Race Stats and H/M/E Overhaul

Estarra

Check out the proposal we are looking at for overhauling race stats as well as health/mana/ego stats. Comments welcome!

Enyalida

(Envoys): Marcella of the Ur'Guard says, "But artifacts for stats. Hnnm. Also, I'd be concerned about some classes being more single-attribute dependant than others."

(Envoys): Marcella of the Ur'Guard says, "For example, an ur'Guard who has mind/body because they wanted to spec necro/warriorness would be at a disadvantage compared to a Nihilist if, say, the Nihilist's Nihilism and Necro were both determined by Mind."

Shedrin

I don't like the idea of stats affecting balance/equilibrium. I think it's better for balance if that was static.

I'm assuming based on the Prismatic Lucidian stats that Harmonics would be linked to Mind rather than Spirit as Celestialism is. Also, if Celestialism is linked to Spirit, than Imperial Merian seems a bit low on Spirit.

Assuming I'm understanding correctly, it seems that stats only affect offense, so if you're min/maxing, you pick the race that's the highest in your primary skill and no other thought needed. Glass cannon races are gone, as well as tanky races and balanced races.

Enyalida

I agree with the above statements. It's going to be a nightmare to balance speed bonuses/maluses. Not only will it be by race, we'll have to balance around each individiual skill. Instead of TWO flavors of bonus/malus, there will be FIVE flavours to balance around. 

Shedrin

Shedrin said:

I'm assuming based on the Prismatic Lucidian stats that Harmonics would be linked to Mind rather than Spirit as Celestialism is. Also, if Celestialism is linked to Spirit, than Imperial Merian seems a bit low on Spirit.

Ok apparently Harmonics would be Spirit as well. In which case, both Lucidian and Merian don't make much sense for their guardian classes.

Tarkenton

Guys, guys, guys.  This is cool.  This is totally cool.  Tae'dae just became physical master race.

In all seriousness though, seems to be missing brewmeister dwarf.

Lavinya

My one request is for Irontongue Viscanti to not be the red-headed stepchild of specced bard races. Please please please oh god please. (going from that list, normal trill would have better affinity to artistry/music than an irontongue viscanti :-< )

Xenthos

I don't get why bards are such terrible influencers under this (very low empathy, in some cases even taking a penalty when compared to other versions of the specialization within the same race).

Enyalida

I think there is very strong support among Envoys for dropping any eq/bal bonuses for stats.

Silvanus

Or why there are no good City Spirit races, yet, Mage primary, Guardian Primary, Guardian's tertiary skills are all Spirit.

Malayn

Please avoid pay to win (buying stats).

Avoid making stats effect speed, or you are increasing damage + speed (double dip on DPS).  I notice things like faeling goes from 5 to -12- when specced, what the Nil. That is far too high a buff when you over double a stat. 

Overall the new system seems a lot more complicated, even if we left racial eq/bal so we could mess with things more readily, we still have a whole new system and I am not sure the motivation here.

Why do we need new dex/con/int/cha and such? What is the benefit moving from 6 current stats to 6 new stats (size isn't listed in new system, and isn't really useful in old anyway)?  What is this change aimed at simplifying? It looks like it will mean a lot of racial reporting and problems, I am not sure how it will simplify things at all.

Viynain

If I did my charting correct, looking at main bashing attacks, INT-spec races for cities in the Overhaul, are speccing Mind instead of where their skills are rooted, which is Spirit. This is an issue. Also an issue, for communes, their INT-spec races are speccing Spirit which helps the BT/HS, but the MD/SD people have their bashing rooted in Mind.

This is the one issue I've picked out at first glance, but I need to go cook. Will respond with more thoughts in a bit.

Xenthos

It seems to me that Totems (Night, Crow, Moon, Stag) should be Mysticism, and Elementalism should be Arcana, shouldn't it?

It seems like this would help a lot, since the Commune-orgs were designed to be more spiritual and the city-folk more mind-oriented.

Enyalida

Then again, that would make Mages all mind-based (if they take psionics), wouldn't it? 

Tarkenton

Assuming the bal/eq change stays, this means tae'dae are faster than aslarans.  o.O

And assuming that the new stats effect influencing as well, tae'dae just become the best influencers too.   Estarra

Lerad

People are guessing brewmeister dwarf will swap body/artistry from vanilla dwarves.

I'd like to echo concerns about balance and equilibrium being affected by stats. There are some considerations I am very concerned about in this regard:

First of all, the proposed system is actually very similar to the current bonuses provided by the current master-races. For example, the lowest stat point in the table is 5. The highest is 15. A difference of 10 statpoints mean a 0.5s increase in speed, basically aslaran versus non-aslaran (or mugwump versus non-mugwump) speeds.

Secondly, the presence of class (or archetype) based stat-boosting abilities will muddy the waters for balancing. For example, bardicpresence, or warrior flex. 

They create a similar faced by currently existing aslaran/mugwump imbalances, should we balance around neutral balance, or around these +bal/eq speeds? If we do the former, we risk creating outliers, and having to individually envoy every imbalance that crops up with those races. If we balance around the latter, then we risk crippling everyone who is not of that race. In the new system, the question becomes, should we balance around 15-pointers, or around the bardicpresenced version, for bards? If we should do the former, then we risk making bardicpresenced bards too strong, and since bardicpresence is available to all bards, we should therefore balance around bardicpresence... and then in comes other stat boosting abilities or buffs. Like demistats (will those still exist? We don't know yet) or stat-arties (not really a good idea if bal/eq bonuses are tied to stats). Should we balance speeds around the highest possible? Where will that leave the non demis, the non arties, then non argleblaster-users?

If we don't balance around the highest... well, then, we'll go back to the current system of playing whack-a-mole with every imbalance that crops up due to outliers.

If there's the opportunity to remove such a situation, or at the very least, lessen its impact, we should, is my opinion. If we remove all bal/eq bonuses and maluses, we will create a system where we still have to play whack-a-mole to hammer skillsets and abilities that have been warped by our current aslaran/mugwump bandaids back into shape, but at the very least, we won't have to worry about outliers creating (or discovering) new exploits or imbalances. As an envoy, it becomes easier to see when an ability is too fast or too slow due to balance issues, and not due to outlier issues. We can now say, cosmicfire is too strong, it is too fast, because its dps is 3000 to staffcast's 1000. And we don't need to say, "Oh, that's because 3000 dps is only available to those with <insert stat number here>-points in empathy, it's actually just fine at 1000dps when at the normal 15-point stat."

My example is a hyperbole, of course, but with the proposed numbers as they are, the effects are, as I already mentioned, very similar to current aslaran/mugwump bonuses.

Please let's not tie bal/eq to stats. Let's think of other, fun elements to tie to stats instead. I'm sure between all of us in the forums, we can come up with something.

Estarra

Note the bal/eq is very minor. That said, we're happy to look at other effects the skillpool root stats could have if you have suggestions. (We'd rather it not involve rewriting every skill.)

So let's hear your alternate suggestions!

(Don't get caught up on stat numbers in the design doc. Those are all very rough and preliminary.)

Shaddus

So just to make sure I get this, the more lessons you put into your skillsets, the more your stats in that skillset go up?

Shedrin

Wasn't there at one point a proposal to make stats fully or mostly dependant on guild/archetype. I like that idea a lot more.

Tremula

Am I missing something or were Brewmeister Dwarves not included? Is the body statistic moved to artistry?

Estarra

Shedrin said:

Wasn't there at one point a proposal to make stats fully or mostly dependant on guild/archetype. I like that idea a lot more.

I don't recall that proposal. What's the idea behind it? How would it integrate to races?

Estarra

Lerad said:

Please let's not tie bal/eq to stats. Let's think of other, fun elements to tie to stats instead. I'm sure between all of us in the forums, we can come up with something.

I'm all ears. I haven't really heard of any alternatives (yet).

BTW, please don't get distracted about brewmeister dwarves, etc. We want to nail down the mechanics on the macro level before worrying about the micro.

Everiine

Ugh, I echo the comments of "here's the system and how it works--now pay us money to game it!"

Steingrim

Estarra said:

BTW, please don't get distracted about brewmeister dwarves, etc. We want to nail down the mechanics on the macro level before worrying about the micro.

Oh, great. Another joke about my race's height.

Elanorwen

Estarra said:

Shedrin said:

Wasn't there at one point a proposal to make stats fully or mostly dependant on guild/archetype. I like that idea a lot more.

I don't recall that proposal. What's the idea behind it? How would it integrate to races?

Sort of like humans do right now at 50+? I kind of like that concept a lot more than having certain races be 'good' for certain orgs/guilds, even when considering the existence of racial hats.

Estarra

Steingrim said:

Estarra said:

BTW, please don't get distracted about brewmeister dwarves, etc. We want to nail down the mechanics on the macro level before worrying about the micro.

Oh, great. Another joke about my race's height.

Estarra

Everiine said:

Ugh, I echo the comments of "here's the system and how it works--now pay us money to game it!"

I don't think we've ever hidden the fact that we're a commercial game and need to monetize to stay in existence, so not sure why you'd begrudge us trying to stay afloat.

Estarra

Elanorwen said:

Estarra said:

Shedrin said:

Wasn't there at one point a proposal to make stats fully or mostly dependant on guild/archetype. I like that idea a lot more.

I don't recall that proposal. What's the idea behind it? How would it integrate to races?

Sort of like humans do right now at 50+? I kind of like that concept a lot more than having certain races be 'good' for certain orgs/guilds, even when considering the existence of racial hats.

Well stats have to mean something so there'd always be a base unless they're all the same in which case there'd become irrelevant.

We could possibly just do away with stats altogether and just have each race have a couple of advantages/disadvantages.

Shedrin

Estarra said:

Shedrin said:

Wasn't there at one point a proposal to make stats fully or mostly dependant on guild/archetype. I like that idea a lot more.

I don't recall that proposal. What's the idea behind it? How would it integrate to races?

I might be imagining things.

Anyway, my ideal is that races would be purely rp, and guilds/archetypes would determine stats.

If not, I'd like to maintain the ability to choose between damage and tankiness in a race. I think the existing stat system does that fairly well. I'm not sure how the pool-related stats would work with that.

Ssaliss

I'm honestly very split here. At its core, I kinda like the system, but it seems to me as if you get additional base health based on how many lessons you spend in a skill, which... well, quite frankly, I don't like. I don't have the time, but how would things look if you set a HME bonus to each skill (so combat would get 2/5 health for instance), and then just added them all in the end?

Riluna

Everiine said:

Ugh, I echo the comments of "here's the system and how it works--now pay us money to game it!"

I don't think we've ever hidden the fact that we're a commercial game and need to monetize to stay in existence, so not sure why you'd begrudge us trying to stay afloat.

It's not that you ask for money. I'm sure everybody understands that point. It's how and for what you ask money for, sometimes.

This is just my opinion, and maybe not worth much.