Hide HP ##

[FarFromPoopen]

Since in this game most of the mechanics are hidden(I.E. Skill %, Damage in Combat) Why not have HP hidden also, have a range of percent of maximum and have things like "You are feeling fine", "You have a few bruises", "You are greatly injured" things of that nature, or even use the things you look at other people and see "Exellent condition", "Does not look(change it to feel) well" things like that...
The same could be done for stamina/stun "You are feeling a little worn out", "You feel faint"(for stun)...whatever.  It could easily be implemented with a series of If's and a table of char[]s.

[Cuttlefish]

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!


I'm sorry, I should probably explain or type up a wordy argument, but that really sums up my feelings on this point.

[FarFromPoopen]

Yeah   , I didn't think many folks would LIKE that idea, but it would go well with the other hidden elements of the game..so I suggested it  

*throws rocks at himself until he leaves town*

[Lazloth]

...Why not have HP hidden also..?]

Because we're a bunch of stat-whores, I think.  (Just don't dare suggest that your abilities' assessment goes hidden! Har.)

I'd be opposed to removal, mainly because my prompt would get funkified, but swap that with a % and I'll be fine.

[Cuttlefish]

Okay, figured you deserved more of an explanation.

First, ditto to Lazloth on the prompt thing.  Anything other than a number will bad bad on a prompt.  Second, for those who have been playing Arm for a bit, it gives them a good feeling on how tough their character is.  I don't think this is much of a stat-whore thing as it is a judging your character's innate resiliance.  If you just changed it to a simple % (display 95/100 instead of 114/120) it will still fit the first condition.  I wouldn't raise too much of a fuss over that.  But I think the second condition isn't asking for too much.

It's not like the skill percentages where everyone was staring at them, constantly practicing and practicing to see them go up by a few points.

[Rindan]

I would actually like it.  The more I play this game the more I can see through a lot of the mechanics.  I can look at my stats and see that my character can take two mon powered fire balls, cast two full power laser beams of death and half powered heat ray, pull off contact four times in a row safely, and that I will be able to heal by standing right up until I am at 52 HP.  Words might be a bad way to do it in the prompt, but I would be happy with percentages.  Yeah, I can play the game just fine seeing everything, but I think it might restore a little of the mystery for me personally if I didn't know that a sul power wave of doom does exactly 93 points of damage.

[Bedhead]

I like having values because you can make cool graphical hit/stun/mv/mana/whatever bars with them in zmud (I'm curious, do any other clients let you do this?).



I hope you can see that - I tried to keep the image as small as possible.  Anyway, there's a solution for you Rindan, if you just close your eyes when you do 'score' you'll never know what the values are.

Oh,  actually have the value displayed on the bar, but I airbrushed 'em out for example.

Cheers

[Lazloth]

I like having values because you can make cool graphical hit/stun/mv/mana/whatever bars with them in zmud (I'm curious, do any other clients let you do this?)

Just an FYI, if you used percents (0-100)*, you can still do this.  

*[disregarding negatives & overamplified, which your bars have to deal with anyway]

[Cuttlefish]

Yeah, that's what I do, too (bars in zMUD).  So really, I already see them as a percentage.  I don't even really care about the exact percentage, I just eyeball it and see that I'm about 1/3 of the way down or whatever.

Anyway, the percentages wouldn't really bother me.  But I can see how it would bother some of the older players.

I think just about everybody would hate it if you went to words only, though.

[creeper386]

I don't know. Personally I think alittle bit of numbers isn't going to hurt anything, and really gives you something to feel good about. I acctually played a MUD for some time with something similar, and I could say it'd be really odd with dealing with numbers to dealing with percentages or anything.

Also, it wouldn't change the knowledge that you can use the way so many times without passing out, rather a percentage or a word form really, although word form people are more likely to pass out because they won't be sure how they feel rather they are feelings really "good" or not so "good" and such. Also you'd still be able to tell how many spells you can cast, and how much damage it does although it'd be alittle more general.

I don't know. I don't see changing to percentages changing much, except give people not the slightest thing to have pride in code wise, and it's make people just have to guess on things. It'd be like hiding stats. You wouldn't have ANY feel for your character. Personally I leave things like how tough the person is and such out of my backgrounds and although my description might say they are muscular and what not I leave the exact things up to the code. Rather they are tough mentally or physically and all that jazz.

Creeper thinks it'd be hard to deal with a change like that.

Its just one of the many inconsistancies life will throw your way... and for one reason or another is tolerated where similar and sometimes ideally identical things are hated.

For some reason we can see generally how strong, smart, agile, and hardy we are, yet can't seem to get a general feeling about how skilled we are in fighting with a sword. And same for combat. We know we hit something 'very hard', but don't receive a number, even though the person being hit could calculate the exact damage amount a moment after with a quick subtraction problem.

We can get an exact detailing of how much damage is sustained against us in various facets of our character (hp, mana, movement, stun, etc.) via a little prompt every line, yet don't see things like when we improve in doing everyday thing.

I always found it weird and contradictory, but for some reason most people like it. I don't see how knowing that I'm "exceptionally strong" is any different then knowing I'm "fairly knowledgeable" in making swords.

I guess it comes down to abuse... and that there is potentially more abuse to knowing your current skill rankings then your current health. Even though I'm sure more then a few descisions have been made based on your current health/status numbers.

I just keep my prompts off, because the spam gets annoying anyways. I know when I'm fighting and know when I'm getting hurt. I don't need to know an exact number.

That's all.

[X-D]

For me, I would be against hidden, % does not matter, it is the same as having the actual numbers posted IMO and would not be too hard to even figure out real close over the course of a few hours play to figure out the actual numbers if you wanted.

Reason % or actual number is prefered for me is just that it is easier to deal with at a glance without thinking, and considering how fast things can often happen when you need to be paying attention to HP/stam/stun plus everything else going on then easier is better.

[Trenidor]

I like this idea for the most part. I really don't use the HP count, but really eye it percentage wise.

I don't really like people that fix their stats, because every time I try, I end up with a loser character that can't take down Skeet. In my opinion, this will even the odds for us a little because you have no real way of saying how much HP you have.

I'm not saying that you can't fix your stats a little more, you just have to understand some game mechanics...endurance + agility = [blank] (I can't tell you to ruin the fun) so if you have good endurance and Exceptional agility, you end up with around __ amount of [blank].   I'm pretty sure that all the old time users understand all of this, and really shouldn't be using the HP points as a guide.

[Bestatte]

Your numerical stats, to the best of my knowledge, are completely separate from the stats like agility and strength.

High strength and agility will not grant you a lot of HPs, high wisdom and endurance will not grant you a high mana count if you're a mage.

One of my characters had all "good" stats, and under 90 HPs. All GOOD. One of mine had average strength, and "better than average" everything else, and had 96 hps.

They're independent of each other, the attributes (what armers call stats) and the stats (what armers call numeric stuff or whatever they call them).

Screen scroll during combat bugs the hell out of me. Screen scroll with the preface on each line of my numeric info bugs me even more. Screen scroll with the preface on each line of "percentages" written out with words would most assuredly drive me from the game.

It took me 6 months of playing Arm to even consider the combat system as an option for my characters, because auto-combat drives me nuts. The only saving grace was that little short bit of data, in nice neat numbers, to let me know whether or not it's time to run away or break contact or rest and regenerate mana. Anything other than that would be overkill and unneccessary. The numeric stats do exactly what they need to do, nothing more, and nothing less.

[Callisto]

A friend didn't care for his HP status, so he rigged up his Zmud to display a health bar in its place (think Mega Man health bar, but on its side) and it worked well for him.

I like numbers, myself.

Good ol' HP prompt, a dependable and loyal friend!