Cool, thanks. I guess we're more interested if you think it detracts from the game. I could see how some people might think damage numbers popping up may take away from some of the immersion or "get in the way." I personally like the idea Anyone else?
Not at all. In fact, I like having those numbers pop up. It gives you a good sense of how effective your attacks are, which can be a bit ambiguous in some games. Actually, a good way to go would be health bars above your opponents, possibly having numbers in the bar for bosses. It really helps to gauge how you're doing and how much you have left to tackle, and is extremely helpful in any game.
Also it might help if there was an option to turn off the numbers? I personally like the numbers but have them be small so they don't overwelm the screen
It worked quite well for Borderlands. (shoot shotgun, dozen damage numbers pop out, lolz for all.) And in TF2 I have been using the option to see the damage I deal pop up over the enemy when I hurt them, it helps me know how much/if I am doing damage. I even use the option to play a ear drum bursting *DING* sound whenever I hit them, using the pyro with that option is very painful to say the least. Maybe because I wear headphones perhaps... Oh... right, what were we talking about? Oh yea that's right! Anyways I think having the option like in TF2 would be great! People love options! EDIT: GAH! I have been ninja'd ^
Haha, nice one Ron... True that could work. Personally I'm not a fan of health bars though. They do a great job at what they are supposed to do, but I always actually think they tend to "cheapen" the look of most games, even if you have them fade away when an enemy is not hit. Maybe its just me, but it reminds me of older style, primitive RTS's...
I find it incredibly useful in certain games. In Dynasty Warriors 4, which I spent an entire summer playing one year, you can toggle health bars appearing over your opponents' heads with the press of the L2 button, yet I always leave it on. It just helps to manage which enemies to attack and when. Also, the enemy that you are currently fighting has a health bar appear in the top left corner with some basic info like name, unit type, etc. It looks good and is really helpful as well. You may want to consider something like that. And I like that idea of the train with Somerandomdude D) fighting off zombies... It's a great way to sneak a good reference in.
Oh I agree its useful... but in a game like Bug Heroes where you can be fighting 40 fleas at once (made a lot of optimizations since N.Y.Zombies ), it may get a little cluttered -- also keep in mind we're dealing with an iPhone screen, which means those bars would cover up a larger percentage of the screen then in a console or PC game with a huge monitor (and if the bars are TOO small, they wouldn't serve their purpose because they would be too hard to look at). But perhaps an option could be a good idea. The other thing to think about is how much we want players to have to learn and experience on their own in terms of figuring out about enemies and their stats. We are going to have an "enemy dictionary" with stats, strategies and bios unlocked for each enemy type... I kind of like the idea of rewarding the players who put in the time to learn about enemy types and their health and stats...
You just have to be aware that there are also people who want to know how the game works and won't "put in the time" if it's too opaque. I don't think there is a universal solution. Of course, if the game is popular enough, fan sites will spring up with this information and people who want it enough will seek it out. But that might require a pretty high level of success in the first place.
Oh definitely, and good point... learning about the enemies and their stats and everything will just be a "fun extra" for those wanting to delve deeper into the game and get better at it -- by no means will it be a necessary requirement to sit down and study enemy bios haha. The enemy dictionary will also have background stories and strategies, so it should be a nice extra for everyone. But I think its good to allow for rewards for those who want to dig deeper as long as you don't punish those who just want to pick up the game and blow stuff away
How about ranks or some sort of cusomization on the characters for leveling up or on the level for score/time/etc.?
Great ideas, we will see about doing something like this. Right now we have it set up so the enemy profile is unlocked all at once after x amount of that enemy is killed.
This is a very old idea that goes back to Angband (early 1990s), if not earlier. I can't remember if it was in Moria or UMoria. I do think it can work well although one can also consider having an "unlock code" or "cheat" for those who would rather simply have the information. Since all of the data exists in the game anyway, that is very easy to do.
Yeah the difficult thing is always to balance between having lots of stuff to unlock vs. giving enough stuff to players who might not want to delve that deep. You don't want to limit their experience just because they don't want to spend weeks getting everything.
