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[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Stof:
<STRONG>There are a LOT of bad arguments going on here     The only good one given was that numerical stats are indeed far more user friendly than Profesional/Adept/Competent ... It's true and non english native players will have even more of a difficult time with that. Also, color coding isn't great either because a lot of people has difficulties seeing colors.

About debate and philosophy, saying an argument is *bad* and another is *good* just because you happen to agree with one and not the other is called Poisoning the Well, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well  

Furthermore, an arguer that argues like that is consider to be close minded.  If they argument is bad, point out how, and accept that there are other opinions.

Basically, what it comes down to is we favor different things.  I favor increasing realism in a game.  You favor knowing additional information about something you wouldn't normally have to let you know how to deal with it better.

Also, with dragons you would have Massive (not a good idea!) in the description, which tells you more than a number would.

quote:
And in truth, once someone has written in the wiki that Dabling<Novice<   <Adept<Competent<Professional, it's no different than saying your dwarf is a level 4 metalsmith. The ONLY additional information available here is that you don't have to go check if Competent < Adept or Adept < Competent. Note that the real internal stat might very well be more detailled (and in fact, it is), it's just that an option for a numerical display of the stats would be more user friendly    

People have a general idea how good they and the people they know are.  Mighty is -- I assume -- a range of strength.  Take sports for instance, I live in Dallas, which is big on American Football.  So, even though I don't know a person exact stats, I can say someone is a pittiful, bad, poor, okay, good, very good, great or Hall of Fame player in the NFL.  Also a person, such as say Emmit Smith, can know if they are one of the greatest off all time (legendary) in said position.  There is no way for me to know a player exact ability stats though.

quote:
Next, could we please avoid any kind of metagaming cheating abuse to the discussion? There are already many sources of metainformation on monsters, it's not like giving the monster stats for free would change much:
- player already faced one before, his dwarves now have the metaknowledge that it is dangerous
- player found one, paused and checked the wiki

So basically, you are telling me that I should not use one of the two main reasons of why I think it is a bad idea?  Doesn't it make the argument kind of one sided?  The wiki is a spoiler -- plain and simple.  Using a spoiler *is* a form of cheating that I am myself guilty off.  There is nothing wrong with cheating in a one player game.  But you should at least know you are cheating.  What's wrong with enabling a partial wizard mode to see stats?  It just tells you that you are getting a very small advantage over other people.

Also, some people here want to see hit points of creatuers.  now that is a bigger advantage.

quote:
The only small difference would be that really novice players could avoid a premature death if they got the info.

By using wikis and information like that, a novice player can become a good player right off.

quote:
Also, about the reason behind the D&D D20 system, it's because of psycological effects. Basicaly, in D&D the smallest possible bonus is +1 which translates to 5% more damage/chances etc... In a percentile system it's +1 which means 1% more chance to succeed. But a 1% increased chance to succeed is too little, too insignificant. It doesn't feel like an increase at all for the player and so, such detail level is nearly useless. It's not worth the increased complexity for a pen&paper game which should remain computationaly simple.

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Stof ]</STRONG>

then just go up by fives in the D100 system.  I don't know why you talking paper and pencil.  A D20 might be ideal for paper and Pencil, but decreases accuracy in a computer simulation.  A game designer can easily do D1000000 and more on a computer simulation, and it will feel more realistic, especially if you implement a complex damage system, which wouldn't be ideal for paper and pencil.  You have to remember, a computer is good with numbers, a person isn't

[Gangsta Spanksta]

I forgot to answer the part about color blindness.  I think the color system solved the problem of non-native english speakers.  Remember though, this is a game with RPG elements in it, and has things that you are supposed to read.  A more ideal solution would be to add localization support to the game, which would require volunteers to translate.

As for color blindness, well what can I say?  Unfortunately, color blindness is a minor handicap.  I myself have problems distinguishing very dark blues from black.  I thought my brothers mustang was black.  But honestly, do you expect iD to add accessibility options to Quake 4, which is more on the extreme?  There are some things you can do, like if the mouse is over the word mighty it is shows green and have a link that brings up a ledger. But color is already a huge part of the game! Miners and fisherdwarfs have different colors, so the handicap is already into play.  It would be very understandable (just for anyone else who wants to) for a colorblind person to use the wizard mode.  In fact, it could also be under a Accessibility, which I think is a bit much to want the Toady to support, since it is a lot of work.  But well, handicap basketball players use wheelchairs in their games.  It's not exactly the same game everyone else plays.  They understand that, and I don't think would mind having the option under accessibility.

[Buoyancy]

quote:Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
Basically, what it comes down to is we favor different things. I favor increasing realism in a game. You favor knowing additional information about something you wouldn't normally have to let you know how to deal with it better.

An argument from realism is not particularly strong when discussing a computer game that's already set in a purely fantastical world with little relation to the real world.

 

quote:Also, with dragons you would have Massive (not a good idea!) in the description, which tells you more than a number would.

This is completely incorrect.  Qualitative descriptions always provide less information than quantitive descriptions.  This point is not arguable, it is a simple fact.

 

quote:So basically, you are telling me that I should not use one of the two main reasons of why I think it is a bad idea? Doesn't it make the argument kind of one sided?  The wiki is a spoiler -- plain and simple. Using a spoiler *is* a form of cheating that I am myself guilty off. There is nothing wrong with cheating in a one player game. But you should at least know you are cheating.

Yes, the argument appears to be one sided because the argument _is_ one sided.  On one side, you have people who are trying to control how other people play the game.  They want to prevent people from even having the option to figure out how the game systems work.  These people want to call metagame knowledge cheating.  This viewpoint is essentially no different than telling anybody who bothers to learn how to play the game a cheater.  It is absolutely impossible for any player to not take advantage of metagame knowledge.

quote:By using wikis and information like that, a novice player can become a good player right off.

The wiki is nothing more than a kludge that covers up the complete lack of in-game information in Dwarf Fortress.  Almost all of its information should have already been included in the game by this point.

 

quote:You have to remember, a computer is good with numbers, a person isn't

Speak for yourself.

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Buoyancy ]

[Chork]

To stay out of the argument entirely,

I vote that I'm ok with a change like this happening as an init.txt option, with caveats:

a.) I wouldn't ever use it.
b.) There are hundreds of other things I'd rather have Toady working on first.
c.) I am a stats geek, myself -- but I feel DF would lose something in the translation.

Just trying to help fill out a representative sample of DF players.

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Chork ]

[Stof]

quote:Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>

then just go up by fives in the D100 system.  I don't know why you talking paper and pencil.  A D20 might be ideal for paper and Pencil, but decreases accuracy in a computer simulation.  A game designer can easily do D1000000 and more on a computer simulation, and it will feel more realistic, especially if you implement a complex damage system, which wouldn't be ideal for paper and pencil.  You have to remember, a computer is good with numbers, a person isn't</STRONG>

Great job messing up your post so that I cannot quote it in a reply. One could think you made it on purpose but I think it was just an honest mistake  

Some people argued for complete clear numerical stats. Some argued that the qualitative stats we have now are a hindrance compared to numerical stats. While you can argue against the former, you HAVE to agree about what the later have to say. Also, and it's important, the two set of people are not the same. I'm in the second camp and agnostic for the first: I don't really care for precise numeric stats because I think they are useless to play the game anyway, but I'd like a numerical quatity to be added to the qualitative adjectives for the sake of comprehension.

Heck, how can you argue about a realistic point of view for those that want the game to display "(6) Very Strong" and "(7) Might" saying that your dwarves do not know the precise stats of the monster they inspect, when they were perfectly able to say when looking at monsters "That one is only in the Very Strong category. Mmm that one goes for Mighty". Adding the numerical qualifier would only help those with weaker english knowledge get started faster while not giving a single additional info that players with metaknowledge about english or the game didn't know for a long time.

As for the metaknowledge argument. Well you accused me of poisoning the well by not saying which arguments were weak, and lo and behold, this is exactly what I'm doing now! Strange isn't it. Btw, I hope you take your amnesia drugs between each game to erase every single metaknowledge you got in the previous sessions  

I'm of the opinion that trivialy found critical information cannot be considered unfair metaknowledge. As hardcore as we want the game to be, there is no valid reason to make the game even more of a chore for newbies, to the point that they decide to either ditch the game or only play with the wiki open.

And has for the D100 vs D20 system, I was once again replying against those that said the D20 system was horrible and that D100 was plain better. It is not, it works very well for what it was designed for, especialy for P&P games. And even better! You say the exact same thing I said! We perfectly agree that D20 is good for P&P, but for a computer simulation, you might as well go for a simple percentile based system anyway.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:
An argument from realism is not particularly strong when discussing a computer game that's already set in a purely fantastical world with little relation to the real world.

First off, you are trying to use a limitation of the language, to win an argument.  You know very well what I meant, because I assume you're intelligent enough to.  The difference is having a humanoid creature such as an elf, who is only slightly different from a human (for sake of argument) be able to go outsidem naked in a place colder than Antarctica, and not freeze to death as expected.  That versus having such a creature, who we logically defined so, freeze to death in that kind of situation.  If you are saying that you can't make a distinction in realism between those two situations, then I would think that lack a certain mental capacity.  As it is, I do think you can distinguish between the two.  Honestly, I think you're trying to use a cheap way to win an argument, because honestly you come off as intelligent.

quote:
This is completely incorrect. Qualitative descriptions always provide less information than quantitive descriptions. This point is not arguable, it is a simple fact.

Yeah right, Like abilities in D&D games aren't Qualitative descriptions labeled with numbers.  In fact, when you translate the system into code on a computer, the value like STR: 18, really just turns out to be an index value that you use to access values in various lookup tables.  There usually isn't a mathematical formula used with that value itself.  Also, remembering an older version of Dungeons and Dragons, humanoids tend to range from 12 to 18 in the abilities, then you have dragons and titans not to far off at around 25 (if I remember correctly) What exactly is difference between STR 17 and STR 18.  Also the system gets kinda limited when you start adding new PC races with racial modifiers (Vampire: STR + 3) This system is scaled since humans tend to deal with small values.

quote:
Yes, the argument appears to be one sided because the argument _is_ one sided. On one side, you have people who are trying to control how other people play the game. They want to prevent people from even having the option to figure out how the game systems work. These people want to call metagame knowledge cheating. This viewpoint is essentially no different than telling anybody who bothers to learn how to play the game a cheater. It is absolutely impossible for any player to not take advantage of metagame knowledge.

I suggested a wizard mode.  That's not too far off from the init file.  If I favor the option in a wizard mode how am I trying to control how *you* play the game.  The main thing is: I want the player to know that they are getting a small advantage over a player that plays the game in standard mode.  The thing is I can see someone bragging in the forums about something they did, but they did it using things that let them plan ahead that other players didn't have. "Carps! Ha, I knew to avoid those suckers!"  "I don't have trouble losing my dwarves in scrimmages." (player had hit points visible.)  Perhaps, a more political correct way to do this is to have different difficulty levels, where you can't see creature stats and enemy hit points on hard by turning it on going to a certain menu.)  Seeing the hit points really does give you a greater advantage. Period.

quote:
The wiki is nothing more than a kludge that covers up the complete lack of in-game information in Dwarf Fortress. Almost all of its information should have already been included in the game by this point.

I probably went too far with my statement.  The Wiki does have a lot of needed information, like building types, and so forth.  But when you start getting to spoilers like Demon Pits, creatures stats, and so forth, then you are not discovering those things as the game meant you to.  It's like I said: A Novice player can become a good player reading the wiki.  Take the old game for instance, the lava would kill your miner, so the wiki suggested to use a none skilled immigrant as a pawn.  The wiki in that case both revealed something you were supposed to find out, and taught you strategy you should develop on your own.  Now, I'm not saying that it is immoral for you to look that up, but if you a fairly intelligent person, you should realize that you gained an advantage over someone who didn't read the wiki.  Also, if you did your homework, should you rally brag about beating the fortress on your first try in the forums?  There are people who do that.

quote:
   quote:You have to remember, a computer is good with numbers, a person isn't

Speak for yourself.

Nope, I am speaking for our species.  I've taken so much math in my life that I've developed a distaste for it.  I've taken up to Calculus 3 at the university, which was using three integrals xyz for three dimensional stuff If I remember correctly.  I've tutored math as well, but that doesn't mean that me or we as species are number crunchers.  If you say you are good at numbers, I say compared to what? Humans?  Can you instantaneously give me the result of (234213.4234/(134314.23x45431.12+5432.1)) + 2/3 - log(13) to me?  I put that into a computer and I get an instant answer.  Also, humans have 8 Bit memory according to a Psychology class I've taken, on a section that examined the human mind.  If I give you 5 numbers to recall in a sequence you can do that.  If I go over 8 you'll start having problems.  That's why paper and pencil games use small numbers, and less realistic equations.  That's why they often times seem unrealistic when you convert the system to the computer.  I remember playing Baulder Gate once, and I killed a fully armored knight by throwing darts at him.  How realistic does that make that system?  I guess that's where a DM would step in and have the darts bounce off the armor.

[Buoyancy]

quote:Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
First off, you are trying to use a limitation of the language, to win an argument. You know very well what I meant, because I assume you're intelligent enough to.

Yes, I know what you meant.  I also know that what you meant has little bearing on what constitutes good game design.  Something should only be added to a game if it makes the game more fun.  Simply adding things for realism's sake is never a good way to approach this.

quote:Yeah right, Like abilities in D&D games aren't Qualitative descriptions labeled with numbers.

I don't see why you are bringing D&D into this particular discussion.  The statement "XXXX person is really strong", provides less information than the statement "XXXX person can lift a maximum of 4000 kg".

quote:I suggested a wizard mode. That's not too far off from the init file. If I favor the option in a wizard mode how am I trying to control how *you* play the game.

You're trying to enforce how players play the game by telling them that their experience is somehow worth less than yours just because they have more (mostly useless) information available.  Would you also claim that a person who used a hypothetical job skill summary screen to quickly find a dwarf with a certain skill instead of manually searching through every dwarf is playing a lesser version of the game?

quote:But when you start getting to spoilers like Demon Pits, creatures stats, and so forth, then you are not discovering those things as the game meant you to.

This falls under the category of trying to control the metagame behaviour of a player.  Learning something through trial and error is inferior to learning it by reading about somebody else's trial and error because it takes far more time.  Why are you the ultimate arbiter of whether a person is playing a game properly?

quote:Also, if you did your homework, should you rally brag about beating the fortress on your first try in the forums? There are people who do that.

So what?  It's a single player game.  There experiences have absolutely no bearing on yours, and you shouldn't let anything somebody does or says about their game affect your in any way.

quote:If you say you are good at numbers, I say compared to what? Humans?

I was referring to math as a whole, of which numerical calculations are only a small part.

quote:I remember playing Baulder Gate once, and I killed a fully armored knight by throwing darts at him. How realistic does that make that system? I guess that's where a DM would step in and have the darts bounce off the armor.

No, that's where you realize that the abstractions in D&D have already taken into account the fact that every damaging hit from those darts either diminished the knights ability to avoid further damage, or hit a weak spot in the armour.

[Tormy]

Lads, I would like to add one more thing.
Lets say we have v0.6
Probably lot of new monsters will be added...or even if not, we can mod in as many creatures as many we want.
Now lets say, we add 25 new "mega beasts". Now what will the player see when he/she will inspect the beast? Probably all of them will be "ultra mighty" and stuff like that. 25 different monsters will fall into the same categories. What will be the point of the current system in that case?.. or perhaps there should be new categories, like ultra ultra ultra mighty?    

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]

[Capntastic]

DF isn't a game about numbers it's a game about awesome combat and limbs being hacked off.

QED 2:  Electric Boogaloo.

[rylen]

I find the qualative approach more evocative then a straight numeric approach.  Yes, there is a one-for-one map between titles and levels, but I get more sense of enjoyment and suspension of disbelief saying "that dwarf is very strong" then "that dwarf is strength 2."  

When I game, I try to describe characters in terms of who and how they are, instead of simple mechanics.  "A tough swordsman who has been through a few scrapes" vs. "a level 6 fighter."  The former also moves between scales.  If leveled characters are rare, he could be L3.

There are systems around that take this approach.  Fudge, for example, runs attributes and skills from "terrible" to "superb".

Rylen

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by rylen:
<STRONG>I find the qualative approach more evocative then a straight numeric approach.  Yes, there is a one-for-one map between titles and levels, but I get more sense of enjoyment and suspension of disbelief saying "that dwarf is very strong" then "that dwarf is strength 2."  

When I game, I try to describe characters in terms of who and how they are, instead of simple mechanics.  "A tough swordsman who has been through a few scrapes" vs. "a level 6 fighter."  The former also moves between scales.  If leveled characters are rare, he could be L3.

There are systems around that take this approach.  Fudge, for example, runs attributes and skills from "terrible" to "superb".

Rylen</STRONG>

Yes but what if 100+ creatures will fall into the "strong" category? There wont be a single difference between them in that case regarding strength if you play with the current system. If its ok for you, I can understand it tho, thats why im saying that we should be able to choose between this and the other what I mentioned in this thread.

[Capntastic]

quote:Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>

Yes but what if 100+ creatures will fall into the "strong" category? There wont be a single difference between them in that case regarding strength if you play with the current system. If its ok for you, I can understand it tho, thats why im saying that we should be able to choose between this and the other what I mentioned in this thread.</STRONG>

I like how you're using feeble theoretical examples that have nothing to do with your suggestion.   How would replacing "strong" with "4" be any different?

Likewise, creatures differ in ability based on their body parts and size.   Once combat is improved, and stats/skills are overhauled, they will be even more different.

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]

[Rondol]

I stopped reading about 4 posts ago. It was starting to sound like two camps of Nazi's bickering over how Hitler should divide England.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Stof:
Great job messing up your post so that I cannot quote it in a reply. One could think you made it on purpose but I think it was just an honest mistake  

quote:
Heck, how can you argue about a realistic point of view for those that want the game to display "(6) Very Strong" and "(7) Might" saying that your dwarves do not know the precise stats of the monster they inspect, when they were perfectly able to say when looking at monsters "That one is only in the Very Strong category. Mmm that one goes for Mighty". Adding the numerical qualifier would only help those with weaker english knowledge get started faster while not giving a single additional info that players with metaknowledge about english or the game didn't know for a long time.

Simple.  Because, if I were to see you, I could make the determination if you looked tough or wimpy; There wouldn't be a display however that poped up above you saying  STR:12 DEX:12 INT:17 WIS:14 CON:10 CHA:13

quote:
As for the metaknowledge argument. Well you accused me of poisoning the well by not saying which arguments were weak, and lo and behold, this is exactly what I'm doing now! Strange isn't it. Btw, I hope you take your amnesia drugs between each game to erase every single metaknowledge you got in the previous sessions  

No.  I accused you of poising the well, because you said: "There are a lot of bad arguments made here, and one good one."  After making a statement like that, there pretty much is nothing you can say that will unpoison that well.  You very close mindedly defined my argument to be wrong from the start.  A way to rephrase that would be: "Everything everyone here said is wrong, except for the one person I agree with."  It's not the worst case of prejudicing opinions against the arguer though, very mild poison.

quote:
I'm of the opinion that trivialy found critical information cannot be considered unfair metaknowledge. As hardcore as we want the game to be, there is no valid reason to make the game even more of a chore for newbies, to the point that they decide to either ditch the game or only play with the wiki open.

Trivial information is not kept from the user.  You know that troll is very scary looking just by looking at it.  The user doesn't need stats, so they can look and see hmm my STR is 16, his STR is 17.

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>

I like how you're using feeble theoretical examples that have nothing to do with your suggestion.   How would replacing "strong" with "4" be any different?

Likewise, creatures differ in ability based on their body parts and size.   Once combat is improved, and stats/skills are overhauled, they will be even more different.

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]</STRONG>

I dont think so. Fictional example: Lets say we have a 1-1000 stat scale.
Very Tough [sta] = 900-1000.
25 megabeasts = all between 900 and 1000, but never the same. With the current system probably almost all of them would have the same "very tough" description.

I think this whole thread is about 1 thing. Some people would prefer a more perfectionist approach regarding stats, some people not.
We dont have a perfectionist stat system. What is the problem if it would've been added someday as an option?

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]