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Author Topic: Making a game actually winnable.  (Read 12883 times)

Karry

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Making a game actually winnable.
« on: July 08, 2007, 13:49 »

It seems to me, that it is totally impossible to win a game on U, even WITH savescumming. Its just not happening. The reason is, of course, a V. They present only a moderate threat when bunched up in open space, like Mortuary, "town" type levels are good too, but winning several "labyrinth" type levels, or normal "rooms" - nope, no can do.

How to fight this...hmm...
For example this : changing a minimum exp given for a kill to a fixed amount. Like, for easiest difficulty - no change. For next two difficulties - any monster gives a minimum of 1% of exp. And for the last two - 2% minimum exp per kill.
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n9103

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2007, 04:27 »

If your biggest complaint is the Viles (and I don't blame you) perhaps something along the lines of Viles don't rez other Viles would be more suitable, and be less potentially balance disrupting.
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DisaffectedBeta

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« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2007, 05:06 »

One of the things about Viles in the original game was that they took time to use their column of flame and their resurrection power.  So you could run out of sight before you'd be hit by the column, and you could unload on a Vile when it was bringing some minion back to life.  The nicer thing was that, since it wasn't random, you didn't get a bunch of barons clustered around a Vile, who would bring them back faster than you could destroy them.  Balance for me has been getting too many damned high level monsters in huge chunks that are too close (or too quick) for the rocket launcher...
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Karry

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2007, 12:19 »

Quote
perhaps something along the lines of Viles don't rez other Viles would be more suitable
Viles do not rez other Viles.

Tried AoM on U about 20 times - that is even more impossible thing to win. In fact, you have about 70% chance of dying on level 2, since the game tends to generate 2-4 demons in one room, and thats it, you're dead as soon as more than one of them notice you. You can take EE instead of SoG to take care of captains in coward mode, but then even one demon is death for ya. Not to mention, you will most likely finish level one with less than half of your health.
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DaEezT

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2007, 12:24 »

It seems to me, that it is totally impossible to win a game on U[..]
There is one simple answer: The game isn't supposed to be fair or balanced on U.

End of Story.
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Thomas

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2007, 19:14 »

The only thing I'm really having trouble with is the arenas.

"Hm. An A. Better take it out. Luckily I've got some time before it springs in to action to engage it in melee." (Not playing a melee game, it's just far safer to have them swinging their arms at you than their plasma rifles)
"Oh, now there's a few barons. I'll get rid of them as the arachnotron does its pathetic melee attack on me."
"Huh, a few mancubi have tracked me down. They hit the arachnotron too. Although now it's out of melee and appears to be frying me."
"Hm. No phase devices. Very well then. Good game!"

This was on M :/
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Karry

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2007, 22:06 »

Quote
The game isn't supposed to be fair or balanced on U.
Thats just stupid. Considering, that its not even the last difficulty.
Its one thing when you're playing something like Crimsonland, and another, when palying a game that has an actual winning requirement.
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DaEezT

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2007, 00:03 »

Quote
The game isn't supposed to be fair or balanced on U.
Thats just stupid. Considering, that its not even the last difficulty.
Its one thing when you're playing something like Crimsonland, and another, when palying a game that has an actual winning requirement.
Well, you seem to define "Winnable" as "The game has to be winnable by Karry right now". And that is really stupid because
a) who says nobody else can win the game on U
b) who says that you won't be able to win on U with a little more practice

So the answer still is: The game isn't supposed to be fair or balanced on U (and N! of course).
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Blade

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2007, 04:41 »

This time i tend to agree with Karry. 0987 is winnable, i have won it several times, but only after very many tries. I can't even imagine, how to win N! in this version. This version is really harder than 0985, and next one promises to be even more difficult, because of more intelligent AI. Tell me, if it's hard to win now, when monsters die stupidly in lava and acid, when you know that they will try to reach the center of the map in every level, when you know that they will ignore you most of the time when they are standing on item or lever, what will be when they won't make that silly mistakes? Even HMP would be too hard to win.
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Kornel Kisielewicz

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #9 on: July 12, 2007, 09:51 »

Actually I aim at the level of difficulty to represent:
1) Easy
2) Medium
3) Hard
4) Elite
5) Not fair

I see U games as a possibility for the best players to have a short run. And Nightmare actually isn't supposed to fit on a scale :P.
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Blade

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #10 on: July 12, 2007, 12:13 »

I agree that it's fair that N! must be unfair.)) But imho now UV is not for elite, but for people, who tries a lot, and sooner or later forces RNG to create pleasant pack of levels, which player can survive. Surely they must not do silly mistakes too, so this game requires playing skills, but even if you play very carefully and do no mistakes, that not gives you even 25% that you will reach at least level 10.
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Zeb

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #11 on: July 12, 2007, 22:46 »

I agree with Blade and Karry on this one. The best of the best DoomRL players are currently FAR less likely to survive on U then "elite" players of almost any other roguelike- and you have to be pretty ****ing elite to beat a game like ADoM or Nethack in the first place. Even on lower difficulties, the game currently relies much more on luck than on skill than 0.9.8.5 did- and frankly, I'm just not having fun with this version.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2007, 22:48 by Zeb »
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Karry

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #12 on: July 13, 2007, 06:00 »

Quote
sooner or later forces RNG to create pleasant pack of levels, which player can survive.
Thats exactly it, it is possible to reload a level until there are no V's created.
Also, as i have noticed, savescumming SIGNIFICANTLY lowers the chance of having a special level appearance. For example, while playing on U and savescumming - i only got to Chained Court on level 9, while normally its between 4-7. I savescummed up to about 18, and didnt encounter a single special level after the CC.
Maybe its the intended protection against scumming, but it makes BFG and Armory unavailable, which lowers your chances even more.

Quote
Even on lower difficulties, the game currently relies much more on luck than on skill than 0.9.8.5 did- and frankly, I'm just not having fun with this version.
I dunno, the lower three difficulties are rather nicely balanced, i think. Its the upper two that need something done to them.

Actually, i ask second time, did anyone at all play at Nightmare difficulty ? Did anyone even unlock it ?
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Rabiat

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #13 on: July 13, 2007, 06:47 »

Quote from: Karry
Also, as i have noticed, savescumming SIGNIFICANTLY lowers the chance of having a special level appearance. For example, while playing on U and savescumming - i only got to Chained Court on level 9, while normally its between 4-7. I savescummed up to about 18, and didnt encounter a single special level after the CC. Maybe its the intended protection against scumming, but it makes BFG and Armory unavailable, which lowers your chances even more.

I don't think savescumming lowers the probability of special levels being generated. The game doesn't detect whether a save file is used for scumming after all. So unless you survived each level the first time, you're actually 'selecting' easier levels. Special levels are more difficult, therefore players die more often on special levels. Players revert to a save file when they die, but overwrite the backup when they survive. So the most difficult levels (special levels) tend to occur less frequently in a scummed game once it's completed. It's like being allowed to draw an indefinite number of cards to get a straight flush; works all the time.
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Karry

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #14 on: July 13, 2007, 08:04 »

Quote
So the most difficult levels (special levels) tend to occur less frequently in a scummed game once it's completed.
I really dont think i quite understood that...you claim that the game doesnt check the save, but it is still somehow creating "easier" levels ? Isnt that self-contradicting ?

And in my POV special levels are much easier than normal levels. Mostly because they have a set number of enemies, and you know exactly where all of them are. Also, for example, while playing on U you may encounter your first V on level 6 or 7, but you will never get V's in Armory or Lost City.
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Rabiat

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #15 on: July 13, 2007, 08:54 »

Quote from: Karry
I really dont think i quite understood that...you claim that the game doesnt check the save, but it is still somehow creating "easier" levels ? Isnt that self-contradicting ?

Sorry that wasn't clear, it's a little beyond my English skills. ;)

I'm positive the game doesn't check save files for scumming. I think what I was trying to say is already obvious to you. If you go through 20 levels with save scumming, you can try each level until you succeed. So the sequence of levels that you managed to beat by the end of the game, does not include the most difficult levels. The game doesn't exclude the difficult levels, the player does. By dying, and restoring the previous save.

Quote
And in my POV special levels are much easier than normal levels. Mostly because they have a set number of enemies, and you know exactly where all of them are. Also, for example, while playing on U you may encounter your first V on level 6 or 7, but you will never get V's in Armory or Lost City.

I agree. But I still don't understand how you'd explain that save scumming lowers the chance of special levels. I'm conviced the game has no way to check for scumming, so how could it influence the generation of special levels?
« Last Edit: July 13, 2007, 08:58 by Rabiat »
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Blade

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #16 on: July 13, 2007, 12:29 »

AFAIK which and where special levels will be created is determined when you are starting new game. You can save and load any amount of times, but if it was pregenered that CC will appear on level 5, it will appear always on level 5 in current game.

Anyway, i was talking about scummless games, because savescummed games are no problems at all.
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Karry

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #17 on: July 13, 2007, 13:07 »

Quote
AFAIK which and where special levels will be created is determined when you are starting new game. You can save and load any amount of times, but if it was pregenered that CC will appear on level 5, it will appear always on level 5 in current game.
I dont think this is true, because as i understand it - in every game you are supposed to recieve a chance to enter all special levels, if you desired to do so, correct ? And special levels never appear on two levels in a row, correct ? If that is so, how could it be that i was almost at level 20, and only encountered 3 special levels ?

Quote
Anyway, i was talking about scummless games
I wasnt.
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Blade

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #18 on: July 13, 2007, 13:35 »

I dont think this is true, because as i understand it - in every game you are supposed to recieve a chance to enter all special levels, if you desired to do so, correct ? And special levels never appear on two levels in a row, correct ? If that is so, how could it be that i was almost at level 20, and only encountered 3 special levels ?

You can check this if you don't belive me. You aren't supposed to have a chance to visit all special levels in every game.
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BDR

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #19 on: July 14, 2007, 00:47 »

My sole guess is that Rabiat thinks levels with special entrances are somehow harder than levels without such entrances.  As for whether savescumming results in a lack of special level entrances, I think that you simply got unlucky.  Maybe you died on maps that did have the special entrances before you found those entrances, and survived on maps without them, making it look to you as though they weren't showing up because you were scumming rather than a simple coincidence.  I propose a test: make sure to save at every single level, then just before you reach a depth where you expect to see a special level entrance, save, then copy the save, then use the copy(ies) of that save to see how many maps you can survive, and of those times you survive how many had special level entrances.  20-30 might make a fair number for number of maps survived; 100 would give a more definite picture but would also be time-consuming.  If, say, only 1 or 2 of the 25 maps you lived through had a special entrance where you'd normally expect about 5-10 to have it, then there may be something funky going on (though whether it's specifically because you're scumming still looks unclear from this experiment alone; it may be that certain parts of the level range don't have an equal chance of spawning an entrance by default, or it could be the fact that you're playing on U, or perhaps something unknown).
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Conker

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #20 on: July 14, 2007, 11:53 »

I think Rabiat was just saying that if you savescum, you'll restore your game and not attempt a special level if it proves too hard - therefore there won't be as many special levels showing up in the mortem of a character who has save-scummed.

As far as making the game 'actually winnable' goes, I suspect those concerns will be helped to at least some degree when the rest of the outstanding bugs get fixed. For example, if you factor in the extra damage from things like SoB, SoG, the extra exp you'd gain from monsters that die of bloodloss, that might tip the scales just enough.
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BDR

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #21 on: July 15, 2007, 02:43 »

I think Rabiat was just saying that if you savescum, you'll restore your game and not attempt a special level if it proves too hard - therefore there won't be as many special levels showing up in the mortem of a character who has save-scummed.

That makes more sense; unfortunately, Karry was saying something different.  For him, stairs leading to special levels simply weren't showing up on any of the levels he played.  It wasn't that he was avoiding the levels, more that he couldn't find them when he expected them to be available.

Not that this is terribly relevant....
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Rabiat

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Re: Making a game actually winnable.
« Reply #22 on: July 15, 2007, 03:24 »

Quote from: Conker
I think Rabiat was just saying that if you savescum, you'll restore your game and not attempt a special level if it proves too hard - therefore there won't be as many special levels showing up in the mortem of a character who has save-scummed.

Exactly.

Quote from: BDR
Not that this is terribly relevant....

You're right. I was trying to figure out why Karry thought special levels are generated less often in scummed games, and this is the only explanation I could come up with. Never mind. :)
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