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There are tons of people who put no thought into early game and just blindly zerg through it waiting for the RNG to not screw them. That doesn't mean there aren't a ton of strategic decisions to be made if you put in the effort.
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Nov 28, 2017 22:29
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Toadsmash posted:There are tons of people who put no thought into early game and just blindly zerg through it waiting for the RNG to not screw them. That doesn't mean there aren't a ton of strategic decisions to be made if you put in the effort. What's the return on that effort? If I zerg through the early game and fail because of aggressive play, how much time do I lose? Because as far as I'm concerned, the less time I spend fighting the tutorial monsters, the better.
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Nov 28, 2017 22:46
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a lot of that strategic effort, if taken far enough, becomes things like "inscribe on potions what floor you found them on and then with that plus how many you have you can usually predict what certain unID'd potions are", except that's not fun at all. also things like "if you recognize certain vaults you can know for sure what certain unID'd potions are, because some vaults only spawn certain potions or potions from certain pools" which leads to inscribing stacks of unidentified potions "degeneration" because they came from that one kobold vault or whatever and you KNOW they're degeneration, but it's not worth spending an ID scroll because you already know that and it's not worth drinking them
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Nov 28, 2017 23:26
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resistentialism posted:Diablo 1 had an express intention to get you to fill up your inventory and then port back to town at regular intervals so you could notice new quests showing up. I seem to recall that the design justification in Dungeonmans is essentially the same - it forms part of the gameplay loop that contributes to your metaprogression. You go back to get your gear ID'd, but while you're there you'll submit/use Proofs, melt down gear for Hammers, upgrade your lab/library, etc.
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Nov 28, 2017 23:52
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Shrug. It's just a different way to play. I don't know about you, but the reason the early game initially felt like a slog for me was that I was all too happy to write off those deaths as "nope, I was just screwed." There's an argument to be made that that's actually the most interesting part of the game because you're forced to make do with the resources at hand and can't reasonably expect to have access to even the relatively common consumables. And no, I'm not talking about :sperg: poo poo like memorizing vaults and loot pools. There's plenty of room in the middle. The return on that investment is, realizing that there's a lot more room for self improvement even that early on than a lot of people would have you think and learning those skills will roll over into contemplating other options that you might not otherwise further down the road or even whole new character builds. If the early game feels like a mindless repetitive slog to you, it's because you're making a choice, conscious or no, to play it that way. Spending 30-45 minutes grinding a dozen uneventful starts where I just write off my deaths as "poo poo happens" to get to the one run where I can survive till Lair with minimal effort is not my idea of fun. But I'm not trying to criticize how you play. If you find that loop fun, more power to you. I just got sick of playing the early dungeon grind over and over no matter how "short" it is. Toadsmash fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Nov 29, 2017 |
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Nov 29, 2017 00:04
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To be clear, I've not played Crawl. I was seriously asking that question. The "current meta" for Angband is to dive like hell and just use consumables whenever because very few of them are harmful and they almost always ID on use regardless of circumstances. Sometimes this gets you killed, but the first ~20 levels of the dungeon (i.e. the early game) are pretty inconsequential and the sooner you can get through them, the sooner you get to the parts that are actually interesting. ...I don't know how true that is for newbies to the game, though.
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Nov 29, 2017 00:12
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I haven't actually played ADOM, although I do want to at some point. I am a bit curious how the array of consumables you have access to early on compares to Crawl, though. One of the eye opening moments for me in Crawl was absolutely avoiding waiting till X floor to ID a whole bunch of things at once. You need every consumable you can get your grubby paws on ASAP. If you have 3 different potions you have 2+ of sitting in your inventory unID'd when you die, you already fundamentally hosed up. Survive first, packrat later. The sooner you know what something is, the sooner it can save your rear end, even if it means wasting one to ID it -- which you will, often.
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Nov 29, 2017 00:18
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It has Nethack levels of consumables, in that you typically don't want to use them unless you know blessed/normal/cursed status. And even after that there's far too much variance to rely on blessed stuff so you figure out which one is your scroll of identify, bless and read it to learn about your rather copious stash of various things you're afraid of using. Then you keep up to date with wands/staffs you have lying around or memorize the spell if you're not too stupid.
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Nov 29, 2017 00:31
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In my experience, in ADOM you are a blind idiot fumbling around in the dark not having any clue what your inventory is up until you reach Dwarftown on level 10ish of the main dungeon. Then suddenly you have a guaranteed altar, which means you can get holy water, which means you can bless a scroll of identify and ID your whole inventory at once.
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Nov 29, 2017 00:59
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With crawl I ignore the early game by just playing a combo that's strong enough at the start to get away with just rushing until lair.
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Nov 29, 2017 02:20
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Mass ID-ing everything you've collected after a dungeon dive is fun in ADOM, imo. e: it's not like an Interesting Gameplay Decision 99% of hte time though, just a satisfying thing. Kobold Sex Tape fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Nov 29, 2017 |
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Nov 29, 2017 03:29
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Toadsmash posted:Shrug. It's just a different way to play. I don't know about you, but the reason the early game initially felt like a slog for me was that I was all too happy to write off those deaths as "nope, I was just screwed." There's an argument to be made that that's actually the most interesting part of the game because you're forced to make do with the resources at hand and can't reasonably expect to have access to even the relatively common consumables. And no, I'm not talking about :sperg: poo poo like memorizing vaults and loot pools. There's plenty of room in the middle. The return on that investment is, realizing that there's a lot more room for self improvement even that early on than a lot of people would have you think and learning those skills will roll over into contemplating other options that you might not otherwise further down the road or even whole new character builds. If the early game feels like a mindless repetitive slog to you, it's because you're making a choice, conscious or no, to play it that way. Spending 30-45 minutes grinding a dozen uneventful starts where I just write off my deaths as "poo poo happens" to get to the one run where I can survive till Lair with minimal effort is not my idea of fun. I agree completely with this, and it's a huge part of why I loved DCSS. To me an ID subgame is an important component of a traditional roguelike. I miss it when it's not there. rodbeard posted:With crawl I ignore the early game by just playing a combo that's strong enough at the start to get away with just rushing until lair. uh but also this sometimes
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Nov 29, 2017 03:44
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Toadsmash posted:I've felt like in Crawl's case there's a large strategic element to the ID game in the early game especially, so I haven't minded. Apparently I'm in the minority. Yeah, we are. TooMuchAbstraction posted:To be clear, I've not played Crawl. I was seriously asking that question. Most of the crawl ID strategy comes down to the choices of "what are you willing to waste" vs "what do you want to know about right now". My default approach is to read large stacks of scrolls hoping to find scrolls of ID, then ID other scrolls starting with the smalller ones to find remove curse, blinking, and teleportation, and possibly fear. I may not have found those, so eventually I will say I have "enough" of a stack to risk wasting one (you never have enough blinking! a bit less true in current versions than the last couple). After that I will ID potions until I know heal wounds, curing, might, haste. This will change based on things like how many or how many types of scrolls/potions I've found, what other equipment, etc. Amulets might be IDed based on how I feel about faith. Potions might get used unIDed in some combat situations, and scrolls in true desperation (though often curing and teleport can be guessed at by supply, it is not a given). Jewellery and other potentially ruinous items (weapons!) get equipped only if I have a _known_ remove curse scroll or I acknowledge that I am basically startscumming.
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Nov 29, 2017 03:59
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For a little while for something different I tried to do one of those ADOM challenges with a steam achievement to have a character go directly to the infinite dungeon, get the sceptre of chaos, and leave the chain. This led to fun shenanigans of first finding a scroll of identify by assuming that the scroll i have the most of will be ID (it almost always is, sometimes it's uncursing). Then trying to dip a single scroll into a single potion of water that isn't the biggest pile in hopes it will be holy water and not unholy water to get a blessed scroll. And lastly, before reading the blessed scroll, marking the other unidentified holy water as such, dropping it, and then reading the scroll so I can continue to amass a pile of holy water in the future without having to burn scrolls. Anyway I never got very far in that challenge.
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Nov 29, 2017 07:43
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The infinite dungeon doesn't even spawn altars, does it? That sounds awful if you don't play priest/ratling for the B/U/C detection, but at least you'll sometimes get holy water as a random drop.
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Nov 29, 2017 08:34
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The infinite dungeon has been systematically stripped of all fun and use and point, so that you are guaranteed to only visit it ever for the Sceptre of Chaos, which is never, and for Filk, which will be DL 1-5 if you were smart, so it's in that same category of places as the Minotaur Maze - "boring suicide venture" The only other reason is to suicide a maxed character not doing an ultra by going for a high score floor
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Nov 29, 2017 08:42
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Black August posted:The infinite dungeon has been systematically stripped of all fun and use and point, so that you are guaranteed to only visit it ever for the Sceptre of Chaos, which is never, and for Filk, which will be DL 1-5 if you were smart, so it's in that same category of places as the Minotaur Maze - "boring suicide venture" i refuse to believe the ID was ever fun. it's impossible. can still scum for blink dogs there so it has A Use, Singular
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Nov 29, 2017 09:16
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I'd argue the id was an emergency thing to begin with. Also you only really need one random holy water since you can just bless 4 regular waters at a time so its not too bad. First kill should be bandit so you can easily get courage and filk!
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Nov 30, 2017 00:37
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:It's possible that Impossible lowers the exotic matter rewards for killing aliens? I was pretty obsessive about grabbing everything that I could and feeding it into the recycler (which was kind of tedious to be honest), and I definitely found myself in the situation of "okay, I can make a few boxes of pistol ammo, or two suit repair kits, or two neuromods". I played it once on normal using all neuromods (so relatively little ammo use after the early game since I was using psi), and once on impossible using human neuromods only (mostly zapgun/shotgun for combat), and both times I got Necropsy early, and exotic material was always the limiting factor on neuromod printing.  I think you get the same amount of EM per enemy regardless of difficulty, but don't quote me on that. The costs are definitely the same, though.Perhaps you're just fighting more things somehow?
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Nov 30, 2017 03:46
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Scumming around the infinite dungeon for a few levels, especially on combinations that start really weak, makes surviving the early game a lot easier since you're less likely to die a bullshit ADOM death to a door trap or something.
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Nov 30, 2017 04:13
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Does anyone else think that the Sokoban puzzle levels in Nethack are a very weird design decision? I get that there's a nostalgic classic feel to them now, but imagine if they hadn't been made, and then someone suggested "Hey, I bet QUD would be way better with a bunch of sliding block puzzle levels."
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Dec 1, 2017 06:34
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:a very weird design decision?
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Dec 1, 2017 07:38
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i bought cryptark and this poo poo owns
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Dec 1, 2017 10:18
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Is Strafe any good? I got it as part of the humble monthly.
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Dec 1, 2017 20:43
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Does anyone else think that the Sokoban puzzle levels in Nethack are a very weird design decision? It's an optional challenge for a random chance of one of two great items, that can be completely ignored in a playthrough. Also part of Nethack's design philosophy was to throw everything and the kitchen sink in, as the saying goes. There's a lot of weird nerd references sprinkled all around the place. Some of the alchemy things are puns for goodness's sake 
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Dec 1, 2017 21:33
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Rappaport posted:It's an optional challenge for a random chance of one of two great items, that can be completely ignored in a playthrough. I've made a game that's perfectly balanced in every way, and if you kill 1000 bunny rabbits outside the starting town, one of them will drop the best weapon in the game. Totally optional, so it's fine, right?
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Dec 1, 2017 21:37
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I've made a game that's perfectly balanced in every way, and if you kill 1000 bunny rabbits outside the starting town, one of them will drop the best weapon in the game. Totally optional, so it's fine, right? Assuming it takes hours and can't easily be delegated to a robot, up to you I guess. As I've said before, Nethack is a horrendous old game that hates the player, but I don't see how Sokoban of all things is a scandal since you can get the bag and the amulet in the game in many other ways. Some of the arguably easiest if tedious ways are far more scummier, too, if you're willing to invest a lot of time in them. This is a game where Demogorgon can be summoned randomly by some bosses, a stone block puzzle as a breather is benign. Also it has more food than other parts of the dungeon 
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Dec 1, 2017 21:42
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spaceships posted:i bought cryptark and this poo poo owns 
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Dec 1, 2017 21:57
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Rappaport posted:Assuming it takes hours and can't easily be delegated to a robot, up to you I guess. As I've said before, Nethack is a horrendous old game that hates the player, but I don't see how Sokoban of all things is a scandal since you can get the bag and the amulet in the game in many other ways. Some of the arguably easiest if tedious ways are far more scummier, too, if you're willing to invest a lot of time in them. This is a game where Demogorgon can be summoned randomly by some bosses, a stone block puzzle as a breather is benign. Also it has more food than other parts of the dungeon It wasn't "Is this a scandal?" so much as "Isn't this a weird thing to put into a roguelike?" And yes, a sliding box puzzle is in fact a bit weird to have in a roguelike, but meh
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Dec 1, 2017 21:57
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Rappaport posted:There's a lot of weird nerd references sprinkled all around the place. My favorite dumb Nethack thing is that if you polymorph into a metallivore, you can eat metal weapons. If you consume a trident in this way, you get a special message ("That was pure chewing satisfaction!") and it exercises your wisdom.
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Dec 1, 2017 21:59
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Let me clarify. I think the news should stop worrying about this Flynn guy and address Sokoban.
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Dec 1, 2017 21:59
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Mithross posted:It wasn't "Is this a scandal?" so much as "Isn't this a weird thing to put into a roguelike?" Sure, I understand that it is weird, but it was added in 3.3.0 I think, when the game already had all the crazy shenanigans with literal kitchen sinks and fountains and such. As per TooMuchAbstraction's example, there's a non-zero chance of getting a massively advantageous item as a level 1 character by messing around with a fountain (and a much higher chance of being murdered brutally). Sokoban on its face is odd, but as an addition to a game with all this crazy non-sense already in it, meh. Maybe this is the nostalgia disclaimer edit: The boulder pushing and hole-filling mechanics were already there, so it wasn't that much of an addition except for the restriction on diagonal movement. Olesh posted:My favorite dumb Nethack thing is that if you polymorph into a metallivore, you can eat metal weapons. If you consume a trident in this way, you get a special message ("That was pure chewing satisfaction!") and it exercises your wisdom. I believe this is a reference/pun of an old US chewing gum brand. Hence the wisdom bit, I imagine! Rappaport fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Dec 1, 2017 |
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Dec 1, 2017 22:09
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Olesh posted:My favorite dumb Nethack thing is that if you polymorph into a metallivore, you can eat metal weapons. If you consume a trident in this way, you get a special message ("That was pure chewing satisfaction!") and it exercises your wisdom. Nethack is full of hilarious edge cases, which I think is what I like the most about it. If you polymorph yourself and then genocide your original race, you doom yourself to death because polymorph is temporary. You can get a number of unique messages from this, including one if you utilize an Amulet of Life Saving. "Unfortunately, you're still genocided..."
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Dec 1, 2017 22:09
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Rappaport posted:I believe this is a reference/pun of an old US chewing gum brand. Hence the wisdom bit, I imagine!
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Dec 1, 2017 22:18
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taqueso posted:Yeah, that was their slogan. Trident is still a common gum brand in the US. If you're hallucinating when you do this, you get a different special message: "Four out of five dentists agree." There's a reason why one of the catchphrases surrounding Nethack was "The Dev Team Thinks Of Everything". The dumb edge cases are amazing.
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Dec 1, 2017 23:02
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Olesh posted:My favorite dumb Nethack thing is that if you polymorph into a metallivore, you can eat metal weapons. If you consume a trident in this way, you get a special message ("That was pure chewing satisfaction!") and it exercises your wisdom.
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Dec 1, 2017 23:07
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SettingSun posted:Nethack is full of hilarious edge cases, which I think is what I like the most about it. If you polymorph yourself and then genocide your original race, you doom yourself to death because polymorph is temporary. You can get a number of unique messages from this, including one if you utilize an Amulet of Life Saving. "Unfortunately, you're still genocided..." I think you also get a special ascension message/morgue note if you ascended while polymorphed after genociding your race.
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Dec 1, 2017 23:37
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I used to think all that stuff made NetHack a great game but now I'm wiser.
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Dec 2, 2017 03:16
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Chin Strap posted:Is Strafe any good? I got it as part of the humble monthly. It's ok. It wasn't worth nearly the amount of hype or asking price when it launched. It's decently fast paced but your character feels kinda floaty. The guns feel kinda weak till you get some upgrades in them. Sometimes you'll get stuck in the level geometry because you jumped at just the right angle and now you're get stuck with no way out. The music is pretty good. If you have it already, give it a spin.
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Dec 2, 2017 03:33
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I've made a game that's perfectly balanced in every way, and if you kill 1000 bunny rabbits outside the starting town, one of them will drop the best weapon in the game. Totally optional, so it's fine, right? Man, when a game has something like that I just instantly drop it because I know that I won't be able to stop myself from constantly thinking "well I wouldn't have any problems here if only I prepared by killing 1000 bunnies" and just totally ruins the experience.
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Dec 2, 2017 03:35
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