Stat rolls and the experience of having good/bad stats

[Brisket]

And maybe address the fringe circumstances. Let HGs carry 6 things who cares. Elf stuff may be fixed with the combat change, so willing to wait. But the little things that are more oocly punishing than roleplay hooks.

I'm down with that, a base carry limit of like 4 would solve pretty much the only real issue caused by dumpstats.

[HammerofJericho]

I'm just not sure who these veteran players are that "don't unstated the mechanics of combat". My gripe with stats is experienced and due in part to some bad luck of mine over my characters rolls. Poor on an elf that becomes a badass as I said after 10-15 days played yeah they can keep up.  But most people don't live that long or survive things because of a low roll versus having that extra 10-15 hp or whatever. I'm not trying to scare be players away I'm being honest about an experience that I've repeatedly had over 20 years of playing this game.

[Kavrick]

I'm just not sure who these veteran players are that "don't unstated the mechanics of combat". My gripe with stats is experienced and due in part to some bad luck of mine over my characters rolls. Poor on an elf that becomes a badass as I said after 10-15 days played yeah they can keep up.  But most people don't live that long or survive things because of a low roll versus having that extra 10-15 hp or whatever. I'm not trying to scare be players away I'm being honest about an experience that I've repeatedly had over 20 years of playing this game.

I'll be honest, I find it hard to buy the whole "yeah but you can make up for it with skills," Even if your character manages to get their skills up, someone with the same skills as you but with better stats is still going to be better than you. The thing is about stats is that it's not only your starting advantage but it's also your end-potential. A master swordsman with good strength is going to be worse than a master swordsman who has exceptional strength.

[HammerofJericho]

I'm not concerned with being the best in my position on this topic.  I just want to be able to take risks and have a decent chance at surviving them. I don't like sitting around and such. Or grinding combat stats like mad just to be able to survive slightly better.

[LindseyBalboa]

I'm just not sure who these veteran players are that "don't unstated the mechanics of combat". My gripe with stats is experienced and due in part to some bad luck of mine over my characters rolls. Poor on an elf that becomes a badass as I said after 10-15 days played yeah they can keep up.  But most people don't live that long or survive things because of a low roll versus having that extra 10-15 hp or whatever. I'm not trying to scare be players away I'm being honest about an experience that I've repeatedly had over 20 years of playing this game.

I'll be honest, I find it hard to buy the whole "yeah but you can make up for it with skills," Even if your character manages to get their skills up, someone with the same skills as you but with better stats is still going to be better than you. The thing is about stats is that it's not only your starting advantage but it's also your end-potential. A master swordsman with good strength is going to be worse than a master swordsman who has exceptional strength.

if they started and ended up equal in every single other way over the course of getting to a master weapon skill, including all hidden stats/skills and modifiers, then yes that one thing would matter. i doubt that's every happened or will happen.

but also this is just describing how like games work? idk.

[Brisket]

I'm just not sure who these veteran players are that "don't unstated the mechanics of combat". My gripe with stats is experienced and due in part to some bad luck of mine over my characters rolls. Poor on an elf that becomes a badass as I said after 10-15 days played yeah they can keep up.  But most people don't live that long or survive things because of a low roll versus having that extra 10-15 hp or whatever. I'm not trying to scare be players away I'm being honest about an experience that I've repeatedly had over 20 years of playing this game.

I'll be honest, I find it hard to buy the whole "yeah but you can make up for it with skills," Even if your character manages to get their skills up, someone with the same skills as you but with better stats is still going to be better than you. The thing is about stats is that it's not only your starting advantage but it's also your end-potential. A master swordsman with good strength is going to be worse than a master swordsman who has exceptional strength.

As LindseyBalboa said, there are so many other factors involved in being of 'equal' skill that its not really a comparison that can ever be made.  What're their agis? What weapons are they using? What is their endurance? What about the various hidden skills?  What about the unhidden skills? Their encumbrance? Their armor? Their fighting style?

And that's ignoring the fact that we can't and shouldn't balance the game around 'would this be even in an exact, perfect Byn sparring environment'.  There are too many other factors, and those factors are the whole roleplay environment which is the point of the game.

Some people are stronger.

Some people are more nimble.

Some people are tougher.

Some people are more clever.

To mute the curve on this would be to lose a lot of the chance and variety that creates interesting stories.

[Nao]

High agility (lower chance to fail combat skills) and high str (shorter fights) both get in the way of skillgains, so I do think these even out a bit in the long run. Super shitty stats are rare enough or easy enough to avoid that they've never been much of an issue for me. You do have some control by prioritization, rerolls, and picking your starting age.

I do with that there were more stat gains when you start out young and age. They do not seem to come up to the same level that they would have been if you had started at an older age.

I'm not sure if HP ever goes up with age. I've had a human that started at 20 with 88hp at below avg endurance. I played him until age 30 or so - endurance went up, but HP never did.

[Master Color]

I'm just not sure who these veteran players are that "don't unstated the mechanics of combat". My gripe with stats is experienced and due in part to some bad luck of mine over my characters rolls. Poor on an elf that becomes a badass as I said after 10-15 days played yeah they can keep up.  But most people don't live that long or survive things because of a low roll versus having that extra 10-15 hp or whatever. I'm not trying to scare be players away I'm being honest about an experience that I've repeatedly had over 20 years of playing this game.

I'll be honest, I find it hard to buy the whole "yeah but you can make up for it with skills," Even if your character manages to get their skills up, someone with the same skills as you but with better stats is still going to be better than you. The thing is about stats is that it's not only your starting advantage but it's also your end-potential. A master swordsman with good strength is going to be worse than a master swordsman who has exceptional strength.

As LindseyBalboa said, there are so many other factors involved in being of 'equal' skill that its not really a comparison that can ever be made.  What're their agis? What weapons are they using? What is their endurance? What about the various hidden skills?  What about the unhidden skills? Their encumbrance? Their armor? Their fighting style?

And that's ignoring the fact that we can't and shouldn't balance the game around 'would this be even in an exact, perfect Byn sparring environment'.  There are too many other factors, and those factors are the whole roleplay environment which is the point of the game.

Some people are stronger.

Some people are more nimble.

Some people are tougher.

Some people are more clever.

To mute the curve on this would be to lose a lot of the chance and variety that creates interesting stories.

If we muted the curve, would anyone put in a special app to have their stats reduced? I very much doubt it.

[Brisket]

If we muted the curve, would anyone put in a special app to have their stats reduced? I very much doubt it.

People regularly play non-combat classes.  People put in to have their karma reduced voluntarily.  People are down to just play roles in this role playing game.

[Master Color]

It very much doubt that anyone would ask staff for a reduction in stats because they believed the game needed a better distribution of low statted pc's.

[Kryos]

I've had a human that started at 20 with 88hp at below avg endurance. I played him until age 30 or so - endurance went up, but HP never did.

Seems like a bug with the age code.  Ought to submit that for review.

[Brisket]

It very much doubt that anyone would ask staff for a reduction in stats because they believed the game needed a better distribution of low statted pc's.

And yet evidence of people voluntarily choosing suboptimal combat efficiency exists.  And your claim has no evidence save your gut feeling.

[Bogre]

It very much doubt that anyone would ask staff for a reduction in stats because they believed the game needed a better distribution of low statted pc's.

And yet evidence of people voluntarily choosing suboptimal combat efficiency exists.  And your claim has no evidence save your gut feeling.

Voluntarily choosing suboptimal combat efficiency because...they're choosing to gain in some other area. Whether its a class or something else. No one's just choosing to suck to suck.

[Greve]

Just assign stats from a static pool that gets distributed from a roll to determine whether your first priorirty was high, and thus your last low, or the inverse. Arm's stats system has always been absurd and outdated. There should not be such a degree of randomness. There should be a baseline number of stat points allotted to each race, then a roll to determine their distribution, and then you can apply class/age modifiers afterwards. It is a blemish upon this game that two human characters can come out with AI/EG/VG/EG and another with VG/A/P/AA. It's a failure of game design, and it should change.

How many thousands of characters have waded into the Silt Sea because they rolled G/BA/P/AA? And they were right to do so. It's a broken system. Change the system so that this is not a thing. It's insanity to expect such a wildly unbalanced stat system to function in this day and age. Anyone who defends it is out of their mind, or doesn't understand the most basics of it. Players don't want to be met with the information, upon first entry, that their character will suck forever.

Change that. It's quite possibly the greatest blemish on ArmageddonMUD. Quite a few players have quit this game because they rolled garbage stats and saw how much it mattered. Change this shit. It should have happened fifteen years ago.

[Bebop]

This convo comes up about hmm, once a year?

To be honest although Arm was set up like a tabletop it's come a long way since then.  Arm is a video game, MMO type of situation.

Can you imagine if you played WoW and randomly the warlock you picked just got WAY less HP than another warlock just because?

There is a part of me that loves the thrill of stats.  But maybe there should be the option of stats, reroll and then default stats where you can opt for a neutral "good" at everything or at least average at everything.

You can debate it all you want (I'm not much of a code player) but it is, and always has been, demotivating and frustrating to have characters based on a chunk of random happenstance and see that poor rear it's ugly head.

[Pariah]

Not to mention stats come after you've built a description, a background etc etc.

So you could be the huge muscular brute of a man, but have poor strength.

[WarriorPoet]

Let me spend a karma point or two on a single stat to keep in line with my vision for my character. That way I don't get a crappy agility assassin or brutish axeman who can't carry a hatchet.

[Brisket]

Voluntarily choosing suboptimal combat efficiency because...they're choosing to gain in some other area. Whether its a class or something else. No one's just choosing to suck to suck.

The problem is you viewing it as 'sucking' instead of seeing it as 'a role you're playing' - you can tell a story with all poor stats, and in the end that's the point of the game.  And that's ignoring that people voluntarily dropped karma and various other examples.

[Veselka]

[creeper386]

Truthfully, I've only really felt bad stats the first few weeks of playing a character.


Although I feel the pain when seeing bad stats, it does suck, but in many ways it's just another obstacle. If everything went they way I wanted, this game wouldn't be nearly as fun. In fact it wouldn't be fun for me.

Truly, I'd think there would be a lot of loss of interest if stats were taking away, or even the range was reduced.

I think the fact that you could have just a god like human fighter because they not only lived and learned in short enough time that they didn't become decrepit with old age, but also that they started with great stats to begin with.

And sometimes we just need lackeys. Not everyone needs to be the greatest or the best.

[Bogre]

Voluntarily choosing suboptimal combat efficiency because...they're choosing to gain in some other area. Whether its a class or something else. No one's just choosing to suck to suck.

The problem is you viewing it as 'sucking' instead of seeing it as 'a role you're playing' - you can tell a story with all poor stats, and in the end that's the point of the game.  And that's ignoring that people voluntarily dropped karma and various other examples.

Sure, show me all those examples of people voluntarily asking for stat drops.

The karma off had a lot of people with seller's remorse, too, and asking for it back at some time later.

I'm not saying you can't tell a story with poor stats. I'm saying it's unlikely someone will opt into it without some gain. You can tell that same story of your downtrodden beggar with great stats.  Sure, some people might ask for a challenge. But how many people do you see complain their stats are too high?

But focusing on the exception case rather than the 95+% of time when people would be better assisted in telling their story by a more survivable character (statwise, etc) and having a more enjoyable time mechanically is tunnel-vision.

[Kavrick]

Just as a side note, I would like to thank all the replies and the civil discussion on the matter. Honestly I didn't expect this thread to get such attention. As I've said previously, I'm pretty new to the game so it's very insightful to get the views of people who have been playing for much longer than me.

I think I do agree with both sides. You can create good stories with both godlike characters and regular shmos.i personally don't like playing something on the lines of a "main character", I kinda like observing plots and characters around me without being the focus of them. But I guess also as someone who still has a lot of "unknown" when it comes to the game, the idea of playing a particular inept character can be stressful. I'm completely fine with people being better/stronger than me, but perhaps making it so depending on the priority of the stat, the minimum roll is increased. (Making it so your number 1 priority can never be less than good but your last prio stat can still be very poor) might be a nice safety net while still allowing people to have a big range in stats on characters.

I will say, stats do feel like they matter far more for combat than anything else. The new changes to combat seem like they will be lovely and I look forward to them a lot. (Although I do hope halaster decides to make shield/weapon styles be both agi and strengths so you can do rapier + buckler type fighting styles that don't rely on strength).

Again thanks for all the replies, very insightful.

[Brisket]

Voluntarily choosing suboptimal combat efficiency because...they're choosing to gain in some other area. Whether its a class or something else. No one's just choosing to suck to suck.

The problem is you viewing it as 'sucking' instead of seeing it as 'a role you're playing' - you can tell a story with all poor stats, and in the end that's the point of the game.  And that's ignoring that people voluntarily dropped karma and various other examples.

Sure, show me all those examples of people voluntarily asking for stat drops.

The karma off had a lot of people with seller's remorse, too, and asking for it back at some time later.

I'm not saying you can't tell a story with poor stats. I'm saying it's unlikely someone will opt into it without some gain. You can tell that same story of your downtrodden beggar with great stats.  Sure, some people might ask for a challenge. But how many people do you see complain their stats are too high?

But focusing on the exception case rather than the 95+% of time when people would be better assisted in telling their story by a more survivable character (statwise, etc) and having a more enjoyable time mechanically is tunnel-vision.

You made the claim that nobody would. I gave examples of times people have.  The way this works is that its your turn to provide evidence outside your gut feeling that you're definitely totally correct with made up numbers.

Play the stats you're given, that's the role - you can become a god tier fighter with mediocre stats, that's a fact.

[Pariah]

I knew two players back in the day that had the highest level of Karma and participated in the Karma off.

I still am in contact with both of them, and neither of them play anymore.

When I asked them about it, they told me they did it in hopes it would be a temporary thing, going from 7 to 2 or whatever they did.

Come to find out they regretted it as by the time the new levels kicked in, they still had not got back their previous choices or levels.

I think the max I've ever had is whatever half giant used to be on the old system before I got into it with staff and was kicked down to desert elf territory.

So I only have my experience and what these two players told me who dont play anymore and I know that given the choice again they would have never quit and we would have two awesome players still here kicking around.

I never understood the reasoning behind that karma off, karma is not a finite resource, it's supposed to be staff trust in your play and decisions in the game world.  I think people were looking at it incorrectly back then.

Only reason I bring this up is because people keep bringing it up like it was some massive philanthropical thing, some generous act by a charitable playerbase and I don't feel that way at all from my small sliver of experience of it.

[valeria]

I'm honestly not really sure from this thread what people consider good and bad stats. Are good stats stats that are above average in every category? Because having at least one average seems pretty normal to me. With reroll and reroll undo, I've never ended up with a stat that was 'poor' on both rolls, though I have a couple of times had to consider whether I wanted to give up a very high stat in order to wipe out a 'below average' in the stat I deprioritized. That could just be my experience. Maybe giving a person an option to reroll just one stat instead of rerolling the entire stat pool might help with that, idk.

I'm not going to run a forum search for it, but I do remember a staffer saying that your stats are influenced by your priority order and the main stat of the class you pick. I think you almost have to work at it, or gamble, to end up with a low main stat for the class you picked.

I've seen point buy brought up a few times over the years, and my favorite version was giving the player the option to select between point buy and random stats, where the number of points would only add up to the average stats of a person who chose to gamble and roll stats, and where the buy would be increasingly costly the more you boosted a stat off of average. Though I personally like random stats, I don't think it would hurt to give people more options, including one where they feel they can exercise more control.