What RL has original dungeons, quest systems and advanced AI?

[Pagaronn]

Hi, I’m curious gamer and would like to hear from experienced roguelike players. Please share your knowledge!

Here is a short introduction to give you the context. I started playing Sil a year ago. Then I tried Brogue and started to look at different variants like Angband and DCSS. I also tried briefly different games like Nethack, Caves of Qud, NppAngband, ToME 2.x, Cardinal Quest to name a few.

I’m interested in the RL for the fun of exploring the game world and it’s mechanics. It’s great to see how the game genre evolved and how each one has added features to make it fun/original.

I now play Unangband and found it perfect for my taste. It’s a fantasy setting, beautiful ascii layout (colorfull, original), often surprises by the game: corpes, animated limbs, room description, wilderness zone, connected map, seems serious with Tolkien lore. The sense of exploration is great. In a sense, ToME could be perfect too, but I have not invested time in it.

I’m looking for RL references that have the old-school feeling (ascii, turn-based) instead of modern roguelite (a la Minecraft).

ORIGINAL DUNGEONS GENERATION
In your experience, which roguelikes have the most interesting dungeons generation?

For example, I really like Unangband dungeons generation. The dungeon corridors and rooms are varied. I find the ASCII layout colorful and rooms seems to have more personalities (description, objects spawn in the room fir the description, there is object placements that fit the room)



RL WITH A QUEST SYSTEM?
I’m interested to see a RL with a quest systems (with goals/reward XP)

Beside the end game quest like in Sil where you have to steal something or other Angband where you have to kill Smaug or Morgot, which RL have a quest system (similar to ToME 2.x)?


RL WITH FUN/ADVANCED AI?

I’ll define a good basic AI that I enjoy in a RL. It has melee/range attack, sleeping, fear behavior (running away). Then, other RL must have added more advanced AI. Do you know which one and what they added to the AI to make it interesting/challenging?

I thought Sil had fun AI that seems to work in group. Any examples would be great to read.

Thanks for your advices!

[CyclopsSlayer]

Closest I can think of that I have experience with would be ToME 4 which is almost no longer an RL.

Tales of Maj'Eyal 4 - https://te4.org/news
It is also on Steam and has a Discord, Forum, Wiki, and has many Mods.

I have heard good things about but have never played: Crawl, Stone Soup, Dungeons of Dredmor

My favorite game, by sheer hours played, is an ARPG "Path of Exile" more than 3000 hours in five years in Beta, and 1400 hours since it went to Steam.

[Derakon]

For interesting dungeons, I recommend checking out Caves of Qud. For AI, the only games I've heard called out on this front at all are Sil and Brogue. Most roguelikes don't try to make their enemies particularly smart. For quests, the ZAngband-derived variants (pretty much these days that means "PosChengband-derived") have a number of preset and randomly-generated quests. Same with Caves of Qud, which has a rough storyline as well as a number of sidequests.

Dungeons of Dredmor is pretty primitive by today's standards. It was hugely influential for bringing roguelikes to the awareness of a much larger slice of gamers than before, but mechanically its most interesting characteristic is its character build system, which is sadly under-imitated. Said build system basically breaks down as: there's 40-odd skill lines in the game. Each time you make a character, you pick...5? of them that you are allowed to invest in during that game. Every time you level up, you get to advance in one of those lines, which gives you various stat modifiers and a new active or passive ability. It's a very flexible system, and surprisingly balanced, unlike the ToME4 equivalent, which lets you cherry-pick the best lines from the various classes to make a ludicrously overpowered abomination.

Also, LOL at ToME 4 being "not a roguelike". Let's face it, that term as used by roguelike oldies is basically only for gatekeeping these days, which is bad and dumb. "Roguelike" now means any number of things that would doubtless horrify you, but that's language for you, it changes with the times. I believe the du jour phrase for what you might be thinking of is "traditional roguelike".

[wobbly]

I'd also recommend taking a look at Zorbus for dungeon design:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=9470

Note I haven't actually played it, just seen the screenshots.

I also think for a fairly beautiful looking roguelike there's URR, which isn't complete. I'm not sure if you'd count it as a "traditional roguelike" as its a very different style of game, but certainly worth checking out.

https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/

also, space setting & can be buggy (hey if you're playing unangband you are probably used to that) but a favourite of mine, prospector.

http://www.prospector.at/forum/

[CyclopsSlayer]

Also, LOL at ToME 4 being "not a roguelike". Let's face it, that term as used by roguelike oldies is basically only for gatekeeping these days, which is bad and dumb. "Roguelike" now means any number of things that would doubtless horrify you, but that's language for you, it changes with the times. I believe the du jour phrase for what you might be thinking of is "traditional roguelike".

Well chastised and I agree. Been playing Roguelikes since, well, Rogue. Back before color and lowercase. LOL (26 monsters and 26 dungeon levels, and 10 million deaths)
So I admit to being a bit mired in tradition.

edit: I remember when Hengband came out how radical it was and how some 'traditionalists' raged at it.

[debo]

Not 100% what you're looking for, but if you enjoy unangband I'd recommend FAangband and one of the more recent *chengbands (Frog seems the most popular right now.)

[Pagaronn]

Thanks for the references. I think I will continue to post in the forum to better know the RL variants from people who play them. I'm curious to know what people like about *PostChengBand or FAangband. I don't have the time to play them up Lv100 to know them better!

CyclopsSlayer
ToME 4: Thanks, I will check it one day. I'm never sure about this one.

Derakon
Caves: Now, I need to get interested in their *gamma*/*dune* world. That seems harder than looking at ASCII characters for me!

PosChengband: Thanks. I have check it yesterday based on your recommendation. I'm now searching for info on PosCheng or FrogComPos.. what are the *big* differences.

wobbly

Zorbus: Nice reference. I would be interested in trying that out. I've downloaded it and the first thing that impressed me was the dungeon l


ultima-ratio-regum: Wow. That look huge and scary! Not sure how the free form adventuring will hold on with me. One think that RL are great at is that when the game starts, the combat kicks-in and you know what to do. Will check that one out.


debo
FAangband: will tried it.

[CyclopsSlayer]

@Derakon In the ToME4 discord, coincidentally this was posted recently.

[wobbly]

I notice powerwyrm & tomenet are failing this "test"

Edit: Sil smiths fail the "do you spend most of your time on a non-modal screen slaying monsters...". Most of your time is spent staring vacantly at the smithing menu.

[Derakon]

Like I said, gatekeeping, which is dumb and bad. The people that post that kind of thing are desperately trying to cling to a past in which they got to use a particular term to assign themselves to members of an exclusive (because nobody knew about it) club. Now that the word "roguelike" has been co-opted by a massively larger population to refer to something different, they're reacting by being assholes to anyone who uses it in its new meaning.

I mean, I get that it's distressing to have stuff changed out from under you like this, but that's no reason to take it out on well-intentioned people who are trying to find more information about a genre they enjoy.

[CyclopsSlayer]

I guess it comes down to how much variance is allowed and it still be a roguelike.
Just dropping turn-based could allow many/most MMOs to be a Roguelike.

Even top-down view hasn't been a limiter in ages with several offering isometric tile views.

A purist could argue that Nethack, Angband, Moria aren't 'roguelikes' as they add so much that wasn't in Rogue. 'Reductio ad Absurdum'

[budswell]

Always thought the best/most-interesting world was Zangband/Z+
Overland world was randomly generated, including random towns, dungeons, and surface "camps". All random towns had random quests (usually dungeon clearing or deliver message to another town - maybe others, been years since I played).
Dungeons and camps were denoted with numbers, giving a hint as to how dangerous they were.
Some dungeons were themed (hated the one I had in one game which was mostly hounds).

Tome2 was the one that got me back into 'bands after a few decades off. No random world but the character system was very new to me, so much more variation. Not sure if AnonymousHero is still updating/maintaining it.

These days I play pos/frog/comp the most, just started trying the new pos.

[EpicMan]

Portralis has a pretty involved (for a Roguelike or 'Band) quest system with NPCs to talk to, a few branching choices, maps that change based on the quest status.

[Aszazin]

I think a RL should not be a topdown tile or ascii dungeon crawler. It just happens rogue was designed on computers with no graphical possibilities.

For me to be called a roguelike:
-Death means dying and the end, start again
-Levels need to be generated, not designed
-The game may not be too easy to finish (actually, the game should be hard to finish, up to impossible) -> dying might happen any moment between the early and the late game.
-Difficulty builds up when you go deeper/further into the game
-Items/equipment (in some way) play an important role
-you have to deal with lots of enemies in various forms

I think a game like City of Brass may count as a 1st-person 3D rogue-like.

I think the term rogue-like should not be confused with the term rogue-variation, or angband variant.

[werecobalt]

ADOM: quests that have significant effect on mid and late game, interesting dungeon(ice, fire, underwater)
Omega: can join guild, attend college, become paladin and rob bank, interesting interface
CataclysmDDA: some quest lines one of which ends up establishing a post-apocalyptic settlement, has probably the most numerous terrain features in any RL

However, all above are not actually as interesting as they might look once you play it for a dozen of hours.

For the difference among the poschengs, there are many but here are what I can recall: the new poschengband has unique features but i haven't played much yet, frogcomposband has igor, composband has hexblade.