I can definitely understand a lot of the complaints about too many stats and such.
To be at least minimally functional, you will want points into:
A warrior will want:
STR - to do damage
PER - to hit enemies
CON/SPD - to tank/dodge hits
A Ranger will want:
DEX - to do damage
PER - to hit enemies
CON/SPD - to tank/dodge hits (and this is possibly optional)
A Wizard will want:
INT - to do damage
PER - to hit enemies (maybe? Possibly to see farther.)
CON/SPD - to tank/dodge hits (and this is possibly optional)
That's just the minimum. If you want your warrior to cast spells, then points in INT are probably going to be wanted, you'll probably want SPD for your Ranger to be able to run away or dodge. Your wizard won't be blasting for very long if their CON is so low that they collapse when an enemy sneezes in their direction.
Observations:- A warrior will be spread much thinner in terms of attribute points, because this: "Hit enemies, damage enemies, don't die; pick any two." is not going to be that effective
- A ranger gets no bonuses at all to any persuasion stats.
On the subject of stats propposed in kickstarter update.
1. I will try to argue that perception is unnecessary.
Chance of successful hit can be determined by speed and dexterity(with different weights based on weapon you're using).
Sight and hearing can be determined by constitution(which is a health stat so it seems obvious).
Discovering traps and finding treasures and secrets should not be stats based in my opinion. Divine Divinity and Divinity II showed that it's possible.
That... that actually does make a lot of sense. It would certainly solve the warrior's problem, of them trying to be a jack of all trades with a single piddly attribute point per level.
2. Luck(secondary stat) can be removed.
I never understood this stat and do not know anyone depending on it. It's very obscure. RPG is fun because of experimentation. And you cannot experiment with luck. You can have bad luck with high luck and good luck with low luck. If you make luck too powerful it can break the game. If you make it not relevant then why include it at all.
Luck absolutely belongs in this game, because it is full of dice rolls. Dice rolls to hit, dice rolls to dodge, dice rolls to slip, dice rolls to get your way in conversation. The fact that you can find stuff to boost it makes it MORE useful, not less.
3. Equipment. Armor should not depend on any stat. You should be able to wear armor if you can carry it. So magical armor can just reduce the weight.
I think this depends on how it's implemented. I'm not making any judgements yet, it's too soon.
4. Weapon scaling. I also hope that weapons and armor will NOT depend on your level. I like the idea of bows depending on strength. Basically I like the idea of weapons scaling with different stats. For example
knifes could scale with speed
crossbows, halbers and some swords with dexterity
axes, maces and some swords with strength.
No, bows should not be dependent on Strength. We don't need to make all character builds even more identical by locking all weapon damage to a single stat.
Not all melee weapons are based on the same stats.With current balancing, daggers/knives are the only short-range melee weapons that require dex instead of str, and they indeed are faster than most other weapons. If you'd then invest in speed, your character would be very good at dodging and could run a lot further with one action point than other chars.
5. Also what do you think about completely respeccing of character stats and skills within game? I think it should cost money. It provides a lot of experimentation and RPG genre is all about it.
They said respec is probably in the game, but haven't determined the cost yet.
6. You could also think about throwing away level system and replacing it with continuous progression. Because level system is only used to make stat increments more accessible. E.g. in level system you get level up and can increment strength by 1, in continuous progression you can at any time increment strength if you have N points of XP. You can also determine very easily from your existing level system the amount of XP needed for every level of continuous progression upgrades.
Continuous progression could work, take enough hits and you get better and your CON automatically goes up, dodge enough and your SPD goes up, perform enough criticals and your PER goes up, but I feel like removing the dilemma from the user about what choice to make removes too much of the
7. I also like when dialog trees show which dialog options follow from high stats. I think it should be transparent. Maybe even show throws as an option.
No way! That's a bad idea. I'd rather make my dialogue choices based on instinct, not trying to game the system each time. There are other games for that. Besides, there seems to be only an agree/disagree option most times, so it seems pointless to implement transparency - great, so I know that if I choose option X, I get a bonus and Y a penalty, but I disagree with option X. Transparency does me no good there.
I sincerely think that a lot of this game's fun will come from the thrill of entering a dual-dialogue and not knowing in advance how things will turn out.
If you give people incentives to pump up CHR and coldly calculate the probability of success for each dialogue, instead of playing things out naturally, that defeats the entire damn point of the co-operative dialogues.
Yeah i would really like to see a separate charisma style primary stat as well.
I absolutely do not want a Charisma stat. I do not want it to be possible to create a Bluff-o-mat in the game that can pump CHR and have a high chance of winning every dialogue because they have such a high modifier.
It's an even worse idea when you consider co-op. You could get stuck playing with someone who just pumps that. Then you'd have the dual "not fun" whammies of "This tool is just a burden in combat" AND "I have never won any of these dialogue battles".
