Too much numbers, bad for gameplay?

Game Talk The Drawing Board
21

More stats for things are better, but at the end of the day, you just want to know which gun is better than the other and having loads of numbers to pour through will make that tedious unless there are meaningful choices.

The problem is, most modern assault rifles are going to be nearly the same as each other for game playing purposes. The only things that really matter are accuracy, damage, clip size and weight (and possibly reloading time and reliability if that becomes a factor) so adding more would just become abit superfluous.

22

@ Binky
Exactly. From the stats i suggested previously, only 3 would be meaningful.

  • reliability, which now is very close to 100% for all weapons
  • handling, which will replace reloading time mostly
  • ergonomy, which will replace dispersion and recoil.

I am aware that this is mostly a cosmetic revamping of current stats, but the idea was to remove the precise numbers and replace them with less precise stats. Because accuracy is skill dependent, damage is ammo dependent (and i don’t know how a gun in itself can add or subtract from damage with the exception of silencers), reloading should be skill dependent, clip, weight and size are measurable and will remain as such.

Those were just examples of how guns are rated on their reviews. No one will tell you this gun has 15acc, 60 reload time and 5 recoil.

The next bit is a copy-paste from a direct compare between 2 guns :

[spoiler]Ruger Specifications:

Model: Ruger SR45
Caliber: .45ACP
Magazine capacity: 10 rounds
Materials: Brushed stainless steel slide and glass-filled nylon frame
Weight empty: 30.15 ounces
Barrel Length: 4.5″
Overall length: 8.0″
Sights: Three dot “combat style,” rear adjustable for windage and elevation
Action: Striker fired
Finish: Two tone
Price: $529 MSRP

Ruger Ratings (out of five stars):

Style * * * *
The Ruger’s two-tone look is more appealing and less threatening than the hardcore gangsta version. Because concealment isn’t much of an issue, the flashy slide is no detriment. Like the Fiat 500 Abarth, the SR45 looks more expensive than it is. It’s also about the same size.

Ergonomics (carry) * *
A good duty holster and reinforced gun belt is a must. Carried openly, it’s comfortable despite its weight. Stuffed into an IWB holster at my preferred 4 o’clock position, it was as comfortable as a kidney stone.

Ergonomics (firing) * * * *
The reversible back strap worked well, completely transforming the handle and accommodating my medium-sized hands. The trigger is very much a love it or leave it affair. I loved it, but in this I may be a solitary voice in the wilderness. The handle needs more rake. The sights are excellent. During rapid fire, there was some recoil, but the pistol came back to target faster than a fat guy to a buffet line.

Reliability * * * * *
Flawless. I was unable to make the Ruger wet the bed.

Customize This * * *
It has a rail, so feel free to make the pistol even heavier by adding lights, lasers, an MP4 player or an industrial-sized rare earth magnet. The aftermarket for Ruger semi-automatics is not robust.

Overall * * * *
Anyone contemplating the purchase of the SR45 would be well advised to check out the trigger first.

————————

Glock Specifications:

Model: Glock G21
Caliber: .45ACP
Magazine capacity: 13 rounds
Materials: Stainless steel slide and Melonite® barrel, polymer frame
Weight empty: 26.46 ounces
Barrel Length: 4.6″
Overall length: 8.22″
Sights: Fixed plastic front and rear
Action: Striker fired Safe Action®
Finish: Black Tenifer slide, black frame
Price: $687 MSRP

Glock Ratings (out of five stars):

Style * *
Glock doesn’t do style. Based on the popularity of Glock pistols, their lack of style might even be a selling point.

Ergonomics (carry) * * *
It’s big and looks like it would be heavier, but the G21 is lighter than the Ruger SR45 and feels it. I’d rather shove a carpet knife inside my pants then carry this pistol IWB, but stuff it in a duty holster and you’re GTG.

Ergonomics (firing) * * *
The brobdingnagian handle will not fit small and medium hands. The G21’s trigger is fairly light but as squishy as grandma’s sponge cake. Recoil is quite controllable, but there was more of it than I wanted.

Reliability * * * * *
The G21 tester sported Glock’s trouble-free traditional Recoil Spring Assembly, rather than the trouble-prone Gen4 RSA. As expected, there were no reliability issues.

Customize This * * * * *
With its accessory rail and an aftermarket that’s ready, willing and able to sell any doodad that money can buy, the G21 is almost as customizable as an AR.

Overall * * * *
The G21 is the Charles P. Dutton of handguns – it’s big, bulky and a very solid performer. Unfortunately, the G21 has all the charm and visual appeal of a primitive farm implement.[/spoiler]

And this is what i’d like to see in the game. Not numbers. The numbers will work in the background, as they should be.

23

A magazine review and weapon stats in a game are meant to accomplish very different things. Again, this seems like a lot of work for meaningless flavor that runs into all the problems I mentioned earlier. Plus, it kind of breaks immersion when your character looks at a gun and sees a professionally-written review in the description, more so than stats.

24

sometimes too much explaining can be as bad as too less :smiley:

of course you will not see a professional review in game. you will see only this :
Description
Weight Volume
Ergonomics (firing) * * * *
Reliability * * * * *
Customize This * * *
Overall * * * *

Someone gave STALKER as example earlier. This is what you see there also.

25

It’s still kind of pointless if they have nothing to do with game mechanics. If you really want obfuscated stats that much, you could push for an option that toggles stats on and off in the description. Better than a pointless set of stats that don’t actually have any meaning in game, take up a lot of time to write and make people confused and angry when they actually play the game.

26

this is exactly the same change that was applied to health, when the devs decided to replace numbers with ||||||.
I’d wish this change to be applied to the rest of the game. And why not have a Gun Nut skill for exact specs ?
I personally don’t think more flavor would be a bad thing, or that is meaningless. The mechanics will not change at all because of this.
Anyway, this is how i think the game can be improved. You may strongly disagree, others may find a point or two worth considering, who knows? I did my best to explain why this would be a good change, maybe something will come of it.

27

I like the “bar” more than pure numbers. The stat right now is just the game’s scale for guns, it doesn’t really mean much to a person. Having the stat in ||||\ and such at least will be easier to visualize and compare guns quicker.

28

Well, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, and everyone else is entitled to disagree with it if they so choose.

And really, applied to the rest of the game? Should we write the stats of all the edible items in the form of a culinary magazine? Should we review superalloy MBR vests as fashion journalists? Should pipes and two-by-fours come with write-ups from Hitting Things Monthly, with a sidebar from Construction Materials for Kidz? I do not think you have thought out this point very well.

And as to the bar issue, it still tells you the relevant issue: how much health each body part has. Replacing a set of relevant numbers with a set of irrelevant numbers doesn’t help anyone with anything.

29

Only relevant stats, and he already stated that in-game it won’t be a professional review, that was just an example. Adding this to the rest of the game, depend on how “rest of the game” is defined here - do we also visualize melee weapon bash/cut/stab damage? Visualize food nutrient/enjoyability? Could be a big change, but I think it’s a fair trade since we are just converting pure number to a more readable format here.

30

It’s pretty clear that he’s working backwards from the magazine review stats and trying to jam it into the game, rather than expressing the in-game stats in any other manner. A healthbar-esque visualization wouldn’t be that much of a change if they expressed the relevant stats, but he’s pretty clearly stating that he wants the actual relevant stats to be removed from the visualization and replaced with meaningless flavor stats.

31

stop cherrypicking :stuck_out_tongue:

32

It’s the clearest sentence I can find that actually expresses what you’re saying. Your posts are all so incoherent, I can barely tell what you want most of the time. If you’ve got an issue with mischaracterization, make your point clearer.

33

Inadequate, I don’t think he’s been that unclear really. It seems to make sense to me and Mochi. Guns are probably the most sophisticated of weapons, so it makes sense to tackle them first and then work out everything else after.

Anyway, Fero is just wanting to move from precise stats like ‘damage, accuracy, recoil, draw speed’ to wider ones like ergonomics which might be a mixture of recoil and draw speed, and to represent these with * (or bars, I’m sure the actual symbol isn’t the issue here) instead of numbers.

However, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea or not really. I think as a community we’d need to test it to see which one people prefer. I imagine there would be a big backlash against it as a lot of people want hard stats (me included) but I can see it might be desirable if the game direction wants to go against number crunching.

34

The only simplification I’d appreciate with ranged weapons would be a simpler way of telling how accurate they are.

For example, I found two grenade launchers yesterday.

One of them has 2 dispersion, the other 0.

But the one that has 2 dispersion has a higher “to hit” bonus.

The one with 0 dispersion has something like -3 to hit.

So which one is more likely to hit the target? I have no idea.

35

@DG123
i might be wrong, but i think ToHit chance apply to melee combat, not to range combat

@Binky
Indeed, i am not focused on guns , but, as the thread titles says, more on general gameplay. I think the game has solid mechanics overall and quite a lot of content, maybe it’s time for some polish. I do realize that people are resistant to change, because it puts them outside their comfort zone, and i am no different, but some changes might prove beneficial to gameplay.
We’ll never know if we reject them from the start.
As i was saying, the health change was softened by the introduction of the Self Aware trait. The same could be done for everything else. Also keep in mind that accuracy and damage, for weapons are not absolute values, but character dependent ones (as a combination of weapon stats and char skill level and values of strength, dex and perception).

there are quite some interesting things in what you say. Melee damage could indeed be a bar consisting of 3 colored lines,
like
| | | | | | | | | | | =
BBBBCCCSSSSS, and it would give the total damage value differentiated on it’s basic bash, cut and stab values. I dont remember now if melee weapons do all their damage simultaneously or only the one corresponding to the highest skill.

36

I recall someone recently claiming they did all the total damage at once.

37

Would it be at all logical to say that different people have different likes and dislikes, varied metabolisms, and the like? Based on that you could get away with each food item (or class of food item) having slightly random morale bonuses and quench/fill values which would be generated on character creation.

For damage numbers and the like, give each enemy a slightly variable health and defense statistic, which are either randomly chosen on world creation or enemy spawn. It’d add some random to each play, with different zombies posing different threat levels in different games. To edit weapons in a similar way, perhaps each time they are fired or strike an enemy or used to block they have a small chance to gain a negative enhancement which can not be removed? Give more powerful and desirable weapons more crippling drawbacks, or a higher chance to obtain them perhaps?

You batter the zombie with your (gun)!
The sights are misaligned!

Iono. Just some random thoughts I had when I read the title of the article. They’d definitely help to balance out min-maxing, since you need to discover the numbers each game. Also, if you made the weapons breaking based on your skill with the weapon and method of use you’d have players being more careful with their weapons, and only using more powerful weapons not immediately after they find them, but when their character is competent to use them without breaking them. Which is somewhat realistic.

38

Although it does sound like a lot of extra excitement in theory, I imagine most people would strongly be against this. Part of the appeal of RL’s is learning enough to survive for longer the next time round, which this would remove. At the moment it’s fine as the player becomes grossly overpowered after a few days, but if it were to get better balanced, mixing things up stat wise each play through would be quite punishing on players. However, some randomization which the player can easily see (like something having tentacles or poisonous teeth or whatever) would definitely be a good move.

I like the idea of damaging items giving permanent (or probably semi permanent) negative traits - that sounds like a great idea. That sounds like a much less tedious way of dealing with item deterioration.

Fero: The idea of things starting as abstract variables and becoming clearer with higher skill (which I think would be better than traits) is a fantastic idea. It makes the most sense realism wise, and would give more meaning to skills.

39

I’m always in the “for” camp when it comes to making the current info the player has easier and faster to read and understand. RLs are great because they’re complex but that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice understandability for that complexity. Right now, looking at a firearm, you’re practically spammed with numeric information and, as was pointed out several times, it can be difficult to discern quickly (or at all) what really is “better” beyond just a half-assed guess sometimes. Often a lot of the info isn’t even relevant to most people. I don’t melee with my firearms, I have melee weapons for that … so the melee stats aren’t something I care about yet they can feel “mixed in” with the relevant stats I wanna’ know when I look at the gun.

I kinda’ like the bar system for showing off weapons, personally. I can look at two guns side by side and see “this one has 1 more bar in damage, this one has one more bar in accuracy … hmm . .which attribute do I value more” and make a decision. That all took maybe 5 seconds because the little bars made the info easier to read.

Its like graphs. People love graphs because they’re so simple to eyeball and get info from. Show the same people the spreadsheet the graph came from and they’ll just walk away.

The health bars in game are even pretty darn accurate and detailed too. I mean if you just imagine numbers for the different visuals the bar gives you (because I don’t know the real numbers … never cared to look) …
if | = 9-10; \ = 5-8; : = 1-4 … you can very easily represent pretty much any number with good accuracy.

|||\ Damage per fired shot vs |||: Damage per fired shot. Well crap, the first gun is better … looks like a few points better but not HUGEly better, etc.

40

One of the most known feature of roguelikes - their randomness and hardness.

Let’s take any common roguelike and imagine a situation: there’s an item on the ground.

When we examine the item we get: “The gun which seems like a revolver. It has the barrel with six holes. It has wooden stock” and so on. Since the character don’t know anything about weaponry except the very first ones he can’t even fire because he have not … switched off (?) the fuse.

Or, let’s take a bullet.

“A bullet. It has graved “7.62” on the back side. It’s projectile is colored black.”

We also can measure the sizes. So, after we had measured the size of the barrel we would understand what size of bullet make it able to fit in there.

Or, if short: the identify.