Increasing home size

[Derakon]

How can you Quote from previous posts again?

Find the post you want to quote, look in the lower right-hand side of the post, click the "Quote" button. If you're using the threaded view, then no idea, sorry.

Anyway - Derakon said:
'... players have to be protected from themselves.'

I strongly disagree to this point of view.

Well, you can disagree all you like, but it's a pretty important aspect of game design. When you're designing a system like Angband's where much of the gameplay is in learning how things work and then devising strategies, you need to ensure that there's no "dumb" strategies that aren't interesting to execute but nonetheless work well.

I mean, imagine for example that searching for traps took no time whatsoever. In that situation, optimal play could well involve hitting the search key several times after every step you take. And there are players who would do that. Making searching cost time thus "protects those players from themselves" by removing an option from the game.

[Tibarius]

re: Derakon

Thanks for pointing out how to Quote - the one who can read is clearly in advantage *bonk self and point to the 'quote' button Derakon mentioned*.

I agree to your example concerning the strategy. But obviously we two understand different things under 'protecting players from themselves'. Your strategy example has nothing to do with that topic in my eyes.

The post beforehand from Timo offers a good hook on that. I dislike to be protected from anyone, if that strips me of the freedom to do what i want to do.

For example: if the development-team would decide players must be protected from clearing whole levels, because that way of playing is not the way of playing the majority of players seems right / apropriate and thus develop game mechanics to make the level-clearing playingstyle harder/impossible. That would be a protection of players from themselves, i can not agree to.

[mushroom patch]

I agree to your example concerning the strategy. But obviously we two understand different things under 'protecting players from themselves'. Your strategy example has nothing to do with that topic in my eyes.

The post beforehand from Timo offers a good hook on that. I dislike to be protected from anyone, if that strips me of the freedom to do what i want to do.

For example: if the development-team would decide players must be protected from clearing whole levels, because that way of playing is not the way of playing the majority of players seems right / apropriate and thus develop game mechanics to make the level-clearing playingstyle harder/impossible. That would be a protection of players from themselves, i can not agree to.

In reality, you have no freedom when you play a game beyond the consequences of the mechanics its designers offer (and perhaps any bugs or exploits that might exist). It doesn't make sense to speak of your freedom to sell items, for example, if the game does not allow selling items. You may argue that the game should allow you to sell items, but such an argument has to be made on the merit of the gameplay consequences of selling items.

I think it's essentially true that there are no strong gameplay arguments for selling items in most roguelike games. People who argue in favor of selling generally make dubious arguments about realism.

All you have you to do is look at some of the exploitative games available on mobile phones to see that "protecting players from themselves" is a much better guideline than "give players what they think they want."

[MattB]

People who argue in favor of selling generally make dubious arguments about realism.

As I've said here before, the funny thing about this argument is that in real life, shops very rarely buy goods off their customers!

[mushroom patch]

"Yo, I got this blood soaked mace off a priest I murdered in the dungeon. Wanna buy it?"

[Derakon]

To be fair, while the vast majority of real-life stores do not purchase items from customers, the vast majority of videogame stores do (at least in those games where enemies can drop loot). So in the context of videogames, having stores that don't buy things is very unusual. The only other counterexample besides Angband that comes to mind is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, where the only items you can sell are various precious gems.

[Estie]

While I enjoy no selling in that its less of a bother, it also feels very wrong in a certain way. For example, I squelch books that I can never use at the start of a game. I would prefer if rare books could be turned into cash somehow. Given that, as it is, off-class books are utterly useless, should they even drop at all ? It would be easy to have the game pre-squelch them at character creation. Going further, should things that only a part of the classes can use even exist ? What about items like defender weapons, which I love with casters but almost never use with melee fighters ?

ToME 4 has solved this in an unrealistic, but effective way: All your findings get stored in a "magic", weight reducing, infinite container, the contents of which are morphed into cash at every level change. When you take a stair, the container inventory pops up and you get the option to remove any items you want to hold onto to your normal inventory. Things not removed get deleted and your cash adjusted accordingly as if you had sold them at store.

Some of the best experience I can recall in regards to loot is from a Neverwinter Nights server. There, a group would gather and go to some dungeon, picking up (unidentified) loot as they went, but focusing entirely on the needs of combat and exploration. After the dungeon was done and the boss (hopefully) killed, everyone would meet in a certain traditional room in the towns tavern and drop whatever they had found to the ground, to be identified and inspected. Everyone would call which items they were interested in; those were divided, the rest got sold by one party member and the yields divided among all party members.

Apart from the obvious difference of that being a social interaction in a multiplayer game, the aspect that made it so enjoyable was that there was a good time pattern to it. A dungeon run might last from somewhere between 1 to 3 hours, with excitement and danger, followed by a 15-30 minute period of rest and relaxation where you enjoyed the fruits of your labour before setting out again.

Sorting loot becomes a chore in Angband because it takes place 100 times per game instead of 10 times and you have to deal with 1000 items instead of 100. If that were changed, I believe the issues with selling and identifying would vanish.

Edit: minor wording

[MattB]

Maybe then, the Black Market should only buy artifacts and dungeon books, and the cash drop fom monsters/floor could be reduced by 50%? That way selling is still a thing, but the stores won't buy humdrum boring stuff that they can get from their wholesalers.

[the Invisible Stalker]

AnonymousHero has the right of it -- players have to be protected from themselves. If you leave in "boring but optimal" options, then there's a significant fraction of the player base that will do those things, even though they're bored out of their skull, simply because they're optimal.

I generally agree with this, and I think there has been some progress in getting rid of boring but optimal game strategies over the last few years. I think more could be done if people would let go of their irrational hatred of instadeath. Most boring but optional strategies are slow. A small but non-zero probability of instadeath is enough to render many of them sub-optimal. But I don't really see the relevance to selling. It's fairly easy to tweak money drops to ensure that selling gives no systematic advantage. Also, why is visiting the shops assumed to be more boring than, for example, fighting? The "game of shopping" complaint has been around for almost as long as I can remember, but when I look around me I see far more people whose real life hobby is shopping than whose real life hobby is fighting. Timo is right to say that we should be cautious about assuming we know what bores other people.

[MattB]

when I look around me I see far more people whose real life hobby is shopping than whose real life hobby is fighting.

That, sir, is an excellent point.

[werepacman]

From my little experience of playing mage, conversation about money is conversation about virtual values without real usage in game. Why would you need big money at all? I shop only in very early game for phase doors which I don't use if I'm careful 5 rations of food and first books. Sometimes I buy staff of mapping, when It becomes broken. There is very rear cases I need potion of restore life level. But those things are for minimal cost. There is little period in time when you have money to buy some good book and still didn't fund it. But chances to find it in black market are minor compared to diving. Even scumming shops don't worth it. You'd better spend this time for discovering dungeon and it's tressure.

[werepacman]

Both selling and no selling options are available in game. This is not intuitive but all game is not intuitive, you need to read some advises to play it.
There is plenty of options how to make money valuable in game. Those changes can make game more variable and interesting than changing default selling options which user can make by himself.

[Tibarius]

re: comparism with real life

I find it difficulty to compare a game characters behavior to those of real people.

I agree that buying consumables is just relevant after the first few levels, and that in most games in the end i have so much gold a "normal" adventurer would just bail out of hunting Morgoth and instead would buy a 1/2 kingdom including the princess.

Just as an idea: why not reduce the number of shops in the town level and go add a pub where other adventurers take a break and are eventually willing to trade items the player finds versus items they have. You find a mage book and can't use it? Go look in the pub if a mage sits there who is willing to trade boots of speed versus your book?

Or the black market could behave differently ... you give an item to it and in Exchange you get a random artefact of the same power level as the item you just gave away?

Just ideas

[Runaway1956]

Or the black market could behave differently ... you give an item to it and in Exchange you get a random artefact of the same power level as the item you just gave away?

Just ideas

That IS an idea worth considering. I've played rangers almost exclusively, so far. I find a lot of artefact and ego items that I have little if any use for. It would be great to just trade some of them off for something more ranger-related. Warriors and mages would find that "service" just as valuable, I'm sure.

Of course, the Random Number Gods would still rule. The guy in the pub offers me something superb, but to use it I might have to give up one of my resistances. That would suck, but hey - we already make decisions like that.

[werepacman]

I think the best shop would be my own home if I could keep more equipment.
There is not always straight line in item upgrade (opposite example games from android market). Sometimes I have to keep a better item at home because it doesn't covers some basic important quality (telepathy resistance stats). And than I find it on the simple item with random abilities and bang now I can rearrange all equipment. Larger home would let to collect more interesting combinations. And it doesn't hurt gameplay. Contrary more options make game more interesting. This is challenge for a new players who don't know what qualities they need and what to expect from new items deeper in the dungeon. But for experienced players this wouldn't make game more easy because they already know what to keep and what to throw away.