The Beacon: October 2011

My Dark Souls characters (200+ hours played)

Preface: As a huge fan of Dark Souls, I wanted to look critically at the game and present alternatives for how the game could be improved without altering the stellar core experience.

Part I - Data Visualization
Dark Souls unique mix of thrilling action, backed by complex and fulfilling RPG-like statistics sets it apart from it's peers. The first area of this critique of Dark Souls relates to "How Dark Souls communicates it's complexity to the player". We will identify areas of improvement and present alternative ways of communicating these complex systems to the player using data visualization.

Equipment User Interface
Equipment plays an integral role in success/survival in Dark Souls. Communicating how the player's statistics and equipment are interrelated can mold the experience for the player. Here is a photo of Dark Souls equipment interface along with a description of the concepts communicated to the player.

Dissection
What red numbers mean...

80, 0 in the ATK table (associated with the Physical, and Lightning rows respectively) are red to represent that these values are less/worse than the currently equipped weapon. (To put it another way, the currently equipped weapon does more Physical damage than 80, and more Lightning damage than 0). The 35.0 value in the DamageReduction% table represents that the this weapon has less defense against Lightning than the currently equipped weapon. Likewise, the durability 160/160 is red because the durability is less than the currently equipped weapon.
-64 in the ATK table is associated to the fact that the player's Faith stat is below the ReqParam value of 14. (nothing to do with the currently equipped weapon, but rather a deficiency in the player's ability to effectively wield the weapon)

What blue numbers mean...

The value +22 represents a calculated bonus applied to the physical damage based on the player's Strength and Dexterity stats, and the C, C ParamBonus fields for Strength and Dexterity. The +22 is blue because the value of this calculated stat bonus (+22) is more/better than the calculated stat bonus of the currently equipped weapon. Likewise, the reason (C,C,C) ParamBonus fields for Strength, Dexterity, and Faith are blue is because these ParamBonuses (multiplers) are better than the ParamBonuses for Strength, Dexterity and Faith for the currently equipped weapon. The 120 value near the bottom represents that there is an auxilliary blessing effect that exists on this weapon (which is better than the currently equipped weapon). and the Physical, Fire and Stability values (50.0, 35.0, 32) for DmgReduction% are all blue because these values exceed those of the currently equipped weapon.

What the white numbers mean...

white numbers on the equipment screen (except for the ReqParam table) represent that values for this weapon are the same as the currently equipped weapon...
in the ReqParam table, a white number means the player's current stat meets or exceeds this requirement.

Analysis

The communication becomes "murky" due to the fact the use of colored numbers are "overloaded" to mean more than one thing. Red sometimes means "does not meet requirements" and sometimes means "worse than currently equipped weapon", and white sometimes means "same as current weapon" or otherwise "meets or exceeds requirements"). In addition, the fact that the data and labels use white text make it hard to distinguish what information is "data" and what information is a label or "meta-data". (Thus giving the overall busy appearance for the eye).

In an effort to answer multiple questions for the user:

How does this weapon compare to my currently equipped weapon?
Does my character have appropriate stats to wield this weapon?
How does this weapon scale with my character's growth in the game?
How much damage will this weapon do?

The communication becomes tangled and confusing. Truthfully, the "value" of comparison for "How this weapon compares to the currently equipped weapon?" is dubious. Annotating values with red and blue colors may tell you which values are better or worse, however they do not communicate "by how much", and in the process make the communication of stat requirements more obfuscated for the user.

Alternative
Here is a redesigned mock up of the interface which attempts to delineate more clearly the interrelation between elements using a consistent color scheme.

Setting aside the aesthetic choices for a moment, here are a few points to be made concerning this redesigned user interface:

the "Critical" parameter with value 100 from the original ATK table is absent, and in it's place, there is the value 118 which represents the "combined" damage output expected from this weapon. This is the sum of the "base" damage values, and stat bonus values based on the player's statistics. This combined number comes in handy for comparison purposes (since often the player wants to quickly browse the expected total damage output in comparison to other weapons).
the AuxEffects icons for Bleed, Poison, and Curse are missing... (the values are 0 for this particular weapon) this simplifies the interface, they only appear under the effects as a "badge" (similar to the Blessing effect with value 120 in this example) if they are relevant
all "data" are white text for consistency sake. It is also easier to read white text set against black red or blue , than red or blue text on top of a dark/near black background
red refers exclusively to a player not meeting a required stat for this equipment, (14 Faith in this example) and the corresponding negative adjustment based on not meeting the required stats (-64 in this example)
blue is now the color for "Stat Scaling", you can see the association between the +22 and the Stat Scaling values for Str, Dex, Intel, and Faith.
Relevant stat scaling letters (E,D,C,B,A, and S) are adorned with a sectional circle broken into 6 parts of equal size. The number of "blue" sections letter this re-enforces the "rank" of which scale is "better" (Since it's not always easy to remember that "E" is "worst" and "S" is "best").
Similar to how the AuxEffects icons for Bleed, Poison, and Curse are missing, the value for Critical has disappeared. The logic behind this decision is (based on the strategy guide) that the Critical value is 100 for every weapon in the game except for 6 weapons. Therefore we can assume the value for Critical is 100 for each weapon, unless they have an added "Critical Effect" which displays this bonus in the "Effects" section. (FYI this is similar to how critical attacks wee handled in Demon's Souls) Here are the weapon/values for these weapons: