How should I go about displaying varying numbers to the player?

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
1

I’m currently developing a game which has NPCs spawning with random amounts of money.

In my game, once these NPCs reach a player’s plot, the server then calculates a second amount of money which is the NPCs spending limit for that specific player.

The problem I have with this system is that the player’s don’t know how much money NPCs can actually spend, as only their initial spawn value is ever displayed.

It is mentioned in the games tutorial that this is normal behaviour, but as expected, it got skipped over by the first few testers we’ve had try the game.

I’m really not sure how I should go about this. Players got confused as to why NPCs wouldn’t buy items that they should be able to afford.

I was thinking of 3 possible systems I could use, I’ll put them in a poll, but if you have any other suggestions, let me know!

  • NPCs spawn with “???” as the text until they reach a plot, to which the actual limit is displayed.
  • When an NPC reaches a plot, a second TextBox appears with their new spending limit.
  • When an NPC reaches a plot, the original TextBox updates to their new spending limit.
0 voters

And for additional context as to why they have to calculate spending limits twice, its because of Store Ratings. Each player has a different rating, and any given NPC can go to anyone’s store, so pre-calculating the limit isn’t something I can do.

Let me edit in my view here:
The initial spawn amount of money is moreso “eye candy”, showing how much money the NPC could have, letting the player know whether they’re a good NPC or not.

The recalculated amount of money is whats important once the NPC has selected a plot and is buying items from the player.

2

Sorry if i misunderstood, but i would use GetPropertyChangedSignal(“Value”) and update the text. So you would just create the function and change the text within it.

text = spend.Value

spend.GetPropertyChangedSignal(“Value”):Connect(function()
text = spend.Value
end)

3

I don’t need help with that, I need help with the UX around it.

The NPCs initial spending limit and their actual spending limit are 2 entirely different attributes, and I’m not sure how I should go about displaying either one of them.

I’m completely fine with programming them, I just don’t know what option I’ve listed would be better to visually display them to the player to be understandable.

2 Likes
4

Ok ok my bad. You can try doing two billboard gui’s, one being on top and slightly bigger as well as a different color then the bottom one. You can do something simple like “initial limit:” and then “current limit:”

5

Hmm, I do like those two options of “Npc reaches a plot, original textbox updates” and "Npc spawn with ‘???’ ".

However I think I would go with the Actual limit (basically “???”). As for my reasoning that sometimes it can sometimes feel misleading of the spending limit and then “Recalculation” for the player specific plot. Which can be frustrating of finding a good npc, only to find a npc that wasn’t as good.

Of course I don’t know the entire game so this is just my speculation of context you given, but I think I’ll go with “???” to prevent of the “Misleading” if that makes sense.

1 Like
6

So basically, here’s how the recalculation works:

  • A base number is generated
  • when the NPC reaches a plot, they recalculate based on that plots rating
    • 1 star > 50%, 5 stars > 175%

So, its a little predictable how much of a reduction there’ll be, and good NPCs will remain good.

7

Ah alrighty, thanks for telling me how the recalculation works. Based on what you said, now I think the option of “Original textbox updates to a new spending limit” would work much better. You have said that its predictable and good NPCs will remain good. But I also wouldn’t completely scrapping the “???” if any calculation has to be changed for whatever reason.

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