The unbearable lightness of stat boosts

There's nothing quite like spending two hours in a muck-filled dungeon, hacking and slashing your way through countless monsters and creatures best left to the realms of twisted imagination, to receive an ultimate reward: a sword which gives you an extra .25% chance to hit enemies in sunlight. Or an extra .2% damage to any monster you've killed more than four of in a given play session. Or you get an extra 1% health for five seconds every time you correctly spell "exalted." Ravious over on Kill Ten Rats recently posted his thoughts on precisely this phenomenon: the issue that you're looking at a lot of work for, ultimately, almost one percent of a reward.

While the post is specifically talking about Lord of the Rings Online, it can easily apply to many other games, and we can all think of rewards that were similarly important and yet less than overwhelming. Part of the reason behind this, of course, is that MMOs need to have a power curve ramp-up without granting everyone too much damage or health or what-have-you, as Ravious dutifully notes. However, there's a point where too much balance becomes too little meaningful impact -- it can be better, at times, to only have one bonus but make it a big one. It's ultimately up to the player which one they prefer, but most of us certainly do seem to prefer having each upgrade be a big one.