People love to have stuff to do when leveling up.
Exactly. The "effort and achievement" as I so eloquently put it before.
Zwieb, think. (Actually, don't think, feel). What is the ultimate possible measurement by which your game as a game designer will be measured? The items were cool? Terrain felt beautiful? Game was balanced? The bosses were bad-ass? The teamwork felt gratifying? The stat system was natural? The effort and achievement system rewarded the players justly?
.. Yeah all of those matter, but what do they coalesce into? Two words: "Player satisfaction." Always hold it in your conscience this question: "If I do this will the players like it?" and you can never go wrong. By gamers, of gamers for gamers stuff. A content provider, of any kind, who from tile one keeps in mind and actually bases his work on how the generic person who will use this content, would like it to be, will create the best masterpiece. Those who get engulfed in details in front of their eyes, will lose sight eventually, of the greater goal.
"It is like a finger pointing out to the Moon..." -Bruce Lee
The only situation in which the old stat system came close to this idea was with health being a skillable stat. You could decide between gimping your early game damage in favour of more health early in the game or you could do the opposite. That was about the only legitimate choice within the stat system.
And why do you think that is, my friend? Becuz the HP was the only one not additive, it was progressive. See the word? "Progress". It harmonizes and corresponds with one terribly neglected fact: "Leveling up from level 1 to 2 is NOT the same as leveling from e.g. 27 to 28, let alone 49 to 50". Neither are the monsters you have to kill at that level the same. And that is why the rewards for leveling up, a.k.a the stat point, cannot possibly be same either.
We go back to block one in my thread about stats not being balanced. You were convinced even then that receiving 1 point of intelligence e.g. from 45 to 46 while you also receive 1 for getting from 3 to 4, is by definition what we call going obsolete. That's why there are so many maps that scale their skills and stats and everything depending on your level, and thats the right thing to do. And gaia's dont have it. Very simple.
I would be thinking if the players like and love to choose their stats, so let 'em. And then let's find the way to make cookie-cutter builds go away.
Besides, who says the stats were bad or monotonous in the first place. They just needed a little more care. They could become better yes, but they weren't as awful as everyone'd make them to be. I had 8 str points on my hunter, and 10 on my crus as secondary. Call that "negligible" I dare you
What my code loads now is some fatass un-smart un-intelligent (literally and figuratively) crusader with so much bad stats I don't wanna look at him. What happened to crusader being an intelligence-based character?
Even if the stat system felt like a fail, it's becuz me, you zwieb, and all us the gamer base and anyone else with ideas didn't come forth to suggest something better.
And it's becuz there was too little stats attainable during the 50 lvls of game, in comparison to the bosses' stregth. I mean you "HAD TO" get Hp, or you would die in a boss fight around your level. So the stat system wasn't at fault. The bosses's strength level demanded and FORCED monotonous builds.
Solution to that, now that you find the real suspect here, is either to nerf the bosses a little, or even much better, add some stats. But then again there will come to mind a new challenge. If everyone had nearly enough stats to have good Hp/Mp both and max main stats plus a lot of off-stat (like str for hunt/sin or int for monk) then it becomes pointless, and everyone is OP and will just autoattack the whole boss event. Then again to stop that, first of all, I never said give all the stats one could ever want, there obvsly has to be limits; and second of all, we can make "skills" stronger (by reducing cd's etc) and more mana-costing so that everyone will have to mana-manage and actually worry about it, and also so that the small difference right now between auto attacking and actualy playing the game using skills, which is becoming less, grows bigger again. (I realize this version where atkspds seems to have been reduced, same thing apparently has happened, which is good.)
People couldn't build their desired custom chars, becuz there wasn't enough stat points to do that AND survive the boss fights not letting your team down.
We can create a system called stat bank, in which if you invest 3 unused stats, you will get them back with an interest. E.g. you just get to level 9, but you spend the stat points for 9, 10 & 11 into the bank and when you're 12 you get 5 stats back.
Or you could associate one extra stat, say, every 5 levels. So at multipliers of 5 people will have bigger choice.
Or you could make that not two stat points, but, whatever stat point you choose at 5, 10, 15 etc, will be count double, or it will count your level/5. So at 15 you get triple of that stat you chose, and at 50 you get 10. That makes you feel so good about finishing 50. That sentiment hardly exists right now (Cept for the reset talent you get at 50).
Or you could use this same logic which is there to disallow stats going "obsolete" near the higher levels, this way: each stat you spend, will not add one but 20% of you current total of stats (not the bonus/green ones ofc, it can be abused with items n skills) from lvl 1-10. Then 15% from 11-20. and so on.
Or it can be like this: From level 1-25 whatever stat you get is linearly added. But from the moment you choose a profession onward, you gain stats by percentage. That could allow people to go stat reset and get it all again for a possibly slightly better results, and you can instead make them less stronger in the process of pre-class -> class change.
Or you could associate a random stat point gain (randomly designated to your hero, you don't have to choose) with each talent point gained.
Or you could add a very systematic formulated amount of Hp and Mp added each level (unique to each character of course), similar to what it is now, BUT, keep the main stats open for choosing. Then you can either remove Const/Wisd entirely or make them very insignificant (which is even better cuz the player may want to add even further Hp/Mp to his build).
Or you can even make stats inter-dependent. How? Every 3 points of strength also automatically adds one points in constitution. Or like vice versa, every 2 points of Wisdom also involuntarily grants you an intelligence point. If you employ this method, you'll prolly have to remove the currently existing stat gain which is formulated based on whole sum of stats.
Or even irrelevantly inter-dependent. Like 2 points in each of the other two stats automatically gives you one point in the one left out. Like 2 strength and 2 intelligence will also give you an agility.
The whole point, although, would be to SAY that something like this exists to the player so that they can plan it out. Not like right now which most people don't even know there was an automatic stat gain based on sum of all stats. Or e.g. most of them didn't know its your main stats that affect the stats of your pet, not your hp/mp (amiright?). I dunno why you chose to keep these secret from players. They must know. Secrecy doesn't add beauty. Knowing it all and then being able to customize does.
Or you could make very special quests, the rewards to which are one or in cases, two stat points. The quest rewards don't even have to be equal for everyone. You know, some people think treating all the same is the way to go in a lot of matters in life. But mostly, that's only true in very few things. Each individual character can get what they need unequally and still everyone go home happy. A druid can get two ints and a 10 Mp for example from a quest of this sort, but a crus get 20 Hp and 12 attk dmg or whateveR!! It don't "have to" be equal.
Or you could make a whole set of gambling events at the end of which you get a scroll with 1 to 3 stats, or a choice between some stats or a certain amount of hp/mana/res etc to choose from as the end-minigame award for it. You can either change that to, or add it besides also a "mini tourney" event in the arena. PVP or PV NPC with limited repeatable rewards of stat gain.
Or you could make legendary items that once they slay e.g. 100 bosses (with or without certain minimum lvl requirement etc) they grant you a stat or something of a reward like that. Limited or unlimited. It can be a unique item for each character individual that will activate maybe each with a certain trigger. It could be e.g. for zerk, a bloodthirsty dual-hand that when has slain 1000 foes will grant you some dmg or more efficiency using this weapon. Or after the condition is met and it is activated it will become a click-able item that grants you certain stats for a limited time.
Or, about talents, you can make rare items that allow you to go further into the depth of your talent system and achieve a talent point which would be available normally if you could get to 55 e.g., means like an ultra or hidden talent point.
Or, you can create a "level limit" for the each boss, if you defeat him below which, you will get a stat point. So e.g. if a group of below 33 people gather and kill Hill Giant, they will gain one stat. Once per boss ofc and with harsh lvl requirements for some spartan difficulty and teamwork fun.
Or you can designate a special spirit guide that takes away your experience and instead grants you a certain amount of stats. It could be as little as 1 Hp or 1% atkspd to as big as e.g. 5 main stat points, depending on how much exp you wanna trade or how much he can trade for you at one time. It must be limited to some number of times eventually, but a big limit is more fun. Like going 3 times to 50 and then emptying yourself all the way down to 0 but better stats. (Like that reborn feature... whatever happened to it btw?)
Or a bird can drop a giant poop on your head and you die. Then you gain a stat in the next life. -__-
There are a million ways to face problems, and cutting away rupturing one of the biggest arteries of the game is the very last one of them.
Imagine all of the above mentioned, each individually into the game and maybe something will eventually replace automatic stats solution. A last resort really, not even a solution.
Some of the suggestions can go together very well too, like exp->stat change (limited number of times ofc) plus the % gain of stats together maybe. Don't give up and back out of problems by cutting them away. Be daring and throw so many solutions at them that the problem gives up! Please!
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Honestly, the hunt for Shade's shadow seal felt good even though it was long and rigorous, and now all of a sudden it feels all in vain. You say one talent point design takes so much time per all chars, then you should also understand that many of us spent so much time to get shadow seals for all 10 characters, and multiply that by the number of people who's plaed or been playing this game.
Let me be quite honest here. Just like the first months my first group buddies and I had started Gaias, and I talked to vestra-chan and asked him to tell you to stop resetting codes (which you so kindly did ever since), now also, I'd say you're no longer in a position to simply treat your game like a game of dominoes or lego and with a single wave of hand, chop off half of it away whenever you don't like it. There's people's love and time riding on this. Honestly many veteran people I knew back then stopped Gaias due to that very same repetitive code resets. It would grind anyone in the long run. And so will radical changes like this.
But more importantly than that, what I really think is that you shouldn't "give up" so easily at all, on the work and effort that you yourself have built up so far. It feels like throwing a part of yourself away. Rather than that, build upon it, adapt to it and believe in it. Everything needs honing to get that perfection feel. Cutting off and throwing away stuff halfway won't exactly get there.
