Character Stats + Aging

[Is Friday]

I tend to make young PCs because they're awesome. You just suck at the game, Malk. Get good noop.

[Malken]

STOP ASKING QUESTIONS OR WE DOCK ZE KARMA

MY KARMA IS LIKE MY PC'S AGILITY, IT TOOK A BIG DIVE WITHIN A TWO YEARS SPAN LOLOLOLOL

[Jihelu]

My agility is like my Karma.
It doesn't exist.

[Eyeball]

My impression is that stats increases from aging are very grudging.

Unfortunately we don't have access to the formula to prove that the average character starting at 25 will have better stats than the average character starting at 15 and reaching 25. So all we can do is argue.

[RogueGunslinger]

If you're so worried about stats, spec app for good stats.

If you make a 25 years old character, you can often expect 2-3 stats to be at the very least in the very good to extremely good range, depending on what you play, but if you start your character at the lowest age possible, or even mid-15, it'll be a miracle if you're out of the below average in all stats, while your agility is dropping like flies by the time you are 25.

How many characters have you played, because in my experience this isn't how it really works. I've had poor statted 28 year olds. And really good stats on young characters. Age effects stats but not nearly as much as randomness does.

I think stat ranges should be much more gradual. There's too much difference between Poor strength and AI strength.

[Malken]

If you're so worried about stats, spec app for good stats.

If you make a 25 years old character, you can often expect 2-3 stats to be at the very least in the very good to extremely good range, depending on what you play, but if you start your character at the lowest age possible, or even mid-15, it'll be a miracle if you're out of the below average in all stats, while your agility is dropping like flies by the time you are 25.

How many characters have you played, because in my experience this isn't how it really works. I've had poor statted 28 year olds. And really good stats on young characters. Age effects stats but not nearly as much as randomness does.

I think stat ranges should be much more gradual. There's too much difference between Poor strength and AI strength.

Nah, sorry, but I'm pretty sure (and it's not some sort of hidden code secret) that a 28 years old character will have MUCH better stats than a very young character. Age definitely affects stats more than randomness will.

(chargen even warns you when you create a new character that if you make it too young or too old your stats will suck something fierce)

How many characters have I played? Is that a joke or something?   Like.. Hundreds.

[Saellyn]

I can say with certainty that if you play a young character you can see a VERY significant drop in agility before you even hit your 20s.The system is not bugged, it's just a bit cruel to certain stats initially.

[solera]

I have had three teenagers (2x13)  and a 17 year old. I can't remember stats but I was happy with the improvement. I priotized their agility, and two were acrobats. Strength became respectable in the two semi combat ones.
When I had an over 60 (was she 70) I struggled briefly against staff ageism.   , but now I just see it as Life Sux.
Wisdom never improves. 

[Cind]

Its my experience that one thing affect sstats in a predictable way that hasn't been mentioned here yet, and I think its sort of IC to do so.

[RogueGunslinger]

If you're so worried about stats, spec app for good stats.

If you make a 25 years old character, you can often expect 2-3 stats to be at the very least in the very good to extremely good range, depending on what you play, but if you start your character at the lowest age possible, or even mid-15, it'll be a miracle if you're out of the below average in all stats, while your agility is dropping like flies by the time you are 25.

How many characters have you played, because in my experience this isn't how it really works. I've had poor statted 28 year olds. And really good stats on young characters. Age effects stats but not nearly as much as randomness does.

I think stat ranges should be much more gradual. There's too much difference between Poor strength and AI strength.

Nah, sorry, but I'm pretty sure (and it's not some sort of hidden code secret) that a 28 years old character will have MUCH better stats than a very young character. Age definitely affects stats more than randomness will.

(chargen even warns you when you create a new character that if you make it too young or too old your stats will suck something fierce)

How many characters have I played? Is that a joke or something?   Like.. Hundreds.

Hah, not a joke. I figured you might be the long-lived type with only 15 PC's or something like that. I agree that mid-range age is the best for even stats. But If I want to make a badass warrior with high strength you can bet your ass he's going to be over 40. If I want AI agility burglar I'm going to make him a teen.

[Malken]

But If I want to make a badass warrior with high strength you can bet your ass he's going to be over 40. If I want AI agility burglar I'm going to make him a teen.

I will too from now on and that's what kinda sucks. I will think stats first then creativity.

[RogueGunslinger]

Yep, it's stupid. I agree that age effects stat's too much. I just also think there's too much randomness with he rolls, and too much gap between AI and Poor.

[Patuk]

I know this thread is about age, I get that.

But can we please unlink endurance at least from height/weight?

I'd ask to remove all correlation between size and stats, but some people argue it makes sense for strength, agility and whatnot.

Fine, I say. Just scrap it for endurance at least. If stats and size were unrelated at all, I might actually go and play short warriors instead of massive dudes.

[Quell]

I know this thread is about age, I get that.

But can we please unlink endurance at least from height/weight?

I'd ask to remove all correlation between size and stats, but some people argue it makes sense for strength, agility and whatnot.

Fine, I say. Just scrap it for endurance at least. If stats and size were unrelated at all, I might actually go and play short warriors instead of massive dudes.

From the helpfile:

"Your race, starting age and guild will affect your starting attribute levels. As your character ages your attributes will reflect the natural changes that happen based on your character's race."

Nowhere is size mentioned.

[CodeMaster]

As you can see - some of the *letter* attributes don't change, even if the *numerical* ones do. It's just that your initial roll put you at the higher end on one, the lower end on another, and right smack dab in the middle and any change to those stats will go up and down only one point, which might not result in a "letter" attribute change for several character years.

Yeah, that's kinda also how I figured it'd work, but this sudden dive from one "letter" to another "letter" in the span of a couple of years is just insane. Meanwhile, everything is going up (if it even is) at a snail pace - Why is my health not even moving at all, too?

I guess only Staff could tell me if everything is working as it should be and I remember that Morgenes keeps saying that it is, but my own experience just makes me wary to create purely "role-play" characters anymore if I always get screwed by the aging system.

26, guys, 26.

I believe it is working correctly (that is, I believe Morgenes), but there are a couple nuances I've discovered that might explain what you're seeing, Malken.

Two young characters can start with similar stats (high agility, lousy everything else).  Actually, I'd imagine most young characters have pretty similar stats within their race.  Rerolling doesn't seem to do too much.  The differences between two rolls are hard to see.

Then they start aging.  After a few years, we start to see these young characters diverging.  One of them, it turns out, actually has intrinsically 'exceptional' strength, and his jumps in that category are big (from "average" to "good" say -- yes, this happened and it was pretty cool).  The other character has an intrinsically mediocre roll, and his stat jumps are small.

Now, when you start a 26 year old character, I'd imagine you immediately know whether you have a firecracker or a dud.  The discrepancies between your 'reroll' and your 'reroll undo' are large, noticeable, and it makes it easier to pick.

A younger character is a present you have to wait to unwrap.  But as it turns out, most characters are average.  In fact, I think Morgenes explained that stats are normally distributed around some racial mean, but I read that a while ago.  So most characters are going to start mediocre and stay mediocre, clustering around average.

Mediocre characters are duds.  Players recognize this.  You can verify this by looking at the logs on the webpage and correlating which characters are literally driving their characters into suicidal situations with lousy stat rolls.

But guess what?  Those players have logs on the log page!  They did something cool with that lousy stat roll.  A lousy stat roll is your chance to play adventurously.  A good stat roll, I suspect, can be a recipe for a boring character.

[Malken]

Yeah, that makes sense, CodeMaster, and a good explanation. Thanks. I'll accept it!

I was mostly kidding about the suiciding it part, when I make a younger character I know that he's going to suck at pretty much everything, so it's not that much of a traumatic surprise.

I just wish he would start slowly /not/ sucking into his older age rather than start sucking rapidly right from the get-go ;p

But that's the beauty (or nightmare) of Armageddon, you never know what sort of character you'll end up with.

[CodeMaster]

A younger character is a present you have to wait to unwrap.

that didn't come out the way I meant

[Harmless]

Codemaster's explanation seems to me like it could definitely explain Malken's scenario above.

Given this is how the code works and it's unlikely to change, I guess the take-home here is that if you want to roll a concept that requires stats to be a certain level to accomplish your goals, then start them at a near-adult age. If, on the other hand, stats don't matter much to attain your goals, then you could start them young, since you're in a sense blinded to what their potential is and won't know what the stats actually are until much later. If you want to be less blinded and know out of the box what your character will end up as, then you can always be just a few years older than the youngest extreme and play a 19 or 20 year old (still quite young).

[Patuk]

Size does affect stats. It's been two years, but staff have confirmed it to be true.

Also, as long as I'm asking for things I know won't happen.. Can anyone tell me why elf wisdom is equal to human wisdom? Anyone who's played a number of mages belonging to either race should be able to confirm this.

[Harmless]

Size does affect stats. It's been two years, but staff have confirmed it to be true.

Also, as long as I'm asking for things I know won't happen.. Can anyone tell me why elf wisdom is equal to human wisdom? Anyone who's played a number of mages belonging to either race should be able to confirm this.

(don't take my post as a serious answer)

[Patuk]

wut

If elves are OP I have been doing it all wrong for a while now

[wizturbo]

Can anyone tell me why elf wisdom is equal to human wisdom? Anyone who's played a number of mages belonging to either race should be able to confirm this.

You're assuming wisdom = mana in a linear fashion.  Not sure that's the case.

[Patuk]

Okay. I am.

[Malken]

I promised myself not to die or store this character so I can update this thread every IC year and we can all share in my pain and misery until he dies of old age.

The cycle of poor stats will have come full circle. Amen.