multiplicative increases are stacked together (i.e. Strength buff and haste buff and chance to proc a short term strength buff). It would be much better to have additive values that are independent of the base values. That way when the gear disparity between tiers of players increases the powers themselves stay within a reasonable range of each other. Once again this decreases the number of unintended consequences and makes fine-tuned encounter design much easier as you have a high confidence on the range of the abilities the players will have when facing the content.
Trasak, you're making a big assumption about how this works. Joppa said it increases damage or healing or duration. For all we know, skills only scale in one particlar aspect or aspects that are independent of the other scaling factors. Even if what you're worried about ends up being the case, I'm not convinced it would ultimately be a problem
I think GoofyWarriorGuy is correct. He clearly stated that and I don't see much room for interpretation. I also agree with Trasak, that going this way is leading to dedicated stat hunt on gear. Melee classes will eventually ignore everything other than the 2 or 3 stats they need. Caster classes will eventually ignore everything other than the 2 or 3 stats they need. I'm not a designer or an develper or a programmer, and I don't know of another way to do this, but I do see what could and may happen. It happened in EQ2 to detrimental results.
Kittik said:I think GoofyWarriorGuy is correct. He clearly stated that and I don't see much room for interpretation. I also agree with Trasak, that going this way is leading to dedicated stat hunt on gear. Melee classes will eventually ignore everything other than the 2 or 3 stats they need. Caster classes will eventually ignore everything other than the 2 or 3 stats they need. I'm not a designer or an develper or a programmer, and I don't know of another way to do this, but I do see what could and may happen. It happened in EQ2 to detrimental results.
I was actually replying to Trasak, not Goofy. Sorry that wasn't clear. Anyway, practically every RPG has stat priorities. Of course you're going to focus on the stats that mean the most to you. But I would be surprised if the game allows people to do extreme stacking of a particular stat. You'll probably have some room to shift the focus from one stat to another, but it's not like you're going to have 40 STA, 500 STR, 80 AGI, 60 INT, 40 WIS.
Kittik said:I think GoofyWarriorGuy is correct. He clearly stated that and I don't see much room for interpretation. I also agree with Trasak, that going this way is leading to dedicated stat hunt on gear. Melee classes will eventually ignore everything other than the 2 or 3 stats they need. Caster classes will eventually ignore everything other than the 2 or 3 stats they need. I'm not a designer or an develper or a programmer, and I don't know of another way to do this, but I do see what could and may happen. It happened in EQ2 to detrimental results.
In EQ2 they changed it that way intentionally. When the game first launched all of the stats mattered in different ways. It wasnt until several years later that they made it so you only needed the one attribute for your class.
zoltar said:Trasak, you're making a big assumption about how this works. Joppa said it increases damage or healing or duration. For all we know, skills only scale in one particlar aspect or aspects that are independent of the other scaling factors. Even if what you're worried about ends up being the case, I'm not convinced it would ultimately be a problem
Oh I totally agree that it is a BIG assumption. The exact math involved will definitely effect the final results. It is just the design theory of multiplicative versus additive increases that I am warry of.
Ill throw down some examples to see if I can show what I mean.
Multiplicative:
Blade Slash: Strength*0.7*(Weapon Damage/100)
Level 15 with 150 strength and a 25 damage weapon: 26.25
Level 50 with 230 strength and a 170 damage weapon: 273.70
Level 50 with 450 strength buffed and a 250 damage weapon: 787.50
Linear Additive:
Blade Slash: (Weapon Damage/100)*(100+Strength*0.7)
Level 15 with 150 strength, a cap of 180 and a 25 damage weapon: 51.25
Level 50 with 230 strength and a 170 damage weapon: 443.7
Level 50 with 450 strength buffed and a 250 damage weapon: 1037.5
Log Additive:
Blade Slash: (Weapon Damage)*(1+0.7*Strength/(Strength Cap for level))
Level 15 with 150 strength, a cap of 180 and a 25 damage weapon: 39.6
Level 50 with 230 strength, a cap of 400 and a 170 damage weapon: 238.4
Level 50 with 450 strength buffed, a cap of 400 (so 450 is reduced to 400) and a 250 damage weapon: 425
The ratio between geared and ungeared at level 50 on the Multiplicative is 2.88, linear additive is 2.34 and log additive is 1.78. This makes the log additive much more stable throughout the level and gear range. Raising the level cap and stat cap will have a very predictable result throughout the levels and will make it easier to know what changes are “jumping the shark”.
Specific factors can be adjusted based on the relative values of base weapon damage and the scale that strength is on. For example in d20 systems a longsword does 1d8 damage (average of 4.5) plus enhancement bonus and an additive value of (Strength-10/2) with a realistic range of 8-18 starting strength scaling up to around 30 based on items and class with a few exceptions like barbarian. This is versus constitution adding Hitpoints at (Con score -10 /2)*Character level which is much more scaler than additive.
I dont know the specifics of this mechanic, but my intuition impliues that- for one ability- if Int contributed to 10pct of its effectiveness does that mean that a player can customize that ability bu concentrating on Int and less on Str? So lik eif Str contributed 50pct of effectiveness, but the player had only 10pct STR effectiveness, by boosting Int early on they would get an overall 20pct effectiveness.
I also saw this as a kind of attempt at horizontal leveling? with the carrot on the stick of min/maxing. By that I mean eventually you want all the stats to be maxed to contribute to 100pct effectiveness to the abiolity, but along the way some may have higher stats than others, that will not make them any less capable, they would just have to fight differently. In the same scenario a race may have 10pct str, 0 int but 20pct Dex- maxing out the dex portion of the ability so some parts of that ability would be effective? so both payers with different stats but the same ability would play a bit differently.
Or maybe it will be impossible to min/max all the stats for any given race which would make sense if classes were limited to certian races. Which they are, to an extent. I imagine there would be alot of humans, which is cool ( instead of elves) and any other race would be rare indeed- but cause the player to play ina certain way because of the class. Like, As watchig travel shows is to arm-chair travelling, so playing a different race is to arm-chair cultural immersion.
The concern about balance issues can be handled with soft caps, hard caps, or diminishing returns on effectiveness, as you approach the cap. And if you make the cap low enough, then people are inclined to look for gear with other stats, and possibly per-skill or per-spell effects & modifiers, rather than -just- primary stats.
No harm in speculation but none of us should get too excited over what one person said in one stream before alpha even started.
I amy be insanely optimistic but I think a lot of the focus on alpha and beta will be fine tuning balance. Making sure the mobs at each level are a challenge but not impossible. Making sure that no class is so overpowered that no one will want to play any other class that fills the same role. Making sure that no class is so underpowered that no one will want to play it.
A major part of the balancing, of course, is adjusting character abilities not just adjusting mobs. They will take a good hard look at character abilities with gear equipped and if it proves too high or too low change things around.
We all ...well many of us ..... hope that statistics don't get too inflated and while gear plays a significant role it isn't anywhere close to the only important thing.
If VR agrees as seems likely - they will make it so. If not .....well some you win, some you lose, some are rained out ...and it isn't raining.
No, Manouk, the way Joppa explained it was that if a skill has a modifying attribute of 50% of strength, then your strength stat adds a flat amount of damage (50% of its value) to the damage of the skill. There's nothing indicating that the modifying attribute % can be changed.
Say my weapon does 50 base damage, and I have 100 strength, which innately adds 10% to my physical damage. And I use a skill that does weapon damage + 20 with a modifying attribute of 40% of strength.
The final damage will be (50+ 20)*110% + 40% * 100 = 117. Or, if the 10% strenght bonus applies to the modifying attribute bonus (which I doubt), possibly (50+20+(40%*100)) * 110% = 121
GoofyWarriorGuy said:If you watch the Cohh stream at the beginning when they are going over the abilities, you can see at the bottom of the tooltips it says something like:
Modifying Attributes: Str (50%), AGI (20%), INT (10%).
https://youtu.be/2FXXE4IWu6k?t=437
Joppa explains that this is how ability effects (like damage or duration) are directly effected by your stats. So as your stats increase, your abilities do more based on these %'s. So some abilities will scale at different rates than others. For example: Abyssal Strike scales with Str 50% while Sanguine Blade scales with 30% Str.
Of course these values are subject to change, but you see the point that some abilities may become much better than others with high stats (due to level or gear). I'm guessing that some of the real rare abilities you find in the world will have even higher scaling, maybe 70% of str or something like that.
So lets say you have an ability for a class that has Stat X at 50% and Stat Y at 25%. Race 1 has a high Stat X and a low Stat Y. You look at that and say "well at least they have a high Stat X so they get the biggest benefit". Now you have Race 2 (same class, by the way) which has the same ability but that race has a low Stat X and a high Stat Y. Clearly Race 2 is suboptimal compared to Races 1 for that ability. What if multiple abilities for a given class used Stat X at 50% and Stat Y at 25%? Now you have one race clearly better at a class than another.
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*Y
In 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!
Vandraad said:So lets say you have an ability for a class that has Stat X at 50% and Stat Y at 25%. Race 1 has a high Stat X and a low Stat Y. You look at that and say "well at least they have a high Stat X so they get the biggest benefit". Now you have Race 2 (same class, by the way) which has the same ability but that race has a low Stat X and a high Stat Y. Clearly Race 2 is suboptimal compared to Races 1 for that ability. What if multiple abilities for a given class used Stat X at 50% and Stat Y at 25%? Now you have one race clearly better at a class than another.
What if your second ability used Stat X at 25% and Stat Y at 50%? Now Race 2 is better at Ability 2, but worse at Ability 1. Race 1 is better at Ability 1, but worse at Ability 2. Now extend that throughout the entire toolkit of the class. Maybe it causes some races to be better at certain roles.
zoltar said:No, Manouk, the way Joppa explained it was that if a skill has a modifying attribute of 50% of strength, then your strength stat adds a flat amount of damage (50% of its value) to the damage of the skill. There's nothing indicating that the modifying attribute % can be changed.
Say my weapon does 50 base damage, and I have 100 strength, which innately adds 10% to my physical damage. And I use a skill that does weapon damage + 20 with a modifying attribute of 40% of strength.
The final damage will be (50+ 20)*110% + 40% * 100 = 117. Or, if the 10% strenght bonus applies to the modifying attribute bonus (which I doubt), possibly (50+20+(40%*100)) * 110% = 121
ohhh. Thanks for the clarification!
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!
Ha, I've been out mathed. I totally agree with your assessment with the one exception that the log additive does not have Strength but rather the current strength to cap strength ratio. I did totally throw in random coefficients without anything to base it on. I tried to keep the same weighting between the three examples to more show their relative behaviors.
I used Weapon Damage as a variable just so that I had a reference scaling point but I can see how that wasn't the best choice. If I instead used 1d8, 5d8, 7d8 +3 strength modifier with a cap of +4, +6 strength modifier and +9 strength modifier with a cap of +8 the equations could have been assembled in a way that didn’t use Weapon Damage on the two additive portions. I choose to use the EQesk constants rather than d20esk ones as I am not sure the audience here would be familiar with a d20 scale.
In every mmo there has always been classes that exhale at some classes. Gnomes in eq1 had a very high starting intellect. Ogres in wow are the best for pvp, and so on. As long as all races are viable options, it won't hurt the game. A lot of players don't care for this kind of min/max and would rather play the race they like the most, even though it might not be the "best" option for the class.
In Pantheon we might see the ogra class start with a high amount of str and sta, but they might lack behind on dex and agi witch could be tied together with parry, dodge and armor class. So the "best" option I would assume is going to be hard to tell, at release.
If VR just make all races and class combinations viable, it all good. Then the min/max guys can pick the best. and the rest of us can have fun with a dwarf enchanter, or a halfling warrior :)
Ainadak said:Vandraad said:So lets say you have an ability for a class that has Stat X at 50% and Stat Y at 25%. Race 1 has a high Stat X and a low Stat Y. You look at that and say "well at least they have a high Stat X so they get the biggest benefit". Now you have Race 2 (same class, by the way) which has the same ability but that race has a low Stat X and a high Stat Y. Clearly Race 2 is suboptimal compared to Races 1 for that ability. What if multiple abilities for a given class used Stat X at 50% and Stat Y at 25%? Now you have one race clearly better at a class than another.
What if your second ability used Stat X at 25% and Stat Y at 50%? Now Race 2 is better at Ability 2, but worse at Ability 1. Race 1 is better at Ability 1, but worse at Ability 2. Now extend that throughout the entire toolkit of the class. Maybe it causes some races to be better at certain roles.
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 gonna work out the math, but i knew someone else would do it. Ya its not a multiplicative property - its an additive property of the stats. But ya. People will still stat hunt weapons and armors just because that is what they are used to doing in other games. So i mean if you take 30% of 50 STR its only adding 15 vs. 30% of 60 STR is 18. So it really won't be all that beneficial to increase stats unless you do it is large chunks. When you get higher percentage weapons or skills that is where you will see the difference 40% of 50 STR is 20 vs. 40% of 60 STR is 24. That is where you get the gains. So you want as high of percentage as you can find and your stats mean a lot more. I think its a good system. That way your soft caps and lower stats to begin with per level keep you from being OP.
Now if they mess up the math on the backend it can easily become multiplicative and you get those insane damage amounts.
All in all this was a very informative stream and we can see a lot more of how the systems are coming together.
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.
Pantheon is using lower stats rather than higher stats. To address the concerns over ability scaling, why not make your stats a modifier that gets added?
Say you have 10 STR and an ability has a STR modifier. Make the 10 STR just be added to the total rather than a percentage?
Overall though, I really like this system. It gives devs a way to combat min/maxing in a way. Say, a player puts no ability points or gear into INT but Warriors have ability that gain bonuses from Intelligence, that may encourage players to not completely avoid stats beyond the core requirements.
Maximis said:In EQ2 they changed it that way intentionally. When the game first launched all of the stats mattered in different ways. It wasnt until several years later that they made it so you only needed the one attribute for your class.
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.