Human Racial Balance - Con is King?

[Skydancer]

The character creation screen is completely wrong in the line "attribute points" both for the current value as for the max value. I checked the screenshot from my character creation and both values don't make any sense.

The 391 points I mentioned above are simply the sum of the current plus free attribute points.

The number in brackets is your attribute pool. Minimum attributes are 10 so deduct 50 by default. From here it's all up to your race mix to determine minimum height. Now Size is the attribute governing height with 1 size = 2cm height. This means that a character with 180cmm height is 90 size. In this case the 90 points are also deducted from your pool.

Example
Pool = 480
Min attributes in char creation = 25x5
Size = 90
Available attributes = 480 - (25 × 5) - 90 = 265

I'm out of the house atm so will rewrite this on the pc. I'm working on statistical character analytics so if there's appetite for it I might release to public to help people understand how characters are built at the attribute level

 

[Xunila]

Thank you to notify about the size! I did not calculate the size, yes. But anyway, all screenshots I have from the different races in the character screen are somewhere near but not really at the displayed value of the total attribute points. And coming back to @Rhias , the difference between the races in the total attribute points is coming from the size. Oghmir and Alvarin are much taller than the other races. Even in case of the same amount of "free" attribute points, the different minimum sizes is the reason for the difference in total points.

I don't see the advantage of using a race with higher total attribute pool e.g. when playing a mage and going for int/psy and dex.

 

[Godkin Veratas]

I would love if all npc's had different conversation lines depending on intelligence, soph reputation etc. I would also like if intelligence influence the sell/buy price at vendors. Mostly I think low intelligence should have a serious impact on reading, more than in mo1.

Rep should drive buy/sell premiums. I don’t think rep should be governed by Int, Thursar and Alvarin are already capped in Rep. So you may get a portion of what you’re looking for with out involving attributes.


However, if Int and Psyche don’t have meaningful contribution to melee builds, we won’t have diversity, we’ll have alts that buy stuff for our 10 IQ giant. Again.

 

[ThaBadMan]

Total bias here, loved Kallards from the start but forced to not play one after closed beta of MO so happy they are viable in MO2.

 

[Godkin Veratas]

Total bias here, loved Kallards from the start but forced to not play one after closed beta of MO so happy they are viable in MO2.

Fair enough. I'm also glad to see Kallards on the battlefield. However, at this point, mixing anything into Kallard makes them inferior. Highest Health, Stamina, Damage Bonus, Height, Constitution, and Strength. Might be a Swedish intern's personal fantasy, but doesn't make for a fun and balanced game design.

Their constitution is way out of line as Con is the New King. They have a higher constitution cap than any other attribute cap for any attribute in the human clade, and the attribute pool to actually spend them all. Again, the attribute pools were assigned when Dexterity was dominant.

Kallards can remain viable against the other clades (Thursar, Alvarin, Oghmir) even if other humans get a boost. Even if Bandaging and resting were boosted 50% with int or psyche.

Let's see if we can get Sidoian and Khurite competitive physically. Dexterity, Strength, Int, and Psyche need to be useful to everyone. Attribute point distribution needs to be reworked.

The number in brackets is your attribute pool. Minimum attributes are 10 so deduct 50 by default. From here it's all up to your race mix to determine minimum height. Now Size is the attribute governing height with 1 size = 2cm height. This means that a character with 180cmm height is 90 size. In this case the 90 points are also deducted from your pool.

Example
Pool = 480
Min attributes in char creation = 25x5
Size = 90
Available attributes = 480 - (25 × 5) - 90 = 265

I'm out of the house atm so will rewrite this on the pc. I'm working on statistical character analytics so if there's appetite for it I might release to public to help people understand how characters are built at the attribute level

You could save me an afternoon by sharing the stamina equation.

 

[Rhias]

The number in brackets is your attribute pool. Minimum attributes are 10 so deduct 50 by default. From here it's all up to your race mix to determine minimum height. Now Size is the attribute governing height with 1 size = 2cm height. This means that a character with 180cmm height is 90 size. In this case the 90 points are also deducted from your pool.

Example
Pool = 480
Min attributes in char creation = 25x5
Size = 90
Available attributes = 480 - (25 × 5) - 90 = 265

I'm out of the house atm so will rewrite this on the pc. I'm working on statistical character analytics so if there's appetite for it I might release to public to help people understand how characters are built at the attribute level

I removed the min size from the stat pool. And that's the result:

This still contains the 50 fixed points (10 per stat).

 

[Neftan]

I feel like Tind's are athletically limited on purpose, to do with lore. Not to detract from the overall balance discussion.

They are the empire / relation building race who accel at planning and politics. They are supposed to be on the frail side, with a lot of flexibility. Jack of all trades so to speak, so they can have a foot in every door - for more opportunity.

 

[grendel]

However, if Int and Psyche don’t have meaningful contribution to melee builds, we won’t have diversity, we’ll have alts that buy stuff for our 10 IQ giant. Again.

Very good point. If zoology related lores add to dmg, I expect int will cap those lores. But that will hardly be enough to encourage different builds.

 

[Skydancer]

I could think of a few extra ways to give more meaning to Psy and add a bit more meaning back to Dex. Int to be fair is already tied to magical potency which is pretty potent.

Dexterity: Your quickness and precision of movement

• Bring back double tap dodges and tie their size to Dex (factor in character, armor and carry weight for balance)

Psyche : Your willpower to remain focused, ignore distractions and command loyalty in others

• Tie willpower into the loyalty gain and retention of all pets/mounts
• Tie Psyche to your chance to ignore interruptions while channeling spells (Make it a mandatory stat for uninterruptible spell channeling)
• Tie Psyche to the effectiveness of your bandaging when being attacked while bandaging

I think the dodge ability alone would be enough to make dex a really important attribute for lighter fighters

Psyche with functions like this could potentially be more valuable - it still wont be #1 attribute, but it becomes more critical for hybrids/mages/tamers and warriors might want a little more there to be able to bandage under fire more effetively, or to keep command of their horse/pet

If weight has less of an effect on hp, I think we would see more use of lean builds as they would still lose a bit of hp from lost con, but the hp gap between say Skinny and Stout would be a lot less

Even tying stam drain for movement to weight might work - very fat and very skinny characters run out of steam earlier

Like Godkin says; There will always be a hierarchy in attribute preference - the only thing that can be done is giving them all value in different circumstances, at least enough to give people pause and reconsider making a 10 psy 10 int warrior who barely has cognitive function

 

[Theodosius]

I feel like Tind's are athletically limited on purpose, to do with lore. Not to detract from the overall balance discussion.

They are the empire / relation building race who accel at planning and politics. They are supposed to be on the frail side, with a lot of flexibility. Jack of all trades so to speak, so they can have a foot in every door - for more opportunity.

Unfortunately there is little to no benefit in place for being more civilized, intelligent, or sophisticated. All these things should have interaction with NPC at the least. Less taxes, more stable slots, w/e. Not many, but some people may want to just be normal, civilian city dwellers. Not every player that picks this game up wants to be a warrior, and that should be okay too.

 

[Kaemik]

However, if Int and Psyche don’t have meaningful contribution to melee builds, we won’t have diversity, we’ll have alts that buy stuff for our 10 IQ giant. Again.

We're kind of seeing this with Veela getting a bonus to bow strength draw weight but if you really wanted to throw a wrench in the system you could consider implementing things such as this:

Zen Archery

This is one of many such feats and class abilities found in D&D 3.5 While it draws some abilities from 3.5 and some from Pathfinder my current build is cheesed out so that wisdom determines their ranged attack, initiative, knowledge checks to determine enemy weaknesses, gives an AC bonus + a deflection AC bonus and gets added to their HP pool like con for 8 of their levels. I'm sure anyone who plays 3.5 can understand how crazy that is given all those abilities usually key off of different attributes. But because of a very particular mix of classes the character in question becomes a martial badass through stacking wisdom.

Making it so certain clade gifts or skills actually swap the governing attribute for a particular bonus could definitely lead to some interesting builds. Something like instead of a flat increase in bow draw strength for Veela it keys off dex instead of strength, or Sarduucan swordsmen getting phyche to melee bonus damage instead of strength.

Of course in the current system that would just make those builds too strong as it actually further strengthens the idea of a single attribute being super good. But in a system with diminishing returns, it's pretty fun and could lead to some non-traditional builds becoming stronger. Like personally I have always though Sarduucans should have a build for a low health high damage melee fighter. If their psyche determined melee bonus damage that would do just that as they get similar psyche cap to the strength of the strongest human races but don't have particularly amazing con.

(I'd post a video of Oberyn vs. The Mountain here but the end is a bit gross so...)

 

[Godkin Veratas]

After a brief conversation with Henrik, I'm under the impression that the human stats will be looked into. He also thinks Psy Fighters are a thing, so...
I do believe most players come to games like this and select Human, so it's important to get it solid.

There is no reason for one race, Kallard, to have the best HP, Con, Strength, Stamina, Height, Damage Bonus, nearly identical move-speed, and the attribute points to max them all, while other races don't have those caps, and in the case of Khurite, can't max them. Given the current constraints, anyone that rolls Non-Kallard human that is not intending to be a mage will be told to reroll.

 

[Xunila]

Even with the latest patch from today (about one or two hours ago) there is something wrong with the attribute display in the character creation window: When I changed the age of my Alvarin, at 24 years the total number of attribute points changed by one. No other change at another age.

 

[Grasthard]

unironically, having all races with the same stats was the most balance ever achieved in any MO game

 

[Kaemik]

Sure you could make a psyche fighter under the current system. All have have to do is give up strength/dex/con on a 1:1 basis for each point of psyche you take. But the extra magic resist is totally worth it. Right guys? Right?

@Henrik Nyström - Please just stop and consider the idea of diminishing returns. It's industry standard for a very good reason. You're never going to create a version of psyche that is as valuable to a fighter as one point of a physical stat short of making certain races of their melee damage use phyche instead of strength. But you don't NEED it to be a good 1:1 tradeoff under a system with diminishing returns. You just need it to be worth considering when 1 additional point of strength could get you multiple points of your weaker stats.

The solution here is simple. It will take a few balance passes to get it right, sure. But racial balance issues as bad as MO1 and what you have now begun to create in MO2 aren't even possible in a system with halfway decent diminishing returns. You could completely half-ass it and do a better a system than you've given us for race balance at any point since the start of MO1. MO1 remains the only game in which bad race balance is a one of my top five issues with the game. Much less #1 by a wide margin. Needing to pick the proper race/age at character creation to be viable in your build is one of the most cancer mechanics I have ever seen in any game.

 

[Necromantic]

However, if Int and Psyche don’t have meaningful contribution to melee builds, we won’t have diversity, we’ll have alts that buy stuff for our 10 IQ giant. Again.

That's why I've said we need more versatility with attributes. Melee Skills and effects that are based on Int and Psy and magic etc. around Str and Dex.
All we have are cookie cutter attributes and they lead to cookie cutter builds.
We basically need ways of symbiosis of every single attribute for every potential playstyle. Only that way can every possible character benefit from their unique setup and even average builds will be, well good at everything, instead of worst because not best at one particular thing.

I've basically been saying this for a decade now.

 

[Neftan]

That's why I've said we need more versatility with attributes. Melee Skills and effects that are based on Int and Psy and magic etc. around Str and Dex.
All we have are cookie cutter attributes and they lead to cookie cutter builds.
We basically need ways of symbiosis of every single attribute for every potential playstyle. Only that way can every possible character benefit from their unique setup and even average builds will be, well good at everything, instead of worst because not best at one particular thing.

I've basically been saying this for a decade now.

Attribute Rework

There are a couple of threads, one in particular that is very informative and saturated with data by @Godkin Veratas , discussing racial balancing, and ways to make different attributes more meaningful to avoid easy META builds and create a more diverse competitive scene. Here is my suggestion...

mortalonline2.com

It's likely too late for any real heavy changes to be made, but I made a kick at the can anyway.

 

[Necromantic]

Well, it's been too late for a long long time, but it's something they have to do unless they want to end up with the same problem over and over. You can't balance a system where specific attributes cater to specific play styles only and have different attribute setups for different races.

 

[Kaemik]

Attribute Rework

There are a couple of threads, one in particular that is very informative and saturated with data by @Godkin Veratas , discussing racial balancing, and ways to make different attributes more meaningful to avoid easy META builds and create a more diverse competitive scene. Here is my suggestion...

mortalonline2.com

It's likely too late for any real heavy changes to be made, but I made a kick at the can anyway.

It's definitely not. Attributes and race stats are all numbers. All easily edited, all easily fixed and we aren't even in persistent release. It may be too late in that the people in charge of the decision are unwilling to change, but perhaps if we make enough noise we can save this game.

 

[Necromantic]

I'm actually positively surprised on how many people are jumping on this. As I've been an advocate for these things for a long long time.