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Y'all are forgetting that Spelunky is a great action rogue that has basically none of those issues. We need more games like Spelunky.
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Apr 25, 2024 14:20
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Jack Trades posted:I don't understand why people think it's good game design that the reward for being a good at the game is getting to play less of the game. megane posted:I hate when I successfully “break the game.” I don’t want to play a broken game, I want a challenge. You can have synergistic combo poo poo and still make the game challenging; you just need the synergies to add up to, like, +100% damage, instead of +500000000000%. This makes me think of how over in Unicorn Overlord there's a build you can put together where you get a team completely focused around Cat Hood Quickcast Trinity Rain/Glacial Rain and it wipes virtually every single enemy unit with zero resistance. Like, it's neat that you can master the game well enough to figure out how to put it together (or you looked it up on the Internet), but I don't want to use that build because, it's like... neat, now I don't actually get to play the game anymore. This is way more common of a problem with regular RPGs than it is with roguelikes, which is part of why/how I discovered the genre and ended up gravitating towards it.
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Apr 25, 2024 14:20
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SKULL.GIF posted:This makes me think of how over in Unicorn Overlord there's a build you can put together where you get a team completely focused around Cat Hood Quickcast Trinity Rain/Glacial Rain and it wipes virtually every single enemy unit with zero resistance. Like, it's neat that you can master the game well enough to figure out how to put it together (or you looked it up on the Internet), but I don't want to use that build because, it's like... neat, now I don't actually get to play the game anymore. Ugh...Unicorn Overlord is so loving frustrating. It has a really loving cool combat system that I love, except the game is SO loving easy that it devolves to me just sending one god-squad towards the map boss and fall asleep until I win.
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Apr 25, 2024 14:22
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Feeling overpowered is its own reward.
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Apr 25, 2024 14:25
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SettingSun posted:Feeling overpowered is its own reward. Eh, it's usually the point where I find a game starts feeling pointless, and it's time to start a new run/find something else to play If it happens way too early, yeah that's bad Broken Cog fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Apr 25, 2024 |
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Apr 25, 2024 14:29
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megane posted:Numbers don’t have to go up! Lynch this man
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Apr 25, 2024 14:32
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Azran posted:I really want to like Ravenswatch but the lack of i-frames on dodge and the HP scaling/amount of mobs makes it feel like it's basically not intended for solo-play. I got frustrated with a random team not sticking together this morning so I decided to play solo. Now that I know how things work it feels much easier solo since I don't have to worry about team cohesion and focus firing. Things just get stunned and die. Maybe Gepetto is just stupidly good for soloing and this won't hold up in higher difficulties, but I was pretty effortlessly rolling over everything by mid Act 2. I built pretty tanky since I spend a lot of time trying to melee blob with my boys. Fortunately there's an item that gives damage based on your vitality. Made some clips since I was having fun. Pulling and blasting a bunch of gargoyles in Act 3: https://i.imgur.com/gTKz3SP.mp4 Was able to clear two tumors off the map so the final boss only had 60% hp, which I was able to burn down in about 24 seconds: https://i.imgur.com/Ihp61nH.mp4
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Apr 25, 2024 15:47
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megane posted:Numbers don’t have to go up! Yes they do! All games involve numbers going up, even Chess!
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Apr 25, 2024 15:56
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Tequila Bob posted:Y'all are forgetting that Spelunky is a great action rogue that has basically none of those issues. We need more games like Spelunky. People didn't even like the second Spelunky.
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Apr 25, 2024 16:02
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Spirits Abyss by the Boneraiser Minions guy is pretty cool though
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Apr 25, 2024 16:08
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ImpAtom posted:People didn't even like the second Spelunky. The second Spelunky was made for people who mastered the first one and wanted more. I found it very hard to get to grips with. I do think that it's possible to make a good Spelunky-like game with slightly more lenient gameplay. You don't have to add "RPG elements" (a.k.a. number go up) to it. But number go up is drat near inescapable because it tickles peoples' dopamine receptors so easily.
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Apr 25, 2024 16:11
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ImpAtom posted:People didn't even like the second Spelunky. That's a problem with S2's game mechanics, nothing to do with the fact that Spelunky 1 nailed roguelike action gameplay without any meta progress or other power creep involved.
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Apr 25, 2024 16:28
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I was a fan of spelunky classic/HD and had beaten hell a number of times so I wasn’t a novice at it, and I just found spelunky 2 to be a grinding slog
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Apr 25, 2024 16:48
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SettingSun posted:Feeling overpowered is its own reward.
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Apr 25, 2024 17:09
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I will take feeling overpowered to feeling underpowered which is a common problem. Games that try to be 'hard' and mean you are plinking at a boss' health bar are the worst.
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Apr 25, 2024 17:20
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LazyMaybe posted:it's rewarding for like 1-2 minutes and then it's boring as hell That's why making broken poo poo in a roguelike context is cool though. The run ends soon enough and you start from square one. TooMuchAbstraction posted:The second Spelunky was made for people who mastered the first one and wanted more. I found it very hard to get to grips with. You know I was being pretty flip about overpowered build making above, but I did neglect spelunky in my considerations. I hated 2 but loved 1 and that does satisfy the requirement. You're right that people can't get away from the numeric escalation idea and I think that's a shame because it sucks. Number bloat on its own is a poor vector for character improvement. In fact, I think it is the lamest metric. Cool synergy is really where its at imho. And even Spelunky understands this. Jetpack and shotgun is as much a build as a heap of conditional effects are. Granted acquiring items from a pool at the whims of rng and sometimes player ability is very different than the kinds of menu selection we often think of as build construction. And though people are bringing meta progression into it, I surely wasn't thinking of it in my initial reply. Hades has it, sure, but hades also has the heat system and a whole bunch of ways to both force reliable builds and a lot of novel synergy to experiment with. That's the real lightning in a bottle imho, not the meta progression. Owl Inspector posted:Nuclear throne rules actually I'm sure it does but I haven't played it. Has been on my list forever. Too many games.
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Apr 25, 2024 17:28
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ImpAtom posted:I will take feeling overpowered to feeling underpowered which is a common problem. Games that try to be 'hard' and mean you are plinking at a boss' health bar are the worst. "hard" and "tedious" are two very different concepts.
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Apr 25, 2024 17:47
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SKULL.GIF posted:"hard" and "tedious" are two very different concepts. Yeah but developer's often can't tell the difference.
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Apr 25, 2024 17:50
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unattended spaghetti posted:That's why making broken poo poo in a roguelike context is cool though. The run ends soon enough and you start from square one.
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Apr 25, 2024 17:52
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SKULL.GIF posted:"hard" and "tedious" are two very different concepts. They are, but a lot of developers mistake one for the other. A hard boss fight should still be over (relatively) quickly, it just demands more execution from you, rather than being hard because you're doing .01% damage because you got unlucky with RNG.
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Apr 25, 2024 17:53
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LazyMaybe posted:Often not quickly enough. A brokenly good run in Binding of Isaac or whatever can very often outstay its welcome. Ok but I think we can agree this is a solvable problem. It the length of the run and the balance of the game are well considered, you can have a certain proportion of that run dedicated to whole sale crushing. I'm not saying it's easy to do, only that if considered, it is doable.
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Apr 25, 2024 18:14
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Boss difficulty is basically (difficulty of execution * margin for error * length of battle) - you can have a super high damage boss that kills you in one hit, but you can kill it in five hits, or a low damage boss, but you kill it in fifty hits. Either one could be harder depending on how demanding the execution is. Roguelikes often struggle with this formula for any number of reasons - execution may be totally trivial in a turn based game (barring gimmicks you have to learn the hard way by eating the hits, ama about losing to a one hit ko on the last dungeonmans boss), margin for error often varies wildly because of the variance in build strength - some builds may be able to no sell a bosses entire moveset, others might fold in a few hits, and length of the fight has the same problem because of the variance in player damage output making the fight very fast or very slow. In games that don't tightly bound player power (offensively or defensively) bosses often wind up being a joke, but that's a larger problem that extends across the entire game (see # of complaints about mindless chaff battles) In games that do, you might end up with bosses that last an intended amount of time, but they can be really boring if the execution difficulty isn't there - you know you'll win because you know the gimmick, or because you have achieved the 'must be this tall to ride this boss' level of power and you know you functionally can't lose. Execution difficulty is super tricky in a turn based context, in realtime it's generally 'how good is my parrying/dodging/movement/comboing/reaction time vs the speed and variety of enemy moves' - stuff that's relatively obvious from a developer standpoint (not saying easy, by any stretch, but more recognizable to tweak). In turn based games all the physical execution is gone, so you're left with mental execution - are you taking the right actions in the right order vs how hard you're punished for making sub optimal choices. The gargantuan possibility spaces makes this a dizzying mathematical problem for games with a huge variety of player setups (see: deckbuilders, but the concept extends to something like rift wizard or tome or qud - this also makes Path of Achra uniquely funny to me even though I don't actually enjoy playing it) Not an easy problem to solve in games where rpg (or, simply, 'variable player power') elements are a core part of the genre (along with deckbuilding and metaprogression  ).For run based games specifically I've found I most enjoy it when the difficulty throughout is a sine wave - it's harder, then easier when you hit some upgrade/item/etc and you get to smash everything, then a new curveball gets thrown at you and it's hard again, repeat until finished. The games that let you scale your power in a straight line without corresponding leaps in enemy danger (see: many vampire survivors clones) often get really boring once you hit the tipping point and you're not longer threatened by anything. It's a 'too much candy' situation - that point when you go over the tipping point and start destroying everything is fun - but it's not fun if it's the entire game (well, for me anyway, the success of VS clones and Diablo 4/PoE/LE says a great many people very much enjoy hitting that point and holding one button down while the screen explodes for X hours)
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Apr 25, 2024 18:17
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victrix posted:Boss difficulty is basically (difficulty of execution * margin for error * length of battle) - you can have a super high damage boss that kills you in one hit, but you can kill it in five hits, or a low damage boss, but you kill it in fifty hits. Either one could be harder depending on how demanding the execution is. Very well said. Hard agree on all points. Since the original post was asking about power removing the execution requirement for a game, I think this is a pretty nuanced and good take on it. The too much candy effect is absolutely real, and facilitating a difficulty eb and flow is probably the best solution, though not so trivial to implement, I imagine.
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Apr 25, 2024 18:24
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Jack Trades posted:It's not a critique of that particular game but man, I wish there were more action roguelites that were more about being good at the action part rather than just about collecting enough numbers/synergies to be able to ignore the action part. I'm curious if you have tried out enter the gungeon, because I think it scratches this particular itch. The runs get variety from what guns you get, and how you manage your keys, but in my experience no weapon was ever singularly good enough to remove you from the need to always be alert and weaving and dodging. Plus you get bonuses if you don't take any damage from bosses, which I think is a fun incentive to attain mastery
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Apr 25, 2024 19:35
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Tequila Bob posted:Y'all are forgetting that Spelunky is a great action rogue that has basically none of those issues. We need more games like Spelunky. Agreed. Spelunky is still the most perfect real-time analog of the rogue-like ethos to date. Couldn't get into the sequel though
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Apr 25, 2024 19:37
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SettingSun posted:Feeling overpowered is its own reward. I also agree with this as somebody who has the brain disease that makes one addicted to idler games and balatro.
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Apr 25, 2024 19:40
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Tea Party Crasher posted:I'm curious if you have tried out enter the gungeon, because I think it scratches this particular itch. The runs get variety from what guns you get, and how you manage your keys, but in my experience no weapon was ever singularly good enough to remove you from the need to always be alert and weaving and dodging. Plus you get bonuses if you don't take any damage from bosses, which I think is a fun incentive to attain mastery I haven't. I'm sure it's a good game but I just don't enjoy the frantic aiming those kinds of games require. Synthetik being the only exception in the genre.
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Apr 25, 2024 19:41
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Jack Trades posted:I haven't. I'm sure it's a good game but I just don't enjoy the frantic aiming those kinds of games require. If you play on controller there's so much auto-aim you really just have to point in the general direction of stuff.
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Apr 25, 2024 20:01
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Jack Trades posted:It's not a critique of that particular game but man, I wish there were more action roguelites that were more about being good at the action part rather than just about collecting enough numbers/synergies to be able to ignore the action part. Have you played Dead Cells on five boss stem cell mode?
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Apr 25, 2024 20:09
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Falcon2001 posted:Id be curious to read that. I might see if I can dig it out and tidy it up. Reading some old snippets, it did seem that I did hit a fairly early block of indecision - what exactly do you do with the pointless world map? It feels like the obvious fix is "remove it" - it's not like ToME's world map adds anything other than having to dance around patrols, as there's no clock or attrition, or anything interesting. But that does feel like you'd lose a lot of the charm of the "open world".
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Apr 25, 2024 20:10
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imo games lose a lot of their appeal and cohesion if they are reduced to their core components. TOME's world map is a good example. It serves little practical purpose but it makes the world feel more 'real'. Games need things like that.
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Apr 25, 2024 20:17
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goferchan posted:If you play on controller there's so much auto-aim you really just have to point in the general direction of stuff. As somebody with limited hand mobility who played a lot on controller This is accurate
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Apr 25, 2024 20:30
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I'm kinda confused by the conversation since I've always seen becoming powerful enough to trivialize threats you used to be afraid of to be a cornerstone of the genre. Like, if getting strong enough to easily mow down the entire vault on Elf:3 is wrong I don't want to be right
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Apr 25, 2024 20:41
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SettingSun posted:imo games lose a lot of their appeal and cohesion if they are reduced to their core components. TOME's world map is a good example. It serves little practical purpose but it makes the world feel more 'real'. Games need things like that. I think that's what caused me to abandon completing the design. For example, this is the top level "principles" I had: quote:ToME is: The final points in each section were the problem. You start cutting out small pieces, each of which doesn't cause much of a loss on their own. But once I looked at the overall structure, it was pretty much another "move through this set path of combat arenas" roguelite, just with some of ToME's mechanics.
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Apr 25, 2024 20:43
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Pigbuster posted:I'm kinda confused by the conversation since I've always seen becoming powerful enough to trivialize threats you used to be afraid of to be a cornerstone of the genre. Like, if getting strong enough to easily mow down the entire vault on Elf:3 is wrong I don't want to be right I'm with you there, but I think that's something that's more satisfying in a turn-based RPG rather than an action game. It makes sense to want to have snappy gameplay with some informed decisions to go towards a build, while still relying on your ability to react and use your future ideation
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Apr 25, 2024 20:48
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quote:ToME is:
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Apr 25, 2024 20:49
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unattended spaghetti posted:Ok but I think we can agree this is a solvable problem. It the length of the run and the balance of the game are well considered, you can have a certain proportion of that run dedicated to whole sale crushing. I'm not saying it's easy to do, only that if considered, it is doable.
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Apr 25, 2024 20:55
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Tea Party Crasher posted:Agreed. Spelunky is still the most perfect real-time analog of the rogue-like ethos to date. Couldn't get into the sequel though The funny thing, to me, about this statement is that all of the classic roguelikes from the 80's and 90's incorporated number-go-up as part of their core design philosophy. Spelunky is notable for not doing this. I don't have an argument here (I'm certainly not gonna try to start the "is X a roguelike" conversation again!), just a one-off observation. When it comes to scaling difficulty, I feel like for a classic roguelike, for the most part these things stay pretty constant: - The number of turns it takes for you to kill enemies - The number of turns it takes enemies to kill you - The number of enemies that can threaten you at a time What escalates over the course of the game is more qualitative: - The variety of ways in which enemies can threaten you (e.g. adding status ailments, various elemental attacks, being able to hit you from weird angles or through walls or underwater) - The set of tools you have at your disposal In other words, for the most part the number-go-up stuff is a wash. It'll cause an individual type of enemy to go from "dangerous" to "pushover" over the course of the game, which has value for sure, but it won't affect the entire game. What does make the game feel different is the player encountering new categories of enemy, or acquiring new tools, and having to adjust their tactics to suit. So for example, early on in the game you mostly just do bump-attacking, and the gameplay consists of positioning yourself such that as few enemies as possible can hit you while you wear the enemies down one at a time. Then some enemies start being able to approach you through the walls, and they have XP-draining melee, so you are encouraged to stand in open rooms when those enemies are around, and hit them with ranged attacks. Or you get a Lightning Bolt spell that pierces enemies, so you're encouraged to spot opportunities where enemies are lined up, so you can hit multiple targets at once.
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Apr 25, 2024 20:58
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Probably because Spelunky leans into being a platformer right? Like traditional roguelikes have dungeon and dragon style combat, Meanwhile in a platformer enemies are more something to either navigate around or to best through movement. In the former, numbers need to go up in order to change the combat, but in the latter it's your movement and control set that needs to be upgraded I think the overlap lies in how important situational awareness and properly utilizing tools for emergent gameplay reasons are in both spelunky and any traditional rogue-like.
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Apr 25, 2024 21:08
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Noita sustains me in this regard: Every few runs I stumble across something 'game breaking' and then inevitably hoist myself by my own petard. It's perfect. And there's room to get truly insane with 10+ hour long multi-universe rules-bending insanity runs which can still be ended by something as basic as stepping in the Bad Juice.
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Apr 25, 2024 21:10
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