[ROGUE] Okay let's play some NetHack (and DCSS!) (and Angband!) (and Slash'em!)

~Beyond the Border~ > Genji's Battle Arena

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VIVIT:
I've been sitting on ideas for a fork of Crawl for quite some time now, most of them to make the game more like NetHack (and also more like Linley's original Dungeon Crawl). Unfortunately, I just don't have the coding chops to make it work -- not yet anyway.

nav':
I see. Thanks for taking the time to write the above. I have only ever played one roguelike semi-seriously myself, and that is Tales of Maj'Eyal (and by "semi-seriously" I mean "won it exactly once on Normal difficulty"), but I'm constantly considering taking up another, better one, so your analysis will prove quite useful when it comes to decision time. Two more things, if I may:

If I understand your main point correctly, your criticism is based on the fact that DCSS betrays its own design philosophy; the developers claim it's winnable without foreknowledge, but in practice you still need to read up or die a lot before winning. That's obviously a problem for the developers, but perhaps not for the player? The game failing to achieve an arbitrary goal set by the development team does not necessarily mean it's not fun to play, so I assume there are other, even more significant problems. Which brings me to the second thing:

--- Quote from: VIVIT on July 28, 2016, 04:06:40 PM ---Another problem with DCSS is that it assumes all players will take every advantage they can get when playing the game, even if it means doing extremely boring things. They removed Nemelex Xobeh's sacrifice mechanic because it meant that players could gain an advantage from playing "dungeon janitor" and sacrificing every piece of junk equipment they came across. According to NetHack's philosophy, such strategies are their own punishment. According to DCSS's philosophy, simply having that strategy possible in the game forces the player down that path.

--- End quote ---
So can you elaborate on this a bit more? What kind of annoying, repetitive strategies are necessary in DCSS? Is the game outright unwinnable should the player decide to avoid implementing them?

Raikaria:

--- Quote from: VIVIT on July 28, 2016, 04:06:40 PM ---If you die in DCSS, it's either because you made a short-term tactical error (probably something along the lines of forgetting that you can't run away from jackals, or that it's a BAD IDEA to engage those orcs with their priest in line-of-sight) OR because of some long-term strategic error, probably something like training the wrong combination of skills.

--- End quote ---

My personal favorite is dying because you open a door; get into a situation where the best play is to teleport out; and you teleport somewhere WORSE.

Seriously that's how every game where I've got 2 runes ends. I've not quite managed to win yet but I'm almost there.

Tried playing nethack but I really don't like the ASCII UI of it. Main reason I prefer crawl; because it has a gui.

VIVIT:

--- Quote from: nav' on July 28, 2016, 05:20:33 PM ---I see. Thanks for taking the time to write the above. I have only ever played one roguelike semi-seriously myself, and that is Tales of Maj'Eyal (and by "semi-seriously" I mean "won it exactly once on Normal difficulty"), but I'm constantly considering taking up another, better one, so your analysis will prove quite useful when it comes to decision time. Two more things, if I may:

If I understand your main point correctly, your criticism is based on the fact that DCSS betrays its own design philosophy; the developers claim it's winnable without foreknowledge, but in practice you still need to read up or die a lot before winning. That's obviously a problem for the developers, but perhaps not for the player? The game failing to achieve an arbitrary goal set by the development team does not necessarily mean it's not fun to play, so I assume there are other, even more significant problems.
--- End quote ---
It isn't about how they fail to meet their own goals; it's about what is lost in the attempt to do so.

DCSS sacrifices so much at the altar of its design philosophy, to the degree that, for me at least, it makes the game much less fun. It's a roguelike that removes much of what I enjoy about roguelikes. I understand that that's highly subjective, but the designers don't even try to design for any kind of playstyle other than what they have in mind: in fact, their design strategy eliminates certain playstyles by punishing the player for attempting them.

Do you play Metroidvania? A good analogy would be developers patching out sequence breaks.

--- Quote from: nav' on July 28, 2016, 05:20:33 PM ---Which brings me to the second thing:
So can you elaborate on this a bit more? What kind of annoying, repetitive strategies are necessary in DCSS? Is the game outright unwinnable should the player decide to avoid implementing them?

--- End quote ---
There are practically none, because the devs have ironed them all out. But in ironing out the wrinkles, they've damaged the dress.

In both NetHack and in older versions of DC, the long-term advantage such strategies may give you is marginal at best. Yet DCSS devs still feel the need remove features of the game that allow those strategies, without considering what good those features may contribute. NetHack keeps such strategies in place so that players can take lean on them a little bit if their plans require. You can walk around the dungeon in NetHack selling every piece of scrap metal you find, and you do get money for it, but the advantage is minuscule in the long run. I sometimes collect up a bit of junk weapons and armor if I need a little more money to make a purchase I have in mind, but otherwise, I never resort to this tactic.

DCSS devs assume the player will eke out whatever advantage is available, no matter how tedious the means or how insignificant the gains. As a result, they remove everything that might cause a player to grind, or scum, or do anything else boring. In NetHack, the response to "doctor doctor it's boring when I do this" is "Well don't do it, then."

You may find this article informative. It's pretty verbose, but I don't regret reading it through to the end multiple times.

nav':

--- Quote from: VIVIT on July 28, 2016, 06:10:01 PM ---It isn't about how they fail to meet their own goals; it's about what is lost in the attempt to do so.

DCSS sacrifices so much at the altar of its design philosophy, to the degree that, for me at least, it makes the game much less fun. It's a roguelike that removes much of what I enjoy about roguelikes. I understand that that's highly subjective, but the designers don't even try to design for any kind of playstyle other than what they have in mind: in fact, their design strategy eliminates certain playstyles by punishing the player for attempting them.

Do you play Metroidvania? A good analogy would be developers patching out sequence breaks.

--- End quote ---
Well, the last exploration plaftormer I played was An Untitled Story, but I'm familiar enough with the basics of the genre to understand your analogy. You dislike DCSS because it discards fluidity and freedom of approach in favor of a rigid playstyle, in what is ultimately a failed attempt to achieve a game winnable without foreknowledge.

Your description of DCSS reminds me a bit of Tales of Maj'Eyal, in that ToME is a highly tactical game to the extent of not having consumables at all; everything boils down to managing your cooldown-limited skills in particular fights while remaining careful not to attract more enemies than you can handle. Still, ToME features so many radically different character classes and builds that experimenting with them all was rewarding in and of itself.

--- Quote from: VIVIT on July 28, 2016, 06:10:01 PM ---There are practically none, because the devs have ironed them all out. But in ironing out the wrinkles, they've damaged the dress.

In both NetHack and in older versions of DC, the long-term advantage such strategies may give you is marginal at best. Yet DCSS devs still feel the need remove features of the game that allow those strategies, without considering what good those features may contribute. NetHack keeps such strategies in place so that players can take lean on them a little bit if their plans require. You can walk around the dungeon in NetHack selling every piece of scrap metal you find, and you do get money for it, but the advantage is minuscule in the long run. I sometimes collect up a bit of junk weapons and armor if I need a little more money to make a purchase I have in mind, but otherwise, I never resort to this tactic.

DCSS devs assume the player will eke out whatever advantage is available, no matter how tedious the means or how insignificant the gains. As a result, they remove everything that might cause a player to grind, or scum, or do anything else boring. In NetHack, the response to "doctor doctor it's boring when I do this" is "Well don't do it, then."

--- End quote ---
Ah, understood. I misinterpreted your post initially, thinking that DCSS requires you to do boring stuff just to retain a chance of winning. I agree that removing any and all exploits and repetitive strategies seems unnecessarily restrictive (to use a different analogy, part of the fun of Morrowind is how easy it is to completely break the game if you try).

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