Author Topic: How long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike?  (Read 11340 times)

reaver

  • Rogueliker
  • ***
  • Posts: 207
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
How long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike?
« on: April 09, 2014, 10:24:11 AM »
I'm asking this question as I suck at roguelikes due to my lack of patience, but I want to design a game with similar principles and tactical depth. (I know some of you might want to flame badly here, but at least provide some times alongside your rage :) ). Because it's my game, I'll have the patience for it, but I'd like to know how patient seasoned roguelikers are.

So, how long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike in various situations? lets say in seconds

For example:

trivial encounters: 0
hard encounters: 10
new encounters: 4
explored territory: 0
dangerous territory: 5
new territory: 5

Also, your expertise at the game is also very helpful information alongside the above.

Endorya

  • Rogueliker
  • ***
  • Posts: 513
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • The non-purist roguelike lover
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: How long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike?
« Reply #1 on: April 09, 2014, 11:10:17 AM »
If someone wants to flame you just because you want to create something different that they might not fond of, well my advise to you would be flagging those persons as unreliable and simply ignore their comments.

From my experience with ADOM, what would take longer would be figuring out the type of enemy that just appeared close to my char so proper actions could be taken. This translates itself in me placing the cursor on top of a target to gather any possible data. I don't think I could separate encounters from trivial, hard or new when they all needed to endure through the same recognition process.

As far as world map travelling went, I could move around in less of a second while paying special attention to my hunger needs. If it wasn't for the hunger I guess I could simply leave the desired movement key pressed as the game itself would halt in case something would come up.

For local exploration I guess 1 second per turn was enough to understand what was needed to be done. Most of the time, performing actions in roguelikes are in fact the one thing that takes longer to prepare, simply due to their primitive interfaces.

[EDIT]
I completely forgot to mention the timings about battling stuff. Usually it would take me between 5 to 10 secs of reasoning to decide whether I should escape or continuing fighting potential dangerous confrontations. For the most part it, it would be around 1 to 2 secs of thinking before I would bump again against foes, this couple of seconds would basically just be about monitoring my char's HP to realize if my next attack would be a safe one. Finally, add some additional seconds for reading the description log.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2014, 04:09:56 PM by Endorya »
"You are never alone. Death is always near watching you."

reaver

  • Rogueliker
  • ***
  • Posts: 207
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Re: How long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike?
« Reply #2 on: April 09, 2014, 11:58:23 AM »
Thanks for the info!

If someone wants to flame you just because you want to create something different that they might not fond of, well my advise to you would be flagging those persons as unreliable and simply ignore their comments.

Well, people can still provide useful information while being non-constructive in other ways. The flame I would expect would come in the form of "you have no idea of what you want to make", which I can accept as misinformed.

Endorya

  • Rogueliker
  • ***
  • Posts: 513
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • The non-purist roguelike lover
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: How long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike?
« Reply #3 on: April 09, 2014, 12:19:49 PM »
Well, people can still provide useful information while being non-constructive in other ways. The flame I would expect would come in the form of "you have no idea of what you want to make", which I can accept as misinformed.

Ok let me rephrase it then. In my opinion it is completely absurd to flame someone for asking something, whatever the question it might be. I actually feel kind obligated answering those questions that might have an obvious answer (yours was not the case ok?) and help that person out than flaming someone for his apparent ignorance.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2014, 01:02:49 PM by Endorya »
"You are never alone. Death is always near watching you."

mushroom patch

  • Rogueliker
  • ***
  • Posts: 554
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Re: How long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike?
« Reply #4 on: April 09, 2014, 12:31:30 PM »
It's a good question. For me, most turns I take a fraction of a second. These are noncombat movement turns, nonthreatening combat, etc. The longest turns are turns spent considering information obtained by detection spells (I've been playing a bit of angband lately, so these turns are usually on stairs considering whether to play any part of the level), which are sometimes up to a minute. Turns of moderately dangerous combat are somewhere between two and five seconds, to carefully clear all "more" prompts, skim messages, watch hp, and watch for summons or other weird things that may effect the tactical situation. On turns where something strange happens in combat, I may take around 30 seconds to decide on whether to escape or stay and how to proceed.

Jaxian

  • Newcomer
  • Posts: 15
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • printf("%s", jax_title);
    • View Profile
Re: How long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike?
« Reply #5 on: April 09, 2014, 03:01:14 PM »
I think I play similarly to mushroom patch except that I'm typically less patient than I should be.

But just because I usually take my turns quickly doesn't mean that I wouldn't be happy to spend more time on my turns in a game that requires it.

mushroom patch

  • Rogueliker
  • ***
  • Posts: 554
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Re: How long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike?
« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2014, 06:06:02 PM »
It's an interesting question because it goes to assumptions behind turn based play. People make comparisons of roguelikes to chess and wax poetic about the time spent in suspense and consideration, but I don't think normal play really involves a lot of careful deliberation in combat -- the deliberation is in grand strategy about what equipment to use, how to act on information from mass reconnaissance spells, which dungeon branches you're going to visit in crawl, what your build is going to look like (stuff you think of outside of the game completely) etc. In other words, noncombat decisions where a reasonable game would apply no pressure to act quickly regardless of turn based or real time mechanics.

In other words, the amount of patience required to play at a high level is not that much on a turn to turn basis. Experience brings a different kind of patience: "You don't need to fight this guy now, if you fight him later, you're less likely to die," "You don't need that item so badly that you should risk dying for it," etc.

About your background on the question -- I think to really appreciate the genre, you should beat at least one major roguelike or major roguelike variant (use spoilers liberally, of course). The more interesting content tends to be packed in the late-mid and endgames and the design and balance issues come into focus best at the end (in my opinion).

reaver

  • Rogueliker
  • ***
  • Posts: 207
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Re: How long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike?
« Reply #7 on: April 09, 2014, 07:49:03 PM »
Thanks for the info mushroom, you bring up interesting points.

About your background on the question -- I think to really appreciate the genre, you should beat at least one major roguelike or major roguelike variant (use spoilers liberally, of course). The more interesting content tends to be packed in the late-mid and endgames and the design and balance issues come into focus best at the end (in my opinion).

Well I was scarred by ADOM, which even the creator has admitted to not finishing it...Perhaps I'll go for Brogue if I get the time.