weapon and armor information

[DivineLight]

The item description window is being reworked to show you enough info to compare between Weapons, Armours, Shields etc.

So hold on, till you get you\'r medicine.   :]

[keder]

Originally posted by DivineLight
The item description window is being reworked to show you enough info to compare between Weapons, Armours, Shields etc.

So hold on, till you get you\'r medicine.   :]

<--- on her knees begging for her medicine



--- keder maloy

[DivineLight]

it\'s done keder, look for it in next update.

[AryHann]

I might want to contest this update that has been done.

From my experience, this kind of modifications are against the true spirit of RPG.
If you want to do RPG you should know less and less about \"numbers\".
In reality, when you go and buy a weapon it doesn\'t say all that data, but it might say in words that is a good or a lousy weapon.
When you look at yourself, except if you weight yourself on a scale, you don\'t know how much you weight, but obviously you might know that something is heavy for you...
As I said in another post some billions of months ago, getting the \"how much damage\" I am doing while hitting somebody kills the RPG of the combat. It would be nice to substitute numbers with words like \"you are penetrating the armor of XXX\" \"you have just hit the surface of the armor of XXX\" and so on...

Ary

[Ecolem]

Agreed Ary...numbers suck, words rule  

[keder]

Originally posted by Ecolem
Agreed Ary...numbers suck, words rule  

numbers may suck, but they are a reality. for example, if my dagger\'s blade is 10 cm from hilt to tip, i\'m only going to piss of an ulbernaut who\'s hide is sometimes up to 20 cm thick no matter what angle i use. also, my katana has a 15% angle for it\'s cutting edge and the edge itself is 3 microns. my dagger has a 40% angle edge and is 10 microns at the edge. that tells me that i can easily slice through leather armor with the katana, but should really look for a gap in the armor or count on strength alone to force the dagger\'s blade through.

all of this can be measured with numbers. so can your strength. if you don\'t believe it, go to a gym and ask one of the regulars how many reps she can do on a particular set of free weights. that gives 2 numbers. beyond that is endurance. at the start of the day, she can do (example only) 50 reps with 40 kilo weights. if she\'s working out all day, she\'s likely to be tired at the end of the day. perhaps at the end of the day she can only do 25 reps. or she can still do the 50 reps, but it has to be with the lighter 20 kilo weights. either way, that is a 50% strength reduction for being exhausted. all of this can and is measured in numbers all the time. having a single number to represent strength is a tremendous simplification of reality, not a drift away from it.

yes, i would love to have the realism of being able to pierce my enemy\'s armour, thus making it less effective. or better yet, target the straps that hold the armour on (these straps, even on the strongest plate steel, are usually leather) causing it to fall off and possibly tripping up my enemy. do you realize the complexity of the programming that would be needed to do that?

after simplifying life enough to be able to fit the various actions into a computer simulation without requiring a multimillion dollar supercomputer to run it, having only one number for strength is reasonable, and giving us this number is a courtesy i appreciate.

if someone is interested, i can try to post a breakdown of the typical strength numbers measured at the gym by the regulars.

besides, haven\'t you ever roleplayed from the point of view that this is what life is like there? that can be quite entertaining in it\'s own right. especially if you do it from the point of view of being torn from our realm (RL) and dumped into this new world where things are so strange.

--- keder maloy

[Taurenthefirst]

yes i agree numbers are a real part of life...
i don\'t see why people are so afraid of numbers...
yes possibly maybe there will be some loser goin around saying his numbers... but he will have no friends and will leave eventually, especially in a community like this.
however, numbers are not always necessary and i think it is somewhat more practical to have less exact measurements for weapons, so that there isn\'t like formulas or anything people use to calculate attacka and all that stuff... just general descriptions i think should be enought to adequately describe the weapon... using words
ooh and i like the idea of not showing actual numbers for damage that ary suggested, instead saying like what happened in the attack, very interesting.

[keder]

given the choice, i would like to see numbers still, but more realistic ones. such as \"... your strike rent a 7 cm gash that is 2 cm deep and is freely bleeding...\" that strike is going to hurt. alot to a rat. painful irritant to an ulbernaut. something else to consider is to make it optional. there will always be plevelers in any game. some of them do a passable job of roleplaying too. if you don\'t give them the numbers up front, they will break it down and figure it out anyway, then post the numbers everywhere and shout them from the mountaintops because they will feel it was a huge disservice to hide the numbers and consider broadcasting them to everyone a public service.

*quells urge to stab nearest pleveler*

perhaps the best solution is to make it an easily configurable option to turn on or off the display of numeric stats. that way those that want the number can have them, and those that don\'t want them won\'t have to be annoyed by them.

personally, i use the numbers associated with the skills as rankings, rather like belts are used in martial arts. i have to train new techniques, practice those techniques, then be tested on them to reach the next ranking in a particular disipline. i\'ve never had anyone tell me i\'m not RPing or i\'m ruining the realism when i ask what belt they are. i see little difference here. for example, stamina could easily be the number of seconds you can run full speed without stopping to catch your breath. (in fact i think it may be...) strength could be how many kilos i can benchpress, endurance can be the number of hours i can go without sleep before colapsing... each of these is something that can realistically be measured (and i certainly don\'t want to armwrestle someone who can bench 200 kilos). IQ is a numeric measure of intelligence that long predates the computer, let alone computer games.

what i would most like to see is a frame of reference as to what the equivalents really are. that way the numbers have some tangible meaning and we can use that frame of reference in either numeric comparison or equivalent worded desriptions.

--- keder maloy

[DaveG]

I\'m all for \"realism\" in a game like this.  (Note the quotations... my character is an elf, you can\'t truly go for realism in a fantasy world.  It\'s a contradiction of terms.)  In real life, one would look at the sword, hold it, and examine it for its value and abilities.  (based upon the skill of the user at doing so)  The reason we assign numbers to its abilities, is that we can\'t do this.  If this game were advanced VR, it might be possible, but its not, so we have to compromise to match an already compromised environment.

A textual description won\'t cut it, you need some way of knowing what your buying.  No person would ever buy something without a hint of what it can do, and its cost is not a fair indication of ability.  (gougers exist; benevolent masters exist)  What I think we need is 3 things:

1)  More detailed weapon stats:
Strength, durability, hit rate, block rate, armor pierce rate, etc should all be tied to the stats of the character and the weapon.  Additionally, different weapons (or any mildly complicated object) should be somewhat varied in stats from smith to smith.  One swordsmith might make very sharp, but fragile blades.  (or vice versa)

2)  Visible stats:
The most noticeable portions of these stats, like strength, parry ability, etc. should be seen at the time of sale.  More stats should be visible depending on the skill of the user.  (the basics and the creator\'s name/location should always be seen)  In essence, a customer would hold the product and look at it before buying, thus examining its basic abilities.

3)  Try-outs:
With respect to unique or at least expensive weaponry, I think certain shops should have a demo area cordoned off.  You could take a potential purchase, and use it briefly against a dummy target of some kind.  In the case of armor, you could be hit by a falling log or something.  (harder to test...)  I\'d even go as far as a 3 day return policy on undamaged goods.  (if a weapon durability/breakability system is ever implemented, that is)

We simply must admit the fact that items must be evaluated before purchase in some way.  It is not \"realistic\" to have to buy something to know anything about it, especially in a non-pre-packaged world.

[keder]

i\'m an Enkidukai

*shrugs*

what a twisted world we live in that at times the debate over whether or not numeric information about a weapons capabilities are visible to the user due to realism gets somewhat heated when an Elf and an Enkidukai are part of the discussion.

even advanced VR would still have it\'s limitations comparable to real world. i think a texual discription could cut it if we at least had a baseline. i would prefer the numbers the computer is going to use in it\'s internal calculations, since those would be the most accurate. (as in anything i purchase, i want the most accurate information i can get.) i can understand those who would rather gamble on being ripped off for the \"realism\" of it. that is why i suggested making it optional. (hmmm, that could add an entire thread on having merchants who will try to rip you off...)

making base stats universally available and advanced stats reveal based on character skill ranking is an interesting idea, as is the \"trial area\" ... rather like test driving a car...

more yet has been added to the table to study and think about

--- keder maloy

[DivineLight]

Friends, the number indicating damage in the item description window is base damage number. It is used to judge the weapon. While actual damage depends on many of our skills, strength etc and their are special formulas to calculate the final damage, all i am doing is to show the base damage.

So you want realism?? go then and remove all the numbers indicating you\'r strenght, Endurance, Intelligence, Mining Skill etc...
For strength we can do that the more the powerfull you are the stronger you\'r body deforms ingame, that\'ll require tons of code and models.
And then let us remove the HP indicator bar it\'s so exact and breaks realism, isn\'t it?

That\'s all yet in the game. Please ideas are thousand but implimentation is hard. See all the RPGs in the market and tell me which don\'t use numbers to indicate item\'s stats?? maybe one or two such games but 95% show...
So no offense. Numbers will be there and make you\'r mind to face them.
Good job Keder, in reducing alot what i had to write.


And if you want realism i can say this:
The Octarchs in yliakum have set a strict scale for the quality and damage rating of weapons and they have advised all the mercheants to rate their weapons and armours according to that scale precisely, so the citizens of Yliakum have less confusion while buying one.  

[AryHann]

I actually think that if you want to have a better RPG and a less pwp game, indications like the ones about the skills and the hp and such should be changed for making them more RPG oriented.

There are MUDs fully RPG that try out to do that, now, obviously there are MUDs also that are not and this is just depending from what the implementors want.
If they want to have people interested just in the RPG and not so much in \"achieving\" something, they concentrate on such details, if instead they care more of other aspects than that doesn\'t matter.

I would personally substitute this kind of indicator with something more \"verbose\", instead of 0 - 200 in the skills it would be already an improvement to have:
you don\'t know anything about it, really good knowledge.
And so on for everything.
Certainly, it becomes then a matter of layout and usability, but instead of using long sentence like the ones above, it would be interesting to use a synthetic single word.
And so on...

The RPGs that I have seen in the market are merely hack and slash games. At least from my point of view, due to my experience of RPGs.

Implementation is hard but possible, depending from which is the goal.
If the goal is to make a \"real\" RPG (and not a pwp field) then certains things are better than other, if it is the other way round other things will be better.

From what I understand, since you are underlining that numbers will be there, I am afraid to see PS growing less in the RPG sense. But if this what you - community, devs, fans, whoever - want, well, good for you
I don\'t play so I was just making a simple suggestion based on my experience of games and RPGs and .. yes, implementations.

Matter of taste, I guess.

[DaveG]

I agree that a raw number is not the bet way to go about things for skills.  Though, if one was asked to rate themself from 1 - 10 on a skill, they would probably get fairly close.  I would say that the best way might be to have skills go from 0.000 to 10.000 (no big jumps at the integers, except for using them as milestones for prerequisite requirements to something; lvl4 needed to do whatever, etc.)  Just, only show a rounded integer value.  This compromise gives a detailed way for the computer to keep track of what it needs to, and still gives something reasonable to the player.

[keder]

it\'s been my experience that the players make or break the RP of any RPG. if all the numbers were stripped away and the code close so no one could look at what the code was doing, it is still the players\' choice if they hack-n-slash everything or if they roleplay. i\'ve played with ADnD groups that the only one who even saw the dice was the DM, she did *all* of the rolls and calculations and the rest of us *strictly* roleplayed. (in some cases to the extent that anything said out of character during play was penalized... one person\'s character ended up in the loony bin for a while ).

other groups i\'ve played with had calculators for each player and charts of weapon/spell/etc. stats so the player knew at a glance all the stats of anything found or purchased.

there were occasions that the group with the calculators roleplayed better, just depended on who showed up that evening. to them the calculators weren\'t a distraction but rather a tool. an advanced mage is going to have an almost instictive knowledge about the strength and value of a particular spell. all of us being ordinary humans don\'t have that experience to draw from, so to roleplay better, we need some kind of supliment to simulate that kind of knowledge.

at times it would be nice to turn that off. i don\'t need to know the precise percent of HP i have while having an idle conversation in the plaza, though if i came back to the plaza to recover from a particularly fierce battle, i would like to see near death, badly wounded, wounded, barely wounded, uninjured as i recover. were it real life, i could feel the recovery as my pain faded and my strength returned. it isn\'t.

*shrugs*

most likely the debate will rage on with the majority both sides not happy. this is why i suggest the ability to set thresholds of numbers vs worded approximations. some would set it to conceal all numbers, some would set it to reveal all numbers. most would find a balance in the middle, comfortable to the individual using it.

i also don\'t see this as coming soon. each level of adjustment in this threshold idea would be it\'s own set of code and dialog, meaning each area it is used would have to have at least adjustments to accomidate each setting available.

i am greatly impressed with the devs\' progress on the technical aspects of writing the game. the balance of playability, in everything from how much information is available to things like there being no sword on the rogue\'s body when he is clearly wielding one while he hits me, is something that will come in time. there is no good way to rush balance. numbers vs. words is one of those matters of balance that will come in time and i hope will come with variability since each play has her own comfort levels.

--- keder maloy

postscript: thank you DivineLight. i take that as a compliment, and i especially like the edict from the Octarchs.

[DivineLight]

The idea of having words indicate HP was fair, i like that.
Phrases like:

\"Healthy, Slightly Wounded, Wounded, Seriously Wounded, Close to Death, Moment Of Angels, Died\"
 would be really cool.

But again some ppl will complain some will be happy and some will say it\'s fine the either way.
The last desecion would be of Talad.

I am working on adding a method for monster strength assesment so you can decide weather to attack or not, and that would be text based no numbers there , Happy?
Talad told me to have some thing like this:
He is stronger than you.
He is weaker.
He is looking dangerous.
Better not disturb him.
etc.