Alternatives to permadeath
Slash
I am thinking on removing permadeath from CvRL and replacing with
something 'softer'...
So I thought about adding 'save points', scattered though the world
randomly, so you can save there and your character would be restored
there uppon death.
This would however ruin the challenge unless some penalties are
decided, I have though on these:
* Saving requires gold, sacrificing an artifact or another valuable
* Saving can only be done x times
* Saving costs player levels or skills
* Reviving strips the player off his gold, and artifact or another
valuables
* Reviving costs player levels or skills
* Save places are located far away from critical places, so you cant
just save before a boss battle or something. kind of far located
checkpoints.
Any thoughts on this?
Thanks!
--
Slash
http://www.santiagoz.com
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Slash wrote:
> This would however ruin the challenge unless some penalties are
> decided, I have though on these:
> * Saving requires gold, sacrificing an artifact or another valuable
> * Saving can only be done x times
> * Saving costs player levels or skills
I absolutely hated these save systems.
> * Reviving strips the player off his gold, and artifact or another
> valuables
This is pretty close to the original, yes?
> * Reviving costs player levels or skills
What about restoring after quitting?
> * Save places are located far away from critical places, so you cant
> just save before a boss battle or something. kind of far located
> checkpoints.
This is my favorite. It lets you to explore new features without fear.
--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski
"Computer Science is no more about computers than
astronomy is about telescopes." [Edsger Wybe Dijkstra]
Martin Read
>This would however ruin the challenge unless some penalties are
>decided, I have though on these:
>
>* Saving requires gold, sacrificing an artifact or another valuable
Not a fan of this.
>* Saving can only be done x times
Alien vs. Predator did this. It was a pain in the butt, because you
didn't know how long the levels were (and hence didn't know how precious
a save chance was).
>* Saving costs player levels or skills
This is ugly.
>* Reviving strips the player off his gold, and artifact or another
>valuables
>* Reviving costs player levels or skills
I would favour one of these two.
>* Save places are located far away from critical places, so you cant
>just save before a boss battle or something. kind of far located
>checkpoints.
This is what GBA Castlevania does. It's a pain in the arse.
--
Martin Read - my opinions are my own. share them if you wish.
\_\/_/ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~mpread/dungeonbash/
\ / "it is not hands that summon us..." - Pinhead, _Hellraiser II_
\/
Gamer_2k4
> something 'softer'...
> Any thoughts on this?
Roguelikes aren't supposed to be easy. As long as your game is
beatable, keep permadeath in there.
Also, IIRC, CvRL doesn't have a dungeon structure like most roguelikes.
This may may some of my suggestions irrelevant.
Anyway, here are some of my suggestions:
1. Allow the character to be "rescued" after he dies. The idea is that
town patrols watch the first 10 levels or so of a dungeon, and if they
see an adventurer left for dead, they can recover and revive him. Of
course, the player loses all of their equipment, but at least he can
keep playing.
2. Allow the player to buy a "fairy in a bottle" or something. When
the player dies, the fairy revives him. Along the same lines, you
could have the ever popular amulet of life saving. Obviously both of
these would cost a *lot*.
3. In your game, you could have a checkpoint to the start of each
stage. Dying would return you to the start of that stage.
Gamer_2k4
Crypt
Prey has an interesting response to this question. The character never really
dies.
When the character dies he's thrown in afterworld and the player must fight to
regain health (and mana) in a limited time. He's progressively sucked back to
the physical world. Then he only have the health and mana he regains in the
afterworld.
Simple but efficient.
Ray Dillinger
> Hello All
>
> I am thinking on removing permadeath from CvRL and replacing with
> something 'softer'...
>
> So I thought about adding 'save points', scattered though the world
> randomly, so you can save there and your character would be restored
> there uppon death.
>
Tell ya what; give your character a package of hard candies, 14
pieces, round, with holes in, and flavored with fruit juices.
Say each piece lasts, um, ten minutes if you don't bite down.
Now, if he happens to have one of these in his mouth when the
death blow happens, he loses whatever he's carrying at that instant
and wakes up wherever he was when he actually put that candy in
his mouth.
Whaddaya think?
Bear
dimen...@gmail.com
Do you remember how in old console RPGs (and even newer ones) everyone
seemed to complain about the lack of free-save and the presence of
save-points, save-portals, save-runes, svae-crystals, etc.?
I think that this kind of saving is not liked by many gamers (myself
included). It requires careful planning and makes the player want to
routinely do the same thing - for example, if a save-point is far from
a boss, this means that each time the player loads the game, they must
cross the same way. It gets boring after a while. And punishing savers
with gold/item sacrifices sounds too cruel :-D
In my RL I use what I call "permasave": save is automatically done when
changing locations (=autosave), death doesn't delete it, only 1 slot is
allowed though. In other words, the world is disk-persistent, except
the current level.
--
Giorgos
Keith H Duggar
> Slash wrote:
> > * Save places are located far away from critical places,
> > so you cant just save before a boss battle or
> > something. kind of far located checkpoints.
>
> This is my favorite. It lets you to explore new features
> without fear.
If the game is relatively small/quick permadeath is fine. If
it is relatively large/long then this (checkpoints) is also
one of my favorites as well.
It still allows the designer to create difficult "missions"
as it were that give you a feeling of challenge and yet does
not cause the same despair that can lead you to swear off a
game for months after an especially annoying permadeath.
It also frees you to experiment more and hence enjoy more of
the game by discovering new and interesting alternatives.
> > This would however ruin the challenge unless some
> > penalties are decided, I have though on these:
> > * Saving requires gold, sacrificing an artifact or
> > another valuable
> > * Saving can only be done x times
> > * Saving costs player levels or skills
>
> I absolutely hated these save systems.
The relative suckage of cost systems depends heavily on the
game design. Basically the more renewable a resource is or
if it is recoverable then charging that resource on death
does not suck and can provide incentive to be careful. For
example, gold is often a renewable resource costing only
game time and therefore I usually don't mind paying some
gold as a death penalty. Conversely, if a game has ultra
rare items and I lose one upon death it SUCKS and I don't
find it fun. (It is ultimately my goal to have fun when I
play. On the other hand, if that item reappears in a temple
somewhere and I can buy it back later, then I don't mind.
This can have the positive effect of encouraging one to try
new items if the lost item is very expensive to recover.
Also, I like "death plane" systems like Crypt mentioned.
Especially if the death plane has interesting and beneficial
quests or activities you can do there. Then, even though
death my be something you really want to avoid in most
circumstances, it can also be beneficial to occasionally
die. "Planescape Torment" did not have a death plane but
when you died you had to start back at the city morgue and
occasionally you "remembered" parts of your past lives and
regained powers you once had. Thus death was actually part
of the advancement system in that game.
Finally, "resurrection sickness" systems where the players
stats are reduced (perhaps greatly) but recover over time
also work well for me.
-- Keith -- Fraud 6
kalikiana
there. Any player who likes the game the way it behaves now shall stay
with it.
Talk about *loading*. While saving is okay at any time, dying will give
the new option to continue from an earlier state. So what does
'continue' do?
. Either throw the player to the place where he saved the last time OR
place him where he was a certain number of turns in the past.
. Every 'continue' costs. That means you lose money, random items and
experience points.
Actually I thought a while about this topic and possibly what I posted
here may even find a way in my in-dev game. But it's only spontaneous
ideas yet.
Christophe Cavalaria
> "Slash" <java....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>This would however ruin the challenge unless some penalties are
>>decided, I have though on these:
>>
>>* Saving requires gold, sacrificing an artifact or another valuable
>
> Not a fan of this.
>
>>* Saving can only be done x times
>
> Alien vs. Predator did this. It was a pain in the butt, because you
> didn't know how long the levels were (and hence didn't know how precious
> a save chance was).
>
>>* Saving costs player levels or skills
>
> This is ugly.
>
>>* Reviving strips the player off his gold, and artifact or another
>>valuables
>>* Reviving costs player levels or skills
>
> I would favour one of these two.
>
>>* Save places are located far away from critical places, so you cant
>>just save before a boss battle or something. kind of far located
>>checkpoints.
>
> This is what GBA Castlevania does. It's a pain in the arse.
Which one ? I didstinctly remember the last two Castlevania games ( GBA and
the DS one ) to have save rooms very close to each boss battle.
Ray Dillinger
> The relative suckage of cost systems depends heavily on the
> game design. Basically the more renewable a resource is or
> if it is recoverable then charging that resource on death
> does not suck and can provide incentive to be careful. For
> example, gold is often a renewable resource costing only
> game time and therefore I usually don't mind paying some
> gold as a death penalty. Conversely, if a game has ultra
> rare items and I lose one upon death it SUCKS and I don't
> find it fun. (It is ultimately my goal to have fun when I
> play. On the other hand, if that item reappears in a temple
> somewhere and I can buy it back later, then I don't mind.
Well, the logical (hah! I'm talking logic, about coming
_back_from_death?!_) place for it to reappear would be in
the hot little hands of the creature that killed you.
See, what I'm thinking, would be where you lose your entire
equipped kit, at the same time creating a "boss" on that
level out of whatever killed you, and the "boss" then has
all your stuff. And can use it. Against you. When you
come back for revenge with whatever equipment you had
cached elsewhere.
Seriously, I think swearing off a game for a few months
due to an especially annoying permadeath is part of the
canonical process of growing to *seriously* obsess about
and love a roguelike game. I would never deny my players
that opportunity.
Bear
Corremn
Slash wrote:
> Hello All
>
> I am thinking on removing permadeath from CvRL and replacing with
> something 'softer'...
First up, personally I love permadeath as it makes a game very
rewarding when you get further and finally finish it. But it has the
negative effect that it scares off and confuses/frustrates mainstream
gamers so I understand what you are trying to do.
> So I thought about adding 'save points', scattered though the world
> randomly, so you can save there and your character would be restored
> there uppon death.
These work ok, but I always found these incredable frustrating, doing
the same thing over and over until you get it right, is boring and
frustrating. Wait that what permadeath is all about! Ok I retract that
comment. They may work Ok as long as the next section is randomly
generated so the player does not play the exact section over and over,
just a different version of it.
> * Reviving strips the player off his gold, and artifact or another
> valuables
> * Reviving costs player levels or skills
Money value to be resurrected/restored etc might work. Losing items
sucks.
What I like -
How about when you die you lose experience or a level?? Dieing will be
a pain in the butt so the player will do anything to avoid it. The
player just has to kill a few more creatures to get back to where they
were. ( Maybe reduce exp to the start of the players current level so
you dont have to stip him of abilities - this will be easier to
program).
Or have the player drop every thing he/she is carrying where they died
and have to fight their way back to their equipment. (kind of like
diablo).
Copx's warp rogue used a set number fate points - when you died you
lost one of them, when you had none left - game over. Players may be
able to gain lives like in arcade games.
If you add saving make sure you have an advanced mode where permadeath
is still there. This gives the experienced players something to aim
for. Otherwise you may find peiople finish the game and never play it
again because it is no longer a challenge to finish. many games have a
beginner difficulty where you can save any time, a normal version with
limited saves and a hardcore difficulty with no saves. Roguelikes are
about overcoming a great challenge to feel self rewarded, dont take
this away from your players.
Just some thoughts.
Keith H Duggar
> Keith H Duggar wrote:
> > Conversely, if a game has ultra rare items and I lose
> > one upon death it SUCKS and I don't find it fun. (It is
> > ultimately my goal to have fun when I play. On the other
> > hand, if that item reappears in a temple somewhere and I
> > can buy it back later, then I don't mind.
>
> entire equipped kit, at the same time creating a "boss" on
> that level out of whatever killed you, and the "boss" then
> has all your stuff. And can use it. Against you. When
> you come back for revenge with whatever equipment you had
> cached elsewhere.
Great idea! That sounds really fun. Reminds me of some of
the old games where often a boss was hard because of the
items he had, and when you killed him those items dropped.
(Though sometimes they were to large for you to use.) And
there are many interesting variations for your idea. Like
the boss could be a ghostly, or undead, or skeletal clone
of yourself.
I played on a Neverwinter Nights persistent world once where
a particular evil tower had a trap that turned you into a
particular monster and spawned a clone of you which you had
to defeat to escape. Needless to say, once you reached a
certain power level the trap was usually lethal.
> Seriously, I think swearing off a game for a few months
> due to an especially annoying permadeath is part of the
> canonical process of growing to *seriously* obsess about
> and love a roguelike game. I would never deny my players
> that opportunity.
You can always have a permadeath option then ;-) Or with
some of the options we've discussed you can make death
arbitrarily painful.
Cheese Lottery
> Tell ya what; give your character a package of hard candies, 14
> pieces, round, with holes in, and flavored with fruit juices.
> Say each piece lasts, um, ten minutes if you don't bite down.
>
> Now, if he happens to have one of these in his mouth when the
> death blow happens, he loses whatever he's carrying at that instant
> and wakes up wherever he was when he actually put that candy in
> his mouth.
>
> Whaddaya think?
It sounds perfect for Da-Breegster's HalloweenRL idea.
Corremn
Hmm, sounds ok, if only they had a catchy name :-P - Wasn't the slogon
"get a hole lot more out of life"?
I just remembered I wrote a design doc for Halloween game. Maybe I
should dust it off and give him some competition\incentive.
How about you make an undead class, that cant be killed. That way every
time you get defeated you rise again, kind of like a vampire, oh yeah
stupid idea.
Crypt
What about that :
The player can save anytime. When his character dies he must start a new one
which could make a special ritual (involving black magic and the sacrifice of
himself and an innocent ?) to invoke the spirit of the dead character and
restore it in the innocent body. Sometimes the restored character would be
haunted by spirits trying to get him back to the afterworld. The more the
character has be resurrected, the stronger would be the spirits. No character
killed by this spirits could be resurrected (permadeath.)
Or/and when a character dies he would have to get back the Styx, a short
scenario which would involves memory losing (level, skill, etc) dangers.
Krice
> 2. Allow the player to buy a "fairy in a bottle" or something. When
> the player dies, the fairy revives him. Along the same lines, you
> could have the ever popular amulet of life saving.
How about "sand of time". Before dying the player can go back in
time and re-think the strategy.
My favorite solution is to wake up the player as a zombie. You can
continue the game as zombie, which doesn't even die that easily.
You could even go further and when the zombie form dies the player
wakes up as a skeleton warrior:)
Of course winning in a zombie form would be a lesser victory.
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Keith H Duggar wrote:
> Ray Dillinger wrote:
>> Keith H Duggar wrote:
>> > Conversely, if a game has ultra rare items and I lose
>> > one upon death it SUCKS and I don't find it fun. (It is
>> > ultimately my goal to have fun when I play. On the other
>> > hand, if that item reappears in a temple somewhere and I
>> > can buy it back later, then I don't mind.
>> See, what I'm thinking, would be where you lose your
>> entire equipped kit, at the same time creating a "boss" on
>> that level out of whatever killed you, and the "boss" then
>> has all your stuff. And can use it. Against you. When
>> you come back for revenge with whatever equipment you had
>> cached elsewhere.
> Great idea! That sounds really fun. Reminds me of some of
> the old games where often a boss was hard because of the
> items he had, and when you killed him those items dropped.
> (Though sometimes they were to large for you to use.) And
> there are many interesting variations for your idea. Like
> the boss could be a ghostly, or undead, or skeletal clone
> of yourself.
This is very similar to NetHack's bones.
Anyways, imagine now yourself dying with a stash of a 100
healing potions (or scrolls, or pills, if carrying 100
potions seems unrealistic to you). And being killed by a
monster that will use any items available to heal itself
when low on hp (pretty logical strategy), and enough hit
points that it cannot be easily killed with one blow...
Now, suddenly those potions of sleep and/or paralysis get
useful...
Gerry Quinn
java....@gmail.com says...
>
> I am thinking on removing permadeath from CvRL and replacing with
> something 'softer'...
How about the game decides? It saves where it wants, more or less
arbitrarily, but ideally when you hit a new level. When you die, it
goes back a step or two and loads a save, throws away some of your
stuff (and possibly compensates partially by giving you some new
stuff), and lets you carry on, re-rolling as much as it can in regions
you haven't explored (so new levels get a complete re-roll).
- Gerry Quinn
gf
>
> Prey has an interesting response to this question. The character never really
> dies.
> When the character dies he's thrown in afterworld and the player must fight to
> regain health (and mana) in a limited time. He's progressively sucked back to
> the physical world. Then he only have the health and mana he regains in the
> afterworld.
> Simple but efficient.
>
>
>
What if the player dies in the afterworld? Is there an
afterworld-afterworld? :-)
--
Giorgos
gf
And the zombie would have to do some additional quests in order to
restore its previous human form?
Or join the other side and fight good adventurers? (ok that was a joke)
--
Giorgos
Crypt
> Crypt wrote:
> > On 2006-08-07 22:00:06, "Gamer_2k4" wrote:
> >
> >
> >...
> >
> > Prey has an interesting response to this question. The character never really
> > dies.
> > When the character dies he's thrown in afterworld and the player must fight to
> > regain health (and mana) in a limited time. He's progressively sucked back to
> > the physical world. Then he only have the health and mana he regains in the
> > afterworld.
> > Simple but efficient.
> >
> >
> >
>
> What if the player dies in the afterworld? Is there an
> afterworld-afterworld? :-)
>
> --
> Giorgos
>
>
In the Prey version you cannot die in the afterworld. You are simply slowly pull
back to the physical world (=> limited time to gain health and mana)
Gamer_2k4
> time and re-think the strategy.
I thought of doing a game once where time travel played an important
role (think Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages), but it would be a tricky
first project, and terribly hard to balance. Still a cool thought
though.
Gamer_2k4
Risto Saarelma
> So I thought about adding 'save points', scattered though the world
> randomly, so you can save there and your character would be restored
> there uppon death.
Console-type save points actually serve two purposes. Besides
circumventing permadeath, they also serve as a suspend mechanism, as
consoles don't tend to have enough storage space to suspend game state
at an arbitrary point.
Saving the game is already done well in roguelikes. You suspend the game
to a file, then resume it. Only with roguelikes you can resume the game
only once from that specific save.
So a save point in a roguelike would actually be some sort of
time-rewinding mechanic. Which might be made more interesting than just
popping up at the save point. Few games have done this explicitly,
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and its sequels are the only ones I
can think of at the moment. A RL based on the same mechanic might be
interesting. The player could manually rewind time for some duration,
even after having died.
(I thought about game logic that can be run backwards as well as
forwards and the player being able to act when time is running
backwards, but the inverted causality would make things quite weird. It
wouldn't make sense to cast a fireball, for example, since it will
explode after being cast and no such explosion occurred in the immediate
future which the PC just travelled past. But maybe some sufficiently
abstract system could make something out of this.)
But the simple save-restore rewinding is just returning to an earlier
game state. This brings with it all the usual problems in a roguelike,
the player will now know what his unidentified items are, what lurks in
the deeper levels and so forth. Free multiple loading of saves would
pretty much destroy the object identification mechanic, and you might
just as well just tell what each object does when the player picks it
up.
The other mechanic is resurrection. The character is brought back from
the dead in the world where it has died, not somewhere in its past. Many
commercial games do this: Diablo, the Ultima games, Grand Theft Auto.
All of these return the dead player to some town-equivalent, generally
some distance away from the more dangerous areas. There is also some
penalty. Money is lost, and the character might drop its equipment where
it dies. Experience loss is also possible. Penalties in easily regained
resources like money and experience are probably better than in
equipment, which the player might have worked very hard to get.
The interesting thing with the resurrection mechanic is that even though
it does away with permadeath, you can still do irrevocable things. For
example Diablo 2 does not have multiple loading of saves. So if you
start messing with the item transmutation box, you might lose your
artifact plate armor for good. It also leads to some stupid play,
defeating the second boss with a sorceress was several iterations of
"cast town portal nearby", "blast the boss so its health drops a little
more" and "get killed, resurrect in town, walk through portal, quickly
grab your gear from your corpse, cast town portal nearby..."
In a game that's pretty close to interactive fiction, like the Ultima
games, or in a sandbox game like Grand Theft Auto, the resurrection
mechanic works well. But in a game with a more tactical focus like
Diablo or Neverwinter Nights, it can dilute then game into tacticsless
hacking and slashing at everything until something manages to kill you
(at least it does when I'm playing). Unfortunately, most roguelikes fall
to the latter category.
Still another approach might be loosening the identification between the
player and the player character. If the player character, instead of the
player's avatar in the game world, is just hired help, a possessed
minion or some similar pawn, the character's death would just mean going
to the local tavern with a big bag of gold to hire the next henchman or
drifting for a while in limbo waiting for the next unwitting human to
try reciting aloud from The Big Dark Book of General Unwholesomness.
zircher
> Hello All
>
> I am thinking on removing permadeath from CvRL and replacing with
> something 'softer'...
>
> So I thought about adding 'save points', scattered though the world
> randomly, so you can save there and your character would be restored
> there uppon death.
I like the idea of temples being a sort of save point. You pay the
priest some hefty fee and the next time your character dies you
re-spawn at the nearest known temple. So, the player has the option to
'buy' save points or they can perform quests for certain priests and
perhaps earn a free resurrect. I'd go with the Diablo model where if
you die, all your gold on hand and gear stays with your dead body (for
possible retrieval.) To give the players a chance after death, you
could have a bank account so they can buy some gear from a merchant or
perhaps a stash where you keep your backup equipment.
You could even have temples inside of a dungeon complex if it is
sufficently large. For more variety, you could have temple aligned
with good, evil, or individual gods in order to offer some variety one
where you respawn. An interesting role playing element might be that
your point of respawn is based on where you pray last. So, this would
allow for the selecting of town temples, road side shrines, or
mysterious altars as your respawn point.
I like this method since it allows for save points that stay within the
theme of the game and they are technically optional since the player
choose whether to use them or not.
--
TAZ
zircher
>
> The interesting thing with the resurrection mechanic is that even though
> it does away with permadeath, you can still do irrevocable things.
> It also leads to some stupid play, defeating the second boss with a
> sorceress was several iterations of "cast town portal nearby", "blast
> the boss so its health drops a little more" and "get killed, resurrect
> in town, walk through portal, quickly grab your gear from your corpse,
> cast town portal nearby..."
Cheap or free resurrection allows for that. If you have to pay in
advance for resurrection or earn your resurrects by performain temple
services/quests, you limit the effectiveness of that trick. Since
Diablo only takes some of your cash on hand, if you go to the
bank/stash before you fight, you might not risk even a single gold
piece.
--
TAZ
Gamer_2k4
> advance for resurrection or earn your resurrects by performain temple
> services/quests, you limit the effectiveness of that trick. Since
> Diablo only takes some of your cash on hand, if you go to the
> bank/stash before you fight, you might not risk even a single gold
> piece.
I really like the amulet of life saving as a means of avoiding
permadeath. Sure it's rare, but it's nice to know that you get a
'free' ressurection.
Gamer_2k4
David Damerell
>* Save places are located far away from critical places, so you cant
>just save before a boss battle or something. kind of far located
>checkpoints.
That tends to turn into boss battles balanced for non-permadeath but with
a long tedious trek before each one.
Go the other way; give the player a save point - write once, read many -
after each boss battle; makes the game a series of individually
permadeath-balanced shorter challenges.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Sunday, July - a weekend.
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Gamer_2k4 wrote:
I liked Chrono Trigger more ;)
Gray...@gmail.com
You can persuade people to stay alive through rewards and not make
things worse by penalizing them.
The longer you live, the greater bonuses you get. If you die and choose
to continue, your bonuses are nil'd. You have to build them up again.
Bonuses can be, % to find unique item is higher, % to hit is higher,
and etc.
You can only access special features and areas on a character which
hasn't died. On the last stage the "Statue of Purity" can only be moved
by a pure wholesome soul. If you have resurrected, your soul is neither
and you will have to exit stage left into Countryside Acers.
You can still drop some helper items so lucky people can resurrect
cleanly (amulet of purify).
Great post.
GrayDwarf
Gerry Quinn
says...
> What if the player dies in the afterworld? Is there an
> afterworld-afterworld? :-)
Happened me when around when I started playing World of Warcraft.
I was a Night Elf and got killed. While looking for my corpse my ghost
explored a bit and fell off the big continent / tree into the sea.
While trying to find a way back to land, my ghost drowned.
I found myself back on the tree, in the proper graveyard, though. So
no after-afterworld in WOW...
- Gerry Quinn
Gerry Quinn
Gray...@gmail.com says...
> > Any thoughts on this?
>
> You can persuade people to stay alive through rewards and not make
> things worse by penalizing them.
>
> The longer you live, the greater bonuses you get. If you die and choose
> to continue, your bonuses are nil'd. You have to build them up again.
>
> Bonuses can be, % to find unique item is higher, % to hit is higher,
> and etc.
That seems quite workable in a roguelike.
- Gerry Quinn
Karnot
> dies.
> When the character dies he's thrown in afterworld and the player must fight to
> regain health (and mana) in a limited time. He's progressively sucked back to
> the physical world. Then he only have the health and mana he regains in the
> afterworld.
> Simple but efficient.
Sounds like Soul Reaver rip-off to me.
Anyway, speaking of goth games, which is Castlevania, i had an idea of
a roguelike. You play a vampire, living in his own castle, perhaps, and
every night you go down in the village to prey on unwashed peasants and
the like. Using stealth skills and magic you do your bloody work.
Eventually your actions will be noticed, and townsfolk will start to
gather into mobs to kill you. So, you have a spell that teleports you
to your coffin, which is a save point. And while you sleep - you gain a
little more strength, but so do the villagers, and there is a small
chance they will break into your mansion, at which point you command
your summoned minions to fight them off.
So, that way you are, somewhat forced to save at some point, but it
makes every restore a bit unpredictable. Of course it would work only
in this particular game case, but still...opinions ?
Gamer_2k4
> to continue, your bonuses are nil'd. You have to build them up again.
Sounds like permadeath. You die, then you're back where you started
from. The only problem is that now you're farther in the game, and the
monsters and challenges are harder than when you started. Sure you
keep going, but when your stats get reset every 10 minutes, it's not as
much fun.
> You can only access special features and areas on a character which
> hasn't died. On the last stage the "Statue of Purity" can only be moved
> by a pure wholesome soul. If you have resurrected, your soul is neither
> and you will have to exit stage left into Countryside Acers.
Oh, like the platinum girdle in ADOM. Has anyone ever gotten this yet?
Gamer_2k4
jme...@shaw.ca
> Hello All
>
> I am thinking on removing permadeath from CvRL and replacing with
> something 'softer'...
>
> So I thought about adding 'save points', scattered though the world
> randomly, so you can save there and your character would be restored
> there uppon death.
Hmmm. I think the core point you have to remember is that there
are two kinds of roguelike players: those that like the genre for
having
permadeath and find it emotionally satisfying to repeat playing a game
hundreds of times until they are skilled enough to win it, and those
who
gain more satisfaction from steady progress and gain no fulfillment
from
starting a game from the beginning again and again. These seem, IMO,
to be fairly distinct groups.
Trying to find the middle ground will just annoy both groups. The
purists
want permadeath, and the RPGers want easy, hassle-free saving. Nobody
wants to trek through a repetitious sequence or scum for gold to enable
saves. The purists will find they "have to" use the saving as
intelligently as
possible to be the smart players they strive to be, and will end up
just
"farming saves" and trying to minimize the amount of time between them
to improve their tactics. The RPGers will just ignore your heavily
restricted save system and copy the save-game files like usual.
Your best bet, IMO, is to build for permadeath and then not try to
work
against the save-scummers -- then everybody gets what they want from
the game.
Ironically, in Incursion, I'm going against this rule a bit myself.
The
basic theory is that if you're in good standing with your diety, he can
ressurect you if you die, but (A) some of the gods don't do this, while
others do it only at varying levels of favor, (B) you lose an
experience
level as well as a point of Constitution when you get raised, and move
back to the start of the dungeon (or the local temple, when I get
wilderness levels done), (C) you need to attain a certain minimum
character level before being raised and (D) you have a ressurection
survival chance that is nearly certain the first time, and grows worse
and worse with each death -- so it's only "certain" the first time.
The reason I'm doing this is because while right now Incursion is a
very short game (in terms of gameplay hours from beginning to win),
it will eventually be a lot longer, with possible _months_ of gameplay
like an RPG -- and no one wants to play, say, Neverwinter Nights
over 100 times from the start. The system above ensures that you
still have the "tactical danger" permadeath usually entails, but one
stupid mistake doesn't kill months of play. The minimum level ensures
that you're playing with intelligent habits /before/ you get the save,
and
the penalties are harsh enough that you never /want/ to die, but if you
do the frusteration isn't inhuman. Also, the Incursion system is, in
being true to it's d20 roots, a set of rules where sometimes you can
have immaculate tactics and still die as the result of the computer
rolling several criticals in a row -- and every combat with creatures
near
your CR is at least a little dangerous by design. I think limited
ressurection is a better design in this regard than allowing 95% of
fights to become essentially risk-free, which is true of a lot of
current
RLs once the character gets a kit and "finds their feet".
The giuding design intent here is that you don't get permadead from
a single mistake, but a string of mistakes indicitive of an actual
tactical
misjudgement in the longer term will rub you out for good without any
recourse, and after an abortive ressurection or two, you'll stay dead.
Also, I'm considering letting uniques kill you for good after the
first
round of the fight has passed, making them more dangerous.
The RPGers, of course, can just save-scum as usual, and the
hardcore permadeath types can pledge to Asherath, the god who
doesn't raise the dead.
Feel free to steal as much of this design as you like, if it appeals
to you.
-- Julian Mensch
erisdiscordia
Yes. (Not me.)
They were not impressed. :-)
e.
gf
> ...
> The RPGers, of course, can just save-scum as usual, and the
> hardcore permadeath types can pledge to Asherath, the god who
> doesn't raise the dead.
>
> Feel free to steal as much of this design as you like, if it appeals
> to you.
>
> -- Julian Mensch
>
So, the player effectively chooses save mode (Asherath-mode or
resurrection). Sounds good!
Another option can be that the game can have a difficulty level: easy
(regular saving), medium (save points), hard (permadeath). In this way,
every one is happy :-) Of course this needs some serious balancing efforts.
After all, any one can opt to savescum in RLs or stick to permadeath,
why not make it an explicit player option?
--
Giorgos
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
gf wrote:
> jme...@shaw.ca wrote:
> Another option can be that the game can have a difficulty level: easy
> (regular saving), medium (save points), hard (permadeath). In this way,
> every one is happy :-) Of course this needs some serious balancing efforts.
Personally I think it would be impossible to balance in a way giving
you an interesting game in all three cases.
I hate it when developers can't make a decission on what kind of game
they want to make and start avoiding decissions dilluting it into
meaningless "make the game yourself" options.
gf
> At Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:22:25 +0300,
> gf wrote:
>
>
>>jme...@shaw.ca wrote:
>
>
>
>>Another option can be that the game can have a difficulty level: easy
>>(regular saving), medium (save points), hard (permadeath). In this way,
>>every one is happy :-) Of course this needs some serious balancing efforts.
>
>
> Personally I think it would be impossible to balance in a way giving
> you an interesting game in all three cases.
>
> I hate it when developers can't make a decission on what kind of game
> they want to make and start avoiding decissions dilluting it into
> meaningless "make the game yourself" options.
>
I don't know any game that implemented multiple save systems so I really
can't say whether it can be a success or just another complex game option.
But you can implement A)permadeath and B)another save system and balance
for B). People that will choose A) are accustomed to "Insane" level
games after all :-D
--
Giorgos
Gamer_2k4
> (regular saving), medium (save points), hard (permadeath). In this way,
> every one is happy :-) Of course this needs some serious balancing efforts.
> After all, any one can opt to savescum in RLs or stick to permadeath,
> why not make it an explicit player option?
Or make it an implicit player option; that is, have resurrection as a
feature, but make it an attribute (think Nethack) that rewards players
if they beat the game without dying.
Gamer_2k4
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
gf wrote:
> Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski wrote:
>> I hate it when developers can't make a decission on what kind of game
>> they want to make and start avoiding decissions dilluting it into
>> meaningless "make the game yourself" options.
> But you can implement A)permadeath and B)another save system and balance
> for B). People that will choose A) are accustomed to "Insane" level
> games after all :-D
That's not the case, and that's the reason why the permadeath-lovers
argue about it at all. After all, you *can* play any non-permadeath
game and choose to only save to take a break from the game, and start
from the beginning every time you die.
I even know 3 persons who finished Doom 2 this way.
But it's usually very boring, as it gets extremely repetitive.
Slash
Sound like a good alternate mode for CvRL.. think a Dracula mode :P
--
Slash
Slash
Ray Dillinger wrote:
> Slash wrote:
> > Hello All
> >
> > I am thinking on removing permadeath from CvRL and replacing with
> > something 'softer'...
> >
> > So I thought about adding 'save points', scattered though the world
> > randomly, so you can save there and your character would be restored
> > there uppon death.
> >
>
> pieces, round, with holes in, and flavored with fruit juices.
> Say each piece lasts, um, ten minutes if you don't bite down.
>
> Now, if he happens to have one of these in his mouth when the
> death blow happens, he loses whatever he's carrying at that instant
> and wakes up wherever he was when he actually put that candy in
> his mouth.
Sounds good... some sort of "Ancient Bubblegum of resurrection"?
They are already in my game, but they are intrisically modelled,
automatically used and last forever. But only once.
>
> Whaddaya think?
>
> Bear
--
Slash
erisdiscordia
> At Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:31:30 +0300,
> gf wrote:
>
> > Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski wrote:
>
> >> I hate it when developers can't make a decission on what kind of game
> >> they want to make and start avoiding decissions dilluting it into
> >> meaningless "make the game yourself" options.
>
> > But you can implement A)permadeath and B)another save system and balance
> > for B). People that will choose A) are accustomed to "Insane" level
> > games after all :-D
>
> That's not the case, and that's the reason why the permadeath-lovers
> argue about it at all. After all, you *can* play any non-permadeath
> game and choose to only save to take a break from the game, and start
> from the beginning every time you die.
>
> I even know 3 persons who finished Doom 2 this way.
>
> But it's usually very boring, as it gets extremely repetitive.
Indeed. I've never heard of a game *balanced for* and *designed for*
both permadeath and non-permadeath, and a game *balanced for* one plays
poorly for the other -- which I bet would be the problem with a middle
route.
E.g. randomized dungeons and items make permadeath less unfun, and
non-permadeath less fun. Challenges designed to be beatable by
reloading make permadeath more unfun, and non-permadeath more fun (as
it becomes an element in "finally getting beatin' them guys.")
e.
plague
Castlevania AND roguelikes AND console games all at the same time.
To do this you have a difficulty level when starting a game.
[EASY] Save points (or rooms) like Castlevania games (GBA-DS) which
could be scattered randomly or controlled at key pregenerated levels.
[HARD] No save points, classic roguelike
Difficulty setting is cleary stated in the highscore and record.
Perhaps easy doesn't even save high scores or has 50% score values.
benn
> Slash wrote:
>
> > This would however ruin the challenge unless some penalties are
> > decided, I have though on these:
> > * Saving requires gold, sacrificing an artifact or another valuable
> > * Saving can only be done x times
> > * Saving costs player levels or skills
>
> I absolutely hated these save systems.
>
> > * Reviving strips the player off his gold, and artifact or another
> > valuables
>
> This is pretty close to the original, yes?
>
> > * Reviving costs player levels or skills
>
> What about restoring after quitting?
>
> > * Save places are located far away from critical places, so you cant
> > just save before a boss battle or something. kind of far located
> > checkpoints.
>
>
> --
> Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski
>
> "Computer Science is no more about computers than
> astronomy is about telescopes." [Edsger Wybe Dijkstra]
One way to limit the usefulness of "explore new features without fear"
is to make powerful, unique artifacts (if you are planning any in your
game - think Phial of Galadrial in Angband) that can only be found
once. If they are found while exploring and then the player restores
from a save point after dying or commiting suicide or going really
badly and giving up then the artifact is gone forever and CANNOT be
found again. If players want the artifact then they will need to play
carefully to get back to the save point with the artifact which is far
away from the critical place where the artifact was found in order to
save the game again.
Crypt
and [VERY EASY] Save anytime
Slash
Perhaps gain half experience if playing on easy mode so they are less
unbalanced?
--
Slash
Maxy-B
> [HARD] No save points, classic roguelike
And like classic Castlevania, I believe, accounting for its infamous
difficulty.
--
Max Bane
'.'.join(['max', 'bane']) + '@gmail.com'
Novus
> I am thinking on removing permadeath from CvRL and replacing with
> something 'softer'...
People usually try "softer" methods than permadeath to cater to the
people who would simply restore a save file rather than accept the
permadeath.
In my experience there is no satisfying those kind of people. They will
restore save files no matter how "soft" you make the penalty.
My advice: Don't have a penalty. Allow players to load and save
anywhere they want. If you make anything an option then make permadeath
optional. Then ask how many of your users actually turn that on. You
probably won't need the fingers on your second hand.
Novus
Joe Hewitt
> On 2006-08-07 14:18:26 -0400, "Slash" <java....@gmail.com> said:
>
> > I am thinking on removing permadeath from CvRL and replacing with
> > something 'softer'...
>
> People usually try "softer" methods than permadeath to cater to the
> people who would simply restore a save file rather than accept the
> permadeath.
>
> In my experience there is no satisfying those kind of people. They will
> restore save files no matter how "soft" you make the penalty.
Speaking as someone who has done exactly what you describe, I have to
disagree. In its basic form GearHead uses "soft" penalties (i.e. the
loss of your mecha), and there are a number of configuration options
which can adjust the difficulcy level beyond this (disable auto-saving,
etc). I have players who prefer all points along the difficulcy
continuim.
Also, one of the common requests for GH2 is that I increase the
difficulcy level and add real permadeath. Both of these things will be
done, but as normal for me they will be configurable by the user.
- Joseph Hewitt
--
Comics> http://ataraxia.comicgenesis.com
GearHead>http://www.geocities.com/pyrrho12/programming/gearhead/index.html
GearHead2>http://gearhead.roguelikedevelopment.org