Make Str, Dex, Int & Fai have additional effects

Wicked Feedback
1

After 25 hours of playtime

To me, the stats strength, dexterity, faith and intelligence, right now, just feel like flavour picks to get you to the entry level of being able to equip a weapon.

Sure one could argue those weapons themselves have runes on them that sort of apply to the whole spirit of each attribute, but on it’s own i feel like the attributes lack more oomph, they don feel like they carry any significance or are distinguishable between one another, since the ‘attribute to weapon’ scaling is very minimal in my opinion. Given the fact that we are currently limited to a cap of level 30. (but that is probably subject to change)

The following are just ideas (take it with a grain of salt):

Strength could be paired with giving less stamina consumption when having heavy/medium equip loads and less stamina consumption with any weapon.
Dexterity could give more stamina regen, faster stamina regeneration startup time and faster movement speed in general.
Faith could give increased healing spells/food effectiviness and damage increase with lightining and plague
Intelligence could increase damage done with fire and ice and less focus consupmtion

EDIT: I feel like that would invite a starting player to adjust his expectations for what the investment into a certain stat holds for him (even at least partially) in the future.

Right now if you’re not checking up guides or finding information on what weapons exist out there, ahead of time, you’re basically running in blind with your pesronal perception of what a stat should reward you with in terms of gear, which has huge potential to lead to frustration.

In other words, you could be investing into a stat, expecting a specific return, and upon investing countless hours, be dissapointed with the outcome of the loot pool you recieved and are able to play with. Because there wasn’t a baseline to guide your expectations in the first place.

2

Currently putting more points into the matching stat as your weapon also increases the damage? It’s straight forward but feels a bit boring tbh :stuck_out_tongue: so ya 100% agree that the stats should do more (passive bonuses) rather than just being a requirement check for weapons.

3

While I didn’t initially feel this way, some insightful Reddit posts helped me change my mind. Currently there is an issue with the “damage” stats (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith)
The issue is that all builds are the same (essentially) aside from weapon choice. I currently run a Str/Int sword build. But it’s no different than a Str sword build or a Dex sword build, aside from weapon. I think the stats should be more impactful.
To that end I think each of the damage stats should have a secondary effect, which makes each build different.

Str should give some poise (an example - maybe 1 poise per 5 strength) and armor (1 armor per 2 Str)
Dex could give %stamina recovery and/or %movespeed
Int could give %focus attack damage
And finally
Faith could give additional elemental resists (maybe +1 in each stat per 2 Faith?)

What this would achieve is a small but meaningful difference between builds- a Strength greatsword build will be tankier against physical hits than a Int/Faith greatsword build, but the Int/Faith build would have harder hitting focus attacks and better magic resist.
This makes stats feel like they matter, and makes each type of damage stat more focused on a unique playstyle.

4

So, this game has a couple stats, that doesn’t really do much, but scaling with the weapons. To increase the variety in builds, i think they should add passives to those stats.
HP - Fine as it is
Stamina - Fine as it is
Strength - Increase damage by x.xx%
Dexterity - Increase attackspeed by x.xx% and slightly increase movenment speed
Intelligence - Increase all damage done with abilities/runes
Faith Increase focus regeneration and decrease the amount needed for casting runes
Focus - Fine as it is.
Equipment Load - Fine, could maybe add add movenment out of combat by x.xx%

What ya’ll think?

5

I have had similar ideas to this, but the further i think about it the more radical my prefered changes would be. But first things first, your propositions are great and really similar to mine. For me it would be:
HP: leave it like it is
Stamina: leave it like it is
Strength: increase physical Dmg dealt with all sources
Dexterity: gives chance to crit (good old dex rpg staple) and increase backstab dmg (which kind of is already a crit)
Intelligence: increase all magical dmg (heat,cold,electric,plague) from all sources like equipment enchants, gems,oils and of course runes
Faith: Increase status effect effectiveness (burn, freeze, stagger, etc.)
equipment load: leave it as it is.

In addition i am leaning towards rather then adding those stats to the current weapon scaling i would rather replace them, and maybe even remove the stat requirements on weapon, they dont really add to the game in in my opinion.
Doing this would increase the build-diversity and boost creativity, someone could for example go a "mage-claymore"build by massively boosting heat on hit with enchant/gems/oils and spec for int to deal massive amount of Fire dmg on every hit or other fun stuff. of course thats already possible in kind of a way, but you have to lvl strength at the moment, and the majority of the dmg would probably still be physical due to the weapon scaling way better than the heat effects.

6

At the moment the Str, Dex, Int & Fai stat are pretty much the same. We just need to spend certain number of points into them to use certain weapons. We could have just one damage stat to serve the same purpose and use any weapon we want.

It would be great if these stats provided some other utility so it would still be important for certain builds to spend points into stats that are not needed for a weapon they are using.

It could be something like that:

Str - Damage stat, increase poise by %, increase armor by %, reduce damage taken by XX per point after armor reduction, take 0.5% less damage from debuffs and status effects per point, gain 0.15% resistance to all elements per point, reduce equipment weight by 0.3% per point

Dex - Damage stat, increase move/run speed by %, increase melee swing/bow shooting speed by %, increase rune casting speed by %, add 0.3% chance to deal double damage per point, get up faster after being staggered/knocked out by %, reduce fall damage by %

Int - Damage stat, increase focus gain by %, reduce rune focus cost by %, increase damage of cold & plague element by %, increase cold & plague status efficiency by %, gain 0.1% resistance to cold & plague element per point, increase efficiency of life steal effect by %,

Faith - Damage stat, increase healing power by % (both for casting healing on yourself and others + healing yourself more with food), extend buff duration by %, decrease debuff duration on yourself by %, increase damage of heat/fire & lightning element by %, increase heat/fire & lightning status efficiency by %, gain 0.1% resistance to heat/fire & lightning element per point, add 0.2% chance to survive a fatal blow with 1hp

The values would need to be balanced around the max level. It is just an example.

7

Yep I agree with this! It would make levelling up a more calculated decision but at the same time allow the other attributes to actually play a role in your build if you spend a few points on them.
In it’s current state spending skill points is pretty much, dump as many points in your chosen weapons attribute as possible but throw in some Health and Equip Load for good measure and that’s going to get stale pretty fast!
Hope the Devs take notice and think about improving Attributes at least somehow

9

You wouldn’t necessarily have to splash stats to min-max, the extra stats could be be there purely to make the various main stat builds feel more different which to me is the root issue. A strength build doesn’t feel meaningfully different from a dex/faith build to me and int builds only really differ due to staves having unique runes.

An alternative would be to flesh out the runes a lot more - tie them to 1-2 specific attributes with different scaling, etc. But I’d like to see more stuff to create more meaningful differences between main stat builds.

10

As someone who is on the fence with this whenever it comes up, complexitity isn’t usually a negative for ARPGs. Many love the number crunching.

12

Ultimately it comes down to what Moon has a vision for then. Do they want the game to be approachable by many? Ideally they have a selection in mind because a game for anyone is a game for no one.

Edit: I also think Enchants will provide greater class/fantasy expression. Thomas has already expressed interest in it, too!

13

not at all
I took two daggers and am leveling up my dex - I associate myself with a rogue.
I don’t need any indication of the archetype.
Up your faith - you will be a palladin (in your head) for exempale

But I agree that the stats need more weight than just a bonus to damage.

15

The idea to add these secondary effects as feats gained by drinking plague ichor is a good idea.

But I still feel like something needs to be done about the 4 stats. Might as well merge them all into 1 damage stat and let us use all weapons we want to. What’s the point of restricting weapons based on stats that give you nothing special?

16

Sure, there’s a certain fantasy connected just to the name of the stat but you can go int and pick up a dagger and basically be mechanically identical to going dex. That’s where the illusion breaks down for me.

Yeah, I’m not particularly picky which route the devs go with as long as they address that complaint

17

If I want make super speed mage, I will up dex. But I don’t need bow stack speed on it.
So I want to tell, we need more bonuses for stats, but without class mechanics

19

Agree :100:. Every other RPG is like this and this is missing that. They just feel empty.

20

Currently stats are only affecting weapon damage. But I m thinking it would make more sense if stats can affect our play style further depending on how we distribute the points.

I.e. strength will increase equipment load sightly, which makes sense irl lol,
dexderity will grant you stamina increase or faster movement speed, and intellgence and faith will increase focus regen or maybe rune damage…

In this case, stats mean more than just a weapon modifier but a way to shape our playstyle.

21

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!

22

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.

23

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

24

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.