Min-Maxing in WoW

[bkovo]

One of the thing I have noticed on the beta boards is that people are talking a lot about stat and skill placement. While I certainly agree that character customization is a good thing to an extent, it can also be a game killer for a lot of people. In fact I would even that lack of customization actually HELPED Ever Quest become a long-term success. The problem is that unlimited customization can lead to gimped characters and ultimately to people quitting the game.

My friend and I often play MMORPGS together and have a blast when they are first relapsed. The problem is, that while I go online an research a class or skillet, he just jumps into the game and chooses whatever he thinks is good at the time. The end result is that when we get to the mid and end game content, he winds up with a character that has some serious shortcomings. My character will start outpace his character in levels and power, and he will start to get frustrated. When this happens he will usually roll up a new, non-gimped character and level that one up. By this time we both start to burn out, him because he has to remake his toon, and me because I don't really have anyone to play with. Ultimately, we both end up canceling our accounts.

One of the cool things about EQ is that you couldn't gimp your character. (Sony did that for you!) So you never had to start over unless you wanted to try another class. And if you did, your old class with still viable if you wanted to go back to it. Also, your viability as a tank, healer, or enchanter were based on player skill and not on the choices you made during the first few weeks you played the game.

I remember Blizzard saying in it's FAQ that you would not need to go to fan-sites to figure out how to play the game, and I wonder if that applies to building characters as well. So my questions to beta testers are: How dramatic is the effects of stats and talents on your character? Is it easy to gimp your character? Do stats and abilities that start out seeming really useful end up being gimped in the end game? Would a warrior, for example, that focused on damage output still be able to tank in the end game?

If anyone could shed some light on these issues it would be greatly appreciated.

[Jait]

Stats *should* mean something, there just needs to be more than 8.

Realms of Arkania and Darklands are a great CRPG example of how stats should work. You have your regular stats which sets the base of the formula, base stats are STR, DEX, CON, WIS, INT, etc...

Then you have several other catagories of stats including combat, tradeskills (mining, crafting, npc price adjustments), social (pickpocket, bash door, diplomacy), combat (slash ,blunt, pierce, plate, chain, cloth).

Each of these build upon each other.

Skill = Base + Secondary
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pickpocketing success = (agi+dex)*level+(concentration, whatever)

So short answer, yes your stats should matter, and I disagree it made EQ more fun to have meaningless stats, because frankly you can water down and create as many stats as you want and still make it a cookie-cutter system. It's all in the tuning of the mechanics, everything else is eye-candy.

[Tuco]

I recall stats meaning something in EQ before it was trivial to max out your stamina and other major stats(but mostly sta since it was hard to get up, and universally wanted, making high sta items somewhat coveted and higher in value)

But I digress...

I disagree that characters should have little differentiation. I've always advocated different templates, and of course, Everquest never allowed that. I've played many different types of Sorceresses, amazons, barbarians, and there are many more times as many templates for diablo2, I'd rather have that sort of system than a cookie cutter one in which everyone had a nova-sorc, or something.

I suppose I accepted long ago that to avoid gimping a character, one had to do a degree of research on one's selection before character creation.

With the advent of betas being more or less pre-release playtime, it shouldn't be difficult to make an educated guess at what sort of template will fit your needs, before WoW hits shelves(along with other mmorpgs), as long as designers don't radically change/upgrade/nerf things.

Allowing templates gives rise to replayability, offer flavors for a player to be different, encourages ingenuity(My friends and I were some of the first spear barbarians back in 1.01 in diablo2, when we 'hacked' into the mpq and other data files, to find the damage of the pike), and trains players to be more skillfull.

[bkovo]

I agree with that sentiment, but I still think that it might be possible to allow for customization without allowing for the possibility of gimping or overspecialzation. For example, take two warriors. One warrior designed his charicter around DPS, while the other focused on tanking. Ideally, both warriors would be able to tank in exp groups, but the taning warrior would be the ideal tank in raids and other situations, while the other would be better suited to DPS or even off tanking in raid situations.

A big probelm I have noticed with customization games is that often time a skill is a bread and butter skill at lower levels, but ultimately looses it's luster in the higher end game. IMHO WoW should try to avoid this as much as possible, and make sure that all skills work well in both the early and late stages of the game.

[Balek]

Yes a person could make bad decisions and gimp their character. However the amount of information about stats is totally unlike EQ. In EQ you had people guessing what Agi and Dex did half the time. In WoW you hover over the stat and it tells you what it does. Sure someone could train in say spirit as a rogue (rogue energy is always 100) but chances are you wont be that dumb. You don't have to guess what a stat does. Also talent points come as you level so you don't make a million choices in the first day anyways. If you decide to change paths around level 20, no biggie, you wont be super maxed out in any 1 talent but the talent points you train in arn't all that major anyways. I mean I have like level 6 agility (max I am allowed to train so far) which gives +6 agility. Compared to four pieces of armor which gives 8+ agility it really is a drop in the bucket.

As for skill points, yes there are a limited number of points available. But these are secondary and tertiary abilities. I have a rogue that has 100+ herbalism, and is working on enchanting. I chose herbalism becasue eventually I would like to get into poision makeing as a rogue. I added enchanting becasue it is a complement to herbalism. Yes someone could train in mining and enchanting and then kick himself but in the description of enchanting it says it uses components found with the herbalism skill. Again the only reason you would screw up is pure stupidity. As for class skill abilities I have thus far trained in every single ability available and have had plenty of xtra points for my side ventures. There is also a button to unlearn skills in the character display. I have yet to unlearn a skill but I would put money on them giving your skill points back when you do.

[Elgonn]

Originally posted by Balek
In WoW you hover over the stat and it tells you what it does. Sure someone could train in say spirit as a rogue (rogue energy is always 100) but chances are you wont be that dumb.

Spirit would increase his health regeneration rate Not that with food this matters for him.

Originally posted by Balek
You don't have to guess what a stat does.

More accurately you don't have to guess what a stat might do. Because it isn't what a stat does that is of most concern to a min/maxer but exactly how much effect it has. Which really isn't given in detail yet. Hence the current arguments of what does Spirit really do (Seems like .1 mana/second/spirit).

Originally posted by Balek
I mean I have like level 6 agility (max I am allowed to train so far) which gives +6 agility. Compared to four pieces of armor which gives 8+ agility it really is a drop in the bucket.

The stat talents so far don't provide nearly the noticable effect in comparison to the talents that adjust skills and can make a character effectively higher level. Lightning Reflexes/Evade/Defense/Armor/Fire/Ice etc..

So far they are much more effective and noticable than 6 damage, 120 mana, .6 mana/sec regen. So we shall see. Every push everything changes.

Originally posted by Balek
As for skill points, yes there are a limited number of points available.

Skills already have the built in ability to untrain them and get your points back if you screw up. It is Talents where you could gimp your character.

But overall the message should be. There are level 30 characters that haven't spent a single talent point. Talents while very beneficial so far aren't required.

[Froofy-D]

IMHO there should be no special dispensation for dumbasses. Some of the above arguments pretty much equate to:

"We need to have meaningless stats so morons can't gimp their characters".

If you are presented adequate information about stats (in EQ this certainly wasn't the case), then anyone should be able to make an informed decision about stats allocation and equipment choices. God forbid the game actually require strategy or thought...

Meaningless stats was one of the gay things about EQ. That combined with caps makes every character the same beyond a certain point.

However, if the game has a fairly deep skill tree, that is a different story. Some form of "respec" is in order to change your skill specialization. It should be a bit of a hassle to do though, since respeccing every 10 mins would be pretty ridiculous.

[Vortex]

I believe it has been stated several times that the WoW skill system is currently being reworked. I will wait to see what they release and go from there...

[Dynalisia]

"My friend and I often play MMORPGS together and have a blast when they are first relapsed. The problem is, that while I go online an research a class or skillet, he just jumps into the game and chooses whatever he thinks is good at the time. The end result is that when we get to the mid and end game content, he winds up with a character that has some serious shortcomings. My character will start outpace his character in levels and power, and he will start to get frustrated. When this happens he will usually roll up a new, non-gimped character and level that one up. By this time we both start to burn out, him because he has to remake his toon, and me because I don't really have anyone to play with. Ultimately, we both end up canceling our accounts."

You know my jaw hit the floor when I read this? I experience the *exact* same thing with a friend of mine each time we start playing a new class-based game, I know you pain :P

[frott]

Sorry, there's a big fucking difference between being a dumbass and simply NOT KNOWING that 1 point of some stat gives you X benefit per second.

So then you spend your point in it, and it fucking sucks. That's just shitty interface design.

It's more of a mystery when you aren't made aware of what the growth curve of mobs are compared to the growth curve of the player.

As a shadowknight, I put in 5 points to charisma on creation. The booklet said "makes stuff in shops cheaper." Now, I was envisioning that I'd be buying mana potions and health potions in shops frequently, just like nearly every other RPG ever made up to that time? Oops. But who knows, next week they could implement something that makes more CHA do something really useful in the game for me. This sort of skill twiddling has happened to often to count.

Diablo 2 is a great example with the Necro class. You can set up a necro that is completely viable up through Hell, but as soon as you hit Hell, suddenly there's a massive physical damage penalty. Nothing tells you this until you're in Hell... so once I got my necro through hell, seen the relative power and relative distribution of types of mobs I was able to set up a necro that was the most efficient for the game - that's besides the point, however: up til playing through hell I wasn't even aware of what the possible "smart move" skill choices were: I had no basis for picking except for choosing something that would make me more powerful in the game I had already tromped through, and not something that would make me more durable in the game I haven't seen yet.

The dumbass factor comes into play when you are just jerking off and dumping points nearly randomly. It just blows when something you've invested in somewhat suddenly tapers off and becomes trivialized for no good goddamn reason, when something you've been light on suddenly becomes essential.

Like: no monsters for the first 30 levels are efficiently killed with SKILL A. So you ignore it. But then suddenly at 31+ a ton of monsters are immune to everything except SKILL A. You're just fucked w/o good interface.

[softwillow]

If you want to prevent min/maxing

Don't ever show character stats.
Don't ever show weapon speeds or damage
Don't ever show stat modifiers
Don't ever show hit points, mana, damage received or given as a number...do it like doom where as he got beat up, the avatar looked more and more beat up...That way you know your condition from looking at all the blood and bruises.
No armor. No defense.
Show players levels, skills, talents, coins and monster levels...but that is about all.

What you would be left with is a system where everyone would go on what feels right rather then what someone compiled from calculations or damage parsers. You would have people arguing for months on which weapon is better. What stats does the rune blade add to, and how much do you think it adds, etc.

Eventually people would figure it out, but would never be 100% sure. If they did this, most people would not follow a template for optimizing their class...warriors and paladins who want two handed weapons would get them, not really certain that sword and board is the path to optimum efficiency...

[thorn]

Allow for lots of customization buty give the players a chance to redeem their mistakes. I liked the way DAoC did it. Every healer had the chance to be very different from all other healers, yet if he did mess up, he had respecs at level 20 and 40, and could easily aquire respec stones on raids at level 50. If you mess up three times, well, maybe you deserve it

[Remfin]

Like: no monsters for the first 30 levels are efficiently killed with SKILL A. So you ignore it. But then suddenly at 31+ a ton of monsters are immune to everything except SKILL A. You're just fucked w/o good interface.

Or they patch it and overnight you turn from a worthwhile character into worthless (hello Diablo2 release CE Necros!)

Sadly Blizz doesn't have a very good track record in that respect on the one game they've done that is kinda like an MMORPG. I guess we'll just have to pray they don't mess WoW up either

[Asmo]

Can someone clarify a bit about how skill and talent points work please...

Skill points, these you get 1 per level and are basically only used for tradeskills or at least nothing that has any major impact on your combat abilities? And you can untrain and change these around any time you like?

Talent points is what has me confused the most. You get 10 of these per level? Are they used both for basic stats like str/sta etc AND for ablilties like for example lightning reflexes or defense mentioned above? Or is there a 3rd type of points just for the basic stats?

And actual combat skills like backstab or spells are purchased with gold from trainers?

[nam37]

They way to stop "min/max"ing is to make the "min" as bad for you as the "max" is good.

NAM37