a RL that requires skill?

[AgingMinotaur]

Shiren has stashes that persist after character deaths, which works quite well there, I think. You need to actively put away an item in the overworld, which will be there when another character reaches that point. If it's in your inventory when you die, it's lost with you.

However, I don't like the direction kraflab's ideas and this is going. It is a great feeling to finally win, say, Dungeon Crawl. You look at all your old characters and see how much better player you are now... very satisfying. With dead characters actively helping you, you would just feel that the game has finally let you win instead.

Maybe the game could reset itself say, every ten playthroughs.

So for example: You have a game with a village and a dungeon, and each character leaves a legacy. Some could retire to become eg. shopkeepers, others can leave artifacts or give more abstract bonuses, such as resistances/achievements. But you only have ten characters to develop your village with. After the tenth death/retirement, you start with a freshly generated "level 0" village. You could probably combine this with random monster species etc. that are regenerated every cycle. You might get a fun metagame around retiring (or spectacularily killing off) characters in particular ways, setting up a victory with an upcoming hero.

This maybe doesn't solve the problem of "positive feedback" (whatever that is, I'm not quite sure?), just scales the genre up a little bit.

As always,
Minotauros

[kraflab]

Maybe the game could reset itself say, every ten playthroughs.

So for example: You have a game with a village and a dungeon, and each character leaves a legacy. Some could retire to become eg. shopkeepers, others can leave artifacts or give more abstract bonuses, such as resistances/achievements. But you only have ten characters to develop your village with. After the tenth death/retirement, you start with a freshly generated "level 0" village. You could probably combine this with random monster species etc. that are regenerated every cycle. You might get a fun metagame around retiring (or spectacularily killing off) characters in particular ways, setting up a victory with an upcoming hero.

This maybe doesn't solve the problem of "positive feedback" (whatever that is, I'm not quite sure?), just scales the genre up a little bit.

As always,
Minotauros

I think this could be really fun if you plan a game around it.  Essentially what you are describing is a gameplay where you have 10 characters in a "playthru" instead of one.  I don't know if this could be pulled off particularly well in a roguelike.  What if you spectacularly set up the first 9 characters for the player but then, by some poor luck perhaps, your 10th character fails miserably?

Alternatively you could have a "rolling" village that always has an impact from your previous 9 characters.  When a character ends his play, the 9th previous one has their impact removed and replaced by the recent one.  As you more consistently do a better job, the benefit to your current player would really increase.  The important thing is to balance the game around this.  You have to make it so that you expect the player to need a really good village in order to win, otherwise the game might become to easy.

It might be more fun down this road if you get to choose whether or not to add a character to the list of legacies that define your game.  Perhaps you have a really good shopkeeper you don't want to lose.

I think either way can end up fun, but they all present different game development challenges in their own way.

As far as positive feedback is concerned, this is a tangible "good job" for the player basically.  Getting a level up is positive feedback.  Getting an achievement is positive feedback.  It is a design system made to get players to want to keep playing (see mmos for a genre designed around this principle).  The official definition is something like: A causes B, which leads to more A.  In this case, A is gameplay, with B being some kind of reward, which leads to more gameplay.

[Krenium]

You're also missing the point. Because so much of the game is the product of the RNG, your strategy is pretty limited. Your strategy generally cannot hinge upon specific enablers or any environmental variables, as they are all randomly generated and therefore you cannot count on them. All you can do is gen a PC, shoot for a survivable build and go through the motions hoping you don't get boned. I don't feel terribly engaged (mentally) when I'm playing a RL. I run through a limited set of "what ifs" in my head, maybe do some simple calculations (DPS, enemy strength vs. my own), but for the most part, the RNG dictates my actions.

We can't make you suddenly start thinking about your moves.

I find it preposterous that you're pegging your lack of success on the RNG when there are 20+ win-streaks in all the major roguelikes to prove that skill really matters (no really, trust me, it does).

To me it just sounds like you hit some kind of a brick wall where you aren't getting any better because you aren't taking your time or you refuse to look up spoilers or other self-imposed hardships. Obviously any game that can be won 20 times in a row gives the player the ability to prevail over the RNG.

The easiest way to tell that someone is a newbie is if they say "X roguelike just depends too much on luck." (Assuming the roguelike in question is well-worn and balanced, of course.) The veterans will laugh at you pretty hard.

[kraflab]

The easiest way to tell that someone is a newbie is if they say "X roguelike just depends too much on luck." (Assuming the roguelike in question is well-worn and balanced, of course.) The veterans will laugh at you pretty hard.

Actually, me and I'm sure other developers agree that roguelikes in general depend too much on luck.  Every identification system takes away strategy for the sake of luck and tedium.  Think about it: you don't have the capacity to strategize with consumables until you even know which ones you have.  "Too much" is obviously a subjective measure though.  The real sentiment here is that a veteran play can *overcome* the luck and play with what they are given.  At the same time, a bad player has the chance to succeed by the fortune of lucky drops or spawns.  Thus, a new player will come to think that things are heavily luck based.  It isn't as bad as they think, but in general it is a problem in the roguelike genre.

Think about how easy the early levels of dcss and brogue are once you know what you are doing.  Wouldn't they be much better games if you started a few levels into the game with the random set of consumables and items and all the consumable identified?  It would mean that you start in a strategic rather than a tedious game.  Just food for thought, and for the record I think dcss and brogue are two of the best roguelikes around.

[Krenium]

It's not that difficult to play DCSS without consumables; certainly not hard to do so until the majority of them are identified. Doubly so for NetHack. Besides — smart identification should be part of your strategy. Brogue is a different kettle of fish altogether.