Editorial Immersion vs Numbers: Do numbers break immersion?

[mondblut]

Diablo is a game that is about nothing but numbers. People seem to like it.

Diablo is a game that is about nothing but clicketyclicketyclicking. And e-penis measurement contests. Numbers are merely a device to compliment the latter.

 

[DraQ]

<s>RPGs aren't just about stories, and they were never about imitating movies or becoming a substitute for LARPing; the math is the yang to the story's yin.

This is why modern RPGs are teh gay; they've abandoned the man-brain-appealing number crunching and strategizing for a overly femenine story-play-time that cynically includes falsely-man-brain-appealing hack and slash.

The modern RPG that hides its maths and/or reduces them to fourth-grade level is an affront to man-brain everywhere, and must be stopped, within our lifetimes, before it kills somebody.</s> cRPGs shall be sentenced to simplistic human-manageable mechanics and small number of prescripted paths till the end of their days because I say so!1

Epic flail.

P.S. Admission to :insert the name of in-game academic organization of mages: can require player to solve an integral equation in addition to character stats being high enough, if you insist on 'moar maths'.

 

[Rhalle]

It almost feels like playing gauntlet again.

Valkyrie is about to die.

 

[DraQ]

*necromancy*

We need some intelligent discussion here.

 

[mondblut]

Nah, everything's been said already. Numbers > larpers.

 

[DraQ]

Nah, everything's been said already. Numbers > larpers.

Is numbers affectionate term for numbskulls?

 

[Applegate's Breasts]

Depends on the game.

In Red Orchestra, a game designed around realism, the ammo counter was replaced with "Magazine feels heavy" among other more "organic" features. COD4's damage indicator (screen flashing more red as you got closer to dying) as opposed to a life meter or box indicating "98 hp" is also a good example. The gameplay is more immediate to the player so these abstractions work with giving status information quickly and non-obtrusively and actually enhance the game experience. (God, I feel like a pro game journo tool typing that out, but whatever.)

Hard numbers are necessary for more strategy or tactically oriented games since these are already abstractions in themselves. As an example off top of my head, HOMM had descriptions of number of units in an army like "A lot of X" or "A swarm of X" which, in the end, were just fancier ways of labeling a range of numbers that were listed in the manual as are all scaling systems like "poor, average, good" . It works because it's part of the fog of war where you aren't sure of your enemy's exact numbers. Fine.

However, for your own army, when you are planning out a budget and what units you can afford that turn and how many of them, a vague abstraction like "many" and it costs a "heavy bag of gold" is counter-productive. It takes away a level of control from the player.

 

[DraQ]

However, for your own army, when you are planning out a budget and what units you can afford that turn and how many of them, a vague abstraction like "many" and it costs a "heavy bag of gold" is counter-productive. It takes away a level of control from the player.

In such cases you'd probably have some clerks keeping track on this kind of things who could tell you the exact numbers.

 

[Applegate's Breasts]

In-game clerks?

Another part of the discussion comes down to the level of precision of control and feedback you want a player to have.

Comparing some numbers with their literary equivalent as provided by Fallout:

1 Very Bad
2 Bad
3 Poor
4 Fair
5 Average
6 Good
7 Very Good
8 Great
9 Excellent
10 Heroic

If that chart was not available in the manual and I had to mess around with stats without the numbers, I would think "Fair" is better than "Average" and "Poor" is worse than "Very Bad." Replace it with numbers and you know that a 5 is higher than a 4 as well as being able to perform math on it. Does it make a game less "immersive?" Depends on the beholder.

Immersion to me is looking at the clock after playing a game and seeing that it has magically advanced to 4:00 AM when it was last at 10:00 PM. And running around on horseback killing things. Yeah.

 

[DraQ]

In-game clerks?

Not neccessarily, as strategic games are inherently abstract to certain degree, the point was that there was in-game rationale for knowing exact numbers there. Such rationale is not present with variables like damage dealt by weapon/spell, item's durability or anyone's health.