"Backwards-compatible" Vitality

[mystrdat]

Vitality and Willpower as implemented in LoG is flawed. Instead of being a level-up modifier(+(VIT/2 -10) * 1HP on level up) Vitality should give a health bonus based on a level multiplier((VIT/2-10) *LEVEL)+((VIT-10) *2.5)) rounded down.

As it is now you can give items with bonuses to vitality and willpower to characters that are about to level up so they gain additional health and energy permanently even after you remove these items. This seems more cheesy/unintended to me than if they had been backwards compatible. Instead of allowing individual characters to gain health and energy retroactively from vitality and willpower respectively we currently can give bonus health and energy to ALL of our characters on EACH level up because of the one-time calculations upon level up.

Vitality and Willpower both should be changed to use character level as a multiplier and not themselves as a modifier on level ups. Not only would this make later statistical skill bonuses much more useful and valued it would prevent the abuse of item tossing to gain permanent health and energy bonuses. Even one of the first armor items your characters come across gives -1 willpower that can permanently reduce your character's energy. It just doesn't make sense game wise or logic wise that using an item temporarily can permanently gimp you.

The calculation used now also limits custom made content of spells, potions, and items that modify the Vitality and Willpower values. Any items, potions, or spells that gives bonuses or reductions to these two statistics will all be able to be abused on level-ups. Please consider changing the way that these values are calculated.

Very good exploit there, I was wondering whether it worked this way when adding +vit items before a level to boost the health roll, thanks for the confirmation.

[seebs]

I don't agree that the player would expect a major increase in HP by changing an attribute at the end of a game. Why would they be expecting a 100 pt (for example) HP increase versus what they had been getting 8-10 say on previous level ups.

The player assumption you give, I would say is invalid due to context. Near the end of the game one should not expect a decision on attribute placement to have a larger effect then all they're previous choices combined.

But you wouldn't expect them to have dramatically less effect.

And as Ethos spotted (nice catch!) the current system allows some exploity behavior in which multiple characters gain particular benefits when levelling up.

[Smaug]

I don't agree that the player would expect a major increase in HP by changing an attribute at the end of a game. Why would they be expecting a 100 pt (for example) HP increase versus what they had been getting 8-10 say on previous level ups.

The player assumption you give, I would say is invalid due to context. Near the end of the game one should not expect a decision on attribute placement to have a larger effect then all they're previous choices combined.

There maybe poor communication in game on the effects, but that is likely due to expectations of the player.

I would say this mechanic does not make vitality less consistent than strength or dexterity. A change in the later only gives a small increase in attack power, to hit, and evasion. This is the same benefit vitality gives at level up.

Why should it have a larger effect than all previous choices combined? You lost me there.

How can it be consistent, if one boost is dependent on current level, but the others are not?
When skilling DEX: Development of related skills is static.
When skilling VIT: Development of related skills is dynamic, in context of level progress.

I would call it consistent if your attack rating raises per level by an amount that dependis on the STR, your evasion raises per level by an amount that depends on DEX, and your health raises per level by an amount that depends on VIT.

Or the other way around:
Your attack rating increases with each increase of STR, your Evasion rating increases with each increase of DEX and your HP increases with each increase of VIT. Independent of level.


And btw: I skilled VIT in the late game and the effects on HP were very negligible. To me, it was rather clear that I made a bad choice. Though I didnt really care, as the game is won by exploiting the grid system, and not by stats. However, someone who is standing still, playing the game more casual, facing the enemy toe to toe (some people just dislike 2x2 abuse, as it feels like an exploit) might have a different experience.

[jfunk]

However, someone who is standing still, playing the game more casual, facing the enemy toe to toe (some people just dislike 2x2 abuse, as it feels like an exploit) might have a different experience.

I don't think standing toe-to-toe is actually possible, regardless of how well you build your characters. So people shouldn't feel like they're "cheating" when they dodge, the game is balanced accordingly.

[Darklord]

I don't think standing toe-to-toe is actually possible, regardless of how well you build your characters. So people shouldn't feel like they're "cheating" when they dodge, the game is balanced accordingly.

Certainly not when you first meet something anyhow, usually once you've gained a couple of levels you can then face those older enemies and it's not so bad.

Daniel.

[amnnor]

Why should it have a larger effect than all previous choices combined? You lost me there.

It shouldn't have a larger effect, and the player shouldn't assume it would. That is what I was trying to point out. If you retro actively recalculate The vitality HP bonus the late increase in VIT would provide possiblely an entire extra level up (level 10/11 character getting an extra 10 HP on top of the 8-10 they get for level up) worth of HP.

How can it be consistent, if one boost is dependent on current level, but the others are not?
When skilling DEX: Development of related skills is static.
When skilling VIT: Development of related skills is dynamic, in context of level progress.

The VIT bonus to HP is independent of level. You get a set HP bonus based on VIT at level up. The HP is what is cumulative, not VIT. Just like DEx gives a set evasion bonus, VIT gives a set HP bonus. Unless I'm wrong, HP is affected not only by VIT but race and class as well.

The attributes (STR, DEX, VIT) are applied consistently, it's the secondary stats (attack power, evasion, hit points) that function differently. HP is a cumulative stat where as attack power and evasion are not.

Hopefully this post was a little more clear than the previous as to my meaning.

[seebs]

Imagine that you have an item which grants +5 vitality, and that you pay attention to XP and move that item around. You will gain health as though everyone in your party had 5 more vitality.

Revising hit-die modifiers retroactively means that a point of vitality has the same effect no matter when you add it. I don't actually have definite numbers on what vitality does, but imagine that vitality granted one hit point per die.

If you apply it only at die rolls, then:

gain 1 vitality
gain 5 levels
gain 1 vitality
gain 5 levels
gain 1 vitality

gives you a total of 15 bonus points from vitality. The first point grants 10 health, the second grants 5, the third grants nothing.

If you apply it retroactively, then:

gain 1 vitality
gain 5 levels
gain 1 vitality
gain 5 levels
gain 1 vitality

gives you a total of 30 points; each point grants 10 health.

It might make more sense to reduce the bonus (roughly halve it) and make it retroactive, adding health when it goes up and reducing health when it goes down. This would make late-game vitality bonuses not as worthless as they are now.

[jfunk]

Imagine that you have an item which grants +5 vitality, and that you pay attention to XP and move that item around. You will gain health as though everyone in your party had 5 more vitality.

IMO, this an exploit that should be fixed and is completely separate from whether or not you believe HP should be a cumulative or dynamically calculated attribute.

The bonus to HP at level up should only consider your "true" VIT, not your temporarily enhanced VIT.

[seebs]

Imagine that you have an item which grants +5 vitality, and that you pay attention to XP and move that item around. You will gain health as though everyone in your party had 5 more vitality.

IMO, this an exploit that should be fixed and is completely separate from whether or not you believe HP should be a cumulative or dynamically calculated attribute.

The bonus to HP at level up should only consider your "true" VIT, not your temporarily enhanced VIT.

Sadly, the way stats are stored/calculated would make this a little difficult to arrange.

But yes, it does seem sort of flawed.

[Ethos]

Imagine that you have an item which grants +5 vitality, and that you pay attention to XP and move that item around. You will gain health as though everyone in your party had 5 more vitality.

IMO, this an exploit that should be fixed and is completely separate from whether or not you believe HP should be a cumulative or dynamically calculated attribute.

The bonus to HP at level up should only consider your "true" VIT, not your temporarily enhanced VIT.

You do realize that if the bonus hp vitality modifier didn't include items that vitality would do almost nothing from items other than give magic resistance right? For willpower if this was removed willpower from items would literally do nothing since it doesn't even contribute to any resistances.

It's not even an exploit because it is exactly how the developers coded the vitality and willpower calculations. Which is exactly why we have suggested that Vitality and Willpower calculations be changed in this thread.