I strongly disagree that the ommission of stats is a good thing in DAO, and can provide numerous examples of how it hinders my gameplay - and will provide some below.
1) Selecting gear is guesswork or clumsy
"This character is receiving a bonus from set items" is way too vague. What is the extent of the bonus? If I'm wearing a set of three pieces of armour, and I'm told I'm getting a bonus but have no decent way of quantifying it, how do I decide whether to upgrade when I find a different piece of armour that could replace one of those set pieces?
Currently, I have two choices, both terrible. Firstly, I can guess. That's not a choice then. Alternatively I can try to deduce what the gains to my stats actually are using a clumsy and bizarre process: debuffing my character completely, stripping him naked, then watching my character stats as I equip and unequip the pieces of the set while noting my stats, then watching my character stats as I equip and unequip the piece/s I wish to compare, noting the changes in my stats. Is that more user-friendly than specific information in tooltips/descriptions? No. Is it more immersive? No. If I'm spending time trying outfits on and writing down the effects they have on my stats, I'm removed from the gameplay during those bizarre interludes and having to focus more than otherwise on the very numbers that the decision to not give stats attempts to reduce. Is it smoother or faster? No. Most other games in the genre, with specific tooltip or gear descriptions, I can make the necessary comparison in a couple of seconds, without having to do something as weird as debuffing, stripping, and equipping/unequipping.
Is it more realistic because people can't in real life judge the damage potential of weaponry and absorbing properties of armour? Perhaps it is (though ballistic science does have ways of quantifying damage potential). It's also realistic for humans to urinate every now and then and to breathe in and out, but thankfully it generally isn't demanded of game players to locate toilets or press buttons to breathe in and out.
So the benefits of me not being able to judge the comparative properties of my gear can be reduced to a tenuous argument that it perhaps is more realistic - but realism over fun isn't a good formula for game enjoyment. If realism is so valuable, we wouldn't be playing games that allow us to fight evil with swords, we'd be playing games where we go into an office and deal with paperwork before coming home tired and in dire need of some food and a shower. On top of the fact that realism doesn't trump fun and smooth gameplay, there's the fact that if realism is the goal, DAO and most other games fail in epic proportions. Magic? Numbers above character heads? Controlling 4 people? Pointy ears? I'm not knocking those things being in this or any other game - I'm saying that we accept them despite their departure from realism, because we aren't that concerned with absolute realism when we are escaping from reality in a game or film; these points are made here to ensure that the realism defence of hiding game-essential statistics is seen as what it is - both futile in the context of so much other unrealism and unhelpful in the context of establishing smooth gameplay.
2) Selecting skills/spells upon levelling is guesswork or clumsy
As with the gear example in (1), the descriptions of spells and such are so vague as to not allow for a levelling up player to make properly informed choices. They cannot be compared efficiently as values are hidden.
As with gear, a player has two choices. He can guess, which is not a choice. Or he can go through a clumsy process to determine the actual specific effects of spells by: choosing them, testing them in combat (made harder by the absence of a combat log - I'll come to that next in (3)), and then loading from a save before choosing that spell, then repeating with a different choice and finally comparing their notes. Is that more user-friendly than providing specific information in tooltips and descriptions? No. Is it more immersive? No. If I'm feeling like a playtester when I'm playing a game, testing out efficacy and then reloading an old save, scribbling down damage values and repeating the process in order to unearth actual spell effects, I'm not being carried away into the game world and playing it for enjoyment. Yes, I could just not go to the trouble of finding out the statistical effects of these things - and instead make guesses - but it has *always* been a key part of the RPG play experience to try to optimize your characters, their gear, their skills, and their approach to situations within the context of the game world and the player's visualisation of the characters from an RP perspective. Is it smoother and faster to learn afterwards that a spell doesn't perform like you gathered from a vague descriptor and reload an earlier save-game (or use a respec)? No.
Is it more realistic to not really know the quantitative effects of a spell? Probably. But again, if that's the sole defence of the absence of numbers, it's weak for the same reasons I covered on realism in (1).
3) Assessing the efficacy of combat techniques (I mean tactics, but I'm deliberately choosing a different word to differentiate it from the AI tactics that characters can be automated by) is hindered by the absence of a combat log
Players can gain a lot of satisfaction in an RPG tactical combat from making effective choices within an on-going battle. Players can use feedback immediately within a battle to adjust their approach, and can use it afterwards to assess what went well and what could have been improved upon.
Many CRPG players have experience of doing exactly this, especially those that have been part of well organised guild raids in MMOs. The combat logs of games such as EQ2 provide players with a wealth of information to inform the current battle, and to learn from for future ones. Questions abound like "why did the tank lose aggro halfway through that fight?" and "Does this enemy resist certain damage types more than others?". The answers to those are all in the combat log - the tank lost aggro because the mage fired off 2 nukes within quick succession, the enemy is resistant to non-magical damage. Before anyone reminds me, I do know this isn't EQ2, and it isn't an MMO. Regardless of what DAO is or isn't, it does have tactical combat with multiple characters fighting multiple enemies, and with an emphasis on effective use of the party to gain victory. Some tactical decisions work better than others against different enemies and in different environments. Just as the detailed feedback in other RPG combat log windows is useful to modify and improve player performance in current and future battles, it would be useful in DAO.
The absence of a combat log, and the non-specific stats in general, can be argued to have advantages. I've read a few, can understand them well enough, but don't agree that overall they make a convincing rationale for that design choice.
The screen is undoubtedly cleaner without a combat log. It could be even cleaner without skillbars and game icons but would be harder to play. Clean isn't everything, especially where the relative improvement to the appearance of screenshots is weighed up against the impact upon gameplay. And it shouldn't be forgotten that many games with combat log windows have configurable windows. Don't want to see it at all? Close it. Want it smaller? Resize it. Want it to show x, y, z info but not a,b, c? Select the options you want to be displayed. Want it less opague? Fade it some. Anyone reasonably familiar with combat log windows from countless other RPGs will have seen these and other configuration options provided to allow players to achieve their own favourite balance between what information they'd like displayed and how uncluttered their screen looks.
The absence of a log and stats in general can be argued to be less intimidating to players new to the genre. Well, again: options could have allowed it to be both ways. Have it default to not show a log, with an option to turn it on/configure it. The hypothetical players who are scared of RPG mechanics get to avoid nightmares, the hardcore of RPGers that are used to using one avoid the nightmare of there not being one. Similarly, have the stats only show up when tooltipping or inspecting (because it's fair to assume that if a player is deliberately hovering a cursor over something or clicking inspect/examine, they ARE hoping to find specific information). Are new players to the genre really all numerophobics incapable of understanding some simple numbers? The game was sold at £29.99, not "a handful of notes and coins". I think paternalistically protecting people from having to handle "4D6" or "4-24" and instead giving them "moderate damage" is not giving enough credit to the average numeric competence of PC gamers. It hurts more than it helps - the newcomers and veterans both have to jump through clumsy gameplay hoops to actually know the quantitative effects of anything.
4) General conclusions on the absence of stats, precision, and a combat log:
Is it more fun to not know? No. I didn't enjoy being uncertain about exactly what would come in the collector's edition in my region, and I don't enjoy being uncertain about whether my new breastplate actually is an improvement over my old one, or whether I'm selecting a spell that will turn out to be different from what I deduced from a vague descriptor. I do enjoy feeling like I'm able to play better and improve, and feedback is handy for that. I'll admit I'm a control freak - it's not an unusual trait in RPGers to appear obsessed with specifics and details. But there are genuine gameplay reasons why information is useful to RPG players.
Is it more realistic for players not to know how anything works? Quite possibly. Congratulations, the uncertainties of real life that we spend much of our time trying to figure out and/or avoiding are introduced in a gameplay setting - when games are played to engage with realities that are more fun, more exciting, and less laborious than real life. Some things are best left to real life.
Do things run smoother without specifics, stats, and a combat log? No. Because without them, I have to use clumsy and immersion-breaking methods to unearth the specific stats (the fashion-week changing room antics of (1) or the unpaid playtesting work of (2)). Yes, I have the choice not to do so - but that choice demands that I not care about the effects of my choices of equipment or spells, so is not one for me. I do care what effect my choices have, and I don't think it is wise for an RPG to discourage me from caring about my choices of equipment or skills.
Is it different from other RPGs, does it challenge conventions? Yes it does. So would a novel without any words or a piece of music with only one note. Different and convention-breaking, yes. Better for it, certainly not.
I worry that my opinions on the ambiguities of equipment, skills, spells, etc., and my stance on the combat log, will wrongly give the impression that I'm a DAO-hater. To clarify that, I'd like to end my rant by stating that I love DAO and admire so much of the work and the design that has gone into it that I am hugely respectful and overall very pleased with the game - but it does have a few very ugly warts that for me are all the more tragic because they could so easily have been avoided, and they still can be remedied with patching (and maybe modding - though I'm not sure if that would be feasible). I suspect BW will be reluctant to reverse their design choice with regard to obscuring stats, and can understand that - it might feel like admitting they got it wrong in the first place. I hope they wouldn't feel that way if they did reconsider, and trust they'd work from a position that there's always room for improvement, and also plenty of room for keeping players happy. Providing options so players can choose to have a combat log or not would broaden appeal without compromising the intentions of not providing it upon release.
LONG POST, SO HERE'S THE SHORT VERSION:
The absence of specific stats and the absence of a combat log hinders selection of equipment, spells/skills, and player efficacy in combat, without adding much value to compensate for it. It discourages and disables players from making effective choices that are generally a key part of RPGs, or at least forces the player to use clumsy workarounds to disambiguate what could so easily have been transparent in the first place. There'd be no harm done to the hypothetical mass of players with aversions to stats and combat logs for those things to be provided optionally. Patch ftw.
Modifié par Statue, 16 novembre 2009 - 02:39 .
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