Yes. Character building decisions are part of the game, and min maxing is nothing more than making good character building decisions, so really min maxing is just playing a game and being good at it.
But doesn't min-maxing involve a pretty in depth knowledge of game mechanics? Mechanics that a first time player or the PC himself would have no access to? I mean, would the PC really know that herb farming was as useful as it ends up being? Maybe you could argue that they would, I don't know. I had to read about them on the internet before I even realized that herbs were worth fooling with.
I think that for the most part, I find the idea of an herbalist character boring and incongruent with the personalities of the PC's that I play (I don't see a paladin as having much interest in gardening, basically). So, wouldn't that form of out of character min-maxing be in conflict with role-playing? Heck, what if the best min-max approach is to play a race/class that you don't even really like? That sure seems like it would interfere with roleplaying.
Although, you are saying nobody plays roguelikes for the purpose of role playing anyway. Which, I guess is fine, although it is more than a little bit disappointing to hear.
No way, victory at all costs owns. Do you think people who play, say, tennis or chess ruin their own fun by seeking out viable opponents and playing seriously? Would it be better if they sought much weaker opponents and made up the difference by deliberately playing badly? The former is cool imo, and the latter is really lame. There's no reason why video games should be different.
But roguelikes aren't a competitive sport. If there was a real opponent, what you are saying would make sense to me. In fact, this discussion just reminded me of the fact that ADOM players rarely mention high scores at all, even though there is a scoring system in the game. It seems like scores would be more emphasized if power gaming was really the ultimate goal, at least for them.
I guess to most people, maybe the developer themselves is the opponent, and the game is about outsmarting them? Again, that's just alien to me. I look at the developer as having the role of a storyteller, rather than a competitor. I do get that these games should be hard, and that the threat of death should be real, but, I dunno, it seems like something important is being lost here.
I don't know what "less organic" means, unless it's doing what you feel like without really thinking about it too much. Or maybe doing what my level 5 elf wizard would "realistically" do in a roleplaying sense. I don't care about either of those things.
"Less organic" means playing mechanically (as opposed to organically). Playing like a machine. It's how I view min-maxing, basically. Although I realize the term could be viewed as more than a little pejorative when put that way, so I'm sorry. Like I said before, and example would be choosing a race/class/gameplay approach that you didn't really like from a roleplaying perspective so that you could exploit the game.
Maybe it comes down to this: for every player there might be an exploratory phase and an exploitative phase to gameplay. When you first start playing a game, the world is new and interesting, and just being in it and exploring is entertaining enough. During this phase you are playing the game "in character" more or less.
Later, after you have beaten the game, you go back and try to break it just to test the boundaries that the designers have created for you and get more insight into the mechanics. And maybe min-max players just don't spend long in that first phase (or never go through it at all).
This statement might be controversial here, but it's the norm in most of the modern gaming world. The roguelike community is the only reliable source of RPGs that emphasize strong mechanics rather than focusing on things like narrative or worldbuilding.
So, now I would say to you that those things aren't mutually exclusive. I think there are interesting and non-intrusive ways to add story to roguelike games (and we could talk about them if you like).
I don't even know how you'd seriously play a role in a video game in the first place. 99% of the time you're committing mass murder for little to no reason. Do you have limit yourself to roleplaying sociopath characters with no empathy or what? Do you come up with an excuse for why all of your hundreds of murders were justified? Even a villainous protagonist shouldn't be as cavalier about murder as video game characters are, or else they become cartoonish stereotypes that can't possibly be taken seriously.
I agree that the stories for roguelike games could be improved a lot, but I also feel like what you are saying is an oversimplification and unfair. I think a lot of these stories boil down to archetypes, and stories about archetypes are often going to seem "cartoony" as you say. Think about the mythological source material for a lot of the stock characters and classes in these games. Myths, in general, are not known for their well developed, multi-dimensional characters.
And, I think you could make that argument about the plots of a lot of fantasy media. I feel like what you are saying is "bad plots are bad". Roguelike plots do need to be better, it's true, but the act of participating in a story, even a mediocre one, combined with grave consequences for your character if you make a bad decision, can still be really engrossing, I think.
There's no such thing as a difficulty level that inherently is too high or too low. There's value in creating games where only the best players in the world stand a chance and there are legitimate reasons to build a game anyone can beat on their first try. No matter what you choose, someone won't like your decision, that doesn't mean your choice was wrong.
But I feel like that avoids directly addressing the issue of quantifying difficulty by being vague. Lets look at it this way: How many deaths per hour should an “average” player suffer when playing an ideal roguelike game. Another way of looking at this would be: what is the mean cumulative playtime until death and stardard deviation from that mean. Assume a roguelike that takes 20 hours to complete, on average.
Another question related to that (that maybe I asked in this thread?) is: what percentage of players do you think should be able to exploit the game to the point that it becomes trivial? This assumes they are not using the internet to search for exploits, just that they come up with it on their own. Essentially, I just want you to set a threshold here.
Accomplishing your goals isn't interesting if you always have tools that make them trivial. You need limitations to make things interesting, to force you to take risks and discover non-obvious solutions. Permadeath is really great for this because it fundamentally changes how you play, and it does so without taking any choices out of your hands. You still can bum rush that giant monster. But you won't. Not unless you're desperate. Or if the reward is promising enough. High stakes make for an interesting encounter. In a game where you can respawn or load your last save or whatever, that won't be the case. You might as well go fight the giant, what's the worst that can happen, you lose two minutes of your time?
I don’t want to make accomplishments trivial. I realize that permadeath is a vital component of the gameplay experience for roguelikes. What part of my posts makes it seem like I want to trivialize the player’s accomplishments?
Speaking of which, we really need to have a discussion on cost/risk versus benefit as it applies to roguelike game mechanics. I think it would be very interesting.
The point here is that the negative emotion of fear and the potential punishment are only limiting and weakening the player, but they are also making the game for more interesting. Permadeath is inherently limiting compared with manual saves and respawning. Not only that, it relies on other player-limitations to function. If the player had options that would enable them to easily destroy the giant, or obtain what they wanted without confronting it, the decision would go back to being uninteresting.
I don’t understand. Are you saying that you think I want to remove permadeath from roguelikes? I’m not making that argument here.
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