Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Development => Design => Topic started by: Endorya on March 19, 2014, 05:39:45 PM
-
I’ve been reading a lot throughout websites scattered all over the web about how people view permadeath. Some really enjoy it while others really hate it and then you have those in between. But it seems that those who enjoy permadeath usually think of themselves as the ultimate appreciators of challenge while at the same time reducing those who dislike it to be mare casual players who seek a smooth experience instead of challenge.
Before this gets personal, I just want to make it clear that this is my personal opinion on how I view the permadeath feature, in other words, is not something open to debate but merely to demonstrate that those voting for permadeath shouldn’t automatically believe that those who deny it do not seek challenge. From what I’ve read around the web, I actually got the impression that mostly of those in favor of permadeath, somehow think of themselves as better players, in a sense of possessing better playing capabilities or in deeper sense of viewing themselves as smarter. I really don't agree with this.
As we all know, permadeath states for: ‘1 try per game’ because when you die, you will have to start all over since there is no progression resuming points whatsoever. Permadeath injects something incredible during play time that I really love: ‘tension / excitement’, because one wrong move can end your character’s life. This feature unconsciously forces players to linger about with extra caution and often forcing them to rethink their situation, unlike other games that are easily exploited through the abuse of the game’s save and load features.
However, permadeath as also one particular negative side effect from my own perspective, which is mainly: no sense of accomplishment. Don’t freak out just yet. I’ll get into details soon enough. From all the roguelike games I’ve played (tried), ADOM is the only roguelike that I can say to have actually played as I endured through it every day for a period of for nearly 6 months. This only happened because I did farm its save points, otherwise I wouldn’t have felt compelled to played it at all because of the reason I described at the beginning of this very paragraph. The problem with ADOM is that its random events generation would 20% of the time (while in the wilderness) feel unfair, like it could force you into a fight with loads of jackals with the misfortunate of your character having the wrong class or simply for being a noob. But at least its world map was fixed and each time I played it I could actually feel a sense of progression and view new parts of the game that I believe to be impossible without farming Saving-Games.
Okay, but why do I say that there is no sense of accomplishment with permadeath? The real problem lies with having permadeath combined with pretty much everything in the game being procedural generated and its harsh difficulty level. Why? Because when I start a new unexplored generated world all previous achievements I did undergo previously no longer apply and the chance of encountering similar events are scarce and I’m not talking about getting to know better how the game’s features works, like skills usage, the item’s functionality and what strategies to adopt with each type of monster or simply what action to perform in every situation, no, this is called getting to know game’s game play mechanics better. I’m talking about removing the sense of progression as everything is now different. Remember Golden Axe or Double Dragon slide scroll classic games? Yeah, they also featured permadeath because when you died you had to start all over again, regardless of the size of the life energy bar or lives amount. But whenever I replayed these games, I did feel a sense of progression as each time I tried them I would go farther and farther, leading me to eventually ending them and that felt very rewarding.
In a procedural generated game, when you start in a new world you can either die quickly or not, depending of many factors of course, namely how the game is coded and how fair randomization is and yeah, player skill / experience with the game itself. But roguelikes are usually hard by nature and this itself feels quite incompatible with permadeath. For a game to have permadeath it’s difficult level should be more forgiving as you only have one try to finish it (if it has an end at all). Of course this is RELATIVE to each game but if you want challenge you really don’t need a roguelike with permadeath, you just need basically a challenging game play like an Asteroids game, having each level getting progressively harder and harder until it gets insanely difficult. But we prefer roguelikes right? They are complex and detailed with unique and superb features and this is why I love the roguelike genre. It’s not because we are smarter but because we enjoy the complexity and tons of choices at our disposable.
So where do I stand in the permadeath ability? Right in the middle. I prefer a system where you have controlled save-games for two main reasons. The first one is that with controlled saving you will still feel the tension and excitement during the choices you take and secondly it let the players feel a sense of progression. Why having no saving points when the game has the ability to generate full worlds from scratch dynamically, therefore offering so much replay value? I can say that ADOM with occasionally saving was the best experience I had with a roguelike.
Nonetheless, there are no wrong opinions in this matter, just different preferences and this is my personal preference.
-
Before this gets personal, I just want to make it clear that this is my personal opinion on how I view the permadeath feature, in other words, is not something open to debate
If it isn't up for debate, maybe it shouldn't be here?
-
Before this gets personal, I just want to make it clear that this is my personal opinion on how I view the permadeath feature, in other words, is not something open to debate
If it isn't up for debate, maybe it shouldn't be here?
Or maybe you simply fail to see my point. Unless you believe that the fact your prefer blue over yellow or vanilla over chocolate is something open for discussion.
-
You seem to be saying that you don't like roguelikes because they're not RPGs. Nothing wrong with that opinion, but maybe you would find more satisfaction in finding games that are what you want in a game instead of trying to make a game that's not what you want into what you want (via save scumming for example).
-
Or maybe you simply fail to see my point. Unless you believe that the fact your prefer blue over yellow or vanilla over chocolate is something open for discussion.
We discuss why you prefer blue and vanilla, what other things share the qualities you like about blue and vanilla and whether it is possible to merge the best qualities of blue and yellow and vanilla and chocolate or that they are things that should be only enjoyed separately.
-
You seem to be saying that you don't like roguelikes because they're not RPGs. Nothing wrong with that opinion, but maybe you would find more satisfaction in finding games that are what you want in a game instead of trying to make a game that's not what you want into what you want (via save scumming for example).
There are games with permadeath that are no roguelike nor RPGs. I do know where I get satisfaction from what types of games. It seems that for you and for many people a roguelike is only a roguelike when it has the permadeath feature implemented. Sorry, but I think a roguelike is much more than featuring permadeath. I did mention what people (including myself) enjoy about roguelikes:
"Wikipedia"
Roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by random level generation, tile-based graphics and permanent death.
-
Or maybe you simply fail to see my point. Unless you believe that the fact your prefer blue over yellow or vanilla over chocolate is something open for discussion.
We discuss why you prefer blue and vanilla, what other things share the qualities you like about blue and vanilla and whether it is possible to merge the best qualities of blue and yellow and vanilla and chocolate or that they are things that should be only enjoyed separately.
Exactly. Please discuss why I prefer controlled saved games or if we can merge the qualities of saving a game with a roguelike.
-
I’m not talking about getting to know better how the game’s features works, like skills usage, the item’s functionality and what strategies to adopt with each type of monster or simply what action to perform in every situation, no, this is called getting to know game’s game play mechanics better. I’m talking about removing the sense of progression as everything is now different. Remember Golden Axe or Double Dragon slide scroll classic games? Yeah, they also featured permadeath because when you died you had to start all over again, regardless of the size of the life energy bar or lives amount. But whenever I replayed these games, I did feel a sense of progression as each time I tried them I would go farther and farther, leading me to eventually ending them and that felt very rewarding.
Except that getting to know all the game mechanics will surely make you a better player, so you'll get further more easily. I fail to see how it doesn't give a sense of progression. In fact, learning how particular roguelike's features work is quite similar to memorizing levels and figuring out how to beat them in the games you mentioned.
-
If I understand you correctly, you don't feel as if you are progressing unless you can measure yourself against the same measuring stick each time.
-
Except that getting to know all the game mechanics will surely make you a better player, so you'll get further more easily. I fail to see how it doesn't give a sense of progression. In fact, learning how particular roguelike's features work is quite similar to memorizing levels and figuring out how to beat them in the games you mentioned.
It's not about how good you play it but how far you go in it. Sure that if you get better at playing it will increase the chances of you surviving throughout it but you will always get back to 0 progression whenever you die. Meaning that all the fancy equipment you had, the quests you completed, the renown or titles you may have earned simply will be reduced to nothing. Then you will find yourself at level 1 needing to go yet again through all those leveling up stages until returning to the point you previously were. And since the world might be procedural generated, YOU WILL succumb to unfortunate events over and over before reaching such state but again, this is highly dependent on the game we are talking about.
Progression means accomplishing things in a game that will remain there with you. Of course that this only makes sense with games that actually have a goal or that have and end, like ADOM where you have to defeat the forces of Chaos to finish it. For open ended survival games this makes little sense, maybe I should have highlighted this in my opening post.
-
If I understand you correctly, you don't feel as if you are progressing unless you can measure yourself against the same measuring stick each time.
In one way or another every player measures their progress. In your case, I would say that your progress is measured by the rate at which you die when playing a roguelike featuring permadeath or how far you character went, either through leveling up or through the amount of land uncovered. So, its not just me, everyone needs a sense of progression. In my case, having a character dying at level 10 and then going back to level 1 does indeed feel going backwards, despising how well you improved yourself as a player.
-
If you ever won games like Nethack or ADOM without savescumming, you would have a whole different feeling of accomplishment. But you need to learn to like the "how will I die today" approach. I don't have anything against games with or without permadeath, as long as they are well designed for it. If you savescum, you play a different game than the developer designed, and most likely this is a worse game.
-
If you ever won games like Nethack or ADOM without savescumming, you would have a whole different feeling of accomplishment. But you need to learn to like the "how will I die today" approach. I don't have anything against games with or without permadeath, as long as they are well designed for it. If you savescum, you play a different game than the developer designed, and most likely this is a worse game.
Hello Miki151, long time no see. For me ending games like Nethack and ADOM without savescum, it automatically means I would be a fan of permadeath, so this thread would not exist in first place. But Yes, I understand what you mean. But if savescum from a particular game grants me 6 months of entertainment, well do let me know where I can get more of them.
[EDIT]
Also, its seems quite common to use save scumming in ADOM. I just browsed the web and people actually tend to end the game first with save scumming and then without it. So I guess I was on the right track.
-
When I started playing Angband I used the cheat death option to avoid losing progress. It was fun, I got to take a tour of the dungeon and see all the different monsters and find out good tactics for killing them safely. And I got to kill Morgoth.
When I came back to the game a few years later and without cheats, it was a totally different game. The monsters changed from small bundles of flavour text with appropriate stats and abilities into real threats and I had to think carefully about how to deal with them.
One of those games I dropped and half-forgot about after a few months, when I felt I had "seen everything". The other one has held my interest for years.
-
When I started playing Angband I used the cheat death option to avoid losing progress. It was fun, I got to take a tour of the dungeon and see all the different monsters and find out good tactics for killing them safely. And I got to kill Morgoth.
When I came back to the game a few years later and without cheats, it was a totally different game. The monsters changed from small bundles of flavour text with appropriate stats and abilities into real threats and I had to think carefully about how to deal with them.
One of those games I dropped and half-forgot about after a few months, when I felt I had "seen everything". The other one has held my interest for years.
I see what you mean. Now imagine playing Angband with a controlled amount of savings, like being able to save only once per level up. How do you forseen its game play using this method? This is the type of feedback I'm looking for. Of course that the game should be properly balanced to handle this functionality.
-
Note that I wasn't savescumming, I was using the game's built-in "cheat death" option. One non-death per character level would come to 50 non-deaths, which is probably less than it took to win even playing very lazily with unlimited saves.
I think of I played in such a mode, I would either play exactly as I do (but win every game and lose interest), or develop bad habits while my life is protected that persist while it isn't. In that case I would lose much more often.
I don't think I would be interested in playing that game. If I'm going to cheat to get infinite lives and an unlosable game, I'm going to do it right.
-
Note that wasnt savescumming, I was using the game's built-in "cheat death" option. One non-death per character level would come to 50 non-deaths, which is probably less than it took to win even playing very lazily with unlimited saves.
I think of I played in such a mode, I would either play exactly as I do (but win every game and lose interest), or develop bad habits while my life is protected that persist while it isn't. In that case I would lose much more often.
I don't think I would be interested in playing that game. If I'm going to cheat to get infinite lives and an unlosable game, I'm going to do it right.
It's only considered cheating when you're altering the way the developer intended it to work. I said once per level as I have no idea how much this turns out to be, plus the game play should be definitely re balanced.
I find it hard to believe that someone would loose interest that fast over a hypothetical game featuring controlled saved games, several classes and races and containing fully procedural generated worlds, therefore capable of producing unlimited and unique playable scenarios.
-
I find it hard to believe that someone would loose interest that fast over a hypothetical game featuring controlled saved games, several classes and races and containing fully procedural generated worlds, therefore capable of producing unlimited and unique playable scenarios.
But surely the fact that it could produce unlimited scenarios is irrelevant in this case, if you are just going to be re-loading and re-playing the same variation of it over and over again?
-
My 2c: depends on how one enjoys the game. Allow the option, probably at the start of the game. Easy, normal, hard. Hardcore mode of Diablo/Torchlight/Tales of Maj' Eyal. It's not rocket science. Do vendors sell balls saying "Only play football with this product"? Why would you handicap the product? So that elitists/zealots can cheer? Define the game in the scope of the session ("I'm gonna play normal difficulty - hardcore mode", or "I'm gonna play basketball") and don't change the rules as you see fit midway through.
-
But when you try to play soccer with a football it doesn't work how you expect.
-
1: I'm European, so my football is your soccer
2: Even if it didn't work as I expected, does it really matter to some 3rd party? It matters to *me* how I play it. If we are talking about high-scores/rankings, then a common ground needs to be established.
One can give all the suggestions in the world on how to play a game, but in the end it should be up to the person playing it.
-
You seem to be saying that you don't like roguelikes because they're not RPGs. Nothing wrong with that opinion, but maybe you would find more satisfaction in finding games that are what you want in a game instead of trying to make a game that's not what you want into what you want (via save scumming for example).
There are games with permadeath that are no roguelike nor RPGs. I do know where I get satisfaction from what types of games. It seems that for you and for many people a roguelike is only a roguelike when it has the permadeath feature implemented. Sorry, but I think a roguelike is much more than featuring permadeath. I did mention what people (including myself) enjoy about roguelikes:
"Wikipedia"
Roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by random level generation, tile-based graphics and permanent death.
I'm not really sure what your reply has to do with my comment. You seem discouraged that ADOM was not built with an internal save feature and compelled to state that the lack of a save feature makes the game less interesting for you. All of which is fine. The problem is that you then suggest it should have a save feature, which is akin to saying that you wish it didn't have random level generation or randomized anything. If you only play a game once from start to finish then you'll see exactly one thing, which is not random at all, effectively. If you don't want randomized content you'd be better served with non-roguelike RPGs with an intentionally built story and experience.
Personally I'm not really for or against permadeath in roguelikes as a general rule. Some of my very favorite roguelikes have explicit save games, like Toe Jam & Earl, or have semi-death with partial resets, such as the Mystery Dungeon games.
-
I've always wanted to do a game with permanent death BUT...more. For example, if your character dies and you either:
1) have the ability/skill/power to resurrect it then you can do so and lead the character back to town, or leave it and chance the AI getting to it before you log back in on it
or
2) carry the body back to town and have a healer resurrect it
or
3) re-animate it as some form of undead inheriting some/all of the character's abilities/skills
You could add more stuff to make it more interesting...for example, the longer you left the body the more "deteriorated" it would be. If you ended up taking a long time before you resurrected it then the character could take a temp/permanent hit to various stats and/or abilities.
There could be a Soul Departure stat which places a hard cap on the amount of time you could wait before rezzing the character. Various races could last longer than others before their souls departed.
It would be really interesting to have an entirely new game once a character "died". They could then go on to adventure/game in the "after-life". It could be possible to gain enough favor with your patron deity (kill enough angels/demons) to actually get a second chance at life.
The list goes on. My motto is the more gameplay options the more longevity the game has. And we're not talking complicated gameplay. Tons of simple options synergize to produce near inifinitely varied gameplay!
My two cents!
Take care.
-
I've always wanted to do a game with permanent death BUT...more. For example, if your character dies and you either:
By at least one of your definitions, your game has as much permanent death as Pacman. Pacman gets resurrected. When he fails to acquire the right knick knacks to notch up more pending resurrections, then his death is permanent. Or a Pinball machine, and the same for extra balls.
Pacman probably costs a dollar to play these days, and not 2 cents! :-)
-
My favorite thing is optional perma-death as a hardcore game mode. That's what I did in my game.
-
But surely the fact that it could produce unlimited scenarios is irrelevant in this case, if you are just going to be re-loading and re-playing the same variation of it over and over again?
I rather replay my death 10x times from a saved point at level 20 than restarting my char 10x times at level 1, replicating the skill developing, collecting and selling early equipment also 10x times. My point about unlimited scenarios comes exactly to this as you should not feel scared for finishing the game in much less time or having it feel less challenging due to controlled saved games as the key lies with the right amount of difficulty; challenge is not something exclusive to permadeath. Each time you start over you will play a new and different game promoting a unique experience, as long as the game features procedural algorithms naturally. You would probably try a different class or race or investing in a different skill tree once you've finished the game.
-
My 2c: depends on how one enjoys the game. Allow the option, probably at the start of the game. Easy, normal, hard. Hardcore mode of Diablo/Torchlight/Tales of Maj' Eyal. It's not rocket science. Do vendors sell balls saying "Only play football with this product"? Why would you handicap the product? So that elitists/zealots can cheer? Define the game in the scope of the session ("I'm gonna play normal difficulty - hardcore mode", or "I'm gonna play basketball") and don't change the rules as you see fit midway through.
Couldn't agree more.
-
My favorite thing is optional perma-death as a hardcore game mode. That's what I did in my game.
By doing that I believe you expanded your game's audience. I would do exactly that.
-
I'm not really sure what your reply has to do with my comment. You seem discouraged that ADOM was not built with an internal save feature and compelled to state that the lack of a save feature makes the game less interesting for you. All of which is fine. The problem is that you then suggest it should have a save feature, which is akin to saying that you wish it didn't have random level generation or randomized anything. If you only play a game once from start to finish then you'll see exactly one thing, which is not random at all, effectively. If you don't want randomized content you'd be better served with non-roguelike RPGs with an intentionally built story and experience.
Personally I'm not really for or against permadeath in roguelikes as a general rule. Some of my very favorite roguelikes have explicit save games, like Toe Jam & Earl, or have semi-death with partial resets, such as the Mystery Dungeon games.
I guess we are having communication problems as what you just said is also not exatly what I said previously ;). No worries though, maybe I didn't explain myself that well; I do love procedural generation worlds because it adds tremendous replay value. What I mean about ADOM is that it has a fixed world map with fixed locations for random generated dungeon spawn points giving you a certain feel of progression when replaying it, even when you start again from scratch. I personally prefer having world maps fixed when permadeath is the only option, or at least I find it less harsh. But I definitely prefer fully dynamically generated worlds with controlled save points for all the reasons I've mentioned previously:
"I rather replay my death 10x times from a saved point at level 20 than restarting my char 10x times at level 1, replicating the skill developing, collecting and selling early equipment also 10x times. My point about unlimited scenarios comes exactly to this as you should not feel scared for finishing the game in much less time or having it feel less challenging due to controlled saved games as the key lies with the right amount of difficulty; challenge is not something exclusive to permadeath. Each time you start over you will play a new and different game promoting a unique experience, as long as the game features procedural algorithms naturally. You would probably try a different class or race or investing in a different skill tree once you've finished the game."
@Everyone else.
I just want to make sure that I'm fully comprehended with this thread of mine. My objective here is not to imply that those who prefer permadeath are wrong or that they should change their view about such feature. I'm simply stating that there should also be room for players who dislike starting everything from scratch due to wrong choices or through unfortunate events passing too high over their heads to be controlled by the player.
-
I've always wanted to do a game with permanent death BUT...more. For example, if your character dies and you either:
1) have the ability/skill/power to resurrect it then you can do so and lead the character back to town, or leave it and chance the AI getting to it before you log back in on it
or
2) carry the body back to town and have a healer resurrect it
or
3) re-animate it as some form of undead inheriting some/all of the character's abilities/skills
You could add more stuff to make it more interesting...for example, the longer you left the body the more "deteriorated" it would be. If you ended up taking a long time before you resurrected it then the character could take a temp/permanent hit to various stats and/or abilities.
There could be a Soul Departure stat which places a hard cap on the amount of time you could wait before rezzing the character. Various races could last longer than others before their souls departed.
It would be really interesting to have an entirely new game once a character "died". They could then go on to adventure/game in the "after-life". It could be possible to gain enough favor with your patron deity (kill enough angels/demons) to actually get a second chance at life.
The list goes on. My motto is the more gameplay options the more longevity the game has. And we're not talking complicated gameplay. Tons of simple options synergize to produce near inifinitely varied gameplay!
My two cents!
Take care.
Those are interesting ideas!
-
My 2c: depends on how one enjoys the game. Allow the option, probably at the start of the game. Easy, normal, hard. Hardcore mode of Diablo/Torchlight/Tales of Maj' Eyal. It's not rocket science. Do vendors sell balls saying "Only play football with this product"? Why would you handicap the product? So that elitists/zealots can cheer? Define the game in the scope of the session ("I'm gonna play normal difficulty - hardcore mode", or "I'm gonna play basketball") and don't change the rules as you see fit midway through.
That's a good solution.
-
I rather replay my death 10x times from a saved point at level 20 than restarting my char 10x times at level 1, replicating the skill developing, collecting and selling early equipment also 10x times. My point about unlimited scenarios comes exactly to this as you should not feel scared for finishing the game in much less time or having it feel less challenging due to controlled saved games as the key lies with the right amount of difficulty; challenge is not something exclusive to permadeath. Each time you start over you will play a new and different game promoting a unique experience, as long as the game features procedural algorithms naturally. You would probably try a different class or race or investing in a different skill tree once you've finished the game.
It comes to personal preferences here. I'd rather replay everything from scratch ten times, because every time I experience a completely new world with new challenges. That's because continuous saving and reloading make the game less challenging - in a game with permadeath, if you die to a particular monster, next time you have to develop either a better character or an effective strategy to defeat it, while in a game with saving/reloading you can do the same things as in a permadeath game, but you also can try the same strategy with the same character over and over and you might eventually make it through thanks to luck. Not to mention that after reloading the world is the same, which, as others pointed out, pretty much defeats the purpose of procedural generation.
You also make the assumption that a game is something to complete. There's nothing wrong with that, but it seems to imply that once you won it, it's over. Of course this is not the case if the game features procedural generation, but it doesn't change the fact that if someone plays only to win, then they're not going to play the game again, even though it'll be set in a new world the next time.
-
My personal preference is to play without permadeath. I feel frustrated if my character dies, and I want to play for fun and the illusion of being successful, not for feeling frustrated.
Admitted, there are points when save/reload won't help either, because the character is titally screwed, but the tolerance is higher.
If I have the choice I play without permadeath in a setting that has a "fair" balance between challenge and reward (usually called "easy") and I make my own projects without permadeath by default.
I know other will call this lame, but it is my way to have joy in playing a game. Life is hard enough, and has enough challenges, I don't need to play difficult games in my free time, rather something to relax and spin down.
-
My personal preference is to play without permadeath. I feel frustrated if my character dies, and I want to play for fun and the illusion of being successful, not for feeling frustrated.
Admitted, there are points when save/reload won't help either, because the character is titally screwed, but the tolerance is higher.
If I have the choice I play without permadeath in a setting that has a "fair" balance between challenge and reward (usually called "easy") and I make my own projects without permadeath by default.
I know other will call this lame, but it is my way to have joy in playing a game. Life is hard enough, and has enough challenges, I don't need to play difficult games in my free time, rather something to relax and spin down.
This, exactly. You are talking about non-roguelike RPGs here. Or even scripted story games like Heavy Rain. Those are great games and genres, but thinking that roguelikes are suffering because they're roguelikes is just odd. It's like saying you prefer a vehicle to have four wheels and so motorcycles aren't as good of vehicles as they could be.
Once again, I suggest you play some of the really amazing scripted story games, especially the ones by Bioware, based on your stated preferences. Even AAA FPS games offer exactly what you say you want. (This is not meant as a demeaning comment, I personally love playing AAA FPS games and such.)
-
It comes to personal preferences here. I'd rather replay everything from scratch ten times, because every time I experience a completely new world with new challenges. That's because continuous saving and reloading make the game less challenging - in a game with permadeath, if you die to a particular monster, next time you have to develop either a better character or an effective strategy to defeat it, while in a game with saving/reloading you can do the same things as in a permadeath game, but you also can try the same strategy with the same character over and over and you might eventually make it through thanks to luck. Not to mention that after reloading the world is the same, which, as others pointed out, pretty much defeats the purpose of procedural generation.
You also make the assumption that a game is something to complete. There's nothing wrong with that, but it seems to imply that once you won it, it's over. Of course this is not the case if the game features procedural generation, but it doesn't change the fact that if someone plays only to win, then they're not going to play the game again, even though it'll be set in a new world the next time.
This, exactly. You are talking about non-roguelike RPGs here. Or even scripted story games like Heavy Rain. Those are great games and genres, but thinking that roguelikes are suffering because they're roguelikes is just odd. It's like saying you prefer a vehicle to have four wheels and so motorcycles aren't as good of vehicles as they could be.
Once again, I suggest you play some of the really amazing scripted story games, especially the ones by Bioware, based on your stated preferences. Even AAA FPS games offer exactly what you say you want. (This is not meant as a demeaning comment, I personally love playing AAA FPS games and such.)
@Everyone
Yap, it comes down to personal preferences. I could go one and grab everyone's text and counter argument it with my own statements but there is not point presenting arguments against personal preferences. It's like me trying to convince all of you that you should like blonds instead brunettes. It's pointless. It really doesn't mean a thing when you try to tell me that an athletic body of a blond and its golden hair and blue eyes is better for me when I prefer curvy brunettes with black hair and black eyes. That's why I said my opinion was not open for discussion. The best approach to this issue was already stated here, which would satisfy everyone's demands. It presents itself as letting the player choosing his own playing style i.e. with or without permadeath at the beginning of the game. The whole issue is indeed so easy to solve.
@Etinarg
You hit the Jackpot as I share your view at 100%. Permadeath for me equals frustration instead fun. I rather go to work and feel useful than spending countless hours having my progression being reset through unfortunate events.
-
I'm confused. You seem to be claiming it's personal preference and then suggesting that all brunettes should dye their hair blond. That's not just personal preference, you're trying to change what people do in order to turn what they've done into what you wanted.
-
The best approach to this issue was already stated here, which would satisfy everyone's demands. It presents itself as letting the player choosing his own playing style i.e. with or without permadeath at the beginning of the game. The whole issue is indeed so easy to solve.
The best approach for who? It's only easy if you do not value the developer's time, energy and personal interests - if the respective part of the game is something they would otherwise do differently from the way you want.
-
I wouldn't savescumm in a roguelike any more than I'd delete my save file after dying in Fallout or whatever. I don't see the appeal in either one. You could glue some half-assed permadeath "hardcore" mode onto just about any game I guess, but it seems pointless if its just an afterthought.
-
I'm confused. You seem to be claiming it's personal preference and then suggesting that all brunettes should dye their hair blond. That's not just personal preference, you're trying to change what people do in order to turn what they've done into what you wanted.
WHAT?! Where did I say that? Ok, let me rephrase it:
It really doesn't mean a thing when you try to tell me that an athletic body of a blond and its golden hair and blue eyes is better for me when I prefer curvy brunettes with black hair and black eyes.
-
I'm confused. You seem to be claiming it's personal preference and then suggesting that all brunettes should dye their hair blond. That's not just personal preference, you're trying to change what people do in order to turn what they've done into what you wanted.
WHAT?! Where did I say that? Ok, let me rephrase it:
It really doesn't mean a thing when you try to tell me that an athletic body of a blond and its golden hair and blue eyes is better for me when I prefer curvy brunettes with black hair and black eyes.
Except that you're suggesting that roguelike devs not use permadeath, which in the analogy means you're suggesting that blonds become brunettes to meet your preference, rather than you just going after brunettes in the first place. (I did in fact have the hair color switch backwards there, sorry)
-
The best approach for who?
The best approach for those who play the game, those who enjoy permadeath and those who want to save their progress. Sorry if that was rhetorical.
It's only easy if you do not value the developer's time, energy and personal interests - if the respective part of the game is something they would otherwise do differently from the way you want.
Author's developing time, energy, personal interests VS having permadeath and saving progress. Sorry, you lost me here.
-
It's only easy if you do not value the developer's time, energy and personal interests - if the respective part of the game is something they would otherwise do differently from the way you want.
Author's developing time, energy, personal interests VS having permadeath and saving progress. Sorry, you lost me here.
If it would consume the developer's time and energy to allow a player to save their progress, and the developer has no personal interest in developing a game where that is possible, or if being able to circumvent permadeath would conflict with the developer's vision of gameplay, then there's little reason for the developer to do so.
-
So, you're saying that you don't like roguelikes?
-
I'm confused. You seem to be claiming it's personal preference and then suggesting that all brunettes should dye their hair blond. That's not just personal preference, you're trying to change what people do in order to turn what they've done into what you wanted.
WHAT?! Where did I say that? Ok, let me rephrase it:
It really doesn't mean a thing when you try to tell me that an athletic body of a blond and its golden hair and blue eyes is better for me when I prefer curvy brunettes with black hair and black eyes.
Except that you're suggesting that roguelike devs not use permadeath, which in the analogy means you're suggesting that blonds become brunettes to meet your preference, rather than you just going after brunettes in the first place. (I did in fact have the hair color switch backwards there, sorry)
I'm just saying that no one can change the personal preferences of another person simply by giving away their opinion about the opposite things that they enjoy. Let me try to give another example:
I say: "Dude! Ramstein is awesome!"
You say: "Meh, they kinda suck. Their guitar riffs lack originality and they have the worst language in the world!"
I say: "Actually they have strong riffs and fine melodies and they provide awesome shows during live performances."
You say: "Well, the lead singer does look spooky, that alone must provide a good show."
After this dialog nothing will change. You will still hate Ramstein and I will still enjoy it. This is a common problem with people nowadays, when someone likes something and if the other person who hates it knows about it, the one who hates will just have to say something about it! Even knowing that he cannot simply change the personal preferences of another person by giving away his opinion.
@Everyone
So having someone explaining himself why he enjoys permadeath after I've stated I don't like permadeath, won't change a thing. It won't change the way I feel about it. I just created this thread to demonstrate that are players who enjoy the roguelike concept, except for its permadeath feature. Take it as you must. Don't give a crap about it or give a crap about it, its all up to you. The game I'm developing will have permadeath and saving progress features, because this will "capture" more audience. If this is too much for you then don't implement it. If this collides with your personal interests then don't do it.
-
Ok I had enough with this thread. I think I've explained myself really good and its time for me to leave, as I'm beginning to repeat myself. I consider this thread closed. Don't bother posting as I'm not coming here again.
Take care guys. Thanks for your feedback, I know this is a delicate topic and I hope I did not offended anyone by sharing my views about this subject.
-
Endorya, you're such an amicable troll, and I mean that in a good way ;)
I did have a period of savescumming ADOM myself (to learn about the game, I guess, and because it is frustratring to die stupidly when you enter an unknown area), but I've come to prefer permadeath 100%. It's made playing a game like Caves of Qud much more tense – reaching a new location, I'd be very much tip-toeing around, afraid of whay might lie behind the next corner, rather than duplicating a save file and going, Oh well, let's see what's going to kill me here. Reaching a difficult area for the first time and actually beating it is also quite exhilarating. Then again, I don't mind difficult games, even though (or precicely because) I agree life is more than harsh enough. In games, there are no stakes, which make them á priori "relaxing" to me. The only thing you stand to lose is time, and if I've spent X hours playing a certain game, my "rate of success" doesn't matter so much to me, as long as I've enjoyed playing it.
I'm not too fond of easy/hardcore modes, as it does seem to me a game should be designed to fit in with whichever mode of death/failure it chooses to implement. In my own projects, I opt for permadeath, but I do mostly add an option to "cheat with savefiles", since I agree wholeheartedly that the player should be allowed to choose how to play. If I was going to make a Rogue-inspired game without permadeath as the default, I'd feel compelled to rethink concepts like procedural generation.
As always,
Minotauros
-
My personal preference is to play without permadeath. I feel frustrated if my character dies, and I want to play for fun and the illusion of being successful, not for feeling frustrated. [...]
I don't need to play difficult games in my free time, rather something to relax and spin down.
This, exactly. You are talking about non-roguelike RPGs here. Or even scripted story games like Heavy Rain. Those are great games and genres, but thinking that roguelikes are suffering because they're roguelikes is just odd. It's like saying you prefer a vehicle to have four wheels and so motorcycles aren't as good of vehicles as they could be.
Uh-oh. Misunderstanding here. I usually don't play roguelikes. I've been playing Angband long ago, even tried to make my own variant, but lost interest after some years. Also, the deeper I got into the game, the more I noticed that the cruelty of such games is not my thing. I consider myself kind of lucky to have never seen the parts of the game with the really nasty stuff, that I discovered in the code and library files while working on my variant.
This thread is called "my two cents about permadeath", and what I wrote, that's just been mine. I don't ask people to make roguelikes without permadeath. I just said I like games without permadeath better, and that seemed perfectly on topic for the thread.
I didn't say roguelikes are suffering from anything. Permadeath usually is considered one of the pillars of the genre, it's been so since I am watching the roguelike crowd. I don't want to change that.
In case you ask why I am here then, if I don't like to play roguelikes: I'm around due to some lasting interest in the genre, and the hope to discover new and interesting design ideas. Roguelikes are at times quite creative. Still I usually like other games better.
-
While I agree that allowing the option to turn off permadeath can increase your potential audience, the problem with it is that you can only really optimise your design for one of those options and there are certain mechanics that only work well with or without permadeath. A lot of roguelikes (the better ones, in my opinion) wouldn't suit reloading because they emphasise long-term strategic planning as well as short-term tactics - you might be killed by a dragon but the fatal mistake could actually have been made three floors up when you wasted a potion. Being able to restart the current level may not help you very much because you could still be in a very difficult or even impossible position.
The point of death, in all games, is to teach the player that they have made a mistake and to reset the game to a state where they have an opportunity to avoid making the same mistake again. In a platformer where the skill being tested is the ability to judge and execute button presses with the right timing, going back just a few seconds may well be enough. In roguelikes and strategy games it is not, because the required skills for success are spread out over the entire length of the game.
-
Diablo II offered softcore and hardcore (permadeath) modes and both had their share of players. It didn't seem to be particularly unfair, some hardcore players got incredibly far in the game, and softcore playing was very interesting (at least to me) as well.
It might be harder with turnbased games like roguelikes, though ...
-
So, you're saying that you don't like roguelikes?
yeah. its scientifically proven that permadeath is the only way to go, optional "perma"death and other lightweight options are the sign of an inferior game and therefore an inferior gamer
-
I'm not saying that games which have both options can't be enjoyable (not that that means much; enjoyment is highly subjective and you can always find somebody who finds enjoyment in pretty much anything), just that it's sub-optimal from a design perspective.
I played Torchlight in 'softcore' mode but got bored fairly quickly and didn't get too far. A little while later I tried again with permadeath turned on and that time I got all the way to (I think) the last level before dying. The extra bit of risk was enough to help me find some enjoyment in the game but without question there were lots of things that could have been made much more enjoyable (to me) if the game had been specifically designed around permadeath. I died in the end because I wasn't really paying attention and came across a new enemy type that did much, much more damage than anything I had come across before and they killed me before I really realised what was going on. Unlike with most roguelikes, however, after dying I had absolutely no desire to start playing again because the lesson that death taught me (pay attention to those specific enemies) wouldn't become relevant again until 10+ hours into the game. My interest in the game died when my character did.
Now, I'm not saying that Torchlight should have been designed around permadeath, or that it should not have included a permadeath option, because it still enabled me to get a couple of hours of enjoyment out of the game that I would not otherwise have got. My point is that games are best suited to one or another approach and simply slapping an ironman option (or not) on one in order to appease a particular type of gamer is not a magic pill solution - one or both of those modes will be significantly compromised by the presence of the other. Permadeath-or-not is not an isolated design decision.
-
So, you're saying that you don't like roguelikes?
yeah. its scientifically proven that permadeath is the only way to go, optional "perma"death and other lightweight options are the sign of an inferior game and therefore an inferior gamer
Well, it's not scientifically proven, but for the most part, permadeath is considered to be a defining characteristic of the roguelike genre. Games that do not feature permadeath typically belong to different (sub)genres, perhaps, such as so-called "roguelike-likes." And no, different does not imply inferior.
-
look, I know that people like to agree to disagree about things, but the reality is that permadeath is mandatory and all alternative opinions are wrong. I'm pretty serious about my computer game opinions.
-
Pat, look. I don't like disagreeing with people*. I'm forced to, however, because I feel that upholding my much more worthy opinion (which isn't particularly clear anyways) is more important than having fun and discussing/playing/creating cool games. So are you going to agree with me or shall we continue for several more pages?
*I love it
-
the fact of the matter is that we are posting in a four page thread about the technical nuances of a wildly unpopular genre of esoteric computer games, so we may as well bash it out for a while longer so we can really make a mess of things.
-
I think at this point it would be worthwhile to enter into a tangential discussion on the popularity of these "esoteric computer games" (and, by the way, I disagree with your choice of wording there, and clarify that I'm offended by the use of the adjective "esoteric"). Ultimately we'll confuse the discussion so much that we're disagreeing as a matter of principle and then we can both walk away, egos intact.
-
Guys guys! You're tearing us apart. Can't you see that this sort of bickering is what drove away Amy Wang?
I'm sure you can all agree that roguelikes would be much better games if they were casual "match 3" games instead.
-
Guys guys! You're tearing us apart. Can't you see that this sort of bickering is what drove away Amy Wang?
I'm sure you can all agree that roguelikes would be much better games if they were casual "match 3" games instead.
No idea what you are referring to. I hope it is not the earlier poster in this topic who couldn't deal with valid criticism, and announced they were leaving when what they were suggesting, was shown to not be as easy or straightforward as they wanted. This is the second person in a month or so who I've seen leave in a huff, after they didn't get their way, and they weren't open to acknowledging there might be more to whatever the subject at hand was.
I have no idea who Amy Wang is either, but even if she left because of valid bickering, it doesn't invalidate the fact that in this case perhaps someone who isn't willing to have a two-sided discussion, is perhaps better off where the situation does not arise.
-
No idea what you are referring to. I hope it is not the earlier poster in this topic who couldn't deal with valid criticism, and announced they were leaving when what they were suggesting, was shown to not be as easy or straightforward as they wanted. This is the second person in a month or so who I've seen leave in a huff, after they didn't get their way, and they weren't open to acknowledging there might be more to whatever the subject at hand was.
I have no idea who Amy Wang is either, but even if she left because of valid bickering, it doesn't invalidate the fact that in this case perhaps someone who isn't willing to have a two-sided discussion, is perhaps better off where the situation does not arise.
I think Amy Wang quit roguelike discussions in 1996 or so.
These no-good trolls aren't taking this argument seriously, can we go some attention from the mods in here?? I'm working on a detailed post about the gameplay implications of scarce resources vis a vis the "food clock" in this post-open source incursion roguelike landscape and I won't want any derails, rerails, or general chitchat while I do so.
-
An approach I haven't seen anywhere: Make winning the game with a single life a conduct instead of the only way to play.
Here's how it would work: As usual, you don't get free save-scumming. The first time you die though, and don't have an in-game mechanism like an Amulet of Life Saving or a lich spell to bring you back in some form, you get respawned some ways back, like you would in vanilla Diablo. (Some games already implement the respawn mechanic, ToME4 has the extra lives and DCSS has the cat race.) Then you get told that you lost your "single life" conduct, and your score gets frozen at what it was when you died. You can keep playing and respawning as much as you want, but your high score won't improve, and you won't get the "single life" conduct if you win the game.
The idea is that serious players would approach the game with the understanding that they're going for the single life victory, and with no save scumming to have their back, would still approach every dangerous situation with the requisite wariness. Players would also be free to practice approaches to different regions of the game with the respawns even when they weren't good enough to single life through the whole thing, but they wouldn't get proper high scores and end game conducts from it.
-
This is a solid idea, rsaarelm.
-
That's kind of like explore mode in Nethack, except you get to turn it on at death time.
-
I've actually seen that approach taken with a hay bale maze before. To complete the maze you needed to find a path of 3 repeating colors to the exit (red, yellow, green, red, yellow, green ...). So adults would have fun with a challenging maze. But their kids ignored the colors and just had fun walking around the hay bales to the exit.
I think that rsaarelm has the proper way to ease someone into permadeath.
-
I've actually seen that approach taken with a hay bale maze before. To complete the maze you needed to find a path of 3 repeating colors to the exit (red, yellow, green, red, yellow, green ...). So adults would have fun with a challenging maze. But their kids ignored the colors and just had fun walking around the hay bales to the exit.
I think that rsaarelm has the proper way to ease someone into permadeath.
We need a hay bale 7drl game, because that sounds like a great mechanic to prototype explore! Or is there one already and I don't know?
-
I sort of agree with the OP in that some of the deaths are bullshit in a roguelike. I think the solution is to make it so that there is no luck in a roguelike and you don't reward grinding.
In spelunky I don't really care if I die since it would be my fault and you can't really grind, through you can wait for the ghost to appear. In that sense if you can scum save a game and progress, then that game is bad. I currently think roguelike don't do enough to solve grinding issue and just sit behind perma death, well you can't grind as if you die you lose everything.
I really think some roguelikes are popular because of sunk cost and the fact that it harder to relearn another roguelike, hence why in this community you get people who only play nethack or DCSS or brogue. Do they really like the genre or have they invested so much time beating a game that can only be won by brute force memorization and learning little tricks that are sort of stupid.
-
A roguelike where luck doesn't factor in is hardly a roguelike at all.
I agree that tons of RLs are excessively luck based. There are way too many games with enemies who deal something like 1d100 damage (Spelunky's one of them).
I'd like to see more mechanics that limit the effects of luck without making the game outright deterministic. Like, say that every turn spent attacking the same target increases your % chance to land a hit on them. That way your dodging and accuracy stats still provide a benefit, but the fact that your chances to hit and be hit eventually rise to 100% puts a hard cap on how lucky or unlucky you can be. Even changing damage values from 1d100 to 20d4 or (5d100)/5 or whatever can go a long way towards making a more fair game.
-
I don't know about you guys but every bullshit death just makes my roguelike spirit stronger and teaches me to enjoy the good times, what good is an ascension without the trials and tribulations of wrestling a horrible ascii bug-filled monster into submission, thanks for reading
-
This is a solid idea, rsaarelm.
What is annoying about it is that I had planned a similar idea for Kaduria and thought I was the first. Well, in fact the idea in Kaduria is much better, it's funny as it is clever. You'll see it soon enough!
The problem with permadeath is not in small world rogelikes like Nethack, but when the game world is getting bigger it's annoying to die after investing lot of time in the game. In fact I even went as far as thinking to remove permadeath from Kaduria, because the span of gameplay is longer than in average roguelikes.
-
The problem with permadeath is not in small world rogelikes like Nethack, but when the game world is getting bigger it's annoying to die after investing lot of time in the game. In fact I even went as far as thinking to remove permadeath from Kaduria, because the span of gameplay is longer than in average roguelikes.
That's a big issue. Another major problem with permadeath is that for these longer-term games, the beginning usually is just not that interesting. Your character doesn't have many (if any) cool equipment or powers, the enemies you face are usually going to be pretty standard and boring, and chances are the level isn't going to have anything that interesting in it, either.
I have this problem with Crawl. I like it a lot, but I'm not very good at it and usually die right when things start to get good.
I don't really know what the solution is, though. You can't really front-load too much stuff or you'll overwhelm new players, or make the player/monsters overpowered.
-
A roguelike where luck doesn't factor in is hardly a roguelike at all.
I agree that tons of RLs are excessively luck based. There are way too many games with enemies who deal something like 1d100 damage (Spelunky's one of them).
I'd like to see more mechanics that limit the effects of luck without making the game outright deterministic. Like, say that every turn spent attacking the same target increases your % chance to land a hit on them. That way your dodging and accuracy stats still provide a benefit, but the fact that your chances to hit and be hit eventually rise to 100% puts a hard cap on how lucky or unlucky you can be. Even changing damage values from 1d100 to 20d4 or (5d100)/5 or whatever can go a long way towards making a more fair game.
Agreed, but I would go farther. I think the essential random element of roguelikes is in dungeon, monster, and loot generation. I would like to see more deterministic damage and monster behavior. Damage variation should be much smaller and amount to no more than flavor -- i.e. if you know what a monster can do, you should be able to predict with very high probability what damage he can produce, rather than just upper bounds. Similarly, monsters should "play optimally," using a strategy that gives them their best chance (or at least the best the AI designer can come up with) at killing the player, scaring him away, escaping -- whatever the monster wants to do -- given constraints on resources, e.g. mana, breath weapon quantity or cool downs. There's still plenty of scope within that framework for varied combat situations via monster items and equipment, ego monster types, variation in individual mana and other resources, and of course combinations of monsters present at a given time.
This stands in contrast to what is done in certain roguelikes (e.g. angband variants), where monster spells/special attacks are totally randomized, so you have weird encounters where the great wyrm of balance breathes on three consecutive turns -- I mean, if he could do that, he should've just started the first turn he woke up. Of course, in order to win at angband, you have to play so conservatively that this kind of situation won't kill you, but it's a peculiar mechanic that makes high level play an acquired taste.
also, re:
The problem with permadeath is not in small world rogelikes like Nethack, but when the game world is getting bigger it's annoying to die after investing lot of time in the game. In fact I even went as far as thinking to remove permadeath from Kaduria, because the span of gameplay is longer than in average roguelikes.
That's a big issue. Another major problem with permadeath is that for these longer-term games, the beginning usually is just not that interesting. Your character doesn't have many (if any) cool equipment or powers, the enemies you face are usually going to be pretty standard and boring, and chances are the level isn't going to have anything that interesting in it, either.
I have this problem with Crawl. I like it a lot, but I'm not very good at it and usually die right when things start to get good.
I don't really know what the solution is, though. You can't really front-load too much stuff or you'll overwhelm new players, or make the player/monsters overpowered.
It seems to me that a reasonable solution to this issue of losing big, interesting (? -- never played a roguelike with an actually interesting open world, zangband is the closest I've seen) worlds is to allow a degree of persistence. Let the player use the same world (and maybe even keep a certain core part of the dungeon(s) static) from instance to instance, but regenerate monsters, items, wipe out any loot the player dropped/sold in his previous life, etc.
-
I think many people agree on the following:
Dying from a bad roll is annoying as scoring a lucky hit is rewarding, not everyone's cup of tea but, in general, RPG/roguelike players love this.
Dying on a new encounter is expected.
Dying on a new encounter without learning anything to improve your chances next time is bad (so randomisation on damage should be kinda limited)
Replaying areas without learning anything new is grinding; not fun.
Given the above, permadeath on a large-scope roguelike doesn't work quite well, unless you have unlimited time for playing the game or you can present a refreshing, learning and rewarding experience each time, which is easier said than done. Not everybody has so much time though, and given the large number of good games nowdays, not many will be willing to devote all of their time learning the quirks of the game -- unless it's REALLY that good, which is not often the case.
An additional idea for larger-scope roguelike:
- The start of the game is difficult, no hand-holding for long, make it interesting and challenging. If you die, so what, you didn't play that much yet anyway and clearly have a lot to learn.
- After reaching a certain level/area, unlock character creation and start at that area at an appropriate level. These characters should be inferior to a well played character from the start of the game, and should be expected to die often. As often as characters in the beginning of the game. You can die with these characters a lot trying to find out nuances of the monsters/traps/etc of the new areas and when you feel comfortable, you start a character from the beginning and try to beat the starting and the unlocked area.
- This can be done as many times as needed, so for 50 dungeon levels you could have start points at level 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40.
-
It seems to me that a reasonable solution to this issue of losing big, interesting (? -- never played a roguelike with an actually interesting open world, zangband is the closest I've seen) worlds is to allow a degree of persistence. Let the player use the same world (and maybe even keep a certain core part of the dungeon(s) static) from instance to instance, but regenerate monsters, items, wipe out any loot the player dropped/sold in his previous life, etc.
I'm actually not really talking too much about open-world type games. That solution does work well...Cataclysm and Dwarf Fortress both do it, the effect you've had on the world remains even after you die.
I was still talking about "regular" roguelikes. To be specific, I guess I'm talking about Crawl since that's where I have the most experience. The early levels are kind of boring, you don't have any cool weapons or powers aside from some basic spells, there aren't any interesting dungeon branches, the monsters you fight generally don't have interesting powers to deal with.
By the time I start to get interesting powers and equipment or make it to the interesting dungeon branches, I die, and have to go back to the "boring" levels again, which, if I've just sunk an hour or two into a character to get to that point, doesn't seem appealing at all.
In shorter games, it's less of an issue because it doesn't take as long to get to the "fun" part.
Now of course, that's just me. I just don't have the time to sink. Obviously it's not "wrong" since plenty of other people seem to enjoy those games just fine.
(One way this problem was approached was by Dungeons of Dredmor, which offered a "No Time to Grind" mode that made the levels smaller, but increased the XP each creature gave. There were some issues with that mode in that it changed some aspects of the game more than others, but at least they tried to acknowledge the problem and accommodate.)
-
Obviously it's not "wrong" since plenty of other people seem to enjoy those games just fine.
Bad design that plenty of people seem to enjoy is still bad.
-
By the time I start to get interesting powers and equipment or make it to the interesting dungeon branches, I die, and have to go back to the "boring" levels again, which, if I've just sunk an hour or two into a character to get to that point, doesn't seem appealing at all.
In shorter games, it's less of an issue because it doesn't take as long to get to the "fun" part.
Long or short, two hours is two hours. If the game was only two hours and five minutes long, it would perhaps be even more annoying to start all over.
-
I was still talking about "regular" roguelikes. To be specific, I guess I'm talking about Crawl since that's where I have the most experience. The early levels are kind of boring, you don't have any cool weapons or powers aside from some basic spells, there aren't any interesting dungeon branches, the monsters you fight generally don't have interesting powers to deal with.
By the time I start to get interesting powers and equipment or make it to the interesting dungeon branches, I die, and have to go back to the "boring" levels again, which, if I've just sunk an hour or two into a character to get to that point, doesn't seem appealing at all.
In shorter games, it's less of an issue because it doesn't take as long to get to the "fun" part.
Right, there's an idiom in the genre of building from a guy who dies in fist fights with drunks into a force of nature who can kill everyone in town with a single spell. Being the guy who dies in fist fights is kind of lame and it stays lame for a long time in most games. Winning fights with kobolds and bats until you can move up to winning fights with iguanas is basically where a lot of players spend all their time. I agree that this is boring and repetitive. It drives away a lot of players, because when you're starting out, it's hard to get past that because you don't understand the game (and indeed, experienced players die to bad luck in the early levels or out of impatience a lot too). When you do get past it, again as a beginning player, it's mostly luck and then when things are starting to get interesting, you die and start over. Doubly frustrating.
I'm sceptical about the value of these opening levels, say the first five or so (or more depending on the game). The most damning thing about them is that they tend to be so unrepresentative of higher level play that they're barely even a learning experience. The question is: What's the right way to cut that part of the game out without trivializing or unduly truncating the early development of the character?
-
Permadeath is just dogmatic remnant of the past. It's like religion, or smoking. It used to be cool, but today it's just stupid. Never mind I actually do smoke. That is the mystery of human mind. We have absolutely no control, it was all predetermined at the beginning of time. We are under illusion we know what we want, but we are only spectators, justifying in retrospect that which already was. And everybody is save-scumming, anyway.
-
I don't think permadeath is appropriate for every game. To me, it depends on the variety provided in each playthrough. If starting over means that you are faced with no new choices, no new powers, no new monsters, no new levels, etc, then permadeath probably isn't a good choice for that game. Redoing everything that you've already done simply isn't fun.
That's why randomness is such a key part of roguelikes. While the player may be a bit frustrated at dying, there should also be excitement to see what the next run will have in store. And while randomness necessitates some degree of luck, luck can also contribute to this feeling, this idea that anything can happen, that the same game can surprise you each time you play.
While some may enjoy permadeath for just the added thrill factor from the risk it provides, I don't personally feel that is enough. I've never understood permadeath in MMO's, where you must spend hours grinding to get back to where you were, nor even in games like Diablo, which has random dungeons, but static gameplay and choices.
So it is usually my goal to make repeated playthroughs as interesting as possible. For me, that's the draw of a roguelike, this sort of unspoken promise that each time I play will be a brand new experience.
-
Permadeath owns and there are tons of great nonrandom permadeath games.
-
I'm sceptical about the value of these opening levels, say the first five or so (or more depending on the game). The most damning thing about them is that they tend to be so unrepresentative of higher level play that they're barely even a learning experience. The question is: What's the right way to cut that part of the game out without trivializing or unduly truncating the early development of the character?
I think Nethack has pretty exciting early game. Most of the classes start very weak, so they have to rely on their pet a lot, which means a lot of running away and dancing with the monsters. There are usually 1-2 powerful items found in the early levels, and they influence your game a lot. You might find some big stores and have fun robbing them. And there is the whole protection racket thing, which essentially means that you get a big bonus if you reach around 7th dungeon level without gaining any exp levels. And Nethack gives you a lot of tools to avoid combat, so it's a lot of fun.
I understand that these things also make the game extremely hard for beginners. But maybe because Nethack does a bad job at showing and explaining all the mechanics to the player.
-
I don't think permadeath is appropriate for every game. To me, it depends on the variety provided in each playthrough. If starting over means that you are faced with no new choices, no new powers, no new monsters, no new levels, etc, then permadeath probably isn't a good choice for that game. Redoing everything that you've already done simply isn't fun.
That's why randomness is such a key part of roguelikes. While the player may be a bit frustrated at dying, there should also be excitement to see what the next run will have in store. And while randomness necessitates some degree of luck, luck can also contribute to this feeling, this idea that anything can happen, that the same game can surprise you each time you play.
While some may enjoy permadeath for just the added thrill factor from the risk it provides, I don't personally feel that is enough. I've never understood permadeath in MMO's, where you must spend hours grinding to get back to where you were, nor even in games like Diablo, which has random dungeons, but static gameplay and choices.
So it is usually my goal to make repeated playthroughs as interesting as possible. For me, that's the draw of a roguelike, this sort of unspoken promise that each time I play will be a brand new experience.
I agree with this very much. Most of the simple roguelikes I've tried on smartphone feel similar in every playthrough (given the same class choice) and there's not much to figure out (identifying scrolls and whatnot) so permadeath is just a way to repeatedly kick the player in the nuts. It also seems hard to make a roguelike that's simple AND tough AND fair: you get two of those at most.
I think prohibiting save scumming is more important than permadeath. But permadeath is great for a game that makes it work.
-
I think prohibiting save scumming is more important than permadeath. But permadeath is great for a game that makes it work.
Permadeath is just a consequence of the inability to save scum.
-
Permadeath is just a consequence of the inability to save scum.
It's more than that. You could generate passwords at the beginning of levels like older, other genres did, to avoid save-scumming but still save you some pain and progress. Permadeath is a complete restart.
-
But checkpoints and passwords are nothing more than limited forms of persistent saves and, in the context of roguelikes, any use of persistent saves is save scumming.
-
I don't think I'd call that a limited form of save scumming, but just simply saving... It's like calling a normal-weight person "thinner than obese" if he's not skinny.
-
It would've been more clear if I had said "Permadeath is just a consequence of the lack of persistent saves." But either way, checkpoints and passwords are just as out of place in a roguelike as a quicksave function would be.
-
Perma guy and Scum guy start playing the same roguelike at the same time.
First month Perma guy keeps playing first 20% of the game, Scum guy completed the game 3 times.
Second month Perma guy reaches 50% of the game a few times, Scum guy completed the game 10 times.
Third month Perma guy regularly gets to 50% of the game, Scum guy completed the game without save-scumming.
Who is having more fun? And how many Perma guys give up before ever completing the game?
-
my personal thoughts are that I am fine to save-scum, because then I actually have a chance at winning the game. But if I do win the game save-scumming, I don't count it as actually beating the game. I will go back and say "OK, now I need to do it without save-scumming".
In this instance, the save-scumming allows me to gain experience with the game without having to go to a stupid wiki to look everything up. If a wiki is the easiest way to learn something and I am stuck in a game that is probably what I will go look at.
My ideal game would be made in such a way that a wiki will not be very helpful in revealing all the secrets in a game, but playing it will tell you a lot more. This makes it so everything is dependent upon how the world is generated.
In theory, when a world is generated, a plot can be generated as well that is sophisticated enough to not just be repeats of an old plot, but shape the world in a completely different way. A detailed history of the world and a problem that evolves over that history could be the basis for a very promising game.
Repeating the same thing over and over is not something people love to do. Keep them engaged by novel beginnings that vary greatly from one game to another.
-
I think prohibiting save scumming is more important than permadeath. But permadeath is great for a game that makes it work.
Permadeath is just a consequence of the inability to save scum.
Not if you can't be permanently killed.
-
Perma guy and Scum guy start playing the same roguelike at the same time.
First month Perma guy keeps playing first 20% of the game, Scum guy completed the game 3 times.
Second month Perma guy reaches 50% of the game a few times, Scum guy completed the game 10 times.
Third month Perma guy regularly gets to 50% of the game, Scum guy completed the game without save-scumming.
Who is having more fun? And how many Perma guys give up before ever completing the game?
It doesn't matter because scum guy is forever banished from our community. If I wanted to have fun I'd play a game with graphics.
-
If I wanted to have fun I'd play a game with graphics.
I see. So when you want to torture yourself you play roguelikes.
I think your situation is rather unique, the general view on why permadeath is better is from the belief that it gives you more pleasure to play it that way, makes you more ecstatic when you finally beat it. And there is truth in there, but the question is whether it is worth the time and what good it is if 90% of the people will give up before ever completing it or even reaching to see more than 20% of the game.
The other question is, how much less fun completing a game with save-scumming really is, if at all. Save-scumming doesn't make you invincible, you still have to overcome all the challenges just the same. The only difference is you learn faster.
-
Not if you can't be permanently killed.
You people are so pedantic.
-
I don't think it's true that everyone save scums. For example, I never save scum -- ever. On the other hand, I am a big proponent of using spoilers.
Anyway, there's an easy way to enforce permadeath: Public telnet. libtcod and other non-console interfaces are a pox (although other libtcod functionality is nice for throwing together something generic). Roguelike games were meant to be played on multiuser systems. That's where they should stay. DCSS has been a huge success in considerable part because of its embrace of public, multiuser system-based gaming.
-
And there is truth in there, but the question is whether it is worth the time and what good it is if 90% of the people will give up before ever completing it or even reaching to see more than 20% of the game.
Then they have to try harder. That's the charm of roguelikes.
-
And there is truth in there, but the question is whether it is worth the time and what good it is if 90% of the people will give up before ever completing it or even reaching to see more than 20% of the game.
They're difficult games by design. Not everyone who plays is supposed to win. Roguelikes would be boring if they were easy.
-
Then they have to try harder. That's the charm of roguelikes.
People don't mind trying harder, just starting all over. Rewind them one floor back and they will try harder.
-
They're difficult games by design. Not everyone who plays is supposed to win. Roguelikes would be boring if they were easy.
They don't have to be easy, just let people save like in any other normal game on this planet. There can always be "champion mode" with hard difficulty, double points and no saving allowed.
Or why not have some consumable item used for saving, like in Resident Evil. So you get limited number of save files per game and have to decide where is the best time and place to use them. It's more casual but still hardcore too.
-
They don't have to be easy, just let people save like in any other normal game on this planet.
Then they will be easy. Roguelikes aren't that hard to play, instead they're difficult just because one stupid choice can make you die in a seemingly easy fight and you have to start over. Rewinding the player one floor back as you suggest wouldn't be enough punishment for them.
-
They don't have to be easy, just let people save like in any other normal game on this planet.
Then they will be easy. Roguelikes aren't that hard to play, instead they're difficult just because one stupid choice can make you die in a seemingly easy fight and you have to start over. Rewinding the player one floor back as you suggest wouldn't be enough punishment for them.
To me one of the masterstrokes of roguelikes is that they don't always have to be super carefully balanced, since one cocky moment takes your overpowered character to its doom.
-
They don't have to be easy, just let people save like in any other normal game on this planet.
All of those "normal" games are easy. The ability to save freely destroys almost all difficulty in games.
-
Then they will be easy. Roguelikes aren't that hard to play, instead they're difficult just because one stupid choice can make you die in a seemingly easy fight and you have to start over. Rewinding the player one floor back as you suggest wouldn't be enough punishment for them.
Making it repetitive, tedious and annoying is indeed quite a punishment. Punishment to achieve what? Make it more fun? Fun is the opposite of what repetitive, tedious and annoying is.
Perhaps you have the time and actually enjoy torturing yourself like that, but majority of people don't. You can always not save and not continue, why would you mind if there is an option to do so for everyone else?
-
All of those "normal" games are easy. The ability to save freely destroys almost all difficulty in games.
That is not game difficulty, but difficulty of learning a game. Save-scumming doesn't make you invincible, you still have to overcome all the challenges just the same, the only difference is you learn faster.
-
Save-scumming doesn't make you invincible
It basically does. Every time you make a mistake or anything bad happens you go back in time and then it never happened. All of your victories are preserved forever, and your failures never happened.
With save scumming, literally anyone can win an ADOM ultra ending and get a 2-All in DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou. For all intents and purposes, freesaving reduces difficulty to zero.
-
Making it repetitive, tedious and annoying is indeed quite a punishment. Punishment to achieve what? Make it more fun? Fun is the opposite of what repetitive, tedious and annoying is.
Perhaps you have the time and actually enjoy torturing yourself like that, but majority of people don't. You can always not save and not continue, why would you mind if there is an option to do so for everyone else?
It's not repetitive, tedious or annoying if you start a brand new game with a brand new world every time you die. It is, though, when you load the game for the tenth time just to find yourself in the same place, with the same enemies around.
And if someone wants a game to hold them by their hand and give them lots of fun they don't have to work for, then there are a lot of other genres so they'll surely find something suitable.
-
Permadeath is just a consequence of the inability to save scum.
It's more than that. You could generate passwords at the beginning of levels like older, other genres did, to avoid save-scumming but still save you some pain and progress. Permadeath is a complete restart.
I wouldn't say that Menzoberranzan or Eye of the Beholder are that much 'other genres'
-
It basically does. Every time you make a mistake or anything bad happens you go back in time and then it never happened. All of your victories are preserved forever, and your failures never happened.
With save scumming, literally anyone can win an ADOM ultra ending and get a 2-All in DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou. For all intents and purposes, freesaving reduces difficulty to zero.
No, saving does not change anything about game. It only allows you to learn faster.
What part do you disagree with?
-
It's not repetitive, tedious or annoying if you start a brand new game with a brand new world every time you die. It is, though, when you load the game for the tenth time just to find yourself in the same place, with the same enemies around.
And if someone wants a game to hold them by their hand and give them lots of fun they don't have to work for, then there are a lot of other genres so they'll surely find something suitable.
You can always not save and not continue, why do you mind if there was an option to do so?
-
You can always not save and not continue, why do you mind if there was an option to do so?
You can save scum already, but that's hardly the way roguelikes are meant to be played.
-
I wouldn't say that Menzoberranzan or Eye of the Beholder are that much 'other genres'
Wasn't aware about the save system of those two, I had in mind platformers and the like, in which such saving mechanisms were more common
-
When people ask why roguelikes must have permadeath it's like asking why platformers has to have platforms.
-
You can save scum already, but that's hardly the way roguelikes are meant to be played.
The way roguelikes are meant to be played (or any other game) is defined by the author himself. The author may offer you, the player, only one or several ways you can choose to play his game, including choosing classes, adjustable the game's difficulty level and deciding whether or not the player can save his progress. If you don't like to save your progress then by all means don't save it but for fracks sake let those who favor it doing so. Will this harm permadeath fans in which way? But even though the author decided his game should be played in a certain way, that doesn't mean you can't save scum or slap your genitals against the keyboard out of happiness when defeating a strong mob.
@Everyone
Yeah, the original Rogue game from 1980 didn't allow saving, was made entirely in ASCII and had an interface that was everything but user friendly. What does this means? Does it mean that all roguelikes made 30 years later need to have a non-optinal permadeath, being displayed in ASCII while at the same time being administrated in horrendous and non-practical interfaces without mouse support?
I understand that removing permadeath entirely would affect part of what a roguelike stands for, but being against not making it optional completely baffles me. There is simply no plausible excuse you or Obama can throw at me that will make me think about it. Since when having choices is a bad thing? "Endorya because that's how roguelikes shou...". Oh please give me a frakking break and think out of the box for once.
And don't give me the crap that its hard work implementing a saving feature due to balancing issues. Take ADOM as an example, all it would take to implement a saving feature in ADOM (which is already there for saving the player's progression when quitting the game) would be disabling the SINGLE LINE of code that deletes the save point whenever the player dies.
-
When people ask why roguelikes must have permadeath it's like asking why platformers has to have platforms.
Your analogy would have made sense if a roguelike was instead called permadeather.
-
For some reason the whole discussion reminds me of the respec potion discussion in Torchlight 2 (for those who don't know, if you should be able to "legally" change skills within the game if you don't like them, paying some cost, or if you need to roll a new character if you don't like your skills).
Here, on one side are the elitists that don't like their niche to be tinkered with, and bragging rights that come from endless hours of playing are the reason to keep roguelikes "pure", with permadeath, as if other people can beat the game legally, their accomplishments won't matter as much anymore.
On the other side you have people that want to play and enjoy this genre in a more casual way (aka without spending tens or hundreds of hours to master the game).
Both sides have valid points, so it's up to the developer in the end to define the target intended audience by setting up the gameplay appropriately. Obviously each audience wants to skew the developer opinion their way, and that's how these multi-page discussions will never ever resolve :D
-
Both sides have valid points, so it's up to the developer in the end to define the target intended audience by setting up the gameplay appropriately. Obviously each audience wants to skew the developer opinion their way, and that's how these multi-page discussions will never ever resolve :D
And then you have authors that decide to include both options ending completely the needing to discuss such issue. But then of course, the 'purists' will still complain about it even though they have the option to play it in hardcore mode.
-
But the purists have lost by the option to include arbitrary saves. I'm no purist myself (in video games), but I understand that position. Their accomplishment of finishing the game is reduced if other people finish it more easily. That's why I bet if you ask permadeath people if "casual, easy, normal, hard" modes WITH permadeath would be ok for them, you'd still get a NO for an answer. The sense of accomplishment is globally diminished.
I liked the idea of Diablo's hardcore mode AND separate ladder. Bragging rights and special treatment, I don't care about that I still enjoyed the game in softcore mode massively. I bet they enjoyed their game too, without mingling with mere softcore mortals. Good for them, good for me, thanks to the developer.
-
But the purists have lost by the option to include arbitrary saves. I'm no purist myself (in video games), but I understand that position. Their accomplishment of finishing the game is reduced if other people finish it more easily. That's why I bet if you ask permadeath people if "casual, easy, normal, hard" modes WITH permadeath would be ok for them, you'd still get a NO for an answer. The sense of accomplishment is globally diminished.
So what you are saying is that they want to be viewed as special people who achieved something Grand. I don't know about you but for me the sense of accomplishment of crossing the Atlantic alone in a small boat is incredibly impressive, even knowing that airplanes can cross it absurdly more easily. I completely fail to see this position of theirs in finishing the game in hardcore mode when the common lot could only do in softcore mode. Why would their achievement feel less impressive?
LOL! I'm sorry, I just honestly laughed incredibly loud. I even spook my dog that was sleeping next to me.
-
If you are an explorer by trade, and one of the few, and you have your own little club of special explorer people where you regale your stories, you would become depressed if suddenly everybody could go where you go, even if using much easier means of transport. And that sucks and is understandable for them. But it's awesome for the rest to be granted such new opportunities.
But I might be pulling it out of my ass, it would be nice to get an honest opinion by them, besides "roguelikes should be that way because they have always been that way".
Ok, so I don't want to play roguelikes, I want top-down tile-based turn-based RPGs instead, typically in a high-fantasy setting, with procedural dungeons and high strategic depth without permadeath as the only option. Could we make more of those please? I don't think we have enough of those, and I think there is an audience.
-
If you are an explorer by trade, and one of the few, and you have your own little club of special explorer people where you regale your stories, you would become depressed if suddenly everybody could go where you go, even if using much easier means of transport. And that sucks and is understandable for them. But it's awesome for the rest to be granted such new opportunities.
But I might be pulling it out of my ass, it would be nice to get an honest opinion by them, besides "roguelikes should be that way because they have always been that way".
I fully understand what you mean but every time I think about it, I can' help it, I simply start to laugh ::).
-
Ok, so I don't want to play roguelikes, I want top-down tile-based turn-based RPGs instead, typically in a high-fantasy setting, with procedural dungeons and high strategic depth without permadeath as the only option. Could we make more of those please? I don't think we have enough of those, and I think there is an audience.
That's exactly what I'm doing. In fact combat will be similar to Fallout with action points and all. And yeah, it's party based instead single character.
[EDIT]
I'll post some shots in future as I need people to give me some feedback, mainly towards the anatomy system I'm developing which will be quite complex, like each creature having a full anatomy system with internal organs, bones, flesh etc and having each body part compromising a certain creature's faculty when damaged, like having the legs wounded (or cut off) that will severely increase the cost of movement.
-
When people ask why roguelikes must have permadeath it's like asking why platformers has to have platforms.
It is not genre defining classification. It's general property like user interface, complexity or game difficulty.
It is as unreasonable as suggesting that all platformers must have 3 lives because first platformer had 3 lives.
It is as unreasonable as suggesting that horror movie is not horror if it has a sequel because first horror didn't.
Roguelike is bogus genre. It is ambiguous, it does not qualify to classify. It's a slang coined by some drunk 14 year old nerd on LSD, just unnecessary semantic nonsense. Correct and meaningful classification for roguelikes is "role playing game", that describes what actually matters. Type of graphics, number of lives, turn based or real time are general properties and sub-classifications on their own.
-
No, saving does not change anything about game. It only allows you to learn faster.
What part do you disagree with?
Clearing one part of a game at a time with infinite mistakes is vastly easier than clearing an entire game in one go with no mistakes.
But don't take my word for it, test it yourself. Go get an emulator and an infamously tough game like Ghosts 'n Goblins or DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou. Try to 1 credit clear the game while using save states. You'll probably be able to do it in one or two sittings. Next try to 1cc the game without save states. You won't be able to do it. It's more than just a matter of taking enough time. Your skill level is not high enough and you won't get anywhere until you improve.
Save abuse really is a useful tool for learning how to play a game quickly, but to say it doesn't reduce difficulty is astonishingly wrong.
-
It is not genre defining classification.
Yes it is. Everyone associates permadeath with roguelikes. The association is so strong that these days people are erroneously using the word "roguelike" to describe anything with permadeath.
-
Clearing one part of a game at a time with infinite mistakes is vastly easier than clearing an entire game in one go with no mistakes.
But don't take my word for it, test it yourself. Go get an emulator and an infamously tough game like Ghosts 'n Goblins or DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou. Try to 1 credit clear the game while using save states. You'll probably be able to do it in one or two sittings. Next try to 1cc the game without save states. You won't be able to do it. It's more than just a matter of taking enough time. Your skill level is not high enough and you won't get anywhere until you improve.
Save abuse really is a useful tool for learning how to play a game quickly, but to say it doesn't reduce difficulty is astonishingly wrong.
Game difficulty and difficulty to learn is not the same thing. Monsters don't go any slower after you save, they don't have less health, game and its difficulty stay absolutely the same.
Faster and easier is not the same thing. It's faster to complete a game with saving because you don't have to start all over 100 more times until you finally get back where you were and hopefully learn something this time around. Tedious to learn and difficult to play is not the same thing.
-
These kinds of discussions are pretty sad. The genre could be so much better and broader if people had a more nuanced view of what rogue is, how its successors expanded on rogue, and how new games might expand on what's been done before. Roguelike should mean "in the tradition that started with rogue," not "replicating the mechanics (but bizarrely, not the theme) of rogue." Of course, this is just another discussion of why the so-called "Berlin interpretation" sucks (lol, btw -- the great minds behind the rgrd web-based diaspora got together to set down the fundamental intellectual framework of roguelike development, in much the way physicists of the early 20th century codified the principles of quantum mechanics in the "Copenhagen interpretation").
Roguelikes have to be turn based (according to a nonsensical definition of "turn based" -- i.e. it just has to wait for user input before anything happens). Roguelikes have to be single player. Roguelikes have to regenerate the world when the player dies.
So in other words, all the interesting avenues that people have considered any time they've talked about their roguelike experiences with someone other than the walls of their dorm room can never be realized within the genre. What if my guy met your guy in a dark alley? Well, that's not possible and if it happened, the game wouldn't be a legitimate roguelike anymore. What if I want to play co-op style with a buddy of mine like we do in D&D? Well, even if there were a game that let you do that with terminal graphics, a grid based map and interface, keyboard commands, random maps, items, and monster behavior, that wouldn't a real roguelike, especially if it allowed you to bring dead characters back to life like you can -- in principle -- in D&D.
The distinctive idiom of roguelike games is not permadeath, it's random and/or procedural generation of game content (and, not coincidentally, this is the mechanic people appropriate in commercial games marketed as "roguelike"). Unfortunately, too many people have allowed the interaction between these two notions in the context of a single player game to confuse the issue. The result is a stagnating genre, increasingly being overtaken by marketing efforts from companies making games with little to do with roguelikes. That's great for people who want drive web traffic, not great for people who want to see advances in line with what's been in the nethack FAQ for over twenty years.
(Also, I'd like to distance myself from this nonsense about permadeath not making games more difficult -- this is so obviously and straightforwardly wrong it's amazing there could be controversy. I'm all for permadeath in single player roguelike games, I just think the emphasis on permadeath is wildly misplaced.)
-
Game difficulty and difficulty to learn is not the same thing. Monsters don't go any slower after you save, they don't have less health, game and its difficulty stay absolutely the same.
Faster and easier is not the same thing. It's faster to complete a game with saving because you don't have to start all over 100 more times until you finally get back where you were and hopefully learn something this time around. Tedious to learn and difficult to play is not the same thing.
I can not get my head around what draws you to play "roguelikes" if what you are talking about in this thread is what you want in a game, there's a million RPGs where you can do exactly what you're talking about, it's like you've decided that you must like roguelikes no matter what even if that means changing the definition of what they are until they're something that you enjoy
Surely a game like the temple of elemental evil is exactly what you're describing and actually designed to be played that way? there's nothing wrong with that either, it's just different
I just don't get it, I played years of nethack and got into roguelikes that way and everything I like about them is defeated entirely by savescumming and I would assume that the silent majority of people who played games like that over the years agree.
-
Yes it is. Everyone associates permadeath with roguelikes. The association is so strong that these days people are erroneously using the word "roguelike" to describe anything with permadeath.
You don't define a genre with number of lives.
You don't know whether it must be ASCII, does it really have to force permadeath, is it necessary to have terrible user interface, or would real-time indeed make it so much unlike Rogue. Ambiguous classification is not classification at all, it's meaningless.
A genre is classification that differentiates between specific, not general properties. Resolution, color, control scheme, level design, type of graphics and such are general properties, like number of lives. Those are properties of any and every game, they can not define a genre.
What's really strange here, is that only reason for this insistence on permadeath is - that's how roguelikes are supposed to be. That is no reason or explanation for anything, "supposed to be" doesn't mean "better".
-
Yes it is. Everyone associates permadeath with roguelikes. The association is so strong that these days people are erroneously using the word "roguelike" to describe anything with permadeath.
You don't define a genre with number of lives.
You don't know whether it must be ASCII, does it really have to force permadeath, is it necessary to have terrible user interface, or would real-time indeed make it so much unlike Rogue. Ambiguous classification is not classification at all, it's meaningless.
A genre is classification that differentiates between specific, not general properties. Resolution, color, control scheme, level design, type of graphics and such are general properties, like number of lives. Those are properties of any and every game, they can not define a genre.
I read a lot of internet discussion -- too much, really -- and this line of argument has to be one of silliest I've seen in some time. If genre means anything outside of its original context (art, music, and literature) then the idioms and aspects of design you mention are precisely the kind of things that could define a genre. Your argument boils down to: "You can't define a genre that way!" Well, actually, you can.
What's really strange here, is that only reason for this insistence on permadeath is - that's how roguelikes are supposed to be. That is no reason or explanation for anything, "supposed to be" doesn't mean "better".
Again, this misses the point. If "permadeath" is common to all classic examples, there's a good case to be made that it's an aspect of the genre. And maybe roguelikes suck. There's a lot of evidence in this direction. Certainly, much of the draw of this website and others like it is the invitation to write games that suck in a safe context, where deficiencies of all kinds can be written off as being true to the genre or due to artificial time constraints (7DRLs).
The right argument against permadeath is that it is a consequence of other design choices, design choices that were essentially forced on the early roguelikes by primitive technology. The single player dogma, in particular, is ludicrous today and not in keeping with the general idea of rogue -- to play a dungeons and dragons style roleplaying game on a computer in a replayable way (in other words, the computer creates a new "campaign" for you every play). If a mechanic like permadeath does not make sense under some reasonable permutation of the genre -- e.g. multiplayer games -- then it should not be enshrined as a fundamental principle, or to the extent it is, it contributes to the genre becoming a backwater primarily exploited as a "retro gaming" marketing tactic.
-
Game difficulty and difficulty to learn is not the same thing. Monsters don't go any slower after you save, they don't have less health, game and its difficulty stay absolutely the same.
Instead of talking about it all day, go take my test and we'll have proof. Let's really find out whether saving affects difficulty instead of typing a bunch of words that won't accomplish anything.
-
So in other words, all the interesting avenues that people have considered any time they've talked about their roguelike experiences with someone other than the walls of their dorm room can never be realized within the genre.
Why is this a problem? You can still make your amazing co-op dungeon crawler if you want to. Definitions of what is and isn't a roguelike can't stop you or anyone else from doing that.
I don't consider Spelunky to be a roguelike, but regardless of whether it is or isn't, it's a superb game. It wouldn't be any better if I said it was a roguelike, and it wouldn't be any worse if you said it wasn't.
-
Instead of talking about it all day, go take my test and we'll have proof. Let's really find out whether saving affects difficulty instead of typing a bunch of words that won't accomplish anything.
I tested it. Monsters didn't go any slower after I saved, they didn't have less health, or anything. Game and its difficulty stayed absolutely the same. Is your observation different?
Let you and me start playing the same game today. I will save at the beginning of each floor, you don't save at all. Suppose now we both die on 10th floor. So I reload my save and then wait for you to reach 10th floor again. When you finally get there and we both continue playing, is the game going to be any easier for me? The answer is no.
-
(Also, I'd like to distance myself from this nonsense about permadeath not making games more difficult -- this is so obviously and straightforwardly wrong it's amazing there could be controversy.
Game difficulty is defined in a binary file, saving a game state does not alter that binary file, it can not change the game difficulty. You should realize then the difficulty you are talking about can not possibly be "game difficulty", but something else. It is easy to confuse tedium for difficulty.
-
Game difficulty is defined in a binary file, saving a game state does not alter that binary file, it can not change the game difficulty. You should realize then the difficulty you are talking about can not possibly be "game difficulty", but something else. It is easy to confuse tedium for difficulty.
Disagree, especially if the game has RNG. If you play DnD and roll a miss, you don't get to re-roll till you get a hit or a critical. Tedium is not removed by running the RNG till you get the success you want, this actually increases the tedium.
-
I just don't get it, I played years of nethack and got into roguelikes that way and everything I like about them is defeated entirely by savescumming and I would assume that the silent majority of people who played games like that over the years agree.
I don't mind permadeath. The question is why wouldn't there be both.
Suppose we confirmed 90% of people don't play roguelikes because of permadeath, would you agree then it is in developer's and everyone's interest to include save option after all? Would such option ruin anything for you?
-
Disagree, especially if the game has RNG. If you play DnD and roll a miss, you don't get to re-roll till you get a hit or a critical. Tedium is not removed by running the RNG till you get the success you want, this actually increases the tedium.
I agree with that, only if that was true it would mean there is no any skill involved in the game at all. I don't know what's worse, I can only assure you that some roguelikes do require skill. And then you can save-scum all you want, but you will not advance until you improve.
-
Suppose we confirmed 90% of people don't play roguelikes because of permadeath, would you agree then it is in developer's and everyone's interest to include save option after all? Would such option ruin anything for you?
it would ruin everything because the game would be catering for two fundamentally opposed audiences and become an incoherent thematic mess which i would hate, ie dungeons of dredmore. If you aren't a gentle virgin nerd who burns for the sweet release of permadeath then you are a blight on this bizarre community
-
it would ruin everything because the game would be catering for two fundamentally opposed audiences and become an incoherent thematic mess which i would hate, ie dungeons of dredmore. If you aren't a gentle virgin nerd who burns for the sweet release of permadeath then you are a blight on this bizarre community
I was afraid that was the case. Now we must fight. Fight to death. No... to permadeath! Whichever audience counts greater number of people wins the right to define what is roguelike and what is good or bad for it. Do you accept the challenge?
-
So in other words, all the interesting avenues that people have considered any time they've talked about their roguelike experiences with someone other than the walls of their dorm room can never be realized within the genre.
Why is this a problem? You can still make your amazing co-op dungeon crawler if you want to. Definitions of what is and isn't a roguelike can't stop you or anyone else from doing that.
I don't consider Spelunky to be a roguelike, but regardless of whether it is or isn't, it's a superb game. It wouldn't be any better if I said it was a roguelike, and it wouldn't be any worse if you said it wasn't.
It's a problem because the genre has little room to expand and that which does not expand dies. Or it does expand by being co-opted by flavor of the month retro game companies who are applying the name "roguelike" in new ways more loudly.
The fact is, you suggest an incremental shift in what the genre could include, e.g. multiplayer but otherwise doctrinaire roguelike down the line, and the relevant comparison to the community is Spelunky, a game radically different from any roguelike in its basic mechanics. Forget that this incremental shift includes existing angband variants! You're basically talking about one of these poseur retro indie games.
At the same time, games taking up the mantle of roguelikeness and deviating in minor ways come in for passionate, withering criticism in public forums on the genre -- criticism centered primarily on the presumption of calling such a game roguelike.
-
It's a problem because the genre has little room to expand and that which does not expand dies. Or it does expand by being co-opted by flavor of the month retro game companies who are applying the name "roguelike" in new ways more loudly.
The fact is, you suggest an incremental shift in what the genre could include, e.g. multiplayer but otherwise doctrinaire roguelike down the line, and the relevant comparison to the community is Spelunky, a game radically different from any roguelike in its basic mechanics. Forget that this incremental shift includes existing angband variants! You're basically talking about one of these poseur retro indie games.
At the same time, games taking up the mantle of roguelikeness and deviating in minor ways come in for passionate, withering criticism in public forums on the genre -- criticism centered primarily on the presumption of calling such a game roguelike.
So very true.
-
I read a lot of internet discussion -- too much, really -- and this line of argument has to be one of silliest I've seen in some time. If genre means anything outside of its original context (art, music, and literature) then the idioms and aspects of design you mention are precisely the kind of things that could define a genre. Your argument boils down to: "You can't define a genre that way!" Well, actually, you can.
You can, just like you can divide by zero. The only trouble is result is a nonsense.
Any type of game can have only one life. Any type of game can be turn-based. Any type of game can use procedural level design. And many games do. You make your classification based on these general properties and you will get a category that applies to anything and everything, and for which everyone has their own personal interpretation, apparently.
-
Any type of game can have only one life.
I think this is a good point. I could describe a roguelike using many characteristics of the original rogue: Top-down, tile-based, permadeath, ascii art, dungeon crawler, monsters, loot, etc. But a genre doesn't need to be that specific. How many such characteristics can we ascribe to "first person shooter" or "platformer"? To me, a genre is defined by the core feature that both brings it success and differentiates it from the crowd. I feel that for roguelikes, this feature is procedurally generated content for the purpose of replaying the same parts of the game many times. I believe that's the part that lifted Rogue above the rest and is the reason the game is still relevant.
But permadeath works extremely well with procedurally-generated content. In a non-roguelike, the player's experiences are static, and nothing is lost if the player only plays through each part once. In a roguelike, a lot of work is put into making each play unique, and the game's enjoyment relies on that. If we create procedurally-generated content, then a player uses saves so that they can complete the game in one run, then what was the point of the procedural content? We would have been better off crafting each level by hand to perfect that one playthrough. It makes sense for roguelikes to have some mechanism that keeps players coming back to the same levels that they've already played so that they can experience the variety of content. Permadeath isn't the only way to accomplish this, but it is certainly an effective one.
While I think procedural content is the core of roguelikes, that doesn't mean we shouldn't include other standard roguelike characteristics when discussing the genre, including permadeath, but I think they have some flex. Changes to these other attributes should not necessarily disqualify a game from being a roguelike. Can there be a roguelike without a tile map? That isn't turn-based? Without permadeath? I think so. While a genre might specify certain tried-and-true parameters, it should also provide room for games which, inspired by the core of the genre, try something new. Because of this, I call a game like Spelunky a roguelike, while if I encountered a game that is very similar to Rogue but which has static content instead of procedural, I would have a difficult time calling that roguelike.
-
It's a problem because the genre has little room to expand and that which does not expand dies. Or it does expand by being co-opted by flavor of the month retro game companies who are applying the name "roguelike" in new ways more loudly.
There are an infinite number of possibilities within a definition like "turn based tactical adventure game with no persistent saves." Every year we see new ideas in the 7drl challenge.
Anyway, "that which does not expand dies" is clearly false when it comes to the game industry.
-
By the way a nice opinion piece for permadeath in roguelikes, courtesy of Trevor Powell here: http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/43801/why-is-permadeath-essential-to-a-roguelike-design (http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/43801/why-is-permadeath-essential-to-a-roguelike-design)
"If someone isn't going to be playing your game over and over again, but instead is going to play through once from start to end using checkpoints or free saves (like in most non-roguelikes), then why would you spend your time on implementing procedural generation for your world, instead of just making a single, static, well-balanced progression of maps?
I think the important concept is that if you're going to invest in procedural generation of your levels, then to get value from the procedurally generated levels, you really have to make someone want to play your game -- from the start of the procedurally generated content -- several times. And preferably, lots of times. Permadeath is one effective way to do that.
The Diablo games, on the other hand, accomplish this same goal by letting you start over again with your levelled-up character at a higher difficulty level, after winning. Their difficulty level scales up so that a single "playthrough" can wrap around the game several times, and so experiencing several variations of each level.
Lots of other games embed a repeatably-visitable procedurally built dungeon into a static, traditionally-created framing game (commonly an RPG of some sort. e.g.: Persona, Dark Cloud, Mystery Dungeon, etc). In this type of system, separate visits to a single dungeon generate different dungeon layouts. This also allows a single "playthrough" to wrap through your procedurally generated content several times.
These are both different game mechanics which achieve a similar net effect to permadeath, in terms of justifying the use of procedurally generated content.
Of course, permadeath makes more use of (and puts more pressure on) the procedural generation of your world than other approaches, since the user can easily wind up seeing variations on level 1 over and over and over again in close succession, if he dies and has to restart a lot. If your procedural generation of level 1 doesn't make the level unique enough to keep a player from getting bored with it after five or ten successive restarts, then maybe you should think about using a different mechanism to entice players into starting a new playthrough."
-
It's a problem because the genre has little room to expand and that which does not expand dies. Or it does expand by being co-opted by flavor of the month retro game companies who are applying the name "roguelike" in new ways more loudly.
There are an infinite number of possibilities within a definition like "turn based tactical adventure game with no persistent saves." Every year we see new ideas in the 7drl challenge.
It's very possible to have an infinite set of possibilities none or few of which are compelling improvements over what already exists. This is the situation in the genre today. Actual quality products exist (and are getting quite old year by year) and newcomers with an appropriate level of feature completeness either don't exist or fail to cover interesting new ground. For example, the most exciting newcomer of recent years is probably Sil. It's a fine game, but it doesn't really rival the complexity or depth of, say, Crawl.
It's quite slippery of you to try to broaden what is meant by a roguelike in your direction while simultaneously arguing that other kinds of broadening are not legit, by the way. This is par for the course in discussion of what roguelikes are: "The real definition doesn't include what you're talking about, but it's actually really broad in ways I want to talk about, so your claims that it's narrow are overblown." This is all a consequence of having an incorrect definition enshrined as the standard.
Anyway, "that which does not expand dies" is clearly false when it comes to the game industry.
There's some possibility for revival, but there's no question that the natural tendency is loss of interest and popularity and the only thing only cure is new and interesting developments.
-
I just don't get it, I played years of nethack and got into roguelikes that way and everything I like about them is defeated entirely by savescumming and I would assume that the silent majority of people who played games like that over the years agree.
I don't mind permadeath. The question is why wouldn't there be both.
Suppose we confirmed 90% of people don't play roguelikes because of permadeath, would you agree then it is in developer's and everyone's interest to include save option after all? Would such option ruin anything for you?
I'm getting deja vu. It's like I've seen your post a week or so ago, asking the same question and ignoring the inconvenient answers, because if someone asks it often enough ignoring the answers, everyone will realise that the way you want it is how we should all want it.
You can take your imaginary 90% and put them in your pocket with the 45% chance you'll win the lottery, and the 86% chance aliens will come down from mars riding horned beasts to corner the petting zoo market.
-
I tested it.
what game did you play
-
At the same time, games taking up the mantle of roguelikeness and deviating in minor ways come in for passionate, withering criticism in public forums on the genre -- criticism centered primarily on the presumption of calling such a game roguelike.
I've seen the opposite on this forum. People making a game that they consider roguelike. They post about it and heaven forbid should someone even hint at questioning how roguelike their game is. Then they get offended and hostile. And others who have their oar in the water, and a stake in the loosening of the definition perhaps in the particular minor ways the op of the thread at hand is making use of, post bitter posts about how they're being oppressed by people who by denying them roguelikeness are doing them wrong.
How minor a deviation is, is apparently subjective. If it is convenient for some, then it is minor. If it not something others have a stake in, perhaps not so much. Roguelikeness doesn't mean what it used to, and it's going to be more and more fuzzy as time passes.
-
what game did you play
Every game. Game difficulty is defined by monsters health, strength, speed, attack damage and such. Saving a game state does not alter how the game difficulty is programmed within the game. You don't advance because it becomes easier, you advance only when and if you get better. You should realize then the difficulty you are talking about can not possibly be "game difficulty", but something else.
-
Dude, just go grab an emulator and something like Battletoads and try it out. That will prove once and for all whether saving affects difficulty and it will take way less time than arguing on the internet will.
Or if that's too hard for you, answer this: which takes more skill? Bowling a perfect game by landing 12 consecutive strikes, or bowling 12 nonconsecutive strikes over the course of multiple games. Are they exactly the same difficulty, or is one harder than the other? Explain your answer.
-
It's very different thing to play with permadeath when you have already completed a game before, once you know how to actually play properly. But until then it's like playing chess without fully knowing the rules. It's like trying to do a speed run on your first play-through.
When learning to play chess you don't start all over when you lose, you keep analysing and re-playing your last few moves until you understand where the problem was and how to solve it. Starting all over would not make chess more difficult, it would only make your learning more time consuming and tedious. You wouldn't want to learn chess that way, I don't see why is it any better to torture yourself like that in roguelike.
-
there's no possible way that replaying the same encounter over and over again makes you a better player, if you reload every time until you beat that ogre in melee then you are just becoming lazy and stupid as a player, you are genuinely deluded
-
Dude, just go grab an emulator and something like Battletoads and try it out. That will prove once and for all whether saving affects difficulty and it will take way less time than arguing on the internet will.
I did. I already told you several times. It is your turn to answer your own question.
Does saving a game alter the game's behaviour, does it become any easier after you load? What exactly is it that becomes easier, can you name it?
Or if that's too hard for you, answer this: which takes more skill? Bowling a perfect game by landing 12 consecutive strikes, or bowling 12 nonconsecutive strikes over the course of multiple games. Are they exactly the same difficulty, or is one harder than the other? Explain your answer.
Depending on skill 12 consecutive strikes will be more or less likely to happen, where each strike will be equally difficult to pull off. You are using the term "difficulty" too loosely, there are different types of difficulty. You can't be vague or generalizing, different types of difficulty don't compare.
-
there's no possible way that replaying the same encounter over and over again makes you a better player, if you reload every time until you beat that ogre in melee then you are just becoming lazy and stupid as a player, you are genuinely deluded
You are playing wrong roguelikes. In roguelikes that require skill reloading will not help you, you will advance only when and if you actually get better. Like in every other game that requires skill. You don't beat that final boss in Resident Evil after 20 save reloads because you become lazy and stupid, you beat it only when and if you become better.
-
You are playing wrong roguelikes. In roguelikes that require skill reloading will not help you, you will advance only when and if you actually get better. Like in every other game that requires skill. You don't beat that final boss in Resident Evil after 20 save reloads because you become lazy and stupid, you beat it only when and if you become better.
I have no idea what you're talking about, almost every roguelike involves pressing a direction key until a monster is dead. You can savescum as many times as you like to get that job done without any skill whatsoever.
If you are talking about a realtime game which requires some kind of skill beyond tactical thinking then that's not a roguelike.
-
What exactly is it that becomes easier, can you name it?
Because, among other things, save abuse lets you keep the health, ammo, and other resources your mistakes would have cost you. Why are you having such a hard with this basic concept?
If you shoot at a man and miss, then shoot again and hit, you used two bullets to kill that man. If you shoot at a man and miss, then load your save, shoot again, and hit, you only used one of your bullets. Now you have one more bullet than the guy who didn't use saves. Over time this can decide whether or not you run out of bullets. I don't know how to make it any more simple than that.
-
I have no idea what you're talking about, almost every roguelike involves pressing a direction key until a monster is dead. You can savescum as many times as you like to get that job done without any skill whatsoever.
Try Brogue, that tactics will not get you far. Bumping is the most trivial part. To advance you need to learn how to manage your inventory, to conserve and use appropriate items in appropriate times. You need to learn to innovate and improvise, to use environment features to your advantage. You need to learn how to approach different monsters, when and where to retreat and when to avoid combat and sneak by. Until then you will not advance, no matter how much you save-scum.
-
Because, among other things, save abuse lets you keep the health, ammo, and other resources your mistakes would have cost you. Why are you having such a hard with this basic concept?
You do not keep anything. You fail and try again on the exact same game difficulty. The only difference is you don't rewind as much. You still didn't answer the question: does saving a game alter the game's behaviour?
-
Try Brogue, that tactics will not get you far. Bumping is the most trivial part. To advance you need to learn how to manage your inventory, to conserve and use appropriate items in appropriate times. You need to learn to innovate and improvise, to use environment features to your advantage. You need to learn how to approach different monsters, when and where to retreat and when to avoid combat and sneak by. Until then you will not advance, not matter how much you save-scum.
I was being facetious with my example because you're so dense but all of those things are an extension of simple tactics and are trivial if there is a safety net to catch you if you fail. You just try every possibility until you succeed. Or even try losing strategies until they work with the help of the RNG.
To think that I, a roguetemple senior regular, has not played and mastered Brian's Rogue... this is beyond the pale.
-
I was being facetious with my example because you're so dense but all of those things are an extension of simple tactics and are trivial if there is a safety net to catch you if you fail. You just try every possibility until you succeed. Or even try losing strategies until they work with the help of the RNG.
Going back to play all over until you get in a similar situation does not make it any different. You are again going to try one of those same strategies, the only difference is with permadeath you are wasting more time between the tries. Do you understand?
-
I don't think that a reasonable person could fail to grasp the difference between the restricted saving and loading behavior of roguelikes -- the game is always saved on exit, including death, and as a result, a given save can be loaded exactly once -- and unrestricted saving and loading of game states (the more common approach in modern games) or the effect these two approaches have on the difficulty of games. I also don't believe a reasonable person could give such an equivocal answer to Vanguard's question about bowling 12 strikes in a row versus 12 strikes nonconsecutively across a number of games. It is extremely easy to formalize the relevant notion of difficulty in terms of basic probability, of which LazyCat seems to have no knowledge as witnessed in other threads.
I don't know what you can do with such a persistent and irrational poster, quite honestly.
-
I don't know what you can do with such a persistent and irrational poster, quite honestly.
I am going to irrationally personally attack him/her forever more, it is for the good of the forums
-
I don't know what you can do with such a persistent and irrational poster, quite honestly.
I am going to irrationally personally attack him/her forever more, it is for the good of the forums
Okay, I got your back, bro.
-
I don't think that a reasonable person could fail to grasp the difference between the restricted saving and loading behavior of roguelikes -- the game is always saved on exit, including death, and as a result, a given save can be loaded exactly once -- and unrestricted saving and loading of game states (the more common approach in modern games) or the effect these two approaches have on the difficulty of games. I also don't believe a reasonable person could give such an equivocal answer to Vanguard's question about bowling 12 strikes in a row versus 12 strikes nonconsecutively across a number of games. It is extremely easy to formalize the relevant notion of difficulty in terms of basic probability, of which LazyCat seems to have no knowledge as witnessed in other threads.
I don't know what you can do with such a persistent and irrational poster, quite honestly.
Don't blame me for your own inability to understand. Game difficulty is programmed within the game, saving and loading a game state does not change it. You are confusing faster with easier, confusing tedious with difficult. Going back to play all over from the beginning is not difficult, it's just time consuming.
-
Don't blame me for your own inability to understand. Game difficulty is programmed within the game, saving and loading a game state does not change it. You are confusing faster with easier, confusing tedious with difficult. Going back to play all over from the beginning is not difficult, it's just time consuming.
I don't know what to tell you. You're just wrong.
There's no point in arguing with someone like you, because you don't seem to have a reasoned position, you don't really show any understanding of other people's arguments, and you're wrong in such elementary ways that the discussion doesn't have much chance to cover interesting ground.
-
http://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=51 (http://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=51) makes better reading than this thread.
-
Not if you can't be permanently killed.
You people are so pedantic.
You started it...
I actually do think permadeath vs anti-save scumming is a significant distinction and the latter is much more important. If in say Nethack your character could respawn after dying, it would make the game easier and less frustrating but the overall design of the game still works. OTOH, if you can save and reload, even if there are limitations on where/how often you can save, the item identification aspect is rendered totally pointless (for starters).
Even lightweight commercial roguelikes that have minor consequences for dying or allow you to resurrect at a cost don't normally have a "load save state" option because it would pretty much ruin them unless the player decides not to use it out of the goodness of their heart.
OTOH I can see how getting your progress wiped out in an 80 hour game might piss some folks off. My solution is just to not play ADOM because it sounds completely insane on paper, frankly I sympathize with anyone scumming their way through that.
-
I actually do think permadeath vs anti-save scumming is a significant distinction and the latter is much more important. If in say Nethack your character could respawn after dying, it would make the game easier and less frustrating but the overall design of the game still works. OTOH, if you can save and reload, even if there are limitations on where/how often you can save, the item identification aspect is rendered totally pointless (for starters).
Even lightweight commercial roguelikes that have minor consequences for dying or allow you to resurrect at a cost don't normally have a "load save state" option because it would pretty much ruin them unless the player decides not to use it out of the goodness of their heart.
Exactly. The key mechanic is not permadeath, it's irreversibility, which is much stronger. Every action, both your own and the monsters', has weight because you can't undo their effects by reloading. This opens the door for permanent status effects, item damage and destruction, xp draining, stat draining, dead pets, and a host of other effects that you don't see in conventional RPGs, because if players got them, they'd just reload.
-
the only difference is with permadeath you are wasting more time between the tries.
It's not the only difference, because each time the game world is different and even if it was the same it's impossible to make same moves without perfect memory. This was also obvious in old school games that did not have save game, even they had a static game world.
The way you lack basic understanding of games makes me think two possibilities: you are either a troll or a woman.
-
the only difference is with permadeath you are wasting more time between the tries.
It's not the only difference, because each time the game world is different and even if it was the same it's impossible to make same moves without perfect memory. This was also obvious in old school games that did not have save game, even they had a static game world.
The way you lack basic understanding of games makes me think two possibilities: you are either a troll or a woman.
It hit me this morning that when LazyCat says he beat Brogue without save scumming, it could be that he replayed the same seed (see the thread on random seeds) over and over until he won through memorization. This possibility is so hilarious and so consistent with the posts he's made, I've almost convinced myself it's what really happened.
-
It's not the only difference, because each time the game world is different and even if it was the same it's impossible to make same moves without perfect memory. This was also obvious in old school games that did not have save game, even they had a static game world.
The only difference regarding game difficulty. -- Old school games that did not have save game are arcade games, purpose of which was to waste your time in order to get your coins. On the other hand the purpose of permadeath is to wastes your time in order to punish you, by wasting your time.
The way you lack basic understanding of games makes me think two possibilities: you are either a troll or a woman.
The way you phrased your unnecessary insult makes me think you have a small penis.
-
It hit me this morning that when LazyCat says he beat Brogue without save scumming, it could be that he replayed the same seed (see the thread on random seeds) over and over until he won through memorization. This possibility is so hilarious and so consistent with the posts he's made, I've almost convinced myself it's what really happened.
Can you describe how is memorization going to help? Did you mean to say "trial and error"? -- The only valid objection for save or check points was given by Awake regarding ID-game, though he also presented a solution.
-
It hit me this morning that when LazyCat says he beat Brogue without save scumming, it could be that he replayed the same seed (see the thread on random seeds) over and over until he won through memorization. This possibility is so hilarious and so consistent with the posts he's made, I've almost convinced myself it's what really happened.
Can you describe how is memorization going to help? Did you mean to say "trial and error"? -- The only valid objection for save or check points was given by Awake regarding ID-game, though he also presented a solution.
Okay, I'm going to take this as confirmation that my scenario above is indeed what happened.
-
lol you're right
-
This is the reason why freesaving and similar features need to be clearly marked as cheats. Otherwise people will think that's the way the game is meant to be played and we'll get awful threads like this one and, worst of all, people will make more games that really are meant to be beaten through savescumming.
-
Indeed, but this does solve the case of the anti-roguelike fanatic. In fact, I find I even agree with him: It really would be tedious to play the same brogue seed over and over from the beginning until you beat it (if you don't have the skillz to beat it in under three tries).
So here's your homework, LazyCat, go play and beat a roguelike the right way -- from the beginning without using seeds to make it the same every playthrough and without dying -- then come back with your informed judgment.
Actually, I'm a little surprised this kind of monstrosity is allowed to stand in the roguelike world without being heaped with scorn. I bet lots of brogue players doing these weekly seed challenges play the seed over and over again from the beginning. This is abominable! I thought it sounded like a good idea at first, but it didn't occur to me that they would make a game of playing the same thing over and over like that.
-
Okay, I'm going to take this as confirmation that my scenario above is indeed what happened.
You don't even understand what you said. Go ahead, describe how do you imagine memorization is going to help.
-
Okay, I'm going to take this as confirmation that my scenario above is indeed what happened.
You don't even understand what you said. Go ahead, describe how do you imagine memorization is going to help.
Ah, yes, this old chestnut. "You don't even understand what you said yourself." lol
-
Indeed, but this does solve the case of the anti-roguelike fanatic. In fact, I find I even agree with him: It really would be tedious to play the same brogue seed over and over from the beginning until you beat it (if you don't have the skillz to beat it in under three tries).
Over and over from the beginning? You are playing the whole game all over from the beginning until you beat it, thousands of turns through the same easy difficulty for hundreds of times. I'm not playing all over from the beginning, I'm playing over only last few hundred turns, usually not more than once, where every different move makes the game different than before. And then I advance to harder difficulty and fresh/new content straight away. The only difference is you are wasting more time.
So here's your homework, LazyCat, go play and beat a roguelike the right way -- from the beginning without using seeds to make it the same every playthrough and without dying -- then come back with your informed judgment.
I did. I was talking about it before. It is you who never completed any roguelike without save-scumming. Admit it!
Actually, I'm a little surprised this kind of monstrosity is allowed to stand in the roguelike world without being heaped with scorn. I bet lots of brogue players doing these weekly seed challenges play the seed over and over again from the beginning. This is abominable! I thought it sounded like a good idea at first, but it didn't occur to me that they would make a game of playing the same thing over and over like that.
Are you again referring to save-scumming as "playing all over from the beginning"? What's wrong with you? Save summing is the opposite, it's to avoid playing all over from the beginning.
-
Ah, yes, this old chestnut. "You don't even understand what you said yourself." lol
Can you or can you not describe how memorization can help?
-
I could tell you, but I'm not sure I would understand myself if I did.
Also, regarding this:
So here's your homework, LazyCat, go play and beat a roguelike the right way -- from the beginning without using seeds to make it the same every playthrough and without dying -- then come back with your informed judgment.
I did. I was talking about it before. It is you who never completed any roguelike without save-scumming. Admit it!
I beat a roguelike two weeks ago without save-scumming and I'm about to do it again with another character (update: just won that game -- all hail King Jay, etc.). You should watch some people playing dcss webtiles. You can see people ascending all the time and you can be sure they didn't save scum. (Full disclosure: I've never beaten dcss. These days I'm playing a bit of angband -- I know, I know.)
-
You don't even understand what you said. Go ahead, describe how do you imagine memorization is going to help.
Not to add fuel to this retarded thread, but the ai in Pacman is entirely deterministic and based on your position. So it's possible to memorize paths through the maze that completely avoid them. Then play blindfolded. And win.
-
The only difference regarding game difficulty. -- Old school games that did not have save game are arcade games, purpose of which was to waste your time in order to get your coins. On the other hand the purpose of permadeath is to wastes your time in order to punish you, by wasting your time.
Right, because every single playthrough gives you exactly the same items and artifacts and monsters. I think you don't quite understand the concept of procedural generation, because you don't experience it often thanks to save scumming.
-
You don't even understand what you said. Go ahead, describe how do you imagine memorization is going to help.
Not to add fuel to this retarded thread, but the ai in Pacman is entirely deterministic and based on your position. So it's possible to memorize paths through the maze that completely avoid them. Then play blindfolded. And win.
Can someone recap where this thread is up to? I find it hard to work out what is going on from the last couple of pages. What is actually being discussed here?
-
Can someone recap where this thread is up to? I find it hard to work out what is going on from the last couple of pages. What is actually being discussed here?
Some guy is defending save scumming, as far as I'm aware.
Now, LazyCat, excuse me for using your favorite line of argumentation, but it fits so well I just can't resist.
The way you phrased your unnecessary insult makes me think you have a small penis.
No, it's you who has a small penis. Admit it!
-
It hit me this morning that when LazyCat says he beat Brogue without save scumming, it could be that he replayed the same seed (see the thread on random seeds) over and over until he won through memorization.
Like they say women remember everything.
-
It hit me this morning that when LazyCat says he beat Brogue without save scumming, it could be that he replayed the same seed (see the thread on random seeds) over and over until he won through memorization.
Like they say women remember everything.
You're talking offensive nonsense again, take a pill :-)
-
Decided to check out another long thread. Again another flame war.
Permadeath is important in certain game designs. Strategy, Arcade, Roguelike and Boardgames are permadeath genres. It works with those designs for various reasons. RPG, FPS, Adventure and other types of games generally are not good with permadeath, because seriously who wants to dive the Temple over and over (FF).
-
Decided to check out another long thread. Again another flame war.
Permadeath is important in certain game designs. Strategy, Arcade, Roguelike and Boardgames are permadeath genres. It works with those designs for various reasons. RPG, FPS, Adventure and other types of games generally are not good with permadeath, because seriously who wants to dive the Temple over and over (FF).
What is the difference? Wherever I look I see it works the same for any game. For example you have Jagged Alliance normal and iron-man mode, some people save scum, some people don't save at all, and no one is complaining. Metal Gear games have their easy and extreme mode, and no one is complaining. For any game there are some freaks who play it with only one life or make speed runs without saving at all. It's not a matter of genre, but personal taste.
-
As the OP of this thread and feeling somewhat responsible for this ongoing war, I'm hereby requesting a moderator to lock it down. I've learned the lesson. Discussion saving-progress features in a roguelike forum is the same as discussing the human evolution at a creationism forum.
-
As the OP of this thread and feeling somewhat responsible for this ongoing war, I'm hereby requesting a moderator to lock it down. I've learned the lesson. Discussion saving-progress features in a roguelike forum is the same as discussing the human evolution at a creationism forum.
I don't think it's your fault. The problem is that we have a crazy person here who doesn't understand the difference between roguelikes and the legend of zelda. He sincerely believes that permadeath is nothing but repetitive tedium because the only real roguelike he's played (brogue) allows you to specify a random seed to replay the exact same game (not a traditional roguelike thing to do) and that's all he does. He therefore has a bizarre, passionately held opinions about permadeath (it's torture, you're just replaying the same "no skill," "easy difficulty" blah blah blah thing over and over). He's so traumatized by "beating" brogue replaying the same seed over and over (from the sound of it, he must have replayed that seed dozens of times, maybe into the hundreds).
Locking down this thread will make no difference. He'll bring his crazy into any even tangentially related thread.
-
I'm not playing the same seed over and over. No one does that, and it has nothing to do with save-scumming. How did you even come up with that... are you having a stroke?
-
Really? "Are you having a stroke?"
When a poster combines over-the-top, insulting and argumentative behavior with total lack of insight into anything (as far as I can tell) relevant to the forum's subject matter and incessant, obnoxiously frequent posting, there's really only one thing to do.
-
Come on guys... Let it go. Just drink the margaritas I ordered for you two and lets talk about women.
-
Discussion saving-progress features in a roguelike forum is the same as discussing the human evolution at a creationism forum.
Or, ahem, vice versa ;)
-
Discussion saving-progress features in a roguelike forum is the same as discussing the human evolution at a creationism forum.
Or, ahem, vice versa ;)
Quite true.
-
The way you lack basic understanding of games makes me think two possibilities: you are either a troll or a woman.
I have an issue with this statement. Would you redact that? It's already hard enough for women to deal with all the crap that gets thrown at their direction in the industry. We don't need any of that in the forums.
-
It's already hard enough for women to deal with all the crap that gets thrown at their direction in the industry. We don't need any of that in the forums.
Yet you ask for more information from me. It's really difficult to answer shortly, but women don't get more crap than anyone else, they just start to scream if something happens. It's actually men that get more crap in reality, because in any workplace men are expected to do more and better than women. No one admits in out loud, but it's true. We don't critisize women like men, because it's now allowed. You are a bad person if you say something entirely true about women which makes them look worse than men in something. How long we will keep going on like this?
-
It's actually men that get more crap in reality, because in any workplace men are expected to do more and better than women.
Boohoo, it's so hard to be a white, heterosexual, economically privileged male. I wish I was a Somali lesbian in a refugee camp, so that everyone would sympathize.
As always,
Minotauros
-
I wish I was a Somali lesbian in a refugee camp, so that everyone would sympathize.
I was talking about western countries. Let's leave stone age countries out from this discussion, you can't even start to compare them.
Let's give a real world example. I'm working on a project. It's a difficult one, takes time. Now, a woman who is in charge of that project thinks that we need another worker for that project. Rather than asking me what is going on and why it's taking so long, she is doing something like that. The funny thing is that the project is almost done. I've never seen any man act like that. We men can discuss about projects in civilized manner, trying to find a practical solution to it.
-
Huh1? Whatevs, dude. I'll try to keep Slash' words of wisdom in mind and just shut my gob. Let's talk about RLs.
As always,
Minotauros
1 I thought you were talking about genders in general, but now see you were talking about genders in general. Mea culpa. Futue te ipsum ;)
-
lol.
What the hell is this? Why the hell did this "turtoro" guy bring this up? This was a deeply buried comment in a dead thread. Does he have plans to go back through Krice's comment history and ask him to redact every stupid thing he's ever said? Good luck with that.
Then when Krice responds with more stupidity, a moderator shows up with a plaintive request to talk about roguelikes. I got an idea: Why not enforce the forum rules? Delete these self-pitying and more importantly offensive-in-precisely-the-way-recent-rule-changes-attempt-to-address comments. And perhaps a reprimand for the dude who brought it up (I still can't believe this guy did that).
-
Ssh.. It's an old comment, from time before the rule change even.
-
It's a week old comment about a > 1 month old comment. I'd say my criticism stands. The rule change is only relevant to the question of whether Krice's comments should be deleted (answer: yes). Whether it was a good idea to ask for a retraction of an old comment on a web forum (answer: lol) is another matter.
-
Then […] a moderator shows up with a plaintive request to talk about roguelikes.
Heh. To be clear, I'm no mod, and wouldn't be flaming Krice if I was ;) Just your friendly neighborhood minotaur. But you're right about the plaintive (whiny, I would say, even) request to talk about roguelikes.
As always,
Minotauros
-
edit: double post, somehow :P
-
So, anyway:
Permadeath.
My opinion is that how a game handles the end of a player's character is a design feature to enable the game to achieve its purpose. Of course the immediate purpose of a game is for the players to have fun. But there are a lot of different things that are fun, and those things include being entertained by having a story told to you, having a competion of skill against others, improving your skill with competition against yourself, having a social interaction with others, and telling a story. Different sets of games try to create fun in different ways.
If the purpose of your game is to entertain the player by telling a story, the player's character dying is an impediment that must be overcome. If you stop before the story is over, your game doesn't achieve its purpose. So, yes, if you have a cinematic game with a story arc and cutscenes and professional actors who are acting out a particular story -- then what you're selling is that story, and the fact that the player can cause the story to stop by carelessly "losing the game" allowing one of the major characters to die -- is just stupid. If you let that stop the story, your narrative arc won't reach completion.
If the purpose of your game is to be a competition of skills against other players, you don't even really have a concept of player death as something to handle. I mean, tic-tac-toe, chess, checkers, poker, etc. You can't "die", and there's no question about what to do when someone "loses before the game is over" because losing is, in fact, the definition of the game being over. Roguelike games that have a scoreboard used by many players function as competitions, to some extent, but that's not the primary use of roguelike games now.
I think one of the main purposes is to be a competition against yourself. I think a major part of the fun is to build your skills, so that's where the single-player scoreboard is meaningful. Doing better than I've done in the last ten games is important; getting to a new landmark in the game reinforces that I've learned to do something right. So yes, that's a me-against-the-game competition or a me-against-myself competition, and messing it around by pretending games don't end deprives me of feedback and deprives me of focus on the part of the game I need to work on. So I consider that a valid reason for permadeath, or at least a good reason not to lightly use the ability to avoid it.
There's another category of games whose purpose is not telling a story so much as it is creating stories, and these are roleplaying games. When your second-level wizard in D&D unthinkingly aims a fireball wand and sets off a fireball with a 20-foot radius in a room with a 20-foot diameter, while standing inside that room ... well, that means you roll up another character in order to continue playing the game. That second-level wizard's story is over, but the game it was part of - the campaign whose story is being created - is not. The difference here is that the content of the story is not a foregone conclusion. It is not written. You don't know when you started that wizard whether his story was going to be the novel of a powerful being who rose to challenge Gods and Monsters, or a cautionary short story about why you should be aware of your equipment's effects and take basic safety precautions. If you're cooperating in the creation of stories, you accept the story you get and move on to create a new one. And on a higher level, of course, there's the campaign story - the epic that that silly wizard's story was a small part of, as you mark the growth of your own skill and your ability to tell longer and more glorious stories in this medium progresses.
I know there's contention on this point, but I see roguelike games primarily as roleplaying games - in the sense of cooperative creation of stories, not telling a story. The end of a particular character doesn't present narrative problems, because there was no *other* ending that particular character needed to be destined for. If repeating content presents a problem, it just means your procedural content generation needs to be better to present a greater variety of story beginnings. Unlike the game that's produced to tell a particular story that required scenes to be filmed and plot points to be planned, you're working with procedural content - a system that's just as capable of telling the next story as it would be of continuing the current one.
So anyway; short version. If you see it as a game where you're telling the already-written story of the ultimate winner, and there is no other possible story for the ultimate winner, then players losing are simply an obstacle that must be overcome and permadeath makes no sense.
On the other hand, if it's a competition, or a game to build skill, or an excercise in creating stories, and you have already accepted that there are many, many, profoundly different stories that can be told about the ultimate winner and you have already accepted that there are many profoundly different stories that can be told about those who strove and failed.... then it is impermanent death that makes no sense.
So - of course I see roguelikes (or at least the ones I like) as having the last three purposes and not the first. And therefore character death as simply a legitimate ending of the game. Why would I mess up a perfectly good story (or competition, or lesson) that's over by bringing a character back?