Messages

106

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 11, 2014, 07:54:38 AM »

Yo serious question here: which roguelikes have you beaten?  Without using saves, obviously.

Don't list ones you know you could beat because you've won them with saves or because you weren't willing to spend enough time or whatever.  Just the ones you've already ascended as of right now with no-save permadeath play.

Pixel Dungeon with all four characters. I wish I could have saved. Only once I knew all the enemies from all the depths was I truly enjoying the game and was playing to beat it. Until then it was tedious and repetitive struggle just to learn the rules and how it actually works.

I've also beaten Brogue once, after I did it with save-scumming. It took me three days, I will never again torture myself like that. But I kept playing it and completed it with save scumming many more times after that. For me that's not only much more fun, but playing it with permadeath is just plain torture.


Where are you going with this question?

107

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 11, 2014, 07:09:01 AM »

Better as in "this thing I like is better than this thing you like"? You can't objectively measure whether the game is good or not.

Yes, as always. The only opinion that can be considered "objective" is the opinion of majority, which you don't accept. And that's fine, but any other opinion can be only less objective.

Anyway, the point of what I said is in the fact that what's the same can not be better. Better implies different. "Rougelike" is just a set of arbitrary restrictions, to make it better you ought to change some. Variety and evolution should be encouraged, instead of praising constriction to old dogma, which servers no purpose and has no actual reason.

108

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 11, 2014, 05:19:34 AM »

Yes, that's right. If you can "rewind," you can and most likely will do it over and over.

By going all the way back you are playing over and over much more, and will need to star all over again just as likely depending on how good you play either way.

Your character, your attempt to win is lost.

You can not lose "attempt", it's a verb. You only lose time, there is nothing else to lose.

The implicit assertion here, I guess, is that you would win any roguelike if given enough time (as long as it's one based on skill, natch). Everyone has their beliefs. I would feel a little self-conscious inviting the natural comparison between myself and a monkey at a typewriter this way, but whatever.

Comparison is between you and you, not any other monkey. If you can complete a game with save scumming you should have enough skill to eventually do it with only one life too. But to actually succeed you will also need one other skill, different type of skill -- a masochistic patience -- because the only difference is just in the amount of wasted time. Deep down you know this is true. It's just that you have already wasted so much time, and to justify your own torture somehow you now want everyone to suffer. Admit it!

109

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 11, 2014, 04:14:30 AM »

Roguelikes should be...

As if it was written in some roguelike Bible. Roguelikes should... and if they don't, to roguelike hell they go. But there is no such thing as "roguelike", that word doesn't exist. It's just nonsensical mumble of some drunk nerd on LSD. You should not be trying to make your game like anything, especially not like Rogue. Instead, try to make it better.

110

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 11, 2014, 03:24:00 AM »

If you're going to let players replay content over and over...

You consider rewinding back a little to be replaying content over and over. As if going all the way back is not that much worse.

In your proposal, pseudo-roguelikes with arbitrary save file reloading, of course, you would expect to encounter the same situations every time you reload. Since there is a substantial degree of chance in combat and other mechanics, you could reasonably expect to get through a lot of situations by using the same tactics repeatedly until they work -- by chance.

You are playing wrong roguelikes. For those that require skill, luck will not get you far.

In fact, many RPGs are like that. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people replay losing Final Fantasy boss fights with no significant change in tactics -- and win. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. (And by the way, this was not stupidity on their part. They were correct to believe they might win giving the same tactics another try.) In the roguelike genre, you must survive every encounter or lose. It's a totally different and great paradigm, which would be ruined by what you suggest.

You must survive every encounter or lose. Lose what? The only thing there is to lose is time.

If your tactics lose 1 in 10 tough fights (or even 1 in 100), you will never win the game. You see, consistency in the face of chance is a "skill" -- although I realize this might be lost on someone who doesn't see the difference between bowling 12 consecutive strikes and bowling 12 strikes out of 200 rolls.

Consistency in the face of chance is indeed a measure of skill. In the case of permadeath that skill is masochistic patience.

111

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 11, 2014, 01:30:26 AM »

Not if the choice most players will make sucks.

It does not concern you. You are not other people, you are just you. Wake up!

Think about it: They make the choice you think they want (and I absolutely agree that most will make that choice). They play through the game and they're like: "Hey, this was just a standard RPG with mediocre map design and very little structure in terms of monster placement etc.

You just said roguelikes suck and made no other point. Supposedly then it's permadeath which turns this otherwise awfully dull crap into tense and exciting games. Are you drunk?

I could still do the same saving and reloading crap I always do, but it seemed like everything was pretty much the same. A lot of time, all I had to do was keep reloading and doing the same thing and I could get past the hard parts. There was no story, no plot, nothing. This game sucks and I'm telling all my friends."

Your logic circuit seem to be broken. You would be reloading and doing the same thing whether you reload to a previous floor or all the way back. You will not be doing the same thing that killed you last time, unless you're stupid. If a game requires skill you will not advance until you start doing something different, until you get better. Rewinding all the way back only wastes more time.

112

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 10, 2014, 01:17:04 PM »

I believe there is another thread about "permadeath or not", could you please go back to design suggestions as the thread title says? This whole thing doesn't do the forum any good...

What we are talking about is design suggestion, which is to simply have an option. Whatever you come up with that is not pure permadeath you will still have these same people making the same objections. If you want to make them happy it will need to be optional whatever the case. The only problem is they don't seem to be happy with having an option, for some strange and unknown reason.

113

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 10, 2014, 12:38:09 PM »

Actually, yes, I do refuse to play such games. I have plenty of opportunity to play them, I just don't. If I want to have "fun," "exploring" or whatever it is you think would be better/easier in a pseudo-roguelike with save file reloading (wow), I do things in real life. Fun is easy to find.

No one wants to exclude permadeath. Why would you avoid those games if you could play them the way you want to?

114

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 10, 2014, 03:22:41 AM »

Maybe the games will never have mass appeal but I don't really care, IMO there's no other gaming experience like that and I kinda pity the people who don't get it.

A guy who plays action games to perfection and then makes speed runs with only one life would call us all sissies and pity us for never experiencing such joy after tensely torturous training and preparation. If he insisted then all action games should have only hard difficulty and only one life you would tell him he's intolerant masochistic lunatic with too much free time and that is none of his business how will you enjoy your games. But aren't you doing the same thing?

115

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 10, 2014, 03:05:33 AM »

Video games should be exciting and maybe present interesting challenges or things to think about. Excitement is not the same as fun.

Yes, as exciting as board games, almost as exciting as chess. It's all in your head. In reality turn-based gameplay by itself makes it all pretty casual.

116

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 10, 2014, 02:49:15 AM »

Point is: there's no need for this big rhetorical case for removing a feature that many, including me, consider to be integral to the genre. It smacks of sour grapes. Just play on wizard mode and make yourself run a lap every time you die or something.

No one wants to exclude permadeath, only include the option to save. You could always not save and not continue, it does not concern you. You would not refuse to play a game just because it has check points, would you?

117

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 09, 2014, 08:14:42 AM »

Majority is stupid. If you want a game that aims at the biggest possible audience, then go play Candy Crush or Farmville.

It really goes like this: if you want no more than 100 people to ever play your game, then go ahead and make classic roguelike. And if you want no more than 10 people to ever complete your game, then go ahead and also enforce permadeath. The dilemma is primarily for developers, people don't really care, they simply will not bother.

118

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 09, 2014, 07:46:41 AM »

This thread is a good exercise to see if we can come up with new ideas that work in randomly-generated games.

Randomness doesn't really justify wasting of time. I already invested five hours building my character, I want to see how far it can go.  A roguelike should aim to be enjoyable role playing game, not torturing simulator of tedium and repetition.

Insisting on permadeath is quite pointless really, it's not like these people would actually refuse to play a game just because it has checkpoints or option to save. It's just emotional reaction, but they don't really mind. We could simply ignore them.

119

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 09, 2014, 04:51:38 AM »

Haahaahahahaha get a load of this guy!

Yes, the difference between world-class bowlers who have played perfect games and small children who can score a strike occasionally isn't a difference of skill.  Everyone who has ever scored a single strike in their lives is equally good at bowling, and differences in performance after that point can be explained by complex random factors such as air density and moisture.

You failed to understand. You are now talking about skill and not directly replaying to anything I said. Game difficulty and personal skill are two different things.

120

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 09, 2014, 04:15:11 AM »

You've repeatedly shown yourself to be an irrational thinker in the other thread.  You won't even admit that a perfect round of bowling takes more skill than landing a dozen strikes over as many games.

What part do you not understand? As I said, each strike is equally difficult to pull of, that's what bowling difficulty is. Making consecutive strikes is not a matter of inherent bowling difficulty any more, but complex external factors, like variations in air density and moisture, variation in bowler's physical and mental condition, and such. It's a complex random factor, it does not define bowling difficulty, it defines relative probability. When you are bowling drunk it's not bowling that changes difficulty, it's your condition that makes you more likely to fail. -- You are being vague, and thus unable to differentiate probability from difficulty, just like you are mistaking difficult with tedious.

I'm not interested in any more discussions with you.

You never put forward any arguments in the first place. You were just asking me questions, some of which you refused to answer yourself. I mean in another thread, here we haven't even started discussing this.