How large is considered to be "Too large" when it comes to numbers?

[TheoAllen]

I don't feel they're psychologically meaningless. Back when I was playing WoW's Warlords of Draenor expansion, I had a Death Knight fully decked out (as in there wasn't much left for me to do in the game). However, I did NOT avoid combat as much as possible. My Obliterates averaged ~95k damage, so sometimes I would see it go for 100k due to dmg variance. I pretty much lived for those moments. I would PvP all day long just to see that 100,000 number. That extra 5k definitely didn't shave off an extra hit required to kill the target. But the difference between seeing 99,999 and >100,000 was huge psychologically. No matter how often it happened, I never got tired of it. It was pretty much the only reason I logged onto that character, just so I can hit something and see "100,000". Sure, it might be meaningless practically, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who experienced the psychological effects of those big numbers. I'm a pretty math-oriented guy as well, so I was keenly aware that extra 5k damage wasn't really doing anything when player HP was like half a million (literally 1%).

Bigger numbers are braggings right. Especially in MMO type of games in which you wouldn't solo the boss raid. Your allies are dealing with four and five-digit damage, and you nuke the boss with six-digit damage. You barely scratch the surface of the boss hp overall but it still feels good.

Now replace that multiplayer online game with offline games. Would you still think the same?

 

[Frostorm]

Bigger numbers are braggings right. Especially in MMO type of games in which you wouldn't solo the boss raid. Your allies are dealing with four and five-digit damage, and you nuke the boss with six-digit damage. You barely scratch the surface of the boss hp overall but it still feels good.

Now replace that multiplayer online game with offline games. Would you still think the same?

I'm aware of the differences due to it being an MMO. @Tai_MT was specifically mentioning MMOs so I used an MMO example. But even in a single-player game, when you're on the cusp of x digits vs x+1 digits, crossing the threshold feels really good, even if it doesn't make any difference in combat.

Edit: Btw, in the example I gave, there were no bragging rights involved. I PvP by myself and sought those 100k Obliterates purely for my own satisfaction. No raids/bosses/allies involved.

 

[Tai_MT]

I don't feel they're psychologically meaningless. Back when I was playing WoW's Warlords of Draenor expansion, I had a Death Knight fully decked out (as in there wasn't much left for me to do in the game). However, I did NOT avoid combat as much as possible. My Obliterate crits averaged ~95k damage, so sometimes I would see it go for 100k due to dmg variance. I pretty much lived for those moments. I would PvP all day long just to see that 100,000 number. That extra 5k definitely didn't shave off an extra hit required to kill the target. But the difference between seeing 99,999 and >100,000 was huge psychologically. No matter how often it happened, I never got tired of it. It was pretty much the only reason I logged onto that character, just so I can hit something and see "100,000". Sure, it might be meaningless practically, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who experienced the psychological effects of those big numbers. I'm a pretty math-oriented guy as well, so I was keenly aware that extra 5k damage wasn't really doing anything when player HP could easily hit half a million (literally 1%). Top tier tanks could even hit 1 million HP, and you can bet they felt awesome going from 999,999 -> 1,000,000 HP, even though it was functionally irrelevant.

You're talking in terms of "bragging rights".

What I'm talking about in "avoiding combat" is when you go to do dungeon/raid content and players avoid fights they don't have to do. Exploits, sneaking around, kiting enemies out of the way, etcetera.

In any case, my point actually still stands. What if in that MMO the biggest damage you could attain was 10,000 instead of 100,000? Or, 1,000? You only care because it's a bragging right. The actual number itself really doesn't matter. The largeness of the number isn't psychologically meaningful at all. The context of that large number is what is psychologically meaningful. Namely, that you were pushing an extra 5K because you had "the best gear" or close to it. It represented your time and effort and you wanted to show it off.

In a singleplayer game, you likely wouldn't have done all that work for "the best gear" to begin with. It's the psychology of bragging rights which propelled you to care about the number. Not the number itself.

 

[Frostorm]

@TheoAllen @Tai_MT Ok, what's with you guys and bragging rights?

Edit: Btw, in the example I gave, there were no bragging rights involved. I PvP by myself and sought those 100k Obliterates purely for my own satisfaction. No raids/bosses/allies involved.

My post in this thread is literally the 1st and only time I've ever mentioned those 100k Obliterates. It's not even anything worth bragging about relative to some of the numbers other classes could pull. I didn't "want to show it off" because it wasn't worth showing off. Despite that, I still went out of my way to experience those 100k Obliterates. The difference between an x digit figure vs an x+1 digit figure is psychologically significant, even if that number is only a difference of 1.

In a singleplayer game, you likely wouldn't have done all that work for "the best gear" to begin with. It's the psychology of bragging rights which propelled you to care about the number. Not the number itself.

I mentioned the gear, not because it granted me that number, but to point out that I didn't have many "goals" left in the game. It was to emphasize the fact that I did not avoid combat at all costs despite having very little left to achieve in the game. It was definitely not the psychology of bragging rights which propelled me to care about the number. It was the number itself.

There were other players easily critting for a quarter million, either due to class mechanics or some other factor. In any case, 100k was nothing to brag about. I should have mentioned I was decked out in the best PvP gear, not PvE gear, which would have allowed me to hit much much harder, at the cost of being a lot squishier.

What if in that MMO the biggest damage you could attain was 10,000 instead of 100,000? Or, 1,000? You only care because it's a bragging right. The actual number itself really doesn't matter. The largeness of the number isn't psychologically meaningful at all.

Even if I were playing a game where 10,000 was considered the holy grail figure. I could be in mid-game and averaging 999 damage, but that occasional hit for 1,000 would feel great. So you see, it is psychologically meaningful. And I'm talking single-player, no bragging rights involved.

 

[CraneSoft]

Huge numbers are discouraging only for the developer since they are harder to balance. A number is only considered too large when you can break the game balance.

To a player, there is no "too large" when it comes to numbers because seeing big numbers just make you feel good/powerful in general, especially when you actually add extra digits to the damage numbers, regardless whether or not they really matter much in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Frostorm]

Huge numbers are discouraging only for the developer since they are harder to balance. A number is only considered too large when you can break the game balance.

I think if a dev really wants to use huge numbers in their game, they should 1st balance it using smaller or at least medium numbers. Then, once it's been satisfactorily fine-tuned, simply multiply those numbers by 10, 100, 1000, etc... The only time I can definitively say a number is too large is if it necessitates exponential notation (i.e. 4.2x10^69) lol. I'm still a proponent of medium numbers though, as in 2-4 digits.

 

[TheoAllen]

Even if I were playing a game where 10,000 was considered the holy grail figure. I could be in mid-game and averaging 999 damage, but that occasional hit for 1,000 would feel great. So you see, it is psychologically meaningful. And I'm talking single-player, no bragging rights involved.

Which is you're missing the point. If 1.000 feels great in the right context, then 100.000 or 1.000 doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many digits it is. Which is exactly why the larger number isn't psychologically meaningful.

 

[Tai_MT]

@TheoAllen @Tai_MT Ok, what's with you guys and bragging rights?

Because you haven't offered any other explanation for your behavior that doesn't boil down to it's base component of "for the bragging rights".

My post in this thread is literally the 1st and only time I've ever mentioned those 100k Obliterates. It's not even anything worth bragging about relative to some of the numbers other classes could pull.

Not the point at all. In fact, this completely misses the point I've been making. Also, those 100k Obliterates might be worth bragging about in terms of just your class. I have no way to know (I don't play WoW and couldn't have enough fun with it to even get to Level 10, so all I know about it is videos people have posted on it that I found entertaining).

I didn't "want to show it off" because it wasn't worth showing off. Despite that, I still went out of my way to experience those 100k Obliterates. The difference between an x digit figure vs an x+1 digit figure is psychologically significant, even if that number is only a difference of 1.

It's not psychologically significant unless the game communicates to you that it is. It is a number in a sea of numbers. Per your example about 999... the only reason you notice it is because it adds another digit. It ceases to be significant to you when you're hitting for damage in the 990-1050 range. You tune it out because it becomes "noise". The "Noise" of simple variance. The jump isn't even significant enough to matter in the scheme of things (much less several hours of doing that kind of damage)

What is actually "psychologically significant" is the jump in numbers themselves. If it takes a lot of work to do an extra 5,000 damage, especially at the very end of the game where there's nothing left to do... that makes your number psychologically significant, because of the work involved in doing so. Or the time. Or, even, if it's an MMO... bragging rights. Even if you don't directly brag, most people do things in an MMO strictly out of comparing themselves to others. That's one of the reasons systems in MMO's work the way they do (especially since most are so grindy!) and MMO systems don't work very well in singleplayer games. The "reward" for doing a task is rarely the reward the game gives you in an MMO. It is, instead, progression towards the "bragging rights", or even "bragging rights" themselves. Basic human psychological need in play. Most every human has it.

The number itself isn't psychologically significant in any way. Nor is its practical application. What makes it psychologically significant is what that number comes to represent. Status. Effort. Accomplishment.

This is why numbers mean nothing in an RPG. At least, not until you define what they're supposed to mean. Hence, 10,000,000 is no different than 10. You can deliver the same "psychological satisfaction" with either number, in the exact same way. Thus, numbers aren't psychologically significant.

I mentioned the gear, not because it granted me that number, but to point out that I didn't have many "goals" left in the game. It was to emphasize the fact that I did not avoid combat at all costs despite having very little left to achieve in the game. It was definitely not the psychology of bragging rights which propelled me to care about the number. It was the number itself.

Except you could've used any number of other examples if you truly were chasing the number for the sake of the number. You could've even used chasing early game gear as the example. But, you didn't. You used late-game gear. Here, I'll use an example from an MMO that isn't "bragging rights".

I play Guild Wars 2 (or, I used to). I played a Ranger. Very sub-optimally (I don't even know how to optimally build the class, because I just don't care). I decided to equip "Assassin" gear with Runes socketing to maximize the stats of the "Assassin" Gear. What that gear does is jack up your Critical Hit Rate. It gives a minor increase to "base damage" as well. Very minor. Not even really worth writing home about. So, I Critical Hit roughly 96% of the time. I lack the necessary gear to push this to 100% (it's locked behind content I just don't care about doing). My critical hits hit for less than most people in PvP and other content. However, I kept chasing every extra percentage point I could muster. My goal was just to land Critical Hits all the time. Why? I liked playing that way. I even had runes on that "proc" for critical hits (with cooldowns to prevent people like me from being insanly powerful). But, chased those percentage points I did. Each point was a better and better chance for each hit to crit and jack my base damage from whatever it was... to twice as much. I couldn't even tell you how much damage I was doing. Didn't matter. I was chasing the ability to land a critical hit every single hit. This was a goal that actively made me one of the worst Rangers in the game. A liability to most any team and pretty much all cooperative content.

Even after that... still chasing the bragging right. Every hit I land is a critical hit, no matter how useless that is to the game. I never talked to anyone about it, nor did anyone ever ask what my build was. But, I wanted to know every hit was a critical, and I wanted everyone I was with to see me landing crit after crit after crit. The numbers didn't matter. What mattered was the outcome.

There were other players easily critting for a quarter million, either due to class mechanics or some other factor. In any case, 100k was nothing to brag about. I should have mentioned I was decked out in the best PvP gear, not PvE gear, which would have allowed me to hit much much harder, at the cost of being a lot squishier.

So, other players you were fighting knew of your high damage. When you hit them with it, they saw the 100K. Passive Bragging Rights.

Even if I were playing a game where 10,000 was considered the holy grail figure. I could be in mid-game and averaging 999 damage, but that occasional hit for 1,000 would feel great. So you see, it is psychologically meaningful. And I'm talking single-player, no bragging rights involved.

How so? How would it feel great? What about it would feel great?

Does it feel great when every 3rd hit does 1 more damage? Taking you from 999 to 1000 damage? What about if you're seeing that single extra damage for hours on end before your next upgrade? Still feel good every time it pops? Or, only the first few times? Or, does it only matter if it's "infrequent" enough so you don't get burned out?

If it were "psychologically significant", it wouldn't matter what the circumstances around it were, or how often you were exposed to it. Seeing that 1,000 damage every single time would give you a hit of dopamine. Even after 10 hours of seeing 1,000 damage with no improvement.

Numbers aren't psychologically significant in video games because it is the symbol they become that is psychologically significant not how big the number is. Likewise, it would have the same impact on nearly every single player and not just you.

 

[Pootscooter]

Which is you're missing the point. If 1.000 feels great in the right context, then 100.000 or 1.000 doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many digits it is. Which is exactly why the larger number isn't psychologically meaningful.

Since everyone's been using vague words like "large" or "huge", we can't for sure how many digits each person is referring to. However, we CAN be sure that 100 is larger than 99 and 1000 is larger than 999 and so on. Even though these figures only differ by 1 damage (or stat or w/e), the psychological impact is significant when you increment a digit. People are just wired to be like that. It sounds like that's the point @Frostorm's post was trying to make. Even going from 9 to 10 would elicit the same feeling: "woohoo I can hit in the double digits now"

 

[Frostorm]

Sorry, I just got back from Home Depot...

Does it feel great when every 3rd hit does 1 more damage? Taking you from 999 to 1000 damage? What about if you're seeing that single extra damage for hours on end before your next upgrade?

Yes, it does, that's the point I was trying to make. I had already been seeing that 100k every 1 in 3 hits for many many hours, weeks (maybe months) in fact. However, I never got sick/bored/accustomed to it. I only mentioned my gear to point out the fact that despite having little to no goals left in-game, I didn't "avoid combat" whenever possible. It was actually the opposite. Now, I realize that's not what you meant by "avoiding combat" after you clarified in your last post, so in that sense the gear thing is moot. I also want to mention that it didn't take much effort to reach fully decked out status, in fact, I had only invested about 2 weekends worth of time into that character to get to that point. But that has more to do with how Blizzard essentially made WoW ez-mode (a trend they've been favoring ever since Cataclysm). There was definitely nothing to brag about, other DK's (in PvE gear) would be getting 150k Obliterates vs my 100k. Destruction Warlocks' Chaos Bolts could crit for 300k, just a few examples. Those 100k Obliterates felt good cuz I was on the cusp of another digit, basic Human psychology. This never got old because Blizzard actually did a good job making combat fun (this could also be due to class or just my build or a combination) which how you tell a good combat system from a bad one. The fact that those 100k Obliterates or combat in general felt novel and fun every time speaks volumes on how well the combat mechanics were designed. Not flawless, but I would've gotten bored of most other games quickly.

Except you could've used any number of other examples if you truly were chasing the number for the sake of the number. You could've even used chasing early game gear as the example. But, you didn't. You used late-game gear.

I didn't use that example because it was "bragging rights", I used it because it was a real and genuine experience I went through. Sure I could've used some other example, but that would be a fabrication or hypothetical scenario. My example was pulled from history. Apologies if my example happened to also elicit this "bragging rights" phenomenon. I did also mention it was PvP, which most WoW players would know is super easy to get end-game gear for. Not that I assumed you or any other reader was a WoW player, but that detail wasn't pertinent to the point I was trying to make, so I omitted it. The point about gear wasn't meant to have anything to do with the actual damage I dealt, again it was just mentioned to point out that I enjoyed engaging in meaningless combat despite having accomplished most of the game.

Even after that... still chasing the bragging right.

In that sense, EVERY number would be for "bragging rights" then. Doing 10 damage when most of your attacks hit for 9?...bragging rights. Me pumping exactly enough gas so the total comes out to $13.37?...bragging rights. Sorry but, that's not my definition of "bragging rights", and I doubt I'm alone on this. Your definition of bragging rights seems to be "anything achieved with a goal in mind". If you're not showing off then it's not bragging rights. You're getting it confused with self-satisfaction, which is just that, self-satisfaction. This whole bragging rights thing is beside the point and off-topic anyway. Just know that nothing in my example was worth bragging about nor was my intention to have it be about bragging rights.

Numbers aren't psychologically significant in video games because it is the symbol they become that is psychologically significant not how big the number is.

Well duh, that's what numbers are—symbols that represent value. Saying numbers aren't psychologically significant, but the thing the symbols represent are is like saying words are meaningless, but the ideas they represent aren't. People use/talk about numbers for the value they represent. That's kind of the whole point of numbers.

If it were "psychologically significant", it wouldn't matter what the circumstances around it were, or how often you were exposed to it. Seeing that 1,000 damage every single time would give you a hit of dopamine. Even after 10 hours of seeing 1,000 damage with no improvement.

Sure, I can give you examples where this is the case. Just like my example at the gas station. Every time I deal 1337 damage in a game, I can say for sure my brain is being hit with a dose of dopamine. It doesn't matter if that's crap damage or great damage. The number itself is what is psychologically significant. The same applies to various other numbers like 69, 420, and 777 (to a lesser extent). Same thing in regards to any number that increments to the next digit up. Notice how the circumstances don't matter. Even after seeing the same numbers for months like in my Obliterate example. In the case of 1337, this specific number has stood out for over a decade and it still doesn't get old.

 

[TheoAllen]

Since everyone's been using vague words like "large" or "huge", we can't for sure how many digits each person is referring to. However, we CAN be sure that 100 is larger than 99 and 1000 is larger than 999 and so on. Even though these figures only differ by 1 damage (or stat or w/e), the psychological impact is significant when you increment a digit. People are just wired to be like that. It sounds like that's the point @Frostorm's post was trying to make. Even going from 9 to 10 would elicit the same feeling: "woohoo I can hit in the double digits now"

It is basically like psychological pricing in which $99.99 seems lesser than $100.
It is already covered it Tai's post if you missed it.

This is why numbers mean nothing in an RPG. At least, not until you define what they're supposed to mean. Hence, 10,000,000 is no different than 10. You can deliver the same "psychological satisfaction" with either number, in the exact same way. Thus, numbers aren't psychologically significant.

In which the number of digit doesn't matter. So, a larger number (means more digit, whichever you defined it large, it is irrelevant) doesn't matter. Only one more digit matters in whatever the case.

 

[Frostorm]

In which the number of digit doesn't matter. So, a larger number (means more digit, whichever you defined it large, it is irrelevant) doesn't matter. Only one more digit matters in whatever the case.

Exactly, that was my point. That "one more digit" which makes the number "larger" is psychologically significant. I never said you couldn't achieve the same effect using small numbers vs large. My point was the "$99.99 vs $100" effect as you mentioned. But then the discussion went onto a weird tangent about bragging rights for some reason, I have no idea why...

When @Tai_MT said "They are also practically and psychologically meaningless to a video game player as well." in response to @Wavelength's post, I read that as him saying that numbers, including the point about 999 vs 1000, was meaningless. While I do agree it's meaningless in a practical sense, I don't agree with it being meaningless psychologically.

In fact, even the Guild Wars 2 Ranger example proves my point of the psychological significance of numbers. Whether that example counts as "bragging rights" or personal self-satisfaction is a separate matter. The fact is, he sought that 100% crit chance figure for the intrinsic value that only the number 100 held.

 

[Grunwave]

Looks like a poll might be needed.

I come from a Dungeons and Dragons background. Dragon Warrior/Quest 1 was the first RPG video game I ever played. Most early video game RPGs based themselves off of D&D mechanics. D&D used small numbers.

I noticed a trend in Eastern RPGs in the 90s where numbers kept getting bigger. I first noticed this in Final Fantasy 2/4 where damage/HP were capped at 9,999 I think the breadth going to 9,999 was needed in Final Fantasy 2/4 because of the length of the story. It was a very story-focused game.

Now it seems Eastern RPGs use the largest numbers possible.

Maybe to better answer your question: what is the point of your Actor starting with 1,000 HP ? Can you not use 100 or 10? Is this numerical inflation artificial? If it is, that takes me back to the Poll suggestion - you need to know whether people like bigger v. smaller.

If your numbers arent artificial just go with it. Those 9,999s seemed huge back then, but they served a purpose.

 

[Wavelength]

Because you haven't offered any other explanation for your behavior that doesn't boil down to it's base component of "for the bragging rights".

One or both of them (Frost and Theo) mentioned that it's psychological rather than practical. I guess to break it down a little finer, what I believe they're getting at from what they wrote - and this lines up with what I've noticed with my own behavior and behavior I've noticed watching other people play games - is that psychological feelings span far beyond just bragging rights (though this is certainly one element of it!).

Power fantasy is a huge one; a sense of accomplishment (tied in with the long-view perspective of your growth) is another; there are also a bunch of other smaller, nitty-gritty psychological effects that different numbers and scales can bring.

We have to make a distinction between Western Culture and what I'd call "Player Culture".

Players become "desensitized" to things after a few hours of gameplay. Your beautiful graphics you worked years on to make as realistic as possible? Players don't even notice them anymore after 3 hours of gameplay. It becomes "background noise" to the gameplay.

This same thing happens to Numbers. You even illustrate this point yourself with:

"I know that when one of my characters finally lands a hit that crosses the 1,000 damage mark (and to a lesser extent the 10,000 damage mark) and I get to see that 4 (or 5) digit number, it feels really, really good."

This statement here assumes you're doing damage lower than 1,000. Probably significantly so. So, when you finally do hit 1,000 damage, you feel pretty good. However, that's the context of "useless". If you started out the game doing 1,000 damage a hit, you'd feel "less good" about doing that much damage or even about doing 10,000 damage.

Both your argument and my argument are true, and I don't think yours being true fully negates mine. Despite the diminishing returns, the psychological benefits of certain numbers are still worth pursuing.

Players do get desensitized to things if they turn into a "normal" - but the feeling of seeing it for the first (and second and third and fourth) time is still a really cool feeling. I can remember buying a PS1 (late in its life cycle), popping in Final Fantasy 8 for the first time, turning it on, seeing those amazingly realistic FMV graphics that were unlike anything I'd ever seen before in a game or animation, and just being in pure, unabashed awe. Same with running around Balamb Garden. I got desensitized within a few hours, sure, but the gobsmacking impact that hit me in those first few hours is still memorable to this day, and it still colors my feelings about the game, 40 hours of play and 18 years later.

And if something is only happening occasionally (for example a 1-million hit happening just a few times a day, where your normal hit is 800-900K), there are a lot of players who that will never stop feeling cool for.

I totally agree with you that the 1,000 damage mark will feel more impactful if you started below it and less impactful if you were already there from day one, but that's a part of my original point. Scaling from, say, 30 damage to 450 damage throughout the game doesn't feel quite as good as scaling from 75 damage to 1100 damage does, even though the former is actually slightly better in terms of "hits it takes to kill an enemy" - because you broke an important psychological threshold (1000) in the latter. Player culture doesn't negate this fact.

That's because the game itself provides no functional difference between 440 and 480 damage. What players tend to gravitate towards is "killing monsters in one hit". They don't tend to worry about what the numbers say, as long as the enemies are dead in a single hit. The numbers can matter more against a "boss monster", but the concern is the reduction in amount of hits it takes to defeat the boss.

In games, Numbers are effectively meaningless. They are disconnected from the culture of reality because they exist within their own culture.

A player really only cares how many hits something dies in. Namely, if it dies in one hit. If it doesn't die in one hit, why not? Is that number significantly lower in context to what that number has been for the 20 fights? Or, has that number suddenly spiked above "normal variance" for a boss fight? Is that a critical hit? Did it just shave off one hit I needed to make against a boss?

There's definitely something to the idea of one-shotting an enemy (and I feel this is, again, psychological as much as practical - I can think of Action RPGs where you can easily get a three hits in before the enemy retaliates, yet it feels entirely different to barely defeat it with a combo versus cleanly beating it with a single slash.

When I play SAO vs. Accel World and fly around the beginner areas, every single enemy is within easy one-shot range of a single weak-attack. The game's skills are designed to do a lot more damage than the weak-attacks and strong-attacks (which you're expected to chain together). And I know that I get much more of a high when I absolutely blow up a monster with a 56,000 damage skill and watch it explode into digital bits than when I float by and whack it once for 720 and watch it explode in exactly the same way. Why? I think because it feels so unbelievable. It's power fantasy and it takes a long time before it gets old.

It's not just me, and it happens among really hardcore "gamer culture" gamers too. I played ranked League of Legends at a reasonably high level (Gold to Platinum). Most people at that level are hardcore gamers. Now, there could be a character (Xerath for example) that does roughly equal damage with each of his skills in a three-basic-skill combo, and another character (Veigar for example) that does the same amount of damage with the same number of skills - but Veigar's damage is unevenly loaded into one of those three skills (Dark Matter), which is usually the last one to hit due to its short delay. While people always whine about every champ being unfair when they get outplayed, the whining after Xerath is always the bog-standard League whining (hur hur ur no skill champ broekn, 1v1me bro), whereas the whining when people get killed by Veigar? That's something special to behold. "1084 damage. 1084 damage with one skill! OMG. Wow." The victim sees that one big number of the death recap (which didn't change the number-of-hits-to-kill or time-to-kill any more than Xerath's did), and they fixate on the fact that they took four digits of damage (or over half my HP) with a single hit. Again, it's no more effective than Xerath's more consistent damage stream is. It's entirely psychological.

While $10,000,000 is impressive to have for a US Citizen... Having 10,000,000 Gold, Zenny, Pokeyen, Gil, Col, etc isn't all that impressive... in fact, that's pretty common even by midgame in most RPG's.

You might be surprised how much better it feels (at least to some players) to have 1,000,238 Zenny than it feels to have 878,139 Zenny though.

Similarly, I remember how awesome it felt when I came across a 100,000,000,000,000 (yes, One Hundred Trillion) dollar bill from Zimbabwe in a currency shop, selling for about $20 USD. I looked it up to make sure it was real and not a joke (the picture on it was a pile of rocks!!) - and yes, it was real. Zimbabwe had experienced some severe hyperinflation which led to the printing of such banknotes. Its actual value was right around $1 USD, and I was more than happy to buy it for $20. Why? Because it felt ****ing awesome to be a trillionaire. Bragging rights, sure, but even if I wasn't allowed to tell another soul I would have loved to have that big number.

I lost that 100 Trillion dollar bill a few years later and couldn't find it. Good thing I'm RMW's moderator and not its accountant.

Summarizing my various points up a bit, I think there are a lot of small benefits to including large (or highly scaling) numbers within your game, as well as for aiming to make sure the player can get over certain breakpoints (usually named numbers like "thousand" and "million") over the course of your game. These should, of course, be weighed against the very real drawbacks of including numbers that are too large or too messy (showing eight digits when only two or three are significant).

I'm not saying that one way or the other is always better - I am saying that the decision is not unimportant. It may be meaningless in terms of winning the game (the destination), but it's meaningful to the player's experience (the journey).

 

[Tai_MT]

Okay, to start off with, I'm going to explain "psychological importance". It will clarify my reasoning some. If something is "psychologically important", it alters the way a person thinks, perceives, or behaves. If it is "Psychologically Significant", it does this on a more permanent basis. Abuse, Conditioning, Culture you're raised in, and Imbibed Chemicals (legal or otherwise) are psychologically significant.

Seeing a big number doesn't really do any of these things. It gives you a slight hit of dopamine. Same as any other minor accomplishment in your life.

Big numbers are basically "reinforcement of already existing behaviors, perceptions, and thinking".

In layman's terms... It's a pat on the head and an "attaboy".

Players tend to chase bigger numbers for the "attaboy", which is a "bragging right" at its most base value. "I'm doing good, getting a lot of attaboys, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I might even be doing it better than those not getting as many attaboys."

One need only look at websites like reddit to see how many people are chasing an absolutely meaningless "karma" score, just because it validates them more or less as people. Bigger numbers makes them feel like they're doing better than other people.

One or both of them (Frost and Theo) mentioned that it's psychological rather than practical. I guess to break it down a little finer, what I believe they're getting at from what they wrote - and this lines up with what I've noticed with my own behavior and behavior I've noticed watching other people play games - is that psychological feelings span far beyond just bragging rights (though this is certainly one element of it!).

It may have spanned beyond bragging rights, but no impression or explanation was given beyond "Bragging Rights", which is why we responded that the number was important to the person because of the bragging rights.

Likewise, if you're going to claim something is psychologically significant, you need to be able to explain how.

If a person claims a number is psychologically significant, that number has to be significant on its own and across all cultures and time (the number itself has to affect anyone who encounters it, regardless of context). It cannot be significant because of what it represents. If what it represents is actually what is important, then the number itself isn't important and is merely a vehicle for that importance. In short, the number itself doesn't matter at all, only that it represents something else. At which point, with enough training, you could have any number do that. Which, again, makes all numbers interchangeable and not psychologically significant.

Power fantasy is a huge one; a sense of accomplishment (tied in with the long-view perspective of your growth) is another; there are also a bunch of other smaller, nitty-gritty psychological effects that different numbers and scales can bring.

And the numbers are only significant in this way in the context of the game they're in. 10,000 means nothing in a game where that's your starting damage. But, if you achieve 1 billion damage when you started at 10,000, then that becomes important as a measure you're using of your accomplishment.

It is still subject to desensitization though.

Both your argument and my argument are true, and I don't think yours being true fully negates mine. Despite the diminishing returns, the psychological benefits of certain numbers are still worth pursuing.

Numbers don't really have a psychological benefit. Though, they represent things that have psychological benefits. The difference between numbers in games and numbers in the real world is that numbers in games only work based on a "relative" scale and not an "absolute" scale. The numbers in a game are only important in relation to other numbers in a game. Whereas, in real life, the numbers are important because they contribute to our survival. Having 5 apples is better than having 4 apples and does impact your life in a significant way. Whereas, having 6 potions in a game doesn't mean much in comparison to 5 potions. But, that extra potion could mean something and be important if the game is designed in such a way that those Potions are nearly as valuable as food in real life. But, if those design decisions aren't ever made, then there's little importance for the player to have 6 potions instead of 5. It isn't psychologically significant.

Players do get desensitized to things if they turn into a "normal" - but the feeling of seeing it for the first (and second and third and fourth) time is still a really cool feeling. I can remember buying a PS1 (late in its life cycle), popping in Final Fantasy 8 for the first time, turning it on, seeing those amazingly realistic FMV graphics that were unlike anything I'd ever seen before in a game or animation, and just being in pure, unabashed awe. Same with running around Balamb Garden. I got desensitized within a few hours, sure, but the gobsmacking impact that hit me in those first few hours is still memorable to this day, and it still colors my feelings about the game, 40 hours of play and 18 years later.

This is true, but it is also what renders most things "not psychologically significant". It is a one-time impact. Or, a temporary impact. It isn't like our instincts, or conditioning, or taught behaviors, etcetera. It temporarily affects our psychological state for the moment we have a hit of dopamine, but it doesn't continue to impact psychological states after a while.

I'm not going to deny it doesn't feel cool the first time, or first dozen times. But, it ceases being "psychologically significant" once it wears off. Likewise, you an achieve the same effect with any number of different scenarios.

Most notably in this instance, you've got got two things at play. "Novelty" (I don't know what it's called, but it's that thing everyone has where they are excited they have something new, and it doesn't usually matter what that new thing is, unless they absolutely didn't have an interest in it) and "Seeing something thought impossible" (again, not sure what this is called, but it's when you see something you didn't know existed or could exist for the first time. It is a sight to behold. The unbelievability of it captivates you. Or, rather, the confrontation of it and having to reassess your perceived reality to accommodate this new information, expectations, and questions).

And if something is only happening occasionally (for example a 1-million hit happening just a few times a day, where your normal hit is 800-900K), there are a lot of players who that will never stop feeling cool for.

I agree with this, except that the same effect can be granted with smaller numbers or even larger numbers. The size of the number doesn't really matter at all, except for practical purposes to the game dev (which is all I'm really arguing about and care about in this topic. Numbers are relative as well as their values in an RPG, so they're unimportant. But, the amount of time you'll spend trying to balance much larger numbers is nearly exponential than if you were balancing smaller numbers).

I'll use "Paper Mario" as the example. I haven't played any of the more recent entries, so I don't know if design is the same in those. But, hitting for 10 damage or above was very impressive. Mostly because you typically did 2-5 damage a hit on most enemies. 10 is a huge spike in damage for that game. It gave a sense of joy each time you saw that number, because you rarely ever did.

I totally agree with you that the 1,000 damage mark will feel more impactful if you started below it and less impactful if you were already there from day one, but that's a part of my original point. Scaling from, say, 30 damage to 450 damage throughout the game doesn't feel quite as good as scaling from 75 damage to 1100 damage does, even though the former is actually slightly better in terms of "hits it takes to kill an enemy" - because you broke an important psychological threshold (1000) in the latter. Player culture doesn't negate this fact.

The problem is that 1000 isn't a psychological threshold. It is only important in the context of what you're talking about. 1000 specks of dust doesn't mean much of anything to someone, nor does 1000 blades of grass. But, 1000 steaks... that's pretty significant.

Numbers really only tend to be important in terms of how well they affect our survival. 1000 hostile aliens trying to kill us is worse than 10. 1000 leaves on a tree is no different to us than 10,000.

In video games, there's no real "survival" importance for numbers, so the closest you get is "less chance to lose the game". Which, isn't anywhere near as important as real life survival.

Numbers and their size in video games, thus, has no psychological importance what-so-ever. They aren't tied to anything in a video game.

There's definitely something to the idea of one-shotting an enemy (and I feel this is, again, psychological as much as practical - I can think of Action RPGs where you can easily get a three hits in before the enemy retaliates, yet it feels entirely different to barely defeat it with a combo versus cleanly beating it with a single slash.

When I play SAO vs. Accel World and fly around the beginner areas, every single enemy is within easy one-shot range of a single weak-attack. The game's skills are designed to do a lot more damage than the weak-attacks and strong-attacks (which you're expected to chain together). And I know that I get much more of a high when I absolutely blow up a monster with a 56,000 damage skill and watch it explode into digital bits than when I float by and whack it once for 720 and watch it explode in exactly the same way. Why? I think because it feels so unbelievable. It's power fantasy and it takes a long time before it gets old.

It's not just me, and it happens among really hardcore "gamer culture" gamers too. I played ranked League of Legends at a reasonably high level (Gold to Platinum). Most people at that level are hardcore gamers. Now, there could be a character (Xerath for example) that does roughly equal damage with each of his skills in a three-basic-skill combo, and another character (Veigar for example) that does the same amount of damage with the same number of skills - but Veigar's damage is unevenly loaded into one of those three skills (Dark Matter), which is usually the last one to hit due to its short delay. While people always whine about every champ being unfair when they get outplayed, the whining after Xerath is always the bog-standard League whining (hur hur ur no skill champ broekn, 1v1me bro), whereas the whining when people get killed by Veigar? That's something special to behold. "1084 damage. 1084 damage with one skill! OMG. Wow." The victim sees that one big number of the death recap (which didn't change the number-of-hits-to-kill or time-to-kill any more than Xerath's did), and they fixate on the fact that they took four digits of damage (or over half my HP) with a single hit. Again, it's no more effective than Xerath's more consistent damage stream is. It's entirely psychological.

One-shotting enemies almost always feels good. Even in real life (if we're going to get a little morbid). It is an extension of the "power fantasy".

For your example about League, it's because of the feeling of being one-shotted that number represents rather than the the other method where it doesn't feel like being "one shotted" because the damage is distributed differently.

It's sort of a matter of perception.

It matters in this instance because the first couple hits of the combo feel "weak" while the last one, if it hits, no matter what, takes off a massive chunk of damage (which means the only hit that really matters is the last one, and it KILLS). Whereas, with the other, you have to land all the hits and they all hit for roughly equivalent damage.

Think of it like a boss monster in a singleplayer MMO suddenly dropping a nuke on the party for half their HP and killing the player outright. Feels quite a bit unfair to be hit with a nuke, right? Especially one that really isn't signposted that it's coming. Not unless you've died to it quite a few times and just expect to see it and know to dodge it ahead of time.

You might be surprised how much better it feels (at least to some players) to have 1,000,238 Zenny than it feels to have 878,139 Zenny though.

I don't think I'd be surprised that there are outliers who would feel good about that. I'd be surprised if we were talking more than 8% of gamers in a singleplayer environment.

In any case, that feeling doesn't really change their behavior or anything, and the number itself isn't really psychologically significant. it is quickly replaced by having 1,200,000 Zenny. Or 1,400,000 Zenny later. Each new, larger number, destroys the effect the old number had on the person (which means the old number wasn't psychologically significant in the first place). But, the act of obtaining more money is reinforcement of existing behaviors for such players that this feels good for.

Similarly, I remember how awesome it felt when I came across a 100,000,000,000,000 (yes, One Hundred Trillion) dollar bill from Zimbabwe in a currency shop, selling for about $20 USD. I looked it up to make sure it was real and not a joke (the picture on it was a pile of rocks!!) - and yes, it was real. Zimbabwe had experienced some severe hyperinflation which led to the printing of such banknotes. Its actual value was right around $1 USD, and I was more than happy to buy it for $20. Why? Because it felt ****ing awesome to be a trillionaire. Bragging rights, sure, but even if I wasn't allowed to tell another soul I would have loved to have that big number.

This is probably more of the "seeing something unbelievable" aspect. The number itself is only significant in that you couldn't believe such a thing even existed.

I lost that 100 Trillion dollar bill a few years later and couldn't find it. Good thing I'm RMW's moderator and not its accountant.

I'm sorry to hear that. It does sound pretty cool to have something like that laying around.

Summarizing my various points up a bit, I think there are a lot of small benefits to including large (or highly scaling) numbers within your game, as well as for aiming to make sure the player can get over certain breakpoints (usually named numbers like "thousand" and "million") over the course of your game. These should, of course, be weighed against the very real drawbacks of including numbers that are too large or too messy (showing eight digits when only two or three are significant).

No argument here. I've been saying it's all about what context your numbers serve that is important. Without the context, the numbers don't matter. A big number or a small number have zero value in a video game without that context. The act of breaking certain thresholds is important, but determining whether that threshold should be 10 damage or 1,000,000 damage doesn't matter. It's the same feeling for both, given that the dev created the proper context for those damage numbers.

I don't believe the number itself is psychologically significant on any level. They're... fairly meaningless in a video game setting. But, if you provide the proper context for those numbers, the act of attaining them is a very nice "attaboy!" for your players. Positive Reinforcement. But, if all we're talking is "positive reinforcement" for players, how big or small those numbers are really doesn't matter.

Well, unless you're a dev. Then, there are benefits and drawbacks to the way you design your game depending on the size of the numbers you use (very few benefits or drawbacks to the players involved).

I'm not saying that one way or the other is always better - I am saying that the decision is not unimportant. It may be meaningless in terms of winning the game (the destination), but it's meaningful to the player's experience (the journey).

The number size itself isn't meaningful unless you've provided the context for that number.

The decision to use large numbers or small numbers or medium numbers is really only important for the dev. It determines a lot of factors with your game design (including length of your game). However, this decision really isn't meaningful for the player. The act of increasing those numbers is meaningful to the player. Where they came from and where they are going is what is meaningful. A journey to break 20 damage when you started at 1 is just as important to a player as a journey to hit 100,000 damage when they started with 60. Those numbers only become significant because they are "the end". The goal. Until they get a new goal.

As you say, it's the journey that is important. It isn't that we're doing 1,000,000 damage that is important. It's that we started out only doing 15 damage like 80 hours ago and now we're doing 1,000,000. This doesn't make 1,000,000 important. It makes the journey from 15 to 1,000,000 important. A journey that can be repeated using pretty much any numbers you want. You could have an 80 hour journey to break 100 damage. Or 50 damage. Or, I dunno... 17 damage.

So, really, the numbers don't matter. If you want to use massively inflated numbers for spectacle, you can do so. But, in the end... they really don't matter. Not without context of getting to those really high inflated numbers.

I simply prefer using smaller numbers as I find them much easier to work with, much easier to balance with, and give me a lot of room to grow characters.

If my characters can top out at 999 of a stat and they start with 10 of it... Oh, it's going to feel pretty good to hit even 300 in that sort of system. Especially it takes a good amount of time and effort to get there.

So... no, I don't believe the numbers used are psychologically significant in any way, shape, or form. I don't believe even the numbers themselves are all that valuable on their own. 1,000,000 can mean exactly the same as 10 in video games. The only place in real life that this seems to hold true is when dealing with Currency. But, even money is worthless unless everyone agrees it means something. Without context for currency, it has zero value, just like the numbers in video games.

 

[Wavelength]

@Tai_MT We're saying a lot of the same things but there seem to be two points on which we fundamentally disagree:

1) The value of the "little hit of dopamine" from seeing something big or impressive the first time. I agree that it's not what you would call "psychologically significant" in the long-term (I only use the term "psychological benefit" to specify that it provides some sort of good feeling for a reason entirely separate from its practical use). But I feel like that "little hit of dopamine" is still worth designing around, because - well, why not? As long as the concept in question doesn't have any adverse effects (here, unnecessarily large numbers can have minor adverse effects but I think they're easy to avoid by making good UI choices), I think it's always a good idea to let the player give themselves an 'attaboy'.

2) Whether there are psychological breakpoints for numbers in our mind. I provided several examples that I believe illustrate how powerful these breakpoints (generally 100; 1,000; and 1,000,000 as the most powerful ones for Westerners) can be in our mind. You remain unconvinced and insist that these numbers can only be powerful in relativity to whatever other numbers are around them. (I do agree that relativity to other numbers throughout the game is very important too, but I feel that crossing these breakpoints provides a far greater psychological effect than similar increases that don't cross them, because these breakpoints are used by the mind as a frame of reference.) If I understand your argument correctly, you believe that 800->1000 is no more powerful than 600->800. I've given most of the good examples that I have and I feel very strongly that I'm right on this point, but if I can't convince you, that's perfectly okay. I don't think I really have any other evidence to lay out on it.

 

[Frostorm]

If a person claims a number is psychologically significant, that number has to be significant on its own and across all cultures and time (the number itself has to affect anyone who encounters it, regardless of context).

Nothing is significant across all cultures and time. Such a stipulation is just silly as it would include alien cultures and all cultures that ever existed or will exist. If someone can think of something that's universally significant across all cultures and all time, please enlighten me.

It is still subject to desensitization though.

Everything in life is potentially subject to desensitization. Saying something isn't significant due to potential desensitization is also silly. Perhaps someone with some kind of short term memory disorder would be the exception since everything they experience would feel novel.

Okay, to start off with, I'm going to explain "psychological importance". It will clarify my reasoning some. If something is "psychologically important", it alters the way a person thinks, perceives, or behaves. If it is "Psychologically Significant", it does this on a more permanent basis. Abuse, Conditioning, Culture you're raised in, and Imbibed Chemicals (legal or otherwise) are psychologically significant.

In the end, it just comes down to the fact that your definition of "psychologically significant" is different from mine. I consider anything that affects one's psychology, regardless of the method, "psychologically significant". This would be in contrast to "psychologically insignificant" as in something that does not affect one's psychology. I.e. a binary categorization. If something doesn't affect one's psychology, it is deemed "psychologically insignificant" since there's no effect and thus not worth noting/acknowledging, hence insignificant. "Psychologically significant" would be the opposite, since something that does have an effect on one's psychology would be worth looking into (assuming on the subject of psychology, of course), hence significant.

Let's also not forget the intrinsic psychological effects of certain numbers, such as 1337. This is especially prominent in gamer culture. It doesn't matter if dealing 1337 damage is a lot or a little, just seeing that number gives you that shot of dopamine.

Edit:

Without context for currency, it has zero value, just like the numbers in video games.

See, that's the thing though...context is always assumed to be included when discussing such things. It makes no sense to purposely remove the context in order to strip it of value, other than to say you can. Otherwise, what practical applications would there be for doing so?

Anyways, I think most of us agree that have really large numbers is just superfluous and totally unnecessary. It would be purely an aesthetics choice. I personally like 3 digits since that allows percentages to work while being easily comprehendible. I would then reserve 4 digits for special occasions.

 

[Tai_MT]

@Tai_MT We're saying a lot of the same things but there seem to be two points on which we fundamentally disagree:

1) The value of the "little hit of dopamine" from seeing something big or impressive the first time. I agree that it's not what you would call "psychologically significant" in the long-term (I only use the term "psychological benefit" to specify that it provides some sort of good feeling for a reason entirely separate from its practical use). But I feel like that "little hit of dopamine" is still worth designing around, because - well, why not? As long as the concept in question doesn't have any adverse effects (here, unnecessarily large numbers can have minor adverse effects but I think they're easy to avoid by making good UI choices), I think it's always a good idea to let the player give themselves an 'attaboy'.

I don't disagree that we shouldn't strive for those hits of dopamine. Nor should we discount including them.

My disagreement is whether these hits are "psychologically significant". I don't think they are.

A hit of dopamine really isn't that psychologically significant. It is beneficial in conditioning (the conditioning itself would be psychologically significant or important), but the act of getting your dopamine high isn't anywhere near that important (unless the dopamine hit is so large that it does actually turn you into an addict... which is probably neither here nor there, and is likely a larger discussion on gambling and addictive personalities more than anything else). A "typical" healthy person notices the dopamine hit as a fleeting moment of happiness.

As it is a fleeting moment of happiness, it isn't psychologically significant.

Is that dopamine hit unimportant? Absolutely not. It is a vital tool devs can and should use in their design.

Is using specific numbers going to guarantee a dopamine hit? Nope. Not even in the slightest. Because numbers require context for them to deliver that dopamine hit, you can't just rely on "big numbers" to give that dopamine hit. Likewise, you can have your "big thresholds being broken" with smaller numbers if you want for the same dopamine hit you'd get with larger numbers.

My point is that the numbers themselves... don't matter. What matters is the context in which you are using those numbers and in which they appear.

2) Whether there are psychological breakpoints for numbers in our mind. I provided several examples that I believe illustrate how powerful these breakpoints (generally 100; 1,000; and 1,000,000 as the most powerful ones for Westerners) can be in our mind. You remain unconvinced and insist that these numbers can only be powerful in relativity to whatever other numbers are around them. (I do agree that relativity to other numbers throughout the game is very important too, but I feel that crossing these breakpoints provides a far greater psychological effect than similar increases that don't cross them, because these breakpoints are used by the mind as a frame of reference.) If I understand your argument correctly, you believe that 800->1000 is no more powerful than 600->800. I've given most of the good examples that I have and I feel very strongly that I'm right on this point, but if I can't convince you, that's perfectly okay. I don't think I really have any other evidence to lay out on it.

I believe the "breakpoints" are more fluid. Numbers ending in zero are just "easiest to compare" most of the time. Passing a threshold of 573 isn't going to mean much without a lot of context for it. However, if something ends in zero, it's an automatic "stop point" just based on the way numbers are used. 10, 20, 30, 100, 200, 1000, 5000, 10,000, etcetera. You can create a "satisfying" break point at any number in reality, but ones that end in zero are actually far easier to do since most people are already trained and wired to value numbers that end in zero. After all... ten fingers... ten toes... learn to count to ten... rules for how you say numbers higher than ten change every 10 digits... etcetera. It's learned behavior that we wire into ourselves and each other. 10 is the basis of our decimal systems... etcetera.

Numbers that end in zero are "most familiar" to us, so we feel comfortable using them as a "breakpoint". It doesn't have to be 100. You can use 80. Or 70. Numbers that end in zero are far more favorable innately to people and are the best places to put the "breakpoints" in terms of nearly anything.

But, the rules get "muddy" when you get into video games. You can make numbers as small as 5 a "good break point" with gamers without a lot of effort. You can make small percentages a "good break point" with gamers without much effort. All of that lies within the context of the game. A game can be designed around the typical "break points" nearly every other aspect of our lives revolves around, sure. But, with video games, it doesn't have to be. It's not even "harder" to break that trend with a video game. If the effect/journey are the exact same, but you change the numbers, you get the same effect. The same hit of dopamine.

You can actually see this in action in a lot of games. Reaching Level 100 in some games can be disappointing because it was very easy to do (or you put in no effort). Let me direct you to a mobile game called "League of Angels". It is very easy to achieve the "breakpoint" of Level 100, yet few people playing will ever experience the hit of "dopamine". If you watch a review of the game, you can probably explain exactly why.

It's because Level 100 means absolutely nothing in the game. How does it mean absolutely nothing?

The game plays itself. You load up the game and it fights for you (you can fight yourself if you want, and select attacks, but you will be fighting all the automatic play features the entire time you try to do so). It bombards the player with rewards constantly and plays itself while you redeem those rewards. You'll reach Level 100 within a matter of a couple hours and have nothing to show for it other than you left the game running to do so. You'll spend more time claiming rewards than watching what is going on, on the screen.

The breakpoint of "100" means absolutely jack and squat if it isn't given the correct context.

But, if you played say... World of Warcraft and achieved level 100 after 600+ hours of gameplay... Well, the breakpoint of 100 is exceptionally significant. It represents the effort you put in.

Nothing is significant across all cultures and time. Such a stipulation is just silly as it would include alien cultures and all cultures that ever existed or will exist. If someone can think of something that's universally significant across all cultures and all time, please enlighten me.

Exposure to violence... effects of pacifism... etcetera. Things of that nature that directly affect behavior and thinking, which actually would be significant across all cultures and time.

It's only silly if you are thinking of it purely from a "objects only" point of view. Psychology isn't really about "things" as much as behaviors and manipulation of those behaviors.

Due to the nature of the universe and everything in it, there are going to be things that are the same across all cultures and time. Mostly because it's wired into our survival instincts and drives associated with that.

Most things with flimsy ties (or no ties) to those don't usually end up being "psychologically significant" in any way. In fact, if you had to devote most of your time and effort into securing your survival and had very little or no time for video games... Numbers in video games REALLY wouldn't have any significance for you. Numbers really only have significance psychologically when they're tied directly to our survival instincts. Psychology is pretty fascinating stuff, and requires a lot of "examining everything for base components and logic" rather than trying to rely on "feelings".

Heck, some Psychology even breaks down "emotions" into base components and logic, which is even more interesting.

But... numbers aren't really psychologically significant except in relation to something actually important to us. Survival. We quickly abandon any other use of numbers and behaviors associated with those numbers when our Survival comes into play.

In the end, it just comes down to the fact that your definition of "psychologically significant" is different from mine. I consider anything that affects one's psychology, regardless of the method, "psychologically significant".

So... literally everything in the world is psychologically significant to you. The rotation of the planet is psychologically significant to you. The wind being 1 degree warmer or cooler is psychologically significant to you.

Do you see where this slippery slope goes yet?

I'm trying to be reasonable with "my definition" in order to clearly define what does and does not fall into the category. Psychologically Important is anything that changes behavior, thinking (logic or lines of logic for a more clear definition), or perception. A temporary change like a hit of dopamine is Psychologically Important. It affects your perception at the very minimum.

Psychologically Significant is something that does those things on a more permanent basis. Brain damage, for example, is Psychologically Significant. Addiction to a chemical is Psychologically Significant. Dopamine Burnout is Psychologically Significant.

A number, on its own, isn't either of these things. It is just a number. It needs context to even be rendered "Psychologically Important".

At least, if we're going to go by any reasonable definition.

This would be in contrast to "psychologically insignificant" as in something that does not affect one's psychology. I.e. a binary categorization. If something doesn't affect one's psychology, it is deemed "psychologically insignificant" since there's no effect and thus not worth noting/acknowledging, hence insignificant.

I don't disagree, except that list is pretty small... or nearly nonexistent... unless we're discussing a particular individual who is a psychopath. But, even they have things that affect them psychologically.

"Psychologically significant" would be the opposite, since something that does have an effect on one's psychology would be worth looking into (assuming on the subject of psychology, of course), hence significant.

Again, you are talking about literally everything. Can we have a less broad definition? I prefer mine since they're less broad, less wrought with infinite variables, and far easier to work with and understand without going deep into "navel gazing" territory.

Let's also not forget the intrinsic psychological effects of certain numbers, such as 1337. This is especially prominent in gamer culture. It doesn't matter if dealing 1337 damage is a lot or a little, just seeing that number gives you that shot of dopamine.

You should look up the word "intrinsic". It doesn't mean what you think it means. That being said, 1337 has no intrinsic anything. Without context, it is meaningless. The only reason it means anything at all is because people thought it was a good way to talk when people were using "leet speak" to essentially bypass profanity filters. That's the origin of 1337. Some people were using it to bypass profanity filters... some little kids thought, "hey, that's cool", and so the fad took off.

Even today, nobody really uses it or cares about it except little kids. Heck, as a little kid, I thought "leet speak" looked stupid as crap and it immediately notified me of who was worth conversing with and who wasn't in a chatroom just because of the commonality such people talking like that had in personalities and behaviors.

An apt comparison would be "it's the internet equivalent of a Valley Girl".

I actually don't even notice it unless the game points it out to me. Then, I usually think, "oh yeah, that was a thing 20 years ago. Why is this still around?"

But, that's me. That my opinion on it.

I have the same opinion of those who reference "420" and "69" as well. It's almost universally an eye roll from me and a "I remember being 12, good times."

And this is from someone who grew up in the time when these became popular and were "common parlance" on the internet. They're largely non-existent now except among young children.

1337 has no effect without the context of what it's meant to represent. Which means, what it represents is what is psychologically important to some people, but not really in general, and the number itself is fairly meaningless to anyone who has no idea what its context is.

Edit:

See, that's the thing though...context is always assumed to be included when discussing such things. It makes no sense to purposely remove the context in order to strip it of value, other than to say you can. Otherwise, what practical applications would there be for doing so?

Anyways, I think most of us agree that have really large numbers is just superfluous and totally unnecessary. It would be purely an aesthetics choice. I personally like 3 digits since that allows percentages to work while being easily comprehendible. I would then reserve 4 digits for special occasions.

Who assumes context is always included when discussing things? I don't. It's why I tend to preface most of what I'm talking about with the proper context. Who leaves someone to just assume things?

If someone walks up to me and says, "I killed Joe last night", I'm not going to assume anything. I ask for context. "in real life... or...?" and when they provide the context, then I understand and it will affect me how it should.

The interesting part about game design is that nearly all of it is about "giving the player context". A crafting system means absolutely nothing to a player until you give it context within the game itself. It's a crafting system, so what? It's a mini-game, so what? It's 50 Attack, so what?

Video games are worlds and cultures unto themselves. They will tell you the rules of them, which will give you the context you need, to determine the importance of things. Which, leads to your dopamine hits which are Psychologically Important, but not Psychologically Significant. Because the games themselves are what is determining the context and importance of things rather than the real world, there's a lot about video games that is "fluid". That is... meaningless and insubstantial until you give it meaning and substance.

The "practical applications" for stripping things of context would be:
1. Dealing with an unknown culture where you don't know their contexts for things. This would be especially important in dealing with alien civilizations.
2. Dealing with an unknown system of rules and values. Some cultures may throw gold and diamonds away while they also wear jewelry made entirely from wood. if you don't strip away contexts to allow someone to teach you their contexts, you're going to be forever confused... or ostracized.
3. Eliminating all context is a pre-requisite for crafting an entirely new world. As a writer, I do this quite often. When I create a world, nothing it is has meaning until I decide it should have meaning. Then, I assign context.
4. "Objectivism" Or... at least I think that's what it is called. It's philosophy where at its base assertion is that things have no purpose or meaning until some form of life decides on a purpose or meaning. For example, a "gun" has no meaning to a bacteria. It may as well be a very large paperweight. But, in the hands of someone mentally unstable and waving it around frantically... the meaning of "gun" is invariably "dangerous". In this philosophy, you strip context away because context is what frees you to consider other points of view and possibilities. An object is an object until someone tells you the meaning and purpose of that object. One rock is no different than another rock until someone tells you one of them is more valuable to them and is confused why you don't value it the same as they do.

It all boils down to context.

The number is just a number until you assign it context. Video games are a unique place in which the real world hasn't assigned that number its context. The game designer gets to assign the context of that number. You, the person building the game, gets to tell anyone who plays it, what that number means. And they will believe you. They will follow your assertion of its meaning until they stop playing the game.

Anyway... yeah, after so many digits, the human mind just doesn't really "process" numbers anymore. That's more biology than anything else. Most people tend to lose complete interest after 5 or 6 digits. Almost nobody can hold interest after 8 digits.

There's a practical reason for keeping them "only so big" for the player's benefit.

But, mostly, the only benefits and drawbacks of any size of number apply to the devs solely.
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Anyway, I'm done with the Philosophy Lessons and Psychology Discussions. They've strayed the topic pretty far off course.

There are Mechanics reasons for using numbers of certain sizes that a dev can take advantage of. That's what is important here.

 

[Frostorm]

Numbers that end in zero are "most familiar" to us, so we feel comfortable using them as a "breakpoint". It doesn't have to be 100. You can use 80. Or 70. Numbers that end in zero are far more favorable innately to people and are the best places to put the "breakpoints" in terms of nearly anything.

And this is an example of numbers having a psychological impact. In this case, it's our preference for "0" or nice even/clean numbers.

Exposure to violence... effects of pacifism... etcetera. Things of that nature that directly affect behavior and thinking, which actually would be significant across all cultures and time.

Those only apply to HUMAN cultures. I was specifically referring to non-Humans in response to that statement. All cultures and all time would include all of existence, i.e. the entire universe and possibly other dimensions (if exists). I simply don't presume Humans to be the only cultured beings. I prefer an open-minded approach when discussing things. Even if we limit the scope to Earth, there are other species where "pacifism" doesn't ring the same bell as it does for us. E.g. certain species of ants. (yes they have a "culture", though primitive, they are still a community of individuals)

Due to the nature of the universe and everything in it, there are going to be things that are the same across all cultures and time. Mostly because it's wired into our survival instincts and drives associated with that.

Imagine an alien species whose entire life cycle is to commit suicide. Imagine if this species was "wired" by its creators (another alien species) to seek out as much pain onto themselves as possible. Imagine if their mode of reproduction didn't rely on each other, or maybe they're organically mass-produced. So many possibilities... I can't see such blanket states covering all possible bases, the existence is just too large. Hell, even a sufficiently advanced AI could have entire societies and cultures in "cyberspace" and they could easily be configured to have contrary ideals than us.

1. Dealing with an unknown culture where you don't know their contexts for things. This would be especially important in dealing with alien civilizations.
2. Dealing with an unknown system of rules and values. Some cultures may throw gold and diamonds away while they also wear jewelry made entirely from wood. if you don't strip away contexts to allow someone to teach you their contexts, you're going to be forever confused... or ostracized.

See? You're open to using aliens here, but why not earlier?

If someone walks up to me and says, "I killed Joe last night", I'm not going to assume anything. I ask for context. "in real life... or...?" and when they provide the context, then I understand and it will affect me how it should.

Exactly, you asked for context because you assumed said context to exist. In regards to numbers, you were trying to discuss a hypothetical where you assumed that context to not exist when you said "...numbers without context is meaningless..." Isn't kind of a "well duh" moment? We can omit the context, as in not divulge it, but it's silly to assume the context doesn't exist at all.

It's why I tend to preface most of what I'm talking about with the proper context.

That's exactly my point, people either preface things with context, or if such context is not provided, people assume the context exists, just not given. Who would actually assume context doesn't exist when discussing with a topic?

That being said, 1337 has no intrinsic anything. Without context, it is meaningless.

Due to gaming culture, the meaning of 1337 is deeply associated with leet or leetspeak. It's like how "0" mean's "nothing" or "null" because we as a society have agreed that's what it means. Similarly, 1337 will always carry that association with leet, even in instances where context says otherwise.

1337 has no effect without the context of what it's meant to represent. Which means, what it represents is what is psychologically important to some people, but not really in general, and the number itself is fairly meaningless to anyone who has no idea what its context is.

Again you're trying to use numbers without context, which again is silly since the whole point of numbers is to use them with context since numbers are basically just symbols meant to represent other things.

I have the same opinion of those who reference "420" and "69" as well. It's almost universally an eye roll from me and a "I remember being 12, good times."

That "eye roll" is a psychological response btw. In this case, it's you're distaste/apathy towards it, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, I'm done with the Philosophy Lessons and Psychology Discussions. They've strayed the topic pretty far off course.

Agreed, this is off-topic. As I've said we're using different definitions, so there's no point. In regards to having a poll as someone suggested...I'm willing to bet the majority will vote on the side of smaller numbers rather than larger.

Another thing to consider regarding large numbers is the use of "K" or "M" in an effort to shorten the figures and so it doesn't take up too much screen space. But if I really wanted to instill that "giant number" feeling, I'd just make the number something completely absurd, like 8.8x10^123. I'd assume anything resembling balance is thrown out the window by that point.

 

[magnaangemon01]

I think when it hits the millions, it gets to be a bit too ridiculous