Help to balance weapons

[Countyoungblood]

@Countyoungblood I’m not sure why you think I called your advice poop, sorry if I offended you. I do think they are balanced tho. The heavy weapons are slow and strong, light weapons quick, etc. Maybe I didn’t articulate my meaning well enough, that’s my bad.

And as for your challenge, I’m fairly certain I’ve beat all three DS games hundreds of times over with almost every weapon in the game, so in my experience they are all viable. Sure, some are much weaker than others, but can still be used to beat any boss in the game. I’m sure anyone who’s played the series knows it possible to do Lv 1 runs with even a caestus and still win fairly easily once you learn how the bosses move

Its all good, let me know when you finish squeezing out your game so i can avoid getting any on my shoes.

Someone who has managed to beat all of the dark souls games hundreds of times often with inferior weapons must have quite a bit of free time. Cool beans good job.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

Its all good, let me know when you finish squeezing out your game so i can avoid getting any on my shoes.

Someone who has managed to beat all of the dark souls games hundreds of times often with inferior weapons must have quite a bit of free time. Cool beans good job.

Lol, thanks, I think

 

[Hercanic]

@Tai_MT @Titanhex
You were both right and wrong on certain points.

To back up Titanhex, negative item stats generally feel worse than strictly positive-slated design. Psychologically, this is called Loss Aversion, and some studies found losses to be twice as powerful as gains.

To back up Tai_MT, so what? If it doesn't work for your particular game, that's fine, don't use it. Many experts are telling you what they found worked for their particular project, or what they found among their particular sample group. That doesn't mean their findings are applicable to every possible project for all time. Different target demographics, different expectations, different player capabilities. As such, you cannot conclude the value of negative stats from Loss Aversion alone.

Have you played Path of Exile? Their Unique items have a fascinating lenticular design. Unlike Magic or Rare items, which have random affixes, Uniques have pre-designed affixes. They also usually have one or more downsides. Sometimes this is just to increase their opportunity cost, so the player is required to invest a little further somewhere to even out the deficit the item creates. Sometimes the downside can effectively be ignored by your particular build. Where it gets wild, though, is when you can turn apparent negatives into something positive.

Take Ahn's Heritage, for example. It is a shield with a downside of "-1 to maximum Endurance Charges." By default, characters can have up to 3 Endurance Charges, so this shield drops that down to 2. Endurance Charges increase your character's defenses, but only last 10 seconds and must be generated with certain skills or items to maintain the buff. If your build doesn't naturally focus on Endurance Charges, you probably won't bother generating them because they don't last very long. For those builds, they can ignore the shield's penalty. However, the shield also has two conditional buffs that rely on Endurance Charges:

"+3% to all maximum Resistances while you have no Endurance Charges"

"You have Onslaught while at maximum Endurance Charges"

The +3% is, despite how it looks, extremely powerful. Builds that ignore Endurance Charges will have this buff all the time.

Onslaught is a buff that grants 20% increased attack, cast, and movement speed. This is also very powerful. Builds that use Endurance Charges will enjoy this buff, and whenever their charges are down they get the resistance bonus instead. (You can also intentially expend all your charges with a skill like Discharge, allowing you to gain that resist buff on demand if needed.)

Now, take a look at another Unique item, Fragility. It is a jewel that you can socket multiples of into your passive skill tree. It grants "-1 to maximum Endurance Charges." It gives nothing else in return. Wait, what? That sounds terrible! Who'd ever use that...

If you equip two Fragilities with Ahn's Heritage, together they give you -3 to maximum Endurance Charges. That means 0 is your max. By having 0, you get the +3% resists, and by being at max (0) you get Onslaught. By sacrificing all Endurance Charges and two jewel slots, you can have both powerful buffs from the shield permanently. A negative turned into a positive.

What looked like only a cost to a novice player is actually a boon to an experienced player, all without the novice ever realizing. That is lenticular design. That is one way negative stats can have more value.

----------

So in order to balance my own game, I created 24 different weapons and give them their own stat modifiers based on weapon class and type.

Welp that's a mistake.

Decision fatigue is a real thing. The idea of having many weapons might sound fun and exciting for you, but it could be overwhelming and unnecessary for your player.

To back up Hextitan, decision fatigue is certainly something to watch out for.

To back up Tai_MT, context matters. Imagine if I sat someone down to an RPG and asked them to build a character. It's a max level character with nothing allocated and nothing equipped. The person can choose between every possible class, skill, stat, armor, weapon, etc in the entire game. Do you think the average person would go over every choice with careful consideration? Or is it more likely they mentally checked out the moment they saw thousands of choices spread out before them? Even though the choices lack context for this person, the most daunting thing is the sheer amount. Does this mean the RPG offers too many choices? I would argue no. If they had played the RPG normally they would easily make those same thousands of decisions, because they only make a few decisions at a time over the course of 60+ hours of gameplay.

What matters is how many choices you demand of the player moment-to-moment, as well as varying the types of choices. Even if the total choices are vast, if they are spread out over an equally vast playtime and interspersed with different types of decisions, working other parts of the brain while others rest like a gym workout, the moment-to-moment decisions can be kept manageable. Just what is manageable or not depends on your target demographic.

An item with negative stats is more to consider than an equivalently positive one, yes, but if it's the only decision you have to make after finding it from a battle, that's not too demanding.

On the other hand, if the player has dozens of items to look through, the weight of many small decisions adds up. This is where Path of Exile should be given credit. Unique items are the rarest of items, so you won't have to consider negative stats very often. It makes them stand out that much more as a result.

 

[Tai_MT]

@Hercanic I'm familiar with "Loss Aversion". Both as a video game player and as an amateur game dev doing this as a hobby (for fun, not for profit).

Typically, as a player, it's weighed as, "Is this negative thing worth the positive thing I'm getting?". This is where playtesting and balance usually have to come into play. I'm going to use Fallout as the example (mostly because I am familiar with the games). There is a trait called "Small Frame" in Fallout 1. It gives you +1 to Agility (Agility lets your turn order come up more frequently, it helps some skills like Small Guns which makes them more accurate, it increases your chance to dodge attacks), but it's penalty is that it severely reduces your carry weight. All characters have a carry weight of 25+(Strength Stat * 25). "Small Frame" changes this to 25+(Strength Stat * 15). A new player might typically take this because your "Stats" are basically permanent and difficult to increase. You'll have whatever you picked for the whole game. However, anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the game views it as "not worth it" because you need that carry weight through the whole game and it isn't difficult to simply increase your "Agility" stat on character creation. A player wanting to maximize the Agility stat to make use of it, isn't going to care about a single point when such a huge downside is associated with it. A character that doesn't care about maximizing the agility stat isn't going to take it either, because they don't need or want that +1 Agility. A new player, however, might take it because they could say, "Hey, I could invest 9 points into Agility, then take this to make 10 and save one of my stat points for a different one!".

That's kind of the trouble of "negative stats". You are required to playtest them in order to find ways a player would take them/deal with them. Or, include ways to mitigate those losses. Negative stats, on their own, divorced from such a system, will simply make the equipment "ignored", because nobody will want to lose something. But, this happens without context. If your warrior never uses the Magic Stat, then does it really matter if a sword they could use as well as a mage could use has a -2 to Magic? Not to the Warrior. It matters to the Mage only to lose that stat.

As for "decision fatigue", I'm still not entirely clear what that means. Every time someone has brought it up, it has simply sounded like, "overwhelming the player". Like say, the first time a player picks up an Open World Game and they might not know where to go or what to do. I find that something like that is just easily remedied by... well... giving the player objectives and goals. The same can be done within a weapon/equipment system. Usually, by just limiting design. You have a character that is this archetype judging by its initial stats, you might want to focus on increasing those stats. Their skills run on these stats and these weapons, make a choice in how to equip this character based on maximizing these. Things like that can generally be used as "guideposts" to players. You can even use "the first equipment you get" as a guidepost to what those characters should likely be doing in combat. I think you pretty much "end" the "decision fatigue" at that point, by giving the new players some objectives and goals and a sample of what they should be doing with their equipment.

Path of Exile actually does that quite well with the "washed up on the beach, go kill stuff and loot" section of its new characters. It unlocks all its content slowly for you, so that you understand how your character basically works and can make pretty good decisions through much of the game, despite being a newbie. Players usually then figure out how to "optimize" their characters by the end of that first run and make different decisions on the next character. The game itself unlocks all of its stuff slowly so the player has time to get used to the systems in play, their leveling up skill web, and the types of equipment that drop (you'll usually have at least one low level unique by the time you hit the second Act in the game as well). It's a game that caters to newbies quite well, and doesn't allow you to "optimize" a build unless you go grab a guide on your first run (I don't find this fun, but to each their own), but it really caters to veteran players who know how everything works by the end and can do it all again much better the next time through.

But, that's really all you need, just some sign posts and objectives. Things that tell the players how they're meant to be playing and then to let them make their own decisions on how best to go about that.

I think one of the more important posts in this thread... I forget who said it and I'm too lazy to look it up at 8 a.m., is that even if you go with "all positive stats", you are still going to be getting "negative stats" from equipment piece to equipment piece, provided you have different equipment types in play.

Even if you have a Short Sword that has 3 Attack, 1 Defense, and 1 Agility and swap it to a Long Sword which has 5 Attack, you are going to read swapping that weapon as "you lose 1 Defense and 1 Agility". The engine shows you that loss despite nether weapon having a "negative" stat in them. So, inherent to any RPG, the players are going to notice "negative stats", because they persist in most games. Unless you only give your players a single weapon type that can be used and it only ever increases its stats so that you never see a negative one. Beginner Sword has 3 Attack, 1 Defense, and 1 Agility while Intermediate Sword has 21 Attack, 7 Defense, and 7 Agility. That would be the only way a player wouldn't see a "negative". But, then you have to worry about things like, "Power Creep" and "the larger your stats become, the more difficult it is to provide balance and challenge".

The example you give at the end with "Path of Exile" designing the game so that you "don't run across negatives all that much" is one of the reasons I designed my weapons as "archetypes". It's the idea that you'd make the decision once. All of this type of weapon have this negative stat in this typical amount. Rare exceptions to the rules. It's also why I put a "image" in front of each piece of equipment they can pick up. So that you know what it is you've picked up and likely what it's stats are going to be as well as who can equip it. So, the player makes the decision once. "Yeah, I can deal with that loss of 5 Agility to use this weapon" and they'll keep using that kind of weapon because they've decided early on that it's the "optimal" choice. But, that's kind of the advantage of creating an "archetype" system for equipment. It helps the player make decisions quickly as well as stick to them if they want, instead of overloading their brains or inventories with all manner of different stat allocations across the same weapon type.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

@Hercanic Firstly, thanks for weighing in on the conversation. However, I'm not sure the theory of loss aversion is applicable in the case of trading positive and negative stats. It's been a long time since high school economics, so my memory of loss aversion may be skewed by time, but generally this theory applies to projected gains versus projected losses. When you are showing a player exactly what the gains/losses are going to be when they change weapons/equipment, then their is no room left for speculation. The player knows exactly what they gain and/or lose. So they can make a decision based on how they want a character to behave offensively within the game. I don't think it's so much of a question of "Will I maybe get +5 ATK and possibly lose 4 DEF by swapping weapons?" It is "I KNOW that I will gain +5 ATK and lose 4 DEF." The player either wants more attack, and is willing to sacrifice defense, or they are not. I believe the example (which is a very good one BTW) proves that a player who understands how the system works, and knows what they want to achieve with a particular character set-up, is more than prepared to sacrifice something they don't find necessary for some other thing that they do find necessary.

This is why my opinion is that players are really not going to get psychologically distressed about putting so much thought into choosing weapons that have losses associated with the gains. I especially believe this when ALL weapons in the entire system have stat losses associated with them. Also, I'm not so sure you would even consider it a loss when you break the system down completely.

For example, lets say that every character is the same across the board when it comes to their stats, i.e. ATK, Crit Chance, Evade Rate, so on and so forth. So a really large two-handed sword is going to raise ATK by 20, lower Crit chance by 3%, and lower Evade Rate by 3%; the reason is because the weapon is large and cumbersome, so a normal hit will do damage, but due to weapons size and weight, the person wielding it will move a bit slower and be less inclined to land a precision blow. So then lets say the same character can also choose to wield a short sword. Because the weapon is relatively small and lightweight, ATK will raise by 10, Crit chance will increase by 3%, and Evade Rate will increase by 3%. This is due to the wielder being able to move a bit quicker when up close to a foe, and therefore be able to land more precision strikes, but the blade is smaller so it probably would not do as much damage when do strike the foe. So based on my example, I'm not sure that the stat changes reflect true losses to the character, they more or less represent the characters physical ability to use whichever weapon they have equipped. So, given this example does anyone have an opinion on this in terms of losses versus gains?

 

[Countyoungblood]

Everything achievable with a system of both positive and negative bonuses is achievable with a system that only shows positive bonuses.

There is nothing to be gained or lost its just about perception.

We're talking about relative distance every single time. The distance between -2 and 4 is 6 so i might as well just use 6 and 0.

 

[Tai_MT]

It's too bad @Countyoungblood blocked me a while back. He would've seen that particular argument was proven wrong earlier. It's one that Titan was using, which I proved wrong and nobody tried to prove it wrong afterwards.

Let's take my Short Sword (3 Attack, 1 Defense) vs Long Sword (5 Attack, 2 Luck). In absolutely every respect, the Long Sword has it beat. It's got more stats and better stats. It's going to statistically be better in combat. It's going to win that fight no matter what. Even having an "Element" on that Short Sword isn't going to make a difference except in highly specific combat encounters. Every player is going to look at that and go, "no brainer, equip the better item". They won't even think about it. But, if you compare two different weapons of mine: Claymore (8 Attack, 4 Defense, -3 Agility, and -1 Luck) vs Falchion (10 Attack, -4 Defense, 2 Agility, 8 Luck). The Falchion clearly has the stat lead. It's got more stats. But, what about that Defense? What if you're using it on a Tank character and those 4 points are necessary to your build? What if you're using it on a Lightning Bruiser and those Agility Points are necessary instead of the Defense? Lots of ways to measure here. A single decision to be made, and it's easily made, provided the player knows what they're looking for. If they don't care, they hit "Optimize".

Furthermore, the negative adds another dynamic. Let's say you have the Claymore equipped and you want to equip the Falchion instead. Now, you have to make a decision about losing 8 points of Defense for what you're getting. How do you propose a dev do that without going negative? Give one weapon 8 points in Defense and risk balance? Negative numbers allow greater deviation amongst stats than if you simply "didn't go below zero". Because, put simply, it's much harder to have that large of a gulf in stats, without making that gulf of stats potentially game breaking or frustrating to a player. After all, you only suffer that 8 Point Defense loss by switching from this particular weapon to that particular weapon. If you went from any other weapon that didn't affect Defense and went to this one with a -4 Defense... you only lost 4 points and not 8.

My example is something that cannot be achieved if you don't have negative numbers. It just can't. If you're only using 0, it wouldn't work at all.

 

[trouble time]

Everything achievable with a system of both positive and negative bonuses is achievable with a system that only shows positive bonuses.

There is nothing to be gained or lost its just about perception.

We're talking about relative distance every single time. The distance between -2 and 4 is 6 so i might as well just use 6 and 0.

Not so because there's more than one stat in the game. For example, if theres a weapon that doubles my attack and drops my defense to 1...well it depends on the game but more often than not the double attack is probably actually better.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

Everything achievable with a system of both positive and negative bonuses is achievable with a system that only shows positive bonuses.

There is nothing to be gained or lost its just about perception.

We're talking about relative distance every single time. The distance between -2 and 4 is 6 so i might as well just use 6 and 0.

I think it's more than just perception. I think it's more than just distance between integers as well. What it sounds like you are saying is that a penalty should not be considered a penalty, one should just further increase a bonus to make it appear to the player that there is no penalty. To put it in the context of my last example, I think you are trying to say that someone could move just as nimbly around the battlefield whether they are carrying a two-handed greatsword, or a short sword, and that the one using the greatsword would be able to swing the thing all willy-nilly, just as easily as if he were swinging around the much lighter sword. Someone can correct me if I'm misinterpreting your words but, that doesn't make any sense to me.

If I'm attempting to knock down a concrete wall, I'm going to do more damage to the wall with a sledge hammer than I am with a framing hammer. I'm not going to be able to swing the sledge hammer as accurately or as swiftly as I could swing the framing hammer. How would I show a decrease of my swing speed and accuracy if I do not use negative numbers? How can I explain this circumstance to someone by only using positive integers as you have suggested?

@Countyoungblood You're way may be all well and good when you're using a weapon system that deals with fairly simple stat changes. However, I personally am trying to achieve more depth with the system I've described/defended throughout the thread. If I am misinterpreting your words, please excuse me.

 

[Countyoungblood]

What im saying is there is no practical difference outside of appearances.

The negatives still exist regardless of if they are on the sheet because the difference in power is relative regardless of how many stats are involved. This is just basic math. It doesnt matter if you clearly state penalties they exist anyway.

If i use the big sword i dont get the speed buff of the dagger.

If i use the dagger i dont get the power buff of the big sword.

You arent defending anything because these systems are fundamentally both the same.

 

[Tai_MT]

Short Sword (3 Attack, 1 Defense)
Long Sword (5 Attack, 2 Luck).
Claymore (8 Attack, 4 Defense, -3 Agility, and -1 Luck)
Falchion (10 Attack, -4 Defense, 2 Agility, 8 Luck)

If you have the Short Sword equipped and then equip the Long Sword, it's a stat change of +2 Attack, -1 Defense, and +2 Luck.
If you have the Short Sword equipped and then equip the Claymore, it's a stat change of +5 Attack, +3 Defense, -3 Agility, and -1 Luck.
If you equip the Falchion, it's a stat change of +7 Attack, -5 Defense, +2 Agility, and +8 Luck.

If you have the Longsword equipped and equip the Short Sword, it's a stat change of -2 Attack, +1 Defense, -2 Luck.
If you equip the Claymore, it's a change of +3 Attack, +4 Defense, -3 Agility, and -1 Luck.
If you equip the Falchion, it's a change of +5 Attack, -4 Defense, +2 Agility, and +6 Luck.

If you have the Claymore equipped and then equip the Short Sword, it's a stat change of -5 Attack, -3 Defense, +3 Agility, and +1 Luck.
If you equip the Long Sword it is a change of -3 Attack, -4 Defense, +3 Agility, and +1 Luck.
If you equip the Falchion, it's a change of +2 Attack, -8 Defense, +5 Agility, and +9 Luck.

If you have the Falchion equipped and then equip the Short Sword, it's a stat change of -7 Attack, +5 Defense, -2 Agility, and -8 Luck.
If you equip the Long Sword, it's a stat change of -5 Attack, +4 Defense, -2 Agility, -6 Luck.
If you equip the Claymore, it's a stat change of -2 Attack, +8 Defense, -5 Agility, and -9 Luck.

Okay, there's the puzzle pieces. Someone can do some algebra if they like. Tell me how you can accomplish these absolutely same stat differences without negative numbers. Without anything going below 0. I'm curious to see if it can even be done while retaining "balance" and not making the numbers for base equipment "too large" to force a complete rebalance of a game.

 

[trouble time]

What im saying is there is no practical difference outside of appearances.

The negatives still exist regardless of if they are on the sheet because the difference in power is relative regardless of how many stats are involved. This is just basic math. It doesnt matter if you clearly state penalties they exist anyway.

If i use the big sword i dont get the speed buff of the dagger.

If i use the dagger i dont get the power buff of the big sword.

You arent defending anything because these systems are fundamentally both the same.

Except...it is a difference, you're looking at it with only one stat, when you get into multi stat interactions. Not even getting into the fact that rather than just putting -1 AGI on one sword that's supposed to be slower, you'd have to add 1 to every other weapon to achieve the same result.

I think @Tai_MT said you've got 'em blocked, but their example is more complex than the one I used.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

What im saying is there is no practical difference outside of appearances.

The negatives still exist regardless of if they are on the sheet because the difference in power is relative regardless of how many stats are involved. This is just basic math. It doesnt matter if you clearly state penalties they exist anyway.

If i use the big sword i dont get the speed buff of the dagger.

If i use the dagger i dont get the power buff of the big sword.

You arent defending anything because these systems are fundamentally both the same.

There is a difference though. Let's just use one stat for example, Critical %. So if Weapon A is +3% Crit, Weapon B is +4% Crit, and Weapon C is -3% Crit. By your logic, instead of having Weapon C with negative stat, I should increase Weapon A to +6% Crit, Weapon B to +7% Crit, and Weapon C to +0% Crit. The second way, your example, is in no way the same as the first way. You're way has doubled the chance the player has of doing Critical DMG. I did not want to do that, I wanted to offer a slight Crit chance advantage for using Weapons A or B, and a disadvantage for Crit chance with using Weapon C.

@Countyoungblood I concede that your system and mine have negligible differences when it comes to stats that are whole numbers and/or have to do with the same stats for each weapon, it just comes down to a difference in balancing styles, I think. However, when dealing with stats that are percentages that affect more than just raw damage, or with dealing with multiple stats for the weapons, I believe this is where our our systems differ considerably.

EDIT: @Tai_MT See, that's the thing. To make all those stats into positive numbers just doesn't make sense in all types of weapon systems. The numbers become huge. What if the game is dependent on character stats to do more things than just deal with battle formulae? Then you've gone and mucked up all kind of balance issues. What if you have ATB system that relies on AGI for turn order? This way of all whole numbers would make some characters so fast when they equipped certain weapons that it would break the game and the player would just auto equip whatever weapon has highest AGI to get more turns in battle. That way of balancing weapons could work in very simple games with not a lot of extra things going on, however, I believe it begins to fall apart at some point and not be viable.

 

[Countyoungblood]

Except...it is a difference, you're looking at it with only one stat, when you get into multi stat interactions. Not even getting into the fact that rather than just putting -1 AGI on one sword that's supposed to be slower, you'd have to add 1 to every other weapon to achieve the same result.

I think @Tai_MT said you've got 'em blocked, but their example is more complex than the one I used.

Lol. That guy.

Well i dont have enough time right now but how about a game? Give me some weapon stats with both types of bonuses and il return the equivelent stats.

Ninja i want to look more carefully at your arguement before i reply to it but i want you to know im not ignoring your reply

 

[trouble time]

Well i dont have enough time right now but how about a game? Give me some weapon stats with both types of bonuses and il return the equivelent stats.

Here's one I already mentioned, but a weapon that doubles your attack but reduces your defense to 1 (without exception). A weapon that subtracts 15 agi, and its also the ONLY weapon in the game intended to reduce you're agility by that much it also gives you an extra 24 defense, and is the only weapon that increases defense while having equivalent attack to another weapon which doesn't decrease agi. We'll also assume agi has nothing to do with damage formulas in this game, only turn order.

 

[Hercanic]

Everything achievable with a system of both positive and negative bonuses is achievable with a system that only shows positive bonuses.

There is nothing to be gained or lost its just about perception.

We're talking about relative distance every single time. The distance between -2 and 4 is 6 so i might as well just use 6 and 0.

This is patently false. Read my Ahn's Heritage example above and tell me how it could work well without negative numbers.

Most items in Path of Exile do not increase your max Endurance Charges, because they are special and limited. So if Ahn's Heritage gave +0 instead of -1 it would not be the same thing. If you gave every other item that does not give Endurance Charges a +1 while leaving Ahn's Heritage at 0, it would still not be close to the same thing. You'd end up allowing players to have way more than the default 3 max charges. With slots for Head, Body, Gloves, Boots, Belt, Weapon, Offhand, Amulet, and two Rings, that's 10 slots that would all end up adding "+1 to Maximum Endurance Charges." You would have to reduce the effect of charges to account for an average of 13 charges instead of 3. Charges are visible on your character as little orbiting balls. By scaling up their amount you clutter the visual display that is meant to quickly communicate how many charges you have. You destroy the clarity of the system.

You also break the Lenticular Design I mentioned. You could never drop your max to 0 without negative numbers, because a nude character still has a base max of 3 charges. You would have to remove the base max, and change the Fragility jewels to give -6... oh wait, no negatives, meaning Fragility is deleted. So to ever have 0 max charges you would have to only wear the shield and nothing else. This is a considerable sacrifice compared to only two jewel sockets.

Oh man, and the text clutter of all items needing to display "+1 to Maximum Endurance Charges" among all their other modifiers just so one item among thousands can have 0. Implementing this single item would require all other items, systems, and skills to be changed, just to avoid negative numbers, and it still doesn't work!

I'm not sure the theory of loss aversion is applicable in the case of trading positive and negative stats. It's been a long time since high school economics, so my memory of loss aversion may be skewed by time, but generally this theory applies to projected gains versus projected losses.

You're probably thinking of Risk Aversion. Loss Aversion "is an implication of Risk Aversion," but is also distinct. It is a part of decision theory, not just economic theory.

"Humans may be hardwired to be loss averse due to asymmetric evolutionary pressure on gains and losses. For an organism operating close to the edge, the loss of a day's food could amount to death, while the gain of an extra days food could lead to increased comfort but (unless it could be costlessly stored) would not lead to a corresponding increase in life expectancy."

"Would you rather get a $5 discount, or avoid a $5 surcharge? The same change in price framed differently has a significant effect on consumer behavior."

"The study found price increases had twice the effect on customer switching, compared to price decreases."

@Hercanic I'm familiar with "Loss Aversion". Both as a video game player and as an amateur game dev doing this as a hobby (for fun, not for profit).

Typically, as a player, it's weighed as, "Is this negative thing worth the positive thing I'm getting?".

Loss Aversion is not a rational behavior. It is a feeling, a bad feeling, that's all. Some people will be more or less sensitive to it. Players can push through and view the gains and losses analytically, but even if they know it's worth it the feeling from Loss Aversion can persist like a mental hangnail.

Titanhex was correct with his premise, but the conclusion he drew from it is flawed. The value depends on your design goals. If items are intended to make the player feel good, then beware of Loss Aversion as it directly conflicts with said goal. If your goal with items is something else, such as strategy, then there is no direct conflict. If your goal is lenticular design, negatives are a great place to hide them, making that moment of discovery all the more powerful.

There is a trait called "Small Frame" in Fallout 1...

That's kind of the trouble of "negative stats".

That's a noob trap, not unique to negative stats. You get the same problem from any significant choice imbalance that otherwise presents itself as equivalent to players. Character creation can be the worst offender, since players haven't even experienced the gameplay to make any kind of informed decisions.

If your warrior never uses the Magic Stat, then does it really matter if a sword they could use as well as a mage could use has a -2 to Magic? Not to the Warrior. It matters to the Mage only to lose that stat.

Yep, I also covered that when talking about Path of Exile.

As for "decision fatigue", I'm still not entirely clear what that means. Every time someone has brought it up, it has simply sounded like, "overwhelming the player".

Decision fatigue can be an implication of being overwhelmed, but it is also distinct. If I asked you to carry a 300 pound kitchen appliance up a flight of stairs, that might be overwhelming. It's just a 10 minute job, but it's hard because the object is so big and heavy.

Now instead, hold a cup of water or an unopened can of soda in the air out in front of you and don't move. It's not heavy, it's not big. It's easy to do, right? Now keep doing that, hold it there for as long as possible. How long can you go before you have to put it down?

It starts to get harder, painful even. Your muscles are fatiguing from doing the same task, even though it should be easy. That's because energy is finite. Your muscles burn glucose to function, and it takes time for blood cells to travel and restock their supply.

To make decisions, the brain also burns glucose. It might not be doing advanced calculus or quantum physics, but it still gets tired all the same and needs a rest to restock. That's decision fatigue. Burnout.

There is a way to remedy this without putting the "cup" down: Down time. What if you were allowed to move the cup when holding it? Instead of out in front, you held it out to your side? What if you could change hands? By alternating muscles, you give one set time to rest while the other does work.

By giving players different tasks, such as going from combat to exploration to dialogue, you work different neural pathways, giving the ones that were just used a break. If you keep making demands on the same pathway, such as with frequency or quantity of small decisions of the same type, or strain it with big kitchen appliances, you will mentally fatigue the player.

If a positive-stat item is a cup of water, a positive/negative-stat item is a jug of water. It's just that much more to think about, because you're involving less common math in the mental calculations. It takes more effort to solve (2 + -1) than it does (1 + 1) or (2 - 1), simply because of familiarity.

even if you go with "all positive stats", you are still going to be getting "negative stats" from equipment piece to equipment piece, provided you have different equipment types in play.

Presentation and mental effort are not non-factors in their effects on the player. You overlook these if you only concern yourself with equating end results.

The item comparison window in RPG Maker, seen when equipping or buying items, is a mixed bag. On one hand, it stimulates loss aversion with bright red negatives, but on the other hand it reduces mental fatigue by doing some of the calculations for you (you still have to weigh importance). This is a lesser "evil" than negatives built into items, because you're only dealing with opportunity costs, not both item negatives and opportunity costs stacked together. Looking at the item outside of the comparison window also does not bring attention to any negatives, so when you first get a drop from a monster and admire its description, your good feeling won't be dampened so soon.

 

[Countyoungblood]

Here's one I already mentioned, but a weapon that doubles your attack but reduces your defense to 1 (without exception). A weapon that subtracts 15 agi, and its also the ONLY weapon in the game intended to reduce you're agility by that much it also gives you an extra 24 defense, and is the only weapon that increases defense while having equivalent attack to another weapon which doesn't decrease agi. We'll also assume agi has nothing to do with damage formulas in this game, only turn order.

Well you got me here. Special cases that move outside of normal equipment effects cant be rendered by a strictly positive bonus system.

But i suppose a special item would make sense to be special in its effects.

 

[Tai_MT]

Loss Aversion is not a rational behavior. It is a feeling, a bad feeling, that's all. Some people will be more or less sensitive to it. Players can push through and view the gains and losses analytically, but even if they know it's worth it the feeling from Loss Aversion can persist like a mental hangnail.

I don't think I've experienced that since I was roughly 12 or so and was still playing the more simple RPGs. I remember thinking at one point, "I'm not equipping anything new unless it raises every single one of my stats, I'm not taking a single negative!".

I'm not sure if an argument could be made that people "grow out" of that sort of behavior or not. I have only my own personal experience to draw from on the subject. But, it might be worth exploring.

Perhaps the "Loss Aversion" type stuff really only lends itself well to "My First RPG" or RPGs that cater to a younger audience? I have no idea, just guessing here.

I only know that there are a slew of games out there on the market that don't bother with the "Loss Aversion" stuff and instead make a lot of tactical games and tactical RPGs. I know that I grew up into loving such games like 20 years ago or so.

But, that's just my own personal experience coupled with some assumptions thrown in. Someone more educated in the matter could likely expand on it and tell me if there's any merit to mine line of thinking or not.

Titanhex was correct with his premise, but the conclusion he drew from it is flawed. The value depends on your design goals. If items are intended to make the player feel good, then beware of Loss Aversion as it directly conflicts with said goal. If your goal with items is something else, such as strategy, then there is no direct conflict. If your goal is lenticular design, negatives are a great place to hide them, making that moment of discovery all the more powerful.

I think I tried making that point to him several times. I didn't really agree with his, "if you have negative stats at all, everyone will feel bad when they play your game! Just make everything positive!". Conversation spiraled after that.

I can agree that depending on the system you use, losing a stat can feel terrible. I just don't agree that it's a "huge deal". Especially if it's geared towards a more tactical game. If it's a simple, "mash attack to win" or "cast best spell to win", then I understand the point of it feeling bad to the player. They're there to turn enemies into chunky salsa. They want their power fantasy. I understand that. It makes sense. I want my power fantasy too! I just want to feel like I figured out how to get it instead of the game design giving it to me. Just a difference in what people enjoy. Not that I couldn't enjoy the simple RPG where I mash "attack" to win or slaughter hundreds in a single hit (I do so love playing Warframe), but in general my own personal tastes don't run that way.

So, I don't think about game design from the perspective of designing a game I feel wouldn't personally be fun for me. Not to say I can't see it, but I'm always struck with the urge of, "It could be better than that!".

That's a noob trap, not unique to negative stats. You get the same problem from any significant choice imbalance that otherwise presents itself as equivalent to players. Character creation can be the worst offender, since players haven't even experienced the gameplay to make any kind of informed decisions.

Lots of games have these "noob traps". I find them to be "bad design" in general. I don't like giving my players a middle finger. But, that's just me. I get why they exist. But, Fallout games do generally have some "negative stats" when you pick up bigger and more unwieldy guns. You can lose speed, turn order, accuracy, other things for the price of a lot of damage. You can later take perks or put points into stats to make those negatives less if you want, but it's a conscious decision to do so.

Decision fatigue can be an implication of being overwhelmed, but it is also distinct. If I asked you to carry a 300 pound kitchen appliance up a flight of stairs, that might be overwhelming. It's just a 10 minute job, but it's hard because the object is so big and heavy.

Now instead, hold a cup of water or an unopened can of soda in the air out in front of you and don't move. It's not heavy, it's not big. It's easy to do, right? Now keep doing that, hold it there for as long as possible. How long can you go before you have to put it down?

It starts to get harder, painful even. Your muscles are fatiguing from doing the same task, even though it should be easy. That's because energy is finite. Your muscles burn glucose to function, and it takes time for blood cells to travel and restock their supply.

To make decisions, the brain also burns glucose. It might not be doing advanced calculus or quantum physics, but it still gets tired all the same and needs a rest to restock. That's decision fatigue. Burnout.

There is a way to remedy this without putting the "cup" down: Down time. What if you were allowed to move the cup when holding it? Instead of out in front, you held it out to your side? What if you could change hands? By alternating muscles, you give one set time to rest while the other does work.

By giving players different tasks, such as going from combat to exploration to dialogue, you work different neural pathways, giving the ones that were just used a break. If you keep making demands on the same pathway, such as with frequency or quantity of small decisions of the same type, or strain it with big kitchen appliances, you will mentally fatigue the player.

Makes sense. But, I don't think I've played a game with "decision fatigue" since Final Fantasy 7 and it's Materia System. Or maybe Final Fantasy 8 with it's "Junction" system.

Many games these days just don't have enough decisions for a player to make in order to fatigue them. It is very much "make a decision once and move on". You play Skyrim and usually know what kind of weapons you want to use. I picked up a Claymore, never used anything except that. My friend went with a Shield and a Mace, never changed. We do the same with magic. It's very much a "one time decision".

If a positive-stat item is a cup of water, a positive/negative-stat item is a jug of water. It's just that much more to think about, because you're involving less common math in the mental calculations. It takes more effort to solve (2 + -1) than it does (1 + 1) or (2 - 1), simply because of familiarity.

I'm going to disagree here simply for the fact that the player rarely ever does the "calculation" themselves in an RPG. They hover over something and it just tells them how their stats will change. In a tabletop this assessment makes sense, but I don't think it applies to playing video games in the last 20 years or so. Most interfaces are designed to show you exactly how much you're losing, even if they don't show you raw numbers or even the base numbers on the equipment you just got. It's to the point that a player will get a new piece of equipment, open the menu, look for it, see if they can equip it, if they can, compare its stats to what they have equipped, and make the very simple decision based on their own preferences. Even in games like Path of Exile or Diablo 3, this is typically what happens. Players will typically automatically equip the highest "rarity" item they can and only stop to check it, if it's similar rarity to what they have equipped. Or, if they check everything, they just do a simple comparison to their existing stats to see what will go up and what will go down.

No calculation takes place on the part of the player.

So, really, they're both a cup of water held out. One cup is just has a little more personal history behind it, and the players won't see that history because they don't get to look under the hood of the game to see it.

@trouble time

If you like, you could post him my problem without quoting it, so he thinks its yours and ask him to solve it. I'd be curious how he'd solve it

And yeah, he blocked me, he can't read anything I write. ^_^ So, if you want him to reply to something I've said, or want to tell him that I already covered it or whatever, just post it yourself without quoting me. He'll read it if he thinks it's from anyone but me.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

@Hercanic I see your point on the risk aversion versus loss aversion, thanks for that. Lots of your points in that last post make sense BTW.

 

[Titanhex]

I have no intentions of reading or arguing with Tai_MT. I don't have the time or energy to deal with someone who likes to argue for the sake of arguing and argues in such a fashion where the only thing he's doing is trying to wear down the person he's arguing with, and then when they don't wish to put in the time and effort to explain something to him, declares he has won the argument.

A few points. Any designer worth his salt knows that the mechanics that may have made one game awful, could very well be the same mechanics that brought another game overwhelming success.
My argument wasn't against the viability of negative numbers, but rather against negative numbers in the context that Tai was using them.
That is, there was no context to use them. His argument for them was that he was too lazy to play with the numbers. That, or sunken cost fallacy.
His argument was that he had put himself into a situation where he couldn't change the numbers because it was already part of his system. Not that it was a good system. There's little benefit to just having negative numbers for the sake of negative numbers. You could simply remove the penalty and reduce the positive numbers if you wanted balance. The game would not suffer for it.
The difference between PoE and his system is that PoE turns negatives into positives, and thus strategy to combine items that benefit the character's build.
Tai's negatives are penalties for the sake of having negative numbers. Why? Because some archaic game 20 years ago did it and through the lens of nostalgia, that must mean it's good.
Throwing a penalty onto a weapon because it makes the weapon seem more "real" is freshman, still-in-college game design stuff. There is a big difference between "realism" and immersion when it comes to game design. Only rookies mix up the two.
There are games where taking a loss is a strategic part of the design. But it's built into the other systems of the game, as well as the narrative. Darkest Dungeons, for example. But I detected none of that in Tai's own design.
Also, stop offering exceptions to the rule to try to disprove the rule. That's not how exceptions work.

Nothing is in absolutes when you work with design. And if it seems absolute, it can be subverted. Game design is malleable.

I quickly got tired of trying to break through from the gravity field where Tai tried to twist all my arguments as though my platform was in absolutes. Also got seriously tired of watching him dissect every word and barf out a 30 page entry about it, instead of summarize his point. I wasn't going to read that, and I still refuse to read it. Summarize your point, or stop wasting my time.

As for my sources, this isn't an APA Paper. I'm done with college. You're not my professor, and I'm not your teacher. You're not paying me to enlighten you. Plus, I already mentioned some sources in my first or second reply. I don't have time to write out text from my textbooks and go back and link every article I have read just for one person to try and offer some rebuttal as to why people with 40 years of experience are wrong and he's right. You're not worth the time.

Also, @Hercanic Thank you for clarifying and going into further detail. This whole argument was too frustrating and bothersome for me to do it. Your view and understanding seems to align with what I've read from experts.

But I promise, Tai isn't interested in learning or understanding game design. As he said, he's a hobbyist who thinks his hobbyist understanding is enlightened. That can be seen through his replies and arguments. I suggest avoiding bashing your head against that wall.