Replayability

[jasonpickering]

Hey guys, this is just a question I was wondering. Removing scoring from the mix, what keeps you playing a Roguelike you have previously beaten. Is it the wide variety of the gameplay? meaning each playthrough is pretty different. Is optional ways to play (Different Class? or Race)? Is it trying to improve a win ratio you have, to see if you can win more often, now you have won once?

[Darren Grey]

Some for me:

 - Different starting options, like races/classes, which in turn can mean different difficulties to try out
 - Exclusive content in the game, like questlines that are mutually exclusive
 - Different progression paths like in PrincessRL
 - Ability to enforce extra challenge on myself, like playing without items
 - Achievements
 - The game is fun
 - New versions

[kraflab]

I pretty much agree entirely with dgrey.  Score is completely meaningless to me.  Essentially, if there are options to make the game into a different game, then I'll replay it (I.E. if melee and magic characters make the gameplay different enough that new challenges can be encountered).

[TheCreator]

- Achievements

Every game has achievements of some kind... But I guess you mean some creepy Facebook stuff, don't you?

[Darren Grey]

FTL style achievements. These can be done badly of course...

[Holsety]

For me, the best replayability factor is death.

[TheCreator]

FTL style achievements. These can be done badly of course...

I've never played FTL. Actually, I haven't played anything in the last 15 years or so. Could you explain it like to a total newbie (or rather to a living fossil)?

[Darren Grey]

FTL has some standard achievements for progressing in the game and winning.  These are kinda boring.  But it has a raft of other achievement for doing special feats in the game.  Like getting to the end without firing a shot, or setting all of an enemy's rooms on fire at once, or killing an enemy from health during a single cloak.  They tend to teach different playstyles or encourage special challenges.  They add a bit of fun, without actually being required in the game.

A lot of roguelikers try these sorts of things anyway - win without food, or speedrun, or pacifist run, etc.  But it's nice to have them legitimised in the game.

[naughty]

I don't replay roguelikes I've won very much. I've only beaten DCSS a few times and Brogue once though.

If there's some cool content I've not seen, some recent cool update or a vastly different play style I haven't tired then I'll pick it up again. Never with the same intensity as when I resolve to win though.

[joeclark77]

One thing that helps is if you can tell a different story after playing the game multiple times.  Nethack for example got old after a couple ascensions, simply because the sequence of stuff you do is the same every time.  It was an amazing and addictive challenge to figure it all out, but then it was a yawn to replay.

[Ancient]

I like it if optional challenges can be combined like NetHack's conducts. Also, dropping them at will should be possible. I cringe when my shotgunner finds railgun in DoomRL.

[sokol815]

DoomRL is perhaps the only roguelike (besides Diablo II) that I have beaten. Both games have a great skill-set system that allows you to play the game differently. This greatly adds to replayability.

Content modification is a major bonus for replayability. games like Transcendence feature a massive player-base that have created custom mods to give you a unique experience, but that does require a fair amount of effort on the part of the developer to make their game extendable. I know I have tried at least 20 different mods for Transcendence, and quite a few for Diablo II.

[TheCreator]

FTL has some standard achievements for progressing in the game and winning.  These are kinda boring.  But it has a raft of other achievement for doing special feats in the game.  Like getting to the end without firing a shot, or setting all of an enemy's rooms on fire at once, or killing an enemy from health during a single cloak.  They tend to teach different playstyles or encourage special challenges.  They add a bit of fun, without actually being required in the game.

A lot of roguelikers try these sorts of things anyway - win without food, or speedrun, or pacifist run, etc.  But it's nice to have them legitimised in the game.

I find it quite surprising as "legitimising" requires the developer to predict everything that the player can possibly do in the game. And it's always been fun for me to find things the developer *did not* predict. I think that roguelikes (and games in general) are going the wrong way nowadays. I hope my game will do without those "achievements", because I'm not going to implement them.

[Darren Grey]

There's a certain element of predicting, and a certain bit of building on player suggestions and activity.  Of course they're not needed, clearly, but some players like them.  And the idea is they're optional - no one has to do them.

Funny how you you say games are going the wrong way after saying you haven't played a game in 15 years...

[TheCreator]

Funny how you you say games are going the wrong way after saying you haven't played a game in 15 years...

I am too afraid of the things I hear from people who still play . Take World of Warcraft. Do you consider it as a real game? It seems to be pretty complex, but it doesn't take much time to realize that you are not allowed to do anything that hasn't been predicted by the developers. If you find such a thing, they'll remove it with a next update. Or you'll get banned. "Achievements" are (it seems to me) just one element of this obsession to make it impossible to deviate from the only *right* path. Even if they are purely optional, they are still, as you say, "legitimate", which is enough to take away all the fun. Ever dreamed of traveling to another planet, exploring an area where no human has set foot before? This is what old-school games used to give to you, and what modern games won't anymore. Now you have those "keep out of grass" signs everywhere. Everything is predicted and predefined, and if it's not, it will soon be, because the devs are constantly "building on player suggestions". Perhaps this is an inevitable trend, but I'm not going to forget good old games and the main reason *why* there were good.