My Email To Tycho of Penny-Arcade RE: Dragon Age Character Creator
As someone who's clearly far more adept at this genre than myself, I figured I would come to you for the answers my mind cannot satisfy. Not with character appearance, mind you, as one of my characters is named Derp Thorvan (I think that's the last name) and is genetically arrayed accordingly.
I'm talking about something far more important - stat distribution and such. I've played a few RPGs in my time but I'm far more attuned to the WoW style of stat distribution (aka, 'We got this covered, buddy, just pick a nice talent for yourself.') Nothing terrifies me more than the dreaded column of numbers, which to me have little discernible value or distinction. I will see these numbers and literally have a conversation with my character aloud; "Do we need this much Intelligence?" or "Well, the tooltip is saying Rogues live and die on Dexterity...so should we just pump all the points into that?" I am afraid that I'm going to create some frail creature that in the very first fight will break an ankle unsheathing a sword, or hit a teammate square in the back of the head with his first arrow. Spreadsheets for me literally cause despair. I see each point not as a plus in the stat I'm boosting, but as a negative in the stats it's not augmenting. I feel each point in Constitution is making my character weaker, clumsier, and dumber. It's an impasse, obviously.
Which brings me to the point of this email. As someone who clearly views this not only as a science but almost an artform, I feel I would benefit greatly from your exertions in this field. Any tips you could give for even the general PA fanbase in general would be appreciated, lest I accidentally give birth to a horse with 10 gnarled hooves and no bones. I don't care if this means returning to my inbox to find a nigh-indecipherable codex of observations and theory. A map written entirely in Russian is much preferable to saying, "Well, I think the sun is headed that way, so that must be...one of the directions...on the compass....that you go towards..."
I'm talking about something far more important - stat distribution and such. I've played a few RPGs in my time but I'm far more attuned to the WoW style of stat distribution (aka, 'We got this covered, buddy, just pick a nice talent for yourself.') Nothing terrifies me more than the dreaded column of numbers, which to me have little discernible value or distinction. I will see these numbers and literally have a conversation with my character aloud; "Do we need this much Intelligence?" or "Well, the tooltip is saying Rogues live and die on Dexterity...so should we just pump all the points into that?" I am afraid that I'm going to create some frail creature that in the very first fight will break an ankle unsheathing a sword, or hit a teammate square in the back of the head with his first arrow. Spreadsheets for me literally cause despair. I see each point not as a plus in the stat I'm boosting, but as a negative in the stats it's not augmenting. I feel each point in Constitution is making my character weaker, clumsier, and dumber. It's an impasse, obviously.
Which brings me to the point of this email. As someone who clearly views this not only as a science but almost an artform, I feel I would benefit greatly from your exertions in this field. Any tips you could give for even the general PA fanbase in general would be appreciated, lest I accidentally give birth to a horse with 10 gnarled hooves and no bones. I don't care if this means returning to my inbox to find a nigh-indecipherable codex of observations and theory. A map written entirely in Russian is much preferable to saying, "Well, I think the sun is headed that way, so that must be...one of the directions...on the compass....that you go towards..."
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