So on character creation my strength is 15, MAXED OUT! increasing strength will not give any more bonuses at this level! So in game i can increase it beyond 15 by leveling and items but the bonuses become negatives. I would like more clarification of what is up with that.

Dear God. I definitely hope that this time caps are removed completely.

It seems to be just level 1... level 2 it's not even there with 17, so it's pretty high if it's still there.

eh?

Not sure at high level with 20+ in an ability it was showing a penalty unless more points were pumped into it... would love for someone from larian to explain how the attribute system works this time around.

It seems that every level, the 'baseline' amount of primary attributes needed to have a 0% damage bonus (eg neutral) go up by 2. Having points above or below this baseline gives a bonus/malus, and this amount decreases by level, possibly scaling with your % difference from the baseline.

The net effect is that you need to spend both your skill points per level just to stay afloat of the baseline. If you created your character with a initial bonus (eg 13 strength vs 12 baseline gives 10% bonus damage or whatever), then it will decline over time even if all points are put into it (at later levels, 23 str vs 22 basline may only give 3% bonus).

This makes hybrid classing impossible, and investing in wits/memory/vitality a permanent damage debuff.

Something that should be fixed... as hybrid style is how i love to play.

Yeah, if it's as you describe, it means that in order to just break even, you have to pump both your points into a single stat every time you level up, all the while falling farther and farther behind for every other stat, which is a terrible design.

I can kind of see where they were going with this (you need to keep increasing stats to match up against enemies the same level as you, as you both level) but at the same time, it seems like the game isn't really designed for that sort of progression unless they populate it with a lot of gear with higher, and higher stat bonuses to make up for deficiencies elsewhere, while boosting your main stats.

The attribute system seems really weird to me. At level 2 and 15 finesse, my rogue could use one of his abilities to deal 20-24 damage. When he leveled up, the damage from that skill actually dropped to 16-20 because the "baseline" finesse had increased. When I increased finesse to 17 with the level up, I was back to dealing 20-24 damage. Which means that leveling up and adding 2 points to my finesse didn't actually improve my character?

This feels kind of bad. I don't want to get weaker as I level up or be forced to contribute stats to finesse in order to deal the same damage.

Maybe I just don't understand the system yet - is there something that I was missing there?

Being level 3 now, I can also agree that it seems very weird how the numbers differ per statpoint per level. Lots of unexplained mechanics (like higher level weapons having less accuracy), and probably unintentional ones.
I can't imagine the attibutes work as intended.

Anyone from Larian care to explain things a bit?

Should have titled this "Attribute Caps by level Broken!" instead of just "Attribute Caps by level?"

and so i did.. hopefully more people will see it and chime in.

You're kidding me, right? I haven't played long enough or leveled up enough to test this for myself, but really? You get only 2 attribute points a level and fall behind if you don't invest them both in your primary damage stat?

That's ridiculous if true. Wait, hold on, I've got a save from level 1 and one where I just hit level 2... Yes, you're right.

This is completely ridiculous. At that formula, we need to be getting at least FIVE attribute points per level, not 2, and that's so we can spend 3 of them in the primary to make a LITTLE bit of progress in increasing damage.

Yeah hoping others see this and agree... really dumb system atm.

https://twitter.com/larianstudios/status/776930201083052032

Hopefully they'll make a post soon now.

If the attribute system is working as intended, I can honestly say that I am not a fan.
It feels as though no character progresion i made, and the minor minor increments at higher levels honestly just make you want to put your points into constitution or memory. How is 2.5% dmg going to help me, when constitution adds a solid 8% hp to my char?

I hope it is only a bug... please tell me this is not how its intended to work...

Did anyone max out wits/memory on all characters? I went for a rounded D&D party and did fine for the most part. I put some points where they should not have been (Mag D, Phys D, stats above 15) but it did not detriment may play too much.

Aside from the 2 encounters I made forum posts about it was all fine and dandy approachable tactics but I did notice a trend of NPCs acting first regardless of their role/class. The initiative worries me on top of not being able to grasp memory slots. I had issues theorycrafting any dual spec with sucess with the exception of hunter with stealth + snipe every other combo had memory slot issues with core builds being too potent. I got more out of just sticking with 1 than any benefit from dual.

What is maxed out? I got over 20 but the negatives to my abilities seemed to not make sense so waiting to see if they are going to fix this or address it.

If that is indeed true, the system is crap. Maybe only a bug, though (hopefully)

The attribute system as it is now is not good. You have to put all points into your main stat or you get weaker.

I wish they use the system of D:OS1 again. Each ability has a "base value". If your stat is higher you get a bonus and if it is lower you get a penalty.

example: The low level fire spell "flare" has a base value of 7 and the high level spell "inferno" has a base value of 15. When the char has int 10, flare gets a small damage bonus and has a high chance to make the enemy burn while inferno does little damage and has a very low chance to cause burn. If you have int 20, inferno makes much more damage than flare.

It's worse than that. You get weaker ANYWAY because those two points are just to maintain the damage you were doing at level ONE. Health increases per level, so as enemies level increases, the amount of damage those level one power skills do to them becomes less and less effective.

It's worse than that. You get weaker ANYWAY because those two points are just to maintain the damage you were doing at level ONE. Health increases per level, so as enemies level increases, the amount of damage those level one power skills do to them becomes less and less effective.

[/quote]

Actually as long as you're getting new weapons and equipment, I've noticed your damage steadily does go up (so long as you basically only put points into your main stat). However, I do hate this kind of system because, as many people have said, it makes multiclassing impossible. My hope is that when they next update the game they'll have seen a lot of the bugs and issues on the forums and fixed as many as they could, but it could be weeks till then.

I can honestly say this probably isn't working as intended. The good thing is this alpha has only been out a short time and we nailed a major design issue no matter their intentions for this system the testing process will make a better game for release.

[quote=Asgharm]
Actually as long as you're getting new weapons and equipment, I've noticed your damage steadily does go up (so long as you basically only put points into your main stat). However, I do hate this kind of system because, as many people have said, it makes multiclassing impossible. My hope is that when they next update the game they'll have seen a lot of the bugs and issues on the forums and fixed as many as they could, but it could be weeks till then. [/quote]

It's true that the overall damage increases as we get better weapons, but it eliminates any feeling of meaningful character progression. Instead of feeling like our characters are improving over time because they are getting faster or stronger or more intelligent, it just feels like they are trying to keep up and items are the only thing that matter for progression.

If there are any developers reading this, I want to point out that I think the game as a whole is really great, but the way the attributes work right now just doesn't feel very good. I understand the need to balance multi-classing - there has to be some "penalty" for the increased utility you get from hybridizing your character.

My big issue with the current system is the fact that it is possible to actually get weaker on a level up. It makes sense to me that the "penalty" for multiclassing is missing out on additional damage, but I think that once you reach a certain proficiency level you should not suddenly start doing less damage once you level up.

Ok I thought a bit more abou it:

- Yes, you do get weaker even if you put all points in one main stat. One reason is diminishing returns. Even if you spend all points in one stat all the time and you stay above the "zero effect" value, the bonus from being above this value gets smaller and smaller.
Another reason is that even if your bonus stays the same, enemies and equipment get better. For example strengh reduces the movement penalty for heavy armor. Even if the bonus stays the same, high level armor gets heavier and your movement will get slower.
Whatever you do, you get weaker all the time. Putting all points in one stat reduces the weakining in one field, but this makes you very weak in all others.

I did some thinking about a better stat system:

- No more diminishing returns. All stats and skills have a linear effect, one point more or less gives always the same bonus or penalty. It worked like this in all other divinity games I have played (DD, D2, D:OS) and I see no reason to change it.

- Each char has a attack value and a defense value. They increase a little bit by leveling up. Putting points in a primary stat increases this attack value for weapons who need this stat. For example, you get +5 attack and defense per level and +3 per stat point. This a a numerical value, not % or something like that. I think that balancing might be good when you have about 80% hit chance when you put 1/3 of your points in a main stat and you hit almost always when you put half of your points into a main stat. Adding more points only increases damage a little bit.
Note that this calculation is only important when you do a normal attack against an enemy that is not CCed. Spells, special attacks and attacks against CCed enemies always hit anyway.

- Suggestions for what stats do: (X is a fixed number that must be selected in a way that the game is balanced. Each different X here can be a different number, its not always the same)

one point of strengh:
+ Increases attack value for strengh based weapons by X
+ increases damage of strengh based abilities by X %
+ reduces the movement penalty from equipment by X

one point of finesse:
+ increases attack value for finesse based weapons by X
+ Increases defense value by X
+ increases damage of finesse based abilities by X %

one point of intelligence:
+ increases attack value for intelligence based weapons by X
+ increases damage of spells by X %

One point of constitution:
+ Increases your Hit points by X (I am not sure if you should use a big fixed X (like 1 point con gives 20HP) or a small X per level ( like 1 point con gives 5HP per level). Remove the vitality skill.

Memory can stay as it is. 1 slot per point would be too much, 1 slot per 3 or more points might be too little.

One point of wits:
+ increases initiative by X
+ increases critical hit chance by X
+ A certain value of wits is needed to detect traps and secrets
- I see no reason why wits should increase magic armor, especially when there is no stat that increases physical armor (con would be the best choice for that)

- I think right now shield are almost useless. They give you some physical armor but you do less damage than a char with 2h or dual wielding, but they do not protect you from being hit. In D:OS1 shield and skill could give you a large chance to block attacks completely.
+ My suggestion: according to the system written above, a shield should give you some armor and also some defense value. So you have a significantly lower chance to get hit and if you get hit you are better protected.

- Dual wielding should give a large penalty to hit chance that can be avoiding by putting points in that skill. I think about how it worke in BG2 or KotoR1+2. I think dual wielding is too strong as it is.

I have to ask: what "increased utility" are you talking about? The addition of Memory as the limiting factor for total skill slots has already eliminated the utility factor from hybrid builds even before the other power limitations brought on by attributes.

If you play hybrid you can skill Memory and have more abilitys as another Characters.But less Dmg.

I play currently with 3 charakters coop lvl 6
one tanky warlord one ranger and me as a Witch (with all mage schools)
and our ranger and me have skilled memory a couple time
and have -% dmg on our skills
but we still do 300+ dmg (ranger mostly more if he has snipe)
and if we dont need dmg i have frost armor,netherswap and teleport(awsome abilitys btw)

English is not my native language.Sry

Id like an explanation from the devs on what the idea behind the stats system is. as it looks now the systems seems underwhelming, but we should not rule out the possibility that the system works as intended for some reasons we yet have to be explained (eg balancing in the long run)

If it works as intended then it is a crap mistake and needs to be fixed. I am not alone in thinking that.

Was mostly busy pvp'ing in the arena, didn't notice this stuff actually, but if it is the way described in this topic, it's a total baseline fail and the stat system should be redone almost totally.

Amen.

I noticed this as well a couple days ago, and I also initially thought it was terrible. But I kept playing. I've just finished the EA and I've somewhat changed my mind on this.

A few things to point out:

- You get attribute bonuses from equipment. The equipment bonuses are random (except on unique items), but they work similar to Divinity: Original Sin 1, where each slot can only spawn with attributes from a small limited pool of possible attributes (i.e.: +Memory can spawn on helmets, but never on gloves). In practice, this means it's relatively easy to always have the bonuses you want after the initial early parts of the game. For reference, at the end of the EA I was level 7 and had +13 STR from equipment on my warrior, and +6~8 to FIN or INT on my other characters. This frees up attribute points on level-up to be spent elsewhere. I ended up spending about 4~6 points per character on other stats (usually Memory and Constitution), but could probably have spent more.

- I've been keeping track of what bonuses can spawn on what slot, and for the most part, the core attribute bonuses (so STR, FIN and INT) don't seem to overlap. The slots that get you INT, for example, never overlap with the slots than grant you STR (with the exception of your weapon slots). So - at least to some extent - it should be possible to have a functional hybrid build by balancing base stats and equipment bonuses.

- There's also unique items to consider. There's a purple pair of gloves in Act 1, for example, which gives +5 Strength and +2 Finesse. I just use it on my warrior, where the Finesse is wasted, but it would probably work wonders on a hybrid STR/FIN character. Presumably the final game will have many more such items.

- The equipment attribute bonuses scale with level. Up to level 6, you can get up to +2 to a core attribute on a single piece of equipment (barring unique items). At level 9, equipment starts spawning with +4s. Presumably as you get higher levels, the maximum bonus possible continues to increase. This also helps to offset the per-level penalties. It seems like the higher level you go, the easier it becomes to have a functioning hybrid build.

- At rank 6 (the maximum currently possible), the Leadership skill gives the entire party +10% accuracy. That gives some additional wiggle room with STR/FIN/INT investment. For reference, at the moment my Lv7 Rogue has 127% total accuracy, even though his Finesse gives him a -3% penalty.

- Several skills don't actually depend on your core attributes to function. You're definitely going to want to "go hybrid" to some extent for additional support skills. I've been using this to my advantage on every character: my Warrior uses Adrenaline/Fortify/Armor of Frost, my Rogue uses Tactical Retreat/Teleport/Battle Stomp/Armor of Frost, my Ranger uses Adrenaline/Teleport/Fortify/Armor of Frost/Restoration/Healing Ritual and my mage uses Rage/Tactical Retreat. Grenade damage also seems to ignore stats and be based entirely on your level, so you can use those on anyone (i.e. use Teleport + Armor-Piercing grenades on the mage to soften up targets for the warrior).

So putting all of the above together, I'm not terribly worried about this attribute system anymore. It took a while of playing the game to see it, but it does seem to work fine as is. It's just a bit strange at first and has odd quirks that take some getting used to. At very low levels, it seems unnecessarily restrictive, but it appears to even out as you level up. It's still possible there are problems in the long run - depending on how the scaling pans out - but that will only be apparent once the rest of the game is released. For what's available right now, I don't think it's really a problem.

It still seems stupid and i disagree that it is an ok system.

From a min-max standpoint, this attribute system is incredibly limiting. The only two builds that really work with this system is support caster and archers. Here is why I think so:

Anything that deals damage but can't stay extremely far from the fight (this includes casters since enemies can clear distance pretty easily now) is stuck between a rock and a hard place. You need HP to take any hits that might come your way but you need to stack all your attribute points into strength/finesse/intelligence just to maintain you damage (not even to increase it). You could sink combat points into vitality to still get an HP increase but then you miss out on your schools.

For a support caster, just take utility spells and only worry about hydrosophist (for heal increase) and geomancy (for physical armor restoration). All of you attribute points can go into constitution to make you healthy while you make sure to pick up a mixture of physical and magical armor. Take a shield too as I finally managed to find a shield that actually does give block chance so blocking is still in the game. If healthy enough and with a good enough shield, this build can support without having to worry too much about incoming damage.

For archers, sink all points into finesse to maintain damage. Sink all combat points into huntsman to increase your damage and range when you have the height advantage. This range bonus starts to get really insane, allowing you to effectively stay safe from combat, especially when combined with special arrows for CC. The damage bonus from the height also means that your damage is, basically, increasing each level.

The build this new system hurts the most is tanks. You need to sink points into HP to eat hits for your teammates. However, if you don't sink points into strength (and it takes both points to do this, I believe) then your accuracy and damage will continue to fall each level. Eventually you'll reach a point where you can no longer draw agro because you simply cannot hurt anything enough. On the flip side you can sink points into strength to avoid this but then you're basically a dps with a shield and don't have the hp to take the hits.

The system, as it is right now, definitely needs to be changed. If the goal was to prevent min-max builds and comps then it doesn't currently do so given the state of archers and support mages.

For the most part, equipment which has bonuses are ONLY available through RNG. I'm level 3 and have explored much of the fort interior areas, and I have found a bunch of chests now that I retrieved the Teleport gloves and such, but the RNG has not smiled on me and basically all the equipment I found is not good for any of my characters.

Relying on the RNG to provide 4 characters with the necessary bonuses to allow them to break even is not a great idea. Larian has said that they will not tune the drops to what your characters actually can use "because that means if you want to change what they do, then they won't have any drops". So the RNG will continue to not care about what your characters need.

Relying on the RNG also locks you into any good drops you find and makes you reluctant to change them if they are inferior in any way.




Vitality gives you only a worthless amount of HP. It won't help you survive.

The way the attribute system currently works feels punishing rather than rewarding. It doesn't really matter that, with regard to balance, it may kinda-sorta "work" when taking equipment boni into consideration (if the RNG favors you, that is). It just feels wrong to have a system that causes you doing less damage after you level up unless you autistically pump a single prime stat.

Previously, my candidate for the worst character system was Oblivion, which has a weird system in which leveling up can make you end up weaker when you happen to cross a content scaling threshold. It also encourages to you tag your least used skilled as major skills in order to retain control over your leveling speed. Really, really stupid as well as counter-intuitive.

But D:OS2's system takes the cake. I've been playing CRPGs for almost 25 years now and the D:OS2 system is one of the worst attribute system I've ever seen, assuming it's working as intended and is not some sort of bug. Character development is a very important aspect of an RPG it should be rewarding and offer interesting choices rather than feel like a desperate struggle to just retain the status quo.

Frankly, I'm not having fun with this element of the game and that's a shame, considering how strong D:OS2 looks in all other areas. Larian should consider returning to the drawing board and do something more conventional with the attributes - assuming it's working as intended - because THIS is just horrible.

Agreed!

Sorry, but being dependent on (random !!!) stat boosting items in order to create a char that can take a hit and hit the broad side of a barn is not good game design.

@Kiste: Oblivion would be my #2 as worst leveling system ever.
Number 1 goes to: Final Fantasy 2
You gain max HP, when you lose HP in combat, you gain max MP when you lose MP in combat, When you attack, your weapon skill and str go up and your int goes down, when you cast, your int goes up and your str goes down. Weapon skill and spells improve if you use them a million times. So one effective way to improve your stats is to start combat with the easiest enemy you find and party members attack and heal each other with whatever skill they want to improve until you run out of MP. Then rest and repeat. This works until the final dungeon. Then you face bosses who deal and absorb damage depending on your max HP. So in the end you should have very little HP but strong combat skill, otherwise the boss will heal itself faster than you could ever damage it by absorbing your health. Never finished it (died a lot at what I hope is the final boss) and never want to start it again.

Well hopefully we will hear something from Larian about this soon.

I'm not a fan of the way the attributes currently work either.

I quite enjoyed the way it worked in DOS:1. Was there a reason that they moved away from the previous system?

Yeah, this new system totaly destroy hybrid classes.

Since this topic is getting a lot of attention, please allow me to provide some perspective.

The fact that your effective damage can go down after a level-up is a bug. The idea was that your effective damage stays the same in case of weapons, since weapons are supposed to apply bonuses according to their level. For skills, the effective damage is supposed to stay the same since their damage automatically increases when you level up, negating the reduction of the bonus.

Attribute bonuses where designed with following aims in mind:
1) We wanted to avoid small cumulative bonuses like "1 point in Strength gives you 1% damage increase" since they are unnoticeable during early game, which is important for Early Access content. We want attribute points to matter immediately, and not 10 hours later.

2) On the other hand, keeping large percentage bonuses (10%+) would lead to increasing Vitality gaps between levels, since we need to keep difficulty constant. In turn, this leads to more linear and rigid progression where players cannot take on fights 1-2 levels higher and must look for fights of their level before proceeding.

3) We also wanted to keep the door open for hybrid classes. It is important to point out that addition of Physical and Magic Armour and also high ground bonuses have made hybridizing a lot more potent. For example, if you split your points in INT and STR, you will get 15% damage decrease compared to pure INT or pure STR characters. It is not a big price to pay for ability to attack the weaker of two Armours of your opponents (and many enemies have only one type of Armour). Similarly, if you put some points in STR for your ranger you can continue to enjoy high ground bonuses, while not being completely defenseless when a 3-ton crocodile teleports on your head.

Regardless of the above, the current system is going to be changed, since it ended up feeling counter-intuitive and unrewarding.

The following is the new system that we want to try out in the near future:

1) Each new point in STR, FIN or INT provides a flat amount of damage to corresponding attacks and skills. This amount grows with levels. The numbers will change, but currently an attack with a 2H or an average 2AP skill would receive 3 damage per attribute point on level 1, 4 damage on level 2, etc.
2) The bonus is applied to the total damage of the skill or attack. Hail Strike receives same bonus as Fireball, despite dealing 4 instances of damage.
3) The bonus is multiplied by the AP cost of the attack or skill. When dual-wielding you will receive double bonus compared to wielding a single 1H weapon.

Please let us know what you think of this new system and thank you for sticking with us through Early Access

Overall, the new system sounds much better.

The flat damage (increasing with level) vs the percentage (down with level) will just FEEL better, even if equivalent - the second case makes your character feel weaker over time, the first makes you feel like you improve.

Hybrid classing is viable - how viable depends on the relative ratio of the extra damage vs the base damage. Diminishing returns on the extra would further help hybrids, if that is wanted. As in the past, sticking to one skill tree for damage while dabbling in others for utility will still probably end up best overall.

The scaling with AP cost sounds good, but could occasionally cause some oddities - a high damage vs low damage + utility skill will get the same bonus, despite having different roles. I suppose this is because status effects are now 100% chance, we can't increase their chance like in the original DOS.

I am curious about what is happening with wits and the secondary effects of Str/Int/Fin - in the current system, they provide % bonuses that get worse as you level. I would assume we are moving to a flat (small, eg .1) amount of initiative per wits, but what about the critical chances / dodge chances / armor penalty reduction?

Good stuff thanks for the response, looking forward to trying this out

@Monodon:
Thank you for your response.
The new system sounds much better on paper.
We will see how good it is when we play it. I mean the current system must have sounded good on paper too, otherwise you would not have taken it.

At the moment, you do get stronger when you level up (My lv6 char makes more damage than my char at lv1). But it feels not good when you level up and your damage and hit chance go down compared to a minute ago (when you still have the old equipment).

[quote=Stabbey]
For the most part, equipment which has bonuses are ONLY available through RNG. I'm level 3 and have explored much of the fort interior areas, and I have found a bunch of chests now that I retrieved the Teleport gloves and such, but the RNG has not smiled on me and basically all the equipment I found is not good for any of my characters.[/quote]

This plays into what I was saying about it only being really bad at very low levels. Minor spoilers, but when you leave the fort and get all the waypoints, there are 5 vendors very close to wayshrines that you can teleport to which all are guaranteed to sell a full inventory of magic, levelled equipment.

Once you get to the Lv5~7 range, you can use them to completely deck out your entire party with good equipment without relying on RNG finds/drops, just by visiting them every time you finish a quest or level up. Thievery + Bartering (on separate characters) is a very strong skill combination for this.

You can't do this with the early vendors (they don't sell great stuff regardless of your level), which feeds into your equipment being so weak at first.

Once you have access to better vendors, the only time when RNG drops really matter are the Epic (purple) ones you get from certain boss fights, but those are more nice-to-have than required in the current state of the game (maybe it'll be different in the full version in Hard mode - we'll see).

[quote=Altros] You could sink combat points into vitality to still get an HP increase but then you miss out on your schools.[/quote]

Constitution gives a large amount of HP in the current build, and it's very easy to find +CON pants on vendors once you get to around Lv6. You also occasionally see +CON rings, and there's a unique one with +2 in one of the EA dungeons.

I don't agree with the bit about tanks being weak at all. I think 2H tank is actually the strongest class in the game by far right now. They benefit very much from being immune to CC while their armor is still up. Rage + Adrenaline + Warlord + Phoenix Dive + Crushing Blow/Whirlwind/Battering Ram is immensely powerful. Crushing Blow in particular is an incredibly strong skill right now.

The second-to-last fight in the EA is 5 Lv8 enemies and a Lv10. My Lv6 Warrior killed the Lv10 and 4 of the Lv8s in a single turn, and left the last one knocked down. His last Crushing Blow on the final boss did 1182 damage. He had 30 STR and 100% ACC against everything. My mages can't come anywhere remotely close to that. I think only a Ranger's Snipe could go anywhere near that, and even then it would cost 2 more AP, and only hit a single target.

They might be weak for you if you build them defensively. Currently, I think tanks are most effective playing offensively with 2H weapons. You use teleportation to cluster enemies together, have the tank run/phoenix dive in the middle and kill/knockdown everything, Battle Stomp if you need to clear a surface (or have a mage Bless you if the enemies can make cursed surfaces) and use Armor/HP to tank the attacks of whatever survives, with mages/rangers far away on CC/healing/support. If it's a prolonged fight, you can get armor back by having 3~4 characters that can cast Fortify/Armor of Frost supporting 1 or 2 tanks.

We're also effectively playing without actually doing much with any of the Source Point skills right now. I imagine those will have a big impact on class balance in the final version.

Ok hoping to see this new system in place soon.

[quote=Monodon]
3) The bonus is multiplied by the AP cost of the attack or skill. When dual-wielding you will receive double bonus compared to wielding a single 1H weapon.
[/quote]

If you are going to do this you should offer some form of incentive for going 1H weapon + no-off-hand

The Shadowblade uses a dagger + no-off-hand by default for example.

@ KaelanBG: So... the melee is good if you use all broken skills and talents along with him? That's... ehm... no.

Also I will comment on a new system once I play with it.

If the end goal of the changes is for the relative damage to stay at a similar level throughout the game, then what is the point of having stats leveling up at all?

It would be a much cleaner implementation for the player to simply distribute their stats as they see fit at the start, and then only increase them scarcely(once every few levels), similar to the original game, or taken further: similar to pointbuy in D&D or SPECIAL in Fallout.

That way a change of a single point is actually meaningful, your weaker stats do not fall behind as the game progresses, etc.

Well any improvement over the current system will be welcome.

For the record, I definitely had this feeling that despite my damage and power increasing as you have described by level, actually leveling up and looking at my character sheet 'felt' bad. And because the current system wasn't obvious (nobody tells you your damage increases on level up) you kind of get the feeling that it does but it doesn't erase the negative feeling of seeing a -stats on your character sheet.

So while I eventually had hints that I understood what was happening, I didn't like it.
I hope that your next attempt achieves the same or a similar result with its scaling,
but I can already tell that it will 'feel' better.

If you do feel it worthwhile to make a return to the old math, take some time to dress it up. A rough example (Each point in a stat generates +(#)% of bonus damage per level, so 100% is parity where you put 2 points in per level) But it's always a positive number, even if it's 0.92... or 92%.
Or you can simply state your level adjusted damage bonus value/modifier value. It would increase with each level and stat point, so it would always look positive and be improving on your skill sheet (if you were investing) but the actual numbers would be the same as they are now.

In other words: I think the problem with the previous system was presentation, not function.
The new system looks good - so I hope it functions the similarly.

I rather think that if putting 100% of your 2 points per level into your primary attack attribute is "what is expected" to maintain parity, then it still seems to be a problem even if it's presented slightly better.

Here's something to note; the soft caps are ridiculously low.

For class balance, something needs to be done about archers. There's actually no reason, from a min-max standpoint, to play anything other than an archer in this build.

Attributes: Finesse (literally nothing else)
Combat Abilities: Huntsman, 1 point into Warfare
Civil Abilities: Sneak
Talents (outside of the usual All Skilled Up and Bigger and Better): Arrow Recovery, Guerilla
Skills: Blood Oath (elf racial), Snipe, First Aid, Tactical Retreat, Rage

You can solo the entire game with that build. It even leaves you a free skill slot with the default amount of memory points. The only times you should take damage is from enemies that have been hard-coded by the game to see through sneak. (Which, by the way, is a horrible way to try and balance sneak. It makes zero sense for me to run through a door into the corner of a room and sneak just to watch some random knight beeline straight for the room and hit me with a grenade with pinpoint accuracy.)

With everything stacked, Snipe will 1-shot literally everything except the last boss unless you're grossly underleveled for the fight. Fully buffed from sneak with height advantage: +25% damage from blood oath, +50% damage from Guerilla, +X% damage from Huntsman, +100% damage from Snipe's effect, guaranteed critical from Rage. Easily over 1000 damage. Afterwards, you simply wait in sneak for cooldowns to be off. Rinse repeat.

@Atros burn my eyes also gives a good stat buff and you can get it from eating body parts (I forget which one) if you want even more damage.

This is a known issue, and will be patched soon. In EE, enemies would actually wander around and look for you. No idea why they don't anymore, but Swen already said that they plan on adding it back.

If you pickpocket people they can and will start to search around. Making Sneak less broken is a good thing of course... but that'll probably once again send the AP-inefficient Guerrilla back to the trash heap.

But isn't Guerilla till going to be awesome in combination with skills like Snipe?

Don't care.

If it's only good because certain specific skills are good, that only means the skills are worthwhile - not the Talent itself.

If Guerrilla's modifier is bumped from +50% damage to +75% damage, then it will at least be (barely) efficient than two regular attacks when dual-wielding. But this is getting off topic, I'll make a new post about Talents.

Okay. I'll make sure to show up! I'd like to hear people's thoughts on a few different talents, for sure.