Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Let's Take a Look at Primary Attributes

You took that slightly out of context, the statement is directly referring to a standard point spread or pseudo/randomized stats instead of a full point buy or custom.



This is not a counter argument to allowing character development. I would also argue that what you need to know is not explained at character creation to a necessary extent. Front loading takes two things away:
Character development - i.e. I can't work out a lot and become stronger.
Changing my mind: After I've distributed stat points, I should not have to wait 10+ hours to decide I wanted a slightly different distribution (at some point was your argument). At each level up I can make those decisions as they come. And, if I'm making this decision regularly (i.e. at every level up) I don't have to spend numerous levels as you have falsely claimed.


No it isn't. The point is not moot if you eventually get a respec option (which cheapens the experience if used too freely. Correcting with equipment is also a cheapening of the experience. Why should a belt of Giant strength matter more than my character's decision to do something about his physical fitness? Course correction is not easier if you have to rely on outside anything. Don't start tweaking every other system to suit this one.
"Changing my mind: After I've distributed stat points, I should not have to wait 10+ hours to decide I wanted a slightly different distribution. At each level up I can make those decisions as they come. And, if I'm making this decision regularly (i.e. at every level up) I don't have to spend numerous levels correcting as you have falsely claimed."


But you just made the argument for no stat gains - which is very different from scarce stat gains. In addition you just stated you want items to fix the problems a static system would generate which would make a rare stat gain near meaningless if I can just swap my gloves to get the build I want.

As I said, a static system may be an improvement from current but I argue that it is far from optimal.

They should take away the fact, that spell strenght depends more on your level, than everything else. It's the main reason why stats turn more and more into bottomless barrels. Or hat least weaken the powergain per level.

Giving players more stat points to design the progress of their heros isn't that bad. But in D:OS is was mostly done with Skill-Points not Stats. But now neither stats nor skills feel like they really matter. The damage from the spells mainly depends on your level or your weapon, and I think that is a pretty bad design choice.

Autogaining stats would deny the core principle of the game: You can start as a warrior but turn into everything you want.

My perspective was always scarce gains: there are things like bloodrose potions, talents, and possibly other avenues towards boosting your stats, and in all my posts I always assumed at least those.

Given the stated goals of the system, scarce gains is exactly the way to go, as it provides the balance between a specialist and a hybrid they seek to achieve, but instead of a convoluted system where the points change their relative value based on player level(to assure that the stats left at base value do not become worthless), the relative value remains consistent throughout(gaining one point in a stat puts all related attributes at an appropriate level).



Because the decision, as far as gameplay goes, is not for your character to hit the gym, but for a number to go up on a spreadsheet.
You change equipment throughout the game constantly, if you temporarily need more strength, it's better to do so by wearing the right belt, than it is to invest levels into it.
Especially in a situation where stats can be orders of magnitude apart:
If you have 10 strength and 30 dexterity, gaining 2 strength isn't quite as significant in terms of catching up as it would be if both stats are in a 1-10 range.

On top of that, those 2 points in strength, in the current system, will eventually stop providing any benefit: there will be no new gear they unlock, they will not contribute any bonuses to skills, etc.
Meanwhile a system that scales the benefits of a point with level, rather than the amount of points, is universally tuned such that each point has those benefits regardless of your level.

I agree with the number on the spreadsheet problem. Do you feel the same about your RPG characters in every system? Because I genuinely want it to feel more like your character has been hitting the gym / prioritizing muscle. I also want to avoid making gear a requisite for hybridization or an avenue to change your character after creation. Maybe a way to accentuate, but not a requirement.



I agree that in any system the numbers need to tweaked from current. Either provide more stats/level and less from gear with the current itemization. So the total number of stats available is the same but you have more ability to direct that manually. Still, if you're at 30 dex, you've neglected str long enough that I can only posit that you don't care. So it will be more like comparing 20 dex and 12-14str and you add 4/level and find less on gear (no +7 int items)



I agree that this is a problem. I want to change the current system, I'm just not sure a static (like DnD) attribute system would be the best solution. It could work, but I think we can do better.

@Naqel

I feel like you have a specific system in mind that sounds decent but aren't quite getting the whole picture across. What were you thinking specifically?

Aside from the stats screen, D:OS is already a mix of D&D 3.5 and SPECIAL from Fallout 1/2, my idea is to bridge that gap, rather than have the weird hack&slash hybrid.

You get stats in a 5-20 range(natural values: racial traits, buffs and gear can exceed without breaking the system), they are the basis of your scaling.
I.e.: If you have 20 strength, you get +20% bonus damage with Strength based weapons per level; if you have 20 Constitution, you gain 20 Vitality per level, etc.(sample values, not really a balanced, but it gets the point across).
You start with the 30 needed to have a minimum 5 in each stat, and then another 50 or so to distribute as you see fit.
Every few levels, let's say level 3 and every 3rd level thereafter, you gain one extra point.

Then you get character skills that govern additional benefits.
For the sake of simplicity, let's say we keep the current ones, and just tweak the values.

Then you get talents, again, for simplicity let's assume they work as they do now.

I like the idea of having a per level scaling based on attributes (and not simply based on leveling) that could be really cool. So in your example, a level 15 character would get X bonus from stats 15 times? Where X could be +weight carried, + heavy arm penalty reduced+% damage and accuracy (but in small numbers)

However,
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If you start with 80, and you get 1 per 3 levels, leveling won't change a thing about your character ever and you might as well just stay at what you started with and give no points/level. Nobody is ever changing their mind about what they want their character to do unless they are doing the math on 30+ stats available through gear which to my mind is not only a nightmare balancing but also a lot of extra work anytime an item drops.

If your starting distribution was maybe 10 points and you got one new point every three levels, things would feel more static and 1 point would also mean much more, both at creation and when leveling.

However, that also requires a complete rework of the current stats and the current math, changing itemization, leveling structure and power/level.
I think a more measured tweak is needed.

I admit that when put to paper it does sound a bit less attractive and some refactoring might be needed, but you have to keep in mind that the value of a single point does go up as you advance, rather than diminish.

The game looks to be targeting around level 30 as endgame(level 8 is ~25%), and those extra 10 points will, combined with gear and other sources, still add up to nice chunk of your power.

As an example, an average D&D campaign has you start with about 70, depending on how you split them in point buy, and you only get 5 extra before you hit level cap.

In game development, one of the most gut wrenching things a developer can do to a player is take away something they earned. You worked hard to save that person, well they just dies when you went to make your escape. You got your amazing weapon of destiny? Turns out it has lost all of it's power over the ages and now it's just symbolic. Things like this are the devs version of a dramatic bombshell, not a precision tool to be thrown around.

Right now, due to the current stat systems, leveling feels this way and that MUST change. If they do nothing else, at the very least in presentation it should not feel like leveling up is actively hurting you. I could rattle off for hours about why systems like this don't work and also don;t feel good to the player (like Final Fantasy 8) but I honestly hope that there is no need to. There are an almost infinite number of ways to handle stats and the current system is one of the worst that exists, it needs to go.

I sometimes forget that DnD offers that many stats / Since most of the time you cannot give yourself lower than 10 or 8 in at most 1 stat. So functionally you're investing 10-16 depending on the point buy. In the most recent addition you are now offered a +2 or +1/+1 every four levels. So it's 10 stats given by leveling with roughly 15 points invested at start.
My math is all assuming that the base stats remain with a 'bottom' floor of 10 (or pretty much 0) So in that case you'd be investing 20 points (using 60 of your suggested 80 to give your character the minimum of ten in each.)
In this case our math isn't all that different. I was suggesting that instead of the DnD point buy, stat points instead offer diminishing returns not based on level but by current stat, in math that closely reflected the point buy seen in DnD character creation. (i.e 2 points invested from 13 and up to get the equivalent benefit of 1 stat at 8-12 as opposed to DnD 5e where it costs 2 points to get one stat at 13+ but only one point to get a stat at 8-12)
And I'm suggesting they keep that math ( similar to the point buy you use at DnD character creation) throughout the entire experience and offer more stat points (similar again to the +2 in one or +1 in two of DnD). Which is very similar to the way DnD does it but wouldn't require a change to as many numbers. Hopefully, the amount of stats given by items and everything else remains relatively untweaked (3 stats/level and 66% of that currently offered on gear)

Sorry for all the brackets. tl:dr our ideas may only be different in presentation and how important we want gaining 1 level to be to the process.

For example:
I invest some number (I'm doing less at the start, so 5) of stat points.
All stats offer static and nice looking bonuses to the things they should offer bonuses to (mostly agreed upon already in this thread) up until your character has more than 5 invested (or 15 solid number) So say you put all five in INT. at level two you get 3 (3!) stat points. Say you want to increase int and start giving yourself some finesse. You put one point in int and 2 in finesse. The 2 in finesse are worth the nice shiny bonuses they would have been worth at creation. But the 16th int (the 6th point invested) only gives HALF (or 2/3rds?) the static and nice looking bonus. So you get another level and decide that the next three go all into Finesse to get yourself to 16 INT/15finesse and take advantage of all those shiny 10-15 full bonuses. Now level 4? You can further diversify by putting points somewhere else but you've fallen behind a pure INT by (6-(6/2)= 2 full static bonuses in two levels!

I'm hoping that a system like that would provide fun shiny meaningful decisions each level and allow for a variety of builds. (also encourages more stat spreading while still rewarding having a main stat)

The thing about that is that in point buy, purchasing higher stat costs more to compensate for the fact that the player gets full control over a process that traditionally involved rolling a set of dice(3d6, hence the 3 point minimum, and you can remove points below the default 8 if you wish so).
It is in no way related to actual balance, as far as balancing encounters goes.
The system I'd have in mind would already be more generous than classic D&D, and not having those penalties is a deliberate part of that.

As far as adjusting the value a point has, if it was to change/diminish as you increase the number of points in a single stat, a more elegant solution than thresholds(which encourage min-maxing) would be to have a formula that adjusts the value.