NUMBERS, AND SYSTEM TRANSPARENCY

On the other hand, high numbers can be good since they can provide for more precision.

If a character's strength only goes from 1 to 5, it's sort of difficult to establish the difference between an average character and a slightly strong one, and there are likely to be huge gaps in time/character development where you don't see any change at all, punctuated by periods of EXTREME change.

author=Shadowtext link=topic=3169.msg62200#msg62200 date=1234836881
I've been thinking for a long time that it'd be a cool idea to try and do away with all the meaningless numbers altogether--just give the player more descriptive but less specific information. Like rating their stats as "Good," "Excellent," "Bad," "Awful," or the like. Or maybe just using letter grades. I dunno, though. Any thoughts on the Numbers Racket?

I'm not sure how well this would work in terms of stats, but word rankings might work well for other things, like AI descriptors. Tim Rodgers theorized in his review of Final Fantasy XII that the Gambit system might have been made tighter and more streamlined if they cleared away all the numbers and percentages (i.e. "Enemy is almost dead" instead of "Enemy's HP<10%).

Another thing to keep in mind is that numbers can often play an important role within the context of the story. In Final Fantasy, numbers grow proportionally huge compared to the scale of the story and to what is at stake. In Persona 3, I think (but am not sure) that the amount of damage that the final boss does with each hit actually exceeds the limiting factor placed on every other number in the game, which does a pretty good job of proving that it is ridiculously powerful.

I rarely have trouble with "meaningless" numbers as I usually get a sense of their worth pretty quickly. Though not always the case, looking at +5 Magic relative to your current Magic gives you a sufficient idea of what to expect. The only time I've ever felt numbers to be "pointless and confusing" was in Shining Soul, in which boosting my Dex from 16 to 32 did nothing to remedy by Dragonute's crappy hit rate, and 40 points of Int affected my spell damage negligibly.

Hm, well... I think damage ranges could be an effective substitute for Attack stats. "18-24 damage" tells you a good deal more than "21 Attack", yeah? However, I've only seen it in D&D-esque games with simple mechanics; incorporating it into a more complex system might take some creativity. Like, I don't know how you'd factor a 'Defense' stat into that without defining arbitrary limits for the range - if that makes any sense.

I dunno. Might be useful with the right corrections. ? _?

author=ChaosProductions link=topic=3169.msg62204#msg62204 date=1234837457
I actually have a problem with this a lot of times in RPGs. I loved how in FFTA, increasing your strength by one increased your damage output by one.

Actually, FFTA had it a bit more complicated than that. One point of Attack gained as an equipment bonus was a lot more valuable than one point gained through job growth. Each point of base attack was worth the sum of all your equipment bonuses, divided by a hundred - which meant that a single point there was almost never equal to a point of damage. Equipment bonuses were far more significant; switching from a sword with 25 attack to one with 30 would actually multiply your damage by 30/25, or 20%. I liked knowing that a weapon with X Attack would deal exactly half as much as one with 2X Attack. That's one of (if not the only one) of the game's mechanical strengths.

Then again, one probably wouldn't realize that without reading up on the mechanics. =/

The shitty thing about FFTA's damage formula, though, was that Defense and Resistance got shafted. It took two points of Defense to negate each point of an enemy's Attack stat, which really impacted the usefulness of armor and defensive characters. Against the strongest sword (Excalibur2), the strongest armor (Materia Armor) shaves off no more than 15 points of damage. Considering that enemies rarely use weapons half as strong as Excalibur2, and that the average unit will have 200+ HP by the time such items come available... I'd say SE goofed there.

I... I've spent a lot of time thinking about FFTA's mechanics. Probably more than anyone should. ~ _~

author=G-Flex link=topic=3169.msg63355#msg63355 date=1235513180
On the other hand, high numbers can be good since they can provide for more precision.

Mind you, precision isn't necessarily good (...or bad). While you're right about really small numbers, once you start getting into the hundreds and thousands, the ones don't serve much purpose. What's the difference between 800 and 805? If I'm fighting an enemy with 500k HP, what does it matter whether I hit 11864 or 12303? Hell, it'd probably be easier on the player just to round to 12000 every time. Two figures of precision are usually sufficient, and I can't imagine why one would ever need more than three.