The Weekly Raid: Is Allocating Stats Desirable?

Leveling up in an MMORPG is often met with an over-excited firework and the chance to customize your character: new skills, gear, and stat allocation. It's the time to refine what kind of Hunter or Mage or Warrior you want to be. Do I put points into intelligence to increase my healing skills? Maybe I should choose the talent tree that offers more DPS skills to level faster.

Choosing what skills to pursue seems natural, but should players also have the option of choosing their stats? Sure, it's a way to fully customize your character, the means to create something truly unique: mixing agility and intelligence to make a Rogue-Mage hybrid. But in a player-climate that emphasizes min/maxing is there any point?

Many games have done away with choosing stats as you level. It's too daunting for many MMORPG players, an anxiety that begins and ends on Google.

But players are losing a freedom. Without the ability to customize their stats they're giving up some of the control they had over their character. Now they're just a class archetype, headed along the same trajectory as everyone else.

At the same time players are typically forced to allocate stats along a single trajectory anyway: one defined by the class they choose. Will most games in the future even bother allowing players to choose stat points when they create their character, à la Ragnarok Online? Maybe a further discussion is, can stat allocation and classes co-exist?

Is allocating stats desirable in MMORPGs? Let us know in the comments below!