The Icewind Dale Problem
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The second best thing is stuff like Moria/Angband where each stat has a clear use and game effect - and of course in such games some form of re-roll/prioritization makes a lot of sense (the automagic re-roll based on min-stats targets (I need at least 17 dexterity) introduced in some version of Angband is probably the best if you want player-visible stats).
Regardless, if it wasn't Skyrim, that seems like a better system all around. Leave the character a blank slate, start every stat at 0, and the character has to be molded through the course of the game.
Neither Morrowind nor Oblivion had pre-made classes. You technically had the option of picking "mage", but that distinction was utterly pointless beyond the first few levels. You weren't limited in leveling up primarily skills opposite of your "class".
Plus, these games will usually have a scale on enemy difficulty based on you instead of the game world. So if you somehow run into something that should be incredibly dangerous for your beginner character, it is not that hard to defeat. Remember that rabbit you smacked a couple of times to kill for its meat in the early game? Later it requires gear designed to fight gods to kill that rabbit's brother. I exaggerate, but that type of system bothers me to no end.
Or, even if you're not trying to abuse the system, the behavior that's most natural and which results in the best outcomes can modify your character from what you may have intended.
It's typical get the best loot from the hardest quests. You could grind the easy ones, but quick progression requires taking on difficult tasks.
In Skyrim, if you see a group of baddies that are too strong to take on in a brawl all at once, the way to proceed through the quest is to shoot them with an arrow from far away, and sneak until they de-aggro. Or if you don't want to attack it, just sneak around. Or if they're charging you and too far away to melee attack yet, put in a couple hits with your bow to soften them up.
Surprise! You're not a mage or a heavy like you thought you'd be. You're a stealth archer.
Skyrim's biggest issue is the gear / classes are not balanced overall. Mages end up spamming high level spells endlessly while doing vastly less damage than an archer with good gear.
1h/2h also get there, it's just conjuration and destruction that lag.
This was extra irritating in The Witcher 3 where you receive swords as quest rewards and the characters comment on how its this amazing magical sword renowned for its history or whatever and I check the stats only to see that it is either 1) only marginally better than what I already have or, more usually, 2) not even as good as the weapon I already have.
On the other hand, in Gothic 3, I could walk off the main road and find end game monsters that could (and did) kill me in a single strike. Figuring out how to beat them while still low level was a ton of exciting fun. Hell, its the exact reason I play games like Dark Souls.
Brings back tons of memories.
My cheesiness knew no bounds however. At some point I acquired a shuriken, which would increase your total HP by 1 every time you equipped it. I did the righteous thing and spent a few more nights unequipping and equipping it, which left me with some outrageously high HP.
Feeling that even this munchkin level insanity wasn't enough I fiddled around with the save game and figured out how to clone my character. Finally my party had a front line of 3 ninjas with unassailably high HP totals. Finally, Werdna was mine.
I remember doing a similar thing with save files and the old Ragnarok game.
Edit: excited for the potential mod support for FFXV on PC.
I have a Ps4 and a few big games for it, Yakuza, etc and I've played them all once or twice because of the time investment required to get through the story. I WANT to enjoy the story. It's really unfortunate. I'd love to speed up my progress, instead I'm forced to watch Lets Plays of those games.
Dear god, why does such an item even exist?
Is Werdna a boss? Cause Werdna is just Andrew spelled backwards.
I always found it a bit strange that many games frontload you with decisions (what class? what stats? etc) before you even know anything about the game, what is effective or what you might enjoy.
As far as this article; not my cup of tea but the author seems to have put a lot of time into it. If you like data science, dive on in.
Verdict: Go play a newer RPG like Pillars of Eternity instead. While I'm sure some people have very fond memories of the IWD series, it has not aged well. The story isn't particularly good, and IWD2 rehashes a little too much of IWD1 for comfort. It is undoubtedly possible to give IWD2 the enhanced version treatment. It's "too costly" because IWD2 just isn't very good, and likely wouldn't have strong sales.
The reverse engineering will be done eventually, by fans that love the game. It's been done for other games (Morrowind, Diablo II, Grand Theft Auto 3, etc)
On the color maps, vertical is the score you got on your last roll (sum of all attributes), horizontal is the index of the current roll, color is the chance of getting a better roll.
There is no "hard line" for when to stop because it depends on how risk-averse you are, and compounding the lack of labelling the labelling of color maps 3 and 4 is the opposite of what it shows: it's how the map changes when you lower risk averseness (increase risk seeking) by increasing probability thresholds compared to map 2.
It would have got the game so much more interesting. People who would have to play actual characters, instead of walking, golden statues.
Some flaws are "easier" to manage than others (having large debts is a good story hook and not that problematic for adventurers, I think. A character having memory issues however is not easily compensated, but may make for interesting role playing).
"For the real lowdown — instead of telling you how the Attributes help — let me tell you how they make things worse.
INTELLECT A high Intellect makes you overly confident – a cocksure intellectual. You’re vulnerable to flattery, and easily lose yourself in details. (The game becomes longer). While having a low Intellect makes you dim and superficial, prone to superstition and being plain wrong.
PSYCHE A high Psyche comes with emotional turmoil – an unstable psychophant. Great willpower clashing with wild imagination. You may even lose your mind. While a low Psyche makes you uninspiring, inept at influencing people. Unsavoury things come out of your mouth.
PHYSIQUE Okay, you’re strong but so is your death drive – a mad man and a psycho killer. A high Physique needs to be tested, needs addiction, sex and physical confrontation. You lose your shit over small things. While being un-physical means vulnerable, un-streetwise. Lacking in animal cool.
MOTORICS A Motoric character is too high strung – a bit of a cokehead. A quicksilver superdetective focusing fast and then reacting (too) sharply. While being low on Motoric means you’re locked into yourself. The world has trouble finding you. You’re clumsy and slow."
[1] http://zaumstudio.com/ [2] http://devblog.fortressoccident.com/2017/01/19/introducing-m...
For example if a barbarian get really high rolls for all stats except strength is it actually a really a good roll for that character or should you consider re-rolling?
Edit: Oops, I completely forgot about the ability to reassign points between stats. Thanks to batiudrami & beloch for pointing that out.
As an interesting side note: An older (A)D&D game series, Eye of the Beholder, allowed you to modify the stats any way you wanted after rolling, which meant you could just set all stats to max if you wished. I've read from somewhere that this was done so players could "import" their pen & paper RPG characters with the correct stats points into the game. Dunno if that's true though.
Different classes also have different minimum stats - so the calculation is actually rolling 4d6, excluding the lowest, and then rounding up to the minimum if necessary. This means multi-class characters (who might have minimum of 13 in two stats instead of the usual 9), or odd classes such as Paladin who have a minimum 17 charisma end up with much higher average totals than other classes.
It's an entirely broken system, designed for pen and paper D&D where you roll your stats and then choose your class based on what you get, adjusted for video game players who prefer to choose their class first.
If it wasn't just a thought-exercise, the answer would be: Quit the game and start over until you get a perfect roll the first time.
Seriously. Games are supposed to be fun, not painful. While it might be a fun thought exercise, it's incredibly bad game design.