cluttered character card vs minimilist character card in a strategy rpg

I am working on an overly ambitious project that I merely planned out and started to better learn and teach myself. The point I am at in it leaves me with a nagging question that I just can't seem to find much "useful" chatter about any where. Whats better, a full layout of detailed stats and effects in character/unit cards, or minimal information given, and the rest be left for a player to discover?

Detailed information:
1. allows for min/max strategies. It helps a player who uses spreadsheets to lay out there short and long term plans for each and every aspect of their play through.

2. it allows for the player to counter certain strategies more easily.

3. knowledge is power.

Minimal information:

1. it causes the player to potentially second guess every move when crafting or picking a fight, the player does not know for certain just "how powerful" they really are.

2. it turns a wise player into an RnD professional very quickly, it makes them think, and it makes them test out and try things they would not have under normal circumstances.

3. knowledge is power, and it is not very fun to be on either end of a "curb stomp" in my opinion.


Any good feedback is very much appreciated as even if no more than a couple friends try what my hands have made, it would be very useful information to have in any future career involving game design and development.

Thank you all in advance!!!


EDIT---------------
So, the topic has much more depth than merely a "yes or no" answer, to accommodate this I have added 2 more options in the poll itself. I hope everyone finds this topic and debate as enlightening as I have. It has become more about mystery of discovery vs all the details laid bare for the players ease of play, but rather a topic of "polish" for me. In cooking, among other things, too much of one thing can spoil your broth, while too little can leave it bland and tasteless.

 

Never understood those "choices", because better option is always both. Just let player to decide what he wants. In options or when you start a new game:
"Meta data/Info quantity/whatever you call it:" Verbose or Brief;
And make it a bool. Then each time you want to display that info check for a bool and player will see either "lot of info" or "small info".

But if you want opinions: I always hated when info is hidden, because it only wastes players' time. But if someone really likes to discover everything himself, as I already said, just make an options for them, so they will choose brief info or hidden info or whatever you'll decide.

Edit:
Also you can tie it to additional difficulty, so if player chooses hidden data, he'll be more rewarded throughout the game a bit more or something.

 

I think it depends on the audience you want to reach and the focus of your game. If your game is PvP game geared toward combat and competition, you will not attract the people you need to your game by hiding the stats. Min-maxers are not going to like hidden stats. But if your game is something else, like a farming game, social game, or a game for role players, then hidden stats will be attractive and a challenge to them.

I can tell you that most people will not like hidden stats if the goal of the game is competition against other players. Our game, which is for role players, will have hidden stats, but combat is not our main focus, and neither is xp.

I suggest you choose some of your gamer friends who like to play the kind of game you are making and ask them.

 

Game design isn't about throwing everything at the player. It's about designing a coherent experience that conveys the narrative you want the player to witness.


Every game with a combat system has stats. But games where the the player inhabits a role, such as FPS games or action-adventure games (the focus is on the player performing the action), rarely show them because they distract from that. While games where a player defines and directs a role (the focus is on the character performing the action) typically do show them.

It all depends on what you're going for, OP. Typically strategy RPGs do show stats. Hard to call it "strategy" if you can't even determine the relative strength of your units/character/whatever to work with.

 

The only reason not to give a player a choice is devs' laziness or lack of time or lack of finance or lack of skills or other reason like that, that makes devs unable to make options for a player. Look at Elder Scrolls - the only reason they are so popular is really good ability to mod it. Mods are some kind of options that helps players of any type to enjoy the same game + replayability . Giving player a choice of something is some kind of in-built mod.

Forcing player to specific rules is never good, you just make someone unhappy and everyone else neutral. Giving options will make everyone happy.

OP asks about "how much info to show". It won't take much time and effort to make both options and it'll never be worse, than only one option, because player who dislikes that info will simply choose to not show it, while others will choose the other option. It's win/win situation for everyone. But if OP wants to save those few minutes of time he would spend on making this option, he might choose only one.

 

Not true. We have a community of players who are so worried we will back down and show numbers. So it all depends on the game and your audience.

Choice can still be given, even with minimal exposure of the stats. Just choosing a class is a choice or what skills the player chooses to learn. I absolutely agree that if one were to randomly give a player stats and let them in no way influence those stats might be a bad idea. But there are plenty of was to do this without the min/maxing methods.

Funny, because the min/maxers are the ones who get so angry if you change anything that hurts their ability to spend hours creating the perfect powerful character. This is why I suggested that the OP think about the players he is trying to attract. He will lose those folks immediately if they cannot deeply influence their character stats. However, there are plenty of folks that might find it refreshing and exciting to experiment in game rather than have it all handed to them.

So...know your audience.

 

But they will NOT see numbers! Make a window popping up in the game at start with text "Are you worried to see numbers?" and two answers "Yes! I'm numberphobiac and I'm so worried, I can't resist watching on them and then it drives me mad!" and "No, I love numbers!" and those, who choose the first will never see them! Easy-peasy!

I would understand if OP asked "turn based combat" or "real time combat" - then yeah, it would be hard to implement both and balance them differently, it's x2 work, or ever more, almost creating 2 different games in one from mechanics point of view. But limiting the info players receive? Few lines of code. OP would probably spend less time on making both options available, than on creating this thread.

 

Have you ever played, like, any action adventure games at all? Assassin's Creed? Tomb Raider? Deus Ex (though you could call it an RPG)? What about others like Devil May Cry or Metal Gear Rising?

Edit: let's take that even further. Alan Wake? Alien Isolation? Bioshock? Far Cry 3? Just Cause?

These games are indisuptably controlled by stats. These games do not show those stats to the player (or only show a fraction of what's going on). These games are very popular.

Your statement is not true. It's not about laziness, it's about design.

 

This discussion goes nowhere. I already said: if they (who loves that stats aren't shown) love that, then they choose "do not show" - they will lose nothing and those games would be equally popular for them just like they're without that options PLUS someone else might like it more, if they love to see that info.

That "design" (without option) is probably will be good only for mentally unstable people who will choose "show me stats" and then get mad, because they see numbers or something like that, although they had an option to not see them. As I already said in my first post after edit - it can be even a difficulty or special "realism" mod or something like that, which hides all that meta data and rewards (optionally, as OP wants) player for that with something.

Both options will NEVER be worse, unless player has mental problems and can't control himself, but it's his problems. Or unless your auditory are those people, then yeah, limit their choice, so they can't harm themselves psychologically (lol).

 

It goes nowhere because you're not addressing the topic of this forum and the topic of this thread--game design. Not game everything-but-the-kitchen-sink.

This isn't really about a single isolated element that a developer can either put in or keep out. It's about the gestalt, about how that element weaves into the whole experience as a whole--and how the variations of that element can affect the whole.

Relevant quote: "perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away"

Relevent talk (by Gigiwoo):

By putting in things that don't belong, you're hurting the game, not helping it.

 

In our game, they will not have a choice. No numbers. Honestly, min/max addicts would not enjoy our game and that is okay. Sometimes you, as the developer, have to make choices if you are making a niche game. However, the players in our do have choices, they are just not about the numbers. It is instead about how they develop their character.

 

The topic of the forum is to compare the two methods the OP is considering and give him our opinion of both options, which is exactly what we are doing. He is asking us as game developers, not as players, or at least I think he is doing that. If not, then he needs to go ask players.

 

Alright, you convinced me. If you want to decrease the amount of players playing your game - yeah, you need to minimize options, so less people will be interested in the game. Damn, I never thought that "too much players" will be a problem -_-

 

Thank you all so much, despite a few wild rabbits, this was exactly what I was trying to find out. The project I am working on is a single player strategy RPG. I know that traditionally RPG's flood your screen with numbers and min/max methods from the tutorial on. I also am aware that a strategy game is nothing without information, again knowledge is power. The combat would be more balanced towards tactical play, and live and lose your beloved units on the regular much like XCom, and Darkest Dungeon.

My idea for limited information vs details upon details being fed to the player revolves around something I heard the creator of LoZ mention about why he made some of the design choices on Breath of the Wild. i.e sprawling wilderness with largely empty areas to be explored and possibly hold something of interest. It made me think a moment, about the days before the internet, player guides, or readily available cheat codes. Oh the wonder to have learned something about a game you had been spending hours playing, and the sheer joy of being able to share that information, or not share if you didn't like your friends. I thought about how I could in some way emulate the notion of figuring something out in this "information age" perhaps.... limit the information. Now I do not mean give the player nary a clue on what any item does, but rather give them clues, and let them learn the secrets of the world.

In short I look through all the conversations, and the poll, and realize that it may be best to give them that information... but still. See, units will have a base star rating 1-5 that will affect their growth stat multiplier, along with the job class' having a rating of E, D, C, B, A, S, which also affects stat growth, perhaps only really pass a ratting stat along, with clues hidden in the flavor text to subtly hint at what this items true relevance may be. Just a thought.

 

So cynical.

You do realize that not every game is for all people, right? One can choose to try to capture every single player out there and make a "kitchen sink" game, but you know what? Many of those games are shallow and while they may please everyone a little, they rarely please anyone a lot.

Niche games are for those under-served populations of gamers who don't want to play FPS or Zombie survival games.They want unique, different and challenging.

So..thank you for your concern, but I am not worried about finding players for our game. We have plenty already. And we are making something we are proud of which is really an important part of indie game development. It isn't about 100k players, it is about 500 players who love your game.

 

Yes, I understand that you can't make tactical FPS RPG with tons of philosophical dialogues and turn based combat, but read again what OP wants. He can easily do both without sacrificing or losing anything at all. What's the point to not make it? It's not design, it's pure inefficiency.

I remember playing JA2 1.13 without reading documentation, because I'm vanilla JA2 veteran. Had to discover everything through practice and it was exciting of course, but I would rather call it extra difficulty. Also most of it was very annoying and boring and I had to save/load a lot after testing different features which didn't have any info at all, even on internet -> waste of time. Also you may complete a game without knowing half of its features, which is good if you're going to replay the game, but... how the hell are you going to discover what you don't know?

 

You're going to experiment. NetHack is one of the deepest games of all time, and it's replete with things that not only you don't know, but aren't even the same from play to play. You found a purple potion. What does it do? The only way to find out is to experiment. You take into account what potion effects you've seen before, consider how healthy you're feeling and whether you're in a safe place, take a swig, and see what happens. Sometimes nothing happens, which rules out a large class of possible effects but leaves you still a bit in the dark, so you have to change the conditions and try again.

This is not laziness on the part of developers — on the contrary, it requires very intricate, careful design, so that the player always has ways (some safer than others!) to discover what they need to know. Simply telling them would be lazy, and not as much fun. And NetHack players love it.

And sure, there are players who can't be bothered with such a discovery process. So the game isn't for them. Like @Teila said, if you try to make a game for everybody, you'll end up exciting nobody. Pick your audience and optimize for them — and in some cases, that means withholding the details.

TL/DR: Go play Stratego.

 

No, it's my bad English, sorry, I was going to say "How are you going to know that there's something left to discover? May be you already know everything?"

Oh, seriously? Is it some kind of unity-forum-trolling I don't know about? This is not making game for everybody, it's not even a design question. It's like giving a player to set screen resolution or let him make custom hotkeys or even turn on/off sound and music! It's a damn option! It'll never hurt a player. It's like OP asked "Should I make my game for 16:10 resolution or 16:9?" And I tell him "Pff, man, do both!". And you tell "NO!!!!!! It'll make game for EVERYBODY! NO it's very very very bad!!". The amount of info about stats you get on UI isn't about changing the whole game design, OP can choose to show stats (2nd poll option), but also make hidden on demand, if player doesn't want it, just like make different screen resolutions available or allowing to change hotkeys.

The only thing, which will be changed in the code is additional bool, then method, which will manage that bool, then interface element like button/toggle/slider which will call that method, and then if-then-else check for that bool that will either call brief or verbose info for required stats each time it's called. May be he'll need to make 2 separate UI windows for that, in case positioning or ratio will differ a lot. It's just few minutes of work and NO ONE will ever be upset by this, because this options simply has no damn drawbacks. Just zero drawbacks. Unless player is insane sadomasochist and will intentionally pick the option he dislikes and then he'll get mad because of this, but even then, he's sadomasochist! He'll like the process! You see? No drawbacks!

Btw Fallout1, Fallout2 and Arcanum had this option.

 

I will have to look into that, thank you Joe. Very useful and pointed feed back as always from you.

I wish a design choice where that simple, to some it is that simple, but I prefer to look deeper past the skin at the real meat of the idea. Things such as potions will tell you if it's poison or healing or buffing. These items they will buy at a shop and craft, but they will not know "exact" numbers, or at least that is how I envisioned it. Crafted and bought goods from regents to finished products will have quality ratings, and of course if something has a higher quality, surely it would have greater effect, how much greater.... I will leave that to the imagination and gut feeling of the players who decide to pick up the game.

Truthfully I had already decided on a course, just hadn't worked out the details of the trip, before I posted this question. I truthfully wanted to know what people thought of this design choice, and get a developers perspective on things that they had either done or seen done. I honestly had no idea it would strike such a heated debate, but I'm glad it did, it pointed a few key things out to me.

thank you ALL so much for your input, I do believe I have gained at least some morsel of wisdom and/or knowledge from every post here so far, which leads me to believe that this design idea could possibly be MUCH more important than I at first thought. I look forward to hearing from more people, and seeing more information and thoughts on the subject brought up!

 

So people who chose #1 option from the poll will be happy, and people who chose #2 will save the game, drink the potion, see the number, load the game. Or, if your game will be popular or have some helpful fan who will write down all those numbers (if they won't be random, but even then, he'll write constraints, like "this potions heals from 10 to 20 HP * quality"), then they will have to use this documentation in order to not waste their time on those testing. Or you can just make an option for that ^_^ As you can see, it's very simple actually, it's just user-friendliness. Also people, who chose option #1 won't be upset if you include the option, since they can just ignore it and don't turn it on. As I already said - win/win situation. But if you just don't care for people #2, then yeah, you're dev, you can do whatever game you want, but it'll be simply inefficient from players point of view.

 

I think maybe you need to let people express themselves. It is fine to agree, but to attack, and yes, calling one lazy is an attack, then maybe you should really examine what these forums are for. They are to support and give CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, not to insult others who have ideas you cannot understand.

I did not get from the OP's post what you got from it. I see someone who is asking a simple question. I want to give my players a choice between two options. Is this a good idea? I would like to hear your thoughts.

When you attack, you shut others down. Not fair.

 

Really? I might be happy with option 2. How do you speak for all people?

If you care about people who might enjoy option 2, then you might include it.

Again, how do you know what will make everyone happy? I think you should step back from this thread. You are adding nothing to it but a lot of anger. Why so angry about some else's plan for their own game?

You will hate my game. I hope you stay off my future threads about my game. lol

 

I actually plan to make it nearly impossible to do that. The reason I made this thread is to find the right mix of ambiguity, mystery, and rewarding experience from the action of doing. I enjoy games with extreme levels of difficulty and loss, i.e darkest dungeon and xcom as examples. It has nothing to with caring about people as players. The mechanics I plan to have in place already reward those that take chances and experiment, why not make that a core feature. If people as a whole did like the rogue like feel of lose, and mystery of what there is to be discovered then many games out there would simply not exist.

Think of it like this, a great war general knows basic information about a tool of war be it a soldier or a tank. He knows what it can do "exactly" through seeing, and testing. At no point, however, does he see a sheet of paper that says: "ap shell deals 128-357 damage to armored vehicles". This whole topic is about the abstract of experience vs offering data that under most similar circumstances would not be available.

I do apologize that this topic upsets you so much, I didn't really wish to cause heated or hateful debates, I merely wished to point a topic that I could not find much useful chatter about. I did so in the hopes of gaining pearls of wisdom and knowledge about pros, cons, and find out just how much thought most devs put into the design choice of what data the player is given.

Also, I added 2 more poll options, and an edit to the original post in this thread. Do these options help any, and/or give you any food for thought?

 

I actually think you have a great idea here. You are right, the new Zelda game is unique in that it not only allows exploration and experimentation but it encourages and rewards such behavior. I have talked to a lot of people and they love the concept. I think this is the right time for games like this and yours sounds like it could do well. In a few years, these games will be the new Zombie Survival games, and everyone will be doing it.

So, my suggestion is to take the risk and do something exciting. There will never be a better time than now, right after the release of a game like Zelda that introduced people to a new way of playing.

I have been having similar discussions with my team...how to give players the opportunity to be creative and innovative in a game. How to give them choices that impact their game play in a way that makes it more fun and less predictable.

I say make a prototype with simple meshes and primitives, show it to a friend, see if it is fun. One can download a template from the asset store and do a game like everyone else, or one can do something different. Giving a new experience to your players definitely shows you care about them.

 

You did not post a heated topic. So not your fault so no need to apologize. Someone is probably just having a bad day. lol

 

Sorry, cultural differences or something like that, I'm not angry, also I'm not attacking anyone ^_^ If I sound rude, I'm very sorry, I actually tried to sound non-serious and fun in examples to even show friendliness.

What do you mean by that? That you will be happy to save the game, drink potion, find number and load the game, rather than just see the number? Or you mean, that you love to see numbers, but you still will be happy to not see them? Then you may just not turn on the option. And again, if you love to save game, see number, load game - again, you just may just not turn on the option... I don't see how this can make someone upset.

Then you already answered your own question, make info hidden.

Damn, man, sorry I'm not angry or upset, so I apologize that I made you think that you made someone upset It's just the way I express my thoughts, it seems that different forums have very different mentalities and I'm not experienced on this forum. I'll try to use basic and simple language.

The 4th option just makes player to ignore his memory abilities, it's really very irrelevant from "deep design point of view", because you'll never know if it's good or bad.

 

To a degree, but I will value and weigh all input from everyone that has something to say. How about I present it to you like this.

You are on a design team, and the lead is dead set on limited knowledge about stat specifics being given to the player. What would you suggest to make those of your mindset see this as a good polished choice, what mechanic or addition would personally want to contribute or suggest to the lead to be done?

 

Yeah, I just told my husband that maybe you were from Reddit or somewhere. lol

Unity forums are a place for supportive discussions, helping folks and not cutting them down. I realize that cultural and language issues can make things seem different than the intention, so apology accepted. I am sure you will figure this place out and become productive member. Unity's community is a great place for new and old developers. We come here to share and to learn and to support each other.

It means that I don't mind not seeing the numbers when I play. I like the idea of experimenting and figuring things out through game play. Zelda was mentioned by the OP as an example of this method. In fact,I prefer not to see the numbers. If you know anything about Bartle's classification of MMO players, I am the social explorer. There are lot of us actually, and not a lot of games made for us.

You made comments that not seeing the numbers meant that the OP was lazy or didn't care about his players. I am not sure how else to read this other than as an attack, so if you didn't mean that, I would rephrase if I were you.

So..we are making a game with ALL numbers hidden. Players will see no numbers in the game at all. Min Maxing is out of the question. Ours is a MMOG so players will not know the strength or skill of other players. They won't know who is a strong fighter and who is the farmer in the field unless they get to know that person or challenge them in some way. Of course, combat is not the primary focus of our game so this is a bit less important. There will be other ways for players to develop their character than by raising the numbers.

We have not had any bad comments from our perspective players regarding this decision and instead, have a lot of happy people. So I guess not everyone cares about min/maxing the numbers. lol

 

But how an option will make you upset (or make game worse)? You'll just choose not to see numbers and be happy. Or you mean, that some players (may be even you) will use the option to see numbers just because it's there and because it gives them an advantage? This way this player will unintentionally spoil his own game making it less interesting? So not giving this option is some kind of "safety"?

Yes, I know this classification, and because I'm killer explorer, probably it's makes me so rude, because I love to experiment and find different ways to pursue and kill innocent players.

It's your game which you make for particular people. OP asked what is better - to show info or not to show - which means he doesn't know (or didn't know while he was creating this thread) his auditory, or else he simply wouldn't make this thread. Which means there is no reason to focus on one particular group if he can please both, unless there's some hidden for me flaw in this "choice ability".

 

We are not giving this option because our game is for role players, people who create stories while playing games. If you have ever played an MMO, you probably said things like "I am a 50 in knife fighting." or "I can bake a level 20 cake."

In role play, these sorts of comments break immersion as much as a discussion of the most current football game in a in-game pub does.

Also, role play is about creating stories and the more we can enhance the development and exploration of one's character, the more we can encourage and reward role players for their stories. Numbers just get in the way and you end up with a lot of people caring more about what number they have on their stat panel rather than how good they actually are at some skill or achievement.

I was once a member of a community with 100k role players and all yearned for a game like this, one that put story creation and role play first rather than killing mobs or other players over and over again. Surprisingly, we did have a large number of combat oriented players who were role players, many of them very hard core perma-death types.

This is why we are hiding numbers. It is not to give anyone an advantage, because we are not making a game where advantage comes strictly from numbers. It is not about spoiling because when a failure becomes a story it is no longer a failure. You may not be able to understand, which is okay, because honestly, I have a tough time understanding why people want to play a game where the goal is to get to level 50 by doing the same thing over and over again for 6 months. lol

It is why we need different games for different types of players.

 

He posted to get different opinions, which he did. I do agree that doing both may not be a great idea, but I think his last post leaned more toward going with minimal stats. So he is thinking about it, which is exactly what forums posts and discussions are all about.

 

Oh, now I see the problem of discussion. You refer to it "overall", while I refer to it as "OP's game" (single player game). Which means there will be no other players running around and having an advantage over him by knowing "numbers" and kill him or talking in different meta data with numbers, when he just want to roleplay. In MMO - yeah, sure, you need strict rules or make some borders for different types of players or other methods, well, it's completely different topic and there're over9000 theories. But this thread not about multiplayer games!

Think of it as single player game, because that's what OP makes. You have an option to see numbers or not to see and no one will suffer from it, because you're playing that game alone.

 

There are several reasons I started this thread, the top reason being for my own personal pursuits, yes, but at the same time it is a topic that google search did not give me any real substantial insight on the topic. I wish for those that need information on this topic to find this thread, and hopefully take something useful to their own workflow away with them. "The devil is in the details", that's what I heard a LOT in my life, and it's no different in game design. Every little, albeit seemingly, insignificant detail we put into our creations, is in fact, integral to it's over all acceptance and success.

In sum a thread is about putting information and ideas out there, and sharing your view point on any given idea already presented.

I think a good representation of my project would be as follows: Picture you are a commander roaming a med-evil high fantasy land. Around you are many cities and territories that are rising and falling all around you as you progress and play. Almost like people are playing a game of civilization, and you are but a single individual living in their world of war, peace, and indulgent. I wanted the stat readouts and tool tips to add to that immersion of "uncertainty", and that feeling that any moment the player could rise to greatness, or fall in utter defeat. In that sense I suppose you could compare it to rogue likes. Now lets look at gear, and think about some classic and fun tropes:

person1: you do know how to use a sword, yes?
person2: yes, pointy end goes into the belly of the other man, no?

A modern swordsman judges a blades worth, and lethality by several factors. The curve and angle of the blade, the weight, the balance of the hilt, the comfort of the grip, and the compatibility with their specific martial arts style. These are things that they do not inherently know. They figure these out through the base forms of learning, seeing, being told, and experience. Like wise, I would like to give the player basic information, and they then hone their craft through their own ability to adapt and learn.

Lets look at a classic game, despite it's genre, Megaman was a very tactical and strategic game. it had rudimentary forms of balance and counter in the form of one robot Master being weak to another specifically. The game gave us NO idea just HOW powerful a specific power-up was until we got a "feel" for it in actual use. Yes I agree the devs would of added detailed tool tips if technology of the time had allowed, or would they? Lets fast-forward to their later games, still no detailed damage statistics. Every Megaman game that incorporated detailed information kinda flopped hard, comparatively to the other games in the IP.(Megaman X Command Mission, Megaman Legends)

What can we take from the aforementioned example? They overlooked a devilish detail that seems to correlate with the success of that particular IP, at least that's what I see there. Also, humans are creatures of habit, it's not all that often that abrupt genre or perspective changes are met will, but some times there are exceptions: Super Mario RPG, FFVII. What these 2 titles have in common with their original media style and/or genre types is actually more important than the genre change. They did not try to re-invent the wheel by changing their "core" formula.


Food for thought.

 

Regardless, the fun is in exploring and figuring out what your character can and can't do without having it all shoved in your face. The competition is with yourself, your own experimentation and figuring out the limitations of your character.

Competition is not always about other players. It can be about your own abilities as a player, your own strategies, your own discoveries.

Multiplayer or single player, it is still all the same. Obviously, when you saw MMO, you saw competition between two players. I see competition between the environment, the NPCs, the animals in the game, all very much the same as in a single player game.

If I were playing a single player game like Zelda or Valnor's game, I would do so because I enjoy the discovery of what I can do or can't do in the game. Creativity is a huge missing factor in many games. Yes, you can min/max your character, but really, you are constrained by the limitations of the numbers and your reasons for doing this is to win, not to be creative. But without those numbers, a player may find he has to do things differently. He may find he is not as strong as he would have been without those numbers to manipulate, but he is more perceptive so can use different tactics to do what he wants to do. I would find that very cool and exciting.

But then..I do not enjoy spending hours figuring out how to make the best character in the world. I find that dull and tedious. I find it much more fun to be handed something and then have to adjust my mind and my play style to work with what I have, like in real life.

In pen and paper games, I often skip the tedious character creation and just ask the GM for a premade character. A few of those have become my all time favorite characters. They made me stretch myself, made me think a bit harder, made me grow as a gamer. Not everyone likes change. I have friends who agonize for days over their character sheets. Me...I like to play, and discover, and be challenged.

So..don't dismiss my opinions because our game is an MMO. I was explaining why we were hiding the numbers. I see no difference between why we are doing and why Zelda is doing it and why Valnor is considering something similar. All of us what to give the player a way to be creative, to experiment, to find a new way of playing that challenges them and gives them those "ooooo" moments when they figure something out or have some awesome experience that was unexpected. Tough to be surprised if you know everything by looking at a character sheet.

Based on the reactions to the new Zelda game, I think more players will demand more surprises and more creativity to discover.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head. Creatures of habit often find change difficult.

 

No, singleplayer and multiplayer are different, unless multiplayer means pure co-op. Many singleplayer mechanics will be flawed in open-world mutliplayer games, and some singleplayer mechanics can be easily abused in both open-world and instanced/sessioned multiplayer games.

Now, can you please just answer where "giving player a choice" is so bad, that others said me that's I'm not right?

For example we have person A, he's explorer and loves to find everything himself:
1) He runs the game.
2) He starts a new game.
3) He's given an option to see numbers or not to see them and he picks to not see them.
4) He's playing the game and being happy.

Now we have person B, he's minmaxer and likes to plan things and his goal is efficiency:
1) He runs the game.
2) He starts a new game.
3) He's given an option to see numbers or not to see them and he picks to see them.
4) He's playing the game and being happy.

I've been told in this thread that "throwing everything at player" is bad, choices are bad, making game for "everybody" is bad. May be I'm blind or something, but can you please explain me where exactly it's bad?

Also don't forget, we're talking about single player game. Choice of player A/B will affect only him. There will be no other players, who may affect him somehow by choosing other option and destroy his gameplay by certain actions.

Edit:
Actually, since OP also added 3rd and 4th poll, it also can be included as options, so OP won't need to bother with choice, since this is a single player game and the more personalization it has - the better, so examples will look like that:

Player runs and starts a new game and now he has this options:
1) Hide all data, let me explore it.
2) Show some basic data, let me explore the rest.

1/2+) My character remembers data after it's discovered.

3) Show all data.

Now you don't need to bother what to do, because player will make the choice himself, depending on what he needs. This is just respect to player and as I said earlier, the reason games don't have all this is usually lack of something (usually time) to implement it all, because the game may simple never be finished, if you're trying to give over9000 options and implement them all. But to show info or not show it - it's very minor thing and can be easily done.

 

I disagree, but since you know everything, no need for me to respond. Have fun. I have work to do.

 

I know what you mean and why you disagree actually, because I have experience with such game designs and their flaws personally as "abuser" and "exploiter"

But don't forget that what you do is very risky. It's just an illusion to create immersion, which can be easily broken by a random person. A single player can destroy all your game, just because he wants to. That's what I did to one project actually ~1.5 years ago and made a lot problems in other projects for a very long period of time and it wasn't my fault, but devs' fault. I just like finding bugs, unintended features and flaws in games and then, if devs are good - I report it and even usually give advice how to fix, and if devs are idiots, who don't respect players, I just abuse the hell out of it. And obviously I'm not a single such person on this planet, so the risk is quite huge. There was a browser project - a turn based fantasy RPG, which I personally destroyed. At first I told devs in PM what wrong with their game and how it can be abused by evil players, because players don't always do what devs intended them to do. I described all actions I could make to destroy economy and dominate alone in every aspect of game, unless there's someone else who will do the same, but it'll turn game into perverted nightmare and only those perverts will stay in the game forcing normal players to quit. I also said them how they could fix it. Devs said that it'll destroy immersion and idea of their game and that I will be unable to "destroy" it and in the end of discussion they even laughed at me. Then I did what I described, they tried to stop me by banning and wiping game to revert it, but I continued (to change IP today is very easy), then they said sorry to players and closed the project. It's not my fault. It's like making flawed laws in country and then blame people, that they commit crimes and getting away without punishment. It's fault of those, who create those rules, not criminals.

If you don't see difference between singleplayer and multiplayer game designs, you're just making it flawed Be careful.

 

these things are "bad" due to a simple design philosophy. You pick an audience, and you cater to them "specifically". The old adage for this would be: "if you try to make everyone happy, you will make no one happy"

a game is a narrative, I give them options within the "context" of the narrative, if give them options outside of the narrative, it breaks immersion. "you can't have your cake, and eat it to"

does this make sense? We are looking at the deepest level of design choice implications, a cursory glance would not do your project any favors.

 

But you ignore the advantage of your game being a game, not a book. The disadvantage of a book - readers can't make choices. You design your game more closely to a book, that's inefficiency. But ok, I'll stop probably Sorry for spamming your thread.