Stat complexity

[Razoir]

Hey everyone, i wondered was what your opinion on stat Complexity in RPGs ( i'm personally making a Tactical RPG but this is more of a global question, even if i do know it depends on the game's aim ). Do you tend to say less is better or do you think there's is something gained from more complex stats ?

For example, with the common RPG maker stats : HP MP ATK DEF MAT MDF AGI LUK

- You could merge ATK and MAT into one ATK as well as DEF and MDF into one DEF, it is indeed very rare to see a character that uses both types of attacks.

-  You could get rid of DEF,  use the weakness system to create a "weak to weapons" character or a "weak to magic" one. After all, defense is just another HP.

- You could merge LUK and AGI. Or even get rid or both, they are not extremely necessary. Removing them would only remove the luck factor.

All of those changes would reduce the stats to only HP MP and ATK ( and maybe AGI ), and honestly wouldn't change the depth that much. Now i do not believe it would be better, but it's a subject i wanted to hear your opinion on.

What do you think is the ideal complexity of stats for an RPG ? Do you think you should get rid of unnecessary stats and try to optimize the stat window or do you think complex stat system actually has another use ?

 

[Wavelength]

This is a good question and I'm very curious to see how the answers line up.  I'm also curious to see how much the fact that most of these stats are "expected" standbys in RPGs will affect our answers.  As far as my own opinion...

I can see the wisdom in this kind of "streamlining effort" in something like an Action RPG, where the main determinant of your success is something other than discrete decisions that you choose from a menu.  In such a game, I think the reductions you point out (merging DEF/MDF into HP and maybe elemental resistances, merging MAG/ATK into a "Power" attribute, etc.) are right on.

I could also see it working well in a very casual RPG where you don't want to force the player to make tough decisions too often, or a very short RPG where the player constantly has other interesting things to do besides worry about character builds.

However, for fairly involved, turn-based RPG, I do like having a wide spread of different stats.  If implemented well, it allows for a lot of strategic diversity, including the ability to come up with uncommon or unintuitive but effective builds for your party, and as an added bonus it also lets you define your characters a bit better based on their stats.  As a designer I try to create "incomparables" so that any stat you focus on will be better for you sometimes, but also worse sometimes, than another stat.

As a good example of "incomparables", a few of my games make LUK (renamed "DEXterity") the sole determinant of dealing and receiving Critical Hits, which not only increase damage dealt but also cause the skill to apply statuses to the target, increase the user's Limit Break gauge, etc.  This can't be directly compared to a similar increase in MAT (or ATK) because they are doing wildly different things.  Do you want to increase your MAT to increase the amount of damage your Fireball deals to an enemy, or increase your DEX to increase the chance it will Burn that enemy?  Letting the player craft their own strategy around choices like this adds a lot of fun and depth if it's used in the right game, I think.

Additionally, I try to include a high amount of freedom (though not to the point of being a blank slate) for players choose which stats to build for each character.  In any given tier, there is a wide variety of equipment - some which might increase ATK, some which might increase MAT, some which might increase AGI and LUK, and most of which have different special effects like life drain, bonus on-critical effects, or extra skills - and in longer games there are opportunities to use items or "skill trees" to upgrade stats of your choice as well.  If there aren't meaningful ways to change how your characters to develop, the purpose of having stats in the first place becomes somewhat shrouded (and in theory could be reduced to a single "Level" stat).

 

[stupid enough to like FF13]

There's two games I can think of where there were only three primary stats: Final Fantasy XIII and Doraemon: Giga Zombie no Gyakushū (a Famicom-only JRPG).

Final Fantasy XIII has three stats: HP, Strength, and Magic. You can equip accessories to reduce damage (either all damage or specific types of damage), but in general HP is the main factor in who can get punched in the face more. Having Strength and Magic be distinct stats is important because the two primary offensive roles (classes) possess both physical and magical attacks. The four other roles only use one of those stats, but the non-damage effects of the abilities are often more important than how much damage the character can do using them. All of the roles in the game are available to all characters, and the selection of abilities coupled with their stats influences how useful they are in each role and against different enemies. For example, Snow is the game's best Sentinel (tank) and he has decent Strength, but his poor Magic makes him less effective offensively against enemies resistant to physical damage and his usefulness as a Ravager is limited since he has no access to fire or thunder attacks. A simple stat system works for that game because the battle system is real-time and heavily focused on strategic use of abilities rather than raw stats.

The Doraemon game has three stats as well: HP, Attack, and Defense. It's a very simple game (as RPGs were at the time) with your abilities in battle being either a simple attack, using magic (almost all spells have fixed power and use Gold as "MP"), or using an item. Because of the extreme simplicity, there's really no depth to getting stronger other than "hit people harder and get hit less hard by other people". The lack of an Agility stat particularly bothered me, because there was nothing to give me any sort of indication of who would be more likely to act first in battle. Certain enemies and party members felt like they would act first more often in battle, but I still didn't have anything to base that off of.

A game doesn't need a complex stat system, nor does it necessarily benefit from a simple stat system. What matters is how well the stat system complements the gameplay.

 

[Matseb2611]

I think simplicity is the key. Having too many stats, most of which do very little, only makes things messy and chaotic.

HP or equivalent would be needed for virtually any game where one can get a game over from combat.

MP is only needed if you need some kind of energy or ammo pool to act as a limiting factor for some skills. You can scrap it entirely though and instead put other limits on specials, such as cooldowns, etc.

As for the other stats, the only ones you really do need are Atk, Def, and Agi, or their equivalents. More can be added depending on the game.

If you have magic in your game and having a distinction between physical/weapon power and magic power is important, then Mat/Mag stat becomes useful. Same for Mdf.

Agi can become useless if you're using a free turn battle system. Although you can change Agi to govern something else. By default in RM it governs who acts first in a turn and who last. But you can change it and make Agi affect attack evasion for example.

I really don't like the Luk stat as it is by default in RM. It's next to useless and does very little. From what I remember, you need to have a massive difference in Luk for it to only increase or decrease a tiny % of inflicting status effects. If the Luk stat is changed to influence something more important in the game though, then it's fine. I think making Luk govern the critical hit rate makes more sense and would be a hell of a lot more useful.

In general, I think the main stats should only be there if they influence something important, and not just be there as dead weight.

 

[Aoi Ninami]

Yes, an interesting question. I think it's important to keep stats to a reasonable minimum, so that the player can easily see at a glance what are each character's strengths and weaknesses, and so that choosing which stats to upgrade / get better equipment for doesn't feel like being overburdened with too many choices. Conversely, though, cutting things down too much makes those choices less interesting. So, for instance, I like keeping both DEF and MDF; then you might have to choose between wearing armour and magical clothing, or choose between buying armour or an amulet if you can't afford both. (The OP is wrong to say DEF/MDF can be merged just because no individual character has both attack types -- the difference remains important if both attack types exist in the game. That said, in my game three out of five playable characters, and many enemies, have both attack types.)

And yes, the default Luck stat is problematic -- Matseb's suggestion for improving it is a very good one.

 

[TheHonorableRyu]

Pokemon is a great example of a series that benefits a lot from splitting Attack and Defense into separate physical and magical ("special") categories, and competitive battling wouldn't be the same without physical, special, and mixed sweepers, and physical, special, and mixed walls.

On the other hand, Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door are great examples of games that benefits from stat simplification. 

I think a good overarching principle is to make the most of any stat you include and eliminate anything you're not really going to utilize.

 

[Chaos Avian]

The notion of removing DEF and MDF entirely and having more of a focus on HP, element/ attribute reduction and buffs/debuffs is quite interesting. As a developed you would have more control how stats work and you could have fun with more variety of skills that are more about timing rather than point and shoot, defend, heal, etc.

An idea for replacing the LUK stat could be Proficieny (PRO/ PRF), and this affect how good/ proficient a character is at using a weapon. A character would have for example 20 PRO and a dagger would have -5, whereas a sword may have -12. You would then have all physical/ weapon based skills factor in PRO into the damage formula. In a way it's supposed to mimic how Dark Souls handled weapons that your character didn't have enough stat points for. Instead of flat out not letting you equip it, you could but you would suck at it.

 

[jonthefox]

Of course it depends on what kind of game you're making, but I think in most JRPGs it's hard to justify going too far in either extreme.

In most games, I wouldn't like only having HP ATK and DEF.   I'm of the school of thought that instead of getting rid of marginally relevant stats like AGI, the designer finds additional use for it.  In the game I'm working on now, I tentatively have a system going where AGI not only affects turn order, but also affects your starting TP in battle, affects the damage both dealt and taken from critical strikes, and improves a number of defensive/utility-based rogue type of skills.  Is 1 point of AGI as good as 1 point of straight up damage or mitigation? It's unclear; it depends on a lot of factors (based on player choices, and how the game develops), which allows or the player to make interesting decisions, as well as play to the style they like.

Depending on how magic works in your game (if it even exists at all), you could possibly merge MAT and MDF into one MAG stat.  You could also possibly remove luck.   I like having about 6 stats myself, as long as they all feel meaningful and unique.  It provides enough complexity to make things interesting, but not so much as to overwhelm my brain.  

 

[Milennin]

HP, ATK, DEF, M.ATK, M.DEF and AGI are all basic stats in the average RPG. Anything on top of that would add to the complexity, arguably unnecessarily so. Cutting down from that would be dumbing it down (not necessarily a bad thing, depending on the game).

I don't see how HP and Defence can be counted as one. One increases the amounts of damage one can take from hits, while the other is used to reduce damage taken from hits. A character with high HP but low defence is still going to get hit hard, healing up such a character is much harder unless all your heals are percentage based. A character with low HP but high defence might be able to reduce incoming hits to such a degree that he's not hurt by regular attacks. Low HP also means it's easier to heal him back up to full HP with non-percentage based heals.

Splitting HP and Defence also allows numbers to stay smaller. Putting everything in HP requires characters to have higher HP than maybe would be necessary to make up for the lack of being able to reduce damage taken that defence would otherwise have.

Having a Defence and Magic Defence stat is also useful in games that put an emphasis on skills that can be either physical or magical, allowing certain characters to be much more resistant to physical or magical damage. Merging those stats with HP would take that away.

 

[Wavelength]

I don't see how HP and Defence can be counted as one. One increases the amounts of damage one can take from hits, while the other is used to reduce damage taken from hits. A character with high HP but low defence is still going to get hit hard, healing up such a character is much harder unless all your heals are percentage based. A character with low HP but high defence might be able to reduce incoming hits to such a degree that he's not hurt by regular attacks. Low HP also means it's easier to heal him back up to full HP with non-percentage based heals.Splitting HP and Defence also allows numbers to stay smaller. Putting everything in HP requires characters to have higher HP than maybe would be necessary to make up for the lack of being able to reduce damage taken that defence would otherwise have.

For sure, it seems like an unintuitive idea at first, so I'll try my best to explain when I think such a "dumbing down" would enhance gameplay rather than detract from it.

Imagine a game like Final Fantasy 12, Recettear, or Dark Cloud, but instead of a whole party of characters there was just one, so that the main strategic diversity lies in the enemies and the idea of "which character should take this hit" are no longer a thing.  HP and Defense, together, would determine how many hits an enemy can take from you before it goes down.

While it wouldn't lead to exactly the same results every time, HP alone could also determine how many hits an enemy can take from you before it goes down and would do so in a manner that still feels right.  It would also be more transparent to the player - seeing an enemy with 500 HP would give the player a very good idea that the enemy is twice as tough as an enemy with 250HP (which would be very hard to ascertain when other defensive stats are in the mix) and dealing 80 damage against one enemy could be directly compared to dealing 60 damage against another enemy to see that your power increased.  You'd have a lot more clarity and elegance in what stats do, and the gameplay depth would lose very, very little for it.

Having a Defence and Magic Defence stat is also useful in games that put an emphasis on skills that can be either physical or magical, allowing certain characters to be much more resistant to physical or magical damage. Merging those stats with HP would take that away.

There are useful stats to keep around if the player can make meaningful decisions around them.  Ryu's example of competitive Pokemon is a good one, and I'll add my own in League of Legends.  But in a lot of RPGs, where you can't reliably predict whether your opponents will be using physical or magic damage against you, I think that the idea of merging DEF/MDF or even rolling them both straight into HP would work well, and percentage-based Physical, Magical, or Elemental resistances/affinities could be used to fill any strategic hole that it creates.

 

[Mouser]

There's two games I can think of where there were only three primary stats: Final Fantasy XIII and Doraemon: Giga Zombie no Gyakushū (a Famicom-only JRPG).

Final Fantasy XIII has three stats: HP, Strength, and Magic. You can equip accessories to reduce damage (either all damage or specific types of damage), but in general HP is the main factor in who can get punched in the face more. Having Strength and Magic be distinct stats is important because the two primary offensive roles (classes) possess both physical and magical attacks. The four other roles only use one of those stats, but the non-damage effects of the abilities are often more important than how much damage the character can do using them. All of the roles in the game are available to all characters, and the selection of abilities coupled with their stats influences how useful they are in each role and against different enemies. For example, Snow is the game's best Sentinel (tank) and he has decent Strength, but his poor Magic makes him less effective offensively against enemies resistant to physical damage and his usefulness as a Ravager is limited since he has no access to fire or thunder attacks. A simple stat system works for that game because the battle system is real-time and heavily focused on strategic use of abilities rather than raw stats.

The Doraemon game has three stats as well: HP, Attack, and Defense. It's a very simple game (as RPGs were at the time) with your abilities in battle being either a simple attack, using magic (almost all spells have fixed power and use Gold as "MP"), or using an item. Because of the extreme simplicity, there's really no depth to getting stronger other than "hit people harder and get hit less hard by other people". The lack of an Agility stat particularly bothered me, because there was nothing to give me any sort of indication of who would be more likely to act first in battle. Certain enemies and party members felt like they would act first more often in battle, but I still didn't have anything to base that off of.

A game doesn't need a complex stat system, nor does it necessarily benefit from a simple stat system. What matters is how well the stat system complements the gameplay.

You can add Skyrim to that list. Whether or not that was a Good Thing or a Bad Thing is the subject of much internet debate to this day.

Personally, I loved the stat system in Daggerfall. They dumbed down streamlined it a bit for Morrowind, then took out the hatchet for Oblivion and Skyrim.

 

[stupid enough to like FF13]

If there's one thing to be learned from Oblivion, it's that even massively-successful series have no freaking clue what to do with a Personality/Charisma stat.

 

[Milennin]

For sure, it seems like an unintuitive idea at first, so I'll try my best to explain when I think such a "dumbing down" would enhance gameplay rather than detract from it.

Imagine a game like Final Fantasy 12, Recettear, or Dark Cloud, but instead of a whole party of characters there was just one, so that the main strategic diversity lies in the enemies and the idea of "which character should take this hit" are no longer a thing.  HP and Defense, together, would determine how many hits an enemy can take from you before it goes down.

While it wouldn't lead to exactly the same results every time, HP alone could also determine how many hits an enemy can take from you before it goes down and would do so in a manner that still feels right.  It would also be more transparent to the player - seeing an enemy with 500 HP would give the player a very good idea that the enemy is twice as tough as an enemy with 250HP (which would be very hard to ascertain when other defensive stats are in the mix) and dealing 80 damage against one enemy could be directly compared to dealing 60 damage against another enemy to see that your power increased.  You'd have a lot more clarity and elegance in what stats do, and the gameplay depth would lose very, very little for it.

I haven't played any of those games, nor do I ever remember playing an RPG that had its defence stat merged with HP.

I also don't recall playing an RPG in which I could see the number of HP left on an enemy, it generally only shows a bar. If I see my character hitting for, say 10 with an attack and it takes 20% of the enemy's life, then I can pretty accurately estimate how many more attacks I'll need to kill it, no need for a number to show. I don't see how your example would enhance the gameplay over what is the standard in RPGs.

If there needs to be an enemy with high defence, then just use a highly armoured enemy graphic. The player will instantly know this enemy is going to take more hits than a regular enemy. Once again, no need to show numbers to get the point across (plus it's more interesting than showing a number, too).

And like I said earlier, if HP is the only defence you have, numbers will be getting increasingly higher. You'll need 2x as much HP on an enemy that has good armour. So if you have regular enemies with 25HP, then your armoured enemies will have 50HP. Then bosses will have 100HP. And that number inflates with every new area. If you have a Defence stat, you can have an armoured enemy with normal HP values, but taking less damage from hits. It helps keeping the numbers in check.

There are useful stats to keep around if the player can make meaningful decisions around them. Ryu's example of competitive Pokemon is a good one, and I'll add my own in League of Legends. But in a lot of RPGs, where you can't reliably predict whether your opponents will be using physical or magic damage against you, I think that the idea of merging DEF/MDF or even rolling them both straight into HP would work well, and percentage-based Physical, Magical, or Elemental resistances/affinities could be used to fill any strategic hole that it creates.

I don't see how you cannot reliably predict what enemies will be using in RPGs, unless you just put random stuff on your enemies. When I see wild animals, I can predict they will use physical attacks. When I see mythical creatures (faeries), I can predict they will use magical attacks. Knights, soldiers, bandits, ogres and trolls all use physical. Sorcerers, spirits, elementals and spirits all use magical. Then you'll have legendary creatures like dragons that may use both types.

On top of all that, having Defence and Magic Defence also allows for more character diversity in games where you have a good number of playable characters.

 

[jwideman]

While characters that don't use magic never need MAT, characters that do sometimes need to attack without magic. If you ask me, the stats aren't complex enough.

 

[Wavelength]

I haven't played any of those games, nor do I ever remember playing an RPG that had its defence stat merged with HP.

I also don't recall playing an RPG in which I could see the number of HP left on an enemy, it generally only shows a bar. If I see my character hitting for, say 10 with an attack and it takes 20% of the enemy's life, then I can pretty accurately estimate how many more attacks I'll need to kill it, no need for a number to show. I don't see how your example would enhance the gameplay over what is the standard in RPGs.

There are lots of games that do show numbers for enemy HP (in addition to helpful visual cues like armor), and I've never notice it detract from the experience.

And like I said earlier, if HP is the only defence you have, numbers will be getting increasingly higher. You'll need 2x as much HP on an enemy that has good armour. So if you have regular enemies with 25HP, then your armoured enemies will have 50HP. Then bosses will have 100HP. And that number inflates with every new area. If you have a Defence stat, you can have an armoured enemy with normal HP values, but taking less damage from hits. It helps keeping the numbers in check.

I find consistency and clarity to be very important - the player should never have to wonder "why did this low-HP enemy take me so many hits to bring down... was it high defense, elemental resistance, or maybe I did something wrong?"  While I like low numbers too, I personally put a higher priority on providing this kind of direct clarity than on keeping numbers low.  Maybe we just have different priorities here?

I don't see how you cannot reliably predict what enemies will be using in RPGs, unless you just put random stuff on your enemies. When I see wild animals, I can predict they will use physical attacks. When I see mythical creatures (faeries), I can predict they will use magical attacks. Knights, soldiers, bandits, ogres and trolls all use physical. Sorcerers, spirits, elementals and spirits all use magical. Then you'll have legendary creatures like dragons that may use both types.

On top of all that, having Defence and Magic Defence also allows for more character diversity in games where you have a good number of playable characters.

Sure, once you see the enemy party is composed of Knights and Dire Wolves, you know you're facing Physical damage.  Is there anything you can do to react at the point where you're able to make this prediction, though?  You don't usually get to see the enemy party until you're actually in the battle, and at this point your DEF and MDF are locked in and you can't really do anything to counterplay around their magic-heavy Faerie party.  (Not to mention even faeries usually have an "Attack" command that they're using ~40% of the time!)

In competitive Pokemon you can work around the meta and also swap out one Pokemon for another if the Physical/Special breakdown is unfavorable.  In League of Legends you buy your equipment throughout the game, once you already know the opponent's composition.  These are good examples of counterplay and they highlight why having multiple types of damage and defense can be excellent game mechanics.  But I'm struggling to think of places in Dragon Warrior or Star Ocean or Skies of Arcadia that offered similar counterplay opportunities, except where you've already lost to a boss (or read the strategy guide) and you know exactly what they can throw at you in advance.

While characters that don't use magic never need MAT, characters that do sometimes need to attack without magic. If you ask me, the stats aren't complex enough.

I always find the "INT dump stat" on physical types pretty funny.  In my most recent game, I gave the warrior a couple of "mixed damage" skills that scale with his ATK and MAT, with the MAT scaling on these skills being very large.  These skills also have significant cooldowns so that choosing equipment that builds up your MAT and skills that use your MAT becomes a feasible (but situational) strategy, rather than a completely overpowered one.

 

[Mouser]

I find consistency and clarity to be very important - the player should never have to wonder "why did this low-HP enemy take me so many hits to bring down... was it high defense, elemental resistance, or maybe I did something wrong?"  While I like low numbers too, I personally put a higher priority on providing this kind of direct clarity than on keeping numbers low.  Maybe we just have different priorities here?

I enjoy games that make me think and try to figure out why my attacks aren't working. This forces the player to experiment with different tactics, try different skills or weapon types, etc...  Much more interesting than enemies with a sign saying "I'm weak to fire."

 

[stupid enough to like FF13]

While characters that don't use magic never need MAT, characters that do sometimes need to attack without magic. If you ask me, the stats aren't complex enough.

Magic stats can have effects other than simply affecting the power of spells. For example, Magic in the Dragon Age games—Origins has Magic affect the potency of potions, II has Magic contribute to magic defense, and Inquisition has Magic increase damage against enemies' barriers. Its primary benefit is for Mages, but Warriors and Rogues still benefit from it.

Or a game could have items that can be used to cast spells, such as Final Fantasy I. A Master can still use the Healing Staff to cast Heal, but it is less effective than a White Mage/Wizard casting Heal or using the Healing Staff.

And some games let any character use spells via equipment. Dekar in Lufia II can equip rings that let him use spells as an IP ability. You'd be...well, you'd be Dekar if you did instead of having him hit people over the head with very large weapons, but it's still an option.

 

[TheHonorableRyu]

Yeah, I think HP and Defense stats could easily be reduced to just HP in a lot of RPGs, especially if elemental resistances handle how much damage is taken with each kind of attack. (If someone still wanted armor upgrades and differences to play a major role in the game, they could make armor directly affect max HP or elemental resistances.) If we look at how many hits it takes to KO a unit, in many cases having HP and Defense split into two separate stats is redundant. A 50 HP unit that takes 10 damage per hit works out to be the same number of hits as a unit that has 100 HP but takes 20 damage per hit due to lower Defense.

 

However, splitting HP and Defense can still be put to purposeful use. My current project is a case of what I would call "maximalist" design where instead of trying to streamline a lot of conventions I try to flesh them out for strategic and thematic use. 

 

In the case of HP and Defense, for example, in my project Bug type units have low HP and high Defense, and Plant types have high HP and low Def. Healing skills are rare in the game and Plant types are one of the few sources of healing, but only through transferring their own HP to other units (and then recovering some of that lost HP by taking turns in battle to auto-generate HP for themselves). This results in good synergy with Bug types, because their low HP and high Defense means that each HP counts for more on a Bug type than a Plant type: 20 HP on a Bug type will go further than 20 HP on a Plant type. Also, Bug types have some HP-draining attack skills that are pretty much useless against enemies with low HP and/or high Defense but great against enemies with high HP and low Defense such as Plant types, so players using any Bug types would reasonably come up with a different plan of attack if they see that an enemy encounter has Plant types in it.

 

[jwideman]

One argument for the HP/Def split is that some attacks could ignore defense. 

 

[SinのAria]

I see both as being valuable as others have said.

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I've seen plenty of rpgs show me numbers for HP left on enemies. MMOs especially, but plenty of standard RPGs as well. It does not really detract from the gameplay if used appropriately (some games are better for different types of displays).

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There is a reason why DEF is not another HP.

Take this example:

ATK-DEF = Damage (minimum of 0)

100 ATK

1000 HP 0 DEF = 10 attacks to death.

1 HP 100 DEF = Invincible.

Then you have attacks that can penetrate defense/ignore defense/etc.

Maybe you have an attack that uses MATK instead of ATK and thus you have to consider in a secondary defense (maybe an armor is better against magic than physical).

You then can show this either visually (in the case of enemies) or as a stat (in the case of your own character or a 'scan').

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Another thought is games that allow mid-combat gear swaps.  I've had one MMO allow this (you had to do a really absurd trick to do it) and plenty of RPGs that allow this but use up a turn or action points.

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I've personally mainly used the "INT dump" as an alternative or extra function.  For example, a Warrior might fight mostly with STR, but have an enemy that is strong against physical. They might have a backup spell to just help them out a bit. Or perhaps they have a magic/elemental/etc. weapon that uses the INT stat on top of the STR stat. (maybe INT affects success rate of inflicting ailments or w/e).

"STR dump" similar. Maybe a mage happens to decide to whack stuff to save MP.  Maybe they have a spell with a physical element to it and their STR adds to the damage/accuracy/etc.

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One way or another, I think however stats are done, they can be done well.