Thanks so much for understanding, Nick. (And Three Rings)

But as a note, be more careful when doing changes that will change gameplay as much as something like this would. Instantly changing it, without asking for feedback of the community or any revert option will have some pretty bad results.

In general, this change would be something better for a casual player that focuses on fun, I guess (although I'm sure they wouldn't care about numbers either - Both would most likely be the same thing for them) - But in general online games, you'll be getting hardcore players that will care about their damage and all more than casual ones. Endgame even more, this one change would make a big difference, as it'd be pretty much impossible to know how effective this armor that boosts attack would be.

And a request: Please remove the shaking strong attacks often cause. This can be very troublesome when in large groups of monsters, even more on a full party.

I'm glad that there's an option now. I haven't logged on to test the "colors" thing, but I really think I'd prefer numbers in this game.

Now the color blind people are happy and the people who suffer from arithmophobia.

Agree agree agree. Is there any way we can get number representations for everything? I would be very thankful.

Mathcrafting is fun! :3

I would appreciate the toggle option! I do enjoy seeing the damage numbers. The game feels incomplete without them. (At least in my own opinion.)

Glad to hear! Now I can flex my internet muscles a little more. :D

Though seriously, always appreciate having the options, so thanks!

@Magnus: Same goes for the casual players! I think everyone can offer some form of constructive feedback, regardless of play style.

Awesome, thanks for listening. I was especially having a hard time decyphering the dual damage weapons, I'm not sure how to interpret a Large grey flash. lol

Tongue in cheek or not, hardcore does not necessarily mean better knowledge of design or intent~!

And I figure feedback from all angles is better than just some as well... oh well.

I would like to suggest changing the graphics for the damage level indicators to recognizable shapes with hard edges. The glowy-cloudy effects are cool looking, but when they're stacked on top of the glowy sword attack effect you just used and the glowy attack charge the monster is preparing, it becomes impossible to recognize a pale grey flash vs. a pale blue flash. Also, the gold stars look like they should cause the stun status effect, but they do not.

You could also use emoticons rather than numbers so players can instantly determine that they made a good hit, rather than running around for a while before they can reasonably guess that there are 3 levels, and that gold is better than blue is better than grey.

"You either make the game a fast paced, console styled action MMO, or you make it a regular, cute-looking, grindfest."

Even The Secret of Mana, the original cute grindfest game, had actual numbers for damage dealt.

I think the stats are absolutely necessary. I played a lot of Diablo 2 back in the day, and although I could get an intuitive sense of whether my equipment was sufficiently strong it was absolutely necessary to see raw numbers when comparing two weapons or pieces of armor against each other.

This article was on Kotaku a few days ago...

http://kotaku.com/#!5785206/why-do-our-role+playing-games-still-need-numbers-everywhere

I find it ironic that so many people complained about a lack of numbers after I just read that article. I myself don't really mind the lack of numbers...heck, I didn't even notice them until everybody started complaining about them being gone already. I'm not a casual gamer, but I'm apparently not a hardcore gamer either by the general opinion. But I'm always that way with MMOs. Everybody is so worried about "doing it wrong!" that they get caught up in character builds and where to grind and all sorts of crap that controls the way they play the game rather than just playing it "their" way. I on the other hand just play the way I want and I don't care what popular opinion is...I play the game MY way.

Right, and that's fine by me. What I don't like is that people tend to push stuff down your throats and look down on somebody because they want to play the game their own way. I don't care how you play the game, just don't tell me how to play is all I'm saying.

Personally, I don't think the numbers are that important to Spiral Knights because we can't actually see how much life an enemy has. If there was a lifebar or current/max HP stat that showed as well, I could understand. As it stands, I prefer the Zelda style of slash 'em 'til they die! lol

Zelda though doesn't have the freedom as SK.

In Zelda, you have the Master Sword which happens to be stronger than any sword you have before that point. Now you could also get any stronger swords like the Tempered Sword and Golden Sword in A Link to the Past, or the Big Goron Sword in Ocarina of Time.
From any description or dialogue you can tell that whatever sword you have now is immediately stronger than whatever you had before, and you can even feel it one hit koing any enemies that come across your path.

In Spiral Knights, there's a variety of ways to play the game.
You can have the typical Sword+Gun or Sword+Bomb combo, but you can also go sword only, or gun only, or even bomb only.
You have a variety of armors that give you certain bonuses that may appeal to the player for maximizing defence at the cost of attack speed or even maximizing attack power in exchange for any practical defense stats.

Spiral Knights also scales your sword's power depending on what depth you're in.
Numbers are downright vital for a game such as this.

But it's great that Three Rings is giving an option to enable/disable damage values so that everyone is satisfied.

Zingman, how do you compare the damage of something like the autogun to the damage of a blaster when you can't tell the actual damage?

FYI the autocannon does more damage if every shot hits even though it shows lower damage in bar form.

How do you judge the importance of a charge attack vs a regular for something like the cutter variants? How do you tell the importance of a three hit combo with a calibur variant?

While this game encourages casual play and discourages min/maxing, some of us take pleasure in knowing that we aren't making completely ineffectual choices in our play.

Also, numbers are fun.

Couldn't you just sticky the topic since it's pretty important?

Since the enemies don't have some sort of lifebar/HP count, I could care less about numbers. Bethesda did fine without numbers in Oblivion/Fallout(Although the enemies had life bars), so I don't see what all the commotion was all about since we don't know much of the enemy's stats.

Nonetheless, I'm glad numbers are back, so at least before I fight Vanaduke, I can call for a number cruncher in the party who will hopefully give us a percentage higher than 32.3333% (repeating, of course).

The point is not that you SAY things, but your attitude and choice of words are subtly offensive. Yes, I actually take a mild amount of offense when you say things like my choices are "ineffective" or that your choices are "intelligent." You make it sound like anyone who doesn't make those decisions are less intelligent than those who do. Give me the numbers and, yes, I could make a better informed and "intelligent" decision, but without the numbers I make a judgement call. I think it makes things more fun actually. Makes things less predictable and more true to life in that respect.

To each their own. Like the numbers, awesome. Don't like the numbers, also awesome. Just play. No need to get so touchy on either side of things. There shouldn't even really be a side. I don't need the numbers because I think I'm better than anyone else. On the contrary, I need the numbers because I am quite fail. I want to help my team as much as possible. The numbers help me. Not everyone that likes numbers is selfish, and not everyone that doesn't like numbers is thoughtless of self. So it's not very nice to generalize anyone as such. I like the game, with or without numbers. If it had no numbers I would still play. If it had only numbers I would still play. Doesn't matter, and it shouldn't. Why is everyone getting so touchy? I don't know about you guys, but I don't like confrontation. I don't mean to sound like I'm judging, I just don't understand the hostility and am trying to understand.

I get what Radz is saying. Tone is a very palpable thing, and can be ill perceived - especially on the Internet. However, hostility only begets hostility. Your statement also has the "mightier than thou" tone, even though you bring up a legitimate point.

Most of the posts on this thread, including mine, are not on topic. Honestly, this thread should have been sticked and locked, or put in the Announcements section. It was just meant to inform of the toggle. Not be a breeding pit for needless flame wars. Seriously people. Age, act it.

Haters are going to hate. I'm not gonna look at this topic anymore. It makes me sad.

I don't really care about the numbers one way or the other.

However, comparisons by the average amount of hitting power for a weapon is most useful right now in numeric form. The problem I had with the flashes is that they could get lost easily in the insanity of a melee battle because there's dust/halo/etc effects everywhere. Especially if you're a bomb-heavy knight. Whereas when a number shows up, you know it is for sure coming only from a couple places---either your sword/gun/bomb hitting things, or that darn healy butterfly/gremlin.

That's why the effects don't work for me as they are right now. If there was a distinct effect it would help. The stars may be cheezy to indicate a powerful hit on the weak point of an enemy, but they're distinct; whereas the difference between a gray and a blue flash is less discernible and yet in some ways more vital to know.

There's also the discrepancy between weapons of different levels; for instance, while a searing edge at level 3 can deal heavy damage to a zombie complete with stars, a level 1 Kamarin will deal about the same amount of damage even though it's just gray flashes. This is important to know because sometimes one has to prioritize one type of enemy and one doesn't necessarily have time to switch back to the most ideal weapon for the other type whilst in melee between the two.

grate job you guys! you guys Rock! i continue saying i love your game!