Negative character development
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
This is one of ideas that flew around on IRDC, I thought it's
worth saving for the future, if not as a viable approach, then
at least as a food for thought.
New users often feel overhelmed by large complexity and richness
of roguelike games. One way to mitigate this problem is to make
the beginning of the game relatively simple, and add functionalities
as the game progresses. For example, you can let players develop
new skills for their characters as they level up. This common technique
is somewhat spoiled by the fact that at the point where the players
are expected to make the decission about which skills to improve, they
know very little about the game and about the skills themselves. It's
also very hard to pick the most important skill at the moment, as each
of them is (should be) useful in some way. It also leads to the desire
of maxing out all the skills.
That's where negative character development (undevelopment?) comes
to the rescue: you start with all of your skills available, and as
the game progresses you are asked to remove them. Each time you
remove a skill, all skills that are left improve. This way you have
the opportunity to test the skills before you make a decission that
affects your future. It also forces you to differentiate your characters,
to specialize -- hopefully leading to more variety in the later parts
of the game.
The idea could be extended even further: instead of getting stronger, the
player character might actually be getting weaker -- and the game harder.
This could play well with the "reversed dungeon" idea, where you start at
the bottom of the dungeon and make your way to the top.
--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski <http://sheep.art.pl>
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,
it's time to pause and reflect." -- Mark Twain
dominik...@gmail.com
wrote:
Sounds like 1kBRLs: the PCs tend to get weaker with every step in
these :).
Mingos.
Slash
Every step they take.... Every move they make...
>
> Mingos.
--
Slashie
Jakub Debski
> That's where negative character development (undevelopment?) comes
> to the rescue: you start with all of your skills available, and as
> the game progresses you are asked to remove them.
New skills improve gameplay - they give you new possibilities when you
play longer. Removing them would limit your actions and would make game
frustrating.
regards,
Jakub
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Jakub Debski wrote:
Isn't removing them right at the beginning, when you don't even know
which ones of the you will need, even more frustrating? Because that's
what the race/class selection effectively does...
Jakub Debski
> Isn't removing them right at the beginning, when you don't even know
> which ones of the you will need, even more frustrating? Because that's
> what the race/class selection effectively does...
It's not frustrating because of "promise" of receiving them :)
regards,
Jakub
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Jakub Debski wrote:
You don't have such a promise, for example, you usually don't have
"weapon crafting" skill unless you select a blacksmith class, you
don't have "kung-fu" skill unless you select monk, etc.
In this reversed model, you just choose your class at the end of
the game instead of at the beginning :)
Anders....@gmail.com
I've been thinking of "retraining" instead of "levelling". You would
be able to redistribute your skill points (or equivalent) for an XP-
cost, or simply over time, but you'd never gain more points. It seems
that if the starting classes (actually skill packages) have broad and
non-maximised skill in their skills, you would get a lowering of the
number of skills as time passes. Say the "Warrior" starts with 5/10
points in 10 skills (some weapon skills, Armor Use, Athletics,
whatever) and the optimal strategy is to max out 5 skills at 10/10
(retaining a total of 50 points).
My original thought about that was more to allow people to take back
bad decisions ("Basketweaving seemed like a good choice at the time")
rather than simplify the skillset over time, though.
/Hällzon
Billy Bissette
news:slrngdeqm...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl:
>
> This is one of ideas that flew around on IRDC, I thought it's
> worth saving for the future, if not as a viable approach, then
> at least as a food for thought.
>
> New users often feel overhelmed by large complexity and richness
> of roguelike games. One way to mitigate this problem is to make
> the beginning of the game relatively simple, and add functionalities
> as the game progresses. For example, you can let players develop
> new skills for their characters as they level up. This common
technique
> is somewhat spoiled by the fact that at the point where the players
> are expected to make the decission about which skills to improve, they
> know very little about the game and about the skills themselves. It's
> also very hard to pick the most important skill at the moment, as each
> of them is (should be) useful in some way. It also leads to the desire
> of maxing out all the skills.
>
> That's where negative character development (undevelopment?) comes
> to the rescue: you start with all of your skills available, and as
> the game progresses you are asked to remove them. Each time you
> remove a skill, all skills that are left improve. This way you have
> the opportunity to test the skills before you make a decission that
> affects your future. It also forces you to differentiate your
characters,
> to specialize -- hopefully leading to more variety in the later parts
> of the game.
The player still won't know what skills are worth having when he
is first asked to ditch some of them. Not when the remaining skills
power up to new unknown levels and he doesn't know what he will face
later in the dungeon.
This is also not the same as simply "picking a character class at
the end of the game," at least not without guarantees that the player
regardless of choices will have a useful skillset at the end of the
game. Character classes are designed with at least some
consideration placed in being able to complete the game. Who knows
what skills a player will delete though, particularly when he is
acting without full information.
Such a system may even discourage skill exploration in some
players, if they get into the habit of always discarding certain
skills. And when it may take a near full game to find out whether
it is worth having Wrestling over Dodging, or to find that Alchemy
is broken.
As for more variety in latter parts of the game, that would
depend. At a guess, many players will likely stick to certain
skill sets. Likely, certain skills will be found to be the most
valuable, and many players will gravitate towards those skills,
particularly if your game is popular enough for people to discuss
it. Some will likely continue to experiment and perhaps even
attempt crazy challenges, but that is true for other skill systems
as well.
Though there are already games that take this approach to a
degree. The difference is that the player is only encouraged to
whittle down his skill set to certain skills, and can generally
try to correct any mistakes with late pick-ups. Games like
Sangband and Crawl give the player nearly everything at the start,
but raising everything equally is impractical if not impossible.
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Billy Bissette wrote:
> Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski <ne...@sheep.art.pl> wrote in
> news:slrngdeqm...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl:
>> That's where negative character development (undevelopment?) comes
>> to the rescue: you start with all of your skills available, and as
>> the game progresses you are asked to remove them. Each time you
>> remove a skill, all skills that are left improve. This way you have
>> the opportunity to test the skills before you make a decission that
>> affects your future. It also forces you to differentiate your
> characters,
>> to specialize -- hopefully leading to more variety in the later parts
>> of the game.
>
> The player still won't know what skills are worth having when he
> is first asked to ditch some of them. Not when the remaining skills
> power up to new unknown levels and he doesn't know what he will face
> later in the dungeon.
Well, he can at least ditch the ones he did try already and didn't like.
You don't ned the skills powered up to incredible levels, because they
should work with near sure success rate on the first level monsters.
As for skills that change dramatically after a powerup -- you shouldn't
have them anyways, the thing that is confusing is the fact they change,
not the fact you have to ditch them. It would be equally confusing in
a more traditional system.
> This is also not the same as simply "picking a character class at
> the end of the game," at least not without guarantees that the player
> regardless of choices will have a useful skillset at the end of the
> game. Character classes are designed with at least some
> consideration placed in being able to complete the game. Who knows
> what skills a player will delete though, particularly when he is
> acting without full information.
I think that if you can make a game unwinnable without making a really
silly mistake (or consistent carelessness, or bad luck), it's broken
already. If some choices are obviously useless, the player shouldn't
be offered the choice at all.
> Such a system may even discourage skill exploration in some
> players, if they get into the habit of always discarding certain
> skills.
Somehow I don't see it. You don't risk much with a freshly generated,
first level character, you can experiment all you want and the worst
that can happen is that you get back to square one.
> And when it may take a near full game to find out whether
> it is worth having Wrestling over Dodging, or to find that Alchemy
> is broken.
If it takes a full game to know one skill from another, then why there
are separate skills at all? If your skills are broken, your game is
broken, and no character development system will help you with that.
> As for more variety in latter parts of the game, that would
> depend. At a guess, many players will likely stick to certain
> skill sets.
That's ok, we are all different, have different preferences and different
styles. Personally I think this is something beautiful that should be
highlighted and encouraged, not something to hide and be ashamed of.
Still, different players should choose different sets. If you have a
"winning set", optimal set of skills, then you can just remove all the
other skills, they add nothing to the game.
> Likely, certain skills will be found to be the most
> valuable, and many players will gravitate towards those skills,
> particularly if your game is popular enough for people to discuss
> it. Some will likely continue to experiment and perhaps even
> attempt crazy challenges, but that is true for other skill systems
> as well.
So we lose nothing here :) What you are saying is basically "if your game
is unbalanced, then your game is unbalanced". I think that this system at
least lets you easily notice when your game is unbalanced and which skills
need fixing.
> Though there are already games that take this approach to a
> degree. The difference is that the player is only encouraged to
> whittle down his skill set to certain skills, and can generally
> try to correct any mistakes with late pick-ups. Games like
> Sangband and Crawl give the player nearly everything at the start,
> but raising everything equally is impractical if not impossible.
Yes, this idea was in large part inspired by Crawl's design "rules".
It is an extremal approach, and as such is probably not perfect; I
think it shows an interesting approach to character development and
shows that "development of character" doesn't have to mean "becoming
more powerful and stronger in everything".
Sherm Pendley
> you start with all of your skills available, and as
> the game progresses you are asked to remove them.
AlzheimersRL, anyone?
sherm--
--
My blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Numeron
> That's where negative character development (undevelopment?) comes
> to the rescue: you start with all of your skills available, and as
> the game progresses you are asked to remove them.
Id much rather read the descriptions of 3 abilities I get to choose
one of to gain than read all about 100 abilities I have to choose one
of to drop.
-Numeron
Numeron
Sorry fat fingers hit send, I wanted to say I actually quite like your
idea :) However I think a good way to extend it would be to still
start with a class. this way you restrict the abilities you start with
and not give a new player 1000 spells, and not even the time to test
them all out before they have to throw some away. And then have
further restrictions on what you can drop at each level (like the most
unused ones) so that you dont overwhelm people with choice.
-Numeron
-Numeron
dpeg
[about inverse development, where at each step one skill is removed and the
remaining ones get stronger]
> At Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:12:16 -0500, Billy Bissette wrote:
>> And when it may take a near full game to find out whether
>> it is worth having Wrestling over Dodging, or to find that Alchemy
>> is broken.
>
> If it takes a full game to know one skill from another, then why there
> are separate skills at all? If your skills are broken, your game is
> broken, and no character development system will help you with that.
I think that the Sheep is right: each skill should be meaningful in the end,
else it would be useless to have it in the first place. (Roguelikes don't
need red herrings.) In a sense, such a game should have the number of
different playing styles to be (at least) the number of skills.
Billy has a point, though: I would suggest the skill set being small (say 4
or 6 rather than 20). One reason is that it is pretty hard to come up with
many genuinely different playing styles; the other that this game will be
about specialising _only_. In contrast to the standard additive approach to
skills, in Skills--RL you are going to be less and less flexible as the game
goes on. In other words, this roguelike should be well on the tactical side
of things.
>> Though there are already games that take this approach to a
>> degree. The difference is that the player is only encouraged to
>> whittle down his skill set to certain skills, and can generally
>> try to correct any mistakes with late pick-ups. Games like
>> Sangband and Crawl give the player nearly everything at the start,
>> but raising everything equally is impractical if not impossible.
>
> Yes, this idea was in large part inspired by Crawl's design "rules".
Hehe, now that you mention it, I had to chime in. Call me Pawlow :)
> It is an extremal approach, and as such is probably not perfect; I
> think it shows an interesting approach to character development and
> shows that "development of character" doesn't have to mean "becoming
> more powerful and stronger in everything".
I think the basic idea is absolutely worth investigating. The format of 7DRL
seems really fitting in my opinion. Apart from the fun aspect and the
novelty, I find it always interesting if a basic and standard mechanic is
reversed like this. We learn something about standard roguelikes from this,
too.
By the way, the concept lends itself very well to offbeat themes. A silly
one: goal is to pacify larger and larger masses of humans; skills are
cooking, performing, use of blunt instruments; gameplay consists of using
and improving randomly found items (food, water etc.)
David
Jeff Lait
> Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski <n...@sheep.art.pl> wrote innews:slrngdeqm...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl:
>
> > That's where negative character development (undevelopment?) comes
> > to the rescue: you start with all of your skills available, and as
> > the game progresses you are asked to remove them. Each time you
> > remove a skill, all skills that are left improve. This way you have
> > the opportunity to test the skills before you make a decission that
> > affects your future. It also forces you to differentiate your
> characters,
> > to specialize -- hopefully leading to more variety in the later parts
> > of the game.
>
> The player still won't know what skills are worth having when he
> is first asked to ditch some of them. Not when the remaining skills
> power up to new unknown levels and he doesn't know what he will face
> later in the dungeon.
First, that assumption is only true for the first few playthroughs of
the game. A point of a roguelike is that you are meant to play it
more than once. Have a separate tutorial to teach how the skills
work.
> This is also not the same as simply "picking a character class at
> the end of the game," at least not without guarantees that the player
> regardless of choices will have a useful skillset at the end of the
> game. Character classes are designed with at least some
> consideration placed in being able to complete the game. Who knows
> what skills a player will delete though, particularly when he is
> acting without full information.
Okay, rather than character class, try a skill-based game. Each time
I pick a skill in a skillbased game I reject the other skills - I'm
narrowing the skills I can pick. Diablo II is a good point - spending
a skill point means I don't spend it elsewhere.
As it happens, in Diablo II, I can spend a point in Thunderstorm only
to find out it sucks for my playstyle. At least with negative
development I could find out it sucked, and then drop it, freeing up a
skill point for one of my other abilities I actually like.
> Such a system may even discourage skill exploration in some
> players, if they get into the habit of always discarding certain
> skills. And when it may take a near full game to find out whether
> it is worth having Wrestling over Dodging, or to find that Alchemy
> is broken.
I think the opposite. Skill gain systems do that - if I can only try
out a deeply nested skill by spending most of a game working to get
there, I'm unlikely to try it out and instead concentrate on a known
skill. THe idea of this system is that you can try out all of the
skills day 1. Start a new game, test the skill.
> As for more variety in latter parts of the game, that would
> depend. At a guess, many players will likely stick to certain
> skill sets. Likely, certain skills will be found to be the most
> valuable, and many players will gravitate towards those skills,
> particularly if your game is popular enough for people to discuss
> it. Some will likely continue to experiment and perhaps even
> attempt crazy challenges, but that is true for other skill systems
> as well.
This is flaw of all skill systems - even if they are balanced, people
will behave otherwise and bore themselves to death.
I really think Skill--RL would be an excellent *short* roguelike.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
Billy Bissette
> Billy Bissette wrote:
> You don't ned the skills powered up to incredible levels,
> because they should work with near sure success rate on the first
> level monsters. As for skills that change dramatically after a powerup
> -- you shouldn't have them anyways, the thing that is confusing is the
> fact they change, not the fact you have to ditch them. It would be
> equally confusing in a more traditional system.
If everything is going to power up with equal usefulness, and will
not change in any other meaningful way, then why power them up at all?
Just so the player won't complain that "advancing" causes him to
sacrifice skills rather than gain them?
>> And when it may take a near full game to find out whether
>> it is worth having Wrestling over Dodging, or to find that Alchemy
>> is broken.
>
> If it takes a full game to know one skill from another, then why there
> are separate skills at all? If your skills are broken, your game is
> broken, and no character development system will help you with that.
How different are your skills going to be? Having a bunch of
effectively identical skills is a design cheat. The more different
the skills are, the more likely they will be of different usefulness.
Even if you roughly balance Wrestling, Swords, and Dodging for
level 1, how much should each be increased for level 2? How much
extra damage avoidance is equivalent to an extra 5% to hit with
Swords? At level 3? Level 4? And while +5% to hit might beat +5%
to evade, by the end of the game +50% to evade might beat +50% to hit.
And when your skills are even more different? How does Set Traps
compare to Fire Magic? Create Potions to Reduced Hunger?
Will monsters change as the player progresses? Even basic details
like damage and health can throw off skill balance. Special
abilities create more issues though. Fire Magic is worth less when
more creatures show up that resist fire. Dodging is worth more when
creatures show up that get extra effects on successful hits, or just
do extraordinary damage.
Of course, we haven't even gotten into skill interactions. The
more variety there is between skills, the more likely there will be
combinations that simply work better that others.
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Billy Bissette wrote:
> Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski <ne...@sheep.art.pl> wrote in
> news:slrngdgdb...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl:
>> At Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:12:16 -0500,
>> Billy Bissette wrote:
>
>> You don't ned the skills powered up to incredible levels,
>> because they should work with near sure success rate on the first
>> level monsters. As for skills that change dramatically after a powerup
>> -- you shouldn't have them anyways, the thing that is confusing is the
>> fact they change, not the fact you have to ditch them. It would be
>> equally confusing in a more traditional system.
>
> If everything is going to power up with equal usefulness, and will
> not change in any other meaningful way, then why power them up at all?
> Just so the player won't complain that "advancing" causes him to
> sacrifice skills rather than gain them?
Well, I'm assuming the usual model of a roguelike where the more you
progress into the game, the stronger and more dangerous monsters and
other challenges you meet. Thus, both your combat skills and support
skills need to grow in power/magnitude to accomodate the increase in
power of the adversaries. This is, however, a quantity, not quality
difference: lockpicking skill won't suddenly allow you to hit harder
with your weapon, and fencing skill won't let you open the door more
easily.
>>> And when it may take a near full game to find out whether
>>> it is worth having Wrestling over Dodging, or to find that Alchemy
>>> is broken.
>>
>> If it takes a full game to know one skill from another, then why there
>> are separate skills at all? If your skills are broken, your game is
>> broken, and no character development system will help you with that.
>
> How different are your skills going to be? Having a bunch of
> effectively identical skills is a design cheat. The more different
> the skills are, the more likely they will be of different usefulness.
There is no such thing as a single measure of "usefulness". The whole
point of decissions in character development is not to make a guessing
game for the "only right" optimal character. It's to allow a variety
of playing styles, chosen by the player both as a preference ("I like
playing mages") and progress of the game ("I found a book of death ray
early on, so I decided to become a mage").
> Even if you roughly balance Wrestling, Swords, and Dodging for
> level 1, how much should each be increased for level 2? How much
> extra damage avoidance is equivalent to an extra 5% to hit with
> Swords? At level 3? Level 4? And while +5% to hit might beat +5%
> to evade, by the end of the game +50% to evade might beat +50% to hit.
They are not equivalent, and that's the whole point. Why should they be?
The "balancing" is not about making all characters play the same. It's
about making all characters interesting. You can have a fighter character
that runs over opponents without even blinking, because he's got high
figting skills and a mathcing weapon. You can also have a mage that has
to keep the distance, carefully choose spells and manager magic points.
A stelthy character, a nimble character, even a character that gets beaten
up really bad all the time but has tremendous healing powers. Obviously,
these characters have different strengths and different monsters are
dangerous for them. They also approach problems differently and consider
different loot valuable. You fight differently when you have high evade
rate than when you have high to hit; the choice of weapon, the choice of
whether to just stand and hit or maybe move around while fighting, whether
to stay in corridors or stick to open spaces, whether use that potion
of berserk strength when fighting a heavily armored monster, or better
save it for monsters with dangerous special attacks -- it all changes
depending on the skills, and you can't really say "this is better than
that". If you can say it, then you have too many stats in your game.
> And when your skills are even more different? How does Set Traps
> compare to Fire Magic? Create Potions to Reduced Hunger?
They don't compare, that's the whole point. You use them differently.
> Will monsters change as the player progresses? Even basic details
> like damage and health can throw off skill balance. Special
> abilities create more issues though. Fire Magic is worth less when
> more creatures show up that resist fire. Dodging is worth more when
> creatures show up that get extra effects on successful hits, or just
> do extraordinary damage.
Yes, changing the situation dramatically in the middle of the game
is a general problem with all character development systems: the game
the player prepared for is no longer the game he plays. Obviously,
rapidly changing environment will favour universal, Jack-of-all-trades
characters with no characteristic features and strong or weak points,
while the point of character development is to create interesting,
varied characters with specific strenghts and weaknesses.
> Of course, we haven't even gotten into skill interactions. The
> more variety there is between skills, the more likely there will be
> combinations that simply work better that others.
... with particular play style. Maybe even with particular set of
starting conditions, like the equipment you find early on or out of
depth monsters you encounter on low levels. Or even some parameters
of the whole dungeon that could be chosen at the start -- so that
player has to adapt their playing style for them.
David Ploog
[snip all]
I have no idea why you are so negative about the idea, but perhaps the
following thought experiment will help.
Don't think in terms of dozens of skills. Suppose a game only had three
skills, for example Melee, Magic, Ranged. You can use each of them to
overcome monsters and you can nicely mix them. At 1/3 in the game, you
have to select one and stop using it (but become more proficient with the
others). At 2/3 in the game, you have to select the remaining one. As I
said before, this is about specialising. In my opinion, it is pretty
obvious that such a system could work.
In this particular example, you would have three largely different types
of gameplay (depending on the skill you end with), or six minor types
(taking into account the skill still left in the middle part). As I also
said before, this original idea focuses on _playing styles_. If you cannot
come up with gameplay that allows for choosing "lockpicking" as a
universally useful playing style (i.e. winning 1/3 of the game with it),
then don't add that skill. So while "lockpicking" might not do it, skills
like Stealth+Stab or Subterfuge (aka Diplomacy or Charming) or Summoning
may do.
I think this kind of game would be interesting in praxis just for trying
to distill pure playing styles. The game should be small (on a RL scale)
for reasons I explained before.
David
Pointless
> Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski <n...@sheep.art.pl> wrote innews:slrngdgdb...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl:
One thing you're not taking into account is what if the game itself is
balanced towards the skills chosen? For example, if the player chooses
lockpicking, double the number of locked doors. Or, here's another
example: you could do the opposite. If the character selects firebolt,
generate monsters that are resistant to fire. The game could be
balanced so that the play receives optimum challenge based on skills
chosen instead of a static world.
This is how MetaCollider works btw
David Damerell
[Entire previous article quoted and QP-brain-damaged, sigh.]
>One thing you're not taking into account is what if the game itself is
>balanced towards the skills chosen? For example, if the player chooses
>lockpicking, double the number of locked doors.
Ingenious, but I wonder if it's exploitable (for example, by choosing
skills that meet with nonlethal challenges where possible)?
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Thursday, September.
Pointless
wrote:
> Quoting Pointless <mail...@nym.hush.com>:
> [Entire previous article quoted and QP-brain-damaged, sigh.]
>
> >One thing you're not taking into account is what if the game itself is
> >balanced towards the skills chosen? For example, if the player chooses
> >lockpicking, double the number of locked doors.
>
> Ingenious, but I wonder if it's exploitable (for example, by choosing
> skills that meet with nonlethal challenges where possible)?
> --
> Today is Thursday, September.
I've dealt with this by creating a "pool" of skills depending on game
success and then awarding a random skill from that pool whenever a new
level is reached.
David Damerell
>I've dealt with this by creating a "pool" of skills depending on game
>success and then awarding a random skill from that pool whenever a new
>level is reached.
Trim the quoted text, willya?
Random character development. Hm. Bit of a risk of ending up with a mixed
bag which don't work together at all, don't you think?
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Thursday, September.
Pointless
wrote:
>
> Trim the quoted text, willya?
You're just being crotchety. And no part of my brain is damaged.
> Random character development. Hm. Bit of a risk of ending up with a mixed
> bag which don't work together at all, don't you think?
> --
> David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
> Today is Thursday, September.
It depends on what skills are implemented. Combat skills are easier to
balance.
But it is a problem. I've solved this by having "basic" monsters that
don't pose any specific challenge, so if the character receives a
general skill, the player faces the basic monsters.
Inuga...@gmail.com
thought of differently than designing a game with positive character
development. Instead of focusing on monsters, you should focus on
inventories and dungeon loot/monster drops. Positive character
development usually implies that you will depend on your inventory
from the beginning and it will become less useful as you grow in power
in such a way as to overcome obstacles. Negative character development
implies that the inventory grows more valuable as the player becomes
more specialized against specific obstacles.
What was brought up earlier was specialization in the end game. This
specialization should be enough to overcome most obstacles that
couldn't be taken down before (status/element immune/resistant
creatures will become less so). This would mean that a player focusing
on specific classes would have an easier time against specific
obstacles in the end game while using his or her inventory to fill in
other roles to a lesser degree. I can see several effects on the
player inventory from this: 1) The inventory at the beginning of
character development is trivial, but grows more valuable as the
player specializes more and more, 2) as a result of a trivial
beginning inventory, players will have more of an inventory when they
start to actually utilize it, 3) due to specialization certain items
will become more or less useful to the point of being completely
useless or a godsend, and 4) as the game goes on, instead of having an
inventory of full of many useless items, he/she will have a dwindling
inventory of useful items due to increased use.
In class-based roguelikes (pick a class and adhere to its
restrictions), you have a fixed useless pool of items, a fixed useful
pool of items, and items that are meant to fill in the gaps for each
class (ie, wands for warriors). In a "build your own class" styled
system where the player is given positive character development, you
have a a growing pool of useless and filler items and a shrinking pool
of useful items as the character progresses. In a "build your own
class" system with negative development (this topic), you have a
growing pool of filler and useful items and a shrinking pool of
useless items.
Billy Bissette
news:a50b11c1-890f-4ba7...@k7g2000hsd.googlegroups.com:
> On Sep 22, 4:12 pm, Billy Bissette <bai...@coastalnet.com> wrote:
>> Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski <n...@sheep.art.pl> wrote
>> innews:slrngdeq
> mg.c8...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl:
>>
>> > That's where negative character development (undevelopment?) comes
>> > to the rescue: you start with all of your skills available, and as
>> > the game progresses you are asked to remove them. Each time you
>> > remove a skill, all skills that are left improve. This way you have
>> > the opportunity to test the skills before you make a decission that
>> > affects your future. It also forces you to differentiate your
>> characters,
>> > to specialize -- hopefully leading to more variety in the later
>> > parts of the game.
>>
>> The player still won't know what skills are worth having when he
>> is first asked to ditch some of them. Not when the remaining skills
>> power up to new unknown levels and he doesn't know what he will face
>> later in the dungeon.
>
> First, that assumption is only true for the first few playthroughs of
> the game. A point of a roguelike is that you are meant to play it
> more than once. Have a separate tutorial to teach how the skills
> work.
The same could be said for regular Roguelikes. Excepting skills
that don't show up until later, that the player may have never have
obtained. But in a class-based system, they should at least get
some feel for how the class as a whole operates.
> I really think Skill--RL would be an excellent *short* roguelike.
I have no objection to that belief. Mind, lots of ideas can be
the basis for an excellent *short* roguelike.
Billy Bissette
7I...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk:
> Quoting Pointless <mai...@nym.hush.com>:
> [Entire previous article quoted and QP-brain-damaged, sigh.]
>>One thing you're not taking into account is what if the game itself is
>>balanced towards the skills chosen? For example, if the player chooses
>>lockpicking, double the number of locked doors.
>
> Ingenious, but I wonder if it's exploitable (for example, by choosing
> skills that meet with nonlethal challenges where possible)?
You could implement a minimum risk of lethality. For example, even if
the player removes all their combat skills, there would still be some
minimum number of monsters present. If the player removes all trap-
related skills, traps would still be encountered.
You could try to group skills with potential dangers, so at to
maintain some sorts of significant risks even if the player tries to
game the system down to the minimums. Each skill choice could add and
subtract various values from different dangers. Think of those online
quizzes like "Which Star Trek race are you?" or "Which Care Bear is
your ideal mate?". Lockpicking might relate strongest to locked doors,
but it might also have a minor impact on traps (more locks -> more
reason to have traps) and even monsters (not just in giving reason for
the player to want to get through a locked door in an emergency, but
for the player to be more able to *use* locks to separate themselves
from monsters). Or take sneaking, which might relate to more
sleeping and inattentive monsters, but not necessarily reducing the
number of monsters. (Not as much point in sneaking if you had less
monsters overall, after all.)
And if the player really wanted to customize the risks out of the
game, do you really want to discourage him? If he *wants* that kind
of game...
Jürgen Lerch
On Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:54:37 -0700 (PDT), Inuga...@gmail.com wrote:
> Designing a game based on negative character development should be
> thought of differently than designing a game with positive character
> development. Instead of focusing on monsters, you should focus on
> inventories and dungeon loot/monster drops. Positive character
> development usually implies that you will depend on your inventory
> from the beginning and it will become less useful as you grow in power
> in such a way as to overcome obstacles. Negative character development
> implies that the inventory grows more valuable as the player becomes
> more specialized against specific obstacles.
That seems a false assumption to me. At least in the
,,normal'' RLs, inventory is important from the start
to end. A warrior, say, always needs her weapon, her
armour, healing potions, ...
[...]
> other roles to a lesser degree. I can see several effects on the
> player inventory from this: 1) The inventory at the beginning of
> character development is trivial, but grows more valuable as the
> player specializes more and more, 2) as a result of a trivial
Well, you start with every skill, but each only on a
low level (else the improving of the skills you don't
drop would be meaningless). So you'd still have to use
your inventory early on.
Ad Astra!
JuL
--
jyn...@gmx.de / L'état, c'est toi. (Moi)
Jürgen ,,JuL'' Lerch /
Inuga...@gmail.com
> > Designing a game based on negative character development should be
> > thought of differently than designing a game with positive character
> > development. Instead of focusing on monsters, you should focus on
> > inventories and dungeon loot/monster drops. Positive character
> > development usually implies that you will depend on your inventory
> > from the beginning and it will become less useful as you grow in power
> > in such a way as to overcome obstacles. Negative character development
> > implies that the inventory grows more valuable as the player becomes
> > more specialized against specific obstacles.
>
> That seems a false assumption to me. At least in the
> ,,normal'' RLs, inventory is important from the start
> to end. A warrior, say, always needs her weapon, her
> armour, healing potions, ...
>
giving a clearer definition.
> > other roles to a lesser degree. I can see several effects on the
> > player inventory from this: 1) The inventory at the beginning of
> > character development is trivial, but grows more valuable as the
> > player specializes more and more, 2) as a result of a trivial
>
> Well, you start with every skill, but each only on a
> low level (else the improving of the skills you don't
> drop would be meaningless). So you'd still have to use
> your inventory early on.
>
At the beginning of a game, depending on how everything is actually
balanced, using skills early on would be more advantagous as they
would most likely dip into renewable/unlimited player resources
(regenerating mana/health, time) and can be used unlimited times
(quantity over quality) because the system is exploitable (as it's
bound to be when given every skill in the book) unless there are some
odd requirements like money/mana/health/items that prevent skills from
being used. A negative development system makes the characters half-
assed in the beginning, but more self-sufficient. Yes, some players
may need to dip into their inventory for that odd and early out-of-
depth monster which they need a certain skill to bring down but
ditched for their build or need an emergency fixer-upper when fighting
a group of monsters they didn't expect. But in the beginning, a
character wouldn't be very valuable (as there hasn't been much
investment or progress) to rely on items as it has every skill at its
disposal, where when the character has become stronger, but given less
"built in" options, the need to use items grows.
Gerry Quinn
says...
the skills.
>
> That's where negative character development (undevelopment?) comes
> to the rescue: you start with all of your skills available, and as
> the game progresses you are asked to remove them. Each time you
> remove a skill, all skills that are left improve. This way you have
> the opportunity to test the skills before you make a decission that
> affects your future. It also forces you to differentiate your characters,
> to specialize -- hopefully leading to more variety in the later parts
> of the game.
I think it's a really great concept from a design point of view. But
don't tell your players about it :-)
= Gerry Quinn
--
Lair of the Demon Ape (a coffee-break roguelike)
<http://indigo.ie/~gerryq/lair/lair.htm>
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Inuga...@gmail.com wrote:
> Designing a game based on negative character development should be
> thought of differently than designing a game with positive character
> development. Instead of focusing on monsters, you should focus on
> inventories and dungeon loot/monster drops. Positive character
> development usually implies that you will depend on your inventory
> from the beginning and it will become less useful as you grow in power
> in such a way as to overcome obstacles. Negative character development
> implies that the inventory grows more valuable as the player becomes
> more specialized against specific obstacles.
Thanks, I didn't think to pit the inventory against the skill set, but
this is an interesting approach. From what you can see in the design of
Crawl, Angband and Nethack, it seems that designers try hard to *not*
make skills (including spells) just equivalent of some consumable items.
Sure, there is the "satisfy hunger" spell in Angband that works pretty
much like rations, but the "light" spell works very differently than the
torches or lanterns and couldn't really possibly replace it. I think it's
a conscius effort to keep both skills and items useful at least towards
the end of the game. I'm not sure whether it's good or bad and whether
negative nevelopment could allow to bypass this. Now I just have to write
that 7DRL, don't I? :)
As for forcing the players to dump their skills -- it just occured to me
that you don't have to do it. You can just keep a counter of how many
skills the player can remove, and increase that counter with every
levelup. Then let the player remove the skills at any time, when they are
sure they won't need it. This allows you to play a less powerful but more
universal character too, although it might be a disadvantage, as you don't
advance your skills.
Jürgen Lerch
On Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:48:34 -0700 (PDT), Inuga...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Sep 23, 3:44 pm, "Jürgen Lerch" <jyn...@gmx.de> wrote:
> > On Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:54:37 -0700 (PDT), Inugami...@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
> > > development. Instead of focusing on monsters, you should focus on
> > > inventories and dungeon loot/monster drops. Positive character
> > > development usually implies that you will depend on your inventory
> > > from the beginning and it will become less useful as you grow in power
> > > in such a way as to overcome obstacles. Negative character development
> > > implies that the inventory grows more valuable as the player becomes
> > > more specialized against specific obstacles.
> > That seems a false assumption to me. At least in the
> > ,,normal'' RLs, inventory is important from the start
> > to end. A warrior, say, always needs her weapon, her
> > armour, healing potions, ...
> I was thinking more in the area of consumable inventory, sorry for not
> giving a clearer definition.
That's why I mentioned healing potions. ;-]
At least in the *bands and Crawl you seem(*) to always need
consumables.
(*) I never got even near the end of them, my information
is based on talk in our fellow NGs.
Hm, seems as if you have to make and balance items in
a special way, too, for such a game, if you want this
effect. Well, I'm looking forward to your 7DRL ;-),
though I have to admit that I'm not really convinced
of the concept.
Ad Astra!
JuL
--
jyn...@gmx.de / Reality is a crutch for those who can't
Jürgen ,,JuL'' Lerch / cope with fantasy
Jon Mayo
<n...@sheep.art.pl> wrote:
> This is one of ideas that flew around on IRDC, I thought it's
> worth saving for the future, if not as a viable approach, then
> at least as a food for thought.
>
> New users often feel overhelmed by large complexity and richness
> of roguelike games. One way to mitigate this problem is to make
> the beginning of the game relatively simple, and add functionalities
> as the game progresses. For example, you can let players develop
> new skills for their characters as they level up. This common technique
> is somewhat spoiled by the fact that at the point where the players
> are expected to make the decission about which skills to improve, they
> know very little about the game and about the skills themselves. It's
> also very hard to pick the most important skill at the moment, as each
> of them is (should be) useful in some way. It also leads to the desire
>
> That's where negative character development (undevelopment?) comes
> to the rescue: you start with all of your skills available, and as
> the game progresses you are asked to remove them. Each time you
> remove a skill, all skills that are left improve. This way you have
> the opportunity to test the skills before you make a decission that
> affects your future. It also forces you to differentiate your characters,
> to specialize -- hopefully leading to more variety in the later parts
> of the game.
>
> player character might actually be getting weaker -- and the game harder.
> This could play well with the "reversed dungeon" idea, where you start at
> the bottom of the dungeon and make your way to the top.
>
> --
> Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski <http://sheep.art.pl>
> "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,
> it's time to pause and reflect." -- Mark Twain
Interesting idea. I think you would have to be careful to not do it in
a way that ruins the sense of discovery that roguelikes (and all good
games have). As frustrating as it is to pick and choose the skills you
want as you slowly collect them, it is fun to find new skills.
Especially if there are some skills that can be only acquired in a
certain way. By playing it in reverse and giving the player all the
skills you lose that.
Was not the point of giving out skills a few at a time to prevent new
users from being overwhelmed? It seems like your negative character
idea (as interesting as it is) unsolves the problem of discouraging
new players.
I think I would tweak and mix the ideas a bit. Like have some way
midway in the game for you to drop skills and trade the skill points
in to improve other skills beyond their normal maximum. I would still
only grant a few skills at the beginning, but quickly accumulate new
skills as fast as the player can learn to take advantage of them. Once
your character is mature, there are a lot of junk skills that were
never really used or that you have outgrown.
If improving a few key skills is not enough incentive, I would suggest
that only a limited number of skills be available (only so many
letters on the keyboard). And that once you start moving into the
advanced stages of the game dumping skills lets you learn the fancier
skills.
David Damerell
> And if the player really wanted to customize the risks out of the
>game, do you really want to discourage him? If he *wants* that kind
>of game...
Yes. A game that tries to be all things to all people is a tedious mass of
bland to everyone.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Friday, September.
David Damerell
>On Sep 23, 3:01=A0pm, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>>Trim the quoted text, willya?
>You're just being crotchety.
No, I'm not. Trimming quoted text is basic courtesy.
>And no part of my brain is damaged.
Maybe so, but your articles have quoted-printable brain-damage for all
that.
>>Random character development. Hm. Bit of a risk of ending up with a mixed
>>bag which don't work together at all, don't you think?
>It depends on what skills are implemented. Combat skills are easier to
>balance.
Even so - sometimes you'll end up with skills which work together,
sometimes you won't, difficulty could vary wildly. POWDER addresses this
to a degree by having spells (=~ skills in the context we are in) and
skills come in books of related abilities.
Billy Bissette
news:c321544f-16c8-4de8...@n38g2000prl.googlegroups.com:
> I think I would tweak and mix the ideas a bit. Like have some way
> midway in the game for you to drop skills and trade the skill points
> in to improve other skills beyond their normal maximum. I would still
> only grant a few skills at the beginning, but quickly accumulate new
> skills as fast as the player can learn to take advantage of them. Once
> your character is mature, there are a lot of junk skills that were
> never really used or that you have outgrown.
I'm not sure why the original post implied skill dropping should be
forced. The player gets a reward for dropping skills, in the form of
bonuses to everything remaining. So why not let a cautious player
play with everything until they decide what they really don't need
anymore?
Or how about letting the player regain dropped skills if they
wish, while losing the bonuses they gained of course. Limit this
system so that the player can't freely min-max for whatever upcoming
threat they face. Perhaps only allow changes at level up, or some
other arbitrary measurement.
Simon Richard Clarkstone
> If improving a few key skills is not enough incentive, I would suggest
> that only a limited number of skills be available (only so many
> letters on the keyboard). And that once you start moving into the
> advanced stages of the game dumping skills lets you learn the fancier
> skills.
The phrase "only so many letters on the keyboard" has brought an evil
idea to mind: gradually having to remove keys the your keyboard, i.e.
remove commands from your command set. In a fairly open dungeon you can
get around with just 3 movement commands, rather than 8. And you don't
need to close doors much, and you don't often need to stand still, etc.
A neat idea to think about, but it would probably not be a good game
feature from a player's point of view.
--
Simon Richard Clarkstone:
s.r.cl?rkst?n?@dunelm.org.uk / s?m?n_cl?rkst?n?@yahoo.co.uk
| My half-daughter went to the GMH riots |
| But all I got was this stupid ¥-shirt. |
Inuga...@gmail.com
<s.r.clarkst...@dunelm.org.uk> wrote:
> Jon Mayo wrote:
> > If improving a few key skills is not enough incentive, I would suggest
> > that only a limited number of skills be available (only so many
> > letters on the keyboard). And that once you start moving into the
> > advanced stages of the game dumping skills lets you learn the fancier
> > skills.
>
> The phrase "only so many letters on the keyboard" has brought an evil
> idea to mind: gradually having to remove keys the your keyboard, i.e.
> remove commands from your command set. In a fairly open dungeon you can
> get around with just 3 movement commands, rather than 8. And you don't
> need to close doors much, and you don't often need to stand still, etc.
> A neat idea to think about, but it would probably not be a good game
> feature from a player's point of view.
Turn left, turn right, move forward. Good ol' Turtle movement.
Paul Donnelly
Rick
I think that's a pretty stunning idea to be honest..