Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kay12]

Roguelikes tend to force you to learn how to play effectively by trial-and-error, giving some people the impression that the game is poorly designed because you keep dieing and can't win. If you don't like losing constantly, then you know the game isn't for you.

Again, this isn't an absolute. NetHack does this, as do a few close relatives. Some games soften it up by revealing most (if not all) secrets in the lore, fortune cookies etc. I think this obscurity is a part of NetHack's intentional design, but that doesn't mean every Roguelike should mimic it. Crawl, for example, doesn't, and it's probably the reason why it's becoming one of the most popular Roguelikes out there.

[3]

It becomes a different game.

Both are valid.

I've long since stopped caring about supposed balance in many games - mostly RPGs, open-world or not - because I realised that it isn't costing me anything to regulate the game balance on my own. I feel like I've surmounted an obstacle? I give myself a reward. A section is too difficult/I view it as bullshit? I make it easier or skip it entirely. I, for one, don't find it hard to play by a loose set of rules like this, because it ultimately doesn't matter whether I'm respecting the designer's decisions or not. I'm not causing any detriment by not doing so.

The way I view it is thus: Defeat is bad. Putting the player in a difficult position? Terrifying the player? Reducing the player to tears of despair? All fine. Outright defeating the player? Not good. I'd go as far to say that in a single-player RPG or game of similar genre the player should never once have to die or otherwise lose.

Game balance in predominantly competitive games is another matter entirely and I (as I'm sure you'll agree, logically) take almost an opposite view in regard to those. Balance in predominantly "skill-based" games also runs by a different set of rules in my book, but defining such games is a little bit tricky.

[Tilla]

Difficulty isn't a big factor in gaming for me. I can play through an experience that is mostly trivial or I can play Elona or  whatever and still have the same fun. People are too hung up on this shit honestly.

[Simmura McCrea]

I'd go as far to say that in a single-player RPG or game of similar genre the player should never once have to die or otherwise lose.

I disagree here. You fuck up, you should die. You bring shitty gear to the final battle, you should die. There's a whole range of ways you should be able to get yourself killed.

[Kay12]

Outright defeating the player? Not good. I'd go as far to say that in a single-player RPG or game of similar genre the player should never once have to die or otherwise lose.

Why not?

Most RPGs are heavy on cutscenes and story. Repeating that all over again would be tedious. Most RPGs have maps of an epic scale, that would get stale and dull if one had to repeat them upon failure. In most RPGs, random battles are a nuisance that will make the trip seem even longer and sillier, and in some cases you'll even want to grind to make sure you win a boss. Most RPGs would suck if they had permadeath!

On the other hand, in typical Roguelikes, you only have a light story frame, the maps are randomly generated, and advancement is relatively fast as you can have a strongish midgame character after an hour of playing. Leaves no reason to not have players start over if their character dies, resulting in a much more careful and thought-out playing style.

[3]

I think you're looking at things the wrong way. As much as I dislike it, there's no doubt that there'll be a place for procedural generation in mainstream games sometime soon. Who's to say what "shitty gear" is and who's to say what "the final battle" is?

Look at DF. Peasant, Hero, Demigod. Eventually it's going to be that you can start a game as a peasant or rough equivalent and run about and, I don't know, get to the bottom of a murder spree or something, or exorcise ghosts and whatnot, or you can play as a hero (or rough equivalent) and kill monsters like Adventure mode is now or you can be a demigod and fight demonic armies, or you could be a fortress manager and just mess about with economics until accident day and never concieve such a thing as "gear" or "final battle". The scope is the player's choice.

Furthermore, there's nothing stopping games from dynamically adjusting themselves to that scope. Maybe if you only have said shitty gear and you're... underleveled, the game could focus on how you contributed to the overthrowing of a warlord as a petty officer or something. If you're overleveled and have better gear, the game's scope increases and you see stuff on a wider scale. It's Bethesda's concept of scaling content taken to finality.

Most RPGs are heavy on cutscenes and story. Repeating that all over again would be tedious. Most RPGs have maps of an epic scale, that would get stale and dull if one had to repeat them upon failure. In most RPGs, random battles are a nuisance that will make the trip seem even longer and sillier, and in some cases you'll even want to grind to make sure you win a boss. Most RPGs would suck if they had permadeath!

You may need to revise your point there, as I think you've missed mine.

[Kusgnos]

I kept dying in Nethack, ADOM, Rogue, TE4, Incursion, SLASH'EM, Gearheads, IVAN, Roguesurvivor, Doom Roguelike, and a crapton more. I still found it fun. To each his own!

But I don't get angry when I play games. Generally, if I feel frustrated by a game, I do tend to blame it on the design; but that hasn't happened since Superman 64.

[Kay12]

I think you're looking at things the wrong way. As much as I dislike it, there's no doubt that there'll be a place for procedural generation in mainstream games sometime soon. Who's to say what "shitty gear" is and who's to say what "the final battle" is?

Look at DF. Peasant, Hero, Demigod. Eventually it's going to be that you can start a game as a peasant or rough equivalent and run about and, I don't know, get to the bottom of a murder spree or something, or exorcise ghosts and whatnot, or you can play as a hero (or rough equivalent) and kill monsters like Adventure mode is now or you can be a demigod and fight demonic armies, or you could be a fortress manager and just mess about with economics until accident day and never concieve such a thing as "gear" or "final battle". The scope is the player's choice.

Furthermore, there's nothing stopping games from dynamically adjusting themselves to that scope. Maybe if you only have said shitty gear and you're... underleveled, the game could focus on how you contributed to the overthrowing of a warlord as a petty officer or something. If you're overleveled and have better gear, the game's scope increases and you see stuff on a wider scale. It's Bethesda's concept of scaling content taken to finality.

Most RPGs are heavy on cutscenes and story. Repeating that all over again would be tedious. Most RPGs have maps of an epic scale, that would get stale and dull if one had to repeat them upon failure. In most RPGs, random battles are a nuisance that will make the trip seem even longer and sillier, and in some cases you'll even want to grind to make sure you win a boss. Most RPGs would suck if they had permadeath!

You may need to revise your point there, as I think you've missed mine.

You didn't say a word about why you think permadeath is bad. What's your point?

[3]

I didn't say I thought permadeath was bad. I said any death at all was bad, regardless of whether it's permanent or not.

Since you're asking, my opinion is that "permadeath" is just one level of abstraction away from "normal" death and serves basically no purpose whatsoever. As to immediacy of design... correlation doesn't imply causation. There's no reason why the immediate elements of roguelikes aren't transferrable to more "regular" RPGs, and vice versa.

[dogstile]

He has a point. Some games seem hard not because of game design, but because said game sucks at giving you a heads up. If a game is well designed it should ideally teach the player the basic cues of staying alive.

But surely this thread goes beyond the point. It was his opinion and this doesn't belong in "other games". In fact it kinda seems like you're going "please Bay12, tell the nasty man he's wrong" and damn son, that's childish.

[Kay12]

I didn't say I thought permadeath was bad. I said any death at all was bad, regardless of whether it's permanent or not.

Since you're asking, my opinion is that "permadeath" is just one level of abstraction away from "normal" death and serves basically no purpose whatsoever. As to immediacy of design... correlation doesn't imply causation. There's no reason why the immediate elements of roguelikes aren't transferrable to more "regular" RPGs, and vice versa.

So, you basically dislike game overs? In favor of what? I find it odd that the player should not be able to lose. It's a game, and typically a game is about taking risks, which result in winning or losing. So, what kind of system would be good?

* the player cannot lose at all, every action results in victory (a.k.a "at the movies")
* instaed of finishing, the success is quantified by a score meter, and surviving longer aids in this? (a.k.a "the Arcade")
* instead of dying, the player loses equipment or other resources? (a.k.a "Pokémon style", forces either grinding to restore lost resources or reloading)
* dying means game over but no permadeath, so loading is ok? (a.k.a "The Typical One")
* dying means having to start over? (a.k.a "Permadeath", really good in Roguelikes, but see below)

I also disagree with you about Roguelike/RPG relations. First of all, most Roguelikes draw inspiration from Nethack which in turn is Dungeons and Dragons, considered by many to be THE RPG. The two are closely connected, but they are no longer the same, because Permadeath (and, to lesser extent, procedural generation) doesn't run well with story-heavy RPGs.

Well, it's no halting problem, they *could* make a typical modern RPG with permadeath added. You'd run into that one boss that is far more powerful than you expected and die. Start over, watch a fuckton of already-seen cutscenes, run through all the same random encounter corridors, and spend a few hours grinding to make sure you won't lose your character this time. It'd kill the enjoyment. In Roguelikes, you have no such problems - no detailed story to bore you sick every time you happen to die, no running through the same random encounter corridors, and you even get started right in the middle of the action instead of having to run several errands to get started! You even have a multitude of race-class combinations, so if you die a few times with a particular combo, you can try a new strategy!

[Max White]

Roguelikes are hard. A bitch, in fact. Most of them enjoy grinding you into the dirt over and over, and a select few out there will keep ghosts of your past self, that then go on to kill you again, just to really rub in how much you suck. They are like your local DM, in that they enjoy your suffering, and take glee in killing you just as you start to like your character. As much as you love them, they do not love you back.

Why this is brings forth the fun part though. My guess is that it is because they can. Mainstream games can't be hard on their own merit. They can have hard multiplayer, because no company wants to punish their better players, and they can have a hard mode, but even the hardest of triple A games is soft next to a serious roguelike. This is because mainstream games must cater to as many players as they can, and if their game is an eternal kick to the privates, people will not like it, and loose interest. Roguelikes, however, are not made to appeal to the masses, and so rush to fill the void of really hard games that the mainstream lacks.

If there were more Megaman level ball busting games, roguelikes would be less compelled to be hard.

[Kay12]

Roguelikes are hard. A bitch, in fact.

Not quite. At least Crawl isn't "in your face"-hard (except when Sigmund is spawned at D:2 and you bump into him). Crawl doesn't contain any nasty hidden surprises (at least without warning). Sudden, unexpected deaths are rather rare - you will die if your wizard runs into an ogre without enough mana to cast mephitic cloud, but there are no apples falling upwards (that are actually giant cherries). It's not playing Crawl that's difficult, you can have a good character with only a few days of playing. Winning is tough, though.

[3]

So, you basically dislike game overs? In favor of what? I find it odd that the player should not be able to lose. It's a game, and typically a game is about taking risks, which result in winning or losing. So, what kind of system would be good?

The idea is not to eliminate the conceptual fail-state, it's to eliminate the practical fail-state. You're probably familiar with the concept of game flow being like a sloping sine wave; the game gets harder as it progresses yet gets easier as new elements are introduced. This is a cornerstone of modern game design. In ideal, the very most difficult point of such a wave/pattern/whatever should push the player to breaking point but not over. The player should feel pressured but shouldn't actively lose, unless the situation is that you're just padding the game out by making later areas harder than earlier ones at a faster pace than the player can keep up with (a tragically common, if logical, scenario).

The point here is that losing is a deflation. Hey, here's an example: Ever play any of the Silent Hill games? I think the combat in those games was kept as deliberately simplistic as possible, and the enemies as useless as possible, for as long as there wasn't any complaint from players. Why? Because in a game like that, dying completely removes any and all tension from the scenario, especially during boss fights, and tension/atmosphere/immersion was what those games thrived on.

I would elaborate further but I've got to go for the moment.

Well, it's no halting problem, they *could* make a typical modern RPG with permadeath added. You'd run into that one boss that is far more powerful than you expected and die. Start over, watch a fuckton of already-seen cutscenes, run through all the same random encounter corridors, and spend a few hours grinding to make sure you won't lose your character this time. It'd kill the enjoyment. In Roguelikes, you have no such problems - no detailed story to bore you sick every time you happen to die, no running through the same random encounter corridors, and you even get started right in the middle of the action instead of having to run several errands to get started! You even have a multitude of race-class combinations, so if you die a few times with a particular combo, you can try a new strategy!

As to immediacy of design... correlation doesn't imply causation. There's no reason why the immediate elements of roguelikes aren't transferrable to more "regular" RPGs, and vice versa.

[Kay12]

You've got too narrow scale there. You consider only a single playthrough. A Roguelike with permadeath is the same sine wave you described. It grows easier for the player as they discover new stuff about the game, realize mistakes to avoid and start finding their way through their favorite race/class combinations. At the same time, though, the game grows harder, as the player is likely to reach harder challenges and tough situations. Furthermore, different genres have different ways of handing win/loss.  If a player loses heart as their character dies, the Roguelike genre isn't probably good for them anyway. That's ok. People like different stuff.

One of the main reasons I like Roguelikes, particularly Crawl, is especially that they have very little plot, leaving a lot of room for my vivid imagination. In Roguelikes, one also controls the character much more directly than, for example, in Final Fantasy. Combine this with the added tension of permadeath, and what do you get?

I'm in that Dungeon myself. Losing may hurt. But trying, incarnation after incarnation, has yielded promising results.


I haven't felt that same tension in any other type of game. Maybe it's special just for me, then.

But still, I retain my assertation - permadeath does not go well with a typical RPG. It would kill the joy, unless you're the type who likes grinding to be safe or dying and watching cutscenes again. Procedural generation is plausible for non-plot important areas (wilderness etc) and dungeons, and has even been done in the adventure game with the biggest map size in all games so far as far as I know, The Elder Scrolls:Daggerfall (10000 times the size of Morrowind, I've heard). However, seeing that TES switched from randomly generated and plentiful dungeons to less abundant but more varied and flavored dungeons in later installments, I think most RPGs are going to stick to pre-made maps both for plot-important and less important areas. Quality of epic scenes trumps the quantity. Even Roguelike developers understand this and this is why ADOM and Crawl use several fixed maps for special places. When you're killing people in the dungeon, you don't mind if it's a bit undecorated. But when you enter the fricken ECUMENICAL TEMPLE, it must look fancy, right?