The Stat system is “broken”.
In Souls Game you have a bell curve.
Means that except from your Start Stats every investment will give you more until a Softcap.
Souls Games: 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1
Wicked is like: 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 …
But the important part is thats inlucluding your Start Stats the whole modifier is much more linear with a harsh falloff much later.
When we have 100 Stamina plus 10% means 10 Points
When we have 110 Stamina plus 10% means 11 Points
In Wicked that means we need not only more Points for the same % change, we must spend much more Points per Stamina Points. Thats a minus x²
In Souls Game the Start Bonus is less, but the Bonus becomes bigger. The difference is that the later Bonus negeates the overall drop from % old to % new much better. The overall bonus is much more linear.
Thats why the current system cant be expanded. Every player can easy archive big Focus, HP or Stamina Pools from the Start but after the initial 10-20 Points the Drop is so harsh thats nearly useless to Spend more Points.
Thats why alot of Builds have only different Weapons. Everyone can a big Focus Pool and everyone can wear Plate Armor. At Level 30 your non Weapons Stats are more or less maxed out.
More Levels in this System will become shallow fast because the Build difference will be minimal. A “normal” player has maybe 100 Stamina and the player with a double or triple the points maybe 120.
And now the Enchant System comes into play.
For Someone with maybe 100 Stamina Points a Bonus from 10 is no big Think because he can spend Points. But for the 120 Stamina player 10 Points extra are a whole other league. We need % modifiers or a more Souls like linear cost system for balanceing.
Agreed, if the system allows for everyone to be good at everything there are no classes and thats bad in my book, specialization improves the game replayability.
I was just thinking this exact thing if you want to roleplay certain fantasies the game is COMPLETELY gear locked which sometimes can be cool but the fact that everyone agrees at the same threshold for upgrading their stamina & health isn’t great. I want to have so much health but maybe middling armor that is a playstyle I’ve done before think the naked katana-master in DS3 but tankier.
So unless I missed a combination, that’s 10 characters you would need to make to properly enjoy all weapons in the game.
If attribute points become super abundant by end game this may not be a problem upon release. But at the moment it’s a drawback, especially without free respecs.
I’m pretty sure it’s only Stamina and Focus that descend in usefulness with subsequent upgrades, but that appears to be because the stamina cost of weapons won’t increase at higher levels and the focus costs of abilities won’t increase either.
If I’m mistaken then it could be an issue, but right now it seems like the correct choice. Otherwise you’ll have cheesed strats of near-unlimited stamina and focus, which ‘may’ be possible for gear upgrades (as OP mentioned). So really, this just seems to be a ‘possible’ future issue IF their gear upgrade bonus continue to have rising linear point gains as the gear improves.
% increases, when stacked, should have diminishing returns, so I’m not worried about that. Although for now % bonuses (to increased armor and carry capacity as well) and bigger upgrades than the linear upgrades - so a bit of rebalancing is probably in order (at the 20-30 levels).
If changed to a bell curve, nothing would be different aside from the point at which the diminishing returns begin. Not sure why this would matter as the drop-off would be the same eventually. It’s just easier early perhaps (depends on how enemies are scaled).
Its a matter of Choice. With a Bellcurve your personal Choice matters more and not the horrible cost use bill.
I can say “im a very agressive player, need more Stamina for Attacks chain and dodge in melee range” or
im a " more cautios player, i need less Stamina because i use Attack chains rare and retreat faster" or
im a not so good player, " i make failures so i need a heavy armor to save my life because i fail at dodge attacks often"
It may seem like your choice goes up, but I would expect almost all players to invest in stamina and focus until they reach the highpoint of the curve, at which point, you run into the exact same situation you’re currently in.
There may be some builds which completely ignore focus (possible) or stamina (unlikely, but maybe ‘stamina gain’ compensates for stamina total). But this would be incredibly rare unless there’s an unbalanced build that benefits it (which would be bad and poor game design).
So you gain a TINY amount of choice, but the early game would have to be reworked to compensate for the change. I don’t care one way or the other, but with all there is to add and adjust, this rather large change for very little possible benefit seems like a ‘bottom of the list’ issue.
Sorry but the problem is that now with end chapter 1 every profession is maxed out except Weapon Skill.
The horrible cost use bill makes it impossible to make a “build”.
You have maybe another Weapon but thats all.
You think thats a “bottom of the list” issue sound a very weird. That developers think about 100 Levels. 70 Levels stupid maximizing Weapon Skills sound boring².
Whether you keep it flat longer, or have it curve up first, you’re getting the same effect for your purposes. So it seems like you want the diminishing returns for these 2 stats to occur later. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the long-term plan as only a small portion of the game is out so far.
I get that you’re used to playing games that curve up, then down, but it seems the only question is ‘at what point should stamina and focus begin diminishing?’.
“every profession is maxed out” - I believe it’s just the 2 stats. Is there another?
What’s the benefit you see in having these skills first curve upward rather than begin flat?
The curve is NO curve. The curve makes it more linear so that you dont find the sweet spot up to the maximum. which is the bell curve peak. For Support Stats like Stamina that peak its rather ueseless bcause its a garbage to have to too much stamina you never need. For weapons and damage its another thing because its helps to normalize damage lategame when to much points are ingame.
The drop from the bell curve plus the overall % gain is a heavy graph downwards.
The bell curve is not important, The important is the % change.
Side notice:
World of Warcraft Item spiral is not a bell curve and more x². Every Gear Score Upgrade must be feel awesome. Thats why the big difference between Start and End of an addon. double Gearscore doenst mean double damage its a x² value.
If stamina peak is useless, wouldn’t focus peak be similarly useless? Having 3000 focus really doesn’t give a character much advantage over one with 300 focus. This can be an issue going forward as it’s less fun to have fewer abilities worth upgrading, but % wise, they could come back to being useful later in the game as linear health/damage ability upgrades have diminishing returns (as you mention above).
The % change difference is a whole new conversation (re-read your first post to confirm). I see your point, but there’s also a drawback to what you’re proposing here: the numbers will get ludicrously huge. You run into it playing more like Diablo. If you bell curve based on % then the late game will feel even more pointless than it would seem otherwise.
The primary issue is whether the abilities scale well with the opponents - the developers can control this. For multiplayer, a more linear system means that a level 40 character is more capable of fighting a level 50 character, which seems more fun but probably won’t matter substantially (as most multiplayer players will level cap).
Depends, a percentage of 3000 focus is way more than 300 focus, so it would be easier to sustain focus with fewer “% focus gain on X” pieces of gear required.
I suppose the same argument could be made for stamina though, since there is “% stamina gain on X”, too.
Come on!
The bell curve is a model that players can invest in a Attribute and can make a “Build” because they Spend alot of Points.
IN Souls game you can be easy killed by people with half the Skillpoints because allocation matters, but the Start attrbutes are strong.
60 Stamina is Start in Wicked.
make it maybe 111111222222333334444555667
Thats 27 points, 9 whole Level (from 100?) bonus = 83
60=100%
143= 238%
Im not here to discuss numbers. Im here to explain a Skillsystem. Its matter of the developer to make choices like Peak at 10 level invest or 20 level invest etc. …
Thats system means you have NOT a WoW System because Start Points matters alot. IOn the SoulsFranchisr Level 1 Chars complete the game and they doenst fight with bosses 3hours.
It seems like you have gone away from the bell curve and % and to a slow upward scaling of stamina points. This would likely lead players to abandon stamina entirely in the early game and invest in other attributes while finding ways to fill their stamina needs through gear.
There is an issue with stamina and focus becoming obsolete (for direct stat investment) post level 30 if they continue as-is. But as far as I can gather you just want a different system because it’s what you’re used to, even though it doesn’t fix the issue - just pushes the issue from the mid-game to the early and/or late game.
I have faith that they’ll figure out how to improve the system going forward.
Sorry the attribute system is bad and the enchant system is bad too. This thread is about build fundamental base before go to another construction site.
Of couse you can not allow Stats like +15 Stamina but you can allow Things like low +x% Stamina because the scaling is in a row with the Attribute system. You can earn more Stamina with more Attribute Points but at the same time you maybe dont need the extra Stamina from the enchant.
The system is for rewarding player for invest points in a Stat.
At the same time rewarding them for dedication up to a Sweet Spot.
And after that Spot you can follow the path but for the sake of Balance its must be hold inside bounds.
And look at the % gain, not the bell curve. The bell curve is for a sweet spot at the peak. The peak is a developer choice for maybe 50 Points investment and the need of specialsizing because you cant raise all attributes to 50.
The developer can say the peak is by 30 points invest (10 level) or 60 etc …
He can say Stamain, HP, Focus, Weigth 50/50 Weapon Stats. and balance the Weak spot to 150point Weapon Stats and around 40 points in other attributesetc. …
The problem is that with the current system every character is ready. The build is complete only the weapons becomes more shiny. For a game that has 100 levels thats a turn off.
I mean i try to provide insight in the Souls combat System. A franchise a little more “battle” proven than Wicked and maybe a little more “successful”.
