I think Rancid makes a couple of good points. I agree that his kind of change is a pretty serious game balance shift, that it will have a greater impact than how the issue been treated. Skill's beneficial stats should be taken a look at, some of them don't make sense and should be changed. I also think the idea of multiple stats per skill has possibilities that could make the current rigid stat selections more varied and interesting. I don't think, however, that you can implement something like this, changing something as fundamental as character creation stat allocation, without providing compensation for the players that were created in the old system.

I have a couple of questions regarding the goals for this project, and what exactly you expect it to look like:


  • What are your intentions for how character stats should be allocated? Are you trying to encourage more diversity and more balanced characters?
  • Are you trying to make less used stats more common? Do these stats actually make the game more interesting and varied, or should the system perhaps be re-tooled to use a smaller number of base stat categories?
  • Will, as Rancid suggested, the new system require a different amount of allocatable stat points in character creation in order to preserve the current balance? Is the current balance correct, and worthy of being preserved?
  • Do you intend to allow players to re-allocate stats in the new system? Or even as Rancid pointed out, re-pick a race that might be more pertinent to their guild than was previously?
  • How will this effect the balance of the varied buff spells in the game? Will the impact be negligible, or will the balance be shifted in unexpected ways?


These are the few concerns I have at this point, but I'm sure there are many more. I realize that many changes get bogged down in bureaucratic nonsense, but there are some serious concerns here, and I don't' think we should take these changes lightly.


-Xsi