Character Stats

[Grey]

We're all familiar with the various stats in ADOM, and the various ways to scum them to high amounts, and by the looks of it JADE will include them all, with perhaps a few more. Personally I don't want to see any huge deviation from ADOM, but I have some ideas for improvement, and I'm quite curious as to what ideas others have on new or replacement stats JADE could have.

The screenshots TB posted on his blog show MR and Mv on the normal screen. The former I assume is magic resistance (it's next to DV/PV) and the latter could just be number of moves, or it could be something new.

Some thoughts on stats:

Magic resistance - Well, it looks like it's in there, but how should it work? A percentage chance that a spell won't affect you? A protection value that reduces damage? A percentage reducer of spell effect, meaning a certain percantage less damage or a certain percentage less duration? Will it affect just enemy magic? What about negative spells you cast on yourself (deliberately and by accident)? Will it protect your equipment? Monsters would obviously have it too, perhaps some even being immune. Would there be ways to break through this defence?

Personally I prefer the percentage reduction system, and think it shouldn't affect magic cast by yourself (as that would be seen as willingly accepted - cast magic missile at yourself and it's your own damn fault). Tamed creatures would also have no resistance to your spells (whilst they're still tame). Status spells such as stat drains would have a simple chance not to work on you. But there should be ways for powerful monsters to break through it, and for you to do the same with enough power. Maybe each point of effectivity in a spell would give a penetration value, reducing the opponent's MR by that amount (so a 30 effectivity Acid Ball against a creature with 45 MR would be reduced in damage by 15%). Extremely powerful monsters might have the likes of 200% MR, making them almost impossible to harm with magic. Some monsters might have negative values - they're more affected by magic. It shouldn't give any protection to equipment in my eyes.

I'm guessing the stat itself will be affected by Willpower and Mana. I'd say Willpower should be the stronger of the two. Personally I think it could be interesting if high Mana actually made you less resistant to magic - the closer attuned you are to the planes of mana the more vulnerable you are to attacks from it, so you'd need high Willpower to help you deal with these forces.

Elemental resistances - In ADOM these seem to be reasonably simple. Fire resistance will mean you'll take very little damage from fire attacks, with additional sources reducing it to almost nothing. For NPCs resistance is equivalent to immunity. In JADE I'd like to see a percentage system like described above for MR, reducing damage by that percentage, to a maximum of 90% (immunity would be required for the full 100). Eating corpses would raise your resistance value, though certain corpses can't raise it above certain amounts (eg, a fire bug won't bring you above 10%, a red dragon 50% and a red wyrm can bring you up to the full 90% - all of these would reduce your cold resistance too, maybe making it negative). A ring of fire resistance would give 50% blessed, 30% uncursed, -30% cursed, with multiple sources stacking (perhaps giving a bit less than their simple sum). They would be hidden values like in ADOM - you can only view them with Revelation or potions of insight.

Stat maximums - Should these be allowed to go above 100? It's hard to hit 99 in ADOM, but JADE's a much bigger game. Would be silly if you kept maxing out lots of stats in most games. At the same time though, I don't want to see ridiculous stats. Perhaps in JADE it should be much much harder to raise stats as they get higher. Potions and other increasers would have an exponentially reduced chance to work (or would maybe raise the stat by just a fraction of a point). TB would have to make sure that the game looks at your real stat value instead of the current adjusted value when judging stat increases to stop the likes of starvation scumming in ADOM. Of course people will always find a way to scum things, but it shouldn't be easy...

Stat potentials - I'd actually like to see these done away with. I can sort of see their purpose in ADOM, and they do help to stop people training their stats too high, but I think they're an unnecessary complexity.

Like I said, I'd like to know what other ideas people have on how stats may change in JADE. ADOM has a very good system I think, but there's always room for improvement...

[Dougy]

Some good thoughts there Grey.

Magic resistance: I think it'd be much easier just to subtract min(damage-MRd2,0) from the relevent beings HP (or something similar). Also 200% resistance sounds to me like the spell-caster themselves should receive 100% damage.

Elemental resistance: Well, resistance (no matter what level) should reduce the probably of receiving damage and reduce the probably that the damage is a large amount. Immunity should eliminate damage completely.

Stat maximums: Eliminate them completely! They're so artificial. Also eliminate the maximum experience. It should be theoretically possible to increase these to arbitrary levels, however it should be increasingly difficult. For example: Anywhere where there is a +stat, include a probability of min(1,20/stat) of increasing it - although to make it more interesting 20 should be replaced by some constant determined by starsign/race/class/luck etc..

From my experience in life, it's more important the eliminate your weaknesses than build on your strengths, therefore another option might be some type of restriction: "your min stat cannot be 10 less than your max stat."

Stat potentials: Yeah, get rid of these too. But perhaps you'll need to pad out the potions somehow.

[Grey]

Magic resistance: I think it'd be much easier just to subtract min(damage-MRd2,0) from the relevent beings HP (or something similar).

What about non-damaging spells? I prefer the percentage effect because it can be more easily applied to everything - slow monster would have a reduced span for instance.

Also 200% resistance sounds to me like the spell-caster themselves should receive 100% damage.

Hah, now that would be great. Say an overall 150% resistance (after modifiers for effectivity etc) would reflect the spell back at 50% of its power. For a bolt spell this might actually bounce back, potentially hitting other things in the middle too (though an important point of that would be that the bolt range would thus not extend past the reflecting monster, so you can't have multiple reflections. Also if the PC had over 100% MR it could lead to the spell getting bounced back and forth till it dissipates - probably secondary reflection should be impossible to stop infinite loops.)

Stat potentials: Yeah, get rid of these too. But perhaps you'll need to pad out the potions somehow.

I was actually thinking it might be nice to have less of these potions...

[Tannis]

I think the biggest issue with stats is that there needs to be more caps. For example, in ADOM you can train strength to 18 by being burdened, but after that it won't work. Makes sense, since normal physical training should only go so far. Similarly, ogre corpses can get you to about 20 or so, but don't work after that. Again that makes sense, since super high protein monster meat should only get you so far.

Then there's things like potions of gain attributes. You can use these til the cows home. I consider states in the 80-99 level to be god like, so I strongly feel that potions and corpses, even things like Titan corpses, should be capped at 50 or so. Getting stats past 50 should be a very, very hard accomplishment.

Most importantly, as noted, stat reducing events should not be exploitable. Getting sick or using a ring of weakness to get monster stats is counterintuitive and should be scrapped.

[ZeroTheBird]

Waiting...................

[spectre]

I am more or less satisfied as to the amount of stats in adom.
Perhaps some should receive a more meaningful effect (ie the player sees the benefits of maxing them out), I am speaking mostly about Per, App and Cha.

As to the stat maximums, I think they are in fact necessary, just so that there is any diference between the races. This is especially visible after a few levels, and once you find some herbs. The difference between, say, a dwarf and human blur.

If I were to change stuff in the stat system, I'd actually enforce these stat caps to force the player to play to the race's strenghts and weaknesses. Ever tried to visualize a Halfling with 30 Strength & Toughness?

[IronJelly]

You know something... i disagree with the notion that you shouldn't be able to train yourself by making yourself weaker.

Firstly, you are taking the risk doing it that you might come across something that you need your normal stats to deal with. for a ring, you can take it off, but if you are starving, that is no time to eat. The solution: make stat reducing items auto-cursing. you can put it on, but need to get it magically removed before you can reap the benefits.

Anyways, the reason behind this is that, like in life, your body can try to make up for its own inadequacies. If you have muscle atrophy (weakened muscles in some parts of the body from long times without use), you can train them to work again. Why not in the game? I see this as choosing to make yourself weaker, then working out a bunch to get back to normal, then taking a strength buff of some sort. It seems viable.

I do think it should be made less exploitable, I just don't think overall it should be removed.

[theotherhiveking]

I'd like to see it removed, it is a exploit, and it should not be in game, because reducing your stats to raise over the maximum is pure no sense. Why? BECAUSE THE MAXIMUM IS THE MAXIMUM and any value over it should be nerfed to this value.

[Macros]

The solution: make stat reducing items auto-cursing

In Adom, ring of weakness already has auto cursing, and it doesn't really prevent getting str up to 99 without too much troubles(if you're careful enough to dump your stuff somewhere before putting it on).

Anyways, the reason behind this is that, like in life, your body can try to make up for its own inadequacies. If you have muscle atrophy (weakened muscles in some parts of the body from long times without use), you can train them to work again.

Sorry, but that doesn't have any sense. So if you want to be stronger than you're now, first you need to make yourself much weaker(by sickness for example), then train, and when sickness effect will go away you will be stronger than before it?

About Grey's ideas:

Magic resistance as reduction of damage sounds good, but in that case MR should be really hard to improve - much harder than normal stats. I think also that percentage chance that spell won't affect PC also isn't bad idea - like 0.25% chances on succesful deflection of spell per every point of Mr. That shouldn't be too much, even char with 99Mr would have 24.75% chances on refusing spell effects(and Mr should be harder to raise than other stats).

In my opinion, stats should be limited like in Adom. I'm afraid that players will always find some way to abuse something and raising their stats to incredible values, so stat limit would be nice here.

Elemental resistances sounds very good, and I like them in way you suggested.

[Epythic]

Sorry, but that doesn't have any sense. So if you want to be stronger than you're now, first you need to make yourself much weaker(by sickness for example), then train, and when sickness effect will go away you will be stronger than before it?

Are we talking about ADOM or reallife?