I disagree.
I can't speak for Kornel, but I'll try to give an explanation of why
I disagree with you.
DoomRL is a game of risk and reward. Unlike Doom, and any modern game with a "normal" save/load system, most of the challenges it presents are derived from incomplete information. "I know there's a baron in the next room, but I don't know where. Should I step into the doorway and shoot it or hope it wanders into my view before anything sneaks up behind me?" Since the game is turn based, there's no reflex challenge. I have as much time as I need to make these decisions, but I have to work with the information I have available. It's also a game of taking what I get. If the Railgun drops for me, I need to judge if it's worth changing your playstyle to work with it, or leave it behind.
Giving the player a chance to try something and see if it works without risk removes the incomplete information, and the game becomes trivial. Not only could a player go back if they made a mistake, but they could also literally commit suicide just to get more information, and then load a save and fire into the dark at the places where they know enemies to be. The incomplete information problem would be completely destroyed. I cannot imagine getting into a situation in DoomRL that would kill me twice, and that's been true since about a month after I picked up the game. (Okay, not
entirely true. Phobos Anomaly, AoMC+UV or N!, with no phase device or rocket launcher. That would kill me twice.)
Giving the player a chance to try again until they get the drops they want also removes the second point. If a build is absolutely dependent on having the Revanent's Launcher, the player could just repeatedly reload until that weapon drops for them.
DoomRL is very good at defining its own challenges. The badges and ranks system is, in my opinion, absolutely genius. It gives the player a series of progressively harder challenges, tells them to pick the ones that are most interesting to them (as you only need 15 badges of each grade), and then move on. This feature would destroy the entire challenge of every badge that does not require N!, as well as obliterating the game's difficulty curve ("super easy until N!, then comparatively impossible").
This isn't a matter of "hardcore" gamers wanting the most challenge possible. It's not a matter of Kornel being an "elitist" who doesn't want "baddies" or "newbies" winning "his game." It's a matter of maintaining the game's mechanical coherence, where one mechanic doesn't completely destroy the
kind of challenge that the rest of the game sets up. A completely free save/load option would be
IDDQD to the rest of the game.
Please no butthurt about hardcore in this tread.
I know you edited this post, but I have to come back and harp on it. Again, to explain
why it's the wrong thing to post. It has nothing to do with word choice, and everything to do with intent. The implied argument here is, "And anyone who disagrees with me is a 'butthurt' elitist." That's a transparent strawman, because you're setting it up before anyone has even replied. Moreover, it sends the message that if anyone disagrees with you, you're just going to stick your fingers in your ears and go "LALALALALALA NOT LISTENING!" and then refer back to your strawman as a rebuttal. It might work to convince people not to waste their time arguing against you, but it's not going to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you. It looks hostile, and defeats the point of posting an opinion to begin with.
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Topic: Request Save/Load feature (Read 8238 times)