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[Trapezohedron]

1. Procedurally-generated Worlds

A world five times as large as the earth filled with random repetitive crap is no good world at all. I'm looking at you, Rogue Legacy.

2. Retro

A lot of people use retro as an excuse to use easy pixel arts, even when unfitting. As much as I know making 3D models is hard, please try not to make everything pixelated; there's an oversaturation of titles in the internet that's as generic as pixel art can be.

3. Grinding / 100+ hours of fun!

I share Sappho's sentiments about the negatives of grind, and I also know its appeals to people who like them (I being one of them). However, as what Sappho said, when you don't have enough time to grind, you can't enjoy it, and there are more pressing matters - such as work and school - to go wasting your time grinding to infinity and realizing you failed to pay your bills on time because grinding.

About the 100+ hours of fun, make sure it is a 100+ hours of fun and not 100+ hours of monotonous gameplay. Make me discover new things during the 100+ hours instead of letting me gain 3 measly skill points in the span of 24 hours (with pauses for eating periods and etc). *cough* PSO2 *cough*

[Sergarr]

1. Procedurally-generated Worlds

A world five times as large as the earth filled with random repetitive crap is no good world at all. I'm looking at you, Rogue Legacy.

But what about DF? It has procedurally generated Worlds too.

[aristabulus]

1. Procedurally-generated Worlds

A world five times as large as the earth filled with random repetitive crap is no good world at all. I'm looking at you, Rogue Legacy.

But what about DF? It has procedurally generated Worlds too.

I think the essence of New Guy's complaint is that procedural environments are difficult to do correctly, and the requisite effort to make that happen doesn't often occur.

I get why it has become popular: indie scratchware teams don't have the time or money to hand-sculpt every area of the game.  So they turn to a procedural algorithm, and bam!, that's done.   ...only, it's not.  Fine tuning an algorithm to actually produce good output takes hella math chops, a lot of dedication & iteration, and knowing your coding language well.  Getting all that in one place is rarer than it sounds.

[Krevsin]

1. Procedurally-generated Worlds

A world five times as large as the earth filled with random repetitive crap is no good world at all. I'm looking at you, Rogue Legacy.

But what about DF? It has procedurally generated Worlds too.

I think the essence of New Guy's complaint is that procedural environments are difficult to do correctly, and the requisite effort to make that happen doesn't often occur.

I get why it has become popular: indie scratchware teams don't have the time or money to hand-sculpt every area of the game.  So they turn to a procedural algorithm, and bam!, that's done.   ...only, it's not.  Fine tuning an algorithm to actually produce good output takes hella math chops, a lot of dedication & iteration, and knowing your coding language well.  Getting all that in one place is rarer than it sounds.

Also, DF fills its procedurally generated worlds with quite a fair bit of content. It is also not entirely free of the repetitiveness of proceduralgen, though.

[PrimusRibbus]

1. Procedurally-generated Worlds

A world five times as large as the earth filled with random repetitive crap is no good world at all. I'm looking at you, Rogue Legacy.

But what about DF? It has procedurally generated Worlds too.

Frankly, the majority of worlds that DF generates are not good. It takes a lot of generation tweaks and regens to get embarks that are interesting. Even in worlds with decent embarks, 99.5% of the world is going to be heinously boring and generic if you wander around in Adventure Mode.

That said, DF's procedural generation is notably better than most other games', and the use of PerfectWorld fixes many of the issues it has.

[Sergarr]

That's because DF not only generates the world, it also simulates history, which, in my memory, no other game has ever done.

[Jelle]

Fiendishly difficult AI!: It cheats. A lot.

This, so much this.

Also
Openworld/sandbox: Half the time this roughly translates to half assed half finished. There's good openworld and sandbox games of course, but also a lot of bandwagon trash.

It has rpg elements: No, stats and shiny loot is not intrinsic to an rpg. It serves a key purpose in rpgs as tools for characters progression, letting characters develop and grow stronger, but in itself is not the essence of an rpg. Stop calling it rpg elements. Putting a game full of loot for the sake of it is stupid and annoys me, especially when the loot is ludicrously abundant.

Large scale mmo pve: Here's game content for a large group of players. Combat is in no way designed for this, effects aren't toned down and the actual content is horribly dumbed down. Enjoy the clusterfuck! Ugh, just atrocious design.

[GavJ]

Fiendishly difficult AI!: It cheats. A lot.

I'm not really aware of any other solution, unless you're dealing with a game that requires a ton of quick reflexes or something (i.e., the skill is something a cimputer is naturally much better at than humans without "cheating").

In most cases, it's very unlikely that the programmers are going to be the best players of a game. Much less able to translate the full extent of whatever intangible skills they might have into computer code. And even that's assuming a 1v1 kind of game. What if it's a 1v20 game? Like an assassin infiltrating some place? Are they gonna get 20 dudes to train up each enemy guard's persona and learn the best way to guard that area and coordinate plans together and then code all of that in for one level, or whatever? ...

No you just let them teleport in plausible ways, or call in reinforcements or have more hitpoints than you or whatever. Doing complex games without "cheating" AI would allow the entire industry to work together to make, like, one game a year.

[Retropunch]

Fiendishly difficult AI!: It cheats. A lot.

I'm not really aware of any other solution, unless you're dealing with a game that requires a ton of quick reflexes or something (i.e., the skill is something a cimputer is naturally much better at than humans without "cheating").

I think this depends a lot on the type of game we're talking about and what level you expect it to reach. I mean, for some types of games, like RTS games, the computer has the immediate advantage of being able to control many different troops at once and automate things better, but at some point an incredibly dedicated player will probably match that. Similarly, FPS games give the AI some accuracy penalties to see 'real' but eventually a player will be just more accurate than them.

I think Darkmere was referring to when games cheat in an incredibly obvious and OTT manner like in RTS games where the computer starts with many times more resources than you do.

[WillowLuman]

Or knows where your units are at all times

[PrimusRibbus]

That's because DF not only generates the world, it also simulates history, which, in my memory, no other game has ever done.

I'm not even talking about the history, just the terrain generation. The history generation we have now is barely more than a placeholder.

[GavJ]

Fiendishly difficult AI!: It cheats. A lot.

I'm not really aware of any other solution, unless you're dealing with a game that requires a ton of quick reflexes or something (i.e., the skill is something a cimputer is naturally much better at than humans without "cheating").

I think this depends a lot on the type of game we're talking about and what level you expect it to reach. I mean, for some types of games, like RTS games, the computer has the immediate advantage of being able to control many different troops at once and automate things better, but at some point an incredibly dedicated player will probably match that. Similarly, FPS games give the AI some accuracy penalties to see 'real' but eventually a player will be just more accurate than them.

I think Darkmere was referring to when games cheat in an incredibly obvious and OTT manner like in RTS games where the computer starts with many times more resources than you do.

An RTS game where all you need to do to be amazing is click quickly in obvious ways is not a good RTS game. In fact, it's not even really an RTS at all, since the "S" means strategy, and if you can win by clicking quickly with little advanced strategy, then it isn't one.

For example, I don't know much about RTS's but take Starcraft. The programmers program the AI to diligently build up a diversified army and then attack, or defend or whatever. If that were the only valid strategy, then it wouldn't really be a strategy game. It'd be a "click faster" game.

But players aren't going to fight the AI on that route. Since it does actually allow different strategies, they are going to decide decide "okay, they can click faster than me for building up a medium sized diverse army, so I won't win easily that way. Instead, I'll just zergling rush their workers."

I don't know if that actually works in starcraft campaigns, but you know what I mean. The AI strategies are relatively fixed (unless they're running crazy crazy technology on the AI), so if they click and organize at light speed, all it means is that you're going to lose for sure if you play their game, but you're going to win almost for sure if you strategize against their weaknesses. Which isn't a very good system. Because you figure out your winning methods in like, an hour, and then can just apply those ad nauseum (IF they aren't cheating)

If they cheat, though, then you might not only have to strategize against their weaknesses, but also do so very skillfully to overcome the pre-coded strategies + cheating advantage. AND you may have to switch to even better strategies if they cheat more and more in higher levels. Which makes the game more reasonably difficult and trains you better to be ready for human opponents and is more fun in general.

[Jelle]

An RTS game where all you need to do to be amazing is click quickly in obvious ways is not a good RTS game. In fact, it's not even really an RTS at all, since the "S" means strategy, and if you can win by clicking quickly with little advanced strategy, then it isn't one.

For example, I don't know much about RTS's but take Starcraft. The programmers program the AI to diligently build up a diversified army and then attack, or defend or whatever. If that were the only valid strategy, then it wouldn't really be a strategy game. It'd be a "click faster" game.

Yeah you won't hear me praising what I call twitch rts games. Starcraft is pretty much the king of twitch rts. Sure you still need to make the right decisions, but that tends to be overshadowed by ones capacity for APM (actions per minute).

In the end it's a matter of taste. Me I prefer my strategy over speed.


About cheaty AI. I think my problem is that oftentimes when an AI cheats so blatantly and excessively, it becomes a problem when traditional strategies become nigh impossible. If the cheating is so bad you cannot possibly outplay the AI at the game, it becomes a matter of finding and abusing quirks in the AI rather than actually playing the game. The worse the AI and the cheatier it is, the more gameplay becomes warped around its shortcomings.

[GavJ]

So it just needs to cheat in a well-distributed pattern of cheating then?

[Darkmere]

About cheaty AI. I think my problem is that oftentimes when an AI cheats so blatantly and excessively, it becomes a problem when traditional strategies become nigh impossible. If the cheating is so bad you cannot possibly outplay the AI at the game, it becomes a matter of finding and abusing quirks in the AI rather than actually playing the game. The worse the AI and the cheatier it is, the more gameplay becomes warped around its shortcomings.

This is closest to what I meant. I understand concessions must be made to get AI working in a functional form, and that's fine. The problem is when it's played up terribly... Being rushed in an strategy game where it's obvious the computer gets double your resources. Playing an FPS game where an enemy in town at night in bright lights can headshot you in pitch darkness on a hill hundreds before you've even fired. The enemy can tell YOU did *some action* in the middle of a firefight if you happen to intervene in a skirmish.

The worst example I can think of right now is: In Battle for Wesnoth there's a dwarf mission where you're escorting a caster-type unit through a wooded mountain pass. The trick is managing formation and keeping the damage you take reasonabl balanced, while using zone of control to protect the escort..... Until a giant teleports right into the middle of the road, completely negating formation tactics and cheapening the difficulty of that mission.