68 réponses à ce sujet

[SheffSteel]

It's a shame that the developers didn't have time to include a system that would provide accurate guides as to what abilities do. It was a design decision, and the descision they went with was (incidentally or not) the one that cost less to develop. At the end of the day, there is a lot to be said for only having a vague idea about something until you have actual experience of it. If you think that seeing numbers will be any substitute for learning to play the game, you are deluding yourself.

[Jab0r]

As it stands, I'm constantly in the toolset trying to figure out what these abilities actually do.

If you just want the numbers, they're all there in a single header file in the toolset. Very little "figuring out" necessary, considering the constants are all named appropriately.

I wonder what DIRTY_FIGHTING_STUN_DURATION indicates...

[Statue]

Aidunno wrote...

Number crunching or gameplay/immersion.. know which one I would prefer. All the numbers and "how to beat the game" are probably already out there or soon will be if not. Who cares if your character missed by 1pt or 100. A miss is as good as a mile.

The immersion argument is flawed in many ways, not least of all by the existence of numbers in the game other than the spell and talent descriptions (floaty damage above heads, fatigue values in armour descriptions, etc). Is it really more immersive because you only have numbers above their heads and in half of the descriptions that are constantly in the game but no numbers in the descriptions of talents and spells that you use when levelling up (an event far less frequent than checking your inventory or character stats or combat).

I could also suggest how having to go into the toolset to find how a talent works, having to unequip and re-equip gear to find out what the "bonus to armour from wearing a set" is, and/or playtesting a spell to find out its effects and then reverting to a save prior to selecting it are all pretty bad for immersion.

Modifié par Statue, 01 décembre 2009 - 06:27 .

[Jordi B]

Statue wrote...

Jordi B wrote...

I would like the numbers, because I like to carefully design my character. However, if the descriptions are correct and no skills would really be bad, then I don't think games should have to give us the numbers. Also, imagine that after lots of QA and balance testing BioWare decided that the formula for Arcane Missile should be something crazy like:

exp(your level) / pi^(enemy level) * log(pi*spellpower/resistance)

Then I can really imagine that they wouldn't put that in the description and instead they would just say that it does little/moderate damage that significantly increases with level and spellpower (or something).

Or they could simply put the base damage in the description. However complicated the final damage calculation formula used is under the hood, there's no excuse for not giving some basics up front for comparison purposes - apart from there is an excuse, but it's not the one you're suggesting it might be. It was a scheduling error.

Like I said: I like numbers and I want to know them. At least in this game. I wasn't giving an explanation of why I think they were missing. All I was saying is that I don't think it should be absolutely mandatory for every possible RPG (since the topic title mentions multiple RPGs). Perhaps a base damage number would always be nice, I don't know. If sophisticated stuff is going on behind the scenes, it might just be confusing and accurate and detailed textual descriptions might work better. Of course you need to be able to compare choices to some degree, and perhaps a consistent system of adjectives (some/moderate/considerable/huge damage) would help in doing that. Numbers are of course more accurate, but like someone pointed out, I feel a small amount of fuzziness is defendable, since realistically you probably wouldn't really know how much points of damage your fireball would do, or a certain shield might prevent.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Statue wrote...

It's not that he didn't believe in doing it. The opposite is the case. He not only believes in the numbers being there, but would have *loved* them to be there. Example of one of multiple quotes where he states he wanted to have the numbers in the descriptions:

Georg Zoeller wrote...

I would have loved to ship talent and spell descriptions with detailed numbers, but due to the localization schedule, that was not possible.

from http://social.biowar...45995/3#246992

But given that, why not release those descriptions to us now?  Clearly BioWare knows how their spells and talents work.  Just throw the data up on the forum somewhere and let us piece it together.

[Chairman Yang]

It's too bad Bioware wasn't able to put in numbers. Dragon Age would've been a better game with the game mechanics open to in-game analysis. Frankly, all of the arguments against game mechanic transparency are wrong.



* "People should have to figure out the numbers for themselves": Why? Is endless trial and error to get a rough feel for numbers fun? Does it require the exercise of skill, rather than time? No, to both.



* "It's more immersive to not have numbers": I haven't seen any correlation between lack of transparency and immersiveness. Did you really find Dragon Age more immersive than, say, Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment because the game system is hidden? I doubt anyone did. In fact, there's a certain immersiveness to be had by truly understanding your characters' capabilities. Getting acquainted with a game system promotes a deeper level of involvement than just having a shallow surface understanding.



* "Casual players are turned off by numbers, so putting them in would hurt the commercial viability of the game": There are tons of counterexamples to this, from Pokemon to World of Warcraft.



The biggest reason for game mechanic transparency is that it makes games more strategically interesting, plain and simple. Decision-making becomes more interesting when you have specific information to make those decisions, rather than vague feelings. There are a few exceptions (fog of war is an example), but the general rule holds true.

[Jab0r]

Clearly BioWare knows how their spells and talents work. Just throw the data up on the forum somewhere and let us piece it together.

Anyone with the toolset can have a look at the defined constants for the spells and talents scripts and "piece it together". So essentially, this is what they have done.

[Oliver Sudden]

I gotta agree that it's a lot more lifelike (not gonna say realistic) not knowing the numbers. I've got an idea how much I can hurt someone if I punch or stab him, but there really isn't any metric and enemies don't have a listed, known, quantity of damage they can withstand.



I remember back when we picked up Dungeons and Dragons and the Dungeon Master asking us not to look at his manual but only the Player's Manual. Why? Because it wasn't any of our business knowing the numbers for everything ... that was his job and he could use that info to produce a world for us to explore and adventure in.



Yeah, some of the earlier BioWare games had the numbers listed, but that didn't make the games any better IMHO. I never used that to hit anyone only hard enough to take away their last 7 points, and it's pretty to tell in Dragon Age how much damage I'm doing and taking.

[MarloMarlo]

Ismelda wrote...
Because it is a game... People like to see the damages they are doing. But there is an option to remove that I think for better immersion.

Yes, because a complete lack of visual feedback is immersive, right?

There are no health bars when someone hits another person in the face with a hammer in real life, right? The struck person looks perfectly healthy and in-tact throughout it all, and just falls over upon death. No indication whatsoever about how much damage you've inflicted.

Yes, the lack of numbers as an abstraction for that so totally breaks immersion and it's way more immersive when you have no idea how close someone is to immersively dying. Did I mention it was immersive?

Immersive.

[Statue]

If you defend the absence of numbers in spell descriptions by arguing it's more realistic for it be a little fuzzy, then you have to apply that same reasoning to other aspects where there are numbers, in which case you have to see that the fuzziness isn't consistent at all.

If you say "it's good and realistic that a mage wouldn't know the damage of a fireball" then you have to concede it's bad and unrealistic (by that definition) to know how much % fatigue a helmet will add to your fatigue value.

It isn't all detailed or all fuzzy. It's detailed over here and fuzzy over there. That doesn't reflect a design decision for the sake of immersion or realism or smoothness or ease of use or anything else, or it would be applied consistently (we wouldn't have floaties, we wouldn't know how much fatigue a helmet adds, etc.) - it reflects the real reason why some numbers are missing: scheduling issues with localization.

All attempts to spin it as a sound design choice that I've seen are flawed (someone says immersion, I point at floaties; someone says the realism of not knowing how much damage a fireball does, I point at fatigue values, damage values, etc. on equipment). There might be a game waiting to happen that is both more immersive and realistic that has no numbers in it. I'd be fine with that game, as long as it told me in some way what was going on. Those suggesting that game is DAO somehow and applauding it for not having numbers in the spell descriptions for 'realism' or 'immersion' miss the fact that they are seeing numbers for the majority of the time they are playing it, just not in some of the descriptions.

Modifié par Statue, 01 décembre 2009 - 06:51 .

[Dark83]

Statue wrote...

As for the question in this thread title, I'd say they generally *do* give that information (all other Bioware CRPGs for example), and DAO is one of a minority that doesn't (and doesn't give it due to a development schedule error rather than a deliberate design choice).

I agree with this.
Other than DA:O, I can't recall the last RPG-like game I played that didn't have numbers provided.
Hm... Oblivion (or did it?), Fallout 3 (SPECIAL), Dungeon Siege 2, Torchlight, Drakensang (oh god the complex numbers),  NWN2, Avernum/Exile (from Spiderweb Software), BG/IWD/PS:T, KotOR (although both NWN and KotOR is more due to the D20 system, of which I'm a veteran).

Anything else I'm missing? I recall Titan's Quest being pretty good with information too.

[Odysseus44]

If there are numbers in a game, the players might have to think while playing. A lot of people wouldn't buy the game because of this.



Thinking is scary.



It takes time away from the precious feeling of 'immersion'. And if you can't think straight, maybe you could fail...



Scary...

[Dark83]

Jordi B wrote...
since realistically you probably wouldn't really know how much points of damage your fireball would do, or a certain shield might prevent.

..."realistically", fireballs and missiles don't do "points" of damage. The trauma caused by a .50 BMG or .22 rimfire or a axe isn't really quantifiable by points, either. :innocent:

[Dark83]

Oliver Sudden wrote...

I remember back when we picked up Dungeons and Dragons and the Dungeon Master asking us not to look at his manual but only the Player's Manual. Why? Because it wasn't any of our business knowing the numbers for everything ... that was his job and he could use that info to produce a world for us to explore and adventure in.

Don't be silly. Are you saying you didn't know your own THAC0, weapon speed/damage, or Saving Throws? Or that you didn't know how each point of Str/Dex would affect your to-hit or damage?

The folks here aren't asking for the enemy armor values or anything, but how your own abilities work.

[Revik]

This is a topic that at first I would have been on the side of numbers but after going through a play through or 2 it all really doesn't matter.

One thing though we still have yet to understand is how hitting works. Even with numbers like +10 defense or +4 to attack what exactly does that mean and how does that translate to hitting? If you are rolling a billion sided die it means nothing.

The most important things you need to know is how much damage you're doing which you do see and how long your stuns are which you can also see. Wearing highest tier armor and weapons is also whats important. Using weapons with high armor penetration against high armor targets is whats important. Pulling from range is what's important.

I concede the fact that if this is your first play through you lack the experience with the system to know and seeing numbers gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

Now that I am on my third play through I almost don't even need to know my numbers just some need to know how low on health I am and how low they are.

[Harbringerr]

If the calculations are available in the toolset, why haven't they been transferred into the Missing Manual?  

We XBox 360 players have no access to the game guts to look them up.

[Dark83]

Revik wrote...

The most important things you need to know is how much damage you're doing which you do see and how long your stuns are which you can also see. Wearing highest tier armor and weapons is also whats important. Using weapons with high armor penetration against high armor targets is whats important. Pulling from range is what's important.
I concede the fact that if this is your first play through you lack the experience with the system to know and seeing numbers gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
Now that I am on my third play through I almost don't even need to know my numbers just some need to know how low on health I am and how low they are.

Well, knowing that a set of Tier 7 Armor X gives +1 Armor while Tier 7 Armor Y gives +2 Armor makes a tiny difference. I believe the major complaint is with your talents, since you can't just sell weaksauce and buy pwnage there. For example, the 3rd talent in the 1st line of dual wielding gives a DoT (I believe), but it turns out it's so weak it's pointless. So it's only good to grab if you want the 4th talent. Which is only good if you want dual mains.
That sort of thing requires information - which can be given in-game (though not in this game), or learned by experience. Without the ability to respec, in a single player game, there shouldn't be this enforced "learn by failure".

[Ghandorian]

yes thinking is scary.



And making observations based on graphical input and overall success or failure is far too much to expect from some people. A five year old can tell you 7 is bigger than 5. But paying attention to the overall outcome and analyzing strategies and tactics (without the aid of 7-5=+2 so its all good) takes much more thought and involvement.

[Oliver Sudden]

Dark83 wrote...

Oliver Sudden wrote...

I remember back when we picked up Dungeons and Dragons and the Dungeon Master asking us not to look at his manual but only the Player's Manual. Why? Because it wasn't any of our business knowing the numbers for everything ... that was his job and he could use that info to produce a world for us to explore and adventure in.

Don't be silly. Are you saying you didn't know your own THAC0, weapon speed/damage, or Saving Throws? Or that you didn't know how each point of Str/Dex would affect your to-hit or damage?

The folks here aren't asking for the enemy armor values or anything, but how your own abilities work.

Some I (we) knew, some we had to learn or figure out. Obviously as we rotated being DM we saw and used the published numbers for everything, but that's also why we came up with some of our own inventions and designs when we DMd. Then again, the group I was with appreciated the "what will this do?" thing, which I guess many don't enjoy.

[lv12medic]

You can always look at your defense score with the power on and off and compare the two results.  Personally, I do enough number crunching as is with school/work that I don't want to worry about arithmetic.  So if your worried about a skill... save, level up, do comparison, if you don't like it reload save point and level up again.
Also... I admit I still add and subtract using my fingers and makes it difficult to play a game at the same time .

[Dark83]

Oliver Sudden wrote...

Dark83 wrote...

Oliver Sudden wrote...

I remember back when we picked up Dungeons and Dragons and the Dungeon Master asking us not to look at his manual but only the Player's Manual. Why? Because it wasn't any of our business knowing the numbers for everything ... that was his job and he could use that info to produce a world for us to explore and adventure in.

Don't be silly. Are you saying you didn't know your own THAC0, weapon speed/damage, or Saving Throws? Or that you didn't know how each point of Str/Dex would affect your to-hit or damage?

The folks here aren't asking for the enemy armor values or anything, but how your own abilities work.

Some I (we) knew, some we had to learn or figure out. Obviously as we rotated being DM we saw and used the published numbers for everything, but that's also why we came up with some of our own inventions and designs when we DMd. Then again, the group I was with appreciated the "what will this do?" thing, which I guess many don't enjoy.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. THAC0, Saving Throws, Weapon Speed/Damage, Armor class, the effects of your Stats and Weapon Proficiencies - those are all explicitly in the Player's Handbook. The equivalant of which is what's being asked here.

Ghandorian wrote...

And
making observations based on graphical input and overall success or
failure is far too much to expect from some people. A five year old can
tell you 7 is bigger than 5. But paying attention to the overall
outcome and analyzing strategies and tactics (without the aid of 7-5=+2
so its all good) takes much more thought and involvement.

Perhaps if you used more thought, you'd realize that my quick
example of +1 vs +2 armor is obvious, but the +6 Missile Defense number
from some sets are utterly hidden. Unless you'd like to tell me how you can tell, based on graphical input and overall success or failure, that one set has +7.5 Missile Defense, and the other set has +6 Missile Defense.

[Chairman Yang]

Ghandorian wrote...

yes thinking is scary.

And making observations based on graphical input and overall success or failure is far too much to expect from some people. A five year old can tell you 7 is bigger than 5. But paying attention to the overall outcome and analyzing strategies and tactics (without the aid of 7-5=+2 so its all good) takes much more thought and involvement.

No, it doesn't take more thought and involvement. It takes tedious brute-force experimentation and time. That means, at best, lots of boredom to get to the same level of thought and involvement.

That's why games that aren't afraid to show their numbers, like any of the serious top-tier strategy games or strategic RPGs, are much deeper than DAO.

[pokemaughan]

pokemaughan approves +10

[Revik]

Dark83 wrote...

Revik wrote...

The most important things you need to know is how much damage you're doing which you do see and how long your stuns are which you can also see. Wearing highest tier armor and weapons is also whats important. Using weapons with high armor penetration against high armor targets is whats important. Pulling from range is what's important.
I concede the fact that if this is your first play through you lack the experience with the system to know and seeing numbers gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
Now that I am on my third play through I almost don't even need to know my numbers just some need to know how low on health I am and how low they are.

Well, knowing that a set of Tier 7 Armor X gives +1 Armor while Tier 7 Armor Y gives +2 Armor makes a tiny difference. I believe the major complaint is with your talents, since you can't just sell weaksauce and buy pwnage there. For example, the 3rd talent in the 1st line of dual wielding gives a DoT (I believe), but it turns out it's so weak it's pointless. So it's only good to grab if you want the 4th talent. Which is only good if you want dual mains.
That sort of thing requires information - which can be given in-game (though not in this game), or learned by experience. Without the ability to respec, in a single player game, there shouldn't be this enforced "learn by failure".

Then quite frankly learn by failure.  I got through my first play through with out any respecs on hard using a mage no less.  Would it have been nice to know what things did before I tried them sure but part of the fun is trying out new abilities and seeing what they do.
If you are so against the idea and have to be a perfectionist that why there is a respec mod for. Go download it and use it.
I dunno maybe I have a good intiutive sense when it comes to these games but I found the descriptions to be pretty accurate to my expected results.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Harbringerr wrote...

If the calculations are available in the toolset, why haven't they been transferred into the Missing Manual?  

Check out the Gameplay forum.  There are several posts there detailing all manner of calculations dug out from within the game.

I particularly enjoyed the explanations as to how Rogue abilities work.