THE POWER OF 5% ~ PERCENTAGE INTERVALS

It was either you or LockeZ who mentioned something like this before, and I've been recently trying to stick to the "don't make puny buffs under 5%" rule.

As for weird stuff like 61%, I'd probably change it to just 60%, but there certainly have been times where I'll use a weird number if, in testing, it "feels" right for what I'm going for, if that makes any sense.

I don't like even numbers or strict intervals. Using numbers that only ever end in 0 or 5 annoy me - it reminds me about how artificial the game construct is, breaking my immersion. Gimme those 61%s and 47s and 13s and small increments. I don't need to be immediately and overwhelmingly satisfied by any single one stat improvement - I appreciate that RPGs are long games with a gradual build-up.

author=Craze

Feldschlacht IV
I love numbers in my games, and I love my ability to influence them, even slowly. A big thing for me is my ability to influence my fate through the numbers somehow, so having too many stats that are totally static bothers me.

What about stuff like how a lot of MMOs and diablo-likes have "vs level" stats, such as "chance to hit vs same-level enemy"? If you don't increase your 433 to a 440, you'll go from decent 92% to 88%! Does that scratch your itch?

I feel a lot like Pizza. I like beautiful numbers. I totally get where kentona is coming from, though.

I do think there is a certain aesthetic in the application of numbers; 5% or 10% is just prettier to look at than 6% or 11%. However, I think the big thing for me is the applicability of those numbers more than anything. If a system is designed to comfortably fit numbers in set intervals like that, than I'm all for it, because numbers are the direct meat of the mechanics of a game, if I had to choose, I'd rather choose something messy that works than something clean that doesn't.

I think 6% and 11% are prettier to look at.


I am the 1%

I'm not as interested in Craze's OCD as I am in some of the responses to the topic.

I think the main problem with really low stat increases isn't that they have a really low effect or that they look weird and tiny, it's that they often have no effect at all. Especially for offensive stats.

What happens is that:

- At 440 attack power, every enemy in your current dungeon dies in 3 hits, every single time.
- At 450 attack power, every enemy in your current dungeon still dies in 3 hits, every single time.

So the player gains stats that look pretty but have absolutely zero effect. They might need to get to over 500 attack power before they start having a chance to kill the weakest enemy in 2 hits instead of 3. If only one party member's attack power is increasing, they might need even more than that.

I've solved this problem in the past by making damage extremely random. Like, the default variance in RPG Maker is 15% or 20% - I change it to 50% for every skill. At such a high random variance, the player might randomly kill the enemy in 2 hits instead of 3. If you get more attack power and start doing 5% more damage, that means you have a higher chance to kill the enemy in 2 hits instead of 3. Even 1% more damage is meaningful.

Another way I've solved this problem is to make normal enemies take more like ten or twelve hits to kill, instead of the standard three or four hits. The result was that even with only a normal 15% damage variance, it mattered when the player got 5% more attack power. Some players hated this and complained endlessly that it made battles drag on, though. Really it didn't take any longer - I just had a third as many battles to make up for it - but it did feel that way to some people.

Either of these solutions (and other solutions, probably) can make it so that there's an actual difference between a 30% damage buff and a 32% damage buff. But in your default-ass RPG Maker damage system with typical enemies and skills balanced Dragon Warrior style, no, there's no difference.

I prefer huge numbers that come less frequently. If a player gets a level up or a huge new sword, I want them to feel the difference in a very obvious way. Either they deal some enormous amount of damage - 50% more! 100% more! - or they see the effects of their gain in another way - the sword explodes! turns enemies to ice! Minor incremental powerups make sense because frequent small rewards feel good (and add to the addictive nature of grinding-based games) but personally, I want rewards to feel amazing.

I don't remember much about getting new weapons or armor in FF7 (ultimates aside), but I remember every new Materia I found, because they expanded my abilities or had some huge effect on stats. I love WoW's new talent trees compared to their old ones - you only get a choice every 10 or 15 levels now, but many add huge changes to your playstyle, and not just 1% extra damage like it used to be.

Keep in mind that you'd almost certainly have to design your game around this! Managing big upgrades over the course of a long game would be super difficult, and keeping players tuned in between each power up would require some trickery.

Final Fantasy X did this really interestingly with their battle formula by making damage raise quadratically.

A 1 point of STR meant always a reasonable increase in damage. Be it from 70 to 96 damage, to 2800 to 3100 damage.

I like to try to focus on the hits per enemy to death ratio instead of hard numbers. So if you start a dungeon and it takes your party 3 turns to kill 5 skeletons, at the end I want to cut that down to 2 turns, if not less (one and a half turns).

Also, I like to change the crit hit multiplier up so that if you do a critical hit it's not just like 'you went from 20 damage to 35' but instead 'you went from 20 damage to 70!' so that it honestly feels like you got fucking lucky, mate. (hate it when crits just feel meh)

I like to use smaller numbers (rarely reaching 255 for base stats, and highest HP peeps barely hitting the 500 mark) and it does make it a lot easier to balance how I like - small increases mean a whole lot more.

As for percentages, I like to use big numbers. Healing items will usually carry all the way through the game, from start to end. For example, Healing potion does 45%+50HP healing. At the start of the game, when your characters barely break the 70-80 mark, this is almost a full heal, but later on it falls off a lot, becoming about a half-heal. Good. Then my second tier item can swoop in and take over.

There's nothing worse than someone giving you a fucking 20% or less healing item with no hard HP buffer. Like, seriously, that shit is horrible.

And to the number patterns, I'm okay with skills having weird % numbers but not so much items. If I'm labelling for you to see (which I do for items but not for skills), then I'm gonna make it easy for you to figure out what you get out of it. Have 200 HP and an item that heals 45%? You know it's going to be almost half heal - about 90HP. Have 200 HP and an item that heals 23%? You can guesstimate about 1/4th of health but it's gonna take a bit longer to come up with a hard number (about 43 HP? 38HP? Something weird like that. Also fuck you for under 25%).

Oh, I've also started doing armour increases based on percentage in my shorter games. It's... interesting, to say the least. As with my skills, I don't label the amount added, but as with my items, I give a base boost along with the percent boost. So, for example:


Of course that weapon is one that is a liiiiiittle OP, but mainly because MC is very weak and needs the stat increases (like holy hell, she barely manages to get through said forest even with that thing >.<; )