Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Announcements => Other Announcements => Topic started by: Skeletor on November 07, 2011, 10:51:54 AM
-
What are in your opinion roguelikes' biggest turn-offs?
I think such a thread could be useful for developers to know what things could keep away potential players from giving a try to their games.
Let's rate them from 1 to 3.
1- Just a little annoying
2- Big turn-off; unless there are other potentially interesting aspects to balance this factor, I'll not try it
3- I'm very likely not playing a game because of this
First things that come to my mind:
- no screenshots on the website (2)
I like to try new games but I need at least a glimpse on what I'm downloading.
- development still at the very beginning (3)
I'm not saying that I don't play alpha relases, but unless the game architecture is *very* innovative, there should be at least some complexity and features, otherwise I don't want to immerge myself in something like that hoping that the work will go on.
- libraries to install (2)
I really don't like to install all those libraries, .net stuff, compilers and so on to play a roguelike.. but sometimes the game is worth the effort
- java (2)
I think no explanation is needed here haha.
- bad controls (1)
Unintuitive key configuration, ankward controls and maybe no txt controls file (so I can print it) can be a real pain.
-
- java (2)
I think no explanation is needed here haha.
Religion?
-
- java (2)
I think no explanation is needed here haha.
Religion?
I'm not a developer so I'm not going to talk about tech stuff.
As a player, I always noticed how much java games tend to suck.
They're slow, requires to install stuff, they're slow, there's another ugly pop up in system tray, and they're slow, slow, slow.
Take a look at Adom vs Jade, in Adom you press -> and you instantly move right without waiting that millisecond more while the mouse pointer becomes a hourglass.
-
Excellent thread.
Here's my biggest turn-offs, they are all deal-breakers:
-Too much "Funny"/Silly stuff (3)
I don't mind a few rare monsters or items with humorous names, but for the most part the game should take itself seriously.
-"Cute" graphics. (3)
-Overly simplified game play. (3)
I want a detailed world with many things to pursue.
-Straying too much from traditional Roguelike conventions. (3)
I want to play something that feels like a classic Roguelike. It's just my taste.
Edit: An exception to this is when the game is mind-blowingly innovative. Then the game is cool again for different reasons.
Also, Krice please respond in this thread. :)
-
There are many little things I think can be annoying. 7DRLs in particular suffer from some of these:
No readme.txt file (1)
No in-game list of commands or instructions (1)
Uses a scripting language like python without offering a .exe version (1)
Too many requirements and different versions etc can make it extremely fiddly to get running
No RogueBasin entry (1)
Helps a lot with checking out some simple facts about the game
No dedicated download link (1)
There's no reason to use the likes of Mediafire when you can host it on Google Sites for free
vi keys by default (2)
vi keys that can't be reconfigured (3)
Nethack style equipment commands (2)
Why do I need separate wear and wield and quiver commands? Use ADOM's inventory system if you want that level of complexity.
Too easy (1)
I play roguelikes to get some challenge
Too many unfair deaths (2)
It shouldn't feel like death is unavoidable - smart and careful play should have the potential to get you far
Real-time (3)
I hate twitch gameplay. I like games that test my ability to think through situations rather than simply testing quick responses.
Graphics but no mouse support (1)
If you can manage graphics you can damn well manage mouse support. Mouse support adds a lot to a game, and can help overcome a lot of the crazy interface complexity many roguelikes suffer from. It's more important than graphics for making a game accessible.
Boring text (1)
"You hit the orc. The orc misses you. Blah blah blah." Spice up the messages! And no bad grammar please! If the game log is too boring then it won't get read.
Very small window that can't be resized (1)
I don't like to play whilst squinting.
Very small map area, with window taken up by too many stats and unimportant details (1)
Too many colours (2)
libtcod games tend to be very guilty of this. Choose a simple colour scheme for your game and stick to it. Minimalism is important in colour choices. Do *not* use extensive amounts of gradient colour fields or different background colours to tiles, and go light on the primary colours. The beauty of ASCII is in simple representation that lets you quickly pick out what's what. Don't screw that up with a clown vomit colour scheme.
Too many symbols (2)
Similar to the above. Dwarf Fortress is an UGLY game, and unfortunately some people seem to be inspired by its display. Stick to recognisable characters and try to keep displays clean and simple. Don't think that just because it's ASCII there are no visual design elements to consider. There are lots of pretty ASCII games out there, and they choose their symbols and colours wisely.
-
Difficulty (3)
When I play RLs, I want it to be hard enough to be interesting. Too easy games are no fun, but some games seem expressly designed to kill off any player except a few experienced gamers. It's not challenging, it's just frustrating.
vi-keys (2)
It's not that they are unintuitive (which they are for non-vi-users), but they're not even all in one place on non-QUERTY keyboards (QUERTZ, for example, which is common in middle and eastern europe, switches the position of y and z).
Stats are not explained (1)
If I start a game, I want to understand what goes on. Some games have complicated stat systems designed to make games more interesting and complex, but it backfires when the effort necessary to understand it equals that of reading a DnD rulebook.
Uses a scripting language like python without offering a .exe version (1)
Too many requirements and different versions etc can make it extremely fiddly to get running
The problem with that is that it kind of defeats the purpose of scripting languages - to have the written code be platform independent. The good thing about java, python et al. is that they run on every platform that has a vm/interpreter. Compiling them removes that advantage. Nevertheless, it is the duty of the dev to make sure that the game runs 100% provided that the installation instructions are followed.
-
Too simple. Not enough stuff to get that roguelike feel.
Strange user interface/command keys/etc. for no obvious reason. The developer might think it's really cool, but I don't.
-
Yes, a very good thread.
(2) ugly simulated ASCII
Some games use their own ASCII-like display instead of Curses or a similar library. Maybe their authors like what this ASCII-like display looks like, but I don't. (OTOH terminals are very configurable and players can choose the font they like.)
(1) lack of a full screen option
A simple thing, but some roguelikes miss it. Full screen is important for immersion. It's no pleasure to play something like PrincessRL in such a tiny window.
(2) illogical restrictions
I don't like restrictions which do not agree with my sense of reason. Bad example is Angband, where you could fit 50 potions of the same type in your backpack, but not 2 potions of different types. Good examples are DoomRL and Brogue, which also have very restricted inventories, but make this work in a more reasonable way. Non-permanent dungeons fall there too.
(2) hard to run
The game should run on common system configurations without much problem. Windows users should be able to run by downloading and extracting the package, and without installing anything else. Most Linux distributions have very good tools to download required packages, and I expect Linux users to know more about computers, so they can build the executable if the process is very simple or well explained. I guess MacOS is important too, but I have no experience with that. Some developers don't have access to all systems, but I think it would be good to know which dev tools are portable and which are not.
(2) cash
This is of a different type, but I guess that technically qualifies as a turn off: I am unlikely to play a game if it forces me to pay (I prefer to pay because I want). On the other hand it is great that some roguelike developers make enough money to support their life.
-
- java (2)
I think no explanation is needed here haha.
Religion?
I'm not a developer so I'm not going to talk about tech stuff.
As a player, I always noticed how much java games tend to suck.
They're slow, requires to install stuff, they're slow, there's another ugly pop up in system tray, and they're slow, slow, slow.
Take a look at Adom vs Jade, in Adom you press -> and you instantly move right without waiting that millisecond more while the mouse pointer becomes a hourglass.
That's because you only notice java games when they are not well made. There is no reason for the player to even know the game is made in java (assuming desktop app, not applets).
Example (http://www.puppygames.net/revenge-of-the-titans/).
BTW I don't use java for my games (anymore), but your opinion is 5 to 10 years out of date.
-
Some games use their own ASCII-like display instead of Curses or a similar library. Maybe their authors like what this ASCII-like display looks like, but I don't.
http://koti.mbnet.fi/paulkp/teemu/island.jpg
-
Being somebody that only got into roguelikes a matter of months ago, I have several turn offs, probably brought on by modern gaming conventions that I'm used to.
Controls (1)
Yeah, I'm used to very simple controls. An xbox controller, or WSAD-mouse, with perhaps a few other controls. This is only a minor gripe though. I mean, I bothered to learn Nethack's control scheme, to make sure I played the game properly. ...Still took me forever to work out what the #meta key was though...
ASCII (1)
...Yeah. Sorry, but I'm not a fan. However if it was possible, the gripe would be less than 1. I've been playing a lot of Cataclysm lately, which is ASCII only, and there are many other games I play using that style. But despite this, I prefer tiles. <3 DCSS's tileset.
Cheapness (3)
This is my way of wording the way that I hate difficulty. I barely play nethack now, as it often feels very cheap to me. It seems like the game sometimes says 'Yeah, you're screwed now because you didn't manage to find a way to float earlier. Screw you.' Also, way too many insta-kills in that game. However, I love Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup's difficulty because it feels fair, and deaths seem to happen based on my carelessness and lack of strategical planning.
-
Being somebody that only got into roguelikes a matter of months ago, I have several turn offs, probably brought on by modern gaming conventions that I'm used to.
Controls (1)
Yeah, I'm used to very simple controls. An xbox controller, or WSAD-mouse, with perhaps a few other controls. This is only a minor gripe though. I mean, I bothered to learn Nethack's control scheme, to make sure I played the game properly. ...Still took me forever to work out what the #meta key was though...
ASCII (1)
...Yeah. Sorry, but I'm not a fan. However if it was possible, the gripe would be less than 1. I've been playing a lot of Cataclysm lately, which is ASCII only, and there are many other games I play using that style. But despite this, I prefer tiles. <3 DCSS's tileset.
[..]
I should add that I often hesitate to play a game because it is tiles-only, or mouse-only (it's often both). Playing with the keyboard instead of the mouse just feels right. It takes maybe half an hour to get into the most important keys, and it goes downhill from there. Tiles can look good, but most of the time fail in conveying the overview and information of pure ASCII. DCSS is an exception - not only does it have both classic keys and mouse interface, but also a good tileset that is just as good as the pure ASCII (sometimes a bit better because of the additional info).
Some games use their own ASCII-like display instead of Curses or a similar library. Maybe their authors like what this ASCII-like display looks like, but I don't.
http://koti.mbnet.fi/paulkp/teemu/island.jpg
Word. Pseudo-ASCII can be awesome, if done right. :)
-
http://koti.mbnet.fi/paulkp/teemu/island.jpg
Word. Pseudo-ASCII can be awesome, if done right. :)
yes you can make it look great, but I dont know what the hell is happening most of the time. Clear simple ascii makes new players happier. I never played teemu because the screen was too confusing, and the controls IIRC.
-
I never played teemu because the screen was too confusing
You can turn off background graphics to get more traditional ascii style:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/paulkp/temp/teemu.png
This is actually from v1.3 (not released yet) and the island is bigger, but don't let it confuse you.
-
I should add that I often hesitate to play a game because it is tiles-only, or mouse-only (it's often both). Playing with the keyboard instead of the mouse just feels right. It takes maybe half an hour to get into the most important keys, and it goes downhill from there. Tiles can look good, but most of the time fail in conveying the overview and information of pure ASCII.
I think this is to a very large extent because you are already used to playing like that from playing roguelikes beforehand and I think it is very much not the case for most people (including myself).
Also, half an hour is a long time - I have a few hours per week dedicated to playing games and a whole steam library full of barely-/un-played games as well as a ton of free games on my to-play list- including brogue and the new version of crawl, which I haven't played since 0.5.
If your game has a half an hour learning curve for the basic controls I will most likely either quit after 5 minutes or (more likely) not start playing to begin with.
Only reason crawl gets a free pass is that I already know how to play it, and the reason brogue gets it is that I am a fairly experienced player of roguelikes and it controls similar enough to other games I've played before to not be too much of a hassle.
But you generally cannot expect players to already be grizzled veteran roguelike players, nor do I think it's good for the future to simply rely on the "old ways" instead of coming up with better solutions.
-
Clear simple ascii makes new players happier.
New players who are veteran players of other roguelikes.
People who are not familiar with roguelikes do not find plain ascii simpler to understand, not does it make them happier.
Personally with the added color and glitz I find games like teemu or many libtcod games (e.g. Vicious Orcs) quite a bit more digestible than curses-based games.
In fact I think Vicious Orcs is pretty close to as good as it gets with somewhat-traditional ascii display and somewhat-traditional keyboard controls.
-
But Vicious Orcs does use clear, simple ASCII. It's one of the examples of libtcod's palette used responsibly. It doesn't use any unnecessary colours or symbols and makes good choices for every application of symbols and colours. It has the sort of simple and pure aesthetic that I look out for in ASCII roguelikes.
-
I should add that I often hesitate to play a game because it is tiles-only, or mouse-only (it's often both). Playing with the keyboard instead of the mouse just feels right. It takes maybe half an hour to get into the most important keys, and it goes downhill from there. Tiles can look good, but most of the time fail in conveying the overview and information of pure ASCII.
I think this is to a very large extent because you are already used to playing like that from playing roguelikes beforehand and I think it is very much not the case for most people (including myself).
Also, half an hour is a long time - I have a few hours per week dedicated to playing games and a whole steam library full of barely-/un-played games as well as a ton of free games on my to-play list- including brogue and the new version of crawl, which I haven't played since 0.5.
If your game has a half an hour learning curve for the basic controls I will most likely either quit after 5 minutes or (more likely) not start playing to begin with.
Only reason crawl gets a free pass is that I already know how to play it, and the reason brogue gets it is that I am a fairly experienced player of roguelikes and it controls similar enough to other games I've played before to not be too much of a hassle.
But you generally cannot expect players to already be grizzled veteran roguelike players, nor do I think it's good for the future to simply rely on the "old ways" instead of coming up with better solutions.
Of course, you're right. And I agree.
What I wanted to say was that most seasoned RL gamers do prefer ASCII and key-based control over tiles and mouse-based (IMO). And most non-commercial RL devs probably want to make a game they would like to play, so they will prefer to make a RL with classic controls.
Also, those 30mins are a fair bit exaggerated. ;D
-
http://koti.mbnet.fi/paulkp/teemu/island.jpg
Word. Pseudo-ASCII can be awesome, if done right. :)
True, it is possible to do pseudo-ASII alright. And Teemu looks alright from the screenshot. But I have seen several pseudo-ASCII roguelikes where this was a big turn-off. For a non-rogueliker any kind of ASCII would be a big turn-off, I think it is similar.
-
- Non-permanent dungeon levels....that's the worst thing in my opinion.
-
1) A strong storyline, not a huge turn off but I enjoy imagining my own like in Dungeon Crawl.
2) Mouse heavy interface, I am far far to used to the keyboard now.
-
No RogueBasin article is a pet peeve of mine. It's a nice place to get some basic info on a game, and through the IRLDB one can leave ratings and reviews.
-
No RogueBasin article is a pet peeve of mine. It's a nice place to get some basic info on a game, and through the IRLDB one can leave ratings and reviews.
I do have to agree - before I decide to dl a game, I check RogueBasin if there's an article.
-
2 - pseudo-ASCII, as others have noted. It can be done reasonably well, but simple things that ought to work on ASCII (like copy-and-paste into plain text files) never seem to work. It makes taking notes or talking about the game in text forums into a pain. Also, pseudo-ASCII passes up a lot of "freebies" that you get with a term window, like automatic text resizing or font picking.
2 - Tiles-only. Lots of people prefer tiles, but two things that virtually all tilesets have in common are that many monsters look a lot like other monsters with a minor addition or palette swap, and you can't see very much dungeon around yourself because they're bigger than ascii letters. I really don't care whether a goblin is wearing a blue cloak or not, and ASCII doesn't bother to show me; it just displays 'g' for goblin. If I see a tile, I still don't care about the cloak, but it turns out the blue-cloak-wearing variety of goblin is actually something else entirely and I was WRONG when I glanced at it and classified it as some kind of goblin. Also, the short visible distances to the edge of the screen make much of the map invisible. And the simple things that ought to work on ASCII (see above) still don't work.
3 - game requires me to switch interface modes, ever. A game should require the keyboard, or a game should require the mouse. If the game requires both, then I am likely to not play that game. The moment when I have to transition from keyboard to mouse, or mouse to keyboard, interrupts my flow state and forces me to think about the interface. After learning it, I want to never think about the interface. Personally, I strongly prefer keyboard-only interface. Mouse-only interfaces are just barely tolerable. But mouse-only functions with no keyboard equivalent, and keyboard-only functions with no mouse-equivalent, in the same game, is a problem worse than a mouse-only interface in my opinion.
1 - Game requires me to touch the mouse, ever. I strongly prefer keyboard interfaces over mouse interfaces. "Point at" is a simpler idea, and tends to result in simplified games. I don't want the game simplified.
2 - Documentation (especially in-game help) missing or out of sync with interface. If the help describes the key bindings from last version, or the explanation of some feature hasn't been true since a bug fix 2 versions ago, or etc, that's worse than not having that documentation at all.
Bear
-
"Point at" is a simpler idea, and tends to result in simplified games. I don't want the game simplified.
Mouse is just an input device like keyboard. It has nothing to do with how complex the game is. Mouse is faster and easier to use in some operations, like the usual mouse look and go to location. Still I agree that everything (in turn-based roguelike) should be possible to control with keyboard only.
-
Following on from the kind of ideas Ido mentioned - about us being old and grey and no longer having >20 hrs a week to play games - I seriously dislike having to make extensive choices before I start the game.
If there's 100+ combinations of races and classes, how do I know my random selection hasn't just screwed me over from the beginning and therefore will waste my precious 2 hrs of gaming playing the game in what amounts to an extra hard difficulty level? No commercial game requires a manual and, following from that, at the very least tell me what options to pick for my first game. POWDER's approach (not letting you pick a god for your first few playthroughs) achieves this well.
[Incidentally, someone mentioned PrincessRL earlier. It does have a fullscreen mode (press capital F) but I did notice this wasn't in the in-game help!]
-flend
-
Clear simple ascii makes new players happier.
New players who are veteran players of other roguelikes.
People who are not familiar with roguelikes do not find plain ascii simpler to understand, not does it make them happier.
I wholeheartedly disagree. My first roguelike was ADOM and I sunk in without any problems. It was not ASCII that bothered me. The defining requirement I think is strong preference for books over movies and even books over comic books. Bookworms easily get through text-only interface.
Now, for the gripes.
(1) High system requirements.
May sound silly but this is a warning more work went into funky engine thing and left not so much for content.
(2) Platform specific.
Not so bad if I can run it with Wine or equivalent but expect me to ignore those unportable games that do not have anything extraordinary to offer.
(3) Strongly tied to specific platform.
This is instant death. For example .NET dependencies. Without Windows I cannot do anything to run such a game.
(2) No ASCII mode.
Games with tiles rarely achieve recognizability close to that of plain ASCII display. To picture an orc you do not need an image of orc. This will be a complicated picture easily confusable with other grungy humanoids. Instead use a symbol that could be well associated with orcishness. Then a variation of this for different orcs.
(1) Theme mix-and-match.
Gumband has Cyberdemons, Beholders, Sauron, Cerberus, Archangels, Nibelungs, Ornithopters, Martians and Yog-Sothoth. Plus some obscure music band on top of all that. Such incoherent monster repertoire comes out as just bland.
-
But you generally cannot expect players to already be grizzled veteran roguelike players, nor do I think it's good for the future to simply rely on the "old ways" instead of coming up with better solutions.
Does this "coming up with better solutions" equal the need to do the additional work to make good tile graphics or something like that?
-
I think ASCII would be more acceptable if it didn't usually come burdened with an insane keyboard interface. The many obscure (and inconsistent) keymappings of roguelikes are more off-putting to new players than the funky display.
-
It should be noted that the things many people call annoying (mouse, graphics) are exactly the opposite of what the general game player calls annoying (no mouse, no graphics).
I am a roguelike player but I have to admit my most played games are DCSS with mouse and graphic tiles and Powder with mouse + graphics.
-
But you generally cannot expect players to already be grizzled veteran roguelike players, nor do I think it's good for the future to simply rely on the "old ways" instead of coming up with better solutions.
Does this "coming up with better solutions" equal the need to do the additional work to make good tile graphics or something like that?
It will require additional work one way or the other, making good tile graphics is just one such option.
As mentioned before, look at Vicious Orcs as a fairly decent solution that still uses ascii (but not console) graphics & more importantly much better (keyboard) interface.
I can assure you that takes plenty of work too & in fact making simple abstract graphics (triangles, squeres, circles) isn't really (much) harder than using "fancy ascii" and is less restrictive.
I think the important thing that many tiled open source games are missing is a cohesive overall aesthetic.
Take a look at DCSS (http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/High-res-layout.png) for example - the main map view (ever since 0.6 or 0.7) actually looks decent, but everything around it looks like it came from a terminal based FTP program - some plain default font (arial?) with no gui elements around it, some perfectly rectangular bars with neon colors...
Sure, I tolerate it because DCSS in itself is a really good game but the aesthetic issues there have nothing to do with the actual pixel art tiles.
And if I didn't already know crawl was a really good game I probably wouldn't have felt compelled to play a game that looked like that.
-
No gamepad support :P (seriously)
Not being able to navigate menus with arrow keys and "enter" and "ESC" keys.
Tiles only.
No fullscreen support.
A bajillion keys that need to be used. At least cut it down to half a bajillion.
Number pad only for movement.
pc speaker "you didn't press the right key" beep.
No option to turn off the "press Space bar for more". Or at least make it so you can press any key to scroll the messages instead of only the space bar.
Monochrome only ascii.
Non-persistent dungeon level generation.
More than 20-30 dungeon levels. Especially when you need to go down then back up.
Level draining enemies.
#@%*'n Rust monsters!
Restricted gameplay for non-donating players as opposed to Extra/bonus features for donating players.
An infuriating nag screen that pops up the developers website that has pop ups itself every time you exit the game. You know who you are.
Only being to fire/throw projectiles in a straight line in the 8 main directions as opposed to being able to target.
Eggplant wizards.
-
Restricted gameplay for non-donating players as opposed to Extra/bonus features for donating players.
I think the main problem here is phrasing - instead of "donation", you are getting a free demo and have to buy the full version.
It's not more of a donation that buying a big bottle of shampoo (why are the free ones so small??).
-
I think the main problem here is phrasing - instead of "donation", you are getting a free demo and have to buy the full version.
It's not more of a donation that buying a big bottle of shampoo (why are the free ones so small??).
The donation thing is more or less on a case by case basis to me. I agree with your point about how it's phrased.
Your game, Cardinal Quest, for instance started out as a free demo and paying a set fee, gets the customer the full game which is quite good. Can't wait to play the upcoming extended/deluxe/whatever version btw.
-
Oooh, here are some interesting ones!
No gamepad support :P (seriously)
How do we do that on a PC, without knowing in advance whether someone has a gamepad (and, in fact, what kind of gamepad)? 'Cause if I can do it without making the game unportable and without making it crash for people who don't have such a thing attached, I've nothing against it.
Not being able to navigate menus with arrow keys and "enter" and "ESC" keys.
Good point, and frequently neglected. I haven't implemented it yet, but it's on the list.
No fullscreen support.
Running in a term, you get that for free. Just start the term and then press f11 to go fullscreen.
Number pad only for movement.
Are you a WASD fan, or an arrows-only fan, or a vikeys fan?
No option to turn off the "press Space bar for more". Or at least make it so you can press any key to scroll the messages instead of only the space bar.
Now here's one I don't really understand. Are you saying you'd rather have messages scroll away before you read 'em than have the game stop until you acknowledge them? 'Cause my first thought when I see "allow any key to ack messages" is that a lot of players will be happily doing some key sequence, miss a message that could have saved their lives, and then wind up looking at the game over screen without even knowing how they died.
I mean, I agree that it's annoying, especially in games prone to "message spam". But I don't think "any key acks messages" is nearly as good a solution as keeping message spam down by using short messages, giving repeat counts on messages if they repeat rather than just showing them one at a time, etc.
Monochrome only ascii.
Used to be worthwhile to provide an optional monochrome mode for b/w monitors. But not any more.
Non-persistent dungeon level generation.
Agreed by me, but it's a matter of taste.
More than 20-30 dungeon levels. Especially when you need to go down then back up.
Hmmmm. I have a problem with "more levels than the game's content supports," but short or long games are fine -- it's when the levels become _repetitive_ that I'm annoyed.
Level draining enemies.
#@%*'n Rust monsters!
I'm fine with both -- as long as there are good ways to deal with them for players who think a little. Rust monsters that you can beat to death with a wooden club, or vampires that can't stand the sight of a good holy symbol or cross running water, are basically just a punishment for people who aren't being alert. It's when they're inescapable that they start being a pain in the tush.
Eggplant wizards.
Uh, what? I have no idea what you're talking about here.
-
Eggplant wizards are essentially instant-kill enemies where if you get hit, which is likely, there's nothing to be done. Comes from the classic Kid Icarus. I suppose one could take it to be the mountains you slam the player with as opposed to the hills they can learn to duly navigate.
-
@Bear
The thing about gamepad support was mostly a joke. I actually do use a gamepad to play roguelikes as odd as it may seem. I use a program called xpadder to map keys to my logitech dual action gamepad. It works fantastic for some games like DoomRL, Infra Arcana, Hydra Slayer, Rogue, and BerserkRL. If I was to consider an actually reasonable facsimile of gamepad support without being actual gamepad support, it would mean no more than 16 to 28 different key commands (not counting 8-way directional movement) or 32 to 48 if each command has an alternate lowercase/uppercase commands. My issue with being able to navigate all menus with the arrow keys and and enter/esc also plays a big factor.
The part about number pad only for movement is another reason I like to use a gamepad because it's not that I prefer wasd, arrows, or viskeys. It's because I play on a laptop which lacks a number pad.
I agree with your point of "more levels than the game's content supports,"
Rust Monsters/level drainers can be prepared for, but are a pain when they come around the corner or if you have to hang onto non-metal armor and weapons just in case of rust monsters when you have limited inventory space. Especially when most non-metal weapons/armor tend to be fairly weak.
Getter77 pretty much hit the nail on the head with the Eggplant Wizard comment. The latest Roguelike radio, which I was listening to while posting, reminded me of the eggplant wizard. Basically getting F'd in the A, seemingly out of the blue. Especially when you are having a great game right up until that point.
The thing about pressing space is just a pet peave. I agree that being able to press any key can result in missing an important message, but that's what message recall is for. The bet example of the most annoying way it is implemented I can think of is in Rogue.
-
If I was to consider an actually reasonable facsimile of gamepad support without being actual gamepad support, it would mean no more than 16 to 28 different key commands (not counting 8-way directional movement) or 32 to 48 if each command has an alternate lowercase/uppercase commands.
Or hopefully far fewer! I see no good reason for a game to have even 16 (mandatory) commands.
-
I see no good reason for a game to have even 16 (mandatory) commands.
I respectfully disagree. I like complex games. I get annoyed by keys that do the exact same thing (like different keys to wear clothes, put on jewelry, or wear armor) but if a game allows a hundred different commands that are actually different ideas, that's great! I enjoy games where there's a deep level of detail and you can make hundreds of different kinds of actions at a given moment. And this is also why I prefer keyboard interfaces to mouse interfaces; the keyboard is just a richer channel for commands.
Trying to use an excessively simple interface for me is frustrating. It's kind of like going into a Lithuanian restaurant, and you don't speak or understand Lithuanian. You can get by with pointing (and clicking) at the pictures on the menu if your waiter is patient with you. But he's not going to be able to communicate what the special of the day is, nor accept your instructions about how to prepare the food you order, nor be able to answer your questions about how it's prepared and whether, eg, it includes nuts which you're allergic to. Or, you can stumble along, non-fluently, by pulling out your Lithuanian Phrase book (or the drop-down menus) and painstakingly pointing out one sentence at a time. If you do this with a real waiter, you'd better be an extravagant tipper; you're wasting his time. Worse still, you're also wasting your own time, as compared to just being able to speak the language.
And, to me, a rich set of keyboard commands is speaking the language. It's easy and you can just say what you mean instead of hunting it down on menus. A richer language (more commands) means more different things you can communicate. If you think a game only needs 16 commands, then it probably really *is* a game that wouldn't need simplified to run with just a mouse. But that probably means it's not the kind of roguelike game I most enjoy.
Minimal-command-set games that are actually good tend to be highly abstract games. For example, in Chess there is only one command; MOVE. and it's a good game. But, it's not a roguelike.
Bear
-
Well, yeah if I had the time to learn all these commands for every game maybe I'd agree with you.
e.g. I played frozen depths on a very long train ride with pretty much nothing else to do, so I had time to learn its many (not sure if more than 16, not counting movement keys, but many) keys.
But I would have never bothered to do that at home, I'd have far more likely moved on to the next game out of literally dozens in my to-play queue.
-
A well-designed complex games should have both - the menus for the obscure commands, but also the shortcuts for those who know the game in-depth and want to play more smoothly. This is how complex programmes like Excel work, and there's no reason it shouldn't apply to game design also.
-
A well-designed complex games should have both - the menus for the obscure commands, but also the shortcuts for those who know the game in-depth and want to play more smoothly. This is how complex programmes like Excel work, and there's no reason it shouldn't apply to game design also.
The two options are practically equivalent. Provided that you have a "?" keyboard shortcut (which can also be activated with mouse) which shows a ?-screen which lists all the commands available. And you can execute a command from the ?-screen by arrow navigation and mouse. And that menu lists hotkeys for all commands. And that menu does not break the immersion by being the standard Windows menu or whatever.
I don't learn all the commands for Frozen Depths or whatever. When I find a new piece of equipment, I just press "?" to know how to wear it. When I find a sage, I just press "?" to know how to chat to him. When I learn a new skill, I press "?" to know skill-related commands. That's enough and takes just a few minutes.
-
I don't learn all the commands for Frozen Depths or whatever. When I find a new piece of equipment, I just press "?" to know how to wear it. When I find a sage, I just press "?" to know how to chat to him. When I learn a new skill, I press "?" to know skill-related commands. That's enough and takes just a few minutes.
I think that's holding our developers to a very low bar of usability, and it wouldn't pass for most other genres.
-
This is relevant to the discussion, and expresses my views on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNYoOjQjsPw#t=17m16s
They talk about the old text parser interface vs point and click interface in adventure games. The old parser interface allowed for a vastly richer command set (and therefore game) than the point and click interface.
I want the Roguelikes I play to have a huge command set. Now that doesn't mean that they must have a huge number of keyboard commands. If some clever things can be done to reduce the number of keys, that's excellent. However, the game should not "go out of its way" to make the interface easier to learn. Depth should come first, ease of learning second.
-
Personally, I think 16 to 28 different commands seems quite reasonable to have a satisfyingly complex set of actions. Some things like Wear/Wield, I feel there's not much reason to have them as 2 separate commands.
Having to key in separate letters to pick inventory items can be a pain too. It is definitely quicker than having use arrow keys and enter to select an item if you have large amount of items. But at least the option to use both ways would be nice.
I feel some actions could be combined and simplified into a general "use" or "apply" command. Like digging and lighting torches. Unless the game has numerous things to light, it is only being used the same way each time. ZEven if there are numerous things to light, you could "use" the fire source on several things anyways just like you could "use" a shovel to dig.
-
A well-designed complex games should have both - the menus for the obscure commands, but also the shortcuts for those who know the game in-depth and want to play more smoothly. This is how complex programmes like Excel work, and there's no reason it shouldn't apply to game design also.
The two options are practically equivalent. Provided that you have a "?" keyboard shortcut (which can also be activated with mouse) which shows a ?-screen which lists all the commands available. And you can execute a command from the ?-screen by arrow navigation and mouse. And that menu lists hotkeys for all commands. And that menu does not break the immersion by being the standard Windows menu or whatever.
What I would suggest instead is context dependant commands - left-click on an item to perform the default action on it (read a scroll) and right-lick to see a list of available commands for it. Why look up every command in the game to find the one most common? The program should do the work for you. Besides, have you seen the keybinding lists for some roguelikes? Many many pages, and you have to guess at what the developer has listed the command as...
-
I don't mind mouse interface much. I think I prefer keyboard, but don't mind mouse control as long as everything can be controlled by it. Dungeons of Dredmor for instance, can be controlled almost entirely by mouse except there is no way to "wait" other than hitting the space bar. As far as I can tell anyways.
-
forgot:
Browser based roguelikes. I hate having to be online to have to play.
-
Browser based roguelikes. I hate having to be online to have to play.
Do you mean with a laptop on the road?
Or are there actually situations where you do not have always-on internet connection otherwise?
-
Browser based roguelikes. I hate having to be online to have to play.
Do you mean with a laptop on the road?
Or are there actually situations where you do not have always-on internet connection otherwise?
On the road is one. And I use a laptop with a wireless connection that is often finicky and likes to disconnect from time to time, usually at the most inconvenient times, and/or likes to lag up.
-
Even though I mostly am able to get online I have just never been able to get into a browser game. I cannot tell you why definitively. But I know it to be the case.
Your game, Cardinal Quest, that's browser based right? At least the demo. It's a solid game. Perhaps it is the small window with all the clutter all around it. With the ads and what not.
I'll have to think more about why I'm prejudiced.
-
The free version of cardinal quest is installed s an exe and is fullscreen. There is a browser based online demo though.
-
You mean the payed version - that one is a normal native app for windows, mac & linux and can be played in full screen or windowed.
The free version is browser based simply because it's free due to being supported by the ads. It also serves as a demo.
-
You mean the payed version - that one is a normal native app for windows, mac & linux and can be played in full screen or windowed.
The free version is browser based simply because it's free due to being supported by the ads. It also serves as a demo.
I know that's the way it was, but I thought you changed the format? Or is it not changed yet?
-
It was never meant to change - the free version is Cardinal Quest Classic and is ad-supported & will only get bug fixes.
The payed version gets new content and is native.
-
so cardinal quest classic will still be browser based? I already have the current payed version so I haven't bothered to check out the "Classic" version cause I assumed it was just the same as what I already have or watered down.
-
You don't need to, the free version doesn't have anything you don't already have.
You do need to update tho, as we just released 1.2 :)
-
You don't need to, the free version doesn't have anything you don't already have.
You do need to update tho, as we just released 1.2 :)
Yeah. Was planing on re-downloading anyways since the external hard drive that I kept all my roguelikes on can't connect anymore as of the other day. :(
So I just have to re-download from the link in my email? Is there a changelog?
-
Yeah, same link should work. Jday & randomnine will write a change log since for the first time this was mostly their release
-
Yeah, same link should work. Jday & randomnine will write a change log since for the first time this was mostly their release
Change-log by randomnine (http://blog.tametick.com/2011/12/cardinal-quest-12-and-whats-next.html) is up!
-
forgot:
Browser based roguelikes. I hate having to be online to have to play.
If the Roguelike happens to be created with Flash, there are browser plugins and other means to save it to your hard drive in a more permanent fashion.
-
1 - being able to choose skills when you gain a level. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. You can’t spend a day swinging maces at goblins and become professional at climbing. ADOM suffers heavily from this.
2 - complete lack of a story. I want to know who I am and what I’m doing. The more story the better, as long as the gameplay doesn’t suffer too much from it. This is the best feature of ADOM.
1 - orthogonal only shooting. Doesn’t make sense.
2 - no ASCII display.
1 - lack of a concise list of commands. ADOM and Angband suffer from this (or maybe I couldn’t find the list.) Frozen Depths has a nice list that can be accessed with a command.
3 - numpad commands and inability to change. It’s hard to use numpad on my laptop :(
2 - non-persistent dungeons.
2 - changing terminal size changes size of levels when they are generated. WTF ADOM!
1 - futuristic theme. I prefer mediaeval fantasy.
3 - combat only. There must be ways other than combat to obtain items, like the deep smiths in Frozen Depths.
-
Unoriginality - 3
I can forgive a lot if a game has new ideas. Or if it refines existing ideas. But if a game isn't unique at something, and if it doesn't improve on its predecessors, then it doesn't have a reason to exist.
Unfair deaths - 2
This isn't okay in a permadeath game. Actually it isn't okay in any game, but most games cover up their bad design with quicksave features and low difficulty.
Mechanics designed for something other than gameplay - 2
I don't like it when a game is made more realistic at the expense of being fun. I don't like it when a game's rules are designed to make narrative sense instead of mechanical sense. I don't care about "realism" in my games about wizards.
-
Being too long - I like a quick game with tons of variety game to game, not long games with tons of variety throughout.
Too Complex Character Generation - Having a super deep character system is fine, but let me get to the game in 1 click please.
The Arms Race - If leveling to level 5 means I now face Hobgoblins instead of Goblins, one is identical to the other except for more HitDice then you haven't actually changed the game play at all. Getting new skills per character level alleviates it somewhat, but really if leveling is just a stat bump for monsters and player then just leave it out.
Bazillions of Commands - I'll deal with some of the older games (Nethack), and forks of the older games (like Prime), having a ton of commands. A new game should learn from those mistakes and stream line things. Brogue and Rodney both do this very well.
Too Small of Graphics - 1 pixel on a tile should translate to 4 pixels on the screen. Meaning you need to blow things up by 2x for display. If you don't then much of the detail is washed out and/or things are just too small. The graphics for Crawl and Brogue both suffer this issue. It's tough to fix because blowing things up means you get less onto the screen. This causes strategy and information issues between the ascii and tile versions, or it may force a single screen level to become scrolling. So be it. That's better than having nice tiles that look like crap due to being too small.
-
-Early development (Very few roguelikes are worth messing with in the early stages, and many get abandoned)
-Having to install libraries and such to play (having to install NET/Java/Visual C++ runtimes annoys me)
-Only providing an installer exe and no simple zipfile option (Personal preference)
-Overly complicated keyboard controls and no mouse option (There's no need for 50 separate commands, condense similar ones and consider eliminating the mechanics behind commands that are only used a few times per game)
-Math that's a black box (I want to be able to eyeball my chances without using a calculator, Sil and Brogue both feature good gameplay without too many obscure combat modifiers)
-Too undocumented (I like the idea that I can consult a wiki somewhere if I want to know how some aspect of the game works)
-
I'd say lack of screenshots is the biggest one for me. It seems quite common to see a game announced with a list of features, but no screenshots. What it says to me is: "You'll download and install this, maybe it will work or not, and even reading the limited text I've written about my game, you'll have no idea whether it will even interest you until you've managed to get it to run assuming you can.. Good luck chump!"
If there are screenshots, it gives you an idea of many things. Some indication of how ready for play it really is. Some indication that it looks like something worth your time. Some indication that the gameplay or interface is something you could enjoy using/playing.
-
1 - being able to choose skills when you gain a level. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. You can’t spend a day swinging maces at goblins and become professional at climbing. ADOM suffers heavily from this.
I don't like those at all. "Learn by doing" systems almost universally require metagaming. I understand that learning by leveling isn't realistic. But learning through practice means you do the exact same thing as you would in a more traditional system, except you also need to waste your time grinding out useless low level abilities until they become useful.
Like, if you're a swordguy and you want to be a spearguy, you need to get a spear, and go fight harmless enemies (because your low spear skill will get you killed against dangerous enemies) and you need to sit there doing this repetitive task until your spear skill is high enough to use for real. It doesn't add any depth or strategy or anything, it just means more busywork.
I'm not trying to call you out or anything. I just think that what some people consider to be flaws are actually legitimate design decisions with solid reasons behind them. I think a back and forth discussion on that kind of thing is more valuable than "well I sure do hate ASCII" or whatever.
-
I just think that what some people consider to be flaws are actually legitimate design decisions with solid reasons behind them. I think a back and forth discussion on that kind of thing is more valuable than "well I sure do hate ASCII" or whatever.
Yeah, I think a lot of the discussion here is basically just personal pet-peeves and is of little use for game-design (or development) purposes.
But then again the question was phrased in a very subjective matter, so can't really blame anyone that tells us about their own subjective opinion (useless as it may be objectively speaking).
I think the most we can take of this thread is to identify the most common "pet-peeves", but then again this is just telling you how to make a game the fairly hard-core audience of roguetemple would like (e.g. I'm pretty sure most people don't really care about independent zip-files vs installers).
-
... and, a thread like this can serve as inspirational reading. I surely wouldn't have thought of all these pet peeves by myself. But I grant that it isn't of much scientific use. And I must add ;) I fully agree with Vanguard's point about swords and spears. To me, separate weapon skills is an actual turn-off. Very annoying to find a nice artifact weapon you're not skilled with, playing ADOM or Crawl. OTOH, games like Caves of Qud or TOME does this nicely: There are weapon skills divided into axes, swords, etc. But they mainly grant special attacks and tactical moves. So you can have your cake and eat it: fight reasonably well with all weapons, but still specialize in one arms group (there is little more bad-ass than dual wielding kukris with "Pointed Circle" in CoQ 8)).
As always,
Minotauros
-
Yes my old cow friend, the old 'narrow weapon skills' issue is alive an well in today's designs. It adds to the junk drops issue too.
My nemesis game design, diablo III, had a version of this. Each character class needs a specific weapon type. You might find a good weapon, but the likelyhood of it being of use to your character is low. So you sell it on the Auction House and use the money to buy a good weapon that fits your character. And Blizzard takes a cut of both transactions.
Sorry for the tangent, I never miss an opportunity to deride the DIII design choices.
-
I thought Diablo 1 had a pretty good solution for this tho - any class can use any weapon, but each gets a significant boost to attack-rate for a specific weapon class (the wizard for staves, the warrior for simple melee weapons like swords and axes, the rogue for bows & crossbows, etc).
So you have a distinct incentive to use your "class appropriate" weapons but if you find an absolutely god-like inappropriate weapon you can still use it with a reasonable penalty, compared to the class it was meant for.
-
i think one thread I *can* weave through a lot of replies here, be it too many keys, unnecessarily detailed skills, overly complex char generation, barriers to play in the form of obscure dependencies, obtuse/unclear/undocumented mechanics, unexplained controls, etc is that extraneous complexities that don't contribute to the core strength of the experience should be cleaned up.
Which again is kind of an obvious conclusion these days, although it wasn't that obvious 5+ years ago apparently (judging by how recently developers started to act upon it).
-
I don't like those at all. "Learn by doing" systems almost universally require metagaming. I understand that learning by leveling isn't realistic. But learning through practice means you do the exact same thing as you would in a more traditional system, except you also need to waste your time grinding out useless low level abilities until they become useful.
Like, if you're a swordguy and you want to be a spearguy, you need to get a spear, and go fight harmless enemies (because your low spear skill will get you killed against dangerous enemies) and you need to sit there doing this repetitive task until your spear skill is high enough to use for real. It doesn't add any depth or strategy or anything, it just means more busywork.
I'm not trying to call you out or anything. I just think that what some people consider to be flaws are actually legitimate design decisions with solid reasons behind them. I think a back and forth discussion on that kind of thing is more valuable than "well I sure do hate ASCII" or whatever.
Ideally, fighting with a sword would train both the specific sword skill and the general fighting skill or strength; so if you spend half the game fighting with a sword you will do OK with a spear, but even better with a sword. But that’s not the example I gave; my problem is with games that let you choose what you want to train, even if the skill is completely unrelated to what the character is actually doing.
I think it does add depth and strategy. I use different strategies on Frozen Depths depending on what skills I want to train. Having learn-by-doing doesn’t force me to grind, it forces me to plan far ahead.
-
Right, and what I'm saying is that games that let you choose your attribute/skill gains give you what you were going to have anyway without all the extra grind.
Let's say fighters can start with 1 level in the spellcasting skill, and can raise it to a maximum of 3. Let's just say they can do that. If you choose what you level, you put two skill points in spellcasting and you're done. In a "learn by doing" system, you need to find a nonthreatening enemy to spam your ridiculously ineffective level 1 magic missile spell on until it finally goes up, and then you go back to actually playing the game.
Either way you get your level 3 spells. Either way a low level fighters use weapons on dangerous enemies, and high level fighters use a combination of weapons and level 3 magic. The only difference is that in one system, the player is free to use whatever ability makes the most sense in any given situation, while in the other system they have to waste a bunch of time using their least useful skills.
Neither method inherently makes narrative sense, though either could be justified. But "learn by doing" systems don't make mechanical sense, and "learn by choice" systems do.
-
I tend to dislike skill building. I guess when I was a kid leveling up and getting stronger made sense, because that's what I did everyday. Now I prefer strategic resource use and zero grinding, 'cuz I just don't have the patience. Getting old!
-
My tastes really change over time. So, this is just what I feel right now, and it'll probably be different later:
2 Game isn't a roguelike. I used to be okay with experimental "roguelikes", but that was back when most roguelikes were traditional. Now adays there are so many games trying to jump on the "roguelike" bandwagon that have nothing to do with roguelikes, and it really, really bothers me. Sci fi is fine, but make sure it's a ROGUELIKE.
3 Too difficult. I want a game I can play, not a game that is going to make me pull my hair out in frustration. So many games treat ease of difficulty as a bug, and that's a HUGE mistake in my mind. Games should be playable.
3 Building from source. I'm just not going to, sorry. Nothing against your game, but give me binaries.
1 vi keys. They make me want to break my keyboard. I recommend wasd instead.
3 Ego. Some developers make it very clear that they think that their title is going to be the next minecraft, only better and more popular. It really bothers me. I don't mean advertising. I like advertising: it's clever and fun and we all have to do it, but nothing turns me off of a roguelike more than a developer with a massive ego about how important and successful and great their game is/will be.
-
This thread is very interesting to read, but not very useful to a developer. Let's gather all the replies and make a huge poll. It would be nice to see what the majority of players thinks.
-
That is very interesting Mr. Troll. But the thing is many of the gripes are specific to situation, you know?
Still, how do you make a poll on here? I'll do it.
EDIT: NVM I think I got if figured.
-
Yes, I know, that's one of the main reasons to make a poll :). I believe in statistics. Reading all the complaints here can only result in a headache, but with good stats you can always figure out what people really want.
Will anonymous users be able to participate in the poll if it's created here? That would be great, but most likely forum polls are for forum users only.
-
This thread is very interesting to read, but not very useful to a developer. Let's gather all the replies and make a huge poll. It would be nice to see what the majority of players thinks.
I don't like the idea of game design by majority consensus. That's basically what has brought modern AAA games to where they are. Threads like this one can be a useful to developers as a source of ideas, but they should never feel bound by what the majority does and doesn't like. If there's a concept that you know is right for your game, you should do it no matter how unpopular it is.
-
That's true for some of these complaints. For others, like having to compile the game or install runtimes, there's no real excuse other than the developer's laziness or obliviousness.
-
Oh, well yeah.
I'm talking about game design decisions, not that sort of thing.
-
The problem with looking at gripes, as Jo mentioned, is that they are very situational and strongly dependent on bad experiences in the past. When people say they don't like mechanic X they are merely saying they don't like implementation Y of mechanic X. There are no bad mechanics, only misguided implementations.
-
Yep. I think this poll is more useful for finding out things you can get away with, not which things you should avoid. For instance: so far no-one has voted for either "no graphics" or "no ASCII", which tells me that there is no problem with coding only your preferred display style.
-
The problem with looking at gripes, as Jo mentioned, is that they are very situational and strongly dependent on bad experiences in the past. When people say they don't like mechanic X they are merely saying they don't like implementation Y of mechanic X. There are no bad mechanics, only misguided implementations.
What's more is that people are probably very often thinking of single game experience, and are just upset about it when they make their list of turn-offs.
-
I don't like the idea of game design by majority consensus. That's basically what has brought modern AAA games to where they are. Threads like this one can be a useful to developers as a source of ideas, but they should never feel bound by what the majority does and doesn't like. If there's a concept that you know is right for your game, you should do it no matter how unpopular it is.
And that's exactly what I had on mind proposing the idea of making a poll. Listening blindly to the voice of majority will eventually result in an average game. One ought to throw in some original ideas, even if they are disliked by many players. The tricky part is not to have too many of them and that's what the poll is for.