WTF: Future of Stat Sticks (single-trait items) -- Ban, Throttle, or Restrict?

There’s been some discussion within the wearables task force around single-stat items (referred to as “stat sticks” from here on out).

What is a stat stick?
A stat stick is a wearables that affects a single trait. Thus, it’s easy to just “stick” it on any gotchi with the right value for that trait. This is in contrast to items that affect 2 or 3 traits, which are harder to optimally equip.

Why have we been discussing?
The WTF has tried to find a balance between preserving value of players’ existing assets and not locking out new players. Stat sticks present an interesting dynamic as they’re generally more powerful than other items. When we introduce additional stat sticks, we believe the value of other items takes a hit.

What are our options?
For lower rarity tiers, stat sticks are a necessity (all common items are stat sticks for example). For higher rarity tiers, there is plenty of untapped design space in trait combinations. We think there’s value in restricting, throttling, or halting the release of stat sticks for the time being. This should, in theory, benefit all as earlier adopters/players will be rewarded by having already-released stat sticks, and players on budgets won’t see their multi-trait wearables decline in value as players move into new stat sticks. The thinking is that this doesn’t need to be permanent. If, down the road, the community decides they want new stat sticks, a proposal can be raised to revert this one!

  • Option A: Do nothing – stat sticks are fun after all
  • Option B: No more stat sticks for legendary+ wearables for now
  • Option C: Only 1 legendary+ stat stick allowed per wearable raffle/auction
  • Option D: No further duplicate stat sticks allowed within a rarity tier (i.e. if a legendary item with +4 SPK already exists, no more legendary items with +4 SPK will be released for ANY item slot) – This would be pretty close to Option B given what already exists.
  • Option E: Open to suggestions!

Reasons you might support:

  • Preserves value of existing stat sticks by not introducing duplicate items
  • Preserves value of multi-trait items that are currently strictly worse than stat sticks
  • Guides design team to explore new trait combinations on rarer wearables
  • This proposal can be reverted at any time with a new proposal

Reasons you might not support:

  • Sets introduce enough variety to keep duplicate stat stick and multi-trait items interesting
  • If ARS is implemented in rarity farming, multi-tier items are no longer strictly worse than stat sticks
  • Limits design space for wearable sets – it becomes harder to create unique sets (looking specifically at something like the upcoming fairy set).
  • The value proposition I touch on above isn’t damaging currently

Looking forward to hearing folks’ thoughts!

Which of the options mentioned above would you support in a signal proposal? (Multiple allowed)
  • Option A: Do nothing
  • Option B: No more stat sticks
  • Option C: One stat stick per raffle/auction
  • Option D: No duplicate stat sticks within a rarity tier
  • Option E: Something else!

0 voters

3 Likes

I think the restrictions are a good idea to follow generally, but as guidelines rather than imposed rules (even if they are rules that can be reverted with a vote).

Restricting a design space can often help with creativity. And after a while, once everyone’s used to the new status quo, choosing to deliberately break the rules (at the right time, in a carefully limited way) can be surprising and delightful.

I would tend to agree with this sentiment – this could kind of fall under the Option C bucket of throttling these items, though maybe we can get more creative. Instead of capping stat sticks per-wearable event, we could cap them per year or by some other metric. Something that artificially reduces their rate of appearance while leaving room for surprises from the design team.

We could also artificially create guidelines around stat sticks with regards to sets. I actually think the sus butterfly is a great use of a stat stick as it gives a 3rd dimension to the fairy set. We could ask that future stat sticks simply not align exactly with other wearables in their sets (the way bitcoin guitar does for example). In this way, the stat stick can be used as a flex play, but reaping the full benefits of its set requires more intentional equipping.

1 Like

This is an important issue. Just want to mention that all the same points apply to sets.

Like sets that only touch a single trait? WGMI set comes to mind with -AGG

Sorry if this is a noob question - what are the negatives of a stat stick, specifically why does their existence drive down the value of a multi-stat wearable in BRS rarity farming? If I have 1 AGG, 96 SPK, would I not value +4 SPK and +3 SPK -1 AGG equally?

Not a noob question at all!

In your example, the items would provide equal value (lucky you!).
However, let’s say your gotchi was 96 AGG 96 SPK. Now the +4 SPK item is strictly better. The stat stick could end up being useful for twice as many gotchis as the +3/+1 item! As we introduce more stat sticks, we introduce more easy-to-equip items that users can prefer over mixed items.

I think in reality, we haven’t really seen stat sticks affect the value of other wearables yet. This discussion is attempting to get ahead of the curve as we believe there’s a good chance that in the medium-term, mixed-trait items will suffer if we continue to release more and more stat sticks.

Hopefully that answers the question – and I want to emphasize that there are arguments to be made both for leaving everything as-is vs changing things up. I’ve outlined them a bit in the original post to help folks try and see the full picture

Thanks for clarifying :slight_smile:

Thinking through this, all I really care about “in the current meta” is net BRS change, as the other stats don’t have a specific meaning beyond their contribution to BRS and how it may affect what wearables may appeal to me.

That being said, does this make sense for an option E: Aggregate stats for all wearables in existence (separating out positive and negative) so you get some kind of data set like:
-1231 AGG, +1012 AGG, -900 NRG, +914 NRG, -990 SPK, +1002 SPK, -1009 BRN, +924 BRN. That particular sample data has an average of 997.75 and a standard deviation of 104.76. Each new wearable release can have any combination of blended or stat stick options as long as the standard deviation of the combined data does not increase.

In effect, this would make sure that there is the same number of positive or negative stats available on the market, but the standard deviation rule would limit stat sticks (since they push a specific direction too far) but still allow some stat sticks in cases where the attributes need to play catch up (in the fake data set above, -NRG is sorely needed, so perhaps some stat sticks are necessary)

Can confirm. It’s easier to understand the implications of a design decision if you put it in a box.