What do you like/dislike about roguelikes

[DakaSha]

huh dcss has stat randomization. at least it did. maybe one of the latest releases changed that

 

[Zomg]

been gone for 3-4 deciversions

I think it's actually kinda pointless for a roguelike because "playing with what you get" is such a part of the genre anyway, just in terms of shit you find lying on the floor etc. De-randomization does makes sense for extremely buildfaggoty games.

 

[DakaSha]

eh in my opinion if a stat is completely worthless to any class (or perhaps even race) then you fucking suck at game design.
And yes that means that 99% of RL have terrible design. I do like them as a genre but for the most part the systems are shit

 

[Castanova]

Sure, which is why the game would probably need to involve some sort of resurrection mechanic

Get outa here with your un-hardcore roguelike.

your attributes are randomized and you must pick your character class based on which ones your stats support.

DCSS handles this properly. There is no attribute randomization, because it leads people to scum. Anyone who has spent hour after hour in Wizardry rolling characters knows about this. It's more simplistic, but it's also easier for all involved to just have all Fighters start with 15 STR, 5 INT, etc.

Both of your responses are firmly rooted in the paradigm of a single-character system or single player non-roguelike party systems and are easily solvable by basic design decisions. Plus, as Zomg said, if you can't handle randomization in a roguelike, then why are you playing?

 

[Johannes]

eh in my opinion if a stat is completely worthless to any class (or perhaps even race) then you fucking suck at game design.
And yes that means that 99% of RL have terrible design. I do like them as a genre but for the most part the systems are shit

It's pretty inavoidable that different stats help some classes/roles more than others, even if it's useful for all. Especially in a partybased game, when you've got other partymembers to cover each others weaknesses.

 

[DakaSha]

I think calling it unavoidable is going a bit far.. difficult to balance and impossible to make it seem that way to all players seems more accurate.
But.. I said that you suck if the stat is completely worthless (or at least never worth it). I didnt say anything about stats being 'better' for some classes.

And ill use incursion as an example again.. I make sure almost all my characters have high intelligence.. High intelligence is good for everybody. Even charisma is extremely helpful (but of course ill choose to avoid it if i have no plans of using i.. this doesnt mean its not just as useful though.. i just want to KILL most of my enemies).

Every single stat in that game feels needed/useful. you are always missing something but always have stats that help you no matter what you role.

In almost every RPG/RL when you role a warrior you just set intelligence to the bottom. terrible

edit: But I'm not arguing about stats being more useful for certain classes. Mages should have high intelligence of course.. Higher strength on warriors makes sense. My point is that when you do get another point in something else it doesnt feel wasted (Intelligence on a warrior, strength on a mage). In dungeon crawl intelligence on a warrior is completely useless if i remember correctly. Correct me if im wrong

 

[Zomg]

If any stat hits zero from draining it's a serious condition with a good chance of death, but generally for a pure warrior no. It helps with spell casting (power and success) and reduces the hunger caused by spells.

But, given the Crawl system I don't really see the problem; you get a certain stat loadout based on background, and you can add a point to one every three levels + a few extra randomized ones based on race. So the stats contribute to defining the backgrounds and races, e.g. berserkers are dumb and will have a hard time ever developing spell use even after dumping Trog. It's not like a typical RPG where you are dumped into character creation and roll stats/allocate 40 points however you want, THEN pick a background/class based on your dump stats etc.

The stats in Crawl as of now are kinda underimplemented generally I guess but that's a separate issue.

 

[DakaSha]

It's not a problem in terms of how it works within the system itself no. Personally I just believe that if you are going to make all stats available to all characters then all characters should be able to at least make some decent use out of them.

 

[DakaSha]

So i just spent 15 mins on a single halfling bard in Incursion with my (unarmed) orc monk xD
Had to flee (with a potion of dimension door) twice.

Little faggot kept summoning shit in a corridor and it would take me a while to bullcharge through the enemies in order to get to him.. then i couldnt hit the piece of shit and something would end up critting me at which point id blink away

I ended up killing him by charging him, finally hitting, knocking him to the ground and delivering a great blow which killed him in a single hit (okok the minor demons i brought along to the fight helped )

Before that i had a pretty cool fight with a human monk.. I kicked him while sleeping but he survived and ended up tripping me to the floor. After i got back up all i had to do was bust him i the face with my orc fist though.

Holding an arrow key to kill enemies in this is pretty much auto-death (not that its really advisable in anything but angband)

 

[7hm]

Sure, which is why the game would probably need to involve some sort of resurrection mechanic

Get outa here with your un-hardcore roguelike.

your attributes are randomized and you must pick your character class based on which ones your stats support.

DCSS handles this properly. There is no attribute randomization, because it leads people to scum. Anyone who has spent hour after hour in Wizardry rolling characters knows about this. It's more simplistic, but it's also easier for all involved to just have all Fighters start with 15 STR, 5 INT, etc.

Both of your responses are firmly rooted in the paradigm of a single-character system or single player non-roguelike party systems and are easily solvable by basic design decisions. Plus, as Zomg said, if you can't handle randomization in a roguelike, then why are you playing?

Some things should be randomized, others shouldn't.

Starting stats shouldn't - there is no decision being made by the player, nothing to react to. If you start a game and want to play as a Troll Berserker, and end up having an extra 5 Int, are you going to play a Troll Berserker? No, you're either going to play something else or restart until you get what you want - a stat loadout for the character you intended to play.

This is not solely seen in single player games. I referred to Wizardry, a party based game. As anyone who has played that game, or Might and Magic, in pretty well any of the iterations will tell you, you can (and lots of people do) spend HOURS rolling stats before finding one that's good for the character you're trying to build. It's fun? (hey, I've done it too) but pointless and time spent before you even play the game doing that is time not spent playing the game.

As for the first comment, it's a roguelike. That means permadeath. If you don't want permadeath, it's not a roguelike, it's just a normal game with shitty graphics and randomized floorplans.

 

[Castanova]

When did I ever say there was no permadeath? The availability of a limited supply of resources that may allow resurrections doesn't preclude permadeath. Furthermore, permadeath is not a binary condition that solely defines the roguelike genre. It's pretty clear that you're taking my comments and mapping them directly onto existing roguelike games in your mind, which are all single character. I guess it's my fault for not going into enough detail on various design decisions that would be necessary in a PBRL.

 

[Johannes]

"no reloading" is more fitting. Allowing for some sort of resurrection if someone on your party dies, also opens the door to much more difficult fights. If losing someone on your party is crippling enough, even a fight where you have a big likelihood of losing 1 guy is really tough to deal with. But if you can heal people back to shape, even if the cost is big, allows to design battles where getting your whole group wiped out is a much more likely possibility.

 

[7hm]

When did I ever say there was no permadeath? The availability of a limited supply of resources that may allow resurrections doesn't preclude permadeath. Furthermore, permadeath is not a binary condition that solely defines the roguelike genre. It's pretty clear that you're taking my comments and mapping them directly onto existing roguelike games in your mind, which are all single character. I guess it's my fault for not going into enough detail on various design decisions that would be necessary in a PBRL.

I'm applying your comments to roguelikes that are in existence. If the game you are hypothesizing about did not include what I (what most?) would say is a, or perhaps the, major defining feature of existing roguelikes, it would not be a roguelike. It might be good, but it would be something different.

That being said, I've been thinking about it some more and you're right. I apologize - I would consider no-reloading, as Johannes mentions, to be a more apt description than permadeath of one of the defining conventions of a roguelike. After considering some of the options that are essentially resurrections already implemented into various roguelikes, it's clear that permadeath isn't a truly defining feature. Is DCSS no longer a roguelike if you play as a felid? (uh... I got my first win with a felid, but tbh I feel like I cheated... so maybe it isn't)

That being said, I think you're walking a very slippery slope. Roguelikes may have resurrection mechanisms but they are few and far between, and there is (as far as I know) always a limit to them. You would have to ensure that the same remains the case in a party based game.

 

[Zomg]

Who gives a shit if it meets the technical definition of roguelike?

Anyway Castanova I will play your game so make it

 

[Yeesh]

Look, it just seems to me that a party-based roguelike game with challenging tactical combat would be like an ironman game of Knights of the Chalice, but without you knowing how any of the encounters are going to play out ahead of time.

I know that might sound like heavan at first blush, but how feasible is winning a game like that? The balancing would be so, so, so hard. Realistically, it would be an actual call-the-Pope miracle if the game weren't either too easy or too random.

But shit, I'll play it too.

 

[Alex]

Let me say this about spoilers. I don't know how I feel about them. Are you really going to play a game as difficult and complicated (and requiring such an investment of time) as a roguelike and still want to figure out everything by yourself via trial and error? Have you unlocked the secret of eternal life or something? How many hundred of hours do you want to devote to one game?

In defense of this kind of game, I think games with lots of secrets can be fun if you have a few friends who also enjoy the game. You can play with them and discover the secrets together. Also, I think that if the game treated this kind of knowledge like a resource, to be found in game inside rare tomes or on the tongues wizened sages, it could make the game less frustrating while still rewarding exploration.

(...snip)

Also, more tactical combat is delightful to talk about, but here are two things that are very hard to balance:

1) a challenge in every fight means there must be a real possibility of character death

I disagree. Of course, if a fight is challenging, then there must be something at stake, but I don't see why it would have to be character death. The use of certain resources (like curative items), the imposing of temporary, but still lengthy penalties (like, say, having a broken arm) and even the chance of changing the game-world (for example, having to rescue an NPC before he is killed, with the killing of the NPC changing your tactical possibilities) are all possible stakes.

2) for the endgame to be challenging to a full party, doesn't it have to be more or less impossible for a party that's been whittled down to half strength?

Well, one thing that can be done here is to have the player being able to choose his own challenge. For example, the game might still be winnable if you got a half strength party, but the more interesting endings such as ascensions and what-not requires that you do better and get there with a full strength one. It may be a little tricky to balance well, but it certainly isn't impossible.

The balance questions are vast. Traditional roguelikes are notoriously challenging (to most of us), and that comes not from any single fights that are tailor-made to be so tough but from the unforgiving nature of being all alone in a dungeon full of things that can kill you if you make a mistake. It's not so easy to see that the formula inclines by adding more party members to the equation.

I wouldn't say all roguelikes would be better if they had parties, but I definitely think that there is a lot of interesting things that could be done with them by having more than one PC.

 

[Alex]

On the original post, about the strengths and weaknesses of roguelikes, I haven't played nearly enough RLs yet to know if it is a common feature of them or not, but one thing I would like to see more is having the random generation play an active part on the lore of the game.

For example, for a random site generator, you might first determine the type of site (like fortress, city ruins, manor ruins, chapel, chapel ruins, "monster" lair, "monster" city, etc). Then, you might define some things about the site. For example, a ruined fortress might have a certain race associated with them, and what it was guarding. Then you might have these change a lot how the dungeon is designed. For example, goblin might like to place poison needles on the chests inside their quarters (which are spread throughout the compound), while dwarves might place cave in traps around whatever it is they are guarding (which is always in the center of the compound, in the lowest basement).

Sure, this kind of thing can be a lot of work, but it allows you to flesh out the setting in a way that matters directly to the game.

 

[DakaSha]

Look, it just seems to me that a party-based roguelike game with challenging tactical combat would be like an ironman game of Knights of the Chalice, but without you knowing how any of the encounters are going to play out ahead of time.

I know that might sound like heavan at first blush, but how feasible is winning a game like that? The balancing would be so, so, so hard. Realistically, it would be an actual call-the-Pope miracle if the game weren't either too easy or too random.

But shit, I'll play it too.

*sigh* As i and casta have said: Its only seems that hard to do if you cant get over the fact that it would be designed FROM SCRATCH AS A PARTY BASED GAME.
Since its designed AROUND the party aspect it is not an issue. at all. It would be the same challenge as any game (Yes its a challenge but not more so because its party based)

The thing is i keep thinking your imaging it being more of a mod.. a game trying to add something that doesnt fit into an already existing design. but that isnt the case

But If thats not graspable fuck it xD
The party based concept is actually unimportant to me. I like single char experiences enough ^^

 

[FinalSonicX]

Balance in a tactically challenging PBRL would simply be all about the scaling algorithm and the game's capability to judge what a "challenging" or "difficult" encounter would be. If both of these elements work as intended then balance is handled just fine, and theoretically then it could be balanced for any number of party members (from 1 to 12 or even beyond).

The way I'd do (and am planning on doing it) is by handling it all in the dungeon generation phase. Have preset modifier values for all rooms, corridors, or environments in which encounters may take place. Then, take into account the player's party and assign a number to their party to determine the maximum, minimum, and average challenge levels they should be seeing. This value could be determined based on party size and makeup (lots of weight on casters makes anti-caster mobs more challenging to handle), stats, etc. This will be the numbers with which the dungeon will be generated with.

Then, begin determining the challenge level for each area by taking into account things like traps, environmental features, and monsters/mob AI patterns like patrolling, guarding, etc. If done properly, the game's dungeon generation should handle most of the balance for you.

Alternatively, you could just manually playtest and balance and lean towards impossible to complete since the obsessed will inevitably find a way to win where you won't. Especially when it comes to party makeup, which would be incredibly difficult to playtest all the possibilities.

 

[Alex]

I think Yeesh's point is simply that, since so many of the features one expects from a roguelike are balanced around the idea of a single PC, balancing the game around many PCs would either yield a game that is significantly different from what one expects from a roguelike or result in a game that, in order to remain rogulike, has bad gameplay.

 

[Yeesh]

Look, it just seems to me that a party-based roguelike game with challenging tactical combat would be like an ironman game of Knights of the Chalice, but without you knowing how any of the encounters are going to play out ahead of time.

I know that might sound like heavan at first blush, but how feasible is winning a game like that? The balancing would be so, so, so hard. Realistically, it would be an actual call-the-Pope miracle if the game weren't either too easy or too random.

But shit, I'll play it too.

*sigh* As i and casta have said: Its only seems that hard to do if you cant get over the fact that it would be designed FROM SCRATCH AS A PARTY BASED GAME.
Since its designed AROUND the party aspect it is not an issue. at all. It would be the same challenge as any game (Yes its a challenge but not more so because its party based)

I'm just going to leave my original there so maybe you can give it a read. I used the example of Knights of the Chalice on Iron Man, right? Obviously that WAS designed from the ground up as a party game, right? I'm using an example of a well-designed, tactically challenging party-based gameplay experience, which is to say, giving this imagined PBRL the benefit of the doubt that it gets combat COMPLETELY RIGHT on an encounter by encounter basis. I haven't even brought roguelikes into it yet.

Now I'm asking you to imagine playing one of those party CRPGs like KotC which provides challenging tactical combat, and by that I mean there's the threat of actual failure. Now imagine you're playing it on Iron Man mode. Now imagine you're playing it on Iron Man mode without knowing how the encounters play out ahead of time.

We have to imagine because there is no game like this to my knowledge. But think about Iron Man in party-based games. Does anyone ever give it a shot their first playthrough, before they know what to expect? Kudos to the elite who do, but most people who are ballsy enough to even try Iron Man do so only once they have a pretty good grasp on the challenges they're going to face. Because without save/reload, it's really, really hard to keep a party intact through countless tactically challenging combats.

But in a randomized PBRL, you'd never, ever know what's coming. You wouldn't have the advantage of foreknowledge to make up for the disadvantage of only having one single shot to keep your party alive through fight after fight after fight. And to me, that means either the game would just be too hard, or it would have to be easy enough that the combat isn't quite so tactically challenging after all.

It's all fine and well to say that a feature won't be problematic because it's DESIGNED to not be problematic, but I'm just saying I have my doubts. That's why I bring up the image of a randomized game of KotC on Iron Man. How many people can even get through the campaign on Iron Man WITH complete foreknowledge? And of the people who can, how many found the game to be consistently challenging once their multimage parties kicked into gear ?

 

[DakaSha]

I dont really play standard RPG's anymore but i always play all games in any kind of ironman mode if it exists :-/

Also i still dont think the argument is valid sorry.. those games arnt designed around ironman mode. its an added feature. I stick to what i said about a game being designed form the ground up as a party game being no harder (or easier) to design as a single player game

 

[Blasterhead]

But in a randomized PBRL, you'd never, ever know what's coming. You wouldn't have the advantage of foreknowledge to make up for the disadvantage of only having one single shot to keep your party alive through fight after fight after fight. And to me, that means either the game would just be too hard, or it would have to be easy enough that the combat isn't quite so tactically challenging after all.

My problem with this argument is that it sort of assumes that it wouldn't be fun if you're dying all the time. But we're talking about roguelikes here. It could be that I just verily suck at playing them, but dying is half the fun. You don't play to win, but play to lose less then last time.

I mean, what you're saying could already be applied to all the single character RPGs out there. Imagine playing X first playthrough without any prior knowledge of encounters in ironman. X being what-have-you. Say Fallout.
Of course you will die. You're expected to die. It would also be incredibly boring replaying it all when you do if the game wasn't made for iron man, but that's where all the (non-retarded) streamlining and procedural content that RLs provide comes in and makes it hella entertaining. There is no reason to assume that this wouldn't be the case for a PBRL.

Also, PBRL as an acronym has potential. People need to make more of these so it can see some action.

Edit: The part about replaying your typical single character RPG being boring is probably the reason quests and story haven't seen much action in roguelikes to this date. It just isn't fun to redo a quest unless you can make it procedural enough to be interesting, which is a pretty insane and lofty task.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

What's the point of re-rolling stats in an Iron Man game? Working with what you get is a part of the challenge.

I mean, what you're saying could already be applied to all the single character RPGs out there. Imagine playing X first playthrough without any prior knowledge of encounters in ironman. X being what-have-you. Say Fallout.
Of course you will die. You're expected to die. It would also be incredibly boring replaying it all when you do if the game wasn't made for iron man, but that's where all the (non-retarded) streamlining and procedural content that RLs provide comes in and makes it hella entertaining. There is no reason to assume that this wouldn't be the case for a PBRL.

Fallout is a bad example as it's one of the few modern cRPGs that are good for iron-manning. It gives the player a freedom of movement, allows making a good range of different characters, is non-linear, a lot of stuff is stat-dependent, doesn't have walls of text for dialogues, etc.

 

[Castanova]

We have to imagine because there is no game like this to my knowledge.

Actually a game that has a lot in common with my concept of a PBRL does exist. In fact, if I were to go ahead and build a PBRL game (and how could I not with Yeesh and Zomg promising to play!) I would rip off some design decisions from this game wholesale.

It's a board game called Descent: Journeys in the Dark. It features party-based dungeon crawling gameplay with no saving/reloading, limited party member resurrection, and very difficult encounters. The difference from a PBRL would be: the missions aren't randomized and you're playing against a human DM. Nonetheless, I believe a similar experience could be achieved in PBRL form with a computer AI. I played this game with friends a few times and sometimes the DM won, sometimes we won. Obviously, other changes would be need to be made as well (e.g., I like their combat system for a board game but I'd use something entirely different for a PBRL).