"Tedious" is not a curse word in game design

[sardonica]

I was reading over this thread, discussing changes to Felids

viewtopic.php?f=8&p=59354#p59354

But it could be any thread really...

Solutions to problems are deemed "tedious," and therefore unacceptable.

Tedium is not a bad word. Doing something like this:

[*]Planescape Torment style resurrection. You come back, but without your memories. Apply amnesia to item identification, memorized spells, maps, maybe even skills. Wholesale amnesia or randomized selection from categories could work.

does not merit a response like this:

Amnesia of that type has the problem that there is nothing from stopping me from writing down the description of every, scroll, randart, potion, and map I find in case I die . This is just tedious and annoying

Games that reward real-life effort such as this have existed for a long time, almost since the dawn of gaming. How many of us remember using graph paper to map out dungeons in Magic Candle or Bard's Tale?

Anyway, I propose either we:

1) Get an working definition of "Tedious/Tedium" OR

2) Stop using it as a pejorative.

[BlackSheep]

Time consuming and not fun, yet having a notable in-game effect.

Examples:
"Writing down randomly generated scroll and potion definitions in case my character forgets what they are is tedious."
"Drawing maps of places I've been in case my character forgets where it's been is tedious."

[Bloax]

Abyss farming is tedious too.

[ebarrett]

Games that reward real-life effort such as this have existed for a long time, almost since the dawn of gaming.

And in no small part because of that, these games aren't as good as Crawl.

[sardonica]

Time consuming and not fun, yet having a notable in-game effect.

Yes, I get that is the intended meaning, but now we're just stuck on the "not fun" or "time consuming" part. If something is not fun or time-consuming with an in-game effect, just elaborate on what that is.

For what it's worth:

Search found 1142 matches: tedi*

I don't thing "tedi*" should be a fire-and-forget missile for game idea criticism, which is what it has become.

[ebarrett]

I think that given the amount of ideas that never even consider basic Crawl philosophy and design, having an all-purpose fire-and-forget missile or two is perfectly justified.

[galehar]

We do have a definition, it's right there in the philosophy section of the manual:

Another basic design principle is avoidance of grinding (also known as scumming). These are activities that have low risk, take a lot of time, and bring some reward. This is bad for a game's design because it encourages players to bore themselves. Even worse, it may be optimal to do so. We try to avoid this!

[danr]

Usually when I say tedious, I'm thinking of something that takes excess key strokes. Active weapon skills would fall into this category.

Not to beat my drum too much, but eating chunks fits that description above quite well - low risk, takes a fair bit of time, and brings reward.

[sardonica]

We do have a definition, it's right there in the philosophy section of the manual:

Another basic design principle is avoidance of grinding (also known as scumming). These are activities that have low risk, take a lot of time, and bring some reward. This is bad for a game's design because it encourages players to bore themselves. Even worse, it may be optimal to do so. We try to avoid this!

That says grinding, scumming, there's nothing there about tedi*?

[KoboldLord]

[*]Planescape Torment style resurrection. You come back, but without your memories. Apply amnesia to item identification, memorized spells, maps, maybe even skills. Wholesale amnesia or randomized selection from categories could work.

does not merit a response like this:

Amnesia of that type has the problem that there is nothing from stopping me from writing down the description of every, scroll, randart, potion, and map I find in case I die . This is just tedious and annoying

Games that reward real-life effort such as this have existed for a long time, almost since the dawn of gaming. How many of us remember using graph paper to map out dungeons in Magic Candle or Bard's Tale?

Anyway, I propose either we:

1) Get an working definition of "Tedious/Tedium" OR

2) Stop using it as a pejorative.

I'm afraid you've hit another Thing That Nethack Does that the early Crawl devteam intentionally designed Crawl around not doing. Amnesia from mind flayers is one of the most reviled effects by the playerbase even though there's a fairly boring workaround in that you can manually write out the identifications you discover and the game can no longer delete them. The potion of amnesia from Slash'EM is even worse, since it qualifies as an attack potion that any intelligent monster can and will throw at you, resulting in really annoying interface screws at any point in the game that cannot be avoided with good play.

So no, there's no justification for expecting a good response on that idea. All the other side has to do is point at Nethack's mind flayers, and the idea is conclusively demonstrated to be an undesirable one. Similar ideas have actually come up many times in the development of Crawl, and it is excusable that somebody wanted to reject the idea without explaining in detail again.

[crate]

In fact amnesia of various sorts actually exists in old versions of crawl and has since been (mostly ... hello labyrinths) removed. It will not be added again.

[glexus]

I've been watching a few players on webtiles who appear to be pretty good (not dead at level 20+ anyway) and I've noticed that jewellery swapping seems pretty common. As far as I can see, that fits "low risk, take a lot of time, and bring some reward". One character went through the slime pits swapping jewellery very frequently depending on what type of jelly he was facing. It struck me that this behaviour wasn't adding a lot to the gameplay (precisely because it's low risk for reward). It also seemed really silly thematically, to be choosing between the ruby or diamond earrings midfight.

[pratamawirya]

I've been watching a few players on webtiles who appear to be pretty good (not dead at level 20+ anyway) and I've noticed that jewellery swapping seems pretty common. As far as I can see, that fits "low risk, take a lot of time, and bring some reward". One character went through the slime pits swapping jewellery very frequently depending on what type of jelly he was facing. It struck me that this behaviour wasn't adding a lot to the gameplay (precisely because it's low risk for reward). It also seemed really silly thematically, to be choosing between the ruby or diamond earrings midfight.

It seems you're mixing "time" up with "frequency"?

[glexus]

I've been watching a few players on webtiles who appear to be pretty good (not dead at level 20+ anyway) and I've noticed that jewellery swapping seems pretty common. As far as I can see, that fits "low risk, take a lot of time, and bring some reward". One character went through the slime pits swapping jewellery very frequently depending on what type of jelly he was facing. It struck me that this behaviour wasn't adding a lot to the gameplay (precisely because it's low risk for reward). It also seemed really silly thematically, to be choosing between the ruby or diamond earrings midfight.

It seems you're mixing "time" up with "frequency"?

Well, for some of the fights the jewellery swapping took longer than the fight, so I don't think so.

[ebarrett]

jewellery swapping seems pretty common. As far as I can see, that fits "low risk, take a lot of time, and bring some reward"

Congratulations, you've set a new high water mark for missing the point!

[Bloax]

Strategy is very tedious. We should get rid of it. Because hey, they're the same thing, right?

[mad]

Swapping to a flaming edged weapon when I fight a hydra is tedious. Can we just have hydra heads not grow back for all weapon types?

Quaffing a potion when I'm on <10% hp or rotting is tedious. Can we institute an "auto quaff" command?

Looking at each weapon for base damage is tedious. Can I automatically wield new weapons of the same base type as my existing weapon but with higher damage scores?

Pressing tab is tedious. Can the game automatically press tab for me during autoexplore? That way all I need to do will be equipping weapons (unless you implement my idea above) and then press autoexplore again.

[palin]

I like when threads are derailed because people don't get the point. Or won't.

[Deimos]

Here's what I think:

First, tedium is never fun. Ever. Let's get that out of the way. I can't think of one instance where I'm having a fun in a game purely because of the tedium.

Secondly, tedium is not a bad thing. "Why not? You just said it's not fun." Right. However, it opens doors to things that are fun. For a DCSS example, clearing the dungeon is tedious. However, doing that tedious task opens up the doors to many interesting monsters, new vaults to find, etc. In this example, the tedium is overruled because of the interesting things it opens up. The "fun" is enjoyed more then the tedium is despised, so the feature stays.

Finally, to figure whether or not a feature is worthy of considering, we obviously need to figure out whether it's fun enough to overcome the tedium. In your example, sardonica, it isn't. Amnesia on rebirth is mildly interesting, but no where near enough to overcome the tedium from writing things down.

So yes, "this is too tedious" is good enough of a counterpoint. Either make the suggestion "more fun" or lower the tedium enough for the little fun that is there to shine through.

[galehar]

First, tedium is never fun.

Fun is subjective. Some players like grinding, they should just play another game. Crawl isn't designed for them.

For a DCSS example, clearing the dungeon is tedious. However, doing that tedious task opens up the doors to many interesting monsters, new vaults to find, etc. In this example, the tedium is overruled because of the interesting things it opens up. The "fun" is enjoyed more then the tedium is despised, so the feature stays.

And autoexplore is implemented.

[glexus]

jewellery swapping seems pretty common. As far as I can see, that fits "low risk, take a lot of time, and bring some reward"

Congratulations, you've set a new high water mark for missing the point!

Well I was trying not to, but as with every single one of my posts on this forum I seem to manage it, according to popular opinion.

Can you tell me why this time? The decision of which piece of jewellery to use in each circumstance wasn't very strategic, it was largely obvious and depended on which monster was in front of the player each time (corrosion or mutation amulet, for example).

[roctavian]

jewellery swapping seems pretty common. As far as I can see, that fits "low risk, take a lot of time, and bring some reward"

Congratulations, you've set a new high water mark for missing the point!

Well I was trying not to, but as with every single one of my posts on this forum I seem to manage it, according to popular opinion.

Can you tell me why this time? The decision of which piece of jewellery to use in each circumstance wasn't very strategic, it was largely obvious and depended on which monster was in front of the player each time (corrosion or mutation amulet, for example).

I would say that you aren't wrong about this behavior being problematic (up to a certain point), but this is a different problem. In this case, the enemies (I'm assuming acid blobs and shining eyes) each present a particular threat that can be mostly negated by a single jewelry ego. You don't wear rMut to deal with acid blobs and you don't wear rCorr to deal with shining eyes -- it wouldn't do anything. Since it takes very little aut to switch jewelry, you do it. It's not quite "no-brainer" territory, but it's close. The problem has to do with the ease of item-switching and the obviousness of the decision.

edit to make my point more clear: The rest of this thread concerns tedium as time-consuming behavior that does not directly relate to core Crawl gameplay -- tactical combat for the most part, strategic planning on the side. Examples of such tedium include the examples given in this thread (interface screws that can be overcome by taking notes in a notebook) or selling items to shops (the raw excitement of collecting every last orcish dagger and robe, up to 52 at a time, and lugging them back to a static location), or any number of other things.

Jewelry switching is kind of a problem -- a certain amount of item juggling is necessary but too much is silly. We could get into this specific issue more (amulets are supposed to be strategic decisions rather than tactical ones, maybe it would be better if you had to wear jewelry for a while before you start seeing its benefits, so on and so forth) but it would be better in another thread.

[TwilightPhoenix]

DCSS is too tedious. When you start the game, it should automatically generate a viable, random character. Once you hit "o" in game, it will automatically walk over to the spot next to the entrance, pick up the orb, and exit the dungeon for you to save time and key strokes.

[palin]

DCSS is too tedious. When you start the game, it should automatically generate a viable, random character. Once you hit "o" in game, it will automatically walk over to the spot next to the entrance, pick up the orb, and exit the dungeon for you to save time and key strokes.

In case you have not noticed, this is not Crazy Yiuf channel. Being sarcastic is not being of help.

[inkydood]

The decision of which piece of jewellery to use in each circumstance wasn't very strategic

Technically, you're correct- that's a tactical, not strategic choice.

it was largely obvious and depended on which monster was in front of the player each time (corrosion or mutation amulet, for example).

In a scenario where the player can successfully kite monsters one at a time, this may indeed seem pointless. However, you're (theoretically) going to face instances when simultaneously facing both prompts a decision on which amulet to wear. Such a decision is an interesting tactical choice.

The Slime Pits are probably the most egregious offender of equipment-swapping, regardless. If you feel this is an example of low-risk, high-reward, tedious behaviour, then I recommended making a dedicated thread. However, basic Crawl design philosophy isn't liable to change any time soon, and tedious elements aren't going to be purposefully added in.

[TwilightPhoenix]

DCSS is too tedious. When you start the game, it should automatically generate a viable, random character. Once you hit "o" in game, it will automatically walk over to the spot next to the entrance, pick up the orb, and exit the dungeon for you to save time and key strokes.

In case you have not noticed, this is not Crazy Yiuf channel. Being sarcastic is not being of help.

I basically pointed out that just about any feature in Crawl can be considered tedious from the right view point, albeit in a more amusing fashion. For example, I personally view the extended end game to be very tedious.

Seriously though, arguing something is tedious is silly because it's all opinion with only one exception: Crawl's philosophy. The game documents clearly define that the developers consider to be "tedious", so anything falling under that should be considered tedious by the game's design goals.

Now, I don't agree the OP here either. Tedium is bad and while you can't get rid of all of it due to differing opinions, purposely adding something that is clearly tedious is generally a bad idea.

Also, reading and writing the word tedious over and over gets rather tedious after awhile.

[pratamawirya]

glexus' post turns out to be much more problematic than I thought.

[crate]

Tedium is something that crawl aims to reduce, as it should. However not all things that are tedious are necessarily bad--they can have good aspects that outweigh the tedium. Jewellery swapping is a good example: it is tedious (takes up a fair bit of time, in fact you might even make macros to speed it up because you swap jewellery often) but at the same time allowing for jewellery swapping is good because it lets enemies and the situations crawl throws you into be more diverse ... since it gives you the player more power and flexibility, and there is also the consideration that while it is a quick action it is not zero-time. I hope it is clear why allowing every character to always wear more jewellery items is not a good solution to jewellery-swapping being tedious (for one it just makes your character more powerful at all times).

An example of bad tedium is the game erasing your character's knowledge of some items, because you outside-the-game still know exactly what those items are (in theory, since you could have been dumping your character file every turn and moving the .lst file + dump somewhere and then after you get amnesia'd you look at the dump + .lst from the turn before you got amnesia'd to identify everything). So there is no gameplay benefit whatsoever to having the game do this, and it also encourages time-consuming actions.

[schmoe]

I'm afraid you've hit another Thing That Nethack Does that the early Crawl devteam intentionally designed Crawl around not doing. Amnesia from mind flayers is one of the most reviled effects by the playerbase even though there's a fairly boring workaround in that you can manually write out the identifications you discover and the game can no longer delete them. The potion of amnesia from Slash'EM is even worse, since it qualifies as an attack potion that any intelligent monster can and will throw at you, resulting in really annoying interface screws at any point in the game that cannot be avoided with good play.

So no, there's no justification for expecting a good response on that idea. All the other side has to do is point at Nethack's mind flayers, and the idea is conclusively demonstrated to be an undesirable one. Similar ideas have actually come up many times in the development of Crawl, and it is excusable that somebody wanted to reject the idea without explaining in detail again.

The solution, of course, is to remove the benefit from the tedious activity. If you alter the code so that amnesia also changes the descriptors of the potions, then writing them down provides no benefit. Voila, no tedium.

[crate]

The solution, of course, is to remove the benefit from the tedious activity. If you alter the code so that amnesia also changes the descriptors of the potions, then writing them down provides no benefit. Voila, no tedium.

Look at my post above. Copying your .lst file avoids this entirely, since the .lst file tells you exactly how many of each item are in which location. It is probably not something you want to parse by hand but it is there.

You would have to not just re-randomize descriptions, you would also have to randomly destroy/create items in the player's inventory, and then additionally randomly destroy/create items throughout the entire dungeon. ... I hope it is clear that this is not a good course of action (re-generate the entire dungeon to implement a thing that everyone hates...?).

[schmoe]

The solution, of course, is to remove the benefit from the tedious activity. If you alter the code so that amnesia also changes the descriptors of the potions, then writing them down provides no benefit. Voila, no tedium.

Look at my post above. Copying your .lst file avoids this entirely, since the .lst file tells you exactly how many of each item are in which location. It is probably not something you want to parse by hand but it is there.

You would have to not just re-randomize descriptions, you would also have to randomly destroy/create items in the player's inventory, and then additionally randomly destroy/create items throughout the entire dungeon. ... I hope it is clear that this is not a good course of action (re-generate the entire dungeon to implement a thing that everyone hates...?).

Hmm. Encrypt the .lst?

At any rate, I hate amnesia as a per se mechanic, but I find the arguments against it silly. I think as an exceptional punishment for exceptional circumstances, it can be ok.

[crate]

The .lst exists specifically because players should not have to write down the location of every item their character has seen. I mean, ok, you can just not create the file, but then we're back to the same situation except you are manually writing down the contents of the .lst file, and that's not a good thing.

If you want amnesia (forgetting item identification) as a workable mechanic there isn't really a way around having to in some way re-generate all items in the dungeon (or destroying them all) since if they remain the same item as before then you the player outside the game still theoretically know what the item is even if your character inside the game does not.