Game mechanics: Stats vs. Skills

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Olrane
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Game mechanics: Stats vs. Skills

#1 Post by Olrane » Sun May 03, 2015 9:59 pm

This is definitely up to the developers, but I feel strongly that more transparency in the mechanics regarding stats and skills would only do good for the game.

There's no need to give numbers or formulas, but there IS a need to understand what stats and skills are being checked whenever an action is performed. This gives players the information they need to develop their characters in an intelligent way and to customize them as they desire.

What I want to see:

- An explicit mention of what stat (or more than one?) is checked concurrently with each skill. This information should be provided in the help file for each skill.
- Explicit mentions of the impact of stats in non-skill capacities. For example, does DEX improve your melee hit chance? What the hell does DIS do? What the hell does WIS do, and does it actually improve skill learning rates?

There's just so much that's hearsay and rumour and guesswork, and that's NOT a good design IMO. There's plenty that should be hidden from players regarding numbers, that's just fine. But understanding the general rules is not something that should be hidden for people to fail at until they learn it through out-of-game channels. I shouldn't ever need to Ask the Experts about what stuff actually does.

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Allurana
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Re: Game mechanics: Stats vs. Skills

#2 Post by Allurana » Sun May 03, 2015 10:23 pm

I think it may intentionally be kept vague to discourage powergaming. I can say from my own experiences that I've watched people train certain skills purely for knowledge of the OOC stat exp than for an IC reason. I suspect that by making it more clear what skills affect what stats, it would further lead to habits of behaving more OOCly than ICly.

That being said, from my own experience with stats and skills, they tend to be simulated very realistically. Ask yourself how they work in the real world, and you should have a fairly reliable idea of what to expect from the game's equivalent.

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Re: Game mechanics: Stats vs. Skills

#3 Post by Olrane » Sun May 03, 2015 10:28 pm

My issue is that said powergaming is going to exist anyway. You have two real options to proceed:

1. Make it transparent and punish players who game the system so badly that they are clearly breaking character

2. Keep the status quo.

My problem with the status quo is that it doesn't stop powergaming at all. It simply makes it a privilege for established players who know, through personal experience or their OOC connections, what the "true" mechanics are. This is a hostile environment for newbies, I feel.

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Re: Game mechanics: Stats vs. Skills

#4 Post by Abharsair » Mon May 04, 2015 3:13 am

Allurana is quite right when she said that the stats and skills have usually a quite logical interdependence. For example, ask yourself what physical traits one would need for climbing in RL, and you can be pretty sure that's the case in Geas as well. I'm also not sure if revealing that kind of information would put people more at ease, or if it would make them worry even more about their character build.

As for power gaming: there's a reason the code for skill training can only be read by Admins, and I have yet to see a 100% effective power gamer. There are a lot of myths and half-truths floating around, and personally I'd like to keep it that way.

Lastly, yes, I wouldn't object to better game documentation where needed. Geas' help files are sometimes either non-existent, out of date, or just plain terrible, but that's nothing which can be changed overnight.
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Re: Game mechanics: Stats vs. Skills

#5 Post by Olrane » Mon May 04, 2015 3:34 am

Thanks for the reply, Abhs. I definitely don't want to know anything about skill training. The mystery of the magical asterisks must remain a secret.

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