I am working on an overly ambitious project that I merely planned out and started to better learn and teach myself. The point I am at in it leaves me with a nagging question that I just can’t seem to find much “useful” chatter about any where. Whats better, a full layout of detailed stats and effects in character/unit cards, or minimal information given, and the rest be left for a player to discover?
Detailed information:
allows for min/max strategies. It helps a player who uses spreadsheets to lay out there short and long term plans for each and every aspect of their play through.
it allows for the player to counter certain strategies more easily.
knowledge is power.
Minimal information:
it causes the player to potentially second guess every move when crafting or picking a fight, the player does not know for certain just “how powerful” they really are.
it turns a wise player into an RnD professional very quickly, it makes them think, and it makes them test out and try things they would not have under normal circumstances.
knowledge is power, and it is not very fun to be on either end of a “curb stomp” in my opinion.
Any good feedback is very much appreciated as even if no more than a couple friends try what my hands have made, it would be very useful information to have in any future career involving game design and development.
Thank you all in advance!!!
EDIT---------------
So, the topic has much more depth than merely a “yes or no” answer, to accommodate this I have added 2 more options in the poll itself. I hope everyone finds this topic and debate as enlightening as I have. It has become more about mystery of discovery vs all the details laid bare for the players ease of play, but rather a topic of “polish” for me. In cooking, among other things, too much of one thing can spoil your broth, while too little can leave it bland and tasteless.
Never understood those “choices”, because better option is always both. Just let player to decide what he wants. In options or when you start a new game:
“Meta data/Info quantity/whatever you call it:” Verbose or Brief;
And make it a bool. Then each time you want to display that info check for a bool and player will see either “lot of info” or “small info”.
But if you want opinions: I always hated when info is hidden, because it only wastes players’ time. But if someone really likes to discover everything himself, as I already said, just make an options for them, so they will choose brief info or hidden info or whatever you’ll decide.
Edit:
Also you can tie it to additional difficulty, so if player chooses hidden data, he’ll be more rewarded throughout the game a bit more or something.
I think it depends on the audience you want to reach and the focus of your game. If your game is PvP game geared toward combat and competition, you will not attract the people you need to your game by hiding the stats. Min-maxers are not going to like hidden stats. But if your game is something else, like a farming game, social game, or a game for role players, then hidden stats will be attractive and a challenge to them.
I can tell you that most people will not like hidden stats if the goal of the game is competition against other players. Our game, which is for role players, will have hidden stats, but combat is not our main focus, and neither is xp.
I suggest you choose some of your gamer friends who like to play the kind of game you are making and ask them.
Game design isn’t about throwing everything at the player. It’s about designing a coherent experience that conveys the narrative you want the player to witness.
Every game with a combat system has stats. But games where the the player inhabits a role, such as FPS games or action-adventure games (the focus is on the player performing the action), rarely show them because they distract from that. While games where a player defines and directs a role (the focus is on the character performing the action) typically do show them.
It all depends on what you’re going for, OP. Typically strategy RPGs do show stats. Hard to call it “strategy” if you can’t even determine the relative strength of your units/character/whatever to work with.
The only reason not to give a player a choice is devs’ laziness or lack of time or lack of finance or lack of skills or other reason like that, that makes devs unable to make options for a player. Look at Elder Scrolls - the only reason they are so popular is really good ability to mod it. Mods are some kind of options that helps players of any type to enjoy the same game + replayability . Giving player a choice of something is some kind of in-built mod.
Forcing player to specific rules is never good, you just make someone unhappy and everyone else neutral. Giving options will make everyone happy.
OP asks about “how much info to show”. It won’t take much time and effort to make both options and it’ll never be worse, than only one option, because player who dislikes that info will simply choose to not show it, while others will choose the other option. It’s win/win situation for everyone. But if OP wants to save those few minutes of time he would spend on making this option, he might choose only one.
Not true. We have a community of players who are so worried we will back down and show numbers. So it all depends on the game and your audience.
Choice can still be given, even with minimal exposure of the stats. Just choosing a class is a choice or what skills the player chooses to learn. I absolutely agree that if one were to randomly give a player stats and let them in no way influence those stats might be a bad idea. But there are plenty of was to do this without the min/maxing methods.
Funny, because the min/maxers are the ones who get so angry if you change anything that hurts their ability to spend hours creating the perfect powerful character. This is why I suggested that the OP think about the players he is trying to attract. He will lose those folks immediately if they cannot deeply influence their character stats. However, there are plenty of folks that might find it refreshing and exciting to experiment in game rather than have it all handed to them.
But they will NOT see numbers! Make a window popping up in the game at start with text “Are you worried to see numbers?” and two answers “Yes! I’m numberphobiac and I’m so worried, I can’t resist watching on them and then it drives me mad!” and “No, I love numbers!” and those, who choose the first will never see them! Easy-peasy!
I would understand if OP asked “turn based combat” or “real time combat” - then yeah, it would be hard to implement both and balance them differently, it’s x2 work, or ever more, almost creating 2 different games in one from mechanics point of view. But limiting the info players receive? Few lines of code. OP would probably spend less time on making both options available, than on creating this thread.
Have you ever played, like, any action adventure games at all? Assassin’s Creed? Tomb Raider? Deus Ex (though you could call it an RPG)? What about others like Devil May Cry or Metal Gear Rising?
Edit: let’s take that even further. Alan Wake? Alien Isolation? Bioshock? Far Cry 3? Just Cause?
These games are indisuptably controlled by stats. These games do not show those stats to the player (or only show a fraction of what’s going on). These games are very popular.
Your statement is not true. It’s not about laziness, it’s about design.
This discussion goes nowhere. I already said: if they (who loves that stats aren’t shown) love that, then they choose “do not show” - they will lose nothing and those games would be equally popular for them just like they’re without that options PLUS someone else might like it more, if they love to see that info.
That “design” (without option) is probably will be good only for mentally unstable people who will choose “show me stats” and then get mad, because they see numbers or something like that, although they had an option to not see them. As I already said in my first post after edit - it can be even a difficulty or special “realism” mod or something like that, which hides all that meta data and rewards (optionally, as OP wants) player for that with something.
Both options will NEVER be worse, unless player has mental problems and can’t control himself, but it’s his problems. Or unless your auditory are those people, then yeah, limit their choice, so they can’t harm themselves psychologically (lol).
It goes nowhere because you’re not addressing the topic of this forum and the topic of this thread–game design. Not game everything-but-the-kitchen-sink.
This isn’t really about a single isolated element that a developer can either put in or keep out. It’s about the gestalt, about how that element weaves into the whole experience as a whole–and how the variations of that element can affect the whole.
Relevant quote: “perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away”
Relevent talk (by Gigiwoo):
By putting in things that don’t belong, you’re hurting the game, not helping it.
In our game, they will not have a choice. No numbers. Honestly, min/max addicts would not enjoy our game and that is okay. Sometimes you, as the developer, have to make choices if you are making a niche game. However, the players in our do have choices, they are just not about the numbers. It is instead about how they develop their character.
The topic of the forum is to compare the two methods the OP is considering and give him our opinion of both options, which is exactly what we are doing. He is asking us as game developers, not as players, or at least I think he is doing that. If not, then he needs to go ask players.
Alright, you convinced me. If you want to decrease the amount of players playing your game - yeah, you need to minimize options, so less people will be interested in the game. Damn, I never thought that “too much players” will be a problem -_-
Thank you all so much, despite a few wild rabbits, this was exactly what I was trying to find out. The project I am working on is a single player strategy RPG. I know that traditionally RPG’s flood your screen with numbers and min/max methods from the tutorial on. I also am aware that a strategy game is nothing without information, again knowledge is power. The combat would be more balanced towards tactical play, and live and lose your beloved units on the regular much like XCom, and Darkest Dungeon.
My idea for limited information vs details upon details being fed to the player revolves around something I heard the creator of LoZ mention about why he made some of the design choices on Breath of the Wild. i.e sprawling wilderness with largely empty areas to be explored and possibly hold something of interest. It made me think a moment, about the days before the internet, player guides, or readily available cheat codes. Oh the wonder to have learned something about a game you had been spending hours playing, and the sheer joy of being able to share that information, or not share if you didn’t like your friends. I thought about how I could in some way emulate the notion of figuring something out in this “information age” perhaps… limit the information. Now I do not mean give the player nary a clue on what any item does, but rather give them clues, and let them learn the secrets of the world.
In short I look through all the conversations, and the poll, and realize that it may be best to give them that information… but still. See, units will have a base star rating 1-5 that will affect their growth stat multiplier, along with the job class’ having a rating of E, D, C, B, A, S, which also affects stat growth, perhaps only really pass a ratting stat along, with clues hidden in the flavor text to subtly hint at what this items true relevance may be. Just a thought.
You do realize that not every game is for all people, right? One can choose to try to capture every single player out there and make a “kitchen sink” game, but you know what? Many of those games are shallow and while they may please everyone a little, they rarely please anyone a lot.
Niche games are for those under-served populations of gamers who don’t want to play FPS or Zombie survival games.They want unique, different and challenging.
So…thank you for your concern, but I am not worried about finding players for our game. We have plenty already. And we are making something we are proud of which is really an important part of indie game development. It isn’t about 100k players, it is about 500 players who love your game.
Yes, I understand that you can’t make tactical FPS RPG with tons of philosophical dialogues and turn based combat, but read again what OP wants. He can easily do both without sacrificing or losing anything at all. What’s the point to not make it? It’s not design, it’s pure inefficiency.
I remember playing JA2 1.13 without reading documentation, because I’m vanilla JA2 veteran. Had to discover everything through practice and it was exciting of course, but I would rather call it extra difficulty. Also most of it was very annoying and boring and I had to save/load a lot after testing different features which didn’t have any info at all, even on internet → waste of time. Also you may complete a game without knowing half of its features, which is good if you’re going to replay the game, but… how the hell are you going to discover what you don’t know?
You’re going to experiment. NetHack is one of the deepest games of all time, and it’s replete with things that not only you don’t know, but aren’t even the same from play to play. You found a purple potion. What does it do? The only way to find out is to experiment. You take into account what potion effects you’ve seen before, consider how healthy you’re feeling and whether you’re in a safe place, take a swig, and see what happens. Sometimes nothing happens, which rules out a large class of possible effects but leaves you still a bit in the dark, so you have to change the conditions and try again.
This is not laziness on the part of developers — on the contrary, it requires very intricate, careful design, so that the player always has ways (some safer than others!) to discover what they need to know. Simply telling them would be lazy, and not as much fun. And NetHack players love it.
And sure, there are players who can’t be bothered with such a discovery process. So the game isn’t for them. Like @Teila said, if you try to make a game for everybody, you’ll end up exciting nobody. Pick your audience and optimize for them — and in some cases, that means withholding the details.
No, it’s my bad English, sorry, I was going to say “How are you going to know that there’s something left to discover? May be you already know everything?”
Oh, seriously? Is it some kind of unity-forum-trolling I don’t know about? This is not making game for everybody, it’s not even a design question. It’s like giving a player to set screen resolution or let him make custom hotkeys or even turn on/off sound and music! It’s a damn option! It’ll never hurt a player. It’s like OP asked “Should I make my game for 16:10 resolution or 16:9?” And I tell him “Pff, man, do both!”. And you tell “NO!!! It’ll make game for EVERYBODY! NO it’s very very very bad!!”. The amount of info about stats you get on UI isn’t about changing the whole game design, OP can choose to show stats (2nd poll option), but also make hidden on demand, if player doesn’t want it, just like make different screen resolutions available or allowing to change hotkeys.
The only thing, which will be changed in the code is additional bool, then method, which will manage that bool, then interface element like button/toggle/slider which will call that method, and then if-then-else check for that bool that will either call brief or verbose info for required stats each time it’s called. May be he’ll need to make 2 separate UI windows for that, in case positioning or ratio will differ a lot. It’s just few minutes of work and NO ONE will ever be upset by this, because this options simply has no damn drawbacks. Just zero drawbacks. Unless player is insane sadomasochist and will intentionally pick the option he dislikes and then he’ll get mad because of this, but even then, he’s sadomasochist! He’ll like the process! You see? No drawbacks!
Btw Fallout1, Fallout2 and Arcanum had this option.
I will have to look into that, thank you Joe. Very useful and pointed feed back as always from you.
I wish a design choice where that simple, to some it is that simple, but I prefer to look deeper past the skin at the real meat of the idea. Things such as potions will tell you if it’s poison or healing or buffing. These items they will buy at a shop and craft, but they will not know “exact” numbers, or at least that is how I envisioned it. Crafted and bought goods from regents to finished products will have quality ratings, and of course if something has a higher quality, surely it would have greater effect, how much greater… I will leave that to the imagination and gut feeling of the players who decide to pick up the game.
Truthfully I had already decided on a course, just hadn’t worked out the details of the trip, before I posted this question. I truthfully wanted to know what people thought of this design choice, and get a developers perspective on things that they had either done or seen done. I honestly had no idea it would strike such a heated debate, but I’m glad it did, it pointed a few key things out to me.
thank you ALL so much for your input, I do believe I have gained at least some morsel of wisdom and/or knowledge from every post here so far, which leads me to believe that this design idea could possibly be MUCH more important than I at first thought. I look forward to hearing from more people, and seeing more information and thoughts on the subject brought up!
So people who chose #1 option from the poll will be happy, and people who chose #2 will save the game, drink the potion, see the number, load the game. Or, if your game will be popular or have some helpful fan who will write down all those numbers (if they won’t be random, but even then, he’ll write constraints, like “this potions heals from 10 to 20 HP * quality”), then they will have to use this documentation in order to not waste their time on those testing. Or you can just make an option for that As you can see, it’s very simple actually, it’s just user-friendliness. Also people, who chose option #1 won’t be upset if you include the option, since they can just ignore it and don’t turn it on. As I already said - win/win situation. But if you just don’t care for people #2, then yeah, you’re dev, you can do whatever game you want, but it’ll be simply inefficient from players point of view.