Why can't we spend our own points

[LilSaihah]

Being able to place your stats where you want isn't a choice. It's a trap. If you don't put every single point into your primary stat, you're making a horrible mistake. It's much easier to design for, and therefore much more fruitful, to have these stats automatically chosen rather than manually.

[AdamLKvist]

Being able to place your stats where you want isn't a choice. It's a trap. If you don't put every single point into your primary stat, you're making a horrible mistake. It's much easier to design for, and therefore much more fruitful, to have these stats automatically chosen rather than manually.

 

Easier? Yes.

Better? No.

[LilSaihah]

Easier? Yes.

Better? No.

 

It allows them to create better directed content without worrying about an additional factor.

 

What if they designed content assuming you'd spent all your points in your main stat? The person who spends all his points in Endurance is utterly indestructible.

 

What if they designed content assuming you'd spent all your points in Endurance? Your fights take barely any time if your DPS is good at avoiding damage.

 

What if they designed content assuming you took a mix of the two? You're screwed if your players go for either extreme.

Edited May 10, 2012 by LilSaihah

[psi_overtake]

Like "a certain MMO" next xpac is planning to remove talent points all together because it was found "too hard" for their customers to understand

 

Too bad my last hope was SWTOR...

 

I can only hope they wake up and start developing again.

 

It sounds kinda shallow, but that's one of the main reasons why I stopped playing that game. It made you feel like you had more control over your strengths and weaknesses, even if a lot of builds were cookie-cutter.

[Calsetes]

What if they designed content assuming you took a mix of the two? You're screwed if your players go for either extreme.

 

That was the problem with Champions Online. The game was designed for a variety of builds and power combinations, but if you took Powers X, Y, and Z, you could literally solo entire 5-man instances on your own, at or below the level recommended for the instance. I fell into a bit of that trap, also, but with a simple combination - dodge, and a heal over time that also healed every time you dodged. When I wasn't dodging fast enough to heal through the damage, I used another power that made me dodge about 95% of everything coming at me for a few seconds. That right there was enough to refill my health entirely. My guy was nigh-indestructible with a few power selections.

 

Min-maxing makes games easy, unless the game is designed for a min-maxer - in which case, the non-min-maxers get screwed.

[psi_overtake]

It allows them to create better directed content with a cut-and-dry factor in mind.

 

What if they designed content assuming you'd spent all your points in your main stat? The person who spends all his points in Endurance is utterly indestructible.

 

What if they designed content assuming you'd spent all your points in Endurance? Your fights take barely any time if your DPS is good at avoiding damage.

 

What if they designed content assuming you took a mix of the two? You're screwed if your players go for either extreme.

 

This is the reason. It's too hard to tweak timers and mechanics if everyone's stats are everywhere. Don't you get enough freedom choosing mods for your gear? You need to alter your base stats on top of that? That's a kind of fine-tune this game doesn't need. Newer games appeal to casual gamers - they're gonna get frustrated if they pick the wrong things and keep dying, or if they pick the wrong things and no one groups with them. Skill trees have very little room for error assuming you go with one tree and stick with it (which is what they heavily moved towards in 1.2).

[Altephor]

Asheron's Call did this, and it worked just fine.

 

You could put experience in each stat, and subsequently those stats helped raise your skills (which you could also separately put xp into). Each main stat had a max amount, and all skills were determined using the main stats.

 

For instance, your sword skill was (Str+Coordination)/3. The bow skill for an archer was coordination/2.

 

It worked quite well.

[_Zhatan_]

When you level, and the game just decides "You're getting 2 points in strength, 5 points in endurance, etc..." Why? Why can't we just spend the points the way we want? So what if I want to be a Sorc with a buttload of strength or a BH with tons of force power. Those who did it wrong would be punished by their own lack of success, and those who did it well would be rewarded for their prowess.

 

Dude, because is the way they copy it from WoW. If it's not in WoW is not good. True story.

[tahyri]

When you level, and the game just decides "You're getting 2 points in strength, 5 points in endurance, etc..." Why? Why can't we just spend the points the way we want? So what if I want to be a Sorc with a buttload of strength or a BH with tons of force power. Those who did it wrong would be punished by their own lack of success, and those who did it well would be rewarded for their prowess.

 

You answered your own question. It's done this way because as one developer said players are idiots (no, not you, not anyone specific). When you're making a game like this in hopes of a large and wide subscriber base, you have to take that in to account. A good chunk of the player base would "be punished by their own lack of success." In MMO with the target subscriber base of SWTOR, that'd be a bad bad thing. Someone earlier had mentioned Ascheron's Call as an example of an MMO that has done this, if I remember right that game peaked at around 120,000 subscribers. Any MMO that "punishes" any of their subscribers won't appeal to a large base.

[islander]

Like "a certain MMO" next xpac is planning to remove talent points all together because it was found "too hard" for their customers to understand

 

Too bad my last hope was SWTOR...

 

I can only hope they wake up and start developing again.

 

Hmm I just assumed they were continuing to dumb down 'that other game' because they fail so hard at balancing out the classes.

 

In that sense, the dev staff here has done a much better (but obviously not perfect) job balancing the game, in far less time.

[flyersfan]

The real question is: if those decisions are made for us then why bother having them?

 

People like to see big numbers and increases in their stats over time. Personally, I don't care. Not making the choice, having BioWare choose for me, and the increase not being there at all is essentially the same thing. Either way I'm not improving my character.

 

I think it could be removed, but I doubt it will be. Things are balanced so that it happens now.

[Waterush]

The issue you all seem to neglect is that having the freedom to place your stats anywhere leads to more imbalances in the game. Most players will just buff one or two stats and then have an OP build. The armor and datacrons were an excellent idea to stay by. The game is more balanced with that than the freedom of stat choices.

[amantheil]

Because following a cookie cutter stat allocation doesn't mean you're "good".

[grupurt]

Name them; name those games that let you assign your point in the free form manner you want.

 

Anarchy Online

[Kaphik]

You can't choose your own points because you chose this game with this particular set of rules. There are other games with different rules that allow you to pick where each and every stat points goes, and also other games that don't allow you to do that, like SWTOR. The stat budget increases according to the particular class you also chose to play when you chose this game.