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[Muz]

Generally speaking?

Just don't play Roguelikes.

It is pretty much a genre filled with games that advertise flaws as features. Basically 90% of them are "Strategy Guide the game!".

Though if you want somewhere to start... I suggest you actually start with the Roguelikes that arn't there to just punish you for not reading the strategy guide...

Unfortunately the best most recent example of that I can think of is Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series and uhhh... TOME4 (Sorta) I believe.

I don't know... I guess I am just disapointed after I found out how to beat certain games. I used to play IVAN like crazy and eventually got a winning strategy only to find out that the real winning strategy is not only silly but basically your required to read a strategy guide just to know it existed.

Then there is this sort of pointless maliciousness so common in roguelikes. Just things they put in the game to just kill you. Basically imagine a game where once you start playing it flipped a coin and if you got heads you lose... except it doesn't tell you right away. No you have to play that game a few hours until you find out you lost. In otherwords it puts forth possibly the worst aspect of games known as being "Unwinnable" except by pure chance. Then there are "Your doing too well" deaths that are common in roguelikes, the BEST example is IVAN. In IVAN if your doing too well they programmed it so a mage who can snipe you with fireballs just ups and kills you.

Nethack is the game I could never get into because of this random "You lose" chance. I've died because of its use of stupidity induced invisible hallways.

I like there to be a sort of logic to my losing, a flaw in my approach... But the "You just lose" aspects are annoying.

Heh, I agree with half of this. If you can't win without strategy guides (*cough* ADOM), it's a pretty sucky game. I hate that fanboys advertise ASCII and horrible controls as a feature too, but the same is with DF. Most roguelikes are greatly unbalanced, but they make up for it by being epic.

I think the dying is actually the fun part, though. That's pretty much the only reason they're so addictive and people still play them over games like Diablo.


ADOM was my first, but I don't think it's a good example. It's brutal, fine. But it's also incredibly grindy and pretty much unwinnable without a guide, unless you don't mind spending literally months on it. I used to play it all the time when I was 13 (and had no life), only won it once, and that was on the easiest ending, without a strategy guide.

IVAN is a great game, because it always tries to kill you in an epic fashion. If you don't like losing, it's certain death.

Dungeon Crawl's a rare example of a roguelike that's actually well designed. You don't need a strategy guide, you are actually punished for grinding and boring yourself. But it feels a tad technical at times.

DoomRL might be a great beginner one. Simple, catchy, to the point. Don't expect a storyline or a lot of the roguelike surprises, though.

[nenjin]

I think the dying is actually the fun part, though. That's pretty much the only reason they're so addictive and people still play them over games like Diablo.

Yes and no. No one would accept dying 10 times in Diablo 2 before getting through the Blood Moor. They love the randomness and the accessibility of action and watching the meters increase. No one likes dying in Diablo 2 though, it's a pain in the ass.

Neonviek's rogue-likes, played as intended, appeal to a very select kind of gamer I think. The kind that thrive on either arbitrary or self-imposed challenges. The appeal of DCSS to them is that they can play, fail and always have something new to see and try (because they didn't make it very far with that particular build or whatever.) I think these people tend to be the minority too.

There's the other kind, which I'd lump myself into, that just wants to see and experience what the game has to offer. We want to be challenged, somewhat, but there's no magical satisfaction we get from playing 5 floors of DC, living, and going "That's enough for today." Sort of like I'd never do a speed run or a naked run in another RPG, or a hermit embark in DF.

I started this debate back in the DCSS thread, actually, and it got the understandable response: "DCSS wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't doing exactly what it was." For the people that enjoy DCSS (and by extension, rogue-likes) as a challenge run sort of game, changing that formula would be changing something that wasn't broken to me. I don't really see it, as DCSS has modes of game play...but that's how entrenched fans get in their own kind of game. I'm not really any different.

The only reason I can play many rogue-likes is because I can cheat to the degree I can experience the game without getting royally frustrated. Because there really is something magical about all the "stuff" in DCSS, if you can live to acquire it.

On the flip side, though, I'm unable to finish many rogue-likes, including DCSS. Because once you hit that midpoint part of the game, each "challenging" part can take dozens of times to get through alive. It simply grinds me down to the point where I don't care anymore about the stuff I haven't yet seen. And makes me think "I can't see this being any better playing legitimately." 

[Virex]

So the only solution to conservative and/or bad design is nigh-random chance? I disagree entirely. The player must think on his feet as soon as new mechanics are introduced. The player must think on his feet as soon as new interpretations of existing mechanics are introduced.

And how would you propose to keep introducing new mechanics? Randomness is necessary because it's the only way you can guarantee new situations keep appearing. Even if you keep updating the game at the highest pace possible you can never outrun your players.

Roguelikes are terrible at doing both of these things. They're good at giving a character randomly effective tools and equipment and creating a random level of difficulty.

Compared to most games, in the long run, that's much more effective then trying to keep people interested in walking across the same path for the 1580th time.

It's almost as if people are only just getting the right idea (DoomRL) after hanging onto ancient genre conventions (set by Nethack/ADOM/*band and the like) that the rest of the gaming community advanced from years ago. My personal view is that the Roguelike community is less innovative than the "mainstream" industry, even in light of the latter's current dry stretch.

I'm actually quite glad there are at least some developers who don't follow the latest trends religiously. As far as I'm concerned many of the more recent "advancement" only serve to make games more appealing to people who aren't interested in games in the first place (and fail hard at) or to insult the intelligence of the player, but I'm interested in any advancements you feel would be a good addition.


For example, save points are a prime offender. They seem good in theory, but if you can always go back and redo your mistakes then it cuts down the tension a lot. After all, if you can just back up after your character dies, why would you be careful? Just quaff that potion and reload if it's poison! In my book that leads to tedium and cuts down on the amount of thinking you have to do because you can just try strategies until you find the right one.


Another important point I already pointed out in the last point is that it is important to make sure the player is never safe. Again, save points are a big offender here, but also other mechanics that enable you to get out of sticky situations easily that are available in abundance (Town Portal scroll and merchants selling copious amounts of health potions I'm looking at you). Again this serves to simplify the game to a point where it can be won without thinking about how to approach a situation because if something goes wrong you can bail out for almost nothing. (And as I already pointed out, after the third or fourth playthrough the player is going to have all mechanics figured out so that won't help either)


To get back to your point of introducing new mechanics, that's kind of the point of the guide-dang-it like gameplay of some roguelikes. They force situations on the player that he has to figure out in order to advance, but instead of insulting his or her mind and spelling the solution out in giant burning letters in the sky like most games, they conceal the solution (in some cases too much, as with IVAN, but as you said it was still possible to figure out a winning strategy). This may seem like a dick move on the designers part, but is actually very important to keep the game interesting, because it's pretty much the only way to keep introducing new puzzles and mechanics in the long run.

[3]

And how would you propose to keep introducing new mechanics? Randomness is necessary because it's the only way you can guarantee new situations keep appearing.

Randomness is necessary to ensure that the player comes across new permutations of existing situations. It is not an excuse for a lack of progression of mechanics throughout the game.

Compared to most games, in the long run, that's much more effective then trying to keep people interested in walking across the same path for the 1580th time.

That may be true, but my point was that "randomness which occasionally appears effective" is not a substitute for good design.

For example, save points are a prime offender. They seem good in theory, but if you can always go back and redo your mistakes then it cuts down the tension a lot. After all, if you can just back up after your character dies, why would you be careful? Just quaff that potion and reload if it's poison! In my book that leads to tedium and cuts down on the amount of thinking you have to do because you can just try strategies until you find the right one.

Think about what you end up doing in Roguelikes. Got it yet? Hint: The answer is often "YASD, start a new game, and don't do it next time". How is that any less tedious than the situation you describe? I'd also take the opposite view on "thinking" - I only get a chance to fully appreciate the situation I'm in when I can try and fail. I rarely think at all when playing Roguelikes, because I know the only things I can do in a given situation are 1. fight 2. flee 3. use limited-use item/ability. One of them's going to work, and I just have a hunch and go for it. No tactics at all.

Furthermore, I think you're oversimplifying the matter. Modern games that involve save points do not involve situations wherein the player has to make binary win/lose choices. This is not the fault of save points, or any other specific mechanic. It's rooted in a fundamental change in the way games are designed, and I think it'd be foolish to ignore that.

(And as I already pointed out, after the third or fourth playthrough the player is going to have all mechanics figured out so that won't help either)

Sorry, but I just have to say this again: What makes you think this is any different in regard to Roguelikes? It's almost like you're denying the fact that Roguelikes take "skill" to play effectively.

This may seem like a dick move on the designers part, but is actually very important to keep the game interesting, because it's pretty much the only way to keep introducing new puzzles and mechanics in the long run.

I honestly think you're missing something very fundamental here... the designer designs the game mechanics and implements them in a means so that they become evident to the player as they become relevant. It's called a learning curve. The vast majority of Roguelikes have extremely simple mechanics and - once you get over the oft-intimidating UIs - have very little in the way of learning curves. Why? Because there are no new mechanics being introduced. The game just gets harder from start to finish. That's it. There is so little substance to the game other than "grab crap, use crap in wrong way, die, restart".

Of course, there are exceptions. DCSS is better than most in this regard, although it's currently in limbo and can't seem to make up its mind which way it's going, and has a habit of forcing players to understand minute statistical details in order to get ahead. Corruption and whatnot in ADOM is a very minor example of a successfully-introduced post-start mechanic, as is (now I'm grasping at straws) water in NH, and a billion other miscellaneous things that show up in every game of every genre.

[Neonivek]

Hey it isn't that I don't like dying.

Afterall I love the old Sierra point and clicks.

It is that I like there to be a rhyme or reason to losing. As I said a flaw in my approach.

Also Three in many ways your right. Since Roguelikes are VERY VERY luck dependent no matter HOW well you play, a lot of the game strategies involve just playing the roulette until it gives you a good enough run through that you can work with it.

Actually what originally got me interested in Roguelikes was reading some strategy guides and hearing things like "You need to put on gloves to pick up the poisoned sword" and I was like "Wow! that is a lot of in depth thinking for a game".

Randomness is nice but it only enhances the mechanics that are already there. Bad mechanics are still bad no matter how random the game is.

[Robsoie]

DoomRL is one of the most balanced and well designed rogue like actually, not only the choice of the difficulty level is very well built to give challenge to beginners or die hard veterans, but there is a well balanced progression on the threat vs equipment (of course unless you play in higher difficulty level) that will allow beginners to be able to survive using tactic instead of having luck while learning the game mechanics.

TomE4 is another one that can be tailored for both the beginner and seasonned rogue like players with the difficulty choices, its gameplay system is extremely good for leveling your character, many many choices allowing many kind of builds that are most very viable.
Additionally, the interface and explanation are very well made, making it one of the rogue like that do not need you to read guides and spoilers as it does not hide anything from the player.

Dungeon Crawl with the very good tile version interface is very accessible too, but it can be sometime frustrating as it depends a lot more on luck than DoomRL and ToME4 by example so finding good items or not finding anything worthy is often the difference on a character that is doomed and one that you'll be able to get very far.
But the game hide a lot from the player view in term of mechanics, you never know how much damage exactly you do, how much exact chances you have to hit in each turn with a specific weapon, how much your armor can protect you, that will lead you to have to read guides and spoilers to have a better idea than the "good" , "very good", "fair" ... hints the game throw at you .
Same as how much do you need to have in intelligence and spellcasting to cast hunger free spells, how much chances you have to use a spell without risking heavy side effect, how much magic resistance you exactly have, etc... etc... those are numbers that are hidden by the game design, for me it's annoying to never be aware of them as i'll have to get to some guide/wiki/spoilers to be able to figure out this.

[MasterFancyPants]

I've beat Roguelikes without guides...

[Neonivek]

I've beat Roguelikes without guides...

I could have beat IVAN without a guide. That doesn't really make the arguements unvalid.

Afterall someone had to have beat a Roguelike.

[Frumple]

Since Roguelikes are VERY VERY luck dependent no matter HOW well you play, a lot of the game strategies involve just playing the roulette until it gives you a good enough run through that you can work with it.

Mm... some of them. Some. Certainly not all -- there's people who streak (win successively) ridiculous amounts of times in a row and win better than 50% of the time regardless. There's people like that in crawl, in nethack, in a number of the new roguelikes. I can do just that in Incursion and T4 if I actually bother to play carefully (I rarely do ).That would certainly suggest that if there is a genuinely insurmountable amount of luck involved, either the frequency of that occurance is small or skill (or at least system familiarity) is able to offset that randomness to a very high degree.

Most deaths in roguelikes aren't due to randomness, but carelessness -- incautious or inappropriate play. Of course, appropriate play isn't exactly easy to identify and even a moment of incaution can end you, but that's part of what roguelikes tend to embrace. They're kinda' like the bullet hell of turn based dungeon crawls

Folks can dislike that, it's cool. I don't like bullet hell games myself, and if I did make a game, I wouldn't implement many of their design choices, but I don't go about saying they're badly designed, humhum. Just not to my taste.

EDIT: Right, right, OT... maybe try out the 7drl stuff. They tend to be short and easy to get in to, and possibly interesting enough to hook you into the larger RL games. Here for roguebasin's 7dRL category. Here's the roguebasin page of a pretty interesting one, modeled off the princess maker type games.

[Neonivek]

The thing is... TomE4 and Incursion do not represent the majority of Roguelikes.

Nethack does.

At least from what I've seen... Making it not some but most. There is a growing trend of "Not outright dying"

Most deaths in roguelikes aren't due to randomness, but carelessness

It depends on how well you can play. If you play very well then it is almost all due to randomness. Better yet are the roguelikes that input many ways you can just randomly die. Is that food you eat safe? Is that potion you drink poison? Did the enemy just give you a disease that will make you lose?

However you forgot the OTHER aspect. Not Randomness but "Unfair" or "Unknown" mechanics. A lot of the time people who are able to continuously beat roguelikes are ones who are aware of these unknown mechanics you have no way of knowing. For example in IVAN the jacket of health if a trap.

So REALLY you have to split roguelike deaths into three
1) Stupid mechanics, 2) Randomness, and 3) Genuin fault of the player

and there is some aspect of "the player has to learn" how to play. But then there is just such horrid amount of metagaming requirements. Just look at winning strategies for games like Nethack or IVAN.

I don't like bullet hell games myself, and if I did make a game, I wouldn't implement many of their design choices, but I don't go about saying they're badly designed

No... Those games are genuinly difficult where while a large amount of memorisation is required it isn't sacrificed for gameplay.

I am talking about Roguelikes where the majority of the time the difficulty comes as a sacrifice to gameplay or by degrading gameplay.

[Frumple]

The thing is... TomE4 and Incursion do not represent the majority of Roguelikes.

Nethack does.

Which would make my point even stronger... nethack has been effectively solved by more than one person. It's certainly not genuine randomness that's stopping people from winning.

Being fair, though, I don't notice the nethack influence in most roguelikes, largely because I've never played nethack for more than a few minutes, despite playing the majority (Probably better than 2/3rds by this point, heh.) of english language RLs.

Most deaths in roguelikes aren't due to randomness, but carelessness

It depends on how well you can play. If you play very well then it is almost all due to randomness.

Except not I didn't say "most deaths for good players," I said most deaths, period. Yes, the deaths that hit very good players tend to be due to randomization -- but 90% or better of the time, they could have mitigated that random cause, through one means or another. Certainly the majority of deaths, overall, in RLs is due to a combination of carelessness and unfamiliarity with the game's mechanics.

However you forgot the OTHER aspect. Not Randomness but "Unfair" or "Unknown" mechanics. A lot of the time people who are able to continuously beat roguelikes are ones who are aware of these unknown mechanics you have no way of knowing.

Fairness has nothing in particular to do with difficulty in an asymmetric game (i.e. most games, these days.), except to the extent which the situation has been balanced toward one side (player, non-player, etc.) or the other. Certainly a asymmetric game isn't going to be fair, for one side or another. The issue isn't fairness but enjoyability (which is largely subjective) and if it can be beat (which is not subjective). "Beat regularly" may or may not be something desired or actively fought against, depending on the designer, of course.

As to the unknown aspect, that is somewhat fair. Much of the intial difficulty in RLs can, indeed, come from hidden mechanics. However, the 'people who are able to continuously beat roguelikes' don't have some special case method of gaining knowledge -- they gain it through experiential testing (i.e. playing the game), 'spoilers' (advice from those more experienced), or code diving, same as anyone else. There's nothing really stopping anyone here from being able to streak on nethack except the time and effort investment.

So REALLY you have to split roguelike deaths into three
1) Stupid mechanics, 2) Randomness, and 3) Genuin[e] fault of the player

One is largely subjective, and somewhat self-contradictory -- if the mechanics were genuinely stupid, they'd be easy to identify and circumvent, not leading to many overall deaths at all. Certainly there are some mechanics in RLs that aren't entirely well thought out, but name me a computer game that doesn't have that issue.

Two and three are tied together -- a great deal of the strategy in roguelikes is, specifically, mitigation of random events. The RNG is quite likely to be actively out to kill you and preparation and appropriate reaction when the time comes is very strongly in the hands of the player. There are, of course, cases where there is genuine death-by-RNG: Running into an exploding dart throwing kobold 3 steps from the starting tile in Dungeon Crawl is a good example. There's also cases in bullet hells where you die because you sneezed

I don't like bullet hell games myself, and if I did make a game, I wouldn't implement many of their design choices, but I don't go about saying they're badly designed

No... Those games are genuin[e]ly difficult where while a large amount of memorisation is required it isn't sacrificed for gameplay.

I am talking about Roguelikes where the majority of the time the difficulty comes as a sacrifice to gameplay or by degrading gameplay.

So gameplay is a combination of memorization and fine motor control? The difficulty in roguelikes have always struck me as specifically built to encourage and direct the player toward a particular sort of gameplay, namely long term and/or logistical thinking, with short-term action being devalued. How does RL's particular brand of viciousness sacrifice or degrade gameplay of the type engendered by the genre?

[FuzzyZergling]

I know it's not really a roguelike, but I just can't not recommend Spelunky.
Not certain if it runs on macs, you'll have to find that out yourself.

[Neonivek]

The major difference between what I say and what Frumble says is that I say it is a flaw and he says it is a benefit.

For the most part we are making the same points with different words.

That and for the life of me I don't want to go explain when a mechanic is good and when it is bad.

[FuzzyZergling]

The only difference between a good feature and a bad feature is your own opinion.
He thinks the mechanics are good, you thing they're bad.
You're both right.

[Grishnak]

I also recommend DoomRL. Its very easy to get into, great for nostalgia (music and sfx) and is easy to get your first win, if you play on a difficulty level appropriate to you. I got my first win on my 16th try or so, which is pretty damn good, considering I have only beaten one other roguelike (unless you consider failing miserably at DF winning) and you can basically tailor your difficulty to suit your needs.  Are you extremely masochistic? Play on Ultra-Violent and play an Angel of Berserk.  Want easy mode? Play on "Hey, Im too young to die!" and roll everything.  There are also achievements and such, not stupid ones, but real achievements, along with some that are considered impossible.  It also keeps track of an absurd amount of stats, if you are a stat whore like I am. Total Kills, Total Pistol Kills, Total Melee Kills, Kills per difficulty level, playing time, deaths, suicides, wins (partial, standard and full), how many of each epic and unique weapons you have found, number of assemblies you have done and the list keeps going.

Personally, I recommend staying away from Nethack, (I know Im going to get crucified by saying this, but) it really sucks, is boring and a lot of times doesnt make sense.

IVAN is really fun and has some pretty epic deaths. You can do quite a bit in that game and is one of the few RLs that actually punishes Meta Gaming. If certain stats are too high, which can only really be done by meta gaming, THEN you get the insta death mobs that come to kill the shit out of you, but, they can still be killed, so its not entirely unfair.

Incursion is quite a well balanced game, considering its super early alpha state. Its very winnable if you take your time and play smart. Early game is very difficult until you get a level or two and the newbie class balance is essentially backwards (IE: Mages are easier to start off playing with than melee characters are). Its very complex without being too overwhelming and rarely seems unfair.

ToME 2 is reasonably easy to start, but quickly ramps of difficulty if you dont know what you are doing. But its extremely complex and quite overwhelming for a newer player with absurd amounts of classes, races, sub races and features. 

ToME 4 takes everything down a notch and is a lot more accessible to newer players and is really fun, although I havent played in a while.

Crawl always seemed boring to me and a bit too generic and I havent played it much, so I cant give too much input.

Elona is awesome and retarded at the same time and doesnt make much sense most times, so you can take your chances with that.

Jice's (creator of libtcod) Arena and Pyromancer are both fun, easy and can be played in bite sized chunks. Not to mention show off libtcod very, very well (obviously.)

There are tons more and new ones pop up all the time, along with tons in development.  Newer ones always seem more fun to me than the older ones.