Patch week!

[Amorana]

The aim was to make DIS more useful. Having three physical stats that mainly effect melee combat, and three mental stats that mainly effects caster combat makes a lot of sense game design-wise I think.

I think I can understand the point you're making here, Cherek, but to play devil's advocate (agreeing with Thalric above about the need for Casters to focus on "Melee" stats as well), as well as to echo Redblade's points about this suddenly being a stat to determine hit chance for casters after having not been focused upon by the vast majority of casters: Put the shoe on the other foot? What if suddenly Melee were dependent upon say Intelligence to make a hit in combat (something Goblins & Dwarves, two of the more popular melee races, are lower in)?

They'd likely be having the same feedback for you right now.

And for that matter - it might not be a bad idea for this to be the case. It might address Thalric's point above.

[Redblade]

So both most common caster bases (elf and gnome) have a discipline penalty! How's that any good? I really fail to see what was the aim here :/ Please someone of the wizteam, enlighten me.

The aim was to make DIS more useful. Having three physical stats that mainly effect melee combat, and three mental stats that mainly effects caster combat makes a lot of sense game design-wise I think.

Regarding races, this opens up for more races being decent casters. And just because elves and gnomes are weaker in DIS doesn't not mean they are BAD casters. If you combine INT + WIS + DIS both elves and gnomes still get very good "mentals average".

We of course realize that generally players don't focus on DIS, but maybe that will change now...? Which is a good thing too I think.

And like I mentioned in my State of the Donut post, my hope is still that we will rebalance the races "before Christmas". I don't really think we should have "caster races" and "melee races" as we have now (at least not as apparent as now), and I don't think some races should be simply worse than others either.

But a good first step to more balanced races is making DIS actually relevant. That all stats are useful is a good first step towards more balanced races, and gives us more options if/when rebalancing them.

Oh I completely agree it makes design-wise sense to have 3 caster skills and 3 melee skills (okay and maybe rogue classes could take a combination, something like dex int dis). I won't add to Thalric's post, I think it sums most of the concerns I would have as a caster.

What I disagree on is that it is a good first step. It's a good step, after the races are balanced. Or even, a good step simultaneously as the races are balanced. You're leaving a lot of the medium-size casters hanging now. And by medium, I mean the size where dying a few times to change stats is actually days/weeks/months (all depending on how much time you can invest) of work, but not legends/myths just yet that "have enough dis anyway", in a manner of speaking. Well - I guess hooray to dying back to smaller sizes and grinding discipline...

But at least now I do see the aim. Thanks for that : ) and one possitive to that all - it makes hobbits great again, with little above average wis and no penalty in int and dis, if I read this right.

[Arman]

I think most players are overthinking the impact of racial modifiers for the more common caster races. And I wouldn't recommend dying down to focus on discipline without doing some testing.

Also the argument that melee guilds only need to focus on three stats is in most cases not true. And the change to casting discipline affects them too... if they neglect their discipline stat them casters will not find it challenging successfully casting spells on them.

[Arman]

Spell casting success now - for the first time - takes into account the targets stats (or stat) in comparison to the casters. Discipline is the caster dexterity now. A low disciplined caster is going to have a hell of a time successfully casting against a disciplined target.

Generally try to avoid the forums, as I'm sure my asking a simple question will be flamed by someone as whining. But Arman, I'm wondering: How will this be balanced against the fact that casting a spell prevents the caster from doing any white hits, and therefore:

• Small caster can't do damage while casting.
• Small caster now misses much more often.
• Small caster presumably now does less damage with their spells than the old system already because their Int is lower overall and Int=Str now
• So in general, small caster is now hitting even less often, on fewer potential hits per second, for less damage per second.

As described, this seems like a large scale nerf for low-level casters? It seems as though it will be difficult in this system to play a caster until the upper end of the game.

The inability to do white damage is factored in to the combat aid of all spellcasters. Has been for a while now... all the current magic guilds have been working within a system where that has always been taken int account.

I am not sure where the assumption that smaller players do less damage than before because of a focus on int. Mental stats have always played a part in damage scaling... it is just that now int is the primary default stat rather than a combo of int/wis. And, just like melee specials, that primary stat can be customised for different guilds. The main change is how damage scales... at a certain stat point damage flatlined regardless of stats... that has been addressed.

Casters in general will be hitting less often... largely because the previous spell hit system was based on a task check from an age where the mortal level cap was estimated to be around expert level. So regardless of spell difficulty spellcasters rarely missed (spell damage messaging may made you think you were missing, but that was just damage being mitigated down to zero rather than a miss). So I think the smaller casters won't notice much of a difference in spell success seeing they were the only ones really likely to fail spells in the old system. It will be the bigger casters used to no failures who will notice spellcasting success changes.

Historically a lot of npcs haven't been given high discipline stat values, so your average caster will also benefit from historic code when grinding.

[Cherek]

We've wanted to make DIS more useful a long time, and the majority of players have too. This is the best alternative I've ever heard, and I think it makes perfect sense. Of course, a new stat thrown into the mix that nobody has focused on is a bit problematic. But that would have been the case no matter what. If we want to make DIS relevant, this is bound to happen. There will be a period when people adjust to the new reality, and it kinda has to be, otherwise it stays irrelevant forever. It would have been the same for melee players if we had decided to make DIS a factor when it comes to how often your special attack hits (or something else melee-related). Then the melee players would have needed to re-adjust to this. It made a lot more sense for it to be caster-related, though...

About casters needing more stats. Yes, that's how it is currently. At least if the caster is tanking. You can certainly focus 100% on your mentals as long you don't take any hits. But in reality, you probably want to go solo sometimes, and then the physical stats come into play. I get what you mean, that your XP is "diluted" on five stats instead of three, and thus you can't reach the same level of spell effectiveness as a melee player can for their melee hits. Whether this turns into an actual problem, or is taken into consideration in the maths behind all that, I dont know. But you do raise a valid point that's worth looking into I think.

[Arman]

The only "melee" stat that isn't as important to a caster as it is to a fighter, is strength.
A caster without dex and con is dead meat.

So... in a name of fairness, how are fighters penalized for not having any mental stats?

Do you see the completely insane setup that fighters need to rely on only 3 stats and casters 5?

If you have 100 avg that could be 150, 150, 150, 50, 50, 50... for a fighter, in the age old setup. (To make a point)
For a caster that would "equally" make 50, 110, 110, 110, 110, 110.

And I don't know about your ideas, but the difference from 110 to 150 is quite relevant.

So... how do you make casters non-reliant on physical skills, to level the playing field?

Almost all melee guild specials are based off physical and mental stats. Knights and glads specials are heavily invested in discipline for example. Melee players now have an incentive to invest in discipline, as that gives them a bit of mitigation against caster classes. So the argument that melee only need to rely on 3 stats doesn't stack up in practice... and if you look at the player rankings as an indication they don't. A large proportion of melee players rank highly in discipline rankings.

[Nadineioes]

Loooving the changes to SoHM!! Makes casters much more grind-friendly. I also like that the discipline stat is now worth a bit more! makes it worth focussing on... and it just makes sense!

[Snedecor]

Appreciate the changes. However, I have the same concern as Thalric. I have been focusing on CON because I need that.

Melee folks can dump both wisdom and intelligence, and discipline.

[Thalric]

The only "melee" stat that isn't as important to a caster as it is to a fighter, is strength.
A caster without dex and con is dead meat.

So... in a name of fairness, how are fighters penalized for not having any mental stats?

Do you see the completely insane setup that fighters need to rely on only 3 stats and casters 5?

If you have 100 avg that could be 150, 150, 150, 50, 50, 50... for a fighter, in the age old setup. (To make a point)
For a caster that would "equally" make 50, 110, 110, 110, 110, 110.

And I don't know about your ideas, but the difference from 110 to 150 is quite relevant.

So... how do you make casters non-reliant on physical skills, to level the playing field?

Almost all melee guild specials are based off physical and mental stats. Knights and glads specials are heavily invested in discipline for example. Melee players now have an incentive to invest in discipline, as that gives them a bit of mitigation against caster classes. So the argument that melee only need to rely on 3 stats doesn't stack up in practice... and if you look at the player rankings as an indication they don't. A large proportion of melee players rank highly in discipline rankings.

Remove dwarves and Cassius, and there are basically no fighters on that list.
But it isn't something I feel like arguing about.

[Drazson]

About casters needing more stats. Yes, that's how it is currently. At least if the caster is tanking. You can certainly focus 100% on your mentals as long you don't take any hits.

You seem to address the inequality, yet this small segment is very, very dangerous.

"At least if the caster is tanking" must be compared with "at least if the fighter is tanking", since we raised white hits to make this a group game, which I assume was the notion of that sentence. So for non-tanking gameplay what, STR/DEX vs INT/WIS/DIS and a super powerful goblin race versus human at best if not mislead into elf/gnome?

While we're at it give all casters some magic bubble AC since we're not using STR and having to carry armours based on a non-counting stat sounds unfair. Also a free summon horse spell cause we're getting tired running around and that isn't under int/wis also. Lotsa work.