Dev Discussion #40 - Enemy Indicators

I believe that at the end of the day it doesn't matter very much, unless the enemy designs of Ashes are going to be mostly based on 'this one can't be beaten because it does much more damage'.

Mobs show their level relative to you, to some extent, by the color of their name, and then their 'expected party size' somewhat by the SIZE of their name (this seemed to be happening in Alpha-1 but also turned out to perhaps be a bug? Bring it back! lol) or some symbol.

It's definitely more interesting to not know the exact level, but the 'slight pink, red, deep red' seen in Alpha-1 was working really well for me personally. Obviously being an FFXI player I'll also take some nice detailed stat-check messages. If unfamiliar, an example.

"The Goblin Enchanter seems Incredibly Tough, it seems to have High Defense."

That 'high Defense' was a quick-check of the mob's defense stat vs your attack stat. You could buff your attack, and then check again, to see if it was now 'no message' (indicating even) and therefore you might be able to take it, or still 'High Defense' which was usually an indicator of enemy type, OR that they were really high above you. It would also report their evasion rating, and usually, this was sufficient, though I'd love something like 'it seems especially resilient' or something to indicate an Elite with high HP, in case you missed the name or saw a name and weren't sure and wanted to check that it wasn't an Elite.

I don't care for BDO's knowledge system (particularly the part where just gaining 'knowledge' makes the mob easier to fight somehow), it's just a gate that doesn't seem to add much and stacks RNG on top of that.

Unlike usual, I'm not speaking for my group here, so you might see multiple quotes or similar feedback from them.

Enemy Informational Indicators

If I had to choose between your three explanations 'old school' is closest to what I prefer but I have several tweaks and critique about the design approach in question.

1. Hiding information from players about bosses has a threshold where it makes people go to a wiki, or worse, rely on external information that may bias their first encounter. The more systems and instances you have in a game that lead to 'failure that could have been prevented if you looked something up before hand' the more dependent on external wiki's and tools a player base will become. This in my opinion is bad and flawed user design that kills all the work of creating immersion and increases the culture of a player base towards a lack of experimentation and instead encourages optimization approaches. I believe this is a key factor in overall cultural toxicity. There will always be people who go to a wiki first. But it really should be a last resort for the majority of people who just want to play the game and be immersed.

2. Health of the enemy for enemies that are not a world boss should be shown as a general percentage for all other enemies. I would even argue this is a good thing in PvP but for separate reasons. For enemy's however knowing when a rage state change will occur is a good tactical indicator that can cut down on a lot of frustration and encourage teamwork coordination efforts. Note that I do not think you should get specific numbers. Just enough to work with to gauge your strategy and approach to the enemy.

3. Some indicator of enemy difficulty relative to your own stats/gear. The color system was optimal in the Alpha in my experience. If you don't have the ability to tell what enemy's would be appropriate to fight ahead of time, you make going to a wiki as habit more attractive. Especially since players can tame mobs to kill other players to avoid corruption. So being able to have a good learned awareness completely in game of the range and relative strength of mobs is going to be even more important than in a PvE only game.

4. Some indicator for enemy type is optimal. Preferably this is done in a more nuanced way like 'being able to determine the enemy's defense is it's highest stat relative to your attack' via a 'check of enemy strength'.

5. Consistent gear and silhouette design on enemy's to make determining class easy enough on contact. Lived experience at lower level should teach you 'nonhumanoid' creature's different classes, but humanoids will need far clearer markers via gear. (You already intend to do this and I think this is a good design goal.) However a symbol on a name plate could be plenty fine.

6. Things like an enemy's mana, tp, etc can stay hidden and as part of the 'learned experience'. Having those hidden encourages players to build responsive and tactical skills over time so that when content increases in difficulty they have basic skills they can approach a situation with. By contrast health and strength of enemy do not really teach you much in terms of technical skill. They tell you 'how much resources you might need' and 'at what point in the fight will this enemy radically switch behavior' and not much else.

Intended Audience Indicators

Similarly if you are going to be dividing enemies such that they have 'intended audiences' you should probably have a way for players to know that from the ui. Either by having it as part of the enemy's name plate, or by having it be detectable by checking the enemy. Or both. More is better in this case.

However, like some users said above, if enemies are divided by 'intended audience' solely based on enemy damage output and bolstered health, it's probably not as heavy a loss if you don't have more specific indicators beyond the + signs used in the Alpha.

Azherae wrote: »

Mobs show their level relative to you, to some extent, by the color of their name, and then their 'expected party size' somewhat by the SIZE of their name (this seemed to be happening in Alpha-1 but also turned out to perhaps be a bug? Bring it back! lol) or some symbol.

It's definitely more interesting to not know the exact level, but the 'slight pink, red, deep red' seen in Alpha-1 was working really well for me personally. Obviously being an FFXI player I'll also take some nice detailed stat-check messages. If unfamiliar, an example.

"The Goblin Enchanter seems Incredibly Tough, it seems to have High Defense."

That 'high Defense' was a quick-check of the mob's defense stat vs your attack stat. You could buff your attack, and then check again, to see if it was now 'no message' (indicating even) and therefore you might be able to take it, or still 'High Defense' which was usually an indicator of enemy type, OR that they were really high above you. It would also report their evasion rating, and usually, this was sufficient, though I'd love something like 'it seems especially resilient' or something to indicate an Elite with high HP, in case you missed the name or saw a name and weren't sure and wanted to check that it wasn't an Elite.

I have a similar perspective.

For me, a lot of the fun of an exploration and combat-heavy RPG is not knowing for sure whether you'll be able to take on any given enemy, and needing to experiment and take risks to work out what you can handle.

However, it's still probably good to give players at least a general idea of where they stand relative to a given enemy. Some guesswork and uncertainty are interesting, but having no idea at all the strength of a monster might be frustrating in practice.

I think that the color-coded enemy names in Alpha 1 were an effective and simple way to quickly communicate the approximate strength of an enemy, without giving away too much information. I also like the idea of bosses designed for a group having their names in a different typographic style, perhaps with larger, bolder letters.

Icons next to the name could also be used to give more specific information about relative defense and evasion, similar to the stat-check messages in FFXI that Azherae mentioned. Displaying general information about relative level as an icon, in addition to changing the color of the monster's name, would also be make sure that color-blind players aren't at a disadvantage.

I think a combination of colors and icons (e.g. "🔰 Harmless Butterfly " versus "💀🔺 Skullcrusher Behemoth ") would communicate relevant information quickly and simply, while avoiding accessibility problems, and not giving away too much about the precise strength of an enemy.