If there is a button to assing stats or skills automatically in the RPG's you play, do you use it ?

Of course not

No. It might be sometimes nice to have one, but on a regular basis, no.

Nope. This is my game and I'm gonna play it!

Not usually but I did for the mass effect games because I couldn't be arsed with assigning stats in those games. Mass Effect games are not really RPG's as such in my opinion. RPG's such as Divinity I spend time assigning stats etc to my play style / character.

A couple times I've hit the button just to see what the game would do, then cancelled and assigned the points myself. Auto level may work in a game if it is based on the skills you use the most, but if there are actual points to distribute, an pre-set build is generally not going to be as good a fit with a particular character / equipment / playstyle as a custom distribution.

Not a doubt in my mind: Manual point assignment, every single time.

I have more control over what I want my character's strengths to be if I assign points manually. I can see gear on shelves and in stores and plan ahead to try and get it as soon as possible if I assign things manually, and if things aren't working out so well, I can change what I'm doing if I am assigning points manually.

No. Even with the auto-assign features I don't use them. Granted, I did use them once in the game NWN for my first character.

You aren't by any chance, planning to ask us if we would like an "auto-finish the game" feature are you?

As long as assigning differently will highly determine your character's path, there's no need for this button. What I don't want to see is an excessive amount of skillpoints like in FOV, whenever a skillbook was found I had the idea "just another one to add to the collection", while at the beginning of ED skillpoints were so scarse I'd do anything to gain more.

Never use it,I prefer to assign them myself. It's ME i'm building!

Very rarely. Sometimes I'll use it if I don't know what stats are explicitly good for my race/class. If I'm just trying a game out and don't want to invest a lot of time I'll use it. That's about it.

Never use it, but also wouldn't bother me if it was present for those who do like it.

I wonder if other audiences would react differently ? I wonder if Action-RPG lovers would auto-assign the stats, especiaklly when they play a rather loot-centric game here the stats are heavily influenced by boni given by armor/equipment ?

I don't kow. I just wonder.

I played Blizzard's games to a part through, and thre wasn't really much to to think of (stats-wise, that is). Theier games were rather about items influencing and shaping the character and his/her stats, imho.

Edit : That said, it also depends on the audience : I really don't believe/think that within an old school game which attracts a rather old school audience (so to say ) such a button would be used much.

Especially the older gamer generations still rave about the character shaping possibilities of the NLT (last seen on the RPGWatch ).

No way !

I wish to spend statpoints MYSELF !

I prefer to assign stats myself. While I like the idea of the option being there, I'd much rather put the points where I think they should go. One of the things I didn't like about Diablo 3 was that stats were allocated by the game, and it felt like I had less control because of that.

Of course not. That's my character and I want to customize it as I see fit. Won't even try that out of curiosity, just to see what it'd do and cancel it afterwards.

Nope, I wouldn't use it either.

Please have a nice and accurate description beside each stat explaining what consequences they have on the gameplay, perhaps a simplified version as standard, which could be changed to a detailed view as standard in the game options, like so :

SIMPLE


DETAILED


That's all I would ask for in matters of a chargen stat distribution screen.

Oh yeah, descriptions like that would sure be nice.

never ever. i.e, YUCK!!!!
--
Yes the interface I like is when you move the mouse over the name of anything (like stat) it shows in a small pop up below the mouse what the thing is (this can be stat; but also bonuses on weapons and so forth). I forget which game had this sort of thing implemented but it was quite nice and useful. The key thing is to make sure the pops up don't occur when you don't want them and do not obstruct the interface. Clicking on the stat is another way to do it but i found it nice to just move the mouse over it and wait a second.

I would NEVER USE IT MYSELF, but then again most people gaming today didn't grow up playing games like wizardry V, ultima VI and fallout (the original, honest to god, isometric turn based rpg)

It might motivate a few casual gamers to continue playing on a default template build...

but the old-school gamers who will be the primary target, will buy your game anyway if they know about it...

Although if Larian wants to market this to casual gamers (which I doubt cause in the blog it was mentioned that ultima was the inspiration. Ultima vi is so old school that I can't really finish a play-thru now, but have fond memories of them.).... this would be great for them. the guy specializes in tanky melee combat and 2 elements with stats to support, and the girl in two elements and ranged/sneaky combat, the casual players could invest more time in item fever rather than tactical/efficient character builds.

On a side note, larian, whatever you do, (regarding implementing features like controller support/auto levelup) please dont dilute Original Sin's gameplay/story/ui to make it more casual friendly. IF giving an option is too much of a work/headache, then just don't implement it. (Although I would be really pissed if D:OS doesn't include a mini-map/quest-log etc)

I play games so that I can build myself a character that I would really enjoy being, so why let a machine chose my character, I will have to be him for the whole game. LOL

Agreed, I like to perhaps have a look and possibly let it help my decision but it's not a real character until it has been made by the player from scratch.

For me it kind of takes the fun out of building a character. I get that it can be a useful feature (I may have used it on occasion, I can't recall) but I find character creation more exciting if I base it upon my character's 'character', my intuition and trying to figure out the mechanics (even if I somewhat gimp my character, s/he feels more real that way, and I become more invested as the character).

I tested that option sometimes and I needed to undo the changes, is because an RPG allows you to do the same thing in different ways and I always preferred mine. I think this option works as a tutorial for new users or casuals, but no one ends up using it.

Indeed, in the end no one using it, so please Larian, don't implement this "auto-assings button" !

Better spend time on more intresting things (enough work to do, I can imagine!) for Original Sin !

If I'm stuck in the game with something I first search a solution myself and if no answer, I ask on this friendly forum ! Voila, problem saved !

No! Yes! No! Yes!

Maybe.

If the game system isn't transparent, if I don't know exactly what benefit all the stats will have then I can't make a reasoned decision about what to increase and I might as well leave it to an automated system.

If the game system is suitably transparent then I can make these choices and I probably will, simply because I won't trust the system not to make poor decisions on my behalf.

If the game system is well balanced or I do trust the system to make effective choices then I probably would end up using it for picking my stats. Stat assignment is one of those things that involve a lot of decisions but few or no choices and doesn't interest me as a result.

I'd never auto-assign skills though, if ever I am disengaged enough to auto-assign skills then I'm sure to quit soon after anyway.

As a player who's in mostly for the story and atmosphere, I may use an automated level up system (if it's not making stupid choices) when fiddling with stats start to bother me too much. Which it tends to do more and more as I'm growing tired of it after having played through so many RPGs.
It's been a while that I haven't played to a good RPG though, so it may be that I'm getting bored of fiddling with stats because the games themselves are boring...
All in all, I surely can live without such system but I guess it'd be a nice option to have in some situations, that could make the experience more appreciable.

By the way, is it a deliberate choice not to have actual polls for this kind of feedback?

Here is the only case when I'd consider using this button: In character creation, I might click a preset button like the one used in "New Game: Flames of Vengeance", just to see what the developers think that type should have their stats allocated as, but I'd be just as likely to take that as a starting point to tweak that myself. In this game, since you don't start out with 140 attribute points to play with, it's not nearly as helpful.

I'd never use it from levelling up in the game.

I won't use it but I also wouldn't mind if there would be a button like that.

I'd like it being there, but wouldn't use it. Like those "custom install" routines in applications. I rarely use the quick install button, but click on custom and use the defaults , just to see what is going to be installed.

So, with such an auto button, it would be nice if you could assign "paths" to the level up process that you want to follow, along the lines of classic archetypes. So you could use the "warrior path", say, and still deviate from it later on if you want by not using the auto button.

You could even do some sort of multi-classing with that by letting the player assign different paths during the game.


tl;dr: No classes, but optional class-like paths via auto-button.

I love it to be buzy with numbers: formula's, etc ... so I like it to firgure all things out myself, even if this results my hero has many weak spots because of stupid (I didn't know better at first sight) decisions upgrading my hero's build :
I like to learn from experience !

Okay, this strategy is only opportune for those who have a big box of patience and not a large rack of unplayed games!
(I sell away a lot of games I'm not intrested in anymore, because ...
Larian Games are the best !!

Nope.

Nah, that stuff's not for me.

I don't, but wouldn't mind if present in options (turn on/of).

Depends on how punishing or complex the character system is, I really couldn't be bothered to plan out all the different characters in NWN2 so I usually used the presets on them, tweaking things here and there to my preference (spell choices usually). My PC otoh I fully developed myself.

In VtM: Bloodlines otoh I had an actual sheet of paper with my entire character planned out in advance, that game also felt a lot less punishing if you left the beaten path for some reason.

I guess I like planning my skillpoints out but don't usually want to bother with the stat points, especially since it's often very unclear how they *really* affect your character and how important certain things are for certain builds.
If playing a Wizard it would be obvious you'll need int, but what about str, dex or con? Do you need them or can you compensate for them with voodoo? If you need them how much of them do you need? I find a feature that *suggests* where to put points to be very helpful to find out how the game sees the balance between various stats.

Wouldnt use it probably, though ofcourse information with each stats saying what it does would be great :P

I prefer to assign points myself.

what he said

Better implement a non-boring and easy to understand tutorial about primary stats at the beginning of the game but with this kind of combat auto assign is out of the question, auto assign is best suited for action orientated games like papamole Diablo 3 or something.(sorry i had to mention the worst case scenario of auto everything)

My thoughts exactly:

I never use autolevel. A good manual explaining stats is all that is needed.

we're so hardcore *hihi*

Hardcore?

No, I'm not hardcore at all ...! No ?

I simply like it the game do NOT hold your hand ! It's simple as that and the devs of Larian Studios knowing that exactly ! I'm very pleased in D:OS NO "?" or "!" - mark will hanging above a NPC's head !
I must admit I was almost shocked to see such "?" or "!" in Divnity II: DKS !! I hope they do that NEVER again, never !! It's stupid, ugly, etc ... !

I'm sure there will be enough IN-game information about what each stat does via "hover mouse over" a name of stat ... like in Divine Divinity. It's crystal clear in first sight, althougth in the background it contains more difficult mathematics, but to have 100% fun to play the game you don't need to know that ...
Then it's up to you to play and have fun and if you love to make a whole study of all the mathematics behind the stats, feel free and start your investigations !
I myself have lots of fun + I always automatically start to make notes while playing, or make a drawing, a tabel of ... etc, and so I learn about stats, skills, ....

I thought it wasn't clear *at all* in Divine Divinity, my first instinct with the in-game descriptions was to raise int and con as wizard and ignore the rest. Apparently that's a really really bad idea and you need to raise all stats, except con...

That's the problem with those stats, they do *sort of* the same thing in all RPGs but whether or not a certain stat is *useful* to the class/build you are playing depends heavily on the rest of the game, information you will more than likely not have when starting your first playthrough. Information like "do I need str/agi to be able to wear armor", "*can* I, as wizard, even *wear* armor without impairing my spellcasting".

If a game has some auto-distribute points feature I tend to use that early on just to see where the game thinks I should spend my points for a certain archetype, I won't necessarily follow this recommendation (and certainly not blindly), this tends to give me a pretty good indication about the game mechanics without having to actually have played the game (and having to start over after making a build that totally does not work, like I had to do in D2:DKS) or using a search engine.

Obviously all depends on how fast the game moves (iow, how far in you are before you figure out you've messed up and have to start over) and how easy it is to compensate for mistakes. For example having a party in my experience always makes it easier to compensate for a sub-optimal character compared to only having your single PC.

this is what is being called hardcore by a lot of gamers (i actually do not concur)..I am a hardcore pc gamer,that's true..maybe because of the kind of games i play,superior hardware..but i don't know whether I'ld consider myself a hc rpg gamer just because I find it riduculous to auto-assign stat points when Role Playing, thus creating a character of your liking so maybe yes xD


and oh I loved the way it was handled in all divinities, with the hover..

Hate to break it to you, but the fact that you're supporting an RPG with turn based combat already pretty solidly puts you into the hardcore segment nowadays

I REALLY HOPE ... the devs of Larian do NO make such "auto-assings button" for stats !

I never had any problems with DD or DKS maked a build that totally doesn't work ! NEVER !

In DD I can think logical playing a Mage : int all the way. And a little bit of agility & strength if I wish to wear gear that required an amount of one of this two stats. What's the problem ?
DKS is even easier because no dex or str required to equip gear, just level-required gear, but that's crystal clear, you know your current level ...

Okay: maybe you make mistakes (I do often playing a rpg!!) investing in some "wrong" statpoints (or skillpoints)? >> That's Roleplaying AT ITS BEST !
(but you can be "screw-up your gameplay" and RELOAD an earlier savegame to start over a few levels because of mistakes ...)
And don't forget: it's my opinion about roleplaying ! Do what you wish to do, but don't say I didn't warn you

For me it really depends on how well documented the mechanics are. If its based on a well known rpg (like dnd) I'll manually assign 100%. If the dev documents exactly what is going on behind the scenes I manually assign almost 100%. If they are really vague about how the mechanics work I'll sometimes hit auto and maybe change a thing or two.

Never. I always level manually, at least if I use that member.

Never use it for my primary character.

However, if I have the option to control the stat distribution for party characters(if any), then I usually use the Auto-Assign button.

I never use it for any of my characters.

When i play a game, i made plan for my character and the game can't know what plan i have for them.

I probalby won´t use the feature. If it´s not too much of work to implement the button as optional choice, it would not do the game bad either. RPG-novices and casual game may be more inclined to buy the game if such a feature is available.

I like to assign my own stats as much as possible so I wouldn't use it if offered however I do know that casual gamers just want to play and would use it if it was a feature.

If you make it a feature please allow us to still go the manual route. Cover your bases.

For my main char, No, but I have used it for games that had companions like Mass Effect 3.

I have to go with the "not on my own character, but maybe on others" crowd. My reason for this is that if a character has a background, personality, story, etc. I like to see him evolve completely consistent with that, without my interference. I'm thinking about the companions in Fallout 1 & 2 for example. There is no manual option there, and I personally never missed it. On the other hand, when I'm playing two main characters, I wouldn't use the auto-leveling button for either.

I do like the idea that came up in previous posts, where you could have the game suggest development for certain archetypes. On the other hand, if the skills themselves are already subdivided in said categories, and, more importantly, stat contribution is clear, I would almost consider it as dumbing down the the game; I have the information that I need, and I have a brain. That should suffice. ;-)

Never.

Character development is one of the pillars of an RPG. I always build my characters myself.

I would never use an automatic stats button -maybe with companions, but definetely not with Main Characters.

As many others, I see curstomized character progression as one of the best traits in any good RPG.

I'm fine with it being included.

Personally, I don't use them in the RPG's that I play. I'd rather learn and build a character (with all the warts and mistakes included).

Eh, I kind of like buttons that suggest a point distribution I can then confirm or modify to my liking -- particularly in class-based systems and especially with companion characters --, but hate it when some awesome button does all the work for me.

No. I would sooner use an auto-combat button.

^This! I love character creation and planning the character, and - surprise, surprise - I love seeing that I made it suboptimal too. Actually, I want there to be heaps of ways I can "build" characters the "wrong" way. Min-maxing can be fun, but I leave that for later playthorughs. The first ones I usually go more all-in RPG-wise.

In short, I have never and will not ever use an auto-assign button, but I can easily accept that the option is there for other players.

I wouldn't ever use it myself, but as long as it is optional I don't see a problem with it. More options for those who like them are always a good thing.

It is a bad idea, the last thing we need is another game to automatically distribute stats. Most MMO's do that crap now.

Auto level would be good for the easy mode only. From "normal" and harder it should be up to the player to make such a decision. On the easy mode, there can be an option to auto distribute stats for a specific class. Even then, I personally wouldn't have it if I ever made a game (which is unlikely).

I'd rather assign them myself

I have never used such buttons, and probably never will. It's more rewarding assigning the points manually, even if what you choose is sub-optimal. Unless game mechanics are overcomplicated and you don't have a clue of which stat affects what (which imho is bad design and a whole other topic completely), I don't see the need for an autolevel button.

I wouldn't use it myself, but I'm sure some people would. It doesn't bother me.

No I do do not. I wouldn't even consider using it.

I always assign stat points for my main character(s) myself. However, I do sometimes use auto-assigning features to assign points for my henchmen so as to see how the their creators envisioned those characters being developed, regardless of whether those builds are sub-optimal.

no. well, I most likely would hit yes just to see where IT would place my stats. nothing more than just for curiosity.

Rarely. Virtually never for my PC and a bit more often for NPC's (like in NWN) where they are already tailored a bit for a particular build.

I prolly would never use it, but it doesn't hurt to have the option. Though I do want to see what the effects would be on the character (gained health/magic/...)
And if it where to be available, perhaps you could be asked fist what kind of build your aiming for (tank/mage/rogue/....) just to have some control in the way the character would evolve.

/edit
way to many pages to read all.

No, never!

I click it sometimes just to see what it does if I can, but I always cancel it afterwards as the game picks the complete opposite of what I want. :p

No, because most of that is too stupid.
Instead, there could be sort of suggestions that offer to players.
Ie. Based on what he/she currently is equipped or have in inventory, the level up tip/info window can show that assign point to these stats will help you say:
1. gain better damage output for your weapon/spell
2. be able to wear new armor/use new weapon
3. faster to unlock next set of skills
4. inform about new passive skills that already available but not assigned.

And let player to decide.
Also, for those who wish not to think too much, a "defenssive<->offenssive" slider that guess what to do could be nice.