My current project has nothing to do with leveling or anything. Despite being a bit busy to work on it this week, I still want it to be my first full BYOND game--it's kinda unique. However, I'm a moderate fan of games like Rogue and Nethack; I find the idea of exploring those dark caverns under the earth, searching for treasure and battling monsters, endlessly intriguing. Eventually I'll want to make one.
Now, I love these games, and could just play and play for hours. I love the aspect of discovery that's involved, even more than the combat. Still, combat is kind of central to the model, and to the ambience as well. But once you reach a certain level, you become much harder to kill, and it's like nothing can touch you anymore, except for some new monsters that are ridiculously powerful, and the old ones you simply never see again. This is roughly how it goes; it has to be this way to maintain play balance.
Or does it?
I got to thinking, and maybe it's overtiredness talking here, but I was wondering: As much as I believe that no matter how strong you get, there's always someone stronger, or no matter how skilled, there's someone better, I think the real secret to play balance lies not in adding new stronger enemies but in fundamentally changing gameplay as time goes on.
An example: Fonzie the Rogue descends into the dungeons, searching for treasure. The upper levels are full of relatively weaker monsters, standard fare for a newcoming adventurer. He goes deeper, and the monsters get a little tougher; he finds shops and buys equipment, finds potions and tests their effects. So far, so Roguelike. Now we mix it up a little. Fonzie, you see, has grown enough as a character that now his presence in the dungeons, having progressed as far as he has, presents a serious threat to the inhabitants: As they are now fewer (it's sparse at the top of the food chain), he goes after their lairs in order to get the really choice stashes of goodies. The weaker monsters begin to team up in packs where before they were spread out. The smarter ones avoid Fonzie but find ways of sabotaging his quest by laying traps, setting out potions of ill effect for him to find, and more. If Fonzie keeps going, the smart-but-tough monsters (let's assume they get smarter as they get tougher) are going to try to hunt him, not face him directly if they can help it, and little by little they'll attack unexpectedly.
My idea basically runs like this: Combat is best suited to early in the game, and then better tapered off to open up more avenues of exploration and discovery. Later in the game, exploring becomes more interesting as the explorer begins to find the bigger monsters' lairs while the monsters themselves bug out. (Perhaps lesser creatures could plunder what bigger ones leave behind in a hasty retreat.) This preserves the ambience without making the game a boring shoot-'em-up, and quests are still possible within this system. To keep tension up, once in a while the hero could walk into an ambush laid by a stronger creature intent on defending its territory, or else they could be presented with signs that they're being stalked--a difficult concept to convey, but with a big payoff in psychological impact.
Obviously this idea's a tad abstract, but the gist is that a dungeon game can be made a thousand times more interesting by gradually changing the gameplay tactics from Roguelike slash-and-discover to more of an explore-but-beware scenario. As the player progresses, they become the hunter, seeking out the monsters in their dens, but even further along the tables turn again: the player is now the hunted, and must balance his pursuit of foes with caution, fearing the next den he discovers could be a trap. It's all about the ambience.
Since this is a philosophy forum... thoughts, anyone?
Lummox JR
ID:265084
 Oct 19 2001, 5:30 pm
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First, let me tell you that your post is endlessly intriguing to me, and I completely agree with you.
A mix of a hack-n-slash (for warriors, or the "dull" type of player) and a thinker (for wizards, or the smarter type of player) would be ideal for me. Being a warrior would be ultimately easier to play, but less rewarding. Being a wizard would be, obviously, as to maintain a small balance, a fair amount harder, but so much more rewarding. That's an ideal game for me. It's a little tradeoff, difficulty for reward. I think. In a totally unrelated topic, my brother got a PS2 today! So cool. He traded his character on EQ for it. ;) | |
Nadrew wrote:
I tend to like games like that old game called "Zork:The underground adventure" it was a text based game (The first ever one I played) it was very fun because it gave detailed descriptions of every room,and left it to your imganation to picture where you were I would spend hours playing it. I was always fond of the old Infocom text adventures myself. In BYOND that would basically translate to a text MUD, but I think I'd have fun making graphics. Zork is a good example of gameplay that changes as the game progresses. Combat is severely discouraged early in the game; that thief will kill you. However, as you gain in score, you become stronger, to the point where eventually you can beat the thief--necessary to win the game. Now, starting with a Roguelike base, I'm basically thinking of taking this concept and working in the opposite direction. You start with somewhat frequent combat, dropping to much less as the game goes on. Lummox JR | |
Vortezz wrote:
First, let me tell you that your post is endlessly intriguing to me, and I completely agree with you. I dunno wizards start out pathetic, but usually end up being a mass slaughtering machince because of powerful magic spells which do area damage and do a lot of damage. But by the end of a game a fighter usually still has nothing other to do than use magical items and weapons, so they are very limited and become weak compared to monsters. | |
I dunno wizards start out pathetic, but usually end up being a mass slaughtering machince because of powerful magic spells which do area damage and do a lot of damage. But by the end of a game a fighter usually still has nothing other to do than use magical items and weapons, so they are very limited and become weak compared to monsters. Yeah. WIZARD /-------------------- /------------------/ / / / / -------------/ WARRIOR ------------\ \ \ \ \------ \ \ \ \ \------------------------------ Eh, that's kinda crappy. Anyway, you get the point? It's rather progressive chart. They're not in comparision though. | |
Lummox JR wrote:
Nadrew wrote: Geez this made me want to play Zork and I havn't played it since 1997 now I am off to download it, have you ever read the "Deathgate books" or played the game I can't remember who the book is by but that was a really great game and I have been looking for it online to no avail =( I loved that game. | |
There'd better be some really nifty things to find down there, because otherwise the game system basically translates to a game that just gets more frustrating as you play, regardless of the interestingness of the changes. There would need to be some really rewarding reasons to play that powerful character while is always ending up the target of bad things, as opposed to the weak fellow who's unnoticed by the underground world so can basically run around causing trouble.
While getting the best of powerful AND intelligent monsters would be fun, I don't see it happening unless someone invented a really spectacular AI system. If anything I just said makes no sense, I am tired. | |
Your post made me think of something that would be more suited to text MUDs than roguelikes... remember the old textual adventure games, where a nemesis character (sometimes referred to as a thief or pirate, although in some games it was a monster, like a werewolf) actually did stalk your character, picking over any items you dropped and/or plotting to end your life?
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Foomer wrote:
There'd better be some really nifty things to find down there, because otherwise the game system basically translates to a game that just gets more frustrating as you play, regardless of the interestingness of the changes. There would need to be some really rewarding reasons to play that powerful character while is always ending up the target of bad things, as opposed to the weak fellow who's unnoticed by the underground world so can basically run around causing trouble. I thought the whole purpose of the idea was to discourage powerleveling. What you describe here is almost exactly the situation which LummoxJR is trying to come up with an alternative to--players kill weak monsters, get a collection of weak items, use that collection to kill slightly more powerful monsters and get their slightly more powerful items, which you use to kill more powerful monsters, and so on down the line. If you were to add in a deadly predator AI as the main source of difficulty rather than simply lots of really nasty tricks like most roguelikes have, you'd just be putting a new spin on an old sin. Why doesn't it make sense that as the player gets better at a game, it gets more challenging? I mean, a lot of the new single player games I try out have basically no challenge curve--they start out placidly easy, and stay that way throughout the game. There's no accomplishment in that. You beat a modern console RPG and you haven't surmounted any cliffs--you've just taken a leisurely stroll through a nice pretty polygon-rendered park. Contrast that to the arcade games of yore--those things tend to be a little trickier starting out than a lot of today's fare, and by the time you've played a little bit suddenly you start eating through lives at a machine-gun rate as you get cut to bits by whatever it is cuts you to bits in that particular arcade game. Oh, sure, you get some reward for doing really well and making it through lots of levels and getting lots of points... a few bonuses, maybe an extra life every so-and-so amount of points. But most of the things that get thrown in as you beat level after level are stacked pretty heavily against you, and the only thing you have to show is the feeling of exhiliration from standing up to the obscene challenges of too many enemies to count zooming around at speeds that lie ever so barely within the range of human perception, just because it was there. You don't get a level 57 asteroid-destroyer or a Power Pill +3, you just get smacked around even harder for your efforts. Of course, there is an apples-and-oranges argument to be made against this. Arcade games are, after all, generally designed so that most players will have to pump quarters in continually to get anywhere; console/computer games usually don't need to worry about such concerns, particularly single-player ones where there are pretty much never any monthly fees. Arcade games, particularly the older ones where they couldn't store a worthwhile number of levels so long-running games involve a lot of repeats, are typically built so that the average player either A)spends lots and lots of money or B)loses. Some console/computer games still maintain a design ethic somewhere along the lines, with time substituted for money, but many--particularly mainstream RPGs and adventure games--seem to be designed to make losing something which requires a lot more struggle to achieve than does winning. Oops. Got a little sidetracked. Point being, anyways, that one of the best ways to shake off powerlevelers is to simply design your game in direct opposition to the thought that increased challenge inherently requires an infallibly comparable amount of both increased preparation for the player (in terms of what they're given in additional in-game means to defeat the challenge) and increased reward (in terms of more bonuses that have an impact on the gameplay). | |
I dunno wizards start out pathetic, but usually end up being a mass slaughtering machince because of powerful magic spells which do area damage and do a lot of damage. But by the end of a game a fighter usually still has nothing other to do than use magical items and weapons, so they are very limited and become weak compared to monsters. That's a function of certain games, not a constant in any game involving wizards and warriors. Just because something has "always" been done a certain way doesn't mean it always has to be... especially if the way it's been done is boring, unbalanced, or silly. | |
It sounds very interesting and I'd certainly love to play such a game.
The only problem I see is that you might loose some players though that like to focus on one or the other aspect of play. People who don't like hack and slash might not stick with the game through the early levels long enough to discover the more interesting play later on. In contrast, the people who like nothing but to bash endless legions of idiot monsters will be frustrated or even bored with the more subtle play later in the game. Should you throw out the idea to please the masses? No way! Perhaps only a fraction of players will enjoy the game, but those who do enjoy it will be hooked by the deep game play. :) | |
I don't think such a system would be well-suited to an online game. I feel its an excellent idea for single player games, but in multiplayer, it would be nearly impossible to implement. All of the smart monsters' tricks and such would be figured out by players, published on webpages, and basically made null and void. Which reduces the game to more fighting, only the monsters aren't getting any stronger.
-AbyssDragon | |
Has anyone played "Darkness Away"?
It was a game in which people were constantly plotting against you. The game had a "story" to a certain point, then it just kept on coming up with new scenarios, and you had to keep solving them. The amazing thing is, there were SO MANY items of power that kept you going... your Power Scythe got melted in that expedition to the volcano, so you REALLY need this sword of mana! WHAT??? He just broke the sword of mana in front of your eyes! Damn, how long am I going to be stuck with this stupid stick for a weapon? Then again, I can get accrost gaps with this thing... Which reminds me, there was that one area where you needed to get just a little further... I wonder if I could get over there *goes to check, and 5 minutes later:* Woah, cool! A gold piece! I think I'll get a magical crest carven into this stick... where did that seer live? *fifteen minutes later* woah, cool! Now, I can call upon the powers of the stars. Though, what good is that doing me... Wait! At the university in Torm, there was somthing about the stars and their effects on the world. Maybe with some knowlage of the stars, and this stick, I could get somting cool to happen... Oh no! It's the dark men! Man, I'll bet they have another big scheme. I had better look carefully for traps.......... [edit] typos galore, I'll correct them in the morning...[/edit] | |
LexyBitch wrote:
Your post made me think of something that would be more suited to text MUDs than roguelikes... remember the old textual adventure games, where a nemesis character (sometimes referred to as a thief or pirate, although in some games it was a monster, like a werewolf) actually did stalk your character, picking over any items you dropped and/or plotting to end your life? I think it could work for both, really. But I like the discovery aspect of Roguelikes, and I think that could be translated into a Roguelike game that changed its gameplay as the game went on. Really this is the cardinal sin of any such game: At some point, the simplistic constant combat model takes over, and the cool fluff of the game like discovery is reduced to nothing. I rather like the idea of facing fewer monsters and exploring much more terrain as the game opens up, which improves the discovery mechanism somewhat. (Better still, there could be endless tracks back to "earlier" levels with new things to discover, and older levels can be re-filled with monsters after you leave, so that the combat experience is reintroduced from time to time, keeping it fresh. A series of levels could become one giant complex map, with always more to explore. Lummox JR | |
Shadowdarke wrote:
The only problem I see is that you might loose some players though that like to focus on one or the other aspect of play. People who don't like hack and slash might not stick with the game through the early levels long enough to discover the more interesting play later on. In contrast, the people who like nothing but to bash endless legions of idiot monsters will be frustrated or even bored with the more subtle play later in the game. One idea I mentioned in my response to Lexy is that the subtle play later in the game can from time to time be mixed up with a little of the hack-n-slash. I do think, though, that any fan of a Roguelike would hang on through the initial levels (because the discovery aspect of a new game would be too much of a draw to pull away) to be rewarded later by the deeper gameplay. I think in such games, discovery and combat have to balance, with that balance shifting from time to time in a way that keeps the game interesting. After all, there's no point learning a fireball spell if you have no one to launch it at. The flip side of that coin, too often ignored, is that once combat trumps discovery the game gets boring. In most Roguelikes this happens subtly. What I worry about here is that to keep discovery fresh, it's going to have to rely more on quests and discovery of new terrain--but terrain interesting and varied enough to keep players coming back. Lummox JR | |
AbyssDragon wrote:
I don't think such a system would be well-suited to an online game. I feel its an excellent idea for single player games, but in multiplayer, it would be nearly impossible to implement. All of the smart monsters' tricks and such would be figured out by players, published on webpages, and basically made null and void. Which reduces the game to more fighting, only the monsters aren't getting any stronger. I think monster AI is only a small part of such a scheme, really. I mentioned this more to set out the psychological idea of being hunted, something that, if it takes hold, can make a game infinitely more addicting. In multiplayer, PvP can account for this too, though I'd rather avoid that sort of thing in anything I write. I think I'd try to find clever ways of splitting up parties (at least temporarily), so that the concept of being isolated prey is reinforced. Lummox JR | |
Greener Pastures wrote:
The hunter/hunted idea is already installed in a BYOND game: Space Tug. Indeed, but I'm referring to a more general way of changing gameplay over time. In Space Tug, the player is one or the other from the outset. Lummox JR | |
Lummox JR wrote:
Since this is a philosophy forum... thoughts, anyone? My MUD combat plan (proposed for a commercial project at one point) is sort of tangential to that...if a game is combat-based, then make creatures more intelligent at higher levels and more group-based, instead of just stronger. The idea is to come closer to actual combat...if you want to clear a high-level zone, you have to fight a bunch of mobs working together with purpose to do it...taking over strategic points in the landscape, etc. The way to make AI reasonable in this case is to cheat...use predefined maps (or map segments) where the map designer has laid out what are strategic points, where the choke points are, and what kind of weaponry is best to use in each area. That, combined with some reasonably good AI, could make for a pretty interesting fight. Once players have cleared a zone, spawning mobs that come across each other will form intelligent units... Basically the idea is to bring the combat sensibility of the Close Combat games into a MUD setting. | |
I tend to like games like that old game called "Zork:The underground adventure" it was a text based game (The first ever one I played) it was very fun because it gave detailed descriptions of every room,and left it to your imganation to picture where you were I would spend hours playing it.