Baldur's Gate PoE vs IE: Do wizards need to have more stuff to do in combat? DISCUSS!

[octavius]

Intellect = Genius

Intellectual = one who has read and studied a lot
Intelligent = one who has understood what he has read and studied.

 

[WalmartJesus]

Like others stated, i'm fine with having my mage hang back and occasionally use their sling while saving their spells for important encounters or emergencies. Giving them an "awesome button" trivializes the satisfaction of starting as a low lvl glass cannon with only one or two measly spells into a god that rapes everything in sight end-game.

I don't know about others, but I never said mages need awesome button. IMHO, in real-time combat with 6 fucking characters, they all should have something useful to do. Even though I'm pretty sure I can't back this up with something irrefutable, I still feel there's something inherently wrong with combat where you're doing nothing. "Doing nothing" is the keyword here; because you could say that waiting often plays an inseparable part of combat (armies wait for better intel, boxer saving his energy etc.). Unfortunately, this aspect (doing jack shit as part of the strategy or tactics) is not present in IE games combat system. Here we'are talking about pure idleness. And I think that's a flaw. You could again argue that saving spells is part of your strategy in case of the whole area (dungeon) - you have the "Big picture" in your mind. But then we're not talking about the combat system itself here. The encounter design doesn't change the fact that you mage is scratching his ass in this particular fight.

SOMETHING USEFUL is such an abstract and vague notion, that immediate reaction throwing around stuff like "more attacks", "useful basic attacks", "awesome buttons" is a fundamental reduction of that notion. 2nd Bard is never idle. Forget he's Jack of all trades; he's a specific class anyway. When he's done with casting, he can play his music.

But it's not like your mage is completely useless though. In BG, you had tons of Wands and one use spells/scrolls at your disposal. And if you rolled said character right, he/she can be pretty effective with ranged/missle weapons.

However, I'm not completely against some sort of middle ground ...where you're able to use a couple shit spells for trash mobs and save the good ones for only when needed aka cantrips in 3rd edition. I just believe a mage has to slowly build himself up in order to use powerful spells instead of just given them from the start.

 

[Delterius]

Of course it does. It means you are always at full health all the time.

Do you believe that if you consider two 'fighter' characters, one taken from PoE and another from the IE games, the former's stamina bar can take as much punishment as the later's hitpoints?

WTF?! What does that even mean? Of course your fighter won't fall unconscious after 3 hits. We don't know anything about these numbers (damage, "hit points" etc.) yet...

Let me rephrase that question: Do you believe that fighters in PoE are going to lose their stamina in the same proportion and or certainty as fighters lose their hitpoints in the IE games?

The whole point of splitting Stamina and Health is to create two bars that act according to different realities. If Stamina is every bit as reliable as the old Hitpoints for comparable fighters then, yes, by most purposes you should have full fighting capacity at most every fight, with the exception of the very last ones. This would mean that

It would be a sharp contrast with a theoretical D&D game that limits rest (as in the IE games the way most everyone here seems to have played). There, fighters' hitpoints (and, therefore, fighting capability) diminish across entire adventures and it becomes riskier to leave them at the frontlines. They'll soon grasp for a bow or simply stay behind. But that was not a certainty. Due to how the IE games worked, especially at low level combat, it is entirely possible that your forward man courses through entire maps without taking any hits. Especially when you start gearing for certain kinds of attacks (Boots of Avoidance (BG1) + Large Shields + Sword and Board style for archers; resistances for elemental damage and so on). This means that Hitpoints in the IE games portrayed the dual nature of a fighter who is reliable across an entire adventure but who also suffers little by little with each confrontation.

There would lie the whole points of how 'Vitality' works in PoE, to split that representation in two in such a way that both aspects are maintained. For that to work, we need first that the game enforces rest restrictions. Second that Health is lost over time is a lesser ratio compared to Stamina. But also third: that Stamina, within the bounds of each encounter, is lost in a greater proportion when compared to Hitpoints. Going by the demonstration and how it is a fighter advantage that they regain stamina during combat, it is clear that the last one is true. Hence why PoE won't have auto resurrection and HP regen in the same sense as, say, DA:O. Because each encounter should pose a real risk of knocking down your forward units (unlike the IE games, that is, past the best level up ever aka Level 2) while, at the same time, you still run the risk of having characters being crippled by the loss of Health (just like how in the IE games you will not risk even a great AC fighter who's got less than 10 HPs left).

 

[Lyric Suite]

Intellect = Genius

Intellectual = one who has read and studied a lot
Intelligent = one who has understood what he has read and studied.

Seems like i can into intelligent but not into intellectual. Ho gawd another self serving Lyric Suite post jerk jerk jerk lelllellelllelllellol

 

[Lyric Suite]

But really, jokes aside, i want muh intelligence in muh motherfucking wizards. You can shove your blue stat up your nostrils.

 

[Zombra]

So you prefer more min-maxy systems where certain stats are only valuable to certain characters? That's valid ... but to me it's boring.
I'm making a barbarian, so I'll max STR/CON and dump everything else. Not real fancy decision-making there.
Seriously, you might as well eliminate stats if every character of a given class is going to be the same anyway.

 

[roshan]

You're right on stamina but they've changed the mechanics for health and "Maiming." The first time you reach 0 health, you can be resurrected, and you will carry a "Maimed" status. If you reach 0 health with a "Maimed" status, you die. However, resting will removed the "Maimed" status.

In Expert Mode, the first time you reach 0 health you die. There is no "Maimed" status. You can also enable this option in "standard play," in any difficulty. You can actually enable/disable any of the Expert Mode elements during a standard play. Expert Mode just forces all of those options to be enabled.

Oh. I had thought that 0 health meant death. So even 0 health does not kill you, there's actually a "second existence" as a maimed adventurer, which a rest at a designated area can fix. Dunno this game just keeps sounding more and more dumbed down. Of course there's an expert mode, but in a game that is so shamelessly targeting the idiocracy, it simply won't be anywhere near enough.

I don't know what it is with these stupid "unlosable" modern games. WHY CAN'T DEVELOPERS JUST LET US LOSE THE FUCKING GAME SOMETIMES.

 

[roshan]

So you prefer more min-maxy systems where certain stats are only valuable to certain characters? That's valid ... but to me it's boring.
I'm making a barbarian, so I'll max STR/CON and dump everything else. Not real fancy decision-making there.
Seriously, you might as well eliminate stats if every character of a given class is going to be the same anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

 

[sser]

Note, I'm not really a big fan of the IE games to begin with, and I'm not 100% lucid at the moment, but my view is that there is some subtlety to the class roles in the IE games that tends to be revealed when characters die. It's when the super badass mage gets dressed down by an ambush of unthinking orcs, his body mulched before any world-ending spell can be loosed like two wet fingers extinguishing an atom bomb. And in that moment, as ancient and godly powers literally vaporize from the world spectrum the second that mage's consciousness takes a +1 club to his unprotected skull, you realize, hey, maybe the skill-less meatbag that is the party's fighter has a purpose.

Nothing within the party of an IE game happens in a vacuum. That's my take. You see a mage doing nothing, I see another party member stepping up. The party is Dragon Age's cooldown bar, and the characters themselves the spells. I don't know if it's the right approach to believe that every usage of these characters has to be equally cool or dramatic. I'm down with the mage just chilling through some fights, brooding in the background because fighting kobolds is "beneath" him. That downtime does, for me anyway, amplify the moments when the mages are actually being used. One second you're merrily destroying goblins, the next you're Mel Gibson calling down napalm strikes and you don't care how fucking close they are to your own men.

That said, if you overplay these games and you figure out how to work the systems and you're rolling 1-man power-level min/max kensai-mage of doom or whatever, carefully picking all the right spells and all the right everythings, of course the mystique gets lost. I think some people forget that power gaming was not a part or parcel to their first playthroughs. Also, biases on the subject are probably predicated on what games have incidentally done either style best. Then again, I never know whether to criticize a game based on my first enjoyable experiences, or the follow-ups where the flaws begin to show. Honestly, this is probably why I enjoyed games more when my only previews were the artsy pictures on the back of the box. YouTube and Twitch are just fingers pulling back the curtain a little too much sometimes.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

As far as attributes "making sense", there's an incredibly easy fix. Just stop reading the statistic names as English words and read them as game terms instead. There is no longer an "Intellect" stat, just a "Stat Blue" that determines AOE and duration of all game effects.

Or how about instead of reading the words "incredibly stupid", you read the words "incredibly smart". Eg, INT affecting barbarian AoE is "incredibly smart". Forcing yourself to ignore how stupid a gameplay element is is also "incredibly smart" and is a sure sign of "great game design".

Here's another incredibly easy fix in case that one doesn't work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy

Finally, here's a possible explanation for Intellect increasing melee AOE size: What if a smarter character understands physics better, and thus knows best to adjust his stance to reach more enemies without falling over?

I know you're joking, but the sad thing is, you aren't the only one that has suggested this idea to me. Seriously.

edit: intellect and intelligence are synonyms.
http://thesaurus.com/browse/intelligence

 

[eremita]

Of course it does. It means you are always at full health all the time.

Do you believe that if you consider two 'fighter' characters, one taken from PoE and another from the IE games, the former's stamina bar can take as much punishment as the later's hitpoints?

WTF?! What does that even mean? Of course your fighter won't fall unconscious after 3 hits. We don't know anything about these numbers (damage, "hit points" etc.) yet...

Let me rephrase that question: Do you believe that fighters in PoE are going to lose their stamina in the same proportion and or certainty as fighters lose their hitpoints in the IE games?

The whole point of splitting Stamina and Health is to create two bars that act according to different realities. If Stamina is every bit as reliable as the old Hitpoints for comparable fighters then, yes, by most purposes you should have full fighting capacity at most every fight, with the exception of the very last ones. This would mean that

It would be a sharp contrast with a theoretical D&D game that limits rest (as in the IE games the way most everyone here seems to have played). There, fighters' hitpoints (and, therefore, fighting capability) diminish across entire adventures and it becomes riskier to leave them at the frontlines. They'll soon grasp for a bow or simply stay behind. But that was not a certainty. Due to how the IE games worked, especially at low level combat, it is entirely possible that your forward man courses through entire maps without taking any hits. Especially when you start gearing for certain kinds of attacks (Boots of Avoidance (BG1) + Large Shields + Sword and Board style for archers; resistances for elemental damage and so on). This means that Hitpoints in the IE games portrayed the dual nature of a fighter who is reliable across an entire adventure but who also suffers little by little with each confrontation.

There would lie the whole points of how 'Vitality' works in PoE, to split that representation in two in such a way that both aspects are maintained. For that to work, we need first that the game enforces rest restrictions. Second that Health is lost over time is a lesser ratio compared to Stamina. But also third: that Stamina, within the bounds of each encounter, is lost in a greater proportion when compared to Hitpoints. Going by the demonstration and how it is a fighter advantage that they regain stamina during combat, it is clear that the last one is true. Hence why PoE won't have auto resurrection and HP regen in the same sense as, say, DA:O. Because each encounter should pose a real risk of knocking down your forward units (unlike the IE games, that is, past the best level up ever aka Level 2) while, at the same time, you still run the risk of having characters being crippled by the loss of Health (just like how in the IE games you will not risk even a great AC fighter who's got less than 10 HPs left).

So let me get this straight; Let's say I'm fighter level 6 for example (PoE demo showed us lvl 1 characters so we basically don't know anything about gameplay yet...) and my Health is pretty low - am I supposed to be scarred of certain encounters even though my stamina is full? I can't imagine system like that being fun but maybe that's just me... There's no point in tank classes with their taunt abilities etc. And we know those are there...

Like others stated, i'm fine with having my mage hang back and occasionally use their sling while saving their spells for important encounters or emergencies. Giving them an "awesome button" trivializes the satisfaction of starting as a low lvl glass cannon with only one or two measly spells into a god that rapes everything in sight end-game.

I don't know about others, but I never said mages need awesome button. IMHO, in real-time combat with 6 fucking characters, they all should have something useful to do. Even though I'm pretty sure I can't back this up with something irrefutable, I still feel there's something inherently wrong with combat where you're doing nothing. "Doing nothing" is the keyword here; because you could say that waiting often plays an inseparable part of combat (armies wait for better intel, boxer saving his energy etc.). Unfortunately, this aspect (doing jack shit as part of the strategy or tactics) is not present in IE games combat system. Here we'are talking about pure idleness. And I think that's a flaw. You could again argue that saving spells is part of your strategy in case of the whole area (dungeon) - you have the "Big picture" in your mind. But then we're not talking about the combat system itself here. The encounter design doesn't change the fact that you mage is scratching his ass in this particular fight.

SOMETHING USEFUL is such an abstract and vague notion, that immediate reaction throwing around stuff like "more attacks", "useful basic attacks", "awesome buttons" is a fundamental reduction of that notion. 2nd Bard is never idle. Forget he's Jack of all trades; he's a specific class anyway. When he's done with casting, he can play his music.

However, I'm not completely against some sort of middle ground ...where you're able to use a couple shit spells for trash mobs and save the good ones for only when needed aka cantrips in 3rd edition. I just believe a mage has to slowly build himself up in order to use powerful spells instead of just given them from the start.

I'm not saying otherwise. Frankly, I think passive skills seems like a best idea for system I have in mind.

 

[Zombra]

Forcing yourself to ignore how stupid a gameplay element is is also "incredibly smart" and is a sure sign of "great game design".

No, seriously, there's a difference between a gameplay element and an English description. There's nothing wrong with a stat that governs AOE radius (even for melee swings ... remember, all these powers are fueled by "soul energy" anyway). You're just hung up on the English word attached to it and refuse to accept it as a game term. If you want to be all pissed off about it, hey, go for it, but the solution is obvious once you're willing to let go of the label.

 

[eremita]

Intellect = Genius

Intellectual = one who has read and studied a lot
Intelligent = one who has understood what he has read and studied.

Well, intelligence is generally taken as ability to solve problems in time... That includes numerous things; from keeping quickly changing digits in you working memory to arithmetic progression... I wouldn't say that this ability is necessarily the one you need for "understanding what have you read and studied". Sure, everyone need at least "average" intelligence (not being a retard) for fundamental comprehension, but that's about it. There are other factors like associative memory etc. I guess what I'm trying to say is that those models of mind which try to define what certain aspects (intelligence, will, emotions, creativity etc.) are are always more or less artificial...

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

screw dictionaries and thesauri.

Forcing yourself to ignore how stupid a gameplay element is is also "incredibly smart" and is a sure sign of "great game design".

No, seriously, there's a difference between a gameplay element and an English description.

No, seriously, it's still stupid. Now, you can admit that it's stupid and tell me that it's just a stupid thing in the game that I should ignore, but don't sit there and get all preachy with me about how I shouldn't be pissed because it's just a word and words have no meaning in a game. Webster must be spinning.

all these powers are fueled by "soul energy" anyway

M'kay. Call it "soul control" then. wtf

 

[eremita]

As far as attributes "making sense", there's an incredibly easy fix. Just stop reading the statistic names as English words and read them as game terms instead. There is no longer an "Intellect" stat, just a "Stat Blue" that determines AOE and duration of all game effects.

Or how about instead of reading the words "incredibly stupid", you read the words "incredibly smart". Eg, INT affecting barbarian AoE is "incredibly smart". Forcing yourself to ignore how stupid a gameplay element is is also "incredibly smart" and is a sure sign of "great game design".

Here's another incredibly easy fix in case that one doesn't work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy

Finally, here's a possible explanation for Intellect increasing melee AOE size: What if a smarter character understands physics better, and thus knows best to adjust his stance to reach more enemies without falling over?

I know you're joking, but the sad thing is, you aren't the only one that has suggested this idea to me. Seriously.

edit: intellect and intelligence are synonyms.
http://thesaurus.com/browse/intelligence

There's absolutely no need for understanding physics at all to adjust his stance like that. You just need enough experience with your body movement... That's why Sheldon Cooper would probably hurt himself, while possibly retarded fighter would have no problem performing it... It's the same reason why you don't need such knowledge for riding a bicycle, walking the stairs (one of the most complex tasks) or seeing bulge instead of hollow (because your body/brain doesn't need you to know jack shit about the "nature" of its functions).

BUT here i am with another possible fixation (thank God for me)! What if a smarter character (intelligence = solving complex task in time) sees a fight/an battle in "Big Picture", thus he's able to maximize his damage output?

Spoiler

It's still retarded though cause he should increase damage output overall, not just AoE...

 

[Mangoose]

Now, you can admit that it's stupid and tell me that it's just a stupid thing in the game that I should ignore, but don't sit there and get all preachy with me about how I shouldn't be pissed because it's just a word and words have no meaning in a game.

It is just a stupid thing in the game you should ignore. And if you are ignoring it, you wouldn't care enough to be pissed about it.

There's absolutely no need for understanding physics at all to adjust his stance like that. You just need enough experience with your body movement... That's why Sheldon Cooper would probably hurt himself, while possibly retarded fighter would have no problem performing it... It's the same reason why you don't need such knowledge for riding a bicycle, walking the stairs (one of the most complex tasks) or seeing bulge instead of hollow (because your body/brain doesn't need you to know jack shit about the "nature" of its functions).

At least Lambchop knew I was joking. Yes, it is stupid. It is also such a minor detail it's not worth spending time discussing.

 

[Lyric Suite]

RPGs are simulations. The system of numbers used in those games are meant to be a workable representation of the "reality" which the game seeks to emulate. They are a mean to an end, not the end in and of itself. That is the fallacy with this stupid argument. A numerical value attached to a character's strength can be used to represent this trait in the game. It can be used to determine not only damage, but also the ability to lift and carry things, the ability to force objects, the ability to overcome certain situations which require physical prowess and so forth. It is not the number that matters, but the characteristic it seeks to represent in the system. What the fuck do you do with a red stat? It is just a value with no meaning to it. Does it increase melee damage? Why? Does it help bashing things? Why would it do that, who has determined that? And so forth.

 

[Zombra]

No, seriously, it's still stupid. Now, you can admit that it's stupid and tell me that it's just a stupid thing in the game that I should ignore, but don't sit there and get all preachy with me about how I shouldn't be pissed because it's just a word and words have no meaning in a game. Webster must be spinning.

Oh, it absolutely is a stupid thing that you should ignore. This isn't me finally "admitting" something; it's what I've been saying all along. They put a stupid English label on a game function, and the mistake you're making is to obsess about the label instead of just looking at what it really is. Ignore the label. The label is stupid. And yes, you are wrong to treat the label as a word in a normal English sentence. An arbitrary label for a function is all it is.

RPGs are simulations. The system of numbers used in those games are meant to be a workable representation of the "reality" which the game seeks to emulate. They are a mean to an end, not the end in and of itself. That is the fallacy with this stupid argument. A numerical value attached to a character's strength can be used to represent this trait in the game. It can be used to determine not only damage, but also the ability to lift and carry things, the ability to force objects, the ability to overcome certain situations which require physical prowess and so forth. It is not the number that matters, but the characteristic it seeks to represent in the system. What the fuck do you do with a red stat? It is just a value with no meaning to it. Does it increase melee damage? Why? Does it help bashing things? Why would it do that, who has determined that? And so forth.

Even granting all that for the sake of argument, CRPGs are still problematic because there is no reasonable (human) interpretation present. In P&P, the GM understands that your character is strong or intelligent because he can dope out what stats are supposed to "really" mean, and can frame reasonable conflict resolution based on that understanding. In a CRPG, there is no reasonable room for interpretation about how stats work. What's programmed in is it. In this case, Stat #4 governs AOE radius. The devs called it Intellect, but it doesn't actually make your character intelligent. It increases their AOE radius.

Now, since the label and what it represents are not the same thing, and the computer is not going to listen to arguments about what Intellect should "really mean", we as players have a choice. We can obsess about the label, or we can go by the actual function of the statistic. We can scream and cry about how the label is an imperfect representation of the characteristic, but the fact is that there will always be a difference between a game stat and its vague English description (and as we have seen, no two people so far even agree on what Intellect "really means"). The sooner we recognize a game stat as a game stat and take the label with a handful of salt, the better.

 

[Lyric Suite]

In a CRPG, there is no reasonable room for interpretation about how stats work. What's programmed in is it. In this case, Stat #4 governs AOE radius. The devs called it Intellect, but it doesn't actually make your character intelligent. It increases their AOE radius.

Except that's not true. In a CRPG, intelligence can for instance increase the number of spells my character can memorize, which is precisely what you'd expect a person with intelligence to be able to do. You are using a false example to make a fallacious point. For the most part, there is in fact a direct correlation with the description of a stat and what its value can do in a game.

Ultimately, there is really no problem with CRPGs and never was. There is nothing wrong with the system, and there is no need to rework it from the ground up. What we need is developers who aren't retards or talent-less hacks. The tools aren't broken, it is the people who make use of them that are fucking shit up with their incompetence.

 

[Rake]

RPGs are simulations. The system of numbers used in those games are meant to be a workable representation of the "reality" which the game seeks to emulate. They are a mean to an end, not the end in and of itself. That is the fallacy with this stupid argument. A numerical value attached to a character's strength can be used to represent this trait in the game. It can be used to determine not only damage, but also the ability to lift and carry things, the ability to force objects, the ability to overcome certain situations which require physical prowess and so forth. It is not the number that matters, but the characteristic it seeks to represent in the system. What the fuck do you do with a red stat? It is just a value with no meaning to it. Does it increase melee damage? Why? Does it help bashing things? Why would it do that, who has determined that? And so forth.

 

[Mangoose]

RPGs are simulations.

No. They can be simulators, but they can be something else, as long as the end result is produces a good game as a whole - good simulation, tactical gameplay, a balance of both, whatever the design choice is.

 

[Infinitron]

Zombra Intellect also makes your character more intelligent (for the purpose of stat checks in conversations)

 

[eremita]

Note, I'm not really a big fan of the IE games to begin with, and I'm not 100% lucid at the moment, but my view is that there is some subtlety to the class roles in the IE games that tends to be revealed when characters die. It's when the super badass mage gets dressed down by an ambush of unthinking orcs, his body mulched before any world-ending spell can be loosed like two wet fingers extinguishing an atom bomb. And in that moment, as ancient and godly powers literally vaporize from the world spectrum the second that mage's consciousness takes a +1 club to his unprotected skull, you realize, hey, maybe the skill-less meatbag that is the party's fighter has a purpose.

Nothing within the party of an IE game happens in a vacuum. That's my take. You see a mage doing nothing, I see another party member stepping up. The party is Dragon Age's cooldown bar, and the characters themselves the spells. I don't know if it's the right approach to believe that every usage of these characters has to be equally cool or dramatic. I'm down with the mage just chilling through some fights, brooding in the background because fighting kobolds is "beneath" him. That downtime does, for me anyway, amplify the moments when the mages are actually being used. One second you're merrily destroying goblins, the next you're Mel Gibson calling down napalm strikes and you don't care how fucking close they are to your own men.

Wow, that's some really interesting thinking about the subject... I'm inclined to agree with you, I'm almost there to admit I've got it wrong when playing IE games. But i'm pretty sure the minute I will jump in BG/IWD, i'm gonna be pissed again...

That said, if you overplay these games and you figure out how to work the systems and you're rolling 1-man power-level min/max kensai-mage of doom or whatever, carefully picking all the right spells and all the right everythings, of course the mystique gets lost. I think some people forget that power gaming was not a part or parcel to their first playthroughs. Also, biases on the subject are probably predicated on what games have incidentally done either style best. Then again, I never know whether to criticize a game based on my first enjoyable experiences, or the follow-ups where the flaws begin to show. Honestly, this is probably why I enjoyed games more when my only previews were the artsy pictures on the back of the box. YouTube and Twitch are just fingers pulling back the curtain a little too much sometimes.

I agree with that. I'm the fag who deliberately makes average characters to get more fun.

 

[eremita]

No, seriously, it's still stupid. Now, you can admit that it's stupid and tell me that it's just a stupid thing in the game that I should ignore, but don't sit there and get all preachy with me about how I shouldn't be pissed because it's just a word and words have no meaning in a game. Webster must be spinning.

Oh, it absolutely is a stupid thing that you should ignore. This isn't me finally "admitting" something; it's what I've been saying all along. They put a stupid English label on a game function, and the mistake you're making is to obsess about the label instead of just looking at what it really is. Ignore the label. The label is stupid. And yes, you are wrong to treat the label as a word in a normal English sentence. An arbitrary label for a function is all it is.

RPGs are simulations. The system of numbers used in those games are meant to be a workable representation of the "reality" which the game seeks to emulate. They are a mean to an end, not the end in and of itself. That is the fallacy with this stupid argument. A numerical value attached to a character's strength can be used to represent this trait in the game. It can be used to determine not only damage, but also the ability to lift and carry things, the ability to force objects, the ability to overcome certain situations which require physical prowess and so forth. It is not the number that matters, but the characteristic it seeks to represent in the system. What the fuck do you do with a red stat? It is just a value with no meaning to it. Does it increase melee damage? Why? Does it help bashing things? Why would it do that, who has determined that? And so forth.

Even granting all that for the sake of argument, CRPGs are still problematic because there is no reasonable (human) interpretation present. In P&P, the GM understands that your character is strong or intelligent because he can dope out what stats are supposed to "really" mean, and can frame reasonable conflict resolution based on that understanding. In a CRPG, there is no reasonable room for interpretation about how stats work. What's programmed in is it. In this case, Stat #4 governs AOE radius. The devs called it Intellect, but it doesn't actually make your character intelligent. It increases their AOE radius.

Now, since the label and what it represents are not the same thing, and the computer is not going to listen to arguments about what Intellect should "really mean", we as players have a choice. We can obsess about the label, or we can go by the actual function of the statistic. We can scream and cry about how the label is an imperfect representation of the characteristic, but the fact is that there will always be a difference between a game stat and its vague English description (and as we have seen, no two people so far even agree on what Intellect "really means"). The sooner we recognize a game stat as a game stat and take the label with a handful of salt, the better.

Fuck programming, it's the design flaw then. IMO, one of the tasks of designers is to a) make the model (the system is a model of our world's laws - we're talking about simulations then) intuitive enough b) make it so abstract/distinctive that it is not against intuition (so it's not a simulation, or to be more precise; it's not simulation of human perceptive experience with our world). (Not against intuition doesn't mean nonintuitive; when your system is too abstract, for example because it work with complex mathematics like logarithm etc., it's okay if it's not intuitive, you'll just study it and that's it... BUT if it's actually against intuition, like something called intellect causing higher AoE melee damage, I'm calling it a flaw. I don't need perfect simulation of real world abilities, but I sure don't wanna get confused with basics like that...)

 

[Mangoose]

Zombra Intellect also makes your character more intelligent (for the purpose of stat checks in conversations)

That's stupid. Intelligence is just how smart you are. Intellect is esoteric understanding of the revealed truths of this metaphysical world.

Fuck programming, it's the design flaw then. IMO, one of the tasks of designers is to a) make the model (the system is a model of our world's laws - we're talking about simulations then) intuitive enough b) make it so abstract/distinctive that it is not against intuition (so it's not a simulation, or to be more precise; it's not simulation of human perceptive experience with our world). (Not against intuition doesn't mean nonintuitive; when your system is too abstract, for example because it work with complex mathematics like logarithm etc., it's okay if it's not intuitive, you'll just study it and that's it... BUT if it's actually against intuition, like something called intellect causing higher AoE melee damage, I'm calling it a flaw. I don't need perfect simulation of real world abilities, but I sure don't wanna get confused with basics like that...)

Okay. Say you go ahead and make Intellect not affect AoE size (not damage). Consider the consequences:

First, what are you gonna Stat are you gonna replace it with so that Intellect still affects an equal number of Stats? Note that this Stat would also have to "make sense."

Secondly, what Attribute will instead affect AoE size? It is an important stat because it interacts with the Engagement mechanic. An ability or spell that paralyzes or knocks down an opponent breaks Engagement, allowing characters to move away from melee range without suffering a Disengagement Attack. That means a larger AoE (that paralyzes or knocks down) can break more Engagements than a smaller AoE.

Then, if you add AoE size to a different Attribute, then what Stat will you remove so that this Attribute affects an equal number of Stats? If that removed Stat is important, where are you going to put it? If you attach it to Intellect, then again it has to "make sense." If you attach it to another Attribute, then you have to again consider which Attribute to remove and possibly attach to another Attribute.

Something's got to give. It's not just about taking away AoE size from Intellect. It's about what you're going to do afterward so that all the Attributes are still balanced, and the game still plays well.

Finally, if Intellect affecting AoE size actually confuses you, then you're the flawed one. It's stupid and doesn't "make sense," but if you have half a brain it won't affect how you play the game.