[Discussion] Numbers in my RPG

[Jervan]

Hey all, just wanting to get some feedback on this. As it stands, the UI of my rpg (which uses bottomprint / centerprint) only shows bars as opposed to numbers. This is because I feel like bars are easier to glance at than numbers that are ever changing with your level.

I have a Journal item where you can flick through the pages to see different stats of your character and all the numerical data that plays into the combat but the gameplay UI is kept simple.

I'd rather not have monsters all have health bars though, so was wondering which of these would be better. Either during combat you are sent a message saying something like "You take [percantage] of the [enemy name]'s health with that hit!" OR a more RPG type message saying something more vague like "You land a [adjective] hit on [enemy name]s [body part]!" Which do you think is better?

The reason I ask is that a few players were saying they prefer numbers simply for the grind, so they can see they get X amount of experience from killing a monster, so they can kill Y times X to get to the next level. And they can see an enemy does X amount of damage on average so they know when to use a potion.

I find that idea really.. not fun.. so I was just wondering what you guys thought about the presence of numbers in Blockland RPGs. DISCUSS :D

PS: not sure if this belongs more in GD or Mod Help since it's kind of both, but since it's talking and helping specifically for my RPG I put it here to avoid the plebs (who don't know what's good for them ).

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[The Resonte!]

the way i see it using "you take [percentage] [...]" seems to over-complicate it since then you have to tally up those numbers in your head if you want to comprehend it

[Jervan]

Good point! How about:
"[Enemy] has [percentage]% of their health left." ?

[Conan]

i prefer the body part and a damage percent rather than hp-left percent. its quicker to do multiplication in your head (oh, 12% damage per hit, i'll need about 10 hits) than subtraction then multiplication (last hit his health was 72% and now its 60%).

Probably something like "You hit the enemy's [part], dealing [%] damage ([%] left)"

[elm]

Lol what? Why not just display the current enemies health after the damage is dealt and calculated? That's the easiest in my opinion..

[Dannu]

Putting all that info in there is just going to confuse the user. Just put Enemy healt hp/max

[Jervan]

Lol what? Why not just display the current enemies health after the damage is dealt and calculated? That's the easiest in my opinion..

It's the most informative but not the most fun. Seeing 1428 / 2800 and then seeing 1420 / 2800 after hitting them is really not that exciting.

The issue is I want every hit to seem exciting, even if it's a low level against a high level enemy. It should feel challenging rather than a big number vs a little number as you grind down the enemy number. I'm still figuring combat out, it's hard to do it in a level based RPG whilst trying to avoid the feeling of grind.

I'm considering attaching a health bar to enemies that are above a certain threshold. An enemy that would be considered a "boss" to the player at their level, and nothing for anything else.

[Kyuande]

Just make the enemy spit out shape names using an Item and set it's shape name to something ("40 damage!") in some RBGA color

[Shift Kitty]

I'd say, it depends. If we're able to see the health bars of enemies, I'd say just show a bar for regular monsters, but show a percent for bosses and elites.

[The Resonte!]

maybe combine both ideas and do [enemy percentage damage dealt] {leaving} [enemy health percentage remaining]

Just make the enemy spit out shape names using an Item and set it's shape name to something ("40 damage!") in some RBGA color

i think there's an add-on where you can see what damage you do with floating text like in tf2

[Kyuande]

Yes, which is damage popup (should be on one of the RTB archives)

I do like where this is going

[Space1255]

If you want it to be exciting, add critical hit chances, haven't seen those anywhere in a BL RPG

[Dannu]

If you want it to be exciting, add critical hit chances, haven't seen those anywhere in a BL RPG

Except, you know, Elms. Also:

Putting all that info in there is just going to confuse the user.

No need to over-complicate it.

[Jervan]

I don't want critical hit chances but I've decided to make weapons have a damage band. So a swords damage could be anywhere between 100-130. It's still RNG but less weighted than crits.