Game mechanics: Stats vs. Skills
Posted: 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.
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.