I recently asked on Mastodon how a player would expect damage to be computed in an RPG.
(base_damage + extra_damage) * damage_buff
or
(base_damage * damage_buff) + extra_damage
General consensus is there was no consensus.
The one thing people did agree on was that the skill/weapon description should say what the order of operation is.
Fair enough.
I am worried about the amount of information that needs to be conveyed to players. The game needs to work well on the Switch and the Steam Deck with limited screen size. I play a lot of games where the 20-something devs with perfect eyesight spent too much time looking at the game on a large monitor. I’ve purposely kept the text large enough to read on a small screen. It means I need to be succinct.
Some people suggested that players should be able to order the weapons/skills as they wanted. This is problematic since weapons/skills come in a very random order and a UI to reorder them seems like a lot of work and not really what the game is about.
It also doesn’t matter what order the weapons/skills are evaluated. I compute damage_buff then compute damage_extra when the weapon/skill is acquired. Later on those are used to compute damage and that is where the order matters.
It’s also basically an action game and players shouldn’t get too deep into stat management for a character that is going to last a few minutes.
Maybe I’m wrong about that.
I think I will opt for the 1st method since it allows for bigger numbers and that is something players do want.