Quest mobs in TDS give out far less exp then regular mobs in TDS. The intention being that they not be farmed. Which is fine it would just be nice to know.
It's not about mystery, it's about immersion. Demonstrating uncommon valor, you battle and bring down horrific ursarachnids, abominations twisted by the influence of otherworldly Ethernere, scrambling to evade their poisonous maws, not ... activate your 5000dps on the 2mil hp sprite and wait two minutes.
Okay, so couldn't it be safely said then, that if mystery or immersion/roleplay are factors, then why is there a need for DPS meters, ZAM, EQ Resource, etc...Because each of those takes away the mystery aspect, so why would someone use them? Oh, that's right, because the player *needs* info, so instead of the game internally providing them some clear info, they have to go to an external website or external tool to pull the info...instead of just displaying the damn hitpoints.
The specific hp of a mob is not a useful number. Unless you're parsing and paying attention to dps and doing the number crunching it just flat isn't a necessary number to have.
None of that info is "needed". It's out there for those that like it to get it. Can you explain how this is a "need"? How does not knowing exactly how much hp two mobs side by side have impair your ability to play the game?
For me, none of this impairs my ability to play the game, nor do I "need" it. I kill quickly and honestly don't really care and the mobs die very quickly. But for the new player, the one who has (6) mobs on his/her aggro meter in the Ext Target Window, and he/she isn't sure which to take down first because they are all a dark blue con...I'd say in that scenario, it'd certainly be a "nice to have". Someone said originally that HP and Mana wasn't even shown to the owner's character a long time ago, but what happened? Change. Why? Someone provided an argument good enough to justify "need", because it was important for someone to know. So if that changed, why not this? I'm so confused why this has to remain so damn Da Vinci Code secretive.
Another example of something implemented that doesn't scream immersion or mystery to me, is when they added the Portal Crystals vendor to the GH. None of that is needed, right? You have all the maps and directions you need if you open up ZAM, or EQ Resource, so you don't need that to get where you need to go. Why did it change? Because there was a logical need for it to save a little time for your character. Was it popular? I'm sure there was and complaining, yes, but people got used to it and adapted. So because you need immersion or mystery, are you telling me that some of you folks blatently ignore the Portal Crystals vendor, and run to every destination on your own? Yea, didn't think so, you adapted and got used to it. And that was a big change/implementation...what I'm asking is minor at the worst.
If you've got 6 mobs to take down, hp isn't your primary determining factor. If you're a new player, you're screwed anyway.
So let me ask this...EQ1 aside...Let's say for every MMO out there, tomorrow a change was made to take the HP/Mana UI display details away from a user's view, and you're only left with % like here in EQ1... Based on these arguments I've heard so far, you'd be okay and happy with that? Because, like several of you have said...It's not needed, so it won't impact your gameplay.
The question remains, why would someone really need to know how many hit points there are on a mob? Why would someone want to remove the challenge, the "Whew, it's dead and I am alive!" moment? Just how much hand holding do you want?
Everquest has never had hit point information available, ever. You've always had to use a 3rd party program to figure it out via parsing. Besides fluff to look at, it really does nothing for you knowing the HP's and would just be another thing they would have to code in, I would say it's not a very good use of their resources/time. Download a parser and get over it, is what I would recommend.
As a pet class player for years I've never cared. I have enough stuff to squint at, and I already know it's higher than players
Do you really want to see 999999999999999/999999999999999 next to every mob name in your target window? Yeah... no... I sure wouldn't. IF they ever wasted time to do this I hope it would be an optional toggle thing. I could care less... I can either parse it or just know nuke X is Y % of mob HP and call it a day. It makes sense I can see my own HP or how much I healed for... it's *my* stuff. And I can see my friends' spells because I know how predictable they are and have known them long enough that giant ice rock from the sky is Ice Comet. It's already a stretch I know that new boss mob is gonna cast whatever spell... and really you only know the details by parsing spell data so if you want to break your own immersion, you can. If not, you don't have to. The player does NOT need the info whatsoever. You can be 100% successful not knowing anything from a 3rd party site and just learning from experience. You're gonna fight a new boss... you know it's going to cast something nasty but don't know what so you just prepare and cast spell shields and have group cures up. You kill it and now you know what is needed next time. People have the option to break immersion if they want but do not say that it is required by any means. Most raid guilds go into events somewhat blind even with all of that 3rd party info available... so this argument doesn't hold up.
An HP indicator will not help me one bit. After playing EQ a while you get a feel for the game, zones and using the /con system. 95% of the time your pulling singles and burning them down fast.
