12-27-2019, 07:50 AM
The stats of Eternia suck. They always kinda have, but they've had their best showing here by way of combining the attack stat so people aren't stuck with either staff or sword. But!
There's a problem with that. And it's not really Power's fault, this was always kinda true given hybridizing was a bit of a trap; now there's only four stats. You get enough points to max out two of them, put in a significant dent with one (and then use DRUGS to push it nearly the rest of the way) while leaving the last out to dry. By all accounts, this means maxing out vitality and power and getting agility up to speed while dumping spirit - which might be a little more to do with spirit not working as advertised until recently, but hey.
It gives the illusion of choice. If you don't invest heavily in vitality, you don't have the health and then you'll just die regardless. Power and then you can't beat down the other person and, again, rip you. Leaving it only between agility and spirit, and then doubled down on whether or not you can get an alchemist friend to bump up that third stat after the grueling period of farming crystals like it was meth.
It's not good. There is no customization to be had there, everyone comes out the same. Worse yet, well-liked players/characters will get a boost in comparison to more insular characters. Let's see would-be bandit antag get their perms while not being able to enter the city, huh? Etc. To add to it, the RPP costs of trees means in practice once you get past a certain point in your build your RPL just comes out to how big your numbers are, meaning the little guy has to deal with someone with both more health and more damage then them and maybe an extra spell, too.
So I propose an alternative, ribbing off a little from Fire Emblem Heroes; Boon/Bane. At character generation - and maybe a re-choice with a potion once per life or something - players picks one stat that is a boon and one that's a bane for that character, and their stats are all given a curved array based on their RPL. The two untaken stats proceed as normal, automatically going up with each level up - no input there. The boon, as you might guess, has an notably increased curve, while the bane has a decrease - maybe not as much, but still significant. Have the curve taper off after a certain RPL and then, to a degree, differing match ups aren't that much of a concern. Presto, everything is solved.
Players can give their characters something they're actually actively good at beyond what magic they have; the guy filled with determination, the explodiest wizard, the fastest dude or Captain Sustain. A fact about them that no one can question, so now the stalwart defender guy can actually feel like they're tankier and harder to put down then the sinisterly cloaked McStabby. Also more importantly, it gives everyone a pronounced drawback of some kind, an active choice the player did. Thumbing over to an example of Dungeons and Dragons, there is a big difference in a character who bought up their stats and decided they didn't need charisma or something over the person who rolled their stats and needed to put an eight somewhere.
There are two immediate drawbacks with this with already established systems. There's also UI snaffu but, well, I believe in you.
The first and simplest is the flee/pursue system, as short of it being a boon/bane stat everyone would be rolling basically the same and it'd just be a RPL contest. This... probably is already kind of true, though? It might need to be adjusted, anyway.
The second is perms, our little enhancement potions of love. Now the simplest answer would just to be have them operate as normal and just be an additional plus to it, but I feel like with four stats that isn't really a good thing; it's another choice, sure, but I feel like allowing some characters to have an even better boon, nearly two boons or neutralizing their bane and some characters not be able to do so by different circumstances would be bad. Really, I am of the opinion to remove them altogether and deliver the killing blow to alchemy's relevancy, even if people would complain about their efforts into getting the perms in the first place would be now null.
Now, of course, some people likely split their lower two stats to some degree and this system would take that choice away from them, but still; maybe that's okay? I suppose an option would be for a player to not take up a boon/bane and have everything be painfully average if that's a major turn off, though at the cost of still not having a definite "I am good at this" thing.
thx
There's a problem with that. And it's not really Power's fault, this was always kinda true given hybridizing was a bit of a trap; now there's only four stats. You get enough points to max out two of them, put in a significant dent with one (and then use DRUGS to push it nearly the rest of the way) while leaving the last out to dry. By all accounts, this means maxing out vitality and power and getting agility up to speed while dumping spirit - which might be a little more to do with spirit not working as advertised until recently, but hey.
It gives the illusion of choice. If you don't invest heavily in vitality, you don't have the health and then you'll just die regardless. Power and then you can't beat down the other person and, again, rip you. Leaving it only between agility and spirit, and then doubled down on whether or not you can get an alchemist friend to bump up that third stat after the grueling period of farming crystals like it was meth.
It's not good. There is no customization to be had there, everyone comes out the same. Worse yet, well-liked players/characters will get a boost in comparison to more insular characters. Let's see would-be bandit antag get their perms while not being able to enter the city, huh? Etc. To add to it, the RPP costs of trees means in practice once you get past a certain point in your build your RPL just comes out to how big your numbers are, meaning the little guy has to deal with someone with both more health and more damage then them and maybe an extra spell, too.
So I propose an alternative, ribbing off a little from Fire Emblem Heroes; Boon/Bane. At character generation - and maybe a re-choice with a potion once per life or something - players picks one stat that is a boon and one that's a bane for that character, and their stats are all given a curved array based on their RPL. The two untaken stats proceed as normal, automatically going up with each level up - no input there. The boon, as you might guess, has an notably increased curve, while the bane has a decrease - maybe not as much, but still significant. Have the curve taper off after a certain RPL and then, to a degree, differing match ups aren't that much of a concern. Presto, everything is solved.
Players can give their characters something they're actually actively good at beyond what magic they have; the guy filled with determination, the explodiest wizard, the fastest dude or Captain Sustain. A fact about them that no one can question, so now the stalwart defender guy can actually feel like they're tankier and harder to put down then the sinisterly cloaked McStabby. Also more importantly, it gives everyone a pronounced drawback of some kind, an active choice the player did. Thumbing over to an example of Dungeons and Dragons, there is a big difference in a character who bought up their stats and decided they didn't need charisma or something over the person who rolled their stats and needed to put an eight somewhere.
There are two immediate drawbacks with this with already established systems. There's also UI snaffu but, well, I believe in you.
The first and simplest is the flee/pursue system, as short of it being a boon/bane stat everyone would be rolling basically the same and it'd just be a RPL contest. This... probably is already kind of true, though? It might need to be adjusted, anyway.
The second is perms, our little enhancement potions of love. Now the simplest answer would just to be have them operate as normal and just be an additional plus to it, but I feel like with four stats that isn't really a good thing; it's another choice, sure, but I feel like allowing some characters to have an even better boon, nearly two boons or neutralizing their bane and some characters not be able to do so by different circumstances would be bad. Really, I am of the opinion to remove them altogether and deliver the killing blow to alchemy's relevancy, even if people would complain about their efforts into getting the perms in the first place would be now null.
Now, of course, some people likely split their lower two stats to some degree and this system would take that choice away from them, but still; maybe that's okay? I suppose an option would be for a player to not take up a boon/bane and have everything be painfully average if that's a major turn off, though at the cost of still not having a definite "I am good at this" thing.
thx
