Poll of the Day > Making an upgrade preview window- opinion

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hello

I've been working on making a small preview window whenever you go to upgrade your weapons and stuff in a game, however I'm not 100% on how much to show the player. There are 3 tiers of boosted stats at +1, +2, and +3 and currently when you select "upgrade" the window will pop up with only the next tier's stats showing.

This works great, however I wonder if I should show every tier all the time. Like to give the player the heads up on what his weapon will be able to become if he keeps upgrading it down the road.

Example 1:


Example 2:


In both examples a normal, un-upgraded weapon has been selected and would become a +1 version. The +1 version's stats are highlighted by a flashing blue outline thing. Personally I like how Example 1 looks better, but having more information might be more important to the player.

Which looks better to you?

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If there are limited resources used to upgrade stuff, you should always include more information in order to allow the player to decide how to distribute those resources (example 2). If upgrades happen on a per item basis, either is fine and you should go with whatever you prefer.

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Riptor posted...

If there are limited resources used to upgrade stuff, you should always include more information in order to allow the player to decide how to distribute those resources (example 2). If upgrades happen on a per item basis, either is fine and you should go with whatever you prefer.

Exactly this. It's extremely frustrating to commit limited resources to upgrading something only to find out that it doesn't end up being worthwhile in the end. If that's how a system works, I tend to end up looking the items up on the game's wiki to figure out what the long-term goal is and better evaluate the decision, which isn't ideal.

If there are a lot of tiers, having all of them displayed at once may be overwhelming, so there's a case to be made there for presenting a simplified version, but it's still generally good to make sure the players have the information needed to decide what they want. In that case, if the stat gains are linear (as they seem to be here), you can do something like saying "+1 dmg, +2 acc per level" and include a list of breakpoints after which new stats get introduced, e.g. "Lvl 3: +2 luck, +1 per level." If you're only got three levels, though, that should be fine.

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Riptor posted...

If there are limited resources used to upgrade stuff, you should always include more information in order to allow the player to decide how to distribute those resources (example 2). If upgrades happen on a per item basis, either is fine and you should go with whatever you prefer.

Upgrading is only done through two items- Dust (not super common, but you'll get them while playing) and a gem which turns anything into the +3 version right away and is pretty rare. More info seems like the way to go.

adjl posted...

If there are a lot of tiers, having all of them displayed at once may be overwhelming, so there's a case to be made there for presenting a simplified version, but it's still generally good to make sure the players have the information needed to decide what they want. In that case, if the stat gains are linear (as they seem to be here), you can do something like saying "+1 dmg, +2 acc per level" and include a list of breakpoints after which new stats get introduced, e.g. "Lvl 3: +2 luck, +1 per level." If you're only got three levels, though, that should be fine

Yeah it's pretty much linear for the most part- there are some exceptions like a +3 version gaining a modifier that the other tiers didn't have (like the item drop %modifier in the example shown w/ the clover). Some other tiers use the integer amount of a decimal per upgrade, rounded down (ex. +1.4 becomes 1) so you'd have something like (1.4 + 1.4 + 1.4) = attack +1 (1.4), attack +2 (2.8), attack +4 (4.2). This way it's a little more interesting than just damage +1, damage +2, damage +3 and etc.

I think I'll display all the tiers at once but maybe come up with a better-looking way to do it, thanks guys.

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