How much do you want to know?

[Skarlath]

In MMORPGs there is traditionally a way of evaluating an enemy. Whether this is /con in Everquest, or the ID box in Asheron's Call 1 there is always some way of appraising your foe. But how detailed should this information be?

In Asheron's Call 1 you would be presented with the creature's level, strength, coordination, endurance, focus and self as well as the creature's health and stamina and mana (the three stat bars).

Level's weren't fantastic as a guidance on what you could kill. On a lucky kill you might be able to take something a good few levels higher than you might normally be able to handle. Two creatures of the same level wouldn't give you the same fight every single time. Sure, you could say "That thing is 20 levels above me! I'm already running for my life" but within a fair margin there was room for bravery. "My, my. 8 levels above her and she still kicked it's ass!" Asheron's Call's ID system provided you with stats which you could compare to your own, but allowed a margin for heroism or error. Bear in mind that evaluating enemies was an improvable skill. If you were rubbish at it, or it was much higher than you then you would simply see ?? instead of its stats.

I never played Everquest, but I understand that /con presented you with an evaluation sentance describing how fair a fight it would be. Though this might seem a little more justifiable (rather than magically being able to see exactly how strong and coordinated a creature is) yet it apparently often left out the margin of not knowing how a fight might go.

I have played EQ2, and so I'll talk about that instead. That definitely left little room for judgement. If the 'con' of the creature was one colour, you would win. If it was another, the creature wasn't worth bothering with anyway. If it was a particular colour indicating a rabid, ferocious beast who you don't stand a chance against then you won't get into that fight.


I like to think that as skilled adventurers we should be able to appraise certain aspects of an enemy, and this should certainly be an improvable skill. However whether this appears in stat form, or whether a hybrid system appears where you are told things like "The troll appears to be extremely strong!" are another matter of opinion. I think that it's not that silly to have numerical values representing strength - the mind works with comparisons, and so there is no reason why you could not see it as subconciously rating various aspects of an enemy on a numerical scale.

I definitely like the idea that judgement needs to be involved. There should be factors involved, perhaps things like environment, that should force the player to make choices rather than instantly knowing that green means they'll win. There should be suprises, both good and bad.

So how would you like the /consider type evaluation system to appear in Vanguard? What sort of things should it reveal, how readily and in what form?

[Eclipse]

I loved Asheron's Call's system, I don't think it will be introduced to Vanguard, but I wish it would be. I don't want to have to type something everytime I want to attack a creature, lol

-Eclipse

[buzzard]

I personnaly prefer a con system that tells you as little as possible. Just their relative level but not precisely. Also with the mob name telling you what class they are, but not directly.

Example: You are level 20 and con a Gnoll Skirmisher. You have no idea what a skirmisher is and he cons Red to you. In this example conning red means he is 5+ levels higher than you. This could mean hes level 26 or even 45. You would have no idea.

The only way to find out would be to attack the gnoll. You may find out he is not that much higher than you, lets say 26, and a Ranger thus an easy kill (HAHA j/k).

The point is that the information wouldnt just be handed to you. You have to learn the information about the game through playing it.

Information is a form of power. Anyone can learn it through experience (or cheat sites :D ) but inevitably some will know more about some zones/areas than others, and they will be depended on at times.

Trying not to ramble, but I think the less information given the more intriguing the game is. It forces players to experiment and explore new areas, rewarding them with information that others do not have. It is a way to gain power in a game world other than through gear and level.

And I think its just fun. Course me bieng partly an explorer type, I may be biased.

[Eclipse]

One issue I have with giving little to no information is that cheat sites will become more valuable. Basically, there will always be some who do the math and keep the stats and know everything about the creatures, there will always be the sites that keep it all on record...
So the only group that gets hurt by a lack of information in the game is the casual player, and that's not good business.

Just my opinion.
I do, however, like the idea of not knowing if a creature is 5 or 25 levels higher than you, and AC's system did that. Basically if your appraisal skill wasn't incredibly good, things 5-10 lvls higher than you showed up as ?????? instead of information. What I think AC did well was the lvls didn't always scale. As Skar said, there was room for error. You could be a lvl 100 adventurer, and come across a mob that was lvl 110 and get absolutely OWNED. You could then come across a lvl 220 mob of a different species and actually be able to take it on. It all depended on what kind of creature it was, and what kind of class you were...I fell in love with AC's system, and I don't think I'll ever be swayed.

-Eclipse

[Belisarius]

I hope/wish that perception takes a huge part in whether or not you can correctly /con a MOB. IRL, if you have some fighting experience, you can kinda 'tell' if you can take another guy (or girl) or not just by the way they walk and hold themselves... I'd like to see this implemented in SOH

[Eclipse]

Yah belisarius, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what's happening...at least that's what it sounds like.

-Eclipse

[Skarlath]

I hope/wish that perception takes a huge part in whether or not you can correctly /con a MOB. IRL, if you have some fighting experience, you can kinda 'tell' if you can take another guy (or girl) or not just by the way they walk and hold themselves... I'd like to see this implemented in SOH

This is something that a lot of thought should be put into on the part of the devs. Exactly what information can an adventurer glean from staring at an enemy? What you can 'see' is what the player should be given when they look an enemy up and down.

The basic statistics could surely be crudely appraised. Remember this is not Percy the office worker checking this ogre over, it's his seasoned ranger character. So just because we can't look at the ogre and estimate it's strength subconciously to any degree of accuracy, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be given that information.

Strength is something you can see fairly easily from the way the creature interacts with their environment. Coordination too, perhaps. Endurance is a little harder, but looking at the thick hide of ogre, or a dragons scaly skin, you can tell it's going to be able to take a beating before it goes down. Magical potential is a little harder to perhaps judge just from sight, however perhaps again, interaction with the environment is the key.

Maybe these stats should be visible, but it should depend on your ability to judge different traits. Magic users are more likely to be able to accurately judge the magical potential of a foe than a warrior, but the warrior might better understand how strength can be determined. Ability to determine these various traits could be separately improvable. Furthermore, the longer the adventurer evaluates the enemy, the more movement and interaction with the environment they will see. You can also throw into this the idea that if you have fought a lot of gnolls before, you might be able to judge a gnolls strength more quickly. However if this is your first time being savaged by a lizardman then you might have to take more time to place his strength on any sort of scale.

For the idea of more time meaning greater accuracy, consider this. You could have an ID panel, like in AC1. You could then have a short list of the statistics' names that your character is able to determine with, at the very least, minimal success. Next to each statistic (e.g. the word 'Strength') there could be a small toggle, and at the bottom of the list a big 'examine' butotn. You can use this panel to toggle on that you want to determine how strong and agile they are, but don't care about their magical ability. When you click examine small progress bars appear and quickly fill. Filling speed would be determined by things like ability to appraise that trait and your previous experience with those creatures. When a statistic's progress bar is full, it is replaced by an estimation of the creatures ability in that trait, for example a range of strengths (e.g. 15-25). You could perhaps have the option to attempt another appraisal to further narrow down the true values. The greater your skill the more accurate the statistics would be.

Other things to think about is armour and damage. These are a little more obvious that trying to work out exactly how agile this particular ogre is. There should be an improvable item appraisal skill that works in the same way to determine how well protected the enemy is, or how sharp his axes are.

A neat little feature in here would be the ability for appraised information to be shared with your party of adventurers. The ID panel should show the information if a party member has already appraised the creature recently, or should update if a member is able to increase accuracy of the estimations.


I think it's also a good time to talk about levels. I personally don't like levels all that much - they are from a by-gone era of enemy evaluation. Why should everyone be judged on the same crude rating system? To a large degree I am happy for players to have levels. It's a way for them to compare themselves with others and such. That's all fine. However creatures should never display their level to players. Players should have to decide whether they can take the monster according to the monster's actual traits, rather than a poorly concieved rating system.

These ideas bring in player skill, as well as improvable character skill. Their character will become better and better at assessing threats, and so a higher character will have the jump on a lowbie. However at the same time a veteran player will know the ins-and-outs of gnolls, for example, and know what they can handle and what they need to leave alone.

:)

[Fadetree]

I don't want to know anything. If I can't tell by looking at it or by its behavior then I guess I just need to be careful. In general, I don't want special access to information that wouldn't normally be present in the real world. Attribute numbers, skill levels, PC & NPC level numbers, and other intrusive information break immersion and encourage min/maxing and other numbers-centric behavior. For instance: why sit in the same spot for nine hours and grind? Because I can see that I get .246 percent more exp per kill there.
If you can't tell an important feature of your environment or gear by paying attention, the game is giving you insufficient cues. If you can't tell the difference between two swords by visual inspection or by fighting with each one for a few minutes, then there is no practical difference. Revealing that in fact, one sword does 1 more damage per swing by showing the numbers doesn't change things, it just encourages min/maxing and breaks immersion.

[xi0nic]

I firmly believe in a vague con system. WoW made it very simple, and that had its own merits.. but I dont want to know that I can kill a creature merely on level. I've never played EQ, but from what I can tell, that con system is something that I can agree with.

[Merwenn]

I'd tend to agree that I don't want every piece of information about the mob given to me for doing nothing. Possibly using the idea of perception or some kind of skill that you can raise would be a good idea, but all and all, I really don't have a problem with the con or WoW way of thinking.

[xi0nic]

Ah of course! I forgot all about the Perception skill. From what I can tell, Perception is mainly going to boost your in-combat ability to counter attacks and so on. Perhaps though, it will help your ability to con mobs. Even more reason to travel around and get that skill up :)

I can't wait to hear more about this Perception skill idea... it has so many possibilities!

[Skarlath]

WoW made it very simple, and that had its own merits

Yes, WoW was straight forward with what you could or couldn't kill for the most part. It's another example of Blizzard being sensible and catering correctly for their audience.

But simple is not what I want. I want a fair involvement of player skill.

I don't want to know anything. If I can't tell by looking at it or by its behavior then I guess I just need to be careful. In general, I don't want special access to information that wouldn't normally be present in the real world. Attribute numbers, skill levels, PC & NPC level numbers, and other intrusive information break immersion and encourage min/maxing and other numbers-centric behavior. For instance: why sit in the same spot for nine hours and grind? Because I can see that I get .246 percent more exp per kill there.
If you can't tell an important feature of your environment or gear by paying attention, the game is giving you insufficient cues. If you can't tell the difference between two swords by visual inspection or by fighting with each one for a few minutes, then there is no practical difference. Revealing that in fact, one sword does 1 more damage per swing by showing the numbers doesn't change things, it just encourages min/maxing and breaks immersion.

I used to think I wanted this, but it turns out it was a fad that was going round. What I have decided is that I want things to be sensible, I want a high level of player knowledge and skill involved, but I also want incentive.

Generalising a bit here: 'Numbers' provide easy incentive to keep playing. There are some players who could play without this incentive, but i'm guessing that the vast majority of typical MMORPGs need to see marked improvements. The easiest way to show marked improvements is through numbers, simply because they can be meaningless and yet still show.

But I want to try and keep this on the topic of weighing up enemies. If you are interested in discussing the 'numberless mmorpg' then feel free to start a thread about it, I'll be more than happy to join in! :) There's a lot to talk about in that line of thought.

Numbers in direct relation to assessing enemies.

When someone skilled at any craft sees someones attempt at what they themselves have mastered, the individual will be able to asses a variety of different things relating to the item. The result of this will be an answer to the question "How good is this item?". The master assesses the various traits in his head, he knows by comparison to others he has seen exactly how good the thing is. How do you give that comparison to players? Put it in their hands? Let them have what the master has in his head?

You can write a frilly sentence to describe it, but this is far too vague compared to the accuracy of the master's mind. Numbers allow you to convey that accuracy, that comparison, that knowledge.

It would be great for us to look at a gnoll and notice his weapon is fairly crude and somewhat rusty, but this isn't going to happen. For starters we are not experts, and should not be expected to be. Player skill and knowledge should be required, but that's taking it too far. And that is of course leaving well alone the fact that a computer game just cannot provide that level of detail. An attempt to convey subtleties will only end up in stupid, over-done messages.

I think numbers definitely have their place in a system in which the game must convey to the player everything that a seasoned veteran of an adventurer sees.

[Fadetree]

I think numbers definitely have their place in a system in which the game must convey to the player everything that a seasoned veteran of an adventurer sees.

I sort of agree with you here, although with the caveat that a game that does not convey appropriate information without a bunch of artificial knowledge stuck all over eveything is a game that is not really a latest generation game.

Also, we have become lazy. All these numbers started in the MUD days, when all we had was text, so it made sense. But we don't need them now, though we think we do.

In reference to /CON systems, what isn't obvious from visual inspection would become so quickly via combat. Think of the added excitement of initiating a contact with an unknown entity. Even then, you would have to be less than the smartest adventurer not to figure out that you probably shouldn't attack the 12 foot tall ogre as a newbie gnome. But you would always have to be ready to answer the question...hmmm...I wonder if I could take that...?

With information provided by a completely out of context mechanism like conning, there's no element of risk and no sense of wonder or fear. You click it, its red, so you leave it alone. Click it, its blue, so you kill it. Ah yes, now where did that sense of adventure go?

In dealing with items, you should be able to figure out by using them what their relative worth is. In buying them from craftsmen, well now... you will have to a) trust the crafter, b) ask others who have the same piece, and/or c) ask for a trial use. You know, kind of like real life...I KNEW I should have conned the car salesman and 'examined' that last car I bought....it turned out to have very few 'hit' points.

I am not for removing all sources of 'magical' information...if an item has some kind of aura or glow or feels unnaturally light or heavy, or something like that, appropriate text messages on an examine would be fine. I just don't want exact numbers pasted all over everyhting, especially for things that we would have no possible way to know.