Even percentages mean nothing. Increase chance to find gold by 5%. Does that mean a 5% increase on your current chance to find gold, or a full % increase? eg. If you have a 1% chance to find gold, is a 5% increase 6% chance to find gold, or 1.05%?
Borderlands 2 stats were that kind of confusing. You invest in skills to increase burn chance, say, yet didn't really get to see any difference. IMO numbers based games should be completely transparent and explained - that's a significant part of the draw for plenty of users.
(Having said that, just looked at Neverwinter online and the stats have exceeded my interest level. It's all just become numbers these days. I don't think I care about small percentage differences in anything any more.)
You seem to be intellectually fascinated about almost everything and I wonder how much you have played Diablo 2, for instance, those were the days!
After playing Diablo 2 for years, Diablo 3 stats are a breeze, so easy to understand by comparison. And the best of all, they work as intended.
I remember building werewolf druids in Diablo 2 and trying to get the most IAS (Increased Attack Speed) from items, for the Fury skill. That was a game changer if you knew what you were doing.
BUT the formulas didn't work as expected. Each class had a speed attack bonus -or also a penalty- for using certain weapons.
So a druid had a speed attack bonus with Threshers, and you could use a mace with a stat saying it had a 80% increased attack speed, but it could mean nothing at all.
It was all the more complicated because Fury only got speed bonuses from your weapon, not from any other equipment, so IAS from items that weren't the weapon you were wielding didn't matter.
What was horrible though, was that your IAS didn't matter at all if you didn't reach a breakpoint. Breakpoints were essential to make the animation goes as fast as possible, saving frames --thus, having more increased attack speed (IAS).
Say..., you had a thresher with a 10% IAS bonus, and another thresher with a 80% IAS.
You'd say; "Well, I am going to use the thresher with a 80% IAS". It didn't matter! You got the same attack speed from both if you didn't reach a breakpoint where animation increases its attack speed.
The higher the bonus the more complex to actually achieve the next breakpoint, as the requirements to break another IAS frame got higher and higher.
I remember using IAS calculators available online to look for the equipment that allowed me to reach crazy attack speeds with Fury to remove that extra frame of animation.
You can see what I mean here, somehow, the breakpoints in Diablo 2.
http://diablo.gamepedia.com/Breakpoints_(Diablo_II)
In Diablo 3, it's so easy. :smile2: A 40% IAS increase means actually that, it's not subject to the frames of animation.
Also, the game clearly shows your attack speed, say 1.40 -which means that your attack speed is over 40% faster than the base speed, 1-.
Diablo 3 also shows clearly when you get a running speed bonus. 0.35 means you get a 35% increased running speed.
It's so easy I am delighted with that, at least compared to my Diablo 2 expert days.
