I hate Damage number popups

[Tavernking]

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

 

[Turisas]

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.

Your ideals are weak if they are threatened by what someone else is doing.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The only thing that matters is if you don't like them or if you were told you shouldn't like them by someone who said it was degenerate because they saw it in Borderlands or whatever.

 

[Sergio]

I like looking at big numbers on the screen. As long as there's no clutter, it's fine. But it's just my thing.

If you don't want them in your game then just don't add them, I don't think many people (or anyone at all honestly) will actually complain.

 

[Falksi]

I fucking hate the bastard things. They feel insulting.

I'm perfectly capable of deducing the damage from looking at my characters health bar and/or combat log. Having big fucking stupid numbers jump all over what is supposed to be an immersive experience is just so fucking retarded.

It's your game, do what you feel's right, but I'm happy to see a developer buck this rather brain-dead trend. So long as the player can keep track of/get a feel for damage somehow, that's all that matters.

 

[Fargus]

I don't need it in trad rpgs and in more actiony games it's flat out immersion breaking. One of the first things i do in Bloodlines is to turn that retarded shit off. And yet some people like to add this garbage to moddable games like Skyrim, FNV and others.

 

[Iucounu]

NPC health bars are almost as bad. The proper way to do it is to change the apperance of the NPC: make his armor look damaged, show bleeding, limping, dismembered limbs (all this requires more work, of course).

Damage numbers and health bars are also signs of annoying bullet sponge mechanics; if NPCs were not bullet sponges there would be less "need" for damage numbers and health bars, since the NPC would die much quicker.

 

[The people of Duckburg]

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. If the game doesn't let you know that your attack took 2% or 30% of the enemy's health. The game would have to be in a very specific spot where the feedback is bad, the enemies are spongy, they don't have health bars and the effectiveness of weapons isn't fully intuitive, for this to be a decent enough reason, though. But there are plenty of games where there isn't appropriate feedback to tell you how effective any given attack is, to be fair.

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. I'm playing Ultima Underworld and there have definitely been situations where I've wondered if my attack missed because the target was barely out of my reach, or if it was just a miss. That's the sort of thing you'd logically know, because realistically you should notice if your swing was short or if the enemy parried/moved. In those cases it's more immersion breaking to have your sword clearly go through the enemy but not do anything without you knowing why, than it is to have the game inform you that the enemy evaded it. But again, there are other ways to provide this kind of feedback. Number popups is arguably the lowest effort solution, which I'm guessing is one of the main reasons why it's so commonly used.

What about a combat log? Do you dislike those? They fill pretty much the exact same purpose, but in visually different ways, and with the difference that a combat log allows you to see results that occurred more than a second ago.

 

[Ol' Willy]

They are of course necessary

The damage pop-up will show you how much damage the given attack made

Then, the combat log shows you the detailed information, including things like damage reduction and rolls

Colony Ship does it right, the game is open under the hood and shows you why and how things happen

Fallout then doesn't give you this information, the formulas are hidden from the player

A good CRPG should have robust systems, and hiding them from the player is not something that should be done

 

[JarlFrank]

Damage popups are fucking shit, just have a combat log that shows the damage numbers in a nice little corner of the screen instead of right in the middle of the world.
A good combat log makes intrusive pop-ups right in the middle of the gameworld unnecessary.

 

[Tavernking]

What about a combat log? Do you dislike those? They fill pretty much the exact same purpose, but in visually different ways, and with the difference that a combat log allows you to see results that occurred more than a second ago.

Fallout 1+2 had a combat log, so yeah I've got one too. All the damage numbers are in there

 

[Fedora Master]

Damage numbers?

 

[PlanHex]

WHACK and POW appearing above the character's heads

You should do that instead, with larger fonts depending on damage done.
Yes, even if you're making a realistic medieval sword fighting game where it's horribly inappropriate.

 

[0sacred]

Aethra Chronicles had descriptive text ("you deal a staggering blow").

 

[The people of Duckburg]

What about a combat log? Do you dislike those? They fill pretty much the exact same purpose, but in visually different ways, and with the difference that a combat log allows you to see results that occurred more than a second ago.

Fallout 1+2 had a combat log, so yeah I've got one too. All the damage numbers are in there

So it's only the aesthetic aspect you object to, not the feedback. I don't share quite the strong negative reaction to number popups as some others in the thread, but I wouldn't say that I like them either. Games with them tend to have spongy enemies with poor other feedback, so it's more that I dislike that kind of design than the popups themselves.

What about action games? In turn based games like Fallout it's easy to have combat logs, but you don't see them in action games very often, since you would need to move your focus away from the action to read them. Are you more lenient on number popups in those games?

 

[MpuMngwana]

My design philosophy is that if Fallout 1+2 didn't do it, then it's not necessary.

Your design philosophy is cargo cultism and you will never produce anything more than adequate.

 

[Dark Souls II]

It looks ridiculous, especially if it's a FPP game. Something like Soyberpunk 2077 or Asoyed. Pure trash. It's not so off-putting and immersion breaking in an isometric view, but it's still not needed. A small window describing combat info, like in Infinity Engine games, is always a superior option to cluttering useless stuff at the centre of the screen.

Of course the damage popups are not for information or to give you any actual feedback, it's to give the player a small dopamine hit and keep the ADHD zoomer audience focused. But while it works in games like Path of Achra or Halls of Torment (games that follow the design philosophy of slot machines and are entirely build around number popups), it's just annoying in normal RPGs.

 

[octavius]

One thing I really liked about Might&Magic 3-5 was that you could tell how much damage you did by the size of the blood splatters.

 

[Eisen]

I guess you people HATE this in Belzebub(Diablo)

 

[Serus]

Too few games if any tries to make damage/injuries based on something else than numbers. Make damage actual wounds - very small damage = doesn't count, medium damage = you got a wound on a given part of body = you move or attack slower, heavy damage = previous one + you can bleed to death in a few turns, critical damage = you may die instantly or lose a leg/hand or dick.
In other words i want more games where wounds are not just abstraction made of numbers but actual effects on the character.

 

[Serus]

I guess you people HATE this in Belzebub(Diablo)

Can it be turned off at least?

 

[Orange Clock]

Make it a toggleable option in Interface settings, just like it’s in all modern games nowadays (yet players still butthurt about it for some reason)

 

[JarlFrank]

WHACK and POW appearing above the character's heads

You should do that instead, with larger fonts depending on damage done.
Yes, even if you're making a realistic medieval sword fighting game where it's horribly inappropriate.

 

[Ryzer]

I don't need it in trad rpgs and in more actiony games it's flat out immersion breaking. One of the first things i do in Bloodlines is to turn that retarded shit off. And yet some people like to add this garbage to moddable games like Skyrim, FNV and others.

Yeah it immediately kills the immersion because it reminds you that it's a video game machine thingy with numbers under the hood.

 

[Kruyurk]

Too few games if any tries to make damage/injuries based on something else than numbers. Make damage actual wounds - very small damage = doesn't count, medium damage = you got a wound on a given part of body = you move or attack slower, heavy damage = previous one + you can bleed to death in a few turns, critical damage = you may die instantly or lose a leg/hand or dick.
In other words i want more games where wounds are not just abstraction made of numbers but actual effects on the character.

Kenshi does that, bodies have several health bars for different body parts, and damage can be blunt or with bleeding. A damaged arm prevents using weapons, damaged legs make characters limp or crawl, limbs can be cut-off, damage to the head make people fall unconscious, etc.
RimWorld also has similar systems.
Both games are real-time and it make combats feel chaotic in a good way. Some people fall unconscious on both sides, someone starts bleeding to death and you try to take him to safety while others keep on fighting, etc. I would love a system like that in a party-based game with physics-based combat like in Exanima.