Stats discussion


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Temple Termagant

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Joined: Friday, 19th July 2019, 11:47

Post Thursday, 19th December 2019, 14:50

Stats discussion

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Jokes aside what do you think about Str/Int giving a chance of critical damage and Dex giving a chance to adjacent monster to hit itself?


Why should this be a thing? Are you intending to fix the transparency issues with this? Why complicate stats more? This would probably be just as "transparent" as everything else in this game is. Exclamations marks can already give you some "CRITICAL HIT" excitement and with crawls damage spread it makes sense that way.

Removing random stat allocations and making player-chosen stat increase by 2 at the same time* will have a better chance of making the player think "wow, that actually did something". Ofcourse the player will have to check his spell list and EV score to confirm changes from INT and DEX and effects of STR will still remain mostly invisible, except in some heavy armour maybe.

*Yes, just like demigods have it in hellcrawl.

Maybe it would be good to make each stat have unique and non-overlapping effects only? Like maybe simplifying strength to only give you damage (maybe +hp?) and not affect EV and spells in any way (no overlapping), which will hopefully make stat choosing clearer and simpler: "what do you want to get: damage, defense or spells?". But even when the effects of str would still be invisible :P

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 19th December 2019, 15:33

Re: Stats discussion

yastp wrote:Maybe it would be good to make each stat have unique and non-overlapping effects only?


LOL. You are attacking my idea and then coming with my idea... Do you know what critical damage does in other games? It is not just big damage, monster can get slowed, poisoned, burning, blind, do self-harm... depending on weapon type/brand, spell school.
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Thursday, 19th December 2019, 18:39

Re: Stats discussion

Stats shouldn't exist at all. So much of what is traditionally the role of stats is done by skills in this game, skills should just be the only thing there is.

Of course, skills aren't really good either -- they are nearly as opaque and a hell of a lot more intrusive in their management. The game would be improved by making all these numerical qualities of the character controlled internally and determined by class and species. The ability to play a given combo in a way that does not meaningfully correspond to the "background" of the combo is ridiculous. The first and, one might think, most important choice about a character can be completely undone before you're halfway through the game. With the dcss gnoll, the game actually does this for you (though unsurprisingly this turns out to be better than forcing the player to micromanage the characters' skill evolution).

People mistakenly believe the ambivalence of design that allows the player to choose and unchoose and rechoose and unchoose again creates variety, but in fact this control means players retread the same ground over and over, never being forced by the game's systems out of this well-trod ground, never realizing the breadth of possibility one might expect from a system having 600 or whatever "combos." Perhaps the expectation of creativity should fall more on the developer than the player.
This is where mechanical excellence and one-thousand four-hundred horsepower pays off.

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duvessa, Jano, powergame

Blades Runner

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Joined: Tuesday, 11th December 2018, 19:14

Post Thursday, 19th December 2019, 19:26

Re: Stats discussion

The idea of the skill system is to tailor its use to what the dungeon presents, and this happens with reasonable frequency. Stats are somewhat an extension of the skill system, though they do tend to overlap.

Gnolls take the adaptability to an extreme and are perhaps on the forgiving side, but it's also true that their inability to focus makes using high skill weapons or spells require god support + still not be ideal in 3 rune.
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Thursday, 19th December 2019, 19:56

Re: Stats discussion

The idea of the skill system is to parallel the proficiency system of AD&D. There's nothing more to it. The only interesting questions are about its function, not its conception.
This is where mechanical excellence and one-thousand four-hundred horsepower pays off.

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duvessa

Ziggurat Zagger

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Joined: Friday, 8th May 2015, 17:51

Post Friday, 20th December 2019, 07:14

Re: Stats discussion

tealizard wrote:Stats shouldn't exist at all. So much of what is traditionally the role of stats is done by skills in this game, skills should just be the only thing there is.

Of course, skills aren't really good either -- they are nearly as opaque and a hell of a lot more intrusive in their management. The game would be improved by making all these numerical qualities of the character controlled internally and determined by class and species. The ability to play a given combo in a way that does not meaningfully correspond to the "background" of the combo is ridiculous. The first and, one might think, most important choice about a character can be completely undone before you're halfway through the game. With the dcss gnoll, the game actually does this for you (though unsurprisingly this turns out to be better than forcing the player to micromanage the characters' skill evolution).

People mistakenly believe the ambivalence of design that allows the player to choose and unchoose and rechoose and unchoose again creates variety, but in fact this control means players retread the same ground over and over, never being forced by the game's systems out of this well-trod ground, never realizing the breadth of possibility one might expect from a system having 600 or whatever "combos." Perhaps the expectation of creativity should fall more on the developer than the player.


I partially agree with you. It would be better to replace stats increase with explicit perks like "Heavy armour penalty to spellcasting/dodign is halved", "Spells deal 10% more damage" etc. and players would choose one of them every 3 levels.
I disagree that ability to play combo in unexpected way is ridiculous, I would call it fun instead. For instance, I remember a fun game where MuEn used heavy armour and no spells late game, it would not be possible without picking Str bonuses on levelup.
Underestimated: cleaving, Deep Elf, Formicid, Vehumet, EV
Overestimated: AC, GDS
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