I hate Damage number popups

[Melcar]

I hate them. Always did. Distracts from what is going on on-screen.

 

[Butter]

I don't know which game was first to use damage number popups, but WoW was the first one I was aware of. I've been playing WoW (private server) recently and it's got me thinking about what makes the game so addictive in spite of various design choices that I abhor (most quests being kill/collection quests, talents having negligible +1/2/3/4/5% bonuses, etc). I think a big part of it is those damage numbers, and in particular the fact that crits use a larger font size. The game has generally poor feedback for when characters take damage, but those numbers trigger some lizard brain shit and keep me hooked. It's especially compelling after I just upgraded my damage spell and I get to see even bigger numbers. Damage number popups have a tendency to clutter the screen in faster-paced games like Borderlands or The Outer Worlds, but WoW combat is slow enough that it never irritates me.

 

[Melcar]

Console games had them for years as far as I remember (playing as a kid in the 90s). I do remember a few early PC games having them, but those were mostly console ports. Did the original PST have them or was that added in the mods? I hated those too.

 

[NecroLord]

I'm making a CRPG, and I've been putting off adding damage number popups for the longest time. My design philosophy is that if Fallout 1+2 didn't do it, then it's not necessary. But my ideals are threatened by the fact that literally every CRPG from the last 20 years worth a damn has had damage number popups.

It is hard to explain my frustration with them, who the hell tracks those numbers anyway? If you want to show that you got a critical hit or that an ability you just used is powerful there are other ways than throwing big digits in my face. What is this, a math class? It's like I'm reading a comic book fight scene with WHACK and POW appearing above the character's heads. Someone please tell me what to think

Active and dismissable combat log is all that is necessary.

 

[Iucounu]

In some cases they could make sense. For example, if the game doesn't feature good enough feedback to tell you how effective your attacks are.

Or perhaps distracting from a very simple RPG fight mechanic is their true purpose? When enemies have health bars I always tend to look up at the health bar rather than staying focused on what the actual enemy character is doing, and the fighting sometimes boils down to who will reach zero RPG health stats first.

If it's to give you feedback in the form of whether your attack was a hit, a glancing blow or a miss, I guess they make some sense.

This should be easy to implement with sounds though. Say a metallic noise if you hit armor, curses or cries if you dealt real damage.

 

[Sibelius]

I despise floating damage numbers and turn them off whenever possible. I also hate mini maps, outlines around interactable items and characters and any other excessive user interface nonsense. Stick to your guns, or ideally give the option to hide the numbers, especially if you have a combat log where numbers can be reviewed, that way you are pleasing everyone. If you prefer less noise on screen as the default presentation have them switched off as the default option, with the option for people who prefer them to switch them on.

 

[Berengar]

I wonder how many numbers will come out when I damage you?

 

[gurugeorge]

For me, they only really work if they're size-appropriate (i.e. BIG number, BIG size font). Then it's a proper dopamine hit. Crude and childish, but enjoyable in more light-hearted games.

Otherwise if they're namby-pamby little numbers they're just annoying, and sir should find a shortening enemy health bar (or visible enemy degredation signaled in some other graphic way) and/or the combat log to be quite sufficient.

 

[Zlaja]

I can tolerate damage numbers in, say, a turn-based RPG, but I will never for the life of me get how people can enjoy that stuff in games like hack & slash games. Look at this shit:

 

[Maxie]

?? what's the alternative to numbers, paper dolls? got a major ouchie to left foot, character permanently slowed until treated?

 

[Melcar]

Imagination

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Damage numbers are important feedback for me to know how badly I'm destroying your combat system.

Some games either show a running total or an average. Like if an aoe hits a bunch of guys, don't show 20 individual numbers, just say it did X damage to the group. Or like how Underrail likes to show a stack of 20 numbers for every rifle burst, just show the total damage of the burst instead.

Edit: also Fallout's combat log was an adaptation of the text scrolling combat from Wasteland, where it was the entire combat system. That's why it has somewhat graphic descriptions in it.

 

[Serus]

?? what's the alternative to numbers, paper dolls? got a major ouchie to left foot, character permanently slowed until treated?

That's one option, damage being non-abstract, yes.
People however in this thread are mostly annoyed by the presentation in form of numbers popping up over the heads of monsters and players. Numbers themselves as abstraction for most people are ok. And for most games they might be but personally i'd like something else a bit more often. Too few games attempt to modify or change the formula of a "health" or "life" pool that is slowly depleted when hit - often VERY slowly.

 

[Tavernking]

?? what's the alternative to numbers, paper dolls? got a major ouchie to left foot, character permanently slowed until treated?

More specifically this is about damage number popups above combatant's heads

 

[Black]

Just put a

"dm talking to you through a text box" thing.

 

[Beastro]

The worst part of this to me is how utterly useless the information is because is fails to recognize human nature and the cocktail party effect.

It tries to share the center of your focus, but people's attention is monofocal, and so it interferes with it forcing you to filter layers of competing information. It is either a distraction that messes with your attention if you try to acknowledge it, especially in a FPS like Borderlands where actions and reaction are far more important than, say, WoW or a Diablo-clone, or the information goes by without being noticed.

Give me a proper damage window and allow me to look down to focus briefly on it as well as to let me go back and review the battle to see where things went right and wrong:

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

I think games could show fewer numbers in general. For example, instead of showing that a sword does damage between 0–20, 20–40, or 40–60, it could simply say "weak," "average," or "strong." This approach could be extended to every ability, enemy HP, and so on. It’s more immersive and discourages min-maxing while encouraging experimentation and learning through gameplay. When I play Doom 2, for instance, I don’t need to know the exact HP of enemies or the damage my weapons do. I learn through playing that two well-placed super shotgun shots kill a Cacodemon, while it takes five to take down a Baron of Hell. This unpredictability adds tension and makes mistakes based on intuition more impactful—like a risky move that fails because the enemy had just a bit of HP left.

Showing too many numbers makes games feel too mechanical, turning them into math puzzles. This breaks immersion, and most single player games are all about immersion. If I wanted just a challenge, I’d play something more straightforward, like chess, Tetris, or whatever. But when I’m playing a game about knights fighting orcs and dragons, with proper graphics, music, story and all, it’s essentially glorified action figures—and I have no shame in admitting that. Let me fully enjoy the immersion. This is not tabletop RPGs, all calculation is automatic, why do single players games needs to show all the numbers really? the min/maxers and powergamers can all go fuck themselves, if you only min/maxing in a single player game you're the biggest faggot in existence.

One game that recently broke my immersion due to excessive numbers was Moonring, a roguelike. The game has way too much information. The UI shows everything: what all items do, all abilities, all stats—and there are tons of them. It feels boring and overly mechanical, like playing a spreadsheet with graphics, i can plan everything in advance right at the start of the game by looking at all those tech trees. Look at this:

for fuck sakes...


Old games often hid more numbers than newer ones, probably due to technical limitations, and that the numbers are in the manual. But that made them more engaging. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve found an item or ability in an older game and had no idea what it did until I tried it. In Phantasy Star IV, for example, the abilities had weird names and no descriptions. If you played without the manual, like I did, you had to memorize everything yourself—and it was more fun that way. And sometimes you can discover something new about a ability or item, even after you played the game multiple times, because its function was hidden.

 

[Beastro]

I think games could show fewer numbers in general. For example, instead of showing that a sword does damage between 0–20, 20–40, or 40–60, it could simply say "weak," "average," or "strong." This approach could be extended to every ability, enemy HP, and so on. It’s more immersive and discourages min-maxing while encouraging experimentation and learning through gameplay.

Rule the Waves goes further in that you have to intuit how badly damaged enemy warships are. Sometimes they'll act like they're sinking when they're not, and they'll appear to be fighting long after they've been fatally damaged. The result is an annoying, but intriguing balancing act of doing damage and guessing when an enemy is mortally wounded to switch over to other enemies and make full use of your fleet's ammo.

This reflects naval combat in real life in a still gamey way. The RN at Jutland overestimated the damage they were doing to the High Seas Fleet because their armour piecing rounds weren't penetrating effectively, resulting in dramatic, but ineffective explosions. German warships also had a tendency to slow down heavily when turning, and when they did so after an enemy salvo, it gave the appearance that the British rounds had hit and done damage to their propulsion.

How something like this could be translated into an RPG, I don't know, but it would help to make you balance between wasteful overkill or possibly not doing enough damage and allowing a vital enemy unit the ability to live longer and screw with you.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

How something like this could be translated into an RPG, I don't know, but it would help to make you balance between wasteful overkill or possibly not doing enough damage and allowing a vital enemy unit the ability to live longer and screw with you.

This is what happens in Dragon Quest II and some old JRPGs, in those game if you direct all your party members to attack a single enemy and said enemy die too early, all others party members moves are wasted, like they attack empty space, so if you casted a fireball, your MP is wasted. A lof fags complain about this but it was one of the best mechanics. You did not know how much damage you're going to do and how much HP enemies had. You had to learn by playing and developing your intuition and memory. The damages calculation had some random elements to it as well. Like you said, you need to be carefully to not be overkill and wasting your resources.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

KEEP THEM GUESSING!

No life bars or hp bars for enemies
No damage pop ups
No damage log

I rather like the idea the player or mob looks injured, loses limbs, etc though.

There have been a few games I played where you honestly had to check your status (out of combat) to know how bad you were hurt. And mobs... WHEN IS THIS FUCKER GOING TO DIE!!! ???? ??? ?????

*likely they were some damn shitware game or typed up game from assembly.

 

[Beastro]

How something like this could be translated into an RPG, I don't know, but it would help to make you balance between wasteful overkill or possibly not doing enough damage and allowing a vital enemy unit the ability to live longer and screw with you.

This is what happens in Dragon Quest II and some old JRPGs, in those game if you direct all your party members to attack a single enemy and said enemy die too early, all others party members moves are wasted, like they attack empty space, so if you casted a fireball, your MP is wasted. A lof fags complain about this but it was one of the best mechanics. You did not know how much damage you're going to do and how much HP enemies had. You had to learn by playing and developing your intuition and memory. The damages calculation had some random elements to it as well. Like you said, you need to be carefully to not be overkill and wasting your resources.

I remember that annoying me as a kid, but I can appreciate it now.

 

[Inec0rn]

You don't need damage numbers. You do need some kind of feedback though, blood sprites on damage numbers (you can vary sprites for crit's or low/high damage etc.

I don't think I play enough shit games to have found it annoying though.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

No damage log

So damage logs are okay, but instead of numbers, it could say something like:

-This barely scratched it.
-This wrought havoc on him.

Something like that. For example, in Heroes of Might and Magic, you don't know the exact number of units the enemy hero has. The game gives feedback like this:

-Few orcs
-A lot of rocs
-A throng of hobgoblins

Each term corresponds to a range, for example: few = 1-20. I'm not saying every game needs to do this for every piece of information, but the less my games look like spreadsheets, the better.

 

[luj1]

They are fine for roguelikes

 

[mondblut]

What is this, a math class?

As long as it's an RPG, yes, it is.