ensata
commented
9 years ago Consistent terminology, nouns and other keywords is actually a pretty major issue from what I've seen.
For the game mechanics specifically, I would generally suggest studying the commonly accepted terminology in western RPGs for an idea of what western players will understand. I don't just mean playing some video games, but also the grandfather of the RPG: D&D. It always returns there, at some point or other.
For the standard triangle of Physical Damage types, those are: Bludgeon/Blunt; Slash; Pierce.
From that, you might change up the synonyms based on the game's actual skills, but it's not very different. Calling it 'Crush' instead of 'Blunt' is... well, I'm not for or against it, but it all comes down to the types of skills in the game, and whether that word comes up somewhere else. I would consider whatever words picked to be reserved, which means that you should avoid using those words as much as possible, to avoid confusion between a request for a player action, and writing flavor - like what you pointed out with "Hit".
Anyway - 'ea' is actually meant to be an abbreviation of 'each', but the period is missing for some reason.
The alternate word would be 'piece(s)', so that the full blurb would be "2 pieces obtained" or something. The actual problem though, as you pointed out in the example, comes in the construction of the sentence and the word order. I think there are actually several other places where the word order problem comes up with the dynamic sentences, but I can't really remember all of it.
ttgmichael
Nagoda
Sunaries
Soukyuu
After playing the beta, I've encountered some terminology that appears in parts of the UI and various game systems that need some adjustment, some of which we can fix through pull requests, but some might require assistance and approval from @imcgames to change. I thought making a thread to bring up and discuss things like this would be a good idea.
Damage Types ToS uses a system for having multiple types of damage that should be somewhat familiar to many players of RPGs, but the terminology it uses is sometimes inconsistent or odd sounding. More specifically:
The game uses "Hit" damage type on skill descriptions, "Strike" damage on weapon descriptions, and "Blow +50%" to show when you are hitting an enemy weakness. Clearly, calling the same damage type three different things is really confusing to the player.
I also am not a huge fan of any of these specific names. "Blow" damage just sounds strange. "Hit" and "Strike" basically mean the same thing, but the way these words are commonly used in English, almost any kind of attack "hits" or "strikes" the enemy. My suggestion would be to change the term to "Crush", "Impact", or "Blunt" type damage. If we absolutely must use one of the hit/strike/blow already in the game, "Strike" is probably the least bad.
"Stab" type damage has a smaller issue. The game does use "Stab" consistently, and it's clear enough what type of damage it's meant to represent, but I think "Pierce" is a far better word for this damage type. The word "Stab" is associated more with hand weapons like daggers and knives, and it looks pretty silly to have a Bow that "Stabs" enemies with arrows. The word "Pierce" is clear enough that it easily tells us what type of attack it is, while still being flexible enough to sound natural whether you're describing daggers, spears, arrows, or magic.
"Slash" damage needs no change.
Most of these can be fixed through data editable in the tsv files and pull requests, but I think IMC should approve any new terms we come up with since they will affect many skills and items across the game. I haven't been able to find the "Blow +50%" or "Stab +50%" popups in the tsv files, so that might be a graphic which IMC would have to change.
As a related issue, in the F3 skill menu, the game tags some skills with a red "Hit" banner in the upper left corner. Players have told me this is supposed to tell people which skills are most popular with other players, but right now it just adds even more confusion to the "Hit" damage type, since players might easily think it has something to do with how the skill works. I think the easiest fix here is to change it to be "Hot" so that it's consistent with the similar banner that appears in the Class Advancement menu.)
Counting with "ea" Example: "Kepa Stem 2 ea Obtained" or "Max Socket 1 ea"
This is an odd bit of translation that has always bugged me, has been around since Ragnarok at least, and I'm sure has made it into other games. I truly don't know if this is a Konglish artifact or what, people say the "ea" is meant to represent "each", but the usage makes little sense in English. The only acceptable use that comes to mind is in player-run shop menus where buying or selling an item for "x silver each" makes sense. There are many lines in the TSV files with "ea" usage, but it's very difficult to test which line in the file corresponds to what in-game, even with the real-time tool. One easy change that could be done is to modify
ETC_20150317_002445 {Count} ea obtained to ETC_20150317_002445 x {Count} obtained so item pickup lines would read as "Kepa Stem x 2 obtained"
There are many other "ea" lines in the tsv files, but this one is probably the most frequently seen and most easily changed. I have tested this change within the game and think it looks good with how the item pickup notification is formatted.
Summary
-Consistency between "Hit/Strike/Blow" damage types, suggest unifying them all as "Crush" damage type. IMC assistance possibly required to change "Blow +50%" combat text.
-Suggest changing "Stab" damage type to "Pierce". IMC assistance possibly required to change "Stab +50%" combat text.
-Change the red "Hit" banner that appears on some skills in the F3 menu to read as "Hot" for less confusion and to match the Class Advance menu. IMC probably needs to edit this graphic.
-Eliminate usage of "ea" as a counting marker as much as possible, except in specific cases where it makes sense, such as shop menus. Replace "ea" with "x" where necessary,
This is far from a comprehensive list, I'm sure there will be more to add in the future, and it might take some time to whittle away at the more subtle problems like "ea" counting. As always, other people are welcome to add their thoughts and share any additional items which might be relevant.