Unified Stat System

[Kino]

Im using the the word system carefully, because this barely counts as one.
All that said, lets get on topic.

Im trying to come up with a unified stat system for an strategy and tactics maps with rpg-esque elements.
And to be honest Im at wits end on what to do.

- There needs to be a linear scaling of sort. Players get stat rewards for completing quests.
- There needs to be an ability modifier of sorts, a non linear bonus to an ability. May or may not come from items.

Currently heres the plan.
I have 3 universal stats, offense (damage, ability damage), defense (health), resource (ie.mana)

Seems good on paper but there are few major problems.
- Summons scale off what exactly?

- What do heals scale off? a cheap way is to do % health healing. However that solution falls apart in regards to allied target heals. Another way of phrasing this question is how do you build a support class with the following system?

- TLDR is that the current stat system only makes sense if every hero only deals direct damage and self heals.

 

[jopi]

ok, one thing is: what is the maximum of stats you want to have?
If you are not bound to a maximum i would suggest to just make every stat stand for itself, on the other hand this might turn out quite confusing if you have that many stats on items for example.

An other idea (mainly for a hero based gameplay as i don't exactly know what your are planning) would be, to use the universal stats you already have (offense, defense, resource) and give every hero a 'stat-table' so every point in a stat can have a different effect on a hero. Also you could divide the heroes into three types (using the three attributes wc3 has, to make something like this):

Attacker: -based on basic attacks, or physical abilities. offense might increase damage (of abilities and attacks), attack speed, crit chance (everything depending on the heroes uniqe playstyle. defense could increase health or selfheal

Defender: -based on defensive playstyle, stats focus on increasing the effective health of the hero or on punishing attacking enemies

Caster: -magic based hero, (offensive caster and healer) here offense could increase the spell damage while defense increases healing. Also if you have a hero that relies on summons you could make summons also benefit from the stats their 'owner' has.

The main downside of this would be that every hero you have might have his own and uniqe stat-table, which could make balancing hard, as a single stat change of the same value can have a different relative value for some heroes (i hope you get this, i just don't know how to say it differently, sorry ^^)

I hope i could help you or at least give you some ideas

jopi

 

[Xonok]

As the first thing you need a way to evaluate each and every stat or otherwise prevent them from being OP.
You can use a rating system or whatever with diminishing returns.
If the stat has a max bonus or helps some other stat, then the formula should be diminishing.
Note that some stats, such as damage, are universal. That means, damage is the counter to everything and should be scaled accordingly.

100 / (100 + Stat) if Stat ≥ 0
This is the usual formula that I use. (taken from league of legends)

Also, assign a value to 1 point of each stat. For instance, you can consider healing and damage to be similar in value, but damage more important(because healing only counters damage, but can't win a fight)

 

[Kino]

ok, one thing is: what is the maximum of stats you want to have?
If you are not bound to a maximum i would suggest to just make every stat stand for itself, on the other hand this might turn out quite confusing if you have that many stats on items for example.

Currently I have no plans on whether or not to set a cap, anything goes right now.

An other idea (mainly for a hero based gameplay as i don't exactly know what your are planning) would be, to use the universal stats you already have (offense, defense, resource) and give every hero a 'stat-table' so every point in a stat can have a different effect on a hero. Also you could divide the heroes into three types (using the three attributes wc3 has, to make something like this):

Attacker: -based on basic attacks, or physical abilities. offense might increase damage (of abilities and attacks), attack speed, crit chance (everything depending on the heroes uniqe playstyle. defense could increase health or selfheal

Defender: -based on defensive playstyle, stats focus on increasing the effective health of the hero or on punishing attacking enemies

Caster: -magic based hero, (offensive caster and healer) here offense could increase the spell damage while defense increases healing. Also if you have a hero that relies on summons you could make summons also benefit from the stats their 'owner' has.

The main downside of this would be that every hero you have might have his own and uniqe stat-table, which could make balancing hard, as a single stat change of the same value can have a different relative value for some heroes (i hope you get this, i just don't know how to say it differently, sorry ^^)

My bad, didn't explain myself clearly.

The reason why I went for this stat system initially was to avoid the whole "each stat has a different weight for every class" idea. I wanted it to be straight forward, you want damage, you add damage.

Making summons scale off the summoner makes sense, the problem is what stats of the caster would they scale off?
If the damage/health of summons simple went off the casters damage/hp there are some problems.

- If you build a fragile character you would probably want your summons to be tougher to tank for you.
As such you get screwed both ways, you cant have a glass cannon character that uses summons to soak damage using this method.

 

[Xonok]

Well, if you could assign a value to each stat, then you can make a summon's power be derived from that value. (total of what the hero has)
Each summon type can split the value differently though.

 

[Kino]

As the first thing you need a way to evaluate each and every stat or otherwise prevent them from being OP.
You can use a rating system or whatever with diminishing returns.
If the stat has a max bonus or helps some other stat, then the formula should be diminishing.
Note that some stats, such as damage, are universal. That means, damage is the counter to everything and should be scaled accordingly.

100 / (100 + Stat) if Stat ≥ 0
This is the usual formula that I use. (taken from league of legends)

Also, assign a value to 1 point of each stat. For instance, you can consider healing and damage to be similar in value, but damage more important(because healing only counters damage, but can't win a fight)

Alright, double posting since I missed your reply.
Its good advice for balancing but Im afraid my problems are a lot more fundamental than that.

Its more of a question of how stats and abilities scale in an extremely simplistic rpg-esque setting, as opposed to how should I balance my stats.

 

[Xonok]

Alright, double posting since I missed your reply.
Its good advice for balancing but Im afraid my problems are a lot more fundamental than that.

Its more of a question of how stats and abilities scale in an extremely simplistic rpg-esque setting, as opposed to how should I balance my stats.

So basically how to value things other than damage(kills)?
I would make it so that for defense, you could give XP for all damage avoided(armor), life stolen and whatever more the stat gives.
For damage, it would be damage done or kills
For magic, it would be points of health given, or points of damage done.

Note that all damage xp should be scaled by the level of the target or else it will be much better to level on the weakest enemies possible.

 

[Kino]

So basically how to value things other than damage(kills)?
I would make it so that for defense, you could give XP for all damage avoided(armor), life stolen and whatever more the stat gives.
For damage, it would be damage done or kills
For magic, it would be points of health given, or points of damage done.

Note that all damage xp should be scaled by the level of the target or else it will be much better to level on the weakest enemies possible.

My apologies, I need to explain a lot clearer what the problem is.

Im trying to do a rpg-esque stat system. I say rpg-esque because its very simplistic and stripped down to the bare minimum.
Hence the three stats, one for offense, defense and resource respectively, these stats are universal across all classes in function.
It is in no way intended to be as complicated or as in depth as a full rpg.

The problem is how should uncommon ability scale in such a system. Summons and on self heals being the main culprits.

With a direct damage ability the stat scaling is quite obvious, you make its deal more damage based on points in offense.
eg. Throw a fireball for (30 + 10x Offense) damage

 

[Xonok]

My apologies, I need to explain a lot clearer what the problem is.

Im trying to do a rpg-esque stat system. I say rpg-esque because its very simplistic and stripped down to the bare minimum.
Hence the three stats, one for offense, defense and resource respectively, these stats are universal across all classes in function.
It is in no way intended to be as complicated or as in depth as a full rpg.

The problem is how should uncommon ability scale in such a system. Summons and on self heals being the main culprits.

With a direct damage ability the stat scaling is quite obvious, you make its deal more damage based on points in offense.
eg. Throw a fireball for (30 + 10x Offense) damage

For summons, you should estimate its value. Like, how much damage is it likely to do in its lifetime and how much it would tank.
Then compare how much a hero would need stats to do that same thing. That gives you a relative value that you can compare with other abilities.

Self-heals and any kind of health regeneration effects should simply be more expensive than damage in most cases(or else people will be invulnerable).

There is no universal formula. A lot depends on which values you choose for the map.

 

[Kino]

For summons, you should estimate its value. Like, how much damage is it likely to do in its lifetime and how much it would tank.
Then compare how much a hero would need stats to do that same thing. That gives you a relative value that you can compare with other abilities.

Self-heals and any kind of health regeneration effects should simply be more expensive than damage in most cases(or else people will be invulnerable).

The problem isn't with the values or the how much each gameplay component weighs. Its about what even makes sense to make it scale off, not in terms of how much it scales but off what it even scales off to begin with.

Ill say it again, the problem isn't numerical, its conceptual.

 

[Xonok]

The problem isn't with the values or the how much each gameplay component weighs. Its about what even makes sense to make it scale off, not in terms of how much it scales but off what it even scales off to begin with.

Ill say it again, the problem isn't numerical, its conceptual.

I would base healing on the resource skill, as it is then somewhat limited and allows for greater short-term power.
For summons, again resources.
Sometimes simplifying things a bit too much can make it much harder to do things in a logical fashion and this is why I usually prefer to have more stats than less.

 

[Kino]

Sometimes simplifying things a bit too much can make it much harder to do things in a logical fashion and this is why I usually prefer to have more stats than less.

That's very true.
The most logical course of action is to increase the number of possible stats.

 

[Dr Super Good]

You increase the diversity of what each attribute can do giving it more uses and overlapping some overall bonus fields.

Currently heres the plan.
I have 3 universal stats, offense (damage, ability damage), defense (health), resource (ie.mana)

From here we can see there is one for offense, one for defense and one for resource. However the defense does not protect you outside of raising health. The resource does nothing next to allowing you to cast more, more like a supporting attribute.

Break these 3 ideas apart and buff them and you get the following...
Power: Raises the effectiveness of skills and attacks. Overall makes the unit more powerful in combat.
Protection: Improves survival and lowers the effectiveness of enemy skills and attacks. Overall makes the unit tougher and less effected by enemy abilities and attacks.
Utility: Improves attributes not directly involved in combat. Raises stats like mana, improves cooldown/other properties, boosts summons or indirect abilities.

The key then is to mix up the attribute interactions to give them more effects than they have at first glance. A unit might have a passive that heals targeting the unit gain a bonus to Power based on the unit's protection. Summons might gain overall stats from Utility but Power raises their damage more than Utility alone. The duration of a curse or buff might not just depend on power alone, but also a bit on utility (depending on what it does). Some melee units could use Utility for improving passive effects such as a thief's chance to steal or a chance to stun on attack.

This overall retains the idea.
Power -> more damage
Protection -> better survival
Utility -> better in other ways that make the unit possibly more useful

I would avoid more attributes unless you force some variety on choosing. As it is 99% of players will probably mini-max based on what they use the unit for. A melee unit will probably be put all protection to make a tank, a mage or power to do dps and a summoner all utility for overall good summons.

 

[muzzel]

Having more stats allows customization. Especially in multiplayer rpgs people dont like seeing 50% of the other players running around with the exact same hero build.

I agree with DSG about the mini-max thing, most tank players will try to boost their defense as much as possible. It is your job as a mapmaker to give the players the possibility to have different possibilities how to build their heroes. For instance the "classic" tank hero has lots or armor and hp. If you provide additional stats like Evasion and Magic resistance then a player might find a useful mix of those stats. The most important thing is that your balancing is right - if the evasion and magic resistance stats are too weak compared to armor and hp then nobody will use them. In addition you need to come up with a mechanic that makes optimizing a build harder. For instance you can build a bossfight where a tank with high magic resistance is beneficial while different tank builds are more suitable for other situations...