Just a question about roguelike mindset

I've played my game of choice a lot, and I assure you that most of my
deaths, at least after the first few levels, are due to excessive
haste / inadequate thought. Within seconds of a death, I can tell you
exactly what I did wrong. My chief problem is that once I get used to
almost everything in the game falling to one or two attacks, my sense
of caution ebbs, and the monster that doesn't fall in one or two
attacks gets me, even though I could have, should have avoided this by
buffing or running three or four turns beforehand.

The deadliest thing in a lot of games is boredom. The game is not
generally threatening, and then something happens that will kill you
in three or four turns without the right reaction.
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

On Oct 26, 11:09 pm, Momaw <mo... RemoveThis @nhvt.net> wrote:
> I'm fairly new to roguelikes, so if this question comes up with any frequency, please excuse my newbieness.
>
> What I'm wondering, is if people LIKE to die abrupt, seemingly pointless deaths? Allow me to point out that /many/ topics here contain something along the template of: "I was doing really well until I met [creature archetype/area], and got annihilated within [very short time span] because I [didn't understand the creature or area / didn't have any resistances].

Pointless embarrassing deaths do make the best stories. So we might
have a selection bias towards the exceptional.

> What this indicates, to ME, is that (choose from the following):
>
> a.) people are too hasty to leverage the information available to them. It's my belief that hasty people probably have only the vaguest of notions of what a "roguelike" actually is, making this option not too likely

Well, I play roguelikes very hastily. I can't stand to play them with
the caution that many espouse as the one true style. This tends to
result in a lot of early deaths and many embarrassing late game
deaths. A recent character in POWDER died due to the final damage of
a deadly poison - he was wearing an amulet of poison resistance so
hadn't bothered to check his hit points. He died with plenty of cure
potions undrunk in his pack. Final round poison damage acting despite
poison resistance might sound like a tricky bit trial and error
spoiler, but I assure you I knew at the time this fact.

> b.) the games do not provide plausible and effective methods to gather information regarding critters, other than hands-on trial and error, because that's the way the devs think that's the way it should be played

This is a tough balance to achieve. I think there *is* fun in
uncovering the right actions through trial and error. Just because
the majority of play time is spent in the post-spoiler state doesn't
mean there is no value to the pre-spoiler state.

It seems also strange to accuse roguelikes of trial and error
discovery when, as a genre, they are likely the least guilty of it.
Save/restore games tend to be rife with "Monster A is behind this door
so make sure you equip B before opening it" - fixed prebuilt
encounters that you need to use trial and error - or at least a
speculative run through - to learn the optimal path. In Zelda, for
example, I am unsurprised if my first batle with a boss monster ends
in defeat - I expect that I'll waste resources learning the right
attack pattern so have to play it a second time to get it right.

With permadeath, roguelikes have to avoid that trope and tend to err
on the side of caution with later encounters. This means that people
have often already learned the correct procedure, it is just a
question if they acted to hastily to be able to execute it.

> c.) as above, but because people like dying abruptly and repeatedly, and encourage devs to build their game this way

Roguelike players like playing the game long after they won it. If
they continued to win it everytime they played, most would likely get
bored. So, you might have something indirectly right here. I'd erase
the abruptly and just say that people like dying. If you don't die
once a day you aren't trying hard enough.

> Which brings us back to the topic again. I've understood the design goal of a roguelike to be such that caution and preparedness are rewarded. Not so much that you have to run away from anything and everything, but rather, that if you do some research on your foes and fight them tactically, you'll win. Or at least get a lot further in less time than figuring things out via trial and error (and error and error, having to restart the game from scratch each time).

I disagree with this as it seems to imply you should win the roguelike
the first time you play it. If your game is designed to be won on the
first play through, please do not make it permadeath. Becasue it is
probably going to be painful for less tactical and cautious players to
replay the first level 1,000 times. A roguelike is supposed to be
*fun* to play the first level 1,000 times. If restarting from scratch
is a chore, it isn't a real roguelike (or the player isn't a real
roguelike player, take your pick :>)

This is why in POWDER I have a conscious design decision to minimize
starting up a new game. No character selection/building - straight to
the meat. It is also why the tutorial of POWDER is designed to kill
new players.

> Which means in-game "examine" spells/features that tell you what's really going on in terms of what abilities monsters have, in-game "libraries", in-game hunches and premonitions, which would encourage in-character study before you dive into a dungeon. More knowledge, less dumb luck. Which is perhaps why I found Incursion to be so 'newb-friendly' (for a roguelike): you have instant access to the stats, behaviours and spells of stuff you see, so that you can be intelligent about how to deal with them, and not die every time you find a new type of monster.

Nethack is the worst offender in this. If I were developing it, an
early step would be to delete all the monster descriptions. First
they are cut and paste from numerous sources so have no overarching
theme. Worst, the descriptions usually have nothing to do with the
actual in game monster. I try and rectify this with POWDER and
provide hints in the description of how to deal with the monster.

Angband's monster memory I think is a very clever solution to balance
the needs. It ensures one can easily learn from trial and error
without needing a separate notebook.

I do think, however, that trial and error learning is good. One
should experiment. Your suggestion seems to call for roguelikes which
are entirely deductive: situations can be calculated with a priori
knowledge. And while there is room for that (Red dragon, maybe I'll
try cold spells?) I think it is wrong to throw out the much more
practical and reliable side of the equation, induction, in which one
gathers information through trial and error (why this is said like a
curse, I know not) and learns higher patterns to apply to the game.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

Just some more datapoints...

When I used to play Angband (and Zangband) on the PC, I used to "save
cheat" and keep archives of saves, and restore them if I perished.

I learned a LOT more about the game in a far shorter period of time
this way. I probably would have given up much sooner if each of those
deaths had required a true restart.

In Crawl for Nintendo DS, lacking any sort of state-saving mechanism,
I find it is a completely different experience: I just PLUNGE. Someone
here gave me the idea, and now that's pretty much all I do when I
play: gather stuff, kill incidentals, and go DOWN. Down down down...
the "score" I give to myself is "how far did I get?"

I also give myself points for particularly clever avoidance of deaths,
or handling of sticky situations, or epic battles ending in victory
with only a few hitpoints remaining... cool!

Missy.
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

In article <1193613639.871195.11190.RemoveThis@o3g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
torespondisfutile.RemoveThis@hotmail.com says...

> I disagree with this as it seems to imply you should win the roguelike
> the first time you play it. If your game is designed to be won on the
> first play through, please do not make it permadeath. Becasue it is
> probably going to be painful for less tactical and cautious players to
> replay the first level 1,000 times. A roguelike is supposed to be
> *fun* to play the first level 1,000 times. If restarting from scratch
> is a chore, it isn't a real roguelike (or the player isn't a real
> roguelike player, take your pick :>)
>
> This is why in POWDER I have a conscious design decision to minimize
> starting up a new game. No character selection/building - straight to
> the meat. It is also why the tutorial of POWDER is designed to kill
> new players.

In my game Lair I make starting easy, but I also have save points at
the end of each level. It's really up to players whether they want to
use them or not, and what level of use they feel would be cheating.

Certainly I wouldn't see anything un-roguelike if a player who has
mastered the the first couple of levels, and now finds them boring,
were to start each game with a typical 'end-of-level-2' save, and play
with permadeath from then on. (There would need to be a separate saved
game for each character class, though...)

My real reason for this is that I don't think the lack of perma-death
is the real reason why save-reload is bad. It's that arbitrary save-
reload gives you in-game knowledge about maps etc., that you shouldn't
have, and that is both boring and rewards cheating. Since Lair is like
Rogue (when you go downstairs you can't go back) you always start off
with a completely unexplored map. (And the levels are big so it's hard
to scum.)

A more elegant solution to the 'beginning is boring for experienced
players' problem, for any roguelike, but harder to implement, would be
to allow experienced players to start the game at an advanced level;
they would be given a stash of random goodies typical of what a player
might expect to have found by then.

- Gerry Quinn
--
Lair of the Demon Ape
http://indigo.ie/~gerryq/lair/lair.htm
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

On Oct 27, 4:09 am, Momaw <mo....TakeThisOut@nhvt.net> wrote:

> b.) the games do not provide plausible and effective methods to gather information regarding critters, other than hands-on trial and error, because that's the way the devs think that's the way it should be played
>

This is TOTALLY true . It's also one of main things discouraging new
people from playing roguelikes. Many roguelikes require you to die X
times before you can get anywhere. It's not trial&error, it's
trial&death.

Take crawl for example. While I like the game a lot, and even like out-
of-depth monsters (Crawl SS is castrated in this aspect), for a player
who doesn't know the game inside-out it can be very frustrating. Crawl
prides itself for 'no quirks' and transparent game mechanics, but it
looks like game developer(s) missed one of most glaring flaws of
roguelikes . Crawl is often cited as a counterpoint for Nethack, which
supposedly gives massive advantage to spoiled players. Truth is, for a
new player there are pretty much unavoidable deaths . Unless you enjoy
fighting each new monster in berserk mode .
To make the rant complete, if all you play is a mage you may not
notice this. Mages have it much easier. Warriors have hard time
escaping from melee monsters, which would be fine if you could somehow
determine relative strength of a monster. Other than dying, you know.
I think spellcasters in Crawl are very imbalanced. Because of superior
firepower and range, they spend much less turns fighting monsters.
Sure you might drain your mana pool in short time, but it also means
monsters die very quickly, and you can spend the extra turns resting.
A warrior would still be fighting. Spellcasters have superior missile/
bolt protection measures like Deflect Missiles, yet they don't really
need them, because they spend much less turns in presence of bolt-
shooting monsters. Spellcasters play as if they had Bullet Time
(Matrix), everything is slowed down. Now warriors get much worse bolt
protection AND spend more time in presence of shooting monsters. Melee
combat is much more random and even with awesome stats and experience
you may miss a goblin, or take 2 hits to kill it.

Of course, you can claim joy of discovery (a.k.a. dying) is one of
most fun aspects of crawl. This is like saying Debian homepage
( http://debian.org ) looks ok, doesn't need a facelift, and is fits a
modern operating system.

And don't you dare to argue with what I just said. Or else.
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

On Nov 10, 1:00 am, jaze... DeleteThis @gmail.com wrote:
> On Oct 27, 4:09 am, Momaw <mo... DeleteThis @nhvt.net> wrote:
>
> > b.) the games do not provide plausible and effective methods to gather information regarding critters, other than hands-on trial and error, because that's the way the devs think that's the way it should be played
>
> This is TOTALLY true . It's also one of main things discouraging new
> people from playing roguelikes. Many roguelikes require you to die X
> times before you can get anywhere. It's not trial&error, it's
> trial&death.

It is trial+error. "Death" doesn't delete the game or blow up the
computer.

It also, most emphatically, is *not* starting over. Each game is a
new game.

The problem is that people have been taught by RPGs that the correct
process is to save & reload until they get past each obstacle. There
is nothing wrong with games designed to play this way - it works well
with static content games designed to be consumed and "won".
Roguelikes, for all their RPG trappings, are not this sort of game.
While the mechanics seem the same (kill things, get items, beat bad
guy) they have very different gameplays. Roguelikes are not meant to
be "played through". Instead of the game being disposable, it is the
character in the game that is disposable. The permadeath decision is
meant to *help* the player realize this is not a normal RPG to be
played once, but a roguelike whose first level is meant to be played
hundreds of times.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

jazevec DeleteThis @gmail.com wrote:
> Take crawl for example. While I like the game a lot, and even like out-
> of-depth monsters (Crawl SS is castrated in this aspect)

My current Stone Soup character (in version 0.2.7) met a centaur on the
second level of the dungeon. Not quite as out-of-depth as the yaktaur
captain I have met on the first level in 4.0.0b26, but still hazardous
enough that I abandoned the level and came back when I was stronger.

> Of course, you can claim joy of discovery (a.k.a. dying) is one of
> most fun aspects of crawl. This is like saying Debian homepage
> ( http://debian.org ) looks ok, doesn't need a facelift, and is fits a
> modern operating system.

I like the fact that you can discover everything you need to know about
Crawl by playing the game- no spoilers, no savescumming. It's all fun. I
enjoy the early game more than I enjoy the late game (though Stone Soup
has added some new surprises which make the late game more fun).

Offtopic:
I like Debian's homepage. Debian does not suit people who need to be
impressed by a fancy homepage. Debian does suit people who are impressed
by the content it delivers. That's precisely what its homepage does -
deliver content. They could even pare it down a bit, and I'd like it
even more. There is beauty in simplicity.

--
--j hungerford.
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

On Nov 13, 4:14 pm, Graeme Dice <grd....DeleteThis@NOSPAM.sasktel.net> wrote:
> Jeff Lait wrote:
> > On Nov 10, 1:00 am, jaze....DeleteThis@gmail.com wrote:
> >> On Oct 27, 4:09 am, Momaw <mo....DeleteThis@nhvt.net> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > It is trial+error. "Death" doesn't delete the game or blow up the
> > computer.
>
> No, but it is often arbitrary and completely unavoidable. Random
> unavoidable deaths are not one of the more attractive features of
> roguelikes.

Not only are they not one of the attractive features, they are not
even a feature. If random unavoidable deaths were at all common in
Roguelikes, I wouldn't be playing them. Roguelike authors can get
away with a heck of a lot less random and unavoidable deaths than
traditional game designers precisely because there is no save game
safety net.

OTOH, because there are no save games, roguelikes designers *can* let
people dig themselves into a hole in the ground that they can't get
out of. A good RPG has to ensure the game is winnable despite the
players actions (or it has to be made immediately clear it is no
longer winnable) as no one wants to discover a 50 hour save game needs
to be restarted. Roguelikes are meant to be restarted so the designer
is quite willing to let you setup a situation in which you are doomed.

I think the sort of people that claim that deaths are random and
unavoidable are the sort that attack every kiwi on sight, never
considering the possibility of *not* attacking it. Well established
psychological principles work against the roguelike. Faced with the
choice of blaming themselves for getting into a tight spot or blaming
the game for creating a tight spot, they target the game.

To clarify my thesis. I am not saying RPGs or Roguelikes are "better"
or "more fun". I enjoy both immensely. I'm saying that they are
different beasts at heart.

> > It also, most emphatically, is *not* starting over. Each game is a
> > new game.
>
> This sentence is nonsense as written. If each game is a new game, then
> each time you die you are starting over. You are not playing a
> different game every time you start a new character. You are playing an
> identical game with slightly different content.

You are, in the sense of RPGs, playing a different game. The tactical
challenges you face will be entirely different. The previous game you
didn't find a teleport wand until level 10, this game you had it in
your starting equipment. Compare this with, say, Zelda, where the
jump boots are always in the same dungeon guarded by the same boss at
approximately the same depth into playing the game.

> Diablo II in hardcore
> mode is not a different game from Diablo II in normal mode.

Diablo II suffers in hardcore mode because the starting levels are way
too easy.

> > The problem is that people have been taught by RPGs that the correct
> > process is to save & reload until they get past each obstacle. There
> > is nothing wrong with games designed to play this way - it works well
> > with static content games designed to be consumed and "won".
> > Roguelikes, for all their RPG trappings, are not this sort of game.
>
> Yes, they most certainly are exactly that type of game.

If you are under the delusion that you should savescum your way to
completing roguelikes, no wonder you would consider them filled with
arbitrary and random deaths.

In my first exposure to Nethack I approached it like a standard RPG.
Something to be "won". Frustrated with "random and arbitrary" early
deaths, I turned to explore mode. Soon I found myself having to hit
the "Yes, I want to cheat death" key every other turn.

Years later I tried again. This time I actually concentrated on
enjoying *playing* the game rather than *completing*. The difference
is astounding.

> Why else would
> nearly every roguelike have a well-defined winning state?

To complete the Hero's Journey, of course. The fact the game has a
"You can get on with life now" state says nothing about how that state
is supposed to be achieved.

An RPG is won when you chew through the set encounters and get to the
final scene.

A roguelike is won when you figure out how to manage your resources,
your tactical position, and the quirks of the game to return the
foozle to the surface. Despite the RPG trappings, a roguelike is more
like Chess and an RPG more like a novel. An RPG is consumed, a
roguelike is learned.

> >The permadeath decision is
> > meant to *help* the player realize this is not a normal RPG to be
> > played once, but a roguelike whose first level is meant to be played
> > hundreds of times.
>
> It's not a good game decision just because the designer meant for the
> player to die hundreds of times on the first level (or more likely never
> bothered to balance the game in the first place).

I think you got confused. Playing the first level hundreds of times
doesn't necessarily mean dying on the first level hundreds of times.
I must be in my thousands of games of POWDER which means I've run
through that first level thousands of times. And it is still
interesting.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

Jeff Lait wrote:
> On Nov 10, 1:00 am, jaze....TakeThisOut@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Oct 27, 4:09 am, Momaw <mo....TakeThisOut@nhvt.net> wrote:

<snip>

> It is trial+error. "Death" doesn't delete the game or blow up the
> computer.

No, but it is often arbitrary and completely unavoidable. Random
unavoidable deaths are not one of the more attractive features of
roguelikes.

> It also, most emphatically, is *not* starting over. Each game is a
> new game.

This sentence is nonsense as written. If each game is a new game, then
each time you die you are starting over. You are not playing a
different game every time you start a new character. You are playing an
identical game with slightly different content. Diablo II in hardcore
mode is not a different game from Diablo II in normal mode.

> The problem is that people have been taught by RPGs that the correct
> process is to save & reload until they get past each obstacle. There
> is nothing wrong with games designed to play this way - it works well
> with static content games designed to be consumed and "won".
> Roguelikes, for all their RPG trappings, are not this sort of game.

Yes, they most certainly are exactly that type of game. Why else would
nearly every roguelike have a well-defined winning state?

>The permadeath decision is
> meant to *help* the player realize this is not a normal RPG to be
> played once, but a roguelike whose first level is meant to be played
> hundreds of times.

It's not a good game decision just because the designer meant for the
player to die hundreds of times on the first level (or more likely never
bothered to balance the game in the first place).
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

On 14 Nov., 08:55, Graeme Dice <grd... DeleteThis @NOSPAM.sasktel.net> wrote:
> Jeff Lait wrote:
> > On Nov 13, 4:14 pm, Graeme Dice <grd... DeleteThis @NOSPAM.sasktel.net> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> >> No, but it is often arbitrary and completely unavoidable. Random
> >> unavoidable deaths are not one of the more attractive features of
> >> roguelikes.

The deaths become less and less random. Both in Nethack and in Crawl,
past some point, it were your mistakes leading to death. (I would say
that this point in Nethack is around finishing Sokoban, much earlier
for good players I think; Crawl is harder in this regard, but players
having done Lair usually have enough resources to be responsible for
their deaths. Apart from that: even way before that point, many deaths
are caused by mindlessly bashing monsters or similar frauds.)

> ... Especially when most Roguelikes require as much time commitment from
> a single winning character (not counting the hundreds that die for every winner)
> as any standard CRPG.

I think this is wrong. Nethack and Crawl are usually won in a couple
of hours (6 to 12, say) - the CRPGs that I know all took much longer.

> How is careful play
> supposed to avoid these and the other common low-level instadeath
> situations that crop up in Roguelikes?

It is. Each of the games you mentioned provides tools to help you
here. (I hope that Angband does

> Roguelikes, at least modern ones that have any kind of following, play
> almost exactly like a traditional CRPG. They have a well-defined goal
> that the player is attempting to reach. Upon reaching this goal, the
> game is finished.

No. My personal experience, and what I have seen on the servers,
indicates that traditional CRPGs and roguelikes are played
differently. (I do not mean any of the role-playing nonsense here,
just pure tactics.) CPRGs are usually solved by repeatedly loading,
and figuring out the optimal buffs/spells for the next encounter. This
is fundamentally different to roguelikes. You will probably disagree,
as already Jeff failed to reach you

> Actually, for the vast majority of Roguelike players that I know, a
> Roguelike is consumed in exactly the same manner that a traditional RPG
> is consumed. It is played until it is completed once. At that point,
> the player sets the game down, and ignores it, since they have plenty of
> other games to play and don't see any reason to bother beating a puzzle
> that they have already figured out. It may be many months or years
> until they feel like playing that particular Roguelike again.
> Roguelikes are consumed in exactly the same manner than every other CRPG
> is consumed.

My experience on all of these differs. Also, many roguelikes offer
great replayability, as do some CPRGs - one difference is that it is
much quicker to start up a new game of Nethack and get somewhere.
Also, you are sweeping the other main difference under the carpet: if
I replay Wizardry 7, new party and all, I still know the landscape and
the details by heart. When I fire up a new game of [any roguelike], it
is completely fresh from the start.

> Who, besides the developer, would be the least bit interested in
> completing a game hundreds of times?

Our players. (I am a Crawl designer, and we have an ardent
playership.) Replay value, written as above, is meant completely
seriously. The same holds for all of the roguelikes I am aware of.

> For the average player, every character that doesn't complete the game simply adds to total of number
> of hours wasted on pointless characters.

I also doubt this. Just as in arcade games, getting to a new stage,
surviving another break point, battling a new sentinel all provide
fun on their own. As do figuring out new details

David
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

Jeff Lait wrote:
> On Nov 13, 4:14 pm, Graeme Dice <grd... DeleteThis @NOSPAM.sasktel.net> wrote:

<snip>

>> No, but it is often arbitrary and completely unavoidable. Random
>> unavoidable deaths are not one of the more attractive features of
>> roguelikes.
>
> Not only are they not one of the attractive features, they are not
> even a feature. If random unavoidable deaths were at all common in
> Roguelikes, I wouldn't be playing them. Roguelike authors can get
> away with a heck of a lot less random and unavoidable deaths than
> traditional game designers precisely because there is no save game
> safety net.

I'm sorry, but you're either massively underestimating the number of
times you die in Roguelike games, are absolutely terrible at playing
other non-roguelike CRPGs, or are one of the 1% (Probably much much
less) of the worldwide population that's able to play an average
Roguelike such as ADOM, Nethack, or Crawl without 95% of their
characters dying.

> OTOH, because there are no save games, roguelikes designers *can* let
> people dig themselves into a hole in the ground that they can't get
> out of. A good RPG has to ensure the game is winnable despite the
> players actions (or it has to be made immediately clear it is no
> longer winnable) as no one wants to discover a 50 hour save game needs
> to be restarted. Roguelikes are meant to be restarted so the designer
> is quite willing to let you setup a situation in which you are doomed.

Yes, a good RPG, which includes Roguelikes, has to prevent the player
from putting themselves into an unwinnable situation. Especially when
most Roguelikes require as much time commitment from a single winning
character (not counting the hundreds that die for every winner) as any
standard CRPG.

> I think the sort of people that claim that deaths are random and
> unavoidable are the sort that attack every kiwi on sight, never
> considering the possibility of *not* attacking it. Well established
> psychological principles work against the roguelike. Faced with the
> choice of blaming themselves for getting into a tight spot or blaming
> the game for creating a tight spot, they target the game.

Why shouldn't the player blame the game for killing their character?
After all, it is the game that decides to place a Storm Dragon on level
2 in Crawl. (Or any of the vast array of monsters in Crawl that can kill
a level 1-2 character from range in a single turn.) Or gnome with a
wand of death in the Gnomish mines in Nethack. Or a claw bug that
fights to the death in a blind rage in ADOM. How is careful play
supposed to avoid these and the other common low-level instadeath
situations that crop up in Roguelikes?

> You are, in the sense of RPGs, playing a different game. The tactical
> challenges you face will be entirely different. The previous game you
> didn't find a teleport wand until level 10, this game you had it in
> your starting equipment. Compare this with, say, Zelda, where the
> jump boots are always in the same dungeon guarded by the same boss at
> approximately the same depth into playing the game.

Your definition of "different game" is so narrow that it is useless.

>> Diablo II in hardcore
>> mode is not a different game from Diablo II in normal mode.
>
> Diablo II suffers in hardcore mode because the starting levels are way
> too easy.

The above statement is nothing more than you attempting to dodge the
point. I claim that both modes are the same game, and you bring up some
irrelevancy about the game being "too easy" in one mode.

>>> The problem is that people have been taught by RPGs that the correct
>>> process is to save & reload until they get past each obstacle. There
>>> is nothing wrong with games designed to play this way - it works well
>>> with static content games designed to be consumed and "won".
>>> Roguelikes, for all their RPG trappings, are not this sort of game.
>> Yes, they most certainly are exactly that type of game.
>
> If you are under the delusion that you should savescum your way to
> completing roguelikes, no wonder you would consider them filled with
> arbitrary and random deaths.

Why would you bring up savescumming, except to attempt to discredit my
argument by associating it with a behaviour that you dislike?
Roguelikes, at least modern ones that have any kind of following, play
almost exactly like a traditional CRPG. They have a well-defined goal
that the player is attempting to reach. Upon reaching this goal, the
game is finished.

> In my first exposure to Nethack I approached it like a standard RPG.
> Something to be "won". Frustrated with "random and arbitrary" early
> deaths, I turned to explore mode. Soon I found myself having to hit
> the "Yes, I want to cheat death" key every other turn.

Nethack is hardly a good example to use in any discussion where you want
to claim that a game doesn't have random and arbitrary deaths. The
number of spoilers that are required to make playing Nethack anything
other than an exercise in utterly futility is immense. I certainly hope
you aren't going to suggest playing Nethack spoiler free, since I doubt
you'd enjoy trying to figure out what items give you magic resistance,
and that magic resistance allows you to avoid death attacks.

>> Why else would
>> nearly every roguelike have a well-defined winning state?
>
> To complete the Hero's Journey, of course. The fact the game has a
> "You can get on with life now" state says nothing about how that state
> is supposed to be achieved.
>
> An RPG is won when you chew through the set encounters and get to the
> final scene.
>
> A roguelike is won when you figure out how to manage your resources,
> your tactical position, and the quirks of the game to return the
> foozle to the surface. Despite the RPG trappings, a roguelike is more
> like Chess and an RPG more like a novel. An RPG is consumed, a
> roguelike is learned.

Actually, for the vast majority of Roguelike players that I know, a
Roguelike is consumed in exactly the same manner that a traditional RPG
is consumed. It is played until it is completed once. At that point,
the player sets the game down, and ignores it, since they have plenty of
other games to play and don't see any reason to bother beating a puzzle
that they have already figured out. It may be many months or years
until they feel like playing that particular Roguelike again.
Roguelikes are consumed in exactly the same manner than every other CRPG
is consumed.

>> It's not a good game decision just because the designer meant for the
>> player to die hundreds of times on the first level (or more likely never
>> bothered to balance the game in the first place).
>
> I think you got confused. Playing the first level hundreds of times
> doesn't necessarily mean dying on the first level hundreds of times.
> I must be in my thousands of games of POWDER which means I've run
> through that first level thousands of times. And it is still
> interesting.

Who, besides the developer, would be the least bit interested in
completing a game hundreds of times? For the average player, every
character that doesn't complete the game simply adds to total of number
of hours wasted on pointless characters.
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

Graeme Dice <grdice DeleteThis @NOSPAM.sasktel.net> writes:

> Actually, for the vast majority of Roguelike players that I know, a
> Roguelike is consumed in exactly the same manner that a traditional
> RPG is consumed. It is played until it is completed once. At that
> point, the player sets the game down, and ignores it, since they have
> plenty of other games to play and don't see any reason to bother
> beating a puzzle that they have already figured out. It may be many
> months or years until they feel like playing that particular Roguelike
> again. Roguelikes are consumed in exactly the same manner than every
> other CRPG is consumed.

If I remember right, one of the main points of the original Rogue
was to write a game that the author could play and enjoy, despite
knowing all the details.

Further, most roguelikes are indeed designed to be replayable after
winning. I've won Angband, Nethack, Crawl, Omega, and ADOM multiple
times (and the only reason I only have one winner in Rogue itself is
because it's so hard, not for lack of trying); God only knows how many
times Marvin has won Nethack. True, these might be the minority, but
to me it's very important that Crawl continues to challenge me after
having won it.

Every game of Crawl or Nethack provides you with a new set of
strategic decisions to make; they're hard each time, but you do learn
how to play better. Your skill can definitely improve after winning,
and improving your skill - and seeing that improvement - is a major
part of the incentive to continue playing.

To continue Jeff's line, just because you've won a game of chess
doesn't mean you'll stop playing chess. Not even if your win was
against a grandmaster.

Haran
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset 

Quoting Jeff Lait <torespondisfutile.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com>:
>I think the sort of people that claim that deaths are random and
>unavoidable are the sort that attack every kiwi on sight, never
>considering the possibility of *not* attacking it.

Guilty as charged.
--
David Damerell <damerell.TakeThisOut@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Olethros, November - a weekend.
 >> Stay informed about: Just a question about roguelike mindset