Letting the player know the damage formula - is it a good idea?

Hi everyone,

In my current project the player will only have one actor, but that actor will perform multiple actions every turn and be highly customizable, to the point where you pick every skills and stat you get.

I thought about making it a bit easier for the player as having such a choice may be overwhelming, so I thought about adding the damage formula to the skills description - this way the player will know which stats matter and what to improve if they want to use said skill.

Example:



Do you think that it's a good idea or it is a mood breaker? I'm really not sure, I'd love to hear some feedback.

Thanks!

Honestly it is unnecessary and it looks painful to the eyes, players don't need to see what the Dev's can see. Some game skill descriptions tells players what stats it uses like for example:

Quick Strike

A quick assault on a single enemy, dealing damage depending on users AGI.

Skill descriptions need to be clean and understanding to players, not every person that plays our games are RPGmaker devs so some may not understand the equations even if the formula is easy to interpret, you won't ever see any good game that shows the players damage formulas.

Hope my advice helps.

Hmm, thanks. I guess you're right, it does look pretty ugly the more I look at it.

I guess that I was playing a little bit too much MOBA's lately and there usually the skills have the damage formulas next to them. It does seem out of place here the more I think about it.

I want to play an RPG, not a Maths game Q_Q

I think it's far more useful to give the player a broad description of the effects of the item, rather than a precise mathematical breakdown of how the computer implements it.

This is for several reasons:

1. There is no better way to utterly shatter immersion in your game world, unless the entire point is math centric.  As soon as you start showing the "man behind the curtain" --- in this case, the math formulas the computer is using to evaluate damage --- you destroy the mystique you're trying so hard to create.  Instead of having the "Legendary sword forged from the heart of the Gods and bathed in the tears of Angels" you now have the players thinking "Sword [600+a.atk*10-b.def*4 50].max" because the math would completely eclipse the descriptions.

I know Final Fantasy IV wouldn't be nearly as much fun if each weapon said "Dark Sword: [20+a.atk*4-b.def*2 1].max" or something similar.

2. This "more information" would only overwhelm the player.  I'm very good at math and it would overwhelm and annoy me --- I didn't start playing an RPG to have to work out formulas to see which weapon is better.

3. What exactly would you list if you, say, added buffs, debuffs and other things like elemental damage?  Your descriptions would start to look like partial dumps of the program. 

4. Finally, if you need to tweak items for game balance, every single time you'd need to go edit the description as well.

Let's say I were making a futuristic hacking cyberspace type game.  Now, since it is key to the storyline and game world, I would show the player SOME key data.  But even then, it would be brief and not so precise that the player has to pull out a calculator.  It would be something like:  "Upgraded Mk II Cyberdeck, +20% RT, +10% DS" where "RT"  = "Response Time" and "DS" = "Defense Strength."

What also is fair is having, say, the Item select screen show how equipping an item changes the player's stats.  There, the system is doing all the math and just showing me "OK, this grants +5 AGI, +3 MDF"  This is good information to have and helps the player decide, without putting too much technical information on display.

I like seeing how damage is calculated but not that technical... you can like say, "Deals damage equal to 2 times the stat of the hero"

Your formula is a bit too elaborated, that's why it hurts people's eyes a bit. That said, I'm ALL for precise information, because it allows for precise strategy, and this is very important in a game with a balanced gameplay, especially if the game is tough (but fair).

I would encourage you to come up with less complicated formulas and a more attractive way to display them.

You also might consider reversing your lines.  No one is going to mind reading 'A simple shot from the hip' first.  Players who don't want to read the formula, however, might never get past it to see the simple description below.  Always put simple info before complex.

Then consider exactly how you display the info.  Do you need the quote marks and the brackets?  What do they add?  They make the line more cluttered visually, so unless you have a reason for them, ditch them.  Things like that will make it a lot quicker and easier for the player, who will often be looking at this during battle, and doesn't want to spend time deciphering things.

Yes, take out the clutter first and foremost, and put the "flavorful" (  BD   :rock-right: ) line first.

Yeah, I'd say it's a lot better to simply mention what stats affect the skill effectiveness. If the skill uses Agi stat as up there, then simply mention that it is affected by player's Agi. If it has any special effects, mention those as well. Adding the % value of chance to inflict a state is also nice. Though also keep in mind to keep these descriptions consistent. Whichever format you go with, keep it uniform across all skills. For example if you mention an additional effect for one skill but not for another, then it will be confusing and misleading.

If you want to do that I would make it something like this:

Damage: 8 plus AGI multiplied by 2, ignores some target defense

Or Damage: 16 boosted by AGI, ignores some target defense

That gives the player all the info they need to know, base damage, stats that boost the damage, and whether the enemies defense will factor in.

I'm not sure I would go that route, but if you do, you need to simplify it.

(I'm assuming that you are factoring the defense less then normal since you are calling it piercing, but it is just a guess without seeing your other damage formulas)

I remember many of the 90's games included some of that information in the manual. For instance, I do recall one game that had in the manual that each point of attack increased your base damage by x, and so on. Maybe you could put the technical info in a readme for those who want to read it?

I tried doing something like this with an older game I was working on. I find showing something like this wont really fit in most games. For games where you want to give the player a lot of freedom in how he alters his own character, showing a formula could be useful. For my own game I used a basic formula and system of "Symbols" to explain how damage can be affected but not so much calculated on both ends (if that makes sense). I have some screenshots of it here:

I would put those in the descriptions of the item, armor, weapons and such. The stats you see for a Skill for example shows your damage but doesn't account for Enemy Defenses. My thought process here was as long as you know exactly what to do to enhance your own damage, you'd be fine. The downside to something like this is that somewhere you'll have to place your Key. When I was getting ready to get a proper demo setup I created a crudely done Notepad file and placed that into the Game Folder. It would say things like [b-] = Reduce Blunt Damage. [N] = Nature, [P] = Pierce, [WIS] = Wisdom. There was a lot more to it and in the end I decided it was a bit too much and sorta discontinued the game. Not saying this sort of idea is impossible, but it really comes down to how you present all of the data. If it's too convoluted, it will only annoy players. Hope that was helpful at all.

Maybe in a guide that comes with the game? Otherwise it puts one off from the game.

It's different in a MOBA where being able to outstrategize someone on small details is part of the core engagement (and even then, think about the moderate amount of detail in Morgana's Black Shield tooltip in LoL versus the extreme amount of detail in its entry on LeagueWiki; some minutia are best left out for in-game descriptions).

For an RPG, I think what you generally want to do is to generalize it into helpful, intuitive, and concise wording.  Numbers are fine as long as they're fairly round (or very small).  Numberical formulas, however, are generally NOT a good idea to include.  What I personally did in some of my games was to make the general damage formula the same for skills and gave each skill a base "Spell Power" that's inserted into the equation.  From there, I could have in-game info (where the player can access it at any time, but never has to) that explains the formula, so that they understand what each stat is doing, without ever really needing to calculate anything out.  Then, for the skill descriptions, I could speak in general terms.  "Heavy Fire damage to all foes; 40% chance to Burn", for example.  Where I did have a skill that used a different formula, I'd use a description like "Moderate Energy damage; ignores target's MDF" or "Extreme Physical damage; also considers user's AGI".  (You could also specify "29 spell power" or "17 spell power" instead of "Heavy" and "Moderate", depending on how important that info is to the player.)  I think this is far more intuitive than listing the whole formula.

Hiromu gave you a set of really good ideas which I think could work.  Symbols are a great way to get a lot of information across in a concise manner.  I'd add that pictoral symbols are even better: a shield that says "blunt" or has a little fist on it would be a better way than "B-" to explain that the item reduces damage taken from Blunt attacks, although it's important to have an easily-accessible page in the menu that explains, in words, what this symbol means.

Actually, FFIV does part of what Wavelength mentions above.

Each Spell and Summon has a small entry for "SP" (Spell Power, I assume) which implies how much damage the spell does or heals and an icon indicating the type of elemental damage.  That conveys the lion's share of the technical data you'd need unless you are making a very tactical RPG.

On one hand, it's never a good idea to obscure mechanics from the players. On the other hand, formulas are boring and ugly to look at. If possible, find a shorthand way to describe it.

Formula is a bit overkill, but Sailerius's point is valid about not obscuring data.

Attaching a power level number could suggest how strong an attack is, with a type  (Piercing: 60).  If something ignores defense, just mention that.

You could always release a readme with your game for those interested enough.

Like others have suggested, I myself use suggestive text in the skills description. I say something like: Low damage. Chance for high damage if target inflicted with state X. Chance to add state Y. Attached to Z element. This way the player has an idea of how the skill will react to targets inflicted with various states, which states the skill can add, and whether the skill is (if physical) a Thrust or Slash or whatever type of attack. I try to keep things as simple as possible but give enough info so as not to leave the player questioning the usefulness of a skill.