Hey everyone, I've thought about this for awhile now, and I just have to at least write it up so I'll feel better. I'll try to keep it short.
*I am not a Developer of anything (yet), so while I *think* this would be somewhat easy, I could be way off. But it should be easy.*
One of Blizzard's "Pillars" when it comes to their games is accessibility. This doesn't mean that a brand new player can hop on and be able to beat everything and top the leaderboards without putting in a lot of effort, but it does mean that this new player should have all the tools necessary to do so. Unfortunately this has been lacking in Diablo 3. This actually has been a problem since D3's launch, and I would love to see it fixed (as I hope other players would too). I'm talking about data. Information. Being able to actually decipher and tell what is going on without having to spend hours trying to test it yourself.
I actually had a friend quit (he only played with me at RoS launch) because he got so frustrated. He was excited to roll 30% total increased skill damage (I forget which one) while playing his WD, but then was confused when the damage barely went up, if at all. I was in the middle of trying to explain to him that I heard that pet damage should increase by much more in the slots, but skill damage is additive, and that elemental damage on bracers is multiplicative when he said screw it, he'd rather play HoTs. What I'm getting at here is that we shouldn't have to find some 3rd party programs or a bunch of excel spreadsheets to be able to understand all these hidden mechanics. It's still not completely clear to me and I've played since launch. Imagine how annoying it is to be told to go google something if you're a new player, because you want to know why Focus and Restraint don't increase your damage by 100% total, but actually more.
This is where I'd LOVE to see an improvement; tooltips. Why NOT show, in addition to the information already there, the actual damage range for any skill while you mouse over it's tooltip?
Hammer of the Ancients; Smash for 640% weapon damage as fire. 235m - 1.89B.
Ok, I just rolled HoTa damage on my boots. Oh sweet, now the range is showing 375m - 2.2B (all fake numbers).
Now I can actually compare equipping items that don't just show a sheet DPS increase. Taking that 20% fire damage shows me ACTUAL NUMBERS, instead of me trying to increase whatever crits I see when I attack by a fifth, and hope that it's multiplicative. Oh but it's additive to the OTHER fire damage increases I have? Well, okay I guess.
What about channeled spells? Have the range show an average minimum and maximum during one second. And have these tooltips update dynamically with buffs that already directly affect your character.
And lastly, because we have two classes of monsters, have holding ALT show the damage range to elites.
TLDR; We need, new players and old, to be able to see the actual damage range in our skills, preferably on the tooltip of the skill itself. This would be of HUGE help, because as I stated instead of going to 3rd party sites or going through spreadsheets, you can now easily determine if that 15% damage on your boots is something you want.
Please tell me why you agree / want me to be burned at the stake for suggesting such a thing.
All-in-all I think that would be a good idea. I don't think writing the dmg range is a good idea, but I do like the idea of condensing all relevant multiplies onto a tooltip. So something like: "Generic Nuke: 100%Weapon dmg" ->Advanced numbers"Generic Nuke: 1452% Weapon dmg (base 100%W, 20 Passive A, 5% Passive B, 300% Nuke Set, 12.5% Bracers)......."
The range is going to force the devs into a position where they have to number crunch, and that's never fun, and usually a waste of dev time. I think seeing a "total effect" and a "total dmg %" gets the job done on each skill. Advanced players could still quickly see the total % dmg of the skill, and see the contribution that goes into it.
All-in-all I think that would be a good idea. I don't think writing the dmg range is a good idea, but I do like the idea of condensing all relevant multiplies onto a tooltip. So something like: "Generic Nuke: 100%Weapon dmg" ->Advanced numbers"Generic Nuke: 1452% Weapon dmg (base 100%W, 20 Passive A, 5% Passive B, 300% Nuke Set, 12.5% Bracers)......."
The range is going to force the devs into a position where they have to number crunch, and that's never fun, and usually a waste of dev time. I think seeing a "total effect" and a "total dmg %" gets the job done on each skill. Advanced players could still quickly see the total % dmg of the skill, and see the contribution that goes into it.
The reason I suggested a range is because it's already in the game, at least the math is. The game already has the lowest damage you'll ever do with a skill, and the highest, and I think having a way to dynamically display that would make gearing a LOT easier and less confusing.
Now, what could be added - is a ruleset/rulebook/info page/whatever, by blizz stating how each, basic modifier works (like elemental damage etc, whether it's additive or multiplicative). In a form of either readme or some information menu in the game. I could be fine with that approach.
This is exactly the thing they will never do. Because it requires them to create an inventory of mechanics they have. At that point they will realize, how they created inconsistent game mechanics which will in turn provoke an outcry to unify game mechanics into consistent behavior.
A lot of these comments are why I mentioned just adding relevant non combat modifiers to get a single relative value. Getting a %Weapon dmg that is modified by all relevant modifiers gives enough information to see how sets, or passives or elemental dmg might effect a skill, but it does not give you the in combat equivalent.
It's a hard element of game development, but there is a point where too much information is bad. Like Flextt mentioned, there is a point were over transparency makes an argument towards homogeny. I think that since there are so many proc and trigger effects (cross class as well) a dmg range isn't really a good indication of dmg. However, %Weapon dmg is relative, so if something boosts all your dmg by another 20% (like another classes effect, or other players gems) you can make a basic assumption that all your dmg is going up. Yes, it does not effect everything the same way, but there has to be some amount of reward for experimentation, not just theorem.
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Hey everyone, I've thought about this for awhile now, and I just have to at least write it up so I'll feel better. I'll try to keep it short.
*I am not a Developer of anything (yet), so while I *think* this would be somewhat easy, I could be way off. But it should be easy.*
One of Blizzard's "Pillars" when it comes to their games is accessibility. This doesn't mean that a brand new player can hop on and be able to beat everything and top the leaderboards without putting in a lot of effort, but it does mean that this new player should have all the tools necessary to do so. Unfortunately this has been lacking in Diablo 3. This actually has been a problem since D3's launch, and I would love to see it fixed (as I hope other players would too). I'm talking about data. Information. Being able to actually decipher and tell what is going on without having to spend hours trying to test it yourself.
I actually had a friend quit (he only played with me at RoS launch) because he got so frustrated. He was excited to roll 30% total increased skill damage (I forget which one) while playing his WD, but then was confused when the damage barely went up, if at all. I was in the middle of trying to explain to him that I heard that pet damage should increase by much more in the slots, but skill damage is additive, and that elemental damage on bracers is multiplicative when he said screw it, he'd rather play HoTs. What I'm getting at here is that we shouldn't have to find some 3rd party programs or a bunch of excel spreadsheets to be able to understand all these hidden mechanics. It's still not completely clear to me and I've played since launch. Imagine how annoying it is to be told to go google something if you're a new player, because you want to know why Focus and Restraint don't increase your damage by 100% total, but actually more.
This is where I'd LOVE to see an improvement; tooltips. Why NOT show, in addition to the information already there, the actual damage range for any skill while you mouse over it's tooltip?
Hammer of the Ancients; Smash for 640% weapon damage as fire. 235m - 1.89B.
Ok, I just rolled HoTa damage on my boots. Oh sweet, now the range is showing 375m - 2.2B (all fake numbers).
Now I can actually compare equipping items that don't just show a sheet DPS increase. Taking that 20% fire damage shows me ACTUAL NUMBERS, instead of me trying to increase whatever crits I see when I attack by a fifth, and hope that it's multiplicative. Oh but it's additive to the OTHER fire damage increases I have? Well, okay I guess.
What about channeled spells? Have the range show an average minimum and maximum during one second. And have these tooltips update dynamically with buffs that already directly affect your character.
And lastly, because we have two classes of monsters, have holding ALT show the damage range to elites.
TLDR; We need, new players and old, to be able to see the actual damage range in our skills, preferably on the tooltip of the skill itself. This would be of HUGE help, because as I stated instead of going to 3rd party sites or going through spreadsheets, you can now easily determine if that 15% damage on your boots is something you want.
Please tell me why you agree / want me to be burned at the stake for suggesting such a thing.
All-in-all I think that would be a good idea. I don't think writing the dmg range is a good idea, but I do like the idea of condensing all relevant multiplies onto a tooltip. So something like: "Generic Nuke: 100%Weapon dmg" ->Advanced numbers"Generic Nuke: 1452% Weapon dmg (base 100%W, 20 Passive A, 5% Passive B, 300% Nuke Set, 12.5% Bracers)......."
The range is going to force the devs into a position where they have to number crunch, and that's never fun, and usually a waste of dev time. I think seeing a "total effect" and a "total dmg %" gets the job done on each skill. Advanced players could still quickly see the total % dmg of the skill, and see the contribution that goes into it.
A lot of these comments are why I mentioned just adding relevant non combat modifiers to get a single relative value. Getting a %Weapon dmg that is modified by all relevant modifiers gives enough information to see how sets, or passives or elemental dmg might effect a skill, but it does not give you the in combat equivalent.
It's a hard element of game development, but there is a point where too much information is bad. Like Flextt mentioned, there is a point were over transparency makes an argument towards homogeny. I think that since there are so many proc and trigger effects (cross class as well) a dmg range isn't really a good indication of dmg. However, %Weapon dmg is relative, so if something boosts all your dmg by another 20% (like another classes effect, or other players gems) you can make a basic assumption that all your dmg is going up. Yes, it does not effect everything the same way, but there has to be some amount of reward for experimentation, not just theorem.
.