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Author Topic: Making a game actually winnable.  (Read 12884 times)

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.

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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 »

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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 ?

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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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