|
ToxicFrog posted:Like, as a design principle I think it's a bad tradeoff to have in the game at all, but it's not nearly as bad as you (constantly) make it out to be; it's not like it's Hades or something where every single run will have multiple points where it asks you to choose between an immediate, significant, and guaranteed power increase or metaprogression currency that you are not guaranteed to be able to get at all otherwise. I am an unlikely recruit for the Hades Defense Force but it does very specifically try to avoid this most of the time by not giving the player direct choices between “real” resources or metaprogression resources. Most notably, you’ll never be offered both as door rewards from the same room. This is an effort TVRUHH does not make, really, as far as I know; I’ve definitely been asked to choose between one monster who drops one of the tetrid items and another who gives an item that actually does something.
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 05:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 18:45 |
|
|
nrook posted:This is an effort TVRUHH does not make, really, as far as I know; I’ve definitely been asked to choose between one monster who drops one of the tetrid items and another who gives an item that actually does something. tetrid items are bonus gifts is the thing. you are always getting an actual gift as well unless if you are doing story alter where the penultimate chapter has no gifts besides bonus and quick ones as rewards.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 05:23
|
|
|
I'm not saying it's the same people or anyone here is being hypocritical or anything but it is funny seeing a bunch of gushing over In Celebration of Violence for several pages and then sudden condemnation of the relatively low-impact decisions in The Void Rains between metacurrency and in-run power. In ICOV your XP is your in-run currency and your meta-currency all at onc3z I think that game gets away with it a little more easily because it's already got a reputation for being obtuse and abstracted so it feels silly to point a finger and say "that's not good game design!" because "good game design" was not one of the selling points (it does have excellent game design IMO). But if you're checking the game out based on what you've heard, you probably already know it has some systems that initially feel hostile and you're more open to the meta-progression being "flawed". I am probably the thread's biggest Revita fan and I'll go back to that as an example of metaprogression that I really like. After a certain point you start finding "Metro Tickets" during your runs. Drop chances for these are calculated in a separate loot pool from stuff like health or armor drops and they never replace drops of that type. When you start your next run, each Metro Ticket you collected gives you the option to start with a specific extra item, along with an associated penalty (usually reduced starting HP or max HP -- in Revita, HP is also your currency so it's usually about equivalent to what it would cost buying them from a shop). You've got a limit to how many you can use per run, and any you don't use on your next run go away, there's no hoarding them to create the perfect build. It's usually well worth it to use a few even with the penalty so it's definitely a boost to power, but I like it because it provides a great incentive for continuing a "sunk" run -- even if my build is going sideways and I'm not confident I can clear the final boss, there's still a nice incentive to push forward as far as I can because it means the chance of more tickets to empower my next run. And even if I don't have any good tickets I want to use on my next run, I still don't feel totally screwed because at least I have my full HP pool to spend at shops etc. -- it winds up feeling like a very clean system.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 05:40
|
|
|
Inadequately posted:I'm still probably at early-midgame Erranorth Chronicles, but my main annoyance is that the open world doesn't seem to be adding much. Towns may as well be palette-swaps, and going out into the wilderness seems to be largely a waste of resources - it's a coinflip whether you'll even be able to interact with a notable landmark on the map once you get there. Order and Karma barely seem to be affecting anything. My character is part of a secret conspiracy to assassinate the king, and it never comes up beyond granting access to a bunch of ally cards. If there's a plot, I haven't stumbled into it yet. You can left click the small points of interest to see if you have a quest/challenge there. I learned this last night.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 05:52
|
|
|
Snooze Cruise posted:feeding tetrids for trade events is like nothing in the long run and you can always choose to just not do it, the only ones i ever do feed are the radiant tetrids because they get close to maxing the bars. this is literally not a problem unless if you have brain worms. I'm talking about monster rewards. You're basically guaranteed to have to choose between a monster that'll drop extra tetrids and a monster that will drop a treasure that fits your build every single time.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 06:54
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:I'm talking about monster rewards. You're basically guaranteed to have to choose between a monster that'll drop extra tetrids and a monster that will drop a treasure that fits your build every single time. So you're potentially being rewarded with more metacurrency for opting into a more difficult run. This doesn't seem like a crazy or flawed concept to me -- it plays out in different ways across games, but one of the core skills tested in a lot of roguelikes/lites is your ability to assess whether you're at an adequate power level to push forward or if you need to continue to gear up. In TVRUHH you're rewarded for choosing correctly by making your run more lucrative. edit: it also works really well as a natural means of difficulty scaling; I'm no bullet hell god but even on the hardest mode Torrent I can pretty consistently get winstreaks by choosing the "safest" option for each fight, whether that's lower monster level or better item rewards or whatever. It's not a terribly difficult game and usually you have the potential to become very OP over the course of a run. As I've become more confident with beating the game using fewer items I've become more confident occasionally skipping power boosts in favor of Tetrids (And it's not exactly black and white like that, anyway-- if one item is enough to make the difference between you getting full combos on future fights VS you taking damage, the item will almost always be worth more Tetrids in the long run than any Tetrid bonus you could have taken over it, because you get a big bonus for full clears. The Tetrids are really just there as an option for when you're already powerful enough and the other rewards won't push you any further) goferchan fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Sep 26, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 07:03
|
|
|
But why would I not just choose the option with more tetrid rewards and just never attempt a "serious" run until I've unlocked everything? At which point tetrids become mostly useless. Sure, monsters later in the run might give you more tetrids on kill but if I just keep restarting and collecting tetrid gifts I'm still making more tetrids per minute than if I was playing to win. The gameplay incentives in this game are all kinds of hosed. The only difference with TVRUHH is that it's so good otherwise that I still want to play it despite it's disastrous meta systems. EDIT: Also, I've never touched the linky synapse system out of principle but as far as I understood it explicitly wants you to have a bunk run where you power yourself down to make your next run stronger. No?
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 07:37
|
|
|
because you get a lot of tetrids from winning and getting farther, especially because you have to get fairly far to find the radiant garden which you can use to turn radiant tetrids(which you'll have plenty of if you win runs) into tons of normal tetrids of a color of your choice I don't really believe you have any kind of data to back up the idea that you get more tetrids per minute by just doing early fights and taking tetrid rewards.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 07:42
|
|
|
IronicDongz posted:because you get a lot of tetrids from winning and getting farther, especially because you have to get fairly far to find the radiant garden which you can use to turn radiant tetrids(which you'll have plenty of if you win runs) into tons of normal tetrids of a color of your choice I obviously don't but I've tried both going for power gifts and finishing runs, and just going for tetrid gifts and it at least feels like the latter gives me more tetrids faster.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 07:50
|
|
|
this is ultimately a game where one of the main design principles is you make the run more difficult by selecting when you fight a higher level monster. this is just another layer of that type of decision making. goferchan posted:(And it's not exactly black and white like that, anyway-- if one item is enough to make the difference between you getting full combos on future fights VS you taking damage, the item will almost always be worth more Tetrids in the long run than any Tetrid bonus you could have taken over it, because you get a big bonus for full clears. The Tetrids are really just there as an option for when you're already powerful enough and the other rewards won't push you any further) yeah like if the choice between bonus gifts and is like some tetrids and a bomb, the bomb can earn you more in the long run if you are not the most skilled player. and again these the bonus gifts. they are simple stuff with no interesting mechanics tied to them, meant to give you small stat increases or "whoops i hosed up items" (bombs, health, undo hits) or, as we are discussing, tetrids. all of this leads to interesting decisions. oh i am low on hp, do i go for this monster with a full heal but lovely main gift, or do i go for this one with no healing by something that fits my build? do i really need this two star item when i can pick up some bombs here? etc. etc. but no matter what you are still getting a main gift as well, even if its not as game changing as a 3 star it doesn't feel bad to pick the option with bonus gifts you need. even if you pick the tetrids your heart is still getting something else. there is no reason for any of this to feel bad besides brain worms.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 07:56
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:EDIT: Also, I've never touched the linky synapse system out of principle but as far as I understood it explicitly wants you to have a bunk run where you power yourself down to make your next run stronger. No? Linky Synapse events have an option available where you can pay some tetrids to delay it and have the event appear again after you beat the final boss. Basically you're betting on yourself to finish the run, otherwise those tetrids you spent get wasted. Usually that's the option I go for unless I've managed to pick up something potentially really impactful that I don't have the synergies for, hoping I can build around it next run
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:00
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:EDIT: Also, I've never touched the linky synapse system out of principle but as far as I understood it explicitly wants you to have a bunk run where you power yourself down to make your next run stronger. No? You can either store items at that moment, or select to have them come back post final boss by paying some tetrids. I don't understand how you think this means the game explicitly wants you to do bunk runs if you do the former, again its just decision making. Sometimes you feel like you can win with your current build already and throw a three star or two star in there, sometimes you do scrambla early and toss like some 1 star def items that are sorta uninteresting. But yes also sometimes its late in a run and you think "well poo poo i am not going to make it" and toss your best poo poo in there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:03
|
|
|
Snooze Cruise posted:You can either store items at that moment, or select to have them come back post final boss by paying some tetrids. Why would you not always toss the strongest poo poo in there to have as strong of a run as possible?
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:05
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:Why would you not always toss the strongest poo poo in the to have as strong of a run as possible? Because you could win this run. And again if you think you can win this run, you have the option of scrambla coming back later and tossing the strongest poo poo in.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:07
|
|
|
For me Linky Sinapses doesn't encourage bunk runs, I'd have to be in pretty dire straits to choose to bank some gifts mid-run and I simply didn't interact with it when I was low on tetrids. It's best use case in my experience is when you get an op combo in an easier difficulty, finish that, and then go ham on Torrent to grab some 'cheives which feels like the intended use. The motes rewards of finishing a run are always good.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:07
|
|
|
Snooze Cruise posted:Because you could win this run. And again if you think you can win this run, you have the option of scrambla coming back later and tossing the strongest poo poo in. But why would I gamble on 2 maybe wins if I can have 1 guaranteed win?
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:09
|
|
|
Snooze Cruise posted:and again these the bonus gifts. they are simple stuff with no interesting mechanics tied to them, meant to give you small stat increases or "whoops i hosed up items" (bombs, health, undo hits) or, as we are discussing, tetrids. all of this leads to interesting decisions. oh i am low on hp, do i go for this monster with a full heal but lovely main gift, or do i go for this one with no healing by something that fits my build? do i really need this two star item when i can pick up some bombs here? etc. etc. but no matter what you are still getting a main gift as well, even if its not as game changing as a 3 star it doesn't feel bad to pick the option with bonus gifts you need. even if you pick the tetrids your heart is still getting something else. Yeah the big thing here that may not be immediately obvious is that the Tetrid bonuses for fights aren't rolled using the same "slot" as normal items. RNG might wind up giving you a choice between a great item for your build or a handful of Tetrids, but if that second option wasn't Tetrids it would likely be a minor gift like +0.5 to a certain elemental defense stat or a health refill or +1 bomb or whatever. They do not compete with the passive bonuses that are your main reward for winning fights.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:09
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:But why would I gamble on 2 maybe wins if I can have 1 guaranteed win? because if you are a good at the game it pays off more, also you like to have fun and make interesting decisions
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:11
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:But why would I gamble on 2 maybe wins if I can have 1 guaranteed win? Because the likelihood of that situation happening where you have an only okay power wise, encounter the event, and are incentivised to bank because you've got an overpowered synergy already in the synapse that you aren't using in this run seems very unlikely.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:13
|
|
|
Snooze Cruise posted:because if you are a good at the game it pays off more, also you like to have fun and make interesting decisions Okay, but if you're so good at the game that you can be sure of getting both wins then that system does nothing for you. No?
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:13
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:But why would I gamble on 2 maybe wins if I can have 1 guaranteed win? Spoken like someone who is not a gambler, lol. But I really do think it goes back to that skill-testing element where you become able to assess whether you're confident clearing a run with limited power, or if you're better-off sacrificing current progress so you can invest in the next one.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:14
|
|
|
goferchan posted:Yeah the big thing here that may not be immediately obvious is that the Tetrid bonuses for fights aren't rolled using the same "slot" as normal items. RNG might wind up giving you a choice between a great item for your build or a handful of Tetrids, but if that second option wasn't Tetrids it would likely be a minor gift like +0.5 to a certain elemental defense stat or a health refill or +1 bomb or whatever. They do not compete with the passive bonuses that are your main reward for winning fights. Health refills and bombs are not minor gifts. If you're playing as anything other than Defect then dying of attrition is a real thing and bombs just let you ignore a battle phase. Both of them are a pretty big deal.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:15
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:Health refills and bombs are not minor gifts. If you're playing as anything other than Defect then dying of attrition is a real thing and bombs just let you ignore a battle phase. Don't get hit, that's the skill to the game. If you aren't getting hit, health refills and bombs aren't high value items. Although, there's an incentive for not using bombs that you might not have encountered. Jack Trades posted:Okay, but if you're so good at the game that you can be sure of getting both wins then that system does nothing for you. No? fez_machine posted:It's best use case in my experience is when you get an op combo in an easier difficulty, finish that, and then go ham on Torrent to grab some 'cheives which feels like the intended use.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:17
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:Health refills and bombs are not minor gifts. If you're playing as anything other than Defect then dying of attrition is a real thing and bombs just let you ignore a battle phase. If you need health refills and bombs then don't take Tetrid bonuses. Once you get to the point where you don't need health refills and bombs, take them and enjoy your reward of additional Tetrids.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:17
|
|
|
goferchan posted:If you need health refills and bombs then don't take Tetrid bonuses. Once you get to the point where you don't need health refills and bombs, take them and enjoy your reward of additional Tetrids. But why wouldn't I just take Tetrids anyway until I've unlocked everything and then play "seriously" and never take them again?
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:19
|
|
|
Magitek posted:I think the big thing in Tiny Rogues is that Int is wildly powerful compared to Str or Dex. Int weapons do excellent baseline damage, they tend to be very easy to aim, and they have an extra multiplier in the form of the Mana mechanic. I can annihilate bosses in half the time (or less!) with them compared to the other archetypes. The rogue and hand axe throwing guy are both insane, int should have strong damage because the stat doesn’t get you any dashes or health The mage gets around this by getting free health from no-hitting zones
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:19
|
|
|
i can only imagine this theoretical player who does bunk runs where they put in like extra heart shots or whatever getting to the final boss and losing still because they are not actually increasing their skills at the game.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:19
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:But why wouldn't I just take Tetrids anyway until I've unlocked everything and then play "seriously" and never take them again? Because the choice is going to be decided on what power gift you are offered, not the bonus gift. Very rarely will you be offered a selection of power gifts where the decision comes down to whether you want an extra bomb, +3% crit, or half a tetrid from the bonus pool. That's even if you're offered a bonus gift on all options anyway. And that's ignoring selecting the difficulty level or boss you'll be facing. Why not just always pick the most difficult boss you can every time as that's the fastest way to max out you potential mote earnings and thus tetrids for the run? Because the player is restricted by their skill level. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Sep 26, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:23
|
|
|
Jack Trades posted:But why wouldn't I just take Tetrids anyway until I've unlocked everything and then play "seriously" and never take them again? Because if you're playing "seriously" you clear fights without getting hit (and get a whole lot of Tetrids for it) and therefore you don't need to get bombs and health refills and therefore get even more Tetrids because you don't need to prioritize those fight rewards. And you can't "unlock everything" by grinding out Tetrids anyways because basically everything in the game is locked behind specific achievements. Would it make more sense if you thought of it as Tetrids being the "default" bonus reward for clearing a fight, with bomb and health refills as an accessibility option for players struggling with the game? I don't think the heal rewards typically even show up if you're at full health at the beginning of the fight, so once again you're rewarded for playing the game well with more Tetrids.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:27
|
|
|
when are we taking this show on the road? i think we have something here that can rival who's on first.goferchan posted:I don't think the heal rewards typically even show up if you're at full health at the beginning of the fight, so once again you're rewarded for playing the game well with more Tetrids. there are times where a full heal power gift is on the same monster with a heal bonus gift which is funny.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 08:30
|
|
|
ToxicFrog posted:Like, as a design principle I think it's a bad tradeoff to have in the game at all, but it's not nearly as bad as you (constantly) make it out to be; it's not like it's Hades or something where every single run will have multiple points where it asks you to choose between an immediate, significant, and guaranteed power increase or metaprogression currency that you are not guaranteed to be able to get at all otherwise. You know, I've had this discussion in this thread before (not sure if it was with you), and much like your discussion with Jack Trades, there is technically an option to choose between the two at some point, but it's a relatively uncommon and for a quite small amount, hardly what you've made it out to be. As nrook said, every room reward is coded to be metaprog or ingame prog, but that's something that newer players don't notice and so they mistakenly believe a great sin has been committed.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 12:20
|
|
|
Snooze Cruise posted:when are we taking this show on the road? i think we have something here that can rival who's on first. big bia is third base
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 13:14
|
|
|
tiny rogues is very fun, i got to the 7th biome on a really good run where i just kept getting dex up items constantly and wound up with a pretty crazy ranged weapon I don't want to spoil but that I wasn't expecting to see. that character started out as a melee guy but i just found so many pears i was a dex king after a while
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 14:20
|
|
|
Serephina posted:You know, I've had this discussion in this thread before (not sure if it was with you), and much like your discussion with Jack Trades, there is technically an option to choose between the two at some point, but it's a relatively uncommon and for a quite small amount, hardly what you've made it out to be. As nrook said, every room reward is coded to be metaprog or ingame prog, but that's something that newer players don't notice and so they mistakenly believe a great sin has been committed. You're quite right; I'd forgotten that Hades room branches are basically always either a choice between in-run bonuses or metaprogression currencies. Thanks for the correction. (It can still come up -- in particular, Charon is guaranteed to offer you a choice of boons or diamond in Styx, and has a chance to offer metaprogression vs. in-run progression earlier in the game -- but it's not nearly as common as I made it out to be.) What is the game with the worst metaprogression? Like, it feels like the platonic (un)ideal of this type would be a run where: - there's only one currency - it's spent both between runs to get permanent minor upgrades and in-run to get temporary major upgrades - the in-run upgrades are expensive enough that you can easily spend most or all of your earnings on them - the in-run upgrades are powerful enough that you are strongly incentivized to buy them every run (e.g. perhaps that's the only way you can get new equipment) but I don't think I've ever played a game like that; like, Rogue Legacy and Immortal Redneck were both bad for having huge numbers of tiny tiny metaprogression upgrades but didn't have that "spend it in run vs. save it" tension. Jack Trades posted:But why would I not just choose the option with more tetrid rewards and just never attempt a "serious" run until I've unlocked everything? At which point tetrids become mostly useless. I'm not actually convinced that gets you more tetrids per minute, since pushing further into the run both gives you monsters worth more tetrids and rolls more/bigger rewards, including bigger tetrid rewards, for defeating them. Intuitively it feels like most tetrids per minute is probably either full clears on the hardest difficulty you can reliably perfect, or something really repetitive involving quickplay (less tetrids per monster than story, but you can probably get your fights/minute up high enough to compensate with a suitably broken QP build). Of course, collecting huge numbers of tetrids doesn't actually unlock anything, it just lets you radiate stuff you've already unlocked -- which isn't nothing, but if you want to actually unlock new items/characters/bosses/etc you have to actually play the game.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 14:31
|
|
|
Mm yea, this thread has a justified hatred of metaprog, but like everything in life it's mostly in the execution imo. Spelunky, Necrodancer and Hades may have had it, but it never a burden. Conversely, Rogue Legacy was notorious so I never touched it, but I did play Heroes of Hammerwatch which was awful about the grind, absolutely terrible, where you where effectively gated from finishing the later stages due to being too puny, but once you've grinded upgrades to get your first win suddenly all the early levels are trivial as nothing can hurt you. As a bonus there was heavy incentives to do 'dummy' runs where all you're doing is farming metaprog instead of trying to get a clean shot at a win.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 15:00
|
|
|
FWIW Rogue Legacy 2 still has the same issue from RL1 but I didn't mind it as much, I think because the game itself was much better.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 15:05
|
|
|
Unexplored 2 is in a $5 Fanatical bundle. I haven't even played the first one yet, this one just came out a few months ago. I guess it hasn't done too well?
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 16:13
|
|
|
nrook posted:I am an unlikely recruit for the Hades Defense Force but it does very specifically try to avoid this most of the time by not giving the player direct choices between “real” resources or metaprogression resources. Most notably, you’ll never be offered both as door rewards from the same room. This is an effort TVRUHH does not make, really, as far as I know; I’ve definitely been asked to choose between one monster who drops one of the tetrid items and another who gives an item that actually does something. Hades has charon's shop in zone 4, though, which always has a titan's blood or diamond and therefore represents constant pressure throughout the entire game to not spend gold on anything unless you won't be able to progress without it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 16:15
|
|
|
Troves for metaprogression currency are also a gamble that can cost you health for something that doesn’t immediately benefit you on that run. then there’s prophecy rewards that sometimes incentivize taking a worse choice for a boon because it will help complete a prophecy. people do often get the room reward thing wrong but the overall complaint is still valid as the game has a lot of more subtle ways it makes you choose between metaprogression or success in your current run.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 16:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 18:45 |
|
|
Serephina posted:Mm yea, this thread has a justified hatred of metaprog, but like everything in life it's mostly in the execution imo. Spelunky, Necrodancer and Hades may have had it, but it never a burden. Conversely, Rogue Legacy was notorious so I never touched it, but I did play Heroes of Hammerwatch which was awful about the grind, absolutely terrible, where you where effectively gated from finishing the later stages due to being too puny, but once you've grinded upgrades to get your first win suddenly all the early levels are trivial as nothing can hurt you. As a bonus there was heavy incentives to do 'dummy' runs where all you're doing is farming metaprog instead of trying to get a clean shot at a win. At the end of the day the type of metaprogression everyone hates most is when the game cannot feasibly be won without several doomed runs to collect power. That’s the one that feels really bad. (Hades actually has this but I forgive it because the narrative would make no sense if you escaped immediately.) It also feels really bad to have to choose between metaprogression and run power in a blatant, binary, black-and-white way, but it generally feels fine to be nudged toward play that’s worse but not strictly worse. For example, the prophecies in Hades never bugged me because even though they guided me toward inferior choices, they didn’t guide me toward choices which made me less powerful in every respect; a bad boon will at least make you better at something than the good boon you passed up would have. A lot of what TVRUHH does is bad design theoretically and imo the game would be improved if, at least, the bonus item tetrids were removed, but it doesn’t bother me because a good player would obviously be able to win every game no matter what. The only thing that really annoys me is the inability to practice high rank monsters without grinding quickplay.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 16:41
|
|