Customization

[The-Traveling-Bard]

So looking back on a few games like the Elder Scrolls series, the Diablo series, and seeing the massive back lash on removing attribute points.

Why do people think attribute = customization?

This how I see it.

Attribute is pulling the wool over your eyes. For me it adds no real customization to the character, and adds no amount of depth besides tedious work, and trial, and error. It seems like a lot of people (IN MY POINT OF VIEW. From what I seen. ) think getting rid of attributes, and adding in respecs is a terrible thing. My question is why?

I don't want to play for 8 hours of a game like Skyrim, and dark souls, diablo and demon souls. I don't want to re-roll entire character all over, because I misclicked, or wanted to try something different. I shouldn't have to re-role my character for that. Games are meant to be enjoyed, and for me I don't enjoy that. I don't get how anyone could enjoy doing that, but some people may love alts. Which is fine. I think people forget just because they add a feature to a game doesn't mean you have to use it.

Also I shouldn't have to google builds to make sure I am doing things correctly so I screw up my entire character half way through the game, and have to do it all over.

Besides there's really no real customization with attribute system in most games. They're typically add health, add x damage type, add mana, add stammina, etc. etc. So you put what ever point into your attribute according to class. Sometimes completely ignoring some of the attributes.

I think Diablo 3, and Skyrim did a better job at getting rid of of the pointless attribute system that just adds health/damage. Diablo 3 added customization, by the rune feature which made skills act differently. To me this is a great, and better idea to allow for more customization. Skyrim had skill points. But to some degree Skyrim was lacking, because I don't want generic skill points that just add "5% armor bonus to heavy armor!" or. "Your illusion now work on higher level enemies!" These are boring, and generic things, most of Skyrim skill talents shouldn't even be talents. They should just be auto scale. Like the illusion affecting higher level enemies. Really.. The spells couldn't just scale with your level like everything else?!
Anyways..

I rather have this scenario.
*Gets a skill point*.
OH YAY! Now I can alter some ability in some way.
Not.
*Gain 5 attributes points*
OH yay! now I can increase my health by 20 points, and increase x damage.

I rather much see skills, and abilities be alter/changed in some way than just see "Increase hit points by 10."

Things like increase speed casting want to be a speedy mage that is burst damage?
AoE range increase. Want to be a mage that focues on crowd control?
Dots (Damage over time) Would you like to be a mage that does damage of time?
Use less mana while casting spells

Archer.
Increase range.
Knock back arrows.
Exploding arrows, poison arrows, ice arrows, etc.
Poison can vary to damage, weakness, and other things.
Shoot two arrows at once.
Increase draw speed.
Penetrating arrows.

Melee!
Knock back attacks.
Quicker attacks.
adding special abilities to swings. (Like the Bloodskal blade in Dragonborn, and TK combat mod for skyrim)

I can't come up with anymore things for melee.

And then you get into more defensive traits, but I won't go into them since you hopefully get the idea from what I detail above. But I will say things like. "Resist knock backs while heavy armor" shouldn't be a talent/trait/skill. Because it's only natural to resist knock backs in heavy armor compared to light.

It could be even take a step further instead of making an over-all general effect like all melee weapon swings have a chance to knockback. They can make spells/arrows/melee swings act/look/feel/do something better. A good example of this is Runes in Diablo 3, and the Combo Magic effect mod for Skyrim where if you combine two different spells you get a special effect.

I like the way Dragon Age 2 did this sytem to some degree instead of just adding health, and mana. Attributes added things like critical chance, critical damage, magic resistance, damage resistance, etc etc. I think this is such a better system, and concept then having them pretty much useless.

I think Skyrim would be better if they kept the whole add 10 points into whatever resource, a skill point, and than an attributes points that increases critical damage, chance, damage resistance etc. etc. This would help get rid of the generic talents/skill options that just increased defensive armor, and have skill/talent options be more in-depth, and creative.

I think Skyrim has around 250 skills I think, but how many of those skills are just boring, and add no real flavor?

Your thoughts?

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Well I prefer having attribute points. If done well they allow you to build your character in many different ways and add to the re-playability of the game.

 

[The-Traveling-Bard]

Well I prefer having attribute points. If done well they allow you to build your character in many different ways and add to the re-playability of the game.

The last time I played with attributes points that I personally remember was Diablo 2.

And.. everyone had the same set up. Put the stats you need into strength to wear whatever armor you want. (Unless you build in a way to get strength bonus from items in case you don't need even need to put points into strength)
A little bit into dex, and the rest in Vit. None into energy .

All the games I seen just do a poor job at making attributes actually mean something. Besides like DA2. If they're games out there. That's cool.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Well I prefer having attribute points. If done well they allow you to build your character in many different ways and add to the re-playability of the game.

The last time I played with attributes points that I personally remember was Diablo 2.

And.. everyone had the same set up. Put the stats you need into strength to wear whatever armor you want. (Unless you build in a way to get strength bonus from items in case you don't need even need to put points into strength)
A little bit into dex, and the rest in Vit. None into energy .

All the games I seen just do a poor job at making attributes actually mean something. Besides like DA2. If they're games out there. That's cool.

True they are often done badly. But I find in games like Dark Souls they are mostly done well and it just wouldn't be the same without them

 

[The-Traveling-Bard]

Well I prefer having attribute points. If done well they allow you to build your character in many different ways and add to the re-playability of the game.

The last time I played with attributes points that I personally remember was Diablo 2.

And.. everyone had the same set up. Put the stats you need into strength to wear whatever armor you want. (Unless you build in a way to get strength bonus from items in case you don't need even need to put points into strength)
A little bit into dex, and the rest in Vit. None into energy .

All the games I seen just do a poor job at making attributes actually mean something. Besides like DA2. If they're games out there. That's cool.

True they are often done badly. But I find in games like Dark Souls they are mostly done well and it just wouldn't be the same without them

I will agree with that. Dark Souls would be a little weird them out, but I can think of ways to have something different. :b.

 

[chadachada123]

True they are often done badly. But I find in games like Dark Souls they are mostly done well and it just wouldn't be the same without them

I will agree with that. Dark Souls would be a little weird them out, but I can think of ways to have something different. :b.

The fantastic thing about Demon's/Dark Souls, however, is that both (at least the latter, likely the former) can be beaten without leveling up a single stat.

Stats help, yes, but the primary focus is NOT on your vitality level or strength stat, but on the weapons/armor you and, most importantly, your own skill level.

The whole system is fundamentally different from Skyrim or Diablo, which, while having "perks" to speak of, have a far lower variety of weapons and fighting styles and also reduce combat to "Click. Click. Click. Press 1. Click. (For Skyrim Pause, use potion. Click. Click. Win. Rinse. Repeat." The majority of Skyrim/Diablo's leveling up just make for less clicking, and require essentially zero skill.

In that sense, Skyrim's perks are nice indeed, but I do not think that perks would work well in a game like Dark Souls, where high leveling is very secondary to discovering which fighting style suits you, which weapons/armor fit with said fighting style, and then upgrading said weapons to suit whatever conditions you're presented with.

Other than attunement (for mages), endurance, and a small amount of leveling for stat requirements, stats aren't particularly important, and if mistakes are made in allocating stats (resistance, lol), there is generally no need to re-roll, unlike mistakes in most other RPGs.

That said, I think a stat reset option would be nice.

TL;DR: I agree with most games that stats are usually unwieldy, but with Dark Souls, they're more of a difficulty modifier than anything else and are secondary to the gameplay, as opposed to primary.

 

[Joccaren]

So looking back on a few games like the Elder Scrolls series, the Diablo series, and seeing the massive back lash on removing attribute points.

Why do people think attribute = customization?

This how I see it.

Attribute is pulling the wool over your eyes. For me it adds no real customization to the character, and adds no amount of depth besides tedious work, and trial, and error. It seems like a lot of people (IN MY POINT OF VIEW. From what I seen. ) think getting rid of attributes, and adding in respecs is a terrible thing. My question is why?

Well, for me because it starts the game playing itself for you. Its like linear levels so you don't have to bother with exploring. I LIKED exploring, why are my levels now just a corridor so people can't get lost?
Attributes are what allows you to plan your character, and they do allow a level of customization when done well - though it depends on the game. When games take it out of my hands, and just shove on extra health and such each level up without my input, its it telling me "This is how you should be playing, no go keep playing and ignore your character. We'll play that for you. Just swing your sword and hack those things to pieces". Its no longer a thinking exercise, its a button mashing exercise - and I hate button mash games.

I don't want to play for 8 hours of a game like Skyrim, and dark souls, diablo and demon souls. I don't want to re-roll entire character all over, because I misclicked, or wanted to try something different. I shouldn't have to re-role my character for that.

Then you obviously don't like any game where you unlock things as you go along with limited resources, like your examples given later on, but I'll get to that later.
As for having to restart your character because you misclicked, you'd want to have misclicked a lot of times considering most [Well designed] RPGs and such have + and - options for all stats, allowing you to add on your stats, or undo your adding on for this level if you've stuffed up, and then a confirm button afterwards asking you if you are sure this is where you want to put your stats. Its basically preventing misclicks.
Wanting to try something different... Yes, you should restart the game. You don't complain about there being no Mage to Warrior class change mechanics in Diablo 3 midway through the game. If you want to try a different class/build, you make a new character and try that class/build. At the same time this means you can return to your old class/build without a problem later should you choose to.

Also I shouldn't have to google builds to make sure I am doing things correctly so I screw up my entire character half way through the game, and have to do it all over.

And this, my friends, is why we don't play on the hardest difficulty. Easy, Normal and even the low hard settings generally don't require you to think about builds in most RPGs and such. You have to realise that a warrior is probably going to need strength and constitution to tank and deal damage with, but you don't have to worry about designated DPS and tanking builds, DPS/CC/Healer mage builds, or anything else. You just worry about having a warrior to do warrior stuff, a mage for mage stuff and a rogue for rogue stuff. No need to Google builds most of the time.
And really, why Google the builds anyway? It ruins half the fun and the point of the system. You're meant to think about things and plan them out, discover for yourself what the best way of doing things is, rather than just get someone to tell you. Its like having a "Find all the objects in this picture" game, and Googling where they all are. It defeats the point.

Besides there's really no real customization with attribute system in most games. They're typically add health, add x damage type, add mana, add stammina, etc. etc. So you put what ever point into your attribute according to class. Sometimes completely ignoring some of the attributes.

This does allow customization though, when done with those builds you look up.
Do you go DPS warrior or Tank Warrior?
In a well designed RPG, they'll require different specing of your stats.
More into Strength and Willpower for a DPS warrior, allowing you to deal more damage on the battlefield and use your abilities more often, whilst neglecting defence and health, and Constitution and Dexterity for a Tank, allowing you to have loads of health and a good defence rating to soak up enemy damage. Rogues can generally spec into either assassin types that deal high DPS with low health, or specialists who disarm traps, open rare loot chests, and at times utilize devices like bombs to attack your enemies, or buff your allies. What your role in the group is changes dependent on how you spec.
And the stats you described are just the stats themselves, rather than how they play into everything else.
Your +2 damage also plays in with your armour penetration attack, so if you have that skill that stats gives you +2 damage and +0.15% armour penetration for each point. Your extra health plays in with your blocking ability, so you get +10 health and +0.1% damage blocked per point in that stat. Most RPGs will merge skills and stats together with synergy, rather than giving flat numbers like Skyrim does for its spells - where your spells always deal the same damage, no matter your level.

I think Diablo 3, and Skyrim did a better job at getting rid of of the pointless attribute system that just adds health/damage. Diablo 3 added customization, by the rune feature which made skills act differently. To me this is a great, and better idea to allow for more customization. Skyrim had skill points. But to some degree Skyrim was lacking, because I don't want generic skill points that just add "5% armor bonus to heavy armor!" or. "Your illusion now work on higher level enemies!" These are boring, and generic things, most of Skyrim skill talents shouldn't even be talents. They should just be auto scale. Like the illusion affecting higher level enemies. Really.. The spells couldn't just scale with your level like everything else?!
Anyways..

Now we're moving away from stats and into skills, but still...
Personally I hated the way Diablo 3 did this. Yeah, its a nice idea and all, but let me choose what I unlock rather than picking for me. There is nothing more annoying that having a bunch of relatively equally balanced skills, or they should be and being based off your stats rather than having a fixed damage amount so that they scale instead of remaining flat, but the cooler ones that I want to try I can't because I haven't played the game 3 times yet, whilst all the boring ones I don't want I do have because they're just given to me whilst playing. Rather than having each ability get unlocked at a certain level, sort them into tiers of how effective each is, and let me choose what I want to unlock, rather than choosing for me. THAT is customization, considering there are still optimal builds for each level you're at in Diablo 3, and you don't even get to choose to deviate from them thanks to what you have being locked to your level, rather than your choices.
As for the complaint in Skyrim, I somewhat agree. That's not the sort of thing that should just autoscale and get better, but it is the sort of thing that you shouldn't be spending skill points on. You should unlock skills with skill points, and up how effective you are with each skill with your attribute points, like most well designed RPGs do. How effective your knockback on your attacks is is dependent on your strength. The more strength you have, the further back you send enemies flying, though that comes at the cost of putting less into Constitution, so you have less health to take in enemy attacks with.

I rather have this scenario.
*Gets a skill point*.
OH YAY! Now I can alter some ability in some way.
Not.
*Gain 5 attributes points*
OH yay! now I can increase my health by 20 points, and increase x damage.

You make it seem like its just one or the other. It rarely, if ever, is. Stats always go hand in hand with skills. You get 1 skill point AND 5 stat points, and it becomes "Now I can pick a new ability or alter it in some way, and I can make it more effective by giving myself more strength, whilst also giving myself that HP boost that I need because I come close to dying in most fights, and I'll up this abilities effectiveness with X stat as well".

I rather much see skills, and abilities be alter/changed in some way than just see "Increase hit points by 10."

And this is what most stats do; they don't change what an ability does, but they do make it stronger, as well as increasing your base stats. And, again, you get both when you have stats - your skills that change how abilities work or give you new ones, and your stats that improve how effective everything is.

Things like increase speed casting want to be a speedy mage that is burst damage?
AoE range increase. Want to be a mage that focues on crowd control?
Dots (Damage over time) Would you like to be a mage that does damage of time?
Use less mana while casting spells

The first and last are things that stats handle. Increased casting speed by increasing Intelligence stat, Less Mana cost for spells by increasing Wisdom. The Middle two are based off what spells you choose with your skill points.

Archer.
Increase range.
Knock back arrows.
Exploding arrows, poison arrows, ice arrows, etc.
Poison can vary to damage, weakness, and other things.
Shoot two arrows at once.
Increase draw speed.
Penetrating arrows.

All the arrow types should be ammo types you can find IMO. Increased Draw Speed, Attack range, and the level of armour penetration your arrows do should be dealt with in stats, the ability to shoot two arrows at once and such is a skill that you should unlock with your skill points.

Melee!
Knock back attacks.
Quicker attacks.
adding special abilities to swings. (Like the Bloodskal blade in Dragonborn, and TK combat mod for skyrim)

Middle has always been dealt with by stats. Top should be included with what you said with "I should recieve a resistance against knockback by default for wearing heavy armour" - using a melee weapon should knockback enemies by default if that's the case, and increased knockback is dealt with in stats. Special abilities to swings and special swings should be dealt with as abilities in the Skills unlocks.

It could be even take a step further instead of making an over-all general effect like all melee weapon swings have a chance to knockback. They can make spells/arrows/melee swings act/look/feel/do something better. A good example of this is Runes in Diablo 3, and the Combo Magic effect mod for Skyrim where if you combine two different spells you get a special effect.

This is what Skills are for and what RPGs have been doing for ages. This is nothing new really.

I like the way Dragon Age 2 did this sytem to some degree instead of just adding health, and mana. Attributes added things like critical chance, critical damage, magic resistance, damage resistance, etc etc. I think this is such a better system, and concept then having them pretty much useless.

At this point it sounds like you haven't played many RPGs at all. Most, if not all, of the ones I've played that have stats have had those stats add to Critical chance/damage/magic resistance/damage resistance ect. Its the whole point of stats. They've been doing this since P&P D&D days. If you see this as something new, you've been playing with some TERRIBLE stat systems up until now.

I think Skyrim would be better if they kept the whole add 10 points into whatever resource, a skill point, and than an attributes points that increases critical damage, chance, damage resistance etc. etc. This would help get rid of the generic talents/skill options that just increased defensive armor, and have skill/talent options be more in-depth, and creative.

I think Skyrim has around 250 skills I think, but how many of those skills are just boring, and add no real flavor?

You have just answered your original question:

From what I seen. ) think getting rid of attributes, and adding in respecs is a terrible thing. My question is why?

What you've just suggested is adding a normal attribute system to Skyrim. This is what people like seeing in games, and why they like attributes. You have just found out yourself why people don't want to see them removed.

Your thoughts?

This is why people like Stats. Stats increase the effectiveness of everything, and all your characters base attributes like defence, health, stamina, magicka, damage, crits - ect. Whilst skills unlock new abilities for you to use or alter the ones you already have. This is why people love stats. You seriously seem to have been playing with some terrible stat systems in the past, because what you've suggested at the end there is why people defend stats, and the way they work in well designed games. Hell, even in not so well designed games, but that's besides the point.
I don't think we need to answer this question anymore, 'cause you've done it yourself.

 

[BrotherRool]

I can understand why people like stats. And to the number crunchers they offer a very satisfying and deep gameplay experience.

But personally I'm not a huge fan of them in many situations. I would much rather have options every level of increasing range or warping an ability etc. I'd like to directly purchase a result because it's always hard to get a feel of just how effective adding 1 strength point is.

The exception to this rule is the KotoR2 level system, specifically if the mechanics of the game are very clear, you don't get the option to level stats up very often and mainly increase skills and abilities and those stats have a very real noticeable effect on your skills. Finally and most importantly those stats affect how you interact with the world _outside_ of combat. So people will recognise a good wisdom stat etc.

Stats can be very good for roleplaying is basically the exception of the rule.


Otherwise Mass Effect 3 and the Witcher (as much as I hate that game) have the best type of levelling up systems. Very real and clear choices with options to increase utility instead of raw power etc

(EDIT: Actually this is no hard and fast rule. Just a general direction, I enjoyed FFX's levelling up system for example, it was stat based, but the stats were obvious and they restricted choice to improve on the character of each person. There are all sorts of ways to level up and they each have different purposes)

 

[DasDestroyer]

I really like attributes, because, if done right, as long as you don't do something completely retarded like put all of your attributes into mana while playing a Warrior, you should still be able to beat the game, albeit with more effort that if you use some "perfect" build. It also allows you to have characters just for the fun of trying different attributes, like what if you DID put all your points in mana for a warrior, perhaps he can still be viable if you can spam his spells? Or my personal favourite, going full attack power on a warrior/berserker and seeing at what point in the game enemies will be able to one-shot me, and how far I can progress like that.

 

[madwarper]

I never really like how TES handled their leveling/attribute system because it felt like you were playing to a spreadsheet. Gain 10 points in Skill of Attribue1, 10 Skills of Attribute2, then 10 Skill in Major Skill of Attribute3. Avoid using any other Skills. Sleep, Level up +5 to Attribue1/2/3. Lather Rinse Repeat. That the first hours of the game were merely grinding to get your Stats up, so you could play through the rest of the game openly and not having to worry about how the skills you're using would screw up your Attributes on your next level.

Personally, I prefer a system closer to Rune Factory, where you still gain points for preforming a Skill, but that Skill automatically affects the appropriate Attribute.

 

[DoPo]

-sni-i-ip-

Welp, I came here to say this, more or less. It just seems that OP has some terrible misunderstanding of what stats are, why they are and how they work (not in a specific game, but the entire theory behind them). And that confusion seems to be caused by really bad examples of attributes. Or rather not bad examples - actually good (or at least OK) examples but not for the specific task OP had in mind. It's like complaining that people shouldn't use vehicles because this

is not comfortable to drive on roads. And I think you can't get many passengers, either.

Anyway, something you didn't mention but I wanted to pick on: "customisation = attributes" that's completely misunderstanding the topic and the role of each. Attributes are supposed to be generic - they are a global modifier. True, they would offer some customisation but on a more macro level - two warriors are still likely to look the same, even though they focus on two different attributes (let's go with "having more health" and "having more defence") - skills are the ones that provide more fine grained details - they are a very localised modifier. So you could have a dual wielding warrior or one with bow and arrow and one could be proficient with medium armour, the other with heavy. And finally there is equipment (well in some games at least), that is a bit of a meta modifier on each of these variations - it could constrain them or indeed extend them. Well, you may have other miscellaneous modifiers (runes, magic gems, other stuff) but they are mostly the same as equipment.

 

[WoW Killer]

I think that active progression (gaining new abilities/tools/toys) is going to be more fun than passive progression (stat increases, +1% damage, +2% health). The trouble with passive progression is that it goes against the difficulty curve. If a game is balanced right it's supposed to get progressively harder, so then you get this weird middle-ground where the enemies are levelling up just as you are, and it all feels a bit static. With active progression, you can become strictly more powerful as a result of gaining a new ability, but to reach your potential output (e.g. dps) you're having to perform more complex actions as the player. So in that sense you can keep the feeling of becoming ever more powerful while also having a good difficulty/learning curve.

But anyway, about customisation... there's a certain design aesthetic that's satisfied in games with a lot of customisation. It's something I like to do in games: I like to design characters, and then build them from lowly beginnings into godhood. It's why I like games like NWN and DDO. And yeah, that's a big reason why I prefer Skyrim over Oblivion (a big open world to play around with your newly made god is a big plus in hitting this same aesthetic of course). I think it's quite a fundamental thing, so I can't really argue a case better than that. I like customisation.

And yes, I prefer it when I get to customise more active things rather than stats