Enemy HP bars

[Tarsus]

So I'm part way through building a custom battle script and I've been displaying HP bars and other stats over the enemy battlers to help me test it. My plan was to remove them once I've finished testing but now I quite like being able to see the HP.

What are people's thoughts on having HP and other stats visible? They are hidden by default in RM and many classic RPGs but I like being able to see them. I'm considering having it as a setting to toggle on or off.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I like seeing enemy HP as it allows me to determine exactly how much I'm hurting the enemy... As for other stats, they could be added via an extra window that the player can toggle as they would clutter the screen.

 

[Hollow]

I really love being able to see an enemy's HP bar as well as whatever states they're inflicted with. Mostly because it prevents me from doing the thing where I take a whole turn to use all of my items/mana/stamina whatever and fully heal everybody only for the boss to die the very next round.

 

[SuperMasterSword]

Personally, I like seeing how much damage I'm doing so I can be conservative with my MP. However, one person argued that they didn't like it because you would need to be a doctor or something to know precisely how much they're hurt, which I guess is a valid point. I guess it depends whether you're going for more strategy or realism.

 

[Yato]

I greatly prefer having enemy hp bars. I find it helps me determine when I should be using a powerful skill and when the enemy can be finished with a regular attack.

 

[Tarsus]

Well I'm glad it's not just me then. I'll keep the health bar visible but hide everything else.

 

[TheoAllen]

When the battle is slow paced, not putting enemy HP bar is fine

When the battle is fast paced, HP bar is important

By the slow pace I mean, the enemy hit you but it doesnt really hurt. 

Perhaps, it just 5% or maybe less, just like casual RPGs

As for fast pace, the enemy could do damage 25% or more just a single hit.

By placing enemy HP bar, you could see the enemy HP and plan what move you should take next turn.

And you can foresee when the enemy going to die.

My game, which has fast paced gameplay, when I remove the enemy HP bar,

it was look more daunting since you don't know when they going to die.

Especially for stronger encounters.

Stats is not mandatory. They're just trivia

But for someone who like to see the game details, just put enemy list / bestiary.

 

[Wavelength]

I feel that HP bars or some other visual indication of their health and status is a must.

Stats are optional, depending on whether you feel the battle system should be more about figuring out enemies' properties and patterns, or exploiting them.

 

[Tsukihime]

Rather than displaying HP Bars outright, you can change it up so that you have to do something first to be able to see it. For example, some games have it so that you need to do a "scan" like action in order to get info on the enemy, and THEN you can see the HP bars.


Other games have it so that the HP bars are only available while a skill is in effect. Once it wears off, the health bars disappear.


Naturally, there would have to be some compelling reason to actually want to see the HP bar in order to use the skill, otherwise it's just a waste of a move.

 

[Harmill]

I agree with what TheoAllen said: battle pacing is a strong factor determining how necessary a HP bar is.

Dragon Warrior/Quest was my first entry into RPGs, and so I've always had a thrill of not knowing how close I am to defeating a boss. It increased tension when you were struggling to keep yourself alive, and trying to just deal any damage you could get onto the boss and hoping it was almost dead.

However, if your battle system is designed so that party members and enemies are capable of one-shotting or two-shotting each other, and the strategy revolves around finding weaknesses, gimmicks, etc, then a health bar is a good thing. Especially for bosses. I think back to Etrian Odyssey bosses, and how much their current HP state influenced my turn-by-turn decisions.

I don't like seeing a health bar if I don't feel its necessary, though. Going back to Dragon Quest, I don't feel health bars are necessary at all, given the pacing and general strategies of its battles. It would remove much of the intensity and tension of the boss fights, and I don't think I would enjoy it as much.

So really, evaluate the strategic elements and the pacing of your own battles, and determine if seeing the enemy's HP is vital information.

 

[Milennin]

I hate not seeing enemy HP bars because it doesn't show me the effectiveness of my attacks.


When I can see enemy HP bars I can easily analyse the situation and learn from mistakes. For example if my party dies on a boss fight and I saw I got it down to 10% I know I can beat it if I play a little better. Without seeing the HP bar, the boss could still have 90% of its HP for all I know, so I have no idea if the reason I died on it was because I didn't play well enough or if my party is still too low level for it.


In my opinion it's more exciting seeing the enemy HP bar, because it's more easy to plan strategies for the battles you're playing. For example, if you're fighting a boss and you got it down to 20% HP, you can plan to blow all your mana to deal huge spike damage in order to finish it off in the next turn - and by doing so maybe avoiding the boss's mega attack that only activates when he gets on very low HP. It feels more like you're building up to a climax as you near the boss's death.


If you don't see the boss's HP bar, all you can do is just make sure your party is healthy and prepared for anything the boss can throw at you. You won't change your plan regardless of how low the boss's HP goes, since you don't know how close it is to dying.

 

[TheoAllen]

I hate not seeing enemy HP bars because it doesn't show me the effectiveness of my attacks.

Is the number from damage popup not enough?

 

[bgillisp]

Personally, I think you should have the HP bar. If you were in a real battle with someone, you would at least know if they were wounded/severely wounded/near death (and no, it does not take a doctor to tell that, just some basic knowledge and a quick glance at their injuries), so why would the player at least not know this much?

Now, granted, maybe someone could code it so that instead of an HP bar, the monster name changes color when it is 25%/50%/75% wounded, so as to give the same general indicator.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

@Theo - pop-ups are just numbers and seeing them means nothing unless you know how much total HP the enemy has. Assuming effectiveness is gauged in how much %hp is lost by the enemy. I could hit for 1,000,000 which looks big, unless the enemy has like 1,000,000,000,000,000 HP

 

[TheoAllen]

@Theo - pop-ups are just numbers and seeing them means nothing unless you know how much total HP the enemy has. Assuming effectiveness is gauged in how much %hp is lost by the enemy.

The bigger number, the more effective the attack is regardless how much the enemy HP I suppose.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I'm talking about gauging the effectiveness of the individual attack, not to compare it with others. Because of course, a 1000 damage is more effective than 500. But is the 1000 effective enough?

I could hit for 1,000,000 which looks big, unless the enemy has like 1,000,000,000,000,000 HP

It's easy to find your strongest, most effective attack. But then you'd also want to know how effective that attack is. That way you could know if you can actually beat that enemy or in how many possible turns, instead of trying so hard using your strongest attack not knowing that it hits for only 1% of the enemy HP.

 

[Tarsus]

One of things I'm considering is hiding the numbers entirely and using just a bar.

So you might hit with a basic attack, you don't know the exact numbers and mechanics that went into it, but you do know that it took off about a quarter of the bar. Having the numbers while I'm testing it is nice, but in a game I don't need to know them, just the visual % is enough.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I do prefer bars than numbers, with bars it's easy to see. With numbers, you still need to do the math...

 

[Tsukihime]

@Theo - pop-ups are just numbers and seeing them means nothing unless you know how much total HP the enemy has. Assuming effectiveness is gauged in how much %hp is lost by the enemy. I could hit for 1,000,000 which looks big, unless the enemy has like 1,000,000,000,000,000 HP

?

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

@Hime - because most games, uses a damage pop-up which shows the damage number, not the percent damage.


And somehow even if we want to see visually the % damage, we prefer seeing it on bars while also seeing the actual damage number, rather than combining the ideas and turn the pop-up into a %damage pop-up.