[crossfire] Attributes/Stats

[Brendan Lally]

Sorry, just noticed that my reply to this originally was sent to the
wrong place....

On Wed, 12 May 2010 23:49:31 -0700
Mark Wedel <mwedel at sonic.net> wrote:

> On 05/12/10 03:58 PM, Brendan Lally wrote:
> > On Wed, 12 May 2010 19:11:14 +0200
> > Nicolas Weeger<nicolas.weeger at laposte.net>  wrote:
> >
> >>>    Never saw any response, but had some other musings.  Changing
> >>> subject to use attributes, since that is a bit less general than
> >>> statistics, which can mean almost anything.
> >>
> >> Related, Brendan started a page at
> >> http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/user:cavesomething:possible_stat_values
> >> listing ideas for combat rewriting.
> >
> > Under the kind of idea I was describing there, then stats like Pow,
> > Wis and Int could give bonuses to different resist points (including
> > negative resistances).
> >
> > I've described that in more detail at:
> > http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/user:cavesomething:resistances
> > (this page is linked to from the one Nicolas referenced above)
> >
> > Hopefully a fighter character would think twice about putting 1
> > in INT or WIS if it guaranteed double or triple damage on almost
> > every magic attack used against them.
> 
>   The one issue I sort of see with that is a lot of times
> fire/electricity/cold are not magical in nature.  So use int/pow/wis
> for a resistance on them seems a bit misplaced.

Yeah, I can see why that'd be the case, I guess really it is a question
of balancing what makes sense with what makes the stats work sensibly,
it might be that part of the answer to that is to alter some attack
types for existing weapons/spells etc.

>   However, problem in that case is that if say fire is Dex, and magic
> is Pow, if I have a 20 dex and 1 pow, that is the same damage as if I
> have a 11 dex and 10 Pow.  If I'm a fighter type, in that case, I'd
> probably still like the high dex/low pow - result is the same, but
> high dex would help me out more the rest of the time.

Could do something like the geometric rather than arithmetic mean, in
that case, the 'average' of 11 and 10 is still roughly 10 1/2, the
average of 20 and 1 is 4 1/2 (substantially worse).

If that isn't an extreme enough effect, could use the harmonic mean,
that would really punish having uneven stats.

>   However, that table is interesting, unfortunately it does no
> represent all the stats very well.  Cha still has no role.

Yeah, I don't think that's anything like a final table, and certainly
don't think it's properly balanced for the attack types that are in use.

Probably there needs to be some proper analysis done of the monsters
currently in the game (don't know if CRE can help with that - something
like total damage dealt by type for all instances of all monsters in
all static maps would give a good idea of the relative importance of
each attack type for the player).

>   With that, I would make some general changes:
> Magic: Pow

Or maybe separate magic attacks into arcane and divine magic, with one
based on the average of Pow & Int the other Pow & Wis? (This'd require
*lots* of item changes, but then so would most everything else
item-related).

> Fire/Cold/Electricity: Dex (on idea nimbleness avoids damage).  I

The reason I avoided using Dex mostly is because it is tied to the idea
of armour class. 
The full description of how I would redefine combat is on the first wiki
page linked above, but the short version is:
1) Roll an attack number (based on the object doing the attacking) and a
defence number (based on armour class) 
2) Consider a hit when the attack number is greater than the defence
number. 
3) Then damage is scaled to the ratio [attack-defence]:[resist
points]

Under such a setup then a high dex gives a higher armour class which
should typically increase the defence roll, and reduce the
number and 'strength' of the hits that are taken. (and this would be
true for all attack types)

Actually avoid damage from them once a hit is scored, should probably
be based on another stat (otherwise Dex counts twice).

> Drain, Turn Undead, Fear, Death, Life Stealing: Cha - you resist the
> effect from happening.

Ok, those are probably attack types where Cha could be made to matter,
(although there might need to be some lore changes to justify some
of those in game-terms)

Brendan