General Discussions
General Discussions
Why not show actual percentages instead of Tremendously, Moderately, etc.?
This would take so much confusion away especially for newer players. I have a friend that is just getting into the game and he is constantly bringing add-ons for survivor and killer that are practically worthless, but because of the wording of the descriptions, he thinks that they're amazing. Things like Demo's red moss that says TREMENDOUSLY increases the undetectable status after exiting a portal but it takes it from 2 seconds to like 2.5? That's just purposely misleading and confusing especially to new players.
I honestly don't see what the downside would be, it's much easier to understand numbers and percentages than it is for words like moderately, slightly, etc., especially if you don't know the base value of that add-on.
Comments
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I don't remember what exactly they said but in one of the Q&A lives someone asked about this and they sayed something like: "We don't want things to be confused, 5% there, 8% over there and more 13% here, it would be too complex for new players to get into it." (I may be wrong)
The thing is, they could implement a option to "show advanced tips for perks and add-ons". Like in League of Legends, runes are by default just text explaining what they do, and you can opt to see the advanced tip to actually see the numbers.
*EDIT Also they said changing text is "too much work".
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To be honest, the percentages always confused me as a beginner.
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Nailed it on the head right there, "too much work" is honestly more than likely the reason why.
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I do get where you're coming from but avoiding actual percentages stops people expecting things to work a certain amount, for example if it says increases chance of activation by 20% it will create the argument of it not activating once in 5 tries.
I think it would be simpler but it would create the "this s**t don't work as much as it says" arguments, better to generalize then specify to avoid disappointment in short.
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Shouldn't you expect the add-ons to actually do what they're supposed to do though?
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For me as a 5k hrs veteran player since release I still find the "moderately, slightly" more confusing than numbers up to this day.
BHVR probably thinks that most gamers are dumb and never had math class in school lol
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When something works on percentage even if it says 20% it's still chance as it doesn't say 1 in 5 it says 20% so technically it might not activate in 10 chances.
Same concept as rolling a six sided die, it's 1 in 6 chance ( 17% roughly ) to land each number but you might not hit a six after 30 rolls. No matter how you look at percentages it's still down to chance which can really get peoples backs up if their luck isn't in.
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Honestly like it would be so much easier to comprehend "Extends undetectable status by 25% after exiting a portal" rather than "tremendously increases undetectable"
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I believe it’s due to it being easier to program as it is without bugs or anything especially cuz numbers themselves aren’t always correct for example clowns perk says 50% but it’s really 33.3%
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Exactly
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Or they could say the number its increased by
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Well, you see. There's 2 sets of developers at behaviour. there's the kindred and monitor and abuse type, that give the exact numbers for things. and there's the other type, the demogogon addons type, the ones that only write tremendously and moderately etc.
I mean...not realy... but it certainly feels like that XD
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The 50% is correct I guess, not a bug. And this rather confusing base mechanic (when not completely explained in detail) is probably the reason why they expect people "to not have had math in classes" (@DwightOP )
Not sure which addon you mean, but for example if you increase healing speed by 50% doesn't mean you need half the time. Instead of 1 charge per second you heal 1.5 charges per second. Needing 10.67 seconds to heal (16 charges required: 10.67s * 1.5c/s = 16c) which is 66% of the time you need without speed increase (10,67s / 16s = 0,66) (or 33% less time required, depends on your view then)
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Yes I guess that's the reason too. There's now too many perks that would need to be changed. But if they somehow changed all texts, then after a patch, they just needed to change 2 or 3 perks description.
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I see your point but statistics are statistics and if some people read them in the wrong way that's on them. For the people that know this game though the statistics would be a great help.
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Sort of what I was saying a bit further up but explained in a different execution, I think the worded rather then the numbered increases were ment to simplify things but people like to know exactly what they are getting lol.
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That's not how it works. User Interface Design in general expects users to break and mistake everything they can and therefore design should be in a way to avoid misunderstandings and mistakes and prevent the user from doing wrong input. So it is not the worst approach like they do it, and claiming "just your fault" is definitely the wrong way
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Just putting that out there: most people I've seen think that a 50% speed increase is the same as a 50% reduction in time spent.
If anyone is interested, the wiki has numbers. https://deadbydaylight.gamepedia.com/Dead_by_Daylight_Wiki
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It... it's not...?
But seriously, I think the percentage based system would probably be more confusing to some people. Whether that's true or not is... debatable?
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it's 8 seconds for a total of 10. It's tremendously
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Yeah but that's running statistics through probability.
There's a difference between measuring probability and saying it reduces the charge time by 20% that is a static number that won't change.
If the base time is 20 and it reduces it by 20% that takes it down to 16 that is a concrete value
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Yeah working it that way dies leave a concrete value, maybe they have their own reasons for using words instead of numbers but imo doesn't really matter it just is what it is.
I would understand in a game like the division for solid numbers but in DBD it's not really a fine tuning game so......
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Percentage is more confusing yet, just put numbers and the game becomes heaven. It’s boring always going to the gamepedia to know what “tremendously” means just because the game don’t show us.
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Which is why you give all the information you can to the user. To avoid them making mistakes as much as possible.
You do not use vague terminology.
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I can answer this!
Some of the values for "slightly" are wildly different. For example on Pig before she got her crouch buffed, her "slightly increases skill check chance" add-ons were 1% whilst her "slightly reduces crouch time" was 50%. Bit of a difference.
However some of the values it gets changed by are massive. As in, lots of decimals. For example doctor when using static blast slows down to something like 87.3 m/s, but that's only because it's been rounded and the actual value is about 10 decimals long. Imagine trying to fit that onto a screen, "Reduces movement speed penalty when stalking by 3.47294625%". I'll stick to "moderately" thanks.
It's just easier for people in general to understand. It may not be easier for everyone but in general most people find it easier to read.
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"We dont want confusion" - Thats not true at all, gamers are some of the most stat/percentage friendly people on the planet. People in chat be like 4.6 meters x 2.4 second vault = 16 seconds of 4.4 meter speed with 3.8 seconds of haste and 2.6 seconds Undetectable status. Or when my mage casts his spell at 2.5 seconds, and the fireball charge is 1 second, my shield stats go up by 3% and stamina and mana both decrease by 3.5 %
If devs really said that they must think their customers are dumb as rocks because its insulting tbh.
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To quote myself...
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I'd rather have the seconds off the action displayed
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The simplest solution is not always the best. If you think of config tools or other powerful applications with a lot of settings, you can decide to either offer all the options and switches possible along with a 200 page manual, or you break it down to "do A, B or C" and let the tool handle whatever is necessary to do A, B or C.
When you give the percentages, you also need to explain how and where they are used. As already stated, many people think 50% speedboost is equivalent to 50% duration reduction. Just think about the confusion that the old Enduring wording caused with stun duration compared to increased recovery speed.
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config tools usually come with
-"basic set up"
-"personalized set up"
not a good comparison here.
by using vague terminology, you make certain that people don't actually know what something does. they just have a vague idea.
while using proper numbers means that people know exactly what something does. and not interpreting them properly is their own fault.
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Exactly. You can't tell me that as a newer player seeing something that says tremendously, or slightly increases something is easier to comprehend than a statistic. Statistics are objective and if you read into them wrong then that's on you. Words like slightly, etc. are subjective and can be interpreted in many more different ways than a stat.
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The opposing player using this perk/add-on will tremendously/considerably/moderately want to make you DC and throw the keyboard/controller across the room lol ;)
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Maybe a different impression about config tools. I was thinking about a tool to modify behavior for example another application or service or whatever. Like applying options with addons and perks to modify killer/survivor. But let's leave that.
Vague terminology can describe WHAT things do, but not HOW. As I said, when they add percentages, they need to add at least 20 more pages of the mechanics behind. Ever grinded in Diablo 2 and get tables about drop chances and item levels in certain areas to know where to get your best materials for your crafting? You want that type of maths in DbD?
You get the percentages from the wiki if you are into that, but this is in my opinion not the type of game where you need it.
If you don't know how it works, "20%" doesn't tell you anything more than "considerably". The thing you need to know is, it gets faster, wider, etc
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I've asked this several times; the usual response I would get is "We don't want to confuse newer players." When offered a compromise in the form of a toggleable option (to switch between actual numbers and the "slightly/moderately/considerably/tremendously" inconsistently-worded nonsense) I have been met with silence.
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I can tell you that. Chainsaw cooldown is moredately reduces. Or chainsaw cooldown is reduced by 12%. "Wow, 12% is ... almost like... how long is the cooldown again??"
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Devs are too lazy to implement a simple and helpful change, easy as that.
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Agree to disagree. To me that would be more simple to understand, but to each their own.
They could also make a change where it would be something like "Reduces chainsaw cooldown by 1 second" for example. I think that would be relatively easy to comprehend.
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are you seriously saying
"20%" doesn't tell you anything more than "considerably"
with a straight face?
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let me share one of my favorite examples of why they should use numbers rather than these words that mean nothing.
Pig, and her add on Razor Wires.
"moderately increases jigsaw box skillcheck trigger odds"
want to know what they percent is?... 2% i wouldn't say theres anything moderate about a 2% increase
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Thank you Mookywolf, that's an even better example that % can even be misleading. I don't know the base number, but lets say the chance for a skillcheck is 8% per second. Increasing it by 2% makes it 10%. That is a 25% higher chance of getting a skillcheck. They could even write 25% instead, allowing to think that you have a 33% chance per second to get a skillcheck. How bout that? Does 25% sound more "moderate"? Changed your mind about what this addon does?
If yes, you understood what they said with moderate, got confused by the percentage and needed additional facts to understand the percentage. There you go.
And we already had the case with "50% increased speed does not mean half the time". A number does not necessarily tell you anything, if you don't know the base number and how the change takes effect
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Btw nice job cutting out the condition on this sentence to make it look silly
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yes i'll admit the numbers got me a bit, but even at 25% no that doesn't sound moderate, so its still misleading. also i feel like these words mean nothing if you don't know the base number, so why does that really matter?
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That's what I say. The percentage can be more precise, but not without all the information needed to understand. Slightly, moderately etc has a basic meaning that you can understand, and as long as you don't have all the information, the vague wording gives you at least a clear and consistent meaning. Percentage has no consistent meaning, again with the healing sample: 50% increased speed is something different than 50% less healing duration.
I would also like more information, not that anyone gets me wrong. I'm just saying that they decided to go that way, it has a reason and it is not a wrong decision by default
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thank you. but it was pretty simple... considering that what you said was silly.
Also, quoted you. Your entire comment is there, I just focused on one part. but with or without context, you're fundamentally wrong.
let me explain.
the diference between the sentence "increases attack speed by 5%" and the sentence "moderately increases attack speed" is evident. you don't need to know the actual attack speed.(and if you do, the first one gives even more information)
with both, you know the attack speed is increased. But only with the first one you actually know by how much. Fundamentally, a number will always give more information compared to a vague description.
obviously, not everyone know how numbers work. If that was the case accountants wouldn't be a thing. but that's completely unrelated.
The thing is, giving accurate information to the players is aways better than vague information. and I have no idea why you think it would require 20 pages to do so...
And we already had the case with "50% increased speed does not mean half the time". A number does not necessarily tell you anything, if you don't know the base number and how the change takes effect
I assume this one was for my comment.
that's a problem with reading compreension, not numbers. Being 50% faster doesn't mean half the time. because obviously to take half the time you would have to be 2 times, or 100%, faster.
people didn't pay attention to what they were reading and assumed things. that is all.
Thank you Mookywolf, that's an even better example that % can even be misleading. I don't know the base number, but lets say the chance for a skillcheck is 8% per second. Increasing it by 2% makes it 10%. That is a 25% higher chance of getting a skillcheck. They could even write 25% instead, allowing to think that you have a 33% chance per second to get a skillcheck. How bout that? Does 25% sound more "moderate"? Changed your mind about what this addon does?
let me tackle this one too.
again, there's no need for the base number. 2% increase means 2% increase. moderately increase could mean literally infinite numbers, making it pretty useless as a description.
one gives better information than the other. period.
also, "increases the base chance of skill checks by 25%" and "increases the base chance of skills checks in 2%". That's how you would write either version. It isn't misleading, you just don't know proper grammar.
hell... you can even go "adds 2% to the base chance of skill checks" if you wanna be pedantic about it.
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Yeah, actually it would. All they have to do is on the actual description of the power, instead of say. "Grants undetectable for a a few seconds after exiting a portal" make it say "Grants undetectable for 2 seconds after exiting a portal"
Now the addon is easy for me to understand, that it increases that by .5 seconds. That's very easy to understand. Right now, i have to go look it up.
and on top of that the verbs aren't consistent across killers. For example, pig https://deadbydaylight.gamepedia.com/John%27s_Medical_File
says it "slightly reduces the charge time" when it actually cuts it in HALF. Which is HUGE. Especially since it stacks with another addon that makes the damn thing charge almost instantly. And they both say it only "SLIGHTLY reduces the time"
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alright, so tell me why so many people have no idea about what the percentages mean and go for the forums to create gigantic threads, that are often only solved with the help of devs, if proper grammar solves everything. Moons answer to my post pretty much is the direct example why percentages are not the easiest solution
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ok. so we agree the only issue is that people don't understand things. and the numbers aren't the issue. glad we moved past that.
now... how is what you described any different than how the forums is right now? spoiler alert, it isn't
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aren't most add on in this game useless anyways?
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What I say is that numbers can be misleading, using the same 4 words over and over again for several different mechanincs aren't. We can discuss what gives you more value, depending on comprehension, but there is nothing to discuss that numbers without background can be misleading. This is and was my point the entire time. Glad u got that now.
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Otzdarva made a video about it on youtube go and check it you have actual numbers there.
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