A discussion of stats.

[Jingo]

While I like the recent of implementation that changes stat scores by age and I don't mind the stat-ordering system... I still don' like the way stats are decided in this game.

I don't like the idea that a few random rolls have such a significant impact on the performance and survivability of my character. I also don't like the idea that characters with less expieriance beneath their belts might eventually eclipse my character because they got a better roll. I also don't think it makes sense that there is an arbitrary cap on the amount my stats can be increased by rp. I was told by staff that I can't raise them past 'good'. (It'd be great if staff could weigh in on this.)

So, what I would like to see is a reversal of these systems. Rewarding players for rp and not for luck.

I think the random range of stats available at character creation should be shortened. Maybe a range of something like 'average' to 'very good'. This would allow some variability to character performance without rewarding them/punishing them too much for a few random rolls.

Secondly, I think there should be a higher cap for stat increases through rp. By no means, should this be easy. But I think that if my character wanted exceptional strength badly enough and had time (five years?) to train, then I think it should be in his grasp.

I also wouldn't be against awesome stat-scores by special-app either.

Thoughts anyone?

[Yam]

I agree.

Some players say that stats don't matter once you get skilled.

They're wrong.

[talus]

It is disheartening when you get a bad roll. For example, if a character of mine ends up with bad wisdom, I'll know for the life of that PC that I'm putting in more of my Real Life Time to get him to improve at what he does than I would have had to if he'd gotten a better roll. It's even more disheartening when you realize that your rolls were determined by a computer in what was probably less than a fraction of a second.

I'm not too familiar with the new automatic stat aging system, but maybe that might help a little.

And I agree with Yam and Jingo that stats are immensely important, perhaps more than they should ideally be.

Maybe increasing the number of stat steps and heavily biasing the rolls towards the average might help level the playing field a bit?

[Mood]

I agree.

Some players say that stats don't matter once you get skilled.

They're wrong.

OMG STATS DON'T MATTER YOU FUCKING TWINK

(Yeah, I agree.)

[Thenne]

Well. Partially I understand why there is a barrier to how high you can raise your stat through RP. I mean, there are players out there who've been around for 2+ years. Even with a 'very' busy life. They would've had ample amount of time of get all of their stats to Absolutely Incredible. And then ... get this, they'd be absolutely incredible!

One stat being so high, is a 'talent' for a person. Something that will make him remarkable in that particular area. All of them ... and he's a demi god.

At the same time it 'IS' disheartening to roll a low rank. It is 'very' disheartening to witness a person who is ... amazingly idiotic in various non impressive ways, be preferred to a man who's sharp and interesting, but is low skilled or got some debilitating low rolled stat.


I wouldnt mind stats being equal for everyone. And then allow some method of improving it, that does not involve spamming. Say, a person can choose the order of his stats, but together, they are all the same. And then as years pass, he has the chance of improving some amount through roleplay. Depending on where the gameplay takes him, he'll do different things, for different stats. Or if it's irrelevent, then ... he wont.



I my experience. Rolling a poor endurance stat, was 'very' fun to do. Had to roleplay a sickness, all sorts of things. Rolling a poor 'strength' stat as a fighting character. Is not fun at all, it makes things ... impossible. I never rolled a poor 'wisdom' stat, but if I did, I would given him a rl week tops, to land a role where skills do not matter. And if he failed, store him.

[Clearsighted]

As far as I can tell, the automatic stat aging system doesn't make much of a difference at all. I had a PC that started at young, and lived (owing to mine leaving Arm for more than a year before returning) about 19 and a half game years, ending up towards the end of the adult spectrum for that race.

When the new aging code kicked in, my stats remained identical, except agility dropped. I thought it strange, but was told it was WAD, so moved on.

So I would caution people against reading too much into or expecting too much from the system.

From my experience, whatever it raises is so minutely fractional, that it is a good chance your stat descriptor will stay the exact same, even going from young to mature. Though it's easier to tell if something moved however fractional, with the endurance stat, and that wasn't the case.

Secondly, I suspect that if you made a character today, and kept them alive until Arm 2.0 opened, you would not have lived long enough to see any change, except perhaps, your agility dropping down if you began as young. That seems the most noticable shift.

[flurry]

I agree.

Some players say that stats don't matter once you get skilled.

They're wrong.

Yes, but the significance of stats is very small compared to roleplay and skills.

[FantasyWriter]

It was brought up before in the reborn thread about starting gear, that maybe in the Hall of Kings you would be given a certain about of coins with which you could 'buy' skills instead of it being a random roll.  That way you could set up your character the way you wrote it instead of writing up a Hercules character and geting Merlyn stats, or visa versa.
A mage would buy the minimum strength he would need, then spend the rest of his 'stat money' on wisdom, a merchant would balance wisdom and agility after s/he bought how ever little strength and endurance s/he needed.


Random roles are like having a kid in real life, you never really know what their strengths and weaknesses are going to be, BUT in Armageddon, you have already decided what strength and weaknesses he grew up with by choosing his guild and subguild.  A clumsy person (low agility) would have never survived in Zalanthas had he chosen to spend his life as a merchant, for example.

[Is Friday]

I guess I'm the only one who likes randomly decided stats...

[Barzalene]

You're not the only one.
I just don't have a comprehensive response as to why. I just like that you don't know what you'll get and not everyone is badass.

[roughneck]

Random stats are way better.  It helps keep the game dynamic and unpredictable.  Sure it's a pain to have a char concept you were excited about get blunted by a shitty roll but in the end the pros of the current system outweigh the cons, imho.

[FantasyWriter]

I do like random stats.  I seem to have always been very lucky with my stat
rolls, and the few times I haven't been, I have always enjoyed the quirks that
I developed to compensate for them in RP.  I had a merchant when I first
started that I have mentioned before, that could only hold three items... I
RPed him as an alcoholic who only used his "newbie" crafting recipes, no
matter how good he got, and he spent all his coin in the Gaj.

I enjoyed the hello out of it, too!

Another think that might help keep players from getting stats that make it
difficult to RP a character that they have written, while still keeping the rolls
random:  Lower the total skill point available across all four stats, the award
"bonuses" depending on guild choice: strength/agility for warrior, agility/wisdom
for merchant, agility/endurance or agility/strength for ranger, etc.

The odds would still be random, but you would be less likely to roll an
"unplayable" charecter.

[touringCompl3t3]

I can emphasize with a lot of what you cats are saying. 

I played a character with crappy stats for six real-life months, and hated every day of it.  I sunk hour after hour into a character who, even when he died, was still much weaker than noobs who were starting fresh.  That being said, one of my favorite features is how "unfair" the stat system is.  Much like real life, some people walk around and accomplish things effortlessly, while the rest of us struggle to get by, mostly based on our stats. 

Obviously, I'm not in favor of forcing people to play unplayable characters or weaklings or anything. 

I do think that playing a weakling every once in a while is good for you.

Agree?  Disagree?

[FantasyWriter]

Agree?  Disagree?

I agree.  They are a very nice change of pace.

To reword something I said earlier to add to what you said, IRL, you life is based
on your stats from the beginning.  IG, you have no clue what your stats are until
after you have already written your background (lived half your life).



Perhaps the staff would give us the option of rewriting our background, if the
stats are in total contrast of what we had written. Never though of it, so I have
never tried.

[BuNutzCola]

The most powerful, long-lived, and notable character I've played here in my few years of arming had pretty ugly stats. He ended up in combat situations all the freaking time, but usually it was how I played him that kept him alive, not the stats behind him.

That being said, poor strength can be rather debilitating in a role. Sure being a weak warrior can be fun, but that's when I think of weak as avg, blw avg. Being so tender as to not be able to carry anything bigger than a knife sucks.

Wisdom in my opinion can be overcome, if you just live long enough and work some training into your routine.

[FantasyWriter]

Wisdom in my opinion can be overcome, if you just live long enough and work some training into your routine.

HAHA! No kidding, my favorite character was a dwarf with below average
wisdom... Talk about a learning curve.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

I like randomly assigned stats.  I like the dynamic they give my characters and the game.  Once upon a time I had a character (warrior character) with 'poor' wisdom.  I probably did learn slower than the rest of the characters he was chumming with, but by the time he died he still kicked ass.  The only thing I found completely unplayable was poor dexterity on a half-giant.  He could only hold one thing at a time.  Forget tailoring items, he couldn't hold a ticket and coins.  And the staff tweaked it for him.

I dislike shortening the range to average to very good because that allows for very little diversity.  I dislike roleplay to raise it systems simply because the staff has to watch over it, and they have better things to do with their time.  And I suppose point by systems are alright, but they will never be as dynamic, and I will lose all sense of logging into the game from time to time, seeing an 'exceptional' or 'absolutely incredible', and thinking that I'm just awesome.

That said, I don't think it's broken so I would not like seeing it 'fixed'.

[Barzalene]

At the same time it 'IS' disheartening to roll a low rank. It is 'very' disheartening to witness a person who is ... amazingly idiotic in various non impressive ways, be preferred to a man who's sharp and interesting, but is low skilled or got some debilitating low rolled stat.

I don't see this. In fact, I think that people who are interesting to rp with perhaps more opportunity than may make sense of someone of their abilities.

Did anyone ever get laid more than Fatty Tor? (Yes getting laid isn't a skill affected by stats but it does speak to preferences)

[Qzzrbl]

I hate random stats, because every time I get a great character concept in mind and app it, I get the shittiest stat rolls known to man.

But I love random stats, because if everyone had great stats, then the stat system in itself would become pointless.

I heard a proposition a while back I really liked, and here's how it went:

Upon character creation, the player would have two choices when it came to stats.

The player could either 1) Go with a random stat roll in the order they selected
                                              2) Select a "fixed" set of stats and customize them a little.

Now, selection option 2 would prompt something like this:

Code Select Expand

Strength- Above Average
Agility- Above Average
Endurance- Above Average
Wisdom- Above Average
Points to spend: 0

-1 Wisdom

Strength- Above Average
Agility- Above Average
Endurance- Above Average
Wisdom- Average
Points to spend: 1

+1 agility

Strength- Above Average
Agility- Good
Endurance- Above Average
Wisdom-  Average
Points to spend: 0

-1 wisdom

Strength- Above Average
Agility- Good
Endurance- Above Average
Wisdom- Below Average
Points to spend: 1

-1 Endurance

Strength- Above Average
Agility- Good
Endurance- Average
Wisdom- Below Average
Points to spend: 2

+1 agility

Strength- Above Average
Agility- Very Good
Endurance- Average
Wisdom- Below Average
Points to spend:0




Or something like this, I dunno.

Raising a stat past say "Good" or "Very Good" would cost more than 1 point.

At best, choosing option 2, you would get the opportunity to wind up with okay stats. Stats that are kinda low, but aren't horrible enough to have you "kill guard" suicide and start over. But, choosing the random option, it will stay like it is now. Sometimes you'll roll GREAT stats, others you'll roll shit.

[Fathi]

I like the random stats and would never change them, as I use my character's stats as one of the methods to fully flesh out their personality, but I do find something curious.

I remember reading on here that supposedly, it's just as hard to roll "poor" stats as it is "absolutely incredible" stats, provided you aren't playing a 13-year-old or a 60-year-old right out of the box.

However, almost every character whose stats I can remember has ended up with at least one "below average" or worse, although sometimes they've disappeared on a reroll. Conversely, I almost never get "extremely good" and have gotten three or four "exceptional" and never an "absolutely incredible."

It seems to me that the random stats do seem biased toward being lower more often than higher, regardless of what guild/race/height/weight/age my PCs have been. Or perhaps I'm just unlucky.

Personally, I would not change the system of deciding stats at all. I think that a rethinking of a few skills and game features to perhaps make a character's survivability less dependent on having beeftacular stats would be a more progressive direction to take discussion in.

[Jingo]

Keep in mind that this game is an incredible time-sink. Explain to me why I should play a warrior for a hundread hours (4 days) and then finally be able to down a certain agressive beastie, when my last warrior (and apparantly everyone else in my clan) could do it out of the box?

[Gimfalisette]

Keep in mind that this game is an incredible time-sink. Explain to me why I should play a warrior for a hundread hours (4 days) and then finally be able to down a certain agressive beastie, when my last warrior (and apparantly everyone else in my clan) could do it out of the box?

Is 4 days playtime a long time to you?

I played a warrior with pretty good stats (except wis) and recall that she still pretty much sucked at 4 days...in comparison to what she was by 80.

Perhaps look into longevity?

[Jingo]

Keep in mind that this game is an incredible time-sink. Explain to me why I should play a warrior for a hundread hours (4 days) and then finally be able to down a certain agressive beastie, when my last warrior (and apparantly everyone else in my clan) could do it out of the box?

Is 4 days playtime a long time to you?

I played a warrior with pretty good stats (except wis) and recall that she still pretty much sucked at 4 days...in comparison to what she was by 80.

Perhaps look into longevity?

It's just an example to make a point. I have played a reasonably long-lived warrior. My main gripe is that throughout that character's life there were new pc's popping up in that clan that could apparantly match my character in combat at day one. Most of them died off pretty quick but when more kept popping up and pulling off the same stuff I was doing at 10 days... I never felt like I was being rewarded for my longevity.

But yes, when you think about it, one hundread hours is actually a very long time.

[Barzalene]

Keep in mind that this game is an incredible time-sink. Explain to me why I should play a warrior for a hundread hours (4 days) and then finally be able to down a certain agressive beastie, when my last warrior (and apparantly everyone else in my clan) could do it out of the box?

Because you find them to be interesting people with an interesting story to tell?

Beating up a big animal doesn't make your pc a valuable pc in anyway except at a tool.

[Lizzie]

Jingo, try to think of it this way:

If they started out better skilled codewise, but died before you did, then they weren't better than you. Coded skills are useless if you don't have the brains to back them up. Longevity IS your reward. That IS the prize, for playing with a little intelligence and common sense. And of course luck always has something to do with it, because even the smartest, safest-playing player will lose their character eventually.