Thoughts on floating damage numbers and hit rolls

Ravel

I'm still not sure how I feel about this idea, so I wanted to get some input from you guys.

The idea would be to have a Gameplay option to move (or even copy) the hit rolls and damage numbers from the dialog box to floating text. A lot of the time I feel like the amount of combat info in the dialog box makes it feel cluttered, and I feel floating damage numbers and combat info would not only remove some of the clutter, but make it visually apparent which roll came from which character.

For those of you who played Planescape: Torment, I'm thinking of something more or less like that - though hopefully without the delay PST experienced when receiving lots of smaller individual hits at once (think Elysium's Tears).

JJ1897

If I remember well, such floating numbers appeared in The Temple of Elemental Evil, and yet the game managed to remain VERY oldschool, so I guess it wouldn't be an immersion-ruining thing or whatever.

I think it'd be quite helpful, actually, in terms of clarity. Sometimes - especially in BG2, with lots of enemies, spells and whatnot - descriptions in the console were a bit mazy, to say the least. And the P:T example shows it's doable.

paulsifer42

I really like the idea, though I know some absolutely hate it. I'd say it'd be a good thin to add with a switch (meaning, the player should be able to turn it off).

Ravel

paulsifer42 said:

I really like the idea, though I know some absolutely hate it. I'd say it'd be a good thin to add with a switch (meaning, the player should be able to turn it off).

Absolutely. If they did it at all, I would hope it was turned off by default, but enabled in the gameplay settings.

I personally don't find floating combat text too distracting or immersion-breaking, though I understand not everyone may feel this way.

ajwz

I absolutely agree with this idea - It should be really trivial to code as well: just use the subtitles code

ElectricMonk

Well, you can always turn off the rolls to keep them from appearing via the feedback options I believe it is. But if you still want to see them without them cluttering the text crawl, then I suppose that this would be a nice alternative. I don't think that it would be overbearingly immersion-breaking or anything, but still I would prefer it to be optional if it were implemented.

Ulfgar_Torunn

This sounds like an easy to implement and effective way to unclutter the combat dialogue box.

I personally wouldn't use it (it drove me crazy in PS:T), but the option would be great for anyone who wants combat info but who doesn't want to scroll through several pages of text.

Medillen

@Ravel good idea ! Could be an interesting option to add I'll definitely use it if I could

O_Bruce

If there will be an options to disable those floating numbers, then why not. I may personaly not like it, but I know some people may find it usefull.

Flashburn

NWN did this excellently and I would love the option in BGEE. The font size of the numbers were perfect, and in the combat window it broke down how much was physical and how much was elemental. Simply adored how each damage type had its own font color.

Delvon

Definitely worth it! I always found it confusing to see who did what in combat without scrolling through the crawl for information, which had a tendency to take forever.

suchoss

i dont agree with floating text - it is too confusing. Maybe better organized info in dialog box.