Ask HN: Examples of Documentation for Games?
TL;DR: do you know of any examples of a good documentation of a specific game and its mechanics? And do you think these are necessary/valuable?
I've just come into a discussion with a user on Reddit, because I was asking for a relative basic simple fact about a game (namely, Valorant – I will use this as a baseline example for here on out). The question was "How much damage does a player need to afflict onto an enemy to get an assist?"
I can't say if it is a "core" mechanic of the game, but it's very visible information right in the scoreboard and features into the "ranking" of the player after the game (which some might consider a valuable reward system). Now I don't really care for assists themselves, hence why I have never paid close attention to it. I know it's somewhat in the area of 40-50. Counter-Strike has 40, I'm pretty sure, which is why I was hesitant about 50 being the right number. So unless I wanted to play for a few hours and check out my damage numbers and rule out every possible combination, I searched for the number online. And I couldn't find anything on it. The official website has only the most basic information about agents, maps and guns. But no underlying mechanics. There is a fandom wiki, which, AFAIK also doesn't expose this information. I'm 100% sure the number is mentioned within a video, but I can't randomly try to find the right info out of hours of material, right?
So I was stumped and went to the subreddit to ask for the answer (it seems to be 50, btw) and vent about how we don't have any official documentation of the game mechanics of the games we play. More specifically I would say the mechanics of a highly competitive FPS, where variables are tweaked in the realm of milliseconds to make sure it is balanced.
And the user kind of went on a tangent on how I couldn't tell this just purely by playing and why I would need every bit of information spoonfed as it is done "nowadays".
Do you agree with that assessment? So professionally I come from a Design Systems background, which relies heavily on documentation and making sure everyone has access to the same information/status quo. Am I somehow wrong to want companies (that specifically work on heavily competitive games) to be transparent about how the mechanics of the game work? That don't rely on very specific circumstances to happen in-game so I can store this information somewhere?
My go to example for how "lazy" these companies are was this description of a skill ingame. The first one is the official description from the website. The second one is from the Fandom wiki. We rely on third-party providers to gather this information, rather than it being presented directly from the source.
> Valorant website:
NULL/CMD Instantly overload with polarized radianite energy that empowers KAY/O and causes large energy pulses to emit from his location. Enemies hit with these pulses are suppressed for a short duration.
> Fandom Wiki
NULL/CMD Instantly overload with polarized radianite energy that pulses from KAY/O in a massive radius. Enemies hit with pulses are suppressed for a short duration. While overloaded, KAY/O gains combat stim and can be re-stabilized if downed.
Required Ult points: 8
Windup Stabilization: 3 s
Revive: 1.55 s
Duration Overload: 12 s
Downed: 15 s Health: 850 HP (Downed)
Buff: +15% Fire rate, +10% Reload speed, +10% Recovery speed
Debuff: 4 s Suppression per pulse