But floor 14 are not overwhelming odds, you just lack information to plan in advance and properly prepare. It's like playing chess without fully knowing the rules. The only difference whether you will undo last move and continue playing, or start all over from the beginning, is that you will learn much faster without playing 50 more games until you get yourself into similar situation to finally analyse it again and hopefully see the best solution this time around. It's sadistic way to learn, slow and non-optimal. You wouldn't want to learn chess that way, I don't see why is it any better to torture yourself in Brogue.
Floor 14 is indeed overwhelming odds to me because I've yet to 'level up' my own playing ability (in addition to lacking knowledge of future hazards). I'm not a great strategist (see the complete vid for proof of this - youtube.com/watch?v=F7rBPsAUqp0) just as I'm not a great chess player despite fully understanding the moves and rules. Of course I understand that if I save scummed in order to cheat death I could gain knowledge that would improve my chances of advancement without scumming in future but I have no desire for that because, again, the advancement to later levels or the completion of the game is not overly important to me. Playing the game as is and hopefully making gradual process as I do is what I want from the game, it's my preferred experience - I don't see the need for contention here, I'm not trying to convince anyone that my perspective is superior, I'm just telling you why I like what I like and why that feature is lost on me.
Yesterday's play through (as featured in that video) went tits up after I accidentally threw a staff of tunnelling instead of zapping it at a salamander who was guarding an imprisoned troll. Had I zapped him, he would have been knocked across the room, I would have freed the troll, and probably survived. As it happened, I instead threw a potion of descent at him thinking I was far enough away only to learn that I wasn't - the fall didn't kill me but I never recovered my game and died on floor 14. Is that a masochistic way of learning from mistakes? Sure if you see it as punishment, I just see it as 'no safety net' serious business gaming. Of course it's non optimal but I don't care for optimal play as I know many players do - I don't see it as a rubix cube to be solved as efficiently as possible, I see it as an experience: an adventure, not a puzzle. It would be torture for
you, not me.
Why the defensiveness? I've practically gone overboard in emphasising that I don't think your features are bad, they simply don't mesh with
my style of play; I'm explaining my preferences and you're making a case for why I should do things differently - for whose benefit? For efficiency and optimality's sake? I personally can't stand that approach to gaming (though I completely understand it). Again, I'm not requesting that you remove those features for everyone - just asking if you'd make a version without them for players like myself. You eventually declined, which is fine, I just wish we could have got there with less defence of said features! As I'm being less diplomatic now, I'll say that it's ridiculous that you've insisted that your features don't make the game easier - of course they do. You increase the chances of going unseen which obviously decreases the chances of being attacked. As for the mirror statues reflecting magic (a brilliant idea), to say this doesn't make the game easier is just absurd. Being able to heal yourself, increase your strength etc. isn't making the game easier? If "easier" is such a prejorative to you then use a euphemism or don't make the game easier! Either the difficulty is increased, unchanged, or decreased - I don't think it's open to subjective interpretation.
I appreciate your perspective but Brogue wouldn't be Brogue to me if I could keep restarting upon failure and so while I'm aware I could manually save scum anyway (but never would), having it be the default operation is something I really dislike and it would surprise me if I was in the minority on this.
There is nothing to dislike. It's no different than every chess program having the option to undo moves, and if you want to play a proper game, you just simply don't. But if you want to learn how to play first, it will save you time.
There is nothing to dislike? Come on now. If there was nothing to dislike, the term 'scum' would never have been coined and every roguelike would implement it. If I dislike it then there's something to dislike - your defensiveness borders on belligerence here. Absolutely we can simply avoid using it and yes it's my fault if my willpower is so low that I struggle to resist the temptation but I doubt I'm the only one with that conflict of interest and that's why I'd find an option to disable it preferable. If most people like it as you've made it then keep it like that, maybe I'm wrong and I am in the minority here but I'm telling you how I found it because presumably as you're releasing this to the public, you're making it with other people in mind and if most people share my perspective then it's a perspective to acknowledge, surely.
But anyway, here's how you beat Brogue: enchant a broadsword until you can use it, then enchant plate armor until you can use it, then bump into every enemy until they die. Now you know the rules. Now you don't have an excuse for failure.
Kill or evade the things that are trying to kill you and don't get killed yourself. Got it. There'll be no stopping me now!
The save scum feature in this version is not a problem because the game doesn't force you to use it.
I don't think that logic is water tight though. If that's all there is to it then why not have the game say "You have died. Continue?" It wouldn't be forcing you to, just providing the convenient option. If you think that would be a bad idea then you share my reasoning. While I love permadeath, I don't love dying just as I don't love failing at anything. If you give people the easy option of cheating death then naturally we're likely to do it; yes you can say it's our fault for succumbing to temptation but the perfect solution is to enable us to choose permadeath from the start so as not to be tempted at all once we die (even though we have no excuse for failure). A significant part of game design is not leaving it down to a player's discipline to not do certain things so surely you can see the value in an option at the start to enable or disable save scumming.
