Post:How is hindrance calculated - 04/18/2015 - 08:49

Re: How is hindrance calculated? · on 04/18/2015 08:49 AM CDT	5231
A Tier system is necessary so GMs that lack a complete understanding of weapon and armor stats can still make functional, balanced items. Otherwise we go back to 1999 where festival equipment was often quite worthless... It looked nice... but the stats were terrible. Or the cases where equipment was ridiculously overpowered and had to be nerfed/removed after the fact. The language and tools available make a player-facing Tier system difficult. Rounding errors, legacy workarounds and more have resulted in Tier on older items becoming similar to MEASURE - sometimes they don't make sense. This is one reason why exposing it to players is not optimal. We might hand-make a Tier 6 item that is .000001% from calculating as Tier 6... so it looks like a 5 and everyone gets upset :/ Many games feature a rarity color system. You found a blue sword, a purple helmet, an orange charm. Here too you run into a problem where due to the randomly selected/assigned stats, an orange might be worthless and a blue might be exceptional. There is no perfect solution! And yes, it gets even more complicated when we "bump" the tier due to an alteration, enchantment, cambrinth, gore modifier, etc. I'd have to code a special exception for each and every special thing... and I just have completely no time for this. My goal is to give GMs the tools to make balanced items. It is up to the players to do a little legwork and figure out what they find useful. That being said, it is better than the days when I played. Appraisal ranges are much smaller, for example. Stats-to-weight are also tied to a formula and not a gut feeling... and we are constantly working to improve it! "I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes
This message was originally posted in Combat - Weapons and Armor \ General Discussions, by DR-KODIUS on the play.net forums.