Amount, Clarity, and Detail of Information the Game Provides
Introduction
In the lower part of this post is an attempt to list as much specific information that would be good to get into the player's hands as I could. The textwall preceding that list will mainly adress why I consider this matter important and also bring up a few items that I could not easily fit into the list of information as they tend to be broader concepts instead of tidbits of data that could be added to the existing layout.
Textwall
In a game where a lot of the appeal will probably come from the ability to customize one's moveset, it seems rather key to provide as much information to the player as possible but also to not overwhelm them, especially early on. With the ability to switch between the simplified power/speed/range layout and actual numbers, all of this of course accompanied by the attack being displayed off to the left, I think that was rather well accomplished by the devs. It gives a first glance at the moves and then provides extra information if necessary.
It is the extra information, the details that I primarily find lacking. Setting aside the numbercrunching side of things for a bit, even when just trying to learn a little more about what makes a good build, roadblocks start to appear. The letters next to the attributes, denoting bonuses are grand as a guideline, except there is no real indicator of how important they truly are to a build. The letter A could mean x1.09 or it could mean x1.9, which is a rather drastic jump in the relevance it has. The same thing applies to shard refill rate, except in the opposite sense. We have been given the modifier, but not the base number that is being modified. Despite being a specific number, it thus remains a rough guideline, just like the letters.
Rough guideline is sadly something I would call a lot of the information available due to the quantity or quality it is given in. Perhaps the biggest case of this is perfect attacks or "goldlinking". The explanation is hidden in NPC dialogue and the tips section of the practice menu. The move recovery, which it eliminates, is not part of the data available on moves. It makes the mechanic feel vague and kind of insignificant, instead of like the centerpiece that it is. To go back to the bonus letters again, I have no idea how those are determined, really. I can merely guess that the bonuses shift to represent their prevalence in the deck to thus indicate what attributes should be levelled? Mobility is another vague thing. Low bad, high good. How big is the impact really? Only way to find out these things apart from asking the more enlightened appears to be vigorous testing.
Testing is of course a rather important part of the game as well. Finding out how to block certain attacks is great fun. But there is certain information that should simply be available to the player, without any hurdles and not enough of it is yet displayed thusly. After all, this information is the toolset we use to craft and tinker with movesets. So I feel that the meditation/equipment screens could use some more love, explaining what they display, how they display it, and also just adding to what is displayed. A little tutorial you could activate, or hover over tooltips to make it all a bit more transparent. Besides that, I give you the list of data I think would help make decisionmaking while creating builds easier/smoother.
The List
Ability Information: frame data, amount of stamina regenerated, amount of damage (stagger), amount of stun (forsaken).
Power Information: frame data, health healed per second over what amount of time (heal), health bonus/attack damage ratio (heal), whether ability can interrupt heal on hit (offensive abilities), range/radius (offensive abilities), duration of shard freeze (silence), whether shard freeze cancels already active powers (silence), amount that protection and knockback are modified by (shield), stamina cost modifier (exhaust), knockback distance (shockwave), duration of stun (gravity/earthquake), weight increase (gravity).
Attack Information: recovery frames, knockback, during which frames special attack states are active (charging, avoiding lows, etc), weapon durability usage (both when attacking and blocking).
P.S.
TL;DR: Information, detailed information, is important and necessary to being able to work on builds. Expanding the information the game provides means improving a central part of it.
Addendum: At points, this may have turned into more of a tangent than intended. I hope to have explained myself thoroughly and am open to discourse on this matter. The game has been eating a monstrous amount of my time since purchasing it just a little while ago and the above frustrations stem from a desire to dedicate even more time to this title. Thank you for reading.
In the lower part of this post is an attempt to list as much specific information that would be good to get into the player's hands as I could. The textwall preceding that list will mainly adress why I consider this matter important and also bring up a few items that I could not easily fit into the list of information as they tend to be broader concepts instead of tidbits of data that could be added to the existing layout.
Textwall
In a game where a lot of the appeal will probably come from the ability to customize one's moveset, it seems rather key to provide as much information to the player as possible but also to not overwhelm them, especially early on. With the ability to switch between the simplified power/speed/range layout and actual numbers, all of this of course accompanied by the attack being displayed off to the left, I think that was rather well accomplished by the devs. It gives a first glance at the moves and then provides extra information if necessary.
It is the extra information, the details that I primarily find lacking. Setting aside the numbercrunching side of things for a bit, even when just trying to learn a little more about what makes a good build, roadblocks start to appear. The letters next to the attributes, denoting bonuses are grand as a guideline, except there is no real indicator of how important they truly are to a build. The letter A could mean x1.09 or it could mean x1.9, which is a rather drastic jump in the relevance it has. The same thing applies to shard refill rate, except in the opposite sense. We have been given the modifier, but not the base number that is being modified. Despite being a specific number, it thus remains a rough guideline, just like the letters.
Rough guideline is sadly something I would call a lot of the information available due to the quantity or quality it is given in. Perhaps the biggest case of this is perfect attacks or "goldlinking". The explanation is hidden in NPC dialogue and the tips section of the practice menu. The move recovery, which it eliminates, is not part of the data available on moves. It makes the mechanic feel vague and kind of insignificant, instead of like the centerpiece that it is. To go back to the bonus letters again, I have no idea how those are determined, really. I can merely guess that the bonuses shift to represent their prevalence in the deck to thus indicate what attributes should be levelled? Mobility is another vague thing. Low bad, high good. How big is the impact really? Only way to find out these things apart from asking the more enlightened appears to be vigorous testing.
Testing is of course a rather important part of the game as well. Finding out how to block certain attacks is great fun. But there is certain information that should simply be available to the player, without any hurdles and not enough of it is yet displayed thusly. After all, this information is the toolset we use to craft and tinker with movesets. So I feel that the meditation/equipment screens could use some more love, explaining what they display, how they display it, and also just adding to what is displayed. A little tutorial you could activate, or hover over tooltips to make it all a bit more transparent. Besides that, I give you the list of data I think would help make decisionmaking while creating builds easier/smoother.
The List
Ability Information: frame data, amount of stamina regenerated, amount of damage (stagger), amount of stun (forsaken).
Power Information: frame data, health healed per second over what amount of time (heal), health bonus/attack damage ratio (heal), whether ability can interrupt heal on hit (offensive abilities), range/radius (offensive abilities), duration of shard freeze (silence), whether shard freeze cancels already active powers (silence), amount that protection and knockback are modified by (shield), stamina cost modifier (exhaust), knockback distance (shockwave), duration of stun (gravity/earthquake), weight increase (gravity).
Attack Information: recovery frames, knockback, during which frames special attack states are active (charging, avoiding lows, etc), weapon durability usage (both when attacking and blocking).
P.S.
TL;DR: Information, detailed information, is important and necessary to being able to work on builds. Expanding the information the game provides means improving a central part of it.
Addendum: At points, this may have turned into more of a tangent than intended. I hope to have explained myself thoroughly and am open to discourse on this matter. The game has been eating a monstrous amount of my time since purchasing it just a little while ago and the above frustrations stem from a desire to dedicate even more time to this title. Thank you for reading.
Comments
Thanks for your suggestion about the necessity of different additional in-game information. We appreciate your detailed explanation! We understand that certain amount of information is vital in the game. Your advice has been passed along to the dev team. Please remember, that we can't promise to add all those requested information to the game, however, we'll be happy to know your game-related thoughts and feedback. Keep sharing them with community and us!