The Codex of Roguelikes

[Irata]

While checking out the new version of CDDA I came across some people saying the game has gone too far with putting realism over fun. That a fork, Bright Nights, is a more enjoyable experience. Anyone familiar with it?

 

[Rean]

While checking out the new version of CDDA I came across some people saying the game has gone too far with putting realism over fun. That a fork, Bright Nights, is a more enjoyable experience. Anyone familiar with it?

It's nothing special. Mostly balance changes, but they also have more major stuff like this:

 

[Rean]

Isn't the whole point of CDDA how realistic/simulationist it is? It's always better to add on more stuff, not take away.
The game doesn't have inherent balance issues, at least nothing that can't be easily fixed. The game has issues with the way it's designed from the get go (UI, lack of proper mouse support, having to memorize 200 different keys).

There's always stuff like Project Fagzoid for a more casual (and pointless) experience.

 

[Infinitum]

It's always better to add on more stuff, not take away. [...] The game has issues [...] having to memorize 200 different keys.

The feature bloat is a feature.

 

[Metronome]

Regarding DDA. There is a conflict between people who want simulation or abstraction. I remember them wanting to make it more modular so everyone can get their desired experience, but people want what they consider enjoyable to be cannon. So it would get more attention from the development team and so be expanded upon in favor of the other side. I prefer simulation myself. That's why I would choose to play DDA instead of something else.

I would say the game has balance issues if you were working towards a goal, but since it's just a sandbox what is there to balance? Your character gets lucky or unlucky. You can make it easy or hard. Nothing you do makes a big difference in the end. Every game either ends in a stupid death or boredom from running out of new content to discover.

 

[PapaPetro]

Regarding DDA. There is a conflict between people who want simulation or abstraction. I remember them wanting to make it more modular so everyone can get their desired experience, but people want what they consider enjoyable to be cannon. So it would get more attention from the development team and so be expanded upon in favor of the other side. I prefer simulation myself. That's why I would choose to play DDA instead of something else.

I would say the game has balance issues if you were working towards a goal, but since it's just a sandbox what is there to balance? Your character gets lucky or unlucky. You can make it easy or hard. Nothing you do makes a big difference in the end. Every game either ends in a stupid death or boredom from running out of new content to discover.

Opposite.
Instead of wasting time developing code for a year so they can "simulate" having to take piss what seems like every 10 minutes, I'd rather have them develop some more content, story, and gameplay options.
They still haven't fixed old shit like overheating outside in 86°F weather while being buck naked (let alone the nutrition and weariness problems); so it makes me doubt their simulative ability. The game is becoming tedious.

 

[HeyCheckOutHowHardICanPee]

Yeah, the problem people have with "realism" isn't so much the concept of realism itself (mostly), but rather that the talking point of development of realistic aspects will always fall into the category of a bare-bones, barely functioning content of simulations of realism by people who haven't encountered it in the longest of time.

It's not unusual for people to roll their eyes when the discussion of realism comes up, because it always follows the same pattern:

1. Implement very basic core implementation of mechanic.
2. Tweak it, fix issues and add a little bit of relevance to it.
3. Put it on hold for other thing that clashes/is required for it, or just delay it for the time being.
4. Wait a year or two before anyone even touches it again.
5. Mechanic is still bare-bones and adds nothing to the game aside from tedious micromanaging, gets "fixed" by toning it down to the point where it's irrelevant or just a very small minor grievance.
6. Repeat with new mechanic.

 

[Krice]

Fired up DCSS on a whim after not having played for a few years, and what the goddamn fuck. They've been at it with a machete it seems. So much stuff getting auto-ID'd, no hunger mechanic at all, etc.

The "problem" with DC was that the original developer abandoned it and when it happens something can get lost in translation. I don't know who DCSS people are, but they are maybe not the most traditional roguelike developers out there. In some cases we have seen that developers have some kind of agenda or ideology which they often think is going to make the game somehow "better". In commercial scene it's making a roguelike game more streamlined and faster to play (for example real time rather than turn-based) etc. Things like that may work in their own way, but there is a certain essence in a roguelike you can't change and still call it a roguelike for marketing reasons.

 

[PapaPetro]

Yeah, the problem people have with "realism" isn't so much the concept of realism itself (mostly), but rather that the talking point of development of realistic aspects will always fall into the category of a bare-bones, barely functioning content of simulations of realism by people who haven't encountered it in the longest of time.

It's not unusual for people to roll their eyes when the discussion of realism comes up, because it always follows the same pattern:

1. Implement very basic core implementation of mechanic.
2. Tweak it, fix issues and add a little bit of relevance to it.
3. Put it on hold for other thing that clashes/is required for it, or just delay it for the time being.
4. Wait a year or two before anyone even touches it again.
5. Mechanic is still bare-bones and adds nothing to the game aside from tedious micromanaging, gets "fixed" by toning it down to the point where it's irrelevant or just a very small minor grievance.
6. Repeat with new mechanic.

Is this a good thing? This type of dev cycle; does it produce a good continual work?

 

[Fenix]

All that's left for me to beat is Rogue itself now.

Try ELOnA+ it completely consist from such tricks, as using stat lowering equipment before rising them. Full of tricks.

I don't know who DCSS people are

Bunch of wokes dude. When I still visited the Tavern - forum - I stumbled on quite qurious threads, like I remember the ove that claimed that many old gods are EURO-WHITE-entric, this new gods like what's their name, that built upon maxican culture or various naked natives that achived nothing in their existence is good stuff!
You see? Lore stuff is too EURO-WHITE-centric, they need to add (and to remove too probably) new content that doesn't have basis in european white people mythology. Because it's BAD thing.
Anf that was like 3-4 years ago lmao.
And they have cut&sew type among devs, and/or moderators or such.
They turned into bunch of nothing.

 

[Metronome]

Try ELOnA+ it completely consist from such tricks, as using stat lowering equipment before rising them. Full of tricks.

I finished the original Elona a couple of years ago. I remember going to play Elona+ after but I had some trouble with it. I think with installation or something. I'll give it a try at some point. I'm not usually the biggest fan of tricks and meta-gaming. I turned to them out of desperation while playing Moria. I just found that it was surprisingly fun.

Also I think I've figured out what was happening with the dragons you were talking about earlier. Breath attacks don't go into wall tiles. So if you are in the wall, the dragons will breath at you but it will not hit you. However it has a splash radius and other dragons can be hit by the breath. That's probably how that trick worked. Not sure how the guy would get into the wall though. Also I wonder how he would avoid the dragon's physical attacks.

I don't know what roguelike I want to play next. I expect Rogue to be a big chore but it's the last one on my list.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I had to look this game up.

 

[AgentFransis]

What tileset are you all using? There used to be a good one with the default version, but now there's a new on that isn't as good.

I explored all the tilesets. Most are junk not worth mentioning. UndeadPeople and UltiCa and it's variants are very pretty, especially with how the @ sprite reflects your gear and mutations, but are terrible tilesets for CDDA. They use 32x32 tiles that are way too detailed for the scope the game plays on. I have a decently large screen and with default zoom I can barely see 12 tiles in any direction. That's nothing when you can aggro Zs from 40+ tiles away and a 5.56 rifle shoots up to 36 tiles, never mind the higher calibers. So you have to constantly zoom out to get any situational awareness/shoot/drive but then the sprites turn into a blurry mess and you can't actually tell what's what.

In contrast you have RetroDays+ which I've been using from the start. 10x10 tiles, minimalistic and has exceptional clarity. I can see 42 tiles to the right and left with default zoom and still tell at a glance what anything is. The background is always dark and the monsters colorful and distinct so you can look at a horde and instantly spot anything dangerous. And it's still has great style. The labs look gloomy and creepy, the juggernauts scary, feral predators look like grim reapers and incandescent husks look like shadowy outlines surrounded by a melstrom of lightning. My only problem with it really is that I went post threshold feline mutation and now my sprite is just a fucking cat.

 

[AgentFransis]

Finished my 0.E Cataclysm game. Became an unstoppable cyborg mutant and the game rapidly gets very boring after that. Some conclusions:
- Bionic soldier start is a great noob crutch.
- Survivor suit is OP as fuck. I will avoid using it in the future.
- Crop yields are incredible. It takes a whole season for most crops to grow but a single 8x8 pumpkin patch yielded over 1500 units of delicious pumpkin.
- Labs yield way too much ammo. A single CROWS II M249 turret drops 1600 rounds of 5.56 in convenient to carry belts. A lab typically has at least 4, sometimes as many as 10 of them and they can usually be killed off pretty safely, either shot from darkness or with a grenade. It kinda kills the tension when I can walk around blasting with basically infinite ammo.
- Ninjutsu with a diamond coated broadsword.

Now playing around with 0.F - autism intensifies edition. The new container system is pretty unpleasant. Sure I approve of it from a simulationist standpoint since previously you could magically stuff an AM rifle into your coat pocket but now you can't even put an MP5 into a duffle bag, I mean come on. And looting food is a pain since it's mostly in containers and now you can't see any detailed descriptions until you actually put it in your inventory.

Anyway, tried some really bad day starts. Silly scenario, basically just RNG.

Then had a nice game brewing with a normal bow hunter start. Interesting change to bows - low base damage but huge crit multiplier. Found a SWAT armor, had a base going, some skills etc. Then got overconfident with my shiny armor and accidentally aggroed a big mob and got buttfucked. That missing 5% armor coverage really makes all the difference.

Then tried some lab starts:
1. Spawned in a car in the middle of a riot checkpoint (??). Killed by the turrets.
2. Spawned in a lab with an aboveground facility. Made it to the surface and made a run for it but got chased down by an asshole manhack. Should have waited for nightfall.
3. Cold lab. Exit guarded by .50 cal turret. Couldn't find a gun or an id card, nose about to freeze off, got frustrated and committed suicide by zombie scientist.

4. Cold lab. RNGesus is with me this time. Made it into the subway system. Walk down the tunnel and find soldier corpses and soldier zombies fighting some monsters. Pick up an M4 off the ground and use it kill the soldiers. The new bleeding mechanic is useful to conserve ammo in situations like this - one or two shots, then run into the darkness and they bleed to death. Pick up ammo, supplies and ballistic vest.

Walk down the tunnels for hours trying to find an exit - no dice, all the tunnels end in those single level chemistry labs full of zombies and the subway exit is card protected. Track back to the cold lab. Find the finale - a new one with what I think is a tank full of mutagen in the middle. Science id card on the floor and a shiny recon exosuit. It's Guarded by a secubot, a manhack and a couple of zombies. Use the rifle to kill everything while tanking all the shots on the ballistic vest.

Grab the card and head to the exit - it's guarded by a turret. Shoot it from the darkness and I'm out. Right outside the lab is a huge ranch with a bunch of livestock, a nice farmhouse with a garden, a cellar full of food and surrounded by forest.

 

[PapaPetro]

- Labs yield way too much ammo. A single CROWS II M249 turret drops 1600 rounds of 5.56 in convenient to carry belts. A lab typically has at least 4, sometimes as many as 10 of them and they can usually be killed off pretty safely, either shot from darkness or with a grenade. It kinda kills the tension when I can walk around blasting with basically infinite ammo.

I recommend going for the Military Outposts and Nuke Silos as well. You can find M240 and M2HB CROWS II with 7.62 and .50 ammo belts respectively. Not to mention the loot at these places.

 

[AgentFransis]

- Labs yield way too much ammo. A single CROWS II M249 turret drops 1600 rounds of 5.56 in convenient to carry belts. A lab typically has at least 4, sometimes as many as 10 of them and they can usually be killed off pretty safely, either shot from darkness or with a grenade. It kinda kills the tension when I can walk around blasting with basically infinite ammo.

I recommend going for the Military Outposts and Nuke Silos as well. You can find M240 and M2HB CROWS II with 7.62 and .50 ammo belts respectively. Not to mention the loot at these places.

Outposts are the most dangerous locations in the game bar none. They usually spawn in the middle of a forest so you can't roll up in your deathmobile, the trees block line of sight so you can't snipe the turrets and coming at night is also suicide because of the spotlights and the turrets are too far from the tree line to use a control laptop. I savescum tried a lot of approaches including indirect grenade launcher fire (grenades don't arc) and an RC car with a remote detonation EMP grenade (just doesn't work and aiming the car is almost impossible without line of sight).

I found three approaches that work:
1. Tunnel into the outpost with a jackhammer (inspired by the Great Escape). Then you can 1v1 gunslinger draw with the turrets from inside/EMP grenade through the walls/control laptop. This takes days.
2. Invisibility cloak.
3. Rarely they spawn in the open, in which case you can just roll up and kill them with your own turrets. I actually found one right on the edge of a town, like 15 tiles away from houses. Imagine looting a house and finding a .50 round delivered into your face.

But what loot? There's only junk inside. The actual loot is the ammo. And a bit of plutonium. That's actually good design - huge quantities of military ammo should be extremely dangerous to access. They should have the common lab turrets just drop like a single mag like the secubots.

A silo I only found one of and it's lowest level got overridden by a central lab so I didn't get to see what's there (I understand it's mainly a bunch of plutonium). But the top levels didn't contain any notable loot besides an operational map. Military bases though, now that's some loot. The sheer quantities of stuff of every description is enough to make even the hardest of survivors shed tears of joy. You just have to kill like 50 kevlar hulks first. And of course bunkers where they keep all the cool stuff.

 

[PapaPetro]

There's a whole bunch of ways to bypass the 60 range turrets. They only activate at about 50 range and they only fire with sight (also limited during night). So a good trick is to build an opaque heavy duty door on a single tile to push in front of you and use as cover (you could even crawl behind a cardboard box and they won't fire at you if they can't see/identify you). Once you're close enough then you toss a nade or a high powered low time req to pop off and hide back into cover before return fire.
It's a fun hobby to find all sorts of new low-tech ways to get into those high tech cookie jars early.

 

[dextermorgan]

Didn't they have a feature where the turret will fire back even if it cannot see you, added specifically to address the cardboard box sneak routine?

 

[PapaPetro]

Didn't they have a feature where the turret will fire back even if it cannot see you, added specifically to address the cardboard box sneak routine?

Yeah they did based off of sound location I think; where if you shoot from the dark you'll get return fire. But if they're dead, they can't shoot back. These things only got 40 hp so they go down easy with the right one-hit tool. If you get your hands on something that's got range, like a 7.62 gun w/60 units, you can outrange even the deadly .50 cal M2HB Crows II or the more dangerous aoe bots (like the beagle mini-tank).
Obviously you'll be well armored (especially in the torso and head) before you go in to be able to soak a shot if you fuck up a little in the thick of it. If you take a big ding, have an escape route with no line-of-sight and try again. Mobile cover, like pushing forward the the heavy duty opaque door vehicle construction, will also soak that reaction fire. Seriously though, you can walk right up to those things if you push the cover right next to it; take it out with a big melee attack or EMP bionic or something (point-blank shotgun will do).

 

[hackncrazy]

Since Cataclysm was very talked about in this page and someone mentioned even a variant, does anyone know if there's any variant of it that offers an objective/endgame state?

The one thing that keeps me from enjoying CDDA or Caves of Qud is the fact that neither offer an objective and I'm the kind of fag that needs one. Wandering around the world just trying to get stronger/immortal is fun for the first couple of minutes but gets boring really quick.

 

[PapaPetro]

Since Cataclysm was very talked about in this page and someone mentioned even a variant, does anyone know if there's any variant of it that offers an objective/endgame state?

The one thing that keeps me from enjoying CDDA or Caves of Qud is the fact that neither offer an objective and I'm the kind of fag that needs one. Wandering around the world just trying to get stronger/immortal is fun for the first couple of minutes but gets boring really quick.

Not to my knowledge and I agree with you. I would prefer an escalating endgame threat that is either surmountable or virtually insurmountable. The current monster evolution over-time just doesn't cut it; even when speeding it up in the worldgen you're still be a deity in impenetrable heavy survivor armor or a flat out power armor suit.

 

[buffalo bill]

Since Cataclysm was very talked about in this page and someone mentioned even a variant, does anyone know if there's any variant of it that offers an objective/endgame state?

The one thing that keeps me from enjoying CDDA or Caves of Qud is the fact that neither offer an objective and I'm the kind of fag that needs one. Wandering around the world just trying to get stronger/immortal is fun for the first couple of minutes but gets boring really quick.

Caves of Qud has a main quest. It isn't finished, but there is plenty of goal-directed content. If you start in Joppa, the main quest starts by doing the tasks for Argyve.

 

[hackncrazy]

Fired up DCSS on a whim after not having played for a few years, and what the goddamn fuck. They've been at it with a machete it seems. So much stuff getting auto-ID'd, no hunger mechanic at all, etc.

The "problem" with DC was that the original developer abandoned it and when it happens something can get lost in translation. I don't know who DCSS people are, but they are maybe not the most traditional roguelike developers out there. In some cases we have seen that developers have some kind of agenda or ideology which they often think is going to make the game somehow "better". In commercial scene it's making a roguelike game more streamlined and faster to play (for example real time rather than turn-based) etc. Things like that may work in their own way, but there is a certain essence in a roguelike you can't change and still call it a roguelike for marketing reasons.

I had no idea about DCSS having no hunger mechanic. So there's literally no downsides in using a MiBe and going berserk in every fight?

 

[hackncrazy]

Since Cataclysm was very talked about in this page and someone mentioned even a variant, does anyone know if there's any variant of it that offers an objective/endgame state?

The one thing that keeps me from enjoying CDDA or Caves of Qud is the fact that neither offer an objective and I'm the kind of fag that needs one. Wandering around the world just trying to get stronger/immortal is fun for the first couple of minutes but gets boring really quick.

Caves of Qud has a main quest. It isn't finished, but there is plenty of goal-directed content. If you start in Joppa, the main quest starts by doing the tasks for Argyve.

Maybe this is something I've missed thing. I've played a good amount of it a while ago and stopped exactly for the reason I've mentioned.

Since the world is so big with so many opportunities, they could very well implement a system like TOME or other Angband variants, with multiple dungeons all taking up to a final one.

I'll install it again and give it a try.

 

[hackncrazy]

Damn, fired up DCSS and they even show cursed things on the floor now, why have this kind of items then?