Normal/Hardcore renaming

[siphal]

Personally I dont really care which names are used. I think the option of having extra lifes is a great way to learn to play the game. Ofcourse most people will eventually 'promote' to hardcore as having just one life admittedly adds to the true RL feeling. Also having just one life will sharpen your skills even more as knowing that just 1 error will end it all will keep you on your toes constantly.

But whether or not you will use either or both modes is just personal taste. As long as it shows in your character dump and/or achiements in the online profiles (if you use them) I dont see any problem at all. The fact that there are several difficulty settings will just add to the player base, which IMO is essential for each game, even a RL.

[Grey]

I don't like Purest and Hardcore because they are elitist terms, and they discourage new players from ever trying the mode. Extra lives is fine as an option but I don't think it should be promoted more than the single life mode.

[Hachem_Muche]

I just cast my votes to change normal to "adventure" and hardcore to "roguelike" but I'm not really happy with the choices. The problem I see is that these names are not very descriptive of how hard the game will be. I think normal should be changed to "casual" -- since that's the effect; you have a few extra lives and can afford to be a little sloppy. Hardcore should be changed to "standard" -- reflecting the most common difficulty level players are expected to play at. Similarly, rename "Nightmare" to "Hardcore" and "Insane" to "Nightmare". Keep in mind that newer players have only the names and descriptions to go on when making this most important character creation choice. This would result in the following difficulty choices presented to the player at character creation:

"Tutorial" -- pretty obviously a way to learn the game
"Discovery" -- sounds like a good setting when you've got the basics down but don't know the game too well.
"Casual" -- sounds like just what it says, for players who know how to play but who don't want an intense game
"Standard" -- obviously the intended difficulty for the game, matches the expectations of most roguelike veterans
"Hardcore" -- clearly an advanced, but beatable, game setting for advanced players who want to be challenged
"Nightmare" -- a pretty common name for a nearly impossible level of difficulty where you are not expected to win

Also remember that the detailed description of each setting (in the character creation pane) needs to be updated.

[Grey]

On IRC "Modern" and "Traditional" have also been suggested.

[martinuzz]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike describes 'roguelike' as follows:

"The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement."

Over the past 20 years, I have played a lot of roguelikes, and indeed, they all share these traits, including no extra lives.

That's why I have to disagree with what Zonk said:
"As for the others - 'Roguelike' feels wrong too(it's still a roguelike even with multiple lives, just a bit 'less'), but 'Hardcore' would be perfect - and how is that offensive anyway?"

Seeing that Tome presents itself as being a roguelike, I think i would be the most logical thing to change 'hardcore' to 'normal'
and 'normal' to something that makes clear that it is *not* a normal mode to play a roguelike. 'Arcade' seems to just do that, IMO.

I'll go and vote now, then

EDIT: Ah well, for the lack of a 'change hardcore to normal' option at the vote, I went with 'change hardcore to roguelike', which is allright as well

[Zonk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike describes 'roguelike' as follows:

"The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement."

Over the past 20 years, I have played a lot of roguelikes, and indeed, they all share these traits, including no extra lives.

It's still permanent death if you have multiple lives though, as long as they are finite. The permanent death is the one you're not resurrecting from

Think about resurrecting in non-easy game modes: when you find the BoL, or resurrect through the Skeleton talent, does the game suddenly become less/not at all a roguelike? Although you might argue these are things obtained during playing rather than decided before, unlike difficulty levels.
I don't think it's a bad point, but in practice once these advantages are obtained they work and are used similarly to the extra lives from an easier difficulty level.

I know it's considered a very important feature of roguelikes, but so are some others which a specific roguelike might not fit - look at Gameplay in that wiki article for an 'official'definition/'high value factors', ToME doesn't satisfy 2(randarts don't fit at all i think), and 1 sounds somewhat debatable to me, in general(what's the cut off point for static levels/vaults? Does Kor'Pul having that guaranteed vault at the bottom make it less 'roguelikey'? I think that is technically true, but the game is STILL roguelike /roguelike-like enough.).

Of course, I understand if you think that a single life is a *DEFINING*, strictly necessary feature of a roguelike, but that seems quite strict to me.

Also, I suggest you consider that what is 'Normal' for a Roguelike might 'Hardcore' if looked from a wider videogaming perspective .
Maybe roguelikes are Hardcore by default - if so openly saying that the 'intended' game mode is so doesn't feel bad to me at all.
You could even have a historical note in the difficulty info on how 'Hardcore' is common/the standard for this kind of game.
I think this could actually help in drawing more people to ToME, even those who aren't fan of roguelikes as a genre - and it would not 'water down' or diminish the game at all.

[Grey]

DarkGod doesn't want the single-life version called "Normal" because he's worried about non-RL veterans finding it too punishing.

Personally I think going the opposite way and making the game look like not a roguelike is bad for the existing fanbase (and potential converts from other RLs).

Medium ground is to not have anything called "Normal". Only problem is no one can agree on decent terms to use instead ;)

[Sradac]

Im not a fan myself of DG trying to mainstream it with "normal" giving multiple lives. Not like he's making money off the game outside of donations. How many roguelikes make more than 1 difficulty, and better yet, how many give more than 1 LIFE? Elona does. But at least Elona actually has a death penalty, you get to loose your gear and skill points.

I dont even know how people that dont know roguelikes find these games anymore. Back in the day, probably 1996 or 1997 I went onto download.com and searched for "free rpgs" and found ADOM. But back then the internet and gaming was a totally different scene. Been here ever since.

But these days there are a LOT of free games out there, browser based games, micro transaction games...how does one even stumble across roguelikes anymore? The one life didnt turn me off when I found ADOM, in fact I embraced it. It made me feel that much more like I WAS Sradac Cortain, Dark Elven wizard exploring a Small Cave northeast of Terinyo! Used to be the use of ascii graphics that was the biggest turn off of "mainstream" gamers. But ToME 4 actually has nice tiles for a roguelike, and an awesome effects system.

In my opinion, biggest turn off to new gamers in ToME 4? Unlocks. When I first found ToME 4 I thought to myself, "What the heck, I just want to play a friggin mage I dont want to have to waste my time UNLOCKING it!"
But back then, it kind of made sense. it was still Troubles of Middle Earth, and magic wasnt exactly common in middle earth. So having it locked, made sense from a lore perspective. We're in Maj'Eyal now where magic IS common, even if its shunned. Thats just archmage though, all the other locks, do they really NEED to be locked?

DG wanted them locked from what I understand as a progressive system, you start off with basic classes, then as you play more and get better you unlock more "advanced" classes that are harder to play. I say unlock em all, players can figure out for themselves what they can play. If you go by difficulty, rogues should be the LAST to unlock.

[eronarn]

DarkGod doesn't want the single-life version called "Normal" because he's worried about non-RL veterans finding it too punishing.

I am a RL veteran and I find it too punishing. TOME is very unforgiving, even with multiple lives, and it's very long.

Someone earlier mentioned that TOME doesn't have "instant death" abilities - it doesn't, except for the abilities that do so much damage that they're instant death. I've never played another roguelike where I could take over 100% of my HP in real "combat" damage in a single round in the course of normal gameplay. I've only been playing TOME a week and that's happened multiple times - once from a monster that wasn't even in my vision range.

[Sradac]

you must never have ran into any kind of high end quicklings, molochs, ghosts, claw bugs, or other assorted nasties in ADOM.

Or OOD enemies in DCSS.

or the myriad of insane enemies in Portralis.

[Marcotte]

Im not a fan myself of DG trying to mainstream it with "normal" giving multiple lives. Not like he's making money off the game outside of donations. How many roguelikes make more than 1 difficulty, and better yet, how many give more than 1 LIFE? Elona does. But at least Elona actually has a death penalty, you get to loose your gear and skill points.

Of those I have played, the following roguelikes have multiple lives:
- Gearhead 1 (infinite lives, but some deaths result in massive loss of equipment)
- Gearhead 2 (a few "free" deaths, then you get permanent injuries, then you can get permanent death)
- NewAngband/Portalis (dying only cause equipment loss, but that loss can be avoided)

And then there is all the roguelikes with in-game method for surviving death (amulets of life-saving, blood of life and other like that).

[darkgod]

Woh, is this thread going to beat the stun one ?

Unlocks
Unlocks are not there to unlock harder classes progressively (although it sounds logical to have the harder classes not be the default ones).
They are there to:
* Avoid the too many choices effect. I do* love having many many options in how I build my characters and I am sure most of you do to. Yet presenting all those to new players (be them old RL players or not) can have adverse effects. "Should I take this melee hybrid ? or this one ? or this one ? damn I'm new here I dont understand all this gibberish!"
* Provide reward for playing even though you do not win
*

Multiple lifes
Yeah death should be there to teach you to play better. Maybe one life is fun to old time RL fans but many new players have not been taught that and to them it is very frustrating and ultimately makes them to abandon games they could have otherwise loved.
Is it sad ? Yes probably. But in this case this is a "change or change the world" case. I can not change how the new generations of players feel games should be, even if I want to. All I can do is adapt to lure them in. Make good gameplay to given them fun, give a middle ground (multilife but still permadeath) and show them there is an other way to play.
And no this mode can not be anything but the default. Default options are hugely important. People use the defaults; you can not tell new players "ah yes this sucks for you, but if you do that instead it'll be better". Mostly because at that point they have left already. This is why the race/class combo you get if you do not make a choice during birth are Higher Fighters; fighters are sturdy and the higher talent makes them even sturdier.
The multilife mode can not be called easy for this reason: many people think they are better players than they really are. Some even will feel insulted if you tell them to play easy mode "hey you should try on easy if you are having trouble learning the game" "what ? I'm no noob! I played games XX, YY and ZZ and I won! surely it is your game that sucks!"
Is this silly? Most certainly. Can it be avoided ? No.

So what should I do ? Try to make the game enjoyable for as many people as possible or just let what would be perfectly good players get scared away because they just had not be taught better ? It actually would feel unfair to them to deprive them of the greatness of ToME4

Im not a fan myself of DG trying to mainstream it with "normal" giving multiple lives. Not like he's making money off the game outside of donations. How many roguelikes make more than 1 difficulty, and better yet, how many give more than 1 LIFE? Elona does.

I built the game for one reason: to make a game I would love to play.
I KEEP building it for an other reason: because I see that the more I work on it the more players there are. When I see a new poster on the forums, when I see now profiles on te4.org, new posters, ... that is what keeps me going on.
Take that from me and you take away all my motivation to work. I AM heartbroken when I see a player leave because they found the game not fun. I want to bring fun (and death to OOD bloated horrors .. ) to as many people as possible.

Sorry that's a long post to give a short point: Multilifes are not going away and will stay the default.
Now I'm not against renaming them as you suggest. There are not enough choices to make people go bonkers if they do not understand in an eyesight what each means, so even if the default is not called "normal" it can still work.
I however am no fan of "Arcade". Never, in any games I ever played, did the arcade option make any sense to me

[Grey]

* Avoid the too many choices effect. I do* love having many many options in how I build my characters and I am sure most of you do to. Yet presenting all those to new players (be them old RL players or not) can have adverse effects. "Should I take this melee hybrid ? or this one ? or this one ? damn I'm new here I dont understand all this gibberish!"

I think you underestimate people. Don't forget that many will be turned off by the idea of unlocks too. I think this especially gets bad as more and more classes and races are added, to the point that to a new player it seems like he can barely touch any of the game because so much is locked off.

Sorry that's a long post to give a short point: Multilifes are not going away and will stay the default.
Now I'm not against renaming them as you suggest. There are not enough choices to make people go bonkers if they do not understand in an eyesight what each means, so even if the default is not called "normal" it can still work.
I however am no fan of "Arcade". Never, in any games I ever played, did the arcade option make any sense to me :)

I don't mind multi-life being the default... no wait, that's a lie. I do mind, but I can accept it :)

What I don't like at present is that it seems like multiple lives is the mode that is shoved down new players throats. No new player will even think of trying a mode called "Hardcore" instead of "Normal", especially when they see it next to "Insane" and "Nightmare" (which, incidentally, do we need both of?) If each had more neutral terms then it would seem like a more viable choice for new players.

I also think game design and balance should still have a large focus on the single-life mode. No one should ever have to rely on multiple lives to survive.

[darkgod]

Obviously the game is meant to be playable with only one life, I'd have removed the option otherwise

As for unlocks, I will probably add some more non-unlock birth options later

[martinuzz]

I built the game for one reason: to make a game I would love to play.
I KEEP building it for an other reason: because I see that the more I work on it the more players there are. When I see a new poster on the forums, when I see now profiles on te4.org, new posters, ... that is what keeps me going on.
Take that from me and you take away all my motivation to work. I AM heartbroken when I see a player leave because they found the game not fun. I want to bring fun (and death to OOD bloated horrors .. ) to as many people as possible.

I totally understand, and support what you are saying here

Sorry that's a long post to give a short point: Multilifes are not going away

Agree, never suggested they should be removed alltogether

and will stay the default.

Hey - that's a good one.. "default"

For me, that would prevent the shortcircuit in my brain when I see 'normal' in combination with 'extra lives', in a game classified as a roguelike.
If the name 'normal' was changed to 'default', it would be more fitting. It will be the default game setting for Tome4, yet, not 'normal' as far as the genre goes.

'default' and 'roguelike' sound pretty good to me.