Demonspawn incompatibilities


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Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 4th December 2021, 04:35

Demonspawn incompatibilities

Having demonspawn mutations that synergize with particular strategies is good, in that it encourages variety. Surprising players with the introduction of these mutations over the course of the game has some merit, despite not interacting particularly well with compelled irreversible stat selections at earlier points in the game. But there's nothing good about giving demonspawn mutations in pairs that lend themselves to contradictory play styles... maybe the intent is that players will go with one of the play styles and ignore the mutation that lends itself to the other, but it doesn't work in practice, as the choice of quitting and starting a new character that doesn't have the conflict is always the superior choice to continuing the gimped character, which is both and no-brainer and grindy. So it's better to just not generate mutation sets that include these problem pairings.

Here are some of the pairs that I've identified:

(MUT_CLAWS, MUT_DEMONIC_TOUCH) with (MUT_LARGE_BONE_PLATES or MUT_CONDENSATION_SHIELD) - empty offhand isn't compatible with wearing a shield
MUT_CLAWS with (MUT_DEMONIC_MAGIC, MUT_THIN_SKELETAL_STRUCTURE, or MUT_HEX_ENHANCER) - unarmed fighting isn't compatible with stabbing
MUT_DEMONIC_GUARDIAN with (MUT_FOUL_STENCH or MUT_IGNITE_BLOOD) - allies don't work well with damaging clouds
(MUT_POWERED_BY_PAIN, MUT_FOUL_STENCH, or MUT_SPINY) with (MUT_DISTORTION_FIELD, MUT_LARGE_BONE_PLATES or MUT_CONDENSATION_SHIELD) - retaliating when hurt isn't compatible with avoiding hits

It's possible that I've missed some, in which case, please point them out.
Last edited by Nekoatl on Saturday, 4th December 2021, 21:11, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Saturday, 4th December 2021, 09:02

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

as the choice of quitting and starting a new character that doesn't have the conflict is always the superior choice to continuing the gimped character, which is both and no-brainer and grindy


I'm pretty sure quitting does the opposite of achieve the goal of winning.

We do make certain concessions to prevent obvious startscumming (arrival vault items notably), but for the most part crawl is designed around the assumption that the player is trying to win the current game.

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Post Saturday, 4th December 2021, 11:01

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

I expect that assumption is generally correct. But, escaping with the orb isn't always a player's only goal. So long as there's at least a theoretical chance that subordinate goals can still be achieved, it's still worth continuing the game. But, once there's absolutely no possibility of meeting a required goal in a game, then there's no reason to continue that game.

Personally, my subordinate goals normally include "explore everywhere" (including every timed vault that's generated), "kill every unique" (though not necessary when they're first encountered), and "play a desirable character" (this is where my love-hate relationship with Demonspawn comes from). Only when those subordinate goals are satisfied will I move onto the final victory. I imagine it's not uncommon for other players to have their own required subordinate goals, even if they're not exactly the same as mine.

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Post Saturday, 4th December 2021, 16:20

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

I wouldn't particularly mind most of the combinations you mention
Both claws and demonic touch synergise well with a shied
Claws + thin skeletal structure / demonic magic lends itself well to transmutations
There's some synergy in demonic guardian + damaging clouds, in that allies can body-block enemies whilst they're taking damage from a cloud.
as for the last one, I'd never ever want to have less AC, SH or EV for the sake of a little extra reflected damage. Nor would I resent having reflective damage because my defences are too good - reflective damage is always nice, particularly when your defences fail.

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Post Saturday, 4th December 2021, 21:07

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

For any of these pairings, no matter what choices you make, you're getting at best partial value and at worst negative value from at least one of your mutations, meaning the character is gimped. I guess if you're expecting to get no value out of your demonspawn mutations, then even a partial benefit would be welcome, but that kind of thinking will never work for people like me with min-maxing personalities.

Also, wearing a shield disables your offhand auxiliary attacks, just as surely as sacrificing a hand to Ru or wielding a 2-handed weapon does. This reduces the effectiveness of unarmed combat and entirely negates the upside of demonic touch. Demonic touch is particularly bad in this case, as when it reaches level 3, you lose your glove slot whether you're making offhand touch attacks or not. I sincerely hope that bringing this to your attention helps you improve your gameplay.

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Post Sunday, 5th December 2021, 15:00

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

To me the big advantage of claws UC is that you can hit as hard as a 2-handed great mace whilst wearing a tower shield.

I may have misunderstood how demonic touch works though. If it truly only triggers when you have a 1-handed weapon + no shield, that does sound like terrible design.

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Post Sunday, 5th December 2021, 23:16

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

You don't have to be wielding a weapon for it to trigger, but your offhand slot must be empty. It won't trigger while wearing a shield, even if your main hand is empty... not sure why.

You can confirm this in-game in trunk by reading the description of demonic touch in the mutations list, or by reading the source code (see "melee_attack::_extra_aux_attack" in "melee-attack.cc").

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Post Monday, 6th December 2021, 11:47

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

I'm not sure I get most of these.

Yes, claws and demonic touch don't go well with weapon+shield (and demonic touch should clearly work with a main-hand attack), but what's that got to do with mutations that give bonus SH? Bonus SH is good whether you use a shield or not.

Unarmed fighting is perfectly compatible with stabbing. Yeah, you don't obliterate enemies as you do with a dagger, although you get some bonus, but the really important bit about an enemy being paralysed or asleep is they don't get to hit you back. (Also, re thin skeletal structure, stealth is good even if you never stab anything).

Demonic guardians all resist miasma, as far as I can tell, and it's rare that such a sea of blood is spilled that a demonic guardian has to stand in the flames.

It's always good not to be hit. I have absolutely no complaint if my retaliation goes off less because I'm being hit less.
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Post Tuesday, 7th December 2021, 01:41

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

Maybe I was wrong about demonic guardian vs. foul stench, but your experience with demonic guardian vs ignite blood is apparently very different than mine. For me, the guardians seemed to end up engulfed in flame nearly every single time they appeared, and they generally didn't last very long as a result. It felt like a complete waste of a mutation line.

But, you and I are looking at this general issue completely differently. You're looking at it like, "Okay, it's not the best but it's still better than nothing, so I'm happy with it." And I'm looking at it like, "This is underperforming and I had to give up some other mutation line that could have worked better for this, so I'm unhappy with it."

...

Side note, I've discovered that the most effective way to play demonspawn, by far, is to start hundreds of seeded games in advance, use wizard mode to gain a level 26 times in each game, and make a record of which seeds produce which combinations of mutations, then pick the set that best fits whatever concept I'm most interested in at the moment, and play using that seed. The only downside is that I end up playing the seeds with the best mutations over and over again, and I remember where everything is after a few games, which takes a lot of the excitement out of the experience.

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Post Tuesday, 7th December 2021, 07:02

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

I've discovered that the most effective way to play demonspawn,


It's a single player game, so play how you like, but this is contra to the roguelike ethos of crawl, would be considered cheating by online players, and is absolutely not at all supported behavior that we're gonna design around.

This is underperforming and I had to give up some other mutation line


By startscumming you seem to have arrived at a notion that there's a choice of demonspawn mutation. That's just not part of the design. Demonspawn as a species has a variable power level, set when your mutations are rolled at char select and uninfluencable by any in-game action. Sometimes you're the captain of the football team with hooves and robust and ultra synergy between your mutations. Sometimes you're the weird awkward HAM radio club mutant who keeps tripping over their own stinger. You don't know which you'll be until you grow up a bit, and the experience of playing demonspawn is adapting (or not) to the mutation set, regardless of how awkward it is, and at no point did you give up some other mutation line: it was never yours to begin with. (Again, the beginning is character select. You get a "choice" if you choose to start scum.)

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Post Tuesday, 7th December 2021, 11:24

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

Nekoatl wrote:But, you and I are looking at this general issue completely differently. You're looking at it like, "Okay, it's not the best but it's still better than nothing, so I'm happy with it." And I'm looking at it like, "This is underperforming and I had to give up some other mutation line that could have worked better for this, so I'm unhappy with it."


Crawl is absolutely full of opportunities to get equipment that doesn't fit with your current character, fight monsters that aren't easy to kill with your current character, get a draconian colour that doesn't match the spell schools you've trained... it's inevitable that you can also get demonspawn mutations that aren't a good fit with your current character.

Very little in your post seems to me, as I've discussed, to be incompatibilities between demonspawn mutations - I'm willing to grant demonic guardian and ignite blood may be, although it's not our experience and we're playing a lot of Ds at the moment because I've pulled in hellmonk's recent Ds mutation changes - just that sometimes the mutations aren't a good fit with other things you're doing.

Side note, I've discovered that the most effective way to play demonspawn, by far, is to start hundreds of seeded games in advance, use wizard mode to gain a level 26 times in each game, and make a record of which seeds produce which combinations of mutations, then pick the set that best fits whatever concept I'm most interested in at the moment, and play using that seed.


I'm not sure it's news that if you're willing to cheat by peeking ahead into seeded games, that can let you "win". There are easier ways to cheat, though.
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Post Tuesday, 7th December 2021, 21:14

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

I agree that it's absolutely in the spirit of Crawl to get stuff that doesn't fit your current build, and to have to decide whether to ignore that stuff (in the case of equipment, not draconian color, obviously) or adapt to it by adjusting skill investments. This is perfectly fine, and completely different than the issue of conflicting demonspawn mutations, because there's no hard limit on skill experience gained, so if you're willing to put in the time and effort, you can eventually make up any disadvantage from atrophied skill experience. For the most part, this applies to demonspawn mutations as well; it's normal to get surprised by a new mutation line and retool one's strategy in response, though sadly this only applies to skill investments, as there's no longer any in-game mechanism to rearrange stats following the Jiyva rework. Of course, this presupposes that a good strategy exists, which is not the case when the demonspawn mutations are fundamentally incompatible with each other, and then the only remedy possible is to quit and start a new character. Again, it's not an issue with demonspawn mutations not being a good fit for your current plans, it's an issue of getting constellations of demonspawn mutations whereby regardless of how you might choose to rework your character's direction, at least one will not be a good fit for the new direction.

And yes, I'm well aware that demonspawn are designed to be a crapshoot, but the problem is, there isn't an alternative way to get access to demonspawn mutations (outside of wizard mode), and many of them are exceptionally interesting. So, after quitting thousands of demonspawn games due to bad mutation randomization, I did try playing in wizard mode, adding desired mutations to a human, for example. But, this is even less satisfying than the seed seeking method, because other species (correctly) aren't balanced around the assumption that they'll be given demonspawn mutations, so giving them wrecks the game balance. Giving the demonspawn mutations to a demonspawn character in wizard mode doesn't work very well, either, because there's no wizard mode command to remove their natural demonspawn mutations.

But, what I find most baffling, is the idea that demonspawn mutations shouldn't be revealed at the start of the game because that'd cause start scumming. Clearly, what causes start scumming is the desirability of demonspawn mutations coupled with the randomized method by which they're assigned, which hiding those randomized assignments does nothing to alleviate... it only exacerbates the problem. Revealing the mutations from the beginning would only make the existing process of start scumming less grindy and painful by comparison.

And to clear something up, there is absolutely no need to cheat to "win". Winning is easy, to the point that it's not even interesting anymore. The journey is the destination. And cheating is entirely undesirable, in any case, as without a suitable challenge, there's little point in playing at all. I promise, if the game featured a way to get access to desirable demonspawn mutation combinations without start scumming or assigning them through wizard mode, whether this were via some other species that doesn't share demonspawn's crapshoot design or by worshipping a specific deity, I would absolutely prefer that method, but there isn't, so I have to do what I have to do, and the best method that I've found to preserve the game's challenge while not being completely cut off from the journeys I wish to experience is the seed seeking method, flawed as it is.

As for the specifics:

A small amount of SH by itself is not particularly valuable, most often the enemies will easily overcome it. Being able to add that small amount of SH to a large amount of SH from a tower shield and an amulet of reflection is a whole different situation, if you look at the percentage reduction, it's incomparably better. Think of it this way. Let's say you have a 100% chance to be hit, and you can reduce that by 1% to 99%. That is a negligible difference in the amount of damage you'll take, only 1% reduction. Now, let's say you have a 2% change to be hit, and you can reduce that by 1% to 1%. That's a 50% reduction, which is very potent. Admittedly, these numbers are exaggerated to make the effect more obvious, but the principle holds regardless.

The paralyze effect from demonic magic is brief. Normally you can manage at most a few attacks before it wears off, depending on enemy positioning. If you can use a dagger to kill one enemy per attack, that's incomparably better to swinging away with your fists, even with a very slight bonus to damage.

It's always good to not be hit, but while you're not being hit, your retaliation mutation isn't doing any work.

See, you're happy to settle for small perks, and don't feel compelled to try to make the most of what you're given, that's why you don't see these issues as incompatibilites. It's not that there's no benefit whatsoever in these cases, it's just that they're significantly underperforming.

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Post Wednesday, 8th December 2021, 08:38

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

But, what I find most baffling, is the idea that demonspawn mutations shouldn't be revealed at the start of the game because that'd cause start scumming.


This isn't the reason though. The reason is that Ds is about adapting, not planning your build from turn 1 based on your mutations. Ds is definitely not about picking your AAA power combo of mutations for your desired build. If you want to play like that, it's a single player game so go enjoy, but to suggest a radical change in the design of a species to save you from startscumming is bonkers.

Perhaps that's an unfair characterization of your position, so let's look at your analysis of Ds mutations and why you think there's an incompatibility (again).

See, you're happy to settle for small perks, and don't feel compelled to try to make the most of what you're given, that's why you don't see these issues as incompatibilites. It's not that there's no benefit whatsoever in these cases, it's just that they're significantly underperforming.


Your claim of incompatibility seems to be that for some mutation pairs is that for these pairs MaxPower(mutA + mutB) < MaxPower(mutA)+MaxPower(mutB).

Making this into equality has never been a Ds design goal for the mutations. Part of adapting is figuring out to get the most out of what you're given: your mix of mutations all together, not in isolation. As I said before: sometimes your mix is awkward, late, or kinda meh. That's part of the package.

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Post Wednesday, 8th December 2021, 15:12

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

Nekoatl wrote:This is perfectly fine, and completely different than the issue of conflicting demonspawn mutations, because there's no hard limit on skill experience gained, so if you're willing to put in the time and effort, you can eventually make up any disadvantage from atrophied skill experience.


Well, yes and no, not least because you might die in the course of gaining those skills - and you can't skill train away low strength with a great melee weapon available, or low int with a good spell available, or the horns that pushed your good helmet off your head.

Of course, this presupposes that a good strategy exists, which is not the case when the demonspawn mutations are fundamentally incompatible with each other, and then the only remedy possible is to quit and start a new character.


I've yet to see any that seem "fundamentally incompatible", rather than just not working together as well as one might like. That's obviously not the only remedy possible; you can continue to play the character anyway.

But, what I find most baffling, is the idea that demonspawn mutations shouldn't be revealed at the start of the game because that'd cause start scumming. Clearly, what causes start scumming is the desirability of demonspawn mutations coupled with the randomized method by which they're assigned, which hiding those randomized assignments does nothing to alleviate... it only exacerbates the problem. Revealing the mutations from the beginning would only make the existing process of start scumming less grindy and painful by comparison.


I think it's fair to say that the current process of scumming for Demonspawn mutations is _so_ grindy and painful that almost no-one feels it's worth doing it, and hence discourages it very effectively. AFAICT you're the person who considers it... and in fact you just cheat with wizard mode.

And cheating is entirely undesirable, in any case, as without a suitable challenge, there's little point in playing at all.


Plainly you don't find cheating "entirely undesirable". I do, so I don't cheat. You cheat, so you don't find it so.

Winning is easy, to the point that it's not even interesting anymore. (...) the best method that I've found to preserve the game's challenge while not being completely cut off from the journeys I wish to experience is the seed seeking method, flawed as it is.


Sorry, winning is too easy to be interesting, but playing with a carefully curated set of mutations that maximises their effectiveness - making the game easier - preserves the challenge? What challenge, if winning is too easy to be interesting?

A small amount of SH by itself is not particularly valuable, most often the enemies will easily overcome it. Being able to add that small amount of SH to a large amount of SH from a tower shield and an amulet of reflection is a whole different situation, if you look at the percentage reduction, it's incomparably better.


Oh, god, this thread again.

That's not a useful metric; a better way to look at the value of defences is their effect on the expected time for a given enemy to kill you. There comes a point where your defences are strong enough that the expected time for a given enemy to kill you is infinite; they can't damage you as fast as you can regenerate. Your way of measuring defence effectiveness would call additional defences in that situation "very potent", when in fact it is clear that additional defences are worthless against that enemy.

The paralyze effect from demonic magic is brief. Normally you can manage at most a few attacks before it wears off, depending on enemy positioning. If you can use a dagger to kill one enemy per attack, that's incomparably better to swinging away with your fists, even with a very slight bonus to damage.


It's hardly "very slight", as any Usk game will tell you. You often will one- or two-shot paralysed enemies without a short blade.

It's always good to not be hit, but while you're not being hit, your retaliation mutation isn't doing any work.


I think of that as defense in depth. I might as well complain that if my large bony plates block an attack, my repulsion field can't let me evade it.
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Post Thursday, 9th December 2021, 11:10

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

The risk of dying is an important part of the game, it's not a problem. To a very large degree, death can also be avoided through skillful tactics, again not a problem. Horns pushing a helmet off your head is also not a problem, because you shouldn't be using a strategy that relies on wearing a helmet if you're getting horns. The incompatible stat issue is a problem, though a very recent one, as previously a player could use Jiyva to adjust their stats to compensate if so desired. It's particularly frustrating that most of the auxiliary attack mutations check STR+DEX in their chance to proc. Even when they do proc, the damage and accuracy are affected by STR+DEX, so also using these stats to reduce proc chances feels excessive. Still, this is a less severe problem than the incompatible mutations, because if you play demonspawn with a variety of different opening strategies, sometimes you'll get lucky and your early choices will synergize with your mutations, whereas with incompatible mutations, you're screwed no matter what choices you make.

Choosing to play the character anyway isn't a remedy at all, because it does nothing to correct the problem. This should be obvious.

You seem to have misread my previous post. I have tried using wizard mode to select demonspawn mutations, but as I explained previously, the experience wasn't satisfying, so I quickly gave up on that approach. These days, I only use wizard mode to quickly test some gameplay interaction that I have a question about or to verify the status of a bug, and then immediately quit the game once that's done.

This may be hard for you to understand, but I do find cheating entirely undesirable. However, I also find the way demonspawn mutations are randomly assigned to be entirely undesirable. And yet, I find the demonspawn mutations themselves to provide a compelling interest. So, no matter how I choose to play, I'm unhappy, but I can't stop because the potential for satisfying games exists here, it's just gated behind absurd amounts of frustration. It may be the case that we find cheating to be entirely undesirable for completely different reasons, however, and if that's the case, it may explain why it seems to be difficult for you to understand my perspective on this issue. To clarify, the reason I dislike cheating is that it tends to make games easier, and as a general rule, I prefer games to be extremely challenging. This isn't a moral issue for me, but a practical one, at least where single-player games are concerned. The only reason I would even consider resorting to cheating is as a clunky way of working around some untenable aspect of a game's design (e.g. to get a Mew in the original Pokemon games), though in almost all cases, I would instead choose to simply not play the game in question. From time to time, I do quit playing crawl for the sake of my sanity, but there are just so many compelling aspects to the gameplay that I haven't found in other games, so I inevitably find myself coming back.

Escaping with the orb is not the biggest challenge Crawl has to offer. I like to increase the difficult by making deliberately bad strategic choices, such as rushing to vaults 5 as quickly as possible and not allowing myself to leave until all the monsters are dead, or diving into a vault packed full of sleeping hellions when I know that simply walking away would be much safer. By the time I've grown bored of such antics with a character (assuming I manage to survive that long), escaping with the orb is rather mild by comparison, such that more often than not I don't even bother with it and simply quit so that I can start a new character just a little bit sooner. I mean, think about it... by design, it has to be easier, because it's meant to be possible for characters that have only collected 3 runes. This is one of the reasons why it seems weird to me that some players place such an emphasis on winning.

The only enemies that matter are the ones that actually can kill you, so they're the ones you should be designing your character builds for.

You're right, I was underselling the stabbing bonus for weapons other than short blades. But, it's still worse than stabbing with a good short blade. One-shotting is better than two-shotting. Also, this isn't always relevant, but unarmed combat doesn't benefit from the assassin's shroud, so it's the worst choice for stabbing.

In that example, yes the repulsion field is less valuable than it would be if you weren't wearing a shield, but the relevant question is would what you're giving up to make room for that repulsion field have been more valuable? This is also situation dependent. If you're in an area with no ranged attackers, you're better off wearing a +0 cloak than a scarf of repulsion. It's worth noting that being able to make strategic decisions about when wearing that scarf of repulsion is more valuable than whatever other options you have available for that equipment slot is more interesting than having those decisions made for you.

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Post Thursday, 9th December 2021, 12:10

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

I do kindof understand where you're coming from. I mean in that having a strong character is nice, but on the other hand you need to impose challenges to keep a game with a strong character interesting.

But wouldn't it make sense to change which challenge you set yourself depending on how good your mutations are?
Like I myself will skip Lair and/or try my hand at bcrawl style extended if a character feels strong, but if I find myself playing a weak combo I won't. The same if I get weak mutations.

I think I could understand having a problem with the Demonspawn mutation system if you were trying to megazig every game, though in that case any demon that doesn't get Powered by Death would be a disappointment.

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Post Friday, 10th December 2021, 04:55

Re: Demonspawn incompatibilities

You're absolutely right; playing more cautiously can compensate for unfriendly RNG to a large extent, and I do this already when I judge it to be necessary to keep a character alive long enough to make things more interesting. You're also right that having a lower maximum attainable power limits the challenges that a character is eventually capable of overcoming, but this doesn't really bother me, as I'm perfectly happy to bite off more than I can chew and lose a character in the process, as long as the experience of doing so is exciting and interesting.

But, my issue is more like... I just want to build the coolest characters possible and throw them into increasingly difficult situations to see how much punishment I can get them to survive. This is, fundamentally, the entirety of crawl's appeal for me... I'm very much a "Johnny" gamer (in terms of Timmy, Johnny, and Spike), in that I derive enjoyment from thinking of cool ideas and trying them out. And, I'm perfectly happy to end up with a build that bears no resemblance to the one I had in mind at the start of the game most of the time, so long as the build I end up with is one I can be happy with. In fact, I think RNG mechanics that encourage that sort of adaptation are quite healthy, especially in terms of replay value. But, a hodgepodge of permanent character traits that fundamentally don't fit together into any such build just kills all enjoyment and motivation for me, and that has nothing to do with whether or not the character can be used to escape with the orb. I don't even mind getting dealt a mismatch of character traits, so long as there are some hoops, no matter how difficult, dangerous or time consuming, that I could try to jump through to untangle the mess and rework the character into one I could be happy with, but if there aren't any, then the character is just dead to me. I know I'll never be happy with it no matter what happens going forward. Essentially, it's as though every choice available in the game loses all meaning because they all are guaranteed to lead to a "bad end" and there simply is no "good end" that's even theoretically possible at that point.

It's extremely frustrating, too, because demonspawn is simultaneously the species that best fits my gaming personality type and the species that worst fits it, and with the current design, RNG seems to tilt towards the "worst" side of things most of the time.

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