Thoughts on Stat Booster Preps
Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 4:17 pmThe change last Friday reduced the effect of stat boosters, diminishing them to 1 for 1 trade rather than the more significant 2 for 2 swing they had been before. I'm a little disappointed in this, as it has made the stat booster swaps much more passive and mediocre now. However, I can also understand the developer direction here: the only booster swap I used with any frequency was HP->Attack and something needed to change.
One of the biggest problems is that the relative power of each stat booster differs substantially. In most cases, the hierarchy is very decisively: attack > mp > hp. This means for most characters exchanging attack for mana or mana or hp is just a bad trade, but you're getting a good deal in the case of HP->Attack. Knocking down the relative power of the booster swaps hasn't really changed this dynamic, just diluted it.
The issue has also affected racial balance. HP->Attack was a god-send for non-human races, allowing them to be more competitive with damage-oriented classes. With only a single deity boon to boost attack damage (and Taurog's boons come with a hefty opportunity cost that can make them situationally worthless) but several to boost health or defenses, the trade was extremely sensible since you were more likely to be able to deal with a shortcoming in health than in attack damage. With this trade diminished, it's become harder to play melee-oriented elves or non-rogue dwarves, and the nerfed orcs just took a second black eye.
Another aspect with MP is "magic numbers". Because MP doesn't scale like HP you often get rounding issues with potions, and even a single point can make the difference between affording a spell and not. There are two notable dead spots that provide little benefit: improving from 10->11 and from 13->14 does not cause your potions to increase in power or open up any meaningful new spell combos. The problem with the old MP->HP booster swap was that it left you at the 11 MP dead-zone, and the problem with the new attack->MP is that it leaves you at the 14 MP dead zone.
After consideration of the various issues, I'd like to propose a middle-ground between the current diluted booster swaps and the older more potent ones: return HP->Attack to its 2 for 2 trade status, and change both Attack->MP and MP->HP into a 2 for the price of 1 deal. The old HP->Attack swap was well-balanced as it existed; it was a tradeoff that was generally an improvement. The other two had problems of generally being more negative than positive, so a net gain in boosters is not unreasonable. Given that we essentially have the equivalent of a free attack booster as a blacksmith prep and several deity boons to help you in these departments, I don't see any real issues with offering a net gain in HP or MP boosters.
One of the biggest problems is that the relative power of each stat booster differs substantially. In most cases, the hierarchy is very decisively: attack > mp > hp. This means for most characters exchanging attack for mana or mana or hp is just a bad trade, but you're getting a good deal in the case of HP->Attack. Knocking down the relative power of the booster swaps hasn't really changed this dynamic, just diluted it.
The issue has also affected racial balance. HP->Attack was a god-send for non-human races, allowing them to be more competitive with damage-oriented classes. With only a single deity boon to boost attack damage (and Taurog's boons come with a hefty opportunity cost that can make them situationally worthless) but several to boost health or defenses, the trade was extremely sensible since you were more likely to be able to deal with a shortcoming in health than in attack damage. With this trade diminished, it's become harder to play melee-oriented elves or non-rogue dwarves, and the nerfed orcs just took a second black eye.
Another aspect with MP is "magic numbers". Because MP doesn't scale like HP you often get rounding issues with potions, and even a single point can make the difference between affording a spell and not. There are two notable dead spots that provide little benefit: improving from 10->11 and from 13->14 does not cause your potions to increase in power or open up any meaningful new spell combos. The problem with the old MP->HP booster swap was that it left you at the 11 MP dead-zone, and the problem with the new attack->MP is that it leaves you at the 14 MP dead zone.
After consideration of the various issues, I'd like to propose a middle-ground between the current diluted booster swaps and the older more potent ones: return HP->Attack to its 2 for 2 trade status, and change both Attack->MP and MP->HP into a 2 for the price of 1 deal. The old HP->Attack swap was well-balanced as it existed; it was a tradeoff that was generally an improvement. The other two had problems of generally being more negative than positive, so a net gain in boosters is not unreasonable. Given that we essentially have the equivalent of a free attack booster as a blacksmith prep and several deity boons to help you in these departments, I don't see any real issues with offering a net gain in HP or MP boosters.