Beating the game: end game & scoreboard

Game Talk The Bunker
1

Can anyone tell what monsters are missing from the list? What would be the three of the most hard to kill monsters, beside Triffid heart? Anyway, as you can see with the classic terminal size 80x25 there is only room to display three columns of killed monsters. This gave me the idea for the “Winning Game Over” scenario.

The goal: fill the kill count list as fast as possible in order to advance to the next season and repeat the same thing, possibly having some other pre-requisites in terms of having certain items as well. When you go through all four seasons and fill that kill count list for the fourth time you win the game, with certain score depending on what and how many monsters you killed and in what amount of time. The scores could then be uploaded to on-line leaderboard to compel people to compete for the “top survivor of four seasons”, or something among those lines. Yes, no?

2

You’re missing quite a few up there.
Flaming Eyes, Kreks, Blank Bodies, CHUDs, Amigara Horrors (which would probably be in the top three), The Thing, Actual Cannibal Shia Lebeouf, Moose, a variety of fungal critters, worms and graboids, zombie master, one-eyed mutant (also one of the tougher ones) and assorted sewer-critters, missing a couple giant insects like the dragonfly and centipede, dermatiks, trap door spiders, vortexs, polyps, human snails, regular horrors, migos, yuggs, gracken, gelatinous blobs, gozu, breathers, several different types of bots especially the tripods, chicken walkers and tankbots which are pretty deadly,

3

[quote=“GlyphGryph, post:2, topic:1396”]You’re missing quite a few up there.
Flaming Eyes, Kreks, Blank Bodies, CHUDs, Amigara Horrors (which would probably be in the top three), The Thing, Actual Cannibal Shia Lebeouf, Moose, a variety of fungal critters, worms and graboids, zombie master, one-eyed mutant (also one of the tougher ones) and assorted sewer-critters, missing a couple giant insects like the dragonfly and centipede, dermatiks, trap door spiders, vortexs, polyps, human snails, regular horrors, migos, yuggs, gracken, gelatinous blobs, gozu, breathers, several different types of bots especially the tripods, chicken walkers and tankbots which are pretty deadly,[/quote]

Excellent. I didn’t think so many are missing. Hardest monsters should be mandatory then, some of the easer ones in first season, harder ones in second and third, and all of them mandatory in the last season. The basic premise of my idea of the end game is simply to make player see all the areas and all the monsters in the game.

4

Possible other goals could be assembling a vehicle, with bonus points multiplier for the top speed you manage to drive it, say x2 for over 300km/h, x3 for over 500, x5 for over 700 and x10 for 1,000km/h. Another one could be finding and befriending 5 NPC, with bonus points multiplier for any extra ones.

Anyway, what would be a good formula to calculate scores that would prevent score scumming? I think to achieve this there should be priority in some way to finish a season as fast as possible over how many monsters are killed, so people don’t stay in one season accumulating points with easy to kill monsters. Something like this:

score = monster kill points / time passed

or

score = monster kill points * (max. time allowed - time passed)

5

Cool idea, please make it an option.

How would this play as per your vision?
Would it be:
A campaign style of “Do this then this then this then this…” (Score@death)
An arcade style “Do it as much possible for a high score” (Score@Timelimit)
A mix along the lines of “Do this to go to next season” (Time Trial)
Or a 4th option of “Do this as much as possible, as fast as possible until you die” (Score@Death divided by time)

Look at them all very carefully as they would play massively differently.

If you want to make the player see the entire game then make Campaign mode. Better for SP not scoreboards
If you want a sturdy, but generic, platform for a leader board go for Arcade mode. Good for a leaderboard but limits suck IMO
If you want metagaming make it a TimeTrial. Probably the worst IMO but it would give an exact score reference.
If you want the game as is but with a death screen scoreboard make the 4th option. Best IMO but it isn’t a goal…it is an extra.

If you want it regulated include a static world…[glow=red,2,300]BAD IDEA THOUGH[/glow]. This would make people exploit every teeny thing.

I, personally, am against prerequisite items. If RNG hates someone and they time out, it would suck.
Making it necessary to do any thing is a limiter and as such would annoy a lot of people.

If you make people need to kill every single thing you may end up with people not playing it. Purely because it is just grinding.
If they want that they could play an mmo, you know what I mean?

Going with an objective system would be better IMO. Just having a list of things to do could be helpful in many ways, not just in your project, but for longevity of playability.

You could go and make a step by step campaign, but that would lead to a bottle necking of sorts. Not good for LB’s
You could have a list of achievements that just get more points for completing them. Could lead to exploiting.
You could have a list of achievements that get “used” as you complete them. Most likely would lead to metagaming.

Ways to prevent score scumming:

Go with a time based limit or equation.
Make the whole thing ignore kills. Use the achievements only.
Make the scores really biased towards highpower enemies. Make easy Z’s not worth the time.
Put a limit on Skills 10 or 15 is the official Human limit IIRC.
Make achievements a bonus separate to goals.

Achievement suggestions:
Kill a (Hard enemy) Got 'em (enemy), Build a certain Trap field Set and Forget, Max a skill (Lvl 10 or 15) Master (skill), Max all skills The Perfectionist, Make a Motorbike HomeMadeMoto, Make a Car Custom Car, Make a DEATH MOBILE Apocalyptic Necessity, Learn all recipes The Learned One, Burn a full map tile of road at once Pyromaniac, Equip a Leather jacket-Leather pants and a sawnoff shotgun Raggedy Man, Gib a (Hardest monster to gib) Splat Master, Gib something by hand Heavy Hitter, Install all bionics The Million Dollar Man, Install certain Bionic sets The Wolverine, The Samus, ExtraSensory, The Perfect Human, Burn down an entire town Some people…, Wear the Wolf suit [i]TheDarklingWolf Get every positive mutation Miraculous, Get every bad Mutation KILL ME PLEASE, Get every mutation The Thing, Get every Mutation and Bionic How long did that take?, Sell an NPC an Active MiniNuke [i]Psychotic Salesman, Kill one of every enemy(include a complete list) Hunter and Collector, Complete all goals for this season I’m Done, Now what?, Find a mininuke Boom, Detonate a Mininuke Big Boom, Kill yourself with a mininuke Big Bada Boom, Get all achievements Completionist..

Over kill (gibbing), Double kill, Triple kill, Ultra kill, M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL!,
Driving at high speeds 250mph, 300, 500, 750, TheBallFairy, 1500, TheBallFairyX2, The speed of sound

Silly Achievements:
Fill a map tile with nothing but Bubble wrap traps Pop pop pop pop., Getting all achievements including this one HUE HUE HUE, Kill a (hardest enemy) with a glove [i]Proper Etiquette, Kill one of every enemy with a glove The GentleMan, Make an automatic hammer The Homer, Store one of every item in a X radius Hoarder, Die without any achievement [i]FAIL

I will probably think up some more and post them…

6

[quote=“TheRealTenman, post:5, topic:1396”]Cool idea, please make it an option.

How would this play as per your vision?
Would it be:
A campaign style of “Do this then this then this then this…” (Score@death)
An arcade style “Do it as much possible for a high score” (Score@Timelimit)
A mix along the lines of “Do this to go to next season” (Time Trial)
Or a 4th option of “Do this as much as possible, as fast as possible until you die” (Score@Death divided by time)[/quote]

Any of those, or combination. Whatever is the simplest to implement and does the job of always having next mission ready for the player.

Look at them all very carefully as they would play massively differently.

If you want to make the player see the entire game then make Campaign mode. Better for SP not scoreboards
If you want a sturdy, but generic, platform for a leader board go for Arcade mode. Good for a leaderboard but limits suck IMO
If you want metagaming make it a TimeTrial. Probably the worst IMO but it would give an exact score reference.
If you want the game as is but with a death screen scoreboard make the 4th option. Best IMO but it isn’t a goal…it is an extra.

Have you played Shadow of the Colossus on PS2? Amazing game. So how about this, there are bosses, some of those most hard to kill monsters, and each season has its set of 4-5 bosses you need to kill to advance to next season. Very simple, but sufficient.

Simplicity is my priority here. The only goal of the system is to walk player to see whole of the game. If we make them see all bosses they are pretty much bound to meet all the other monsters as well. It certainly will not be walk from one boss to another and kill them, you will still need to eat and rest and just plain survive until you get skills high enough to tackle boss monsters.

If you want it regulated include a static world...[glow=red,2,300][u][b]BAD IDEA THOUGH[/b][/u][/glow]. This would make people exploit every teeny thing.

The point of this discussion is to find the system where there is nothing to exploit. The only thing that matters should be efficiency of the strategy, and luck, but effective strategy should overshadow any luck factor in the long run.

I, personally, am against prerequisite items. If RNG hates someone and they time out, it would suck. Making it necessary to do any thing is a limiter and as such would annoy a lot of people.

I agree.

If you make people need to kill [u]every single thing[/u] you may end up with people not playing it. Purely because it is just grinding. If they want that they could play an mmo, you know what I mean?

I don’t see why would it be grinding. I think it would be interesting to race against the time to find and catch them all. If it’s guaranteed that everything you need to kill is on the same one map, would you still think that’s too large of an area to explore to find 4-5 bosses, per one season?

Going with an objective system would be better IMO. Just having a list of things to do could be helpful in many ways, not just in your project, but for longevity of playability.

You could go and make a step by step campaign, but that would lead to a bottle necking of sorts. Not good for LB’s
You could have a list of achievements that just get more points for completing them. Could lead to exploiting.
You could have a list of achievements that get “used” as you complete them. Most likely would lead to metagaming.

For the start I think a list of 4-5 bosses you need to find and kill in any order you want. When you kill last of them you advance in the next season, possibly with added task to travel to another map where another 4-5 bosses await to be killed, or kill you.

Ways to prevent score scumming:

Go with a time based limit or equation.
Make the whole thing ignore kills. Use the achievements only.
Make the scores really biased towards highpower enemies. Make easy Z’s not worth the time.
Put a limit on Skills 10 or 15 is the official Human limit IIRC.
Make achievements a bonus separate to goals.

Yeah, perhaps kills should be ignored, they would still be part of the equation in sense they help get your skills higher, which in turn makes you more efficient. Although I’d prefer some way to make every kill count.

Achievement suggestions: Kill a (Hard enemy) [u][i]Got 'em (enemy)[/i][/u], Build a certain Trap field [u][i]Set and Forget[/i][/u], Max a skill (Lvl 10 or 15) [u][i]Master (skill)[/i][/u], Max all skills [u][i]The Perfectionist[/i][/u], Make a Motorbike [u][i]HomeMadeMoto[/i][/u], Make a Car [u][i]Custom Car[/i][/u], Make a DEATH MOBILE [u][i]Apocalyptic Necessity[/i][/u], Learn all recipes [u][i]The Learned One[/i][/u], Burn a full map tile of road at once [u][i]Pyromaniac[/i][/u], Equip a Leather jacket-Leather pants and a sawnoff shotgun [u][i]Raggedy Man[/i][/u], Gib a (Hardest monster to gib) [u][i]Splat Master[/i][/u], Gib something by hand [u][i]Heavy Hitter[/i][/u], Install all bionics [u][i]The Million Dollar Man[/i][/u], Install certain Bionic sets [u]The Wolverine[/u], [u]The Samus[/u], [u]ExtraSensory[/u], [u]The Perfect Human[/u], Burn down an entire town [u][i]Some people...[/i][/u], Wear the Wolf suit [u][i]TheDarklingWolf[/u] Get every positive mutation [u][i]Miraculous[/i][/u], Get every bad Mutation [u][i]KILL ME PLEASE[/i][/u], Get every mutation [u][i]The Thing[/i][/u], Get every Mutation and Bionic [u][i]How long did that take?[/i][/u], Sell an NPC an Active MiniNuke [u][i]Psychotic Salesman[/u], Kill one of every enemy(include a complete list) [u][i]Hunter and Collector[/i][/u], Complete all goals for this season [u][i]I'm Done, Now what?[/i][/u], Find a mininuke [u][i]Boom[/i][/u], Detonate a Mininuke [u][i]Big Boom[/i][/u], Kill yourself with a mininuke [u][i]Big Bada Boom[/i][/u], Get all achievements [u][i]Completionist.[/i][/u].

Over kill (gibbing), Double kill, Triple kill, Ultra kill, M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL!,
Driving at high speeds 250mph, 300, 500, 750, TheBallFairy, 1500, TheBallFairyX2, The speed of sound

Silly Achievements:
Fill a map tile with nothing but Bubble wrap traps Pop pop pop pop., Getting all achievements including this one HUE HUE HUE, Kill a (hardest enemy) with a glove [i]Proper Etiquette, Kill one of every enemy with a glove The GentleMan, Make an automatic hammer The Homer, Store one of every item in a X radius Hoarder, Die without any achievement [i]FAIL

I will probably think up some more and post them…

Something among those lines, but for the start I should leave that on the side in order to find balance for the main equation and basics of the system.

7
Max a skill Max all skills Make a death-mobile Drive over 500mph Learn all recipes Read all books Wear all leather Install all bionics Get every mutation Burn down town Get all achievements

This should plenty for the start. Maybe few more, like:

No firearms
Unarmed (hand combat only)
Drive only bike
No drugs

But this is really just a secondary concept to the whole thing. The basic system of killing season bosses should be enough to carry player through the game and produce comparable scores. Achievements although interesting I’m afraid would ruin the balance of the main equation, unless they are all mandatory, in which case the list would get shorter to contain only achievements no one would mind performing.

8

The achievements are cool and all, but I’m really scared of adding them in.

I’ve never found that Cataclysm ever needed an extrinsic reward system. If I’m not having fun playing normally, I don’t really want to be playing, even if I get “achievements”.

Please look up Extrinsic vs Intrinsic if you’re curious. It’s basically what the Skinner Box is.

9

[quote=“kilozombie, post:8, topic:1396”]The achievements are cool and all, but I’m really scared of adding them in.

I’ve never found that Cataclysm ever needed an extrinsic reward system. If I’m not having fun playing normally, I don’t really want to be playing, even if I get “achievements”.[/quote]

Yes, they are unnecessary. Although some of them can be used as mandatory goals that must be completed in order to advance to next season. Like building a death-mobile. If you want to say you have “completed” the game, then I think deathmobile should be on this list of things you have done, along with killing at least one of those unique/boss monsters.

What I really want to talk about though, is the scoring system itself. How to relate monster kills and the race against the time so to prevent points scumming, that’s the question here.

Basically, there are “monster kill” points and “time bonus” points. The equation to relate those two should be as such that you would always get better score the faster you can accomplish season goals (kill boss monsters), as opposed to driving around the city and killing hundreds of zombies, yet each zombie killed should still count towards better score. The problem is to find sensible relation so that killing regular monsters, although earning less points, still can make some difference at the end. Or if you can think of something completely different, whatever works.

10

I like that it is impossible to win Cataclysm DDA. I like that there is no score beyond the list of kills. I like that Cataclysm DDA has no achievements. Adding more score tracking or victory conditions would be detrimental to the game in my opinion. At least, simulation and immersion would suffer.

If such are added, please at least give me an option to disable them. A make option to keep such features out of my build would be even better.

11

You could do what many other things do and effective have two score systems, with a “major score” for accomplishing goals better, and a “minor” score for secondary objectives. You can then trivially cap the minor score, or have it scaled in how it applies to the major score (it doesn’t even need to be a flat scale, it can have diminishing returns), or ignore it completely unless the major score is tied.

Personally, I’d go with a flat major score, and then a secondary score that, when applied, results in diminishing returns.

A primary goal score of 300 plus a seondary goal score of 100 might be worth 350 total (1/2 score as base)
A primary goal score of 150 plus a secondary goal score of 300 might only be worth 250 (1/2 score base, 1/2 again over 100)
And a primary goal score of 1 plus a secondary goal score of 2000 might end up being worth 526 points (1/2 score base, 1/2 again over 100, 1/2 again over 1000)

12

[quote=“kilozombie, post:8, topic:1396”]The achievements are cool and all, but I’m really scared of adding them in.

I’ve never found that Cataclysm ever needed an extrinsic reward system. If I’m not having fun playing normally, I don’t really want to be playing, even if I get “achievements”.

Please look up Extrinsic vs Intrinsic if you’re curious. It’s basically what the Skinner Box is.[/quote]

Seconded. If I wanted to deal with achievements, I’d stick with DoomRL.