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Terminally Bored posted:What's the problem with ADOM and UADOM? I thought the former was a roguelike classic? Did something change during its development? ADOM is a classic that is in a better place now than in the past, even if likely forever chasing some shadows they'll just never catch due to tech woes, eccentricities, or inability to go back in time. Plenty of the design has aged poorly, or was rocky from the start in the grand scheme of things---but the good is still Good with very little endeavoring otherwise to scale save perhaps Elona and progeny as most Mega Projects fall victim to the curse. Though Shadows of the Wyrm is Excellence going their own pace in good fashion to this day. UADOM is ostensibly meant to be a direct successor to ADOM that has ventured off so deeply into the weeds for various inscrutable and as yet wholly unknowable reasons that it may well become a disaster unprecedented in modern roguelike history given it and Jupiter Hell were, and still are, the only pair of projects that were declared from the start in these recent fair few years on back to be full on next generation, high ambition Roguelike affairs. A fall from such a terminal height would have dire reverberations.
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Feb 12, 2022 17:05
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cock hero flux posted:parsing tome stat sheets mostly boils down to: One thing that ToME does better than literally every other game on the market is the way it handles loot parsing and logistics. The game throws A LOT of items at you, but sorting through them all is pretty much as painless as possible. Every player has both a Standard Inventory and a Temporary Inventory. Standard is what you would expect, a regular bag with a weight limit. Temporary is a magical chest with an infinite capacity, and any item on the ground you step over is automatically placed in it by default. The game’s auto-explore function means that once you’ve cleared out the enemies on a level, hoovering up all the loot is effortless and near-instant. At this point you’ll want to choose which items to actually keep from the pile and place in your Standard Inventory, since upon level transition any items still in Temporary Inventory will be automatically transmogrified (i.e. vendored for gold). You start exploring the next level and the process repeats. In practice, this means that all your loot decisions happen on a separate list that you can neatly sort by slot, rarity or weight. These decisions happen during the natural downtime after you’ve cleared a level, so while you’re busy killing monsters you never have to be distracted by the thought of “Gosh, are one of those 8 items in this room an upgrade? Better do a quick inspection on this unsorted jumble of crap so I don’t have to come back ten minutes from now!” It’s drastically better than the typical pacing for loot-focused games and it’s a system that I honestly want every ARPG and looter-shooter to steal outright.
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Feb 12, 2022 19:36
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official game of GBS
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Feb 12, 2022 19:41
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Magitek posted:One thing that ToME does better than literally every other game on the market is the way it handles loot parsing and logistics. The game throws A LOT of items at you, but sorting through them all is pretty much as painless as possible. e: There’s a mod which does precisely what I’m describing; you mark item types you don’t care about (so, nearly everything) and it silently dumps them into the gold-conversion box. And there’s STILL huge piles of poo poo to sort through. megane fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Feb 12, 2022 |
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Feb 12, 2022 20:13
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megane posted:This is like saying a company is the best on the market at controlling their pollution because they hand out gas masks and little squeegees to scrape it off your windows. The fact that your inventory is sortable and filterable is nice, sure. However, the fact that you have the slightest need to do so means the game is generating way too much crap. And a huge fraction of that trash - and I mean like 90% of it - is trivially marked as utterly useless by a simple “this is not a sword -> useless” filter. So why are we generating it in the first place? For some reason people actually like this though. I’ve always viewed it as a problem and solution created to a one by designers unwilling to rethink convention. When I saw, for instance, that PoE required loot filters right from the jump, I bailed. No amount of build-depth could make me play something like that. Lizard brains are hosed up. Also, image captions when offered are awesome. Awful app just pretends images don’t exist with Voiceover, and that means alt-text is not available. The consideration is appreciated.
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Feb 12, 2022 20:36
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Osmosisch posted:Its literally the anti-tome to me since it's all about non-replenishing resources, which i unfortunately can't stand. At release, sure, but a later patch added a whole bevy of optional modifiers for a new game, including innate resource regeneration.
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Feb 12, 2022 20:37
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BurningBeard posted:For some reason people actually like this though. I’ve always viewed it as a problem and solution created to a one by designers unwilling to rethink convention. poe is actually really good and the loot filters are braindead simple to set up. if you just get the premade one everyone uses it's basically just "if the item is worth your time it will show up, if not then it doesn't". if you have slightly different opinions about what is worthwhile then you can adjust it easily too. like yeah it's bad that they drop a bunch of trash from a performance perspective, but ultimately it's just a legacy engine quirk that they are afraid to change because any major change in poe could have ridiculous unpredictable knock-on effects. it is not something you should let drive you away
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Feb 12, 2022 20:40
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Duderclese posted:Excuse me what?! forbidden cults adds a thing that lets you spend gold (which you have an insane amount of) to reroll the egos on equipment if you side with the assassin lord instead of the merchant. this is: extremely strong for obvious reasons. it's late game but it just lets you tweak your stuff juuust right, right before you go into the prides and endgame stuff. megane posted:This is like saying a company is the best on the market at controlling their pollution because they hand out gas masks and little squeegees to scrape it off your windows. The fact that your inventory is sortable and filterable is nice, sure. However, the fact that you have the slightest need to do so means the game is generating way too much crap. And a huge fraction of that trash - and I mean like 90% of it - is trivially marked as utterly useless by a simple “this is not a sword -> useless” filter. So why are we generating it in the first place? yeah tome doesnt even have an inventory search, even adom had that one and it came out a million years ago, and you have to mouse over pretty much every single item and parse its awful statblock to determine if it's worth keeping and that alone just nukes tome's parsing quality honestly. also you don't even start with the transmogriphication chest you have to unlock it, which isn't that bad now i guess (you just kill Bill or Prox or something, it used to be in the sher'tul fortress ages ago i think) but is still dumb. also there shouldnt be carry weight i swear to god, it adds nothing to the game. if you ever get hit with a STR drain and go overweight you can just transmogrify stuff for free until you're not encumbered anymore anyway.
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Feb 12, 2022 20:49
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In my experience the timing and pacing of the loot is where so many games get it wrong, not the sheer volume of loot. Whether you need to compare loot 5 times in a level or 15, the problem is that the games demand that you make loot decisions right here, right now. Doesn't matter if you're busy killing monsters and it makes your performance suffer, doesn't matter if the extra comparisons are inefficient and waste extra time. It's like you're busy with a sudoku puzzle but somebody keeps randomly popping in to ask you crossword puzzle questions -- the two things can be entertaining on their own, but mixed together they're worse than the sum of their parts. That's where Tome's loot system nails it. The original thread complaints about the glut of stats on individual items is valid, and weight limits being linked to STR is a huge pet peeve, but those issues are kind of orthogonal to the problem that the transmog chest solves.
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Feb 12, 2022 21:13
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megane posted:This is like saying a company is the best on the market at controlling their pollution because they hand out gas masks and little squeegees to scrape it off your windows. The fact that your inventory is sortable and filterable is nice, sure. However, the fact that you have the slightest need to do so means the game is generating way too much crap. And a huge fraction of that trash - and I mean like 90% of it - is trivially marked as utterly useless by a simple “this is not a sword -> useless” filter. So why are we generating it in the first place? ToME shares a lot of DNA with ARPGs in terms of combat flow and loot distribution. Developers making games in the action RPG genre have focus grouped cutting down on extraneous trash loot that no one would ever use like white-quality weapons and stuff and found that their testers enjoyed the game less if the only loot that dropped was relevant, because for a lot of people good items felt less special to get if you weren't preconditioned to expect a flood of garbage all the time. I can kind of see it. Every time I do a ToME run I'm always excited to go to huge loot pile zones like Sandworm, the Maze, Ruined Dungeon, or Vor Armory just to see what kind of stuff pops up.
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Feb 12, 2022 21:29
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Kanos posted:ToME shares a lot of DNA with ARPGs in terms of combat flow and loot distribution. Developers making games in the action RPG genre have focus grouped cutting down on extraneous trash loot that no one would ever use like white-quality weapons and stuff and found that their testers enjoyed the game less if the only loot that dropped was relevant, because for a lot of people good items felt less special to get if you weren't preconditioned to expect a flood of garbage all the time. Much better put than my snarky lizard brain hot take. It’s just that the more games there are, and holy gently caress there’s a glut of good ones nowadays, why the hell would loot sifting be fun? Cause finding treasure in junk piles is fun, that’s why. But I dream of a game where there’s just a shitload of inventive egos, everything is unbalanced, and the question is less “Is this good?” and more, “Why is this good and in what unique ways can I take advantage of it?” Seems to me there’s no reason other than tradition to keep on the way we’re going with that. Jazerus posted:poe is actually really good and the loot filters are braindead simple to set up. if you just get the premade one everyone uses it's basically just "if the item is worth your time it will show up, if not then it doesn't". if you have slightly different opinions about what is worthwhile then you can adjust it easily too. Oh I don’t hate PoE on principle or anything. I think it’s the most fascinating take on ARPGs I never want to personally play. I just feel like it’s kinda player hostile up front. Some people see that as opportunity, but I have a broken brain that feels obligated to understand everything up front and thus can’t find a way to have fun with it. That could have been obviated by the skills feeling meaty and satisfying at low levels, but they just didn’t, to me anyway. So on the shelf it went. Say what you will of D3, and there’s plenty to complain about there, but those are the best feeling ARPG skills bar none, I think. And I will never understand why other developers don’t seem to put the time in to make things with crunch and heft.
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Feb 12, 2022 22:01
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BurningBeard posted:But I dream of a game where there’s just a shitload of inventive egos, everything is unbalanced, and the question is less “Is this good?” and more, “Why is this good and in what unique ways can I take advantage of it?” I mean isn't this exactly Dead Cells and Curse of the Dead Gods and Monolith etc? Basically any good roguelite The "loot through piles of poo poo" design is an awful relic of an ancient age and I don't know why it persists They're just now finally dumpstering trash blue loot in Destiny, what, 8 years in? I wonder how many thousands of man hours were wasted worldwide holding a button to delete useless trash
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Feb 12, 2022 22:11
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It persists specifically because there are a lot of players who actually enjoy sifting through piles of dirt to find gold nuggets.
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Feb 12, 2022 22:24
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ToME would need like an optional trash goblin that perches on my shoulder, that sifts through the crap for me, eats it, and poops out gold or something. Disable for people who like goldpanning.
doctorfrog fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Feb 12, 2022 |
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Feb 12, 2022 22:34
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If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, still don’t fix it, because the hardcore fans have gotten used to having it broken and will scream if it’s changed.
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Feb 12, 2022 22:38
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doctorfrog posted:ToME would need like an optional trash goblin that perches on my shoulder, that sifts through the crap for me, eats it, and poops out gold or something. Optional for people who like goldpanning. This should be standard issue everywhere.
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Feb 12, 2022 22:40
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Kanos posted:It persists specifically because there are a lot of players who actually enjoy sifting through piles of dirt to find gold nuggets. Mobile gaming and Vegas indicates that's less enjoyment and more addiction to a greater or lesser degree  (which yeah, still boils down to it being popular, I'm just more hostile to it than other design relics) megane posted:If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, still don’t fix it, because the hardcore fans have gotten used to having it broken and will scream if it’s changed. also this tome and the like are a lost cause, I'm more grousing because this stuff shows up in new games (hello division 2) or PoE which is an actual health hazard disguised as a video game
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Feb 12, 2022 22:44
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goferchan posted:Eventually you'll unlock secondary weapons which are bound to RB by default which makes sense, but no, rebind stuff as you please. I think the warning on the controls screen is just meant to defer people from moving jump to a face button or whatever and interfering with aiming with the right stick. Alright, cool beans. Thanks for letting me know!
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Feb 13, 2022 00:22
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The world will not know maximum madness again until either Portralis is truly resurrected at long last...or I suppose Vapors of Insanity livens back up much the same.
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Feb 13, 2022 02:45
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Zeerust posted:At release, sure, but a later patch added a whole bevy of optional modifiers for a new game, including innate resource regeneration. Oh, interesting. I had just filed in in the not-for-me bucket after a few runs. Might pick it back up then if i ever run into some spare time.
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Feb 13, 2022 14:11
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Here's a question for the thread--what was the first roguelike with significant metaprogression? My first instinct was to say Rogue Legacy, since it was definitely the one that popularized the concept, but are there others before it that I'm just not thinking of? Baroque has the ability to send gear back to the start zone, Nethack has bones files, I think some mystery dungeons have some persistence between runs (but I'm not sure if that was true from the start or if it's limited to gear only), but what was the first game to just let you become Stronger Forever the more rounds you played?
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Feb 13, 2022 17:41
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OtspIII posted:Here's a question for the thread--what was the first roguelike with significant metaprogression?
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Feb 13, 2022 18:29
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Nethack (1987) has bones files, and Shiren the Wanderer (1995) is the oldest roguelike i'm aware of that's outright built around metaprogression as the intended means to beat the game e: and Shiren the Wanderer is heavily based off of an earlier game (Torneko's Great Adventure, 1993) which also sounds like it has metaprogression to some extent (you save up money to upgrade your home and shop between runs) but i haven't played it and don't know how extensive it is or if it's as central as it is in Shiren Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Feb 13, 2022 |
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Feb 13, 2022 18:56
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Romancing SaGa 2 basically has something very similar to modern meta progression going on and that was 93 as well
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Feb 13, 2022 19:21
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Nethack (1987) has bones files, and Shiren the Wanderer (1995) is the oldest roguelike i'm aware of that's outright built around metaprogression as the intended means to beat the game It's been a bit since I played Shiren--what is the progression in it? I remember keeping a bank of items, and maybe unlocking some new features or something, but I don't remember if there's anything on the line of "you start with +5HP forever" So I guess I should rephrase my question slightly--what's the first rogueli(te/ke) to have permanent stat-based metaprogression? Not just carryovers from previous runs, not just new options or classes, but a flat "you automatically start stronger forever now"?
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Feb 13, 2022 19:28
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the thing about bones files, shiren's warehouse, and isaac's upgrades is that they aren't really indefinite progression - bones files are random so you don't get to just pick up your old gear and keep going until you're super beefy, the warehouse can only transmit items and you have to consciously remove them from your run to store them away, and isaac has no actual "metaprogression" at all beyond some very corner cases like picking up eden's blessing. if i had to guess, i would suggest that the modern model of play game -> upgrade stats -> play game -> etc. might ultimately descend from tower defense flash games like gemcraft
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Feb 13, 2022 19:30
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OtspIII posted:It's been a bit since I played Shiren--what is the progression in it? I remember keeping a bank of items, and maybe unlocking some new features or something, but I don't remember if there's anything on the line of "you start with +5HP forever" you can store items for use in later runs (and it's one of the best / most reliable ways to build an ascension kit) and IIRC there are also NPC allies you can get who level up between runs and retain their stats. it's been a minute since i played it so i might be conflating different Shiren games or something though
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Feb 13, 2022 19:31
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Shiren 1 has a little bit of permanent metaprogression, in that there are some sidequests that progress over runs that end with stuff like permanently improving the npc sidekicks you can recruit. And of course it's also possible to keep upgrading gear between runs for a huge power boost, although that's not quite the same as modern metaprogession since you can still permanently lose your super gear when you die. I'd disagree with the "outright built around metaprogression as the intended means to beat the game" thing though. Shiren 1's main dungeon is absolutely balanced to be cleared in a single run without bringing anything in (there's a unique reward for doing it, in fact), and the final postgame dungeon, which is much longer and harder than the story dungeon, doesn't let you bring anything in* or have any kind of metaprogression at all. *If you want to get really technical you can make the dungeon a little easier by throwing monster meat at one of the villagers in the starting town to turn them into a monster, and then throwing a scroll of extinction (genocide scroll from nethack) to prevent that monster species from appearing. But that only lasts for a single run, and probably isn't intentional
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Feb 13, 2022 19:40
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romancing saga 2 has what are basically town upgrades, and upgrading stuff leads to new types of spells and equipment for future characters when you die (either from depleting all your LP, a total party wipe, or an event) you choose a new heir, and if you hp/mp/sp of the previous character is higher, they inherit it, and the equipment used by the previous character goes into the castle store room at first your characters can only be warriors, but when you start completing side quests you unlock more possible classes your heir might end up as there aren't as many variables going on but the basic framework of something like rogue legacy has is present in romancing saga 2 Snooze Cruise fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Feb 13, 2022 |
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Feb 13, 2022 19:52
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Been playing rogue tower (meh) and tower tactics liberation (solid), any rogue like tower defense games you guys would recommend?
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Feb 13, 2022 21:24
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Orange DeviI posted:Been playing rogue tower (meh) and tower tactics liberation (solid), any rogue like tower defense games you guys would recommend? Ratropolis
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Feb 13, 2022 22:09
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Snake Maze posted:Shiren 1 has a little bit of permanent metaprogression, in that there are some sidequests that progress over runs that end with stuff like permanently improving the npc sidekicks you can recruit. And of course it's also possible to keep upgrading gear between runs for a huge power boost, although that's not quite the same as modern metaprogession since you can still permanently lose your super gear when you die. Shiren 5 is so good. what a game
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Feb 13, 2022 22:22
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According to Google, the first and highest peak search popularity for "meta progression" was in October of 2008, then it came up again in October 2009 and then in April 2011, then in August 2013 it started to become a pretty common search. Doesn't necessarily mean all of those are related to videogames though, or Roguelikes. October 2008 matches up roughly with the releases of four Mystery Dungeon series; the first "Shiren The Wanderer" was June 2008 (Not the first shiren mystery dungeon, just the first one with Shiren the Wanderer as the title) the first Final Fantasy Mystery Dungeon chocobo whatever game was precisely in October 2008 Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns was released in November 2007 but then released in the US in July 2008 and the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon was mid-2008 So the first uses of the term "metaprogression" most likely referred to those. Then there was a followup to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon in April 2009 but my guess is the October 2009 trend for the search term came from the February 2010 release of the next Shiren game (Fushigi no Dungeon 4) 2011 had some big Roguelike releases - Hyperrogue, Dungeons of Dredmor, and TOME4 were all 2011. TOME has some metaprogression elements (unlocking NPCs, classes, quests, etc for future characters) so that's probably the first instance of actual true metaprogression in a straight up traditional roguelike. Binding of Isaac was September 2011 then Rogue Legacy was June 2013, so Rogue Legacy is definitely when the term "meta progression" picked up steam TL;DR; extrapolating from Google Trends, the various Mystery Dungeon games invented the concept of metaprogression, TOME got a few more people talking about it by using the concept in a traditional roguelike for the first time, then Rogue Legacy made it a common phrase. This doesn't account for the influence of anything that's not a roguelike though, I just looked at the google trends and then a list of roguelike release dates. It also doesn't account for any use of metaprogression elements before the term 'metaprogression' was a thing e: My personal first thought was Mordor: Depths of Dejenol (1995) but the 'metaprogression' in it was pretty arguably not metaprogression - you had a randomly generated dungeon and permadeath, but if your party died you could choose between resurrecting them for gold or starting new characters and continuing in the same dungeon. So in theory your dungeon progression could carry on between 'runs'. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Feb 13, 2022 |
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Feb 13, 2022 23:03
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doctorfrog posted:ToME would need like an optional trash goblin that perches on my shoulder, that sifts through the crap for me, eats it, and poops out gold or something. Disable for people who like goldpanning. actually it has this, the transmog chest automatically turns every item you picked up into gold when you leave a floor. when you leave it shows you everything that's about to get mulched and if something looks good you can pull it out, otherwise it all goes into the woodchipper. this is the only thing that makes tome's loot system bearable
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Feb 13, 2022 23:18
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cock hero flux posted:actually it has this, the transmog chest automatically turns every item you picked up into gold when you leave a floor. when you leave it shows you everything that's about to get mulched and if something looks good you can pull it out, otherwise it all goes into the woodchipper. It's a crime against humanity that you need to unlock that chest.
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Feb 13, 2022 23:23
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Lufia 2 for SNES had a roguelike mode with metaprogression in the form of the "ancient cave"… that came out in 1995. Every run you'd start back from zero other than special artifact equipment that if found could be used in future runs. Also the game absolutely slaps.
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Feb 14, 2022 01:02
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And the deeper floors (like 50+) of the ancient cave were vastly harder than anything else you could find in the rest of the game, too. It's sorta like reverse-meta-progression, too: The draw is that you could go in and only take these few artifact-like items in and out, which were usually rather powerful. Said items were, with very few exceptions, only able to be found in the ancient cave itself, but could be used normally outside of it, too. So you could really bolster the rest of your adventure by picking up some strong items in the roguelike caves and taking them back out. You get access to the ancient cave something like 40% of the way through the game, so you could scoop up some endgame-level equipment realtively early if you're dedicated enough.
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Feb 14, 2022 01:10
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Lufia II is also pretty neat in that it has a mode that’s just the Ancient Cave, and you can form your own party out of everyone. Seriously a good game.
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Feb 14, 2022 01:19
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cock hero flux posted:actually it has this, the transmog chest automatically turns every item you picked up into gold when you leave a floor. when you leave it shows you everything that's about to get mulched and if something looks good you can pull it out, otherwise it all goes into the woodchipper. AIUI what they want is something that automatically does the filtering; as it is at the end of each level you still have to go through the dozens of things that you picked up and save the ones that actually look useful to you. Jack Trades posted:It's a crime against humanity that you need to unlock that chest. IIRC you get it by clearing Trollmire, which is the first dungeon, and once you get it once every character starts with it, so at least the amount of time you spend without it is minimized. Unless you splat a lot of characters in the first dungeon, I guess.
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Feb 14, 2022 02:18
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ToxicFrog posted:IIRC you get it by clearing Trollmire, which is the first dungeon, and once you get it once every character starts with it, so at least the amount of time you spend without it is minimized. Unless you splat a lot of characters in the first dungeon, I guess. Elves and dwarfs don't start in Trollmire, so if you never play a human or halfling it might take a bit.
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Feb 14, 2022 02:25
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