[interface]Damage indicator to "charge"

[Colouredbox]

When you move your mouse over the units damage (at the sidebar) it shows the damage it deals to all types of units that you see from the opposite teams.
I suggest it would calculate the damage to the charge ability too.

So instead of saying

8 (+0%): Dark adept, Vampire Bat, Walking Corpse

It would say

15/8 (+0%): Dark adept, Vampire Bat, Walking Corpse

I think it would make Wesnoth a tiny bit more comfortable and a little less timeconsuming to play.

[Caphriel]

Especially since, due to rounding, the charge damage is sometimes 1 less than twice the value given (as in your example.) This could be misleading.

[JaMiT]

How do you see this affecting the following four situations?


First, suppose you are considering attacking a horseman with your ghoul. You mouse over the horseman to see its stats. Would you want to see damage with the "charge" ability included even though "charge" will not apply for the planned combat?

Second, reverse the situation; suppose you are considering attacking a ghoul with your horseman. You mouse over the ghoul to see its stats. Would you want to see damage without the "charge" ability included even though "charge" will apply for the planned combat (and when you had checked your horseman a moment earlier, you saw its damage assuming a charge)? It could be rather confusing to be mentally comparing a non-charge damage amount to a charged one.

Third, suppose you are considering leaving your horseman where it can be attacked by a ghoul. You mouse over your horseman to see its stats. Would you want to see damage with the "charge" ability included even though "charge" will not apply for the anticipated combat?

Fourth, suppose you are considering leaving your ghoul where if can be attacked by a horseman. You mouse over your ghoul to see its stats. Would you want to see damage without the "charge" ability included even though "charge" will apply for the anticipated combat?


I do not see a way to adequately cover all four situations unless the tool tip calculates doubled and regular damage for all units, and in that case it seems like the tool tip would become rather cluttered.

[Colouredbox]

First, suppose you are considering attacking a horseman with your ghoul. You mouse over the horseman to see its stats. Would you want to see damage with the "charge" ability included even though "charge" will not apply for the planned combat?

Yes

Second, reverse the situation; suppose you are considering attacking a ghoul with your horseman. You mouse over the ghoul to see its stats. Would you want to see damage without the "charge" ability included even though "charge" will apply for the planned combat (and when you had checked your horseman a moment earlier, you saw its damage assuming a charge)? It could be rather confusing to be mentally comparing a non-charge damage amount to a charged one.

How can I see the damage I do by moving my mouse over the enemy unit?
and
What are we? Monkeys?

Third, suppose you are considering leaving your horseman where it can be attacked by a ghoul. You mouse over your horseman to see its stats. Would you want to see damage with the "charge" ability included even though "charge" will not apply for the anticipated combat?

Yes

Fourth, suppose you are considering leaving your ghoul where if can be attacked by a horseman. You mouse over your ghoul to see its stats. Would you want to see damage without the "charge" ability included even though "charge" will apply for the anticipated combat? .

How can I see the damage my unit takes from other enemy units by moving my mouse over my unit?

I do not see a way to adequately cover all four situations unless the tool tip calculates doubled and regular damage for all units, and in that case it seems like the tool tip would become rather cluttered.

Just making it so that you see both charge damage and normal damage when you move over the unit with charge, would in my opinion be a fine solution.

[Bonobo]

What are we? Monkeys?

[JaMiT]

Second, reverse the situation; suppose you are considering attacking a ghoul with your horseman. You mouse over the ghoul to see its stats. Would you want to see damage without the "charge" ability included even though "charge" will apply for the planned combat (and when you had checked your horseman a moment earlier, you saw its damage assuming a charge)? It could be rather confusing to be mentally comparing a non-charge damage amount to a charged one.

How can I see the damage I do by moving my mouse over the enemy unit?

Your question (about seeing damage your horseman does) has no bearing on the situation it is responding to (about seeing damage done to your horseman).

What are we? Monkeys?

*shrug* I would have reserved judgment about what you are, but if you insist....

Fourth, suppose you are considering leaving your ghoul where if can be attacked by a horseman. You mouse over your ghoul to see its stats. Would you want to see damage without the "charge" ability included even though "charge" will apply for the anticipated combat? .

How can I see the damage my unit takes from other enemy units by moving my mouse over my unit?

Your question (about seeing damage your ghoul takes) has no bearing on the situation it is responding to (about seeing damage done by your ghoul).

[Caphriel]

I do not see a way to adequately cover all four situations unless the tool tip calculates doubled and regular damage for all units, and in that case it seems like the tool tip would become rather cluttered.

That's still better than the current situation, where the display already includes rounding due to time of day, making it impossible to calculate the actual damage dealt by a charging attack with certainty unless you look up the base damage in the unit description. In the case where rounding will produce an off-by-one error, the displayed number is not just useless, it's misleading. Additionally, since the purpose of displaying the summary is to spare the user from having to do the calculations, omitting one doesn't make sense. Furthermore, I don't think adding one additional number on each line, and possibly a few symbols, will make the tool tip substantially more cluttered than it currently is.

[JaMiT]

In the case where rounding will produce an off-by-one error, the displayed number is not just useless, it's misleading.

I would hardly consider that number useless. You know that the charging damage will be either double it or one less than double it. You can narrow down an unknown quantity to two possibilities, which alone is significant. And since there will be many cases in which the difference between the two possibilities is not significant, knowing the non-charge damage retains a good amount of usefulness.

That's not to say there is no benefit to showing the charge damage, only that you are overstating the benefit. The non-charge damage is imperfect, perhaps inadequate, but far from useless.

Furthermore, I don't think adding one additional number on each line, and possibly a few symbols, will make the tool tip substantially more cluttered than it currently is.

Do you have a mock-up of such a display? (The possibilities I can come up with are either cluttered or confusing.) Does your design for this include room for also including backstab damage (since that is a similar situation)?

[Colouredbox]

Furthermore, I don't think adding one additional number on each line, and possibly a few symbols, will make the tool tip substantially more cluttered than it currently is.

Do you have a mock-up of such a display? (The possibilities I can come up with are either cluttered or confusing.) Does your design for this include room for also including backstab damage (since that is a similar situation)?

Here is a simple mock-up

[Caphriel]

In the case where rounding will produce an off-by-one error, the displayed number is not just useless, it's misleading.

I would hardly consider that number useless. You know that the charging damage will be either double it or one less than double it. You can narrow down an unknown quantity to two possibilities, which alone is significant. And since there will be many cases in which the difference between the two possibilities is not significant, knowing the non-charge damage retains a good amount of usefulness.

That's not to say there is no benefit to showing the charge damage, only that you are overstating the benefit. The non-charge damage is imperfect, perhaps inadequate, but far from useless.

Sorry. I should clarify that it's useless to me and players who, like me, are used to doing the damage calculations manually. I can calculate the actual damage from base damage, ToD, resistances, presence of leadership, etc. fast enough that I'd rather do that than check tooltips, and I argued against changing the displayed damage to reflect ToD, at some point. However, if the damage display is going to include some modifiers, it should include all of them.

I am not going to provide a mockup, because I think that good design principles lead toward displaying actual damage with all attack modifiers, and the only purpose of a mockup would be to clarify the suggestion for someone who does not understand the original post. That's unnecessary, since everyone in this discussion understands it, and disagrees about whether it would be an improvement or not. Of course, it is entirely subjective whether or not providing more information to the player in a turn-based strategy game is more or less important than reducing clutter in a tooltip that exists to provide additional information on damage calculations and save the player some math

[Gambit]

Or rather, since you are doing X out of Y (total) damage, it should be written as "8/15"

[Caphriel]

Actually, that was damage when attacking/damage when defending, I think.

[JaMiT]

Here is a simple mock-up
http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n62 ... TORLOL.jpg

I raised two concerns; let us see how well you addressed them.

Cluttered: It is not possible to determine a proposed design will not be cluttered when it is incomplete, and your mockup has no charge damage vs. ghouls, deathblades, skeletons, nor skeleton archers. You have not demonstrated an uncluttered design.

Confusing: I look at that and see a horseman doing one-and-seven-eighths damage. Gambit looked at that and saw a backwards 8 out of 15 damage. Caphriel saw attacking and defending damage. I think we can safely classify this mockup as falling in the "confusing" category.

__

Sorry. I should clarify that it's useless to me and players who, like me, are used to doing the damage calculations manually.

By that same criteria, the damage inflicted when charging is just as useless, as you are used to doing those damage calculations manually as well. Yet you are arguing for this "useless" number? And your justification for adding a number you see as useless is getting rid of another number you see useless? You might have a valid point buried in there somewhere, but it is getting drowned out by your bias against having the tooltip in the first place.

I am not going to provide a mockup,

Why am I not surprised?

because I think that good design principles lead toward displaying actual damage with all attack modifiers, and the only purpose of a mockup would be to clarify the suggestion for someone who does not understand the original post.

I disagree. I would explain why, but I find myself no longer inspired enough by this proposal to continue to explore its merits. So I think I shall simply bow out and leave it to others to debate this point and determine how/if this idea can/should be fleshed out.

[Caphriel]

So I think I shall simply bow out and leave it to others to debate this point and determine how/if this idea can/should be fleshed out.

Great, thanks

Elaboration: You haven't argued against including the information, only against including it there. I don't think it can be argued that including some of the damage calculations but not all of them is a good idea. Therefore, saying "no, this looks cluttered" isn't constructive to the discussion, because it doesn't provide alternative ways of including the necessary information.

For the record (in case this thread doesn't die like I expect it to now), I'm not against having the tooltip. In fact, I support it. What I opposed in the past was changing the sidebar damage display with ToD because those numbers were rounded, so doing math based on them introduced errors.