A change to Stats improving "classless" gameplay

Wicked Feedback
,
1

Hello!
I spend a lot of time thinking about the game, which is for sure a good sign; however here’s yet another criticism/feedback about the base stats and gear and how I believe a change could help the game.

Issue

Right now the stat system is pretty straight forward, which is a good thing! However by the way that the game is played, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between builds. You’re basically confined to the weapon you choose which dictates which stats you focus on and don’t really add much more other than allowing you to pick a specific weapon + a little bit of damage.
In other words, your two handed swordsman plays exactly like every other two handed swordsman. The only difference will come from the other stats that actually sort-of would matter to you; being HP, Stamina, Focus, Equip Load. Equip Load being perhaps the most differentiating one because it affects how much weight you can carry.
I find this very constricting, especially when you layer on top that enchantments mostly play with these 4 stats and generally don’t add much gameplay difference.

The developers mention that they wanted to make a system that felt “classless” in order to allow more freedom, however I don’t think they’ve achieved this. Instead you have a game where the combat is too generic and there’s barely any player self-expression. I believe I have an Idea on how to boost this aspect of the game.

Proposal

First I think we should allow the player to equip and use any weapon in the game regardless of stats. Not only this will be good for players to be able to test out the move sets and find something they want to toy around with, but also it free’s up stats to do more interesting things other than being a stat check.

Next I think we could make it so the stats that are usually simply a weapon requirement to lean towards boosting other aspects of the game. I propose stats give you bonuses that affect different aspects of combat without affecting the damage output of a character nor show preference for a particular weapon.

Here’s an initial design draft:

STRENGTH
Increasing Strength gives you increased poised damage every time you swing further increasing it by 1.5x for charged attacks.

This makes the Strength stat be more focused around charged attacks, while also being better against higher poise enemies. At the same time, it allows for higher poise build up which is also beneficial for higher speed weapons. Already in this way you allow different choices of fighting while also boosting a specific area of combat. This would also be very fun for min/maxers that will figure out what’s the best amount of strength to have in order to be able to shove most enemies and so on.
Example: High Str on daggers makes the high speed attacks to build up more damage and knocking down opponents. Alternatively with Two Handed Hammer, a well placed charge attack might knock down an enemy or a clump of enemies.

DEXTERITY
Increases your attack speed.

Dexterity allows for any weapon to be swung faster, which means you get more poise build-up, damage and focus gain. Although this may seem pretty powerful, dexterity attack speed gain needs to be balanced carefully. Regardless, it would make for very fun builds and gameplay effects with enchantments, plus being great for hybrid builds or simply to boost those slower weapons into a more comfortable speed.

INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence increases your Focus gain.

No Rest for the Wicked does not have mana, instead Focus feels like the replacement for it. On top of it, it seems pretty logical that a more intelligent person can focus better. In terms of gameplay, it allows for a pretty flexible playstyle, no matter if you want to fight in melee or otherwise with an emphasis on being able to use up that focus quicker.

FAITH
Increasing Faith reduces the cost of Runes.

Faith could be the stat for players who would rather specialize on using rune abilities; whether they are melee, ranged or magic focused. It also seems logical to me that Runes and Faith would go hand in hand and it would be a pretty flexible stat.

This change would mean that the player is no longer the weapon it wields but how that weapon is supported by the stats the player has attributed to the character. “It’s not the weapon, it’s how you use it” which would support the idea of freedom of choosing your style without having a predetermined class.
It also has the side effect that enchantments and gear suddenly take a different meaning when considering your character’s playstyle layered with the weapon you chose and whatever RNG the game throws at you.

Obviously this system has some implications and there would need to be other changes that come with such a drastic change, however I think this allows for a lot more possibilities and since the game is so early in development, this is the right time to make a change like this.

I honestly think its a really good change, the more I think about it. But what do you think? Let me know!

Please consider giving me a Vote if you’d like this proposal to be heard!

4 Likes
2

Devs made a poll asking if players wanted this sort of thing or more freedom. The overwhelming majority voted for more freedom… So yea, looking forward to everyone and their mother in coop packing heavy armor and dual daggers spamming whatever the meta rune is.

1 Like
3

This sort of thing or more freedom?
I don’t understand. My proposal allows for more freedom in my opinion.

4

I think where they missed their mark is that players have preconceptions of certain classes and associate those with the 4 mentioned attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Faith.

Now If I want to make a Paladin, logically, I’d put points into Strength and Faith. You can’t use every Paladin-like weapon. Oh, you found an amazing two-handed sword? Too bad it scales with intelligence.

You build your stats around your preferred weapon not the other way around

I wanna play as a swashbuckler with a rapier, my current options are Dex/Int and Int/Faith. Like bruh… Okay, lets swap to some curved swords. This one scales with Str/Int…

Now for you suggestion:

I’m not gonna focus on numbers and such.

Strength

I like the idea but I’d prefer it if it had a build in safety net. To avoid people stacking poise damage on weapons like daggers or bows. So make it increase the inherent poise damage of the weapon.

Dexterity

As long as this does not co-exist with on-hit rune effects.

Intelligence

I’m fine with this.

Faith

I would change this to: Faith increases the damage of Rune Specials.

Intelligence already creates more opportunity for Rune Spam, Faith also reducing rune cost, would create more emphasis on Rune Spam. With Rune Damage you have more of a different purpose between the two.

I think it would also play a lot cooler if you have a BIG rune special you wanna use so you invest into Faith for that Big :duck:ing damage.

Conclusion:

With such a suggestion, your weapon becomes an extension of you rather than you being a limiting factor of the weapons you can use.

What I like is that it seems universal, and not too limiting so I like your suggestion. I disliked most that wanted to attached too many things to stats.

1 Like
5

No, because with your proposal, players with strength weapons wouldn’t be able to gain focus as well unless they lost damage by investing in intelligence. I see nothing wrong with this (in fact, I WANT something like what you proposed), but devs seem to want everyone to be anything at any time, and the folks who voted in the poll seemed to agree. This also goes for runes having attribute requirements.

1 Like
6

Thanks for your comment!

Yeah I think that stat requirements for weapons restrict us even more than a classical class system, which is kind of ironic because that’s what they are trying to avoid. I believe my suggestion allows for the player to make up whatever class they think they are playing with whichever weapon they prefer and adding a flavor to it. It also allows for people to play variations of what they think a paladin is. “im playing a Faith/Dex paladin with scimitars because to me a paladin is a desert faith warrior” for example.

Anyway, about the stats themselves.

Strength: I think the weapons should have a poise damage multiplier themselves, where the weapon uses say 0.8 (or 80%) of your poise damage. Or for example bows have low Strength poise conversion 0.3 or something.
I have another idea for Weapon stats that I will write about in the future and kind of goes hand in hand with this one.

Faith: I also thought about that, that you can combine Int+Faith and have really spamable runes, but that’s the thing. I like that as an option. If you invest heavy into runes you can have that kind of playstyle and it should be balanced because it doesn’t affect damage. If you invest purely on Faith and Int, you will suffer in some other area, for example lower weapon damage, speed, poise damage, etc… Also, it might mean that you need to also invest in Focus (although perhaps not as much as pure INT) so its quite the investment, so that would be a kind-of natural balance. Int+Faith should be a viable option with its own drawbacks.
In a way it’s similar to changing it to damage because you can spam the rune more times. However, if you make it so that the cost is reduced, it plays a bit better with other stats in my opinion. For example STR+Faith allows for a build where you don’t need to invest so much in focus, or you rather use a utility rune; which is the other thing. Buffing damage makes it so support runes don’t benefit from it. I think Faith could be a good utility stat, so that’s why I think rune cost reduction is better.

7

Then help me push my proposal so it gets a voice as well.
I hope that the developers don’t go for the democracy is supreme way, because a lot of times people might vote without having any game design knowledge or understanding.

We can only hope and try to get the developers to listen to proposals and gain interest in our ideas.

8

My only concern would be that Intelligence and Faith achieve the same thing. But in a different matter.

Strength + Intelligence and Strength + Faith would play similarly. The latter component both enables more Rune Spam.

Where if either Faith or Intelligence would be Rune Damage. You would allow for more playstyle variety/freedom.

This way you can appeal to both people who want more cooldowns and people who want bigger numbers.

9

Just so you’re aware, the attributes are getting changes.

1 Like
10

On second thought, I think you’re right.

I had arguments to why i thought it was okay like that, but I think indeed perhaps Faith needs to change. Although they don’t do exactly the same, because some runes require more focus and so Intelligence does benefit more from a larger Focus pool, whereas Faith requires less of a focus pool.

What this translates into is that You can use certain runes with less Focus investment, therefore making Faith better for Utility, or specific rune usage. And Int, is generally better for high cost runes. Having both, allows for more rune uses which I think could be a viable option.

Anyway, another thing that could make Faith and Int different as I designed them, is to make Focus be used for other things besides Runes. For example, certain enchantments could play around Focus, etc…

If you have a suggestion for a change for INT or Faith, feel free to post it here!

11

Fantastic thread and post as always @Psytoxin :slight_smile:

I totally agree with the idea you should be able to use weapons without having the appropriate stats, albeit at a significant downgrade in efficiency or some other form of punishment like animation time or equip load.

I feel like I remember Thomas Mahler mentioning on twitter that they are planning to include more function to stats beyond just unlocking weapon requirements. Let me see if I can find the post.

EDIT: someone linked it above!

1 Like
12

Correct me if I am wrong but do none of the stats increase weapon damage in these changes? Or is Poise Damage also just Base Damage as well?

13

They don’t increase damage not directly.
The damage will increase from other things like being able to cast more rune powers or attacking faster, or stunning an enemy faster.
Now, I don’t know if this system would also require a damage bonus from stats, however I think theres many solutions if it requires damage scaling.
Gear enchantments, better weapons, weapon upgrades, etc… should cover it easily

14

It would be weird if weapons stopped scaling their damage off attributes. Whether or not it would work I can’t say, it would just feel weird since I can’t think of a game that didn’t have attributes affect weapon damage.

1 Like
15

Yeah, but then you’d have similar problem where your weapon defines a lot of what your stats are going to be. I think that if the devs want to give us greater freedom, then the damage scaling needs to not be inherent on the weapon.
There’s plenty of games that have weapons where the attributes don’t affect the damage. It just means that the design of the enemies and so on needs to take that into consideration.
One of my favorite games ever called Battle Brothers, the weapon defined the damage 100% and the attributes are things such as hit rate chance. Then there’s abilities that make the weapons more effective and so on but never from attributes.
Excellent game btw, 100% recommend it.

16

Ya dude stats feel bad. Decided to make a full faith build I’ve found like three one handed blunt weapons that are all tier 2 and a tier 3 two handed staff. So basically I’m a wizard now with one of the most op spells in the game. It’s definitely ruining re-playability for me I think. Also my dex guy has a massive two handed hammer lol.

1 Like
17

I don’t necessarily agree with the proposed design draft but I do think the stats mentioned lack identity and need some kind of overhaul. I think it’d be nice to be able to adjust scaling on some weapons or have an affix give scaling, right now the build variety seems to be finding the right amount of survivability and then just dumping points into whatever stat your weapon innately scales with. That method of character building doesn’t seem to align with the goals of the devs or what people want.

I was thinking it’d be neat if the different attributes gave a respective bonus to certain types of elemental damage, opening up playstyles focused on different elements. If, for example, strength gave a bonus to fire elemental damage you could have a character with a greatsword who can justify weapon swapping to a staff for ranged fire abilities even though the staff might not innately scale off strength. Give the strength stat extra identity by allowing it to also very slightly increase your equipment load and you can make a sweet fire battlemage-y thing in heavy armor. Alternatively, have strength increase poise damage (as you suggested) and you can build a character that wants to stagger enemies before dropping a meteor on their head. Toss in the ability to adjust weapon scaling and you can get both your greatsword and staff to scale off both stats, strengthening the performance and build identity even further.

But yeah, hopefully the devs listen to some of the feedback here and refine the stats a little bit. Some of the justification for the lack of stat identity seems kind of weird and I think arguments for the current system are generally pretty weak.

1 Like
18

Thanks for giving us your thoughts.

I personally think my design draft is pretty solid because it changes the gameplay style without making any of them stronger than others. There’s a case to be made about the INT and Faith ones that both interact with Runes, but I cannot think of a better solution since these are the systems we are dealt with in the game.

About your points with having stats have some kind of interactivity with element’s sounds interesting but I think it would be against the motto of giving us the freedom to create our build. It would funnel us into a specific stat and playstyle just because we want a particular element. I would hate that personally.
Other than that, Strength giving equip load would make the equip load stat worse, so I would also stay away from that.

It’s a little bit odd to me that you say you don’t agree with the proposed design but then use it as an example of a gameplay that you would find fun.
It makes me think you agree with the proposed design rather than disagree with it.

19

I think if they genuinely want to make the system classless then they need to have the stats do something else. I was actually going to post something similar to the idea here myself but reading the comments I see that you will end up eventually specing into stats like str and dex as they add damage and speed. Some people will play with builds (I assume it will be people here discussing this as they can see the potential) but many people will just stack into the obvious. Not saying this is a bad thing though as they do that anyway.

I do agree I feel restricted by weapons at the moment as I found a few gold weapons that I couldn’t use. I ended up using twin dagger type builds but when I moved from the twin daggers to chipped daggers I had to level up 3 times in order to get to use them because of stat requirements.

1 Like
20

I haven’t thought extensively about either of our specific changes enough to commit to agreement or disagreement, I’m just offering up ideas/alternatives and giving examples of how they might look overall. Your rebuttal for my changes also applies to your own: If I want to play an int based character that would benefit from increased poise damage, I may feel forced to put points into strength. My strength characters who use abilities may feel forced to get more focus from int/faith, etc.

The argument of build freedom is interesting to me because I don’t seem to understand what it means. To me, build freedom means I can come up with an idea (the aformentioned fire battlemage, maybe) and then use game systems to justify and create the build. Right now it doesn’t feel like we have that since the 4 stats we’re discussing don’t do anything besides increase their corresponding weapon types and don’t intermingle with anything beyond that. It would seem to me that either of our systems would increase build diversity/freedom rather than decrease it. This is especially true if you make the changes applied to the stats also available in variations as affixes. To give an example, if strength increases fire damage innately maybe you can find an affix on rings that says “intelligence increases fire damage”. That theoretically gives tons of build options, though at the risk of diluting the pool of affixes.

1 Like