Other Stats (str, dex, con, int, char)

Estarra

I know in another thread this was touched on but I thought I'd create its own thread. We have been delayed in releasing the race perk system as we need to go through and address all other skills that affect stats. Generally:

Strength: universal damage
Dex: balance
Con: health
Int: equilibrium
Char: ego

I know there's a lot of people who dislike anything that impacts balance/equilibrium but I really believe it adds diversity rather than every skill affecting h/m/e and damage buff/resists. Below you'll see our direction and note that anything that impacts balance/equilbrium is relatively minor. I'd be willing to change it in the future if you are willing to give it a chance first!

Below are the specifics (some may be out of date as we go through coding).

STR

Polarity: 2/5 blunt damage resistance (doesn't make sense, we'd like to change that in future)
Lich: 1/10 health and regen during night, -1/10 health and regen during day.
Geburah: 1/2 Universal Damage
Spirit Bear Bond: 1/2 Universal Damage
Enfeeble: 1/2 Universal Damage Malus
Hero Fete: 2/3 Universal Damage
War Domoth: 1/7 Universal Damage
Chaos Domoth: 2/2 Universal Damage
Reimagination: Not sure what to do, remove skill for now
Psychometry Enhance (strength): 1/8 Universal Damage
Psychometry Enhance (dex): 2/8 Equil Bonus
Psychometry Enhance (both): 1/8 Universal Damage and 1/8 Equil Bonus

DEX

Skinrot: -2/10 balance malus
Nightwraith and Construct: 1/5 balance bonus
Transmigrate Viper/Fox:     1/5 balance bonus
Hero Fete: 1/2 Balance Bonus
Stag Form: 1/2 Balance Bonus
Acrobatics Limber: 1/5 Balance Bonus
Chaos Domoth: 1/2 Balance Bonus
Death Domoth: 1/2 Balance Bonus
Reimagination: Not sure, may remove for now
Astrosphere Bonus: 3/3 Balance Bonus to 3/3 Balance Malus
Agility: 1/8 Balance Bonus

CON

Skinrot: 1/10 Health Malus
Constitution Astrosphere: 3/3 Health Buff to 3/3 Health Malus
Transmigrate Badier/Spider: 1/5 Health Buff
Lowmagic Yellow: 1/5 Health Buff
Hereo Fete: 1/5 Health Buff
Life Domoth: 2/8 Health Buff
Chaos Domoth: 2/3 Health Buff
Weathering 1/2 Halth Buff
Binah: 2/2 Health Malus

INT

Knowledge Karma: 1/2 Equil Buff
Astrosphere Intelligence: 3/3 Equilibrium Bonus to 3/3 Equilibrium Malus
Moon Draw Down: 1/2 Equilibrium Buff
Night Kiss: 1/2 Equilibrium Buff
Hero Fete: 1/2 Equilibrium Buff
Crow Form: 1/2 Equilibrium Buff
Knowledge Domoth: 2/4 Equilibrium Buff
Chaos Domoth: 1/2 Equilibrium Buff
Transmigrate Owl/Bat: 1/5 Equilibrium Buff


CHR

Charisma AstroSphere: 3/3 Ego Buff to 3/3 Ego Malus
Moonchilde and Construct: 1/3 Ego Buff
Transmigrate (spider/fox): 1/5 Ego Buff
Throne: 2/8 Ego Buff
Netzach: 1/2 Ego Buff
Populus: 1/2 Ego Buff
Hero Fete: 1/2 Ego Buff
Penumbra 2/4 Ego Buff
Bardic Presence: 2/4 Ego Buff
Ascendant Presence: 1/5 Ego Buff
Beauty Domoth: 1/2 Ego Buff
Vileblood: 1/3 Ego Buff
Beauty Karmic Blessing: 2/4 Ego Buff

Shaddus

I'm about the last person to complain about this because I haven't paid a large amount of attention, but I notice Moonchilde gets 1/3 Ego while Nightwraith gets 1/5 Balance. Is that a big difference in people's opinions?

Shaddus

Bardic Presence (self): 2/4 Ego Buff
Bardic Presence (others) 1/5 Ego Buff



Also, does this mean it contributes to others in the room with the bard?

Kalnid

What's up with astrospheres capping at 3/3 positive when there's four levels of positive spheres(semisextile/sextile/trine/conjunct)? Also, would a semisextile/quincunx sphere be 1/3 or 1/1?

Vetala

What about infused foods? Right now we have con and dex infusions which are shared with herofetes. 

Cyndarin

I don't get why strength is a universal damage buff. This makes strength the premier stat to get by a huge margin, damage buffs will always beat mana and ego buffs. Can we change strength to damage resistance? Or something unique like stun length shortening cause they're just so strong and sturdy. I don't know, I just don't think it's fair for everyone who had int buffs to now just get bloated mana pools that has very limited application while people with access to strength buffs get otherwise difficult to max out universal damage buffs. 

I am concered about acrobatics limber only affecting balance. This is kind of useless for commune bards who don't use balance for much of anything. Can we consider making limber balance and equilibrium so that it's not just monks and tarot bards that get the benefit? Between transmigrate and acrobatics, commune bards can stack a lot of balance bonuses for no reason. 

I'll add my voice to not being a fan or eq/bal bonuses. While I totally agree it does add diversity, it's just so hard to balance around. We literally have skills that are balanced at base eq/bal and turn into OP monsters when they are a half second faster. We can try it though. Can I ask what the % increase will be for bal and eq buffs?

Viynain

A few questions for the Admin that I've brought up over Envoys:

• Why is there no conversion for mana buffs/maluses?
• What does each value translate to? 1 level of EQ buff = how much faster? It's hard to gauge and make a decision on these without knowing this.
• BardicPresence was strictly a self-CHA buff for bards. I believe you've mistakenly listed Veneration Presence and BardicPresence as the same, though, and they're two different skills. While BP is a self buff only, it's available to all bards. VP is also a self buff only, but is available to all cult members to cast on themselves.
  
  Unless things have changed, are you proposing someone with VP be buffing allies in their same room even if the allies didn't cast VP themselves?
• I can see why there's an issue with Polarity since in the old system, it would switch INT and STR values. Since in the new system, neither stat exists and they'd be at the same value (16) even if they did, this needs reworking.
• Reimagination, per Envoys, is slated to only be a HME buff/malus, but not a balance/EQ buff/malus. This needs reconsideration after implementation, per Estarra, if this should still be the case.
• Cosmic Quickening should be in this chart since it will technically also be counted as an EQ buff.

@Estarra has mentioned that these may still be reconsidered, but in my opinion, I'm still very much against balance/EQ buffs. I'll work with the system proposed, but as far as preferences goes, this will complicate overall skill balancing moreso than it currently does.

Estarra

Celina said:

I don't get why strength is a universal damage buff. This makes strength the premier stat to get by a huge margin, damage buffs will always beat mana and ego buffs.

Just to be clear, there will be no strength stat. We are getting rid of all these stats, we are merely looking at how skills that affect old stats should change. So while we listed a lot of universal damage buffs, they tend to be minor and are spread among a lot of skillsets so I doubt we'll see anyone stacking a lot to huge effect.

Estarra

Viynain said:

A few questions for the Admin that I've brought up over Envoys:

• Why is there no conversion for mana buffs/maluses?
• What does each value translate to? 1 level of EQ buff = how much faster? It's hard to gauge and make a decision on these without knowing this.
• BardicPresence was strictly a self-CHA buff for bards. I believe you've mistakenly listed Veneration Presence and BardicPresence as the same, though, and they're two different skills. While BP is a self buff only, it's available to all bards. VP is also a self buff only, but is available to all cult members to cast on themselves.
  
  Unless things have changed, are you proposing someone with VP be buffing allies in their same room even if the allies didn't cast VP themselves?
• I can see why there's an issue with Polarity since in the old system, it would switch INT and STR values. Since in the new system, neither stat exists and they'd be at the same value (16) even if they did, this needs reworking.
• Reimagination, per Envoys, is slated to only be a HME buff/malus, but not a balance/EQ buff/malus. This needs reconsideration after implementation, per Estarra, if this should still be the case.
• Cosmic Quickening should be in this chart since it will technically also be counted as an EQ buff.

@Estarra has mentioned that these may still be reconsidered, but in my opinion, I'm still very much against balance/EQ buffs. I'll work with the system proposed, but as far as preferences goes, this will complicate overall skill balancing moreso than it currently does.

There appears to be a lot of mana buffs already (roark found over 20) so I don't think it'll be skimped.

Eq/balance buffs are in transition to the 10 level system. We are giving them very minor impact with the old system for now and will convert them (hopefully within this week). Feel free to give us suggestion on what each level should be! They can be in 1/10 second increments (or % if you prefer to do it that way).

My bad on presence, the second was ascendance presence.

Polarity we decided to swap offense/defense on a damage type. For example polarity fire would switch your fire offense with fire resistance.

Good point on cosmic quickening!!

Estarra

I really want to push this live so we can see the impact. Our testing doesn't really capture what happens in reality. For example, we thought it would be hard to get to level 10 regen but it apparently is quite common (so we are looking at readjusting).

I'm totally open to changing the equilbrium/balance buffs on a skill by skill basis. So once the system is in and we've finalized the equilbrium/balance bonus/malus, I will be asking envoys to look at all the skills to offer suggestions. Maybe we want to change some of the old intelligence skills to mana (or maybe not!).

Whatever the case, let's get this out there first and see how it works, and you can be sure I'll be asking for a lot of feedback!

Shedrin

Doing it in .1s increments will affect faster base skills more than slower ones. A percent-based thing (1% per 1 buff) works best imo.

I think quickening should remain outside the x/10 system. It costs 3p for a very short time, and is key to some specific Guardian setups.

Steingrim

Shedrin said:

Doing it in .1s increments will affect faster base skills more than slower ones. A percent-based thing (1% per 1 buff) works best imo.

I think quickening should remain outside the x/10 system. It costs 3p for a very short time, and is key to some specific Guardian setups.

It should first be decided if quicken created any outliers.

While I understand where you are going for, having quicken outside of the x/x system when nothing else is defeats the stated purpose of the system by the admin. Quicken seems exactly the type of skill that may break with the new lucidians. If this change to eq/bal goes in, eq/bal artifacts seem a possibility. Also, consider that quicken doesn't have to be a short boost and could just be part of this new system.

Estarra

I forget how long quicken lasts but it could be 10/10 for a short period.

Shedrin

Estarra said:

I forget how long quicken lasts but it could be 10/10 for a short period.

It lasts 12 seconds for 100% eq speed. It takes 4s eq to cast, so you get 8s of action. 10/10 would be a huge nerf.

If it is changed that way, then it should last much longer and probably get the power cost reduced. At that point though, the skill is serving a different purpose from what it did before, and other skills will have to be reevaluated in light of that.

edit: Unless each 1/10 was 5% (10%?, depends how the math is done) eq.

Sahmiam

I think removing eq/bal bonuses would be a good thing for the overall health of the game. Diversity being sacrificed so there's a net improvement to combat balance and reasoning behind how to balance is good.

The envoys seem to be in agreement that bal/eq is bad for the game, and while I understand that it's ultimately the admin's decision, the admin rely on them for information. Making their volunteer job harder just seems unfair in light of the goals of the overhaul.

Can't we introduce diversity in another way? I count 20 buffs that would need to be changed, and I would prefer to see the abilities replaced with new, interesting effects that can be reasoned about (and balanced) in isolation to themselves rather than having to consider every other ability in light of them.

I'd be happy to lose access to those buffs entirely and have them replaced by new things, even if it took awhile. This is an opportunity to both remove a detriment to the game's balance and introduce new interesting skills/mechanics. Please don't take waste this chance.

Steingrim

Shedrin said:

Estarra said:

I forget how long quicken lasts but it could be 10/10 for a short period.

It lasts 12 seconds for 100% eq speed. It takes 4s eq to cast, so you get 8s of action. 10/10 would be a huge nerf.

If it is changed that way, then it should last much longer and probably get the power cost reduced. At that point though, the skill is serving a different purpose from what it did before, and other skills will have to be reevaluated in light of that.

edit: Unless each 1/10 was 5% (10%?, depends how the math is done) eq.

Consider in game design that balance should be worked backwards. There's a tendency among players to ask for something and then expect it to be outside of the equation (not speaking about you, but in general). Modifying skills aren't normally designed to act outside of what the designers want to see happen. You've probably seen it happen in game after game, modifying skill is introduced and then later some skill it buffs is deemed to do too much damage and is nerfed.

Making each of the x/10 5-10% buffs is just asking to keep the modifier skill and have the main ones nerfed.

Shedrin

Steingrim said:

Shedrin said:

Estarra said:

I forget how long quicken lasts but it could be 10/10 for a short period.

It lasts 12 seconds for 100% eq speed. It takes 4s eq to cast, so you get 8s of action. 10/10 would be a huge nerf.

If it is changed that way, then it should last much longer and probably get the power cost reduced. At that point though, the skill is serving a different purpose from what it did before, and other skills will have to be reevaluated in light of that.

edit: Unless each 1/10 was 5% (10%?, depends how the math is done) eq.

Consider in game design that balance should be worked backwards. There's a tendency among players to ask for something and then expect it to be outside of the equation (not speaking about you, but in general). Modifying skills aren't normally designed to act outside of what the designers want to see happen. You've probably seen it happen in game after game, modifying skill is introduced and then later some skill it buffs is deemed to do too much damage and is nerfed.

Making each of the x/10 5-10% buffs is just asking to keep the modifier skill and have the main ones nerfed.

I'm not trying to suggest that each x/10 be 5 or 10%, sorry for appearing that way. That's too much for a passive buff. Just that any lower than that is a nerf to Quickening. If Quickening can't hit some important break points on eq costs, then it's purpose is broken imo.

Steingrim

My suggestions. 1% to 1.5% max for x/10 (leaves room to be up or down tweaked and anything over 2% gets ridiculously OP very quickly).

 

Polarity in your list should be removed and should be implemented as you said to switch a single buff/defense dmp shift polarity fire.

 

However, with polarity having a fairly dramatic change, SHIFT REIMAGINATION <target> <stat> PLUS|MINUS should be kept and added into the list.

 

For balance across classes and orgs, Geburah should give 1/10 to both str/int which is what I assume you mean by universal con. I would probably do the same for Lowmagic Yellow (int/str) rather than con.

 

I would suggest making throne and/or beauty also give a slight influence speed bonus. To make them more required for influencers. Which brings up the question if these bal/eq bonuses will effect influencing in the future (I’m assuming they’re not coded to affect them currently).

Lerad

The discussion on quickening is actually a prime example of diversity that creates a lot of headaches. There are specific guardian combinations of abilities, used in a very specific interaction with quickening, that is not just enabled by quickening, but requires and can only work with quickening, balanced around very sensitive speed changes. These will simply cease to be viable once quickening is tweaked in even the slightest of manners. Naturally, the limits of quickening, power cost, eq speed of quickening itself, cooldowns, become those strategies' limits. Things that were not possible without quickening are enabled by it, and are limited and balanced by quickening's restrictions.

And that means balancing quickening, or those combinations of abilities, become a nightmare. We become resistant to slight changes to quickening because even those slight changes have the very real potential of either making any number of reliant strategies unviable, or push them too much in the other direction. Either way, the strategies simply fall apart. Quickening and said guardian strategies are, at the moment, at a good spot, and the countenancing of changing them into a tiered system is definitely something that's going to have a blow-back effect on any number of abilities or combinations of abilities. I'm really not very keen on introducing buffs that will be doing the same to my own skillsets.

I understand that there is an urgent desire to push out the system so it can be live, and more solid data can be gotten from the playerbase at large. But there are some problems that will likely be a problem whether we discuss and mull over it beforehand or not - taking the time to do so first will saddle us with delays, but doing so later will saddle us with said problems until we get to a solution. It's your call on whether the problem is big enough to take that risk.

All of the above said, if we're going go with the above list no matter what,

Psymet's enhancement for dex should affect balance, not equilibrium. Psymet is a monk only skillset, and monks do not use eq. Nor do they use psymet actively in combat - it is a almost purely defensive skillset, with changing its defensive effects entirely unviable in combat. I see absolutely zero reason why psymet's dexterity should be the only dexterity to affect eq instead of bal. Psymet's enhancement in strength-only is the same as enhancement in both... which means there is zero reason to choose to enhance strength-only - it becomes a choice of either dexterity, or both. Make it a 2/8 universal buff for strength-only, and a 1/8 universal buff for when both is chosen.

I also agree with Celina's point about strength = universal buff being more than a little weird. It would skew the buffs away from the non physical classes (who have much less access to current strength buffs). The better way to handle strength buffs would be to retool some of them instead. Pending the interaction with the new warrior skills strength buffs could be changed to niche buffs that effect those abilities and strategies rather than just "more damage".

Malayn

Remember this is old strength. Therefore, do not assume things like flex should buff all damage, it could be changed to pure physical. Geburah could be empowering your ability to strike harder, etc.

I don't like the eq/bal things because, for instance, I see 5 levels of faster balance available.  Super fast tarot and monks?  4 levels of eq for anything with casting?    Flat numbers are worse than %'s, because 1s with .4s off is faster than 3s with .4s off. I am wondering where our +mana is, that should really have an analog. 

Could make dex a chance to reduce the damage from an attack, strength could be chance to increase damage from an attack, if hard set is bad.  We had more stats than we needed, and I am ok with breaking down to vitals.

Balance trumps diversity, or why did races need to lose stats? It would be a monster to balance every race assuming at least 3 levels faster, might as well make them universally faster and remove that aspect.

Estarra

We pushed the overhaul live! Again, we can spend another 6 months debating everything but this week, why not test how things actually play out and we will then be welcome to making tweaks.

Malayn

Is there a way to tell what our dex/str buffs are if those changes are live?

BODYSCAN SPEED or something?

Also, open to trying it! Though unless there is fighting we won't see too many changes. Will try bashing though and see how that comes out.

Steingrim

Estarra said:

We pushed the overhaul live! Again, we can spend another 6 months debating everything but this week, why not test how things actually play out and we will then be welcome to making tweaks.

Can you tell us what the numbers represent? So when we comment we're basing our comments on a slight bit of reality?

Vetala

How about a BODYSCAN SPEED, and an update to the AB and output without arguments to list the options?

Arix

you left out dex and con platters

Estarra

Equilibrium/Balance is in transition so we don't have numbers for that yet (feel free to make recommendations).

Regeneration is 1%/level.
Damage Resistance is 3%/level.
Damage Enhancement is 3%/level.

H/M/E is a little more complicated but its basically buff*5 per level (a 10/10 health would then be +50 health/level). This may be a little inexact since the formula is more complicated than that but that should give the general scope.

Shaddus

I know you're juggling twenty thousand things at once, but can we get the racial skills put into the HELP <race> files asap? This is going to come into play when people choose new races in the intro.

Arix

also, not sure if this is a typo, but my buff from fire potion is listed as a buff from caloric

Sahmiam

Estarra said:

We pushed the overhaul live! Again, we can spend another 6 months debating everything but this week, why not test how things actually play out and we will then be welcome to making tweaks.

Translation: eq/bal bonuses are here to stay.

The point of removing eq/bal bonuses is so we can balance other skills more accurately without having to worry about how the bonuses play a part and affect other skills. Testing how things play out over a week is ignoring the goal of why we wanted them gone. We already know how they're going to play out: they make other skills more difficult to balance. We don't need to test anything for that. Envoys have years experience dealing with this specific problem. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. It's like having a bad engine and replacing every part of the car except the engine--car still sucks.

Also, what debate? "Eq/bal bonuses make skills more difficult to balance." That statement hasn't been engaged by anyone from the admin, at least in this thread. The most we've gotten is "diversity", but that dodges what people have been saying, and undermines a lot of what I understood the overhaul to be about.

Arix

When I do fortuna, it seems to be giving me an increase to fire damage. Oddly, it did this twice in a row, in addition to buffing ego or health in that order

Steingrim

Estarra said:

I really want to push this live so we can see the impact. Our testing doesn't really capture what happens in reality. For example, we thought it would be hard to get to level 10 regen but it apparently is quite common (so we are looking at readjusting).

I'm totally open to changing the equilbrium/balance buffs on a skill by skill basis. So once the system is in and we've finalized the equilbrium/balance bonus/malus, I will be asking envoys to look at all the skills to offer suggestions. Maybe we want to change some of the old intelligence skills to mana (or maybe not!).

Whatever the case, let's get this out there first and see how it works, and you can be sure I'll be asking for a lot of feedback!

I am sure you're peddling as fast as possible. Might I suggest you add this to the OP so as to reduce people replying so much to the op as they get home for work. Or perhaps even locking this and starting a new thread with what you would like people to comment on at this point.

Thanks for the numbers. above. It'll help me explain changes to people trying to figure out what to do with their retired runes.

As to speed percentages, I still say no more than 1.5% per level. 15% faster is pretty freaking significant.