Over the years I remember how a popular single-player RPG series (Elder Scrolls) constantly reduced its stats down to 3 in Skyrim which was down from Oblivion. This carried over to Elder Scrolls Online the MMO. Correct me if I am wrong on this but some MMOs like Vanilla WoW had more stats/Attributes (whatever that game calls them), and some of them I believe were scaled down or removed.
Is this better with the less stats/attributes or more. The thread talking about Horizontal Progression sparked my interest in this subject again, because I was self debating this in regards to how I feel about GW2's stats vs ESO stats. I believe more stats could make the gear in Horizontal Progression more interesting since more combos of gear stats to be rewarded.
[Darksworm reply] ESO has a lot more than 3 character stats. Lol
Really? What is your ES:O character's Strength? How about Dexterity? Do they have a high Intelligence?
Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all had some character attributes. Skyrim reduced them to 3: Health, Stamina, Magicka. Those 3 stats were figured from the attributes in the previous 4 games. I believe ES:O follows Skyrim's example?
They did it differently in Skyrim with various skill trees.
I don't always believe in some of the skill tree choices (for example, I don't care about fist fighting in heavy armor) but one can make a character by picking and choosing each tree.
In Morrowind for example you would assign "picks" depending on what you used most. I don't really see one being superior to the other, just different.
In Elder Scrolls Online you can assign to stamina, magicka and health but the skills on your bar level up as you go.
Skyrim was streamlined in many ways, attributes being a major one. Carry weight is now directly governed from your Stamina. Before Skyrim it was a figured stat.
Skyrim dropped a school of magic (as did Morrowind from Daggerfall).
A blade is a blade is blade, whether it be short or long. Where is Skyrim's throwing stars or knives? Where did my chance to miss go?
I like attributes. They help define a character and gives them depth.
PS: I feel I should reiterate that I love playing modded Skyrim (2000+ hours), but vanilla, the game is shallow trash.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Over the years I remember how a popular single-player RPG series (Elder Scrolls) constantly reduced its stats down to 3 in Skyrim which was down from Oblivion. This carried over to Elder Scrolls Online the MMO. Correct me if I am wrong on this but some MMOs like Vanilla WoW had more stats/Attributes (whatever that game calls them), and some of them I believe were scaled down or removed.
Is this better with the less stats/attributes or more. The thread talking about Horizontal Progression sparked my interest in this subject again, because I was self debating this in regards to how I feel about GW2's stats vs ESO stats. I believe more stats could make the gear in Horizontal Progression more interesting since more combos of gear stats to be rewarded.
[Darksworm reply] ESO has a lot more than 3 character stats. Lol
Really? What is your ES:O character's Strength? How about Dexterity? Do they have a high Intelligence?
Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all had some character attributes. Skyrim reduced them to 3: Health, Stamina, Magicka. Those 3 stats were figured from the attributes in the previous 4 games. I believe ES:O follows Skyrim's example?
ESO like skyrim minimized the importance of the traditional D&D stat system and made it all about enhancing specific skills.
In Skyrim health, magicka and stamina do nothing more than directly determine your HPs, magicka and stamina reserves. In ESO they have a bit more influence than that since they also have an influence on weapon or spell power and empower the damage or healing of specific skills. Some shield bubbles are a % of your maximum health, healing scales mostly with magicka and spell power although there are a couple that scale from stamina or weapon power and damaging abilities scale off either stamina or magicka.
It's a very minimalists character stat system but it accomplishes the same thing complex stats systems do but just in a different way by offloading the impact that other stats would have onto the specific skills themselves... which you need to level up to make better.
Just a different way of doing things.
Eidt: and if you want a more in-depth look at other specific attributes in the ESO system look at this page: https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Champion+System and click on each one of the 9 links for a list of the specific things where you can allocate champion points. You'll see things there like "effectiveness of healing received" for example that are not influenced by any of the stats in the list from the other thing I linked: some things there are their own stat passives.
Post edited by Iselin on
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Over the years I remember how a popular single-player RPG series (Elder Scrolls) constantly reduced its stats down to 3 in Skyrim which was down from Oblivion. This carried over to Elder Scrolls Online the MMO. Correct me if I am wrong on this but some MMOs like Vanilla WoW had more stats/Attributes (whatever that game calls them), and some of them I believe were scaled down or removed.
Is this better with the less stats/attributes or more. The thread talking about Horizontal Progression sparked my interest in this subject again, because I was self debating this in regards to how I feel about GW2's stats vs ESO stats. I believe more stats could make the gear in Horizontal Progression more interesting since more combos of gear stats to be rewarded.
[Darksworm reply] ESO has a lot more than 3 character stats. Lol
Really? What is your ES:O character's Strength? How about Dexterity? Do they have a high Intelligence?
Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all had some character attributes. Skyrim reduced them to 3: Health, Stamina, Magicka. Those 3 stats were figured from the attributes in the previous 4 games. I believe ES:O follows Skyrim's example?
ESO like skyrim minimized the importance of the traditional D&D stat system and made it all about enhancing specific skills.
In Skyrim health, magicka and stamina do nothing more than directly determine your HPs, magicka and stamina reserves. In ESO they have a bit more influence than that since they also have an influence on weapon or spell power and empower the damage or healing of specific skills. Some shield bubbles are a % of your maximum health, healing scales mostly with magicka and spell power although there are a couple that scale from stamina or weapon power and damaging abilities scale off either stamina or magicka.
It's a very minimalists character stat system but it accomplishes the same thing complex stats systems do but just in a different way by offloading the impact that other stats would have onto the specific skills themselves... which you need to level up to make better.
Just a different way of doing things.
Eidt: and if you want a more in-depth look at other specific attributes in the ESO system look at this page: https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Champion+System and click on each one of the 9 links for a list of the specific things where you can allocate champion points. You'll see things there like "effectiveness of healing received" for example that are not influenced by any of the stats in the list from the other thing I linked: some things there are their own stat passives.
Thanks for that insight. I have not looked into ES:O since my beta days.
The most telling factor is that Daggerfall sold more copies than Arena. Morrowind sold more copies than Daggerfall. Oblivion sold more copies than Morrowind. Skyrim lost them all combined in it's proverbial "sales dust." I guess that's what most players want now.
Streamlining is what sells now
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Over the years I remember how a popular single-player RPG series (Elder Scrolls) constantly reduced its stats down to 3 in Skyrim which was down from Oblivion. This carried over to Elder Scrolls Online the MMO. Correct me if I am wrong on this but some MMOs like Vanilla WoW had more stats/Attributes (whatever that game calls them), and some of them I believe were scaled down or removed.
Is this better with the less stats/attributes or more. The thread talking about Horizontal Progression sparked my interest in this subject again, because I was self debating this in regards to how I feel about GW2's stats vs ESO stats. I believe more stats could make the gear in Horizontal Progression more interesting since more combos of gear stats to be rewarded.
[Darksworm reply] ESO has a lot more than 3 character stats. Lol
Really? What is your ES:O character's Strength? How about Dexterity? Do they have a high Intelligence?
Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all had some character attributes. Skyrim reduced them to 3: Health, Stamina, Magicka. Those 3 stats were figured from the attributes in the previous 4 games. I believe ES:O follows Skyrim's example?
They did it differently in Skyrim with various skill trees.
I don't always believe in some of the skill tree choices (for example, I don't care about fist fighting in heavy armor) but one can make a character by picking and choosing each tree.
In Morrowind for example you would assign "picks" depending on what you used most. I don't really see one being superior to the other, just different.
In Elder Scrolls Online you can assign to stamina, magicka and health but the skills on your bar level up as you go.
Skyrim was streamlined in many ways, attributes being a major one. Carry weight is now directly governed from your Stamina. Before Skyrim it was a figured stat.
Skyrim dropped a school of magic (as did Morrowind from Daggerfall).
A blade is a blade is blade, whether it be short or long. Where is Skyrim's throwing stars or knives? Where did my chance to miss go?
I like attributes. They help define a character and gives them depth.
PS: I feel I should reiterate that I love playing modded Skyrim (2000+ hours), but vanilla, the game is shallow trash.
I don't necessarily agree with you at all.
In Skyrim blunt objects, swords and axes have different parts of the sill tree and do different things should you pick them.
Other than reach should a dagger be different than a sword? I think not. A blade IS a blade. Though I wouldn't be so bold as to say that is their thinking.
Attributes might give a character depth but they can also mire the character is ridiculously mundane minutiae. I personally hate minutiae. So carry weight being determined by stamina is fine. Why should it be separate? That's ridiculous.
This is not to say that I don't love the original D&D "Strenght, Constitution, etc, etc." but I'm fine with streamlining things if they will allow me to get to the "fun" and for me skills are fun. A point in Strength means very little to me. But picking a new ability has more weight.
I guess I personally don't like "points" that I barely see make a difference in the moment.
So I still play Morrowind and leveling is fun "sort of" in that I get to assign the little coins to the attributes but it has very little meaning once it's done. Over time there is a difference but in the moment it's rather lackluster other than the chance to do it.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The more stats the better. If I don't know my character's exact anal circumference I can't feel connected to them.
The fewer stats you have, the more homogeneous the build variety becomes. If all I need to determine my damage output is strength, then I just pump strength without any decisions.
Compare that to Dark Souls. Different weapons need different Strength, Dex, Int, and Spirit to determine how effective they are. You can wield a weapon 2 handed with less strength than you need to one hand it for example. Then you need carrying capacity so you're not slow and unable to maneuver in combat while carrying your fence board sized two handed sword. You can tailor your build to the weapons and fighting style you want to use.
Give me more choices and let me screw up a build so badly that it's gimped.
Over the years I remember how a popular single-player RPG series (Elder Scrolls) constantly reduced its stats down to 3 in Skyrim which was down from Oblivion. This carried over to Elder Scrolls Online the MMO. Correct me if I am wrong on this but some MMOs like Vanilla WoW had more stats/Attributes (whatever that game calls them), and some of them I believe were scaled down or removed.
Is this better with the less stats/attributes or more. The thread talking about Horizontal Progression sparked my interest in this subject again, because I was self debating this in regards to how I feel about GW2's stats vs ESO stats. I believe more stats could make the gear in Horizontal Progression more interesting since more combos of gear stats to be rewarded.
[Darksworm reply] ESO has a lot more than 3 character stats. Lol
Really? What is your ES:O character's Strength? How about Dexterity? Do they have a high Intelligence?
Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all had some character attributes. Skyrim reduced them to 3: Health, Stamina, Magicka. Those 3 stats were figured from the attributes in the previous 4 games. I believe ES:O follows Skyrim's example?
ESO like skyrim minimized the importance of the traditional D&D stat system and made it all about enhancing specific skills.
In Skyrim health, magicka and stamina do nothing more than directly determine your HPs, magicka and stamina reserves. In ESO they have a bit more influence than that since they also have an influence on weapon or spell power and empower the damage or healing of specific skills. Some shield bubbles are a % of your maximum health, healing scales mostly with magicka and spell power although there are a couple that scale from stamina or weapon power and damaging abilities scale off either stamina or magicka.
It's a very minimalists character stat system but it accomplishes the same thing complex stats systems do but just in a different way by offloading the impact that other stats would have onto the specific skills themselves... which you need to level up to make better.
Just a different way of doing things.
Eidt: and if you want a more in-depth look at other specific attributes in the ESO system look at this page: https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Champion+System and click on each one of the 9 links for a list of the specific things where you can allocate champion points. You'll see things there like "effectiveness of healing received" for example that are not influenced by any of the stats in the list from the other thing I linked: some things there are their own stat passives.
Thanks for that insight. I have not looked into ES:O since my beta days.
The most telling factor is that Daggerfall sold more copies than Arena. Morrowind sold more copies than Daggerfall. Oblivion sold more copies than Morrowind. Skyrim lost them all combined in it's proverbial "sales dust." I guess that's what most players want now.
Streamlining is what sells now
I don't think it is so much as "streamlining" as it is removing pointless bloat.
Case in point, the revision of 3rd Edition, from the bloated and convoluted AD&D rule set, was sorely needed, and it transformed the game for the better without giving up the diversity that made the game great to start with.
As I said, in a prior post on this topic, everything in a game needs to matter, if you put in a stat, it needs to have a reason and purpose to exist, if you put in an ability, it needs to have a reason and purpose to exist, if you put in a weapon, or a skill, or anything, there needs to be a reason for it.
To use an example, If you put in 10 styles of armor, there needs to be a reason for each of those 10 styles to exist, otherwise there is no reason for them to be in the game.
If 3 styles would do the same thing, better, for the game, that begs the question, what is the reason for the other 7.
It really is about the systems fitting the game.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Over the years I remember how a popular single-player RPG series (Elder Scrolls) constantly reduced its stats down to 3 in Skyrim which was down from Oblivion. This carried over to Elder Scrolls Online the MMO. Correct me if I am wrong on this but some MMOs like Vanilla WoW had more stats/Attributes (whatever that game calls them), and some of them I believe were scaled down or removed.
Is this better with the less stats/attributes or more. The thread talking about Horizontal Progression sparked my interest in this subject again, because I was self debating this in regards to how I feel about GW2's stats vs ESO stats. I believe more stats could make the gear in Horizontal Progression more interesting since more combos of gear stats to be rewarded.
[Darksworm reply] ESO has a lot more than 3 character stats. Lol
Really? What is your ES:O character's Strength? How about Dexterity? Do they have a high Intelligence?
Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all had some character attributes. Skyrim reduced them to 3: Health, Stamina, Magicka. Those 3 stats were figured from the attributes in the previous 4 games. I believe ES:O follows Skyrim's example?
ESO like skyrim minimized the importance of the traditional D&D stat system and made it all about enhancing specific skills.
In Skyrim health, magicka and stamina do nothing more than directly determine your HPs, magicka and stamina reserves. In ESO they have a bit more influence than that since they also have an influence on weapon or spell power and empower the damage or healing of specific skills. Some shield bubbles are a % of your maximum health, healing scales mostly with magicka and spell power although there are a couple that scale from stamina or weapon power and damaging abilities scale off either stamina or magicka.
It's a very minimalists character stat system but it accomplishes the same thing complex stats systems do but just in a different way by offloading the impact that other stats would have onto the specific skills themselves... which you need to level up to make better.
Just a different way of doing things.
Eidt: and if you want a more in-depth look at other specific attributes in the ESO system look at this page: https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Champion+System and click on each one of the 9 links for a list of the specific things where you can allocate champion points. You'll see things there like "effectiveness of healing received" for example that are not influenced by any of the stats in the list from the other thing I linked: some things there are their own stat passives.
Thanks for that insight. I have not looked into ES:O since my beta days.
The most telling factor is that Daggerfall sold more copies than Arena. Morrowind sold more copies than Daggerfall. Oblivion sold more copies than Morrowind. Skyrim lost them all combined in it's proverbial "sales dust." I guess that's what most players want now.
Streamlining is what sells now
You could argue that having more stats, each of which impacts several skills, is actually the simpler system. The only complexity in those types of system is knowing which 12 things are impacted by say, Agility or Wisdom or Intelligence.
Hey but if you're determined to see it as dummied down you'll see the granularity of having to explicitly allocate point into one of 50 different things as simpler than allocating points into one of 8 and having that allocation in turn impact several of the 50.
I just see it as different. And different to me if it improves on the old is a good thing.
I see the Skyrim and ESO systems where you need to put points into archery if you want to be better at archery to be far superior and more realistic than putting points into agility which in turn impacts my spell casting crit rate, sneak, lockpicking, armor class and oh yeah, archery too.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Over the years I remember how a popular single-player RPG series (Elder Scrolls) constantly reduced its stats down to 3 in Skyrim which was down from Oblivion. This carried over to Elder Scrolls Online the MMO. Correct me if I am wrong on this but some MMOs like Vanilla WoW had more stats/Attributes (whatever that game calls them), and some of them I believe were scaled down or removed.
Is this better with the less stats/attributes or more. The thread talking about Horizontal Progression sparked my interest in this subject again, because I was self debating this in regards to how I feel about GW2's stats vs ESO stats. I believe more stats could make the gear in Horizontal Progression more interesting since more combos of gear stats to be rewarded.
[Darksworm reply] ESO has a lot more than 3 character stats. Lol
Really? What is your ES:O character's Strength? How about Dexterity? Do they have a high Intelligence?
Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all had some character attributes. Skyrim reduced them to 3: Health, Stamina, Magicka. Those 3 stats were figured from the attributes in the previous 4 games. I believe ES:O follows Skyrim's example?
ESO like skyrim minimized the importance of the traditional D&D stat system and made it all about enhancing specific skills.
In Skyrim health, magicka and stamina do nothing more than directly determine your HPs, magicka and stamina reserves. In ESO they have a bit more influence than that since they also have an influence on weapon or spell power and empower the damage or healing of specific skills. Some shield bubbles are a % of your maximum health, healing scales mostly with magicka and spell power although there are a couple that scale from stamina or weapon power and damaging abilities scale off either stamina or magicka.
It's a very minimalists character stat system but it accomplishes the same thing complex stats systems do but just in a different way by offloading the impact that other stats would have onto the specific skills themselves... which you need to level up to make better.
Just a different way of doing things.
Eidt: and if you want a more in-depth look at other specific attributes in the ESO system look at this page: https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Champion+System and click on each one of the 9 links for a list of the specific things where you can allocate champion points. You'll see things there like "effectiveness of healing received" for example that are not influenced by any of the stats in the list from the other thing I linked: some things there are their own stat passives.
Thanks for that insight. I have not looked into ES:O since my beta days.
The most telling factor is that Daggerfall sold more copies than Arena. Morrowind sold more copies than Daggerfall. Oblivion sold more copies than Morrowind. Skyrim lost them all combined in it's proverbial "sales dust." I guess that's what most players want now.
Streamlining is what sells now
I don't think it is so much as "streamlining" as it is removing pointless bloat.
Case in point, the revision of 3rd Edition, from the bloated and convoluted AD&D rule set, was sorely needed, and it transformed the game for the better without giving up the diversity that made the game great to start with.
As I said, in a prior post on this topic, everything in a game needs to matter, if you put in a stat, it needs to have a reason and purpose to exist, if you put in an ability, it needs to have a reason and purpose to exist, if you put in a weapon, or a skill, or anything, there needs to be a reason for it.
To use an example, If you put in 10 styles of armor, there needs to be a reason for each of those 10 styles to exist, otherwise there is no reason for them to be in the game.
If 3 styles would do the same thing, better, for the game, that begs the question, what is the reason for the other 7.
It really is about the systems fitting the game.
I really don't think 3+Edition AD&D escaped the 'bloated and convoluted' quagmire of D&D development. That's always been haphazard and murky....the D&D way!
Reason and purpose to exist is a great standard. Some of that is balanced by how granular you want the development to be. There are real world reasons that 10+ types of armor existed, but if you aren't modeling exertion in armor, time to put it on, affects of overheating in jungle or desert, etc, then some of those types don't make sense. All games are abstractions, and game designers have to choose the levels of abstraction they want to pursue.
Iirc, metal armor was more common the closer you were to major iron deposits. With a well developed trade system, pieces could travel far: there was a shield manufacturer in what is now present day India that supplied metal shields for much of the Islamic world.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Thanks for that insight. I have not looked into ES:O since my beta days.
The most telling factor is that Daggerfall sold more copies than Arena. Morrowind sold more copies than Daggerfall. Oblivion sold more copies than Morrowind. Skyrim lost them all combined in it's proverbial "sales dust." I guess that's what most players want now.
Streamlining is what sells now
I don't think it is so much as "streamlining" as it is removing pointless bloat.
Case in point, the revision of 3rd Edition, from the bloated and convoluted AD&D rule set, was sorely needed, and it transformed the game for the better without giving up the diversity that made the game great to start with.
As I said, in a prior post on this topic, everything in a game needs to matter, if you put in a stat, it needs to have a reason and purpose to exist, if you put in an ability, it needs to have a reason and purpose to exist, if you put in a weapon, or a skill, or anything, there needs to be a reason for it.
To use an example, If you put in 10 styles of armor, there needs to be a reason for each of those 10 styles to exist, otherwise there is no reason for them to be in the game.
If 3 styles would do the same thing, better, for the game, that begs the question, what is the reason for the other 7.
It really is about the systems fitting the game.
I really don't think 3+Edition AD&D escaped the 'bloated and convoluted' quagmire of D&D development. That's always been haphazard and murky....the D&D way!
Reason and purpose to exist is a great standard. Some of that is balanced by how granular you want the development to be. There are real world reasons that 10+ types of armor existed, but if you aren't modeling exertion in armor, time to put it on, affects of overheating in jungle or desert, etc, then some of those types don't make sense. All games are abstractions, and game designers have to choose the levels of abstraction they want to pursue.
Iirc, metal armor was more common the closer you were to major iron deposits. With a well developed trade system, pieces could travel far: there was a shield manufacturer in what is now present day India that supplied metal shields for much of the Islamic world.
I was not thinking that in depth, not to say some games could not go that deep, which would be it's own style of thing, that could have some reall cool features linked to it.
But I was thinking more simplistic, like say, if an MMO has the generic 3 levels of Armor, IE: Light, Medium, and Heavy, and also has a second armor style, IE: Aquatic armor, in all 3 weights (Light/Medium/Heavy), making that kind of system only matters if the game has underwater combat, and not only does the game need underwater combat, it needs to require players to swap to their Aquatic armor if they want to engage in underwater combat. If they make a whole line of say Aquatic Armor, and then let players swim in their generic armors, they wasted a lot of dev time for something that in the end does not matter.
Now if they do have a very involved underwater combat, with their own weapons, armor, spells, abilities, skills, and the like, this justifies all that dev time and makes it viable that players would invest into it those attributes and the like.
Again, just using the above as an example.
But I stand by my point, anything and everything that is in the game should have a reason and a purpose to be there.
a personal annoyance of mine was seeing a bunch of things in a game that had no reason to be there.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Thanks for that insight. I have not looked into ES:O since my beta days.
The most telling factor is that Daggerfall sold more copies than Arena. Morrowind sold more copies than Daggerfall. Oblivion sold more copies than Morrowind. Skyrim lost them all combined in it's proverbial "sales dust." I guess that's what most players want now.
Streamlining is what sells now
I don't think it is so much as "streamlining" as it is removing pointless bloat.
Case in point, the revision of 3rd Edition, from the bloated and convoluted AD&D rule set, was sorely needed, and it transformed the game for the better without giving up the diversity that made the game great to start with.
As I said, in a prior post on this topic, everything in a game needs to matter, if you put in a stat, it needs to have a reason and purpose to exist, if you put in an ability, it needs to have a reason and purpose to exist, if you put in a weapon, or a skill, or anything, there needs to be a reason for it.
To use an example, If you put in 10 styles of armor, there needs to be a reason for each of those 10 styles to exist, otherwise there is no reason for them to be in the game.
If 3 styles would do the same thing, better, for the game, that begs the question, what is the reason for the other 7.
It really is about the systems fitting the game.
I really don't think 3+Edition AD&D escaped the 'bloated and convoluted' quagmire of D&D development. That's always been haphazard and murky....the D&D way!
Reason and purpose to exist is a great standard. Some of that is balanced by how granular you want the development to be. There are real world reasons that 10+ types of armor existed, but if you aren't modeling exertion in armor, time to put it on, affects of overheating in jungle or desert, etc, then some of those types don't make sense. All games are abstractions, and game designers have to choose the levels of abstraction they want to pursue.
Iirc, metal armor was more common the closer you were to major iron deposits. With a well developed trade system, pieces could travel far: there was a shield manufacturer in what is now present day India that supplied metal shields for much of the Islamic world.
I was not thinking that in depth, not to say some games could not go that deep, which would be it's own style of thing, that could have some reall cool features linked to it.
But I was thinking more simplistic, like say, if an MMO has the generic 3 levels of Armor, IE: Light, Medium, and Heavy, and also has a second armor style, IE: Aquatic armor, in all 3 weights (Light/Medium/Heavy), making that kind of system only matters if the game has underwater combat, and not only does the game need underwater combat, it needs to require players to swap to their Aquatic armor if they want to engage in underwater combat. If they make a whole line of say Aquatic Armor, and then let players swim in their generic armors, they wasted a lot of dev time for something that in the end does not matter.
Now if they do have a very involved underwater combat, with their own weapons, armor, spells, abilities, skills, and the like, this justifies all that dev time and makes it viable that players would invest into it those attributes and the like.
Again, just using the above as an example.
But I stand by my point, anything and everything that is in the game should have a reason and a purpose to be there.
a personal annoyance of mine was seeing a bunch of things in a game that had no reason to be there.
Point taken. Agree with your annoyance at 'waste elements.'
I suspect some of those useless hanger-ons were once intended to be part of system, that got cut due to time, unwieldiness, a competing element. But they have the art and components, and are loath not to add them.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Over the years I remember how a popular single-player RPG series (Elder Scrolls) constantly reduced its stats down to 3 in Skyrim which was down from Oblivion. This carried over to Elder Scrolls Online the MMO. Correct me if I am wrong on this but some MMOs like Vanilla WoW had more stats/Attributes (whatever that game calls them), and some of them I believe were scaled down or removed.
Is this better with the less stats/attributes or more. The thread talking about Horizontal Progression sparked my interest in this subject again, because I was self debating this in regards to how I feel about GW2's stats vs ESO stats. I believe more stats could make the gear in Horizontal Progression more interesting since more combos of gear stats to be rewarded.
[Darksworm reply] ESO has a lot more than 3 character stats. Lol
Really? What is your ES:O character's Strength? How about Dexterity? Do they have a high Intelligence?
Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all had some character attributes. Skyrim reduced them to 3: Health, Stamina, Magicka. Those 3 stats were figured from the attributes in the previous 4 games. I believe ES:O follows Skyrim's example?
ESO like skyrim minimized the importance of the traditional D&D stat system and made it all about enhancing specific skills.
In Skyrim health, magicka and stamina do nothing more than directly determine your HPs, magicka and stamina reserves. In ESO they have a bit more influence than that since they also have an influence on weapon or spell power and empower the damage or healing of specific skills. Some shield bubbles are a % of your maximum health, healing scales mostly with magicka and spell power although there are a couple that scale from stamina or weapon power and damaging abilities scale off either stamina or magicka.
It's a very minimalists character stat system but it accomplishes the same thing complex stats systems do but just in a different way by offloading the impact that other stats would have onto the specific skills themselves... which you need to level up to make better.
Just a different way of doing things.
Eidt: and if you want a more in-depth look at other specific attributes in the ESO system look at this page: https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Champion+System and click on each one of the 9 links for a list of the specific things where you can allocate champion points. You'll see things there like "effectiveness of healing received" for example that are not influenced by any of the stats in the list from the other thing I linked: some things there are their own stat passives.
Thanks for that insight. I have not looked into ES:O since my beta days.
The most telling factor is that Daggerfall sold more copies than Arena. Morrowind sold more copies than Daggerfall. Oblivion sold more copies than Morrowind. Skyrim lost them all combined in it's proverbial "sales dust." I guess that's what most players want now.
Streamlining is what sells now
You could argue that having more stats, each of which impacts several skills, is actually the simpler system. The only complexity in those types of system is knowing which 12 things are impacted by say, Agility or Wisdom or Intelligence.
Hey but if you're determined to see it as dummied down you'll see the granularity of having to explicitly allocate point into one of 50 different things as simpler than allocating points into one of 8 and having that allocation in turn impact several of the 50.
I just see it as different. And different to me if it improves on the old is a good thing.
I see the Skyrim and ESO systems where you need to put points into archery if you want to be better at archery to be far superior and more realistic than putting points into agility which in turn impacts my spell casting crit rate, sneak, lockpicking, armor class and oh yeah, archery too.
One can say whatever they wish to. I agree that the systems are different, but disagree with your "saying" more stats is less deep.
Yay. You placed a point in archery. Now, you are exactly the same as every other archer in the game. Good deal. Ask an archer if hand-eye coordination (sometimes called dexterity)` matters not one whit. Ask them if intelligence is not needed to judge the windfactors.
Yes, different ways to define (or NOT define) your character, but I will disagree that stats is "simpler" until I die. You won't have to wait too long
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Thats like asking do you like if a lens has many lens elements or only a few.
Its not about the number of stats.
A truely wellmade, well thought out, complex and balanced rule system with three stats is WORLDS better than a poorly made with 30 stats.
But as a general rule of thumb, I think the stats D&D choose - Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma - are pretty close to perfect. More and its likely that the individual stats dont matter anymore. Less and there is just not enough actual complexity to support a great diversity of options.
Likewise, the perfect party size is also six. Thats one tank, two healers, two damage dealers, and the oddball option.
No, I do not like many statuses. For me, the less, the better. Less headache, less contemplating that I may need tactical defense, not critical defense or simple defense (of course, not physical defense or magic defense), but sometimes I should invest into Melee Resistance, Ranged resistance, Magic resistance...and so on.
The absolute worst type of stat system is D&D, its flat out garbage. It limits your character from the start, there are no significant changes over time and therefore doesn't add anything meaningful. The better type of stat systems are the ones that you gradually improve over time, your character is an empty canvas that you gradually paint.
The most important thing about a stat system isn't how many stats you have, its that each stat has to feel equally important and you have to sacrifice something to gain something. Dump stats adds nothing.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
The absolute worst type of stat system is D&D, its flat out garbage. It limits your character from the start, there are no significant changes over time and therefore doesn't add anything meaningful. The better type of stat systems are the ones that you gradually improve over time, your character is an empty canvas that you gradually paint.
The most important thing about a stat system isn't how many stats you have, its that each stat has to feel equally important and you have to sacrifice something to gain something. Dump stats adds nothing.
You say "limit", I say "define." I like what you call garbage, D&D's stat system.
I do agree that the number means nothing if there is no use for them.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
If your complaint about a system is that you dont like it to be so complex then we cannot agree about what a good rulesystem is. I like my rulesystems to offer, among other things, variance and depth and complexity. If it doesnt, it bores me and I wont play the game.
I'm pretty amused that somebody would claim D&D is a bad system. Compared to what, and in what regards, exactly ? I'm not claiming D&D is the ultimate rulesystem, not even close. But it has a lot of great ideas and concepts and it work so much better than many other systems.
Worst rulesystem ever is TES. I havent played Skyrim, only Morrowind and Oblivion, but I hate their rulesystem with a passion. There are fundamental shortcomings at the very core of that system. It doesnt offer actual variance, and it doesnt even try to archieve any kind of balance. To play this system optimally, you have to do braindead things like running against the wall for hours. That Skyrim has reduced the number of stats to three just fits the story.
Overall the best rulesystem is found in MMOs. When game developers get years to finetune rulesystems, some true gems of depth and variance and balance can result. That was specifically what I experienced with Vanguard, even if even that system still had its problems. It was amazing how many people felt that their favorite class had their best implementation ever in Vanguard, how different the gaming experience was on different classes, and how I could still find new ways to play my main character after years of playing this class.
But back to stats in general, independent of any game or rulesystem.
Just like any other choice about the character, I want every stat to be a meaningful decision about the character. If all one has to do for a Mage is max Int, then max Con, ignore the rest, and otherwise the character will just suck, then frankly thats no actual choice at all, thats just asking the player if he knows how to best skill their class. If thats all your system does, then you should rather leave stats out of your game alltogether.
An example for something meaningful would be a system in which your have the mental stats Willpower, Wisdom, Intelligence and Insight.
Then a mage with high willpower could have higher damage with damage spells, both hard to resist menta control spells as well as high defense against such spells, and a fast base spellcasting time as well as a low base cost for spells.
A mage with high wisdom has high total mana, has higher chances to still cast a spell despite receiving damage during the casting, has higher magic resistance against all spells in general, and can memorize more spells total than other mages.
A mage with high intelligence can learn more complex spells (everyone can learn them - but this mage can learn more of them), can casts complex spells faster than others and pays less mana cost for complex spells.
A mage with high insight can cast stronger healing and stronger lifetap spells, their emotional control spells such as fear are harder to resist, they have better defenses against such spells themselves, and they have better mana regeneration.
On top of that you might offer special bonuses for those who max any of these stats, and/or special maluses for those who min any of these stats.
In this system, any of the four stats offer a substantial advantage to the mage, or a disadvantage if he keeps this stat lower than average. You still might find the perfect skilling for you personally, depending upon what spells you personally prefer to cast. But if done well enoug, every possible skilling might be quite meaningful.
I cannot state enough how I dislike random rolls.
Give us pointbuy for stats. End of discussion. Really. Balance IS an
important aspect of all rulesystems. Even if its never archievable, you
need to at least try to conceptionally make it possible.
The problem with MMORPGs is [...] They are way too gear dependent and vertical progression is out of control. A max level player character is like a god compared to a noob.
Um, why, yes ? What else ?!?!?!
If you have no progression in MMORPGs, you have a problem. They are supposed to offer *longterm* motivation to play, after all.
As much as I enjoyed Anarchy Online, I think it's safe to say I enjoy a little variety in my character's progression. The more races, classes, stats and skills to improve, the more interested I am in my character.
And make that meaningful, as in differences, not just different skins
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I should add that I enjoy having lots of stats, if they are introduced incrementally over time - not as a hot mess of new info at the beginning when I haven't yet learned the game.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I'm pretty amused that somebody would claim D&D is a bad system. Compared to what, and in what regards, exactly ? I'm not claiming D&D is the ultimate rulesystem, not even close. But it has a lot of great ideas and concepts and it work so much better than many other systems.
The stat system is bad.
I suggest you play cRPG based on D&D, the gold box games and BG1+2. The moment you make a character the role determines what stats are important and the stats you might as well dump. If you use dice rolling for stats in PnP which was the official rules back in the days you can be properly screwed before even setting foot inside the game.
Over the years they have done plenty of work to cover up for the weaknesses of the stat system but melee classes rely far too much on physical stats which means they end up dumping mental stats. Stat wise your character is locked from level 1 and the bonus stat you get ends up used to boost your most important stat.
Pillars of Eternity 1+2 tried to make their own take on D&D system but ran into similar problems. You make your character before even setting foot inside the game so you don't even know the importance of each stat or what abilities you will have. You also spend a lot of time making your character that takes you away from playing the actual game.
I much prefer systems like the one in Nioh 1+2, it ties stats to different kinds of weapons, armors and physical attributes. It still leads to specialization and dump stats but now you decide whether you will be a caster, ninja, brute or just a mix of all those things. Best of all you make the decisions over time.
Post edited by Shaigh on
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
I should add that I enjoy having lots of stats, if they are introduced incrementally over time - not as a hot mess of new info at the beginning when I haven't yet learned the game.
Do any RPGs introduce them gradually? The standard is to give it all to you at character creation before you have much of a clue of the real impact, or lack thereof, they actually have in the game.
I mean... my standard way of playing games like Divinity OS 1 and 2, Pillars of Eternity or any other game with a large and complex stat system is to go with what I think would work and would be fun, play with that for a few levels until I figure out how things actually work, and then restart with more appropriate choices. Sometimes I do that 3 or 4 times before settling on a build that suits me. That's just a way of coping with stat bloat, not good game design.
I'd much rather deal with direct improvements to actual skills as I level than try to make sense of some traditional D&D spreadsheet, often with skill gotchas that seem like they're a good thing to pick but turn out to be totally underwhelming or barely used in the game play.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I think a good rpg is a decent mix of stats(ie. strength, dexterity etc), secondary stats(ie. armor, fire resistance etc), skills(non-combat related ie. professions), abilities(ie. spells, charge, move silently etc), gear(to tweak your stats and special items ie. healing potions etc) and status effects(ie. spell effects, burning, bleeding, blinded etc)
Talking about games where thousands of players exist simultaneously in a single instance and mechanics related to such games.
Comments
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
ESO like skyrim minimized the importance of the traditional D&D stat system and made it all about enhancing specific skills.
In Skyrim health, magicka and stamina do nothing more than directly determine your HPs, magicka and stamina reserves. In ESO they have a bit more influence than that since they also have an influence on weapon or spell power and empower the damage or healing of specific skills. Some shield bubbles are a % of your maximum health, healing scales mostly with magicka and spell power although there are a couple that scale from stamina or weapon power and damaging abilities scale off either stamina or magicka.
It's a very minimalists character stat system but it accomplishes the same thing complex stats systems do but just in a different way by offloading the impact that other stats would have onto the specific skills themselves... which you need to level up to make better.
Just a different way of doing things.
Eidt: and if you want a more in-depth look at other specific attributes in the ESO system look at this page: https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Champion+System and click on each one of the 9 links for a list of the specific things where you can allocate champion points. You'll see things there like "effectiveness of healing received" for example that are not influenced by any of the stats in the list from the other thing I linked: some things there are their own stat passives.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
In Skyrim blunt objects, swords and axes have different parts of the sill tree and do different things should you pick them.
Other than reach should a dagger be different than a sword? I think not. A blade IS a blade. Though I wouldn't be so bold as to say that is their thinking.
Attributes might give a character depth but they can also mire the character is ridiculously mundane minutiae. I personally hate minutiae. So carry weight being determined by stamina is fine. Why should it be separate? That's ridiculous.
This is not to say that I don't love the original D&D "Strenght, Constitution, etc, etc." but I'm fine with streamlining things if they will allow me to get to the "fun" and for me skills are fun. A point in Strength means very little to me. But picking a new ability has more weight.
I guess I personally don't like "points" that I barely see make a difference in the moment.
So I still play Morrowind and leveling is fun "sort of" in that I get to assign the little coins to the attributes but it has very little meaning once it's done. Over time there is a difference but in the moment it's rather lackluster other than the chance to do it.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Case in point, the revision of 3rd Edition, from the bloated and convoluted AD&D rule set, was sorely needed, and it transformed the game for the better without giving up the diversity that made the game great to start with.
As I said, in a prior post on this topic, everything in a game needs to matter, if you put in a stat, it needs to have a reason and purpose to exist, if you put in an ability, it needs to have a reason and purpose to exist, if you put in a weapon, or a skill, or anything, there needs to be a reason for it.
To use an example, If you put in 10 styles of armor, there needs to be a reason for each of those 10 styles to exist, otherwise there is no reason for them to be in the game.
If 3 styles would do the same thing, better, for the game, that begs the question, what is the reason for the other 7.
It really is about the systems fitting the game.
Hey but if you're determined to see it as dummied down you'll see the granularity of having to explicitly allocate point into one of 50 different things as simpler than allocating points into one of 8 and having that allocation in turn impact several of the 50.
I just see it as different. And different to me if it improves on the old is a good thing.
I see the Skyrim and ESO systems where you need to put points into archery if you want to be better at archery to be far superior and more realistic than putting points into agility which in turn impacts my spell casting crit rate, sneak, lockpicking, armor class and oh yeah, archery too.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Reason and purpose to exist is a great standard. Some of that is balanced by how granular you want the development to be. There are real world reasons that 10+ types of armor existed, but if you aren't modeling exertion in armor, time to put it on, affects of overheating in jungle or desert, etc, then some of those types don't make sense. All games are abstractions, and game designers have to choose the levels of abstraction they want to pursue.
Iirc, metal armor was more common the closer you were to major iron deposits. With a well developed trade system, pieces could travel far: there was a shield manufacturer in what is now present day India that supplied metal shields for much of the Islamic world.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
But I was thinking more simplistic, like say, if an MMO has the generic 3 levels of Armor, IE: Light, Medium, and Heavy, and also has a second armor style, IE: Aquatic armor, in all 3 weights (Light/Medium/Heavy), making that kind of system only matters if the game has underwater combat, and not only does the game need underwater combat, it needs to require players to swap to their Aquatic armor if they want to engage in underwater combat. If they make a whole line of say Aquatic Armor, and then let players swim in their generic armors, they wasted a lot of dev time for something that in the end does not matter.
Now if they do have a very involved underwater combat, with their own weapons, armor, spells, abilities, skills, and the like, this justifies all that dev time and makes it viable that players would invest into it those attributes and the like.
Again, just using the above as an example.
But I stand by my point, anything and everything that is in the game should have a reason and a purpose to be there.
a personal annoyance of mine was seeing a bunch of things in a game that had no reason to be there.
I suspect some of those useless hanger-ons were once intended to be part of system, that got cut due to time, unwieldiness, a competing element. But they have the art and components, and are loath not to add them.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
http://www.mmoblogg.wordpress.com
The most important thing about a stat system isn't how many stats you have, its that each stat has to feel equally important and you have to sacrifice something to gain something. Dump stats adds nothing.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Then a mage with high willpower could have higher damage with damage spells, both hard to resist menta control spells as well as high defense against such spells, and a fast base spellcasting time as well as a low base cost for spells.
A mage with high wisdom has high total mana, has higher chances to still cast a spell despite receiving damage during the casting, has higher magic resistance against all spells in general, and can memorize more spells total than other mages.
A mage with high intelligence can learn more complex spells (everyone can learn them - but this mage can learn more of them), can casts complex spells faster than others and pays less mana cost for complex spells.
A mage with high insight can cast stronger healing and stronger lifetap spells, their emotional control spells such as fear are harder to resist, they have better defenses against such spells themselves, and they have better mana regeneration.
If you have no progression in MMORPGs, you have a problem. They are supposed to offer *longterm* motivation to play, after all.
And make that meaningful, as in differences, not just different skins
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I suggest you play cRPG based on D&D, the gold box games and BG1+2. The moment you make a character the role determines what stats are important and the stats you might as well dump. If you use dice rolling for stats in PnP which was the official rules back in the days you can be properly screwed before even setting foot inside the game.
Over the years they have done plenty of work to cover up for the weaknesses of the stat system but melee classes rely far too much on physical stats which means they end up dumping mental stats. Stat wise your character is locked from level 1 and the bonus stat you get ends up used to boost your most important stat.
Pillars of Eternity 1+2 tried to make their own take on D&D system but ran into similar problems. You make your character before even setting foot inside the game so you don't even know the importance of each stat or what abilities you will have. You also spend a lot of time making your character that takes you away from playing the actual game.
I much prefer systems like the one in Nioh 1+2, it ties stats to different kinds of weapons, armors and physical attributes. It still leads to specialization and dump stats but now you decide whether you will be a caster, ninja, brute or just a mix of all those things. Best of all you make the decisions over time.
I mean... my standard way of playing games like Divinity OS 1 and 2, Pillars of Eternity or any other game with a large and complex stat system is to go with what I think would work and would be fun, play with that for a few levels until I figure out how things actually work, and then restart with more appropriate choices. Sometimes I do that 3 or 4 times before settling on a build that suits me. That's just a way of coping with stat bloat, not good game design.
I'd much rather deal with direct improvements to actual skills as I level than try to make sense of some traditional D&D spreadsheet, often with skill gotchas that seem like they're a good thing to pick but turn out to be totally underwhelming or barely used in the game play.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED