Stat Sales!

[Avarice]

Ok since luck now affects combat (ugh) I had this idea that I think makes some sense and is worth a shot. How about a high-level only trainer type mob that allows you to purchase stat upgrades for a relatively steep price?

I'm thinkin something like 500k-1mil per purchase, and those folks who have like avg wis, avg int, and low luck can remain competitive with the folks who have max everything. I say remain competitive because the ppl who have max everything don't have to wear additional eq and this makes a huge difference in terms of the useable stats they can wear, including damage.
For example: Player A has max wis, int, str, con, dex and luck. He only has to wear 6wis and 5int to get to 25 in both, and because his luck is max he is swinging more now than ever.
Player B levelled up but didn't get many trains and was just unlucky from the start. He has avg wis, int and con, max str and dex and low luck. Now he is forced to wear 9wis and 8int to get to 25, and he must also wear at least 6 luck or he doesn't swing as often as he used to.

Assuming each of them have access to similar eq, who will swing harder and more often? This is an inherent disadvantage to the guy who decided to play a minotaur or ogre or whatever back BEFORE these changes ever came in.
Rather than punishing them for an inability to see the future, why not allow them to at least work hard and max out their suddenly critical stats?????

Therefore, let high levels only (eff 40+ perhaps to include warrics that don't wanna go thug) purchase luck/charisma/int/wis upgrades for a steep price. If anything this type of thing will only make gold more valuable, instead of having it just be saved for extremely rare eq sales or purchasing of simple rings. It will allow some of the more seriously disadvantaged characters to remain competitive. Ultimately it hurts nobody, adds another dimension to the game, enhances the economy, gives people at higher levels something else to do and maybe makes a few players happy.....

[Faite]

Or perhaps you should have put a bit more time (and worn luck) into earning trains and maxing your stats when you were forming them?

Why "even the playing field" at all when these stat changes are supposedly quite subtle?

I'm skeptical of this idea, at best.



Faite, Bluebird Bardlette, putting her two cents in.

[Anonymous Mammal]

I agree with the basis of this idea.

[Anandunaiss]

another thing is that the stats u start with at the beginnins with a character are chosen by none other than *drum roll* you! if u decide to spend a decent ammount of time and have the patience or even luck, u can get great stats right of the start. if not like myself, then u start the game with lower stats knowing u made that choice and are willing to play a character who doesnt have perfect stats. i think thats part of the whole RP and character creation. if everyone always plays perfect characters then why have eq?why bother with trying to be different than the next 30/30/30 war/cler/thief? (or whatever) when you cant!

anyways, thats my honest opinion.

[Anonymous Mammal]

Keep in mind that what is MAX for one race is not MAX for others. The maxes vary from race to race, so even if everyone does have perfect MAX stats, they will still need to diversify their equipment needs.

[Anandunaiss]

thanks for the reminder. i had forgotten about that. but my above statement can still apply tho just on the smaller scale of race. not all humans/aarakocrans/ogres etc look like each other etc. but again the race differences are a good thing in keeping stats different from player to player.

[Avarice]

Actually there is a limit to the stats you can roll at character creation. You can't roll all max everything no matter how many times you try. There is also *nothing* you can do to when your luck drops as you level. In the past this wasn't all that big a deal since wearing a little extra luck as you levelled was only a minor and temporary situation. Now that it affects combat it can effectively ruin a character.
As it stands my personal stats aren't really at issue here, i have pretty good overall #'s. I think ogres and minotaurs will never get played anymore. I think mammal made a great point (and one i intended on making myself): because of the various natural race limits everyone still has to wear different eq in order to reach "max" in all their various stats. The thing is, this is common practice already...there are just no 50's who actively play that have anything less than max str/dex, most people now are already wearing int/wis as well.

SO far the only objections i've heard are illogical or shortsighted. Telling me that I should've taken the time roll different stats or that its somehow an RP thing to have bad stats just doesn't really address the core of the issue. Theres no reason to not let us fix up stats. We will still have to wear additional chr/luck to take full advantage of the changes. It gives people with stat issues something to work on. It adds more to the overall economic picture and would in some cases take some gold out of circulation. It doesn't HURT anyone, unlike many of the more recent unpopular changes. It also doesn't change the fact that wearing chr/luck might just make a difference now. So whats the problem?

[Anandunaiss]

i guess i should have been more specific/less scathing (if i was scathing in the first place) about this. i agree that people are able to wear eq to boost their stats rather high. i did not know that one couldnt get max while rolling a new character, but you can still get pretty good scores which help overall. the fact that different races have to wear different eq sets to try to max out stats is a good thing and i agree with what has been said about it.

i do think that the option at high levels to buy stats at very high prices is definitly worth considering especially conerning the recent changes to the importance of int/wis and chr/luc. but i think that luck should remain unchangeable. after all how can u pay someone to make u luckier? you can get more chr conceivably from doing the whole facial/makeup/cleaningup/nicer clothes/nicerclothesdesigns in terms of RP so that realistically makes sense, as do the other stats. that way characters can still pump up their stats through purchasing them as well as smart leveling and wearing the appropriate eq. (the latter two allowing to wear higher dmg/dex/str etc at high levels to facilitate mob/player killing.) this would also as might have been mentionned before, help people spend more time in the mud playing around/exploring etc. and hey, good luck charms never hurt anyone eh?


and just a note Avarice;
"Telling me that I should've taken the time roll different stats or that its somehow an RP thing to have bad stats just doesn't really address the core of the issue."

please dont take my comments personnaly. they are directed at noone but the mud in general, and im not trying to be preachy or anything like that. just voicing my thoughts. and i made some mistakes, but thanks to corrections done by yourself and Mammal, i have learned something.

[morgaine]

I don't like this idea. It took me a little while to figure out why, but i havn't agreed with it from the start, including when it was first posted and rejected on the idea boards over the past few years. Here are some valuable reasons.

For example, lets play the ogre card.

I don't think ogres should have max luc/chr, or be able to have max luc.., (unless they are honestly, incredibly lucky) ...which lets face it, doesnt happen... for a reason (of balance). Ogres are already more powerful then any other race in the game, now they can be a thug with a dex of 39, (though I havnt seen one take advantage of this incredible oppertunity as of yet) ..... Ogres have a 575 natural str and swing like a beast with a full verb player dmg bonus, but there are negatives to the race as well. ...due to their low luc and chr they stumble a lot, miss a lot, fall sometimes, and have extra bad recalls, their bounties are lower, and basic necessities like food, recall potions, waterskins, and bribing are more expensive, ect..... That is not to say that a lvl 50 ogre cannot max out all of his stats if he does the work involved, sacrifices his big swing during the hardship of growth and wears a ton of luc eq..... lets remember that anyone can reject any initial character stats if the luc is not acceptable, and though it will go down or up some..... that should be anticipated through race descriptions and rankings. If we "level the playing field" by allowing ogres to gold until their luc, chr, int, wis, dex, str, are max... then we would be tilting the field for everybody else.


to continue....

I don't like the idea of golding to increase stats... period. There is a turnover rate of characters that are not happy with their stats. Usually its just hp and mana, sometimes this includes physical stats, but these days it is fairly easy to max most of them out... if you try. Part of the game is creation, and building, and working with what you earn, not maxing out with as much dmg as possible and then golding to max out stats...while wearing as much damage as possible to keep enemies in safe.... If a character is not happy with their stats there is always another option, to self-delete and remake the character. This may sound brash but I have seen it many, many times.... some characters decide half way though leveling, though I have seen maxed out chars make the same decision.....

Golding for stat points isnt going to increase the economy.... Taking gold out of circulation will not increase the economy..... Gold pops everywhere, it is not uncommon, and anyone can have as much as they want, and they dont have to go far from gh to get it.

I agree with anandunaiss. The way your stats rise and fall and where they land is largely based upon your equiptment choice while leveling and the race and class you choose to level. I have started a charcter with 4 max stats before. I did remake him 7 or 8 times. (this was before reroll was introduced and may not be possible now), but although I havn't seen it happen for me since, I have seen other people boast of incredible stats at low levels. Knowing HOW to use your trains is another way to properly increase your stats and is also something that varries from char to char, race to race, and class to class.

I don't think the chr and luc changes punish anybody. It may help some people, but it doesn't hinder anyone, because everyone can remake a new char with a new class with new stats if theirs just arent good enough...or work on new equiptment, and honestly, I like the changes. Not because my stats are perfect, (they are good but they aren't perfect), but because I have always kept my dmg low, and found other ways to swing hard and fit different equiptment on. More people should try diversifying their set instead of begging to fundraise incredible stats. Leveling a character is the pinnacle of creation, and ultimate basis of the life lived thereafter.

[Anandunaiss]

excellent reply imo Morgaine i think you put together what i thought and then some in a much more comprehensible response that i have been able too.

[Anonymous Mammal]

I was going to continue to argue for this idea, however, I have little faith that Tynian would put any work into such an idea. I believe this idea was D.O.A.

[dun]

Well i dont like the idea in a way and in a way i do, since if you made your character before all the stat rolling was involved, what ever the system gave you. You was stuck with so im not sure on this one

[Corri]

Low Stat, High Stat, His Stat, Buy Stat:

Figured I would add a few pennies to the discussion...

Should luck be trainable? Nope. At the end of the day - I like the idea of the random. No matter how hard you plan, your plans can go awry... I think that KNOWing exactly what will happen at each level takes out some of the anticipation and the fun of levelling a character. It lends a hope and an anticipation.

Should stats be purchasable? I don't see why not...though I would Not personally implement it were I in charge. It seems to come down to a question of overal goal for the player base. Is this a group of characters who are working hard to see how good they can turn out, or are they working hard to come out perfect. Stylistically, I think I prefer the former. A known end-result, common racial stats and perfection are inherently less interesting to me than diversity.

On CHR and LUCK changes:
Speaking technically, the changes do does disadvantage those with low chr and luck. (Having to remake from scratch to compensate for the unexpected changes is certainly a disadvantage.) The question becomes where is the loss/gain? What is lost for lower stat players... combat efficiency. At the end of the day, some people will not be as strong compared to their fellows as they once were in combat. What is gained? Potentially, a larger variety of gear combinations which will provide combat efficient characters. A larger diversity in what gear is played.

I would expect that this will add to the gameplay for newer characters, and to established characters with decent chr/luck. Conversely, I expect it will be a frustration for established characters who have poor chr/luck... do not want to start over again...and have worked hard in the past to build up their stats.

Possible alternate idea - allow stats to be purchased up to a certain (relatively low) level (12?) at level 40+ but not beyond. This would allow anyone who had incredibly poor levels (or old stats which were not previously important but now are), a chance to work to make themselves better - but it would not lead to identical stats across the board. (Training can make me more dexterous.. but at the end of the day certain chars are just clumsier than others). Luck could be exempted from this as well, to preserve the random nature.