Print

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

[Haspen]

Soooo, is this out yet?

/lazyptw

[Johnfalcon99977]

No.

[Frumple]

Bastardization of "for example." Fer ex. Ferex. Fairly sure there's no games using it as an acronym or title, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there was one, somewhere out there. Apologizes for any confusion not that it'll stop me from using it

[Frumple]

Heh, I'll use e.g. when I'm being a bit more... formal, if you will. Ferex is easier to type, though, especially on this shitiPad, and fits a lil' more smoothly when I'm already butcherin' bits of the language. S'good to be somewhat consistently inconsistent, yeh?

But yeah, I haven't played TomeNet much... barely at all, really. S'just one of the few MP roguelikes I have played. That are still running, anyway... there's been a few angband based MUDs, of all things, that were defunct last time I check on 'em. Then a few I noticed in development that I never really checked out. Eh.

And getting together proper kit in most *band variants (TNet included there) can be a right pain in the arse, yeah. S'a reason the only one I've won is Furyband (and that reason was the chargeable ego, to a large degree.).

[sambojin]

Yeah. That too. But, topic?

If all those "make a monster for the game" things were a quick competition, then did they just chop the beasties up for the randomly generated things? Are they a "definate" in-game thing? End-game thing?

It's not a good/bad response I'm asking. Just what you'd like to see, or how you would do it. There was a heap of good sprite work in that comp. But it didn't really take into account the paper-doll system, pseudo-inverse-kinetics (one/two bones on body from what I could see so far), head-add-ons, legs, arms, colour thingy.

This is just a theoretical, but it'd be easy to add those sprites to the system. Just a chop-edit-point-data thing to do them. What do you think that they'd do? And what would you like to see out of submitted art (and stuff from the competition winners)? What would you do? Should we bombard the poor team with really cool arms (and a DF ascii-head for a laugh) just so they can say they now have 10^9000 combinations of creatures? What would you do?

((yes, I got bored shitless when I saw the art style that was being done for the last spriting project I was going to have a craik at, went into animating, did a fair bit more art, animated it. Didn't submit bugger all. Probably will if there's any feedback. Went "meh, this is a stupid waste of my time". It was good spriting and style that the guy was going for, I just get bored with that stuff. Comically-outlined and paper-dolled FTW in my opinion. Hopefully the new IP will have better art direction.))

^^^ this is one of the many reasons why Starbound has me excited.

[Devling]

So, taking submitted art and recycling it into the random creature generator?
Is that the gist of it? If so, I think that would be a good idea.

Also, I still don't like the idea of races as difficulty.
As well as my other points, if you want a harder game, pick a higher difficulty.
Unless on the race selection screen told you that "This race is the suxzorz, and this one is awesome" it could easily lead to people picking a race they like, and getting a much harder game then they would have wanted.
One last thing, if a race I really like sucks, why would I play it? For the challenge?
It would change race selection from personal preference(which race you like or which ability fits your play style), to metagame stat comparing.
This is a game where I want to adventure, with whatever I want, without worrying about not being able to do anything because the race I like has a much harder time then the other races.
I understand the use of races as difficulty in roguelikes, but this is nothing like a roguelike. Completely different.

[Neonivek]

The only time I use self-imposed challenges and like them is if something is too broken or cheap

Otherwise I don't like games that cannot be difficult under their own power.

The reason I personally hate "Races as difficulty" is because my perfect difficult game is one where I have to learn to use all the tools, all the knowledge, and the skills I gained along the way to beat. It isn't one where I intentionally throw away any of the tools at my disposal because that is how the game balances itself.

There are a few exceptions (For example in megaman I do use Buster Only Runs)... but otherwise I'd rather have Difficulty as difficulty.

Do I want a really challenging time? I'll go to a really challenging planet. I won't use worse guns, worse races, worse armors, worse items, or play worse. I'd rather say that I used the very best I could find, used all the skills at my disposal, and just managed to come out on top.

Besides Self-imposed challenges should not take priority over challenge.

Note: This is ignoring Races and Classes meant to be worse in an otherwise balanced cast... But frankly I prefer Races and Classes that SEEM worse but end up having their own strength. I remember one Roguelike where Tourists seemed like a joke class, and in some ways they were, but they got mighty powerful later and had great tools early on.

--

And as someone pointed out. Races in Roguelikes wasn't a difficulty selection (except in one roguelike but that is because each race and class as an entire game to itself) but a gameplay selection. With the metagame deciding who was better.

[alexandertnt]

I think race as difficulty would be a great idea. As long as the balancing isn't too crazy. That is some races a "bit" harder than others. On a game like this there should be plenty of things to do so that if one planet was too hard, its not a big deal.

Its mostly because it seems right that some races that seem like they should be weaker actually are, instead of somehow every  race in the in universe somehow being equal, which would feel very unnatural.

If a race I aesthetically and conceptually liked was weaker (reasonably so, the game still needs to be playable), that would be fine. Infact that may actually contribute to the concept.

Also, do want this game.

[Kaitol]

"Oh, hello there. My name is Larry and I am a snail. Due to metagame balancing by the developers though, I have as much strength, intelligence, and agility of a full grown Human adult! Thanks to the wonders of video games, I can enjoy a full and robust life slaying minotaurs and foiling pesky evil gods; fulfilling the dreams of young snails everywhere!"

On a more serious note though, I don't see why people are getting worried by the difficulty level. Each planet has its own inbuilt difficulty level, and if a planet is too hard for you, go to one of the other INFINITE NUMBER OF planets, kill some bitches, get some resources, build yourself a walker mech, and CRUSH the difficult planet beneath your metal feet. I highly doubt there will be a drastic difference between the races in terms of difficulty anyway.

[Neonivek]

This is the future. so give that Snail a robot body and boom! on par!

Which is kinda the thing. Why is there a large difference between the races in a sci-fi game?

I remember one game I played, it isn't any good, where they included natural armor but it was basically useless because ALL the weapons available weren't even dented by it.

Except one genetically altered race... but they were more like a biological machine (They were human sized but weighed over a ton)

[BigD145]

If you want some weird and wild races go to older authors like EE Doc Smith. Half or more are not bipedal with pairs of limbs and sensory organs.

[Devling]

I understand that balancing can break your immersion, but guess what?
It's a video game. It has to be fun to play. Though everyone being equal(but different) isn't realistic, realism takes a backseat to being a good game.

[Darkmere]

But what if I find bland, cosmetic-only races to be boring? That doesn't make a good game for me.

[alexandertnt]

I understand that balancing can break your immersion, but guess what?
It's a video game. It has to be fun to play. Though everyone being equal(but different) isn't realistic, realism takes a backseat to being a good game.

I think everything not being equal would be a fun mechanic and would contribute to being a good game. It has nothing (at least for me) to do with immersion or realism (I hardly experience immersion in games anyway, and even with this balancing it would still be a far cry from anything that could be considered "realistic"), but It just doesn't seem right that everything should be perfectly balanced.

Besides, in a game like this with varying difficulties based on location, there should be plenty for a weaker/stronger character to find easy enough/a challenge so that the game still remains fun to play.

(This is made under the assumption that the disbalancing is done within reasonable limits, that is not extremely weak/strong characters, just "somewhat" stronger/weaker characters, so that the game doesnt become entirely brutally hard/laughably easy).

[Neonivek]

If the game needs weaker characters then it isn't doing its job as a game.

But think about it this way: What constitutes a weaker character in a game like this?

Jumps lower, runs slower, gets hit for more, less hp, less carrying limit?

If we go by purely statistical mechanics then it is arbitrary and doesn't contribute much. If we go by gameplay elements then you have to design difficult enemies to be defeatable by even the easiest race.

Remember the worst a race gets the better the best one gets and the easier the game essentially is. Since everything will be put through the "Can the worst race do it?".

Mind you I am just assuming this game will have real difficulty. For all I know it is a game where you flop mindlessly around the place while enemies run into you and you blast at them constantly. So maybe this game will require no skill. In which case yeah the unbalanced races work.

Now if you want me to analyse this in accordance to Roguelikes a series known for arbitrary hostility towards players who don't use walkthroughs... I guess I could.