Many of my best characters die under mysterious circumstances

[rbalzer]

Hello all, been playing for maybe 6 months (obsessively at times) and finally had to make an account here to get advice on this problem.

On to the deaths though. Several of them were related to breathing, the only message I would get is “you stop breathing” or whatever it is. (in some instances I had recently inhaled smoke or been in those super cold labs) but other times it seemed to happen out of nowhere for no reason. And then there are the car related ones that seem more like bugs maybe. Had more than one occasion where I merely started a cars engine and my head mysteriously took around 70-90 damage.

I don’t know if anybody can offer much help with what little I can tell you, but I for once would greatly appreciate a more in depth cause of death message!

[John_Candlebury]

The “you stop breathing” deaths are caused by overdosing in either painkillers (alcohol is a painkiller for game purposes) or in stimulant type drugs.

[pisskop]

The only time Ive taken 90+ damage in a car is from not wearing a seatbelt in my 132 tile wide truck and slamming into a house

[rbalzer]

[quote=“John Candlebury, post:2, topic:11166”]The “you stop breathing” deaths are caused by overdosing in either painkillers (alcohol is a painkiller for game purposes) or in stimulant type drugs.[/quote]all of them?

Somehow I’d never considered the danger of overdosing, I always just pop pills until the pain goes away :lol: Probably even mixed opiates with alcohol. (I wonder if they combine?) That may well have caused a few of these deaths, thanks.

[Force21]

I’ve found that if I treat the game like real life, everything goes smoothly under every circumstance

[FunsizeNinja123]

I’ve found that if I treat the game like real life, everything goes smoothly under every circumstance

[Etherdreamer]

I’ve found that if I treat the game like real life, everything goes smoothly under every circumstance

This need a sticky somewhere!

[rbalzer]

and start treating real life more like cataclysm

[Noctifer]

and start treating real life more like cataclysm

“Sir, we got you surrounded, put the flamethrower down!”

“As if you npc cop pig, I have this!!!1!” takes out mininuke (active)

[Coolthulhu]

(I wonder if they combine?)

Weakly
They bump the same value, but alcohol is too weak to affect it much. You need 200 pkill (painkiller) value to die, strong alcohol adds just 12. Heroin adds more than 100.

[SoddenSlimeball]

I’ve found that if I treat the game like real life, everything goes smoothly under every circumstance

That holds until you get your hands on some sweet CBMs. Screw anti-drug-abuse groups. Meth, HERE I COME!

Also, I find it fun to just collect all the drugs I stumble across and sell to random NPCs like some post-apocalyptic drug dealer which I suppose I am.

[BeerBeer]

You absolutely have to start making backups of savegames in roguelikes. I would’ve lost my sanity long ago if I hadn’t done so. 7-zip or WinRAR is extremely convenient. Just R-click on save folder -> archive -> rename to save_0001, save_0002, save_0003, etc. Well worth the inconvenience, and you eventually grow numb to it as it becomes a habit. Screw the roguelike one-life-only bullcrap. It’s great only in an ideal game - a game that never crashes, a game that is bug-free and the game which sudden-death mechanics you are instinctively aware of so that you are able to take informed risks with your character’s life 100% of the time. That game doesn’t exist and it never will, due to the human condition; the flawness of man, and the miscommunication between men, and the differences between men. Cata is a good game though. I simply criticize the roguelike philosophy, and the slight misery that it is able to cause, or more accurately put, the misery that it enables the gamers to inflict upon themselves. But you can’t learn that until you’ve actually gone through that misery long enough. It’s not about the weight of the drinking glass but how long you hold it. Gotta put it down at some point. Roguelike is an impossible drug.

The paradox of the roguelike one-life-only thing is that in order to learn the mechanics, in order to obtain the pure gaming experience, you would have to play the game for several hours. But at that point you know the game too intimately. You will have learned the pitfalls, but also the content, the exploits and the tricks. You have spoiled it for yourself. And that is the price that must be paid for avoiding injustices that a roguelike game inflicts upon its players.

Uhh… off-topic?

[Coolthulhu]

You absolutely have to start making backups of savegames in roguelikes.

Or you can just “rez” your characters by copying their graveyard file back to save.
Or even better: just close the game forcefully when you die - that way it won’t save at your death, won’t create your corpse etc.
I use it all the time for debugging. I don’t use it when playing because it ruins the game for me if I die and end up not being dead (undead doesn’t count, especially considering that humans don’t rez yet), but it works fine without any debug options being on.

[Noctifer]

I close the game when I die and then delete the game. I only keep memorials of characters that did impressive stuff.

[RoboViking]

You absolutely have to start making backups of savegames in roguelikes.

I do it in the purpose of restoring the game in case of stupid deaths’s/actions, like I accidentally press the lighter button and burn down my base. I do not restore games where I die from legitimate reason, like hulks (I hate hulks).
Not restoring game after legitimate death makes the game much more intense for me. So much is on stake each move so it gets really exciting sometimes.

[JonnyBlack]

You absolutely have to start making backups of savegames in roguelikes.

Call me a purist, but I never do that. I didn’t do it when I started with Nethack, zAngband and ADoM, I didn’t do it when I moved on to StoneSoup and IVaN, and I sure as hell don’t do it with Cataclysm. The risk of imminent death isn’t just part of the fun for me, it is the fun. Almost all of it, I love the moments of mad scramble as you’re in a tight spot. I love getting so pissed off I don’t touch the game for weeks, because it means I cared. When you sit there and wrack your brain for options, carefully evaluating each and every move and still die? It’s infuriating, it’s maddening, and actually living through it is WHY I play roguelikes. It’s about that moment when you’ve got an infected torso wound, your trusty knife spear, and a bunch of tattered clothing and you realize it’s time to break into every bathroom, pharmacy, and doctor’s office you can find while taking ridiculous risks to stay alive for just one more night. Burning down a house in desperation. Beating a shocker hulk to death with a stick because you don’t have time to reload and your katana will get you killed. And then learning from the errors you make and correcting them.

Accepting the ridiculous fatalistic mentality you eventually acquire after enough time spent playing roguelikes is the point of the journey. Because in the end you will have to accept the mortality of something much more important than just another @. But as long as you do the best with each character, you can learn to let them die with no regrets and learn something about yourself in the process. The best roguelikes are the ones without an end, without a purpose, and it defeats the joyous fun to just reload again and again. All of them will die eventually, and so will you, it’s best to learn to do so without regrets. Each character a perfect microcosm of a life, journeying boldly towards an ignoble end and trying to beat it by any means possible, without the struggle to continue at any cost it’s all just so much mental masturbation. I mean, it is either way, but at least my way there’s a climax.

I guess people’s experiences differ, but I know why I play roguelikes.

[KliPeH]

I didn’t do it when I started with Nethack, zAngband and ADoM, I didn’t do it when I moved on to StoneSoup and IVaN, and I sure as hell don’t do it with Cataclysm. The risk of imminent death isn’t just part of the fun for me, it is the fun.

Before I started playing CDDA, I’ve played a ton of DCSS, Angband and its variants, Nethack and its variant etc. The difference between Cata and these examples is that they’re dungeon crawlers, and with all due respect, they offer WAY less freedom than Cataclysm does. Now, this is not a bad thing; in-fact, this is what makes them so easy to come back to - you crawl through the dungeon floors, get strong weapons and try to reach the goal (the Orb), at which point you crawl back up and finish the game. This definitive goal, combined with fairly straightforward progression, is what you can’t find in CDDA. The absolutely enormous amount of possibilities when starting the game and the nearly-infinite amount of options to continue it is what makes people care so much for that one @, that one world that seems like it was built perfectly for them. I’m putting aside worlds with bad starts - these discourage new players from attempting to play again but are still somewhat less painful than worlds which you put real, true effort into.

You know, or at least you’re fairly sure, that you won’t get that exact vehicle with the same amount of fuel and battery power left in it, which you can then use to travel the world and set up your base. You won’t find that one house that had all the items you needed and the perfect layout to meet your needs, and which was perfectly distanced from the city you intended to loot later. You won’t get those clothes which made you beefy and gave you all that storage you needed to carry items, and you won’t get that weapon that made killing zombies so much easier.

When you’re playing a dungeon crawler such as Rogue, the possibilities are limited. The thing that determines whether you succeed or not is your equipment (which usually has straight up buffs/debuffs too, but that’s not important) and which monsters you encounter. You also never have “bullshit” deaths like in Cataclysm, and the goal of the game as a whole is defined at the beginning so you know what you’re getting into. I think two core things make people get attached to their character:

The best roguelikes are the ones without an end, without a purpose, and it defeats the joyous fun to just reload again and again. All of them will die eventually, and so will you, it’s best to learn to do so without regrets.

1. Lack of an end-game goal. In Cataclysm, surviving IS the goal. And before you died, you were surviving. Had good gear? You survived, and when you lost you knew the next game wouldn’t be the same and you might not survive at all. In a dungeon crawler, you know you will survive. The game can’t not give you something to fight with, even if it’s based on luck. Eventually you’ll find something that will help you get through tough battles and win. In Cataclysm, you’re the only one caring for yourself, and if you don’t know what you’re doing you WON’T survive, and won’t reach the goal. You MIGHT be able to wander around and find a good weapon, while in a dungeon crawler there’s no option for it not happening, both because of the relatively small map and because there are less items to discover (sword, dagger, bow etc.)

2. Early-game and repetitive tasks. This ties into the random situations/loot case I mentioned earlier - in dungeon crawlers you WILL find a dagger, or a sword, or a bow. Eventually. Cataclysm usually determines your early-game by itself - you might find a vehicle, you might not. You might found shelter, you might not. I feel that this point is relevant to new players more than experienced players, as the latter already discovered a way to “beat RNG” and find a way to survive even if their start is unlucky. One example of this can be crafting a weapon out of supplies they spawn with (replacing that good weapon they lost, it might also lead them to it again), another is crafting a basic vehicle replacing the good vehicle they had (leading them to more vehicles, better surviving odds). It’s all about comfort - “I didn’t want to die because I had a comfortable shelter, and a good weapon, and good armor. Now I have to spawn without any such gear and will have to rely on luck to give me such things again.”

I don’t agree or disagree, these are my 2 cents on the subject trying to explain the reasons why letting go of that one @ is so hard sometimes. I apologize if this looks a bit messy, I used a virtual keyboard and a phone to type it all out.