16
Programming / Re: Unique PC race abilities?
« on: May 21, 2013, 03:42:46 PM »That's the best way to make a roguelike interesting! Make sure the abilities (and any exceptions to their rules) are well-documented, otherwise you get spoiler-based gameplay.
Currently I'm keeping a spreadsheet of abilities and their 'point costs' in terms of game power. It's useful, but as new mechanics enter the game, previous abilities that may have been worth, say, 15 points, might jump to being worth 30 points, or even become nerfed to 5 points. It's a hard juggle, and I have no idea how many points being able to teleport tree to tree is worth! It's obviously worth less than restriction free teleport (30 points), but it's so hard to come up with a number. It's usually pretty arbitrary and then gets ironed out later.
Balance isn't too important in a roguelike - it's well accepted that some races and classes are easier or harder to play. And sometimes things are just "different", not qualitatively superior overall. Your dryad sounds cool!
Every game ends up with different challenge modes invented by the player. It's nice to actually have these incorporated into the game in the form of race/class choices.
While I agree, I still feel like I need a 'core' set of classes/races (same thing in my game) that I can balance the game to. Then, as I introduce new races, they can be brought into the fold slowly. I'm just worried about the options available to the new player, I don't want anyone to accidentally create a very poorly balanced party, even though it's impossible to prevent that without prescribing a specific party format.