Thought I'd post this since people continue to bitch about rolling stats. Unfortunately they have somewhat of a point. There seem to be four types of players when it comes to stats.

1. Players who accept massively suboptimal stats because they don't know any better. These are usually extremely new players.

2. Players who accept massively suboptimal stats because they want a challenge or some angle to role-play.

3. Players who take the best stats they can get in some reasonable period of manual rolling (maybe 5 minutes). This usually gets them MAX-2 or MAX-3.

4. Players who use rollers and insist on perfect or near-perfect stats, possibly rolling for multiple hours.

#1 punishes new players for their ignorance. #4 punishes non-obsessive players for their unwillingness to automate. #4 also uses bandwidth use that might be better allocated elsewhere.

As a solution some have suggested every character be given perfect stats automatically. I don't like this as it removes all variability from characters' stats. Instead I propose the following:

There will be one "stat generation" per {net designation} per {unit time}. Net designation is either address or subnet. Unit time is either "hour" or "day", depending on how strict you want to be. Character creation resembles the current method, but with a few key changes.

A) Stat generation becomes the very last step in creating a character. All other choices preceed stat generation. Once a set of stats is generated the user must choose to either create the character or disconnect and wait the requisite amount of time before attempting to create another character.

B) Stats are generated in a single step rather than being generated multiple times within a given session. They will not be perfect, but will resemble the stats typically chosen by type #3 players above. That is to say somewhere in the MAX-1, MAX-2, MAX-3 range. The goal is that they resemble what a normal player would get if he used the current system and rolled manually for about 5 minutes.

C) When he is shown prospective stats the user is also given a reference point from which to evaluate them. i.e. he is given the max rollable value for each stat. Currently this is easy to reverse engineer using a fairly small number of rolls. Since the new method doesn't allow generating multiple sets of stats, providing a reference point is only fair. Otherwise the first-time player has absolutely no context within which to evaluate a given set of stats.

D) Prior to stat generation the player is given the choice to alter any of his previous choices (race, class, alignment, etc.) in order to ensure that his session isn't wasted because of some errant keystroke.

Advantages:

1) Ignorance doesn't shaft new players. Their stats will be similar (though not identical) to other characters of the same race/class.

2) Less load (cpu and bandwidth) on CF's servers.

3) Character creation time is reduced for those players who currently roll manually since they no longer have to roll.

4) Stats in the new system resemble stats received in the current system by players who act in "good faith" according to the staff's suggestions concerning rolling.

5) More difficult to gain an advantage via automation (rollers).

6) Less incentive for low-ranking characters to delete and re-roll after their first death, since in many cases that will require waiting several hours.

Disadvantages:

1) Much harder to get perfect stats. (Some will consider this a disadvantage, others an advantage.)

2) Less flexible. A player can't create a character then change his mind and immediately create something else.

3) Using subnet for net designation could penalize players who share a subnet with other players. The effect should be very minor, though, as character creation is a relatively infrequent event. Using IP address would allow dial-in customers to circumvent the time restriction by reconneting to their ISP. However, that effort may itself be sufficient deterrent.

It's a lot of work for something that's not seen as a problem.

You seem to think that new players get shafted by the current system, but that's one of the things we already fixed. You get decent stats every time you roll. There's an advantage for newbies to have less than perfect stats - they'll actually notice when they have gear on that improves their stats. If they have "perfect" stats, they might not learn to pay attention to gear affecting their stats until they have a character with identify or lore.

You also seem to think that rolling characters take up a lot of bandwidth. This is no longer the case since we made it impossible to roll with multiple sessions open. At any given time we have 0-6 people rolling new characters. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the 80-90 people we have playing.

I think your system would make new players feel discouraged. They'll see the "maximum attainable stats" and think they are subpar because they are -2 or -3 from the max. Their focus will also be on stats instead of learning gameplay, area layouts, and fighting tactics.

Yeah, I never thought this was a huge problem myself. Just wanted to see if I could come up with a system that would force people not to spend hours rolling stats yet still have some stat variability. The bandwidth savings was just an added bonus. Apparently not a big one though.

With other aspects of the game automation typically incurs some sort of risk. If someone bots their practicing, that means I have a better chance to come in and kill them. But unless there's something going on behind the scenes (which is entirely possible) spending the time to roll perfect stats has no real downside.

>Thought I'd post this given people continue to bitch about
>rolling stats.

I stopped reading here.

>Normally I wouldn't, but they actually have
>somewhat of a point. There are four types of players when it
>comes to character creation.
>
>1. Players who accept massively suboptimal stats because they
>don't know any better. These are usually extremely new
>players.
>
>2. Players who accept massively suboptimal stats because they
>want a challenge or some angle to role-play.
>
>3. Players who take the best they can get in some "reasonable"
>period of manual rolling (maybe 5 minutes). This usually gets
>them MAX-2 or MAX-3.
>
>4. Players who use rollers and insist on perfect or
>near-perfect stats, possibly rolling for multiple hours.
>
>#1 punishes new players for their ignorance. #4 punishes
>non-obsessive players (though admittedly not hugely) for their
>unwillingness to automate rolling. #4 also incurs bandwidth
>use that might be better allocated towards something else.
>
>As a solution, some have suggested that every character be
>given perfect stats automatically. I don't like this idea as
>it removes all variability from characters' stats. Instead I
>propose the following:
>
>One "stat generation" per {net designation} per {unit time}.
>Net designation would be either address or subnet. Unit time
>would be either "hour" or "day", depending on how strict you
>want to be. Character creation would resemble the current
>method, but with a few key changes.
>
>A) Stat generation is made the very last step in creating a
>character. All other choices preceed stat generation. One a
>set of stats is generated, the user must choose to either
>create the character or disconnect and wait the requisite
>amount of time before attempting to create another character.
>
>B) Stats are generated in a single step rather than being
>generated multiple times within a given session. They will
>not be perfect, but will resemble the stats typically chosen
>by type #3 players above. That is to say somewhere in the
>MAX-1, MAX-2, MAX-3 range. The point is that they should
>resemble what a "normal" player gets using the current system
>if he rolls manually for about 5 minutes.
>
>C) When shown prospective stats the user is also given a
>reference point from which to evaluate them. In other words,
>he sees the max rollable value for each stat. Currently this
>is easy to discover using a relatively small number of rolls.
>Since the new method doesn't allow multiple stat generation,
>providing a reference point is only fair. Otherwise the
>first-time player has absolutely no context within which to
>evaluate a given set of stats.
>
>D) Prior to stat generation the player will be given the
>choice to altar any of his previous choices (race, class,
>alignment, etc.) to endure that his session isn't wasted due
>to an errant keystroke.
>
>Advantages:
>
>1) Ignorance doesn't shaft new players. Their stats will be
>similar (though not identical) to other characters of the same
>race/class.
>
>2) Less load (cpu and bandwidth) on CF's servers.
>
>3) Character creation time is reduced for those players who
>currently roll manually since they no longer have to roll.
>
>4) Stats in the new system will resemble the stats received in
>the current system by players who act in "good faith"
>according to the staff's suggestions concerning rolling.
>
>5) More difficult to gain an advantage via automation, i.e.
>rollers.
>
>6) Less incentive for low-ranking characters to delete and
>re-roll after their first death, since in many cases that may
>require waiting several hours.
>
>Disadvantages:
>
>1) Much harder to get perfect stats. (Some will consider this
>a disadvantage, others an advantage.)
>
>2) Less flexible. A player can't create a character then
>change his mind and immediately create something else.
>
>3) Using subnet for net designation could penalize players who
>share a subnet with other players. The effect should be very
>minor, though, as character creation is a relatively
>infrequent event. Using IP address would allow dial-in
>customers to circumvent the time restriction by reconneting to
>their ISP. However, that effort itself might be sufficient
>deterrent.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

>>Thought I'd post this given people continue to bitch about
>>rolling stats.
>
>I stopped reading here.

I'd encourage you to continue. Suffice it to say my solution would not be well received by those who whine the loudest about stats.

Personally, I can think of hundreds of projects I would rather spend my time on than that non-problem.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I don't know if I'm too retarded to properly use the Post button or if there's a forum bug lurking. Either way here goes #2.

If people are willing to spend 5 bucks on things they could figure out themselves (Premium Battlefield) they are probably willing to spend 10-20 bucks on something like an Official CF Statroller.

There are a half-dozen statrollers out there currently, but none of them are perfect because of recent updates etc. Why not return to old school stat rolling (where rolling an 8 is possible) and offer up an official roller for 15 bucks? Have somebody code the bad boy up with all of the necessary trinkets and there's probably a few hundred dollars to be made.

Otherwise you could offer up max rollables for 5 dollars paid via Paypal or credit card.

As to charging for a stat roller - we do not want to accept any money for something that will impact how well a person can do in the game. A stat roller and making it difficult to roll stats without it would fall into the category of impacting game play. So we're not going to do it.

On the forum bug - do you remember if you got a "message successfully posted" screen when you posted the first time? Sometimes the forums will refuse to post for you if you are writing a post, surf away, surf back, and try to submit the post. Going to the file menu and picking new window has the same effect. It should advise you that it wasn't posted, though.

Yanoreth

I don't recall whether I saw the message or not. I have a habit of surfing away and then returning though so that may have been what happened.

Instead of surfing away, I just open another <insert your browser of choice here> session. I had to retrain myself to do this with the new forums. :-P But the reason I don't want to change that is because the current setup helps prevent people from spamming the boards.

>>>Thought I'd post this given people continue to bitch about
>>>rolling stats.
>>
>>I stopped reading here.
>
>I'd encourage you to continue. Suffice it to say my solution
>would not be well received by those who whine the loudest
>about stats.

Way to long on a subject I don't care about. I may as well go back and re-read my college chemistry book.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!