DOING IT! - WEEK ELEVEN - EQUIPABLES

Strong: Phys, Reduce: Heal. ST+2, TC-1
Lv15: Sonic Fangs, Lv21: Venom Fang, Lv27: Regen

Null: Water, Strong: Fire, Weak: Elec. TC+5, ST-3
Lv60: Aquiyte, Lv64: Drain Water, Lv69: Atlantis

Null: Earth, Weak: Fire. EN+3, AG-2
Lv30: Terrase, Lv36: Earthshaker, Lv41: Earth Conduct

Null: Elec, Weak: Earth. AG+4, TC-2
Lv45: Razaise, Lv47: Elec Vortex, Lv51: Raspeago

AG+3, EN-2
Lv30:Reattarto, Lv34:Ramagarto, Lv37:Nerve Shock, Lv 41:Status Lock, Lv45:Slumber Wave

I love how the title format keeps changing. =P

I love equipment. Equipment can make(but not usually break) a game for me. I love getting new, stronger gear, or even better, gear that side-steps. (Eg a sword with 10 attack and a sword with 7 attack that inflicts poison. Which do you choose?) Gear helping out with a certain area(eg a poison immune helmet in a swamp area) is cool too. I just love lots and lots of gear.

Accessories are really underloved in RPGs. I think their cool, because there are no real conventions with them. I mean you want a shield for defence and a weapon to increase attack, but an accessory can do either of these, or grant immunities, or grant a special attack, or increase max HP, or grant regen, or increase money gained at the end of battle or do a million other things.

In the game I'm working on, over the last few days(quite conveniently) I've been thinking out armour distribution. I think having you average gear for sale as well as a second level of gear available in each "tier" is cool. So you'd buy your average up grades, and then be able to say, steal a better knife for the thief, buy a better sword for the warrior at an inflated price, find a better staff in chests for the mage and get a better mace for the priest by doing their special thing. Then the second level of armour would be available some other way.

Having always hated items with descriptions that tell me absolutely nothing, all the equippables (and items in general) in my games always list their effects on stats and any other bonuses they might have. For example...

Bow, Attack +15, Poison

This weapon is of the bow variety, boosts your attack, and has a chance at inflicting enemies with Poison. And I probably didn't have to tell you any of that because it's SO OBVIOUS. Now, what may not be so obvious about it is the chance of it causing poison in a foe. But being that it's a weapon, the poison is just an added bonus. The attack boost already makes it better than whatever you were using previously, and the weapon's special effect is just extra (for the record, though, the effect rate is 10%).

Now, some of my descriptions aren't quite so clear...

Sword, Attack +30, Razor

...but I've detailed every one of these in the readme I include with the game. This one in particular means the weapon has a higher critical hit rate. Some of these are still more obvious than others, as a Dual weapon clearly strikes twice when you attack with it, and a Hits All weapon strikes everything at once.

My old games may be riddled with bizarre design choices, but item descriptions have never been a problem, I can tell you that!

If working with XP or VX, you can simply show all of this info as comparisons to the player's current equipment, the same way it compares attack and defense power to the player's current equipment by default. Granted, it takes up a little more space in the shop screen, but you didn't need the font to be that big anyway.

With that in mind, why would you ever list the weapon's main stat in its description? You can see them when buying or equipping the item, even in the default uncustomized screens. Even in RM2K3 you can at least see a comparison, though it's only an up or down arrow instead of numbers.

There's something to be said for players having to figure things out, too. For a strategic game like an RPG, figuring it out is the entirety of the challenge. So if you tell the player absolutely everything, then your game has no challenge and it's basically impossible to lose. Just don't take the information-hiding too far, or you'll end up with Nethack. There's a balance somewhere in the middle.

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There's something to be said for players having to figure things out, too. For a strategic game like an RPG, figuring it out is the entirety of the challenge. So if you tell the player absolutely everything, then your game has no challenge and it's basically impossible to lose.

Absolute disagreement.

Withholding information from the player is not challenge, it is a cheapshot. It's like blindly firing elements at a SMT boss because your Scan ability is obstructed for no good reason; you guess wrong, get it reflected in your face and die. Or having a piece of armor secretly make your character weak to fire - worse yet the player may never figure this one out and be left scratching their head wondering why the boss overkills them. Once you gain the information, whether through trial and error or a FAQ, the blind situation loses all meaningful value. Not to mention it has zero replay value to begin with.

The player should absolutely be allowed to know that Archer's Invisible Shot ability is Wind elemental, Silk Robe increases the Wind damage done by the unit wearing it and Equip Robe allows any class to wear robes. What they don't need to be told is that they can set Equip Robe on an Archer and use Silk Robe to power up Invisible Shot - this is the right kind of "figuring it out", using the CORRECT information given to you to make logical conclusions. (Simple example, but still.) Making a completed puzzle from the pieces is very gratifying. Less so if the pieces are half colored in ink splotches withholding the information of what the pieces of the picture look like.

In case you haven't figured it out yet I subscribe to the stats over flavor school of equipment description

I probably wouldn't play very many video games if all of their hidden mechanics were laid out on the table. The hidden mechanics of games like Saga Frontier, or Final Fantasy Tactics, or even Street Fighter 3rd Strike are hidden for a reason; having them exposed would make the instruction manuals 300+ pages, tutorials several days long, and pretty much would make everything a pain in the ass.

You don't need to know HOW everything works. You just need to know the necessary information and how to put it together, and anything from there is just a reward for investigation. I mean do you need to know exactly how the digestive system works to eat and enjoy food or how the arousal system exactly works to kiss a girl?

No but you do need to know things like "This item is an apple, recovers 15 HP. This item is a thumbtack, can hold up to 375 grams on a corkboard"

EDIT: to make more sense

Well, you don't have to know (and cannot possibly be expected to memorize during normal gameplay) literally everything of course. I suppose that's what strategy guides are for. But for a noncommercial game, you probably should have a technical readme for the people interested since no one's gonna write a book of tables or GameFAQs guide.

Let's try a simple example.

BAD -

FFT: Books do damage based on PA and MA. You find this out by visiting GameFAQs.

GOOD -

FFXII: Katanas do damage based on PA and MA. You find this by visiting the help board in the first city's inn and selecting "About Weapons". Precise formula is found on GameFAQs, but you know what makes your numbers go up going by ingame info, which is the relevant part.

This debate sounds very familiar; didn't we go over this when Craze admitted that he includes things in his games to help the player 'cheat' their way out of bad situations?

Anyway, I kinda agree with both Tonfa and Feld. Relevant information and transparency in mechanics are important in games, but you don't have to know absolutely EVERY little detail. Things like damage algorithms don't need to be spelled out, so long as the info about how the player can affect them is clear (like which stats affect what abilities). And, focusing back on item descriptions here, an item should give the player the information they need to understand its uses. Some things will require more explanation than others, but it all depends on the game, too.