Update #1: Stats and Balances
Character statistics are a very important (and often neglected) facet of the design of a RPG. Even when video games were in their infancy, tabletop RPGs such as the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons, published in 1974, included stats in some form or another. Before we get into discussing what kind of stat system is being designed for CoE:OT, we first need to define exactly what character stats are, as well as provide some examples of how stats have been successfully used in games throughout history.
So what exactly are character statistics?
Honestly, “character statistics” is a rather ambiguous term. Depending on the game, a stat system could (and will) be implemented in wildly different ways. Ultimately, however, character statistics are numeric values that defined a character’s ability. The term “ability” is used very loosely here, because there isn’t really any rules saying what can and cannot be covered by character stats. Some games might only use stats to suggest a character’s physical abilities, where-as another game might extend stats to encompass some set of skills. I would probably define character statistics as “A numeric value representing a character’s ability to do a thing.” Super scientific, I know. =)
Stats throughout time
Now that we have defined what character stats are, it’s time to take a look at how character statistics have been used in games throughout history. By doing this, we can see what worked, what didn’t, and hopefully why the designers chose to use the stat system they did. All of this information can help better inform us in our own stat system’s design.
Retro JRPGs -- JRPGs, such as the early Final Fantasy games, Star Ocean, Legends/Secret of Mana, etc… took perhaps the most simplistic approach to character stats. While characters in these games certainly had stats as defined above, and these stats certainly increased in some manner as the character “grew,” the player was never given the ability to directly influence these statistics beyond whatever gear the player gave a character. Even then, there was rarely ever more than one or two pieces of gear that made sense for a character at a given point in time. While this most certainly seems like a nightmare from a theorycrafter/min-maxer’s perspective, it really did work in these games. The reason for this is that retro JRPGs were typically heavily story driven, the worlds were usually not very “open” (though sometimes, they would attempt to present an illusion suggesting otherwise), characters were pregenerated, and the story was fairly linear (again, despite the illusions suggesting otherwise). In short, the player’s agency was almost non-existent. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it does provide a great example as to how a game’s stat system should be designed around the game’s style.
Simple yet powerful -- Another approach that is becoming more and more popular is a stat system that is simple enough to get out of the way of the average player and not require them to think too much about a character’s build, but also be powerful enough that a more hardcore gamer that might enjoy optimizing character builds and theorycrafting to also sink his/her teeth into and enjoy the game their way. This style of stat system is notably employed by the more recent TES games, such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and The Elder Scrolls Online. In the latter, as an example, you have three primary “attributes” that play into the calculation of everything you do, from dealing damage, to survivability, to stealthiness, etc.. These aren’t the only variable used in these calculations, of course, but they are the only ones that the players need to maintain as they level up. For instance, if a player wants to be a sneaky rogue that specializes in ganking the unsuspecting monster with a massive amount of spike damage, while the rest of the party man the front lines, then he/she would probably just dump all of his/her stat points into stamina and call it a day. If that same player wishes to play a more solo style, then he/she might instead choose to spend some points in Health to increase his/her survivability. In the end, however, it is extremely clear what each of these attributes do and choosing which ones you care about becomes trivial. This kind of stat system lends itself well to action RPGs, especially those that are class-based. A given class usually has a specific playstyle that makes in depth character building less useful. There is usually only a handful of viable “builds” for a given class, so having all of the choices of a more complex system only becomes a nuisance in the end.
Detailed and Complex -- These are the stat systems that are often employed by tabletop RPGs. In these systems, a character’s stats are the core of the character. They typically not only define a character’s combat prowess, but also every other facet of their “lives.” For instance, this system might calculate the amount of gold a player can sell an item for based on the character’s Charisma score. These systems work really well for heavy role-play focused games were out-of-combat “encounters” are very common and thus require a bit of depth to make them more fun.
As you likely realized while reading through the above styles, no one of these styles is appropriate for all games and more often than not, a sort of hybrid system becomes ideal. I’m sure you see now why choosing the right stat system for the style of game being developed is extremely important.
CoE:OT’s stat system
So what kind of stat system did we choose to go with for CoE:OT? After weighing the options and considering ease of implementation, we decided to role with a more simplified approach akin to those of more recent TES games. Given that our game is class-based, however, we found that the stat system in Skyrim really didn’t lend itself well to CoE. Similarly, we couldn’t really use the ESO version as-is either, because many of the design choices for that system relied on the multiplayer aspect of the game, and since we are effectively a single player game, we have some different considerations.
Ultimately, we chose to go with a sort of hybrid approach. Similar to ESO, characters will have three primary “resources”: Health, Magic, and Stamina. However the way that these resources influence various abilities will be somewhat different and players will likely find focusing all of their points in one stat will rarely make sense. Also similar to TES games in general, gear will play a large role in a character’s abilities. Given the intended depth of the crafting system, we expect that these two facets alone will provide more than enough flexibility to satisfy the more hardcore games, while the still being simple enough for the new or casual gamer to ease into as they wish. Another aspect that we had to consider was how we can make these stats relevant outside of just combat. This dips into a bit of the beneifts of the “complex” systems mentioned above, but given the focus on roleplay that is intended for this game, at least some degree of out of combat influence is required. Admittedly, this is a facet of the system that we are still experimenting with, and haven’t quite nailed down yet. As time goes on, I am sure you will see more updates in this regard.
A Balancing Act
The final piece to consider when devising a stat system (and probably the most important) is combat balance. This is a facet of game design that has been on designers’ minds from the very beginning, and ends up being extremely game dependant. How do you make a system that is designed for both casual and hardcore gamers alike still be fun for both audiences? If you only design the game for the casual audience, then once the more hardcore players finish optimizing their builds, they will essentially steam roll everything. That’s not very fun. =( On the other hand, if you design the game for the hardcore gamer then no matter how good your stat system is, casual players are going to get stomped and probably give up in frustration. Again, this is not good. What is needed is a way to balance the game for both audiences and as it turns out, this is no easy task.
Currently, we are experimenting with the concept of dynamic difficulty. Essentially scaling the game’s difficulty based on the player themselves. This might not turn out to be the final approach, but it’s an interesting concept that we see as having potential, so we want to experiment with it a bit more while we are still in the design phase and don’t get too far into development.