Too powerful!

Game Talk The Drawing Board
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[quote=“freezerbunny, post:40, topic:3921”]Ranged weapons will be dealt with when melee/smashing is fully sorted out. There are no plans to damage firearms when they are fired (realistically a gun isn’t going to get mangled and stop shooting unless it is horrifically maintained). As for makeshift weapons like the two-by-sword, it should be like that. It’s a wooden sword, it should be nothing in comparison to a machete (which will almost never be damaged when attacking mobs).

Item strength will be explicitly added soon. Right now it’s a model based off of material, weight, and bashing/cutting ability.

The damage model will be changed later (it follows the same system as gear).

As your skills increase, you will be less likely to damage objects too. So if you had 5 melee skill you’d be very much less likely to damage things (and proper weapons should almost never be damaged through proper use).

Down the line I will add sharpening of cutting weapons, reinforcing of bashing ones, etc.

Reinforced/sharpened would of course wear off much quicker and will absorb any damage the object would’ve taken. That will be where the real maintenance takes place (does the player want to bother sharpening their machete?).[/quote]

I agree that realistically, a 2bysword should get messed up really quickly, but I think what most people seem to fear (see KA101’s comment) is that they really don’t want to have to be rebuilding basic objects or having things break after every few fights. This would add more tedium to the early game, where most of your stuff will be makeshift and so would require constant rebuilding/maintenance, whereas I feel this should be more ‘back loaded’ so it’d mainly be more about stopping you just finding a good weapon and using it forever. Stuff requiring maintenance and not out right breaking could be a good compromise.

I’m not so sure about sharpening as an effect (reinforcing could be different) but you’d optimally want to sharpen your blade after every fights/few fights, which would just become a tedious extra layer, as it’d probably have no down side, unless sharpening tools were extremely hard to find/low use count.

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[quote=“Binky, post:41, topic:3921”]I agree that realistically, a 2bysword should get messed up really quickly, but I think what most people seem to fear (see KA101’s comment) is that they really don’t want to have to be rebuilding basic objects or having things break after every few fights. This would add more tedium to the early game, where most of your stuff will be makeshift and so would require constant rebuilding/maintenance, whereas I feel this should be more ‘back loaded’ so it’d mainly be more about stopping you just finding a good weapon and using it forever. Stuff requiring maintenance and not out right breaking could be a good compromise.

I’m not so sure about sharpening as an effect (reinforcing could be different) but you’d optimally want to sharpen your blade after every fights/few fights, which would just become a tedious extra layer, as it’d probably have no down side, unless sharpening tools were extremely hard to find/low use count.[/quote]

This is all going to be retooled soon with GlyphGryph’s ideas. The sharpening is purely optional. If you want to sharpen your blade and get a small bonus, do it. If you find it tedious, don’t do it. We’re rewarding effort spent with a buff to damage. We’re punishing effort not spent by damaging your gear. e.g. You’re rewarded for reinforcing your armour. You’re punished for not repairing it.

The early game is meant to be like that. It should get easier the further we progress.

e.g. Having to find batteries for your welder each time is tedious. Having a welding rig completely removes that tedium.
But making us search for batteries is encouraging us to explore and face new challenges.

Another example: Walking long distances is tedious. When we get a vehicle it isn’t a problem any more.
But making us search for a vehicle encourages us to explore and face new challenges.

The same applies to finding stuff to repair your weapon. And repairing your weapon will train your skills, which will improve the quality of your makeshift weapon (this is a planned feature).

Eating and drinking is the most tedious thing in the game, and the player will ALWAYS have to deal with it. But no one is crying out for it to be removed. It encourages the player to go out and explore, and face new challenges. They MUST get food. It is the sole need that drives the entire game forward, beyond wanting to find better weapons (which is what this will do, because proper weapons break less easily).

This is all some standard game design rules.

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people get this strong by turning off skill rust and with CBMs and mutations. We should cap how high attributes can go and getting too many mutations should kill you.

people will still get really strong if they turn off skill rust, but thats an option.

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I can’t agree that any of that is ‘standard game design rules’. Most games get harder as they go on, it’s the corner stone of all games. However, really good games allow the player to become more skilled in their conduct, so they feel like they’re always ‘winning’ without feeling like they’re just waltzing through it. Games should never get easier though, that completely defeats the idea of progress, especially in a rogue-like.

I don’t find it tedious, but it sounds like you’re saying ‘tedium is fine because something is already tedious’ - which isn’t good game design by any standards. Surely we should want the game to be tedium free? For instance, the reason food and drink ‘is tedious’ now is because it’s too easy to come across, if it was a non-trivial challenge to stay alive then it’d become a lot less tedious (similar to having to repair make shift weapons all the time - it’s a trivial challenge to remake a 2bysword, so why make the player keep doing it?). Obviously it’s a balance, because starving to death each game (or having weapons never ever break) isn’t fun either, but we shouldn’t be planning new features with tedium as an acceptable goal.

Tiny buffs for extra grinding was something that was stamped out of DCSS with vengeance, and it became much better because of it. Sharpening a weapon before every (or some) battle which takes 4 key presses is no fun for anyone, and is completely needless design. If it’s so obvious to do it, why not let the game automatically do it? It’s bad design reward mindless grinding, even if it’s only a tiny bit.
If it was a single/few use whetstone or something, that’s great, but if it was just a command to sharpen your weapon, that’d be ridiculous.

45

I for one never want to see “You drink a mutagen, you die!” in my memorial log.
Attributes are already essentially capped, and there were previous suggestions to make certain combinations of buffs incompatible, I don’t see why you should be able to apply 2 Strength CBMs and mutate insanely strong at the same time for example.

If you start with 20 Str the most you can ever get (temporarily) is 50 (Insanely Strong, Muscle Augmentation, Hydraulic Muscles, Tipsy), this might be ridiculous but it does cost significant power (and alcohol) to maintain, but with the mutually exclusive combinations it would no longer be possible.

I don’t see the need to limit attributes any more than making the maximum both plausible and difficult to obtain (which is probably what you meant). The main issue is that it isn’t that hard to achieve right now and the maximum isn’t particularly plausible, I think it likely that both of these things will eventually change.

46

A lot of roguelikes become significantly easier after the early game (particulalry dcss and adom but most of them do to a degree)

Part of the reason behind this is that beacuse permadath exists, a death curve where you frequently die in the mid and lategame as well as the earlygame means that a player will have to play through the earlygame over and over and over again (this is already true of dcss and adom)

I think the fame as it is is pretty easy because strategic resources are very common and most enemies aren’t very threatening - zombies are slow and eith an ok melee weapon you can deal with the odd dog or special pretty easily

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It doesn’t seem like you understood my points.

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[quote=“freezerbunny, post:42, topic:3921”]Eating and drinking is the most tedious thing in the game, and the player will ALWAYS have to deal with it. But no one is crying out for it to be removed. It encourages the player to go out and explore, and face new challenges. They MUST get food. It is the sole need that drives the entire game forward, beyond wanting to find better weapons (which is what this will do, because proper weapons break less easily).[/quote]I find eating and drinking are part Cata (if tedious as you say so) as a survival game. In fact I do enjoy it. Once I died from dehydration and that game was intense because I had to go trips to find toilets to fetch water from, so it is not an easy task to search for food and water depending on your game.

49

why not have the benefits of higher level skill exponentially decrease, so the difference between lvl 9 and 10 is smaller than lvls 3-4 etc. Then there would be no need for rust, which I’m certain everyone hates, and there could always be a cap on player ability

50

I’m liking that idea.

51

[quote=“One-Eyed Jack, post:46, topic:3921”]A lot of roguelikes become significantly easier after the early game (particulalry dcss and adom but most of them do to a degree)

Part of the reason behind this is that beacuse permadath exists, a death curve where you frequently die in the mid and lategame as well as the earlygame means that a player will have to play through the earlygame over and over and over again (this is already true of dcss and adom)

I think the fame as it is is pretty easy because strategic resources are very common and most enemies aren’t very threatening - zombies are slow and eith an ok melee weapon you can deal with the odd dog or special pretty easily[/quote]

The challenges change, but I wouldn’t say it’s getting easier (or at least, I know that’s not the devs intentions). Taking DCSS as an example (being one of the most polished) - early game, stupid things can kill you like drinking a potion of para or not tackling an ogre correctly, but later on the challenges are more strategic and that’s great, but the challenge is still there and more so, it just changes from the early game tactics which you can learn (so experienced players can waltz it) whilst the end game is more reacting to your situation and your knowledge base. Furthermore, Go to the shoals end branch/tomb and tell me that its easier than the beginning.

As far as Cata, I feel the challenge should be constant, and less ramping up and down than others. Yeah, basic survival should be pretty much coped with after a few in game days, but other things (like item durability and so on) should take over the challenge instead.