So I was wondering what people use for stats. RPG Maker gives us a small handful to start. We can easily create our own as well. It could also be beneficial to tell us what your stats affect.

I don't use too many. It's actually something I haven't tweaked much as I use a lot of engines with stats built in, and go off those. It's not often I end up making my own. Thus the reason I'm asking.

I'd also like to discuss how you can best balance all stats, since all players are going to be using them it sometimes seems silly to make a stat not all classes will use.

************For organization purposes lets separate our stat setup from our discussion piece like so: **********

I think ideally I would do this:

VIGOR - Determines Melee Damage & Health Points
SPIRIT - Determines Magic Damage & Magic Defense
DEXTERITY - Determines Ranged Damage & Accuracy
ACUITY - Determines Dodge/Critical

////////////////////Discussion

Now the reason for my setup would be that a player would benefit from putting his stats into any of these. Of course he'd benefit more from putting his stats into that which raises his damage, but if you place stat influences on different skills you can further affect the use of stats. Just a note, Critical, Dodge, and Accuracy effect even spells, but with a lesser emphasis than melee.

A damage dealing Warrior would put his stats into VIGOR and DEXTERITY. A Tank would put his stats into VIGOR and SPIRIT. A damage dealing sharp-shot would put his skills into DEXTERITY while dabbling a little in everything with an above-average ACUITY. Mages/Debuffers would go SPIRIT with medium DEXTERITY. Healers/Buffers would go SPIRIT and VIGOR.

Lets say you have a hero whos designed to take the damage stopping path. You could give him skills like Minor Heal, which is influenced by SPIRIT and Cover, which is influenced by ACUITY. Basically, he would have main spells that are influenced by VIGOR and sub-spells which are influenced by DEXTERITY, ACUITY, or SPIRIT or some combination of stats. Trying to be good at everything wouldn't work, so instead you'd want to be good in two things and take the skills that lead you down that path.

/////////////////////

So what is your insight on good stat design?

I think the Spirit and Vigor should only be for attack purposes and the defense should be on other terms.
Tanks are just another term for defensive warriors and for them to have magic damage defeats the purpose of a warriors weakness (unless it's like an enhanced tank)

Vigor? Isn't that a bit too Final Fantasy-ish? Like calling MP 'Mist'.

Anyway, what I'm using:

Strength - Determines attack power.
Intelligence - Determines magic attack power.
Defense - Determines how much % of damage is subtracted from attack and magic attack damage.
Agility - Determines speed and accuracy.
Evasion - Determines how frequently you evade an attack.

Pretty basic. Names are placeholders and Agility is a hidden stat.

Your set-up reminds me of an MMORPG, I'm not sure why. But I agree with Kayden, I would separate mdef from mattack, otherwise tanks would indeed by very powerful with magic.

In RedSouls I'm using:

HP (Hit/health points)
MP (Mana points)
STR (Strength)
VIT (Vitality)
INT (Intelligence)
AGI (Agility)

Normally I would agree, but Skill set up would negate the argument that "Magic Power will defeat their tanking ability."

If their only skills are Healing or low-level Magics, then that just further justifies their SPIRIT distribution. After all, Tanks won't be getting spells like "Mega Fire" or anything like that.

But you do have a point. Tanks may end up too powerful under that set up.

I'm thinking we should also include stats that perhaps are only changed via items.

So perhaps splitting Stats down the middle from Defense and Offense is best.

The Stats are based slightly off of the MMO Ragnarok Online, though their stat system is highly broken. That may be why you get that MMO feel. However I create these stats for general, simple RPGs. As for Vigor, I didn't really feel it was Final-Fantasy-ish. It was just a general term that seemed fitting for a mix of Vitality and Strength. However I tend to lean more towards jRPGs than wRPGs.

//////////////////////////////////What I would percieve to be a good setup

HP/MP - Both raise differently with class level

Actor Stats
Vitality - Raises Hitpoints
Agility - Increases Dodge Rate & Turn Speed

Int - Raises Magic Damage & Defense

Dexterity - Raises Accuracy
Critical - Raises Critical Strike

Item Stats
Defense - Raises Physical Defense
Resitance X - Raises Defense against Statuses or Elements
Attack - Raises Physical Attack power

Then you'd have skills based on the different actor stats. Magic can be dodged and criticaled.

Is this perhaps a better set-up?

Also has anyone thought of making it so there's hidden drawbacks to raising specific stats or hidden bonuses?

EDIT: Example. If you raise Vitality it increases resitances. If you raise Agility it lowers Defense.

Man I love R.O, I'm actually playing it right now (SinX ftw!)

How do you mean?

I personally hate Evasion stat and rather use a skill card system for blocks/counter. So the first thing I did is remove Dexterity and Evasion (I use RMXP for my game).
I also scratched Magic Defense.

Basically, I'm using 4 inherent parameters and 2 equipment parameters.

Inherent:
Strength: Physical strength.
Intelligence: Magic power.
Agility: determine the recuperation time between two actions (although it also depends of the action performed).
Willpower: this one is specific to Celestial Cage. It's related to spell chains and forcefields maintenance. It can have a slight effect on status ailments mechanics too.
For characters without a magical weapon, this stat is multiplied by the Intelligence to calculate magic damage instead of the weapon's Attack stat.

Equipment:
Attack: Mutliplied by Strength to calculate physical damage, and by Intelligence to calculate magical damage (the latter applies only for playable characters with a magical weapon.)
Defense: Works exactly like Attack but with physical and magical resistance instead.

The point of this system is to avoid 'useless' stats, like, for instance, the Strength for a mage - here, a high Strength also affects the physical resistance.

The following is my idea for my game.



Weapons don't have attack or defense stats. Instead, they are classified into weapon types (each type with a different damage calculation algorithm based on different factors) and have weights. So weapon weights are checked against the actor's strength, for example, which will have an effect on the damage some. The secondary stats are modifiers, especially stamina.
I still haven't thought this thoroughly, it's just phase 1.

I just wanted to say this, but i hate all card systems. they've always made me like the game a little (or a lot, depending on the importance cards play) less than I should have. PSO- Ep.III would have been a great game if it weren't for the "C.A.R.D." systems... I can say this about several others.

leave the cards on the table.




I'm also very open minded about in-game features, but i just don't like cards. unless it's poker or blackjack.

Since it's directed at me, let me clarify: it's not a card game, just a way to select skills in battle when the character does not have access to the command menu. It happens to look like cards but it could very well take another shape.
If you want an example of how it works, the spell cards in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody are quite close in the mechanics.

Since my game is actually a remake project, the stat system I have here is inherited from the original.

Life Points: every time your HP hits 0, you lose 1 LP. A character that hits 0 LP is killed permanently.
HP
MP
Tech Points: Pretty much powers all the physical techs

Strength: effects the accuracy of heavy melee weapons like axes and two-handed swords, but effects the damage of all melee weapons except light weapons
Dexterity: effects evasion, accuracy with all non-heavy melee weapons, and damage of all light weapons and bows
Constitution: effects how well they can resist various status effects and how much HP they gain on level up.
Speed: effects the combat order, obviously, but also effects the damage bonus with martial arts
Magic: obviously, impacts magic effectiveness
Darkness: This is a hidden stat. shows this character's affinity towards the dark arts.

In addition to these stats there are also 11 different skills stats:

Slashing
Bludgeon
Piercing
Arrow
Martial Arts

Fire magic
Water magic
Earth magic
Wind magic
Light magic
Dark magic (this by default you cannot use unless you've fulfilled the story requirements)

There is one additional stat called the "spark" type. In this game, all new weapon techs are "sparked" in battled on a random chance. (the actual formula is based on the skill level of the character, the enemy you're facing, the attack you're currently using, and the actual difficulty of the technique itself) The thing is, not every character can spark every single tech. Some characters are more adept at sparking others. Or rather, some characters are capable of sparking techniques that others cannot. i.e. the most powerful martial art techs are pretty much reserved for the martial artist to spark. (Of course, once the technique has been sparked, it can be taught to anyone else after)

There are also a bunch of other little flags like gender, flight (one set of characters have wings), race, and such. These are mostly for event purposes and generally have little effect in combat.