Information delivery improvements

[Elhazzared]

Hi there. A few things could e improved in order to get a player quick to speed on what does what and what things to look out for and what things to just skim through.

One simple example of informantion that needs improvement are the more than already known wild infusions which should specificate they only remove one random effect.

However this is not the only thing I came here for.

One way to know how to deal with your enemy (be it how to fight or just get the hell out of there) is to look over at his information and see what he can and cannot do. For the earlier levels this is alright, enemies don't have that many stuff on them and you skim through them very quickly and know what they do. However you reach level 20s and more enemies are already haveing in the order of douzen possible things they can do and I imagine going further this only gets worse.

So one thing that you could start off with is in the hover over tool-tip immediatly identify the type of enemy fighting. Is he an archmage? Is he a brawler? You can see it immediatly by looking it up it's skills and based on the overall stuff you get a picture of what he is, but it would still be nice to just have a very clear indication right from the get go.

Next we dive into the inspect creature and really, no one goes over the attack and defense bar most of the times. The information there is only mildly useful. More useful would be having another tab with a description of some notable equipment they can carry and what it does to affect it's combat effectiveness. A good example of this is knowing what combat gloves the horned horror has or maybe whether or not a certain enemy has a chance to break your shields with an abillity of it's weapon.

As for the talents/infusions/runes bar where you see all that the creature has, this is where it becomes a huge mess. Skiming through through all of it and seeing it one by one consumes way to much time and we don't really need to see everything especially not as a huge list that just makes us want to close. So we need to simplify this.

Inside this tab we need to have things separated. There is no need for extra tabs here all you need to do is list it sorta like an excel table.

On the left you get infusios and runes.

Then you get to the right of it the mellee offesive talents (Talents whose purpose is to deal damage. They can deal other effects too like say stuns and whatnot, but if the damage is high then it goes here, something that has a very small amount of damage for a debuff goes elsewhere).

To the right of it we go into the ranged offensive talents (they can be both physical and magical in nature, what matters is that it's clearly marked as in the ranged attack area, rules for whether or not it's considered an offensive talent follow the same principle as the mellee variant).

To the right of it you got defensive talents (they are things like shields and buffs who are meant to make you a tough cookie).

And the last on the right would be the utillity talents (here go generic attack buffs, enemy debuffs and other stuff like say, dispel enemy shields or draining mana, anything that falls underutillity. Even if there is a damage attached to it, so long as it's a low value and not really the primary concern of what the spell is supposed to do then it falls under utillity).

By doing this when a player inspects a creature he can more easily know how the creature will tend to fight and what things it will pull on him which I belive is a good thing since relaying information to the player in this game is the single most important thing considering this game is heavly reliant on knowing what you are dealing with and a wall of information just becomes hard to read at times.

Last but never least it should show on the talent tab which spells are currently working, for how many turns and how are the current cooldowns on the creature's talents (If this is already shown somewhere I've never noticed which again reflects on how information should be relayed to the player).

[Radon26]

its not a game, you are supposed to beet in one time. it is not game, that will hold your hand on every single step.
while i approve, some things being clearer, that is not the priority.

weapons - when you look at the creature, you see the "modifiers" of the weapon.
as for type of normal enemies you are facing, most of the time you should know it as soon as you see them, unless you are a noob.
as for rares, you can just inspect them.

This game is about trying, failing, dieing and LEARNING. eventually, if you are really trying, you will win.
When you are experienced, you dont need to reed every single ability on the enemy.
After a quick glance, you should know what creature can do, and what distance you should keep. Again, this game, will NOT hold your hand.

[Elhazzared]

Proper information relay and holding hand are two completly different things. All things I listed here do not hold your hand, they help you see what you are up against much more easily, it doesn't makes them any less threatning.

Speaking for myself I've for the most part gave up on inspecting a creature. It's a huge wall of text and I get lost easily so I don't do it at all. It take way too much time and in order for me to get a clear picture, i'd have to probably do an excel sheet myself with all the non randomised enemies, have all talents show up in a proper way so that I can figure out how it is trying to fight me... This is not something the player should be doing or struggling with. Information should be presented as clearly and as possible and never raise any cases of... this is just way too much stuff to read through in order to understand, especially when there is no reasonable order in the way this is presented to me.

Yes, veterans after so many hundreds of hours sunk into the game will already know how to deal with each and every type of enemy. And yes, this really isn't a problem with mobs but rather the tough bosses and whatnot, mobs I blast through without really caring that much and without really getting much of a problem with.

Just because the veterans have endured a much worse information system there is no reason for new players to have to go through the same when things can clearly be improved.

[Radon26]

its a turn based game, a little bit of reading have never hurt anyone, and while it could be improved is it absolutely necesary?
there are not that many boses, and most of them (if not all?) are based on specific classes.

its not like the DG is trying to confuse you by giving them custom abilities.
and agine, this is not about blasting through everything on the first time.

making things clearer not the same as holding hands? well, the way you said it, you just want all the information to be handed to you and explained, while its YOUR job, to interpret the danger. its up to YOU to decide what is worth noting, and what little less so.

go back to your plain and simple RTS or FPS you came from.

[SageAcrin]

Enemy classes are displayed while in debug mode, and I have been pushing to get this info just made normal for ages. I still don't understand the logic behind hiding that.

Enemy statuses are definitely shown, though I forget on which window. Just mousing over one without inspect will show the duration and status names, you can get a detailed reading inside inspection.

I don't really like the categorized stats menu proposed, because while it's less cluttered, it neither conveys more information, nor does it convey it faster.

A lack of ability to read a list is a player problem; If you can't parse the names of 30 talents, you can't parse a complicated description. If you can't parse a complicated description... this just isn't the game for you, it is a very complexity oriented game.

Meanwhile, for an experienced player, skimming that list for talents they consider outstandingly notable is a fast and easy thing, and I don't see that a new player will be any less overwhelmed for the list being chopped up a bit. The rewards just don't feel like they're there to me.

Descriptions always could use a few details clarified here and there. That's just descriptions in video games. ToME's descriptions are being clarified all the time, someone will get to said Wild description at some point I'm sure.

[Elhazzared]

I'd say any improvements that help players learn the game and learn what enemies do so they can adapt their tactics accordingly is absolutly necessary.
There are many bosses. There are a few specific bosses, one or two per dungeon depending on the dungeon but ther are many rendomised and still rather dangerous bosses.

I know DG is not trying to confuse me. But if I get confused with some much text wall, many others will and probably much more easily than me.
And no one will blast through in one atempt. Still there is clearly something wrong with it when you say the average survivabillity of an archmage on normal roguelike is 6% to get to level 50. I don't belive the problem is overly in the difficulty (partly is but not the whole story) but rather in the very poor way in which all pertinent information is relayed to the player.

And yes, I want all the information handed to me in a clear fashion rather than all the information handed to me in a big mess which makes it a lot harder to compreend the enemy than it should be. A rogue like game is about learning how your character works and how the enemy works. If the enemy way of working is not properly relayed and many enemies are just randomly generated (from many bosses to several adventurer parties you find on the map), then this results in a poor player experience... Still you do are right. It is my job to interpret the danger and make a decision about whether or not to fight. But it is the job of the developer to properly convey the danger to the player in the first place.

Again doing this doesn't hurts the game in any sense! It simply helps the players to see what they should be seeing in the first place. Anything that improves the game should be something worth striving for. The only way you come to me is quite honestly as an elitist who just doesn't wants to see something improved for the better because you had to deal with it for a very long while, so you want others to suffer through as much or even as as you did instead of wishing to actually have the game better for everyone involved and that is just an attitude that rubs me wrong.

Sage - It's not the same thing. I can read through all the descriptions and know exactly what it does (well, to some level as I pointed out earlier and you agreeded with me, some descriptions do need clarification). I can look at 30 talents and know what each of them does individualy. But between knowing what each of them does and actually realise how all of it interacts together I need to be looking from a higher ground. I need to categorise the talents into their relevant places and then see how they interact together, this is something I can do with a few talents, with too many it just becomes really hard to stay objective and get the big picture. For that i'd need to start writting off what kind of talent goes where and then look at the possible interactions.

In most roguelikes things are not complicated. Enemies don't need much of an explanation. They have their health amount, they can be tanky or have specific weaknesses, they have an abillity or two and that is it. No enemy ever changes and no enemy has any real complexity to it. What you learn in most roguelikes is how you counter specific enemies and how you counter the combinations of enemies thrown at you because again, they are incredibly simple in they way they work even if they can form a complex fighting organism should the RNG throw the right things at you.

In this roguelike there are some permanent stuff and there are a lot of stuff that changes in every single playthrough. Adventurer parties are one very good example where you can find many parties where you just don't give any craps about them and then you find that one which will just absolutly murder you without even giving you much of a chance to fight back without some extensive information about them... Relaying the information to everyone in a way which helps them understanding how they will fight improves the larning rate of the players and it improves the accessibillity of the game without actually touching on the difficulty of it.

One of the things that actually stands in the way of making this a very successful is actually it's information relay. There are many people who love roguelikes. I am one of them of course. But when the game fails to tell you why are you dying time and time again, players will just quit and call the game badly designed when in reallity, most of it is actually just a poor relay of information making the player feel overwelmed by everything. Improving how information is relayed to the player at this point is probablyone of the most important things. The game is nor particularly buggy, there are some but up until now I can't say I've saw many bugs, some visual glitches here and there but that is about it. It whould be worked on too of course, but information relay is incredibly bad in this game and it's the one thing holding it back.

[Wolls]

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/char_sheet

This might do some of the things you are looking for.

[Elhazzared]

That does looks looks like something pretty close to what I described. I'll give it a try tomorrow. It's something very useful and from the user it seems like this actually might be implemented into the game in the next patch. If so then thumbs up to DG for actively working in improving the information relay to the player.

[Radon26]

might be implemented into the game in the next patch.

keep dreaming.

1) its not priority
2) someone already made it, its up to you to download it

somewhere in the future, when polishing things up is the last thing to do, maybe, but for now, WHO CARES?!??!? other than you

One of the things that actually stands in the way of making this a very successful

server can't stand the number of players and died

[Hogulus]

I agree that difficulty and information delivery are very different things - and besides, that information is already accessible to the player if he/she is willing to keep tabbing back and forth between the game and a wiki, so hiding information from the player really doesn't accomplish much. Integrating the information display into the game just helps a player get the data faster, and doesn't give "bad" players any real advantage compared to "good" ones. It in no way constitutes "hand-holding" to make this information clearer - the expectation in ToME is that you adapt your tactics and possibly equipment to deal with whatever tough monster you're up against, and hiding this information would not make the game more complex, but would rather encourage a shallower "welp I don't know what I'm up against, let me just hit the wiki to find a combination of skills that I can use on anything" approach, which would get boring fast (if it works) and make the game considerably more luck-dependent (if it doesn't).

On that note, I'd like it if the game clarified what the "weapon brands" do - you can see an enemy's weapon brands by mousing over them, but there's no in-game explanation of what those names actually mean.

[Radon26]

you clearly have th vrong mindset.

i said thiss gama i about trying, failing, dying, and learning.
do you realy think, any new player does to wiki and what not?
no, they boldly go forth, head on.
checking what you are up against? seriously?
discouraged from failing? with all the lore and unlocks around?!

"hey! HEY LISTEN! This enemy has a stun tallents will make you unable to use your own tallents!"
"hey! HEY LISTEN! This enemy can silence you! that will disable your spell!"
"hey! HEY LISTEN! If there is one space betwen you and enemy, wait one turn, to get first hit!"

what were you saying about hand holding being different? because this is my impression about your expectation!
so when i said "information given to you" thats more les what i was thinking.

and yes, referencing the fairy was indeed absolutely necessary

[Elhazzared]

Yes Radon, the server died because of it usual huge load of 200 to 300 players logged in. Yes, what a huge playerbase it has!

Do you know why the server actually lags and sometimes dies? Because it actually stores tons and tons of information about all characters both alive and those who died. If you go and use the character vault to search for anything a huge spike lag will immediatly happen on the server because there are hundreds of thousands of characters and logs stored there which you are making the server browse through... Now I said one person, multiply that by maybe a few trying to do it at the same time and the server will crash... DG said himself to someone in a post who was looking up survivabillity statistics over several classes how he could do it, but not to abuse it cause using it causes huge lag spikes and abusing it might lead him to shut off that option! Doesn't takes a genius to understand why it happens nor does it takes a genius to look at several points of the day how many people are playing.

Also if you cannot understand the importance of information being relayed to the player then I am very glad you are not a game developer. Both for whomever would play your games and for you who probably wouldn't sell much. Heck you're probably among those people who think games do not need rebindable keys, colour blind modes or even FoV slider (where the case applies). You clearly have no clue about what is important for a game and what is not but you know what. It do is your opinion.I strongly disagree, it shows how narrow minded you are, however it is your opinion and you are entitled to keep it.

By the way. You asked who cares? Well apparently more people beyond me. Not only people who actually do post here, but people who even go out of their way to make a mod that makes the game so much better by breaking the clutter and presenting things in a more clear fashion... If in the mod page it says that in the next patch this might be integrated with the game already then I would assume that whomever made the mod has had some talk to DG or there has been some talk on the foruns about it already.

You are the one who clearly have a wrong mindset.

It is your opinion that players should go and fight enemies blind and die time and time again and learn from it... this wouldn't be an unfair if this was a traditional roguelike where enemies have one or two abillities, they never change at all, there is no enemies with tons of abillities and enemies who can have different skill sets. In a traditional roguelike this would have been acceptable. In ToME however you will keep finding different enemies after different enemies with different skillsets and there is no amount of learning. The only way to safely fight against enemies who can just about have any kind of abillities which may or may not be effective against you is by looking at it's skill set and understand what it can do so you can actually react to the situation presented. The developer realises this and presents you with an overview of everything the enemy can do, however it is presented in a cluttered way which doesn't helps the player understand how to fight it that well, not until the player has an indepth knowledge of hundreds and hundreds of skills and a simple skiming over the name of the abillitie is more than enough to know... However this is not something a begginer or even an intermediate player can do easily. It is actually fair to say that there will be a very limited number of people who can look at that much clutter and just know what to expect and this doesn't has anything to do with learning. Most people just don't have the capacity to deal with too much information being presented at the same time in such manner. They need the information to be much more clear.

And in the end this is all there is to it. A clear and better way to present the information. No one is asking for handholding, just that information is presented in an organised way. Pretty much like if you work at a library you have all books ordered by type and alphabeticly. If everything is everywhere at random no one can find what they want in a reasonably fast fashion if at all. But apparently this is just so wrong for you.

[grayswandir]

I guess some way of displaying ranges would be kinda nice.

What I would like to see is a list of classes that a rare has, and the talents sorted by class. So they have an "Innate" skill section and then another section for each class they've picked up. That way if you run into a rare with a class you don't have much experience with, you can remember it much easier. If something just completely overpowers you, it's nicer to have a small list of possible reasons (type + class) to look out for, as opposed to having to consider every single talent as a possible reason. It's a lot harder to pick up "talent X kills me" than it is "class X kills me". It would make the learning curve a bit shallower, I think.

In any case, I think the main thing is not the specific way in which the talents list is organized, but just that it is organized. It's a lot easier to hold things in your mind when it has some sort of schema holding it together than just an alphabetical list of items.

[Elhazzared]

I agree with you Gray. I merely put a sugestion of a simple way to organise it, however so long as it's organised in a simple way that makes looking through stuff much easier so that you can better understand how the character is supposed to work, that is good enough.

Another thing I'd like to see improved would be the combat log. Currently it puts a lot of things out of the order they actually happen and it would be great to be able to see with more clarity exactly what happened in the combat so it would start by saying whose turn it is to move, the action that the character do. Damages or even movement described, but all in the correct order and again, very important to have turns actually displayed in the combat log. Another good thing would be to be able to check the character log in the character dump, at least the last 20 turns so that people can analise how the combat that killed them went as yet another learning tool.

[Zireael]

I guess some way of displaying ranges would be kinda nice.

There's an addon which does that. QQQ or something?