What's The Purpose of Inflated Damage in RPGs?

[GrimHeaper]

the FF's are still sportin' the 9999 damage cap these days? take a hint from Disgaea. we like our big numbers.

The whole damage cap in FF is off and on for some reason.
I remember FFX removing the dmg cap.

 

[OliverTwist72]

How can you tell how much damage you were doing in FFXIII? There were so many freaking numbers popping up on the screen I couldn't decipher any of them...

 

[ResonanceSD]

include "J" in the title. Oblivion doesn't do this to gamers. FFX does. See the difference?

 

[Frotality]

because bigger is better? do you need another reason?! it lets you know your doing more damage than before, dishing out attacks that barely scratch current enemies but would OHKO past ones; creating a sense of progression when there really isnt any. sure its fake progression, but generally doesnt hurt anything since enemies would still be the same relative difficulty.

the problem you have isnt the hard numbers, but ff13's ridiculously hard to kill bosses. its a balance issue the series has always had, making fights drag on longer than they should. RPGs in general have enemies with more health than you because you have potions and human intelligence and they have shitty AI; final fantasy take this further by making bosses deal more damage than you can as well, which does make them way more frustrating than the should be at times. the series has always had a slow pace; dont blame the numbers!

 

[DaHero]

Same reason the xp for MW2 multiplayer was the same as COD 4 only with a zero on the end.

People get easily excited over bigger numbers, I guess.

Actually CoD is a different issue, CoD players need big and massive things to compensate for their lack of ego and real skill factor.

 

[synobal]

Wow seems to be suffering from something similar.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I dislike RPG systems that do that. Especially when they apply armor as direct damage reduction (as opposed to percentage damage reduction or to-hit reduction). Still not sure why D20 isn't more popular in video games. The processor does all of the hard parts for you, so why not?

Ugh, that's something I really hate as well. I tend to like to focus on defense, but I never can in most games because of how worthless armor is. 1,000,010 damage! Put on a +500 Defense piece of equipment? Now they only do 1,000,005 damage!

 

[WanderingFool]

What I think the reason for this is to add a sense of epic conflict. When you deal 9999 dmg to a boss or enemy that has 5,500,000 HP, It gives a sense that you are a powerful mother, but there is even more powerful mothers out there. Taking one of these down is suppose to feel like you are a fucking badass, even though it really doesnt mean anything.

Basically, its all show, no go...

 

[AyreonMaiden]

Except it does the opposite when you are fighting a loney little rabit that has 50,000hp.

Precisely this. Disgaea's case is okay because getting to the point where you can do literal billions of damage points is just funny to see in a game that's already inherently humorous. But in any other game, I just feel like I'm not doing anything at all. I don't feel badass and challenged when I see big numbers but no difference. It gets to be a war of attrition after a point. That's the problem I found in these games like Eternal Sonata and FFXIII.

 

[thedoclc]

It's called "padding a cashcow", a practice that needs to be thoroughly banned.

Um, -what-? A cash cow is when a company has a product or service which generates a very high RoI which serves as a large revenue stream then used to fund new projects and growth. For example, I'd bank on Nike's shoes being a huge cash cow. iPods are another great example; overpriced for their functionality, they turned Apple around and funded the company's growth into new markets and products. Additionally, it's -milk- a cash cow.

That has nothing to do with the absurd numbers which show up in an RPG. The OP's question was about RPG mechanics.

Edit: Ah, the obvious VG example would be WoW, though I do think Halo, CoD, and pretty much any "guaranteed to sell" series might count, as would something like Plants vs. Zombies. (PvZ might not be PopCap's largest stream; I don't know, don't care, and am not about to look it up, but will leave it at that.)