Skill/Item/Equipment Descriptions: Basic vs Detailed

[AthenaWhisper]

When it comes to the design of Skills, Items and Equipment within a game, the way that their information is presented is almost as important as what they actually do in terms of game-play.


What I mean by this is specifically the way that a description is written, and which way is the best.


Say we have one item from each Category:


A Skill - Firefall


An Item - Heaven's Tear


A Weapon - Mountain Blade


If we were to present these in the Detailed manner, we would have:


Firefall - A roaring cascade of flames crashes down on all enemies, dealing high amounts of Fire damage.


Heaven's Tear - A crystal-clear liquid created from purified light Revives a single Ally with 100% of their Max HP.


Mountain Blade - Forged from manasteel by an ancient Dwarven king. Deals Magical Earth damage and may Petrify enemies.


By presenting the information in this way, we can make the items and skills feel more real. It can be a way to add something to the


backstory of the game and it's world in a small, but noticeable way and can even be used to hint the players towards possible treasures or


leave them wanting to find out more about how a piece of legendary armour came to be, and who exactly made it.


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If we were to present these in the Basic manner, we would have:


Firefall - Deals high Fire damage to all enemies.


Heaven's Tear - Revives a single Ally with 100% of their Max HP.


Mountain Blade - Deals Magical Earth damage, may Petrify enemies.


By presenting the information in this way, we simply give the players the information that is important to them and tell them


exactly what the new item they got does, without concerning them with detailed fluff that some players may not want to read


and could therefore end up just not bothering to read through their items, as there is so much text on all of them.


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There's also the possibility of having an in-between manner, like this:


Firefall - Cascading flames deal high Fire damage to all enemies.


Heaven's Tear - Pure liquid light Revives a single Ally with 100% of their Max HP.


Mountain Blade - Forged from manasteel. Deals Magical Earth damage and may Petrify enemies.


This method allows us to add a little touch of flavour to our skills and items, while still presenting the information in a clear and concise way.


Somewhat of a "best of both worlds" approach, though you can say that it still has the fluff of the Detailed method without much room to add


bits of lore or hints to possible side quests or story elements.


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Or perhaps it's better to have the description of an item first, and then add flavour:


Firefall - Deals high Fire damage to all enemies. Bring roaring cascades of fire down upon your foes.


Heaven's Tear - Revives a single Ally with 100% of their Max HP. An ethereal liquid created from purified light.


Mountain Blade - Deals Magical Earth damage and may Petrify enemies. Forged from Manasteel by an ancient Dwarven king.


This method let's us provide players with the information they need first and foremost, then gives them the option to read the flavour fluff


afterwards if they wish to. Another "best of both worlds" approach, similar to the above, but avoids some of the downsides.


However in terms of a skill this approach does not make much sense, as you are providing the player with


the result of the skill: "Deal damage to all enemies" before the cause: "Cascades of fire".


A possible way to fit skills into this method is to include a "Flavour fluff/Lore quote" in place of a description of what the skill looks like, such as:


Firefall - Deals high Fire damage to all enemies. A devastating magick, created by the Archmage Arioth Leir to end the Great War.


or perhaps:


Firefall - Deals high Fire Damage to all enemies. "Great despair brings the need for even greater strength" - Arioth Leir.

 

[C.W. Plainview]

I personally find large amounts of flavor text to be a chore to read, especially if I forget what an item does and have to skim through the text again to just to remember its function. That being said, I'm not completely against flavor text as long as it's used in moderation. And to be fair, completely functional descriptions like the second style can come off as sterile and boring. The third style you listed is probably the one I like best.

 

[ShadowHawkDragon]

For me while I do enjoy reading these little tidbits of info and lore, they mean nothing when I'm making that critical choice between skill A and skill B. Its the effect and power to cost that counts. Even now when reading your first and third examples I'm skipping the first parts to get the actual details.


Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel uses your last example but separates it into 2 lines:


Top line for range/AOE and status effects. Bottom with either a line of lore/description or the explanation to a special effect. 


I personally would consider simplifying the details further for quick comparisons, here's an example of a different way you could write these details/descriptions (using 2 lines)

Spoiler

Firefall - 
[Fire - High damage] [All foes] 
Bring roaring cascades of fire down upon your foes.


Heaven's Tear - 
[Revive - 100% hp] [1 ally]
An ethereal liquid created from purified light.


Mountain Blade - 
[Earth-magical] {Petrify 20%}
Forged from Manasteel by an ancient Dwarven king.

Regardless, to me the single most important thing is for ALL the critical details on how the skill/item/weapon works to be visible. This would include replacing the 'lore' with an explanation for any special effects.


The game which I gave as an example, while I enjoyed it and think its a good example of splitting details and description I HATED how they missed important decision-making details including 'power'...

 

[AthenaWhisper]

Firefall - 
[Fire - High damage] [All foes] 
Bring roaring cascades of fire down upon your foes.

That way of writing skill descriptions is also similar to the way that Digital Devil Saga writes theirs.


For instance the single target Ice skill "Bufu" is written "Light Damage ~ Ice", while the All-Target Ice Skill "Mabufu" is written "Light Damage ~ Ice ~ All".


However, in Digital Devil Saga they don't really bother with the fluff, which I liked about the game.


In fact Digital Devil Saga, being one of the main games my project is taking inspiration from, is the reason I made this thread in the first place.

 

[ShadowHawkDragon]

That way of writing skill descriptions is also similar to the way that Digital Devil Saga writes theirs.

Can't believe I forgot about Digital Devil Saga O.O


When you think about it in most SMT games skills have little relevance to the world/story but rather are treated more as 'natural forces' much like punching and kicking is to us. Just as you wouldn't add lore to explain a simple punch it just feels odd having to explain that a simple spell of fire is, well, made of fire


But for some mighty fire spell only few could learn by not giving it lore it just feels like a waste.


So I suppose that's another element to consider, the rarity of spells, do the spells themselves have some relevance to the world/story or are they just power in its rawest form... By adding lore to a spell are you not implying that it is something 'special' (more 'flavour text' more special it is) whereas by excluding the lore altogether it would likely feel more 'common-place' (something that simply exists within the world but has no story of its own). Then there's your third style which suggests the spell has a feature worth mentioning while not being something new and unique in its own right.


I myself am steering away from lore on basic (equip-able) spells that most characters can use but plan to add lore to their unique abilities that only they know and make them feel 'special'.

 

[AthenaWhisper]

Can't believe I forgot about Digital Devil Saga O.O


When you think about it in most SMT games skills have little relevance to the world/story but rather are treated more as 'natural forces' much like punching and kicking is to us. Just as you wouldn't add lore to explain a simple punch it just feels odd having to explain that a simple spell of fire is, well, made of fire


But for some mighty fire spell only few could learn by not giving it lore it just feels like a waste.


So I suppose that's another element to consider, the rarity of spells, do the spells themselves have some relevance to the world/story or are they just power in its rawest form... By adding lore to a spell are you not implying that it is something 'special' (more 'flavour text' more special it is) whereas by excluding the lore altogether it would likely feel more 'common-place' (something that simply exists within the world but has no story of its own). Then there's your third style which suggests the spell has a feature worth mentioning while not being something new and unique in its own right.


I myself am steering away from lore on basic (equip-able) spells that most characters can use but plan to add lore to their unique abilities that only they know and make them feel 'special'.

Yes that definitely makes sense, though you can still create that contrast by adding a description of what something is without needing to give it lore like where it came from.


Like if you find an old sword in a cave or something, you could say "It's the sword of an adventurer from ages past".


But that's not something that the character's who have the sword would know, so you could, and I suppose should, describe it from the character's point of view


And instead of the description of the sword be "A standard iron sword, the rust creeping on it shows it's age."


In terms of a skill, it reads weirdly to have the description of what the skill looks like after the stats. So that room could be reserved for lore on rarer spells, as you suggested.

 

[Espon]

I like being somewhat descriptive, but I still keep the most important information on the second line.


For example:


Firefall - A roaring cascade of flames that crashes down on all enemies.


Deals heavy fire damage to all enemies.


Heaven's Tear - A crystal-clear liquid created from purified light.


Revives and fully heals one ally.


Mountain Blade - A weapon forged from manasteel by an ancient dwarven king.


+150 ATK, earth damage, 4% chance to petrify

 

[taarna23]

What about using a combination of a second line and some text colour? Games frequently display flavour text in a different colour from normal.

Spoiler

 

[GolfHacker]

Personally, when I'm trying to decide which weapon/armor to equip or which item I should use, "flavor text" doesn't help - I prefer the description to contain mostly info that will help me pick the best item to use for the given situation.


I think there are other ways to handle "flavor text" besides item descriptions. For example, you could add it as an inscription on the chest that the hero reads before they open it, or the hero could comment on it after they take the item out of the chest. Or use a little creativity and have an enemy comment on it when you take it into battle for the first time, saying something like: "Oh, no! She's wielding the legendary Mountain Blade, forged from manasteel by the ancient dwarven king so-and-so!"

 

[aboynamedearth]

I have a tendency toward the last of your examples, giving the description first, and the flavor text second. I imagine this comes from the years of playing MtG and other similar games.

Spoiler

I think in the case of video games, a sort of separation of the two descriptions through either different windows, or perhaps differing font colors (like @taarna23 suggests) can really allow for quick consumption of the information without it becoming convoluted. The Borderlands games use that method pretty heavily:

Spoiler

After viewing a few weapons, you sort of get used to which colors represent each portion of the information, neatly compartmentalizing them while saving space.

 

[Wavelength]

I love flavor text, but I know that some players don't.  So what I do in my current game is I have a "toggle" between the Flavor Text and Function Text for an item.  It means that you don't have to sift through description to find out what something does - but there's lots of room to add flavor text for the players who like it.  I believe most Tales games do this, as well as Star Ocean.