Alright, let's do this.
That is not related to experience points, enemy HP, or revealing the inner workings of the NPC (who are still totally unpredictable and dangerous and you don't know what they'll do, how much health they have, what they are carrying, how much "XP" they'll give you, etc).
Listen Mode is a tactical tool to balance the gameplay. To balance the fact a player doesn't have the senses that Ellie does in the world. It's a system-subjective feature.
Sounds pretty realistic to me.
Oh yeah, and we've all played the first game, which was very realistic. You combine alcohol and rags to make a bandage? Yup, realistic. You'd do that in real life.
Yes there's a UI for doing this, but the UI essentially represents Ellie's mind. It doesn't tell you anything about the world or enemies in it. It doesn't do fourth-wall-breaking shit like telling you what an NPC is carrying or where you can find the resources or whatever. The UI is just there to let you see what Ellie is thinking: "there's a rag on the floor by my feet", "I can combine these two things to make that thing". The sorts of things you could combine IRL. Enemies and their "minds" are always impenetrable. They designed this meticulously.
Again, not terribly unrealistic (humanity hasn't been doing any grass trimming or construction for, what, 25 years?) and again, nothing to do with UI or revealing the inner workings of NPCs, which is the core point of this discussion. This is simply a stealth tool.
Again, nothing to do with NPC UI, and again, plenty "waist-high cover" in real life. Regardless, from what we've seen of TLOU2 that cover is infinitely more nuanced and dynamic (you can now go prone to hide behind lower stuff, you can climb on top of things, etc).
Again, this is all UI for Ellie/the player, not for enemies. This is about giving the player clarity and bringing them into the intensity of Ellie's actions.
This discussion is about revealing the enemies' inner workings through UI. Of demystifying the systems underneath the enemy's models. And again, this is something Naughty Dog will never reveal during gameplay.
You clearly totally misunderstand the purpose of those UI elements (damage points, XP points, etc). None of this is about being "realistic" or "unrealistic" per se, it's about ensuring characters/enemies are believable entities and not turning them into silly game objects.
Not a single piece of UI in any of Naughty Dog's games reveals the inner workings of its NPCs. Unlike say in an RPG or a shlooter where these UI features are common. That's because in those games NPCs have clearly marked status ailments, health bars, XP, etc. The core loop is improving your character's stats (a spreadsheet) and your abilities/attacks (other spreadsheets) to compound enemy stats (health, DPS, weakness elements, etc - more spreadsheets) knowing how much damage your actions do. The NPCs are somewhat transparent - as much as you fight them, you're also managing them. You understand their stats and how your stats relate to theirs.
This concept does not align with Naughty Dog's core goal. Which is cinematic. They want you to be in a playable movie; or better than a playable movie. Having numbers and spreadsheets floating around isn't something you'd see in a movie, right?
But more importantly, what is crucial to a movie? Characters. Naughty Dog meticulously design UI to make everything as much like a movie as possible, with believable characters/enemies in it. This means never breaking the fourth wall with characters (enemies or friendlies). The opposite of this? Putting "damage points" above an enemy. Putting "XP points" above an enemy. When it comes to characters and enemies, they will never use UI or systems to reveal the character's inner workings. Because that completely goes against their philosophy. Under their philosophy, you shoot someone in the head, they die. (And indeed that is how it works in every one of their games since 2006, with rare tiny exceptions.)
The only argument against this fact is "Listen Mode", but even that doesn't tell you the NPCs inner workings. It just conveys what Ellie/the player-character is keeping track of that you aren't able to (because you're not physically in the world). It shows you where they are right now. It doesn't show you where they're going, what their health is, where they've been, etc.
When I spoke about realism, it pertained only to the NPCs. Not the overall gameplay or game systems. Of course ND games have tons of UI and systems. I never said they didn't. What they DON'T have is UI which trivialises enemies and NPCs and turns them into game-objects. Because to ND, making other characters feel like figures in a movie is of utmost importance.
