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| A Question of Stats | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: February 17, 2013, 3:37 pm (994 Views) | |
| Onime No Ryu | February 17, 2013, 3:37 pm Post #1 |
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
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Stats in RPs, or perhaps the lack of them. As we've progressed we've taken note of the honor system's flaws and shortcomings, some of which come from the fact that as players we're only human and we're all prone to bad moments. In games, stats serve to not only keep things fair between players, but also to provide a sense of accomplishment--it feels good when you ding and hit that next level and get those other points. But stats have their own flaws and shortcomings. So the question is, in this RP I'm working on (Refer to the other two topics) should we or should we not have stats, and what kind of stats should we have? Should stats serve an actual function, ala DnD stats, with random number generators determining things like whether or not attacks land and how much damage they do? Should stats simply be a means of comparison, serving to let characters know who is generally better at what without being a hard and fast rule? Does this method of comparison actually accomplish anything, in your opinion? Should Health Points (HP) be kept track of throughout the RP, since we seem to have decided that this RP will be much more dangerous than usual? Should we use percentages, like I did in Tales of Scion, or just plain numbers? Should stats simply be left out and a return to the honor system be made? Are there any propositions to fix the flaws of te honor system instead of moving on to stats? What other suggestions and questions do you have? |
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| Kazemitsu | February 17, 2013, 3:43 pm Post #2 |
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Assassin
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I generally don't care either way but some way to indicate health would be nice. Something simple. But that would be hard as well since you'd have to give each and every monster/person you throw at us have a different level of damage. Which would mean the monsters would need health as well, and a way to indicate the amount of damage would lead to more stats >.< like the amount of damage a weapon does, the strength to amplify it etc. You'd need the whole stat system to even use HP. The honor system is just as tricky since...no one likes their characters dying. I don't care if mine do so long as it's not bullshit. Although sometimes it's hard to tell what's bullshit and what isn't, especially when you have the entire rp group trying to 'co-admin'. So...to kind of fix the honor system, discuss the problems through pm to keep out the clutter and it makes it so the posts are all actual posts, not someone going ((that's bullshit man blahblahblah)) |
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| Garm0099 | February 17, 2013, 3:55 pm Post #3 |
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Marksman
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Stats are generally I feel a good idea, but it leads to other problems like over complications and some people (admittedly me) will min/max to make it so their characters are better then others, or at least try to. So although it would be nice to try and add stats, it may be for the best to keep them out. |
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| Keith | February 17, 2013, 4:10 pm Post #4 |
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Mage
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Full-blown stats with dice-rolling and RNG etc is imo tedious and leads to min-maxing like Garm said, which makes it a turnoff for me. I like the idea of comparison stats, but I can't answer the question of whether or not it would accomplish anything because it would also require an honor system where people actually stick to their stats and don't randomly get adrenaline surges that nullifies their low attack speed or whatever. HP percentages are fine but again requires the party/parties to use fair judgment. Also, who determines how much %damage an attack does, the attacker or receiver? Honor system on its own is kinda eh because nobody likes to lose. However, I believe it was you that came up with an interesting proposal the other day: if two players are going to fight, they PM each other beforehand and try to work out who will win or lose based on how it will affect the story or character development or something similar. We sort of did this in Silvarnen with Vander vs Traves - I flat-out said I didn't plan on winning the fight because otherwise Vander wouldn't really be in the main story. Had I won I would have pursued his side story, but I felt it would be better to do that while also participating in the main story. We had the fight, Vander lost, and everything continued on nice and dandy. So we could do that, I guess. |
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| Onime No Ryu | February 17, 2013, 4:36 pm Post #5 |
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
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I feel that the reason comparison stats haven't come into play as much in the RPs they were used in is because they're designed for competition, but when you compete via PvP there's a lot of BSing and arguing because no matter what the stats say, someone can find something to justify whatever they try to do. So what if instead of competing against each other, players were competing against who they're actually supposed to compete against--the villains? If I gave enemies stats as well, it would show players how they stack up and be an indicator of whether they should fight or run or maybe try a different approach to fighting. Does that improve the concept at all? For HP percentages, I was thinking that the person getting hit would decide what percentage of HP they lost, within reason. It would require an honor system of sorts but I think having a constant reminder of that HP bar up in the corner of their post would make them a bit more reasonable in regards to when they take damage and how much they take. As for what Kaze pointed out, I was thinking that only mid boss level and above enemies would need HP, after all everything else is pretty much fodder anyway and there's no point in making things more complex than they need to be. The point about the honor system is another good one. We don't COMMUNICATE near enough in our RPs. If everyone would just spend a little extra time to sort out what they want to do with each other, I think it would solve a lot of issues. People are more inclined to go along with what you want if you ask, after all. And here's a question that was raised on the cbox just now: Should EQUIPMENT, such as weapons and armor, play a part in stats? If you believe they should, how do you recommend setting it up? |
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| Keith | February 17, 2013, 4:52 pm Post #6 |
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Mage
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Are we talking comparison stats on the villains or full-blown stats? Because I'd be down for comparison stats on them. I agree on HP % loss being decided by the receiver within reason, and I agree on only stronger enemies needing HP bars. Equipment playing a part in stats would be interesting. Maybe have something like: Base stats: blah blah blah Speed - average Defense - low Equipment: blah blah blah Steel Plate [reduces speed, increases defense] Actual stats: blah blah blah Speed - below average [Steel Plate] Defense - above average [Steel Plate] But that might be a little too tedious. Also equipment that has effects on the Mystspheres would be cool but I dunno if it would fit in with your vision of them. For example, a basic one might add an extra use to non-nuclear Mystspheres. A more advanced pair of gloves might contain a fire sphere and a water sphere, and every two uses of one type would recharge one use of the other. You'd have to balance them to prevent infinite usages, though. |
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| Kazemitsu | February 17, 2013, 5:58 pm Post #7 |
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Assassin
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I don't fear Garm's or Burnt's view of min/maxing. I support that so we have more specialized characters. Although there should be a con for min/maxing. Basically the less they have in a stat, the less they get to play with. Less strength, you get lighter and lighter weaponry and armor until you can only walk in cloth and wield a stick. You also can't loot everything in sight. Great strength, you can wear the heaviest/thickest, use whatever weapon, carry a shitload. But you're likely going to be dumb as fuck. Balancers would get wasted later on. So I don't really see a problem with stats. Although...no leveling system. You start with a certain number of stat points and that's it. No more. Get nothing. As for equipment, I think it should matter and get stats as well. No enchanted shit, cuz all the magic is in the orbs. Sockets, however, should be allowed. Like diablo 2 and 3 with the gems. They'd have just as many charges, but you wouldn't have to do whatever it is you do with a sphere. A bonus would be if some of the gems were passives with no charge, BUT, the boosts would be small and only ONE, count em, ONE, enchantment per piece. Head, shoulders, torso, gloves, belt, pants, and boots. Fuck your knees and toes :p. Also one for a shield and one for your weapon of choice. That's 9 enchantments total. No hammerspace or hammerequipment exchange either! You're going to have a pack and you're going to like it! No invisible leather tardis'! |
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| NTNP | February 17, 2013, 6:04 pm Post #8 |
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Admin
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I usually advocate stats in our RPs. I might not go into full fledged DnD range, but I usually use them. Word to the wise, stat comparisons are useless. No one listens to them and no one respects them because they will claim that circumstances will cause them to win for X, Y and Z. So you are either left with full stats or no stats. Since we have already basically chosen to use an HP bar, we might as well go with full stats. I personally believe that the easiest way to imagine stats is thus: What do we really need to handle 70% or more of the situations I intend to present the characters? Since we are saying that physical attacks and non-named magical attacks can be used for low damage, we need something to determine how damaging they are. We can either go with a combined version for simplification (POWER or MIGHT could work) or we can go with them individually as Strength and Magic. Your choice entirely. I'll go with Strength and Magic for the time being. So with those two stats decided, we need to decide what to compare them to. I'll keep it split anyways so that is Defense and Resistance, trying back to the FE side of things. So what does that mean we HAVE to have: Strength Magic Defense Resistance So that is four stats right out the gate. Do we need anymore? If you plan on not making maps, distance charts etc then movement doesn't really matter. If you don't plan on making turn charts, then agility doesn't fit. If you aren't intending to have accuracy or evasion be determined artificially than dexterity isn't important. So there is really no reason to include a "speed" stat really. Also if luck, abilities, skills etc aren't being determined by anything artificial then we don't really need anything for that either, so there isn't any use for a secondary stat like that. The last one is usually personality, which given we are RPing, probably wont be determined by a stat either so we can nix that one too. So that just leaves us with the big four. So why don't we get the most out of them and give each a few functions? Strength and Magic: This determines the "basic" physical or magical attack's power and I'll assume times two. If you have a strength of 3, then the "MAX" damage your attack could do is 6% of the enemy's HP in a single round. Usually strength is minused from DEF to give a basic idea of how much an attack could do if no one is in a better position. Vice versa with Magic - Resistance. However, circumstance will mean that sometimes that 6% of damage might go up to 12% if someone gets a lucky shot, or as low as 3% because you tried to slash someone's steel shield and just sorta scared them. I would also ask if you wanted to use abilities. If you do, then you might want to consider making a rule that Strength equals the number of abilities you start with. If you choose to use Mystspheres that provide command effects (like fireball for example), I might suggest that your MAGIC = Command Mystspheres. Defense and Resistance: Like above, I would suggest that these two stats be used to determine the defensive side of the basic equation of ATTACK - DEFENSE = BASE DAMAGE thing. That way, the higher your DEF or RES, your HP bar is naturally bigger since you have superior defensive properties. However, you could also use this for something else as well. Why not make it where Defense decides how many pieces of equipment that you possess (armor, weapons, shields etc)? Let Resistance decide how many passive Mystspheres you start with, or maybe deciding how many Mystspheres you have total? Realistically it should be easy enough to give them a good secondary function. \ As far as weapons, armor, equipment etc goes why not offer something overall to decide the effect? I'll assume all pieces of equipment are either light, medium or heavy: Light Magical Armor puts no penalty to DEF, a small bonus (+2) to RES and average evasion. Can fit 3 mystspheres. Medium Magical Armor puts a small penalty (-2) to DEF, a moderate bonus (+4) to RES and reduced evasion. Can fit 5 mystspheres. Heavy Magical Armor puts a moderate penalty (-4) to DEF, a large bonus (+6) to RES and very low evasion. Can fit 7 mystspheres. Light Physical Armor puts no penalty to RES, a small bonus (+2) to DEF and significant bonus to evasion. Can fit 1 mystspere. Medium Physical Armor puts a small penalty (-2) to RES, a moderate bonus (+4) to DEF and above average evasion. Can fit 3 mystspheres. Heavy Physical Armor puts a moderate penalty (-4) to RES, a large bonus (+6) to DEF and average evasion. Can fit 5 mystspheres. Light Magical Weapons put no penalty STR, a small bonus to MAG (+2) and normal attack speed. Can fit 3 mystspheres. Medium Magical Weapons provide a small penalty (-2) to STR, a medium bonus to MAG (+4) and below average attack speed. Can fit 5 mystspheres. Heavy Magical Weapons provide a moderate penalty (-4) to STR, a large bonus to MAG (+6) and very slow attack speed. Can fit 8 mystspheres. Light Physical Weapons put no penalty to MAG, a small bonus to STR (+2) and very fast (perhaps twice in a turn) attack speed. Can fit 1 mystsphere. Medium Physical Weapons provide a small penalty (-2) to MAG, a medium bonus to STR (+4) and above average attack speed. Can fit 3 mystsphere. Heavy Physical Weapons provide a moderate penalty (-4) to MAG, a large bonus to STR (+6) and average attack speed. Can fit 5 mystsphere. Then lets assume that all characters will start out with the "basic" level of equipment. As the plot progresses, the equipment will get better in quality and thus the bonuses will change accordingly. Some types of materials might increase the amount of STR lost when using a magical weapon and increase the amount of MAG gained. Or maybe a light material might be found that even in heavy armor still allows for average evasion. That is up to you entirely Onime. Also you might want to consider having each upgrade in material either increase or decrease the number of slots available to the mystspheres. I chose to make it where attack speed and evasion are better with physical weapons or armor but magical weapons or armor have more slots. Either way, basically all people would need to choose with this system is the following: STR + Weapon Modifier MAG + Weapon Modifier DEF + Armor Modifier RES + Armor Modifier Armor Type: Magical/Physical Armor Class: Light/Medium/Heavy And you would have all the following information ready for them to use: Number of Abilities Number of MystSpheres (command + passive, if you choose to separate them) How strong and fast basic attacks are How strong and dodgy basic defenses are How many pieces of equipment are available + Stats to help people compare, in very active ways, how they measure up to each other and the enviroment Edited by NTNP, February 17, 2013, 6:10 pm.
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| Onime No Ryu | February 17, 2013, 6:34 pm Post #9 |
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
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I think that's a little too complex, NTNP, and would scare off too many people and/or be too complex to do over and over again. It's given me some good ideas, though. What if we treated it like a card game, Yugioh or Magic style? You have LIFE, ATTACK, DEFENSE, and SPEED as your stats--I'm not going to include magic or resistance because we don't rely on a mana pool or any kind of skill to use the Mystspheres, and resistance to magic can be bundled with defense for simplicity's sake. Attack points - Defense points = Damage to Life points Speed = the Number of Times Per Fight that you can Dodge an attack Mystspheres would have attack values, as would weapons, and Modspheres could increase the attack power of either one. Armor would raise defense values, as would Modspheres attached to Mystspheres, and of course there can be a few defensive spells. Players could still overcome stronger defenses if they worked together to add their attacks to each other, like the Syncro Artes. They would have to decide what attacks were worth avoiding and what they would rather tank, so it adds a slight element of strategy to fighting. As for getting new armor and weapons, though, that requires not only making a whole bunch of armor and weapons to get found/ drop from enemies/ buy in shops, but also some kind of money system. If the AIO system was working we could use that, but it's not. I personally think that if weapons and armor could be dropped from the equation it would still work the same--besides, most of that stuff is for appearances anyway and it's not like anyone pays attention to how little or how much armor they're wearing. We have people running and jumping in full plate and people just wearing a shirt and pants tanking explosions all the time. |
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| Keith | February 17, 2013, 6:48 pm Post #10 |
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Mage
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I could work with that system. I'm fine with dropping weapons and armor, but what about sockets like I mentioned above? Or could/would effects like that be rolled into modspheres or hacked spheres etc? Edited by Keith, February 17, 2013, 6:48 pm.
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| Onime No Ryu | February 17, 2013, 6:57 pm Post #11 |
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
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Modspheres will be attached to the Mystspheres, and will include things like this: Attack +1 Charge +1 Add X Effect and that kind of stuff. Is that along the lines of what you were suggesting or does it need to apply to weapons and armor too? |
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| Keith | February 17, 2013, 7:00 pm Post #12 |
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Mage
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Nah that's pretty much what I had in mind, along with Conditional effects like "using a water sphere will enhance the damage of your next fire sphere". |
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| NTNP | February 17, 2013, 8:03 pm Post #13 |
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Admin
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I'm really fine with that stat system Onime. You are making a step in the right direction. |
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| oniskieth | February 17, 2013, 8:11 pm Post #14 |
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The Silver Light
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Stats are pretty cool, but they're also pretty gay at the same time. It's fine that we want to have a better RP experience, but if we don't execute stats perfectly then they're hurting their original cause. Everybody has a different opinion on stats, so I'll just go ahead and throw my opinion into the soup! Yea my opinion is superior then all yalls bitch asses by the way yo yo. I'm being 100% serious too. This isn't sarcasm and you should all respond to the original sentence as if it was an insult cause I'm sooo serious about what I said.I think we should establish some base x/y format (4/5 for example). We could have skills like health, endurance, strength, etc. All of your generic rpg attributes. Set a limit on available skill(? is that what these are ?) points, and let the rpers go ham on this shit. We can all have our generic stats. If we want to make stuff annoying we can make it so certain types of equipment increase one stat and lower another, but honestly thats just annoying. When you're making your character you should just make the adjustment UNLESS we add it so we can break the x/y cap!!!!! so we could end up with 6/5 instead of 5/5!!!!!!!! and this is the only way to break the caaap!!!!! Yea!!!! WOOOO YOU'RE sooooo bawling onis! EDIT 1: OOOH YEA! Stats should be reference only. Reference only, so when johny hotshit gets an arrow in his eye we can say"dumbshit, you're slow. Fuck you and shut up or quit the rp." We only use these stats whenever somebody is bothered by the actions a character performs. Edited by oniskieth, February 17, 2013, 8:15 pm.
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Katherine's Approval
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| Keith | February 17, 2013, 8:29 pm Post #15 |
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Mage
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how high are you right now |
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| oniskieth | February 17, 2013, 8:36 pm Post #16 |
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The Silver Light
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Only drugs I've used were pain pills when I broke my foot, and I gave those to a coworker after 3 days. |
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Katherine's Approval
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| Keith | February 17, 2013, 8:42 pm Post #17 |
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Mage
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oh |
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| Kazemitsu | February 17, 2013, 8:51 pm Post #18 |
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Assassin
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Eh I'm for the stats. Since magic isn't really an equation, since all the magic is in lil magic spheres what have charges, just make it all physical stuff. Strength, Endurance(which is life and def), and agility. That's 3 stats to look after, only 3. Not that many. |
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| Rasen | February 26, 2013, 10:18 pm Post #19 |
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I get that you want everyone's opinion on the playstyle, but you're ultimately the one who has to manage this thing. Will stats make it easier to solve disputes and keep the game moving? Then use them. Is the honor system more flexible and fun to write in? Then go with that. Personally, I like the idea of stats as a baseline for character abilities. |
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Yea my opinion is superior then all yalls bitch asses by the way yo yo. I'm being 100% serious too. This isn't sarcasm and you should all respond to the original sentence as if it was an insult cause I'm sooo serious about what I said.
5:59 PM Jul 10