I prefer

dmg: 8 (and then have some 30 % up/down randomizer for all hits)

than always write double numbers like

dmg: 5-11

It just looks less messy to me with double numbers. Its also easier for the player to compare weapons/characters etc if its just one number. You can still have randomness.

I prefer

dmg: 8 (and then have some 30 % up/down randomizer for all hits)

than always write double numbers like

dmg: 5-11

It just looks less messy to me with double numbers. Its also easier for the player to compare weapons/characters etc if its just one number. You can still have randomness.

Yes, but on the other hand, it makes it simpler for the player to understand what the range of possible outcomes is.

For the average player, telling them "8 damage" and "30% +- randomizations" means telling them "get out your calculator and do your homework yourself"...

Now, given that many games today do not use an even distribution model any longer, something like "dmg: 5-11" is also not telling the full story... with a bell curve, 5 and 11 are highly unlikely, while 8 is the most likely result. There is no way to show to the player exactly what to expect in simple numbers, only a graphical representation could do that.

I personally still like the double numbers, they tell me to expect a spread between x and y, without telling me exactly how the spread looks or what the most common occurence is (I would still need to calculate what the average is, which is slightly easier than calculating the percentages).

But at least I know there is an RNG at work, without needing to look up any of the game rules or trying it out myself, and I get an indication as to how broad the randomization is.

To me, the double numbers convey useful additional information without bloating up the interface too much (like a graphical representation of the spread function would). That's why I prefer that to the single number, which indicates a simpleness that doesn't exist in the underlying game logic.

If something is complex, don't try to fool me into thinking it is simple by showing overly simplified numbers. Hide the last layer of complexity that would make th UI explode (don't need to know all the details), but give me enough of the important details so I can accuratly gauge what will happen in the game without having to "reverse engineer" the game logic.

I thouroughly hate how World of Warships for example tries to give every ship a rating on about 7 different aspects. One ship has a torpedo rating of 10, the other of 15... now, the higher rating could be because of many short ranged torpedos, while the ship with the lower rating has fewer, longer range torpedos.

Given how hard it is to get close enough to release your torps and actually hit something once you are spotted, it doesn't matter much how many torps a ship has, when the are only short ranged.

Rating still takes that into account though. Similar story with artillery and many inaccurate guns that cannot hit a barns side versus fewer that actually hit.

The only value of such a rating is to spot quickly if a ship has zero torps... in all other cases, you still need to dig into the detail stats to get out anything useful.

Defence 6, Attack 5 = the target is invincible (since 6 damage is always negated)

Defence 6, Attack 2-8 = now there is a chance to damage the target (average is still 5)

Note that basically always games make one of those fixed and one variable (attack is by convention the one that's variable).

Also it grant some variation to weapons. Like 1-12 halabard is good for high armoured enemies while a 3-5 dagger, while technically inferior, is excellent vs enemies that have 3HP and no defence (guaranteed kill each hit).